“If you can’t see it now, you never will. The sight of tens of thousands of people at Glastonbury yesterday joining in a spirited chant of ‘Death, death to the IDF’ was the sight of us officially becoming a very different country, I fear. One in which anti-Israel hysteria has so flawlessly rehabilitated Jew hatred that it has become unthinking, conformist, almost mundane. Something that Home Counties idiots can jive to before adjusting their hot pants and heading off to catch Charli XCX. Something that is broadcast by the BBC into millions of homes. The banality of the new anti-Semitism.
“Let’s not muck about here. When punk-rap duo Bob Vylan called for the killing of Israeli soldiers yesterday – as they warmed up the crowd at the West Holts Stage for every Israelophobe’s new favourite Irish rap trio, Kneecap – they weren’t opposing war. They were calling for war, and on the one army on Earth charged with protecting Jews from genocide. The army now at war with a jihadist cult that murdered, raped and kidnapped its way through an Israeli festival not unlike Glastonbury on 7 October 2023. The army that almost all Israelis are expected to serve in. Indeed, those making excuses for that sickening call-and-response yesterday hopefully don’t know that Hamas justifies killing Israeli civilians on the grounds that they are basically all tainted by national service. That they are all enemy combatants. Death, death to that IDF?
“Whether we got here by ignorance or conscious hatred is pretty much moot. The end result is British Jews – at Glasto or at home – watching thousands whoop as Jew-killing slogans are recited. Frontman Bobby Vylan also treated the crowd to a deranged rant about the indignities he suffered working for a ‘Zionist’ at a record label, because he had to listen to his boss talk favourably about Israel. I wonder if he knows that the vast majority of British Jews are Zionists. I wonder if he cares.”
Pop concerts seem to prompt exhibitions of behaviour that can put markers in the ground for a culture, or – as we saw in Manchester Arena (UK, 2017), Bataclan and other attacks in Paris (2015) and in Israel on 7 October, 2023 – indicate the level of evil that Islamism represents, and a need to confront it.
The new book by Douglas Murray seems apposite.
What, if anything, should be done about the specifics at Glastonbury? Well, it seems that if there is a law around incitement and it should be enforced consistently, then there are grounds to deal with those principally involved in shouting these chants if they are deemed incitement to engage in violence. I guess if you’re in a band called “Kneecap”, it does rather tilt the scales of justice against you. Just saying.
I cannot be sure, but I’d be interested to know the demographics of the crowd, and what proportion are English and middle class, university educated, etc. I’d say quite a large chunk.
What can we do?
Perhaps we should defund the BBC. It won’t stop antisemitism – but is something we can do to remove the blessing of the Establishment from such events.
It would also send a message to other media outfits that uncritically jump on the anti-Israel bandwagon.
My understanding is that Spiked (for which Tom Slater writes) takes the view that Kneecap don’t deserve the oxygen of publicity. That they ought to be ignored. I agrre. The best thing that ever happened to the cos-play Fenians was getting scrobbled by the rozzers. They are really going to enjoy their day in court aren’t they? I’m saying that partially as a free speech absolutist and partially because I despise them with every fibre of my being. I support Israel whole-heartedly (not unequivocally – utopia does not exist) because it is an outpost of civilization in a desert of Hell.
I admire Israel’s pluck and determination. I admire their technology and can-do spirit: Thunderbolt and Opera spring to mind. All big lies that have legs have a sort of kernal of truth. Israel is not a colonial enterprise but has brought genuinely western values to somewhere that needed them badly. And that is why it can monster the entire air defence of a country not exaactly next door and with ten times the population. I could go on…
Long live the IDF!
DJ,
Whilst I agree that the BBC is an ill-relevance (sp intended) that is not an easy job. You might as well try and defund the NHS. Both have made themselves “National Treasures” with a devotion from the general populace greater than the Church of England ever managed.
I think this is (somewhat) relevant as a contrast.
From 1981, roughly 10 years after it first started as a hippy festival near the Druidical Jerusalem of the nearby town it’s named after, the Glastonbury Festival was organised in conjunction with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. CND, remember? Pacifism, love-and-peace-man? The creed of choice for the anti-establishment bourgeois youth at that happy sweet-spot in life where the circles of family income, adulthood, and freedoms from personal responsibility overlap.
As a youthful subculture, the hippies were rather silly, but aside from some fairly widespread Class-B possession with intent to supply,they were essentially a low-crime group, requiring almost nothing in the way of expensive policing or secret-squirrelling – and apart from their penchant for facial hair and self-indulgent guitar solos they wouldn’t harm a fly.
Fast forward to 2025 and Michael Eavis – who owns the farm which hosts the festival, and has been knighted for services to music and charity, the latter of which are undeniably considerable – has given up sticking it to the Man, and become The Man. Leaning in to Jeremy Corbyn, kneeling at Windsor Castle. Expect him to attend Cabinet meetings before this government’s race is run. But as a peer of the realm, Eavis now has to do his duty. His sanitised, Establishment-Approved music festival – as central to the Season as Wimbledon, or Glyndebourne – has been seen to be advocating war and violence, with a side order of rabid anti-Semitism, on his land, in front of a huge international audience, and making him lots and lots of money in the process.
Quite the pivot, you might say.
Now that the precedent has been set, courtesy of the BBC, I assume it’s now OK to publicly chant, “Let’s kneecap kneecap”, or “Let’s hang Bob Vilayn”.
Penseivat,
Of course it isn’t. The older I’ve got the more aware I have become that believers in “Freedom” essentially only believe in “freedom” for there own words and actions. More than a hundred years ago self-righteous prigs burnt the works of Oscar Wilde after he was convicted for sodomy. The spiritual descendents of those prigs now ask The Guardian’s advice column if it’s OK to let their kids read Harry Potter novels because JKR is a “transphobe”. There are always enemies of liberty and their greatest trick is to shift the goal posts.
In days of yore people objected to Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Hucleberry Finn” because of it’s depiction of the escaped slave, Jim, as a decent, noble man. Fast forward to th 1990s and the State of Georgia bans the book over “racism” because of the n-word of doom. My then GF’s mum lead the (successful) campaign against this idiocy. It helped that she had some clout in the state by being the head of the US South Easten AMA. Oh, she was also a Jew.
We aren’t anymore free. Tyranny just changed clothes.
On the other hand, we could just do a fly past on people who are okay with killing Palestinian babies, no?
is that beyond the pale?
(I’d not heard of Bob Vylan before. Turns out they’re pretty fucking good, if you’re an old school punk)
When the B-2s dropped the big ones on Iran’s nuclear facilities, this was designed in part to fuck up the regime that has openly sought Israel’s destruction. It has its fingerprints all over October 7.
I’d like to see those who criticise Israel’s actions since that pogrom explain a credible alternative.
But all we get is deflection.
neonsnake,
That would be very wrong because it would also be celebrating Hamas. Hamas deliberately built bases under maternity hospitals.
“I’d like to see those who criticise Israel’s actions since that pogrom explain a credible alternative.”
Or Explain what they would expect their own country’s actions to be if such an attack happened there.
