Tolstoy on clickbait and Princess Kate

Many years ago, when I was just a guest blog-curator on C@W, during CU's hols I ran a short series: Schopenhauer on blogging.  Yep, nothing changes: and I now find Tolstoy had some views on social media and clickbait too.

... it has now come to pass that as soon as any event, owing to casual circumstances, receives an especially prominent significance, the organs of the press immediately announce this significance.  As soon as the press has brought forward the significance of the event, the public devotes more and more attention to it.  The attention of the public prompts the press to examine the event with greater attention and in greater detail.  The interest of the public further increases, and the organs of the press, competing with one another, satisfy the public demand.  The public is still more interested; the press attributes yet more significance to the event.  [OK, we get the point - Ed]  So that the importance of the event, continually growing like a lump of snow, receives an appreciation utterly inappropriate to its real significance, and this appreciation, often exaggerated to insanity, .... etc etc (1906)

He always was a wordy bugger. 

It's clear enough: since the dawn of the printing press, reactionary forces have lamented whenever the layperson gets a new opportunity to self-publish their nasty little thoughts that depart from whatever wisdom the priesthood of the age seeks to guard.  I have a suspicion a well-read classical scholar could find something from Cicero or Aristotle along the same lines.   Reading?  We can't have the peasants doing that.  Bible in the vernacular?  No no no!

That's technology for you.  And the human spirit, etc.

ND

"What the Science Says"

For context, in philosophical terms I am (approximately) what is termed a scientific realist, meaning that (a) there are objective truths about the physical world, whether we know them or not - 'Realism' - and (b) science is our best tool for edging towards knowledge in that realm.  I say 'edging' because there's nothing linear, predictable, or even inevitable about how scientific knowledge advances.  Arguably, it sometimes even goes backwards.

There are complexities along the spectrum which we may identify as stretching from maths & formal logic at one end, to "social science" at the other.  Maths and logic advance ratchet-wise: since the late 19th C, what constitutes a proof is not in contention, and new results layer atop old ones in an ever-growing edifice built on firm foundations.  It's fair to say there are some philosophical challenges in figuring out the 'meaning' of some results in formal logic: but results they are.

At the far end of this continuum, use of inverted commas is essential: how much of "social science" really deserves the moniker?  Even linguistics has thus far disappointed, for all the claims that Chomsky's work is a science.  But formal logic sets the standard; physics and chemistry, at least, reckon to be bound by it, and I think we broadly know what we mean by (real) Science.

That said, professional scientists frequently let the side down in a big way, with weaknesses in several dimensions (not necessarily all at once):

• they tend to forget that, Newtonian physics having been well and truly shown to be in error (even though admirably and formidably consistent mathematically), almost any current theory is up for revision.  They sort-of know this, but often don't behave accordingly.
• many, if not most of them are cowards (i.e. 'just human'), and won't go against the prevailing dogma - whatever their own results and reasoning suggest.  The dominant dogma in question might be the current scientific paradigm, or some crazy political diktat, but they ain't gonna be the ones to rock the boat.  This makes their claims to objectivity and purity of method particularly galling.
• many are venal (i.e. 'just human') and money speaks very loudly, in science as elsewhere ...    

We are living in a ba-ad time for science, which betrays all of the above shortcomings aplenty.  Exhibit 'A' is "climate science", and I give you two concurrent headlines from the Graun today: 

Climate scientists hail 2023 as ‘beginning of the end’ for fossil fuel era 

World will look back at 2023 as year humanity exposed its inability to tackle climate crisis, scientists say

OK, it's possible to force-fit a ropey kind of reconciliation onto these two statements.  Conversely, it's possible to retort they prove that scientists are indeed capable of disagreeing in public.  But what interests me more is how (i) "scientists say" can be enlisted to make any point that suits the writer; and thus (ii) how ridiculous it is for anyone to say that "we should follow the science", as if that would result in an unique course of action.

Personally, I strongly suspect that climate scientists (in inverted commas, if you prefer) are in agonies right now, not daring to admit that when they say "it's almost too late to save the world from ... [fill in favourite apocalyptic prediction here]", their own calculations - right or wrong - tell them it's actually wa-ay too late.  I say this with due respect for their earlier pronouncements - in fact, complete respect because, for the sake of argument, I accept them as valid.  My suspicion is a self-contained observation about those scientists' agonised state of mind, an observation that requires no judgement on, and makes no comment on, the Realist "right-or-wrong" aspect.  And why the agony?  Because they fear that if the world knew they really think the game's up, there wouldn't be quite as much appetite for their next project or policy proposal, be that an altruistic fear or one motivated by self-interest.

Exhibit 'B' is of course the disgraceful way in which many university biology departments are allowing themselves to be strong-armed into pernicious, arrant nonsense about sex and gender.  But that one's for another day.

Notwithstanding the foregoing ... Happy New Year!  The tradition 'NY predictions' compo to follow in a day or two.

ND

'Where is truth' in 2023?

'What is truth?' said jesting Pilate; and stayed not for an answer

A commonplace assertion is that we live in a 'post-truth' world, centuries after the Enlightenment supposedly (under the Whig theory of history) set mankind on an irrevocable path towards, at the very least, valuing and seeking after truth.  That's Truth as it would be understood by a philosophical Realist: existing objectively and independently of anyone's knowing it, or even having the capacity to know it.

Even within this worldview everyone has long resigned themselves to co-existing with all manner of deflections from the straight and narrow: the dogmas of religious fundamentalists (to be tolerated in a worldly manner, up until the point where they start to impinge on everyone else); an intelligent degree of relativism (provided Realism is not ultimately ditched); acceptance that politicians of all sorts are doomed to deal often in half-truths and evasions; knowledge that science only proceeds from one approximation to another, better approximation; that the capacity of most people for understanding and/or dealing with all the truths that are out there to be understood is distinctly limited, with various strategies being needed to accommodate this fact.  

At the end of the day, there's the smug intellectually comforting Realist consideration that a truth ignored or denied is still out there, and will potentially break your toe if you kick out against it.

All that said, the advent of Blair and Bush Jnr ushered in an era when even western politicians, supposedly 'better' than the Putins of this world, increasingly cared not a fig for truth, but merely and shamelessly called for Alastair Campbell to come up with one of his sophisticated utter-bullshit operations to suit the needs of the hour.

