My Rights, Your Responsibility

“A person without imagination is like a teabag without hot water.”
Mark Twain

Now the last thing I want to do is write a meta-blog post about a meta-blog post, not least because Tim Worstall coined the frankly hilarious ‘meta-meta-blogging’ conudrum at the weekend, and I do not wish to be shouted at, again. Suffice to say it was pleasing to see Sunny include a post of mine, among others, in his first contribution to Comment Is Free, the Guardian’s new superblog.
What interested me about the post was how the opinions of several people had contributed to the meat and substance of the piece. I was reminded of a great article by Nosemonkey at The Sharpener:

In some areas it’s already almost turning into a Britblog hive mind…

Whether this truly captures the nature of blogging I am not sure, since ‘hive’ seems to imply one homogenised idea, rather than the diversity we see online. I am reminded once again of ‘democracy‘ in the proper sense of the word: Not the vote-every-four-years kind, but true democracy, where a diversity of opinions and ideas are thrashed out in public, and everyone can have a say, play a more active part at every level, from war policy to whether the so called ‘Green Parking Zone’ outside my flat is a good idea (and in case you were wondering: no it most certainly is not).

Blogging – change the world it won’t.

I am not so sure, Sunny. Ministers, and MPs are increasingly realising that the medium simply cannot be ignored.
What can be ignored apparently, is politics. All of it. This is the analysis of an astonishing 17% of the electorate, who said that they ‘did not want a say’ when questioned. The Third Audit of Political Engagement by the Hansard Society and the Electoral Commission, also found that 14% of people were ‘not interested in politics’.
The report of course links lack of political engagement with wider social exclusion, and points out the need for better political education and communication to widen this gap. Nevertheless, even with these measures, there will be a proportion of people who, regardless of their upbringing or social class, will still describe themselves and ‘not being interested in politics’.
I have infinite tolerance in the general case. But in the individual case, those people I actually meet and interact with, the one thing I cannot and will not abide is “Oh, I don’t do politics.” I will not patronise them by suggesting it is merely down to social exclusion, because most of the people I meet would not describe themselves as such. No, these are people who proudly announce they are ‘not interested’ and revel in knowing more about Big Brother 6 the TV programme, than whether the government’s ID Cards bill is a surveillance too far. I invariably challenge them, and an argument ensues.
Being ‘interested’ in politics is not like being ‘interested’ in sport, the arts, gardening or cooking. Politics is not simply about the Reds or the Blues at Westminster, but about the interaction between the State, groups and the individual. Unless one retires to a hermitage and lives in total solitude, you will interact with society, and you are therefore a political animal. If you drive a car, you are political. If you turn on a tap, you are political. If you buy food, have a bank account, go to school, use a telephone, you are political. To suggest that you are not is actually antisocial in every sense, and those who do not engage, though they have the capacity to do so, are every bit as liable for an ASBO as the hooligans who kick over wheelie bins.
Apathay devalues every decision taken by every government: Voter-apathy means that decision makers are elected by a tiny minority; and issue-apathy means that decisions are not subject to proper scrutiny, not made with enough public debate.
So to the fourteen percent, I say this: Your lack of engagement affects me in a very real way. I would go so far as to say that I have a human right to hear your opinion. Denying me that right is an abuse of your own human capacity for rational though, but more importantly, it inconveniences me a great deal.
To say “I’m not interested” is to be the tea-bag without water. It is a ridiculous and impossible position, and I will not stand for it. Moreover, if people start asserting their right to disengage, to be apathetic, then other people will soon start trying to deny them the vote, which we cannot condone.
So please, Mr and Mrs Fourteen Percent, I’ll make you a deal: Start engaging in some way, any way… and will I promise to stop droning on about my blog.
Over at Minority Report, DE discusses dumbing down: Playing Grand Theft Auto is probably more socially responsible than the more adult pursuit of corruption or aerial bombing. But when it displaces keeping up with the news or communicating with offspring then it seems less benign.

