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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During a very pleasant week in the island of Malta, I took a fair old mix of books to read while catching some rays on the beach. Among the books I had been meaning, out of curiousity. to read was Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. (A sort of upmarket version of Confessions of a Bored French Housewife). I read the novel in about three days and I can say that the book is one of the most overated pieces of crud it has been my misfortune to read for a long time. I have read a fair amount of famous French literature in my time (I love Dumas and Hugo) but this was poor.
I can see why the book appeals to a certain kind of reader. While it tilts at the vital issue of women’s liberation and the dangers of destructive relationships, it is in fact also deeply cynical and negative. It maintains a sustained sneer at a whole way of being for about 290 pages. While obsessed about the “hypocrisy” of 19th Century social mores, it utterly fails to suggest how a more “honest” value system would work. (Never mind the old adage that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue).
At times there is almost Woody Allenish message jumping from the page: “Life sucks and then you die”. It is also hugely conceited and snobbish about ordinary, middle class people. (Flaubert prided himself on not performing any productive work in his life). It set the precedent for a whole range of books and plays mocking the middle class and supposed stuffy convention. However, unlike the wonderful short stories of Saki or the plays of Osar Wilde, Flaubert is rarely funny.
Why worry now about a book by a diseased Frenchman penned 150 years ago? Well, as this fine short article by Anthony Daniels makes clear, we have been paying the price for sneering at the bourgois value system almost as soon as the word “bourgois” became part of our verbal lexicon. The greatest victims, invariably, are the poor and ill educated.
Serial commenter Verity wants to share her thoughts regarding why she has also done what Samizdatista Alice Bachini did (well, sort of)
I’ve legged it. ‘opped it.
There was no defining moment. No shock of recognition. No clap of thunder.
There was nothing, really. I had regarded Europe and Britain with lazy distaste for so long it had become woven into the woof and warp of my daily thoughts, barely surfacing.
The encroaching communism-lite of the EU, supinely submitted to by the 400m or so people who live there, most of whom have never experienced real democracy… that revulsion was always in the background…
…and the eagerness of the repellent Blair to give away our country, which he does not understand, or even know very much about, to ‘Europe’, an area of the world that sinks deeper into global irrelevance with every silly little ‘summit’ with red carpets and photo ops, every self-involved, fidgety little treaty between themselves that has no relevance to the rest of the world, every encroachment by anonymous apparatchiks into the lives of the citizenries. With their happy blindness to the fact that world has long moved on from regarding Europe as a beacon of intellectual and political sophistication, and the diminishment of the continent’s economic influence on international events, the EU has begun to take on the comedic, self-involved air of a light operetta.
At home, Blair is chasing indigenes out of the country at a rate of knots. People fear for their lives in the most lawless country in the advanced world. The overweening ego that oversaw the dissolution of the civil society, outlawed self-defence and nurtured a sense of grievance among the criminal classes, promoted thought fascism and other forms of bullying of the electorate, impudently routinely over-stepped his remit as PM, created ever more taxpayer-funded slots for the lumpen nomenklatura, awarded special privileges to selected segments of the public – not because they had earned them by making a contribution, but because their inexplicable privileges threw the people whose families have lived on this turf, and formed its civil society, for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, off their stride.
Who dared say him nay? No one. OK. Peter Hitchens has been a brave voice. And a few others. But by and large, the Brits don’t seem to mind. They get tax credits for the large wodge of their income taken from them by the state, some of which is returned to them as supplicants. Don’t worry. Be happy. → Continue reading: Verity doesn’t live here any more
Natalie’s post below, referencing ‘new age travellers’ reminded me of something I saw on TV the other night: One of the reality TV programmes littering the Channel 4 schedule is Wife Swap. This features two families of contrasting lifestyles swapping wives for a couple of weeks. This week saw unabashed ‘consumerist’ Joanna exchange with soi-disant ‘eco-warrior’, Emily.
The violent disagreements frequently showcased in this series were notable by their absence but a source of intense irritation for me was the smug way that Emily’s family presumed to lecture Joanna’s family about the ‘unsustainability’ of their ‘consumerist’ lifestyle. This was to be set in contrast to the supposedly sustainable, humble way of life enjoyed by the environmentally friendly family. Yet it seemed clear to me that it was the lifestyle of the latter which was truly unsustainable. After all, this particular eco-family, eke out an idyllic idle existence in their forest house… courtesy of state benefits!
If all of us capitalists downed our tools to live in the woods and embrace the eco-lifestyle there would be nobody paying the taxes which fund these ‘alternative’ lifestyles, nor indeed would there be an economy to provide all those things you can’t just grow. Whatever chance a self-supporting eco-warrior has of convincing me of the superiority of that lifestyle, when one attempts to do so from a position of state-funded idleness, the proper reaction is derision.
The principal reason this is worth noting is that guilty consumerists prove notoriously receptive to the kind of nonsense peddled by the likes of Emily, probably imagine that the greater virtue lies in the faux-sustainable lifestyle and provide insufficient defense of the capitalism which actually ‘sustains’ all of us.
