Labour, while in office (1997-2010), was foolish not to grant regional self-government to the north of England
Scotland and Wales, though part of the United Kingdom, are countries in the own right, both with well established boundaries and national identities. Since 1999 both have forms of semi-autonomous government.
England, with several times the combined population of Scotland and Wales, can be seen to consist of six regions. Though there may be uncertainties about the "boundaries" of a couple of these regions, most English people know which of the six they live in. The six regions are:
London
Southern England
The West Country
East Anglia
The Midlands
Northern England
In general elections, each of these regions has its own pattern of party identification, and falls into one of three groups. First there are three regions (Southern England, The West Country and East Anglia) in which Labour is never the leading party. In two regions (London and the Midlands) Labour may or may not secure the most seats. Only in one English region (The North) is the Labour Party secure as the dominant party.
Here is the rub. Labour’s heartland is the post-industrial cities, towns and ex-mining villages of Northern England, a region which accounts for only around one quarter of the English population. In any general general election, the majority of Labour seats are won in the North, Scotland, Wales and the inner cities across Britain, yet even taken together these areas have insufficient seats for Labour to win a majority at Westminster.
To win, Labour needs to secure the marginals of the Midlands, London and a handful of urban seats across the South. As a result, Labour’s policy-propaganda focus is on the Midlands and the South, while its English regional heartland in the North is taken for granted and is largely irrelevant to winning elections. That particularly hurts Northern England because Labour’s other traditional strongholds, Scotland and Wales, have semi-autonomous assemblies to give them a voice; Northern England has nothing; and it loses out for this reason.
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1 January 2013
Crises: the thirty year rule
By strange coincidence system-changing crises tend to happen every thirty years.
A crisis in a politico-economic system is when the practices, behaviour and structures that have allowed the system to reproduce itself are no longer comfortably able to do so. Crises may eventually resolve themselves in the restoration of the current system, or they may lead to the breakdown of the existing system and the establishment of a new state of affairs. The tricky thing is to identify a crisis while it is happening; often, we are only able to identify crises after the event.
Those of us living in the advanced capitalist countries have seen only one system-changing crisis in the period since the Second World War, namely in 1973-80 when the Keynesian political, economic and social consensus - the so-called thirty post-war golden years of growing prosperity - gave way to market fundamentalism in the US, Britain and less dramatically and more slowly in continental Europe.
Are the thirty years of market fundamentalism (1980-2010) coming to an end? Well, if they are, what does the next epoch look like? It's very hard to tell.
Is it merely coincidence that these historical periodisations last thirty years? For instance the years of catastrophe in the mid-twentieth century (1914-1945) also lasted thirty odd years, as did, roughly, the age of imperial monopoly capitalism (1880s-1914).
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A crisis in a politico-economic system is when the practices, behaviour and structures that have allowed the system to reproduce itself are no longer comfortably able to do so. Crises may eventually resolve themselves in the restoration of the current system, or they may lead to the breakdown of the existing system and the establishment of a new state of affairs. The tricky thing is to identify a crisis while it is happening; often, we are only able to identify crises after the event.
Those of us living in the advanced capitalist countries have seen only one system-changing crisis in the period since the Second World War, namely in 1973-80 when the Keynesian political, economic and social consensus - the so-called thirty post-war golden years of growing prosperity - gave way to market fundamentalism in the US, Britain and less dramatically and more slowly in continental Europe.
Are the thirty years of market fundamentalism (1980-2010) coming to an end? Well, if they are, what does the next epoch look like? It's very hard to tell.
Is it merely coincidence that these historical periodisations last thirty years? For instance the years of catastrophe in the mid-twentieth century (1914-1945) also lasted thirty odd years, as did, roughly, the age of imperial monopoly capitalism (1880s-1914).
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10 December 2012
Popper by Bryan Magee
Karl Popper's philosophy makes a valuable point, but is fundamentally flawed.
This is the best selling book by Bryan Magee (born 1930), the articulate broadcaster of programmes explaining and popularising philosophy.
Magee provides a clearly written and enthusiastic account of the ideas of his personal friend, the philosopher Karl Popper (1902-94). The book proceeds from Popper’s view of science (a rejection of induction in favour of falsifiability), to his view of human knowledge as an ever-provisional attempt at problem solving, and concludes with how Popper applies these ideas to the defence of liberal democracy and of a pragmatic problem solving method of doing politics.
