I had a similar experience. I’ve not long finished reading On Liberty and I can’t say I came to those conclusions
Michael Coleman
1 year ago
Great piece and well argued! Rarely have I read an article such as this that so quickly alters my perception of an historical figure.
Steve Jobs
1 year ago
Beware of meddling with traditions – especially if you don’t understand them (Chesterton’s Fence) – because from a psycho-physiological perspective it may not even be possible to see the world around us without traditions – literally.
There’s a widespread misconception in our society that we can just “see” the objective world. However, that isn’t how it works and the problem of perception is far more complicated than we realise.
Part of the way that we solve this is by mapping value directly onto action – in a neurophysiological manner – and part of that mapping IS value – which is worth doing because that’s how we make a value judgement.
As human being we view the world through a prism of value that has been established by the consensus of humankind since the dawn of time.
We’re historical creatures – there’s no escaping that.
Our traditions are simply narratives that describe value and desirable patterns of behaviour within any given environment (society). Can some traditions become outdated as the environment progresses? Of course – and we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge our traditions. But such undertakings should be carried out in a rational and objective manner – and certainly not driven by emotions and ill-thought-through ideological lenses.
So beware of messing with traditions – because certain processes are so valuable that we interfere with them at our psychological and social peril.
Agreed – and basically Burke’s argument in Reflections on the French Revolution. Speaking of which, the Terror that evolved during that revolution is what happens when the “educated elite” get extra votes 🙂
I am always astonished at this deification of Burke as the founder of modern Conservative values, when in reality he was the progenitor of WOKE, and all the horrors that it actually stands for.
His spiteful yet relentless pursuit of Warren Hastings being a prime example of his feeble, if vindictive mind set.
Go on with Burke as a progenitor of Woke? I’ve identified at least 50 Philosophers that contributed to Progressivism and Critical Consciousness but I’m not seeing the Burke angle.
More perplexed yet. Criticizing a Monopoly is hardly Woke. Woke is a level of consciousness that initially brings about a Gnostic/Nihilist disposition to destroy with a Hermetic application to Transform.
Any analysis that doesn’t put at least 75% blame for the Mind Virus on Marx is just pseudo-history. Rousseau was an existentialist, Kant was a loony philosopher, Hegel was a Hermetic Mystic but only Marx tried to violently actualize a Collective Mind Virus.
Everything today is an inevitable consequence of the Dialectical method spinning out of control and being used to socially engineer change and bring about the end point of History.
I cannot but agree that Marx & Co should take responsibility for 75% of this ‘poison’, as you correctly state, but I think the origins go back much further.
In fact I would identify one the first acts of WOKE as occurring as far back as Nero.
You really must be a conservative! It can’t actually have been Nero – we don’t despite superficial appearances share much of western culture with ancient Rome, which is very alien to us in all its assumptions. (Unless you perhaps among other things think the degradation and infliction of condign and differential punishment on uppity slaves / lower orders should be embraced by western societies…..).
The ‘poison’, if you mean ‘progressivism’, has been a endemic key feature of western European society for around 1,000 years, which marks it off from all other known civilisations – certainly including the Church / Empire split – as Tom Holland has persuasively argued.
No doubt this was a major contributor to western dominance; and very likely it will now do the same for its fall.
You really must be a conservative! It can’t actually have been Nero – we don’t despite superficial appearances share much of western culture with ancient Rome, which is very alien to us in all its assumptions. (Unless you perhaps among other things think the degradation and infliction of condign and differential punishment on uppity slaves / lower orders should be embraced by western societies…..).
The ‘poison’, if you mean ‘progressivism’, has been a endemic key feature of western European society for around 1,000 years, which marks it off from all other known civilisations – certainly including the Church / Empire split – as Tom Holland has persuasively argued.
No doubt this was a major contributor to western dominance; and very likely it will now do the same for its fall.
With the greatest respect, you can’t just dictate in such a narrow way what are the sources of woke. I’d say you put much too much emphasis on the role of philosophers, and then just name call the ones you don’t respect anyway. Marx – the link is complex at the least – he’d have had very little time for the ‘bourgeois deviations’ of modern western ‘woke’ societies. That is one reason why almost all ‘actually existing’ Marxist Leninist states were significantly socially conservative in many respects (they actually wanted people to have children, for one thing).
I wonder, do you actually speak to any young people about their views? I’m a gay man coming of age in the 1980s and can tell you precisely from experience what drove my own wokish younger tendencies. Liberation from oppression is a powerful motivator, though it may be ultimately an illusion.
I think James Lindsay has conclusively shown that Marxism is a syncretism of two Ancient Religions (Gnosticism and Hermeticism) that Marx inverted into the Principle of Correspondence into a system of secular activism. Both Gnostics and Hermetics believe they possess absolute knowledge (gnosis) that the world is an integrated whole and bringing about this recognition is their primary objective. Communism is essentially “Man in Harmony With Nature.” Gnostics don’t believe they can bring this about so they only seek to destroy the existing world to lay the future path. Hermetics fully believe they can transform the present world. Syncretizing the two created the Desire and the Method (Dialectical Materialism) for social transformation (Social Alchemy) by dissolving Binary Opposites into a singular whole.
The verbiage “Liberation from Oppression” comes from the Gnostic idea that the World is a Prison. When Rousseau proclaimed “Man is Free but Everywhere he is in Chains”, this is a Gnostic interpretation. Generally this “prison” manifests as social expectations limiting human potentiality.
Breaking out of the Prison requires an Awakened and Enlightened Consciousness. Actualizing this Consciousness in the masses requires a Maoist “Desire for Unity.”
Take DEI and Sustainability.
Unity requires Inclusivity. Inclusivity then requires Diversity. For Diversity to be “Sustainable” it requires redistribution of cultural capital (Equity). Equity is justified on grounds of Standpoint Theory that the “Marginalized Class” has an underrepresented viewpoint (gnosis) that needs to be centered in order to produce a holistically integrated society.
The irony here is DEI could be a valid practice if it came about naturally instead of being orchestrated by tyrannical social engineers.
I would suggest Marxism appeals to resentful and spiteful under achieving middle class who worship power. As Orwell pointed out, the British working class did not worship power or like bullies. There is a Budddhist saying ” Where expectation exceeds reality, there is unhappyness “.
Marxism appeals to feeble members of the clerical class educated to at least secondary level who consider life has not delivered what they consider they are entitled to, based on their intellect. Marxism failed to improve the quality of life of the working class so it has moved onto cultural and now personal aspects of life. The vast majority of blue collar manual workers just want to be well paid for a hard days competent work. These people despise the Woke Left as swots, sneaks and utter drips from their school days. The Woke Left consider there is great social injustice but this is because they the swots, sneaks and utter drips who cannot cope with, let alone enjoy, the rough and tumble of life. If one looks at history the Woke Left is the complete opposite of the sturdy Yeoman Archer and his wife who stood on their feet and defended family and country. Most of the seafarers and creators of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions came from the yeomen and independent craftsmen.
Marxism( and Nazism ) appeals to those unable to think and act for themslves as individuals and are happy to sacrifice freedom by joining the collective and gaining power.
I would suggest Marxism appeals to resentful and spiteful under achieving middle class who worship power. As Orwell pointed out, the British working class did not worship power or like bullies. There is a Budddhist saying ” Where expectation exceeds reality, there is unhappyness “.
Marxism appeals to feeble members of the clerical class educated to at least secondary level who consider life has not delivered what they consider they are entitled to, based on their intellect. Marxism failed to improve the quality of life of the working class so it has moved onto cultural and now personal aspects of life. The vast majority of blue collar manual workers just want to be well paid for a hard days competent work. These people despise the Woke Left as swots, sneaks and utter drips from their school days. The Woke Left consider there is great social injustice but this is because they the swots, sneaks and utter drips who cannot cope with, let alone enjoy, the rough and tumble of life. If one looks at history the Woke Left is the complete opposite of the sturdy Yeoman Archer and his wife who stood on their feet and defended family and country. Most of the seafarers and creators of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions came from the yeomen and independent craftsmen.
Marxism( and Nazism ) appeals to those unable to think and act for themslves as individuals and are happy to sacrifice freedom by joining the collective and gaining power.
I think James Lindsay has conclusively shown that Marxism is a syncretism of two Ancient Religions (Gnosticism and Hermeticism) that Marx inverted into the Principle of Correspondence into a system of secular activism. Both Gnostics and Hermetics believe they possess absolute knowledge (gnosis) that the world is an integrated whole and bringing about this recognition is their primary objective. Communism is essentially “Man in Harmony With Nature.” Gnostics don’t believe they can bring this about so they only seek to destroy the existing world to lay the future path. Hermetics fully believe they can transform the present world. Syncretizing the two created the Desire and the Method (Dialectical Materialism) for social transformation (Social Alchemy) by dissolving Binary Opposites into a singular whole.
The verbiage “Liberation from Oppression” comes from the Gnostic idea that the World is a Prison. When Rousseau proclaimed “Man is Free but Everywhere he is in Chains”, this is a Gnostic interpretation. Generally this “prison” manifests as social expectations limiting human potentiality.
Breaking out of the Prison requires an Awakened and Enlightened Consciousness. Actualizing this Consciousness in the masses requires a Maoist “Desire for Unity.”
Take DEI and Sustainability.
Unity requires Inclusivity. Inclusivity then requires Diversity. For Diversity to be “Sustainable” it requires redistribution of cultural capital (Equity). Equity is justified on grounds of Standpoint Theory that the “Marginalized Class” has an underrepresented viewpoint (gnosis) that needs to be centered in order to produce a holistically integrated society.
The irony here is DEI could be a valid practice if it came about naturally instead of being orchestrated by tyrannical social engineers.
I cannot but agree that Marx & Co should take responsibility for 75% of this ‘poison’, as you correctly state, but I think the origins go back much further.
In fact I would identify one the first acts of WOKE as occurring as far back as Nero.
With the greatest respect, you can’t just dictate in such a narrow way what are the sources of woke. I’d say you put much too much emphasis on the role of philosophers, and then just name call the ones you don’t respect anyway. Marx – the link is complex at the least – he’d have had very little time for the ‘bourgeois deviations’ of modern western ‘woke’ societies. That is one reason why almost all ‘actually existing’ Marxist Leninist states were significantly socially conservative in many respects (they actually wanted people to have children, for one thing).
I wonder, do you actually speak to any young people about their views? I’m a gay man coming of age in the 1980s and can tell you precisely from experience what drove my own wokish younger tendencies. Liberation from oppression is a powerful motivator, though it may be ultimately an illusion.
I think the depredations of the early EIC are pretty well founded historically. Conservatives are under no obligation to to defend every action of a profit making and rather ruthless trading company!
Sir Thomas Smythe the first CEO of the Honourable East India Company advised that “ profit & plunder should be the primary motive in India and NOT any form of ‘Imperial’ rule.
As such, that worked quite well until 1754 it must be said.
It was the collapse of the Mughal Empire which started the change of the EIC. In about 1754 , The Mughals asked the EIC to become tax collectors for Bengal, their wealthiest province, Orissa and Bihar.
Khaldun, Toynbee, Northcote Parkinson and Glubb all state that civilisations, dynasties and empires rise and fall. Northcote Parkinson states that it is the collapse of an empire which creates a power vacuum which draws in more energetic, innovative and sturdy peoples. Mughal Empire went through a collapse from 1700 to the 1760s which drew in the British and French.
The Mughals taxed the Hindu farmers at 50% which led to the massive collapse of food production, basically to subsistance level , so reduced taxable income.
Britain then won the Seven Years War with France and became the major buyer of goods from India, the major supplier of military skills to the various rulers and tax collectors for the three provinces.
The change was accidental, not planned. The EIC was far less ruthless than the various Turkic Muslim invaders whose 26 invasion between 1000 and 1754 produced a death toll of 88 M according to K S Lal. There are few Hindu and Buddhist temples in the Indus -Gangetic Plain.
The development of entry to the EIC and various government post plus universities via exams were readily accepted by Hindus, Sikhs and Parsees.
One of the engineering schemes undertaken by EIC was the design and construction of the Ganges Canal between 1842 and 1854 which irrigated 750,00 acres of farmland. By 1860 Sir Syed Ahmed Khan realised Muslims were falling behind Hindus in obtaining a western technical education.
If one wanted to demonstrate one massive improvement created Mill and fellow Liberals would be to further develop the idea of selection and promotion via exam, free from corruption and family patronage which produced technically competent, hardworking and honest middle class . The develop of creating a modern technically competent middle class goes to the development of exams for RN officers to pass from Midshipman to Lieutenant and East India Company College. The creation of the modern British Civil serice in 1857 is due to the development of the exam system in India by the EIC.
The education and training of a technically competent , hard working and honest middle class of Hindus, Parsees and Sikhs plus some Muslims from 1828 meant that at independence, this group gained control of India from Muslim overlords without full scale war. Hyderabad Ruled by a Muslim Nizam was conquered by India in 1948.
It was the collapse of the Mughal Empire which started the change of the EIC. In about 1754 , The Mughals asked the EIC to become tax collectors for Bengal, their wealthiest province, Orissa and Bihar.
Khaldun, Toynbee, Northcote Parkinson and Glubb all state that civilisations, dynasties and empires rise and fall. Northcote Parkinson states that it is the collapse of an empire which creates a power vacuum which draws in more energetic, innovative and sturdy peoples. Mughal Empire went through a collapse from 1700 to the 1760s which drew in the British and French.
The Mughals taxed the Hindu farmers at 50% which led to the massive collapse of food production, basically to subsistance level , so reduced taxable income.
Britain then won the Seven Years War with France and became the major buyer of goods from India, the major supplier of military skills to the various rulers and tax collectors for the three provinces.
The change was accidental, not planned. The EIC was far less ruthless than the various Turkic Muslim invaders whose 26 invasion between 1000 and 1754 produced a death toll of 88 M according to K S Lal. There are few Hindu and Buddhist temples in the Indus -Gangetic Plain.
The development of entry to the EIC and various government post plus universities via exams were readily accepted by Hindus, Sikhs and Parsees.
One of the engineering schemes undertaken by EIC was the design and construction of the Ganges Canal between 1842 and 1854 which irrigated 750,00 acres of farmland. By 1860 Sir Syed Ahmed Khan realised Muslims were falling behind Hindus in obtaining a western technical education.
If one wanted to demonstrate one massive improvement created Mill and fellow Liberals would be to further develop the idea of selection and promotion via exam, free from corruption and family patronage which produced technically competent, hardworking and honest middle class . The develop of creating a modern technically competent middle class goes to the development of exams for RN officers to pass from Midshipman to Lieutenant and East India Company College. The creation of the modern British Civil serice in 1857 is due to the development of the exam system in India by the EIC.
The education and training of a technically competent , hard working and honest middle class of Hindus, Parsees and Sikhs plus some Muslims from 1828 meant that at independence, this group gained control of India from Muslim overlords without full scale war. Hyderabad Ruled by a Muslim Nizam was conquered by India in 1948.
Sir Thomas Smythe the first CEO of the Honourable East India Company advised that “ profit & plunder should be the primary motive in India and NOT any form of ‘Imperial’ rule.
As such, that worked quite well until 1754 it must be said.
More perplexed yet. Criticizing a Monopoly is hardly Woke. Woke is a level of consciousness that initially brings about a Gnostic/Nihilist disposition to destroy with a Hermetic application to Transform.
Any analysis that doesn’t put at least 75% blame for the Mind Virus on Marx is just pseudo-history. Rousseau was an existentialist, Kant was a loony philosopher, Hegel was a Hermetic Mystic but only Marx tried to violently actualize a Collective Mind Virus.
Everything today is an inevitable consequence of the Dialectical method spinning out of control and being used to socially engineer change and bring about the end point of History.
I think the depredations of the early EIC are pretty well founded historically. Conservatives are under no obligation to to defend every action of a profit making and rather ruthless trading company!
Although I tend to agree about Warren Hastings, of course Burke wasn’t the progenitor of ‘woke’! That’s a really daft charge. Your comment amounts to the position that there should be total ideological conformity among conservatives. Of course we wouldn’t expect all conservatives to agree on every single point; they are not Leninists slavishly following a set dogma. Conservativism is first and foremost a sceptical and empirical disposition about how societies best function.
Yes you are correct, my apologies, but in the interest of debate I thought it a useful, although provocative, ‘starter for one’.
“Conservatism is first and foremost a sceptical and empirical disposition about how societies best function.”
Precisely, and that debate best moves forward through controversy I would have thought?
Yes you are correct, my apologies, but in the interest of debate I thought it a useful, although provocative, ‘starter for one’.
“Conservatism is first and foremost a sceptical and empirical disposition about how societies best function.”
Precisely, and that debate best moves forward through controversy I would have thought?
Go on with Burke as a progenitor of Woke? I’ve identified at least 50 Philosophers that contributed to Progressivism and Critical Consciousness but I’m not seeing the Burke angle.
Although I tend to agree about Warren Hastings, of course Burke wasn’t the progenitor of ‘woke’! That’s a really daft charge. Your comment amounts to the position that there should be total ideological conformity among conservatives. Of course we wouldn’t expect all conservatives to agree on every single point; they are not Leninists slavishly following a set dogma. Conservativism is first and foremost a sceptical and empirical disposition about how societies best function.
J.S. Mill made a cogent argument for nonconformity. So? Every great achiever in mankind’s history has been a nonconformist. I am much more with Mill than Deneen.
I am always astonished at this deification of Burke as the founder of modern Conservative values, when in reality he was the progenitor of WOKE, and all the horrors that it actually stands for.
His spiteful yet relentless pursuit of Warren Hastings being a prime example of his feeble, if vindictive mind set.
J.S. Mill made a cogent argument for nonconformity. So? Every great achiever in mankind’s history has been a nonconformist. I am much more with Mill than Deneen.
“….we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge our traditions. But such undertakings should be carried out in a rational and objective manner …..”
I’m sorry but you go wrong here. By using a rational and objective manner you don’t actually get change. Change comes from challenging the existing (rational) way of thinking.
You want rationality because you don’t want change.
Change is not necessarily progress, which is change for the better. And there’s the rub. What do we mean by “better”? Is “better” merely the opinion of the powerful? If so, then why should we privilege the contrary opinions of a rival group over our own? Instead, we should engage in a contest of power against them. After all, if there is no transcendental standard of the good, why not choose a standard most congenial to our own natures and devise an ideology that glorifies it?
But what if there is an objective, transcendent good that may conflict with our own inclinations? If we choose to put the “I should” ahead of the “I want” (pace C.S.Lewis), then the wisdom of lived experience may be a surer guide than a library’s worth of books that try their best to evade the hard fact that, if we are to live as human beings rather than clever animals, we have to be willing to suffer ourselves into existence.
Just because the person-on-the-street can’t articulate why a particular custom is valuable, doesn’t mean that it isn’t. However, the first stage of decline is when a society does the right things, but does so blindly, no longer having a deep understanding of the universal principles that underlie a specific custom. As time passes and circumstances change, society can no longer apply those principles intelligently. Customs become inapt or they’re modified in a way that violates their spirit. At that point, the revolutionaries can plausibly claim that custom is mere unthinking conformity that unreasonably constrains behavior. Babies get thrown out with the bathwater; e.g. the norms that build strong families are tossed into the same bin as the abuses that sustain empires.
Progress is not the arrow of time, though it may seem that way because knowledge tends to increase and be retained over time, even allowing for “dark” ages (that turn out no to be so dark.) But knowledge isn’t wisdom. Think of the scene in “2001: A Space Odyssey” where the tossed club becomes an orbiting nuclear bomb.
Very pithy comment, thank you. Also I like the principle that we should challenge our traditions. If we do, it should be done cautiously and respectfully.
Agreed – and basically Burke’s argument in Reflections on the French Revolution. Speaking of which, the Terror that evolved during that revolution is what happens when the “educated elite” get extra votes 🙂
“….we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge our traditions. But such undertakings should be carried out in a rational and objective manner …..”
I’m sorry but you go wrong here. By using a rational and objective manner you don’t actually get change. Change comes from challenging the existing (rational) way of thinking.
You want rationality because you don’t want change.
Change is not necessarily progress, which is change for the better. And there’s the rub. What do we mean by “better”? Is “better” merely the opinion of the powerful? If so, then why should we privilege the contrary opinions of a rival group over our own? Instead, we should engage in a contest of power against them. After all, if there is no transcendental standard of the good, why not choose a standard most congenial to our own natures and devise an ideology that glorifies it?
But what if there is an objective, transcendent good that may conflict with our own inclinations? If we choose to put the “I should” ahead of the “I want” (pace C.S.Lewis), then the wisdom of lived experience may be a surer guide than a library’s worth of books that try their best to evade the hard fact that, if we are to live as human beings rather than clever animals, we have to be willing to suffer ourselves into existence.
Just because the person-on-the-street can’t articulate why a particular custom is valuable, doesn’t mean that it isn’t. However, the first stage of decline is when a society does the right things, but does so blindly, no longer having a deep understanding of the universal principles that underlie a specific custom. As time passes and circumstances change, society can no longer apply those principles intelligently. Customs become inapt or they’re modified in a way that violates their spirit. At that point, the revolutionaries can plausibly claim that custom is mere unthinking conformity that unreasonably constrains behavior. Babies get thrown out with the bathwater; e.g. the norms that build strong families are tossed into the same bin as the abuses that sustain empires.
Progress is not the arrow of time, though it may seem that way because knowledge tends to increase and be retained over time, even allowing for “dark” ages (that turn out no to be so dark.) But knowledge isn’t wisdom. Think of the scene in “2001: A Space Odyssey” where the tossed club becomes an orbiting nuclear bomb.
Very pithy comment, thank you. Also I like the principle that we should challenge our traditions. If we do, it should be done cautiously and respectfully.
Last edited 1 year ago by Martin Terrell
Steve Jobs
1 year ago
Beware of meddling with traditions – especially if you don’t understand them (Chesterton’s Fence) – because from a psycho-physiological perspective it may not even be possible to see the world around us without traditions – literally.
There’s a widespread misconception in our society that we can just “see” the objective world. However, that isn’t how it works and the problem of perception is far more complicated than we realise.
Part of the way that we solve this is by mapping value directly onto action – in a neurophysiological manner – and part of that mapping IS value – which is worth doing because that’s how we make a value judgement.
As human being we view the world through a prism of value that has been established by the consensus of humankind since the dawn of time.
We’re historical creatures – there’s no escaping that.
Our traditions are simply narratives that describe value and desirable patterns of behaviour within any given environment (society). Can some traditions become outdated as the environment progresses? Of course – and we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge our traditions. But such undertakings should be carried out in a rational and objective manner – and certainly not driven by emotions and ill-thought-through ideological lenses.
So beware of messing with traditions – because certain processes are so valuable that we interfere with them at our psychological and social peril.
Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Jobs
Saul D
1 year ago
The opposite to modern progressives is not traditionalism. Politics is not a dichotomy of either-or or ‘which side are you on’. Multiple forms of progress are possible, and we do need to reject a claimed progressive movement that has absolutist and anti-freedom roots as anti-progress.
The illiberalism of modern progressives doesn’t mean that other forms of progress are tainted by the same intolerences. It is possible to believe in progress – reduction in poverty, improved living standards, mutuality and tolerance, avoidance of war – without getting trapped by the segregationalist isms of the SJWs. It is possible to see that long-standing heuristics and principles can still have value and should be tested and retained, while still rejecting ritualism – a ritualism that is being increased by demanding deference to compelled speech and conformity of thought.
That is not to say that there is no traditionalist-versus-progressive argument going on. That is happening too. But Spain’s history of progressists versus traditionalists shows us what happens when the middle ground is denied, and it is precisely a middle of tolerance, fraternity, equality, fairness and freedom that we should seek to defend.
Amen to this much needed infusion of nuance! And while some of Deneen’s points were persuasive to me as a casual reader of Mill (not that he’s a breezy read), I found his round assertions of what Mill really meant–usually unaccompanied by examples–to be suspect from an argumentative point of view.
The middle ground, somewhere between hedonistic self-absorption and ritualistic deference to tradition, needs vigorous defending these days. Mutual understanding and fairmindedness are not easy to reach or maintain, nor are they intrinsically weak and evasive goals. Absolute self-certitude or ideological one-sidedness is an easier, weaker, and more evasive path. To claim that we’re reduced to an either/or choice between roaring contempt for anything traditional and blind conformity to received wisdom, according to some idealized concept of the Ordinary Man, is just mistaken.
Kind of a straw man here….
Tradition encompasses the tried and true as well as the tried and found wanting. We can truly learn from a conservative view of human flourishing. Progressivism is the belief that the untried, usually utopian, new idea should and will be forced on us because, you know, we are not the experts and we don’t know what’s good for us. This typically ends in gulags, concentration camps, and mass death of the innocent and “noncompliant”. I do believe that all of history bears this out.
You cherrypick both conservatism and progressivism to support your side of a question that is decidedly less one-sided than you claim.
Conservatism also countenanced (outright, not “modern-day”) slavery and the worst abuses of the Catholic church, for example, and Radical or Progressive forces were needed to overcome these rigid barriers to human flourishing. (Or maybe the enslaved should have just been patient for a few more decades, centuries, or millennia).
I certainly value tradition and the selective, sifted wisdom of the centuries. But that is not a flawless inheritance, and while I advocate consensus and incremental progress over shouting matches and bloodshed, on occasion the wheels need to be sped up or tinkered with. Neither wholesale re-engineering nor an unqualified faith in cultural legacy or status quo ante is warranted.
You cherrypick both conservatism and progressivism to support your side of a question that is decidedly less one-sided than you claim.
Conservatism also countenanced (outright, not “modern-day”) slavery and the worst abuses of the Catholic church, for example, and Radical or Progressive forces were needed to overcome these rigid barriers to human flourishing. (Or maybe the enslaved should have just been patient for a few more decades, centuries, or millennia).
I certainly value tradition and the selective, sifted wisdom of the centuries. But that is not a flawless inheritance, and while I advocate consensus and incremental progress over shouting matches and bloodshed, on occasion the wheels need to be sped up or tinkered with. Neither wholesale re-engineering nor an unqualified faith in cultural legacy or status quo ante is warranted.
Kind of a straw man here….
Tradition encompasses the tried and true as well as the tried and found wanting. We can truly learn from a conservative view of human flourishing. Progressivism is the belief that the untried, usually utopian, new idea should and will be forced on us because, you know, we are not the experts and we don’t know what’s good for us. This typically ends in gulags, concentration camps, and mass death of the innocent and “noncompliant”. I do believe that all of history bears this out.
Well the current Tories are not really a conservative party, they are a party offering a slightly alternative form of liberal progressivism to those on the left.
Also it’s possible that neither will achieve much quantifiable material progress!
Amen to this much needed infusion of nuance! And while some of Deneen’s points were persuasive to me as a casual reader of Mill (not that he’s a breezy read), I found his round assertions of what Mill really meant–usually unaccompanied by examples–to be suspect from an argumentative point of view.
