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]
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I may not like utilitarianism, but I would suggest it is wrong rather than “outdated”. Roy Hattersley wants to keep utilitarianism but scrap, as for some (unclear) reason no longer applying, the constraint Mill put on the doctrine of respect for individual freedom.
Here he is in The Guardian on Monday:
Mill’s libertarian philosophy is based on two precepts that – despite having written an admirable essay on women’s rights – he always expressed with the use of male pronouns. The first principle asserts that “all errors which (a man) is likely to commit against advice and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good”. Only cranks believe that now. If it were a generally held view, we would not prohibit the use of recreational drugs or require passengers in the back seats of motor cars to wear safety belts. […]
Mill’s second precept makes a distinction between “the part of a person’s life which concerns only himself and that which concerns others”. In short, we are free to damage ourselves but are not at liberty to behave in a way that harms other people. The distinction was easier to make in Victorian Britain than it is today – though even in 1859, when On Liberty was written, subscribers to the cult of the individual grossly underestimated how much one human is dependent on another.
Gawd! I never thought to find myself inwardly nodding at that trite radical saw about it taking cranks to start a revolution. ‘Do what I say, because I say it is good for you.’ This is the creed of slavery.
In fact, in 1859, the year of On Liberty, the following appeared in The Spectator:
The intelligent, christian slave-holder at the South is the best friend of the negro. He does not regard his bonds-men as mere chattel property, but as human beings to whom he owes duties. While the Northern Pharisee will not permit a negro to ride on the city railroads, Southern gentlemen and ladies are seen every day, side by side, in cars and coaches, with their faithful servants. Here the honest black man is not only protected by the laws and public sentiment, but he is respected by the community as truly as if his skin were white. Here there are ties of genuine friendship and affection between whites and blacks, leading to an interchange of all the comities of life. The slave nurses his master in sickness, and sheds tears of genuine sorrow at his grave. When sick himself, or overtaken by the infirmity of age, he is kindly cared for, and when he dies the whites grieve, not for the loss of so much property, but for the death of a member of the family.–This is the relation which slaves generally, and domestic servants universally, sustain to their white masters.
There is a vast deal of foolish talk about the delights of freedom and the hardships of slavery. In one sense no one, white or black, is free in this world. The master orders his slave to work in a certain field, when he perhaps would prefer to go elsewhere–this is slavery. But is the master free to do as he pleases! Not so.–He is driven by as stern a necessity to labor with his hands or confine himself to business, as the slave ever feels.
Protected by laws and public sentiment. Respected by the community. Why should self-deternination be relevant, when we have modernisation? And unlimited public sentiment.
And not just for other people, which is the usual way of things:
I am responsible. I think. I care. I hold myself back from all sorts of desires and wishes which are impulsive, brought on by the clamour and disturbance of this corrupt over-materialistic world we live in, separated from nature and in intense competition with each other. We live in a sick society which is not going to cure itself. Like small children, we need forcibly calming down, we need to be held to account, we need to ‘learn’.
You may find this deeply disturbing as a view. But then, I’m not romantic about our so-called ‘liberties’ as Henry Porter is. I’m not a sentimentalist about old-style ‘freedoms’.
A commentator on Henry Porter’s article Each DNA swab brings us closer to a police state on the Observer website. Depressingly much more where that came from.
The neo-puritans hate their own desires and the possibility of choosing between them. They think surveillance is good because ‘if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear’, and they know you need watching in case you might do something wrong. They have bad impulses too, which by awful effort they control. The total control of the state – conceived as an undesiring arbiter of good – can relieve us of the burden of choice and keep us working for the good of society. It will free us from fear; because the freedom of bad people, who might be anyone, is what we have most to fear.
For those here determined to hate the BBC and all its works, here is a reminder that it does do some useful things. That it isn’t quite in the mould of the fawning state broadcaster found almost everywhere in the world. Along with a reminder that some would like it to be.
This week File on 4 did the first really serious, probing investigation into HM Government’s National Identity Scheme that there has been in any media yet. You can listen to it here, and it is full of fascinating things for the attentive listener.
The most extraordinary is this testimony from IT consultant Peter Tomlinson:
The meetings were called by people in the Cabinet Office. There were topics on the agenda that were set by people in the Cabinet Office and we kept on thinking: why are we not seeing people from the Home Office.
Why are we not seeing technical people from the Home Office, or people involved in technical management? Eventually they began to come along but they never produced anyone who had any technical understanding of large-scale systems. We were just completely puzzled.
