January 12, 2011
“Alarm Clock Britain” vs. The Enemy
A lot of very good, very venerable political philosophy focuses upon the importance of consensus. This is quite clear in what usually goes by the name of the Social Contract tradition, where shared agreement underpins the basis for political society.* Much democratic (and democratic-friendly) thought emphasises that even if individuals in the demos disagree about specific issues, those disagreements can be accepted as resting upon a more basic consensual agreement on how to make decisions. The 20th century’s most impressive attempt to articulate a single political theory – John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice – put the (rational) consensus of free and equal persons absolutely centre stage.
In general the motivation for working within and towards consensus is well-grounded. Politics often means using force to control human lives. Force is generally nasty, and the more of it that gets nakedly deployed the worse people’s lives tend to go. The more consensus that can be established, the less force – and violence – we are likely to see. Furthermore, it will be much easier to justify any remaining necessary violence, insofar as it is founded in some sort of basis of consent amongst those variously subjected to it. (Though such attempts at justification will, of course, vary in success.)
It can be slightly troubling, therefore, to look at what we might call the anthropology of politics as practiced in modern societies and find significant instances of anti-consensual practice, which operate explicitly by exploiting insider/outsider dichotomies.
Take, for example, Nick Clegg’s rather distasteful sop to readers of The Sun. Attacking “scroungers” is, of course, a tried and tested ploy of the right. What attracts my attention is Clegg’s explicit drawing of an “us vs. them” dichotomy. On the one hand there is valiant “Alarm Clock Britain”, the decent folk like you, who get up every morning and go to work. On the other is the enemy within; the workshy scrounging layabouts stealing your taxes.
The efficacy of Clegg’s gutter strategy lies precisely in creating an “us vs. them” opposition. He casts himself on the side of the Good, who are in turn invited to cast aspersions on the Bad. In the process, the target audience will (hopefully) see Clegg as One Of Them. In turn, any anger at Government policy will (so the strategy goes) be redirected towards the common enemy.
This is a staple ploy of effective demagoguery – but my suspicion is that the causality is uncomfortable here. I doubt that such dichotomies are created and effective because politicians somehow invent them. Rather, I suspect politicians find the use of such dichotomies effective because people already have a deep disposition towards employing them – whether that disposition be innate, or the product of deep social forces (as, say, Marxists would contend).
Furthermore, the desire and urge to form “us vs. them” dichotomies isn’t manifested only in straightforward politics. Look at the hysteria over paedophilia in recent years, or in the past (or contemporary America) over child snatchers. Or further back, fear and hatred of witches. The enemy within – the terrifying monster to be rooted out and destroyed – is hardly a new phenomenon. And neither, of course, is the perennial enemy without: the French, the Russians, and now the Muslims of the Middle East.
My worry, however, is that if a tendency to structure group organisation – and particularly, successful political practice – around insider/outsider dichotomies is pervasive and recurring, then it is quite likely that such dichotomies exist because they successfully fulfil some sort of purpose. For example, it may be that organising around an us/them opposition is what allows the people within the “us” to co-operate and put aside their own differences, in light of the threat posed by rivals (whether real or imaginary). This need not be at the level of crude resource competition, but of complex psychological accommodation. Accordingly, we must entertain the possibility that human society is only viable to the extent that opposition is found – or if necessary, constructed – between insiders and outsiders.
And if that is indeed the case, it is surely troubling for any politics which seeks to be built upon and/or broadly uphold consensus. Because it indicates that the prospects of consensus are inherently limited, insofar as human society – and in turn, much successful politics – transpires to be inherently and fundamentally oppositional. Which is not to say that we shouldn’t seek political consensus when possible; for the reasons noted above, consensus is generally very desirable. But nonetheless, we may have to set our goals rather lower than we would like, and grit our teeth rather harder than is pleasant.
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*Personally, I’m increasingly suspicious that this is an unhelpful label, lumping together very diverse thinkers. But no time for that today.
January 7, 2011
The Leviathan vs. The Bankers
Despite lots of tough talk from The Coalition, UK-based banks are planning to pay-out billions in bonuses:
“The government is resigned to UK banks paying out billions of pounds in bonuses this year, despite its calls to curb the payments, the BBC has learned.
The best the coalition can hope for is a declaration from the banks that they will pay out less than they would have without government intervention, said BBC business editor Robert Peston.”
At times like these, I like to sit in a quiet space and ask myself a profound question, seeking guidance from One who once walked amongst us. What Would Hobbes Do?*
The answer, it turns out, is pretty clear:
“Seventhly, is annexed to the sovereignty the whole power of prescribing the rules whereby every man may know what goods he may enjoy, and what actions he may do, without being molested by any of his fellow subjects: and this is it men call propriety. For before constitution of sovereign power, as hath already been shown, all men had right to all things, which necessarily causeth war: and therefore this propriety, being necessary to peace, and depending on sovereign power, is the act of that power, in order to the public peace.”