Moral Equivalence

Nick Cohen’s article in this week’s Observer has prompted me to think about ‘moral equivalence’, and the degree to which we condemn the actions of other countries, and our own.

To me, the failure of the archbishop to speak plainly was not a sign of his diplomacy, but flowed from his row with the Jews. Before he escaped to Africa, he couldn’t say why he wanted sanctions against Israel but not against countries that committed far worse crimes – China, Syria, Iran, North Korea and, indeed, Sudan – or give any indication that he was morally obliged to provide an answer.

Cohen’s point is persuasive, and requires an answer, and he is right to take the Archbishop to task over these double standards. However, the argument he uses raises some questions, because the moral door swings both ways.
The idea of ‘moral equivalence’ requires some unravelling. It is always used in the negative, to condemn someone who is equating one reprehensible act with another. Above, Cohen notes that those of a certain political viewpoint are equating the transgressions of the Israelis towards the Palestinians, with a wider and much more horrible genocides, in the other countries he mentions. His complaint is that the two are simply not comparable: Israel is simply not as bad as Sudan.
Another example might be to equate the attacks on the World Trade Centre, with the human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay. Imprisoning a few dozen militants without trial is simply not in the same moral ballpark as murdering 3,000 civilians on a cold September Tuesday. The actions of the Bush Administration are not morally equivalent to the actions of Al Q’aeda (so goes the argument) and it is offensive to suggest as much. Similar arguments can be made regarding transgressions in Iraq. One can always retort with “well, would you rather have Saddam back?” safe in the knowledge that the coalition forces never did anything as bad as the Ba’athists at Abu Ghraib. Discussions of this kind have been thrown around for decades, especially during the Cold War.
But they are all relative arguments. Relative to Sudanese actions in Darfur, Israeli transgressions against Arabs in the region could be described as minor. But thinking absolutely, they are nevertheless still transgressions. To reiterate, I do not disagree with Cohen when he asserts that Sudan is worse than Israel… but as soon as that point is made, someone is bound to ask the question: “Does that excuse Israel’s behaviour?”
The moral equivalence complaint is constantly used in political discourse, a smoke-screen to justify and excuse morally dubious action. An appeal to inhibit the ghettoisation of the West Bank is met with “what about the man on the Tel Aviv omnibus?” A fair point indeed, but in making it, the respondent has cunningly failed to answer the original point, and thus escapes from the discourse without condemning something that would not have looked out of place in occupied Poland, circa 1940. Likewise, legitimate questions about why, and when it was decided to go to war, are met by Tony Blair with the tired old cliché: “Would you rather have Saddam back?” Meeting questions with questions in this manner is to present a non-sequitur. By highlighting something morally worse, Tony manages to avoid answering the original question at all.
Complaining about the lack of moral equivalence between two acts should not be used as an excuse to avoid accounting for the actions of the governments we are responsible for. Although this final example, from ‘Tender’ at ProfessorBainbridge.com, I confess made me laugh:

As for morality – when the anal rape rate at Gitmo gets to say, half, of the rate at the Cook County jail let me know. I won’t worry till then.

The perceptive among you will have noticed that this particular gripe about the nature of moral arguments really only applies (by its very nature, I think) to governments such as that of Israel, the USA and the UK, rather than China, North Korea, and Sudan (to use some of Cohen’s examples). This is important, because I really want to write about why the former set of countries should be held to a higher standard – because we are responsible for them. I have’t finished with this yet. More in the next post.

