The Convention on Modern Liberty has invited its attendees to post video responses to the messages that their key speakers have created in support of the project. I’ve had a go, and created an archetypal ‘head to camera’ YouTube video:
My take is to highlight the problem of small, minor liberties being taken away without comment. If we guard against the loss of these, then the large incursions onto our freedoms, the kind that bring about a totalitarian state, will never happen. But those freedoms are also valuable in themselves.
I am slightly uneasy about saying that the large infringements, such as the 42 days detention laws, or the existence of Guantanamo, are somehow ‘abstract’. Some might see this as an insensitivity to those who have fallen victim to such state-sponsored action… and that may indeed be the case. However, my aim in making the video (or rather, making the point) was to provide a persuasive argument that may convince people that remain ambivalent, rather than a place to show anger, solidarity, or both.
I think that feature has come to be the tone of this site over the past, say, twenty months. I’ve found this is less a place to rant, less a place for me to find catharsis… and more a place to push an argument into new places. If it appears to some people that I have missed the point, then there’s a chance that the argument wasn’t intended for them in the first place.
Tag: Debate (Page 11 of 27)
The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu gave a speech to the Smith Institute last week, ‘Regaining a Big Vision for Britain’, as part of their ‘Reinvigourating Communities’ lecture series. Its available to view via Policy Review TV:
He outlines the Big Vision of the Beveridge Report, and the influence of William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury of the time, in the development of the Welfare State. The Big Vision, Sentamu argues, was built on a distinctly Christian ethic and conception of humanity. Now we need a new vision, which leaders must articulate, so that we can all once again pull together to realise the social and economic changes required to mend our fractured society.
Archbishop Sentamu clearly believes that the Church of England has a role to play in articulating, and providing moral leadership, on this new Big Vision for Britain. But I see some pitfalls along the way. First, he acknowledges that communities and families are the blocks around which a society should be built. But the Church’s conception of these building blocks is very traditional: Communities built around a parish, a place of worship, or at least a shared location; and families in the hetrosexual, nuclear sense. It comes into friction with the non-traditional versions of these same building blocks: communities built online, say, or homosexual couples. Its not clear to me how Anglicanism can claim particular expertise in building these new groups into a grand coalition that will move us forward.
The Archbishop also repeats his analysis of how the policy of multiculturalism went too far in favour of minority cultures, at the expense of any respect for the idea of Britishness (this is something I have taken issue with him before). He asserts that if we want integration, there must be a strong, broad, primary culture available to integrate with! This is fine, but I do wish that the Church of England would apply this insight when managing its own multicultural issues, as found within the world-wide Anglican Communion. The British approach is supposed to be a core principle of the Communion, yet many of its constituent Churches have, in recent years, seemed to reject that approach. If the Church of England cannot provide a common moral vision for the world-wide Anglican Community, why should we suppose it would be any better at providing one for 21st Century Britain, diverse, modern and glorious?
Meanwhile…
… over at the Secular Right blog, Heather MacDonald writes on the phenomenon of “Drive-Thru Religion”, and how the rise of secularism does not seem to have resulted in a country-wide a descent into Sodom and Gomorrah:
Only a quarter of Americans attend church weekly. Yet moral chaos has not broken out; society has grown more prosperous as secularism expands. Empathy with others, an awareness of the necessity of the Golden Rule, survive the radical transformation of religious belief, it turns out. Perhaps because a moral sense is the foundation, not the result, of religious ethics.
(Via teh Dish). Applied to the British case, perhaps the values of the Anglican Church have arisen due to the values of British culture, and not vice-versa. Given that the Church of England grew out of the reformation, and the freedom of non-conformism was a hard fought for political fight, that analysis seems more accurate to me. Its not a binary argument of course, but it seems to me that Archbishop Sentamu is on uneven ground if he is claiming the great social achievements of the past century to be a product of the Anglican approach, even if William Temple did have an hand in the Beveridge Report.
Writing in the Observer, Henry Porter advertises the convention, to be held on 28th February at various locations throughout the United Kingdom.
But this is no awayday for MPs, because in some sense the convention is a challenge to a parliament. For a brief moment, we will be airing the issues that haven’t been heard in the Commons this past decade, because Labour has all but anaesthetised the business of the chamber to push through its laws.
The website is now tested and live at www.modernliberty.net. Please tell your friends, spread the word, and buy a ticket. That other site of mine, LiberalConspiracy, is a supporter too.
There’s a recently concluded debate over at the Liberal Conspiracy about ‘feeding the trolls’, that is, engaging with commenters on the blog who are just there to provoke an argument. I think there is a distinction between proper trolls, who are actively seeking to waste their own time in order to waste others’, and other people who simply have a wildly differing worldview. In the case of the former, it is rarely worth engaging. But in the case of the latter, debate can sometimes be helpful. It all depends on what kind of conversation you want to have, and on the Liberal Conspiracy, it is often impossible to talk about something at the level of detail you desire, if you are arguing first principles with someone else (be it a troll, or bona fide member of the seething classes).