This is the first really solid public evidence I have seen that the scheme really is [or was?] intended by strategists at the highest level as a complete population management system and revolution in the nature of government, rather than being one by accident. That it is the emanation of a philosophy of government. It is it is not always good to have one’s analysis confirmed. In this case I would prefer not to have been vindicated.
Remember Philip Gould? He’s one of those high-level strategists.
This is not some silly idea of the phoney left. It is a mainstream idea of modern times. It is a new kind of identity and a new kind of freedom. I respect the noble Lords’ views, but it would help if they respected the fact that the Bill and the identity cards represent the future: a new kind of freedom and a new kind of identity.
The philosophy is probably best summed up by a word from Foucault: governmentalism. Christopher Booker to the contrary, it is not a ‘mental’ creed of “The Mad Officals” but a pervasive pragmatism – using the natural history of humanity the better to shepherd it. The better shepherd is a member of the new innominate politico-bureaucratic class: maybe a civil ‘servant’, maybe a politician, maybe officially neither.
And just today a new example of the sage. A strategy memo has leaked to the Daily Mirror’s sharp political editor Kevin Maguire. Lord Gould allegedly writes:
No-one in Britain should have any doubt about what you stand for, what you want to achieve. You should position yourself as a powerful, muscular modernisation politician with the power and the determination to change Britain. You should aim to be a great reforming PM.
You have to meet this mood for change. You have to exemplify renewal and a fresh start.
Your Premiership has to have a dynamism and an energy that pulls people along in its slipstream. You must become the change that Britain needs.
There is a name for this, too. It is one of the most widely used populist techniques in world politics: Strong Man government, tribal leadership, caudillismo. A national security state, presided over by a Big Man – has “a nation of freemen, a polite and commercial people” (Blackstone), really come to that? When exactly did liberty become such a minority taste in Britain that it were possible?
[Just a footnote on the BBC below the fold.] → Continue reading: A modern Macchiavel
This thread features TimC comparing unenforced laws to fence posts without the panels.
Here is a clear example of an uninstalled panel.
A vicar who lit his pipe in a Kent police station as a protest against the smoking ban has failed in his attempt to get himself arrested.
The totalitarians typically begin each step by enforcing it against those who garner the least sympathy. Clearly a pipe smoking vicar is too sympathetic of a target this early on. Beginning with social outcasts, progressively less unpopular targets are chosen for enforcement until the ‘Why should ___ be allowed a ‘privilege’ that I am not?’ argument takes over.
And notice that in a five word headline about the vicar’s smoking protest, BBC managed to use the words “unholy”, “stunt” and “failed”.
On this day, 231 years ago, thirteen colonies declared themselves to be thirteen states.
Less known is that Thomas Jefferson wrote the “original Rough draught” of that declaration. Today is a good occasion to read in that rough draft what the full scope of grievances were before the representatives “in General Congress assembled” took the pen and scissors to it to assure unanimous support.
The last paragraph is the final treason of a treasonous document and had we lost the war that ensued, the greatest thinkers, doers and leaders of this continent would certainly have been executed for the crime of attempting the liberty of self determination.
We therefore the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled do, in the name & by authority of the good people of these states, reject and renounce all allegiance & subjection to the kings of Great Britain & all others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them; we utterly dissolve & break off all political connection which may have heretofore subsisted between us & the people or parliament of Great Britain; and finally we do assert and declare these colonies to be free and independant states, and that as free & independant states they shall hereafter have power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, & to do all other acts and things which independant states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, & our sacred honour.
Like they say, read the whole thing. It wasn’t just about tax. It wasn’t even primarily about tax. Some of the grievances have returned to us in force today and are worse perpetrated today by the government in Washington than they were by the government in Britain when this document was written. But some of the grievances may come as a surprise, particularly to some of you feeling the colonization by the EU. That is EU ‘colony‘ as in definition 2.
This is a bit scary:
Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.
The study found 54% of Americans regard atheists as dangerous or threatening.
It is not just because I am an atheist that I find this disturbing. I would like to suggest that it is an example of a more general tendency among the populations of even advanced states to react more strongly to the imaginary dangers of things they don’t understand than to real threats. It is an inexhaustible fuel for authoritarian populism.
Democracy or small government. Choose one.
