Languish.org

QuoteLast hope for the left
DAVID GOODHART   19th March 2012  —  Issue 193 
The liberal, secular world view may hold sway over western elites, but it is struggling to answer the conservative challenge

The Righteous Mind
by Jonathan Haidt (Allen Lane, £20)

Together
by Richard Sennett (Allen Lane, £25)


A few years ago I was at a 60th birthday party for a well-known Labour MP. Many of the leading thinkers of the British centre-left were there and at one point the conversation turned to the infamous Gordon Brown slogan "British jobs for British workers," from a speech he had given a few days before at the Labour conference.

The people around me entered a bidding war to express their outrage at Brown's slogan which was finally triumphantly closed by one who declared, to general approval, that it was "racism, pure and simple."

I remember thinking afterwards how odd the conversation would have sounded to most other people in this country. Gordon Brown's phrase may have been clumsy and cynical but he didn't actually say British jobs for white British workers.

In most other places in the world today, and indeed probably in Britain itself until about 25 years ago, such a statement about a job preference for national citizens would have seemed so banal as to be hardly worth uttering. Now the language of liberal universalism has ruled it beyond the pale.

My fellow partygoers were all too representative of a part of liberal, educated Britain. Shami Chakrabarti, of the human rights group Liberty, has argued: "In the modern world of transnational and multinational power we must decide if we are all 'people' or all 'foreigners' now."

Oliver Kamm, the centrist commentator, said to me recently that it was morally wrong to discriminate on grounds of nationality, ruling out the "fellow citizen favouritism" that most people think that the modern nation state is based on.

And according to George Monbiot, a leading figure of the liberal left, "Internationalism... tells us that someone living in Kinshasa is of no less worth than someone living in Kensington... Patriotism, if it means anything, tells us we should favour the interests of British people [before the Congolese]. How do you reconcile this choice with liberalism? How... do you distinguish it from racism?"

It is not only people on the left who think like this. On a recent BBC Radio 4 Moral Maze programme about development aid, the former Tory cabinet minister and born-again liberal Michael Portillo had this to say: "It is quite old fashioned to think about national borders, and rather nationalistic to say we must help people who are only moderately poor because they happen to be in the UK rather than helping people who are desperately poor because they happen to be a long way away."

All of the above are, in the formulation of a group of North American cultural psychologists, WEIRD—they are from a sub-culture that is Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic. They are, as we have seen, universalists, suspicious of strong national loyalties. They also tend to be individualists committed to autonomy and self-realisation. Balancing that they are usually deeply concerned with social justice and unfairness and also suspicious of appeals to religion or to human nature to justify any departure from equal treatment—differences between men and women, for example, are regarded as cultural not biological.

This is what one might call the secular liberal baby boomer worldview and it is in many ways an attractive and coherent one. It is also for historical reasons, to do with empire, unusually ingrained in the British cultural and political elite, the default position in much of the education system (especially higher education) and the public services more generally, plus significant parts of the media.

The Daily Mail is dedicated to a Kulturkampf against it precisely because it is so powerful. In the neat slogan about British politics since about 1975, "the right won the economic argument, the left won the cultural argument." But is the left now losing the cultural argument too? Or, to put it another way, is the WEIRD elite coming up against some of the boundaries of everyday morality?

Most traditional societies are "sociocentric," meaning they place the needs of groups and institutions first. Today most rich societies are "individualistic," making society a servant of the individual. Yet even in these countries significant traces of our more sociocentric and "groupist" past are to be found in peoples' instincts and moral intuitions. This has been the message of countless works of popular science since the renewed interest in Darwin (including from the late conservative social scientist James Q Wilson). Humans are not "blank slates" and only partially respond to a WEIRD worldview, we are still also group-based primates and our moral psychology has been shaped by deep evolutionary forces.

And the problem for liberals is that conservatives understand this better than they do. As one conservative friend put it, "it has taken modern science to remind liberals what our grandparents knew." Ed Miliband's difficulty is not so much that he is weird but that he is WEIRD. Yet help is at hand in the shape of a truly seminal book—out of that remarkable Amerian popular-science-meets-political-speculation stable—called The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt.

Like Steven Pinker, Haidt is a liberal who wants his political tribe to understand humans better. His main insight is simple but powerful: liberals understand only two main moral dimensions, whereas conservatives understand all five. (Over the course of the book he decides to add a sixth, liberty/oppression, but for simplicity's sake I am sticking to his original five.)

Liberals care about harm and suffering (appealing to our capacities for sympathy and nurturing) and fairness and injustice. All human cultures care about these two things but they also care about three other things: loyalty to the in-group, authority and the sacred.

As Haidt puts it: "It's as though conservatives can hear five octaves of music, but liberals respond to just two, within which they have become particularly discerning." This does not mean that liberals are necessarily wrong but it does mean that they have more trouble understanding conservatives than vice versa.

The sacred is especially difficult for liberals to understand. This isn't necessarily about religion but about the idea that humans have a nobler, more spiritual side and that life has a higher purpose than pleasure or profit. If your only moral concepts are suffering and injustice then it is hard to understand reservations about everything from swearing in public to gay marriage—after all, who is harmed?

Haidt and his colleagues have not just plucked these moral senses from the air. He explains the evolutionary roots of the different senses from a close reading of the literature but has also then tested them in internet surveys and face to face interviews in many different places around the world.

Morality "binds and blinds," which is why it has made it possible for human beings, alone in the animal kingdom, to produce large co-operative groups, tribes and nations beyond the glue of kinship. Haidt's central metaphor is that we are 90 per cent chimp and 10 per cent bee—we are driven by the "selfish gene" but, under special circumstances, we also have the ability to become like cells in a larger body, or like bees in a hive, working for the good of the group. These experiences are often among the most cherished of our lives.

One of my most politically liberal friends read this book and declared his world view to be transformed. Not that he was no longer a liberal but now "he couldn't be so rude about the other side, because I understand where they're coming from." This will be music to Haidt's ears as the book was written partly as an antidote to the more polarised American politics of the past 20 years, marked by the arrival of Bill Clinton and the liberal baby boomers onto the political stage.

The American culture wars began earlier, back in the 1960s, with young liberals angry at the suffering in Vietnam and the injustice still experienced by African-Americans. But when some of them adopted a style that was anti-American, anti-authority and anti-puritanical, conservatives saw their most sacred values desecrated and they counter-attacked.

Some conflicts are unavoidable and Haidt is not suggesting that liberals should stop being liberal—rather, that they will be more successful if instead of telling conservatives that their moral intuitions are wrong, they seek to shift them in a liberal direction by accommodating, as far as possible, their anxieties.

For example, if you want to improve integration and racial justice in a mixed area, you do not just preach the importance of tolerance but you promote a common in-group identity. As Haidt puts it: "You can make people care less about race by drowning race differences in a sea of similarities, shared goals and mutual interdependencies."

If America's culture wars are past their bloodiest, Europe's may be just beginning as left versus right continues to lose its old salience (even in the face of a crisis of capitalism). Consider the switch in attitudes in once-liberal Holland, the fall-off in support for welfare in Britain (see the March issue of Prospect) and the continuing blue collar drift away from most of Europe's WEIRD-led centre-left parties.

The thinking behind The Righteous Mind may be the last hope for European liberalism. Indeed this book should be the scientific manual for the movement that I have called post-liberalism (see Prospect October 2011)—those from centre-left and centre-right, including Blue Labour and Red Toryism, who argue that both economic and cultural liberalisms have "overshot" in the past generation to the particular detriment of the bottom half of society.