The name “Operation Rising Lion” for Israel’s military action against Iran is derived from a biblical verse and is meant to symbolize strength, courage, and determination. Specifically, the name is linked to Numbers 23:24, which speaks of a nation rising up like a lion. The lion is also a symbol associated with pre-revolutionary Iran, adding another layer of meaning to the operation’s name.
Yes, it is very much the latter. The pre-revolutionary Itanian flag had a lion and sun motif.
Now just take a second to dream…
Imagine an Iran free of the Ayatollahs. It could happen. It would be a Berlin Wall moment. Israel and the USA have not been playing regime change but their recent actions may prove catalytic and that would be a glorious day.
I just hope that the Eavis family is unable to exercise a tax loophole when passing ownership down the family.
A patently obvious commercial entity which gives away less than 10% of its takings should not benefit from charitable status although heaven knows how many others do. If pops survives 7 years they may dodge IHT (although Rachel might have something to say about that) but the transfer of a business asset like the shares is unquestionably a chargeable transaction for CGT whether rolled over or not.
The action or inaction of HMRC will be an interesting indication of how far the two-tier tentacles have spread through all areas of the state.
First of all, from what I saw only the crowd (and perhaps only part of it) watching the act joined in with the chant “Death to the IDF”, thereby perhaps making them un-uniformed combatants in a distant war, outside the Geneva Convention as it happens and some might consider legitimate targets for the IDF, but they strive to follow the law. One cannot assign collective guilt, and one must consider proportionality and what lawyers call ‘A wonderful opportunity for comment’.
I suppose the BBC didn’t broadcast the 2-minutes silence held at the start of this year’s Glastonbury festival for those hundreds of Nova music festival goers murdered on 7th October 2023 by Hamas, probably because the 2 minutes silence didn’t happen, but if it had, I doubt that they would have shown it anyway.
Carl Benjamin has an interesting take on the Glastonbury types.
Mr Ed, yes, I watched Carl’s video. Absolutely nailed who these dimwits at the festival are.
Do you honestly not see a difference between people who are defending their own land against aggressors, and those aggressors who won’t leave or stop or slow their efforts to kill all of the first set while bringing their babies along with them?
If I throw my baby at you while running at you with a knife, are you morally at fault for batting the baby out of your way?
There are few situations in the world in which I see such a stark divide between the good guys and the bad guys. Pity the poor Gaza kids. But lay blame correctly.
“from the river to the sea”, seven million dead Jews, was also repeated.
But the crowd also cheered and chanted attacks on BRITAIN – vicious attacks on Britain, on the British people, on anyone who wants to keep Britain British.
It must be stated WHO this crowd are – they are NOT Muslims (no Muslim worthy of the name would be at a scene of lunatic perversion like the Glastonbury festival), and they are mostly NOT black or brown people either, they are mostly young English men and women from well off backgrounds.
These are the sort of people who end up government ministers, corporate managers, senior officials and judges – yes, eventually, judges. And NO they do not change their opinions – as the sick antics of the judges clearly show (Lucy Connolly is, sadly, only one victim among many of vicious acts of injustice by despicable judges), and Parliament is no better – with its abortion-up-to-birth and its “assisted dying” for the old and sick.
This country is buggered – the “ruling class” do not “just” hate Jews, they hate Britain, especially ENGLAND – they hate their own country, their own people.
neonsnake – the people who are “O.K.” with the deaths of Muslim babies are Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other Muslim groups, as they believe if they use their own babies as human shields it is fine – because the babies will go to Paradise.
You have a nice day now – bless your heart.
I’m not sure B-2s would be the appropriate vehicle.
I envision, instead, a team of camouflage-clad aeronauts in paragliders, appearing from nowhere and swooping low over the Glastonbury crowds while seeming to aim suspiciously rifle-like objects at the audience while playing loud recordings of machine-gun fire.
If nothing else, it should ensure that the event’s Portaloos are overloaded more quickly than usual…
NickM – the Islamic Republic of Iran Tyranny was on the ropes, it really was. The Iranian people were close to freedom – and then the regime was let-off-the-hook. And, of course, it is back to mass executions of the Iranian people.
It is hard not to despair.
Just as it is hard not to despair about domestic policy – not just Britain (which is doomed – see above), but also the United States – where a Republican President (and he is no worse than the others) a Republican House of Representatives and a Republican Senate are doing nothing (NOTHING) about out-of-control government spending.
Sadly the old Puritan, Roger Sherman, has been vindicated – once money is no longer physical gold and silver, government spending will explode – till society is utterly undermined (debauched).
Why? Because-they-can.
Allow governments and their corporate friends (remember “bank licences” are a gift from the government – if an ordinary person lent out “money” that does-not-exist they would go to prison for fraud, and rightly-so – which is why “free trade in banking is free trade in swindling”) to create “money” from nothing and corrupt spending will explode.
They will indeed spend like “drunken sailors” – or, to update the metaphor, like drug abusers at Glastonbury.
And so the West ends – yes in tragedy, but also in farce.
Honourable mention should be made of Charles Holt Carroll of Boston (United States).
C.H.C. asked a basic question – why do we do refer to “Dollars”, “Pounds” and so on?
If these are just names for a given weight of a commodity (gold or silver – or some other commodity) of a certain purity, then there is no need for the name “Dollar”, “Pound” or whatever – as, in prices and contracts we can simply refer to the weight (of a given purity).
But if, on the other hand, these words “Dollar”, “Pound” and so on – do NOT refer to a set weight of a commodity – then the words are not just useless, the are dangerous.
They are dangerous as they open the door to massive fraud by governments and banks and other corporate bodies – and these “private” corporate bodies can be just as corrupt as governments.
Anyone who thinks that the Federal Reserve is “private” or that BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard or the Credit Bubble banks are “private” in the sense that Mr Jones the local farmer or grocer is “private”, is wrong – just flat wrong.
And NO Mr Putin is not an alternative to any of this – he loves fiat (fiat – edict-whim) money, how do people think he funds his war in Ukraine?
The Ruble is just as much a fraud as the Dollar, Pound, Euro (and so on) are.
There is no cash – not in reality.
When my father was born Mr J.P. Morgan (who lent out three “Dollars” for every Dollar of physical gold that he actually had) was considered a crook – by modern standards he-is-a-saint.
Sadly, we should remember that we the voters failed to deliver to Trump the monolithic Congress that is needed to pass tough legislation.
We have three very different sets of “Republicans” in the various chambers, and too many of them are quite hostile to Trump and his goals.
“Kneecap” is named after their beloved IRA’s habit of shooting people in the kneecaps – which means you are crippled (and in pain) for the rest of your life.
The name says it all – and the young richlings, the future officials, corporate managers, government ministers and judges, cheer them to the skies.
Hence my statement that this country, the United Kingdom, is buggered.
bobby b – I do not deny what you say.
Indeed I might well end up like Senator Ron Johnson (a person I admire) voting FOR the “Big Beautiful Bill” – because the alternative is even worse.
Glancing through the spiked article, I notice no mention is given to the other inflammatory comments by Bob Vylan that were targeted at Brits rather than Israelis.