Though Popper is often correctly labelled as someone out to clobber Marxism in the post war period, there is much sense in what I understand him to be saying. However, for me his philosophy of knowledge (epistemology) is marred by problems.
Popper recognised the historical distinction between analytic and synthetic statements. Analytic statements (e.g. All bachelors are male.) are necessarily true by logic alone. In contrast, synthetic statements, (e.g. The cheese is on the table.) are contingent: that means they are dependent on how the world actually is. Popper regarded science as consisting entirely of synthetic statements.
Popper’s central contention was that a synthetic statement can only be held to be scientific if it is capable of being empirically falsified. There is much sense here; i.e. we should be cautious of statements which claim to remain true irrespective of what happens. Yet, I fail to understand why the truth of a statement is necessarily dependent on the ability to potentially falsify it. For instance, if for some reason, it were impossible to the test the proposition that water boils at one hundred degrees centigrade, that would not prevent the proposition from being either true or scientific.
Many synthetic statements involved in the foundation of science are incapable of being tested at all; for instance the axioms that objects exist in space and time, and that every change has a cause. In fact, following Kant, we could argue that without such so-called synthetic a priori statements we cannot think at all.
Popper is of course right to say that if an extrapolation from a theory is falsified in an empirical test, it’s not the reality which is wrong, but the hypothesis. Yet it seems mistaken to argue that that the theory (a collection of interdependent statements) must be abandoned wholesale, and there isn’t a case on occasion for modifying the theory and its concepts rather than immediately junking them. Popper says he is using practical human solving procedures as the basis for his theory, but, to use a crude analogy, if I have a new car and find the ignition doesn’t work one morning, I am more inclined to have the car repaired than consign it to the scrapheap.
One final point is whether Popper’s theory applies to his own theory of falsifiability. Quite clearly not, so we have to regard the notion of falsifiability as a postulate justified by logic, not experience. So not only does Popper's logic fail to hold up in all cases, as discussed above, but Popper is forced to justify his tool for doing science by the very logico-rational methods that he wanted to oppose.
Karl Popper saw his writing as an attack on the whole Kant-Hegel-Marx tradition in social science (and was certainly lauded by the establishment in Britain for doing just that). But in my view he failed in knocking Kant, Hegel and Marx from their position in Western thought. What he has certainly done is to hold up ‘warning signs’ which serve to alert us to dogma and nonsense in thought.
MAGEE, Bryan – Popper, Fontana 1973
This is the best selling book by Bryan Magee (born 1930), the articulate broadcaster of programmes explaining and popularising philosophy.
Magee provides a clearly written and enthusiastic account of the ideas of his personal friend, the philosopher Karl Popper (1902-94). The book proceeds from Popper’s view of science (a rejection of induction in favour of falsifiability), to his view of human knowledge as an ever-provisional attempt at problem solving, and concludes with how Popper applies these ideas to the defence of liberal democracy and of a pragmatic problem solving method of doing politics.
Though Popper is often correctly labelled as someone out to clobber Marxism in the post war period, there is much sense in what I understand him to be saying. However, for me his philosophy of knowledge (epistemology) is marred by problems.
Popper recognised the historical distinction between analytic and synthetic statements. Analytic statements (e.g. All bachelors are male.) are necessarily true by logic alone. In contrast, synthetic statements, (e.g. The cheese is on the table.) are contingent: that means they are dependent on how the world actually is. Popper regarded science as consisting entirely of synthetic statements.
Popper’s central contention was that a synthetic statement can only be held to be scientific if it is capable of being empirically falsified. There is much sense here; i.e. we should be cautious of statements which claim to remain true irrespective of what happens. Yet, I fail to understand why the truth of a statement is necessarily dependent on the ability to potentially falsify it. For instance, if for some reason, it were impossible to the test the proposition that water boils at one hundred degrees centigrade, that would not prevent the proposition from being either true or scientific.
Many synthetic statements involved in the foundation of science are incapable of being tested at all; for instance the axioms that objects exist in space and time, and that every change has a cause. In fact, following Kant, we could argue that without such so-called synthetic a priori statements we cannot think at all.
Popper is of course right to say that if an extrapolation from a theory is falsified in an empirical test, it’s not the reality which is wrong, but the hypothesis. Yet it seems mistaken to argue that that the theory (a collection of interdependent statements) must be abandoned wholesale, and there isn’t a case on occasion for modifying the theory and its concepts rather than immediately junking them. Popper says he is using practical human solving procedures as the basis for his theory, but, to use a crude analogy, if I have a new car and find the ignition doesn’t work one morning, I am more inclined to have the car repaired than consign it to the scrapheap.