Post-liberalism, like the promised land of a post-racial politics, does not seek to refight old battles but to move on from victories won. Its concern is not to repeal equality laws, or reject the market economy, but rather to consider where the social glue comes from in a fragmented society. To that end, it acknowledges authority and the sacred as well as suffering and injustice. It recognises the virtues of particular loyalties—including nations—rather than viewing them as prejudices. And it seeks to apply these ideas to the economic as well as the social sphere.

Much of this goes against the grain of an increasingly WEIRD and legalistic politics in Britain. The problem for the left has not so much been "rights without responsibilities" as rights without the relationships that help sustain them. If we are to be entangled in one another's lives, for example as funders or recipients of social security, it helps to identify ourselves as part of a group. Meanwhile the right remains attached to its own form of abstract universalism, more concerned with the procedures of the market than what kind of society they have helped create. Some of the notions of loyalty, civility and respect that conservatives are so comfortable with in politics need to be reintroduced into the economic sphere.

Richard Sennett would agree with that. He is another liberal American thinker with a big book out on human co-operation. But he writes in the English manner: essayistic and oblique and vastly more elegant than Haidt's sometimes repetitive lecture-room style. Yet after Haidt's thrilling adventure in ideas, Sennett seems to have little new to say.

He circles the subject tentatively—there is a nice subplot on the joys of diffidence—approaching it through music, science, history and so on. But to say that co-operation is a skill and that we should try to become good listeners does not get us very far, indeed it hardly begins to fulfil the dust-jacket claim that he will teach us how to live together in morally diverse societies.

What does Sennett have to say to the elderly white residents of the Pollards Hill Estate in Merton in southwest London, where I visited the other day, many of whom feel discomforted by the big inflow of west Africans who now make up more than a third of the estate? Recommending that they listen more skilfully might get a dusty response.

Sennett is one of the great essayists of the social sciences and this book enjoyably rehearses many of his favourite themes, but coming after his work on craftsmanship and before a book on cities, it feels like the least grounded book in his trilogy on work. He is, by his own description, an old-fashioned man of the left but through his work on class and the world of work someone who is also, perhaps, a link to a Blue Labour/Red Tory concern with the losers in the meritocratic race.

So, is the future post-liberal? The WEIRD liberalism of the baby boomer generation was perhaps condemned to a dogmatic universalism as a result of emerging in the shadow of two world wars, the Holocaust and the anti-colonial and civil rights struggles. There was a lot to react against and it is perhaps understandable that in eagerly embracing the moral equality of all humans, some boomers slipped into a carelessness towards national borders and identities and a rigidity towards many forms of equality. The next generation of politics need not make the same mistake.

More by the same author on a similar topic and the Red Tory/Blue Labour thing:
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2011/09/blue-labour-red-tory-next-big-thing/

Agree, partly.  The leftists spoken of in this article are to be despised because, with few exceptions, they are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is (see their response to the invasion of Iraq) and also are unable to recognize that the state must first ensure the security and happiness of its citizens before it can realistically care about the problems of the wider world (unless solving those problems also bolsters the security and happiness of its citizens).

QuoteHow... do you distinguish it from racism?

This same motherfucker will tell you that the Iraq War was wrong.  You can have a liberal crusade that encompasses all people and requires the West to wage bloody war against the entire benighted world, burning populations until they stop beating their wives and killing people that look different, or you can build a paradise that happens to exclude some people who probably wouldn't understand or like it anyway.  CHOOSE ONE.

(Option 1 is more interesting, Option 2 is more realistic.  Option 3, pretending you give a shit about some poor guy in Kinshasa, while alienating and parasitizing off a proletariat who knows your concern is an abhorrent sham, is neither.)

Quotewe are still also group-based primates and our moral psychology has been shaped by deep evolutionary forces.

That's right;  in the end, we're all still flinging pooh.

QuoteThe American culture wars began earlier, back in the 1960s, with young liberals angry at the suffering in Vietnam and the injustice still experienced by African-Americans. But when some of them adopted a style that was anti-American, anti-authority and anti-puritanical, conservatives saw their most sacred values desecrated and they counter-attacked.

Some conflicts are unavoidable and Haidt is not suggesting that liberals should stop being liberal—rather, that they will be more successful if instead of telling conservatives that their moral intuitions are wrong, they seek to shift them in a liberal direction by accommodating, as far as possible, their anxieties.

The problem with modern liberalism is that there isn't enough left-wing violence anymore, especially as a counter to the current theme of right-wing violence.
NEEDS MOR PIPEBOMBS

Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 04, 2012, 12:19:09 AM

Quotewe are still also group-based primates and our moral psychology has been shaped by deep evolutionary forces.

That's right;  in the end, we're all still flinging pooh.

I just wished we were more like the bonobos. :(

So, I understand that the writer of the article is getting older, turning into a conservative from a liberal, seeking justification for that, but what else is there?

Conservatives, when they are the leader and not the blindly following (ie. sheep) kind, do not understand society for a moral entity or something. I think it is the contrary. They have zero respect for society as it is in it's default state. Why else would they seek to steer it via religion, and enforced moral values? They consider the masses a dangerous thing, which must be kept in line via superstitions.

Quote from: Ideologue on April 03, 2012, 11:26:49 PM
Agree, partly.  The leftists spoken of in this article are to be despised because, with few exceptions, they are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is (see their response to the invasion of Iraq) and also are unable to recognize that the state must first ensure the security and happiness of its citizens before it can realistically care about the problems of the wider world (unless solving those problems also bolsters the security and happiness of its citizens).

By global standards, societies like the US have already ensured the highest levels of security and happiness for its people.

I didn't read the whole article but my guess was the dude was a unionite trying to back-door a protectionism argument.

Anyway, I agree with Tamas. The author sounds like he is looking for a reason to stop fighting his own prejudices but feels bad about it so he is trying to come up with some backstory.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 04, 2012, 01:52:12 AM
I didn't read the whole article but my guess was the dude was a unionite trying to back-door a protectionism argument.

Yeah, I'm not sure what his argument really is. He spouts a lot of bland, generic statements that sound "wise" but it's unclear what he is getting at. Only when he would propose specific policies and changes, one can take them and debate them - as it is, it is just mental masturbation of some dude.

Quote from: Tamas on April 04, 2012, 01:40:38 AM
So, I understand that the writer of the article is getting older, turning into a conservative from a liberal, seeking justification for that, but what else is there?

I think it's more to do with the ties that bind.  Liberalism is, in my view, too globalised and too focused on individuals - I think that reflects some social and economic problems.  The left-wing answer often used to include religion and once that was gone the common endeavour of the welfare state ('this party is nothing if not a moral crusade', 'to build a New Jerusalem'...) while the right also had religion, but of a different kind.

That's why the Red Tory and Blue Labour gurus go on about 'faith, family, flag'.  They argue those are things people care about, which is what underpins of a successful market economy with social trust or social welfare system. 

QuoteThey have zero respect for society as it is in it's default state. Why else would they seek to steer it via religion, and enforced moral values? They consider the masses a dangerous thing, which must be kept in line via superstitions.

Well I think they often believe in religion, it's not pure cynicism.  But you're right that conservatives don't respect society in its 'default state'.  That's a 'war of all against all'.  The conservative view is that society has developed methods of regulating itself so that enable people can live peaceably together - a common-wealth.  Those regulating methods may not be the best designable but they're often the best option because they already exist and because by existing for so long there's already a stock of trust and belief in them that helps reinforce their effect.

QuoteI didn't read the whole article but my guess was the dude was a unionite trying to back-door a protectionism argument.

No.  We don't have protectionists in this country, which is a shame.

Edit: And he's not a union guy either, former FT journo and Blairite think-tanker.