Which basically means: without an absolute sovereign power, nobody’s stuff is secure from being snatched by others. So the concept of “property” only has meaningful content when there exists an absolute sovereign power. Accordingly, that absolute sovereign power gets to make the rules about who gets what stuff, when they get to keep it, and what they’re allowed to do with it. And that absolute sovereign power’s decisions is final.
From which follows:
“Further, seeing it is not enough to the sustentation of a Commonwealth that every man have a propriety in a portion of land, or in some few commodities, or a natural property in some useful art, and there is no art in the world but is necessary either for the being or well-being almost of every particular man; it is necessary that men distribute that which they can spare, and transfer their propriety therein mutually one to another by exchange and mutual contract. And therefore it belonged to the Commonwealth (that is to say, to the sovereign) to appoint in what manner all kinds of contract between subjects (as buying, selling, exchanging, borrowing, lending, letting, and taking to hire) are to be made, and by what words and words and sign they shall be understood for valid.”
Which basically means: the Leviathan is boss, and the bankers have no special right to go around setting bonuses willy nilly. If the Leviathan says “no bonuses, bankers”, then it’s no bonuses, bankers. And if the bankers decide to pay out bonuses anyway, then the bankers are for the chop. And they have no right of redress or remonstrance. ‘Dems the Leviathan’s rules, and only the Leviathan can say otherwise.
Why am I telling you this? Because in my area of academic interest, a lot of effort is put into showing (I think, rather plausibly), that the modern state is conceptually ordered in a way heavily influenced by Hobbes’s view of an ultimate sovereign power which calls the shots, and above which there is no right of redress in the final instance. (Nice fluffy modern states may institute checks and balances to prevent the worst excesses of power and suffering – but behind those checks and balances nonetheless stands the brooding Leviathan).
But the bankers appear to be challenging this hegemony.
Of coure, it could just be that George, Nick, Vince and Dave don’t want to push the bankers very hard. That they’ve considered extending the long arm of the coercive state – but have decided on balance they’d prefer not to. In which case, the Leviathan is being indulgent. (Perhaps because of cognitive biases – or confusions – about the nature of power on these individuals’ behalf.)
But what if the underlying truth is that the Leviathan can’t enforce its will against the bankers? That if it tries, they will collectively act so as to undermine, counter and possibly overpower the Leviathan. Or alternatively, move their operations elsewhere in such a manner that the economic impact is such that threat of doing so is tantamount to coercion?
Indeed, that the latter possibility is at the very least in the minds of political decision-makers, surely indicates that the terms of trade (excuse the pun) have at the very least changed. The Leviathan is clearly no longer master of all it surveys within its domains – even if only because the people who currently operate its jaws do not believe it to be so.
Which, of course, is another way of putting the oft-heard worry: that global capitalism has bred megacorporations that are bigger – and more powerful – than sovereign nation states. But it’s also a way for me to express that I think there may be a significant (though by no means complete) truth in this worry, and at a serious intellectual level.
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* Or as the bracelet I wear simply states, WWHD? Which of course nicely doubles up for “What Would Hume Do?”, for when I’m in a different frame of mind. I accept this may be funny only to people either religiously schooled, or who were exposed at an impressionable age to the activities of bonkers Christian organisations.
January 5, 2011
Towering Over the Dilletantes
Max Weber worried extensively about the rise of bureaucracy in modern mass democracies. One particular reason was that bureaucracies bred experts, whilst politicians always had to be generalists. Specialist bureaucrats could “tower over” politicians, reducing them to mere “dilettantes”, forced to accept the mandarins’ words as gospel truth.
Yet this was a serious problem: bureaucrats are, by their nature and purpose, anti-political creatures. Their function is to protect and preserve their own departments (and in turn, jobs). What bureaucrats cannot offer is the calling for politics; an appreciation of the grave ethical responsibilities incumbent upon political decision-makers. To the extent that bureaucrats dominate politicians, Weber thought, political nihilism threatens.
After George Osborne’s recent appearance on the Today Programme, however, I’m wondering if in fact politicians are making dilettantes of voters.
Osborne defended the Tory-led government’s deeply regressive VAT rise on the grounds that it would lead to growth in jobs. This set economists like Philippe Legrain spitting feathers:
“The notion that raising VAT will boost employment, as Osborne claimed on #r4today , is voodoo economics.”
And you can understand Legrain’s frustration, having only the day before written a column explaining why VAT rise is likely to increase unemployment.
But here’s the rub. If I’m honest, I just don’t know if Osborne is telling porkies. Because I’m not an economist. Sure, I can think over the rudiments of simplified macroeconomic theory, picked up at A-Level and first-year undergraduate. That higher VAT is likely to depress consumer spending, reducing aggregate demand (ceteris paribus), thus likely reducing aggregate levels of employment.
Yet that’s all very basic and sketchy; I don’t honestly know whether VAT will likely boost or hurt employment. And you don’t either, unless you are a fairly well-qualified economist with lots of good data about the current state of the economy.