One final point is whether Popper’s theory applies to his own theory of falsifiability. Quite clearly not, so we have to regard the notion of falsifiability as a postulate justified by logic, not experience. So not only does Popper's logic fail to hold up in all cases, as discussed above, but Popper is forced to justify his tool for doing science by the very logico-rational methods that he wanted to oppose.
Karl Popper saw his writing as an attack on the whole Kant-Hegel-Marx tradition in social science (and was certainly lauded by the establishment in Britain for doing just that). But in my view he failed in knocking Kant, Hegel and Marx from their position in Western thought. What he has certainly done is to hold up ‘warning signs’ which serve to alert us to dogma and nonsense in thought.
MAGEE, Bryan – Popper, Fontana 1973
2 December 2012
Historical Materialism: a short working definition
Historical materialism, the theory of society developed by Karl Marx (1818-83), needs a clear practical definition.
Historical materialism is a theory about and a method of studying human society. In the first instance, it is a theory about the workings of society as a whole; i.e. it is a macro theory. Its starting point is that human beings live on the planet Earth, are part of the Earth and extract the means to life from the Earth. Human beings live socially: i.e. not as Robinson Crusoes, but in society. They produce and reproduce their lives socially. Historical materialism is a theory of technique: i.e. it asserts that how we socially produce the means to life, and how we have historically produced the means to life, determines what we are as a society.
Historical materialism is an inclusive, not an exclusive science. Aspects of life are also governed by geography, human physiology, psychology, etc. These sciences are related to and are enriched by historical materialism, but are not deducible from it. Historical materialism is a macro-sociology; i.e a study of human behaviour in the whole of society.
Historical materialism stresses history because what exists today is the result of the past. It stresses materialism because at root human society is the complex result of people producing the means to life from nature. Some people produce but everybody lives from what is produced. What people think they are doing and the ideas that they have in their heads are important in determining what happens, but are necessarily secondary to what actually is happening.
Historical materialism thus recognises the basis of human existence as a collective production of society from nature in a process which develops over time. This fundamental point plays two roles in the further development of historical materialism.
First, it is a core statement of meaning about what society and human existence is.
Second, it provides the first tool for viewing the world, asking research questions and developing concepts to interpret and understand the social world.
Observations underlying historical materialism
Moving beyond the short working definition above, historical materialism can be seen to draw on three simple observations from human history. These should be spelled out.
First, as stated above, human history is the result of humans beings socially working on nature to produce the means to life. In that sense, humans aren’t different from other gregarious creatures like ants or bees. But what makes human society unique is twofold: first, human beings get better at conquering the natural world by means of developing their technology and skills, and in so doing change not only nature (e.g. the building of dams) but also change the kinds of lives they live. Second, human beings are unique in having the ability to think about, reflect on and express in language, art, music, etc. what they are doing and what they think and feel about it. Hence, for instance, the theory of historical materialism itself.
Second, all hitherto existing society has been characterised by a division of labour. Those divisions may stem from efficiency considerations (e.g. electricians not doing the work of plumbers and vice versa), cultural roles (e.g. men’s work, women’s work) or from different access to wealth and income, (e.g. factory worker, leisured gentleman). As society changes, so the divisions of labour change.
Third, all human society is based on a scarcity, or perceived scarcity, of desired things, such as money, wealth in the form of material assets, status and power. Therefore, there is a struggle for these things, which means that the principles governing their allocation are usually a matter of dispute.
The labour theory of value
The labour theory of value is an integral part of historical materialism, and needs to be stated in such a way that it applies to all human history, not just to capitalism. And for the sake of easy comprehension, the theory should be explained without mathematics.
The core idea is simple. Most of the things which we need in order to live are the products of human labour, e.g. food clothes, houses. That is, of course, not true for everything; for instance the air we breath is available without any effort. But crucially, we cannot live without those products which can only result from human labour; and that is true even in modern times when many products are manufactured by machines, because those machines have to be built and maintained by human labour.
It is a observable fact that throughout history the vast majority of people spend a huge part of their lives involved directly or indirectly in the making of useful products - or else are engaged in services to support that production. But by contrast only a minority own and control what is produced and the means of producing it, and this minority hugely benefits as a result.