I think I may have stumbled upon (or possibly even coined) a counter-cultural smear word for deployment by the good guys against the bad.
I was having lunch with a business associate today and, at some point, conversation turned to discussion of a mutual acquaintance. While groping for the right words to describe this persons character, the word “liberophobe” just seemed to pop out of my mouth.
Liberophobia – an irrational fear of freedom.
I do not not know whether this word popped out of my brain prior to popping out of mouth or whether is was lying subliminally in wait as a result of my having heard the word elsewhere. In any event, I am far more concerned about spreading this meme than I am about claiming any moral rights to the term.
‘Liberophobic’. I like it and I recommend that it be put to good use by whoever feels so inclined.
We at Samizdata are always happy to awe. When the occasion merits we also do our best to agitate, derange and discommode.
Basically the only tenable defence against our collective awesomenosity is to flatter our socks off. What a very sweet thing to say, Mr Goldberg, and me likey you fine.
When told once too often that President Reagan was ‘just rhetoric’ (“he did not reduce governement spending, either in California or with the Federal government, he did not get rid of X regulation, he did not…”) the late M.A. Bradford replied “You will miss that rhetoric when he is gone”.
Ronald Reagan has gone, and I do miss the rhetoric – and I miss him.
Sean Gabb, who has been involved in libertarian circles for many years, will be well known to many readers of this blog. His personal website and his Free Life Commentary are always a cracking good read, even if one disagrees with some of what he says. Sean has never allowed his fierce passions thus far to break elementary good manners, as far as I can tell, until now.
Mr Gabb opposes the Coalition powers’ overthrow of Saddam and his regime, which he deemed as essentially harmless to Britain and the West, and considers the venture of seeking to transform that injured nation into some form of pluralist, liberal haven to be an act of folly. The plight of the people living in Iraq under Saddam, while obviously awful, was not deemed by Sean to be reason for overthrowing Saddam’s vile rule. Fair enough. A lot of people whom I hold in esteem share that view – mistaken though I think such ‘realists’ to be. But by now the arguments on both sides are well known and I will not go into them again.
What I really dislike about so much anti-war commentary to date has been in many cases its pompous anti-Americanism, a sort of drawn-out sneer. The likes of Times journalist Matthew Parris and Sir Max Hastings are particularly egregious sinners in this respect. Well, in his latest commentary, Mr Gabb comes out with a paragraph of breathtaking rudeness at the expense of Americans and their country, of the sort that might possibly give even those gentlemen a moments pause:
It is, I admit, inappropriate to ascribe one state of mind to a nation of more than 250 million people. But Americans remind me increasingly of someone from the lower classes who has come into money, and now is sat in the Ritz Hotel, terrified the other diners are laughing at him every time he looks down at his knives and forks. I suppose it is because so many of them are drawn from second and even third rate nationalities. The Americans of English and Scotch extraction took their values and their laws across the Atlantic and spread out over half an immense continent, creating a great nation as they went. They were then joined by millions of paupers from elsewhere who learnt a version of the English language and a few facts about their new country, but who never withheld from their offspring any sense of their own inferiority. The result is a combination of overwhelming power and the moral insight of a tree frog.
The reference to ‘paupers’ who ‘never withheld from their offspring any sense of their own inferiority’ is particularly vile. Some of the people who have made their home in the relative freedom and prosperity of America did so by successfully fleeing despotisms similar to Iraq.
I have known Sean for such a long time and enjoyed talking to him down the years that it would seem churlish to get too outraged at something like this. But it would be dishonest of me not to record my disgust at what was a particularly oafish piece of writing, all the less forgiveable for coming from one of the finest writers I know.
Some people do not like having their photos taken by strange strangers… but some love it! These two for example, having a day out in London by the look of it, thoroughly enjoying it, enjoying London and enjoying themselves, and in a state of… mutual support. I took photo number one.
And they said: Oooh! Are you doing us?! Do another one!! So I did.
… and captured another of those characteristic Photography Moments. In the background: the objects of my attention, while in the foreground another Londoner hurries past. Like most people in London he has a purpose. He is going somewhere. He is in too much of a hurry to actually stop, but he is as polite as he can be without seriously interrupting his business and he does not want to get in the way of my business if he can avoid this, so he ducks as he passes. And for once, I get it all: him hurrying and out of focus, and the ladies in focus behind him.
But, one more, eh ladies? And that one comes out okay too. Sometimes everything clicks. Three out of three. This is not my usual hit rate, I can tell you.
These photos are even more entertaining if you look more closely at the label on the red bag:
All hail to the marginal cost (zero – near enough) of digital photography.
The Guardian, dubbed The Grauniad for its typos, seems to be in a world of its own. Its articles are full of polytoines. The Britain it describes seems not to have anything to do with the one here on Earth, but on some distant land – the Planet Guardianopolis perhaps. The paper’s spin rarely gets corrected but, in the face of undisputable facts, corrections and clarifications do get published. Here is one example:
In our report, Life after Living Marxism, page 10, July 8, we referred to the Reason Foundation and said its “leading writer, the syndicated columnist Sandra Postrel, is author of the libertarian book The Enemies Of Freedom and frequently talks at the Hudson Institute”. The Reason Foundation points out that no one of that name works at the Foundation or for Reason Magazine. The editor-at-large and former editor of the magazine is called Virginia Postrel. She is a columnist for Forbes and the New York Times but not a “syndicated” columnist. Her book is not called The Enemies Of Freedom. It is called The Future And Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise and Progress (Free Press). The Reason Foundation says Ms Postrel has never been to the Hudson Institute and has no connection with the organisation.
