Robert Sharp

Barrister

Author: Robert (Page 246 of 328)

The Price of Change

24 November 2007 / / 3 Comments

Simon Barnes agrees that there is something rather deterministic about multiculturalism:

Multifaith, multicultural, multicoloured, multilingual England: the times they are a-changing, because that’s what times do. The failure of the England team is part of a larger pattern, one in which the whole business of nationality gets more fuzzy every year and England no longer means the things that it once did. All change comes at a cost, and perhaps one of those costs is the effectiveness of the England football team – and with it, the sad loss of those biennial, heady, foolish, glorious weeks of unity.

Multiculturalism is the recognition that change happens. It is the necessary process by which we turn that change into something positive. It is the enemy of conservatism, that misguided notion that we should be satisfied with the way things are. But this also means that multiculturalism is the antagonist of tradition, the foil of nostalgia, and thus an easy target for those who want to declaim any change.
As Barnes points out, change is sometimes negative, but we would do well to remember that we cannot stop it happening. The question is no longer “should we let it happen?” but “how do we manage it in a way which is beneficial to all?” Multiculturalism is the dialogue by which we try to answer this question.

ID Cards and the moral battlefield

23 November 2007 / / 3 Comments

For those opposed to the ID card scheme, it is easy to see the silver lining to the recent news that the taxman has lost 25 million records in the post. While the disappearance of these CDs causes grave concern for the people who’s data has gone missing, the incompetence does undermine the case for ID Cards: “We cannot afford a similar error on the national ID database,” (the argument goes) “… so, lets scrap the scheme”. Tactically, yes, I think it is an argument we in the anti-ID card lobby should be making loudly… but let us never forget that the administration of the system is a practical reason to oppose the scheme, and not a moral or ideological reason. Even if (in some thought experiment world, some Cloud Number 10) the government could 100% guarantee the security of the data, I would still be opposed to the scheme, because the political relationship between citizen and state does not change when the State buys a better computer system. Nor, for that matter, would it change if the cost of the scheme were to rise or fall. Brighton blogger Neil Harding recently changed his mind on ID cards, based on these practical reasons. While his interlocutors crowed at his volte-face, it seemed an empty victory to me. The moral argument was sidelined.
This matters, because arguments for ID cards seem to be made up exclusively of practical reasons. Advocates in Government and the security services play down the costs, and instead cite ‘convenience’ and ‘efficiency’. The moral aspect to their argument – that the cards will offer a measure of safety from terror and crime – is unproven and untested, and has the unmistakeable allure of the post hoc about it.
Meanwhile, here in the anti-camp, the opposite is true. The moral resistance to any change in the relationship between individual and state is conceptually prior to, and transcends, the concern over costs or data-security. If we successfully communicate this to our fellow citizens, we shall win the debate.

The Allure of the Murdered Woman

20 November 2007 / / 14 Comments

Helen Rumbelow in The Times:

… Hillary Clinton being rounded upon and bullied by her male Democratic rivals in Thursday’s televised debate. It was ungallant, unedifying… and utterly compelling. Violence against women, although in this case entirely conducted through political metaphor, has the thrill of any great taboo, where our conscious disapproval vies with our unconscious fascination.

I read this, and thought of Judith Adams’ article for The LIP Magazine, Biting the LIP:

Question 14: What would be the most popular show on stage?
Answer: A public execution; ideally, the public execution of a woman: sex and violence, misogyny and revenge all in one short act, then off to the bar, boys and girls. Irresistible Box Office. Such a drama goes down a bomb in the multi-billion, on your PC and mobile phone porn industry, and the Afghan arenas, and so does a symbolic form of it on Wall Street and in The City – never mind watered-down fictional versions performing in the West End and on Broadway