In the terminology adopted by Marx, the value of a good is equal to the amount of labour time that went into making it. (And here it is vital to avoid a misunderstanding: do not confuse the value of a good in the Marxist sense with its market price because the price of a good is determined by several factors, not just the labour time that went into making it.) Some of the value resulting from produced goods is given to those involved in its production; another part (the so-called surplus value) is given to people who have legal ownership or other rights over the product, but who did not participate in the work to produce it - the landlord, factory owner, banker, etc. The higher the proportion of surplus value, the greater the level of exploitation.
The terms value, surplus value and exploitation should be understood as technical expressions, and do not always mean the same as they do in everyday speech.
The superstructure
Not everything that happens in society is directly about economic production, distribution and exchange. What lies outside the economy is termed the superstructure because, using a spatial metaphor, non-economic institutions and activities are seen as being located on top of the economic base. The superstructure consists of two elements: organisations and ideas.
Organisations, sets of relations between people, include governments, militaries, churches, schools, pressure groups, etc. Of course some organisations may be mainly based in the economy, for instance multi-national companies, but others less so, and some hardly at all. Organisations mould people’s ways of thinking and help form their identities and therefore play a key role in determining what people do and what happens in society.
Ideas include the whole way in which people see the world, both in terms of how the world is and how it ought to be. Some ideas, for instance the view that the world is round, are held by almost everybody, while other ideas are held by some but not all of the people. Like for organisations, some ideas concern the economy, for instance marketing, while others are not related or are more distantly related.
A word of caution should be introduced here. The two superstructural elements, organisations and ideas, are interconnected. Ideas are promoted and articulated by organisations, for instance schools, churches, the media; and conversely, ideas play an indispensable role in binding together organisations (e.g. militaries, governments).
The key question now is: what is the relationship between the superstructure (i.e. organisations and ideas) and the economy? Clearly, the relationship varies from place to place and over history, but here we are answering the question, not for any specific historical period or place, but universally.
First, although organisations and ideas play a key role in what happens in society, they have limits set for them by the economy and what is materially real. Organisations are things and do things; they cannot be something made impossible by the economy: for example, a twenty-first century army in a primitive tribal society. Likewise for ideas: goals, plans assumptions, if they are not grounded in what exists, have limited effectiveness. Yet - and this point needs stressing again - because organisation and ideas have boundaries set by the economy, it does not mean that organisations and ideas cannot play a vital role in determining what happens in the economy.
Second, it is possible to talk about a relative correspondence between superstructure and base. Quite clearly, if the economy, organisations and ideas were completely uncoordinated, society could not function. Some level of correspondence is needed for society to exist, but equally the absence of absolute coordination creates social tensions, known as contradictions; and these contradictions are an important cause of change in society.
Third, the economy involves people doing things with some benefiting more than others from the results of human production. How people relate to the economy - through their position in the functional division of labour (e.g. electrician or plumber) and through access to the rewards of economic activity (e.g. factory owner or labourer) - plays the biggest part in determining the social position of people in society. And from the position people find themselves in, so they see the world. Their socio-economic position, in other words, determines their interests and perspective; thus the different social outlook of the senior manager and the office cleaner. Through this analysis, we can identify a clear line of causality: from the economy, to social classes and other social divisions, and then to people's viewpoint and outlook on society.
To sum up, we can see the economic base of society setting limits to human organisation and thinking. We can see the need for some degree of coordination between economy, organisations and thinking. And finally, the economy gives people interests which affects the way they think.
Of course in particular periods of history (e.g. advanced capitalism), more can be said about the relationship between the superstructure and base (i.e. economy). The comments above are intended to provide (i) an understanding of what the superstructure is, and (ii) give an overview of how it links into the economy.
1 December 2012
Incarceration & Punophilia in Britain
Britain has a blooming love affair with punishment
I can remember in 1977-78 delivering newspapers (mostly the Telegraph, Mail and Express) around leafy lanes in Surrey. One outraged headline demanded what was happening to Britain with the prison population exceeding 40 000. The 1970s, after all, were a time when class discontent was supposedly making Britain ungovernable and law and order was breaking down. Mrs Thatcher, then on the verge of office, was preaching authoritarianism and shock capitalist therapy.
