British Liberalism - The Grand Tour

[P. G. Tipps]

Yes, of course. In this country now, as in the USA for a long time, people have adopted the habit of labelling people 'liberal' because they perceive them to be 'left wing'; so 'leftie' and 'liberal' are synonymous. To me, the criteria which constitute 'liberalism' are totally different from those which constitute, for example, socialism - notwithstanding that some views on some issues may be shared, as they may be shared with people who call themselves, and are, conservative.

I wholly agree with that and it fits with what I've already said albeit in maybe a rather more direct way?

Yes. I don't confuse them. :smiley

No, clearly not, but it is a common confusion elsewhere, not least in the media?

On a technicality, 'we must all agree' is indeed a prerequisite for debate, but before that each individual should understand: there's not much use everyone agreeing if they are agreeing on a false premise. A convenient textbook would be Mill's On Liberty

I'm the very one suggesting we don't debate on a false premise whether we end up ever agreeing on any sort of premise or not?

Anyway, thanks for the textbook recommendation ...

[Beef Oven!]

The anti-liberalism attributed to socialism is because the two main brands of "socialism" have been top-down authoritarian: either the form known as Stalinism that came about and subsequently spread to E Europe and China as a result of the Russian workers' state being won through civil war and consequent shortages requiring policing; or, on the other hand, the more benevolent Fabianism introduced in Britain after WW2, similarly top down (just like paternalistic capitalism!) and subject therefore to disillusionment as it only went so far in terms of economic planning and left capitalists free to invest abroad. (Some) socialists see capitalism as unholistic insofar as it has all the characteristics of an organic interdependent system but is one which puts a premium on mutual mistrust as a pretext for its apologists who argue for human nature needing the kinds of control thereby exerted, (you'd better comply 'cos you'll be out of the loop if you don't, sort of thing). So capitalism is holistic, but running on leaks that deplete the functioning of its parts, whereas a socialistic system would operate on a basis of involving everyone, sharing out work on the "from each according to his means to each according to his needs" principle. People would still have expectations of themselves and each other, but not besmirched by envy.

Envy predates capitalism. There's been a whole loada besmirchin' goin' on.

[Serial_Apologist]

Envy predates capitalism. There's been a whole loada besmirchin' goin' on.

Yes indeed, the contradictions that predated and prepared the way for capltalism were already in place, people being ordered about by superiors and expected to comply or be cast out. There was no working class yet in existence, though the agricultural peasantry put up a good fight against the landed classes in 1300 and something or other under... Watt's 'is name?

[Beef Oven!]

Yes indeed, the contradictions that predated and prepared the way for capltalism were already in place, people being ordered about by superiors and expected to comply or be cast out. There was no working class yet in existence, though the agricultural peasantry put up a good fight against the landed classes in 1300 and something or other under... Watt's 'is name?

Indeed, but it predates all that, too. It may have been about since the beginning of time. It might be how we behave as a species, irrespective of our environment.

[Serial_Apologist]

Indeed, but it predates all that, too. It may have been about since the beginning of time. It might be how we behave as a species, irrespective of our environment.

Well, that's what they'd have us believe...

[P. G. Tipps]

Well, that's what they'd have us believe...

Yes, I think 'they' are always to blame ... just like 'they' in the EU?.

I think 'us' are never to blame because 'us' are not 'they' and therefore cannot be blamed for anything that 'us' think or do, unlike those 'they' blighters.

When will 'they' ever learn to become more like 'us' and then 'they' and 'us' will all live happily ever after and never get blamed for anything, eh? ...

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, I think 'they' are always to blame ... just like 'they' in the EU?.

I think 'us' are never to blame because 'us' are not 'they' and therefore cannot be blamed for anything that 'us' think or do, unlike those 'they' blighters.

When will 'they' ever learn to become more like 'us' and then 'they' and 'us' will all live happily ever after and never get blamed for anything, eh? ...

