Fewtril #107

The scepticism of intellectuals means that they are wont to look suspiciously upon any idea that does not first flatter them into believing that they are central to its realisation.

A Little Fluff

It is surprisingly rare to find atheism taken in earnest, even amongst self-professed atheists. More common is to find an airy sub-species of atheism that is keen to stress its own consolations. Consider the words of Mary Warnock, for instance, who in response to the question, “What happens to us when we die?”, replies: “We disappear from existence. But that doesn’t mean that we disappear from other people’s minds and hearts” [1].

.....If we are mortal, then we shall indeed disappear from existence, and the memories of us in other people’s minds will not constitute our continued existence, for such is a feeble consolation based on an equivocation; moreover, even the memories of us will one day fade to nothing.

.....For whom does Baroness Warnock believe these conclusions are too stark that they require the soft edges of fluff? For herself or for her readers?

.....

[1] Mary Warnock, quoted in “Baroness Warnock: You Ask The Questions”, The Independent, 24th July 2006.

A Higher Order of Despotism

Many used to fear the seemingly ineluctable march of Prussianism, that “despotism of officials”, as Lord Salisbury called it, by which society is stifled under the weight of bureaucratic regulation in service to the state. As it turns out, the state of Prussia itself, along with the Second Reich, did not achieve nearly so great a degree of state-intrusion as some of its after-comers have managed, including our own democracy.

.....Few now fear such intrusion; for most are inured to it, or even demand it, as though it were an essential part of life, without which they would lose their orientation. With the rise of democracy, where “identification of the State with society has been redoubled” [1], the threshold has been raised, and we may now fear something of a higher order, namely, totalitarianism. “We should make it impossible to separate society from state” [2], says Neal Lawson of The Guardian, doing a passable impression of Benito Mussolini of Il Popolo d’Italia. “Through its radical democratisation,” says Mr Lawson, “and the involvement of citizens and public sector workers as co-creators of its services, we can have a popular state”— or, as Karl Kraus put it, “the permission to be everyone’s slave”. [3]

.....

[1] Murray N. Rothbard, “The Anatomy of the State”, Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays (Auburn: The Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2000), p.55.

[2] Neal Lawson, “We need to popularise the role of the state for this age” The Guardian, 20th July 2006. (Tim Worstall also takes note of Mr Lawson's article.)

[3] Karl Kraus, Half Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths, ed & tr. H. Zohn (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1990), p.112.

Uppity Queen

“[T]he anti-imperialist Boudica” [1] — only a cretin of the calibre of Johann Hari would dare make the Queen of the Iceni sound like a Leninist.

[1] Johann Hari, “London - a Vast Cemetery” The Evening Standard, 19th July 2006.

Fewtril #106

It seems no western intellectual comes to espouse cultural relativism except through an ulterior ideological motive, as is revealed in the exercise of his moral rationale: custom is reason enough, except when that custom is ours, in which case it is no reason at all.

Returned

I am back from my jollies, but am feeling quite lazy, and my mind is concentrated on the thought of cold gin-and-tonics. I shall write whenever I am enamoured or bothered to do so.

On Holiday

I’m off on holiday for a week or so. I shall return full of the joys and so forth.

Fewtril #105

It is good to spend an hour or two wondering how many of the faults and follies of the world have arisen and flourished because of the desperate attempt by fools to eschew what they believe fools believe.

Fewtril #104

When radicalism enters men’s heads, the fear of change is not so much lost as overcome by the fear of seeming insufficiently zealous for it.

With a Serious Face

“There are people who believe everything is sensible that is done with a serious face.”

[“Es gibt Leute, die glauben, alles wäre vernünftig, was man mit einem ernsthaften Gesicht tut.”]

G.C. Lichtenberg, Sudelbücher (Frankfurt am Main und Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1984), E.283 from Sudelbuch E (1775-1776), p. 218.

The Wrongness of Whiteness

According to race-theorists Robin DiAngelo and David Allen, “a discourse on whiteness attempts to show not just how whiteness oppresses people of color, but how whiteness elevates white people” [1]. Happily for our academic twosome, the intellectual burden of this discourse is made easy by their assuming in the term “whiteness” that which they have yet to demonstrate. For, in defining the term, they tell us that “[w]hiteness refers to dimensions of racism that serve to elevate white people over people of color” [2]. Putting this logical indelicacy aside, one may concentrate on the foregone conclusion to which they have come: that the very presence of whiteness oppresses those not in possession of it, and thus if such persons are to find justice, those in possession of whiteness must be divested of it.

.....Quite how this divestment will be achieved is not specified, but, since our two academicians are educationalists and social-constructivists, for whom reality is but the spell of society, one may suppose they envisage at the very least some kind of universal, deconstructionist “education”, a glimpse into the nature of which you may gain by reading the research article from which I have drawn the foregoing quotes.

.....Suffice it to say, that in such an “education”, there is no escape for the individual; for, as the authors tell us, “[p]ositioning oneself as an individual is a classic signal of whiteness” [3], and thus an evil to be eradicated.

.....One could well begin to suspect that for every kind of madness or corruption or stupidity, there is an academic course of study.

