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 am not exactly a great fan of Richard Curtis’ films – here is a hilarious spoof of the film, Notting Hill – but this looks like a bit of fun to watch. Radio Caroline, the radio station that was based on an old lightship vessel off the Suffolk/Essex coast in the 1960s, embodied that glorious, British two-fingered gesture at overweening authority that, when allied to a bit of entrepreneurial dash, often explains the rise of many a business sector. It is hard to believe that in a world where radio was dominated by the BBC, that listeners to rock and pop music of the time had to resort to listening to stuff broadcast by a bunch of sea-sick DJs on a boat. Radio Caroline, alas, closed in 1967 when the BBC unveiled what was to become its Radio 1 station. On the television last night, the-then government minister who presided over the old monopoly, the “national treasure”, Tony Benn, claimed that shutting the station was necessary since the buccaneering RC station was “messy”. It is an example of the Soviet mindset that lurks beneath the infantile grin of that old man.
There are obvious parallels with the current assault on the citadels of the MSM by Internet-based writers and broadcasters. As Patri Friedman, grandson of the great Milton Friedman, prepares to head out East to tell us all about seasteading, the story of how a group of DJs briefly enlivened the airwaves via the North Sea is very timely.
Meanwhile, on the whole subject of radio and the rebellion against state-backed monopolists like the BBC, here is a good American perspective from Reason magazine’s Jesse Walker. Recommended.
I would not recommend spending major chunks of one’s only life helping to clean up the intellectual mess inflicted by post-modernism, but occasionally keeping tabs on the mess, and on those heroic souls who are part of this noble cleansing project, can be fun. In this spirit, I recommend this.
To start with I was merely going to do a(n) SQOTD, but the list of bits I found I wanted to recycle here from this conversation soon outgrew that plan.
Bit one, from David Thompson, in connection with a response to a posting he did about art bollocks (Thompson’s italics are here emboldened):
One postmodernist commenter took exception to my criticism – first by accusing me of arguing things I clearly wasn’t arguing, then by saying I was holding “entrenched positions” in which “aesthetic values” (in scare quotes), “scientific reality/clarity” (again, in scare quotes) and my own “reliance on logical consistency” (ditto) were obstacles to comprehension. Specifically, they were obstacles to comprehending Shvarts’ alleged (but oddly unspecified) “arguments of power, control [and] dominance.” The tone was, of course, condescending and self-satisfied. I’m guessing the commenter in question didn’t pause to consider the possibility that one might find pomo bafflegab objectionable precisely because it represents the “power, control [and] dominance” of what amounts to a priestly caste.
Bit two, also from Thompson (the Windschuttle essay he refers to is here):
In the essay linked above, Keith Windschuttle names various academics and educational advisors who claim that truth and reality are “authoritarian weapons” and that disinterested scholarship is merely “an ideological position” favoured by “traditionalists and the political right.” This presents a rather handy excuse to dismiss political dissent without having to engage with inconvenient arguments. Presumably, if you prefer arguments that are comprehensible and open to scrutiny, this signals some reactionary tendency and deep moral failing. On the other hand, if you sneer at such bourgeois trifles, you’re radical, clever and very, very sexy. (Though I wonder what mathematicians and structural engineers would make of this claim. Is there such a thing as a rightwing calculation, or a rightwing bridge – I mean a bridge that’s rightwing because it doesn’t promptly collapse?)
This reminds me of a very funny bit in this book where John O’Farrell (his subtitle is: “Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter, 1979-1997” – here’s hoping you ain’t seen nothing yet mate), recalled that certain leftwing university radicals of his acquaintance used to regard smiling as rightwing.