Misogyny in the Monarchy: Volume I

From Japan comes news that Princess Kiko, wife of second-in-line Prince Akishino, is pregnant. If a boy results, he will be the first born to the Japanese royal family in forty years. He will become third in line to the throne, leap-frogging two older sisters and his cousin Princess Aiko.
The issue of the Japanese succession has been labelled a constitutional ‘crisis’, with the public divided over whether a female should succeed to the Imperial Throne (The Chrysanthemum Throne). It has caused a personal crisis for the Crown Princess Masako, who is said to have become withdrawn due to the pressue inside the Imperial Court, to produce a male heir.
It should be stated that is is entirely incorrect and irrational to pressurise a woman (princess or otherwise) to produce a male heir. The sex of a baby is determined by whether the sperm that fertilizes it carries an X (female) or Y (male) chromosone. It is entirely random which of these genetic codes gets through… but if it were not, then only the testicles of the man who produced the sperm could be held responsible for a lack of Y’s in the bag.
That a group of people can be allowed to pressurise a woman in this manner is bad enough. Worse is the underlying desire for a male heir which causes such pressure. Clearly this attitude is one which runs deep through the entire society – opinion polls see the country divided on the issue of whether a female heir should be allowed, and fierce debates have surrounded the proposal by Junichiro Koizumi, that a woman be allowed to ascend to the throne. It was even suggested that the Crown Prince be allowed to adopt a boy to ensure that his daughter would not succeed!
The message to Princess Aiko is simple: We wish you were not a girl. And the message to the country: boys are better than girls.
We could list examples where the sexes are not equal. Mothers have a different bond with their children than fathers. Men are (usually) physically stronger. These inequalities are always rooted in biology, or psychologies on the most inate level. Many will also argue that the traditional nuclear family is the optimal social arrangment to promote human flourishing (whatever that may be). A family or tribal unit is something that may evolve, with the structure adapting over time and due to environmental considerations. We may not be conscious of it, and we may not be able to break out of the structure we find ourselves within. Misogyny may continue, and parents will still secretly wish that they have a son, and not a daughter.
Conversely, a State is an entirely political entity. It exists only in the conscious human mind – no more, no less. The idea behind a democratic state is that people consciously endorse (and usually codify) the way their political system – their mutal concerns – are arranged. It is about taking responsibility for how you live. Let no-one say that the political rules, handed down from previous generations, are not open to consideration. Let no-one say they cannot be changed.
In fact, breaking away from the tyranny of previous generations is part of the point of democracy. The nature of the system almost demands that laws be changed, for they must always reflect the views of the populous.
When a law becomes outdated, when it no longer reflects the values of the people it governs, it must be scrapped. As the news of this royal pregnancy reminds us, sexism is institutionalised in Japan at the highest and most symbolic level. The people of Japan must now decide whether they wish their Head of State to be determined by these values, or whether a new millenium should herald a change.
Volume II will be posted later today, in which we will (of course) return to Blighty.

Google China

Now, it would be very hypocritical of me to complain about US government intrusion into internet search results, if I do not also utterly condemn Google’s decision to censor its Chinese site. However, even if I did not draw that parallel, I could never be more hypocritical than Google itself. The company who did indeed stand up to the aforementioned US government interference, has sold its morals down the Yangtze River. This is appalling blow to everyone who values freedom of expression, especially as the act comes from a company who emphasises its ethical policies. Via Blairwatch, we find that censorship directly contradicts Google’s admirable company policy:

Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by hand. We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results.

Not any more.
Perhaps Google should be subjected to some kind of boycott. Simply refusing to use the search engine would be almost impossible for most people, as it is such a ubiquitous tool (it’s even integrated into my Safari browser). Likewise, too many people use Blogger for this to be a viable proposition. It would also be counter-productive if our aim is the free flow of communication around the globe. CuriousHamster hints that he will remove the Adwords bar from his site, thus sacrificing some income from his blog. Will others follow suit?

Update

Down In the comments, John suggests a very good article on the issue. Google does inform users that their search on Google.cn will be blocked. This definitely doesn’t excuse the hypocrisy of going against a stated company policy though, nor does the fact that they are making money in a country through a censored search engine. I’m not sure that providing some search results is better than providing no search results. That seems to be a tacit endorsement of the system to me, especially as money is being made. As Danny Sullivan says, it would be better if they weren’t there at all.

Another Update

I just saw an AOL advert that used a clip of the man with shopping bags in front of the Tiannamen Square tanks, with a voice-over “The only place where freedom of speech is a reality”… Hmmph.