A common criticism of history prior to the modern era is that it is in some way “useless”. It helps us understand little about the world around us and serves limited value for anything useful. This is commonly known as the desire for a subject to have a “utilitarian” function, although frankly I would dispute this usage upon the grounds that if people enjoy studying history and others enjoy reading it then that makes it a fairly pleasure productive activity.

Leaving aside this and, indeed, the argument at large for a moment though I find it impossible to approach a recent argument made by the American Right (as well as much of the British) upon any other level.

Glenn Greenwald identifies this trend in an excellent article here. One of the key references is Glenn Reynolds, who argued the following:

“Cycles of violence” continue until one side wins decisively.  Personally, I’d rather that were the Israelis, since they’re civilized people and not barbarians.

Now with hindsight my reaction would be: what is a supposed “Libertarian” doing assigning traits to a side? Should he not be considering every atomised person on a one-by-one basis? But my immediate reaction was as follows:

Just what exactly does Glenn Reynolds imagine a barbarian is?

Now I don’t want to be presumptuous here, but I imagine that his usage is largely derived from the negative cultural implications of the word. It isn’t the sort of one I’d want ascribed to me, that much I know. But a vast amount of this negativity has a historical source: the barbarians are seen as the ones that sacked Rome and disbanded the Roman Empire, thus ending what many consider to be the pinnacle of human civilisation.

So barbarians are beings that destroy things of beauty and splendour beyond their understanding. They wreck the achievements of centuries and are incapable of sustaining sophistication of any kind. As Greenwald asks:

Why should a superior, civilized, peaceful society allow the welfare of violent, hateful barbarians to interfere with its objectives?  How can the deaths or suffering of thousands of barbarians ever be weighed against the death of even a single civilized person?

But the difficulty is that as historical characters barbarians seem to have gotten a hard rap. As theories go the “Decline and Fall” narrative is pretty Old School. I won’t pretend to know a massive amount on the topic (I’ve attended a lecture or two on it) but it’s been made clear to me that the new line which I am most likely to encounter from historians, after a variety of academic works and one large project which focused on the issue, is that the Roman Empire was unquestionably transformed, but not neccessarily degraded by the barbarian take over. For example:

• The languages spoken were often more complex than that of the Romans.
• There wasn’t a massive cultural decline per se, although things did certainly alter.
• Neither did religion shift in an earth-shattering way, given that almost all of the barbarians were Christians (including those behind the “Fall of Rome”).
• The decline of urban areas was also to be found in the part of the Roman Empire which remained and was not taken over by the barbarians, the Eastern portion which we now call the Byzantine Empire; rather than the scenario being one of foolish barbarians unable to maintain complex infrastructure.
  

Personally I still think that the East was superior in its achievements to the barbarian west, but largely this was due to the East being unified into a singularity that had central rule from the leadership of Constantinople instead of being ruled over by a variety of different peoples. It was not that each of the barbarian tribes were foul and philistine bunch which set about burning and raping things when they should have been collecting taxes and maintaining aqueducts.

Indeed, when the Byzantines sent a barbarian to be Their Man In Italy the cultural consequences for Ravenna were astounding, rendering it a unique and outstanding city which can still be seen there today. The Ostrogoth in question became known as Theodoric the Great, he build magnificent palaces with superb mosaics (that Justinian would later have him and all his aristocracy purged from, save some spectral hands) and managed to reconcile the believers of the Arian heresy with more mainstream Orthodox Christians, creating an oasis of religious pluralism centuries ahead of its time. Even the man’s mausoleum is one of the most impressive in the region.

So why does this matter to Reynold’s argument? Because he is attempting to wield a concept which is historical fiction. The barbarians were civilised, in claiming otherwise what is being grabbed onto is some bizarre ideal of a sub-human which exists and has existed solely within the heads of those conforming to the prejudices which stretch back either to the Romans themselves or else to the wealthy historians who got upset when there was a sudden deficit of villas and thought that that about said it all.

It can thus be shown that in support of his prejudice Reynolds has grasped for a support and simply grabbed more prejudice. The implicit insult he has hurled is in fact a backhanded compliment, while the praise to the Israelis is (by comparison) meaningless. Indeed, given that he is doubtless entirely ignorant of the fashion in which the historical debate has progressed and instead of making a throwaway comparison with any weight, was attempting to make a brief jab, blithely unaware of his absolute intellectual failure. I have little doubt that he was simply taking hold of whichever slur came to hand and letting loose.

But if you detach barbarianism from its actual past and instead opt purely for some fantastical construct what are you saying beyond “These are people which I dislike”?