Since Stephen Hicks is the grandee being interviewed here, let Hicks have bit three:
The function of language is to express one’s thoughts. If you think truth is possible, then you work hard to understand the world clearly and completely. But if you doubt that truth is possible, that has psycho-epistemological consequences: you come to believe that the world is at best fuzzy and your mind incapable of grasping it – you come to believe deep down that all is fractured and disjointed – and your writing will tend to the fuzzy, the fractured, and the disjointed. And in consequence you will come to be suspicious of clarity in others. Clarity, from this perspective, must be an over-simplifying.
It’s tempting to dismiss postmodernism as being such obvious and such obviously self-destructive intellectual junk as not to be worth bothering with. Just hold your nose and walk on by, don’t complain about it, it only encourages them, etc. But postmodernism has had, and continues to have, a hideously destructive effect on the study of the humanities in universities (somewhat less so on anything with pretensions towards being in any way scientific), and it will only go away if the next few generations of scholars can be persuaded to treat it with the contempt that it deserves. So keep it up, Hicks, and thank you, Thompson, for talking with him so interestingly.
David Cameron, Tory leader, appears determined that it will not be just the current government that comes out with serious errors on policy. This refusal to not state that a new, higher tax band of 45 per cent “on the rich” will be repealed is a serious error. The error is to ignore the history of what happens when marginal tax rates are cut – these cuts lead to more, not less, revenue. Now of course, as small-government folk, we support tax cuts because we want taxes to fall, and not because we want higher revenues. But if it is revenues you are worried about, then raising taxes is dumb.
The UK and many other economies are falling down the wrong side of the Laffer Curve. It is profoundly depressing that the lessons I thought had been learned have been so totally lost. It makes me wonder whether any senior politician has a clue about economics whatever. On an earlier Samizdata discussion thread following on from my post about the Kevin Dowd lecture, was a long and very involved debate about the issue of fractional reserve banking, for example. You commenters are a smart bunch and I say, without false modesty, that we rate consistently above many other UK blogs in that respect. I wonder whether there is now a single major politician who has a clue about FRB, the arguments for or against, etc. Seriously, does anyone in the major parties understand even the most basic concepts of economics?
Maybe the most gloomy answer is that some do understand but are too frightened or cynical to do anything about it.
Maybe someone should put this on Mr Cameron’s summer reading list.
Jacqui Smith on “The Politics Show” turned in another performance in evasion and Newspeak that I was unsure what she actually said. Not as bad as Simon Sion about the Further Education Councils but a mirror of distortion nonetheless. She is being interviewed prior to the publication of the government’s updated counter-terrorist strategy. Part of this agitprop approach allows Gordon Brown to write his hyperbole in The Observer, claiming credit for the success of others.
Part of the problem on counter-terrorism strategy is assessing its context, its capabilities and its outcomes. If you read Brown’s article, his assessment of the threat from Al-Qaida is straightforward: who would disagree that they are our primary threat. Zero in on his statements and we become more sceptical of the claims and the results.
They are motivated by a violent extremist ideology based on a false reading of religion and exploit modern travel and communications to spread through loose and dangerous global networks.
They are an ideology; they are a religion: their beliefs are more widely shared than Brown states, especially amongst the British Muslim population. Jacqui Smith identified the rise of extremism as a root problem but was unwilling to define an extremist. First, know your enemy. When we read Brown state that our defence is the duty of every individual, we heartily agree. In practice, this is piety shrouding inaction:
And there is a duty on all of us – government, parliament, and civic society – to stand up to people who advocate violence and preach hate, to challenge their narrow and intolerant ideology – in public meetings, in universities, in schools and online.
But accept that our arbitrary laws on hate speech may leave you open to arrest and detention. Who arrested the Islamic extremists in Luton? This doublespeak permeates the entire article with faint aroma of Brownie beans: expenditure, exaggerated claims and comparisons, and the image of Britain as a world-beater. When was Brown ever misperceived as humble?
I believe that this updated strategy, recognised by our allies to be world-leading in its wide-ranging nature, leaves us better prepared and strengthened in our ability to ensure all peace-loving people of this country can live normally, with confidence and free from fear.