This article mentions them though:
“‘Heard you want your country back’, ran one line. ‘ha! – shut the f*** up’. That came with an onstage backdrop of the line, “This country was built on the backs of immigrants.’
As a Brit rather than Israeli, I’ve got a bigger problem with the above. At least Farage and Rupert Lowe picked up on this. They should really run with this. A psycho with dreadlocks telling Brits they can’t have their country and falsely claiming immigrants built Britain (we aren’t America and this is utter BS history) is completely incendiary, and if played back daily on TV would cause pro-immigration and multiculturalist sentiments to crater.
One good thing that come out of Glastonbury is I discovered Rod Stewart supported Enoch Powell. I knew Eric Clapton did but hadn’t heard that about Rod. I always preferred heavier music than what Rod makes, but I got to admire him for being pro-Enoch Powell.
“Shut the fuck up!” is hardly comparable to:
“Death to the IDF!”
“Long live the Intifada!”
“From the River to the Sea!”
At what point do “immigrants” stop being “colonizers”?
Disturbingly, I think the answer is “when they’re not white.”
Is this libertarian website making me more racist?
Given the lack of a credible ground to air to ground missile defense I feel that you could save a lot of money by hitting Glastonbury with a few B52s instead of insisting on stealth bombers.
Then again, I’m not sure if they’ve ever played there.
@bobby b
Sadly, we should remember that we the voters failed to deliver to Trump the monolithic Congress that is needed to pass tough legislation.
I think that is true. There was a brief moment when Trump was at his full power, Doge was exploding in the press, and the momentum was rolling down the hill that I thought there might be a chance. But it met the establishment in the form of the press, and the mainstream republicans, and perhaps most powerfully the civil service and it went nowhere. I doubt Doge will end up saving a single penny. I guarantee you that the budget will be hugely larger all through Trump’s term and that really is the end of the west.
Trump dropped bombs in Iran because their nuclear program was an existential threat to the USA. I don’t know if that is true or not, I’m glad that program in Iran has suffered a huge set back. And I think the worries about Putin expanding beyond the borders of Ukraine may well be a legitimate concern. But what I do know is that a 40 trillion dollar national debt plus another 150trillion in unfunded liabilities is absolutely an existential threat, and the idea that the government is STILL deficit spending? This is akin to sending Fordow a couple of truck loads of centrifuges instead of bombing them.
I think the one that shocked me the most was the Defense Department. We just exited a twenty year war in the Middle East a war that burned through American capital and people. A quarter, maybe even a third of our national debt is due to that insane misadventure. But we are out now, and at peace. There was a promise of a settlement in Ukraine. There was war in Israel, but we were not really involved. For the first time in forever our foreign military adventures were on pause. So where is the peace dividend? Even Clinton, after the end of the Cold War realized a peace dividend and we had a budget surplus in the first time in living memory.
But instead the DoD’s budget went UP, not by a few percent but by 20%. That place, the DoD, which is the center of corruption and the grossest form of wasteful spending, seemed to be entirely immune from examination from Doge. The Pentagon is almost a metonym for horrifically wasteful spending but, aside from getting rid of a few programs that were socially unappealing, no savings at all.
Like I say, there was, for a brief moment a light of hope that America might save itself from financial ruin. I hope I am wrong but that light seems well and truly snuffed out. I’m with Musk. I’m mad at hell at these people. They could have saved our country but instead they dove into the feeding trough trotters first.
Don’t get me wrong. I really like Trump. I think he is going to achieve remarkable things. I also really like Hegseth, I think he has changed the ethos in the DoD for the better. But, although they will do great things, they will not solve the real core problem, they will not fix the existential threat. The burning platform on which we all rest will continue to have a ready supply of gasoline.
But consider . . .
Yes, the DOD was riddled with ESG/DEI programs and the consequent huge spending (really, just graft to friends of Congresspeople) and all of that needed to be brought down. And to a goodly extent, it was, and still is.
But we also still need a defense. And, with all of that money being sucked into pronouns and social restructuring, we haven’t been getting one. We’ve been managed by people who think you prepare for war by talking about how war is bad. We haven’t tested for this condition recently, thankfully, but it’s true. We couldn’t defend Miami if we had to.
So I think that DOD saw a rather large drop in social-building expenditures (furries on patrol!), but a larger increase in actual defense spending, mostly to try and bring us back to where we should have been. This had to be done. That’s Hegseth’s given mission.
Martin, yes, the chants do seem almost designed to boost support for immigration restrictionism. And for what it is worth, I imagine a lot of immigrants who don’t hold the vile views of these fatheads are appalled also.
Johnathan Pearce – as I have already pointed out, the people chanting their hatred of Britain (not “just” Jews) were mostly white and from wealthy families – the future officials and judges, that is why this country is doomed.
As for the “immigrants” – most of whom are born here now (they are second or third generation), so it is not correct to call them immigrants. Do they reject the hatred of both Jews and of Britain (especially ENGLAND)? Well some DO reject this hatred – but much of the Islamic community (and other communities) embraces the hatred. That is another reason that this country is doomed.
Martin, I did not know that Rod Stewart either – I also agree with the late Enoch Powell about immigration, but I disagree with him (and told him so – many years ago) on Moscow – Mr Powell was very polite in response (he always was – regardless of the youth and inexperience of the person he was talking to). I hope we can both agree that one should condemn BOTH the hated of Britain (especially England and the English people) shown a the Glastonbury hatefest, AND their desire to exterminate seven million Jews – “from the river to the sea”.
And they knew exactly what they were saying – they know which river and which sea.
This, the Glastonbury hatefest, is NOT a display of ignorance (as some have claimed) – it is a display of human evil.
Fraser Orr and bobby b.
I have already pointed out that once money is no longer physical (physical) gold or silver – government spending rises without limit, this is not just in the United States, as government spending is actually HIGHER in most other Western nations – including the United Kingdom
People are wrong to welcome such things as “an advance” – fiat (edict – whim) money, and Credit Bubble banking (which must, in the end, depend on government support – normally behind the scenes, but sometimes openly – as with the corrupt courts in Scotland during “Free Banking” who held that someone who deposited physical gold or silver in a Scottish bank was “paid” if the bank, when the person asked for their money, paid them “bank notes” even if they asked for the physical gold and silver to be returned – basically the courts legalised theft, imagine if a person who “deposited” grain in a silo and asked for the grain, received “silo notes” instead of the grain).
Of course, there is nothing wrong with using electronic means, such as debit cards, to change the OWNERSHIP of the physical commodity (gold, silver or whatever it is) – but the physical commodity must actually exist.
For example, Mexico late in the time of President Diaz moved from silver (which the government had) to gold (which the government did NOT have – at least it did not have enough) – it did this because “everyone else is on a gold standard” (how I hate that word “standard” which totally confuses the matter) – this did not turn out well, indeed it helped lead to the Revolution and the DECADES of war that followed it.
As for the United States – no State may have anything other than gold and silver coin as legal tender, Article One, Section Ten of the Constitution of the United States. And it is extreme dishonesty to pretend “ah but the Feds can do this” – as the basic point of the Constitutional Convention was to prevent the return of the “not worth a Continental” paper money of the Continental Congress – if fiat money is Constitutional, then there was no point in holding a Constitutional Convention – they could have just carried on with the Continental Congress and its, worthless, paper money.