The middle ground, somewhere between hedonistic self-absorption and ritualistic deference to tradition, needs vigorous defending these days. Mutual understanding and fairmindedness are not easy to reach or maintain, nor are they intrinsically weak and evasive goals. Absolute self-certitude or ideological one-sidedness is an easier, weaker, and more evasive path. To claim that we’re reduced to an either/or choice between roaring contempt for anything traditional and blind conformity to received wisdom, according to some idealized concept of the Ordinary Man, is just mistaken.
Well the current Tories are not really a conservative party, they are a party offering a slightly alternative form of liberal progressivism to those on the left.
Also it’s possible that neither will achieve much quantifiable material progress!
Saul D
1 year ago
The opposite to modern progressives is not traditionalism. Politics is not a dichotomy of either-or or ‘which side are you on’. Multiple forms of progress are possible, and we do need to reject a claimed progressive movement that has absolutist and anti-freedom roots as anti-progress.
The illiberalism of modern progressives doesn’t mean that other forms of progress are tainted by the same intolerences. It is possible to believe in progress – reduction in poverty, improved living standards, mutuality and tolerance, avoidance of war – without getting trapped by the segregationalist isms of the SJWs. It is possible to see that long-standing heuristics and principles can still have value and should be tested and retained, while still rejecting ritualism – a ritualism that is being increased by demanding deference to compelled speech and conformity of thought.
That is not to say that there is no traditionalist-versus-progressive argument going on. That is happening too. But Spain’s history of progressists versus traditionalists shows us what happens when the middle ground is denied, and it is precisely a middle of tolerance, fraternity, equality, fairness and freedom that we should seek to defend.
Thanks for that linked article, which appeared well before i subscribed to Unherd. A treasure chest of golden nuggets is being created, and should be recallable as you’ve done.
One point: challenging the despotism of custom is not the same as subjecting custom itself to oppression.
To take an example, marriage continues but divorce is socially accepted – not something you could say of mid-Victorian England.
And that is not the same as stigmatising marriage, is it?
And therefore – no, Mill is not in charge today and no, he would not approve of the current climate. He may have been content to let the left spout its oppressive nonsense, but he would not have been happy to let it stop up the voices or the customs of the right, as it does now.
When Mill ruled – so to speak – custom continued to exist alongside non-customary conduct without stigma on either side, whereas now custom itself is being stigmatised.
Fail to grasp that and you fail to understand the real challenge of our times and risk falling back into a counter-form of political correctness which will be little improvement on the current blight.
Post script: re Orwell there is a real howler and I’m surprised Unherd hasn’t spotted it. 1984 explicitly tells us that we have NO hope from the “proles”, one of the many ways in which that book challenges and upends “radical” and Marxist trash.
How extraordinary!
Yet you yourself are the first to scream ‘Racist’ as I recall, if someone deigns to differ from the current orthodoxy of multiculturalist claptrap.
First, I didn’t scream “racist” I drew a conclusion from your own statement that “race is everything” – hence, racist. You’ve made the point a second time in another episode of trolling, so don’t try to deny it.
Second, you haunt these threads like some unemployable sack of potatoes, smarting from accurate rejoinders to your third rate, bar-room banter.
Third, you and others like you merely serve to discredit the right and confirm the prejudices of the left. And now, go away and bother someone else. You are either too old or too young to engage in complex discussion.
In reverse order, self praise is NO recommendation Jones (or is it Denis) as you should remember, even with a surname such as your own, whatever it is.
Your similes are juvenile, surely you can be better? eg: “unemployable sack of potatoes”? Honestly where did you learn that? ‘Sink Comprehensive’ perhaps?
Perhaps I didn’t “scream” racist, difficult to do so in writing, but at least you got my drift.
I repeat Race if everything, as even these pages on UnHerd constantly prove! You must pay more attention must you not?
Finally am I to infer that you and your kind think that you represent the New Right? If so dream on sunshine you haven’t got a clue!
Foul mouthed? I don’t think I used any conspicuously scatological terms. As to my motives for withdrawing those earlier remarks, I wished to rise clear of a discussion which had fallen to the level of a slanging match. However, I am – as you observe – more than willing to fight my corner. I’ll go on doing so, if you wish, but there are better ways of spending one’s time. Therefore, perhaps some clarification is in order. Our dispute began, if memory serves, as a result of a misinterpreted remark. Mine was the misinterpretation, yours, I believe, was the over-reaction. I was in dispute with a number of leftists at the time and thought your intervention just another example of their aggression. You were merely being jocular. Things have spiralled since. Now – if you wish to draw a line – I am willing to do so. If not, then so be it. I note that with regard to some remarks of mine concerning the right and religion you were good enough to express support. Perhaps that was an olive branch. If so, I regret having missed the opportunity of accepting it. Here is an olive branch in return. You will not, I hope, have the injustice to brood over earlier words which were themselves provoked? They are, after all, withdrawn. Finally, we differ – over many things – but are nevertheless in the blue corner against a world of reds. Does it make sense to waste energy in internecine strife?
Incidentally yet again self praise is NO recommendation, so remarks such as: “a better man than you will ever be” are just juvenile . You must grow up, before it is too late.
I agree, an unfortunate misunderstanding that has descended into a completely unnecessary, if invigorating brawl.
As almost certainly the elder contestant, I must accept the greater portion of blame!
Harsh words were said on both sides but as I am sure you will agree that is all “sticks and stones……”, and no harm done!
As to your final rhetorical remark, of course not, we must stand united or fall divided.
I look forward to seeing you again on the field of battle!
Incidentally yet again self praise is NO recommendation, so remarks such as: “a better man than you will ever be” are just juvenile . You must grow up, before it is too late.
I agree, an unfortunate misunderstanding that has descended into a completely unnecessary, if invigorating brawl.
As almost certainly the elder contestant, I must accept the greater portion of blame!
Harsh words were said on both sides but as I am sure you will agree that is all “sticks and stones……”, and no harm done!
As to your final rhetorical remark, of course not, we must stand united or fall divided.
I look forward to seeing you again on the field of battle!
Foul mouthed? I don’t think I used any conspicuously scatological terms. As to my motives for withdrawing those earlier remarks, I wished to rise clear of a discussion which had fallen to the level of a slanging match. However, I am – as you observe – more than willing to fight my corner. I’ll go on doing so, if you wish, but there are better ways of spending one’s time. Therefore, perhaps some clarification is in order. Our dispute began, if memory serves, as a result of a misinterpreted remark. Mine was the misinterpretation, yours, I believe, was the over-reaction. I was in dispute with a number of leftists at the time and thought your intervention just another example of their aggression. You were merely being jocular. Things have spiralled since. Now – if you wish to draw a line – I am willing to do so. If not, then so be it. I note that with regard to some remarks of mine concerning the right and religion you were good enough to express support. Perhaps that was an olive branch. If so, I regret having missed the opportunity of accepting it. Here is an olive branch in return. You will not, I hope, have the injustice to brood over earlier words which were themselves provoked? They are, after all, withdrawn. Finally, we differ – over many things – but are nevertheless in the blue corner against a world of reds. Does it make sense to waste energy in internecine strife?
In reverse order, self praise is NO recommendation Jones (or is it Denis) as you should remember, even with a surname such as your own, whatever it is.
Your similes are juvenile, surely you can be better? eg: “unemployable sack of potatoes”? Honestly where did you learn that? ‘Sink Comprehensive’ perhaps?
Perhaps I didn’t “scream” racist, difficult to do so in writing, but at least you got my drift.
I repeat Race if everything, as even these pages on UnHerd constantly prove! You must pay more attention must you not?
Finally am I to infer that you and your kind think that you represent the New Right? If so dream on sunshine you haven’t got a clue!
First, I didn’t scream “racist” I drew a conclusion from your own statement that “race is everything” – hence, racist. You’ve made the point a second time in another episode of trolling, so don’t try to deny it.
Second, you haunt these threads like some unemployable sack of potatoes, smarting from accurate rejoinders to your third rate, bar-room banter.
Third, you and others like you merely serve to discredit the right and confirm the prejudices of the left. And now, go away and bother someone else. You are either too old or too young to engage in complex discussion.
How extraordinary!
Yet you yourself are the first to scream ‘Racist’ as I recall, if someone deigns to differ from the current orthodoxy of multiculturalist claptrap.
When ‘On Liberty’ was published in 1859 we already had a perfectly satisfactory system of “weighted voting” based on property ownership, NOT supposed intellect.
The 1832 Reform Act gave the vote to one MALE in five in England, in essence to those who owned or rented property and paid TAX.
This equitable system was to be fatally widened (diluted)in 1867, 1884,1918,1928 & 1969, resulting the current ludicrous system of one body one vote!
(* Predictably North Britain (sometimes known as Scotland) intends to reduce the voting age to 16.)
I’d go the other way. Major issue nowadays is an incomplete voting register, and people not even bothering to vote. As they do in Australia, anyone who fails to vote should be fined – ideally at source, in PAYE or benefits. For instance, in the brexit referendum, very roughly, slightly more than one quarter voted for, one quarter voted against, one quarter stayed on the sofa scratching their posteriors, and the remaining quarter weren’t even on the register. Rounded to the nearest million, the figures were:
LEAVE: 17 million
REMAIN: 16 million
TOO BUSY WATCHING TELLY: 13 million
NOT EVEN ON REGISTER: 18 million
This is partly why it’s been so unsatisfactory – it simply does not have enough popular support, and never had. Circa 3/4 of the UK didn’t even vote for it. Ideally, you’d never have a referendum – on any subject. They are a crude import from an entirely different system (a plebiscite democracy) and have no place in a representative democracy. And as Margaret Thatcher (quoting Clement Attlee) noted: “Perhaps the late Lord Attlee was right,” she observed, “when he said that the referendum was a device of dictators and demagogues.” Even in mere private companies, no major decision would be pushed though with c. ¼ of the shareholders or directors. In corporate terms, the Brexit result was electorally inquorate. Typically, for major corporate decisions, a genuine 50+% is required even for routine decisions, and 75%+ by shareholder value is required to sanction a major decision. Referendums are a continental nonsense to begin with, but if one is stuck with them, they should at least require a 75% majority of all adults. Anything less is a recipe for national fracture.
It is too late because we don’t have an alternative. We’ve put everything behind our traditional way of government and when it fails us we have nothing.
I remember something about Roman times as discussed by Gibbon and many others since. As Rome was expanding and healthy the Senate, controlled by the top families (with plenty of energy) was strong and respected and totally in control. Then as Rome became sleazy and only interested in ‘fun and games’ more and more of the Senators came from bad families – the nouveau riche- people with no taste. Then the time was right for an autocracy to take over in the name of Augustus.
This is true in Britain. When we were expanding and taking over the world, Parliament was strong and in control. As we have become sleazy, interested in fun and games, not bothered about voting, the Parliament fails and an autocracy or elite has taken over. We have no choices left.
Gibbon was a fierce critic of the cult of Christianity which undoubtedly sapped the moral fibre of the Late Roman Empire.
It also cost a fortune to support the vast numbers of idle mouths generated by the new priesthood and its associate parasites, as the late Arnold Jones*pointed out in his seminal work: The Later Roman Empire. 284-602 AD.
Gibbon was a fierce critic of the cult of Christianity which undoubtedly sapped the moral fibre of the Late Roman Empire.
It also cost a fortune to support the vast numbers of idle mouths generated by the new priesthood and its associate parasites, as the late Arnold Jones*pointed out in his seminal work: The Later Roman Empire. 284-602 AD.
It is too late because we don’t have an alternative. We’ve put everything behind our traditional way of government and when it fails us we have nothing.
I remember something about Roman times as discussed by Gibbon and many others since. As Rome was expanding and healthy the Senate, controlled by the top families (with plenty of energy) was strong and respected and totally in control. Then as Rome became sleazy and only interested in ‘fun and games’ more and more of the Senators came from bad families – the nouveau riche- people with no taste. Then the time was right for an autocracy to take over in the name of Augustus.
This is true in Britain. When we were expanding and taking over the world, Parliament was strong and in control. As we have become sleazy, interested in fun and games, not bothered about voting, the Parliament fails and an autocracy or elite has taken over. We have no choices left.
‘Circa 3/4 of the UK didn’t even vote for it’ (‘it’ being leave). Equally, circa 3/4 didn’t vote to remain. What matters is that the majority of those who voted wanted to leave. Equally, in 1975 only one third of the electorate voted to remain (in the EEC), but this was enough. Those who choose to disenfranchise themselves cannot complain about the outcome.
Referendums are fine for what are essentially binary issues, eg in or out. Curiously remainers never seem to question the outcome when the result goes their way.
Problem was it wasn’t a simple binary issue – there were graduations of both In and Out. The referendum didn’t determine the form of Out.
Now once held and with the promise of enactment (unlike the Swiss model where it’s clearly appreciated referendums are advisory) a form of ‘Out’ had to be delivered. The form we got does not have the rubber stamp of a referendum though and probably wouldn’t get supported were it put back to the people now they understand it better, but we’ll never know for sure.
And equally the 1975 referendum didn’t determine the form of In, as subsequent experience demonstrated. I agree that the 2016 referendum, while necessary and (in this case) binding, only took us so far. The problem was that the leave/remain battle continued after the result was declared. It would have been much better if all parties (and the civil service) had respected the result and tried to work together to reach some sort of consensus about how best to take matters forward – wishful thinking of course.
And equally the 1975 referendum didn’t determine the form of In, as subsequent experience demonstrated. I agree that the 2016 referendum, while necessary and (in this case) binding, only took us so far. The problem was that the leave/remain battle continued after the result was declared. It would have been much better if all parties (and the civil service) had respected the result and tried to work together to reach some sort of consensus about how best to take matters forward – wishful thinking of course.
Problem was it wasn’t a simple binary issue – there were graduations of both In and Out. The referendum didn’t determine the form of Out.
Now once held and with the promise of enactment (unlike the Swiss model where it’s clearly appreciated referendums are advisory) a form of ‘Out’ had to be delivered. The form we got does not have the rubber stamp of a referendum though and probably wouldn’t get supported were it put back to the people now they understand it better, but we’ll never know for sure.
and 75%+ by shareholder value is required to sanction a major decision.
How would that translate into political voting? Would your ‘shareholder value’ equate to the amount of tax you pay, with your vote weighted proportionately?
Agreed. Voting is a civic responsibility that should be compelled on pain of well, some sort of fine I suppose. But there then ought to be an “I abstain” box. It should also be possible to cast your vote online in this day and age. Imagine how different things would be.
I’m not sure about online voting. It would be possible for a father, or a ‘community leader’, to lean over your shoulder and instruct you on how to vote.
In the polling booth you act alone.
I’m not sure about online voting. It would be possible for a father, or a ‘community leader’, to lean over your shoulder and instruct you on how to vote.
In the polling booth you act alone.
“This is partly why it’s been so unsatisfactory – it simply does not have enough popular support, and never had. Circa 3/4 of the UK didn’t even vote for it.”
And yet Frank, you still lost. You lost Frank, because even fewer people voted to stay. Didn’t they?
You are putting forward a classic bourgeois liberal argument: Other peoples votes should be worth less than yours, when those other people disagree with you.
“Referendums are a continental nonsense to begin with, but if one is stuck with them, they should at least require a 75% majority of all adults.”
I wonder if you will remember that line of reasoning when there is a referendum to rejoin the EU. I am confident that you will not. You will simply come up with another ad hoc voting condition to ensure that you “win”, irrespective of the actual votes cast
I think you will find the normal requirement for a Special Resolution is 75% of “ votes cast”. If only 10% of shareholders bother to vote then 7.5 % of the total can carry the day.
‘Circa 3/4 of the UK didn’t even vote for it’ (‘it’ being leave). Equally, circa 3/4 didn’t vote to remain. What matters is that the majority of those who voted wanted to leave. Equally, in 1975 only one third of the electorate voted to remain (in the EEC), but this was enough. Those who choose to disenfranchise themselves cannot complain about the outcome.
Referendums are fine for what are essentially binary issues, eg in or out. Curiously remainers never seem to question the outcome when the result goes their way.
and 75%+ by shareholder value is required to sanction a major decision.
How would that translate into political voting? Would your ‘shareholder value’ equate to the amount of tax you pay, with your vote weighted proportionately?
Agreed. Voting is a civic responsibility that should be compelled on pain of well, some sort of fine I suppose. But there then ought to be an “I abstain” box. It should also be possible to cast your vote online in this day and age. Imagine how different things would be.
“This is partly why it’s been so unsatisfactory – it simply does not have enough popular support, and never had. Circa 3/4 of the UK didn’t even vote for it.”
And yet Frank, you still lost. You lost Frank, because even fewer people voted to stay. Didn’t they?
You are putting forward a classic bourgeois liberal argument: Other peoples votes should be worth less than yours, when those other people disagree with you.
“Referendums are a continental nonsense to begin with, but if one is stuck with them, they should at least require a 75% majority of all adults.”
I wonder if you will remember that line of reasoning when there is a referendum to rejoin the EU. I am confident that you will not. You will simply come up with another ad hoc voting condition to ensure that you “win”, irrespective of the actual votes cast
I think you will find the normal requirement for a Special Resolution is 75% of “ votes cast”. If only 10% of shareholders bother to vote then 7.5 % of the total can carry the day.
Britain’s descent began with the second Great Reform Act of 1867, and it was downhill from then on, aided and abetted by the removal of jury service qualification- We are now Living in a dystopian hybrid of Communism and National Socialism, and reached the level of a flyblown African or Latin American totalitarian state.
Orwell points out that in the period of 1939 to 1943, the intelligentsia, which was middle class and most left wing, was very defeatist whereas the working class wanted to fight. This is an example of a group of people being wealthier and more educated having less sagacity and fighting spirit.
John Glubb in His ” Fate of Empires
” points out
The impression that the situation can be saved by mental cleverness, without unsel[1]fishness or human self-dedication, can only lead to collapse. glubbThe Fate of Empires (by Sir John Glubb).pdf
Charity Bick was awarded undertook the actions which led to be being awarded the GM at the age of fifteen.
I would suggest anyone who is prepared to sacrifice themselves for the country has the right to vote.
Orwell points out the intelligentsia indulged in bully worship. However , the British working class typified by Ernest Bevin recognised both Nazis and Communists as bullies and treated them with contempt. Whereas, the Dean of Canterbury likened Stalin to Christ and GB Shaw praised the USSR.
Mosley and Mitford praised Hitler.
Perhaps what is most important quality in a voter is discernment of character.
Mussolini was supported by Lenin and appear to solve the chaos in Italy, even attracting jewish members. During the 1920s and then 1930s he became more dictatorial. Mussolini in 1905 was friendly with Lenin and then during and post WW1 evolved in someone who believed in the collective power of the state.Consequently, one needs to look at what period of Mussolini’s time in power.
The post 1917 period was a time of great change in Europe. One way of assessing the situation was to determine who was doing most of the killing.
Character, that of duty, sel- sacrifice and initiative are more important than time spent in education or wealth. Orwell pointed out that most of the intelligentsia, which was largely middle class and left wing was defeatist up to 1943, whereas the working class possessed fighting spirit.
Mussolini was supported by Lenin and appear to solve the chaos in Italy, even attracting jewish members. During the 1920s and then 1930s he became more dictatorial. Mussolini in 1905 was friendly with Lenin and then during and post WW1 evolved in someone who believed in the collective power of the state.Consequently, one needs to look at what period of Mussolini’s time in power.
The post 1917 period was a time of great change in Europe. One way of assessing the situation was to determine who was doing most of the killing.
Character, that of duty, sel- sacrifice and initiative are more important than time spent in education or wealth. Orwell pointed out that most of the intelligentsia, which was largely middle class and left wing was defeatist up to 1943, whereas the working class possessed fighting spirit.
yes I did, apols.
As regards tax, I suspect you are just referring to income tax rather than all the other taxes people pay and did pay back before universal suffrage. The idea that some adults never paid any tax of any kind at all won’t stand up to much scrutiny.
Prior to the reintroduction of Income Tax in 1842, the primary source of Government revenue was the Land Tax. Ergo you had to own land to pay the tax..
Otherwise revenue was derived from a tax on luxury goods such a wine. So in most cases the poor didn’t, indeed couldn’t pay tax.
The commonest indirect taxes paid by most people in the 18th and 19ths centuries were excise duties. These were levied on basic commodities – household essentials such as salt, candles, leather, beer, soap, and starch. Now maybe some couldn’t even afford those, but some fairly essential items there and hence many more paying tax. And as we know these type of taxes much more regressive on the poor.
Then of course there is the impact of things like the Corn Laws. Slightly different of course but the impact fairly similar.
The commonest indirect taxes paid by most people in the 18th and 19ths centuries were excise duties. These were levied on basic commodities – household essentials such as salt, candles, leather, beer, soap, and starch. Now maybe some couldn’t even afford those, but some fairly essential items there and hence many more paying tax. And as we know these type of taxes much more regressive on the poor.
Then of course there is the impact of things like the Corn Laws. Slightly different of course but the impact fairly similar.
Prior to the reintroduction of Income Tax in 1842, the primary source of Government revenue was the Land Tax. Ergo you had to own land to pay the tax..
Otherwise revenue was derived from a tax on luxury goods such a wine. So in most cases the poor didn’t, indeed couldn’t pay tax.
yes I did, apols.
As regards tax, I suspect you are just referring to income tax rather than all the other taxes people pay and did pay back before universal suffrage. The idea that some adults never paid any tax of any kind at all won’t stand up to much scrutiny.
The Strange Death of Liberal England states that one of the Pankhurst daughters considers improving the lives of the poor women in the East End of London ( Match Girls Strike ) more important than giving votes to middle class women. This comment changed my views on the priorities of the time. If one looks at priorities in 1913, I would suggest improving the conditions of those living in squalid slums and preparing for war against Germany. The death rate for under fives and women in labour in the squalid slums pre 1914 were still very high. The lack of preparation of WW1 resulted in far more deaths needed and slowing down of the introduction of various welfare measures, such as health care, education, which had far more detrimental impact on the lives of the poor than middle class women.
I would suggest that true statesmanship is deciding on the priorities of the nation, not being swayed by influential groups.
Dead women have no vote.
Why wouldn’t you just do both CH? You suggest it’s an either or which has no coherence as a logical argument. No Pankhurst daughter indicated they were mutually exclusive.
In the book Strange Deat of Liberal England, one of the Pankhurst daughters did. At any time a government can only concentrate on a few vital issues. I think it was Adele Pankhurst who said improving the living conditions for poor women in the East End of London was more important than middle class women receiving the vote. The percentage of men who failed the medicals for the Armed Forces in the Boer and WW1 was very high due to poverty. In 1900 , public school boys were on average four inches taller than those from the slums.
In the book Strange Deat of Liberal England, one of the Pankhurst daughters did. At any time a government can only concentrate on a few vital issues. I think it was Adele Pankhurst who said improving the living conditions for poor women in the East End of London was more important than middle class women receiving the vote. The percentage of men who failed the medicals for the Armed Forces in the Boer and WW1 was very high due to poverty. In 1900 , public school boys were on average four inches taller than those from the slums.
Why wouldn’t you just do both CH? You suggest it’s an either or which has no coherence as a logical argument. No Pankhurst daughter indicated they were mutually exclusive.
The Strange Death of Liberal England states that one of the Pankhurst daughters considers improving the lives of the poor women in the East End of London ( Match Girls Strike ) more important than giving votes to middle class women. This comment changed my views on the priorities of the time. If one looks at priorities in 1913, I would suggest improving the conditions of those living in squalid slums and preparing for war against Germany. The death rate for under fives and women in labour in the squalid slums pre 1914 were still very high. The lack of preparation of WW1 resulted in far more deaths needed and slowing down of the introduction of various welfare measures, such as health care, education, which had far more detrimental impact on the lives of the poor than middle class women.
I would suggest that true statesmanship is deciding on the priorities of the nation, not being swayed by influential groups.
Dead women have no vote.
Orwell points out that in the period of 1939 to 1943, the intelligentsia, which was middle class and most left wing, was very defeatist whereas the working class wanted to fight. This is an example of a group of people being wealthier and more educated having less sagacity and fighting spirit.
John Glubb in His ” Fate of Empires
” points out
The impression that the situation can be saved by mental cleverness, without unsel[1]fishness or human self-dedication, can only lead to collapse. glubbThe Fate of Empires (by Sir John Glubb).pdf
Charity Bick was awarded undertook the actions which led to be being awarded the GM at the age of fifteen.
I would suggest anyone who is prepared to sacrifice themselves for the country has the right to vote.
Orwell points out the intelligentsia indulged in bully worship. However , the British working class typified by Ernest Bevin recognised both Nazis and Communists as bullies and treated them with contempt. Whereas, the Dean of Canterbury likened Stalin to Christ and GB Shaw praised the USSR.
Mosley and Mitford praised Hitler.
Perhaps what is most important quality in a voter is discernment of character.
Scotland and Wales have already reduced the voting age to 16 but they don’t have the power to do this for parliamentary elections. Starmer will do it though.
I’d go the other way. Major issue nowadays is an incomplete voting register, and people not even bothering to vote. As they do in Australia, anyone who fails to vote should be fined – ideally at source, in PAYE or benefits. For instance, in the brexit referendum, very roughly, slightly more than one quarter voted for, one quarter voted against, one quarter stayed on the sofa scratching their posteriors, and the remaining quarter weren’t even on the register. Rounded to the nearest million, the figures were:
LEAVE: 17 million
REMAIN: 16 million
TOO BUSY WATCHING TELLY: 13 million
NOT EVEN ON REGISTER: 18 million
This is partly why it’s been so unsatisfactory – it simply does not have enough popular support, and never had. Circa 3/4 of the UK didn’t even vote for it. Ideally, you’d never have a referendum – on any subject. They are a crude import from an entirely different system (a plebiscite democracy) and have no place in a representative democracy. And as Margaret Thatcher (quoting Clement Attlee) noted: “Perhaps the late Lord Attlee was right,” she observed, “when he said that the referendum was a device of dictators and demagogues.” Even in mere private companies, no major decision would be pushed though with c. ¼ of the shareholders or directors. In corporate terms, the Brexit result was electorally inquorate. Typically, for major corporate decisions, a genuine 50+% is required even for routine decisions, and 75%+ by shareholder value is required to sanction a major decision. Referendums are a continental nonsense to begin with, but if one is stuck with them, they should at least require a 75% majority of all adults. Anything less is a recipe for national fracture.
Britain’s descent began with the second Great Reform Act of 1867, and it was downhill from then on, aided and abetted by the removal of jury service qualification- We are now Living in a dystopian hybrid of Communism and National Socialism, and reached the level of a flyblown African or Latin American totalitarian state.
