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.
Tag: Debate (Page 14 of 27)
Periodically, a print journalist will write an article decrying blogging and bloggers. They will have probably had an unpleasant experience on Comment is Free and formed the conclusion that the online world is full of vindictive old men. Most of the time, we bloggers put this down to the journalist misunderstanding the medium, or simply having wafer thin skin.
What irks and surprises these writers is, I think, the tenacity of bloggers. Like an old dog, they simply will not let go of that bone. In print, we might see a couple of rounds of testy letter-writing, spread out over a week, or maybe even months in the case of periodicals. Online all this happens immediately, and because of the near-infinite amount of space available to publish comments, the volume of argument rises exponentially. Not only do we have several replies, and several more replies-to-a-replies, but we have replies-to-replies-to-replies as well. “And another thing…”
One of the most frustrating experiences in the world is when someone says to me “let it go.” Admittedly, this usually happens in a pub after a few pints, and I cannot remember what the original point of contention was. Sometimes, however, I am fully aware of what the debate is about. I’m not actually drunk, but my passion for the point at hand might give a different impression. My refusal to let the point lie is because my interlocutor simply has not understood the nature of the debate, or what’s at stake. “Let’s all agree to disagree” says someone. “No,” I reply, “this isn’t a matter of opinion.” When the debate becomes about how important the dabate is, then to abandon the discussion is to admit defeat.
I see this happening online a lot. Recently, Tim Ireland at Bloggerheads has been trying to rebutt allegations and smears that have come his way. The only problem is, his argument lies within some relatvely obscure timestamps and IP logs, which can never have the rhetorical force of an intellectual argument about civil liberties. His posts are therefore thousands of words long, and it is easy to label him obsessive and belligerent.
In Tim’s case, he has the stamina to keep on rebutting-the-rebuttals-of-the-rebuttals. The problem arises when the smears and falsehoods cannot be challenged effectively. This might occur for financial reasons, such as when Craig Murray’s website was taken offline (his hosting company did not have the resources to repel a legal challenge from Alisher Usmanov). It might occur due to the sheer volume of smears, as is the current situation with Presidential Candidate Ron Paul.
Or it might occur due to ennui – the slander slips by because the slanderee is to busy or tired to respond. This happened to me recently, when a friend of mine declared that I was arguing “for the sake of it,” when in fact I was sure there was something more tangible at stake. Again, the discussion moved off the substansive points, and onto the nature of the debate itself. Eventually, we had to just “let it go”. Although it was an argument about graphic design, rather than politics, I think the pattern of the exchange, and the unsatisfactory resolution, still fit the unhealthy template of many blog debates.
Justin makes the case for why the arguments should continue, and bloggers should never let go of the bone:
I have a feeling that a lot of bloggers trying to stick it to a future Tory government and their online cheerleaders in a few years time are going to wish they’d paid more attention to what’s going on right now. Sooner or later they’re going to target someone you care about. Real world reputations are at stake and are being damaged. It’s time to get in the ring and go toe to toe.
This week, there has been a short online discussion about blogging on the (virtual pages) of The Guardian. Michael Billington asserted the need for professional, paper based reviewers, but I think some of his comments betray a patronising tone. He is simply wrong when he claims that
The critic, unlike the blogger, also has a duty to set any play or performance in its historical context.
… since blogs have the same responsibility if they want to be considered relevant (or simply, ‘good’). Billington is taken to task for this misunderstanding in the comments, and also for a misplaced nostalgia when he says:
The blog seems to me have supplanted the kind of prolonged argument about the arts that once took place in the correspondence columns of newspapers. Example: years ago, when I rashly suggested that Shaw was the best dramatist after Shakespeare, a considered, if heated, debate went on for weeks in the paper itself. Now such a suggestion would be a 48-hour wonder on the blog.
But that’s the point, says Ian Shuttleworth in the comments:
Blogs in this respect are filling a gap that has for some time and increasingly been left by editorial neglect in print publications.
Meanwhile, Lyn Gardner is a good deal more positive about the medium of blogging. It was her contribution which drew me to the debate, because last year I remember she used The Guardian’s theatre blog to publish a dissenting review of Katie Mitchell’s Waves, which had been panned by… none other than Michael Billington. Sadly, an online argument about Mitchell’s (admittedly divisve) work never materialised. This was a shame, since this sort of debate, between critics who care, is a feature which Billington himself misses. Blogs can complement theatre criticism, not challenge and marginalise it in the way that TV and film reviews have done.
Other writers also lament the absence of such robust industry. I am reminded of Michael Coveney’s essay in Prospect (November 2005). Here is a telling paragraph:
But the truth is that newspapers increasingly devote largely uncritical coverage to the latest product of the publicity machine … Previews and interviews now take precedence over critical responsibility. But the idea that they do so in order to meet a public demand is, I believe, false. Anyone under the age of 30 who wants to read about pop music, new film and reality television knows where to go. That place is not the broadsheets, but magazines and the internet. So the liberal, professional intelligentsia who read the broadsheets are confronted with coverage they don’t want and comment on “high culture” by people who often know less about it than they do.