The Common Man has always had an interesting role to play in all this.  Firstly, he's not very concerned with the truth or otherwise of the dogmas swirling around (which he knows are well above his pay-grade); he just wants to know what he has to repeat solemnly in public, as and when required, in order for the (current) authorities not to be after him for unintended heresy.  If the dogma changes, he just wants to be told what are the new shibboleths.  In times of religious oppression this becomes an acute and worrying business, but fainter, less lethal manifestations are always in the air: as Homer Simpson says, the highest wisdom is - never be the only person in the room that's laughing.

Secondly, though, the Common Man does know some 'hard' truths very well indeed - most significantly, those that impinge on his making a living: these are the truths that will break your toe.  If he's a blacksmith, he's never going to 'believe' that you can hammer cold metal into a horseshoe, even if some idiot Inquisitioner forces him on pain of death to assert it in the middle of the town square.  Of course the average Inquisition, not wanting to be made mockery of, will stick to things that can confidently be asserted in the certainty that no hard-to-ignore practical disproof will ever be at hand (transubstantiation; virgins on offer for martyrs, etc etc).  Even so, Stalin's and Mao's dogmatic embrace of some outright lunacies in the scientific sphere forced any number of Soviet / Chinese engineers etc to endorse them publicly but ignore them without comment in their daily activity:  these ones require active doublethink.  (It has always seemed likely to me that the Stalins of this world don't much care about this phenomenon, just so long as everyone lines up for the 'loyalty test' of repeating faithfully the dogma of the day.  In fact, for loyalty-test purposes alone, the dafter it is, the better.  And the Common Man is generally OK with doublethink.)

*   *   *   *   *

What has caused me to muse on all this in May 2023?  The other day I watched Official Secrets, a rather good, fact-based movie (haha!) about the GCHQ whistle-blower who leaked a document in which the Bush operation sought the UK's assistance in blackmailing various UN delegations in order to swing a UN vote that would formally legitimise Gulf War 2 - not that neither Bush nor Blair ultimately much cared about that legitimation.  Whistle-blowers, of course, are just that small minority of people that can't bring themselves to do the doublethink.  It's a small minority indeed.

But ancient history be blowed: look at what we are faced with right now (- you can pitch in with your own favourites):

• Starmer systematically and merrily reneging on every one of his "10 pledges", with such pious outriders as David Lammy and Polly Toynbee all rushing to assert this doesn't matter a whit
• the complete absence of any reliable accounts on significant matters of the day such as the blowing-up of the Nord Stream pipeline
• the complete works of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Megan Markle etc ad nauseam

A particular favourite of mine - the 'progressive' line on trans self-identification - is thrown nicely into relief by this story in today's Graun (a paper which is actually, and to its credit, trying to drag itself painfully away from the progressive line).  This piece is really worth reading - it is absolutely hilarious in its straight-faced delivery of utter nonsense. 

NHS treatment algorithms ‘not taking transgender patients into account’:   Medics say trans people being put at risk by lack of evidence on how to assess them by gender-based metrics

Or to put the matter more simply: as 99.9% of humanity knows very well, "Trans women are, errr, men"  Now that's the kind of truth that really breaks toes when kicked against - ask Nicola Sturgeon.  

So: God Save The King!  And don't press me (or the Common Man) too closely on that Holy Anointing Oil ...

ND

Jacinda Ardern: not a record to be proud of

Let's assume Jacinda Ardern's drawing stumps is to be taken at face value: gotta admire a politico who resigns because they reckon they've had enough.  Most of them have never had enough - of power - and make spectacles of themselves (or worse) as they cling on.

That's just about as far as my charity towards her extends.  

So what has her 5-year rule encompassed?  Two truly shocking developments have worsened noticeably on her watch.

The first, and most strategic, is NZ's handing itself over to the Chinese.  You can readily research this for yourself.  Yeah yeah, we understand the geography: and plenty of others have taken the Chinese billion-shilling.  But NZ has completely sunk itself.  Is it recoverable?  I dunno: the revived combo of USA/UK/Oz might be able to offer an escape strategy, perhaps with Japan and a few other Asian countries that also don't enjoy Xi's ever-expanding colonial outreach.  I hope so.

The second is more subtle but, in its way, equally pernicious: the thoroughgoing intellectual surrender to government-enforced woke nonsense - possibly the worst in the western world (though somebody may have another candidate for that).  This includes the crazy business of insisting (and we do mean insisting, particularly in the education system) that "Maori science" is "true science", infecting even the NZ Royal Society.   In the spirit of open-minded curiosity, I'm all for obtaining the best available insights from traditional wisdom and holistic metaphorical world-views, which often give deeply worthwhile perspectives: but "true"?  In the context of science, only on the basis of successfully coming through the usual "western" intellectual scrutiny.  Not so many creation myths (etc) will pass that test.  Determined war needs to be waged on this rubbish.

Ardern herself may only have presided over these dreadful developments: maybe she bemoans them privately, I don't know.  But - it has still been on her watch.

An interesting insight comes from one of her responses to questions: 

Asked how she would like New Zealanders to remember her leadership, Ardern said “as someone who always tried to be kind”.

I often think that the only vaguely creditworthy sentiment associated with the mindless pandering to the more extreme demands of, e.g. "trans rights", is a well-meaning, if ill-considered desire to "be kind".  He thinks he's a girl - let's not upset him.  Well, kindness and consideration have their important place in human affairs.   Always worth revisiting Monty Python's Life of Brian on this: the way Reg's anti-Roman groupuscule tries to accommodate Stan's wish to be called Loretta - and have babies.  They're trying to be kind.  (And it's bloody funny.)

But kindness is sometimes not enough (and Reg's last word is still the last word).  Let's see if something better can follow at the hands of new leadership.

ND

Seneca is better than Truss' lame quote might suggest

What have the Romans ever done for us ..?

Predictably, Liz Truss made a spectacle of herself spluttering out an attempted quotation from Seneca (or was that Sennapod?) as she bad farewell to the cruel world of Downing Street with a neat encapsulation of her brainless approach to political decision-making.  Seneca did however write some really interesting stuff - more interesting than the low-grade self-help platitude that Truss seems to like: the T-shirt slogan material that counts as worldly wisdom amongst people like George Osborne who think that Nudge is a work of philosophy.