Scotland and Wales have already reduced the voting age to 16 but they don’t have the power to do this for parliamentary elections. Starmer will do it though.
As a teacher in a supposedly top 10 global university (qs rankings) i would say be careful what you wish for. Since students became customers standards have tumbled, and are now exacerbated by post Covid “free play”. The coach to pass philosophy that this industry’s customers now seek as an escalator to guaranteed jobs is producing less critical thinking and very little orignality.
I haven’t read “On Liberty” in many, many years so I can’t comment either way as to whether he was a “Progressive” in the sense that we understand the word here in the 21st century. I do know that, like de Tocqueville, he is quoted by liberals/Progressives and by conservatives whenever it suits their arguments.
You are right to point out that the work of J S Mill does not need to be treated as a sacred text correct in all its pronouncements.
The stupid have interests to defend with their vote as well as the intelligent.
Indeed the educated today include a very high proportion of the population and are unlikely to be confined to profound thinkers. Instead they include a lot of intellectual conformists who accept dogmas current among their educated peers whether or not they are in fact rational and true. Even the brightest among us only have a limited amount of time and energy to truly examine every subject in depth and so are inclined to take the current ideas of their peers as correct, whether they in fact stack up on proper examination or not.
Thanks for that linked article, which appeared well before i subscribed to Unherd. A treasure chest of golden nuggets is being created, and should be recallable as you’ve done.
One point: challenging the despotism of custom is not the same as subjecting custom itself to oppression.
To take an example, marriage continues but divorce is socially accepted – not something you could say of mid-Victorian England.
And that is not the same as stigmatising marriage, is it?
And therefore – no, Mill is not in charge today and no, he would not approve of the current climate. He may have been content to let the left spout its oppressive nonsense, but he would not have been happy to let it stop up the voices or the customs of the right, as it does now.
When Mill ruled – so to speak – custom continued to exist alongside non-customary conduct without stigma on either side, whereas now custom itself is being stigmatised.
Fail to grasp that and you fail to understand the real challenge of our times and risk falling back into a counter-form of political correctness which will be little improvement on the current blight.
Post script: re Orwell there is a real howler and I’m surprised Unherd hasn’t spotted it. 1984 explicitly tells us that we have NO hope from the “proles”, one of the many ways in which that book challenges and upends “radical” and Marxist trash.
When ‘On Liberty’ was published in 1859 we already had a perfectly satisfactory system of “weighted voting” based on property ownership, NOT supposed intellect.
The 1832 Reform Act gave the vote to one MALE in five in England, in essence to those who owned or rented property and paid TAX.
This equitable system was to be fatally widened (diluted)in 1867, 1884,1918,1928 & 1969, resulting the current ludicrous system of one body one vote!
(* Predictably North Britain (sometimes known as Scotland) intends to reduce the voting age to 16.)
As a teacher in a supposedly top 10 global university (qs rankings) i would say be careful what you wish for. Since students became customers standards have tumbled, and are now exacerbated by post Covid “free play”. The coach to pass philosophy that this industry’s customers now seek as an escalator to guaranteed jobs is producing less critical thinking and very little orignality.
I haven’t read “On Liberty” in many, many years so I can’t comment either way as to whether he was a “Progressive” in the sense that we understand the word here in the 21st century. I do know that, like de Tocqueville, he is quoted by liberals/Progressives and by conservatives whenever it suits their arguments.
You are right to point out that the work of J S Mill does not need to be treated as a sacred text correct in all its pronouncements.
The stupid have interests to defend with their vote as well as the intelligent.
Indeed the educated today include a very high proportion of the population and are unlikely to be confined to profound thinkers. Instead they include a lot of intellectual conformists who accept dogmas current among their educated peers whether or not they are in fact rational and true. Even the brightest among us only have a limited amount of time and energy to truly examine every subject in depth and so are inclined to take the current ideas of their peers as correct, whether they in fact stack up on proper examination or not.
This highlights the value of Unherd in providing an interesting and thought-provoking insight into the work of JS Mill and his elitist views that chime to some extent with the progressive ideology emanating from Universities and other institutions that do not reflect the common views of the bulk of the population.
However, much of the woke ideology is not simply authoritarian in nature but ant-rationalist. J S Mill would not have regarded appointing individuals to positions on the basis of their sex or ethnic origins rather than their ability and suitability for the post as sensible. Nor would he have regarded the explicitly anti-rational idea that a man could transform himself into a woman for all social purposes simply on the basis that he felt like a woman as sensible.
J S Mill’s belief was that superior individuals would produce superior solutions as a result of liberty of thought and speech and that such superior solutions would become widely accepted. Unfortunately, because mankind tends to conformity the mediocre elites have produced a number mediocre and anti-rationalist ideological beliefs that conformism has helped to foster. There is nothing progressive in the sense of movement from an inferior set of beliefs to a superior set in much of the woke dogma. The true progressive should do their best to tear down these new conservative anti-rationalist dogmas.
I don’t agree with you. First of all allow me to describe my impressions of myself – I see myself as anti-woke, right of centre and I think that most of what comes out of universities is garbage.
However, you talk about other people – ‘the bulk of the population’ – as if you can speak for them and you can’t. I would suggest that you have no idea at all how the population thinks. You see yourself as right and that other ideas are plain wrong.
JS Mill would not have appointed people on the basis of their sex – is wrong. He would have appointed men to top jobs and not women – that was automatic in his day. Also he wouldn’t have thought about ethnic minorities because there weren’t any.
I can remember South Africa after apartheid. In their sports teams they had to have one non-white player who was always useless. But that meant that young black people had something to work towards, an aim in life to better themselves. It worked and the teams now are multi-ethnic. The same has to be true in non-sporting life because, otherwise, the non-white people would have no mechanism for improvement. To me, this is not woke. It is just plain obvious.
I beg to disagree CW – read on the ‘Subjugation of Women’ his great work with Harriet Taylor. He may not have gone for positive discrimination but he sure would have appointed Women to top jobs if they were the best.
I do not claim to speak for the bulk of the population I simply get the impression from conversations and what I read that most do not believe a man can transform himself into being a woman by believing he is really one nor that ethnic discrimination is a good idea. You may however be right that I have no clear evidence on the point and I may be mistaken in this impression despite believing it to be so.
As J Watson has pointed out Mill did not share the common prejudice of his time regarding women and so it is likely he would have favoured a sex blind appointment approach. In addition it is clearly incorrect that there weren’t any ethnic minorities in the country when he wrote, merely that the numbers were much less than they are today. There is no reason to think he would have been against the appointment of the most suitable regardless of their ethnic origin were he faced with the issue today.
The argument that relatively useless ethnic individuals should be appointed to positions to inspire their fellow ethnics to better themselves is both deeply patronising and entirely speculative and unproved. Certainly the great Thomas Sowell has robustly rejected this argument as applied in the US.
I beg to disagree CW – read on the ‘Subjugation of Women’ his great work with Harriet Taylor. He may not have gone for positive discrimination but he sure would have appointed Women to top jobs if they were the best.
I do not claim to speak for the bulk of the population I simply get the impression from conversations and what I read that most do not believe a man can transform himself into being a woman by believing he is really one nor that ethnic discrimination is a good idea. You may however be right that I have no clear evidence on the point and I may be mistaken in this impression despite believing it to be so.
As J Watson has pointed out Mill did not share the common prejudice of his time regarding women and so it is likely he would have favoured a sex blind appointment approach. In addition it is clearly incorrect that there weren’t any ethnic minorities in the country when he wrote, merely that the numbers were much less than they are today. There is no reason to think he would have been against the appointment of the most suitable regardless of their ethnic origin were he faced with the issue today.
The argument that relatively useless ethnic individuals should be appointed to positions to inspire their fellow ethnics to better themselves is both deeply patronising and entirely speculative and unproved. Certainly the great Thomas Sowell has robustly rejected this argument as applied in the US.
I agree. This essay is a very worthwhile read except that it utilizes the misnomer “progressive” for the ideology that has currently captured the Academy, most western government institutions and NGOs.
There is no progress in the mythology that men are women if they say so, that there is a sacred soul that has a sex which overrides one’s reproductive system and that small children have the intellectual capacity to define this and authorize the removal of reproductive organs and sign up for life-long medication. Insisting that an individual’s ethnic history dictates their place in a hierarchy more than their contextual status and power is also regressive as is the notion that a lesbian must accept as a sex partner a man who says he’s a lesbian or be tabled a hate-filled bigot is not social progress.
Contemporary “Progressivism” is a thinly-veiled regression to old entrenched hierarchies that reiterates the very thing against which Mill revolted.
I don’t agree with you. First of all allow me to describe my impressions of myself – I see myself as anti-woke, right of centre and I think that most of what comes out of universities is garbage.
However, you talk about other people – ‘the bulk of the population’ – as if you can speak for them and you can’t. I would suggest that you have no idea at all how the population thinks. You see yourself as right and that other ideas are plain wrong.
JS Mill would not have appointed people on the basis of their sex – is wrong. He would have appointed men to top jobs and not women – that was automatic in his day. Also he wouldn’t have thought about ethnic minorities because there weren’t any.
I can remember South Africa after apartheid. In their sports teams they had to have one non-white player who was always useless. But that meant that young black people had something to work towards, an aim in life to better themselves. It worked and the teams now are multi-ethnic. The same has to be true in non-sporting life because, otherwise, the non-white people would have no mechanism for improvement. To me, this is not woke. It is just plain obvious.
I agree. This essay is a very worthwhile read except that it utilizes the misnomer “progressive” for the ideology that has currently captured the Academy, most western government institutions and NGOs.
There is no progress in the mythology that men are women if they say so, that there is a sacred soul that has a sex which overrides one’s reproductive system and that small children have the intellectual capacity to define this and authorize the removal of reproductive organs and sign up for life-long medication. Insisting that an individual’s ethnic history dictates their place in a hierarchy more than their contextual status and power is also regressive as is the notion that a lesbian must accept as a sex partner a man who says he’s a lesbian or be tabled a hate-filled bigot is not social progress.
Contemporary “Progressivism” is a thinly-veiled regression to old entrenched hierarchies that reiterates the very thing against which Mill revolted.
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago
This highlights the value of Unherd in providing an interesting and thought-provoking insight into the work of JS Mill and his elitist views that chime to some extent with the progressive ideology emanating from Universities and other institutions that do not reflect the common views of the bulk of the population.
However, much of the woke ideology is not simply authoritarian in nature but ant-rationalist. J S Mill would not have regarded appointing individuals to positions on the basis of their sex or ethnic origins rather than their ability and suitability for the post as sensible. Nor would he have regarded the explicitly anti-rational idea that a man could transform himself into a woman for all social purposes simply on the basis that he felt like a woman as sensible.
J S Mill’s belief was that superior individuals would produce superior solutions as a result of liberty of thought and speech and that such superior solutions would become widely accepted. Unfortunately, because mankind tends to conformity the mediocre elites have produced a number mediocre and anti-rationalist ideological beliefs that conformism has helped to foster. There is nothing progressive in the sense of movement from an inferior set of beliefs to a superior set in much of the woke dogma. The true progressive should do their best to tear down these new conservative anti-rationalist dogmas.
Alan Hawkes
1 year ago
I’m having some difficulty in seeing some student, screaming for the dismissal of Professor Stock, as a “rare individual “ liberated from the views of the masses.
I agree with you. Being an old person I see it as nonsensical. But I also see that my view is irrelevant.
Lecturers in universities have always veered towards Marxism, which was always perceived to be about Economics. There was the aim of revolution, to make rich people poor and allow the poor people to run the country.
Now Marxism has widened its scope. Now it challenges every idea and everything is about revolution – however stupid the aims. In fact, the more stupid the aim, the more successful the lecturer.
I agree with you. Being an old person I see it as nonsensical. But I also see that my view is irrelevant.
Lecturers in universities have always veered towards Marxism, which was always perceived to be about Economics. There was the aim of revolution, to make rich people poor and allow the poor people to run the country.
Now Marxism has widened its scope. Now it challenges every idea and everything is about revolution – however stupid the aims. In fact, the more stupid the aim, the more successful the lecturer.
Alan Hawkes
1 year ago
I’m having some difficulty in seeing some student, screaming for the dismissal of Professor Stock, as a “rare individual “ liberated from the views of the masses.
Julian Pellatt
1 year ago
“…because of the “despotism of custom”, and the growing political influence of ordinary people, such individuals will need both active political protection from the masses, and, better yet, eventually enjoy political control.”
“… to liberate the unique, inventive, free-thinking few from the oppression of the herd-like, tradition-bound, narrow and unadventurousmany.’
The ‘unadventurous many’, ‘everyday people’. ‘ordinary people’ … In modern parlance (thank you, Hilary Clinton!) ‘the deplorables’, or David Cameron’s ‘the little people’.
The rallying cry of the 1960s, when the cultural marxists of the day were preoccupied with liberation struggles (decades later they were more wars of acquisition), especially those in Africa, their rallying cry was ‘Majority Rule!’ Nowadays, the majority is despised, the law has been inverted, nay perverted, to bolster the rights of minorities against those of the majority and to contextualise the struggle of all those deemed to be oppressed against their oppressors.
Mill’s vision of liberty as portrayed in this article is akin to the ‘liberty’ imposed upon and in the name of the ‘demos’ (to use the author’s term for the people) by Lenin (one “rare individual … liberated from the oppressiveness of the masses”). He held that once the proletariat had destroyed the established order by violent revolution, a small (very) intellectual revolutionary elite (the ‘individuals’ so admired by Mills apparently) would seize power and maintain power by calculated terror thereafter in a “a society of constant change, disruption, and transformation.” Hmmm!
Like Mill, our 21st Century ‘progressives’ “have nothing but contempt for the backwardness of ordinary people.” We live under a progressive tyranny – a new condition in human history.
Julian Pellatt
1 year ago
“…because of the “despotism of custom”, and the growing political influence of ordinary people, such individuals will need both active political protection from the masses, and, better yet, eventually enjoy political control.”
“… to liberate the unique, inventive, free-thinking few from the oppression of the herd-like, tradition-bound, narrow and unadventurousmany.’
The ‘unadventurous many’, ‘everyday people’. ‘ordinary people’ … In modern parlance (thank you, Hilary Clinton!) ‘the deplorables’, or David Cameron’s ‘the little people’.
The rallying cry of the 1960s, when the cultural marxists of the day were preoccupied with liberation struggles (decades later they were more wars of acquisition), especially those in Africa, their rallying cry was ‘Majority Rule!’ Nowadays, the majority is despised, the law has been inverted, nay perverted, to bolster the rights of minorities against those of the majority and to contextualise the struggle of all those deemed to be oppressed against their oppressors.
Mill’s vision of liberty as portrayed in this article is akin to the ‘liberty’ imposed upon and in the name of the ‘demos’ (to use the author’s term for the people) by Lenin (one “rare individual … liberated from the oppressiveness of the masses”). He held that once the proletariat had destroyed the established order by violent revolution, a small (very) intellectual revolutionary elite (the ‘individuals’ so admired by Mills apparently) would seize power and maintain power by calculated terror thereafter in a “a society of constant change, disruption, and transformation.” Hmmm!
Like Mill, our 21st Century ‘progressives’ “have nothing but contempt for the backwardness of ordinary people.” We live under a progressive tyranny – a new condition in human history.
Paul Nathanson
1 year ago
Excellent article. Excellent comments. Not being a philosopher (at least not in the academic sense), I welcome this opportunity to learn about an ironic twist in the history of philosophical and political discourse. Even the word “liberal” has meant so many things over the century or so, sometimes contradictory ones, that it has little use by now except (like “conservative”) as a hostile slogan.
I can add here only one note of caution. Discussions of the dismal current situation often end up as disputes over how we got to this point by tracing the evolution of ideas but without taking responsibility for wielding those ideas as weapons in the present: capitalism vs. socialism, say, or liberalism vs. progressivism. In my experience, for example, these arguments often amount to individualism vs. collectivism–as if we could ever live as humans with either but not the other. One of my friends insists that wokism is the inevitable result of individualism (but not the communally responsible kind that Thomas Jefferson fostered), because capitalism has turned us all not only into self-centered consumers but also into hedonistic seekers of personal gratification–that is, self-righteousness. (As a linguistic separatist, he has a stake in collectivism for reasons of his own.) Never mind that the wokers themselves insist, loudly and often, that the only source of meaning is membership in a group–especially in groups that define themselves biologically and immutably by race or sex; personal interests, abilities and motivations are of no political importance in this Darwinian struggle for collective power. Okay, maybe capitalism is among the factors that have led us to this point, but here we are now with the wokers turning capitalism (and everything else, including personal reliance on merit and reason) upside down in the name of “marginalized groups” and corporate giants turning cartwheels to be on the “right side of history.”
Good contribution to the commentary. We’re a bit trapped within a “prism of isms” nowadays, I think. There are so many seemingly precise or meaningful terms and labels that, in practice, become facile abstractions that turn us away from true engagement with our human fellows.
My neighbor? Why would I interact with him/her/them when he/she/they seems to represent materialism/hedonism/traditionalism…you name it, ad infinitum. Our tendency to throw around these conceptual labels as if they capture individual and societal complexities tends to serve as a sort of makeshift crutch, or cheap knowingness that borders on gnosticism.
Good contribution to the commentary. We’re a bit trapped within a “prism of isms” nowadays, I think. There are so many seemingly precise or meaningful terms and labels that, in practice, become facile abstractions that turn us away from true engagement with our human fellows.
My neighbor? Why would I interact with him/her/them when he/she/they seems to represent materialism/hedonism/traditionalism…you name it, ad infinitum. Our tendency to throw around these conceptual labels as if they capture individual and societal complexities tends to serve as a sort of makeshift crutch, or cheap knowingness that borders on gnosticism.
Paul Nathanson
1 year ago
Excellent article. Excellent comments. Not being a philosopher (at least not in the academic sense), I welcome this opportunity to learn about an ironic twist in the history of philosophical and political discourse. Even the word “liberal” has meant so many things over the century or so, sometimes contradictory ones, that it has little use by now except (like “conservative”) as a hostile slogan.
I can add here only one note of caution. Discussions of the dismal current situation often end up as disputes over how we got to this point by tracing the evolution of ideas but without taking responsibility for wielding those ideas as weapons in the present: capitalism vs. socialism, say, or liberalism vs. progressivism. In my experience, for example, these arguments often amount to individualism vs. collectivism–as if we could ever live as humans with either but not the other. One of my friends insists that wokism is the inevitable result of individualism (but not the communally responsible kind that Thomas Jefferson fostered), because capitalism has turned us all not only into self-centered consumers but also into hedonistic seekers of personal gratification–that is, self-righteousness. (As a linguistic separatist, he has a stake in collectivism for reasons of his own.) Never mind that the wokers themselves insist, loudly and often, that the only source of meaning is membership in a group–especially in groups that define themselves biologically and immutably by race or sex; personal interests, abilities and motivations are of no political importance in this Darwinian struggle for collective power. Okay, maybe capitalism is among the factors that have led us to this point, but here we are now with the wokers turning capitalism (and everything else, including personal reliance on merit and reason) upside down in the name of “marginalized groups” and corporate giants turning cartwheels to be on the “right side of history.”
Nik Jewell
1 year ago
That the other philosophical idea most closely associated with Mill is utilitarianism is the giveaway.
Great article.
How then do you judge of public value? Do you build a hospital or a palace? A factory or a casino? And yes you can give me the usual romantic / cultic squirming, viz that a factory belches out smoke and that palaces give tourists pleasure down the line, but we all know that were you in charge of a local council or a government, utility would trump all that. And you further know that palaces, casinos, theatres etcetera are the froth generated and made possible by the hospital (keeping the bulk of us alive to enjoy them) and the factory (supplying the energy and the money). As to religious observance, if it is necessary to man – and it appears to be – then spending large sums on ceremonial monuments is equally otiose, for true observance lives – surely – as Milton said, in an upright heart, not in massive buildings, albeit that they can adorn commitment.
How then do you judge of public value? Do you build a hospital or a palace? A factory or a casino? And yes you can give me the usual romantic / cultic squirming, viz that a factory belches out smoke and that palaces give tourists pleasure down the line, but we all know that were you in charge of a local council or a government, utility would trump all that. And you further know that palaces, casinos, theatres etcetera are the froth generated and made possible by the hospital (keeping the bulk of us alive to enjoy them) and the factory (supplying the energy and the money). As to religious observance, if it is necessary to man – and it appears to be – then spending large sums on ceremonial monuments is equally otiose, for true observance lives – surely – as Milton said, in an upright heart, not in massive buildings, albeit that they can adorn commitment.
Nik Jewell
1 year ago
That the other philosophical idea most closely associated with Mill is utilitarianism is the giveaway.
Great article.
Doug Plumb
1 year ago
The chimpanzees that took over the law profession took pornography as free speech and decided it was OK. They don’t know the difference between good and right political discourse and sex. Now they have taken away the free speech but left the porno sites for all the kiddies to watch so they won’t object when the teacher wants some closet time with them.
Doug Plumb
1 year ago
The chimpanzees that took over the law profession took pornography as free speech and decided it was OK. They don’t know the difference between good and right political discourse and sex. Now they have taken away the free speech but left the porno sites for all the kiddies to watch so they won’t object when the teacher wants some closet time with them.
Michael James
1 year ago
More relevant is that Mill’s defence of liberty isn’t strong enough because it’s grounded in his utilitarianism. He limits personal liberty if it does ‘harm’ to others, but nowadays even disagreeing with someone or ‘offending’ them can be interpreted as harming them. Personal liberty has to be grounded in some notion of individual rights or (as Hayek does) the rule of law.
Michael James
1 year ago
More relevant is that Mill’s defence of liberty isn’t strong enough because it’s grounded in his utilitarianism. He limits personal liberty if it does ‘harm’ to others, but nowadays even disagreeing with someone or ‘offending’ them can be interpreted as harming them. Personal liberty has to be grounded in some notion of individual rights or (as Hayek does) the rule of law.
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
It was the Christians, the Evangelical wing of Anglican Church, Baptist, Methodists, Quakers, Salvation Army and Anglo- Catholics at the end of the 19th century, who improved the quality of life of those living in squalid slums. What did Mill do to improve the life of the slum proletariat? Mill’s liberty easily became the libertine life of the licentious dilettantes with private incomes; free from the ideas of duty, self sacrifice and service.
Perhaps we should judge all philosophies by whether they improve the quality of lives of the manual labourers and their families ?
Liberty allowed the Industrial Revolution to occur but it was restraint, self sacrifice, service, a sense of public duty, a sense of responsibility, etc which improved the lives of those living in squalid slums. The restraint required to save( Building Societies, Co-op), pursuing cleanliness, controlling alcohol consumption and gambling, night schools, develop ment of paraffin candles so the poor could study at night,etc are measures often inspired by The Parable of Talents.
Mill’s liberty which easily becomes licentiousness, drunkeness and depravity keeps the poor in the squalid slums and is the opposite of “Self Help” advocated by Keir Hardie, founder of the Labour Party. Mill’s Liberalism evolves into that of Asquith who made Britain unprepared for WW1 resulting in the working class suffering the most.
Mill’s Liberalism is fine provded someone else does the hard dangerous work, whether combat or manual . The rich get the pleasure, the the poor the pain, ain’t it all a bleeding shame.
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
It was the Christians, the Evangelical wing of Anglican Church, Baptist, Methodists, Quakers, Salvation Army and Anglo- Catholics at the end of the 19th century, who improved the quality of life of those living in squalid slums. What did Mill do to improve the life of the slum proletariat? Mill’s liberty easily became the libertine life of the licentious dilettantes with private incomes; free from the ideas of duty, self sacrifice and service.
Perhaps we should judge all philosophies by whether they improve the quality of lives of the manual labourers and their families ?
Liberty allowed the Industrial Revolution to occur but it was restraint, self sacrifice, service, a sense of public duty, a sense of responsibility, etc which improved the lives of those living in squalid slums. The restraint required to save( Building Societies, Co-op), pursuing cleanliness, controlling alcohol consumption and gambling, night schools, develop ment of paraffin candles so the poor could study at night,etc are measures often inspired by The Parable of Talents.
Mill’s liberty which easily becomes licentiousness, drunkeness and depravity keeps the poor in the squalid slums and is the opposite of “Self Help” advocated by Keir Hardie, founder of the Labour Party. Mill’s Liberalism evolves into that of Asquith who made Britain unprepared for WW1 resulting in the working class suffering the most.
Mill’s Liberalism is fine provded someone else does the hard dangerous work, whether combat or manual . The rich get the pleasure, the the poor the pain, ain’t it all a bleeding shame.
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
Perhaps we should examine the two Bacons. Roger separates faith and reason.Francis Bacon states judgement is to be based upon experimental proof. For a tradition to be maintained there needs to be proof it is beneficial. To change the tradition, there must be a reason to do so and then observation and recording of the results. Before change to the tradition takes place there must be a clear definition what is defined as beneficial, to which results of the change can be compared. An example would be extending the school leaving age. Do children possess more knowledge of mathematics by staying on to the age of 18 years rather than leaving at 14 years. This change is to be tested through exams.
The reason why social engineering has caused so many problems was that there was no clear condemnation of tradition; no clear description of supposed benefit and no rigorus observation, recording and analysis of results of changes to traditions.
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
Perhaps we should examine the two Bacons. Roger separates faith and reason.Francis Bacon states judgement is to be based upon experimental proof. For a tradition to be maintained there needs to be proof it is beneficial. To change the tradition, there must be a reason to do so and then observation and recording of the results. Before change to the tradition takes place there must be a clear definition what is defined as beneficial, to which results of the change can be compared. An example would be extending the school leaving age. Do children possess more knowledge of mathematics by staying on to the age of 18 years rather than leaving at 14 years. This change is to be tested through exams.
The reason why social engineering has caused so many problems was that there was no clear condemnation of tradition; no clear description of supposed benefit and no rigorus observation, recording and analysis of results of changes to traditions.
George Scialabba
1 year ago
Deneen is profoundly wrong about Mill. The purpose of On Liberty, frequently repeated, is not to “secure … the political dominance of the progressive element of society.” Deneen is evidently counting on readers to assume that “progressive” meant to Mill what it means today. What Mill sought to advance was not some New Class of intellectuals and professionals, but simply the critical spirit, which he described in terms so luminous and forceful that they still inspire today. It was not ordinary people whom Mill disdained but the dunderheaded conservative elites of his day, for whom the Reform Bill was the end of the world.
And yet, obnoxious as the conservatives of his day were, Mill could write: “A conservative philosopher cannot be wholly conservative, but must often be a better liberal than liberals themselves; while he is the natural means of rescuing from oblivion truths which conservatives have forgotten and which the prevailing schools of liberalism never knew. … “Lord, enlighten thou our enemies,” should be the prayer of every true progressive; sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions, and consecutiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers. We are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom; their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength.” Does this sound like a blind partisan of progressivism?