Of course, I can go and read economic journals, newspapers and blogs. I can thus try to educate myself, and form a balanced opinion. (And perhaps I should. Though, given that I’m disposed to distrust anything that comes out of Boy George’s pie-hole, I’ll probably come down against him in any case. If he announced that “Madagascar is an Island”, I’d instinctively take that with a pinch of salt.)
But the point is, most voters won’t go and do detailed research (and in all honesty, I probably won’t either). Not because they are (all) lazy and stupid, but because time is precious and life is short. Osborne can make the statement “a VAT rise will boost employment”, and many may simply take him at his word (or do the opposite, depending on their political leanings). In practice, most people have little alternative.
Which raises a problem. When it comes to (especially) economic policy, politicians can play the expert card, and most voters have no choice but to assume that they are not telling brazen porkies.
Now you might think this is ok: that if unemployment doesn’t fall, people will spot the falsehood and kick Boy George out of office. Except there’s 4 years until the next election; employment trends will do a lot of funny things between now and then. And anyway, Tory electoral prospects will be determined by much more than VAT porkies (if indeed they are such). And Dave and Co. know this.
The jargon of economics in particular offers numerous opportunities for politicians to turn voters into dilettantes. At one level, this simply illustrates that democracy is imperfect. (Though the fat man was doubtless right regardless: it remains the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.)
At another level, however, this does illustrate a point I was getting at recently: that democracy (whatever that complex thing turns out to be in the end) may not match up cleanly with one’s other ethical and political values. For example, if we have lots of equal participatory democracy, but a very uneven spread of knowledge and expertise, there’s no guarantee that the illuminati won’t “tower over” the ignorant, regardless.
And it’s simply not clear that introducing more “deliberation”, or “participatory frameworks”, or any other favoured procedural gewgaws of the idealistic left, is going to significantly change that.*
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Isn’t the word gewgaws simply fantastic? Thus, another benefit of reading the classics for yourself. If I hadn’t tackled the obscure Book III of the Wealth of Nations, where would I have come across such a wonderful term?
January 3, 2011
Why are we all democrats now?
I don’t see eye to eye with Norm on a fair few things, politics-wise. But his recent piece on the self-serving abuse of the word (and concept) “democracy” amongst much of the left is basically spot-on:
“… what is worst here is something captured not by any single quotation, but by a kind of miasmic subtext. This is that there exists somewhere underneath the deficiencies of ‘electoral democracy’ an already formed will of the people, a will in support of what Gopal and other meshuggeneh-leftist spokespeople want, but which is blocked by the distorting mechanisms of the non-real democracy they lament. This extraordinary assumption, supported by no empirical evidence, never seems sufficiently to agitate those who hold it into trying to explain why no party or movement standing on the kind of political programme [they] would want to see has been able to come even half way close to winning an electoral majority.”
That there is a “real” democratic will of “The People”, lying behind what is currently actually being expressed by the people, is not a particularly new thought. It also has a fairly long and somewhat ignoble history. (Les Jacobins, anyone?)
In the rush to equate “democracy” with whatever particular value or outcome political leftists favour, the complexity of that concept is almost always overlooked. (Ditto when smearing any opposed position as “undemocratic”.) Yet democracy refers to at least two things. Firstly, a process by which decisions are made. Secondly, a value about the ordering of political systems and activities.
Indeed, the word “democratic” is now thoroughly loaded with positive value-connotations, whilst “undemocratic” is an unambiguous political slur. Yet this is actually a quite remarkable fact. Because until roughly the 20th Century, no sane person ever thought democracy was a good idea. Rule by the people? Power in the hands of the mob? You’d have to be stark raving crackers to want that.
The only place it was ever tried was a slave-owning Greek city two and a half thousand years ago, where the adult male citizenry of just 40,000 was given direct decision-making power. The experiment lasted about 100 years, in which time a devastating war was lost to neighbouring Sparta, before Macedonian conquerors put a stop to it all.
For the next two millennia “democracy” was a term of denigration; a synonym for anarchy. So how did a very different modern take (i.e. electoral representation) on an ancient Greek idea about processes of decision-making undergo such reversal of fortunes? How did “democracy” become the only legitimate form of politics admissible on the world stage today, and in turn the cardinal political value in the West?
One very interesting answer is offered by the political theorist John Dunn.* That at some level, it basically comes down to the rise of American power.
Despite its federalist political system having been originally sold as republican (and as explicitly not democratic), by the 20th century America found itself an ascendant global super-power. As well as having just contributed to the defeat of Fascist Germany and Imperial Japan, the USA was facing down the world’s other global superpower: Soviet Russia. Which of course claimed to be a workers’ paradise, run by and for The People.
After the defeat of Fascism in Europe and in the face of Communism in Russia, American-style representative electoral democracy was enthusiastically promoted by that Superpower (and its allies) as the only legitimate form of rule. And by the mid-20th Century, that form of rule was now universally known (for reasons that would take too long to explain) in the West as “democracy” – despite looking nothing like the original Greek experiment.