We turn, then, to Seneca's blood-soaked Medea - probably most famous for its prediction of the discovery of the New World: 

... in later years a time will come when Oceanus shall relax his bars and a vast territory shall appear, and Tiphys shall discover new worlds, and Thule shall be no longer the remotest spot on earth.

Seneca also had something critical to say about the opening up of the world for commerce and multi-culti exchange - an issue we often find being discussed around here, and indeed which exercises a lot of modern political thought: the benefits, or otherwise, of globalism, free trade (and dependency thereon), supra-national government and more-or-less compulsory cultural fusion.  The Loeb translation runs thus

Our forefathers saw bright eras with crime and deceit far distant.  Homely, touching no shores but their own, they grew to old age on their fathers' land, and, rich with little, beyond what their native soil had yielded they knew no wealth. The covenants of this well-separated world were dragged together by Thessaly's pinewood boat, which ... bade the sea, once alien, become part of our fears.

In other words:  our [very distant!] forefathers knew nothing beyond their own shores, but they were happy, and lived well enough on what they had.  All these happily separate nations, each with its own customs, were forcibly wrenched into a single 'unity' when the first merchant-adventurers started stirring things up: and the seas, which nobody ventured upon before, became a source of troubles.  (Apologies if I'm insulting you by offering a precis.)

Now of course ancient Roman imperialists (Seneca's target here) were very much in favour of globalism.  They had every intention of taking their ships everywhere, with no limits as to whom they were willing and indeed eager to embrace in their world-system: all you had to do was subordinate your culture - and of course pay your taxes.  In return, you got, well, whatever it was the Romans did for us.  And, as John Cleese's Reg ruefully acknowledges, that was, errr, quite a lot.

We have more recent versions of globalist imperialism to think about.  We Brits had a good crack at it, spouting the Roman precedent explicitly at every opportunity.  The French would have loved to (and the Spanish).  The Americans are still in that mode, though less confidently than in earlier decades.  The Chinese are itching to have a go.  Somewhat more regionally, Russia thinks everyone across a pretty broad expanse of the planet should offer fealty to Moscow.  And of course the EC is pretty keen on having everyone in (and indeed adjacent to) Europe subordinate their cultures and pay their taxes, with compulsory multi-culti all round.  Which a majority of us Brits are now quite resistant to.

I don't recall Nigel Farage ever quoting Seneca.  But the golden image of a "well-separated world" of yore, everyone happy with their lot, might sometimes be rather attractive - on both right and left of politics; and for Greens, too.

Still, that list of "what the Romans did" is quite impressive ...

ND

The beast that is Boris

From Clive, BTL on yesterday's Boris post, expanding on a short comment he'd been picked up on:

Re: "The energy inputs for creating and sustaining media (and political) momentum are much higher here..." ... What I was getting at, tricky to explain, was it only took a Howe resignation speech, a leadership contest and some cabinet members talking Thatcher into resigning. All mundane stuff. The merest hint from a few, largely behind closed doors, and Thatcher resigned. There wasn't any inclination in her to keep fighting through the second round of the leadership contest. Contrast with what it took to get Johnson to go (not that he's actually gone yet, but we have to -- stifle a guffaw here please -- take him at his word he really will go, really he will), literally every, bar a few exceptions, cabinet minister to tell Johnson, in public he must go and/or resigning. Plus a great gaggle of PPSes and junior ministers. It was touch-and-go whether the 1922 Committee might have to blast him out of Downing St with heavy artillery. Both the parliamentary party and the mainstream media had to throw everything at him, 27x7, for weeks. Months, even     [my emphasis] 

Interesting.  Yes, Boris is unusually obdurate.  In fact, he's a pretty extreme case in many dimensions, a fact easily forgotten when he's in smiley, jokey-witty-banter, all-out charm mode.  That "really rather good" resignation speech with it's nicely crafted phrasing.  Lots of 'extreme' politicians can do that to people, particularly in the flesh ...  And what will it still take now, actually to get him out of the door?  Oh yes indeed - another big input of energy still needed, to drive the stake home.

Here's a thesis.

Most people in societal contexts (and also many people even when they are cast adrift from company) are not much under the sway of any kind of inner primordial beast that knows only the urge for gratification, the Will to Power (Wille zur Macht), survival in all circumstances and against any odds; never say 'die', only 'attack': the cornered alpha predator, wounded but still fighting.  Most people recognise social constraints: the price we pay for the benefits of living in a society. 

Those who are thus possessed of the demon, but who still partake of society to some degree (and are 'successful' enough to be prominent), are generally to be found in the ranks of callous and bullying corporate warriors, big-swinging-dick traders, sportsmen in the fighting arts, ruthless lords of organised-crime, aggressive soldiers, manic artists, ambitious politicians.  With a few constraints still being observed - on a good day.  But if completely beyond the pale, they are Johnny-Byron wild men of the woods, pirates and bandit chiefs ... or the occasional politician leader who hacks his way into a position of outright dictatorship.  Not much social inhibition with William of Normandy, Peter the Great, or Kim Jong-un.

Boris Johnson famously knows almost no social restraints on his hedonistic and status-seeking pursuit of personal gratification.  Lying?  No problem.  Loyalty?  Never heard of it.  Family responsibilities?  None that he can think of.  Consistency?  Don't be daft.  Integrity?  No interest.  Shame?  You're kidding.  Respect for the rules?  They don't apply, he was given a permanent pass at birth.  Modesty in lifestyle?  Gimme gimme gimme.  Fellow feeling?  ... etc etc.  As he apparently told Cummings when musing that he ought to be his own chief of staff and head of communications: so I'll fuck it up - so what?  What's the point if I can't do whatever I want?

And then look at the face, whenever he's in any kind of sporting endeavour - even with children.

That's naked aggression, unabashed will to win.  'King of the World'.  Will to Power.

And now ask why it took what it did, to get him to resign; more even than Thatcher or Gordon Brown.  And consider that, if he isn't forcibly defenestrated right now, he'll still be plotting ways to hang on during whatever process the Tories will now go through to find a successor.