The idea that conservatives are the natural champions of liberty can’t survive even a brief look back at the history of the US and UK. In the 1970s and 1980s, NPR and the BBC achieved heights of critical investigative journalism, breaking important story after story about the failings or misdeeds of government and business. Conservatives in both countries were outraged. So what did they do — offer well-reasoned rebuttals, as Mill would have prescribed? Of course not. They simply slashed the budget of both institutions and installed conservative hacks at the helm, crippling both institutions. Defunding your critics was an infinitely more effective and dangerous form of censorship than cancelling or de-platforming, obnoxious as those are.
Disagree. Mill tells us in his Autobiography that he was saved from recurring depression by reading the Romantics from whom he absorbed the belief in self-creativity, which he described as the power to shape one’s own character. His “Individuality” (the title of the central chapter of OL), which means self-made uniqueness, is the core idea of today’s expressive individualism. See also his adherence via Humboldt to the German idea of Bildung as the remaking of ourselves. Hence he was “progressive” in precisely the modern sense.
Disagree. Mill tells us in his Autobiography that he was saved from recurring depression by reading the Romantics from whom he absorbed the belief in self-creativity, which he described as the power to shape one’s own character. His “Individuality” (the title of the central chapter of OL), which means self-made uniqueness, is the core idea of today’s expressive individualism. See also his adherence via Humboldt to the German idea of Bildung as the remaking of ourselves. Hence he was “progressive” in precisely the modern sense.
Last edited 1 year ago by Max West
George Scialabba
1 year ago
Deneen is profoundly wrong about Mill. The purpose of On Liberty, frequently repeated, is not to “secure … the political dominance of the progressive element of society.” Deneen is evidently counting on readers to assume that “progressive” meant to Mill what it means today. What Mill sought to advance was not some New Class of intellectuals and professionals, but simply the critical spirit, which he described in terms so luminous and forceful that they still inspire today. It was not ordinary people whom Mill disdained but the dunderheaded conservative elites of his day, for whom the Reform Bill was the end of the world.
And yet, obnoxious as the conservatives of his day were, Mill could write: “A conservative philosopher cannot be wholly conservative, but must often be a better liberal than liberals themselves; while he is the natural means of rescuing from oblivion truths which conservatives have forgotten and which the prevailing schools of liberalism never knew. … “Lord, enlighten thou our enemies,” should be the prayer of every true progressive; sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions, and consecutiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers. We are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom; their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength.” Does this sound like a blind partisan of progressivism?
The idea that conservatives are the natural champions of liberty can’t survive even a brief look back at the history of the US and UK. In the 1970s and 1980s, NPR and the BBC achieved heights of critical investigative journalism, breaking important story after story about the failings or misdeeds of government and business. Conservatives in both countries were outraged. So what did they do — offer well-reasoned rebuttals, as Mill would have prescribed? Of course not. They simply slashed the budget of both institutions and installed conservative hacks at the helm, crippling both institutions. Defunding your critics was an infinitely more effective and dangerous form of censorship than cancelling or de-platforming, obnoxious as those are.
Jonathan Nash
1 year ago
Reading this reminded me how much classical liberalism and Marxism have in common.
Reading this reminded me how much classical liberalism and Marxism have in common.
Martin Terrell
1 year ago
Excellent analysis, I always thought Mill was overrated. I have also been naive that if we just preserved a ‘liberal order’ we would all get on, left and right arguing away and life continuing its own sweet way. The problem is that progress undermines the order that we all depend on. Hence modern progressives have no interest in free speech as an absolute ideal.
Martin Terrell
1 year ago
Excellent analysis, I always thought Mill was overrated. I have also been naive that if we just preserved a ‘liberal order’ we would all get on, left and right arguing away and life continuing its own sweet way. The problem is that progress undermines the order that we all depend on. Hence modern progressives have no interest in free speech as an absolute ideal.
Eric Hermann
1 year ago
Fascinating article. I read Mill in college and fully absorbed his message about the free exchange of ideas and a “marketplace of ideas.” Of course, this is the concept that conservatives are invoking when they cite Mill. So, if Mill’s philosophy of liberty is merely instrumental, then who should modern conservatives turn to instead for inspiration on free speech?
Fascinating article. I read Mill in college and fully absorbed his message about the free exchange of ideas and a “marketplace of ideas.” Of course, this is the concept that conservatives are invoking when they cite Mill. So, if Mill’s philosophy of liberty is merely instrumental, then who should modern conservatives turn to instead for inspiration on free speech?
R Wright
1 year ago
Deneen and other postliberal writers should be mandatory reading. Every time I read some idiotic ‘boomer’ Facebook tier complaint about how ‘liberals are the real n*zis!’ I get exasperated. Liberalism has not become an aberration or been twisted by progressives. It has succeeded beyond its adherents’ wildest dreams, entrenching a managerial bureaucracy and its power across the world. Going back to the ‘Enlightenment’ writers who kickstarted the rot in our institutions is lunacy.
Some distinctions are called for. The entrenched bureaucracy currently running the world. from the IMF to the EU to the Fed, is not the product of liberalism but of neoliberalism, which is much more akin to libertarian conservatism. Liberals from Mill to Keynes to Galbraith to Krugman have all been moderate egalitarians, a commitment which is incompatible with neoliberalism and the grotesque economic and political inequality it has produced. A few philosophical conservatives like Roger Scruton may rail at the global neoliberal bureaucracy, but the Republican and Conservative parties generally keep their mouths shut and certainly never sponsor any oppositional measures in the interest of those subject to that bureaucracy.
By the way, what have you got to replace the Enlightenment wth?
Some distinctions are called for. The entrenched bureaucracy currently running the world. from the IMF to the EU to the Fed, is not the product of liberalism but of neoliberalism, which is much more akin to libertarian conservatism. Liberals from Mill to Keynes to Galbraith to Krugman have all been moderate egalitarians, a commitment which is incompatible with neoliberalism and the grotesque economic and political inequality it has produced. A few philosophical conservatives like Roger Scruton may rail at the global neoliberal bureaucracy, but the Republican and Conservative parties generally keep their mouths shut and certainly never sponsor any oppositional measures in the interest of those subject to that bureaucracy.
By the way, what have you got to replace the Enlightenment wth?
R Wright
1 year ago
Deneen and other postliberal writers should be mandatory reading. Every time I read some idiotic ‘boomer’ Facebook tier complaint about how ‘liberals are the real n*zis!’ I get exasperated. Liberalism has not become an aberration or been twisted by progressives. It has succeeded beyond its adherents’ wildest dreams, entrenching a managerial bureaucracy and its power across the world. Going back to the ‘Enlightenment’ writers who kickstarted the rot in our institutions is lunacy.
John Riordan
1 year ago
I’ve been saying something along the same lines of the penultimate paragraph for some time
John Riordan
1 year ago
I’ve been saying something along the same lines of the penultimate paragraph for some time
Daniel Lee
1 year ago
Brilliant and so true. This part, “Liberty was never (Mill’s) main object; rather, liberty was the mechanism that would transform a traditional, bottom-up social order into a top-down progressive liberal regime” is surprisingly reminiscent of Lenin’s “revolutionary vanguard” that would be doing the dictating in a “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Daniel Lee
1 year ago
Brilliant and so true. This part, “Liberty was never (Mill’s) main object; rather, liberty was the mechanism that would transform a traditional, bottom-up social order into a top-down progressive liberal regime” is surprisingly reminiscent of Lenin’s “revolutionary vanguard” that would be doing the dictating in a “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Karl Juhnke
1 year ago
Upon re-reading Mills about 5 years ago the same ideas you have portrayed here struck me. Feminism, the destruction of the family and an overcomplementry analysis of what the ‘experts’ could deliver seemed both progressive and obnoxious.
Karl Juhnke
1 year ago
Upon re-reading Mills about 5 years ago the same ideas you have portrayed here struck me. Feminism, the destruction of the family and an overcomplementry analysis of what the ‘experts’ could deliver seemed both progressive and obnoxious.
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
I think the author assumes that today’s progressives are actually progressive. That’s simply not the case. I once had someone tell me that to advance progress we need to embrace wind and solar power. As absurd as that sounds, I’m totally not making that up.
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
I think the author assumes that today’s progressives are actually progressive. That’s simply not the case. I once had someone tell me that to advance progress we need to embrace wind and solar power. As absurd as that sounds, I’m totally not making that up.
Cho Jinn
1 year ago
Author maybe be confusing “progressivism” with religious statism. Progressives are simply substituting worship of, and dependence on, the administrative state for Christianity, et al., ones self, and humanity.
Cho Jinn
1 year ago
Author maybe be confusing “progressivism” with religious statism. Progressives are simply substituting worship of, and dependence on, the administrative state for Christianity, et al., ones self, and humanity.
Max West
1 year ago
Progressivism is a customary belief. It is a derivative habit of thought in which humans are the creators of reality and the re-creators of themselves. The cliches of creativity and self-creativity are unoriginal ideas copied from the ontology of the Christians and enculturated via doctrines such as imago dei.
Max West
1 year ago
Progressivism is a customary belief. It is a derivative habit of thought in which humans are the creators of reality and the re-creators of themselves. The cliches of creativity and self-creativity are unoriginal ideas copied from the ontology of the Christians and enculturated via doctrines such as imago dei.
Emre S
1 year ago
While I see this as a great article in revealing the shaky foundations of classic liberalism, more can said about what’s happening today.
One may come to the conclusion after reading the above is that a natural end result of the kind of liberal progress described here where an enlightened one or few progressive(s) ruling despotically is in fact fascism. This is of course exactly what happened in Europe and attempted in UK and US, and fascism has been defended by important liberal thinkers against Communism in the aftermath of WW2. Furthermore, this line of liberal thinking justifies the racism and colonialism perpetrated in the name of progress against “barbarian peoples” in modernity.
In that context, Wokeism is the second stage of liberalism following the moral bankruptcy of Millian Liberalism which amongst other things oversaw the introduction of scientific racism, the Atlantic Slave trade, and ultimately various forms of fascism. I’d argue despite perhaps being the triumph of all the things he’s been asking for, Mill in fact didn’t see all this coming, and he thought once progressives would be in power, all would be well.
As I see it, wokeism is a result of the shame for all the historical failures of liberalism. By showing the corruption and catastrophic results of all the noble sounding original ideas of liberalism, it works as an acid flowing through the liberal progressive enterprise easting it from inside, weakening and perverting its intended purpose, against which liberalism has very little defence.
Last edited 1 year ago by Emre S
Emre S
1 year ago
While I see this as a great article in revealing the shaky foundations of classic liberalism, more can said about what’s happening today.
One may come to the conclusion after reading the above is that a natural end result of the kind of liberal progress described here where an enlightened one or few progressive(s) ruling despotically is in fact fascism. This is of course exactly what happened in Europe and attempted in UK and US, and fascism has been defended by important liberal thinkers against Communism in the aftermath of WW2. Furthermore, this line of liberal thinking justifies the racism and colonialism perpetrated in the name of progress against “barbarian peoples” in modernity.
In that context, Wokeism is the second stage of liberalism following the moral bankruptcy of Millian Liberalism which amongst other things oversaw the introduction of scientific racism, the Atlantic Slave trade, and ultimately various forms of fascism. I’d argue despite perhaps being the triumph of all the things he’s been asking for, Mill in fact didn’t see all this coming, and he thought once progressives would be in power, all would be well.
As I see it, wokeism is a result of the shame for all the historical failures of liberalism. By showing the corruption and catastrophic results of all the noble sounding original ideas of liberalism, it works as an acid flowing through the liberal progressive enterprise easting it from inside, weakening and perverting its intended purpose, against which liberalism has very little defence.
Last edited 1 year ago by Emre S
LCarey Rowland
1 year ago
The optimum condition for society is found in a constantly disruptive–though quite civil–interplay of these two polarities. Perhaps Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues soliliquized, inspiringly, a glimpse of that “almost seen” optimum steady-state in the Moodys’ album “A Question of Balance,” specifically the “The Balance” track. . . on their not-so-long-ago-and-not-so-faraway vinyl LP.
LCarey Rowland
1 year ago
The optimum condition for society is found in a constantly disruptive–though quite civil–interplay of these two polarities. Perhaps Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues soliliquized, inspiringly, a glimpse of that “almost seen” optimum steady-state in the Moodys’ album “A Question of Balance,” specifically the “The Balance” track. . . on their not-so-long-ago-and-not-so-faraway vinyl LP.
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago
Wow! I teach high school civics and now I’ll have to re-read On Liberty with this article in mind. This is why UnHerd is worth paying for.
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago
Wow! I teach high school civics and now I’ll have to re-read On Liberty with this article in mind. This is why UnHerd is worth paying for.
Michael James
1 year ago
I still believe in freedom of expression.
Andrew Boughton
1 year ago
Nice.
Yana Way
1 year ago
Look to Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers whom the founders of the United States read and admired. There you can find what one defines as individual liberty. Rather than equity.
Mark V
1 year ago
“There needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them”
Indeed and the new right are the ones, somewhat bravely, at least in the most outspoken cases, the ones railing against progressive opinion.
Evidenced by of course the contemporary slurs of TERF or the conflation of libertarianism with fAr riGhT rAdiCaLiSm.
Article gets some things right but misses the big picture.
Last edited 1 year ago by Mark V
Petre Norton
1 year ago
Even better to use the progressives’ words against them.
Michael Cavanaugh
1 year ago
The Open Society and its Enemies, indeed. (Perhaps it was Plato long before Mill?)
Michael Cavanaugh
1 year ago
Puts me in mind of some of Peter Berger’s mischief:”India is the most religious country in the world, Sweden is the most secular country in the world. . . America is a country of Indians ruled by Swedes.”
Nicholas Taylor
1 year ago
It is hardly necessary to follow Mill’s advice to give those of higher intelligence more votes, looking at the turnouts in the UK’s recent local elections, estimated by one source to be 18-32%. One might be inclined to favour it in the light of Brexit and MAGA, though one would then have to explain why there was a nearly 50:50 split in those cases. As for cancelling and disinformation, today’s ‘conservative libertarians’ have no problem attempting to cancel climate change research or muddying the waters over smoking, vaping and gun ownership. When universal principles are trumpeted, one should always ask whose interests are being served.
Nanda Kishor das
1 year ago
Very illuminating. Hasñd been hoping to read something along these lines to reach a better understanding of just what It is that conservative liberals are trying to oppose when they fight against progressives. Post-liberalism, while never painting an ideal picture of itself (and perhaps precisely because of that) seems more and more like the most reasonable political option each passing day.
james elliott
1 year ago
“There needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them”
Mill was an extraodrinarily juvenile – and dangerous – thinker.
Certainly, the ‘tyranny of the majority’ can be problematic – but the tyranny of the *minority* invariably leads to the kind of disaster we are on the cusp of at present.
It is Robespierre, Stalin, the Bolsheviks, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, the Nazis…… all Socialism is theft; all Socialism is mass murder; all Socialism is the enslavement of the masses.
The tyranny of the majority democracy may be – but it has evolved into a pretty gentle hand as far as dealing with the minority goes. The tyranny of the minority has only prison camps and random executions to offer the rest of us.
Ray Andrews
1 year ago
You had me there for a while. This is a joke. The best piece of satire since: “Rape Culture in the Dog Park”. Well done sir, you give us a lesson in how anything can be twisted into anything else given a few thousand words. But I fear many will take this seriously.
Ray Andrews
1 year ago
You had me there for a while. This is a joke. The best piece of satire since: “Rape Culture in the Dog Park”. Well done sir, you give us a lesson in how anything can be twisted into anything else given a few thousand words. But I fear many will take this seriously.
j watson
1 year ago
Interesting article and certainly one JSM would have supported even if disagreeing.
But he may also have pulled up the Author on certain hyperbole, for example ‘Progressive Totalitarianism’. Of course at either end of the spectrum there is some pretty bonkers stuff, but nothing compares with the Totalitarian regimes of the CCP, Putin, North Korea, Taliban Afghanistan, Iran etc. JSM would have been zero’d in on those not Woke/Anti-Woke student politics.
One of the reason UnHerd has a daily stream of this kind of Anti-Woke stuff, I mean we get an Article a day on Trans stuff, is because it’s a coordinated ‘distraction strategy’. The Right has made such a mess of the things that really matter to people, in the UK esp – waits for hospital care, is the ambulance arriving quickly, will my kids get a good school, can I pay the fuel bill, why can’t I afford a Home etc. it has to create a distraction and talk about something else. And this is what we see every day on UnHerd in a good number (but not all) Articles.
You’re correct the Right has rather “made a mess of things”, but seriously would the Left have done any better?
Based on past performance almost certainly not!
Sadly the fundamental problem is that most of the current so called Tories are NOT Tories at all. In fact most are rather anaemic ‘social democrats’ with a decidedly woke outlook, and thus incapable of coherent government at either national or even local level.
You don’t seriously believe the equitarian left has any desire or intention of making the people better off, do you? Global equitarianism necessarily means lowering the standard of living of all classes in the West except for the poor.
I think you RC, and a couple of others, are jumping to a critique of the supposed Left as yet another ‘Distraction Strategy’ technique. Classic ‘what-aboutery’.
Whether the Left, in whatever form, has the answers is a separate discussion point (I’d probably characterise myself as moderate centre but rarely are people uniform on all matters).
The point is UnHerd is deliberately not talking about the real un-herd – the youngsters who can’t afford a home and will never have the moorings we had; the aged worrying can they afford social care and who’ll be there to advocate for them when they can’t; the person in pain and unable to work because they need a hip replacement and have waited 2years already; the cancer patient panicked about the delay in treatment; the parent crying at the breakfast table because they just can’t handle the inflation tipping them over the edge; the SME that’s lost thousands in Brexit red tape and still waiting for an upside; the people wondering when someone might actually be held account for Grenfell, or the massive overspend and truncation of HS2 – there is a great long list but today we will get another Article no doubt on Trans or similar.
Alot of Unherd support comes from the same elite that has got us into such a mess, but it is clever and it can weave a camouflage thesis that having caused so many problems it’s all because of others.
I can’t help but notice, Watson, that with nothing to contribute to the discussion about JS Mill you resort to the heckler’s tactic of: “This is not what we should be talking about.” What we should be talking about (to your mind) is all those issues that heart-on-the-sleeve socialists never tire of showing how much they care about.
And off you go with a basket of popular Lefty tropes: Social care [check] Underfunded NHS [check] Cost of living crisis [check] Brexit as a terrible mistake [check] Grenfell tower [check] HS2 as a white elephant [check]
Could it be, Watson, that you never watch any of the BBC news and current affairs output (not to mention ITN, C4 News and Sky News) where these matters are routinely discussed. It’s all very much “herd” stuff for the broadcast media – staffed as they are by those who ostentatiously CARE.
Those problems of which you speak are as old as the hills; they are economic problems for which there is no and will never be any solution, for human wants are infinite whilst human resources are finite. That is an inescapable fact and we can bicker and argue over allocation of resources and wealth creation but we are just rehashing tired old arguments, the only differences being the individuals and the efficiency as to how those arguments are put into practice; it’s important but it’s boring. The left’s culture war is different, however; it’s revolutionary, it threatens to undermine cultural norms which have dominated the West since the Enlightenment. Deciding whether HS2 should go ahead might be important for the next generation in a small part of England but the culture wars are epoch defining for the West.
I can’t help but notice, Watson, that with nothing to contribute to the discussion about JS Mill you resort to the heckler’s tactic of: “This is not what we should be talking about.” What we should be talking about (to your mind) is all those issues that heart-on-the-sleeve socialists never tire of showing how much they care about.
And off you go with a basket of popular Lefty tropes: Social care [check] Underfunded NHS [check] Cost of living crisis [check] Brexit as a terrible mistake [check] Grenfell tower [check] HS2 as a white elephant [check]
Could it be, Watson, that you never watch any of the BBC news and current affairs output (not to mention ITN, C4 News and Sky News) where these matters are routinely discussed. It’s all very much “herd” stuff for the broadcast media – staffed as they are by those who ostentatiously CARE.
Those problems of which you speak are as old as the hills; they are economic problems for which there is no and will never be any solution, for human wants are infinite whilst human resources are finite. That is an inescapable fact and we can bicker and argue over allocation of resources and wealth creation but we are just rehashing tired old arguments, the only differences being the individuals and the efficiency as to how those arguments are put into practice; it’s important but it’s boring. The left’s culture war is different, however; it’s revolutionary, it threatens to undermine cultural norms which have dominated the West since the Enlightenment. Deciding whether HS2 should go ahead might be important for the next generation in a small part of England but the culture wars are epoch defining for the West.
I think you RC, and a couple of others, are jumping to a critique of the supposed Left as yet another ‘Distraction Strategy’ technique. Classic ‘what-aboutery’.
Whether the Left, in whatever form, has the answers is a separate discussion point (I’d probably characterise myself as moderate centre but rarely are people uniform on all matters).
The point is UnHerd is deliberately not talking about the real un-herd – the youngsters who can’t afford a home and will never have the moorings we had; the aged worrying can they afford social care and who’ll be there to advocate for them when they can’t; the person in pain and unable to work because they need a hip replacement and have waited 2years already; the cancer patient panicked about the delay in treatment; the parent crying at the breakfast table because they just can’t handle the inflation tipping them over the edge; the SME that’s lost thousands in Brexit red tape and still waiting for an upside; the people wondering when someone might actually be held account for Grenfell, or the massive overspend and truncation of HS2 – there is a great long list but today we will get another Article no doubt on Trans or similar.
Alot of Unherd support comes from the same elite that has got us into such a mess, but it is clever and it can weave a camouflage thesis that having caused so many problems it’s all because of others.
Your assumption that I am right wing and therefore need to “own it” is a logical fallacy. Of course it all depends on how you define right wing. If you define it as pro-free market and libertarian then you really don’t have a leg to stand on for there is little free market about this current government. Furthermore, you have no basis upon which to assume the cause of the problems you cite are due to market and not policy failure.
Your assumption that I am right wing and therefore need to “own it” is a logical fallacy. Of course it all depends on how you define right wing. If you define it as pro-free market and libertarian then you really don’t have a leg to stand on for there is little free market about this current government. Furthermore, you have no basis upon which to assume the cause of the problems you cite are due to market and not policy failure.
You’re correct the Right has rather “made a mess of things”, but seriously would the Left have done any better?
Based on past performance almost certainly not!
Sadly the fundamental problem is that most of the current so called Tories are NOT Tories at all. In fact most are rather anaemic ‘social democrats’ with a decidedly woke outlook, and thus incapable of coherent government at either national or even local level.
You don’t seriously believe the equitarian left has any desire or intention of making the people better off, do you? Global equitarianism necessarily means lowering the standard of living of all classes in the West except for the poor.
You’re shooting the messenger reporting on news and cultural movements. That is a very good distraction strategy.
The right has not made a mess of anything; the Conservative Government is not a right wing government.
j watson
1 year ago
Interesting article and certainly one JSM would have supported even if disagreeing.
But he may also have pulled up the Author on certain hyperbole, for example ‘Progressive Totalitarianism’. Of course at either end of the spectrum there is some pretty bonkers stuff, but nothing compares with the Totalitarian regimes of the CCP, Putin, North Korea, Taliban Afghanistan, Iran etc. JSM would have been zero’d in on those not Woke/Anti-Woke student politics.
One of the reason UnHerd has a daily stream of this kind of Anti-Woke stuff, I mean we get an Article a day on Trans stuff, is because it’s a coordinated ‘distraction strategy’. The Right has made such a mess of the things that really matter to people, in the UK esp – waits for hospital care, is the ambulance arriving quickly, will my kids get a good school, can I pay the fuel bill, why can’t I afford a Home etc. it has to create a distraction and talk about something else. And this is what we see every day on UnHerd in a good number (but not all) Articles.
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Looking at JS Mill through the interpretation of ” today’s eyes and thoughts” is frankly a gross intellectual crudity: I am surprised that the author did not claim that Mill would have driven an electric car. The comments below are a disturbing example of the ease of ” interweb brainwash”.
The downvotes indicate your comment bothered the right people.
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Looking at JS Mill through the interpretation of ” today’s eyes and thoughts” is frankly a gross intellectual crudity: I am surprised that the author did not claim that Mill would have driven an electric car. The comments below are a disturbing example of the ease of ” interweb brainwash”.
Great piece and well argued! Rarely have I read an article such as this that so quickly alters my perception of an historical figure.
I had a similar experience. I’ve not long finished reading On Liberty and I can’t say I came to those conclusions
I had a similar experience. I’ve not long finished reading On Liberty and I can’t say I came to those conclusions
Great piece and well argued! Rarely have I read an article such as this that so quickly alters my perception of an historical figure.
Beware of meddling with traditions – especially if you don’t understand them (Chesterton’s Fence) – because from a psycho-physiological perspective it may not even be possible to see the world around us without traditions – literally.
There’s a widespread misconception in our society that we can just “see” the objective world. However, that isn’t how it works and the problem of perception is far more complicated than we realise.
Part of the way that we solve this is by mapping value directly onto action – in a neurophysiological manner – and part of that mapping IS value – which is worth doing because that’s how we make a value judgement.
As human being we view the world through a prism of value that has been established by the consensus of humankind since the dawn of time.
We’re historical creatures – there’s no escaping that.
Our traditions are simply narratives that describe value and desirable patterns of behaviour within any given environment (society). Can some traditions become outdated as the environment progresses? Of course – and we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge our traditions. But such undertakings should be carried out in a rational and objective manner – and certainly not driven by emotions and ill-thought-through ideological lenses.
So beware of messing with traditions – because certain processes are so valuable that we interfere with them at our psychological and social peril.
Agreed – and basically Burke’s argument in Reflections on the French Revolution. Speaking of which, the Terror that evolved during that revolution is what happens when the “educated elite” get extra votes 🙂
I am always astonished at this deification of Burke as the founder of modern Conservative values, when in reality he was the progenitor of WOKE, and all the horrors that it actually stands for.
His spiteful yet relentless pursuit of Warren Hastings being a prime example of his feeble, if vindictive mind set.
Go on with Burke as a progenitor of Woke? I’ve identified at least 50 Philosophers that contributed to Progressivism and Critical Consciousness but I’m not seeing the Burke angle.
May I suggest starting with the condemnation of Warren Hastings and the East India Company in general?
More perplexed yet. Criticizing a Monopoly is hardly Woke. Woke is a level of consciousness that initially brings about a Gnostic/Nihilist disposition to destroy with a Hermetic application to Transform.
Any analysis that doesn’t put at least 75% blame for the Mind Virus on Marx is just pseudo-history. Rousseau was an existentialist, Kant was a loony philosopher, Hegel was a Hermetic Mystic but only Marx tried to violently actualize a Collective Mind Virus.
Everything today is an inevitable consequence of the Dialectical method spinning out of control and being used to socially engineer change and bring about the end point of History.