Today, more than three decades later in a richer but more unequal Britain, government boasts a prison population of over 80 000, representing the highest incarceration rate in Europe. Maybe the dreck of society is always present, but the size of a country's lumpenproletariat and the proportion of it dumped into jails are determined by social and political factors.
Two factors stand out in explaining this. One is the increasing inequality in British society in which any sense of a community-of-equals is ebbing away, with the result that the shared public morals binding social behaviour have weakened, particularly so in the junk estates and inner cities.
The other, and perhaps related, factor is Britain’s current addiction to punophilia, the love of punishment: a person sent down for six months for stealing a bottle of water, or another receiving three months for making a sick joke on Facebook. Increasingly, imprisonment is used not as an unavoidable last resort, but to “send a message” by government and the judiciary grabbing a headline.
On a more positive note: if Britain imprisoned the same proportion of its population as the US there would 400 000 people rotting in Britain’s jails. But America aside, if you judge a country by the proportion of its population in jail – not a bad measure – then Britain performs very badly indeed.
I can remember in 1977-78 delivering newspapers (mostly the Telegraph, Mail and Express) around leafy lanes in Surrey. One outraged headline demanded what was happening to Britain with the prison population exceeding 40 000. The 1970s, after all, were a time when class discontent was supposedly making Britain ungovernable and law and order was breaking down. Mrs Thatcher, then on the verge of office, was preaching authoritarianism and shock capitalist therapy.
Today, more than three decades later in a richer but more unequal Britain, government boasts a prison population of over 80 000, representing the highest incarceration rate in Europe. Maybe the dreck of society is always present, but the size of a country's lumpenproletariat and the proportion of it dumped into jails are determined by social and political factors.
Two factors stand out in explaining this. One is the increasing inequality in British society in which any sense of a community-of-equals is ebbing away, with the result that the shared public morals binding social behaviour have weakened, particularly so in the junk estates and inner cities.
The other, and perhaps related, factor is Britain’s current addiction to punophilia, the love of punishment: a person sent down for six months for stealing a bottle of water, or another receiving three months for making a sick joke on Facebook. Increasingly, imprisonment is used not as an unavoidable last resort, but to “send a message” by government and the judiciary grabbing a headline.
On a more positive note: if Britain imprisoned the same proportion of its population as the US there would 400 000 people rotting in Britain’s jails. But America aside, if you judge a country by the proportion of its population in jail – not a bad measure – then Britain performs very badly indeed.
Writing about Sex
Much writing about sex goes wrong because an author suddenly shifts gear and starts describing a physical process.
The point can be made by taking, as an example, another process, not sex. If you write, say, a description of a person becoming depressed on the street and then opening her front door, you might compose something like this:
“She easily extracted the key from its usual place in her handbag and inserted it into the lock.”
Now if you expand your description of unlocking a door, even with some attached memories and feeling, into a five hundred word text, you will probably find yourself writing utter drivel. Quite simply, the well-known mechanics of unlocking a door do not need such an extended description.
The same is true of writing about sex. The mechanics of having sex - even of perverse kinds - is pretty much shared information, and attributing evermore over-flowering metaphors to the sexual excitement is what makes it absurd. The way out of this dilemma is not to make the topic of the paragraphs the sex itself, but instead make the theme of the paragraphs the feelings and thoughts and then use sexual activity to illustrate the point.
In short, don't focus on sexual acts, but use sexual acts demonstrate what you are trying to say.
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The point can be made by taking, as an example, another process, not sex. If you write, say, a description of a person becoming depressed on the street and then opening her front door, you might compose something like this:
“She easily extracted the key from its usual place in her handbag and inserted it into the lock.”
Now if you expand your description of unlocking a door, even with some attached memories and feeling, into a five hundred word text, you will probably find yourself writing utter drivel. Quite simply, the well-known mechanics of unlocking a door do not need such an extended description.
The same is true of writing about sex. The mechanics of having sex - even of perverse kinds - is pretty much shared information, and attributing evermore over-flowering metaphors to the sexual excitement is what makes it absurd. The way out of this dilemma is not to make the topic of the paragraphs the sex itself, but instead make the theme of the paragraphs the feelings and thoughts and then use sexual activity to illustrate the point.
In short, don't focus on sexual acts, but use sexual acts demonstrate what you are trying to say.
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13 November 2012
Free Comment Criminalised in Britain
In the accelerating attack on free speech in Britain, a Facebook user has been arrested for displaying a captioned image of a burning poppy.