In the world of Jacquistan, the words on the page protect us; in reality, their attempt to make political capital of this duty leaves me suspecting that policy is subject to increased political meddling and control.
The more we move into the world of Jacquistan, the more I fear another attack.
People used to hand me the hymnbook and insist on finding me the place.
– Rt Hon David Blunkett PC MP, on Radio 4’s Sunday programme today, recalls being at church in Sheffield as a blind boy… and provides a perfect metaphor for his party’s philosophy of government.
He went on to explain that he would play along with the pointless drama – pretending to sing from the book. Compliance is not approval; nor is it evidence that the ‘enabling’ state is doing good.
This sounds horribly familiar:
Obama has never run anything other than his presidential campaign. He doesn’t know the difference between governing and campaigning and he’s sticking with what he knows.
Which sounds exactly like Britain’s Labour government from 1997 until now. The difference being that in 1997 the British economy was in fairly good shape, which meant that the then British government had a decade during which to learn how to govern. It never did, but it might have. Now the world economy is in a terrible state, and Obama has no time at all.
Does the USA as a whole already have a bad feeling about Obama? Or is it just the people in the USA who detest him already, telling each other that they have a bad feeling about him? From over here, it’s a bit hard to tell.
There is no stated national consensus that as a country we should substantially reduce overall masturbation, but such a reduction would benefit the health of many who wank – and those affected by passive wanking- the concept I invented a few sentences ago and am now treating as a genuine problem.
In 2006, 180,000 people died from pornographic-related causes. Wanking has a major impact on individual wanker’s health: it causes cancers of the liver, bowel, breast, throat, mouth, larynx and oesophagus; it causes blindness, hairy palms, a pale pallor and insanity …
Some point to the potential benefits of self-pleasuring, but these tend to be greatly overstated.
Despite its known harms, one-quarter of the adult population – about 10 million people – now wank above the recommended low-risk levels. I made this figure up but as the Chief Medical Officer I can cite myself because I am in a position of authority.
Here is a graph to illustrate how many people are killed by masturbation. It actually represents something completely different, possibly cat food sales, but I’m guessing that most of you are actually too stupid to actually look at the graph in any detail …
– some Unenlightened Commentary sadly not actually supplied by Sir Liam Donaldson (with thanks to Obnoxio the Clown)
…and Carla Howell has just the song to put you in the mood!
The Cato Institute has the report.
Now that leftists at Harvard want to portray laissez-faire philosophy as being somewhat akin to a mental disorder, maybe the next step will be re-education camps for Cato staff? Maybe the next “stimulus” bill could include a few earmarks for such facilities? I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I get sent some place warm.
South Park could not even come up with these characters.
This is pure genius.
I must say that things are going sour for The Community Organiser quicker than you can say the words “Andrew Sullivan”.
“‘Cant’ is a four-leter word we don’t use much now. Most people of my generation have never heard of it, never alone use it in conversation…to apply it to someone is to accuse them of sloppy thinking, if you are being kind, or, at the very worst, of a total lack of sincerity.”
Ben Wilson.
Of course, when it comes to sincerity, one should remember as Milton Friedman once put it, that sincerity is a much overpraised virtue. People can sincerely believe in all manner of utter rubbish, while others insincerely pay tribute to things that are right and true. Oh, the crooked timber of humanity.
I know how the Duke of Wellington (attrib.) felt. The problem for a rational civil liberties campaigner is often not that you do not know who your friends are, but that you do – and that you worry whether, given what they actually think, they will be let out for the day and not talking to buttercups when you need their help.
Here is a breathtaking non-sequitur in the comments of the Guardian Comment is Free:
I think ID cards would be fine … but I think they should be introduced after the constitutional reform that guarantees safeguards, PR and no monarchy.
The comment is however appended to a piece of splendid news. The entirely sane Mark Thomas has managed to persuade the Metropolitan police to delete him from the National DNA Database.
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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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