I'll remember to put "they" in inverted commas in future for literal mindeds such as yourself, then. In the meantime, you might just consider the fact that all the pessimism that constantly spews forth from sources from the church to the Daily Wail is right wing and supports carrying on as we are. No coincidence then that they want us to blame one another for all the problems in the world and be at each other's throats, because it diverts attention from those really responsible, who dish out the blame. Like me, you too were probably raised on photo shots of "savages" illustrated in the National Geographical Magazine - myths of far distant lands, thankfully, where people ate one another. Having disabused myself of this aspect of post-colonial conditioning by my mid twenties, I remember a TV series in which a number of western anthropologists went to either Borneo or the Amazon rainforest to live for a year among so-called primitive people with no previous contact whatsoever with so-called Western Civilisation who lived at the hunter-gatherer stage outlined as the "primitive communist" stage of human social organisation when all means of sustenance were shared out. What was immediately obvious was that these tribespeople were in many ways more civilised than the people who bay at speeches in the Commons or Western children spoilt on the obsolescent ephemera of today's market economy. It seems generally to have been the case that when scarcity of resources forced tribes to defend bits of territory, rather than conducting mutually eliminating wars they tended to put the best fighter from one side up against his equivalent in order to determine outcomes of disputes, which may seem cruel but was at least preferable to developing the means of mutually assured destruction Corbyn and likeminded sensible people would like us to rid ourselves of so the money we would have at our disposal can be spent on vital necessities.

It is only ideological disinformation, lazy thinking and attitudes of cow-towing to privilege that leads to the idea that our present dysfunctional approaches to human relationships and the planet were always thus - and we use religions to cloak the paucity of our dishonesty in these matters. The sooner we all wake up and throw off these mental shackles the better for everyone; and a good starting point is to question the idea that our very nature bogs us down in the lower stages of evolution. For one thing, that very evolution has produced our expanded brains and with them the capacity to think up practical ways out of problems. Language and the ability to symbolise have their uses! One way is to recognise that every group, with its protocols and agreements regarding acceptable behaviour, defines itself in relation to those external to it, who then become a sort of sounding board for our dissatisfactions. One consequence is in the modern term groupthink. But a moment's pondering on this makes it clear that dependence on ones insider status is itself dependent on the existence of those excluded for sustaining its coherence - otherwise we'd presumably have to fall back on all mistrusting one another inside the group. After all, didn't Adam Smith, godfather of modern economics and the contract theory of society, state that only trading obligations (or some such idea) can keep us along the narrow proscribed path for civilised living? And isn't all this enshrined in the idea of commercial secrecy that stops ideas benefitting society as a whole unless they are first sequestered to profitable use and the monetarised gains gambled away on pain of scarcity? Meanwhile millions are spent on maintaining the armed wing of the state with its secret subsections to prevent the consequences from getting out of hand!

If the Donald Trumps of this world who make up a good proportion of the intelligence quota that natural selection has devised can justify the ruling class and separate out the leaders from the led, then really it is high time this model of the best of all possible worlds was rendered obsolete and people got together to decide in what ways the present technologies that could make for more time for people to evolve themselves out of dependence on experts paid not to ask too many awkward questions and media pundits to stop discussions because they might come up with real practicable solutions before the attention span has to be attended to and the latest celebrity wheeled on for interview. We might make public meetings and discussions the norm rather than the last resort when the local hospital or library is threatened.

Just imagine that - and stop being so pessimistic about human capabilities, which are forever being wasted through unemployment, and the consequences in terms of mental distress, addiction and crime, all of which would be unnecessary in an inclusive society that recognised that everybody has something to contribute of themselves. For if we mistrust our human nature, how can we trust our mistrust - unless we somehow believe the mistrusting and mistrusted parts of ourselves to be separate, for which no physiological or mental functions have been discovered as far as I know? And before you retort that we are all in need of salvation, how can you even know that for certain, given the presumed defectiveness of the organ charged with believing this?

It's time for a big re-think all around, then positive actions to follow.

[P. G. Tipps]