But the utter absence of any appropriate term for his quarry once the myth of decline is exploded is deeply telling: there really is no immediately apparent example of a group of people who’s lives were worthless and who’s attitudes towards civilisation were entirely negative. Indeed the closest examples that spring to my mind are the restless nomads such as the Avars which plagued first the Byzantines and then Carolingians, and those were a constantly travelling set of warriors who could not be further from the helplessly static Gazans. And even then it could be their absence of written records (leaving their various enemies to tell us all we now know, which is never a good policy with regards to posterity) rather than any inherent malignity that those hunter-gatherers possessed.

Ultimately, as Reynolds should damn well know given the ideology he claims allegiance to, there are not different forms of human being that you can simply group together and embrace or dismiss out of hand. There are peoples who’s achievements exceed others but to find one which is truly worthless is a feat.

Reynolds casts up a dichotomy without a basis.

The Salisbury Review has harsh words for Singer, calling his foundations “filth” and also for the work of Bentham, dubbing his felicific calculus “crude” (perhaps the strangest insult imaginable for anything so elaborate…)

However they seem to struggle with actually presenting anyreason that their own premise is correct. It is true that “human exceptionism” is what they base their ethical code around. But has it entirely passed them by that their ideology could be rotten the core?

The answer to this would seem to be an unfortunate negative, which is a great pity. I am interested in seeing this matter debated and this promising article is a distinct failure, simply asserting their core assumptions firmly and doing nothing at all to fend off the attacks made. Indeed, it serves solely to demonstrate quite how devastating Singer and Bentham’s thought is to their viewpoint, with the absence of any adequete engagement perhaps acting as implicit admittance that they are incapable of self-defence.

In the entire paragraph in which they attempt to describe what “Humans are…” they demonstrate an immense ignorance of Singer’s work, which even with the very light reading which I have done personally I can detect. Singer attacks humanism at its weakest point: not all humans share the capabilities which are the norm.

If it is do to a certain set of traits rather than the inherency of humanity then those humans who lack those traits (those suffering from severest defect of or damage to the brain) are no longer human. If it is only our “advanced facility with language enables”, our “‘I’-thoughts, ‘you’-thoughts, ‘he’, ’she’, ‘we’ and ‘they’-thoughts” then how can those humans lacking these capacities truly be considered “us” at all?

This issue is not addressed by the Salisbury editorial, and this is immensely telling. They worsen affairs by remarking in passing that rights given to animals would be ones “which animals cannot defend themselves”. This is the case of with children and the infirm as much as it is with a bull or parakeet. I see very little heft behind this observation.

Having made a major attack upon a minor remark perhaps I should offer one of my own as a closer: if the argument that “Other animals, even our closest relatives, are incapable of doing these things” in reference to a list that includes the word “Sing” is made entirely in earnest then I (nocturnalist though I am) would advocate that the Salisbury Review’s editors start getting out of bed earlier.

If you haven’t already, try The Ruby Kid. He’s fascinating; combining intelligent lyrics with a radical attitude both to reality and rap. Out goes the macho obsession of much mainstream hip-hop, and in come repeated references to the Coleridge, gender and the relationship between the proletariat and the means of production in Marxist theory. With quite some style:

For all those claiming hip-hop’s pussy is where their cock is,
You’ve got a misogynistic Oedipal complex,
You’re raping your mother,
Just stop it.

I like this, I do…

Hakim Bey assesses anarcho-primitivism here.

As an aftermath of my personal history (I previously subscribed to the blackest of misanthropic environmentalist lines possible) as well as a consequence of my fathomless interest with esoteric leftist strands I feel some form of ken with the dedicated environmentalist left, but have never felt truly comfortable amongst them.

Perhaps the largest single factor in this is their incessant & utterly inane usage of the word “natural”.

I am fairly sure that all readers will be familiar with the usage of this propogated by such groups (and now the rest of society, since “green” ideology has spread from lefty councils to the pages of various Daily Telegraph magazines, with everyone from George Monbiot to Prince Charles outspoken advocates), but upon the off-chance: anything which has had prolonged or excessive contact with a factory is not natural. Something which has been grown in a field by a farmer who goes out of his way not to seem to much like a member of contemporary existence is natural. Pears are natural, Sunny D is not.

Now let’s be fair: this is hardly a definition confined to the left, or to environmentalists. It’s pretty widely accepted, despite being deeply wrong. It might not even have been coined by greens, I really don’t know. But the importance of this word to the neo-hippies is fairly obviously fairly massive, so their inappropriate usage is especially pertinent as an issue as they are the ones that use it most and they are the ones who use this concept of natural to prop up a significant section of their ideology. They rely upon the unnatural nature of humans: without it a vast section of their rhetoric and many of their positions would make no sense at all upon any level. For that reason it is of utmost importance that humans as unnatural is flawless.