[1] Robin J. DiAngelo and David Allen, “‘My Feelings Are Not About You’: Personal Experience as a Move of Whiteness”, InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, Vol.2:2, June 2006, p.4.
[2] Ibid., p.3.
[3] Ibid., p.10.

Fewtril #103

That nature does not conform to the sensibilities of mankind does not offend the sensibilities of most men, simply because it has not occurred to them that it does not.

Fewtril #102

An idea can develop to so great a degree of sophistication that its adherents may even come to conclude thereby what was obvious without it.

Scots and Sassenachs

If the Scots are not out to goad the Sassenachs into political discontent, they are inadvertently working to that effect, particularly in their disregard of the West Lothian question.

.....Now, it is understandable that this question is of little concern to most Scots; for, since it does not adversely and directly affect them, they may be forgiven for attending to more personal and pressing concerns. As Kirk Elder, Scotland’s finest and foremost fogy, has said:

In my experience, there are two West Lothian Questions. One is ‘what are you looking at?’ and it is usually delivered before one is assaulted at a bus stop. The other — often delivered moments earlier — is ‘sauce or vinegar?’ [1]

For the Scots that govern England, however, the West Lothian question ought to be one of political concern, since it is a matter of political grievance; and yet they remain indifferent or even hostile to its settlement.

.....Since the English pay towards the luxury of Scottish client-nationalism (“Down with England, but don’t cancel the cheques!”), the English might feel entitled to call its bluff, and enjoy the fruit thereof: namely, the independence of England from Scotland. That way, not only would the West Lothian question be answered, but also the Scots would be free to dig deeply into their own pockets to pay for their own vast public expenditure. Now, I ask you: wouldn’t that be a sight worth seeing?

.....

[1] Kirk Elder, “As ‘Today’ Abandons Its Flirtation With ‘Boogie-Woogie’ And Returns To Its Tedious Best, Is There Finally An Answer To The West Lothian Question?” Kirk Elder, Senior Citizen from Peebles (Weblog) 17th January 2006.

Services to Society

“Ministers who are prepared to take the brutal approach to penal policy contribute to the general brutalisation of society”, says Roy Hattersley. [1]

.....It is well to be clear, however, in what sense Mr Hattersley sees fit to recast the meaning of the word “brutal”; for thereby it is “brutal” to lock up a mugger for longer than, say, two years or a murderer for longer than fifteen. On the other hand, letting the brutes out on early release has only a calming effect on society, as they typically set about serving Camomile tea and running charity tombolas.

[1] Roy Hattersley, “Against truth and logic” The Guardian, 19th June 2006.

The Friends of Humanity

The trouble with the friends of humanity is that they will not feel guilty even if everyone is made thoroughly miserable in accordance with their principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. For it seems that their own happiness depends upon the intention of making everyone happy, and such is this dependency, that an odd kind of callousness may arise in the face of even the most terrible consequences of their actions. This callousness—or blindness—was noted by T.S. Eliot:

Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm—but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves. [1]

The ancient idea that happiness is a by-product of the struggle for virtue, or incidental to other pursuits, or a personal discipline if it is to be a goal at all (such as the Epicureans and Stoics taught), has been largely replaced by this modern idea that we are obliged to make everyone happy. As David Stove says:

That our primary obligation is to increase human happiness, or decrease misery, is an idea only of the last ten minutes, historically speaking. The human race in general has always supposed that its primary moral obligation lies elsewhere: in being holy, or in being virtuous, or in practicing some specific virtue: loyalty or courage, for example. An obligation to increase the general happiness has occupied little if any place in most moral systems, whether of the learned or of the ignorant. But for the contemporaries of whom I am speaking, anything morally more important than human happiness is simply inconceivable. You can easily tell that this is so, by asking any of them to mention an example of something which they regard as extremely morally bad. You will find that what they give, in every case, is an example which turns essentially on pain. [2]

It all sounds very admirable. After all, who could be against the alleviation of suffering? Who could not wish that everyone were happy? But, as I have already suggested, the danger lies with boundless ambition coupled with good intention as a sop to conscience, the greatest of all modern conveniences; for therewith the conscionable life is made easy, untroubled by terrible and unintended consequences; indeed one may effortlessly arrogate to oneself good feelings in direct proportion to good intentions, no matter what the consequences.

.....With utopian dreams, it is all too easy to forget that life is a certain way, and cannot be otherwise.

Ultimately it amounts to this: life necessarily involves tension and suffering; consequently if we wish to abolish tension and suffering, life is to be extinguished. And there is nothing illogical in this last reasoning. [3]

We may be thankful that such dreams are rarely pursued as single-mindedly or consistently as Kolakowski’s logical illustration—thankful, that is, for the messiness of life which the perfectionists and the friends of humanity would like to clean away.

[1] T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party, (London: Faber and Faber, 1974), p. 111, quoted by Thomas Sowell, online at http://www.tsowell.com/quotes.html.

[2] David Stove, “Why You Should be a Conservative”, On Enlightenment (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2003), p.173, original emphasis.

[3] Leszek Kolakowski, “The Death of Utopia Reconsidered”, Modernity on Endless Trial (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p.141.