I cannot but agree that Marx & Co should take responsibility for 75% of this ‘poison’, as you correctly state, but I think the origins go back much further.
In fact I would identify one the first acts of WOKE as occurring as far back as Nero.
You really must be a conservative! It can’t actually have been Nero – we don’t despite superficial appearances share much of western culture with ancient Rome, which is very alien to us in all its assumptions. (Unless you perhaps among other things think the degradation and infliction of condign and differential punishment on uppity slaves / lower orders should be embraced by western societies…..).
The ‘poison’, if you mean ‘progressivism’, has been a endemic key feature of western European society for around 1,000 years, which marks it off from all other known civilisations – certainly including the Church / Empire split – as Tom Holland has persuasively argued.
No doubt this was a major contributor to western dominance; and very likely it will now do the same for its fall.
You really must be a conservative! It can’t actually have been Nero – we don’t despite superficial appearances share much of western culture with ancient Rome, which is very alien to us in all its assumptions. (Unless you perhaps among other things think the degradation and infliction of condign and differential punishment on uppity slaves / lower orders should be embraced by western societies…..).
The ‘poison’, if you mean ‘progressivism’, has been a endemic key feature of western European society for around 1,000 years, which marks it off from all other known civilisations – certainly including the Church / Empire split – as Tom Holland has persuasively argued.
No doubt this was a major contributor to western dominance; and very likely it will now do the same for its fall.
With the greatest respect, you can’t just dictate in such a narrow way what are the sources of woke. I’d say you put much too much emphasis on the role of philosophers, and then just name call the ones you don’t respect anyway. Marx – the link is complex at the least – he’d have had very little time for the ‘bourgeois deviations’ of modern western ‘woke’ societies. That is one reason why almost all ‘actually existing’ Marxist Leninist states were significantly socially conservative in many respects (they actually wanted people to have children, for one thing).
I wonder, do you actually speak to any young people about their views? I’m a gay man coming of age in the 1980s and can tell you precisely from experience what drove my own wokish younger tendencies. Liberation from oppression is a powerful motivator, though it may be ultimately an illusion.
I think James Lindsay has conclusively shown that Marxism is a syncretism of two Ancient Religions (Gnosticism and Hermeticism) that Marx inverted into the Principle of Correspondence into a system of secular activism. Both Gnostics and Hermetics believe they possess absolute knowledge (gnosis) that the world is an integrated whole and bringing about this recognition is their primary objective. Communism is essentially “Man in Harmony With Nature.” Gnostics don’t believe they can bring this about so they only seek to destroy the existing world to lay the future path. Hermetics fully believe they can transform the present world. Syncretizing the two created the Desire and the Method (Dialectical Materialism) for social transformation (Social Alchemy) by dissolving Binary Opposites into a singular whole.
The verbiage “Liberation from Oppression” comes from the Gnostic idea that the World is a Prison. When Rousseau proclaimed “Man is Free but Everywhere he is in Chains”, this is a Gnostic interpretation. Generally this “prison” manifests as social expectations limiting human potentiality.
Breaking out of the Prison requires an Awakened and Enlightened Consciousness. Actualizing this Consciousness in the masses requires a Maoist “Desire for Unity.”
Take DEI and Sustainability.
Unity requires Inclusivity. Inclusivity then requires Diversity. For Diversity to be “Sustainable” it requires redistribution of cultural capital (Equity). Equity is justified on grounds of Standpoint Theory that the “Marginalized Class” has an underrepresented viewpoint (gnosis) that needs to be centered in order to produce a holistically integrated society.
The irony here is DEI could be a valid practice if it came about naturally instead of being orchestrated by tyrannical social engineers.
Sorry this was longer than I intended.
At the end of the day, Marx’s overarching goal can be seen in Wokeness. Abolition of Hierarchies into an Integrated Whole.
I would suggest Marxism appeals to resentful and spiteful under achieving middle class who worship power. As Orwell pointed out, the British working class did not worship power or like bullies. There is a Budddhist saying ” Where expectation exceeds reality, there is unhappyness “.
Marxism appeals to feeble members of the clerical class educated to at least secondary level who consider life has not delivered what they consider they are entitled to, based on their intellect. Marxism failed to improve the quality of life of the working class so it has moved onto cultural and now personal aspects of life. The vast majority of blue collar manual workers just want to be well paid for a hard days competent work. These people despise the Woke Left as swots, sneaks and utter drips from their school days. The Woke Left consider there is great social injustice but this is because they the swots, sneaks and utter drips who cannot cope with, let alone enjoy, the rough and tumble of life. If one looks at history the Woke Left is the complete opposite of the sturdy Yeoman Archer and his wife who stood on their feet and defended family and country. Most of the seafarers and creators of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions came from the yeomen and independent craftsmen.
Marxism( and Nazism ) appeals to those unable to think and act for themslves as individuals and are happy to sacrifice freedom by joining the collective and gaining power.
I would suggest Marxism appeals to resentful and spiteful under achieving middle class who worship power. As Orwell pointed out, the British working class did not worship power or like bullies. There is a Budddhist saying ” Where expectation exceeds reality, there is unhappyness “.
Marxism appeals to feeble members of the clerical class educated to at least secondary level who consider life has not delivered what they consider they are entitled to, based on their intellect. Marxism failed to improve the quality of life of the working class so it has moved onto cultural and now personal aspects of life. The vast majority of blue collar manual workers just want to be well paid for a hard days competent work. These people despise the Woke Left as swots, sneaks and utter drips from their school days. The Woke Left consider there is great social injustice but this is because they the swots, sneaks and utter drips who cannot cope with, let alone enjoy, the rough and tumble of life. If one looks at history the Woke Left is the complete opposite of the sturdy Yeoman Archer and his wife who stood on their feet and defended family and country. Most of the seafarers and creators of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions came from the yeomen and independent craftsmen.
Marxism( and Nazism ) appeals to those unable to think and act for themslves as individuals and are happy to sacrifice freedom by joining the collective and gaining power.
I think James Lindsay has conclusively shown that Marxism is a syncretism of two Ancient Religions (Gnosticism and Hermeticism) that Marx inverted into the Principle of Correspondence into a system of secular activism. Both Gnostics and Hermetics believe they possess absolute knowledge (gnosis) that the world is an integrated whole and bringing about this recognition is their primary objective. Communism is essentially “Man in Harmony With Nature.” Gnostics don’t believe they can bring this about so they only seek to destroy the existing world to lay the future path. Hermetics fully believe they can transform the present world. Syncretizing the two created the Desire and the Method (Dialectical Materialism) for social transformation (Social Alchemy) by dissolving Binary Opposites into a singular whole.
The verbiage “Liberation from Oppression” comes from the Gnostic idea that the World is a Prison. When Rousseau proclaimed “Man is Free but Everywhere he is in Chains”, this is a Gnostic interpretation. Generally this “prison” manifests as social expectations limiting human potentiality.
Breaking out of the Prison requires an Awakened and Enlightened Consciousness. Actualizing this Consciousness in the masses requires a Maoist “Desire for Unity.”
Take DEI and Sustainability.
Unity requires Inclusivity. Inclusivity then requires Diversity. For Diversity to be “Sustainable” it requires redistribution of cultural capital (Equity). Equity is justified on grounds of Standpoint Theory that the “Marginalized Class” has an underrepresented viewpoint (gnosis) that needs to be centered in order to produce a holistically integrated society.
The irony here is DEI could be a valid practice if it came about naturally instead of being orchestrated by tyrannical social engineers.
Sorry this was longer than I intended.
At the end of the day, Marx’s overarching goal can be seen in Wokeness. Abolition of Hierarchies into an Integrated Whole.
I cannot but agree that Marx & Co should take responsibility for 75% of this ‘poison’, as you correctly state, but I think the origins go back much further.
In fact I would identify one the first acts of WOKE as occurring as far back as Nero.
With the greatest respect, you can’t just dictate in such a narrow way what are the sources of woke. I’d say you put much too much emphasis on the role of philosophers, and then just name call the ones you don’t respect anyway. Marx – the link is complex at the least – he’d have had very little time for the ‘bourgeois deviations’ of modern western ‘woke’ societies. That is one reason why almost all ‘actually existing’ Marxist Leninist states were significantly socially conservative in many respects (they actually wanted people to have children, for one thing).
I wonder, do you actually speak to any young people about their views? I’m a gay man coming of age in the 1980s and can tell you precisely from experience what drove my own wokish younger tendencies. Liberation from oppression is a powerful motivator, though it may be ultimately an illusion.
I think the depredations of the early EIC are pretty well founded historically. Conservatives are under no obligation to to defend every action of a profit making and rather ruthless trading company!
Sir Thomas Smythe the first CEO of the Honourable East India Company advised that “ profit & plunder should be the primary motive in India and NOT any form of ‘Imperial’ rule.
As such, that worked quite well until 1754 it must be said.
It was the collapse of the Mughal Empire which started the change of the EIC. In about 1754 , The Mughals asked the EIC to become tax collectors for Bengal, their wealthiest province, Orissa and Bihar.
Khaldun, Toynbee, Northcote Parkinson and Glubb all state that civilisations, dynasties and empires rise and fall. Northcote Parkinson states that it is the collapse of an empire which creates a power vacuum which draws in more energetic, innovative and sturdy peoples. Mughal Empire went through a collapse from 1700 to the 1760s which drew in the British and French.
The Mughals taxed the Hindu farmers at 50% which led to the massive collapse of food production, basically to subsistance level , so reduced taxable income.
Britain then won the Seven Years War with France and became the major buyer of goods from India, the major supplier of military skills to the various rulers and tax collectors for the three provinces.
The change was accidental, not planned. The EIC was far less ruthless than the various Turkic Muslim invaders whose 26 invasion between 1000 and 1754 produced a death toll of 88 M according to K S Lal. There are few Hindu and Buddhist temples in the Indus -Gangetic Plain.
The development of entry to the EIC and various government post plus universities via exams were readily accepted by Hindus, Sikhs and Parsees.
One of the engineering schemes undertaken by EIC was the design and construction of the Ganges Canal between 1842 and 1854 which irrigated 750,00 acres of farmland. By 1860 Sir Syed Ahmed Khan realised Muslims were falling behind Hindus in obtaining a western technical education.
If one wanted to demonstrate one massive improvement created Mill and fellow Liberals would be to further develop the idea of selection and promotion via exam, free from corruption and family patronage which produced technically competent, hardworking and honest middle class . The develop of creating a modern technically competent middle class goes to the development of exams for RN officers to pass from Midshipman to Lieutenant and East India Company College. The creation of the modern British Civil serice in 1857 is due to the development of the exam system in India by the EIC.
The education and training of a technically competent , hard working and honest middle class of Hindus, Parsees and Sikhs plus some Muslims from 1828 meant that at independence, this group gained control of India from Muslim overlords without full scale war. Hyderabad Ruled by a Muslim Nizam was conquered by India in 1948.
It was the collapse of the Mughal Empire which started the change of the EIC. In about 1754 , The Mughals asked the EIC to become tax collectors for Bengal, their wealthiest province, Orissa and Bihar.
Khaldun, Toynbee, Northcote Parkinson and Glubb all state that civilisations, dynasties and empires rise and fall. Northcote Parkinson states that it is the collapse of an empire which creates a power vacuum which draws in more energetic, innovative and sturdy peoples. Mughal Empire went through a collapse from 1700 to the 1760s which drew in the British and French.
The Mughals taxed the Hindu farmers at 50% which led to the massive collapse of food production, basically to subsistance level , so reduced taxable income.
Britain then won the Seven Years War with France and became the major buyer of goods from India, the major supplier of military skills to the various rulers and tax collectors for the three provinces.
The change was accidental, not planned. The EIC was far less ruthless than the various Turkic Muslim invaders whose 26 invasion between 1000 and 1754 produced a death toll of 88 M according to K S Lal. There are few Hindu and Buddhist temples in the Indus -Gangetic Plain.
The development of entry to the EIC and various government post plus universities via exams were readily accepted by Hindus, Sikhs and Parsees.
One of the engineering schemes undertaken by EIC was the design and construction of the Ganges Canal between 1842 and 1854 which irrigated 750,00 acres of farmland. By 1860 Sir Syed Ahmed Khan realised Muslims were falling behind Hindus in obtaining a western technical education.
If one wanted to demonstrate one massive improvement created Mill and fellow Liberals would be to further develop the idea of selection and promotion via exam, free from corruption and family patronage which produced technically competent, hardworking and honest middle class . The develop of creating a modern technically competent middle class goes to the development of exams for RN officers to pass from Midshipman to Lieutenant and East India Company College. The creation of the modern British Civil serice in 1857 is due to the development of the exam system in India by the EIC.
The education and training of a technically competent , hard working and honest middle class of Hindus, Parsees and Sikhs plus some Muslims from 1828 meant that at independence, this group gained control of India from Muslim overlords without full scale war. Hyderabad Ruled by a Muslim Nizam was conquered by India in 1948.
Sir Thomas Smythe the first CEO of the Honourable East India Company advised that “ profit & plunder should be the primary motive in India and NOT any form of ‘Imperial’ rule.
As such, that worked quite well until 1754 it must be said.
More perplexed yet. Criticizing a Monopoly is hardly Woke. Woke is a level of consciousness that initially brings about a Gnostic/Nihilist disposition to destroy with a Hermetic application to Transform.
Any analysis that doesn’t put at least 75% blame for the Mind Virus on Marx is just pseudo-history. Rousseau was an existentialist, Kant was a loony philosopher, Hegel was a Hermetic Mystic but only Marx tried to violently actualize a Collective Mind Virus.
Everything today is an inevitable consequence of the Dialectical method spinning out of control and being used to socially engineer change and bring about the end point of History.
I think the depredations of the early EIC are pretty well founded historically. Conservatives are under no obligation to to defend every action of a profit making and rather ruthless trading company!
May I suggest starting with the condemnation of Warren Hastings and the East India Company in general?
Although I tend to agree about Warren Hastings, of course Burke wasn’t the progenitor of ‘woke’! That’s a really daft charge. Your comment amounts to the position that there should be total ideological conformity among conservatives. Of course we wouldn’t expect all conservatives to agree on every single point; they are not Leninists slavishly following a set dogma. Conservativism is first and foremost a sceptical and empirical disposition about how societies best function.
Yes you are correct, my apologies, but in the interest of debate I thought it a useful, although provocative, ‘starter for one’.
“Conservatism is first and foremost a sceptical and empirical disposition about how societies best function.”
Precisely, and that debate best moves forward through controversy I would have thought?
Yes you are correct, my apologies, but in the interest of debate I thought it a useful, although provocative, ‘starter for one’.
“Conservatism is first and foremost a sceptical and empirical disposition about how societies best function.”
Precisely, and that debate best moves forward through controversy I would have thought?
Go on with Burke as a progenitor of Woke? I’ve identified at least 50 Philosophers that contributed to Progressivism and Critical Consciousness but I’m not seeing the Burke angle.
Although I tend to agree about Warren Hastings, of course Burke wasn’t the progenitor of ‘woke’! That’s a really daft charge. Your comment amounts to the position that there should be total ideological conformity among conservatives. Of course we wouldn’t expect all conservatives to agree on every single point; they are not Leninists slavishly following a set dogma. Conservativism is first and foremost a sceptical and empirical disposition about how societies best function.
J.S. Mill made a cogent argument for nonconformity. So? Every great achiever in mankind’s history has been a nonconformist. I am much more with Mill than Deneen.
I am always astonished at this deification of Burke as the founder of modern Conservative values, when in reality he was the progenitor of WOKE, and all the horrors that it actually stands for.
His spiteful yet relentless pursuit of Warren Hastings being a prime example of his feeble, if vindictive mind set.
J.S. Mill made a cogent argument for nonconformity. So? Every great achiever in mankind’s history has been a nonconformist. I am much more with Mill than Deneen.
“….we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge our traditions. But such undertakings should be carried out in a rational and objective manner …..”
I’m sorry but you go wrong here. By using a rational and objective manner you don’t actually get change. Change comes from challenging the existing (rational) way of thinking.
You want rationality because you don’t want change.
Why would you want to have change if the existing tradition is objectively rational? What is the virtue of irrational change?
Why would you want to have change if the existing tradition is objectively rational? What is the virtue of irrational change?
Change is not necessarily progress, which is change for the better. And there’s the rub. What do we mean by “better”? Is “better” merely the opinion of the powerful? If so, then why should we privilege the contrary opinions of a rival group over our own? Instead, we should engage in a contest of power against them. After all, if there is no transcendental standard of the good, why not choose a standard most congenial to our own natures and devise an ideology that glorifies it?
But what if there is an objective, transcendent good that may conflict with our own inclinations? If we choose to put the “I should” ahead of the “I want” (pace C.S.Lewis), then the wisdom of lived experience may be a surer guide than a library’s worth of books that try their best to evade the hard fact that, if we are to live as human beings rather than clever animals, we have to be willing to suffer ourselves into existence.
Just because the person-on-the-street can’t articulate why a particular custom is valuable, doesn’t mean that it isn’t. However, the first stage of decline is when a society does the right things, but does so blindly, no longer having a deep understanding of the universal principles that underlie a specific custom. As time passes and circumstances change, society can no longer apply those principles intelligently. Customs become inapt or they’re modified in a way that violates their spirit. At that point, the revolutionaries can plausibly claim that custom is mere unthinking conformity that unreasonably constrains behavior. Babies get thrown out with the bathwater; e.g. the norms that build strong families are tossed into the same bin as the abuses that sustain empires.
Progress is not the arrow of time, though it may seem that way because knowledge tends to increase and be retained over time, even allowing for “dark” ages (that turn out no to be so dark.) But knowledge isn’t wisdom. Think of the scene in “2001: A Space Odyssey” where the tossed club becomes an orbiting nuclear bomb.
Very pithy comment, thank you. Also I like the principle that we should challenge our traditions. If we do, it should be done cautiously and respectfully.
Agreed – and basically Burke’s argument in Reflections on the French Revolution. Speaking of which, the Terror that evolved during that revolution is what happens when the “educated elite” get extra votes 🙂
“….we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge our traditions. But such undertakings should be carried out in a rational and objective manner …..”
I’m sorry but you go wrong here. By using a rational and objective manner you don’t actually get change. Change comes from challenging the existing (rational) way of thinking.
You want rationality because you don’t want change.
Change is not necessarily progress, which is change for the better. And there’s the rub. What do we mean by “better”? Is “better” merely the opinion of the powerful? If so, then why should we privilege the contrary opinions of a rival group over our own? Instead, we should engage in a contest of power against them. After all, if there is no transcendental standard of the good, why not choose a standard most congenial to our own natures and devise an ideology that glorifies it?
But what if there is an objective, transcendent good that may conflict with our own inclinations? If we choose to put the “I should” ahead of the “I want” (pace C.S.Lewis), then the wisdom of lived experience may be a surer guide than a library’s worth of books that try their best to evade the hard fact that, if we are to live as human beings rather than clever animals, we have to be willing to suffer ourselves into existence.
Just because the person-on-the-street can’t articulate why a particular custom is valuable, doesn’t mean that it isn’t. However, the first stage of decline is when a society does the right things, but does so blindly, no longer having a deep understanding of the universal principles that underlie a specific custom. As time passes and circumstances change, society can no longer apply those principles intelligently. Customs become inapt or they’re modified in a way that violates their spirit. At that point, the revolutionaries can plausibly claim that custom is mere unthinking conformity that unreasonably constrains behavior. Babies get thrown out with the bathwater; e.g. the norms that build strong families are tossed into the same bin as the abuses that sustain empires.
Progress is not the arrow of time, though it may seem that way because knowledge tends to increase and be retained over time, even allowing for “dark” ages (that turn out no to be so dark.) But knowledge isn’t wisdom. Think of the scene in “2001: A Space Odyssey” where the tossed club becomes an orbiting nuclear bomb.
Very pithy comment, thank you. Also I like the principle that we should challenge our traditions. If we do, it should be done cautiously and respectfully.
Beware of meddling with traditions – especially if you don’t understand them (Chesterton’s Fence) – because from a psycho-physiological perspective it may not even be possible to see the world around us without traditions – literally.
There’s a widespread misconception in our society that we can just “see” the objective world. However, that isn’t how it works and the problem of perception is far more complicated than we realise.
Part of the way that we solve this is by mapping value directly onto action – in a neurophysiological manner – and part of that mapping IS value – which is worth doing because that’s how we make a value judgement.
As human being we view the world through a prism of value that has been established by the consensus of humankind since the dawn of time.
We’re historical creatures – there’s no escaping that.
Our traditions are simply narratives that describe value and desirable patterns of behaviour within any given environment (society). Can some traditions become outdated as the environment progresses? Of course – and we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge our traditions. But such undertakings should be carried out in a rational and objective manner – and certainly not driven by emotions and ill-thought-through ideological lenses.
So beware of messing with traditions – because certain processes are so valuable that we interfere with them at our psychological and social peril.
The opposite to modern progressives is not traditionalism. Politics is not a dichotomy of either-or or ‘which side are you on’. Multiple forms of progress are possible, and we do need to reject a claimed progressive movement that has absolutist and anti-freedom roots as anti-progress.
The illiberalism of modern progressives doesn’t mean that other forms of progress are tainted by the same intolerences. It is possible to believe in progress – reduction in poverty, improved living standards, mutuality and tolerance, avoidance of war – without getting trapped by the segregationalist isms of the SJWs. It is possible to see that long-standing heuristics and principles can still have value and should be tested and retained, while still rejecting ritualism – a ritualism that is being increased by demanding deference to compelled speech and conformity of thought.
That is not to say that there is no traditionalist-versus-progressive argument going on. That is happening too. But Spain’s history of progressists versus traditionalists shows us what happens when the middle ground is denied, and it is precisely a middle of tolerance, fraternity, equality, fairness and freedom that we should seek to defend.
Amen to this much needed infusion of nuance! And while some of Deneen’s points were persuasive to me as a casual reader of Mill (not that he’s a breezy read), I found his round assertions of what Mill really meant–usually unaccompanied by examples–to be suspect from an argumentative point of view.
The middle ground, somewhere between hedonistic self-absorption and ritualistic deference to tradition, needs vigorous defending these days. Mutual understanding and fairmindedness are not easy to reach or maintain, nor are they intrinsically weak and evasive goals. Absolute self-certitude or ideological one-sidedness is an easier, weaker, and more evasive path. To claim that we’re reduced to an either/or choice between roaring contempt for anything traditional and blind conformity to received wisdom, according to some idealized concept of the Ordinary Man, is just mistaken.
Unfortunately JS Mill is an absolute exemplar of the arrogant certitudes of most if not all liberal progressives, as his language demonstrates.
At times. I think he’s quite fair-minded and evenhanded on the whole–for an IQ outlier.
At times. I think he’s quite fair-minded and evenhanded on the whole–for an IQ outlier.
Kind of a straw man here….
Tradition encompasses the tried and true as well as the tried and found wanting. We can truly learn from a conservative view of human flourishing. Progressivism is the belief that the untried, usually utopian, new idea should and will be forced on us because, you know, we are not the experts and we don’t know what’s good for us. This typically ends in gulags, concentration camps, and mass death of the innocent and “noncompliant”. I do believe that all of history bears this out.
You cherrypick both conservatism and progressivism to support your side of a question that is decidedly less one-sided than you claim.
Conservatism also countenanced (outright, not “modern-day”) slavery and the worst abuses of the Catholic church, for example, and Radical or Progressive forces were needed to overcome these rigid barriers to human flourishing. (Or maybe the enslaved should have just been patient for a few more decades, centuries, or millennia).
I certainly value tradition and the selective, sifted wisdom of the centuries. But that is not a flawless inheritance, and while I advocate consensus and incremental progress over shouting matches and bloodshed, on occasion the wheels need to be sped up or tinkered with. Neither wholesale re-engineering nor an unqualified faith in cultural legacy or status quo ante is warranted.
You cherrypick both conservatism and progressivism to support your side of a question that is decidedly less one-sided than you claim.
Conservatism also countenanced (outright, not “modern-day”) slavery and the worst abuses of the Catholic church, for example, and Radical or Progressive forces were needed to overcome these rigid barriers to human flourishing. (Or maybe the enslaved should have just been patient for a few more decades, centuries, or millennia).
I certainly value tradition and the selective, sifted wisdom of the centuries. But that is not a flawless inheritance, and while I advocate consensus and incremental progress over shouting matches and bloodshed, on occasion the wheels need to be sped up or tinkered with. Neither wholesale re-engineering nor an unqualified faith in cultural legacy or status quo ante is warranted.
Unfortunately JS Mill is an absolute exemplar of the arrogant certitudes of most if not all liberal progressives, as his language demonstrates.
Kind of a straw man here….
Tradition encompasses the tried and true as well as the tried and found wanting. We can truly learn from a conservative view of human flourishing. Progressivism is the belief that the untried, usually utopian, new idea should and will be forced on us because, you know, we are not the experts and we don’t know what’s good for us. This typically ends in gulags, concentration camps, and mass death of the innocent and “noncompliant”. I do believe that all of history bears this out.
Well the current Tories are not really a conservative party, they are a party offering a slightly alternative form of liberal progressivism to those on the left.
Also it’s possible that neither will achieve much quantifiable material progress!
Amen to this much needed infusion of nuance! And while some of Deneen’s points were persuasive to me as a casual reader of Mill (not that he’s a breezy read), I found his round assertions of what Mill really meant–usually unaccompanied by examples–to be suspect from an argumentative point of view.
The middle ground, somewhere between hedonistic self-absorption and ritualistic deference to tradition, needs vigorous defending these days. Mutual understanding and fairmindedness are not easy to reach or maintain, nor are they intrinsically weak and evasive goals. Absolute self-certitude or ideological one-sidedness is an easier, weaker, and more evasive path. To claim that we’re reduced to an either/or choice between roaring contempt for anything traditional and blind conformity to received wisdom, according to some idealized concept of the Ordinary Man, is just mistaken.
Well the current Tories are not really a conservative party, they are a party offering a slightly alternative form of liberal progressivism to those on the left.
Also it’s possible that neither will achieve much quantifiable material progress!
The opposite to modern progressives is not traditionalism. Politics is not a dichotomy of either-or or ‘which side are you on’. Multiple forms of progress are possible, and we do need to reject a claimed progressive movement that has absolutist and anti-freedom roots as anti-progress.
The illiberalism of modern progressives doesn’t mean that other forms of progress are tainted by the same intolerences. It is possible to believe in progress – reduction in poverty, improved living standards, mutuality and tolerance, avoidance of war – without getting trapped by the segregationalist isms of the SJWs. It is possible to see that long-standing heuristics and principles can still have value and should be tested and retained, while still rejecting ritualism – a ritualism that is being increased by demanding deference to compelled speech and conformity of thought.