I'll remember to put "they" in inverted commas in future for literal mindeds such as yourself, then. In the meantime, you might just consider the fact that all the pessimism that constantly spews forth from sources from the church to the Daily Wail is right wing and supports carrying on as we are. No coincidence then that they want us to blame one another for all the problems in the world and be at each other's throats, because it diverts attention from those really responsible, who dish out the blame. Like me, you too were probably raised on photo shots of "savages" illustrated in the National Geographical Magazine - myths of far distant lands, thankfully, where people ate one another. Having disabused myself of this aspect of post-colonial conditioning by my mid twenties, I remember a TV series in which a number of western anthropologists went to either Borneo or the Amazon rainforest to live for a year among so-called primitive people with no previous contact whatsoever with so-called Western Civilisation who lived at the hunter-gatherer stage outlined as the "primitive communist" stage of human social organisation when all means of sustenance were shared out. What was immediately obvious was that these tribespeople were in many ways more civilised than the people who bay at speeches in the Commons or Western children spoilt on the obsolescent ephemera of today's market economy. It seems generally to have been the case that when scarcity of resources forced tribes to defend bits of territory, rather than conducting mutually eliminating wars they tended to put the best fighter from one side up against his equivalent in order to determine outcomes of disputes, which may seem cruel but was at least preferable to developing the means of mutually assured destruction Corbyn and likeminded sensible people would like us to rid ourselves of so the money we would have at our disposal can be spent on vital necessities.

It is only ideological disinformation, lazy thinking and attitudes of cow-towing to privilege that leads to the idea that our present dysfunctional approaches to human relationships and the planet were always thus - and we use religions to cloak the paucity of our dishonesty in these matters. The sooner we all wake up and throw off these mental shackles the better for everyone; and a good starting point is to question the idea that our very nature bogs us down in the lower stages of evolution. For one thing, that very evolution has produced our expanded brains and with them the capacity to think up practical ways out of problems. Language and the ability to symbolise have their uses! One way is to recognise that every group, with its protocols and agreements regarding acceptable behaviour, defines itself in relation to those external to it, who then become a sort of sounding board for our dissatisfactions. One consequence is in the modern term groupthink. But a moment's pondering on this makes it clear that dependence on ones insider status is itself dependent on the existence of those excluded for sustaining its coherence - otherwise we'd presumably have to fall back on all mistrusting one another inside the group. After all, didn't Adam Smith, godfather of modern economics and the contract theory of society, state that only trading obligations (or some such idea) can keep us along the narrow proscribed path for civilised living? And isn't all this enshrined in the idea of commercial secrecy that stops ideas benefitting society as a whole unless they are first sequestered to profitable use and the monetarised gains gambled away on pain of scarcity? Meanwhile millions are spent on maintaining the armed wing of the state with its secret subsections to prevent the consequences from getting out of hand!

If the Donald Trumps of this world who make up a good proportion of the intelligence quota that natural selection has devised can justify the ruling class and separate out the leaders from the led, then really it is high time this model of the best of all possible worlds was rendered obsolete and people got together to decide in what ways the present technologies that could make for more time for people to evolve themselves out of dependence on experts paid not to ask too many awkward questions and media pundits to stop discussions because they might come up with real practicable solutions before the attention span has to be attended to and the latest celebrity wheeled on for interview. We might make public meetings and discussions the norm rather than the last resort when the local hospital or library is threatened.

Just imagine that - and stop being so pessimistic about human capabilities, which are forever being wasted through unemployment, and the consequences in terms of mental distress, addiction and crime, all of which would be unnecessary in an inclusive society that recognised that everybody has something to contribute of themselves. For if we mistrust our human nature, how can we trust our mistrust - unless we somehow believe the mistrusting and mistrusted parts of ourselves to be separate, for which no physiological or mental functions have been discovered as far as I know? And before you retort that we are all in need of salvation, how can you even know that for certain, given the presumed defectiveness of the organ charged with believing this?

It's time for a big re-think all around, then positive actions to follow.

A veritable forum tour-de-force of which I congratulate you sincerely, S_A!

However, once we get our teeth below that delicious linguistic icing we once again end up with the stale old cake, I'm afraid. 'If only people weren't so dumb, and thought like me, Planet Earth would be a much better place' is the basic message..

To be fair, I suppose we are all a bit guilty of that to some degree, but most of us come to realise that people are all individuals and will naturally look after themselves and their families first, just like all the other animals and birds in the National Geographical magazine. You finally appear to accept the concept of 'human nature' though, at the same time, stubbornly reluctant to accept it in practice?

We all know where the 'The Daily Wail' stands in exactly the same way that we understand the political stance of 'The Grundiag'. Whether we think Jeremy Corbyn is 'sensible' very much depends on one's politics and very little else. One person's hero is another's moron, and that's just the way it is, I'm afraid. I don't really know what you mean by 'the church' as there are millions of those holding all sorts of very different people but I'd hardly describe Christian doctrine as 'right-wing' ... and as for much of the clergy, well we can all read what they say for ourselves and their personal political views very much reflect that of the rest of society? 'They' are people just like 'us', after all.