But-there-is-also-another-factor-to-consider.
The Constitution of the United States says that the purpose of the specific spending powers granted to the Congress by Article One, Section Eight, is “the common defense and general welfare”.
Intellectually corrupt courts have declared that this is a “general welfare spending power” – which would make the listing of specific spending powers (which is what Article One, Section Eight then does) utterly pointless – and would make the Tenth Amendment (which should have settled the matter) meaningless.
This is NOT a matter of debating what “the general welfare spending power” means – THERE IS NO “general welfare spending power” – the “common defense and general welfare” is the PURPOSE of the specific spending powers granted to the Congress listed in Article One, Section Eight.
Whilst the courts continue to pretend (in violation of the Tenth Amendment – and in violation of the clear meaning of Article One, Section Eight) that there is a “general welfare spending power” the chaos will continue – indeed will get worse and worse.
The great liberal (Classical Liberal) President Lopez of Colombia did many great things – he achieved religious liberty, decentralisation (sadly reversed some years later), an end to subsidized reservations (still not achieved in the United States), and ended slavery.
But he made one terrible mistake – he issued de facto paper money to pay compensation to the slave owners – this inflation helped lead to the “Artisans War”.
Fiat money and Credit Bubble banking (which is inherently corrupt) has been the curse of most Latin American nations since independence from Spain.
Paul:
You are right. A US Dollar is 371.25 grains of silver. A Dollar bill is a debt instrument. The US government, the Treasury, has borrowed $1 from the Federal Reserve, and has been issued with a “bill” in recognition of the debt. There is of course no silver behind this dollar. There cannot be. There is not enough silver in the world to account for the “dollars” the US Treasury has “borrowed” from the Federal Reserve.
I enjoy watching old cinema newsreels on the TV. Made in the 1960s, a common theme is the “balance of trade”. You never hear about it now, but back then Britain had to earn foreign exchange (dollars) to pay for imports. Pounds could not be magicked out of thin air to pay for imports. A Pound Sterling was worth $2.80, and one dollar was worth 1/35 Troy ounce of gold.
The system began to crumble when the mendacious Wilson regime devalued the pound to $2.40, whilst claiming the pound in your pocket or purse would not be devalued. Since the whole system collapsed on 15th August 1971, governments have been able to borrow at will, and they have been busily abusing that privilege ever since.
In the 1960s Britain had major industries which produced goods and exported them to earn foreign exchange. We used to have a deficit on physical goods, but made it up by “invisibles” such as finance and insurance. now, we don’t have much left but the “invisibles”. Nonsense such as Net Zero would not have been possible back then. Money was still a real thing, and there was no money to pay for it. Furthermore, Net Zero means the deindustrealisation of Britain, which will lead to national bankruptcy and poverty. In the 1960s this would have been thought of as a bad thing; now it is government policy.
So I agree with you, the future is bleak. Britain is a rich country still, but it is not by a natural right, it is because we still have some industry. When that is gone, all we will have is pound shops selling Chinese rubbish. Maybe not even that, if the Chinese decide our currency is so worthless they will not accept payment in it.
Given the lack of a credible ground to air to ground missile defense I feel that you could save a lot of money by hitting Glastonbury with a few B52s instead of insisting on stealth bombers. Then again, I’m not sure if they’ve ever played there.
Genuine laugh out loud post.
Paul Marks: I have already pointed out, the people chanting their hatred of Britain (not “just” Jews) were mostly white and from wealthy families – the future officials and judges, that is why this country is doomed.
Yes, and many others have noticed that the demographic composition of the “Glasto” crowd tend to be as you describe. I made that point in my OP.
That is why I think that when the various goblins on stage shouted what they did about “you cannot take your country back” or whatever, they are shouting things that are based on a false premise. Many – not all – immigrants don’t think of themselves as invaders or occupiers, and would be appalled at the idea they are. The problem is that our culture has become weakened to the point where not more is done to integrate immigrants and assimilate them. And we have a home-grown culture that says it is wrong to talk about the good things of the UK, of the West, and so on. And here we are.
The people at Glastonbury are, I suspect, very much the product of our education system and “mainstream” culture. Part of it involves a desire to care for the “weak” and “oppressed”, and now, even though it is a tiny nation by relative standards, Israel does not fit into those categories. It has committed the cardinal sin of being successful and relatively rich. While it gets assistance from the US, it has used it well, and is also now a significant player in sectors such as technology. Its military forces are outstandingly good. Its jet pilots are the best in the world. It has taken down a mass of enemies. The very success Israel has achieved drives parts of the degenerate, nihilist Left, and indeed parts of the Far Right, out of their minds (inasmuch as they had minds to begin with).
Israel is also held to a standard of moral perfection when it comes to self-defence that is not required of other nations. If it bombs a Hamas HQ under a hospital, it is condemned with a vehemence that I don’t typically see when other countries engage in this sort of thing. Israel has got so good at surgical strikes (the use of pagers to kill/main Hezbollah operatives being a case in point) that it has almost become a burden because every Israeli defence action is held to this standard. We live in an age where no “collateral damage” is permitted, particularly by the IDF.
Another, perhaps controversial point. Being a Jewish majority state, Israel is run by those who haven’t patience with the Christian doctrine of “love thine enemy”. Israel does not subscribe to the doctrine of altruistic self-sacrifice – the idea that it is better to give away a greater value for a lesser one, and that is is somehow wrong to defend oneself with physical force. Deeply embedded in Jewish teaching, from my understanding, is a rejection of suicidal pacifism. And now, a small Jewish state is showing its philosophy in brilliant military fashion. No wonder it angers certain people, because Israel is at odds with much of what passes as the “right way to do things”.
I find it ironic that a black man who would have a better chance of a good life in Israel than any other Middle East Country is shouting death to the IDF. What an idjit
Yes, Glastonbury was originally a hippie festival in cahoots with CND.
But when CND can, with a straight face, condemn the Israeli and US demolition of Iranian nuclear bomb-making factories, we are truly through the looking glass.
https://cnduk.org/israel-must-stop-bombing-iran-de-escalation-is-critical/
KP,
I agree completely. The biggest “sin” Israel ever committed was to fight back and to win. That is why many hate them. It is the same reason I think they’re great.
Johnathan’s latest comment is quite insightful, but i wish to discuss (not to reject it out of hand) this particular statement:
Is it, though?
I have no patience myself “with the Christian doctrine of “love thine enemy” “.
I do not “subscribe to the doctrine of altruistic self-sacrifice”.
I do not think that “it is somehow wrong to defend oneself with physical force.” Quite the contrary: I think that it is wrong NOT to defend oneself with overwhelming, disproportionate physical force. (When feasible.)
And yet, i have to wonder, who best exemplifies those doctrines than American Jews? And even Israeli Jews, please note, subscribe to such doctrines to a degree that i still find excessive.
I subscribe to the Chinggis Khan school of international relations.
But if you think that i am wrong on the facts, i won’t go Mongol on you.