That is not to say that there is no traditionalist-versus-progressive argument going on. That is happening too. But Spain’s history of progressists versus traditionalists shows us what happens when the middle ground is denied, and it is precisely a middle of tolerance, fraternity, equality, fairness and freedom that we should seek to defend.
For misguided Mill nostalgics, I would also note as John Gray did that Mill believed in weighted voting in favour of the educated.
https://unherd.com/2018/10/deluded-liberals-cant-keep-clinging-dead-idea/
He was ahead of his time on that as well.
Thanks for that linked article, which appeared well before i subscribed to Unherd. A treasure chest of golden nuggets is being created, and should be recallable as you’ve done.
The prescience of the Trudeau picture given all that transpired a couple of years after that essay!
Only ONE comment on that essay back in 2018.
a similar number of subscribers
Path-breaking views will take root more easily in prepared ground. And such preparation may take time.
Path-breaking views will take root more easily in prepared ground. And such preparation may take time.
I believe the editors delete comments after a time.
Disgraceful! But I thank you for that information.
Disgraceful! But I thank you for that information.
a similar number of subscribers
I believe the editors delete comments after a time.
The prescience of the Trudeau picture given all that transpired a couple of years after that essay!
Only ONE comment on that essay back in 2018.
One point: challenging the despotism of custom is not the same as subjecting custom itself to oppression.
To take an example, marriage continues but divorce is socially accepted – not something you could say of mid-Victorian England.
And that is not the same as stigmatising marriage, is it?
And therefore – no, Mill is not in charge today and no, he would not approve of the current climate. He may have been content to let the left spout its oppressive nonsense, but he would not have been happy to let it stop up the voices or the customs of the right, as it does now.
When Mill ruled – so to speak – custom continued to exist alongside non-customary conduct without stigma on either side, whereas now custom itself is being stigmatised.
Fail to grasp that and you fail to understand the real challenge of our times and risk falling back into a counter-form of political correctness which will be little improvement on the current blight.
Post script: re Orwell there is a real howler and I’m surprised Unherd hasn’t spotted it. 1984 explicitly tells us that we have NO hope from the “proles”, one of the many ways in which that book challenges and upends “radical” and Marxist trash.
How extraordinary!
Yet you yourself are the first to scream ‘Racist’ as I recall, if someone deigns to differ from the current orthodoxy of multiculturalist claptrap.
First, I didn’t scream “racist” I drew a conclusion from your own statement that “race is everything” – hence, racist. You’ve made the point a second time in another episode of trolling, so don’t try to deny it.
Second, you haunt these threads like some unemployable sack of potatoes, smarting from accurate rejoinders to your third rate, bar-room banter.
Third, you and others like you merely serve to discredit the right and confirm the prejudices of the left. And now, go away and bother someone else. You are either too old or too young to engage in complex discussion.
In reverse order, self praise is NO recommendation Jones (or is it Denis) as you should remember, even with a surname such as your own, whatever it is.
Your similes are juvenile, surely you can be better? eg: “unemployable sack of potatoes”? Honestly where did you learn that? ‘Sink Comprehensive’ perhaps?
Perhaps I didn’t “scream” racist, difficult to do so in writing, but at least you got my drift.
I repeat Race if everything, as even these pages on UnHerd constantly prove! You must pay more attention must you not?
Finally am I to infer that you and your kind think that you represent the New Right? If so dream on sunshine you haven’t got a clue!
Yawn.
What has happened to your astonishingly
foul- mouthed and ill-bred rant of 40 minutes ago?
Surely you haven’t had the good sense to withdraw it?
Perhaps you should return to Twitter’ where you belong?
You will only get hurt here.
ps: Please do have the ‘courage’ to post it again so that we may all enjoy your literary prowess.
Incidentally who is Simon Denis?
In answer to your last question, a better man than you will ever be.
Would you care to expand on that a little?
On present showing he is just another foul-mouthed pretentious cretin, or have I missed something.
ps. Do let’s see you angry diatribe again, that you so cravenly withdrew roughly nine hours ago, or do you not have the ‘bottle’?
Foul mouthed? I don’t think I used any conspicuously scatological terms. As to my motives for withdrawing those earlier remarks, I wished to rise clear of a discussion which had fallen to the level of a slanging match. However, I am – as you observe – more than willing to fight my corner. I’ll go on doing so, if you wish, but there are better ways of spending one’s time. Therefore, perhaps some clarification is in order. Our dispute began, if memory serves, as a result of a misinterpreted remark. Mine was the misinterpretation, yours, I believe, was the over-reaction. I was in dispute with a number of leftists at the time and thought your intervention just another example of their aggression. You were merely being jocular. Things have spiralled since. Now – if you wish to draw a line – I am willing to do so. If not, then so be it. I note that with regard to some remarks of mine concerning the right and religion you were good enough to express support. Perhaps that was an olive branch. If so, I regret having missed the opportunity of accepting it. Here is an olive branch in return. You will not, I hope, have the injustice to brood over earlier words which were themselves provoked? They are, after all, withdrawn. Finally, we differ – over many things – but are nevertheless in the blue corner against a world of reds. Does it make sense to waste energy in internecine strife?
Post it again!
Incidentally yet again self praise is NO recommendation, so remarks such as: “a better man than you will ever be” are just juvenile . You must grow up, before it is too late.
ps. Motives were NOT was.
I have no desire to engage in tirades and denunciations. That said, It was most certainly not “foul mouthed”. Point taken about motives.
I have no desire to engage in tirades and denunciations. That said, It was most certainly not “foul mouthed”. Point taken about motives.
I agree, an unfortunate misunderstanding that has descended into a completely unnecessary, if invigorating brawl.
As almost certainly the elder contestant, I must accept the greater portion of blame!
Harsh words were said on both sides but as I am sure you will agree that is all “sticks and stones……”, and no harm done!
As to your final rhetorical remark, of course not, we must stand united or fall divided.
I look forward to seeing you again on the field of battle!
Quite so. I am glad that the peace between us is now signed and sealed. Let us now turn our guns on the red enemy!
Quite so. I am glad that the peace between us is now signed and sealed. Let us now turn our guns on the red enemy!
Post it again!
Incidentally yet again self praise is NO recommendation, so remarks such as: “a better man than you will ever be” are just juvenile . You must grow up, before it is too late.
ps. Motives were NOT was.
I agree, an unfortunate misunderstanding that has descended into a completely unnecessary, if invigorating brawl.
As almost certainly the elder contestant, I must accept the greater portion of blame!
Harsh words were said on both sides but as I am sure you will agree that is all “sticks and stones……”, and no harm done!
As to your final rhetorical remark, of course not, we must stand united or fall divided.
I look forward to seeing you again on the field of battle!
Foul mouthed? I don’t think I used any conspicuously scatological terms. As to my motives for withdrawing those earlier remarks, I wished to rise clear of a discussion which had fallen to the level of a slanging match. However, I am – as you observe – more than willing to fight my corner. I’ll go on doing so, if you wish, but there are better ways of spending one’s time. Therefore, perhaps some clarification is in order. Our dispute began, if memory serves, as a result of a misinterpreted remark. Mine was the misinterpretation, yours, I believe, was the over-reaction. I was in dispute with a number of leftists at the time and thought your intervention just another example of their aggression. You were merely being jocular. Things have spiralled since. Now – if you wish to draw a line – I am willing to do so. If not, then so be it. I note that with regard to some remarks of mine concerning the right and religion you were good enough to express support. Perhaps that was an olive branch. If so, I regret having missed the opportunity of accepting it. Here is an olive branch in return. You will not, I hope, have the injustice to brood over earlier words which were themselves provoked? They are, after all, withdrawn. Finally, we differ – over many things – but are nevertheless in the blue corner against a world of reds. Does it make sense to waste energy in internecine strife?
Would you care to expand on that a little?
On present showing he is just another foul-mouthed pretentious cretin, or have I missed something.
ps. Do let’s see you angry diatribe again, that you so cravenly withdrew roughly nine hours ago, or do you not have the ‘bottle’?
In answer to your last question, a better man than you will ever be.
What has happened to your astonishingly
foul- mouthed and ill-bred rant of 40 minutes ago?
Surely you haven’t had the good sense to withdraw it?
Perhaps you should return to Twitter’ where you belong?
You will only get hurt here.
ps: Please do have the ‘courage’ to post it again so that we may all enjoy your literary prowess.
Incidentally who is Simon Denis?
Yawn.
In reverse order, self praise is NO recommendation Jones (or is it Denis) as you should remember, even with a surname such as your own, whatever it is.
Your similes are juvenile, surely you can be better? eg: “unemployable sack of potatoes”? Honestly where did you learn that? ‘Sink Comprehensive’ perhaps?
Perhaps I didn’t “scream” racist, difficult to do so in writing, but at least you got my drift.
I repeat Race if everything, as even these pages on UnHerd constantly prove! You must pay more attention must you not?
Finally am I to infer that you and your kind think that you represent the New Right? If so dream on sunshine you haven’t got a clue!
First, I didn’t scream “racist” I drew a conclusion from your own statement that “race is everything” – hence, racist. You’ve made the point a second time in another episode of trolling, so don’t try to deny it.
Second, you haunt these threads like some unemployable sack of potatoes, smarting from accurate rejoinders to your third rate, bar-room banter.
Third, you and others like you merely serve to discredit the right and confirm the prejudices of the left. And now, go away and bother someone else. You are either too old or too young to engage in complex discussion.
How extraordinary!
Yet you yourself are the first to scream ‘Racist’ as I recall, if someone deigns to differ from the current orthodoxy of multiculturalist claptrap.
When ‘On Liberty’ was published in 1859 we already had a perfectly satisfactory system of “weighted voting” based on property ownership, NOT supposed intellect.
The 1832 Reform Act gave the vote to one MALE in five in England, in essence to those who owned or rented property and paid TAX.
This equitable system was to be fatally widened (diluted)in 1867, 1884,1918,1928 & 1969, resulting the current ludicrous system of one body one vote!
(* Predictably North Britain (sometimes known as Scotland) intends to reduce the voting age to 16.)
I’d go the other way. Major issue nowadays is an incomplete voting register, and people not even bothering to vote. As they do in Australia, anyone who fails to vote should be fined – ideally at source, in PAYE or benefits. For instance, in the brexit referendum, very roughly, slightly more than one quarter voted for, one quarter voted against, one quarter stayed on the sofa scratching their posteriors, and the remaining quarter weren’t even on the register. Rounded to the nearest million, the figures were:
LEAVE: 17 million
REMAIN: 16 million
TOO BUSY WATCHING TELLY: 13 million
NOT EVEN ON REGISTER: 18 million
This is partly why it’s been so unsatisfactory – it simply does not have enough popular support, and never had. Circa 3/4 of the UK didn’t even vote for it. Ideally, you’d never have a referendum – on any subject. They are a crude import from an entirely different system (a plebiscite democracy) and have no place in a representative democracy. And as Margaret Thatcher (quoting Clement Attlee) noted: “Perhaps the late Lord Attlee was right,” she observed, “when he said that the referendum was a device of dictators and demagogues.” Even in mere private companies, no major decision would be pushed though with c. ¼ of the shareholders or directors. In corporate terms, the Brexit result was electorally inquorate. Typically, for major corporate decisions, a genuine 50+% is required even for routine decisions, and 75%+ by shareholder value is required to sanction a major decision. Referendums are a continental nonsense to begin with, but if one is stuck with them, they should at least require a 75% majority of all adults. Anything less is a recipe for national fracture.
The Swiss have such a system, and it seems to work well for them, but NOT us because it is simply TOO late.
It is too late because we don’t have an alternative. We’ve put everything behind our traditional way of government and when it fails us we have nothing.
I remember something about Roman times as discussed by Gibbon and many others since. As Rome was expanding and healthy the Senate, controlled by the top families (with plenty of energy) was strong and respected and totally in control. Then as Rome became sleazy and only interested in ‘fun and games’ more and more of the Senators came from bad families – the nouveau riche- people with no taste. Then the time was right for an autocracy to take over in the name of Augustus.
This is true in Britain. When we were expanding and taking over the world, Parliament was strong and in control. As we have become sleazy, interested in fun and games, not bothered about voting, the Parliament fails and an autocracy or elite has taken over. We have no choices left.
Gibbon was a fierce critic of the cult of Christianity which undoubtedly sapped the moral fibre of the Late Roman Empire.
It also cost a fortune to support the vast numbers of idle mouths generated by the new priesthood and its associate parasites, as the late Arnold Jones*pointed out in his seminal work: The Later Roman Empire. 284-602 AD.
(* Cantab.)
Gibbon was a fierce critic of the cult of Christianity which undoubtedly sapped the moral fibre of the Late Roman Empire.
It also cost a fortune to support the vast numbers of idle mouths generated by the new priesthood and its associate parasites, as the late Arnold Jones*pointed out in his seminal work: The Later Roman Empire. 284-602 AD.
(* Cantab.)
It is too late because we don’t have an alternative. We’ve put everything behind our traditional way of government and when it fails us we have nothing.
I remember something about Roman times as discussed by Gibbon and many others since. As Rome was expanding and healthy the Senate, controlled by the top families (with plenty of energy) was strong and respected and totally in control. Then as Rome became sleazy and only interested in ‘fun and games’ more and more of the Senators came from bad families – the nouveau riche- people with no taste. Then the time was right for an autocracy to take over in the name of Augustus.
This is true in Britain. When we were expanding and taking over the world, Parliament was strong and in control. As we have become sleazy, interested in fun and games, not bothered about voting, the Parliament fails and an autocracy or elite has taken over. We have no choices left.
17 million more people voted to leave than voted for membership in the first place.
Yes exactly. A good point and conveniently forgotten.
Yes exactly. A good point and conveniently forgotten.
‘Circa 3/4 of the UK didn’t even vote for it’ (‘it’ being leave). Equally, circa 3/4 didn’t vote to remain. What matters is that the majority of those who voted wanted to leave. Equally, in 1975 only one third of the electorate voted to remain (in the EEC), but this was enough. Those who choose to disenfranchise themselves cannot complain about the outcome.
Referendums are fine for what are essentially binary issues, eg in or out. Curiously remainers never seem to question the outcome when the result goes their way.
Problem was it wasn’t a simple binary issue – there were graduations of both In and Out. The referendum didn’t determine the form of Out.
Now once held and with the promise of enactment (unlike the Swiss model where it’s clearly appreciated referendums are advisory) a form of ‘Out’ had to be delivered. The form we got does not have the rubber stamp of a referendum though and probably wouldn’t get supported were it put back to the people now they understand it better, but we’ll never know for sure.
And equally the 1975 referendum didn’t determine the form of In, as subsequent experience demonstrated. I agree that the 2016 referendum, while necessary and (in this case) binding, only took us so far. The problem was that the leave/remain battle continued after the result was declared. It would have been much better if all parties (and the civil service) had respected the result and tried to work together to reach some sort of consensus about how best to take matters forward – wishful thinking of course.
And equally the 1975 referendum didn’t determine the form of In, as subsequent experience demonstrated. I agree that the 2016 referendum, while necessary and (in this case) binding, only took us so far. The problem was that the leave/remain battle continued after the result was declared. It would have been much better if all parties (and the civil service) had respected the result and tried to work together to reach some sort of consensus about how best to take matters forward – wishful thinking of course.
Problem was it wasn’t a simple binary issue – there were graduations of both In and Out. The referendum didn’t determine the form of Out.
Now once held and with the promise of enactment (unlike the Swiss model where it’s clearly appreciated referendums are advisory) a form of ‘Out’ had to be delivered. The form we got does not have the rubber stamp of a referendum though and probably wouldn’t get supported were it put back to the people now they understand it better, but we’ll never know for sure.
How would that translate into political voting? Would your ‘shareholder value’ equate to the amount of tax you pay, with your vote weighted proportionately?
Agreed. Voting is a civic responsibility that should be compelled on pain of well, some sort of fine I suppose. But there then ought to be an “I abstain” box. It should also be possible to cast your vote online in this day and age. Imagine how different things would be.
I’m not sure about online voting. It would be possible for a father, or a ‘community leader’, to lean over your shoulder and instruct you on how to vote.
In the polling booth you act alone.
I’m not sure about online voting. It would be possible for a father, or a ‘community leader’, to lean over your shoulder and instruct you on how to vote.
In the polling booth you act alone.
“This is partly why it’s been so unsatisfactory – it simply does not have enough popular support, and never had. Circa 3/4 of the UK didn’t even vote for it.”
And yet Frank, you still lost. You lost Frank, because even fewer people voted to stay. Didn’t they?
You are putting forward a classic bourgeois liberal argument: Other peoples votes should be worth less than yours, when those other people disagree with you.
“Referendums are a continental nonsense to begin with, but if one is stuck with them, they should at least require a 75% majority of all adults.”
I wonder if you will remember that line of reasoning when there is a referendum to rejoin the EU. I am confident that you will not. You will simply come up with another ad hoc voting condition to ensure that you “win”, irrespective of the actual votes cast
I think you will find the normal requirement for a Special Resolution is 75% of “ votes cast”. If only 10% of shareholders bother to vote then 7.5 % of the total can carry the day.
The Swiss have such a system, and it seems to work well for them, but NOT us because it is simply TOO late.
17 million more people voted to leave than voted for membership in the first place.
‘Circa 3/4 of the UK didn’t even vote for it’ (‘it’ being leave). Equally, circa 3/4 didn’t vote to remain. What matters is that the majority of those who voted wanted to leave. Equally, in 1975 only one third of the electorate voted to remain (in the EEC), but this was enough. Those who choose to disenfranchise themselves cannot complain about the outcome.
Referendums are fine for what are essentially binary issues, eg in or out. Curiously remainers never seem to question the outcome when the result goes their way.
How would that translate into political voting? Would your ‘shareholder value’ equate to the amount of tax you pay, with your vote weighted proportionately?
Agreed. Voting is a civic responsibility that should be compelled on pain of well, some sort of fine I suppose. But there then ought to be an “I abstain” box. It should also be possible to cast your vote online in this day and age. Imagine how different things would be.
“This is partly why it’s been so unsatisfactory – it simply does not have enough popular support, and never had. Circa 3/4 of the UK didn’t even vote for it.”
And yet Frank, you still lost. You lost Frank, because even fewer people voted to stay. Didn’t they?
You are putting forward a classic bourgeois liberal argument: Other peoples votes should be worth less than yours, when those other people disagree with you.
“Referendums are a continental nonsense to begin with, but if one is stuck with them, they should at least require a 75% majority of all adults.”
I wonder if you will remember that line of reasoning when there is a referendum to rejoin the EU. I am confident that you will not. You will simply come up with another ad hoc voting condition to ensure that you “win”, irrespective of the actual votes cast
I think you will find the normal requirement for a Special Resolution is 75% of “ votes cast”. If only 10% of shareholders bother to vote then 7.5 % of the total can carry the day.
Britain’s descent began with the second Great Reform Act of 1867, and it was downhill from then on, aided and abetted by the removal of jury service qualification- We are now Living in a dystopian hybrid of Communism and National Socialism, and reached the level of a flyblown African or Latin American totalitarian state.
They used to say, perhaps still do, that “Jack’s as good as his master”.
Well that patently isn’t the case, and it is about time that it is acknowledged.
Orwell points out that in the period of 1939 to 1943, the intelligentsia, which was middle class and most left wing, was very defeatist whereas the working class wanted to fight. This is an example of a group of people being wealthier and more educated having less sagacity and fighting spirit.
John Glubb in His ” Fate of Empires
” points out
The impression that the situation can be saved by mental cleverness, without unsel[1]fishness or human self-dedication, can only lead to collapse.
glubbThe Fate of Empires (by Sir John Glubb).pdf
Charity Bick was awarded undertook the actions which led to be being awarded the GM at the age of fifteen.
I would suggest anyone who is prepared to sacrifice themselves for the country has the right to vote.
Orwell points out the intelligentsia indulged in bully worship. However , the British working class typified by Ernest Bevin recognised both Nazis and Communists as bullies and treated them with contempt. Whereas, the Dean of Canterbury likened Stalin to Christ and GB Shaw praised the USSR.
Mosley and Mitford praised Hitler.
Perhaps what is most important quality in a voter is discernment of character.
And Churchill was rather keen on Benito Mussolini in his early days.
“Charity Bick was awarded undertook the actions which led to be being awarded the GM at the age of fifteen.”? Translate please.
Mussolini was supported by Lenin and appear to solve the chaos in Italy, even attracting jewish members. During the 1920s and then 1930s he became more dictatorial. Mussolini in 1905 was friendly with Lenin and then during and post WW1 evolved in someone who believed in the collective power of the state.Consequently, one needs to look at what period of Mussolini’s time in power.
The post 1917 period was a time of great change in Europe. One way of assessing the situation was to determine who was doing most of the killing.
Character, that of duty, sel- sacrifice and initiative are more important than time spent in education or wealth. Orwell pointed out that most of the intelligentsia, which was largely middle class and left wing was defeatist up to 1943, whereas the working class possessed fighting spirit.
Mussolini was supported by Lenin and appear to solve the chaos in Italy, even attracting jewish members. During the 1920s and then 1930s he became more dictatorial. Mussolini in 1905 was friendly with Lenin and then during and post WW1 evolved in someone who believed in the collective power of the state.Consequently, one needs to look at what period of Mussolini’s time in power.
The post 1917 period was a time of great change in Europe. One way of assessing the situation was to determine who was doing most of the killing.
Character, that of duty, sel- sacrifice and initiative are more important than time spent in education or wealth. Orwell pointed out that most of the intelligentsia, which was largely middle class and left wing was defeatist up to 1943, whereas the working class possessed fighting spirit.
And Churchill was rather keen on Benito Mussolini in his early days.
“Charity Bick was awarded undertook the actions which led to be being awarded the GM at the age of fifteen.”? Translate please.
So CH, you and NST would never have given Women the Vote?
And in another comments stream you’ll rail against Cancel culture?
Don’t you mean CS?
If women pay TAX they should get the vote.
yes I did, apols.
As regards tax, I suspect you are just referring to income tax rather than all the other taxes people pay and did pay back before universal suffrage. The idea that some adults never paid any tax of any kind at all won’t stand up to much scrutiny.
Prior to the reintroduction of Income Tax in 1842, the primary source of Government revenue was the Land Tax. Ergo you had to own land to pay the tax..
Otherwise revenue was derived from a tax on luxury goods such a wine. So in most cases the poor didn’t, indeed couldn’t pay tax.
The commonest indirect taxes paid by most people in the 18th and 19ths centuries were excise duties. These were levied on basic commodities – household essentials such as salt, candles, leather, beer, soap, and starch. Now maybe some couldn’t even afford those, but some fairly essential items there and hence many more paying tax. And as we know these type of taxes much more regressive on the poor.
Then of course there is the impact of things like the Corn Laws. Slightly different of course but the impact fairly similar.
The Corn Laws, although not a tax, were much more iniquitous I would have thought.
The Corn Laws, although not a tax, were much more iniquitous I would have thought.
The commonest indirect taxes paid by most people in the 18th and 19ths centuries were excise duties. These were levied on basic commodities – household essentials such as salt, candles, leather, beer, soap, and starch. Now maybe some couldn’t even afford those, but some fairly essential items there and hence many more paying tax. And as we know these type of taxes much more regressive on the poor.
Then of course there is the impact of things like the Corn Laws. Slightly different of course but the impact fairly similar.
Prior to the reintroduction of Income Tax in 1842, the primary source of Government revenue was the Land Tax. Ergo you had to own land to pay the tax..
Otherwise revenue was derived from a tax on luxury goods such a wine. So in most cases the poor didn’t, indeed couldn’t pay tax.
yes I did, apols.
As regards tax, I suspect you are just referring to income tax rather than all the other taxes people pay and did pay back before universal suffrage. The idea that some adults never paid any tax of any kind at all won’t stand up to much scrutiny.
The Strange Death of Liberal England states that one of the Pankhurst daughters considers improving the lives of the poor women in the East End of London ( Match Girls Strike ) more important than giving votes to middle class women. This comment changed my views on the priorities of the time. If one looks at priorities in 1913, I would suggest improving the conditions of those living in squalid slums and preparing for war against Germany. The death rate for under fives and women in labour in the squalid slums pre 1914 were still very high. The lack of preparation of WW1 resulted in far more deaths needed and slowing down of the introduction of various welfare measures, such as health care, education, which had far more detrimental impact on the lives of the poor than middle class women.
I would suggest that true statesmanship is deciding on the priorities of the nation, not being swayed by influential groups.
Dead women have no vote.
Wasn’t it Clement Attlee’s visit’ to the East End in 1911 that converted him?
Yes
Yes
Why wouldn’t you just do both CH? You suggest it’s an either or which has no coherence as a logical argument. No Pankhurst daughter indicated they were mutually exclusive.
In the book Strange Deat of Liberal England, one of the Pankhurst daughters did. At any time a government can only concentrate on a few vital issues. I think it was Adele Pankhurst who said improving the living conditions for poor women in the East End of London was more important than middle class women receiving the vote. The percentage of men who failed the medicals for the Armed Forces in the Boer and WW1 was very high due to poverty. In 1900 , public school boys were on average four inches taller than those from the slums.
In the book Strange Deat of Liberal England, one of the Pankhurst daughters did. At any time a government can only concentrate on a few vital issues. I think it was Adele Pankhurst who said improving the living conditions for poor women in the East End of London was more important than middle class women receiving the vote. The percentage of men who failed the medicals for the Armed Forces in the Boer and WW1 was very high due to poverty. In 1900 , public school boys were on average four inches taller than those from the slums.
Wasn’t it Clement Attlee’s visit’ to the East End in 1911 that converted him?
Why wouldn’t you just do both CH? You suggest it’s an either or which has no coherence as a logical argument. No Pankhurst daughter indicated they were mutually exclusive.
Don’t you mean CS?
If women pay TAX they should get the vote.
The Strange Death of Liberal England states that one of the Pankhurst daughters considers improving the lives of the poor women in the East End of London ( Match Girls Strike ) more important than giving votes to middle class women. This comment changed my views on the priorities of the time. If one looks at priorities in 1913, I would suggest improving the conditions of those living in squalid slums and preparing for war against Germany. The death rate for under fives and women in labour in the squalid slums pre 1914 were still very high. The lack of preparation of WW1 resulted in far more deaths needed and slowing down of the introduction of various welfare measures, such as health care, education, which had far more detrimental impact on the lives of the poor than middle class women.
I would suggest that true statesmanship is deciding on the priorities of the nation, not being swayed by influential groups.
Dead women have no vote.
Orwell points out that in the period of 1939 to 1943, the intelligentsia, which was middle class and most left wing, was very defeatist whereas the working class wanted to fight. This is an example of a group of people being wealthier and more educated having less sagacity and fighting spirit.
John Glubb in His ” Fate of Empires
” points out
The impression that the situation can be saved by mental cleverness, without unsel[1]fishness or human self-dedication, can only lead to collapse.
glubbThe Fate of Empires (by Sir John Glubb).pdf
Charity Bick was awarded undertook the actions which led to be being awarded the GM at the age of fifteen.