Edit:  I think his stuff on how to talk to conservatives is patronising nonsense though.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 04, 2012, 01:59:21 AM
The left-wing answer often used to include religion and once that was gone the common endeavour of the welfare state ('this party is nothing if not a moral crusade', 'to build a New Jerusalem'...) while the right also had religion, but of a different kind.

I think that's a uniquely British (or perhaps Anglo-Saxon) perspective. I can't think of a single major instance when it was the case on the European continent. You guys have this screwed up sick sentiment for religion as a result. Maybe you should just leave the EU instead?

One thing I give you Sheilbh, and this is something that should have been made very clear much earlier in Europe: being on the left, and being liberal is not the same thing. It shouldn't be the same thing.

Quote from: Martinus on April 04, 2012, 01:43:59 AM

Quote from: Ideologue on April 03, 2012, 11:26:49 PM
Agree, partly.  The leftists spoken of in this article are to be despised because, with few exceptions, they are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is (see their response to the invasion of Iraq) and also are unable to recognize that the state must first ensure the security and happiness of its citizens before it can realistically care about the problems of the wider world (unless solving those problems also bolsters the security and happiness of its citizens).

By global standards, societies like the US have already ensured the highest levels of security and happiness for its people.

Pretty low bar, isn't it?

Quote from: Ideologue on April 04, 2012, 02:49:03 AM

Quote from: Martinus on April 04, 2012, 01:43:59 AM

Quote from: Ideologue on April 03, 2012, 11:26:49 PM
Agree, partly.  The leftists spoken of in this article are to be despised because, with few exceptions, they are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is (see their response to the invasion of Iraq) and also are unable to recognize that the state must first ensure the security and happiness of its citizens before it can realistically care about the problems of the wider world (unless solving those problems also bolsters the security and happiness of its citizens).

By global standards, societies like the US have already ensured the highest levels of security and happiness for its people.

Pretty low bar, isn't it?

Like it or not, the US, Canada, and some of Western Europe are the best places of the world. One of the reasons the "I am the 99%" crowd there is ridicoulous. No, pumpkin, you are not. You are the 1%.

Quote from: Ideologue on April 04, 2012, 02:49:03 AM

Quote from: Martinus on April 04, 2012, 01:43:59 AM

Quote from: Ideologue on April 03, 2012, 11:26:49 PM
Agree, partly.  The leftists spoken of in this article are to be despised because, with few exceptions, they are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is (see their response to the invasion of Iraq) and also are unable to recognize that the state must first ensure the security and happiness of its citizens before it can realistically care about the problems of the wider world (unless solving those problems also bolsters the security and happiness of its citizens).

By global standards, societies like the US have already ensured the highest levels of security and happiness for its people.

Pretty low bar, isn't it?

Well, if you see it that way then your argument is morally bankrupt. It's like me announcing that I will not give my money to charity to save little children from death by starvation until I have my third sports car, because I want to be "happy before I set out to help the world".

It has been said on Languish before, but it is perhaps worth repeating - you are not a leftist. You are simply a populist entitled egoist who wants to have all the bling the succesful people have without having to work for it. That's not being leftist. That's being a spoiled brat.

Quote from: Martinus on April 04, 2012, 03:30:39 AM

Quote from: Ideologue on April 04, 2012, 02:49:03 AM

Quote from: Martinus on April 04, 2012, 01:43:59 AM

Quote from: Ideologue on April 03, 2012, 11:26:49 PM
Agree, partly.  The leftists spoken of in this article are to be despised because, with few exceptions, they are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is (see their response to the invasion of Iraq) and also are unable to recognize that the state must first ensure the security and happiness of its citizens before it can realistically care about the problems of the wider world (unless solving those problems also bolsters the security and happiness of its citizens).

By global standards, societies like the US have already ensured the highest levels of security and happiness for its people.

Pretty low bar, isn't it?

Well, if you see it that way then your argument is morally bankrupt. It's like me announcing that I will not give my money to charity to save little children from death by starvation until I have my third sports car, because I want to be "happy before I set out to help the world".

It has been said on Languish before, but it is perhaps worth repeating - you are not a leftist. You are simply a populist entitled egoist who wants to have all the bling the succesful people have without having to work for it. That's not being leftist. That's being a spoiled brat.

Actually that defines many a leftists.

Quote from: Martinus on April 04, 2012, 02:02:50 AM
I think that's a uniquely British (or perhaps Anglo-Saxon) perspective. I can't think of a single major instance when it was the case on the European continent. You guys have this screwed up sick sentiment for religion as a result.

I don't think the UK's unique in religion having served as a binding force in a European society. 

Where I think it's perhaps odd is that to a large extent the British left emerged out of a combination of trades unions and do gooding often middle class religious groups.  Both generally pre-date the socialist intelligentsia: 'the Labour Party owes more to Methodism than Marxism'.  The other odd feature is that historically the lefty heartlands were often in quite religious areas, but with non-established Churches.  So the right was the CofE and the shires, while the left was the Methodists, the Catholics, the Welsh Churches in Clydeside, the North-West, Wales and parts of the South-West.  But early on the left and religion were not at odds, there's never been a massive anti-clerical movement in this country either among liberals or lefties.

As a total aside I always wonder if that's why the left in this country tends to be a bit more oratorical than the right.  There's, as there is in the US, a heritage of preaching in places like Wales, Scotland and the Methodist South-West that produced Bevan, Kinnock, Hardie, Brown and Foot - tub-thumping preachers.

But the point he's making is basically the one Americans always make about European social systems needing homogeneity to work, which I don't entirely buy.  But I do think they need a sense of togetherness and social cohesion - if there's over-strong individual autonomy then people will generally feel they're hard done by and over-taxed while most others are scroungers.  I think the left's perhaps gone too far in embracing liberalism and that has eroded that sense of the system being about looking after one another.  So people now see it as being about looking after everyone else.

The challenge for the left is to come up with a solution for that.  As the writer says a social glue that an work.  The old one of religion is gone, the old post-war drive to build the welfare state is gone.  I think some senses of national identity - without any nastiness - would be a good start, like the SNP have in Scotland.  Also I think trade unionism could be good, like Germany or Scandinavia, but that would mean a change in the culture of British industrial relations which is probably impossible.  And more emphasis on family - including gay families.  At the minute I think the left in this country - and maybe Europe - are basically arguing for lots of individuals doing what they want, plus benefits - which isn't enough and except for the well-off Guardianistas is an insufficient argument for the 'plus benefits' bit.

QuoteMaybe you should just leave the EU instead?

Maybe.  I think we'll get a referendum in the next 5-10 years and I don't know which way it'll go.

QuoteWell, if you see it that way then your argument is morally bankrupt. It's like me announcing that I will not give my money to charity to save little children from death by starvation until I have my third sports car, because I want to be "happy before I set out to help the world".

No it's not.  I think it's entirely fair to say we want to provide everyone in the UK or the US or wherever with this quality of life or provision of social services before we spend significantly more on foreign aid. 

Quote from: Martinus on April 04, 2012, 01:53:52 AM
Anyway, I agree with Tamas. The author sounds like he is looking for a reason to stop fighting his own prejudices but feels bad about it so he is trying to come up with some backstory.

Yeah.

QuoteAnd according to George Monbiot, a leading figure of the liberal left, "Internationalism... tells us that someone living in Kinshasa is of no less worth than someone living in Kensington... Patriotism, if it means anything, tells us we should favour the interests of British people [before the Congolese]. How do you reconcile this choice with liberalism? How... do you distinguish it from racism?"

Is he talking about on a personal level or on a political national policy level?  Because the British people have a say in the British government and fund it and therefore the state is accountable to them in some way.  The people in Kinshasa would be completely at the mercy of whatever the British government thought was best for them...which sounds more like Imperialism than Liberalism.  Haven't the Brits already had enough valuing everybody around the world as British citizens?  Wasn't that sorta exhausting?

