We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
One can sympathise with Professor Terry Eagleton’s view that A C Grayling’s private university is odious. All decent folk were shocked when Professor Grayling announced that he was leaving the state education system. If he wasn’t going to stick with it, say I, he shouldn’t have married it in the first place.
Yes, it must be the case that Grayling, Richard Dawkins, Niall Fergusson and the rest of this bunch who want to set up a private university all solemnly vowed to cleave unto to the Russell Group of Universities, forsaking all others, til death did them part. Nothing else – except possibly the reintroduction, unnoticed by me, of the grand old tradition that all the Clerkes of Oxenforde be obliged to take Holy Orders – explains the outrage in the Guardian comments about them slipping off to canoodle with the proposed New College of the Humanities. Listen to poor cuckolded Eagleton’s reaction to the idea of the floozy-college: he speaks of “the nausea which wells to the throat at the thought of this disgustingly elitist outfit.”
A disgustingly elitist university. Disgusting, I calls it. Well, we both do.
I lied above. I think this is a splendid development. It is sure to be a learning experience all round. First, a learning experience for the students, at a very reasonable eighteen grand per annum – peanuts compared to the American colleges. Second, a learning experience for Eagleton and all his fellow toilers in the loyal universities. A bit of competition will buck them up. Thirdly it might even be a learning experience for Professors Grayling, Dawkins, Ferguson, Colley, and Cannadine. The first two named are hard atheists and soft socialists and have been very much given to denouncing the divisiveness of faith schools and demanding that any institution in receipt of state money be obliged to stick to the state line. (I have to admit that in a backhanded way Grayling and Dawkins have a point: the stupidest thing the religious schools, which are older, often far older, than state education, ever did was to let themselves be talked into taking the government coin. He who pays the piper calls the tune, fools. In mitigation, the smooth, reasonable bureaucrats who promised that the religious schools’ distinctive character would of course be preserved within the state system were difficult men to disbelieve.) Anyway, I think the New Collegians might be about to rediscover the concepts of freedom of association … freedom of schools to select their pupils as they see fit … freedom to set their own syllabus … oh, and freedom to educate for profit.
The ineffectiveness of modern government is a great blessing. It means that proposals like this – “Cameron-backed report to protect children from commercialisation” – will almost certainly come to very little.
For the record, like Tim Worstall, I think T-shirts for five year olds that read ‘Sexy Tart’ are not the most tasteful of fashion statements. My opinions are rather more hostile than that, as it happens. But my hostility to chav parents is mild compared to my hostility to the governing classes, who first bred the problem (by ensuring that two generations have grown up who had no need to be respectable), and now step forward to “solve” it by giving themselves more power.
Mercifully, the modern Big State is made of fat, not muscle. Listed below are the key proposals of this report, and next to each what will actually happen.
• Retailers to ensure magazines with sexualised images have modesty sleeves. Measurable, enforceable, provides work for council busybodies. Might happen.
• The Advertising Standards Authority to discourage placement of billboards near schools and nurseries. Discouraging noises will be made.
• Music videos to be sold with age ratings. Measurable, enforceable, work for busybodies. Will be about as effective as the age ratings for computer games and films. (I have nothing against manufacturers giving an age rating for a product voluntarily, by the way – but see the final sentence of this post about “voluntary” self-regulation.)
• Procedures to make it easier for parents to block adult and age restricted material on internet. Could be dangerous, since procedures to make it easier for parents to block adult material on the internet are necessarily also procedures to make it easier for governments to block any material on the internet – but fear not, they can’t afford the people who can write the program.
• Code of practice to be issued on child retailing. OMG, a code of practice!
• Define a child as 16 in all types of advertising regulation. Presumably they mean “under 16”. If the current regulation allows scope to define a child as “under 13” this might make a difference. Or it might not. Probably all concerned will work very hard to find all the clauses and sub-clauses in fifteen different laws that refer to this, harmonise them all, then sit back and contemplate the beautiful consistency of the result. No one else will notice.
• Advertising Standards Authority to do more to gauge parent’s views on advertising. Colourful website to be set up. Two comments will be left a week, in Chinese.
• Create a single website for parents to complain to regulators. Colourful website to be set up. 45,000 comments will be left a week, often in something resembling English. Government will promise to clear backlog by 2021.
• Change rules on nine o’clock television watershed to give priority to views of parents. Will be acclaimed by all until someone who is not a parent threatens to sue.
• Government to regulate after 18 months if progress insufficient. Although I do think it most unlikely that the government ever really will send out inspectors to measure the amount of black lace on pre-teen bras, I still find this type of sickly-sweet concealed threat, so common nowadays, nauseating. “Voluntary change is so much nicer, don’t you think? So much more meaningful. But, of course, if you don’t change voluntarily…” It always reminds me of Dolores Umbridge early in her career.
I have been following this minor scandal via Instapundit. This to make clear that I am engaged in the study of American political culture, rather than wallowing in trivial scandal like wot you might of thought.