To keep cutting a long story short, America won the Cold War. If this didn’t quite bring The End of History, it did do an awful lot to finalise the ubiquity of “democracy” as the only legitimate form of political organisation, and its inauguration as the cardinal political value. In a Europe where only 75 years ago significant sections of both left and right would have pooh-pooh’d “democracy” as either fraudulent or undesirable, we’re suddenly all democrats now.
If Dunn’s answer is broadly right, however, it leads us to noticing a certain irony. Much of the unreflective left, which brands all its values as synonymous with “democracy”, trades precisely on the ubiquity of democracy as the cardinal political value in order to advance its aims. Yet much of that same left typically rails against American hegemony and “imperialism” – without considering that it may be the rise of American power itself which largely explains their felt need to equate all approved political values with “democracy”.
Of course, there may be no significant practical consequences to this; ironies need not have any applied pay-out. Then again, one might believe that a touch of (historical) self-awareness helps to breed more considered self-reflection, and perhaps better political judgement. Or at the very least, the penning of marginally less banal political polemics.
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*See his Setting the People Free (by far the most accessible of his work, though this theme is pursued in his other writings).
January 2, 2011
Party Animals
“ALL untaught Animals are only sollicitous of pleasing themselves, and naturally follow the bent of their own Inclinations” - Bernard Mandeville, An Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue
Just under a year ago I joined the Labour Party. I will not be renewing my membership.
This is not, however, because of some ideological disenchantment. Neither
is it due to dissatisfaction with Ed Miliband’s faltering start, or the Party’s lamentable response to the Coalition. The truth is, I’ve done nothing for Labour since the 2010 General Election. I’ve not even bothered updating my CLP membership since moving to Cambridge. And the basic reason for this is that I intensely dislike political campaigning, and party-political activities.
I find knocking on doors at best boring, and at worst utterly unpleasant. This isn’t so much because I’m averse to meeting the general public, as that I’m averse to looking them in the eye and lying. Like when they say “Labour has a rubbish policy on Trident/ID cards/immigration/the 10p tax”. Or “Gordon Brown is a crap Prime Minister, I’m not putting him back in power”. And I’m supposed to sit there and pretend that they’ve got it all wrong. Because The Party is fantastic and if it wins everything will be sunshine and kittens.
Likewise, away from the doorsteps I find the experience of party-politics pretty nauseating. The herd mentality in particular is stifling. It’s like being stuck with a bunch of football fans who only want to talk about their team and how great it is – apart from the heretics and traitors trying to ruin it from the inside, of course. That, and the constant, compulsory mantra about how awful and evil the other teams/parties are.
These tedious diatribes rarely track facts, reality or careful analytic judgement. But they pass the hours in many a constituency office. I say this, of course, as somebody who was (of all things) a Lib Dem MP’s researcher for most of 2009.* The above is certainly not unique to Labour. It’s the essence of party politics. Petty, bickering, self-indulgent, tribalistic and relentlessly tub-thumping in the face of reality. Your side against theirs. The Greater Good, pursued via the medium of Shit Policies.
The fact is, to stay active in grass roots party politics you have to enjoy this. Or at the very least, be able to engage in it whilst not contantly battling the urge to shove pins in your eyes.
Of course some people are able to so partake and nonetheless maintain good judgement, political sense and basic moral principles not determined by party policy. Don Paskini is the outstanding example here, though Chris Brooke gets a mention too. But these types are, in my experience, very rare.
The typical party animal primarily enjoys the petty, tribalistic, self-deceiving (our out-right lying) drudgery of party activity itself, and for its own sake. That, after all, explains why many are still engaged, year after long year.
But furthermore, those that go on to be seriously successful – to head local councils, become MPs, or even government ministers – have to invest enormous amounts of time and energy in this world of perma-propaganda, dogma, and tedious tribalism. So they, too, must find the entire process in some way satisfying. Or else they’d go off and do something else. Like make money, or save the whales.
Which leads me to some conclusions. Real world party politics is far removed from any vision of individual political agents striving-forth to right wrongs by clear-sighted application of moral principle. It’s far more to do with the actions of individuals deeply-involved in a daily process of tribalistic, competitive political hustling .
Sure, these individuals will possess moral values and principles, of varying degrees of coherence and sophistication. But what drives many is the appeal of politics as a participatory activity. They do politics because politics itself is how they like to spend their time: propagandising, disseminating and tub-thumping for their chosen tribe.
Which this leads again to the conclusion that there’s something very misguided about conceiving of politics as being fundamentally an exercise in applied ethics. And that any political theory maintaining otherwise will be quite seriously deficient.
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*It was partly seeing how shit the Lib Dems are that made me think Labour was some sort of superior alternative. Which I still think it is, overall. But not enough to keep me paying yearly subs.
December 22, 2010
The Chimera of Impartiality?
Health Warning: This post rapdily degenerates into a very techy piece of philosophical navel gazing. Not for the timid.
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Vince Cable is probably still a minister for exactly the reasons he originally boasted to The Telegraph’s undercover journalists: that if he leaves Cabinet, the Coalition will likely fall. But whereas the original Telegraph story would merely have embarrassed Cable, further leaked revelations that he had personally “declared war” on the “Murdoch Empire” were greeted as a wholly scandalous revelation.