If he means on a personal level, like instead of donating cash or your time to help the poor in Kensington you should be looking towards the far grimmer situation in the Kongo as a better place for your efforts well that is something else.  Not sure how that is particularly interesting as a political program though.

QuoteTake up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

Quote from: Martinus on April 04, 2012, 01:53:52 AM
Anyway, I agree with Tamas. The author sounds like he is looking for a reason to stop fighting his own prejudices but feels bad about it so he is trying to come up with some backstory.

He should come  to Languish and learn how to embrace his prejudices.

Quote from: Tamas on April 04, 2012, 01:40:38 AM
So, I understand that the writer of the article is getting older, turning into a conservative from a liberal, seeking justification for that, but what else is there?

Conservatives, when they are the leader and not the blindly following (ie. sheep) kind, do not understand society for a moral entity or something. I think it is the contrary. They have zero respect for society as it is in it's default state. Why else would they seek to steer it via religion, and enforced moral values? They consider the masses a dangerous thing, which must be kept in line via superstitions.

Are you talking about conservatives in Hungary or in general?

The problem I see with this article is the author seems to be flitting between the UK and the US.  I suspect there are differences between the two.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 04, 2012, 08:56:57 AM
Are you talking about conservatives in Hungary or in general?

In general of course. What the FUCK should be Hungary-specific about this? I am growing tired of your "omg he has this opinion because he is hungarian".

If you can have an opinion of the world out of your basement, without someone commenting "that's typical American basement opinion", I can sure as hell have my own without the imbecile Hungarian-ing comments.

Damn.

Quote from: Tamas on April 04, 2012, 09:09:07 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 04, 2012, 08:56:57 AM
Are you talking about conservatives in Hungary or in general?

In general of course. What the FUCK should be Hungary-specific about this? I am growing tired of your "omg he has this opinion because he is hungarian".

If you can have an opinion of the world out of your basement, without someone commenting "that's typical American basement opinion", I can sure as hell have my own without the imbecile Hungarian-ing comments.

Damn.

I'd expect a Hungarian to say that. :rolleyes:

Ide's not a leftist?  That's news to me :D

Quote from: Valmy on April 04, 2012, 08:17:52 AM
Is he talking about on a personal level or on a political national policy level? 

Here's the article referred to, it's from just after the 7/7 bombings:

QuoteThe New Chauvinism
August 9, 2005

Why should I love this country?


By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 9th August 2005

Out of the bombings a national consensus has emerged: what we need in Britain is a renewed sense of patriotism. The rightwing papers have been making their usual noises about old maids and warm beer, but in the past 10 days they've been joined by Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian, Tristram Hunt in the New Statesman, the New Statesman itself and just about everyone who has opened his mouth on the subject of terrorism and national identity. Emboldened by this consensus, the Sun now insists that anyone who isn't loyal to this country should leave it.(1) The way things are going, it can't be long before I'm deported.

The argument runs as follows: patriotic people don't turn on each other. If there are codes of citizenship and a general belief in Britain's virtues, acts of domestic terrorism are unlikely to happen. As Jonathan Freedland points out, the United States, in which "loyalty is instilled constantly" has never "had a brush with home-grown Islamist terrorism".(2)

This may be true (though there have been plenty of attacks by non-Muslim terrorists in the US). But while patriotism might make citizens less inclined to attack each other, it makes the state more inclined to attack other countries, for it knows it is likely to command the support of its people. If patriotism were not such a powerful force in the US, could Bush have invaded Iraq?

To argue that national allegiance reduces human suffering, you must assert that acts of domestic terrorism cause more grievous harm than all the territorial and colonial wars, ethnic cleansing and holocausts pursued in the name of national interest. To believe this, you need be not just a patriot, but a chauvinist.

Freedland and Hunt and the leader writers of the New Statesman, of course, are nothing of the kind. Hunt argues that Britishness should be about "values rather than institutions": Britain has "a superb record of political liberalism and intellectual inquiry, giving us a public sphere open to ideas, religions and philosophy from across the world".(3) This is true, but these values are not peculiar to Britain, and it is hard to see why we have to become patriots in order to invoke them. Britain also has an appalling record of imperialism and pig-headed jingoism, and when you wave the flag, no one can be sure which record you are celebrating. If you want to defend liberalism, then defend it, but why conflate your love for certain values with love for a certain country?

And what, exactly, would a liberal patriotism look like? When confronted with a conflict between the interests of your country and those of another, patriotism, by definition, demands that you should choose those of your own. Internationalism, by contrast, means choosing the option which delivers most good or least harm to people, regardless of where they live. It tells us that someone living in Kinshasa is of no less worth than someone living in Kensington, and that a policy which favours the interests of 100 British people at the expense of 101 Congolese is one we should not pursue. Patriotism, if it means anything, tells us we should favour the interests of the 100 British people. How do you reconcile this choice with liberalism? How, for that matter, do you distinguish it from racism?

This is the point at which every right-thinking person in Britain scrambles for his Orwell. Did not the sage assert that "patriotism has nothing to do with conservatism",(4) and complain that "England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality"?(5) He did. But he wrote this during the Second World War. There was no question that we had a duty to fight Hitler and, in so doing, to take sides. And the sides were organised along national lines. If you failed to support Britain, you were assisting the enemy. But today the people trying to kill us are British citizens. They are divided from most of those who live here by ideology, not nationality. To the extent that it was the invasion of Iraq that motivated the terrorists, and to the extent that it was patriotism that made Britain's participation in the invasion possible, it was patriotism that got us into this mess.

The allegiance which most enthusiasts ask us to demonstrate is a selective one. The rightwing press, owned by the grandson of a Nazi sympathiser, a pair of tax exiles and an Australian with American citizenship, is fiercely nationalistic when defending our institutions from Europe, but seeks to surrender the lot of us to the US. It loves the Cotswolds and hates Wales. It loves gaunt, aristocratic women and second homes, and hates oiks, gypsies, council estates and caravan parks.

Two weeks ago, the Telegraph published a list of "ten core values of the British identity" whose adoption, it argued, would help to prevent another terrorist attack.(6) These were not values we might choose to embrace, but "non-negotiable components of our identity". Among them were "the sovereignty of the Crown in Parliament" ("the Lords, the Commons and the monarch constitute the supreme authority in the land"), "private property", "the family", "history" ("British children inherit ... a stupendous series of national achievements") and "the English-speaking world" ("the atrocities of September 11, 2001, were not simply an attack on a foreign nation; they were an attack on the anglosphere"). These non-negotiable demands are not so different to those of the terrorists. Instead of an eternal caliphate, an eternal monarchy. Instead of an Islamic vision of history, a Etonian one. Instead of the Ummah, the anglosphere.

If there is one thing that could make me hate this country, it is the Telegraph and its "non-negotiable components". If there is one thing that could make me hate America, it was the sight of the crowds at the Republican convention standing up and shouting "USA, USA ", while Zell Miller informed them that "nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators."(7) As usual, we are being asked to do the job of the terrorists, by making this country ugly on their behalf.

I don't hate Britain, and I am not ashamed of my nationality, but I have no idea why I should love this country more than any other. There are some things I like about it and some things I don't, and the same goes for everywhere else I've visited. To become a patriot is to lie to yourself, to tell yourself that whatever good you might perceive abroad, your own country is, on balance, better than the others. It is impossible to reconcile this with either the evidence of your own eyes or a belief in the equality of humankind. Patriotism of the kind Orwell demanded in 1940 is necessary only to confront the patriotism of other people: the Second World War, which demanded that the British close ranks, could not have happened if Hitler hadn't exploited the national allegiance of the Germans. The world will be a happier and safer place when we stop putting our own countries first.