I would have thought that the flaw behind it would have been fairly obvious, but seemingly I have to actually point this out: humans are not supernatural beings. We are natural creatures who operate within the natural world, pursuing natural aims using materials extracted from it and methods which function within its surroundings. We are the most sophisticated species but we are just another species all the same, just as a runner with the greatest achievements in this field of any Olympian upon the planet remains a mere runner. Humanity is natural. Our influence is as one part of nature in interaction with the rest.

And yes, this does mean that everything from hair dye to sodium pentothal is perfectly natural. Why would a being wish to die their hair? A series of natural motivations, of course. Most likely the desire to become more attractive, thus be in a position where you can impress your peer group and better attract a mate. What differentiates this from a bird building a nest of sticks or an ape using twigs to pry out tree-trapped bugs? Nothing save intricacy: humans have more complex problems and corresponding solutions, yet they never resort to the paranormal. Ultimately only someone who imagines humans to be non-animal would argue for us being un-natural.

Which is where things get really interesting.

So far as I can determine the only plausible source for this notion of humans as external to the natural world is to be found in Christianity, as well as similar religions. In Christianity humans are made in the image of God, a supernatural being. Jesus Christ, a second (or fused) supernatural being descended to Earth in order to save them and as a consequence of his supernatural bond allowed for a connection between the material and divine that would allow humans to reach a supernatural resting place. Interaction between the two occurred previously via the third of the trio, a totally disembodied spirit which touches the mundane with the divine upon special occasions, which theologians argue over the specifics of endlessly.

Humans are distinct from animal and from nature: animals have no souls and thus no supernatural nature or future. Humans have free will, something which animals are devoid of. In short, there is an inherent dichotomy.

This remnant is  a pretty substantial one. It is unsurprising that the environmentalist left are making extensive use of it, given that its not all that often you have access to something with such cultural heft. Let alone without anyone noticing…

Where the problems start to begin though is when we attempt to reconcile this notion with another usually posited by those who view little else as of greater importance than the naturality of consumed goods: vegetarianism. Vegetarianism largely depends upon the distinction between humanity as a species and those it presently devours being eroded and weakened. How can you argue in favour of animals being brought closer to humans in terms of rights while emphasising constantly the division that exists between humanity and other animals?

Environmentalists seek to emphasise the dichotomy of humanity and animal while also making efforts to disintegrate it entirely. It is perfectly possible to hold one position or the other (personally I would argue that humanism was a fantastic side, but we need to look into expanding the franchise) but to attempt both at once is clearly an example of intellectual incoherence.

In which I realise that Miller put much of what I meant at rather less length…

In which I find an excuse to ramble about ideology. At length.

On Liberal Conspiracy, a rather vicious comment-war has begun over Nick Clegg’s recent speech on why he was a liberal. I won’t comment on the piece as Sunny has done; it looks more of a speech about Clegg’s own ideology than party policy.

So I’ll comment on that, instead. Or, at least, the section which most exercises my irritation:

Liberalism believes fairness, fulfilment and freedom can be best secured by giving real power directly to millions of citizens.
Socialism believes that society can only be improved through relentless state activism, a belief driven by far greater pessimism about the ability of people to improve their own lives.

A liberal believes in the raucous, unpredictable capacity of people to take decisions about their own lives.
A Socialist believes in the ordered, controlled capacity of the state to take the right decisions about other peoples’ lives.

A liberal believes a progressive society is distinguished by aspiration, creativity and non conformity.
A Socialist believes a progressive society is characterised by enlightened top-down Government.

Bollocks. To associate all socialism with a particular mode of state-control is at best unwise and at worst an actively misleading lampoon of Reagan or Thatcher. Both liberalism and socialism move from a similar origin; an egalitarian concern that individuals should be as free as possible.

Classically, liberalism seeks to achieve this through an abscence of restraint. It accepts, though, the need for some state intervention; individuals will, understandably, pursue their own interests, and so occasionally come into conflict. One individual might see, for example, that they could do well for themselves by turfing another off their land and using it for themselves. This exercise of freedom comes at the clear cost to the freedom of another. An arbiter between these interests, in the form of the state and law, is thus necessary to ensure the wider freedom of all. Liberal ideologues as far back as Locke have accepted this principle. So long as the state treats all individuals as equals, and so applies its laws to the benefit of all, then its existence is less of a tyranny than the potentially endless conflict of absolute freedom. From his Two Treatises of Government:

IF man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? Why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others: for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to quit a condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers: and it is not without reason, that he seeks out, and is willing to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property.

Logic dictates that no individual should harm another, as if individuals have an equal right to individual liberty, then to assault another’s liberty is to concede that others can assault your own; a state Locke terms “the law of nature.” Yet a brief observation of reality highlights that this law has no means of enforcing itself, and so the prospect of actually enjoying your absolute freedom varies. Rational individuals might thus come together in a community to ensure the freedom of all is protected.

