10:80:10

Human Nature... Hmmm. Dare I?
I was intrigued with something Vincent said in a comment following my last post -
"She (Margaret Thatcher) assumed that if people had more freedom (were no longer stifled by the State, or repressive trade unions) they would naturally work for good."
This is actually a kind of an Anarchist/ Libertarian assumption isn't it? I'm not saying that's a bad thing but to many it will seem almost unbelievably naive.

I'm a little sorry that Libertarianism has become a synonym for US far right politics, and of course Anarchy is synonymous for chaos and terror - a throw-back to a time when the Anarchists were the Al Quaeda of their day and before the Communists took over as the main purveyors of bombings and assassinations around the world. This of course was well over 100 years ago, but the connotation has stuck. My experience of anarchists is that they are among the most peaceable (if not Pacifist) people I ever met. They dressed in black, wore big boots and did odd things to their hair, sure, but they were nothing if not polite. This was in the 80s. I never found their politics especially convincing but their conviction that, to put it simply, people would be better off without government or judiciary was based on a profound conviction that, left to their own devices, given the chance, people are basically good. Likewise, the Libertarians I've come across believe, more or less, that people are better off without an imposed moral code, that 'Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law', and 'If it feels good, do it'. But the Libertarians I've met have been among the most humane, insightful and generous of people, and their proposal has mostly been to be free to take drugs and have sex with anyone, and in whatever manner (as long as it is among consenting adults) as they see fit, because after all, it does no harm to anyone else and is no one else's business. Their assumption was that, genuinely free, people would not feel the need to abuse their freedom, and humanity would be a more fulfilled and harmonious thing.

The objections are too obvious and numerous to go into in detail here, but the most basic is that of course people just aren't like that. Given those freedoms, free from government and law, custom and convention, it'll be a battle of all against all - dog eat dog - survival of the fittest. Not a pretty sight. I think this view of humanity is there underneath maybe the majority's ideas about their fellow men. Scrape away at the surface they say, and there it is, the beast within. Every man has his price. This thin veneer of civilisation masks a human nature, red in tooth and claw, and a life nasty, brutish and short. The noble savage is a myth. And so we impose law from above, with force if necessary, for the common good.

It's a very polarised debate, as these things tend to be. The human brain it seems does not deal easily in nuance.
The former view seems hopelessly idealistic - a dream of children and drug-addled hippies and hardly worthy of serious comment.
The latter seems almost too obvious to be worth demonstrating, because look at us - every chance we get - ripping each other off and taking the piss, looking out for number one, always out for some small advantage - some way of getting just that little bit further ahead.

Well speak for yourself Sunshine. I look around me at the people I know, and the people I've met here and abroad (yes, even in Paris) and I just don't recognise that description. Sure I remember some crappy moments, but actually, not many. Mostly people were friendly and helpful, and no, not because I was going to give them some money or because a policeman was watching them. There are of course people doing all sorts of hideous things in the world, but most of the time, in normal every-day life? Is it just that thin veneer holding us all back from throttling each other? Or is it some sort of confused Kin Selection, as the evolutionary psychologists would have us believe? Do I live in some rarefied middle class rural bubble where nobody is ever mean to anyone? Is it just me? Have I somehow passed through life oblivious and immune?

I've thought about this a lot. I'm not some starry-eyed do-gooder who just luvs everyone. I'm actually not the most trusting of people. I don't want to talk about it right now but I actually have a lot of trouble with people. I'm not particularly comfortable with social situations and I'm easily put off spending time with some people. I'm easily upset. Often, it's just too difficult. And yet... I still have a lot of hope for humanity. Although I personally have trouble with people for whatever reason, I don't think that's because people are bad. I don't dislike them. It's just a problem for me.