@bobby b
Yes, the DOD was riddled with ESG/DEI programs and the consequent huge spending (really, just graft to friends of Congresspeople) and all of that needed to be brought down.
“We had so much wasteful spending that we needed to spend way more to get rid of it”.
Were I ever in trouble with the law I’d be seeking you out for my defense. Counselor, I respect your zealous advocacy for your client, President Trump.
@Snag – well said. In attempting to contrast the hippy pacifism of Glastonbury’s early days with the anger, violence and call-to-arms of the current generation of resting actors in attendance, my earlier post went far too easy on CND. The creed of Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament never had a problem with Russian nukes pointed at hospitals, schools and care-homes in the west; it was only ever our own weapons they wanted decommissioning. That these kind and gentle souls should be angry at the swift and unilateral decommissioning of the Iranian nuclear capability is ironic, to say the least.
Wrong then, wrong now, and still standing in a muddy field.
Do the crowd have the right to chant their hatred of Jews and, bizarrely, their hatred of Britain and poor white British people – who they call “Gammons”.
Yes they do – they do have the right, under free speech absolutism, to call for the deaths of seven million Jews “from the river to the sea” and to call for the destruction of Britain and of the poor-whites who they call “Gammons” and their replacement on this island by other nations – although these rich white men and women should know that they also would be destroyed, it would not just be the “Gammons”.
But……
The above is only true if “musicians” and mobs of people ALSO have the right to call for the deaths of all Muslims or all black and brown people – which under British law, they do NOT.
There must be the same law for all – either ALL groups are protected, or NONE are.
I do find the hatred of the British elite (for this crowd was very much of the elite) for ordinary British people, rather odd.
WHY do they wish to destroy the British (especially the English) people, and replace them, on this island, with other peoples?
It is very strange.
And why do they not understand that if the “Gammons” are destroyed, they, the white elite (the children of the judges and so on), ALSO die.
Snorri – American socialist “Critical Theory” (“Woke”) people of Jewish ancestry are NOT Jewish – any more than Dr Karl Marx was himself.
“What is the God of the Jew? Money! What is the religion of the Jew? Hucksterism!”
Dr Karl Marx 1818-1883.
He does not sound like a friend.
And, Snorri, we both rightly detest how American socialists call themselves liberals – a squalid trick (a lie) that supporters of the Soviet Union (and they did support the Soviet Union) started in the 1920s. These supporters of totalitarian tyranny are not liberals.
That they have been doing it for a century does not make it less disgusting – it makes it more disgusting.
And, no, they are not Jewish – whatever their ancestry is.
This is older than Marxism.
When Spinoza denied that God was a person (had personhood – free will) identifying “God” as nature (Pantheism), denied the immortality of the individual SOUL, and, indeed, denied the personhood (free will) of ALL persons, thus making them non-persons (just objects – not subjects, not persons) he still called himself a Jew.
After due consideration a legal judgement was issued – that Mr Spinoza was not a Jew, regardless of his claim to be one, because of his rejection of the basic principles of Judaism (this was NOT some matter like eating pork – he could have paid a fine and asked forgiveness for something like that) – the judgement went further, no Jew should ever speak to Mr Spinoza again, or stand within four cubits (yes “cubits” – the old measurements were used) of him.
If Mr Spinoza walked towards a Jew and tried to speak to them – the Jew should walk away. And if Mr Spinoza tried to FORCE his company upon a Jew – by following him or her, the Jew was to use physical force to convince Mr Spinoza to stop harassing them, if-need-be calling upon others to help convince Mr Spinoza to go away (a few blows with their walking sticks should be enough – no need to kill Mr Spinoza, unless he persisted). Again this is only the case if Mr Spinoza CHOSE (exercised his free will) to try and FORCE his company upon others).
A “Jew” who follows the doctrines of Dr Marx is not a Jew – a Jew who follows the “Woke” (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) Marxism of Herbert Marcuse and others, is not a Jew.
Mr Larry Fink of BlackRock – how can you break bread with people who want to exterminate your people? How can you give them money and aid their political designs?
The same is true for other rich corporate types.
Beware – or the mark of Cain will be upon your faces.
Christians faced a similar problem.
Predestination (the idea that someone is destined for Heaven or Hell before they are even born) would seem (SEEM) to imply Determinism – and this doctrine, Predestination, was taught by Augustine, and, even more, by Martin Luther (and his “On The Bondage Of The Will” is frankly Determinist) and John Calvin.
However, as was pointed out, if humans are not beings, have no free will to choose between good and evil, then legal punishments are not moral, as the person punished could not have done other than they did.
The problem was “solved” by the Electors of Prussia and others, by stating that Predestination did NOT imply Determinism – and that any philosopher who taught that it did, was to be be hanged. As, by their own arguments, they are unable to resist the desire (passion) to do evil – and they were seeking to spread this doctrine to other people (thus making their victims non-people – convincing them that they also had no free will, no way to resist the passion to do evil).
This goes further than the Jewish punishment – as someone like Mr Spinoza, even in an entirely Jewish society, could have survived by being a hunter and fisherman out in the wilderness.
My own opinion?
I do NOT believe that people should be punished for teaching Determinism.
John K.
A series of interesting points Sir.
And it is true that even in the 1960s governments still said that the Dollar was a physical commodity (indeed coins were part silver till the early 1960s) – even in 1971, President Nixon said that gold payments would resume – that his suspension of gold payments to other governments was a temporary emergency measure.
This temporary emergency measure has lasted 54 years.
Indeed what Franklin Roosevelt did in 1933, denying physical payments to ordinary people – indeed stealing the gold of ordinary people (to help bankers who supported him – but not so much bankers who opposed Mr Roosevelt) was supposed to be a temporary emergency measure.
A temporary emergency measure that has gone on for 92 years.
As Roger Sherman pointed out at the Constitutional Convention – if you allow government to do XYZ “in an emergency” you guarantee a perpetual “emergency”.
As for the balance of payments….
It was understood by all the great Free Trade economists that imports had to be paid for by EXPORTS. We export some goods – in order to be able to import other goods, without borrowing to fund our consumption.
The new definition of “Free Trade” to mean perpetual borrowing to “pay for” consumption imports, is new (it is an opinion that appears to have developed in the 1980s), deeply harmful, and utterly dishonest – in its claims that this is what Adam Smith and the others believed (they-did-not).
There is much of interest in Paul Marks’ latest comments, but for now i just wish to point out a fundamental misunderstanding:
While this is a common misunderstanding (for people who have not thought seriously about it), i do not think it an exaggeration to call it an insane misunderstanding.
I call it insane, because it makes no distinction between responding to STIMULI and responding to INCENTIVES.
A “person” (not really a person according to Paul, and to me) who only responds to stimuli, “could not have done other than they did”: the fear of ending up in jail (or corporal punishment, or the death penalty) is not a stimulus but a (dis)incentive, and therefore such a “person” will not respond to it.
But the vast majority of humans DO respond to incentives. We respond (perhaps not entirely deterministically, but to a large extent deterministically) to the fear of ending up in jail — or even to the prospect of feeling guilty about what we did. THAT is why we punish people: it is because of the DETERMINISTIC response of the vast majority of people TO INCENTIVES, NOT TO STIMULI, that punishment is effective.