In the twentieth century comment was outlawed because it was subversive or indecent. Free speech finally won against those arguments. But today, there is a new threat: increasingly comment on the internet is threatened and prosecuted because it is allegedly offensive to someone.
Expanding the notion of offence is a great ruse for the state: government is not saying we are banning comment because it threatens us, but because it threatens “you the people” and to prove its point a lynch mob of people, spurred on by the gutter press, can always be found to demand judicial sanctions against the commentator. Yet the end result is the same as in the previous century: people fined or imprisoned for expressing their opinions.
In the twentieth century comment was outlawed because it was subversive or indecent. Free speech finally won against those arguments. But today, there is a new threat: increasingly comment on the internet is threatened and prosecuted because it is allegedly offensive to someone.
Expanding the notion of offence is a great ruse for the state: government is not saying we are banning comment because it threatens us, but because it threatens “you the people” and to prove its point a lynch mob of people, spurred on by the gutter press, can always be found to demand judicial sanctions against the commentator. Yet the end result is the same as in the previous century: people fined or imprisoned for expressing their opinions.
1 November 2012
Serĝo Elgo - Ŝia Lasta Poŝtkarto
Eksita romano pri malaperita junulino
Tiu romano, originale verkita en Esperanto, estas mia unua tutlonga fikciaĵo, kiu mi legas en la internacia lingvo. Ankaŭ estas la unua fojo, kiam mi ĝuis fikcian libron, kiel libro, kaj ne nur kiel esperanta praktiko.
Temas la historio pri deksepa knabino de riĉburĝa familio, kiu malaperis dumnokte dum vizito ĉe sia maljuna avino. Tordas la historio en ĉiu ĉapitro, dum disvolviĝas la intrigo. La lerteco de Elgo eĉ superas la romanojn de Agatha Christie. Ĉe Christie oni trovas nur artefaritajn romanrolojn, sed ĉe Elgo oni trovas realrolojn. Vera estas tio precise pri la malaperita Izabella, kiun oni montras kiel inteligenta kaj libervola junulino.
Malgraŭ (por mi) malfacila lingvo kelkloke, la romano al la leganto donas multe da plezuro. Mi forte rekomendas ĝin al la esperantistoj.
ELGO, Serĝo - Ŝia Lasta Poŝtkarto, Kooperativo de Literature Foiro 1988
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6 October 2012
74 Old Tiverton Road
Memories from a shared student house: 74 Old Tiverton Road, Exeter (1982-83).
In 1980 I left my parental home in Haslemere in Surrey to take a three year degree course at Exeter University. By far the most memorable year was my last, 1982-83, in which I shared 74 Old Tiverton Road, Exeter with seven other students. This short article was originally written in May 1998 with some small amendments made in October 2012.
He, that his whole youth denies,
Is surely dead before he dies.
From a poem by M. Dewar
Milan Kundera once said that there was no future or past, only the present. As far as the past is concerned, there is a process of remembering and forgetting; we remember individually, or do so with others through mutually reinforced myths, but always seeing the world through the tinted spectacles of the present. Even if we don't distort, we select; and those events from the past which do not bear on our current worries and concerns are largely forgotten.
The selective and distorted memory pictures from our past are bound together to form personal myths – what we believe about ourselves. We would like to believe that these narratives form continuity in the form of an unfolding and blossoming of our lives and that they have a meaning which forms the basis of our life, and therefore the foundation for our immortality. If we believed that our lives were merely a series of disconnected and irrelevant events, our immortality (i.e. ourselves as an idea) would be impossible.
The memories of our youth are highly significant here. Most of us, unless we were extremely unfortunate in our youth, tend to idealise that period, stretching from puberty to our launch into the adult world, as our personal Garden of Eden, which existed before age and compromise dented us mentally and physically. While it is axiomatic that the past determines the present, the chequered path of material causes is forgotten in favour of a narcissistic adoration of our youthful period. Our memories tell us that the summer nights were longer, warmer and more beautiful than now; and it is because of such adoration for youth that the 'growing up' novel is so popular. Often such is the strength of our memories of youth that they bring forth the sickness and delight of nostalgia.
Our personal myths consist of defining moments in the form of events or series of events which changed our lives. Both now and at the time I felt that the year 1982-83 which I spent at 74 Old Tiverton Road was one such defining moment.