QuoteThe problem I see with this article is the author seems to be flitting between the UK and the US.  I suspect there are differences between the two.

It's a British magazine reviewing two American books.  I think some flitting's inevitable.

QuoteAnd what, exactly, would a liberal patriotism look like? When confronted with a conflict between the interests of your country and those of another, patriotism, by definition, demands that you should choose those of your own. Internationalism, by contrast, means choosing the option which delivers most good or least harm to people, regardless of where they live. It tells us that someone living in Kinshasa is of no less worth than someone living in Kensington, and that a policy which favours the interests of 100 British people at the expense of 101 Congolese is one we should not pursue. Patriotism, if it means anything, tells us we should favour the interests of the 100 British people. How do you reconcile this choice with liberalism? How, for that matter, do you distinguish it from racism?

I would think patriotism could mean wanting Britain to act in such a way internationally as to be a good influence in the world or at least to do no harm.  Why does patriotism, be definition, mean discarding the principles of a country for the sake of its interests?  It sort of reminds me of the accusation made against the Vichyites that they were destroying France in an effort to protect the French.

This guy is basically saying 'I define patriotism as racism and therefore I pronounce it racist.'  Which is not particularly compelling.

Quote from: Tamas on April 04, 2012, 09:09:07 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 04, 2012, 08:56:57 AM
Are you talking about conservatives in Hungary or in general?

In general of course. What the FUCK should be Hungary-specific about this? I am growing tired of your "omg he has this opinion because he is hungarian".

If you can have an opinion of the world out of your basement, without someone commenting "that's typical American basement opinion", I can sure as hell have my own without the imbecile Hungarian-ing comments.

Damn.

Maybe because Hungarian and US politics aren't very similar.   For instance, we don't have members of a nazi party holding office in Congress.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 04, 2012, 10:24:59 AM

Quote from: Tamas on April 04, 2012, 09:09:07 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 04, 2012, 08:56:57 AM
Are you talking about conservatives in Hungary or in general?

In general of course. What the FUCK should be Hungary-specific about this? I am growing tired of your "omg he has this opinion because he is hungarian".

If you can have an opinion of the world out of your basement, without someone commenting "that's typical American basement opinion", I can sure as hell have my own without the imbecile Hungarian-ing comments.

Damn.

Maybe because Hungarian and US politics aren't very similar.   For instance, we don't have members of a nazi party holding office in Congress.

Tea Party. 'nuff said. At least our nazis don't deny the theory of evolution.

My opinion of my stool is higher than my opinion of the left.

Quote from: Tamas on April 04, 2012, 10:45:17 AM
Tea Party. 'nuff said. At least our nazis don't deny the theory of evolution.

The Tea Party is supposed to be Libertarians and stuff.  Hilarious how quickly the social conservatives hijack everything.

'We need to get the government out of stuff...so there is more money to fund our desire to control people's behavior'

It was never libertarian.  You just wanted it to be.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 04, 2012, 10:56:50 AM
It was never libertarian.  You just wanted it to be.

Not impossible.

Hey Sheilbh thanks for posting that.  Very interesting.

As an aside, an example of this at work is our Federal governments recent decision to scrap a governmental body set up 20 years ago that had worked toward human rights and freedoms in foriegn lands.  The justification was that it was being scraped to save money and wasnt working very well anyway.  Fits nicely into the paradigm of looking after our own problems first.  The main criticism by the opposition to date has been that the government scraped it because it was independant and the government wants more control - hardly the kind of heart fealt universalist defence one would have expected in days of yore.

I was going to make a comment about the seemingly heavy reliance on religion in the analysis but I realized that was rather egocentric of me.  Although religion plays no part in my own conservative beliefs I readily admit that I may be in the minority in Canada and I am certainly in the minority in North America.

@Tamas

QuoteLike it or not, the US, Canada, and some of Western Europe are the best places of the world. One of the reasons the "I am the 99%" crowd there is ridicoulous. No, pumpkin, you are not. You are the 1%.

This has been my main critique all along.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 04, 2012, 01:59:21 AM
I think it's more to do with the ties that bind.  Liberalism is, in my view, too globalised and too focused on individuals - I think that reflects some social and economic problems.  The left-wing answer often used to include religion and once that was gone the common endeavour of the welfare state ('this party is nothing if not a moral crusade', 'to build a New Jerusalem'...) while the right also had religion, but of a different kind.

I don't see that really. The left is not going to be "outgrowing" the collective solutions to individual problems it has supported for decades like social security and the NHS. There is a whole lot about the left that is and will remain very much NOT focused on the individual.

Quote from: Tamas on April 04, 2012, 10:45:17 AMIn general of course. What the FUCK should be Hungary-specific about this? I am growing tired of your "omg he has this opinion because he is hungarian".

If you can have an opinion of the world out of your basement, without someone commenting "that's typical American basement opinion", I can sure as hell have my own without the imbecile Hungarian-ing comments.

Damn.

Don't fret. You're taken more seriously than Raz.

What is with you lately? 

Quote from: Razgovory on April 04, 2012, 06:04:38 PM
What is with you lately?

He might be reacting to your creepy stalker act.

Pft.   There are like 50 of us here, and we post on maybe a two dozen threads a day.  We are going to see each other a lot.  It's like accusing the people in same office where you work of stalking you cause you see them every weekday.

No, you go into wargarbl mode when you see Spicy and Yi. Relax friend.

Raz: a significant component of the stalker indictment against you is that instead of addressing any argument on it's merits you have a pronounced tendency to try to use a person's position on any given argument as evidence of that person's moral failing.

Examples:

Zimmerman had a right under Florida law to stand his ground.

Stand Your Ground creates an impossible burden of proof in murder cases with no eye witnesses.

Not stalkerish.

Zimmerman had a right under Florida law to stand his ground.

You like killing black people.

Stalkerish.

Well you could stop killing black people Yi.  It's not really legal to do that.

Quote from: Razgovory on April 04, 2012, 09:18:54 PM
Well you could stop killing black people Yi.  It's not really legal to do that.

Exception:  Florida. :menace:

Anyway, I felt that planning to Kill Dguller would have been a bigger thing then annoying Yi.

Quote from: derspiess on April 04, 2012, 09:47:00 AM
Ide's not a leftist?  That's news to me :D

I see what you did there. :lol:

Anyway, I pay my taxes, and what's more I advocate for shit that doesn't benefit me (e.g., the end of the current student loan boondoggle even if my own are not forgiven; a negative income tax floor that I would not get; and so forth).

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 04, 2012, 05:47:42 PMI don't see that really. The left is not going to be "outgrowing" the collective solutions to individual problems it has supported for decades like social security and the NHS. There is a whole lot about the left that is and will remain very much NOT focused on the individual.

You're right.  But this is the critique that both the Red Tories and Blue Labourists make. 

They both argue that Thatcherism hollowed out society ('there's no such thing as society'), the left's response has been to just increase the role for the state or the state through the private sector.  While the state is a collective solution to problems I don't think it necessarily feels that way.  The relationship is still pretty lonely.  You pay your taxes, you take your benefits and that's about it.  That's a world away from the collective ethos of the high welfare state in the 50s and 60s.  The only fully collective bit left, I think, is the NHS which is probably why it's almost an article of belief.  I think Nigel Lawson said that we'd replaced the CofE with the BBC and the NHS.  This is why I think Cameron's idea of the 'Big Society' though woefully communicated and managed is actually very interesting, positive and worth encouraging.