Finally, we are supposed to be discussing Liberalism not the hellish aspects of Capitalism and that heavenly dream of a future Marxist Paradise?

[teamsaint]

Thanks to S_A for going to all that effort.

Just to add ( hopefully) a point, much so called competition , and the negative comsequences of that, is generated by what are essentially artificial shortages,created by rigged markets.

Housing is one of the most obvious and critical areas, but it extends to the waste in " human resources", either in underemploying far too many people, or over rewarding individuals( TV newsreaders?) or groups ( premier league footballers).

[Richard Tarleton]

Like me, you too were probably raised on photo shots of "savages" illustrated in the National Geographical Magazine - myths of far distant lands, thankfully, where people ate one another. Having disabused myself of this aspect of post-colonial conditioning by my mid twenties, I remember a TV series in which a number of western anthropologists went to either Borneo or the Amazon rainforest to live for a year among so-called primitive people with no previous contact whatsoever with so-called Western Civilisation who lived at the hunter-gatherer stage outlined as the "primitive communist" stage of human social organisation when all means of sustenance were shared out.

A footnote, and a couple of references. This territory has been very well covered in a couple of recent books. You miss out a key stage, S_A, thus rather oversimplifying matters. You refer to "hunter gatherers". The key stage in human development which ultimately gave rise to most of our miseries was not capitalism, or colonialism, or anything like that, and took place up to 10,000 years ago. It was the agricultural revolution, "History's biggest fraud" as Yuval Noah Harari puts it in his brilliant book "Sapiens". For 2.5 million years humans fed themselves by gathering plants and hunting animals that lived and bred without their intervention. Then - in a number of locations across the world, and in many cases independently, a number of agricultural revolutions took place - from around 9-10,000 years ago in the Middle East to a few thousand years ago in the Americas. Man exchanged an omnivorous diet for a poorer one based on grains, and a roaming life with plenty of leisure (at very low population levels, so easy to avoid conflict) for a live of enslavement to tending the grains and domesticated animals. This is the stage at which wars between neighbours started to become commonplace. The great anthropologist/biologist/historian Jared Diamond (author of "Collapse" and "Guns, Germs and Steel") lived among the tribespeople of New Guinea (whose agricultural revolution took place around 6,000 years ago) for many years, and as a case study charts the Dani Wars between farming tribespeople in chapter 3 of his wide-ranging book "The World until Yesterday". The people in the Amazon and Borneo referred to by S_A were hunter-gatherers, not primitive farming communities, who were already in conflict with eachother over fixed resources long before first contact with the wicked West.

The enormity of the subject means I won't attempt to engage further with this discussion, especially as I haven't heard the programmes.

[vinteuil]

Man exchanged an omnivorous diet for a poorer one based on grains, and a roaming life with plenty of leisure (at very low population levels, so easy to avoid conflict) for a live of enslavement to tending the grains and domesticated animals.

... ah, but we didn't have foie gras and château d' yquem then. Nor Bach, nor the late quartets of Beethoven.

So, on the whole, I think there's been some progress.

[french frank]

The enormity of the subject means I won't attempt to engage further with this discussion, especially as I haven't heard the programmes.

Fascinating, RT (and acknowledging le bon monsieur's sage contribution on human progress ): some study I'm doing at the moment suggests that an archaeological supposition is that the Iron Age forts in this country were built as one response to population growth and the need to defend from neighbouring tribes. So once people settled they became territorial, then acquisitive. Evolutionary, rather than hardwired in the human species?

[jean]

...(at very low population levels, so easy to avoid conflict)...

If that's the only way of avoiding conflict, then Trump and Farage and their like have got it right...

[french frank]

If that's the only way of avoiding conflict, then Trump and Farage and their like have got it right...

From one (populist) point of view, they have I think Mill expressed the view that the populace was 'intolerant'.

[Beef Oven!]

...... some study I'm doing at the moment suggests that an archaeological supposition is that the Iron Age forts in this country were built as one response to population growth and the need to defend from neighbouring tribes. So once people settled they became territorial, then acquisitive. Evolutionary, rather than hardwired in the human species?

It could be that to settle, is the same as being territorial and acquisitive. Hardwired in the human species, rather than evolutionary?