I would suggest anyone who is prepared to sacrifice themselves for the country has the right to vote.
Orwell points out the intelligentsia indulged in bully worship. However , the British working class typified by Ernest Bevin recognised both Nazis and Communists as bullies and treated them with contempt. Whereas, the Dean of Canterbury likened Stalin to Christ and GB Shaw praised the USSR.
Mosley and Mitford praised Hitler.
Perhaps what is most important quality in a voter is discernment of character.
So CH, you and NST would never have given Women the Vote?
And in another comments stream you’ll rail against Cancel culture?
They used to say, perhaps still do, that “Jack’s as good as his master”.
Well that patently isn’t the case, and it is about time that it is acknowledged.
Scotland and Wales have already reduced the voting age to 16 but they don’t have the power to do this for parliamentary elections. Starmer will do it though.
I’d go the other way. Major issue nowadays is an incomplete voting register, and people not even bothering to vote. As they do in Australia, anyone who fails to vote should be fined – ideally at source, in PAYE or benefits. For instance, in the brexit referendum, very roughly, slightly more than one quarter voted for, one quarter voted against, one quarter stayed on the sofa scratching their posteriors, and the remaining quarter weren’t even on the register. Rounded to the nearest million, the figures were:
LEAVE: 17 million
REMAIN: 16 million
TOO BUSY WATCHING TELLY: 13 million
NOT EVEN ON REGISTER: 18 million
This is partly why it’s been so unsatisfactory – it simply does not have enough popular support, and never had. Circa 3/4 of the UK didn’t even vote for it. Ideally, you’d never have a referendum – on any subject. They are a crude import from an entirely different system (a plebiscite democracy) and have no place in a representative democracy. And as Margaret Thatcher (quoting Clement Attlee) noted: “Perhaps the late Lord Attlee was right,” she observed, “when he said that the referendum was a device of dictators and demagogues.” Even in mere private companies, no major decision would be pushed though with c. ¼ of the shareholders or directors. In corporate terms, the Brexit result was electorally inquorate. Typically, for major corporate decisions, a genuine 50+% is required even for routine decisions, and 75%+ by shareholder value is required to sanction a major decision. Referendums are a continental nonsense to begin with, but if one is stuck with them, they should at least require a 75% majority of all adults. Anything less is a recipe for national fracture.
Britain’s descent began with the second Great Reform Act of 1867, and it was downhill from then on, aided and abetted by the removal of jury service qualification- We are now Living in a dystopian hybrid of Communism and National Socialism, and reached the level of a flyblown African or Latin American totalitarian state.
Scotland and Wales have already reduced the voting age to 16 but they don’t have the power to do this for parliamentary elections. Starmer will do it though.
As a teacher in a supposedly top 10 global university (qs rankings) i would say be careful what you wish for. Since students became customers standards have tumbled, and are now exacerbated by post Covid “free play”. The coach to pass philosophy that this industry’s customers now seek as an escalator to guaranteed jobs is producing less critical thinking and very little orignality.
I haven’t read “On Liberty” in many, many years so I can’t comment either way as to whether he was a “Progressive” in the sense that we understand the word here in the 21st century. I do know that, like de Tocqueville, he is quoted by liberals/Progressives and by conservatives whenever it suits their arguments.
You are right to point out that the work of J S Mill does not need to be treated as a sacred text correct in all its pronouncements.
The stupid have interests to defend with their vote as well as the intelligent.
Indeed the educated today include a very high proportion of the population and are unlikely to be confined to profound thinkers. Instead they include a lot of intellectual conformists who accept dogmas current among their educated peers whether or not they are in fact rational and true. Even the brightest among us only have a limited amount of time and energy to truly examine every subject in depth and so are inclined to take the current ideas of their peers as correct, whether they in fact stack up on proper examination or not.
Thanks for that linked article, which appeared well before i subscribed to Unherd. A treasure chest of golden nuggets is being created, and should be recallable as you’ve done.
One point: challenging the despotism of custom is not the same as subjecting custom itself to oppression.
To take an example, marriage continues but divorce is socially accepted – not something you could say of mid-Victorian England.
And that is not the same as stigmatising marriage, is it?
And therefore – no, Mill is not in charge today and no, he would not approve of the current climate. He may have been content to let the left spout its oppressive nonsense, but he would not have been happy to let it stop up the voices or the customs of the right, as it does now.
When Mill ruled – so to speak – custom continued to exist alongside non-customary conduct without stigma on either side, whereas now custom itself is being stigmatised.
Fail to grasp that and you fail to understand the real challenge of our times and risk falling back into a counter-form of political correctness which will be little improvement on the current blight.
Post script: re Orwell there is a real howler and I’m surprised Unherd hasn’t spotted it. 1984 explicitly tells us that we have NO hope from the “proles”, one of the many ways in which that book challenges and upends “radical” and Marxist trash.
When ‘On Liberty’ was published in 1859 we already had a perfectly satisfactory system of “weighted voting” based on property ownership, NOT supposed intellect.
The 1832 Reform Act gave the vote to one MALE in five in England, in essence to those who owned or rented property and paid TAX.
This equitable system was to be fatally widened (diluted)in 1867, 1884,1918,1928 & 1969, resulting the current ludicrous system of one body one vote!
(* Predictably North Britain (sometimes known as Scotland) intends to reduce the voting age to 16.)
As a teacher in a supposedly top 10 global university (qs rankings) i would say be careful what you wish for. Since students became customers standards have tumbled, and are now exacerbated by post Covid “free play”. The coach to pass philosophy that this industry’s customers now seek as an escalator to guaranteed jobs is producing less critical thinking and very little orignality.
I haven’t read “On Liberty” in many, many years so I can’t comment either way as to whether he was a “Progressive” in the sense that we understand the word here in the 21st century. I do know that, like de Tocqueville, he is quoted by liberals/Progressives and by conservatives whenever it suits their arguments.
You are right to point out that the work of J S Mill does not need to be treated as a sacred text correct in all its pronouncements.
The stupid have interests to defend with their vote as well as the intelligent.
Indeed the educated today include a very high proportion of the population and are unlikely to be confined to profound thinkers. Instead they include a lot of intellectual conformists who accept dogmas current among their educated peers whether or not they are in fact rational and true. Even the brightest among us only have a limited amount of time and energy to truly examine every subject in depth and so are inclined to take the current ideas of their peers as correct, whether they in fact stack up on proper examination or not.
For misguided Mill nostalgics, I would also note as John Gray did that Mill believed in weighted voting in favour of the educated.
https://unherd.com/2018/10/deluded-liberals-cant-keep-clinging-dead-idea/
He was ahead of his time on that as well.
This highlights the value of Unherd in providing an interesting and thought-provoking insight into the work of JS Mill and his elitist views that chime to some extent with the progressive ideology emanating from Universities and other institutions that do not reflect the common views of the bulk of the population.
However, much of the woke ideology is not simply authoritarian in nature but ant-rationalist. J S Mill would not have regarded appointing individuals to positions on the basis of their sex or ethnic origins rather than their ability and suitability for the post as sensible. Nor would he have regarded the explicitly anti-rational idea that a man could transform himself into a woman for all social purposes simply on the basis that he felt like a woman as sensible.
J S Mill’s belief was that superior individuals would produce superior solutions as a result of liberty of thought and speech and that such superior solutions would become widely accepted. Unfortunately, because mankind tends to conformity the mediocre elites have produced a number mediocre and anti-rationalist ideological beliefs that conformism has helped to foster. There is nothing progressive in the sense of movement from an inferior set of beliefs to a superior set in much of the woke dogma. The true progressive should do their best to tear down these new conservative anti-rationalist dogmas.
I don’t agree with you. First of all allow me to describe my impressions of myself – I see myself as anti-woke, right of centre and I think that most of what comes out of universities is garbage.
However, you talk about other people – ‘the bulk of the population’ – as if you can speak for them and you can’t. I would suggest that you have no idea at all how the population thinks. You see yourself as right and that other ideas are plain wrong.
JS Mill would not have appointed people on the basis of their sex – is wrong. He would have appointed men to top jobs and not women – that was automatic in his day. Also he wouldn’t have thought about ethnic minorities because there weren’t any.
I can remember South Africa after apartheid. In their sports teams they had to have one non-white player who was always useless. But that meant that young black people had something to work towards, an aim in life to better themselves. It worked and the teams now are multi-ethnic. The same has to be true in non-sporting life because, otherwise, the non-white people would have no mechanism for improvement. To me, this is not woke. It is just plain obvious.
But South Africa’s cricket team is rubbish.
I beg to disagree CW – read on the ‘Subjugation of Women’ his great work with Harriet Taylor. He may not have gone for positive discrimination but he sure would have appointed Women to top jobs if they were the best.
I do not claim to speak for the bulk of the population I simply get the impression from conversations and what I read that most do not believe a man can transform himself into being a woman by believing he is really one nor that ethnic discrimination is a good idea. You may however be right that I have no clear evidence on the point and I may be mistaken in this impression despite believing it to be so.
As J Watson has pointed out Mill did not share the common prejudice of his time regarding women and so it is likely he would have favoured a sex blind appointment approach. In addition it is clearly incorrect that there weren’t any ethnic minorities in the country when he wrote, merely that the numbers were much less than they are today. There is no reason to think he would have been against the appointment of the most suitable regardless of their ethnic origin were he faced with the issue today.
The argument that relatively useless ethnic individuals should be appointed to positions to inspire their fellow ethnics to better themselves is both deeply patronising and entirely speculative and unproved. Certainly the great Thomas Sowell has robustly rejected this argument as applied in the US.
But South Africa’s cricket team is rubbish.
I beg to disagree CW – read on the ‘Subjugation of Women’ his great work with Harriet Taylor. He may not have gone for positive discrimination but he sure would have appointed Women to top jobs if they were the best.
I do not claim to speak for the bulk of the population I simply get the impression from conversations and what I read that most do not believe a man can transform himself into being a woman by believing he is really one nor that ethnic discrimination is a good idea. You may however be right that I have no clear evidence on the point and I may be mistaken in this impression despite believing it to be so.
As J Watson has pointed out Mill did not share the common prejudice of his time regarding women and so it is likely he would have favoured a sex blind appointment approach. In addition it is clearly incorrect that there weren’t any ethnic minorities in the country when he wrote, merely that the numbers were much less than they are today. There is no reason to think he would have been against the appointment of the most suitable regardless of their ethnic origin were he faced with the issue today.
The argument that relatively useless ethnic individuals should be appointed to positions to inspire their fellow ethnics to better themselves is both deeply patronising and entirely speculative and unproved. Certainly the great Thomas Sowell has robustly rejected this argument as applied in the US.
I agree. This essay is a very worthwhile read except that it utilizes the misnomer “progressive” for the ideology that has currently captured the Academy, most western government institutions and NGOs.
There is no progress in the mythology that men are women if they say so, that there is a sacred soul that has a sex which overrides one’s reproductive system and that small children have the intellectual capacity to define this and authorize the removal of reproductive organs and sign up for life-long medication. Insisting that an individual’s ethnic history dictates their place in a hierarchy more than their contextual status and power is also regressive as is the notion that a lesbian must accept as a sex partner a man who says he’s a lesbian or be tabled a hate-filled bigot is not social progress.
Contemporary “Progressivism” is a thinly-veiled regression to old entrenched hierarchies that reiterates the very thing against which Mill revolted.
I don’t agree with you. First of all allow me to describe my impressions of myself – I see myself as anti-woke, right of centre and I think that most of what comes out of universities is garbage.
However, you talk about other people – ‘the bulk of the population’ – as if you can speak for them and you can’t. I would suggest that you have no idea at all how the population thinks. You see yourself as right and that other ideas are plain wrong.
JS Mill would not have appointed people on the basis of their sex – is wrong. He would have appointed men to top jobs and not women – that was automatic in his day. Also he wouldn’t have thought about ethnic minorities because there weren’t any.
I can remember South Africa after apartheid. In their sports teams they had to have one non-white player who was always useless. But that meant that young black people had something to work towards, an aim in life to better themselves. It worked and the teams now are multi-ethnic. The same has to be true in non-sporting life because, otherwise, the non-white people would have no mechanism for improvement. To me, this is not woke. It is just plain obvious.
I agree. This essay is a very worthwhile read except that it utilizes the misnomer “progressive” for the ideology that has currently captured the Academy, most western government institutions and NGOs.
There is no progress in the mythology that men are women if they say so, that there is a sacred soul that has a sex which overrides one’s reproductive system and that small children have the intellectual capacity to define this and authorize the removal of reproductive organs and sign up for life-long medication. Insisting that an individual’s ethnic history dictates their place in a hierarchy more than their contextual status and power is also regressive as is the notion that a lesbian must accept as a sex partner a man who says he’s a lesbian or be tabled a hate-filled bigot is not social progress.
Contemporary “Progressivism” is a thinly-veiled regression to old entrenched hierarchies that reiterates the very thing against which Mill revolted.
This highlights the value of Unherd in providing an interesting and thought-provoking insight into the work of JS Mill and his elitist views that chime to some extent with the progressive ideology emanating from Universities and other institutions that do not reflect the common views of the bulk of the population.
However, much of the woke ideology is not simply authoritarian in nature but ant-rationalist. J S Mill would not have regarded appointing individuals to positions on the basis of their sex or ethnic origins rather than their ability and suitability for the post as sensible. Nor would he have regarded the explicitly anti-rational idea that a man could transform himself into a woman for all social purposes simply on the basis that he felt like a woman as sensible.
J S Mill’s belief was that superior individuals would produce superior solutions as a result of liberty of thought and speech and that such superior solutions would become widely accepted. Unfortunately, because mankind tends to conformity the mediocre elites have produced a number mediocre and anti-rationalist ideological beliefs that conformism has helped to foster. There is nothing progressive in the sense of movement from an inferior set of beliefs to a superior set in much of the woke dogma. The true progressive should do their best to tear down these new conservative anti-rationalist dogmas.
I’m having some difficulty in seeing some student, screaming for the dismissal of Professor Stock, as a “rare individual “ liberated from the views of the masses.
I agree with you. Being an old person I see it as nonsensical. But I also see that my view is irrelevant.
Lecturers in universities have always veered towards Marxism, which was always perceived to be about Economics. There was the aim of revolution, to make rich people poor and allow the poor people to run the country.
Now Marxism has widened its scope. Now it challenges every idea and everything is about revolution – however stupid the aims. In fact, the more stupid the aim, the more successful the lecturer.
I agree with you. Being an old person I see it as nonsensical. But I also see that my view is irrelevant.
Lecturers in universities have always veered towards Marxism, which was always perceived to be about Economics. There was the aim of revolution, to make rich people poor and allow the poor people to run the country.
Now Marxism has widened its scope. Now it challenges every idea and everything is about revolution – however stupid the aims. In fact, the more stupid the aim, the more successful the lecturer.
I’m having some difficulty in seeing some student, screaming for the dismissal of Professor Stock, as a “rare individual “ liberated from the views of the masses.
“…because of the “despotism of custom”, and the growing political influence of ordinary people, such individuals will need both active political protection from the masses, and, better yet, eventually enjoy political control.”
“… to liberate the unique, inventive, free-thinking few from the oppression of the herd-like, tradition-bound, narrow and unadventurous many.’
The ‘unadventurous many’, ‘everyday people’. ‘ordinary people’ … In modern parlance (thank you, Hilary Clinton!) ‘the deplorables’, or David Cameron’s ‘the little people’.
The rallying cry of the 1960s, when the cultural marxists of the day were preoccupied with liberation struggles (decades later they were more wars of acquisition), especially those in Africa, their rallying cry was ‘Majority Rule!’ Nowadays, the majority is despised, the law has been inverted, nay perverted, to bolster the rights of minorities against those of the majority and to contextualise the struggle of all those deemed to be oppressed against their oppressors.
Mill’s vision of liberty as portrayed in this article is akin to the ‘liberty’ imposed upon and in the name of the ‘demos’ (to use the author’s term for the people) by Lenin (one “rare individual … liberated from the oppressiveness of the masses”). He held that once the proletariat had destroyed the established order by violent revolution, a small (very) intellectual revolutionary elite (the ‘individuals’ so admired by Mills apparently) would seize power and maintain power by calculated terror thereafter in a “a society of constant change, disruption, and transformation.” Hmmm!
Like Mill, our 21st Century ‘progressives’ “have nothing but contempt for the backwardness of ordinary people.” We live under a progressive tyranny – a new condition in human history.
“…because of the “despotism of custom”, and the growing political influence of ordinary people, such individuals will need both active political protection from the masses, and, better yet, eventually enjoy political control.”
“… to liberate the unique, inventive, free-thinking few from the oppression of the herd-like, tradition-bound, narrow and unadventurous many.’
The ‘unadventurous many’, ‘everyday people’. ‘ordinary people’ … In modern parlance (thank you, Hilary Clinton!) ‘the deplorables’, or David Cameron’s ‘the little people’.
The rallying cry of the 1960s, when the cultural marxists of the day were preoccupied with liberation struggles (decades later they were more wars of acquisition), especially those in Africa, their rallying cry was ‘Majority Rule!’ Nowadays, the majority is despised, the law has been inverted, nay perverted, to bolster the rights of minorities against those of the majority and to contextualise the struggle of all those deemed to be oppressed against their oppressors.
Mill’s vision of liberty as portrayed in this article is akin to the ‘liberty’ imposed upon and in the name of the ‘demos’ (to use the author’s term for the people) by Lenin (one “rare individual … liberated from the oppressiveness of the masses”). He held that once the proletariat had destroyed the established order by violent revolution, a small (very) intellectual revolutionary elite (the ‘individuals’ so admired by Mills apparently) would seize power and maintain power by calculated terror thereafter in a “a society of constant change, disruption, and transformation.” Hmmm!
Like Mill, our 21st Century ‘progressives’ “have nothing but contempt for the backwardness of ordinary people.” We live under a progressive tyranny – a new condition in human history.
Excellent article. Excellent comments. Not being a philosopher (at least not in the academic sense), I welcome this opportunity to learn about an ironic twist in the history of philosophical and political discourse. Even the word “liberal” has meant so many things over the century or so, sometimes contradictory ones, that it has little use by now except (like “conservative”) as a hostile slogan.
I can add here only one note of caution. Discussions of the dismal current situation often end up as disputes over how we got to this point by tracing the evolution of ideas but without taking responsibility for wielding those ideas as weapons in the present: capitalism vs. socialism, say, or liberalism vs. progressivism. In my experience, for example, these arguments often amount to individualism vs. collectivism–as if we could ever live as humans with either but not the other. One of my friends insists that wokism is the inevitable result of individualism (but not the communally responsible kind that Thomas Jefferson fostered), because capitalism has turned us all not only into self-centered consumers but also into hedonistic seekers of personal gratification–that is, self-righteousness. (As a linguistic separatist, he has a stake in collectivism for reasons of his own.) Never mind that the wokers themselves insist, loudly and often, that the only source of meaning is membership in a group–especially in groups that define themselves biologically and immutably by race or sex; personal interests, abilities and motivations are of no political importance in this Darwinian struggle for collective power. Okay, maybe capitalism is among the factors that have led us to this point, but here we are now with the wokers turning capitalism (and everything else, including personal reliance on merit and reason) upside down in the name of “marginalized groups” and corporate giants turning cartwheels to be on the “right side of history.”
Good contribution to the commentary. We’re a bit trapped within a “prism of isms” nowadays, I think. There are so many seemingly precise or meaningful terms and labels that, in practice, become facile abstractions that turn us away from true engagement with our human fellows.
My neighbor? Why would I interact with him/her/them when he/she/they seems to represent materialism/hedonism/traditionalism…you name it, ad infinitum. Our tendency to throw around these conceptual labels as if they capture individual and societal complexities tends to serve as a sort of makeshift crutch, or cheap knowingness that borders on gnosticism.
Just lurve ‘prism of isms’.
Just lurve ‘prism of isms’.
Good contribution to the commentary. We’re a bit trapped within a “prism of isms” nowadays, I think. There are so many seemingly precise or meaningful terms and labels that, in practice, become facile abstractions that turn us away from true engagement with our human fellows.
My neighbor? Why would I interact with him/her/them when he/she/they seems to represent materialism/hedonism/traditionalism…you name it, ad infinitum. Our tendency to throw around these conceptual labels as if they capture individual and societal complexities tends to serve as a sort of makeshift crutch, or cheap knowingness that borders on gnosticism.
Excellent article. Excellent comments. Not being a philosopher (at least not in the academic sense), I welcome this opportunity to learn about an ironic twist in the history of philosophical and political discourse. Even the word “liberal” has meant so many things over the century or so, sometimes contradictory ones, that it has little use by now except (like “conservative”) as a hostile slogan.
I can add here only one note of caution. Discussions of the dismal current situation often end up as disputes over how we got to this point by tracing the evolution of ideas but without taking responsibility for wielding those ideas as weapons in the present: capitalism vs. socialism, say, or liberalism vs. progressivism. In my experience, for example, these arguments often amount to individualism vs. collectivism–as if we could ever live as humans with either but not the other. One of my friends insists that wokism is the inevitable result of individualism (but not the communally responsible kind that Thomas Jefferson fostered), because capitalism has turned us all not only into self-centered consumers but also into hedonistic seekers of personal gratification–that is, self-righteousness. (As a linguistic separatist, he has a stake in collectivism for reasons of his own.) Never mind that the wokers themselves insist, loudly and often, that the only source of meaning is membership in a group–especially in groups that define themselves biologically and immutably by race or sex; personal interests, abilities and motivations are of no political importance in this Darwinian struggle for collective power. Okay, maybe capitalism is among the factors that have led us to this point, but here we are now with the wokers turning capitalism (and everything else, including personal reliance on merit and reason) upside down in the name of “marginalized groups” and corporate giants turning cartwheels to be on the “right side of history.”
That the other philosophical idea most closely associated with Mill is utilitarianism is the giveaway.
Great article.
How then do you judge of public value? Do you build a hospital or a palace? A factory or a casino? And yes you can give me the usual romantic / cultic squirming, viz that a factory belches out smoke and that palaces give tourists pleasure down the line, but we all know that were you in charge of a local council or a government, utility would trump all that. And you further know that palaces, casinos, theatres etcetera are the froth generated and made possible by the hospital (keeping the bulk of us alive to enjoy them) and the factory (supplying the energy and the money). As to religious observance, if it is necessary to man – and it appears to be – then spending large sums on ceremonial monuments is equally otiose, for true observance lives – surely – as Milton said, in an upright heart, not in massive buildings, albeit that they can adorn commitment.
How then do you judge of public value? Do you build a hospital or a palace? A factory or a casino? And yes you can give me the usual romantic / cultic squirming, viz that a factory belches out smoke and that palaces give tourists pleasure down the line, but we all know that were you in charge of a local council or a government, utility would trump all that. And you further know that palaces, casinos, theatres etcetera are the froth generated and made possible by the hospital (keeping the bulk of us alive to enjoy them) and the factory (supplying the energy and the money). As to religious observance, if it is necessary to man – and it appears to be – then spending large sums on ceremonial monuments is equally otiose, for true observance lives – surely – as Milton said, in an upright heart, not in massive buildings, albeit that they can adorn commitment.
That the other philosophical idea most closely associated with Mill is utilitarianism is the giveaway.
Great article.
The chimpanzees that took over the law profession took pornography as free speech and decided it was OK. They don’t know the difference between good and right political discourse and sex. Now they have taken away the free speech but left the porno sites for all the kiddies to watch so they won’t object when the teacher wants some closet time with them.
The chimpanzees that took over the law profession took pornography as free speech and decided it was OK. They don’t know the difference between good and right political discourse and sex. Now they have taken away the free speech but left the porno sites for all the kiddies to watch so they won’t object when the teacher wants some closet time with them.
More relevant is that Mill’s defence of liberty isn’t strong enough because it’s grounded in his utilitarianism. He limits personal liberty if it does ‘harm’ to others, but nowadays even disagreeing with someone or ‘offending’ them can be interpreted as harming them. Personal liberty has to be grounded in some notion of individual rights or (as Hayek does) the rule of law.
More relevant is that Mill’s defence of liberty isn’t strong enough because it’s grounded in his utilitarianism. He limits personal liberty if it does ‘harm’ to others, but nowadays even disagreeing with someone or ‘offending’ them can be interpreted as harming them. Personal liberty has to be grounded in some notion of individual rights or (as Hayek does) the rule of law.
It was the Christians, the Evangelical wing of Anglican Church, Baptist, Methodists, Quakers, Salvation Army and Anglo- Catholics at the end of the 19th century, who improved the quality of life of those living in squalid slums. What did Mill do to improve the life of the slum proletariat? Mill’s liberty easily became the libertine life of the licentious dilettantes with private incomes; free from the ideas of duty, self sacrifice and service.
Perhaps we should judge all philosophies by whether they improve the quality of lives of the manual labourers and their families ?
Liberty allowed the Industrial Revolution to occur but it was restraint, self sacrifice, service, a sense of public duty, a sense of responsibility, etc which improved the lives of those living in squalid slums. The restraint required to save( Building Societies, Co-op), pursuing cleanliness, controlling alcohol consumption and gambling, night schools, develop ment of paraffin candles so the poor could study at night,etc are measures often inspired by The Parable of Talents.
Mill’s liberty which easily becomes licentiousness, drunkeness and depravity keeps the poor in the squalid slums and is the opposite of “Self Help” advocated by Keir Hardie, founder of the Labour Party. Mill’s Liberalism evolves into that of Asquith who made Britain unprepared for WW1 resulting in the working class suffering the most.
Mill’s Liberalism is fine provded someone else does the hard dangerous work, whether combat or manual . The rich get the pleasure, the the poor the pain, ain’t it all a bleeding shame.
It was the Christians, the Evangelical wing of Anglican Church, Baptist, Methodists, Quakers, Salvation Army and Anglo- Catholics at the end of the 19th century, who improved the quality of life of those living in squalid slums. What did Mill do to improve the life of the slum proletariat? Mill’s liberty easily became the libertine life of the licentious dilettantes with private incomes; free from the ideas of duty, self sacrifice and service.
Perhaps we should judge all philosophies by whether they improve the quality of lives of the manual labourers and their families ?
Liberty allowed the Industrial Revolution to occur but it was restraint, self sacrifice, service, a sense of public duty, a sense of responsibility, etc which improved the lives of those living in squalid slums. The restraint required to save( Building Societies, Co-op), pursuing cleanliness, controlling alcohol consumption and gambling, night schools, develop ment of paraffin candles so the poor could study at night,etc are measures often inspired by The Parable of Talents.
Mill’s liberty which easily becomes licentiousness, drunkeness and depravity keeps the poor in the squalid slums and is the opposite of “Self Help” advocated by Keir Hardie, founder of the Labour Party. Mill’s Liberalism evolves into that of Asquith who made Britain unprepared for WW1 resulting in the working class suffering the most.