What I mean by the left focusing on the individual is that I think the left's been hugely liberal since the sixties.  It's generally been a really positive thing.  The suspicion of 'family values' politics was motivated by the fact that it was normally a cover for anti-gay, anti-single parent and often anti-women views.  Similarly nationalism or even patriotism was often just the respectable face of racism and chauvinism.  Right now I always get suspicious when I hear someone talking about 'Englightenment values' because there's a high chance they'll turn out to be simply anti-Muslim - also as a gayer I suspect their sympathy for gay rights goes only so far as we can be used to beat up on Muslims.

All of that was good.  The emphasis was on individuals living their own lives, unshackled by preconceptions and a society and state that victimised the outsider: whoever you are, you should live the best life you can, the life you want enabled by the state.  The problem is, in my view, that it doesn't hold together.  I think for the collective response to problems you need a strong degree of social identity and trust.  Lots of individuals just suspect one another of sponging.  So it's become a a sort of social Thatcherism.  The state isn't reflecting a collective solution - with the exception of the NHS - rather I think it's more like a consumer relationship.  While it was a useful and necessary corrective, it's hollowed out society and undermines support for collective social plans. 

What I think, and I think what the article suggests is that the Left should move on.  They were right and won on family values.  But now I think we can actually inject a bit more family into our politics because our understanding of families is broader and includes single parents and gay families.  Similarly I think we can deal with more patriotism and nationalism because for most people they're sufficiently removed from racism.  Personally I'd like to see an attempt to reinvigorate the trades unions.  I also think the Left should steal Cameron's idea of the 'Big Society' which could be really powerful if well communicated.  I think his education policy, which seems to me a facet of the 'Big Society', has been done well and looks to be extremely positive and pretty popular.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 04, 2012, 04:27:53 AM

Quote from: Martinus on April 04, 2012, 02:02:50 AM
I think that's a uniquely British (or perhaps Anglo-Saxon) perspective. I can't think of a single major instance when it was the case on the European continent. You guys have this screwed up sick sentiment for religion as a result.

I don't think the UK's unique in religion having served as a binding force in a European society.   

Are we talking about the same thing? You said that religion and the left has been intertwined. I said that it it has been rarely (if ever) true in the continental Europe. I never said religion has not been an influential social force in Europe.  :huh:

Edit: Unlike the US and the UK, in continental Europe, the mainstream leftist thought has been (almost universally) represented by social democracy. It has never been very close to religion and has often been quite hostile to religion. If you are looking for the continental Europe's equivalent of the UK's "leftist Christians", it would be Christian democrats, who indeed adopted some of the demands of the worker movement, but did it in a definitely conservative, mainly Catholic or Lutheran, way.

Quote from: Tamas on April 04, 2012, 09:09:07 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on April 04, 2012, 08:56:57 AM
Are you talking about conservatives in Hungary or in general?

In general of course. What the FUCK should be Hungary-specific about this? I am growing tired of your "omg he has this opinion because he is hungarian".

If you can have an opinion of the world out of your basement, without someone commenting "that's typical American basement opinion", I can sure as hell have my own without the imbecile Hungarian-ing comments.

Damn.

I disagree. Politics in the former Eastern Bloc is much more corrupt and primitive, because it is not as sophisticated as it is in the West. As a result, politicians from both ends of the political spectrum, especially those who spent most of their lives under communism, even if they are not cynical, tend to have a much more heavy-handed, black-and-white worldview and do not perceive certain nuances and respond to modern challenges as well as the Western ones (compare the sophistication of UK conservatives on stuff like gay marriage to primitive homophobia of Polish or Hungarian "conservatives").

As we come from the Eastern Bloc, we have a tendency to view global politics in the same way we view our local politics (i.e. primitive and corrupt) which is not always correct.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2012, 04:15:48 AM

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 04, 2012, 05:47:42 PMI don't see that really. The left is not going to be "outgrowing" the collective solutions to individual problems it has supported for decades like social security and the NHS. There is a whole lot about the left that is and will remain very much NOT focused on the individual.

You're right.  But this is the critique that both the Red Tories and Blue Labourists make. 

They both argue that Thatcherism hollowed out society ('there's no such thing as society'), the left's response has been to just increase the role for the state or the state through the private sector.  While the state is a collective solution to problems I don't think it necessarily feels that way.  The relationship is still pretty lonely.  You pay your taxes, you take your benefits and that's about it.  That's a world away from the collective ethos of the high welfare state in the 50s and 60s.  The only fully collective bit left, I think, is the NHS which is probably why it's almost an article of belief.  I think Nigel Lawson said that we'd replaced the CofE with the BBC and the NHS.  This is why I think Cameron's idea of the 'Big Society' though woefully communicated and managed is actually very interesting, positive and worth encouraging.

I think what misleads and misguides people in this is that we tend to view politics on the left vs. the right spectrum, whereas historically, there have been three, not two, main ideologies recognized - liberalism, conservatism and collectivism - each with its own outlook on the world.

Liberalism has won - both in terms of democracy/pluralism and the free market/capitalism - and both collectivists and conservatives adopted its ideas (collectivists - in terms of personal individualism; conservatives - in terms of free market economy). That in a sense is problem for these two ideologies - they offer idiosyncratic answers because they do not champion their own ideas, but have been tricked by liberals to champion their ideas. I don't mind it since I support liberal ideas - but that's a problem for both the "true leftists" and the "true rightists" as they have been duped.

Incidentally, liberalism (both in its personalistic individualism and free market capitalism aspects) is what creates the "hollowed out society" that you mentioned - it's neither collectivism nor conservatism that does it, since both rely on the group (as opposed to liberalism which relies on an individual). I guess the author of the opening article is a collectivist and does not realize that. :)

You know, sometimes I think it'd be nice to go back to a simpler time, when society had norms and enforced them.  The future belongs to those peoples who have adopted all those values.

Besides, then we could throw rocks at Martinus, not so much for being gay, but for wearing chokers all the time.

Quote from: Martinus on April 08, 2012, 06:16:37 AM
Incidentally, liberalism (both in its personalistic individualism and free market capitalism aspects) is what creates the "hollowed out society" that you mentioned - it's neither collectivism nor conservatism that does it, since both rely on the group (as opposed to liberalism which relies on an individual). I guess the author of the opening article is a collectivist and does not realize that. :)

This is exactly what the article's about.  Liberalism's won but is looking more miserable now than it has in the past 30 years.  There's not many people on the right or left who are happy about the state of the markets and a populist right is rising - I think he's right to predict European culture wars - and globally I think we're starting to face the rise of illiberal democracies in Africa and the Middle East. 

The conservatives in politics have, I think, dealt with this better than the left.  It's easier for the conservatives to tame and civilise the market than for the left to talk in terms of collective identity again.  As he says the problem for the left is one of 'rights without relationships' because a large part of the left's success over the last 30-40 years has been to free people to form their own relationships and lives.  The challenge for the right is to find a way to deal with the collapse of faith and trust in the market and our economy without simply pining for some imagined, 'It's a Wonderful Life' style paternalist capitalism.  Similarly the left needs to develop some sort of collective identity without either giving up or refighting battles on equality.

An example is, as you mentioned earlier, gay marriage.  In this country many Tories, most of Labour and all Lib Dems support it.  In addition the Tories want tax benefits for all married or civilly partnered couples.  Labour and the Lib Dems oppose it because they think there's an implied moral judgement.  Personally I think that's something the left-wing should back because family identity matters and it's something the state should recognise and support.  I think the days when it was a condemnation of single-parent families or cohabitees have gone (and anyway there's other tax benefits for parents).

I think it's all a part of the reason the European left's had such a torrid time in the middle of the biggest economic crisis the capitalist world's seen since the 30s.

Edit:

QuoteI don't mind it since I support liberal ideas - but that's a problem for both the "true leftists" and the "true rightists" as they have been duped.

As I say I think liberalism's over-reached and it's been enabled by left and right.