You might think what follows a little extreme; but if you want a graphic portrayal of the animality of the Will to Power in its rawest human form, read Robert Harris' Archangel.   The historical backdrop is Stalin's reign of terror but by the time of the action of the novel, that's at one remove; it's the past.  What's chilling, truly chilling, is the appearance in the book of Harris' most menacing creation** - the long-lost Son of Stalin, a beast of pure, undeflectable Will to Power.  It's through this device that Harris conjures up what it must have been like, even to think about dealing with Stalin, let alone opposing him.  Lenin knew he was too dangerous for power.  Probably everyone did.   Much good did it do them.

OK, 'personable' Boris also has the buffoon about him and is not (so far as we know) given to personal violence, even if he was famously willing to facilitate it.  But his will to win, to survive, to prevail in all circumstances and on his own terms, is not, errr, easily deflected.

Why are high inputs of energy needed to get him out, Clive?  That's why. 

ND

___________

** Even more chilling than his Cherie Booth in The Ghost 

Only Psychopaths Need Apply ...

Here's a really telling piece of pop psycho-philosophy for our times. 

Who could she possibly mean?

It's Veronika Stepanova, a Russian online "psychologist" with a big youtube following, declaring that only a psychopath/sociopath (- ideally, a high-functioning one with a good IQ, natch -) is fitted to be a President.  Unfortunately I haven't got the direct link but you can view the relevant extract in this tweet.

In summary:  to be a good President, it takes someone with a pathological drive for power who can follow the necessary path of listening only to himself, and not the law, without conscience or guilt.  It's hardly a novel thesis: indeed, it's Nietzsche 1.01, The Will To Power, albeit expressed more artistically there.  Only such a man can become a Beethoven, a Caesar, a Napoleon who were certainly all complete shits.  Nietzsche included Goethe but I'm not sure that's as clear an example.  You can add your own favourites to the rollcall: many people put both Gordon Brown and Boris Johnson on the list, which (if that's right) goes to show it's a necessary characteristic but not a sufficient one.

(Ironically, it was of course Stepanova's compatriot Dostoevsky who gave us a compelling of the "maybe necessary, but not sufficient" aspect, in Crime and Punishment.)

It's also a view commonly held by many of our BTLers, who often include the sentiment that it's why they despise all politicians.  OK: but that still leaves a couple of key points to consider:

• It ain't just politicians, is it?  It's great artists (per Nietzsche: consider Monet for example, another self-focused shit); business innovators (libel is libel and I'm sure we all have our nominees); scientists ... and so it goes on.
• So - despise them or not: do we, actually, need them nonetheless?  Nietzsche, of course, didn't care about what "we" need, it was all art-for-art's-sake with him.  But George Bernard Shaw certainly thought we needed them: the hungry man had best follow the fat man, because fattie knows where the food is.

We are stuck with them!  Lamentably, there are those who merely think they are Napoleons - Raskolnikov, Johnson - and we are stuck with them, too.

ND

Midweek Reading: Ukraine; Legislating the Internet

Being somewhat too busy for writing, here are a couple of excellent reads for you.

Ukraine:  First, a caveat, I have absolutely no idea whether "Consortium News" is a website of good repute (as regards conspiracy theory etc etc - everyone has to rely on their own judgement, and virus protection etc).  Also, the article I'm linking to here - What War With Russia Would Look Like by seemingly ultra-well qualified former US marine Scott Ritter - definitely serves Putin's purposes, whether or not the author has any leanings that way himself or, as I hope we can assume, not.

That said, it's a really good analysis of the realpolitik in play just now - or kiddy-politik in the case of Joe Biden.  Sobering stuff.  It contains an observation you might have read here at C@W before: 

Russia has studied an earlier U.S. military campaign - Operation Desert Storm, of Gulf War I - and has taken to heart the lessons of that conflict.

Yes indeed it has - being deeply impressed, nay shaken, by how successful was NATO AirLand Battle doctrine on its first roll-out in earnest.  Russia had a ringside seat, and was watching intently.  Here's another good soundbite: 

Russia can survive being blocked from SWIFT transactions longer than Europe can survive without Russian energy.

Yes, that's Angela Merkel's enduring legacy.   A Russophile all her life, she did nothing to fix Germany's dependence on Russian gas.

*   *   *   *   *

Internet:  Hey, we're a blog, and we don't much like the idea of our freedom of speech being curtailed.  That said, we are still bound by (e.g.) the laws of copyright and libel ... so obviously internet freedoms are on a spectrum.  Here's a great piece by my favourite practising American philosopher (and qualified lawyer), Brian Leiter: The Epistemology of the Internet and the Regulation of Speech in America.  (You can download the full paper from that abstract.)

No need to buy into all his conclusions to agree that (a) there's something very wrong with some of what gets pumped out on the www; and (b) the concept of "epistemic authority" is very powerful.

I'm guessing Dominic C agrees with the latter.

ND

Mystic Meg Does Bitcoin

Never mind C@W's annual predictions-fest:  call for Mystic Meg, who knows all about Bitcoin and can put us right via, errr, interplanetary motion ...

Note: this dynamic young lady describes herself** as an entrepreneur, and I suspect she's read that bit where the man who got richest during the California goldrush was the one who sold shovels ...

Me, I'd say that ordinarily a graph like Bitcoin's is a screaming short.  But what do I know?  (*returns to seance*)

ND

__________

**She's also a "current philosophy graduate student".  I think I like this woman.  

Nietzsche on Woke Identity Politics

We've had cause to mention Nietzsche over the weekend.  He is not to everyone's taste:  content-wise; stylistically; difficulty (or all three).  Nevertherless his insight into humanity is the most consistently penetrating I know, along with other tremendous contributions to philosophy, psychology and even wider still.  

And nothing changes.  This is from his famous Also Sprach Zarathustra (1884) - widely viewed as the most poetic expression of his thought, and extraordinarily influential in 20th century European literature, but (frankly) no easier read than his more conventional expositions.  Nevertheless, some passages need no contextual explanation for their force and astuteness to jump out at us.  His coinage for the woke warriors and 'intersectionalists' of his time is the tarantulas.  He wouldn't have been surprised by Edinburgh University's treatment of David Hume ...

   

"That the world may become full of the storms of our revenge, let precisely that be what we call justice"  -  thus the tarantulas speak to each other.   "We will wreak vengeance and abuse on all those who are not as we are"  -  thus the tarantula-hearts promise themselves.   "And 'will to equality'  -  that shall henceforth be the name of virtue; and we shall raise outcry against everything that currently has power!" 