What I'm left with is this: Clearly people sometimes behave appallingly to each other (but see my posting here on whether everything is getting worse these days) but usually they don't and sometimes they are downright heroic.
So which is it to be? Are we basically Good or Bad, or is it just the wrong question?
Actually I think it's a bit of both, which sounds like an anti-climax, and a mealy-mouthed cop-out at that but actually it's not.
I came up with this 10:80:10 rule a while back. Basically what it says is that real evil is actually quite rare. A small percentage of us do it a lot and probably all of us do it sometimes - say 10%. Likewise real saintly good is pretty uncommon too - really going out of ones way to make things better. Probably most of us do it occasionally and a few of us make a life-style of it. Again, say 10%.
Most of us though, most of the time (the remaining 80%), and here's the point, just live our lives, doing what's normal, going along with what everyone else is doing, anything for a quiet life. Sometimes we're a bit mean and not entirely honest but there are limits. We may not really approve of you or want to spend a lot of time with you, but we won't give you a hard time unless we feel very provoked, and often, if you're in difficulties, we'll give you a hand if it's not too much trouble. That's the kind of people we are. I think this is pretty much true of most people the world over. Obviously if we are very provoked we might get very aggressive indeed - if we fear violence or starvation or having our livelihoods taken away from us for example but I have the perhaps perverse opinion that people should not be judged by what they do when they are desperate. Likewise, we might be tempted to do questionable things by extraordinary rewards, but if anything this is an argument against extraordinary temptations (eg huge bonuses) rather than for the inherent corruption of the human spirit. (I'm very aware of the need here for a deeper discussion on the meaning of Evil but I want to save that for another time. For the time being I'm going to take it that we know it when we see it.)

The glaring trouble here is how Evil can become normal in some societies, such as in late 1930s Germany, or Rwanda in 1994, or perhaps Syria at the moment and I think the answer is in that phrase "doing what's normal, going along with what everyone else is doing", and the fact that Evil is often so much easier than Good. Think how much easier it is to knock something down that it is to build something up and you can see that even nature (in the form of entropy) is on the side of Evil. That 10% has a hugely disproportionate effect on the outcome. What is a wonder is that it doesn't dominate everything most of the time. Just one person in a community who favours violence over peaceful coexistence, collecting a few sociopathic henchmen along the way, can very quickly force the community to take sides and start making decisions about who to blame and before you know it our peaceful hypothetical community is polarised and suspicious. Oppression can quickly become normal. This, in a sense is what is 'Evil' about human nature - not that it is inherent and pervasive in all of us except on very rare occasions, but that a small amount seems to be able to take hold of so much power so easily.

So I think this is the problem with the Libertarian and Anarchist views we started out with - that even if most of us could live reasonably amicably without laws and norms being imposed on us from above (and wouldn't that be great?) it only takes a few individuals who are prepared to take advantage of the situation to impose their own norms and laws and society is taken over by them. And this is also true of a genuinely free market economy, which is not the spirit of free enterprise Utopia some economists and politicians seem to imagine, but instead a Dystopia where everything people can have or do - not just the fripperies, but their health care, education, work and leisure, is determined by what money they can make, which is in turn determined by a very few very powerful business interests.
I think it is up to all of us to do our 10%, but as those Business Interests get fewer and bigger (as they inevitably will, the Free Market being what it is), the only thing big enough to stand up to them, I believe, will be our old friends Democratic Government and The Rule of Law.

Interestingly, one of the main platforms of the Libertarian Right in the USA is always 'Small Government' - a demand I find completely uncontroversial.Government should always be as small as possible.
Is anyone seriously demanding more government than necessary?
The only real question is - How much government is necessary?

An Only Child - part 1

Kingston Beach at low tide

I don't dislike children - contrary to what some may think.
I do dislike it when people are loud and selfish and don't put things away after they've finished with them, and when they insist they know what's going on when in fact they don't. I also have problems with people who make a huge fuss when things don't go their way. The fact that this describes a large proportion of most 'normal' childhood behaviour doesn't seem to bother most people but it's always struck me as odd. Indeed, most adults seem to see it as typical or even healthy and hardly worthy of comment. Why do I feel so differently about it?