Quote from: Martinus on April 08, 2012, 06:16:37 AM
Incidentally, liberalism (both in its personalistic individualism and free market capitalism aspects) is what creates the "hollowed out society" that you mentioned - it's neither collectivism nor conservatism that does it, since both rely on the group (as opposed to liberalism which relies on an individual). I guess the author of the opening article is a collectivist and does not realize that. :)

I'm gonna have to agree here, liberal liberalist that I am... The downside of being free from the Nanny state is that you don't have a nanny any more. The friends you have, the girls you date, the clubs you join the hobbies you have and the women you marry are in most cases imposed on you by your community (friends, family, society, school, work, etc.). If you don't have mother, teacher, doctor, cousin or boss bullying you into getting married, getting a job, having friends and obviously disapproving you not getting married, having a job or being social. To put it bluntly, an arranged marriage is still a marriage and many people who would have been arranged into a marriage in previous generations don't do it themselves.

All these arguments are destroyed by a simple fact:

we (as societies reaching a certain level of development) had ALL you miss, and GOT RID OF IT. Sometimes at great cost. IT WAS THAT HATED.


I don't think we see societies eliminated because of liberalism. I see societies losing cohesion because there are multiple strong organizing theories in existence simultaneously. And fighting. And you aging "oh well yeah liberalism is kinda ackward" are about to switch sides.

The idea of a community of individuals, formed to maintain and protect their personal liberties (ie. liberalism), is not less valid, or able, to maintain a society than religious conservatism, or communism or whatever. It appears more fragile, because by it's nature it lets other ideas appear and potentially grow, and above all else, liberalism depends on developed concepts, while the most of the rest depends on almost instinct-like primitive notions, like religion, simple tribalism, or "he has more, so let's gang up and take it from him"

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 08, 2012, 09:21:54 AM
.  There's not many people on the right or left who are happy about the state of the markets and a populist right is rising -

Probably because way too many people can't be bothered to figure out the difference between capitalism and the free market.

Quote from: Martinus on April 08, 2012, 06:10:35 AMI disagree. Politics in the former Eastern Bloc is much more corrupt and primitive, because it is not as sophisticated as it is in the West. As a result, politicians from both ends of the political spectrum, especially those who spent most of their lives under communism, even if they are not cynical, tend to have a much more heavy-handed, black-and-white worldview and do not perceive certain nuances and respond to modern challenges as well as the Western ones (compare the sophistication of UK conservatives on stuff like gay marriage to primitive homophobia of Polish or Hungarian "conservatives").

As we come from the Eastern Bloc, we have a tendency to view global politics in the same way we view our local politics (i.e. primitive and corrupt) which is not always correct.

I think there's more corruption there which does change perception of politics.  I think there's also maybe a weaker tradition of the rule of law - which does matter in Hungary's current case.

I'm not sure it's more sophisticated though.  For me the striking feature about Central and Eastern Europe is that it's not got the clear right-left distinction that's common in Western Europe (possibly because the left was discredited by Communism and the mainstream right not helped by the 90s?).  But I wouldn't be surprised if that's the future for the rest of Europe.  It'll have different characteristics but I think the old unified ideological parties are weakening with the rise of more extreme or populist versions and alternative ideologies like liberals and Greens.  The future's maybe politics that's either as fragmented as the Dutch or liable for upheaval as the Czechs? :mellow:

Quotewe (as societies reaching a certain level of development) had ALL you miss, and GOT RID OF IT. Sometimes at great cost. IT WAS THAT HATED.

I'm not talking about theocracy or communism though, at worst I'm talking about shire Toryism and post-war Labourism.  And, as I say, I don't think we should go back.  Liberalism's done well for the past 30 years but I think it's gone too far for both left and right, to the detriment of a lot of people at the bottom of society.  It's a question of how to keep the good bits and move on, for both left and right.

QuoteThe idea of a community of individuals, formed to maintain and protect their personal liberties (ie. liberalism), is not less valid, or able, to maintain a society than religious conservatism, or communism or whatever.

It was a Thatcher quote: 'You know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.'

What do you mean it gone too far for both left and right? I would be inclined to say that left and right got left (haha) behind too much then.

Theory: nothing has changed in the last few decades, except that liberalism, or at least what we call liberalism, sort of bribed people, with a more or less constantly growing economy and that now seems to stop. I don't think it has to stop of course, but that's certainly the fear.

And as fear starts to kick in, instincts start to kick in as well, and as I said, I don't liberalism does well with instincts. Other, inferior ideologies do.


If there is anything to be done, it should be the return, or, creation, of a strong and determined liberal ideology. Sort of like a "radical middle", if you will.

Farism is the answer.

Urbanization had a huge role in this, I think. Living in a big city makes you anonymous and changes the way you think about your interactions with others. Any collective solution to anything created by such people is going to have a less-connected feel to it because that's the kind of lives they lead and the way they know to interact with the world. It will by definition be more done in bulk and uniform in approach.

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 08, 2012, 04:46:25 PM
Urbanization had a huge role in this, I think. Living in a big city makes you anonymous and changes the way you think about your interactions with others. Any collective solution to anything created by such people is going to have a less-connected feel to it because that's the kind of lives they lead and the way they know to interact with the world. It will by definition be more done in bulk and uniform in approach.

And now that anonymity is going away.

Quote from: Neil on April 08, 2012, 05:49:50 PM

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 08, 2012, 04:46:25 PM
Urbanization had a huge role in this, I think. Living in a big city makes you anonymous and changes the way you think about your interactions with others. Any collective solution to anything created by such people is going to have a less-connected feel to it because that's the kind of lives they lead and the way they know to interact with the world. It will by definition be more done in bulk and uniform in approach.

And now that anonymity is going away.

Maybe it's a language thing but you make it sound like it's a development that makes it worse.

I think it's the contrary (of course in sane, non-Orwellian framework) - because of this anonymity going away, traditional means of soft social control (such as ostracism etc.) are going to catch up with the new social media and start to rebuild social cohesion. An example of this is a recent trend to have public websites require you to log in with your Facebook account to post comments e.g. about politics and the like, rather than do it anonymously - this makes people self-censor more (and, mainly, in a good way, i.e. by avoiding trolling and offensive form).

We will of course see a lot of clashes along these lines - and some aspects of the loss of anonymity will need to be resisted - but this is the direction we are going imo.

God forbid people making political comments without the government being able to track their every personal details via their facebook accounts!

I don't mind at all.  I think that it's a good idea that Martinus be punished in real life for his internet thought crimes.

Quote from: Jacob on April 04, 2012, 05:50:44 PM


Don't fret. You're taken more seriously than Raz.

Ouch, that is harsh Jake.

Here is an interesting Canadian take on the left on a similar theme from the Globe.

QuoteIn the wake of the NDP leadership convention, party unity problems were anticipated. There would be a gulf between party traditionalists, those echoing Ed Broadbent's sentiments, and those supporting the perceived move to the centre of Thomas Mulcair.

Thus far, it's quiet. Good poll numbers tend to soften frictions and New Democrats are now tied with the governing Conservatives, who are embroiled in allegations of electoral fraud as well as other controversies.

To be considered also is that Mr. Mulcair isn't offering anything that should embitter large numbers of New Democrats. He is only following the historic trend line of the Canadian left. From its early days a century ago, when it favoured the overthrow of the capitalist system, the movement has made steps in a moderate direction. Leaders like Mr. Broadbent, who initially supported the party's radical Waffle wing, were no exceptions. Nor was Jack Layton.