You preachers of equality  -  from you the tyrannical madness of impotence cries out for "equality":  thus your secret desire to be tyrants disguises itself in words of virtue.

 

Nothing changes.

ND

 

Weekend Reading: 3 Heavyweight Offerings

A break from Saddam Hussein this weekend, and back to the future.  A couple of excellent reads here (a couple of which, if you get the same BTL google-prompts as I do, you may have already seen, if not opened).  They feed into all manner of those frivolous themes we often visit hereabouts:  the future of capitalism, the rise of China, the decline of liberal democracy ...

A.  Why Fukuyama was right all along: an essay by someone called Aris Roussinos

Everyone remembers The End of History, right?  Well -

nearly thirty years later, reading what Fukuyama actually wrote as opposed to the dismissive précis of his ideas, we see that he was right all along. Where Huntington and Kaplan predicted the threat to the Western liberal order coming from outside its cultural borders, Fukuyama discerned the weak points from within, predicting, with startling accuracy, our current moment. In The Last Man, the under-discussed addendum to The End of History, Fukuyama took his intellectual cues from Nietzsche rather than Hegel ... With all his demands met and material wants assuaged, will the last man be content at last, pausing the endless revolving wheel of history? “Left to themselves,” Fukuyama asks, “can those stable, long-standing liberal democracies of Europe and America be indefinitely self-sustaining, or will they one day collapse from some kind of internal rot, much as communism has done?” Beyond the demands for absolute equality, freedom from want and overarching authority which underlie the politics of liberalism, Fukuyama contends, “lies the question of whether there are other deeper sources of discontent within liberal democracy - whether life there is truly satisfying...

Anyone leveraging intelligently off the penetrating analyses of Nietzsche is going to get attention from me.  Having thus far only read this essay, and not the book, I'm lazily depending on secondary stuff.  But it's certainly interesting, including some points that Chairman Xi may wish to ponder.   

Fukuyama's Nietzsche-prompted ideas include, on the one hand - vis-à-vis external threats - “perhaps most critically, [liberal democracy] would be unable to defend itself from civilizations that were infused with a greater spirit of megalothymia, [the need to be recognized as superior to others - a Fukuyama coinage] whose citizens were ready to forsake comfort and safety and who were not afraid to risk their lives for the sake of dominion”. 

On the other - threats from within - “modern thought raises no barriers to a future nihilistic war against liberal democracy on the part of those brought up in its bosom.”  Fukuyama predicts, “if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and pros­perity, and against democracy.”

Heavy stuff.  And no less weighty is

B. Why Growth Will Fail: another book review

The book, Rise and Fall, is by Robert Gordon ("handsomely produced, at nearly eight hundred pages it weighs as much as a small dog"): the sub-heading of the review reads: 

For most of human history, economic progress moved at a crawl. Then, according to standard calculations, the world economy took off.

The centrepiece is a review of  the “special century” from 1870 to 1970—in which living standards increased more rapidly than at any time before or after - "unrepeatable because so many of its achievements could happen only once ... A central aspect of Gordon’s thesis is that the conventional measures of economic growth omit some of the largest gains in living standards and therefore underestimate economic progress. A point that is little appreciated is that the standard measures of economic progress do not include gains in health and life expectancy. Nor do they include the impact of revolutionary technological improvements such as the introduction of electricity or telephones or automobiles".

We do all need to understand the detail behind these points, and the review usefully does that for us.  Why do we need to understand?  Because, as many a green will say, we have become utterly addicted to growth as the basic remedy for all ills: whatever's wrong, we expect eventually to grow our way past it, as we've become accustomed to.  You don't need to be Malthus to find that in need of revisiting.  History doesn't move, Whiggishly, only in one direction, as the thousand-year hiatus in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire shows us.  

Oh, and apparently Gordon has no time for the thesis that super-intelligent computers will just take off into the distance and leave us quite differently situated (though the reviewer thinks we ought to be a bit more open-minded on that).   Finally:

C.  Meritocracy Has Betrayed The Working Classes; a book-related interview

The third book is The Tyranny of Merit  by philosopher Michael Sandel.  I found it rather easier going than the two reviews and I reckon many will enjoy his insights on corrosive leftwing individualism. 

By championing an “age of merit” as the solution to the challenges of globalisation, inequality and deindustrialisation, the Democratic party and its European equivalents, Sandel argues, hung the western working-class and its values out to dry … “Tawney argued that equality of opportunity was at best a partial ideal. His alternative was not an oppressive equality of results. It was a broad, democratic ‘equality of condition’ that enables citizens of all walks of life to hold their heads up high and to consider themselves participants in a common venture. My book comes out of that tradition.” 

(So, incidentally, does the British Army.)

*   *   *   *   *

There you go, that's social-distancing Sunday fixed for you.

ND

Boris as Maoist: It's Been Misunderstood

Search on Boris / Maoist and there are plenty of results over several years.  You eventually discover it stems from a David Cameron aside, accusing Gove of being an adherent to the great Chinese variant of Leninism.  Somehow Boris has been swept up in the opprobrium (which is retailed by the Toynbees and Cohens of the Graun-world) and of course now he qualifies as Maoist-in-chief.

It's taken to signify a love of permanent revolution and creative destruction; and maybe that's what Cameron intended, as a colourful label for Gove.  But that's entirely the wrong way to understand Boris-as-Maoist.

Mao was a passable amateur philosopher.  As a Marxist he was in the materialist / naturalist tradition (recognisably Western, by the way) and he was clear that our conceptual, abstract thinking (which he calls 'the subjective') had better correspond with objective reality - a correspondence to be tested in the school of hard knocks - or we are in trouble: liable to bang our heads against brick walls, and (worse) to embrace political heresy.  

This eminently practical (not to say mundane) insistence notwithstanding, he also embraced what some have called 'revolutionary romanticism', a key feature of which is the idea that the subjective can become the objective.  In other words, a conceptual notion (maybe a 'vision') that is compelling enough, and embraced enthusiastically by the masses who then put their shoulders wholeheartedly to the wheel, can thereby alter the conditions of objective reality**. 

Further theorising need not detain us, because my point will be immediately obvious:  Boris pretty much holds the same view.  He's trying it out on us right now! - and in this regard I'd say it's entirely fair to label him a Maoist.