Assuming we all accept that individual politicians have personal political opinions, the current scandal can’t centre on what Cable himself thinks of Mr Murdoch’s doings. Clearly, the issue is that in his role as Business Secretary, Cable is supposed to be impartial. Although Sunder Katwala subtly challenges the political realities of such an assumption, he also captures and perpetuates it somewhat:
“Cable’s comments about Rupert Murdoch are in a different category. This was a bad error – and the government’s decision to remove Cable’s role in media regulation is an appropriate and correct response.
After his comments were made public, Cable could not claim to be in a position to judge the News International/BSkyB issue impartially. One might, however, be forgiven a sceptical thought as to how far Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt may find Solomon-like wisdom and detachment on offer to him in inheriting these responsibilities.”
Yet I have deep conceptual suspicions about the nature of “impartiality” in political decision-making, which run as follows.
The standard charge against Cable is that, as Business Secretary with a quasi-judicial role, he was required to make a decision on the BSkyB take-over without political bias, and only according to the rules of economic competition as defined in law. If he made a decision based on his own personal political preferences that would not be “impartial”, and therefore it would be wrong.
But why would it be wrong? Presumably, because Cable would be trying to bring about a kind of political situation, rather than simply applying the relevant political rules. That seems fine as it stands (at least for now). But let’s also examine what would happen if Cable acted “impartially” and (for argument’s sake) decided to approve the BSkyB merger on the grounds that it was permissible under competition law.
In that case, a political situation would nonetheless arise, but now as a consequence of Cable’s decision not to take his own personal counter-veiling political preferences into account. (That political situation being: the further takeover of the British media by a foreign billionaire with vociferously right-wing views, who openly uses his media outlets for partisan political ends.)
So the alternatives we are faced with are:
- Cable acts “partially”, and a political situation (anti-Murdoch) is brought about
- Cable acts “impartially”, and a political situation (pro-Murdoch) is brought about
Now what we want to know is why the first outcome is worse than the second, and specifically because of partiality on Cable’s behalf (I’m here leaving aside considerations about which set of consequences is itself more desirable, to concentrate on the issue of partiality vs. impartiality). In order to avoid arguing in a circle I urge again that it is vital to remember that the consequences of Cable acting partially or impartially are, in either case, the generation of a political situation. It is thus simply no good resorting to a blanket position such as “it is wrong to make decisions about applying political rules from personal partisan judgement” and expecting that to do any convincing moral work in this individual instance, because
a) whether Cable is partial or impartial, a political consequence results, so the blanket position can’t be founded upon a claim about the value of the not bringing about political consequences per se; in fact impartiality does lead to the bringing about of political consequences – just different ones to those which a partial agent would have brought about
yet
b) it is no good making an intrinsic value claim about partiality either. To run that sort of claim, it would have to be seriously maintained that it just is morally superior to apply political rules without reference to personal political preference. But unless we are to fall back on some form of un-argued-for rule-worship (which is thereby untenable ipso facto), that position looks simply unacceptable: for the point of having political rules, after all, is to secure certain kinds of consequence. But that puts us back in the situation of noting that whatever the decision-making agent does, consequences arise. Precisely because political rules are put in place to effect consequences, we are back where we started and cannot appeal to the intrinsic value of “impartial” rule-application without begging the question as to why the rule should be followed.
Thus the concept of “impartiality” as a value in individual political decision-making apparently emerges as a conceptual chimera. If acting according to his political preferences, Cable brings about one set of political outcomes. If acting not according to his political preferences, he brings about a different set of political outcomes. But in either case, the responsibility for the ensuing consequences must come back to Cable. Cable is thus either active by commission in facilitating one set of political outcomes, or passive by omission in facilitating another. But as there is no moral weight in any commission-omission distinction, we remain without a relevant moral difference.
“Impartiality” in political decision-making apparently emerges as, at best, a piece of innocent cognitive self-deceit about the back-flow of responsibility, or at worst a cowardly conscious attempt to abnegate political and moral culpability for the generation of a set of political outcomes, by appeal to the exculpating force of omission as oppose to commission. (Deciding how cases are to be classified will depend upon context and judgement.)
There thus appears to be a case for suggesting that Vince Cable is not – deep down – morally at fault because he failed to act “impartially”. He’s at fault because he got caught waving the banner of partiality in a political environment which doesn’t tolerate such things.
But there may, as it happens, actually be very good reasons for having a political system that overall doesn’t tolerate such things. It’s fairly easy to see that, over protracted periods of time, the most desirable sorts of societies are likely to be those in which decision-making agents apply political rules “impartially”, at least much of the time. This, after all, will likely reduce the scope of personal corruption, cronyism and the general abuse of power for factional ends. And indeed, history attests that societies able to minimise precisely those sorts of things generally do the best overall – and insofar as they do the best, they are likely to develop and continue existing. Justification and genesis here dovetail neatly, though of course this is by no means a claim of necessity – plenty of societies have gotten very far with political ethoi actively antithetical to “impartiality”.