I, {insert name here}, do solemnly swear, (or affirm), that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
I like to feel that programs get on to my computer at my invitation, rather than barging past me into the living room and demanding to know where the drinks are.
– Charles Arthur on the Word 2007 converter. Which goes for all sorts of institutions and people. If someone is prepared to explain themselves, gives us an alternative, recognises our autonomy, then we incline to trust them simply because they have shown they understand that there is trust involved.
The problem is, they will outlaw almost everything while enforcing very little. Imprisonment by stealth. People will not know they are encircled until it is too late – like putting in all these very deep, robust fence-posts with no fence panels. All seems open. One day you will wake up and the panels are in, you are trapped and they can decide what law they wish to impose to nail whomsoever they desire.
– Regular commenter TimC in this thread.
Following the brilliant ‘straw man’ quote below, I thought I would list a few regular straw man arguments that I come across in the comment threads of this blog as well as in the wider media/public world where the ideas of liberty, defence policy or the free market are mentioned:
Free marketeers do not believe in law and rules of any kind
This is often posited as a fact, when in fact law and liberty are necessary for each other. Without laws defining property rights, for example, much peaceful intercourse is impossible.
If you are against the invasion of Iraq, you are a peacenik
This boils down to a form of argument by intimidation. Even though many opponents of the operation to overthrow Saddam are stupid, evil or possibly both, quite a lot were against it for prudential reasons.
If you are in favour of the invasion of Iraq, you must be a warmongering lunatic
Many people from all parts of the political spectrum thought overthrowing Saddam, who was a bloodthirsty tyrant, invader of neighbouring nations, sponsor of terror, user of WMDs, was a humanitarian and necessary act.
If you are a skeptic about global warming and other alleged environmental terrors, you care nothing for future generations and might also be in the pay of Big Oil
This is not a start of an argument, but an attempt to shout debate down. It betrays the fact that Greenery is becoming a religion with its own notions of heresy. If anyone plays this gambit, refuse to take it up.
Libertarians believe in the idea that humans are born with a mental “blank slate” and hence pay no heed to inherited characteristics of any kind
I often see this argument made by bigots as well as more benign folk. In fact it is possible to believe that many human characteristics are inherited but also changeable. And just because we are influenced by genes, it does not mean were are driven in a deterministic way. Free will still exists. The more knowledge we have about human nature etc, the more power it gives individuals, not less.
For capitalism to work successfully, everybody has to be obsessed with making money all the time
All that is necessary is that human economic interaction is based on voluntary exchange, not force. How much people want to get rich or not is irrelevant.
Libertarians are uninterested in preserving certain old traditions and cultures
In fact, a free society is often much more able to preserve certain traditions, not less so.
Libertarians tend to be loners and discount the importance of community life
This is rubbish: liberals value communities so long as membership is voluntary and further, co-operation is a consequence of liberty, not its opposite. An individualist can enjoy group activities as much as anyone, such as being part of an organisation, club, football team, whatever. The key is that such membership is freely chosen.
I am sure that other commenters can think of a few more…
I was on BBC Radio Five Live this morning to voice some opposition to the IPPR, a populist authoritarian think-tank who are arguing companies selling flights, holidays and cars must be compelled by law to propagandise on behalf of the environmental movement.
Adverts for flights, holidays and cars should carry tobacco-style health warnings about climate change, a think tank has said […] Simon Retallack, the IPPR’s head of climate change, said the evidence of aviation’s negative environmental impact was “just as clear as the evidence that smoking kills”. […] “We know that smokers notice health warnings on cigarettes, and we have to tackle our addiction to flying in the same way,” he said
On air I challenged Mr. Retallack that by comparing smoking. something which results in a habit-forming chemical (nicotine) entering a person’s body, to flying, a choice made by a person entirely devoid of habit forming chemicals, he was pathologising people who made decisions he disapproved of.
If you disagree with the orthodoxy of the political class and keep making ‘wrong’ decisions, then you are an ‘addict’… and of course we all know addiction is something that must be ‘treated’. What does that remind you of?
In a sense I have done the same thing myself in the past, suggesting a pathological need to control other people with the threat of violence (i.e. laws) is more or less the defining mental state of members of the political class everywhere in the western world today… which is why IPPR’s constant output of new and innovative ways to control people is often well received by the radical centrist control freaks of both the Labour and ‘Conservative’ parties.
Update: you can hear the brief exchange on ‘Breakfast’ (08:38 am… time is 02:38 into programme)
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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.
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