With what chances of success?  The Sino-precedents are mixed.  Beyond a doubt, some of Mao's strategic ventures fall into the category of near-miracles of material transformation being achieved by force of vision, will and large-scale commitment.  The defeat of Chiang Kai-Shek's tanks and aircraft with "rifles and millet" alone; the elimination of endemic starvation across the whole of China; the advance from poor peasant economy to hydrogen bomb-equipped superpower in a very few year spring to mind.  Unfortunately, he also essayed some crackpot notions with equal fervour and mass application, with catastrophic consequences for his own people - innocent deaths numbered in millions.

Perhaps we'd best not dwell on that ...  Go Chairman Boris!

ND

______________
**There are passages in Lenin which prefigure this: and of course Marx himself said that the point of history was not to understand the world, but to change it.

Alex Salmond Rails Against 'Process' ... Natural Justice is the Serious Issue at Stake

For obvious reasons, I won't say it's all a bit fishy ... but it is interesting.

On Sunday, at BQ's BTL suggestion I'll be reviewing the stage version of Imperium, Robert Harris' masterly retelling of the story of Cicero, 'father of the Roman nation'.   In them days, it was absolutely routine for politicians, serving and retired, to be prosecuted for something.  Bribery and corruption loomed large, of course, but almost anything could be dredged up - or made up.  Most of them seemed to be guilty of so much, the need for outright fabrication wasn't too great; just a little embroidery, perhaps.  How unlike our own chaste times ...

Anyhow, to Alex Salmond.  Upon the accusations against him being made public, his actions and carefully-worded interviews suggest he reckons his best course lies in attacking the 'process' to which he's being subjected.  It flies in the face of 'every law of natural justice', he says.

Actually, there are only two laws of natural justice: nemo iudex in causa sua, and audi alteram partem (and they go back to Cicero's day, too).  Personally I'm very keen on them, as should anyone be who values freedom and rule of law.  But they are under attack.

Why do I say this?  Because the other day I chanced to look up what Wiki says on the subject, to find this:

While the term natural justice is often retained as a general concept, it has largely been replaced and extended by the general "duty to act fairly"

The point is this.  When the 'intersectionality' and transgender headbangers let rip, their primary thesis is that their self-identified status and self-narrated 'lived experience' cannot be gainsaid.  But of of course our two loyal friends the LoNJ blow this clean out of the water.  We can justly scrutinise, challenge, and if appropriate deny, their self-identified anything; and they are not themselves the final arbiter of the matter.

But if we fall back to a general duty to act fairly, they will play the "oppression" card and claim it trumps everything else.

And so, notwithstanding I despise the old charlatan, I wish Salmond well with his procedural challenge.  Let's see where proper due process gets him.

ND 

Anti-Liberalism: A Short Weekend Read

On several occasions we've discussed on C@W how Dilbert author Scott Adams has an impressive line in predicting Trump's actions, based squarely on a coherent thesis about human beings in general (always an advantage).  Here, for weekend perusal, is a very short article on another thesis which may also hold useful explanatory value - at least, for "anti-liberals" ...

It's on the work of a German legal philosopher Carl Schmitt.  It's obligatory to start with this quotation from the article:  "although Schmitt is notorious for joining the Nazi Party in 1933, it would be a mistake to dismiss him for that reason alone. Among scholars today, on both the left and right, Schmitt is known for his incisive critique of modern liberalism". 

The ante-diluvian Theresa May (in her better, "citizen of everywhere = citizen of nowhere" moments) might like this.

At the heart of Schmitt’s critique is his disdain for liberalism’s universal aspirations ... Because the liberal conception of “the people” is non-exclusive, it is also indistinct. Who are we if “we” can include anyone? Schmitt believed that this way of thinking makes liberal states vulnerable to capture by private interest groups from within and by foreigners from without... As defenders of a non-exclusive, rights-based creed, liberals are compelled to meddle in the affairs of other countries whose policies don’t accord with liberal values. And when liberals engage in international military conflict, their worldview is a recipe for total and perpetual war, because their commitment to abstract norms encourages them to view their opponents not merely as competitors but rather as “absolute enemies.

For Schmitt, a political community forms when a group of people recognizes that they share some distinctive cultural trait that they believe is worth defending with their lives ...

ND
 

Weekend Read: Defining "Solidarity" in Law

How do you define a fuzzy, abstract concept into law?

Some while ago I wrote about the European "Energy Union", a classic piece of acquis-grabbing-by-stealth from the EC.  There were follow-ups here, here and here.  For what it is worth, the Energy Union was one of the straws that broke this particular camel's back as regards Brexit.

Anyhow, while it may be of diminishing future significance for the UK, something moderately interesting has come of all this.  Because it is now compulsory for EU nations to render "solidarity" to each other in times of dire shortage of natural gas - I think we know where this finger is pointing ... yes, you over there in the East! - and because actually it's just a warm word (for all the euro-wallahs bandy it around like a comfort blanket), the EC is trying to define what "solidarity" might mean in law.

And very necessary, too! - if you insist on this type of prescriptive Civil-Code stuff.   Although these rules aren't yet in force (so the UK made no call on solidarity back at the cold end of February, relying instead on the market) we recall that gas didn't flow our way as one would ordinarily expect when quite exceptional prices were on offer.  Yes, those Good Europeans are - of course - self-interested bastards who need to be dragged by lawyers and regulators to carry through on their hallowed *principles*.

I realise this EC doument's earnest word-smithery may be of limited interest to many readers but personally, though not a lawyer, I enjoy such sub-philosophical endeavours.  It's all in the small print.  And below are some of the things we find amongst this new euro-babble:

• You'll have to pay "fairly and promptly" for any "solidarity" (i.e. gas!) received;
• The "fair" price is assumed to be "not lower than market price (+ costs)", for fear of "perverse incentives" (see, they have been listening to 20 years of the UK telling them what can go wrong with interventionist energy policies);
• All market mechanisms need to have been deployed first (ditto); 
• Solidarity doesn't give one state any authority over another; 
• All subject to Fundamental Rights (which I take to be a get-out clause).

What might this remind you of - if you were German?

I have a feeling certain eastern euro-nations might have been hoping for something a bit less mercenary than this.  And, needless to say, if the market mechanisms are working properly, none of it should really be required at all.