Good work, chaps.
It was said that El Sado’s (or whatever the man’s name is) newspaper in Iraq was closed down because it was “inciting violence”. I think that is true – I do not have to read the newspaper to guess what sort of things it was printing “mutilate, kill, feed what is left to the dogs” (and so on) or therefore understand why it was closed down. However, hearing of this did make me think of the following.
One does not have to be a libertarian to think the government of the United States has treated the Constitution of the United States as a bit of toilet paper for at least the last 71 years. And, of course, President Bush far from fulfilling his Oath of Office to “Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States” has added new unconstitutional programs (the ‘no child left behind’ thing, the extension of Medicare, and so) in addition to all the existing unconstitutional programmes.
Whilst I am not drawing a direct analogue to what is going on in Iraq (for obvious reasons), I wonder what the Founding Fathers would be writing if they were around today – I think they might well be inciting violence (although, I accept, they would not be writing about mutilating or feeding to dogs).
Please no comments about how “time changes how a text should be interpreted” or “the Supreme Court says X is O.K., so X must be O.K.”
The Constitution of the United States is not some strange mystical text written in an ancient language – any person of average intelligence (who bothers to read it) would know that most of what the United States government now does is unconstitutional.
Over the last couple of days in days I have in the North West of England. Or rather two bits of it – Bolton and Manchester.
Bolton did not seem to be the hell-on-Earth that it is normally presented as. The people did not seem very poor (although the local ‘everything for a pound’ shop was crowded) and the local Muslim (mostly brown) folk did not seem to be about to fight to the death with the local non Muslim (mostly pinkish-gray “white”) folk.
The town seemed fairly clean and the town hall, art gallery and museum were quite nice.
One thing that sticks in my mind was a church in Bolton (St George’s I think) that has been turned into some shops. As an Anglican (one of the few left) and a cultural conservative I should have been offended by this – but I was not. It “worked” – seeing the pulpit and stained glass windows (and so on) all still there, next to stores selling various nice things was actually quite nice (perhaps the decline of the Church of England can, in part, be blamed on too many Anglicans being like me).
As for Manchester.
Well first a word of explanation. Manchester in Britain is not famous for the old “Manchester School” of Free Trade (as it is overseas), although one can still find statues of Cobden and Bright and even the Conservative Peel who repealed the Corn Laws (there is also a statue of the Duke of Wellington – but that is another matter).
However, the Manchester of free markets is long gone (even the Free Trade Hall is now gone). Since the late 19th century Manchester has become famous for “social reform” (statism) – the same passion to help the poor and weak, but seeing the state (or “the community” in a sense that includes the public authority) rather than voluntarism as the way to do it. → Continue reading: Trip to the North West of England
A mercifully uneventful journey for me on the London Underground this morning. Nonetheless, I reached my destination feeling ever-so-slightly disturbed.
No, I did not see anyone holding a Koran and muttering incantations while trying to wire two batteries together. Worse still, what I noticed was quite a few teenagers (who boarded and alighted separately so unlikley to be a group) dressed entirely in full-on, recreation 60’s hippy gear. Yes, I do mean the Indian scarfs, the bell-bottom jeans, flowers-in-hair, tie-dye T-shirts and white lipstick. And the girls were dressed exactly the same.
I was shocked, I tell you, shocked. Is this the latest trend? Is this what is ‘hot and happening’ among the ‘yoof’? Has anybody else observed this elsewhere? In America? Europe? Australia? Israel? Japan? Anywhere? Or is just the UK? Or perhaps just London?
I assure you this was not a mirage. These youngsters were genuine retro-hippies but what I want to know is whether this is the burgeoning new fashion or merely some isolated cases of severe mental disturbance that happened, by pure coincidence, to be travelling on the same train as me?
If it is a case of the former then I have a message for any impressionable teenagers who might be reading this and feeling the temptation to abandon themselves to a re-heated Age of Aquarius: for chrissakes, get a grip!!
I realise that you are too young to have been psychologically scarred by the 60’s first time round but, for heaven’s sake, do you realise just how nauseatingly sanctimonious all this flower-power mummery can be? What the world needs now is not love, sweet love but a swift and well-aimed kick up the jacksy. The last thing we need is for heaps of you to start mooning around looking for your Shakra. Or growing organic lentils on a commune in Wales.
So just stop it. Now
Of course, today’s teenagers can hardly be blamed for the cultural stony-desert in which we presently dwell but since they are forced to go trawling through the archives of late 20th Century youth sub-cultures for inspiration then I sincerely hope that they have the good sense and common decency to revive the snarling, anarchic (and far better dressed) age of Punk Rock.
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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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