Moritz Schlick explained this quite clearly, in his essay When Is a Man Responsible?
Although the first half of that essay, discussing “free will” as distinct from moral responsibility, is flawed: you’ll have to read it a few times to find out where the sensible 2nd half begins.
(Also, i think that _perhaps_ Schlick goes too far in praising Hume in originating this view of moral responsibility. In my opinion, Hume was nowhere as clear on this issue as the 2nd half of Schlick’s essay.)
George Whitefield fell out with John Wesley over Predestination – and over slavery, which the Rev. Whitefield was helping to introduce to Georgia against the founding document of the colony (this is no trivial matter – if Georgia had not fallen to pro slavery forces, the later Confederacy could-not-have-formed).
But George Whitefield was not the most famous Predestinationist of his time – that was Johnathan Edwards.
The Rev Johnathan Edwards made a special point of explaining to the young how they were predestined for the eternal torments of Hell (which he described in detail) regardless of what they tried to do – as (Rev Edwards was a Determinist as well as a Predestinationist) they had no free will. It must be stressed that this was NOT an appeal for the children to turn to God – they were going to go to Hell regardless (it was predestined).
Some people killed themselves – but Rev Edwards held that this simply proved that they had always belonged to Satan.
When the people of Northampton (Massachusetts) voted to remove Rev Edwards – he defended himself by saying that he could not help himself, he was predestined to say these things to the children.
The congregation replied that they could not help themselves either – they were predestined to remove him.
I suspect the reply was rather tongue-in-cheek.
Cicero said (thousands of years ago) that some things were so absurd that only a philosopher could believe them – Spinoza and others, much later, seem to have held that as a complement (showing that they were above the common herd who did not understand philosophy) – but it was NOT meant as a complement, quite the contrary.
By the way – I am told that the American Samuel Johnson, like the British Samuel Johnson, was a supporter of human agency (moral responsibility) – but I do not know that, as I have not studied his works.
No Snorri – it is not a misunderstanding. As for “responding to incentives” – neither choosing to offer incentives, or choosing to accept them, is determinist – quite the contrary.
If so — IF SO — then i am not a determinist.
But i think that, if you think seriously about it, then you’ll realize that it is not so.
ANYWAYS: if you understand & agree that responding to stimuli is NOT THE SAME as responding to incentives, then we agree on the essential point.
Snorri – a ruler is not a different species from the ruled. Both are humans – human beings, they have free will to decide what they will-or-will-not do – that is the basis of moral responsibility (what separates beings from machines).
Just as a ruler can choose whether or not to offer incentives, so the ruled can choose whether or not to accept them – whether they be bribes or threats of punishment (say for the “crime” of dissent).
As for the determinist view that the above is not true – that the ruler does not choose whether or not to offer incentives (either bribes or threats) and the ruled do not choose whether or not to obey – well such a view would make things simpler.
It would make things simpler as it would mean that there is no such thing as moral choice, moral beings (human beings) – so “tyranny” would be a matter of moral indifference, as moral freedom was not being violated (as moral freedom would not exist).
Your fellow countryman, Erasmus, pointed the above out.
“Here I stand, I can do no other” (Martin Luther) only has moral force, is only a statement of moral conscience, if Dr Luther choose to do it – if he had the free will to choose NOT to risk his life.
Taken literally – if Dr Luther was really predetermined to stand there and say certain words, and had no free will to choose not to do so (not to risk his life), then there is nothing to be admired in his “stand” (if he, literally, could not have done otherwise) – indeed such a creature (or machine) is not a human being.
Both praise and blame depend upon moral agency (free will) – they do not exist without it.
Is it easy to resist incentives?
No it is not – on the one hand, if you obey you will have a life of ease and comfort.
On the other hand, if you refuse, you will have torment and death.
But it is possible to resist evil – to resist the wide and easy road.
Glasto is the bureaucracy’s “two minute hate” against those right wing bastards that would turf them out of their comfortable jobs and divest them of their gold plated pensions.
The parasite’s contempt for its host.
Fleas plotting to get rid of the dog.
Roue le Jour – yes interesting point Sir.
These rich leftists do not actually produce anything – even those who go into “private business” (i.e. become Corporate Managers – the Corporations being dependent on Credit Money and joined-at-the-hip with the government).
The hated “gammons” actually do the work – they could do without the rich leftists, but the rich leftists could not do without them.
Yet they wish the death of the “gammons” anyway.
Even though this will lead to their own deaths.
Can’t we just send in a few B-2s to do a flypast?
On the assumption that using Israelis, as if they didn’t already have enough on their plates, would be insensitive how about seconding several hundred Egyptian military personnel to patrol the external perimeter and ensure that no-one gets out?
They seem to be quite adept at this sort of thing.
Much cheaper than B2s.
I have never denied that offering incentives is a choice. Nor do i deny that responding to incentives is a choice. What i do deny is that either of them is a random choice.
I hope this isn’t too tangential…
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/dozens-of-pro-indy-accounts-go-dark-after-israeli-strikes/
And butter my nuggets! I’d never considered whether or not Spinoza was a determinist. It would appear he was. But he wasn’t expelled by the Jewish congregation of Amsterdam for blasphemy exactly. He sought debt relief on the basis of being an orphan via the state rather than the Jewish community.
But, yeah he was a determinist (as pantheists tend to be and pantheism is just atheism in fancy dress). I fear I must explain why I’d never even considered this. I’d always heard that Spinoza was a great moral philosopher. Now surely a moral philosopher considers issues of right and wrong and good and evil and these are clearly concepts which make no sense (cannot exist) without moral agency and therefore free will. I would suggest that really, deeply, everyone (apart from complete fruit baskets) believes in free will at a very deep level. This is why we use words like evil to describe the antics of evil people and laugh at the Emperor of Persia, Xerxes, for having the Hellespont whipped because it “disobeyed” him. Storms and earthquakes and similar can kill as many (or more) than tyrants but I think only a total mentalist would put them into the same moral category.
Until we know all there is to know, we can not answer the free will question. My response to this fact is to apply Pascal’s wager on God, to the free will question.
David,f
fI fail to see how Pascal’s wager is a relevant analogy. I also, and this is a different issue, think Pascal’s wager is at best flippant. If God exists it is treating the supreme being’s existence as a betting tip. If God doesn’t exist believing He does is squandering a sizeable ammout of onr’s finite existence on a fiction. But back to your opening. I think we can answer a lot of questions without knowing everything. To say otherwise is an equally flippant dismal of human knowledge. OK. I’ll take the bait. If free will doesn’t exist then neither does morality in any meaningful sense. I buy that that is an inevitable logical consequence. But… here we come up against the biggy. The howling jerks of Glasonbury certainly seemed to act as if they believed the IDF to be evil. Unless compelled by force do you chant “Death to…” without really feeling it? Is that feeling not real in and of itself and something other than electrical and chemical stuff going on in animated meat? Are we just a bit more sophisticated versions of the twerking frog’s legs Alessandro Volta had for lunch that got him thinking?