I had a pretty good childhood back in the sixties and seventies by most standards. I was pretty content as long as I had some paper and pencils or plasticine or Lego to play with. I was mostly into dinosaurs. I had full and complex relationships with my cuddly toys. I spent hours hunting wildlife (mostly slugs and beetles), digging holes and building camps in the garden - a wilderness of nettles, brambles and raspberry canes and other miscellaneous junk. The soil was full of broken glass from a wrecked greenhouse but I hardly ever cut myself and never seriously. I never played on the lawn. Both the house and the garden were pretty immense by today's standards so it was easy to stay out of sight. I had collections of stamps, seashells, Airfix models, and then tropical fish and house plants (which got me into gardening just before I left home). I spent hours down on Kingston Beach hunting marine life. It was just across from the end of the road. I knew all the little twittens and wasteland around the town and then as I grew I spent a lot of time over the harbour and I walked and cycled as far as Steyning and Ashington. I looked at my dad's books (non-fiction - mostly wildlife) and listened to his music (from Louis Armstrong to Holst, from Westside Story to Tubular Bells). We had cheap camping holidays and big family Christmases. We didn't have a telly for years.
Don't assume from this that I come from a posh background. My dad was an electrical fitter and shop steward at the power station, like my mum's dad before. My dad's dad was a lorry driver amongst other things, and they were all from around Shoreham. Mum did home help and bar work. The big house on Victoria Road, Southwick was cheap because it was a mess. At the time it was cold and dusty and decidedly eerie at night. It was not an attractive house. Back then there was no housing shortage and everyone wanted the new bungalows on the Downs behind Shoreham. Dad fixed the whole thing up himself (with help from friends and relatives) because we couldn't afford to pay plumbers and electricians and carpenters. He learned to do everything himself. Today a three storey, four bedroom house with a lounge and a dining room and a conservatory and probably a third of an acre at the back would be a different matter. Nowadays you'd pay the better part of half a million for it, pull it down and start again.
And don't imagine that Southwick was a picturesque idyll. It has a rather impressive village green and some very venerable buildings near by, but the bulk of the town is fairly anonymous. Travelling from Brighton to Worthing along the coast road you'd hardly know it from all the other places along there - Hove, Portslade, Fishersgate, Shoreham and Lancing. Kingston Beach, which lies within Shoreham Harbour, is a mud flat at low tide with only shallow muddy pools among the pebbles and rubble. There was a remarkable variety of life down there none the less. Back then, without a property boom, demolition sites could sit empty and grow weeds for decades. I hunted grasshoppers and lizards among the rubble and played jungles in the Buddleia and Japanese Knotweed.
It's unimaginable now that a child as young as seven or eight would be let loose in that environment, but I was. I don't think I ever had a major accident. I was very careful. I knew my limitations. One day a man stopped his car near me in Southwick Square and asked me to get in. I simply said no and walked away. Mum had told me, if a stranger spoke to me to go into a shop.
Most of the time I remember I was left to my own devices. I don't remember particularly being lonely or feeling neglected. Sometimes I envied my younger brother because he always had friends around, but then, if he didn't have company he didn't really know what to do with himself. I on the other hand rather resented people interrupting and interfering.
I don't ever remember being deliberately naughty or mischievous. With my family there would have been little point in pushing it so I didn't try. They were not nasty about it - just firm. There would have been no point arguing. I did not live in fear though. I learned to be sneaky. My mum was somewhat anxious and controlling so it was best simply not to ask permission. She preferred not to be distracted from doing what she had to do so it worked both ways. My brother and I never really felt the need to fight and my parents never rowed so we weren't used to raised voices in our house and I still hate to hear people arguing. When we visited friends and relatives their children always seemed to be throwing tantrums or sulking. Everything seemed to be a battle for them and I stayed out of their way. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I was the eldest by many years of all the children in our family circle. My brother wasn't born until I was three and we  therefore had very little in common. All our friend's children came along after that. There was no child care or nursery school so I didn't meet another child my own age until I went to school aged five. That's probably why meeting 'normal' kids was such a shock and something I've never really come to terms with.