We were eight university students, 20-22 years old, living in a shared house: six men and two women. We were human science students studying politics, psychology, ecology, law and drama. But in those ten month there was a semi-conscious drive to forge a new set of values, the effects of which have remained to some degree with us to this day. Some of us were more involved in that process than others; and no doubt the role that Old Tiverton Road plays in our personal myths varies between the people involved. But that time was important for all of us.
In the first place our lives were a deliberate reaction against the then prevailing values of lower middle-class Thatcherism. Despite most of us originating from just that lower middle class, we rejected Thatcher's individualism, Puritanism, materialism and aggression in favour of co-operation, hedonism, self-recognition and pacifism.
The most significant example of co-operation was the cooking rota. Without fail the person whose turn it was always bought the food, did the cooking and washed up. It always surprised me how among so many other students (or indeed other people living together) each cooked for himself. Shared meals bring people together and it brought us together.
Hedonism was endemic. If somebody didn't hurt somebody else, then s/he was free to do as s/he wished. Thus much of the house had a pleasure maximisation design, subtle lighting, large low beds, beanbags and wall hangings. The demarcation between sleep and consciousness, work and play, and sex and friendship was narrowed.
If the world outside was becoming more materialistic - what you had was more important than what you were - the reverse was true in the house. Scorn was poured on material possessions; and value placed on 'being.' To that end whole nights were taken up with mutual introspection with the purpose of self-understanding, the removal hang-ups and self-improvement. It was largely through the desire for self-improvement, rather than employment, that we interpreted the education we were receiving and giving ourselves.
The external world was aggressive - both individually and collectively - with speed, profit and aggression destroying slowness and understanding. By contrast our self-realisation was based on sensation and comprehension and could not be centred on an individual physical or materialistic conquest of the external world.
These values, plus other thoughts and experiences, became the spectacles through which we saw ourselves and the world. Now we have forgotten much; e.g. how dirty was the bathroom basin? We can't remember because it was not important and it doesn't define us. Yet, it was with 74 Old Tiverton Road in our heads that we were launched into the adult world. For some of us that adult world was so ugly that we withdrew from it into the world of receiving social security payments in order to live, and in rejecting Thatcher's universe, we tried in vain to create a community based on our values. We failed, but learned and moved on. Yet those values remain with us and we evaluate so much with them in mind.
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In 1980 I left my parental home in Haslemere in Surrey to take a three year degree course at Exeter University. By far the most memorable year was my last, 1982-83, in which I shared 74 Old Tiverton Road, Exeter with seven other students. This short article was originally written in May 1998 with some small amendments made in October 2012.
He, that his whole youth denies,
Is surely dead before he dies.
From a poem by M. Dewar
Milan Kundera once said that there was no future or past, only the present. As far as the past is concerned, there is a process of remembering and forgetting; we remember individually, or do so with others through mutually reinforced myths, but always seeing the world through the tinted spectacles of the present. Even if we don't distort, we select; and those events from the past which do not bear on our current worries and concerns are largely forgotten.
The selective and distorted memory pictures from our past are bound together to form personal myths – what we believe about ourselves. We would like to believe that these narratives form continuity in the form of an unfolding and blossoming of our lives and that they have a meaning which forms the basis of our life, and therefore the foundation for our immortality. If we believed that our lives were merely a series of disconnected and irrelevant events, our immortality (i.e. ourselves as an idea) would be impossible.
The memories of our youth are highly significant here. Most of us, unless we were extremely unfortunate in our youth, tend to idealise that period, stretching from puberty to our launch into the adult world, as our personal Garden of Eden, which existed before age and compromise dented us mentally and physically. While it is axiomatic that the past determines the present, the chequered path of material causes is forgotten in favour of a narcissistic adoration of our youthful period. Our memories tell us that the summer nights were longer, warmer and more beautiful than now; and it is because of such adoration for youth that the 'growing up' novel is so popular. Often such is the strength of our memories of youth that they bring forth the sickness and delight of nostalgia.
Our personal myths consist of defining moments in the form of events or series of events which changed our lives. Both now and at the time I felt that the year 1982-83 which I spent at 74 Old Tiverton Road was one such defining moment.
We were eight university students, 20-22 years old, living in a shared house: six men and two women. We were human science students studying politics, psychology, ecology, law and drama. But in those ten month there was a semi-conscious drive to forge a new set of values, the effects of which have remained to some degree with us to this day. Some of us were more involved in that process than others; and no doubt the role that Old Tiverton Road plays in our personal myths varies between the people involved. But that time was important for all of us.