One of the reasons Mr. Layton did well in the 2011 election was his positioning of the party near the centre. Writing in The Canadian Election of 2011, Saskatchewan academic David McGrane notes that that "Under Layton's leadership, more traditional social democratic positions, such as increased taxation of wealthy individuals (i.e. an inheritance tax), the acceptance of deficit spending, the rapid creation of new universal social programs, and references to expanding public ownership were gradually eliminated from the party's discourse."
Mr. McGrane notes that in the campaign, the differences between the NDP and the Liberals were slight on such issues as cap-and-trade, health care, budget-balancing, child care, education, criminal justice, limiting prime ministerial power and a range of other platform proposals.

While the NDP convention of 1999 rejected the middle way or "Third Way," as it was called, of Tony Blair's British Labour Party, Mr. McGrane's study concludes that Mr. Layton moved the party slowly in that direction. For example, his campaign included promises not normally associated with the NDP, such as aid to small business, increased military spending for shipbuilding and fighting crime with more police officers.

It's a party that has come a long, mushy way. Early political formations like the Socialist Party of Canada would have scoffed at today's so-called social democrats. Ian McKay's book Rebels, Reds, Radicals, reminds us of the prominent role the Communist Party of Canada played in the building of industrial unions and of the left generally through the period 1917 to 1937. While the majority on the left did not embrace Leninism, CPC leader Tim Buck had such a following that, upon release from prison, Maple Leaf Gardens overflowed with supporters in a rally to greet him.

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation became the leading left-side force in the 1930s. Some of its ambitions, as contained in the Regina Manifesto, would have NDPers running for cover today. So would, with its advocacy of comprehensive and systematic state planning, the 1940s bible of the left – David Lewis and F.R. Scott's Make This Your Canada.

As NDP leader, David Lewis scaled down the rhetoric and the ambitions, as did Mr. Broadbent. The Waffle Movement of the 1960s tried to rekindle the spirit of old in advocating an independent socialist Canada but was turned back. Mr. Broadbent helped organize the Waffle and favoured its overall agenda, but its rhetoric was too hot and he dropped it. "We disagreed on style, not on substance," he told biographer Judy Steed.

In Mr. McKay's analysis, the NDP, unlike earlier left-side parties, gradually became deeply implicated in the liberal order. Its radicals have been left to bark on the sidelines. Political pragmatism has taken over and, given the enhanced potential for power that such pragmatism brings, New Democrats don't seem to mind.

Quote from: Berkut on April 09, 2012, 01:58:27 PM

Quote from: Jacob on April 04, 2012, 05:50:44 PM


Don't fret. You're taken more seriously than Raz.

Ouch, that is harsh Jake.

I regret buying his story.

Goodhart again, with UKIP rising:

QuoteThe big divide that politicians ignore
Ukip is quick to exploit voters' disenchantment, but the London-based elite should pay more attention to the reasons behind its success

Labour will comfortably retain the Wythenshawe and Sale East seat in Thursday's by-election, but the headlines are likely to be about the advance of Ukip and how it wins votes in Labour as well as Tory places.

The fascination with Ukip is galling for the big parties but fully justified – not only because the Ukip vote will be one of the key factors in the 2015 election, but also because of what it tells us about modern Britain.

To many voters, Ukip is just a convenient vehicle for a grumpy protest vote, accompanied by vague feelings that politicians are self-interested and remote. But the rise of Ukip is also a corrective signal, a reaction to the overprofessionalisation and overcentralisation of politics in London and Brussels and a symptom of a new fault line in political values between a London-centric graduate elite and much of the rest of the country.

Our political system is not in crisis – indeed, the emergence of Ukip is evidence of its responsiveness – but it promises too much and delivers too little. Democracy has come to mean not just a way of peacefully changing governments but also a way of controlling one's individual and communal destiny. Yet democracy is also unavoidably collectivist and compromise-based; you cannot achieve control as a democratic citizen in the way that you can as a shopper on Amazon.

Moreover, democracy's promise of control conflicts with the logic of the markets that generate our wealth. The market is restless and disruptive, giving you the iPhone and cheap flights but also exporting your job to China and then importing east Europeans to compete with you at home.

So the puffed-up politician is bound to be deflated by our semi-internationalised economies, and by promising a control he cannot deliver he fosters the cynical attitudes of today's voters.

But there's another reason for the sense of lassitude that drives populism. As left vs right has faded, the value divide between the political class and the ordinary voter has grown wider. This is especially true on the "security and identity" issues such as welfare, immigration and national sovereignty, but also in education and the labour market – partly explaining the "you're all the same" response from so many voters.

The political elite used to represent a range of experiences and interests. Now, MPs may have different starting points but, like other members of the upper professional class, they mainly leave home in their late teens to go to university and thence into a world of physical and social mobility with an identity based on career and achievement. Most non-graduates are less mobile and draw their sense of themselves much more from place and group. (About 60 per cent of Britons live within 20 miles of where they lived when they were 14.)

Our elites tend to be liberal both economically and socially, the ordinary voter communitarian or post-liberal. Post-liberalism is a policy wonk term, but it essentially means sticking with what works in the market liberalism of the 1980s and social liberalism of the 1960s but responding to their failures and unintended consequences and paying greater respect to the intuitions of more rooted citizens.

It combines ideas from left and right and post-liberals can be found in both main parties. Several coalition policies – including welfare reform and reducing immigration – appeal to the latent post-liberal majority, and Jon Cruddas (among others) is nudging Labour in a more post-liberal direction.

Post-liberalism is comfortable with the "individualism plus rights" basis of modern politics but wants to balance it with ideas that mainstream liberalism has neglected: the value of stability and continuity in communities, character, the dignity of labour. It favours particular allegiances over universal claims, and is uneasy about the unconditional openness imposed by globalisation: it knows that change is often experienced as loss and wants to cushion it.

By contrast, many upper professionals favour wide but thin attachments and a more universalist outlook – and therefore tend to think public goods should be distributed mainly according to need. Most people believe support should be based on contribution or on past service.

Another point of tension between the elite and the majority is over social mobility. Nobody in Britain is against bright people from whatever background travelling as far as their talents will take them, and who is against getting the best qualified people into the right jobs? But listening to politicians talk about social mobility it often sounds like the upwardly mobile (or the already privileged) insisting that everyone should become more or less like them. Not only is that logically impossible, but it also presents a very narrow vision of what a good life entails.

Post-liberalism is not against aspiration or ambition, especially for those at the bottom, but it prefers the idea of vocation; aspiration implies a moving up and out which casts a shadow over the lives left behind. The focus in the past 15 years on reforming higher education and the continuing neglect of technical/higher manual skills reflects the concerns of a graduate elite whose own children are insulated from the negative aspects of the "hour glass" labour market in which about 40 per cent of people are in skilled, well-paid work but a bottom third are stuck in poorly paid service jobs.

A good society is not a collection of ladders; it is a circle of mutual interest. The best and brightest still rise to the top but all contribution is valued. Michael Young's famous critique of meritocracy is more relevant today than ever.

All mainstream political leaders will be getting tough on populists like Nigel Farage in the coming months, but let us also be tough on the causes of populism – and one cause is the ascendancy of a liberalism that rubs up against the values of too many decent people. Post-liberalism is the reasonable answer to the march of the populists.

David Goodhart, director of the think tank 'Demos', discusses post-liberalism in the new 'Demos Quarterly' (quarterly.demos.co.uk)

When I was 14, I lived 2300 miles from here.

Quotepaying greater respect to the intuitions of more rooted citizens.

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi294.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fmm97%2Fgasco88%2F1210395622027.jpg&hash=c2e09ca21b55fd5ea379fdb92c66638aabc38b02)


Rooted citizens, if meant as "your average dude who lives his life in the same small" are the cornerstone of intolerant extremist parties. Last god damn thing any healthy country needs is paying more attention to them.