The idea of women’s negative treatment is hardly a new idea, but I still feel it is one worth repeating. There seems to be an unhealthy doublethink that inflilrates our discourse on this: The problem never seems to ebb, not matter how often it is highlighted.
It is also worth noting, in passing, that the page on this site that recieves the most hits from Google is my ‘Old Men and Little Girls‘ post, which discusses our appetite for a fresh icon overy few months. It was written almost two years ago, before Madeline McGann was kidnapped, but she is is the obvious heir to Bigley, Kember, and Hollyandjessica.
The Meredith Kercher case is a puzzling twist on the genre (and yes, it is a ‘genre’). Here, the press seems as obessed by the case as the Madeline McGann mystery. Helen Rumbelow mentions these two cases in the same breath, despite the fact that they are very different. Indeed, the only similarities seem to be the fact that both incidents involved females, and both occurred in southern Europe. What is interesting in the latest case is that the press coverage seems focussed on the Meredith’s room-mate, Amanda Knox. We see a new picture of her, courtesy of Facebook, every day. Each time, Meredith’s name is mentioned in the headline, yet the illustration is of Amanda. Furthermore, much less commentary is given over to the male co-suspects, who are – let’s face it – much more likely to have actually weilded the knife.
There is, unfortunately, no conclusion to these thoughts. They are just further notes on an unpleasant, growing feature of our society. And it is one that is, I fear, only destined to increase as media reach increases. It is a negative side-effect of the digital revolution.

Update

Speaking of penis envy, a pun from John Ellis at RealClearPolitics:

For reasons either right or wrong, Americans will elect their first female president only when they are convinced that she is the tougher of the two (or three) choices. She won’t be inevitable until we believe she is as formidable as Tricky Dick.

Vive la revolución Digital

19 November 2007 / / 1 Comment

I enjoyed the story about a King Juan Carlos’ rant becoming a ring-tone hit in Spain and Venezuela. The King’s outburst came during a summit in Chile, after the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called Spain’s ex-Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar, a “fascist”.

In Venezuela, a group of students who oppose Mr Chavez’s government have also been downloading the ringtone, a US newspaper reported.
“It’s a form of protest,” a 21-year-old student in Caracas told the Miami Herald. “It’s something that a lot of people would like to tell the president.”

It is yet another way in which the ubiquity and pervasiveness of technology undermines authoritarian power. In itself, it may not change or bring down a regime. It is, however, a form of protest and dissent that cannot be easily suppressed. It therefore emboldens, and gives succour to opposition.
While the internet can help spread campaigns, it can also undermine them. In 2003, Howard Dean looked set to win the Democratic Presidential nomination, until his infamous “Dean Scream” took the web by storm.

Self-Appointed Uber Bloggers, unite in resisting the counter-counter-revolution!

17 November 2007 / / 5 Comments

My post earlier today, regarding when to take up an argument, and when to let it go, was really just a preamble to a response to Neil Clark’s article on Comment is Free (via Sunny at LC).

Anyone who deviated from the official party line – as laid down by a self-appointed uber elite of British bloggers – faced a cyberspace lynch mob, more in keeping with Nazi Germany than a country which is supposed to pride itself on its support for free speech.

For the self-appointed uber elite of British political bloggers, the fact that someone, not of their number, and who did defy their three line-whip on the Iraqi interpreters issue – was nominated – and then won, in a free public vote, the title of “Best UK Blog” in the most prestigious prize in blogging, is too much to bear.

In the case of the Iraqi interpreters campaign, “self-appointed” we may be. The very nature of single-issue pressure groups is that they consist of people who stand up for a cause they believe in, filling a void that is not being filled by other organisations or political parties. We have certainly never claimed a democratic mandate, or to speak for anyone other than ourselves. The campaign gains its authority, and support, entirely from the strong arguments we have made in favour of the Iraqi interpreters.

Neil’s post on Friday matters, and is deserving of a response and a criticism, because he misunderstands, or perhaps misrepresents, the nature of the debate. The outcry that followed his “Iraqi Quislings” issue was not some orchestrated, strategic smear. It was not the fact that he had crossed or questioned the party line that raised hackles. Rather, it was the reactionary and ill-considered manner of his objections which provoked a response. Bloggers from the campaign were right to vigorously defend their stance, and should not be criticised for doing so. It is a shame that Neil now chooses to ignore the substantive points in the arguments, and instead retreat to ad hominems that so readily invoke Nazi Germany. It is odd that someone who has just won a best blogger online poll, should immediately resort to such a discredited line of attack. As Sunny says: bizarre.

Update

Unity, another self-appointed uber-liberal uber-blogger, takes a fisk to Neil’s article. Given my comments above and earlier today, I suppose I should say that I do wonder at the efficacy of ‘fisking’. I fear it will simply provoke more of the wrong sort of debate.

Again, I ask: At what point should the arguments-about-the-arguments be abandoned? To resort to ridicule and satire is slightly frustrating, I feel, because at that point the attempt to convince your correspondent blogger (and their own dedicated readers) will fail.

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