Furthermore, a system under which the norm of “impartiality” was deeply internalised by the great majority of political agents (in principle even if not always in practice) – and in which those deviating from impartiality were chastised or ousted – would surely likely be the best of all, for under such a system the application of political rules would be facilitated most automatically and efficiently, with fairly obvious cumulative benefits. Yet none of this changes the fact that c) “impartiality’s” benefits and justification derive from the consequences of political rule-enforcement being best facilitated this way, and in turn d) “impartiality” remains chimerical as a concept with relation to political decision-making in each individual instance of political rule-application.
But this actually means that we arrive at a satisfyingly holistic conclusion overall: that even if “impartiality” in political decision-making and rule application is chimerical at the level of individuals (who are by necessity causally implicated in whatever consequences actually come about, and therefore tied to them in terms of responsibility), this may nonetheless be a most useful and desirable chimera to have up and running in political societies like ours, i.e. where significant levels of political decision-making operate by the application of political rules. Utilitas and veritas can certainly come apart, after all, and sometimes we may get a little more of the former precisely if we have a little less of the latter.
December 18, 2010
Gender and Protest
Following my recent posts on the student riots, Clifford Singer (of The Other Taxpayers’ Alliance) posed me a question:
“There’s one thing you don’t discuss: gender. Is the violence you explore all about men vs. men?”
As regards the violence that took place in Parliament Square, the answer is at some level “no”.
At the start of the protest, I watched as a group of Cambridge students linked arms and stood firm to prevent around 15 police horses entering the Square. There were, by my estimation, more women than men in that human barrier. As the police walked their horses straight into the line, each stood firm – literally shoulder-to-shoulder with a 600kg horse.
Eventually the police gave up, and the horses retreated (temporarily) to Millbank. Whatever you think of the student protests as a political endeavour, it takes guts to physically face-down a police horse. Anyone believing women to be somehow inherently timorous should think again.
When the protest degenerated into a riot, and the violence-proper began, it was clear that many women remained on the front line – even as the batons, boots and horses rained down. It is true that overall there were more men than women in the riot. But that mostly reflects the skewed demographic of political participation which, for social and cultural reasons (“politics is for men”), tend to ensure males are over-represented at any political event. Though the police did not hesitate to target women (their being typically both smaller and weaker), pulling them out of the lines to baton and kick them to the ground.
Women can be as brave (or foolhardy) as men. The conflict thrill of rioting does not divide on gender lines. At the London riots the commonplace clichés of female passivity and male aggression were shown up as complacent and boring stereotypes.
Yet if violent protest serves to discredit the mythology of female gender passivity, peaceful protest can sadly reconfirm the extent to which ours is a deeply patriarchal society. A society pervaded by macho and aggressive sexual norms, characterised by discourses infused with metaphors of male sexual dominance.
Here I can do no better than quote from this excellent set of reflections:
“In London it was the placards. The casual misogyny was rife: David Cameron was warned that if he fucked the country, SamCam was in for the same and Nick Clegg’s mother can apparently ‘bend over and take it’ just like he will learn to. As a woman, this was a pretty alienating experience: here I was marching shoulder to shoulder with people for whom I was meant to feel solidarity, but could really summon little but disgust. The language they chose to criticise the Coalition evoked the very real practices of London’s gangs, where the rape of a female family member has become a tool retribution amongst mini-mafiosos…I don’t want people paying more for Higher Education, but neither do I accept that there is ever a case for constructing political protest on these terms.”
What’s perhaps interesting is whether the people carrying the placards invoking sexual degradation and casual misogyny had any awareness that they were thereby deploying and perpetuating aggressively misogynistic gender values.
My guess is actually not: that the use of sexually-offensive and degrading language is unreflectively employed as a useful (political) weapon. The weapon’s relation to systems of social ordering and hierarchy largely goes unnoticed, even by those (i.e. men) who typically benefit from the hierarchy of gender embedded in the social status quo. Accordingly, misogyny and sexism are manifested and perpetuated even without conscious intention of the agents responsible.
In short, exactly what you’d expect to find in a thorough-going and deeply entrenched patriarchy. QED, as they say.
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See also the condemnation by Cambridge Defend Education of misogynistic protest language.
December 14, 2010
EMAs and Real Politics
I am increasingly drawn to the view that politics is not – and can never be – an exercise in “applied ethics”. That means having something like the following views:
By necessity politics is about horse-trading between political actors, and the juggling of competing interests. In particular, “competing interests” will relate both to groups who directly support one’s cause or position (e.g. by voting for, or funding, it), as well as those who oppose it but who nonetheless possess power to be reckoned with now and in the future. Achieving any kind of political decision or action means mediating between competing interest groups, to reach compromises that look nothing like what individual groups would have chosen in an ideal world of directly-applying their preferred outcomes.