There are two things I don’t understand.
In this video (excellent snark by Real Clear Politics: they have chosen the perfect excerpt to present without comment), the question and answer go thus:
WOLF BLITZER, CNN: “Have you ever taken a picture like this of yourself?”
REP. ANTHONY WEINER (D-NY): “I can tell you this, that there are — I have photographs. I don’t know what photographs are out there in the world of me. I don’t know what have been manipulated and doctored and we’re going to try to find out what happened. But the most important reason I want to find out what happened is to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. Obviously somebody got access to my account. That’s bad. They sent a picture that makes fun of the name Weiner. I get it. Touche.”
The first thing I will briefly pretend not to understand while actually understanding perfectly, as do you, is why he does not simply answer “No”.
The second thing I truly don’t understand is why he does not simply answer “Yes”.
Times have changed. It is traditional to say at this juncture, “I am not a prude, but…” . I am a prude and proud of it. I wish times had not changed (for one thing, a whole branch of humour is being rendered obsolete now that there is no need for coded language), but changed they have. Emailing pictures of one’s wedding tackle to persons of the opposite sex really is not that unusual. Sixth formers and bored secretaries get into trouble for it every week. Fumble-fingers hitting the “Send” button with the wrong email address in the little box – or the wrong group of addresses – really is not that unusual either.
My advice in this situation has to be “man up”.
Clarke never got round to patenting the idea of a geostationary communications satellite.
Years and years and years ago when it was first reported to me that there were many lascivious moving images on the internet I thought, personally I would prefer to spend hours and hours watching cute furry animals. Maybe, I thought, I could set up a “web site” containing short video excerpts of animals, particularly juveniles, behaving in an appealing manner.
It seems someone else has already done this.
What did you never get round to patenting?
So, Ken Clarke hamfistedly but correctly says there are degrees of seriousness in rape and the law reflects this – and causes great outrage. Not just from the avowedly feminist Guardian either. The Sun says he’s a danger to women, no less.
Interestingly, both the the Guardian’s and the Sun’s commenters seem to take a more nuanced view than their respective papers. As they should. Clarke was attempting to make a valid distinction. Sure, he messed it up, particularly when he appeared to confuse date rape and statutory rape, but of course there are degrees of seriousness in rape as in any other crime. To say that is not to say that any form of rape is trivial. Whoopi Goldberg’s much derided comment that Roman Polanksi was not guilty of “rape rape” was not outrageous because she attempted to distinguish between statutory and actual rape, but because Polanski had committed rape rape.
It distresses me that so many of those who seek to help to rape victims seem to act all the time as if they were a politician on the radio. By this I mean that they have always ready in their heads one idea, one sound bite, that they must express. Nothing must detract from that message; no ifs, no buts, no side issues. I agree entirely with the One Idea in this case: all rape is serious. But when one sees what trouble a real politician on the radio got into for merely touching upon the reasons for a sliding scale of sentences one also sees why most politicians try so hard to stick with the pre-prepared One Idea. Meanwhile Lara Williams in the Guardian (linked to above), a woman whose real-life experience of helping rape victims would lead one to hope that her views were rooted in observation, comes out with the sort of mindlessly simplified slogans that have given politicians a bad name:
Through distinguishing “serious” and “less serious” rape, Clarke assumed a perverse gradient of suffering, a warped taxonomy of perceived victimisation.
No one actually believes that. If called upon in court to state what impact a particular rape had had on a particular victim, I have no doubt that this writer would recoil in horror from saying, “Oh, the usual. All rapes have the same impact. All rapes are equally bad.” Yet that is the logical implication of what she has written. She is not the only such commenter. It is sad to see obviously intelligent and compassionate people with so little faith in the public that they make themselves believe that the only way to put forward a true idea – all rape is bad – is to coarsen it into falsehood.
Philip Goff is the founder of Art Uncut, an organisation which, in conjunction with UK Uncut, stages nights of music, comedy and short talks in opposition to government spending cuts. Mr Goff is a research fellow with the Phenomenal Qualities project at the University of Hertfordshire.
I think you should give his argument the consideration it deserves.
Here it is.
Art Uncut is founded on this principle, a belief about the kind of societal model that we believe to be better: a society with well-funded arts, well-funded public services, and where there is a certain amount of redistribution so that the gap between rich and poor does not get too wide. We began as a small group of artists and musicians involved in UK Uncut actions, but hope now to open up the anti-cuts movement to a broader audience: to those who are not temperamentally inclined to protest, or perhaps haven’t made their minds up yet. If we are serious about building a broad, sustained coalition of opposition with the potential for political influence, we need to reach out.
A week before the March for the Alternative on 26 March, Art Uncut staged a sell-out creative preliminary for the march: a night of music, comedy and short talks, headlined by UK Uncut, Josie Long and The Agitator. On the day, Art Uncut and UK Uncut jointly occupied BHS on Oxford Street, turning it into an artistic space with musicians, half a dozen poets and a performance from the actors Sam and Timothy West.