Mill’s Liberalism is fine provded someone else does the hard dangerous work, whether combat or manual . The rich get the pleasure, the the poor the pain, ain’t it all a bleeding shame.
Perhaps we should examine the two Bacons. Roger separates faith and reason.Francis Bacon states judgement is to be based upon experimental proof. For a tradition to be maintained there needs to be proof it is beneficial. To change the tradition, there must be a reason to do so and then observation and recording of the results. Before change to the tradition takes place there must be a clear definition what is defined as beneficial, to which results of the change can be compared. An example would be extending the school leaving age. Do children possess more knowledge of mathematics by staying on to the age of 18 years rather than leaving at 14 years. This change is to be tested through exams.
The reason why social engineering has caused so many problems was that there was no clear condemnation of tradition; no clear description of supposed benefit and no rigorus observation, recording and analysis of results of changes to traditions.
Perhaps we should examine the two Bacons. Roger separates faith and reason.Francis Bacon states judgement is to be based upon experimental proof. For a tradition to be maintained there needs to be proof it is beneficial. To change the tradition, there must be a reason to do so and then observation and recording of the results. Before change to the tradition takes place there must be a clear definition what is defined as beneficial, to which results of the change can be compared. An example would be extending the school leaving age. Do children possess more knowledge of mathematics by staying on to the age of 18 years rather than leaving at 14 years. This change is to be tested through exams.
The reason why social engineering has caused so many problems was that there was no clear condemnation of tradition; no clear description of supposed benefit and no rigorus observation, recording and analysis of results of changes to traditions.
Deneen is profoundly wrong about Mill. The purpose of On Liberty, frequently repeated, is not to “secure … the political dominance of the progressive element of society.” Deneen is evidently counting on readers to assume that “progressive” meant to Mill what it means today. What Mill sought to advance was not some New Class of intellectuals and professionals, but simply the critical spirit, which he described in terms so luminous and forceful that they still inspire today. It was not ordinary people whom Mill disdained but the dunderheaded conservative elites of his day, for whom the Reform Bill was the end of the world.
And yet, obnoxious as the conservatives of his day were, Mill could write: “A conservative philosopher cannot be wholly conservative, but must often be a better liberal than liberals themselves; while he is the natural means of rescuing from oblivion truths which conservatives have forgotten and which the prevailing schools of liberalism never knew. … “Lord, enlighten thou our enemies,” should be the prayer of every true progressive; sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions, and consecutiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers. We are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom; their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength.” Does this sound like a blind partisan of progressivism?
The idea that conservatives are the natural champions of liberty can’t survive even a brief look back at the history of the US and UK. In the 1970s and 1980s, NPR and the BBC achieved heights of critical investigative journalism, breaking important story after story about the failings or misdeeds of government and business. Conservatives in both countries were outraged. So what did they do — offer well-reasoned rebuttals, as Mill would have prescribed? Of course not. They simply slashed the budget of both institutions and installed conservative hacks at the helm, crippling both institutions. Defunding your critics was an infinitely more effective and dangerous form of censorship than cancelling or de-platforming, obnoxious as those are.
Disagree. Mill tells us in his Autobiography that he was saved from recurring depression by reading the Romantics from whom he absorbed the belief in self-creativity, which he described as the power to shape one’s own character. His “Individuality” (the title of the central chapter of OL), which means self-made uniqueness, is the core idea of today’s expressive individualism. See also his adherence via Humboldt to the German idea of Bildung as the remaking of ourselves. Hence he was “progressive” in precisely the modern sense.
Disagree. Mill tells us in his Autobiography that he was saved from recurring depression by reading the Romantics from whom he absorbed the belief in self-creativity, which he described as the power to shape one’s own character. His “Individuality” (the title of the central chapter of OL), which means self-made uniqueness, is the core idea of today’s expressive individualism. See also his adherence via Humboldt to the German idea of Bildung as the remaking of ourselves. Hence he was “progressive” in precisely the modern sense.
Deneen is profoundly wrong about Mill. The purpose of On Liberty, frequently repeated, is not to “secure … the political dominance of the progressive element of society.” Deneen is evidently counting on readers to assume that “progressive” meant to Mill what it means today. What Mill sought to advance was not some New Class of intellectuals and professionals, but simply the critical spirit, which he described in terms so luminous and forceful that they still inspire today. It was not ordinary people whom Mill disdained but the dunderheaded conservative elites of his day, for whom the Reform Bill was the end of the world.
And yet, obnoxious as the conservatives of his day were, Mill could write: “A conservative philosopher cannot be wholly conservative, but must often be a better liberal than liberals themselves; while he is the natural means of rescuing from oblivion truths which conservatives have forgotten and which the prevailing schools of liberalism never knew. … “Lord, enlighten thou our enemies,” should be the prayer of every true progressive; sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions, and consecutiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers. We are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom; their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength.” Does this sound like a blind partisan of progressivism?
The idea that conservatives are the natural champions of liberty can’t survive even a brief look back at the history of the US and UK. In the 1970s and 1980s, NPR and the BBC achieved heights of critical investigative journalism, breaking important story after story about the failings or misdeeds of government and business. Conservatives in both countries were outraged. So what did they do — offer well-reasoned rebuttals, as Mill would have prescribed? Of course not. They simply slashed the budget of both institutions and installed conservative hacks at the helm, crippling both institutions. Defunding your critics was an infinitely more effective and dangerous form of censorship than cancelling or de-platforming, obnoxious as those are.
Reading this reminded me how much classical liberalism and Marxism have in common.
Not a lot.
Not a lot.
Reading this reminded me how much classical liberalism and Marxism have in common.
Excellent analysis, I always thought Mill was overrated. I have also been naive that if we just preserved a ‘liberal order’ we would all get on, left and right arguing away and life continuing its own sweet way. The problem is that progress undermines the order that we all depend on. Hence modern progressives have no interest in free speech as an absolute ideal.
Excellent analysis, I always thought Mill was overrated. I have also been naive that if we just preserved a ‘liberal order’ we would all get on, left and right arguing away and life continuing its own sweet way. The problem is that progress undermines the order that we all depend on. Hence modern progressives have no interest in free speech as an absolute ideal.
Fascinating article. I read Mill in college and fully absorbed his message about the free exchange of ideas and a “marketplace of ideas.” Of course, this is the concept that conservatives are invoking when they cite Mill. So, if Mill’s philosophy of liberty is merely instrumental, then who should modern conservatives turn to instead for inspiration on free speech?
Try Roger Scruton:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b06j6byb
Try Roger Scruton:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b06j6byb
Fascinating article. I read Mill in college and fully absorbed his message about the free exchange of ideas and a “marketplace of ideas.” Of course, this is the concept that conservatives are invoking when they cite Mill. So, if Mill’s philosophy of liberty is merely instrumental, then who should modern conservatives turn to instead for inspiration on free speech?
Deneen and other postliberal writers should be mandatory reading. Every time I read some idiotic ‘boomer’ Facebook tier complaint about how ‘liberals are the real n*zis!’ I get exasperated. Liberalism has not become an aberration or been twisted by progressives. It has succeeded beyond its adherents’ wildest dreams, entrenching a managerial bureaucracy and its power across the world. Going back to the ‘Enlightenment’ writers who kickstarted the rot in our institutions is lunacy.
Some distinctions are called for. The entrenched bureaucracy currently running the world. from the IMF to the EU to the Fed, is not the product of liberalism but of neoliberalism, which is much more akin to libertarian conservatism. Liberals from Mill to Keynes to Galbraith to Krugman have all been moderate egalitarians, a commitment which is incompatible with neoliberalism and the grotesque economic and political inequality it has produced. A few philosophical conservatives like Roger Scruton may rail at the global neoliberal bureaucracy, but the Republican and Conservative parties generally keep their mouths shut and certainly never sponsor any oppositional measures in the interest of those subject to that bureaucracy.
By the way, what have you got to replace the Enlightenment wth?
Some distinctions are called for. The entrenched bureaucracy currently running the world. from the IMF to the EU to the Fed, is not the product of liberalism but of neoliberalism, which is much more akin to libertarian conservatism. Liberals from Mill to Keynes to Galbraith to Krugman have all been moderate egalitarians, a commitment which is incompatible with neoliberalism and the grotesque economic and political inequality it has produced. A few philosophical conservatives like Roger Scruton may rail at the global neoliberal bureaucracy, but the Republican and Conservative parties generally keep their mouths shut and certainly never sponsor any oppositional measures in the interest of those subject to that bureaucracy.
By the way, what have you got to replace the Enlightenment wth?
Deneen and other postliberal writers should be mandatory reading. Every time I read some idiotic ‘boomer’ Facebook tier complaint about how ‘liberals are the real n*zis!’ I get exasperated. Liberalism has not become an aberration or been twisted by progressives. It has succeeded beyond its adherents’ wildest dreams, entrenching a managerial bureaucracy and its power across the world. Going back to the ‘Enlightenment’ writers who kickstarted the rot in our institutions is lunacy.
I’ve been saying something along the same lines of the penultimate paragraph for some time
I’ve been saying something along the same lines of the penultimate paragraph for some time
Brilliant and so true. This part, “Liberty was never (Mill’s) main object; rather, liberty was the mechanism that would transform a traditional, bottom-up social order into a top-down progressive liberal regime” is surprisingly reminiscent of Lenin’s “revolutionary vanguard” that would be doing the dictating in a “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Brilliant and so true. This part, “Liberty was never (Mill’s) main object; rather, liberty was the mechanism that would transform a traditional, bottom-up social order into a top-down progressive liberal regime” is surprisingly reminiscent of Lenin’s “revolutionary vanguard” that would be doing the dictating in a “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Upon re-reading Mills about 5 years ago the same ideas you have portrayed here struck me. Feminism, the destruction of the family and an overcomplementry analysis of what the ‘experts’ could deliver seemed both progressive and obnoxious.
Upon re-reading Mills about 5 years ago the same ideas you have portrayed here struck me. Feminism, the destruction of the family and an overcomplementry analysis of what the ‘experts’ could deliver seemed both progressive and obnoxious.
I think the author assumes that today’s progressives are actually progressive. That’s simply not the case. I once had someone tell me that to advance progress we need to embrace wind and solar power. As absurd as that sounds, I’m totally not making that up.
I think the author assumes that today’s progressives are actually progressive. That’s simply not the case. I once had someone tell me that to advance progress we need to embrace wind and solar power. As absurd as that sounds, I’m totally not making that up.
Author maybe be confusing “progressivism” with religious statism. Progressives are simply substituting worship of, and dependence on, the administrative state for Christianity, et al., ones self, and humanity.
Author maybe be confusing “progressivism” with religious statism. Progressives are simply substituting worship of, and dependence on, the administrative state for Christianity, et al., ones self, and humanity.
Progressivism is a customary belief. It is a derivative habit of thought in which humans are the creators of reality and the re-creators of themselves. The cliches of creativity and self-creativity are unoriginal ideas copied from the ontology of the Christians and enculturated via doctrines such as imago dei.
Progressivism is a customary belief. It is a derivative habit of thought in which humans are the creators of reality and the re-creators of themselves. The cliches of creativity and self-creativity are unoriginal ideas copied from the ontology of the Christians and enculturated via doctrines such as imago dei.
While I see this as a great article in revealing the shaky foundations of classic liberalism, more can said about what’s happening today.
One may come to the conclusion after reading the above is that a natural end result of the kind of liberal progress described here where an enlightened one or few progressive(s) ruling despotically is in fact fascism. This is of course exactly what happened in Europe and attempted in UK and US, and fascism has been defended by important liberal thinkers against Communism in the aftermath of WW2. Furthermore, this line of liberal thinking justifies the racism and colonialism perpetrated in the name of progress against “barbarian peoples” in modernity.
In that context, Wokeism is the second stage of liberalism following the moral bankruptcy of Millian Liberalism which amongst other things oversaw the introduction of scientific racism, the Atlantic Slave trade, and ultimately various forms of fascism. I’d argue despite perhaps being the triumph of all the things he’s been asking for, Mill in fact didn’t see all this coming, and he thought once progressives would be in power, all would be well.
As I see it, wokeism is a result of the shame for all the historical failures of liberalism. By showing the corruption and catastrophic results of all the noble sounding original ideas of liberalism, it works as an acid flowing through the liberal progressive enterprise easting it from inside, weakening and perverting its intended purpose, against which liberalism has very little defence.
While I see this as a great article in revealing the shaky foundations of classic liberalism, more can said about what’s happening today.
One may come to the conclusion after reading the above is that a natural end result of the kind of liberal progress described here where an enlightened one or few progressive(s) ruling despotically is in fact fascism. This is of course exactly what happened in Europe and attempted in UK and US, and fascism has been defended by important liberal thinkers against Communism in the aftermath of WW2. Furthermore, this line of liberal thinking justifies the racism and colonialism perpetrated in the name of progress against “barbarian peoples” in modernity.
In that context, Wokeism is the second stage of liberalism following the moral bankruptcy of Millian Liberalism which amongst other things oversaw the introduction of scientific racism, the Atlantic Slave trade, and ultimately various forms of fascism. I’d argue despite perhaps being the triumph of all the things he’s been asking for, Mill in fact didn’t see all this coming, and he thought once progressives would be in power, all would be well.
As I see it, wokeism is a result of the shame for all the historical failures of liberalism. By showing the corruption and catastrophic results of all the noble sounding original ideas of liberalism, it works as an acid flowing through the liberal progressive enterprise easting it from inside, weakening and perverting its intended purpose, against which liberalism has very little defence.
The optimum condition for society is found in a constantly disruptive–though quite civil–interplay of these two polarities. Perhaps Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues soliliquized, inspiringly, a glimpse of that “almost seen” optimum steady-state in the Moodys’ album “A Question of Balance,” specifically the “The Balance” track. . . on their not-so-long-ago-and-not-so-faraway vinyl LP.
The optimum condition for society is found in a constantly disruptive–though quite civil–interplay of these two polarities. Perhaps Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues soliliquized, inspiringly, a glimpse of that “almost seen” optimum steady-state in the Moodys’ album “A Question of Balance,” specifically the “The Balance” track. . . on their not-so-long-ago-and-not-so-faraway vinyl LP.
Wow! I teach high school civics and now I’ll have to re-read On Liberty with this article in mind. This is why UnHerd is worth paying for.
Wow! I teach high school civics and now I’ll have to re-read On Liberty with this article in mind. This is why UnHerd is worth paying for.
I still believe in freedom of expression.
Nice.
Look to Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers whom the founders of the United States read and admired. There you can find what one defines as individual liberty. Rather than equity.
“There needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them”
Indeed and the new right are the ones, somewhat bravely, at least in the most outspoken cases, the ones railing against progressive opinion.
Evidenced by of course the contemporary slurs of TERF or the conflation of libertarianism with fAr riGhT rAdiCaLiSm.
Article gets some things right but misses the big picture.
Even better to use the progressives’ words against them.
The Open Society and its Enemies, indeed. (Perhaps it was Plato long before Mill?)
Puts me in mind of some of Peter Berger’s mischief:”India is the most religious country in the world, Sweden is the most secular country in the world. . . America is a country of Indians ruled by Swedes.”
It is hardly necessary to follow Mill’s advice to give those of higher intelligence more votes, looking at the turnouts in the UK’s recent local elections, estimated by one source to be 18-32%. One might be inclined to favour it in the light of Brexit and MAGA, though one would then have to explain why there was a nearly 50:50 split in those cases. As for cancelling and disinformation, today’s ‘conservative libertarians’ have no problem attempting to cancel climate change research or muddying the waters over smoking, vaping and gun ownership. When universal principles are trumpeted, one should always ask whose interests are being served.
Very illuminating. Hasñd been hoping to read something along these lines to reach a better understanding of just what It is that conservative liberals are trying to oppose when they fight against progressives. Post-liberalism, while never painting an ideal picture of itself (and perhaps precisely because of that) seems more and more like the most reasonable political option each passing day.
“There needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them”
Mill was an extraodrinarily juvenile – and dangerous – thinker.
Certainly, the ‘tyranny of the majority’ can be problematic – but the tyranny of the *minority* invariably leads to the kind of disaster we are on the cusp of at present.
It is Robespierre, Stalin, the Bolsheviks, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, the Nazis…… all Socialism is theft; all Socialism is mass murder; all Socialism is the enslavement of the masses.
The tyranny of the majority democracy may be – but it has evolved into a pretty gentle hand as far as dealing with the minority goes. The tyranny of the minority has only prison camps and random executions to offer the rest of us.
You had me there for a while. This is a joke. The best piece of satire since: “Rape Culture in the Dog Park”. Well done sir, you give us a lesson in how anything can be twisted into anything else given a few thousand words. But I fear many will take this seriously.
You had me there for a while. This is a joke. The best piece of satire since: “Rape Culture in the Dog Park”. Well done sir, you give us a lesson in how anything can be twisted into anything else given a few thousand words. But I fear many will take this seriously.
Interesting article and certainly one JSM would have supported even if disagreeing.
But he may also have pulled up the Author on certain hyperbole, for example ‘Progressive Totalitarianism’. Of course at either end of the spectrum there is some pretty bonkers stuff, but nothing compares with the Totalitarian regimes of the CCP, Putin, North Korea, Taliban Afghanistan, Iran etc. JSM would have been zero’d in on those not Woke/Anti-Woke student politics.
One of the reason UnHerd has a daily stream of this kind of Anti-Woke stuff, I mean we get an Article a day on Trans stuff, is because it’s a coordinated ‘distraction strategy’. The Right has made such a mess of the things that really matter to people, in the UK esp – waits for hospital care, is the ambulance arriving quickly, will my kids get a good school, can I pay the fuel bill, why can’t I afford a Home etc. it has to create a distraction and talk about something else. And this is what we see every day on UnHerd in a good number (but not all) Articles.
Seriously? So you’re suggesting Unherd should do what the MSM spends dozens of outlets doing then?
The clue is in the title. And if, as you suggest, it’s intended as a “distraction”, haven’t you fallen for it?
“Hook line and sinker!”
“Hook line and sinker!”
You’re correct the Right has rather “made a mess of things”, but seriously would the Left have done any better?
Based on past performance almost certainly not!
Sadly the fundamental problem is that most of the current so called Tories are NOT Tories at all. In fact most are rather anaemic ‘social democrats’ with a decidedly woke outlook, and thus incapable of coherent government at either national or even local level.
You don’t seriously believe the equitarian left has any desire or intention of making the people better off, do you? Global equitarianism necessarily means lowering the standard of living of all classes in the West except for the poor.
I think you RC, and a couple of others, are jumping to a critique of the supposed Left as yet another ‘Distraction Strategy’ technique. Classic ‘what-aboutery’.
Whether the Left, in whatever form, has the answers is a separate discussion point (I’d probably characterise myself as moderate centre but rarely are people uniform on all matters).
The point is UnHerd is deliberately not talking about the real un-herd – the youngsters who can’t afford a home and will never have the moorings we had; the aged worrying can they afford social care and who’ll be there to advocate for them when they can’t; the person in pain and unable to work because they need a hip replacement and have waited 2years already; the cancer patient panicked about the delay in treatment; the parent crying at the breakfast table because they just can’t handle the inflation tipping them over the edge; the SME that’s lost thousands in Brexit red tape and still waiting for an upside; the people wondering when someone might actually be held account for Grenfell, or the massive overspend and truncation of HS2 – there is a great long list but today we will get another Article no doubt on Trans or similar.
Alot of Unherd support comes from the same elite that has got us into such a mess, but it is clever and it can weave a camouflage thesis that having caused so many problems it’s all because of others.
I can’t help but notice, Watson, that with nothing to contribute to the discussion about JS Mill you resort to the heckler’s tactic of: “This is not what we should be talking about.” What we should be talking about (to your mind) is all those issues that heart-on-the-sleeve socialists never tire of showing how much they care about.
And off you go with a basket of popular Lefty tropes:
Social care [check]
Underfunded NHS [check]
Cost of living crisis [check]
Brexit as a terrible mistake [check]
Grenfell tower [check]
HS2 as a white elephant [check]
Could it be, Watson, that you never watch any of the BBC news and current affairs output (not to mention ITN, C4 News and Sky News) where these matters are routinely discussed. It’s all very much “herd” stuff for the broadcast media – staffed as they are by those who ostentatiously CARE.
No harm in a little reminder NS, but glad to know you’re an avid BBC et al imbiber. All is not lost.
No harm in a little reminder NS, but glad to know you’re an avid BBC et al imbiber. All is not lost.
Those problems of which you speak are as old as the hills; they are economic problems for which there is no and will never be any solution, for human wants are infinite whilst human resources are finite. That is an inescapable fact and we can bicker and argue over allocation of resources and wealth creation but we are just rehashing tired old arguments, the only differences being the individuals and the efficiency as to how those arguments are put into practice; it’s important but it’s boring. The left’s culture war is different, however; it’s revolutionary, it threatens to undermine cultural norms which have dominated the West since the Enlightenment. Deciding whether HS2 should go ahead might be important for the next generation in a small part of England but the culture wars are epoch defining for the West.
‘It is not because men’s desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak’. You’ll work out quickly who said that.
Thanks for the non-sequitur.
Thanks for the non-sequitur.
‘It is not because men’s desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak’. You’ll work out quickly who said that.
I can’t help but notice, Watson, that with nothing to contribute to the discussion about JS Mill you resort to the heckler’s tactic of: “This is not what we should be talking about.” What we should be talking about (to your mind) is all those issues that heart-on-the-sleeve socialists never tire of showing how much they care about.
And off you go with a basket of popular Lefty tropes:
Social care [check]
Underfunded NHS [check]
Cost of living crisis [check]
Brexit as a terrible mistake [check]
Grenfell tower [check]
HS2 as a white elephant [check]
Could it be, Watson, that you never watch any of the BBC news and current affairs output (not to mention ITN, C4 News and Sky News) where these matters are routinely discussed. It’s all very much “herd” stuff for the broadcast media – staffed as they are by those who ostentatiously CARE.
Those problems of which you speak are as old as the hills; they are economic problems for which there is no and will never be any solution, for human wants are infinite whilst human resources are finite. That is an inescapable fact and we can bicker and argue over allocation of resources and wealth creation but we are just rehashing tired old arguments, the only differences being the individuals and the efficiency as to how those arguments are put into practice; it’s important but it’s boring. The left’s culture war is different, however; it’s revolutionary, it threatens to undermine cultural norms which have dominated the West since the Enlightenment. Deciding whether HS2 should go ahead might be important for the next generation in a small part of England but the culture wars are epoch defining for the West.
I think you RC, and a couple of others, are jumping to a critique of the supposed Left as yet another ‘Distraction Strategy’ technique. Classic ‘what-aboutery’.
Whether the Left, in whatever form, has the answers is a separate discussion point (I’d probably characterise myself as moderate centre but rarely are people uniform on all matters).
The point is UnHerd is deliberately not talking about the real un-herd – the youngsters who can’t afford a home and will never have the moorings we had; the aged worrying can they afford social care and who’ll be there to advocate for them when they can’t; the person in pain and unable to work because they need a hip replacement and have waited 2years already; the cancer patient panicked about the delay in treatment; the parent crying at the breakfast table because they just can’t handle the inflation tipping them over the edge; the SME that’s lost thousands in Brexit red tape and still waiting for an upside; the people wondering when someone might actually be held account for Grenfell, or the massive overspend and truncation of HS2 – there is a great long list but today we will get another Article no doubt on Trans or similar.
Alot of Unherd support comes from the same elite that has got us into such a mess, but it is clever and it can weave a camouflage thesis that having caused so many problems it’s all because of others.
You’re shooting the messenger reporting on news and cultural movements. That is a very good distraction strategy.
The right has not made a mess of anything; the Conservative Government is not a right wing government.
Oh yes it is. Own it and don’t be so fragile.
Your assumption that I am right wing and therefore need to “own it” is a logical fallacy. Of course it all depends on how you define right wing. If you define it as pro-free market and libertarian then you really don’t have a leg to stand on for there is little free market about this current government. Furthermore, you have no basis upon which to assume the cause of the problems you cite are due to market and not policy failure.
Your assumption that I am right wing and therefore need to “own it” is a logical fallacy. Of course it all depends on how you define right wing. If you define it as pro-free market and libertarian then you really don’t have a leg to stand on for there is little free market about this current government. Furthermore, you have no basis upon which to assume the cause of the problems you cite are due to market and not policy failure.
Oh yes it is. Own it and don’t be so fragile.
Seriously? So you’re suggesting Unherd should do what the MSM spends dozens of outlets doing then?
The clue is in the title. And if, as you suggest, it’s intended as a “distraction”, haven’t you fallen for it?
You’re correct the Right has rather “made a mess of things”, but seriously would the Left have done any better?
Based on past performance almost certainly not!
Sadly the fundamental problem is that most of the current so called Tories are NOT Tories at all. In fact most are rather anaemic ‘social democrats’ with a decidedly woke outlook, and thus incapable of coherent government at either national or even local level.
You don’t seriously believe the equitarian left has any desire or intention of making the people better off, do you? Global equitarianism necessarily means lowering the standard of living of all classes in the West except for the poor.
You’re shooting the messenger reporting on news and cultural movements. That is a very good distraction strategy.
The right has not made a mess of anything; the Conservative Government is not a right wing government.
Interesting article and certainly one JSM would have supported even if disagreeing.
But he may also have pulled up the Author on certain hyperbole, for example ‘Progressive Totalitarianism’. Of course at either end of the spectrum there is some pretty bonkers stuff, but nothing compares with the Totalitarian regimes of the CCP, Putin, North Korea, Taliban Afghanistan, Iran etc. JSM would have been zero’d in on those not Woke/Anti-Woke student politics.
One of the reason UnHerd has a daily stream of this kind of Anti-Woke stuff, I mean we get an Article a day on Trans stuff, is because it’s a coordinated ‘distraction strategy’. The Right has made such a mess of the things that really matter to people, in the UK esp – waits for hospital care, is the ambulance arriving quickly, will my kids get a good school, can I pay the fuel bill, why can’t I afford a Home etc. it has to create a distraction and talk about something else. And this is what we see every day on UnHerd in a good number (but not all) Articles.
Looking at JS Mill through the interpretation of ” today’s eyes and thoughts” is frankly a gross intellectual crudity: I am surprised that the author did not claim that Mill would have driven an electric car. The comments below are a disturbing example of the ease of ” interweb brainwash”.
The downvotes indicate your comment bothered the right people.
The downvotes indicate your comment bothered the right people.
Looking at JS Mill through the interpretation of ” today’s eyes and thoughts” is frankly a gross intellectual crudity: I am surprised that the author did not claim that Mill would have driven an electric car. The comments below are a disturbing example of the ease of ” interweb brainwash”.