What makes things even more difficult is that competing groups will at some level not share the same ethical priorities, commitments or beliefs. After all, if they did share (all) such things, we wouldn’t have any politics in the first place – politics being, by definition, the phenomenon of groups who hold different values attempting to triumph over each other (sometimes by force).
Further, individual political actors by necessity each bring personal histories to the negotiating table (or street rally). As a result, whatever individual actors say and demand is refracted through the prism of their past actions, and judged accordingly by other political agents. For example, if Tony Blair tomorrow called for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, and for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders, other political actors would not interpret this as a simple application of politically-worked out principle, but as a suspicious u-turn out of step with Blair’s previous commitments and actions.
Given these factors – and more – politics is not, and can never be, the simple application of ethical principles. It is inherently about the struggle of irreconciled values, powers and interests, and then of the search for compromise which (in western democracy at least) stops short of dominating violence.
Within the academy, such considerations are increasingly used to urge a re-thinking of political philosophy, which has for the past 40 years predominantly been conducted as though its core purpose is to distil essential abstract “values”, regardless of whether they can or cannot be applied to the currently existing “facts” of the real world. (See, for example, some of the late work of G.A. Cohen, as well as the vast industry of Rawlsiana). Against this, recent political “realists” claim that if political philosophy is actually to be about politics at all, it would do better to theorise about the process of politics as it actually occurs, not just as some would like it to, in an ideal world.
Of course that doesn’t mean somehow abandoning value assessments. That would be very odd – arguably impossible – and also defeat the point of any political theory that aspires to the name. But it does mean moving away from an emphasis on “ideal theory”, and the formulation of ethical propositions which (purposefully?) bare no relation to the realities of practical politics as it occurs on a daily basis.
Interestingly, the latest findings of the Institute for Fiscal Studies – and my anticipation of the Coalition Government’s response – push me further into this “realist” camp.
The IFS has slammed Coalition plans to remove the Education Maintenance Allowance from Britain’s poorest kids. In brief: the EMA is good value for money, it’s removal is likely to have adverse affects on the attainment and schooling rates of the poorest kids in society, and even if it doesn’t improve educational standards for the worse-off it nonetheless represents a valuable redistributive measure from rich to poor.
I anticipate, however, that the Coalition will respond to this awkward IFS finding the way it’s responded to other reports criticising the regressive and unfair economic policies emerging from the Treasury. Namely, by either ignoring the IFS, or by dispatching Nick Clegg to redefine “fairness”, or “progressivity”, or whatever other word needs to have its meaning re-arranged, so as to save the Coalition (and particularly the LibDems) some face.
And it’s not hard to see why this will (probably) happen. If the Government were to back down on EMAs, it would arguably look weak. After going through the fire of recent protests – which, after all, turned rather violent – the Government is unlikely to want to appear as though it lacks resolve. It is also unlikely to want to appear as though its policy terms are dictated by some poxy little think-tank. And in particular, the men who lead this Government – proud egomaniacs all, as by necessity politicians generally must be – are unlikely to want to admit that they have gotten a big, controversial policy decision wrong – especially at this late stage of the game.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Most (and I stress “most”) Conservative and LibDem MPs are not out to intentionally hurt the poor. It’s just that they have very specific ideas about how best to help the poor (ideas which are usually wrong – but that’s another story). And it happens that for whatever reasons (multiple cognitive biases not withstanding) many have already decided that scrapping EMAs is compatible with these pre-existing ideas of how to help the poor.
Unfortunately, this means that the IFS report is not going to change anything – even though it shows that if politicians do want to help the poor they should keep EMAs.* The reality of politics as it happens in practice is thus that even when ethical principles (“help the poor”) are agreed upon, it does not mean policies which promote those principles are actually enacted (or in this case, kept). Other principles – including (especially) power-considerations and demands of strategy and positioning – trump ethical principle.
If that’s not a demonstration of how politics quite quickly and easily becomes anything but “applied ethics”, then I don’t know what is. Of course, it doesn’t follow that there will be no value in formulating principles of abstract ethical value in the academy. But it may well bear on the question of whether the formulating of such abstract values has anything to do with politics, and thus whether such an activity can really be called political philosophy.
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* And as a general rule, if the IFS says something, it’s a much better guide to reality than any political party’s approved policy documents.
December 13, 2010
Reflections on a Kettle
Much has been written about the police use kettling at last Thursday’s riots. Here’s an attempt to say something different.
The kettling of thousands, by rows of armour-clad and masked riot police (never mind the batoning, punching, kicking and horse charges) demonstrated a fundamental truth of politics:
“That a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory…Specifically, at the present time, the right to use physical force is ascribed to other institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state permits it. The state is considered the sole source of the ‘right’ to use violence.”
Standing in the shadow of Parliament, as fires burned and smoke billowed, Max Weber’s words received practical purchase.
The old anarchist saying – that the state creates the violence which it uses to justify its existence – also took on a dimension of vivid reality that night. I watched (and dodged) as fellow citizens were beaten by an organised, armoured and armed militia. A militia which prevented even the peaceful from leaving the fray.