Sometimes, I wonder if the mainstream media aren’t trolling. Today I spotted this headline from the Daily Mail, and feel confident that it has been written to waste my time.
Human Rights: Straw To Get Tough
Exclusive – Minister tells Mail how he’ll reform ‘Villiain’s Charter
Its not that I do not disagree with the idea of labelling the Human Right’s Act a “villiain’s charter”. Its just that attempting to engage with it – especially on a blog – is a bit pointless. Its not as if they are making some kind of technical or categorical error that a plucky blogger might tease out and add to the debate. This article is speaking a genuinely different language. I have been silent on the ‘Baby P’ issue, because the debate was of this highly toxic, divisive type. Others gamely engaged with the trolls, so to speak, but there comes a point where its down to someone with a little more profile that bloggers to take up the political fight. This is why people often end up criticising political allies, for relatively trivial reasons, apparently missing the wood for the trees. Its not that we’ve lost our moral compass, just that we’re angry that other people are not speaking up for us in the places that matter.
As to the substance of the article, I’ll merely note again that it is the hated and the vulnerable who have their Human Rights violated first. The Declaration of Human Rights was created precisely to guard against populist tendencies in governments. They’re inconvenient, but then so is the task of retaining our humanity in the face of violence and antagonism.
For those with a fatigue for this sort of thing, I highly recommend a visit to the ‘Taking Liberties‘ Exhibition (no, not that Taking Liberties) at the British Library. It has the Magna Carta and other declarations of Rights and Freedoms penned by various men and women from around these isles.
The exhibition set me thinking about the Damian Green affair (something else that seems so divisive that there is so little common ground between the warring parties that debate seems futile). Whilst I personally don’t believe that Jacqui Smith ordered the police into Mr Green’s office, and I do not believe that the Speaker, Michael Martin, colluded in the warrantless searching of the Tory MP’s office, the outcry itself seems like a healthy thing to me. It is good that there is an ‘awkward squad’ barrage of questions every time there is any hint of impropriety. Far from us living in a Stalinist State, as some alledge, it is the indignant calls to account which prevent us sliding into one.
Update
Heh – I wrote:
its down to someone with a little more profile that bloggers to take up the political fight
The Sun crows over the Shannon Matthews case:
The prosecutor said cops recovered at [Michael] Donovan’s flat a copy of The Sun from March 11, with the headline: “£50,000 for Shannon. Sun ups reward to find lost girl.”
Police also discovered a copy of the Daily Mirror which had been ripped up and dumped in a bin.
Its bizarre that The Sun should choose to delight in this little factoid, because it draws attention to a few rather negative interpretations:
- “The Sun is paper of choice for evil scheming child abductors”
- “The Sun falls for trap set by evil scheming child abductors”
or worse
- “The Sun’s dubious track record inspires evil scheming child abductors”
Karen Matthews and Craig Meehan pose with a 'Sun' branded reward poster, February 2008
Now the paper’s editors will no doubt suggest that by offering their reward, they were merely acting as good citizens who just wanted to see Shannon found safely. However, the crass branding of the reward poster, which they gleefully reproduced in today’s paper, shows that their motives were altogether more commercial. Not content with merely reporting the story, they insisted on influencing it. They delighted then, and they still delight, in the part they played. But the shocking truth is, by quickly fulfilling the plotters’ prophecy and advertising a reward, they inspired the kidnappers to keep Shannon hidden for longer, thus prolonging her ordeal.
Of course, if Karen Matthews and Michael Donovan are found guilty, then they will be rightly condemned for their actions. They have free will. However, blame is not a zero sum game. We do not live in a vacuum, and the media can send signals which inspire others to act in negative ways. Usually, violent films, rap artists, or computer game producers shoulder the criticism. When they are put in the spot-light, these groups usually cite free-will, but also agree that they should act responsibly, that they should add caveats and warnings to their art, and that it should not be marketed to the vulnerable or easily impressed.
I note that this contrite and defensive attitude is nowhere to be found on the pages of The Sun. They have fuelled this case, sparked a sales bonanza, and will surely do it again the moment they are given another opportunity.
And next time – mark my words, there is always a next time! – it is likely that the disappearance will be genuine. Another pair of worried parents, bamboozled into supporting “The Sun’s Campaign” to find their child, followed by a period where they themselves come under suspicion. Its a winning formula for The Sun, and not one politician will call them on it.
Cross-posted at the Liberal Conspiracy, please comment there.