I’m a mysterian as to consciousnees, free-will (and therefore morality). I believe these things exist. I deeply suspect we will never know how they work and I’m not sure that matters as much as knowing the are real. On my desk, right now, I’m looking at my Leatherman multi-tool. Had it a fair few years now. Very useful. I’ve done all sorts of things with it. I have never managed to use it to dismantle itself though. I also have a mind which I have occasionally used to think with (and the rest I wasted on Samizdata) but have I ever got my mind to understand itself? Of course not!
Obviously, I’m using a computer right now. I quite like some old-skool games. I can get this Win 11 machine to run MSDOS like it was 1981 all over again. Of course I can! Obviously I can get a dramtically superior machine to emulate a massively inferior machine. I can’t get it to emulate a modern Mac though or, perhaps more to the point, I can’t get this ASUS Zenbook 14 to emulate an identical ASUS Zenbook 14. By the same token I can’t emulate my own thoughts within myself. There are a number of issues here. Firstly the available brain “horsepower”. Then the tangled question as to whether a true emulation of myself would know what it was because if it did would it actually be a true emulation? Finally there is the question of scaling. Any absolutely accurate simulacrum has to be be the same size as what it simulates. The map literally becomes the kingdom. When all knowledge is knowm no knowledge is known because you are back to square one looking at the totality as the totality. Totality is not the same as generalisation and the capacity to generalise is the root of thought. To be able to see there is an essential “twoness” between two apples and two oranges.
NickM – In my view Pascal’s Wager on God is less helpful than my use of it for Free Will. God is not a binary issue, unlike Free Will.
If someone has to decide to believe in a god, do they truly believe it?
Jordan Peterson’s answers, on belief and God, are most relevant to me.
NickM – it is a difficult one.
If God exist and is good, why would He punish people for just not believing in Him?
There are various answers to this question – Judaism answers the question by saying that good (“righteous”) agnostics and atheists go to Heaven – although they may be rather surprised to find themselves there.
Christianity has a more complex response.
Some Christians say that “I am the way, the life and the truth – there is no way to the father but through me” means that people are saved by Jesus – even if they do not believe he existed, or have never heard of him, but this “Christian Universalism” is very much a minority opinion among Christians. By the way – the founder of Caltech in California (the great rival to MIT) was a Christian Universalist.
Another approach concerns the nature of Hell.
Does Hell mean eternal torment for everyone – or does it mean, at least for some people, “eternal separation from God”?
If someone denies that God exists or denies that Jesus is God, perhaps (perhaps) they go to a rather different “Hell” from that pictured in popular media.
Imagine that you have gone beyond death and you now know that there is God – an eternal truth. But because you denied God – you will never get to experience that truth, that highest level of spiritual development. Your (after) life is not unpleasant – but the highest level of spiritual fulfillment will be denied to you – perhaps FOR EVER.
Is that not punishment enough?
Yes Snorri – moral choice is not “random”, but nor is it predetermined.
Moral choice (the moral agency of the person) is itself – it can not be reduced to something else.
The idea that everything is either random or predetermined is mistaken. Moral choice is neither of these things – it is itself.
Sadly, as was pointed out thousands of years ago, just because personhood, the soul, exists, does NOT prove that it is immortal.
It may (perhaps) be that the soul (consciousness – the “I”, free will, moral choice) dies with the body.
We all (if we are sane) hope this is NOT so – but it may be so, we are given no certain proof of life after this one.
Paul:
Please define “predetermined”.
Also, what is the difference between “determined” and “predetermined”?
And if there is none, then why the extra syllable?
That sounds like a gratuitous statement; like “I am not going to try to reduce moral choice to something else, and neither should you; because i say so”.
I favor a reductionist, algorithmic view of choice.
Again, it all depends on what “predetermined” means.
But it is a tautology that either the state of an isolated system at time T determines its state at all subsequent times, or it doesn’t.
In my opinion, you are confusing determinism with causality; which is a special sort of determinism, not found in all physical systems.
(Interestingly, both Rand and Anscombe got it backwards on this, claiming that determinism is a special case of causality.)
Again, if you tell me that moral choice is neither random nor causal/determined-by-STIMULI, then OK.
But if you tell me that it is neither random nor deterministic, then you should be ashamed of spouting self-contradictory nonsense.
PS: see also the distinction between “physical necessity” and “moral necessity”, which might have been introduced by Bishop Bramhall in his debate with Hobbes. The distinction was later used by Leibniz, Samuel Clarke, and Anthony Collins.
In my terminology:
physical necessity –> causal [NB: not physical!] determinism;
moral necessity –> moral determinism.
NB: This definition of 2 forms of determinism does not imply that there are no further forms thereof.
“predetermined” – not chosen.
A person is someone (as opposed to something) who could have chosen to do other than they did – someone (rather than something), and, no, it is nothing to do with being “random”. That, moral choice, is what being an “I” (a person – a free will moral agent who has moral responsibility for what they choose to do) is about.
Choosing to resist the desire to do evil (to give in to the passions) is certainly not “random” – it is a struggle, requiring great effort.
We all fail at times – and the way to make failure certain is to accept that the struggle is impossible, that evil will always win.
As for incentives – yes indeed, they often make the struggle with evil (which each person, in small if not big ways, faces each day) more difficult (if they reward bad behaviour and punish good behaviour – which is very often the case). But it is still not hopeless.
In a better world incentives would reward good behaviour and punish crimes (real crimes – not defined as “what the state does not like”) – that would make the struggle less difficult, but it is always going to be a struggle.
Evil is not just “out there” (some other person) – evil is within all of us.
Most certainly including me – I am not immune from the passions, sadly quite the contrary. There is a great deal of evil (of various sorts) in me.
Indeed I would say I have got worse over time – as I now neglect things I did not use to neglect.
In my case despair is one of my worst failings – but I have many others to struggle against.
Vintage Paul Marks: writing a lot without addressing the issues. The latter seem to go way above his head.
Snorri – you are a reductionist and I am an antireductionist. You seek to break things down to find out what they “really” are – I hold that some things (such as the “I”) can not be broken down, that “he who breaks a thing to try and find out what it is has left the path of wisdom”.
What you call “the issues” I call human beings.
You seek (like Mr Hume) to break down the “I” to find out what it “really” is – I hold that that the “I” is him or her self – it can not be broken down into something else.
You hold that choice must either be predetermined (determined by prior events) or “random” – I hold that choice is NEITHER of these things, that choice (moral agency) is itself – not some other thing.
There can be no meeting of minds between us as you, like Mr Hobbes and Mr Hume, hold that the mind, or at least what I would mean by the word “mind”, does not exist – that it is really “illusion” or some such – to which I reply “then WHO is having the illusionary experience – if the human person does not exist?”
We are not going to agree as our entire approach to philosophy is different, indeed opposed.
But there is no need to kill each other (at least not today), we can just agree to disagree.
Our view of what a person is, is fundamentally different. And our view of what morality, ethics, is – is (therefore) fundamentally different.
As for your habit of insulting me “the latter seem to go way above his head” or (in the past) calling me insane – well I could insult you.