The Guardian’s consideration of blogging is welcome, but ultimately, I cannot help but think that these critics are arriving late onto the scene, when they should have been in the vanguard. When Natasha Tripney writes
Bloggers are not constricted by word count or deadlines, and have free reign to write about what they want, when they want
or when Michael Billington types
critics are much more accountable for their opinions… the blog also gives a voice to the hitherto voiceless
we are reading insightless cliché – Many of us have been identifying these features for yonks! To paraphrase Michael Coveney, bloggers are being presented by comment on “blog culture” by people who often know less about it than they do.
Dave Gorman’s depressing post Twisted (via Post of the Week) prompts a pause for thought. He was harrassed by a couple of police-people for taking photographs at a fair-ground. Although he was not taking images of children at all, he was apparently making security guards nervous. In the comments, Matthew makes a related point:
One of my requests for the recent events was to take photographs for the PTA/school website. Nope no go due to child protection laws.
We often read such laments about how society is changing, and parents are becoming more risk averse. However, it always seems to be ‘other people’ who are the problem. I’ve never read an article or blog from a parent endorsing the stigmatisation of photography in public places or in schools. Anecdotal evidence would suggest that such litigious parents are in the minority. Yet schools and councils and the police have to err on the side of caution, and then bear the brunt of the criticism when taking measures to avoid trouble.
I wonder if the web has a part to play in emboldening a more permissive society that (it seems) most people want? Perhaps a website with a similar set-up to Creative Commons could provide a set of guidelines and a handy logo, which any event organiser could attach to their flyers and advertisement:
“Heatherside Junior School’s Nativity Play is operating under the Creative Commons Family Photography Guidelines (UK) Level 2 (Close-up Photography Allowed; Scenes of a Mild Christian Nature).”
Risk averse parents would then have plenty of time to withdraw their children from events they disapproved of, just as some kids do not participate in school prayers. This approach would still be highly problematic, however, since it still an imposition of values, only in reverse.
Either option flies in the face of such concepts as “parental choice”. This is an idea that seems to have much currency in education debates at present, but it looks to me like a red herring. In some areas of communal life, it is possible to partition time and resources so that people who make different choices can access the resources (think of women only swimming sessions). In other areas, such as a school play or an annual fair, such allocations are impossible. Someone has to impose their values onto the event, and no “choice” is possible.
When the news came that Cannabis was to be reclassified as a class B drug, I had expected there to be something of a reaction from the British Blogosphere, which has a healthy Libertarian bias. Back in the office after a week without proper internet, I found precious little online writing on the subject. I reasoned that this might have had something to do with the Lancet Report (and podcast) into the effects of cannabis use, and the associated risk of psychosis.
However, I had reckoned without Tim Worstal and his excellent statistics.
So, does 0.2% of users being harmed pass our test? 0.05%? 0.01%? Even at that higher number it’s still vastly lower as a percentage than the numbers harmed by either tobacco or alcohol: and yet they are both legal. I’d wager very long odds that it’s lower than the STD infection rate on one night stands: which are also legal. I’d even take an evens bet on whether it’s less dangerous than playing golf in a thunderstorm which while stupid is also legal.
…
Just another example of bansturbation I’m afraid, this time it’s the social authoritarians in the Tory Party getting their rocks off over the matter. Heaven forfend that the citizenry should actually be free to go to hell in their own preferred manner.
I think the comparison with alchohol is important here, because it highlights an essential contradiction at the heart of the debate. Both alcohol and smoking are legal, despite being harmful. Why not cannabis too?
Throughout, it has been noted that the skunk on the streets is far more powerful and harmful than the milder forms that our cabinet smoked as students. Aside from looking like a convenient get-out clause for those who have admitted to a toke or two twenty years ago, it also ignores the fact that there are many different types of cannabis in circulation.
In any case, is the undoubted potency of modern skunk an argument for legalisation and regulation, or further crimminalisation and marginalisation? The recent orthodoxy claims the latter, and says that because cannabis is so harmful, it should be banned. But that is analagous to saying that alcohol should be banned because Moonshine is so toxic! Just as there is a world of difference between the causual, weekend wine-drinker, and the serious alcoholic with his Vodka or (worse) bottle of Meths… so there is a difference between a weekend spliff in the garden, and a heavy skunk-user putting himself at risk of psychosis. It would be nice if someone stated that either drug, in moderation, does make the parties and the conversations a little more interesting (to the partakers, at least)… but that consumption to excess can lead to a lack of productivity, and then serious damage to one’s health. The absolutist, binary debate on this issue is unhelpful and unlikely to wash with the young people who need to be so well informed.
I think a more compelling argument against casual drug use, is that it provides financial support to gangsters. The usual mitigation for cannabis use is that it is a victimless crime. At present, however, there is no way of knowing if this is actually true. Illegal drugs do not come with a ‘Fair Trade’ certificate to reassure you that no human-traffickers, Russian Mafioso or Jamaican Yardies have profited (or indeed, been murdered) during its production and bagging. When politicians admit to trying cannabis at university, they are always asked whether they ‘inhaled’, but never if they knew where the drugs came from. This latter question would, I believe, be more pertinent. That few politicians would be able to answer it is probably the main reason why this particular argument is sidelined in the debate.
Surely a more sensible approach to the issue would be to legalise cannabis, and then regulate it and tax it in the same manner as alchohol and tobacco. This is the only sure way to reduce the potency of the drugs being consumed. Better information about the strength and origin of their cannabis will help people to make a more informed choice about how much to consume, and lead to a reduction in associated health problems.