Unless, that is, Russia cuts up really rough.  In which case, (a) frankly, all bets are off.

But ...  (b) those of us *ahem* old enough to remember the 1973-74 oil crisis will recall OPEC cutting up really rough.  On that occasion a rather effective ad hoc intervention swung into place.  The forerunner of the IEA was told by the OECD to sort it out and, adroitly commandeering a powerful linear programming tool sitting in Exxon's HQ in New Jersey, this team allocated the whole Free World's available stock of crude oil based on whatever principles it deemed appropriate.  Oil was tight, but it all sort-of worked.   

See, even avowed free-marketeers can allow for state / super-state interventions when the chips are down ... preferably by people who are competent - which, as well as technical capabilities, includes having market instincts that are strong!  

By now you'll have decided whether the EC document is of interest to you ...  A pleasant weekend to all, whatever you're reading.

ND

The Long March

The Marxist Antonio Gramsci famously advocated advancing the revolution by undertaking a 'long march through the institutions'.  They've been at it for decades, of course, and over the weekend there was a little snapshot of their progress.

Sixty-six of the world’s leading minds were announced as Fellows of the British Academy ... the very best of humanities and social sciences research.  This year’s new Fellows are experts in subjects ranging from feminist theory to the economic development of Africa ... The British Academy’s newest cohort of Fellows also reflects the growing diversity of research in the UK. The proportion of women elected to the Fellowship has doubled in the last five years. This year, 38% of the new Fellows are women, exceeding the 24% share of female Professors in UK universities.

Sounds exciting.  What have these folks been researching?  Here are some extracts.  For the avoidance of doubt, I haven't made up any of this.   Well, you couldn't make it up - could you? 

Young women and mass media, feminist theory, gender and popular culture, British fashion industry, creative economy, fashion start-ups and micro-enterprises in the urban environment

Theory and politics of multiculturalism, secularism, Islamophobia, racial equality; sociology of ethnic minorities in higher education and employment; with special reference to Muslims in Western Europe

Inequality in education and labour market outcomes, educational efficiency, school and teacher effectiveness, social mobility 

Fundamental rights, interdisciplinary studies of law, gender studies, critical and feminist legal theory 

Colonialism and post-colonialism; civil wars and extreme violence in Africa; political violence and political justice; decolonization of the university and higher education; war on terror 

Comparative welfare state studies; social policies and gender inequality; theorisation and measurement of contemporary poverty; family policies within a comparative perspective; social care in contemporary states and societies; European Union social policy 

Legal recognition of family ties, the consequences of relationship breakdown, and experiences of the family justice system 

Inequality, wage structures, minimum wages; peer effects; the economics of migration 

Feminism in philosophy 

Contemporary social and cultural geography; agri-food studies; moral economies and consumer practice 

Language and migration; new dialects; multicultural youth language; language and social structure; sociolinguistics of West Africa 

Global development and social change; issues of inequality, gender, environmental sustainability, health and infectious disease in Africa and beyond; interfaces between social science, science and policy

ND

Sad Loss

A bit obscure - more so than the recent death of Derek Parfit , a towering figure in philosophy - but we've just lost excellent young philospher Joshua Parsons at the age of 43.

Curiously enough, lots of people know one of his works: this brilliant assessment of the merits and demerits of the national flags of the world!  If you've never looked at it, I recommend you do so over the holiday weekend.   Some extracts:

Rule 1c: If you must write a stupid slogan on your flag, do not do so in a living language! ...

Rule 2a: Do not put a picture of anything on your flag. That's right: no pictures. Especially not of sheep (are you listening, Falkland Islands?) or parrots (this means you, Dominica!). Stylised logos based on representations are OK (Albania is pushing it) but representational art is out.

If you are going to put a picture on your flag (in violation of rule 2a) why would you put pictures of the weapons that you are using to conduct a bloody repression of your citizens on it? This just doesn't make sense to me. Obviously countries like Afghanistan Mozambique just aren't interested in the tourist dollars that you can get from not advertising the fact that you like to hack off the limbs of foreigners before shooting them and turning them into soap. Still, it's their loss. 

You gotta read the rest.

No details on his death yet but he was known to suffer from deep depression.  All very sad.

ND

Reading Assignment. Spoiler Alert - Not Festive

Time for a bit of theory to temper some of the heated comments that are flying around BTL recently here at C@W.  Ordinarily these things are for the Weekend Reading slot - but not this time, Scrooge, not this weekend.

Rather sobering, this review of an edifying and salutary thesis that links social media with some of the fundamental dynamics of society: inward-directed violence and how it is subliminated; sacrificial victims, scapegoating, monarchical regimes, monopolies, Trump, Twitter ...

Told you it wasn't for the weekend!

ND

Normalizing Mister Trump

As we know, the most horrifying prospect for all lib-lefties is that Trump and Brexit become *normalized* in everyday life and speech.  Not least, they fear they'll be prey to this themselves.

Well tough titty, chaps, because nothing gonna stop it happening.  Exhibit A:

Nicholas Stern:"Donald Trump may not be as bad for the environment as feared"

Exhibit B:

Brian Leiter: "Trump chooses retired Marine General Mattis as Secretary of Defense - I view this as a good development ... Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as Trump's likely choice for Secretary of State ... a businessman and someone who is on friendly terms with Vladimir Putin growing out of past business dealings.  I view the latter as a positive ... I also note that when Tillerson was head of the Boy Scouts of America, he was instrumental in lifting the ban on openly gay Scouts participating."

This is heavy-duty coat-turning, because these people are *Intellectuals*, with serious public platforms upon which they perform to large audiences.  Leiter is a prominent and impeccably lib-lefty US philosophy professor (and prolific blogger), who before the US election wrote many times that Trump's candidature was preposterous and without doubt destined to fail, justly and ignominiously. ("Even though the malevolent narcissist Trump is going to lose the election in a few weeks ...").   I am guessing you know who Stern is.

And it's been all of - five weeks!  Lesser lefty mortals will also be normalizing furiously in their own little corners - because everyone always does (back to our friends the Vicar of Bray and the Common Man).  See, they never really believed Trump was Hitler, all along ...

ND

Boris Speaks Truth Shock: Redux

"The world's grown honest.  Then doomsday is near"  -  Hamlet

Dunno how many readers of Friday's post bothered with the i-player, but I have indeed transcribed the identified couple of Newsnight minutes for posterity.  (Obsessive?  If you like - it's just that I am genuinely interested in this *post-truth* thing, if thing it be.)