But, at least today, I choose not to do so.
Paul – Iain McGilchrist’s books: ‘The Master and his Emissary’ and ‘The Matter with Things’ have some insights on this topic.
On psychology – William James, in his 1890 (at least I think it was 1890) Harvard work on the subject said that to study this subject one must make an assumption of determinism – and this seems to have won over most of American academia (apart from the Aristotelians – mostly in Catholic universities), but it was a very odd thing for William James to write.
It was odd, because William James held that determinism was false (indeed, like Kant, he also strongly attacked Compatibilism – the doctrine that one can BOTH have determinism and moral responsibility praise-and-blame) – so he was (in effect) saying that one must make a FALSE assumption in order to study psychology – but it does not stop there.
The inventor of the term “psychology”, Ralph Cudworth, was NOT a determinist – indeed he was an arch critic (not supporter) of Thomas Hobbes, and even in William James’s own time the two leading texts on psychology were by Noah Porter (Yale) and James McCosh (Princeton) – who were both opposed to determinism.
William James does not refute their works (even though they were the standard works before his own), indeed I do not believe he mentions them at all in his own book.
But to bring things back to the subject of the post……
Sunni Islam tends (with the possible exception of the Sufi traditions) towards determinism, although I will not repeat Winston Churchill’s rather rude description of this position.
Shia Islam tends towards either a libertarian (free will – moral agency) position – or towards a Compatibilist position – it depends on the philosopher (who are also theologians) one is looking at.
So the (mainsteam) Sunni view would be that friends and enemies in war are predestined (predetermined) as only Allah has free will (this is strikingly similar to Martin Luther’s position in “The Bondage of the Will”) – so killing (or both sides) and so on, is all part of the plan of God. Things happen because God willed them to happen – with humans (not beings – in this view only God is a being) having no real say in what they do.
But the Shia philosophical position might (might) be rather different.
So at least for the mainstream Sunni – the people at Glastonbury said what they said because this was predestined – and if (like one of Tolkien’s Dwarves) I “killed them for the insult” this was also predestined – predetermined, my action would also determined, not really chosen by me. I could not, in their philosophical view, have done other than I did.
But the Shia philosophers might (might) take a different view.
I am told that in the institutions of Iran they still study the works of Aristotle – and the commentaries.
It would be interesting to discuss these matters with them – but, alas, there is the kill-or-be-killed situation.
Paul: you are not an anti-reductionist. You are a bullshitter.
You literally don’t know what you are talking about.
You spout empty words such as “predetermined” without being able to explain the difference wrt “determined”.
You utter words such as “choice” without giving a single concrete example of what constitutes a real choice — according to you. (And it is apparent that your conception is different from that of normal people.)
You refuse to consider the logical necessity that an isolated system is either deterministic or random.
You refuse to consider the distinction between causal determinism and moral determinism.
You are utterly unable to understand that my view of human choice has NOTHING to do with that of Hobbes OR Hume; the latter explicitly rejecting the distinction between causal and moral determinism. The differences between Hubbes, Hume, and yours truly, are way above your pay grade.
Then, when challenged, you steer the discussion into further nonsense.
As i said, you should be ashamed of what you write. You don’t, because you don’t understand it yourself.
In case anyone does not know, in spite of their being establishment philosophers (modern establishment – not Aristotelians or anything like that) both Kant and William James rejected “Compatibilism” – and they rejected it very strong terms.
It is the case, as even Kant and William James admitted, that if (if) Determinism is correct – then there is no such thing as morality, ethics. Because humans (who, under Determinism are NOT people) can not choose to do other than they do.
For example, this would mean that no blame can be attached to the rapists and murderers of October 7th – as they could not have chosen to NOT rape and murder.
And no blame can be attached to the Glastonbury performers and crowd – because they could not have chosen to not chant what they chanted.
Determinism is false – and Compatibilism does not save it.
Returning to the actual starting point nearly a week has now passed and, in the absence of any updates, detectives from Avon and Somerset police are presumably still unclear as to what happened and if any (hate?) crime was committed.
Hint, try watching the video.
Macro Rubio seemed to work it out without too much difficulty.
John – yes agreed, Marco Rubio was correct in his analysis. The police know that – but dare not do anything, arresting Lucy Connolly is one thing, arresting this crowd of richlings in Glastonbury quite another.
By the way….
The fatalism associated (rightly or wrongly) with mainstream Sunni Islam was also pushed, in extreme language, by both John Wycliffe and Martin Luther.
John Wycliffe (English late Middle Ages) claimed that everything happened by “strict necessity” and Martin Luther (a couple of centuries later) argued that God authors the evil deeds that men do – that God “effects” them (this makes God the author of sin).
Both these men said this because they denied free will – the ability (with effort) to choose to do other than we do – therefore, every rape, every murder, every evil deed (no matter how bad) is authored by God.
What Thomas Hobbes did was keep the “necessity” (the determinism – fatalism) but remove God – indeed remove any spiritual aspect at all.
In a way David Hume backs off from the implications of this – by declaring that necessity (determinism) is correct, but denying that it means that moral responsibility does not exist.
Mr Hume is just wrong, flat wrong (as Kant and William James, in spite of being modern establishment philosophers, pointed out), if libertarianism (philosophical libertarianism – the freedom to choose) does not exist, then moral responsibility (moral good and moral evil – praise and blame) does not exist either.
As Erasmus pointed out – the position of Martin Luther on free will is both false and evil (sickeningly so), but at least it is logically consistent – in spite of Dr Luther rejecting “that whore reason”.
David Hume, who makes reason “the slave of the passions” (thus turning philosophy on its head – for moral thinkers had pointed out for thousands of years that the point of moral reason is to restrain the passions – someone who says, and means, “reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions” has adopted a Satanic position – whether or not Satan exists) does not even have that logical consistency – as he rejected the existence of moral choice (moral agency) yet tried to keep praise and blame – moral responsibility.
There can be no moral responsibility (no just praise and blame) if there is no moral agency (no moral choice) – if people can not do other than we do.
Each person, every day, has to follow “an ought from an is” – namely “this is wrong, so I ought not to do it”, using their moral reason to resist the passions – rather than having reason as a instrumental thing, using reason as a “how can I get away with this – how can I use reason to indulge the passions and avoid punishment” tool.
All this Sunni Islam, as pushed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, is alleged (alleged) to deny – meaning that their followers can not be morally blamed for their murderers, rapes, mutilations (and so on), because they could not have chosen NOT to do these things – as free will (supposedly) does not exist, moral agency (supposedly) does not exist.
Be-that-as-it-may – it is clear from their statements that both John “everything happens by strict necessity” Wycliff and Martin “God effects all evil deeds” Luther, DID endorse such a philosophical position.
It is utterly astonishing – but they really did go that far.
Although it must be stressed that neither Mr Hume or Snorri go that far.
Not “has to follow” an ought from an is (“this is morally wrong, so I ought not to do it”) – but, rather, SHOULD (rather than “must”) follow.
That is the terrible struggle with the evil within ourselves (which we all have) that we face every day – if only in small ways.