And yet that is only half the tale.
When the kettle had gone into effect my friends and I wandered aimlessly. Suddenly a commotion erupted nearby. Youths wearing ski-masks and raised hoods were attacking a reporting crew. We watched as they threw a cameraman to the floor, where he received kicks and blows.
Believing the attackers simply to be angry protestors, I confronted one youth. He was not wearing a ski mask, but his mouth and nose were covered. He was about 15, and a lot smaller than me. He shot me a look that sent a shiver down by spine. But he weighed his options, and backed off.
I got lucky.
As other protestors confronted the remaining youths, there was a sudden palpable rush of fear. We all saw the hammer come out. Everybody took a step backward. For a few terrible seconds, I thought I was about to witness a murder. Mercifully, the situation defused as quickly as it began. Somebody with a leveller and braver head than mine calmly shouted to “put the hammer away, mate” – and away it went. The gang ran off, to another part of the kettle.*
And that’s when the second wave of fear – the reflective wave – hit me. I couldn’t get out. I was trapped here, with the hammer-wielding gang; one of whom I’d just confronted and had clearly seen my face. The police? It wasn’t their problem anymore: “there’s nothing we can do pal – it’s your fault for being in the kettle”.
It is true that the police enforce the will of the state by monopolising legitimate violence. One of their functions is to impose social control; protecting politicians from the betrayed, the wealthy from the poor, the rulers from the ruled. But that is not all they do. The police also protect ordinary citizens from those who would prey upon us. Protestors who wish to live under the safety of laws must acknowledge the janus-faced relationship we stand in towards the police.
Trapped in the Westminster kettle, it was ultimately the words of Thomas Hobbes I recalled most clearly:
“Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
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*As the night progressed they distracted themselves, attempting to destroy any available windows. Let nobody tell you that the attack on the Treasury had no positive dimensions.
December 8, 2010
To Protect and Serve, not Dominate and Batter
Police authorities recently claimed they cannot guarantee the safety of children attending protests. This came after the same police compelled children (and thousands of other innocent citizens) to stand in freezing conditions for hours under mass arrest, as well as repeated instances of officers punching protestors in the face, and the charging of crowds atop 600kg horses.
Permission granted to choke on your tongue.
One of the primary functions of the police is supposed to be to to protect lawful citizens engaging in legal activity (like peaceful protest). And yet demonstrations in Britain are increasingly characterised by heavy-handed physical intimidation, dished out by the boys in blue. For the police to warn that children will not be safe on protests is a little like Harold Shipman warning the elderly he can’t guarantee their full recovery when undergoing medical treatment.
But it gets worse. Yesterday, the Met Police started issuing sombre warnings:
“We have seen groups of youths descending on the last few student protests as the day progresses, purely with the aim of using the event as a venue for violence and to attack police,” said Commander Bob Broadhurst, head of the Met’s public order branch.
“It has been obvious that these particular elements are not genuine protesters.
“They have no intention of protesting about cuts to tuition fees or any other issue. They have turned up purely to take part in violence and disorder.”
The claim that “violent extremists” would “hijack” peaceful protest is exactly what the Met declared in the run-up to last year’s G20 demonstrations. It turned out to be false; protests were largely peaceful except for a few smashed windows (to delight the hordes of journalists).
But the macho tough-talk duly fired-up the Met, generating an aggressive fight mentality. On the day of protests, police officers covered their faces and removed badge numbers, in preemptive efforts to avoid accountability for their actions in the anticipated ruck.
That day a completely peaceful demonstration at Bishopsgate – containing many young children and elderly participants – was violently and forcibly evicted by riot police. Even worse, the aggressive over-enthusiasm of officers resulted in an innocent man being attacked from behind as he walked home from work. As we all know, Ian Tomlinson died from the injuries he sustained in the assault. But thanks to the lies and spin of the Met, the findings of its tame pathologist, and the pusillanimity of the Crown Prosecution Service, no justice will ever be done for Tomlinson’s memory or family.
It is a brute fact of politics that all functioning states must successfully monopolise the legitimate use of violence. A police force – the institution applying coercive force against citizens – is necessary; anarchy or rampant gangster thuggery are the unattractive alternatives.
But one of the great advantages of modern liberal democracy is its capacity for instituting checks and balances which control the state-sanctioned executors of physical coercion. Indeed it is precisely the possibility of a police force ruled by the same laws it enforces which makes modern liberal democracy a far favourable arrangement to the historical and geographical alternatives.
Yet the British police increasingly behaves – and speaks – as though it is above and outside the law it is supposed to uphold. To illustrate: this article would naturally be concluded with a cliché; “that it may take an innocent death to bring the police into line”. But that’s already redundant. Last year an innocent man did die at police hands. And nothing at all was done, and nothing at all has changed.
The Met are apparently gearing up for a ruck on Thursday. Those of us taking part in the legal and peaceful protest ought indeed to worry for our safety. Not because of “violent extremists”. But because of a police force increasingly forgetful that its function is supposed to be to protect and serve, not to dominate and batter.
