Hidebound Progressives

It is very odd that progressives — those who believe most strongly in the malleability of mankind and who thereupon push for unprecedented change in order to engender a significantly new and better society — are often compelled to express the opinion that some major aspects of society do not undergo any significant changes at all. Thus, if one talks of the decline in civility or of the increase in crime, one gets the stock-moronic response that “it’s always been that way”. One would think that such a response would be the last thing one would hear coming from the mouths of men who profess to believe not only that mankind is very changeable but also that a thing’s always having been a certain way is no justification for acquiescence or complacency in the light of its continuing existence, nor a barrier to its improvement, but rather even a spur to a determined fight against its very existence — and yet it is often the first thing one hears them say! But they are not called progressives for nothing. They do not believe in mere change, they believe in progress, that is, change for the better, as an infallible function of their ideas, and so, whilst their ideas predominate, at least as far as they can see them in policy and practice, they are loath to see any changes for the worse, except, notably, in the behaviour of reactionaries or foot-draggers, those dreadful people who oppose or appear indifferent to the promise of the better society to come.

Difficulty and Complexity

From the easiness or difficulty of a problem, we are accustomed to assume that the thing about which the problem concerns itself must be correspondingly simple or complex in its objective nature. It does not follow, however, that there is necessarily a one-to-one correlation between the degree of a thing’s objective complexity and the degree of difficulty in understanding it, such that we must understand more easily those things that are objectively simpler. If our conceptual machinery is geared a certain way, then we may more easily comprehend more complex matters in that way than simpler matters in another. It may well be that many things that come easily to us are objectively complex, and many things that we find difficult or impossible to understand are objectively simple.

Self-Evident Foolishness

It takes centuries of work by the sharpest and most curious minds to bring to light some particular of knowledge, whereupon it takes only moments for any fool to declare it self-evident. That, say, the blueness of the sky is owed to an unconscious physical process rather than the daily interventions of a god is not at all self-evident. Only presumptuous thoughtlessness or linguistic misusage could declare it so. Hitherto it was assumed that the gods had a hand in everything, and now it is assumed that they have a hand in nothing. Neither can be described as self-evident — except by fools in loose-tonguedness or in receipt of beliefs or facts that they would never have had the wit to decide or discover for themselves.

Advocates of Violence

It is becoming more common to hear a man claim that in no circumstance would he be an advocate of violence. In almost every case this is either humbug or thoughtless talk. Everyone but the genuine pacifist is an advocate of violence; for let us say that I were to break down a man’s door, drink his brandy, and ravish his wife, would he not then be an advocate of violence, even if only by the proxy of the police-force? It should happily go without saying that some violence is justified. The genuine pacifist who argues against this proposition must take the contradictory: that no violence is justified, which, assuming a moralism on his part, means that he believes that violence ought to be avoided at all costs, even at the cost of his brandy.

Nach Deutschland

I am off to Germany tomorrow for a few days, where I intend to be very mindful of local traditions conducive to the happiness of the soul. I must also bear in mind that, when boarding a bus in that great land, if someone wishes me a good trip in English, I must answer him in English, then look a little Scottish and horrified, and then run off. That is one of our traditions.

Crime and Innocence

“Innocence is very far from finding as much protection as crime does.” [1] Thus noted La Rochefoucauld, who hadn’t even read The Guardian.

.....

[1] [“Il s’en faut bien que l’innocence ne trouve autant de protection que le crime.”] François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, tr. S.D. Warner & S. Douard (South Bend, Indiana: St Augustine’s Press, 2001), §465, p.84.

Young Scallywags

“These young people [gang-yobs] need to be given value and more than that they need to experience economic equality”; [1] for only through the expropriated wealth of others can these misunderstood young scallywags afford to dress themselves in even more expensive sports-clothing, to buy even fancier mobile-phones, and, if old enough, to fit their cars with even wider tyres and exhaust-pipes, because, you know, without these upgrades, they will be forced to be even more violent and unpleasant. Or we could sterilise them — before they start breeding.
.....
[1] Crystal Mahey, “Gang value”, Comment is Free (The Guardian’s weblog), 5th September 2007.

Untouched

“Every philosophy which believes that the problem of existence is touched on, not to say solved, by a political event is a joke — and a pseudo-philosophy.”

.....

F.W. Nietzsche, “Schopenhauer as Educator”, Untimely Meditations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp.147-8.

A Galton-Survey

“Whenever I have occasion to classify the persons I meet into three classes, ‘good, medium, bad’, I use a needle mounted as a pricker, wherewith to prick holes, unseen, in a piece of paper, torn rudely into a cross with a long leg. I use its upper end for ‘good’, the cross-arm for ‘medium’, the lower end for ‘bad’. The prick-holes keep distinct, and are easily read off at leisure. The object, place, and date are written on the paper. I used this plan for my beauty data, classifying the girls I passed in streets or elsewhere as attractive, indifferent, or repellent. Of course this was a purely individual estimate, but it was consistent, judging from the conformity of different attempts in the same population. I found London to rank highest for beauty; Aberdeen lowest.”

.....

Francis Galton, Memories of My Life (London: Methuen & Co., 1908), pp.315-16. (Available online at Galton.org.)

Some Sense of Culture

Liverpool is to be European Capital of Culture in 2008. One must charitably suppose that it is culture in the anthropological sense.

A Human Concern

“Nothing of human concern is really outside psychiatry.” [1] In this universal purblindness, much of human concern is lost from sight, falling outside the scope of a professional morbidity that sees every kind of behaviour as an ailment, every belief as a delusion, and every attitude as a sickness to be cured.

.....

[1] Karl Menninger, quoted by Jeffrey Oliver, “The Myth of Thomas Szasz”, The New Atlantis, 13, Summer 2006. (Presumably psychiatry itself — as a human concern — is also a mental disorder to be treated. Cf., Karl Kraus’s saying: “Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself as therapy.”)

Fewtril #211

Anthropology is the study whereby for every bad idea proposed by Western sophisticates, there can be found a tribe of savages testifying to its usefulness.

Fewtril #210

Evil is very far from banal — it is exciting, intoxicating, and brings spiritual weight and animation to even the most mundane of tasks. If it were otherwise, it wouldn’t prove so attractive, nor would life-dulling piety be needful for those who feel the attraction most strongly.

Fewtril #209

The modern liberal — let us say it: the smug bourgeois — is fit only for comfort and cowardice. All his principles, ideals, values, and aversions stem therefrom.

Fewtril #208

If we wish to know all about the age in which we live, we must also read the writings of those who died before it began, who knew nothing about it at all.

Fewtril #207

Fawney-scholars and frivolous mediocrities, in trivial and low-regarded fields of study, take seriously the work of promoting geniuses from amongst themselves.