To entice you further, there is hostile mention of Robert Nozick in the main article and, in the comments, an artistic creation of genius, Clarence the Anti-Cuts Octopus.
From – where else – The Guardian: Bolivia enshrines natural world’s rights with equal status for Mother Earth
“Bolivia is set to pass the world’s first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country’s rich mineral deposits as “blessings” and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.
The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.”
The first comment to the Guardian piece said, “So much for evolution.”
“Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature “to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities”.
The law, which is part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system following a change of constitution in 2009, has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.”
Votes for bacteria now!
“Little opposition is expected to the law being passed because President Evo Morales’s ruling party, the Movement Towards Socialism, enjoys a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament.
With the newly-enfranchised bacteria supporting him, I’m not surprised.
“In the indigenous philosophy, the Pachamama is a living being.
The draft of the new law states: “She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation.”
Nice to see Bolivia following Britain’s England’s example and instituting an Established Church.
Only we don’t any more. According to Stacy Meichtry in the Wall Street Journal, France has resurrected the border with Italy.
So, as Johnathan’s post below says, the euro is not working out so well, and now it seems that the Schengen Accord is being allowed to lapse. Remind me, what was the point of this EU thing again?
Koran burnings predictably lead to murders.
So what. Free speech kills, we knew that. The lack of it kills more. Blame the murders on the murderers.
It should be allowed, but is it, or can it be, right to burn the Koran? In general I have contempt for those who deliberately insult what another holds dear. The fact that I uphold the right to say anything should strengthen, not weaken, my willingness to judge what is said. I despise Pastor Jones. I despise the members of Al-Muhajiroun whose insults to dead soldiers gave birth to the English Defence League.
However now that Jones has burned his Koran, and it has led to murders by Muslim fanatics as he must have known it would, I now see an argument that further murders will be made less likely by further burnings. If they keep happening it will have a desensitising effect.
Yet I still think burning someone’s holy symbol is a contemptible act. To hurt a group (and hurt feelings are a form of hurt) because some of its members are bad people is just another instance of the collectivist error. I would not do it. I suppose what I am saying is that given that it will happen somewhere in the world fairly regularly, this fact should be publicised. Eventually the mobs will get tired of assembling yet again.
First off, they really are. Running around like headless chickens in Whitehall, I mean. I have photographic evidence! Click on this link to the 10 Downing Street website and it shows a headless person running, or at least walking fairly fast, down Whitehall.
At least we now know the person who thought up this proposal. Not that I want to mock the Headless Apparation’s disability, but this is not a conception that can have originated in an actual brain. This one came out of the sacral ganglia in the spinal column, in the manner of the stegosaurus.
PM welcomes scheme to help graduates start businesses.
Entrepreneur First, a new programme to encourage entrepreneurship has been launched today, with recruitment of the first intake due to start this year.
Launched on the same day as a series of measures to help enterpreneurs, Entrepreneur First will be a two-year programme, through which graduates with the most promising business ideas will get the opportunity to start their business, with the support of corporate mentoring, business training and networking.
After the two years, participants will have the option to continue building their own business or apply to graduate recruitment schemes in some of the sponsoring companies.
OK. There are worse things to spend government money on. For instance… on second thoughts, I will postpone that rant until I have a spare decade. There are many worse things, but let me count the ways in which this one is misguided.
One, it is only for graduates. Because having uncredentialled people starting their own businesses never works.
Two, it is a two year programme of intensive, expensive help (“corporate mentoring” does not come cheap) to a select few already-privileged individuals – when the length and breadth of Britain the shabby little shops and grotty corrugated-roofed offices on industrial estates that actually provide the jobs are closing. It’s behind a paywall, but today’s Times magazine has an article by Sathnam Sanghera who spent a shift or two working in a corner shop he had passed hundreds of times. The featured quote was “By 8.30am the takings amount to £45, which means the three of us were up at 4am for the sake of making some £9.” Sure, declining sales of newspapers are not the government’s fault – but the hours of official paperwork that shopowners have to do in their so-called spare time is.
Three, that get-out clause after two years. Even I, possessed of the entrepreneurial spirit of a sessile mollusc, can tell that having the option after two years to apply for graduate recruitment in the sponsoring companies is not the spirit that makes a business great. Possibly it is great for the sponsoring companies, though.
Commenting on this Guardian article, someone called “weejonnie” says,
If you want to participate in the gross corporate profits why don’t you buy shares in the companies. Decide which ones are making far too much and invest in them.
Or has that gone over the average left-thinking person’s head?
Yes, it probably has. So spell it out. Tell the next person who makes this argument to you that since he is so sure that corporate profits are, as the original article puts it, soaring at the expense of homeowners, consumers and students, then there is no reason for him not to put his money where his mouth is. He can always give his new ill-gotten wealth away away to the poor students if it bothers him. If you get a bright one he might independently discover the concept of “risk”.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