In the first place our lives were a deliberate reaction against the then prevailing values of lower middle-class Thatcherism. Despite most of us originating from just that lower middle class, we rejected Thatcher's individualism, Puritanism, materialism and aggression in favour of co-operation, hedonism, self-recognition and pacifism.
The most significant example of co-operation was the cooking rota. Without fail the person whose turn it was always bought the food, did the cooking and washed up. It always surprised me how among so many other students (or indeed other people living together) each cooked for himself. Shared meals bring people together and it brought us together.
Hedonism was endemic. If somebody didn't hurt somebody else, then s/he was free to do as s/he wished. Thus much of the house had a pleasure maximisation design, subtle lighting, large low beds, beanbags and wall hangings. The demarcation between sleep and consciousness, work and play, and sex and friendship was narrowed.
If the world outside was becoming more materialistic - what you had was more important than what you were - the reverse was true in the house. Scorn was poured on material possessions; and value placed on 'being.' To that end whole nights were taken up with mutual introspection with the purpose of self-understanding, the removal hang-ups and self-improvement. It was largely through the desire for self-improvement, rather than employment, that we interpreted the education we were receiving and giving ourselves.
The external world was aggressive - both individually and collectively - with speed, profit and aggression destroying slowness and understanding. By contrast our self-realisation was based on sensation and comprehension and could not be centred on an individual physical or materialistic conquest of the external world.
These values, plus other thoughts and experiences, became the spectacles through which we saw ourselves and the world. Now we have forgotten much; e.g. how dirty was the bathroom basin? We can't remember because it was not important and it doesn't define us. Yet, it was with 74 Old Tiverton Road in our heads that we were launched into the adult world. For some of us that adult world was so ugly that we withdrew from it into the world of receiving social security payments in order to live, and in rejecting Thatcher's universe, we tried in vain to create a community based on our values. We failed, but learned and moved on. Yet those values remain with us and we evaluate so much with them in mind.
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1 October 2012
Offensive opinions: challenge but don't censor
Labelling an opponent's argument offensive does not win an argument
It is becoming increasingly common to find commentators both on the web and in face-to-face discussion arguing in the following way. A point is made with which they disagree – for instance one critical of religious belief or concerning the definition of rape – and the commentator feels that his or her opponent’s argument can be dismissed simply by labelling it offensive.
What the commentator is de facto saying is that the “offensive” argument simply shouldn't exist. The logic is that if the allegedly offensive argument, which contradicts his or her own views, is taken away, then the remaining argument is strengthened and legitimised. That is not so.
No argument can be deemed illogical, incorrect or morally wrong simply because somebody else finds it offensive. Labelling an argument “offensive” only says something about the people using that label, namely that they don’t like it. It does nothing to qualify or demolish the allegedly offensive opinion.
At one time people found it offensive to suggest that the world was round, or that the earth circulated the sun; their feeling of offence couldn't change a fact. At one time a majority of people found homosexuality offensive, but their bigotry couldn't prevent the development of the idea that human beings, whether gay or not, should have rights.
Nobody should be prevented from saying something simply because someone else finds it offensive. Offensive opinions (and of course they exist) need challenging, but that is not done simply by labelling them offensive.
.
It is becoming increasingly common to find commentators both on the web and in face-to-face discussion arguing in the following way. A point is made with which they disagree – for instance one critical of religious belief or concerning the definition of rape – and the commentator feels that his or her opponent’s argument can be dismissed simply by labelling it offensive.
What the commentator is de facto saying is that the “offensive” argument simply shouldn't exist. The logic is that if the allegedly offensive argument, which contradicts his or her own views, is taken away, then the remaining argument is strengthened and legitimised. That is not so.
No argument can be deemed illogical, incorrect or morally wrong simply because somebody else finds it offensive. Labelling an argument “offensive” only says something about the people using that label, namely that they don’t like it. It does nothing to qualify or demolish the allegedly offensive opinion.
At one time people found it offensive to suggest that the world was round, or that the earth circulated the sun; their feeling of offence couldn't change a fact. At one time a majority of people found homosexuality offensive, but their bigotry couldn't prevent the development of the idea that human beings, whether gay or not, should have rights.
Nobody should be prevented from saying something simply because someone else finds it offensive. Offensive opinions (and of course they exist) need challenging, but that is not done simply by labelling them offensive.
.
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