Socialism merely extends this principle, and accepts that freedom can come under threat from more than just a particularly malicious individual. To live without education would be to risk freedom; how can you compete with those lucky enough to know more, or even advance your own understanding of the world, without one? A universal education provided by civil society thus clearly advances freedom. Conflicts in the exercise of freedom likewise take place on a wider scale than liberalism in its purest form might allow for. An individual, or rather a small collection of individuals, might quite legitimately gain control of an essential service; say, the delivery of electricity. They would be perfectly free, once they did so, to drive up the prices of electricity beyond the point required to cover costs; a drive which would prevent many from heating their homes, or cooking, or indeed living, as they might otherwise. A clear exercise of freedom on the part of a few at the expense of the freedom of many. Surely better, then, for a state under the democratic control of all to control the distribution of electricity, thus guaranteering the wider freedom of all those who need energy?

The state exists in socialism as a means of guaranteeing liberty, as it does on a lesser scale for liberal ideology. But where its intervention isn’t necessary to preserve this freedom, some socialists at least would argue that it does not need to become involved. And where its intervention actively impairs liberty, then a socialist should oppose it; hence the opposition of many who’d consider themselves to be socialists to ID Cards.

This form of socialism is a far cry from that described in Clegg’s speech. Where’s the endless regulation of every individual relationship in every sphere implied in “the ordered, controlled capacity of the state to take the right decisions about other peoples’ lives?” It isn’t there. Liberal ideology and socialism aren’t the mutually exclusive behemoths of Clegg’s imagination, but nuanced and varied systems springing from similar concerns.

Some particularly statist socialists might be considered outrightly illiberal. Likewise a neoliberal fanatic who describes themselves a liberal would be considered an outright enemy of wider freedom by most socialists. But, surely the question here is not whether this makes liberalism and socialism as a whole incompatible, but whether those ideological parodies really qualify as what they claim to be? If egalitarianism can be considered the root of both ideologies, then I would suggest not.

Pornographic photography, ‘free’-thinking, chaotic painting, atonal music, deconstructionist literature, Bauhaus architecture, and modernist films have nothing in common with the libertarian political agenda - no matter how much individual libertarians may revel in them.

- Llwelyn H. Rockwell, inadvertantly nailing the reason that libertarianism was never for me.

Apologies for the absence of the SES assured post on this one. I may manage to write something at some length in the near future, but for the time being:

• We could hope for no better steerer than John McDonnell, an obvious visionary who most (or at least enough) can agree upon as awesome.
• The G20 might not have been the best early target. I understand that this is a momentum gaining exercise, but both interest and the scope to have an immense impact is low. I am all up for a foray into internationalism, though.
• The whole “Editorial Committee” thing is probably neccessary but the implementation could be problematic: who gets on it? What are their guidelines? What material gets rejected?
• When he mentioned that no groups were going to get excluded my mind couldn’t help but wander to my dear comrades, the CPGB(ML).
• Just getting a room together as we did was an achievement, one that needs to be built upon and repeated.
• Annoyingly the fact that the next time that that’ll happen being on the 12th means I won’t be able to attend. ;_;
• Miller really should have come to the pub. I’m sure somebody would have fed him and I feel sort of annoyed that I didn’t recognise him and say hello when he was sitting right next to me.
• Penny Red’s housemate looked much like I imagined one would.

I am normally not one to relish attacks of the left upon itself, although they unquestionably are much required. As far as I can see the excessive vigour and enjoyment many gain from attacking those of like mind hinders their efforts against their actual opponents (that is to say, the right). This negates the advantage which would be obtained through having a movement dissassociate itself with particular undesirable elements and leaves a far more splintered structure. This, however, is better than most.

Red Pepper’s coverage of the Convention of the Left has been truly exemplary. A post on anarchist organisational superiority was both striking and amusing. In this article an alternative to the function of the Convention to attempting yet another electoral effort doomed to failure is presented: a number of gathering places across the nation aiming to connect the shattered remnants of Britain’s true left.

This struck me as rather reminiscent of the experiences related recently by Diane Abbot and Douglas, except that these institutions would function whenever they were needed rather than once a year. Whether this comparison truly holds any water or not this development is one of the freshest and most promising development I’ve seen coming from the British left of late, as well as one of the rare instances of it actually coming from what could broadly be considered the left, instead of a singular miniscule, obscure sect.

Certainly it’s better than attempting to form a party which most of the insular, intercecinely engaged demi-parties will refuse to participate in. Indeed the prospect of any such party being formed without the level of consensual, mutual interaction which this committee devoid, de-centralised measure offers now seems faintly absurd. It is a relief to find that the far left has finally asked itself the question “What is to be done?” and not merely relied on century old wisdom to answer themselves. Whether this innovative measure flourishes lies in the hands of every leftist.