Seems that many of Friday's commenters broadly agree with the "isn't it refreshing" theme.  I have me doubts - and not just on Rutter's rather pedestrian grounds of it makes government a bit difficult.   Towards the end she says that more honesty (soi-disant) "would actually improve the quality of public debate enormously".  But - if we again ignore her mundane point - this conveniently overlooks the fact that Joe Voter ultimately likes his political leaders to look the part, to have thought things through, and to seem to be in charge, in control.  Turning up and indulging in a bit of "it's all very difficult", however commendably honest, is the Jimmy Carter trick and it don't work.  Honest flannelers - Corbyn take note, if you ever listen to anyone - will always suffer the same fate.
  
Some other comments of mine in square brackets.  It's a huge topic and this is just by way of an input, one among many that could be mustered.

ND
= = = = = =
Newsnight, 8 Dec 2016.  Emily Maitlis in the chair, Sean O'Grady (Inde) and Jill Rutter ("Institute for Government", whatever grandiose self-appointed conceit that may be).

Do recent events mean we have entered a new age? - Maitlis asks.

O'G:  People fairly obviously over the last year or more have got very tired of politicians mincing their words, not saying what they think; there was a lack of authenticity in political life, and I think what’s happened with the Brexit vote and Trump and what’s happening on the continent of Europe in some cases, for various reasons, and sometimes it’s the radical right, and sometimes it’s the radical left who benefit from this - people are looking for politicians who say what they mean, and mean what they say; ... and I think that if the politicians then choose to make a populist appeal, so much the better for them and they’re benefitting from it; and there’s a huge sort of global peasants’ revolt that’s happening at the moment 

M:  There’ll be plenty of support for that, won’t there?  A politician who sees it, says it as it is, and is admired for doing so.

R:   I think you really need to differentiate a bit between politicians and government ... I think Sean’s right – people do want politicians who are prepared not just to spout sort of ‘lines to take’ and things like that; but I think it’s a bit different when you’re talking about things like government and government positions ... No.10 have ... been spending the last 3 or 4 months clarifying a lot of their ministers – quite often a minister goes out and free-lances a bit and then ... No.10 says well that was their position, it wasn’t the government position.  It may be a considered view that actually it’s better to foment a bit of debate and there’s only one person who really authentically speaks for the government and that’s Theresa May, and everybody else is doing their own thing – but it does get a bit awkward, we’ve had one area, on Heathrow, where they formally suspended collective responsibility but I’m not quite sure if this is designed or accident ... What does Boris J do now? … stick with the BJ line - does he stick with the UK government line? 

O'G … What BJ has done is which is very important in terms of government is he’s brought ethics into foreign policy just like that, and nobody’s noticed, but we’ve now got a liberal foreign sec in effect operating an ethical foreign policy.  [Oh yeah?  I seem to recall the sainted Robin Cook trying that ...]

R … think about being on the receiving government, you’ve got somebody coming, are they speaking for the country for which they come or are they not? - and I think that’s where it gets really, really complicated.   So in a sense you’re almost devaluing a foreign secretary’s visit because effectively you’re saying it’s not the government. 

M:  … Theresa May says all those things in private to the Saudi government anyway, so all he’s doing is taking that out of the shadows, if you like, and putting it into the public sphere?

O'G … the point is, for 50, 60, 70 years diplomats, the Foreign Office, what people unkindly call the 'camel corps', those people have been doing quiet diplomacy, behind the scenes diplomacy, they’ve been talking and lobbying in secret things and then when they go to the banquets and so forth they are very polite: and at best, you have a coded message.   [Just 70 years?  Don't be wet - that's diplomacy since time began.] 

Well that’s not doing any good in Yemen, and BJ is completely right, everyone knows it, that there is a proxy war going on in Yemen between the Iranians and the Saudis and in other parts of the Middle East as well, and if we don’t call them out as BJ has done then you go along with that spin and you just get nowhere, and people suffer as a result ...  there wasn't anything that BJ said that was actually rude, he was just telling them what they know already, it is like telling the king he’s got a beard. 

R:  … if there’s sort of an explicit strategy, that you want to ... have a sort of pincer attack and the foreign secretary saying one sort of line and the PM taking a different line, and that’s agreed in advance, and they know, and the foreign secretary knows that the PM might distance herself slightly from him, then I think that’s fine.  If actually what you’re getting is two people sort of shooting off in slightly different directions, whatever they’re saying, privately behind closed doors, I think that makes for a policy incoherence, I don’t think it’s terribly helpful, I don’t think it helps advance British interests.

M:  Do you think he did it deliberately ..? 

R:  …  He’s relatively new to a very senior cabinet position.  As mayor of London it was actually OK to say things on your own account, in the same way actually as Donald Trump can say things on his own account. Once you’re a very senior government minister you are expected to be able to talk for the government … 

M:  On one level it’s just not very collegiate – he is used to being the BJ figure, is there a little bit of megalomania coming into this? 

O'G: … He’s someone who’s not necessarily a very good team player; it’s not helped by the fact he’s a journalist – we journos like to tell the truth every so often as you know, and I think that he’s not one of those people who is inclined to follow his leader always in every word. 

M:  … the bigger question is perhaps … bluntly, the world has failed … in the Middle East, it’s failed to solve a war, and diplomacy as we know it, doesn’t work – so, does something new need to happen, even if it comes from a strong statesman? 

R:  … I think there is a very good case for saying actually we need political leaders generally who are prepared much more to level and expose the real choices that they face and have a much more honest conversation, whether it’s on foreign policy or on domestic policy, with the population.  Whether actually the events of this year have shown that there’s a real public appetite for that or not, I’m not so sure I would read it necessarily that way, but I think there are lots of areas where there’s almost a sort of conspiracy of not asking difficult questions between the political class which means that actually there’s a divorce from reality and I think actually there’s a general move towards having more debates in public and actually being prepared to admit you don’t know things, that some things are difficult, that sometimes you’ll make the wrong choice, would actually improve the quality of public debate enormously.  I think that’s different though from shooting off in different directions because it seems like a good thing to say at the time, I don’t know whether that’s what he was doing or not, but I don’t think you can really run government on that basis.