The Free Market Fundamentalist

There was Nigel Lawson on Start The Week on Monday - telling us essentially not to worry about climate change because it'll all blow over probably. The important thing is to keep making money. After all,he said, it's making money that causes climate change and er... Where was I?

Nigel I suppose is one of them there Free Market Fundamentalists. I don't know all the details of what his own personal views are and frankly  I don't care, but I've got a fair idea what he thinks - heck, I grew up with these people. He's a type. He'll do for my purposes.
They were debating Protectionism (the restricting of free trade between nations to protect local jobs and/or prices.) Dambisa Moyo was arguing that some protectionism might be necessary if certain developing nations are ever to get their local economies off the ground. Nigel was against, basically because it's not Free Trade, and anything other than totally Free trade is anathema. No restrictions, no regulations, just Free. Anything less would be the start of 'The Slippery Slope'.
Slippery Slope arguments are almost always bogus. In almost every area of life we have to accept that there are shades of grey and we have to make judgement calls, but not for Nigel. People like Nigel like things to be all or nothing, black or white. Simple yes/no answers. Are you with us or are you against us? The ability to make quick uncompromising decisions and stick to them no matter what is taken as a sign of strong leadership and sound judgement. (Look at his old boss for example.)
No doubt Nigel likes to think he's being Realistic - that it's just Human Nature - 'Common Sense'. People like Nigel like to tell the rest of us what we're like (and not just some or part of us, but all of us, deep down, even if we can't admit it) - that we're ruthless, competitive and obsessed with power and material wealth. We might coo over our own children but otherwise it's dog-eat-dog out there. It's the Law of the Jungle - survival of the fittest. And therefore it's Natural. And what is Natural is right isn't it? We all know what is Natural - the Sociobiologists and Evolutionary Psychologists have looked at our closest relatives - the apes and monkeys (and any other species that seem instructive) and confirmed what we always knew about ourselves - ruthless self interest, xenophobia, racism, sexism, internecine warfare...
The Conservatives see themselves as the Natural Party of Government. The reason Thatcher achieved so much is because she took away the restrictions on what would happen 'naturally'. People again mistook this for sound political sense and strong leadership, when what she actually did was squash the resistance, who never had that much power in the first place (unless you count not collecting the rubbish and letting the lights go out, which I agree is a nuisance) and let the powerful become even more so.
The idea that what is natural is good is a very popular philosophy among everyone from hedonistic New Age Hippies ('If it feels good do it') to libertarian Social Darwinists ('Sod you Jack, I'm alright'), but Ethics 1.0.1. when I was at university (Ok, Brighton Poly) told us that 'Is' does not imply 'Ought.' In other words you cannot logically derive what ought to be the case from what is the case. Even if human nature is ruthless, competitive, and obsessed with power and material wealth (and that's a big 'if'), that does not make it right. There is this other thing - ethics, or morality, that tells us how things should be.

Of course, our Nigel would tell us that what he advocates is how things should be as well - because the Free Market is the only guarantor of improved living standards for all, which has got to be good, right? Climate change, mass migration and the odd genocide in Africa is just a temporary glitch.
And he's sort of right in a way. I will argue elsewhere that life for unprecedented numbers of us is safer, healthier and longer than it's ever been at any other time in human history, and a lot of that is due to medical, technological and social advances made possible by capitalism. (Ok, I don't entirely buy that but give them the benefit of the doubt.)
But even if that has been true in the past, is it possible or even likely that it will continue to be true in the future?
Again the 'strong leadership'/'uncompromising decision making' school of political thinking would counsel us not to be pessimistic. Doubt is a sign of weakness.

But doubt is reasonable. Already we're coming to the end of the resources and space we have available to an exponentially increasing human population. Already, we talk about places like China and India - home to vast fractions of that population aspiring to Western standards of living and we already know that for everybody to live to US standards would require, I don't remember the exact figure (probably it's not an exact figure) but it's something like five or six Earths' worth of space and resources. And if climate change takes hold in even the more modest ways predicted there will be less space, not more, to house and feed the world's population, never mind all the other species we share the place with. (That the problems are not certain is no excuse to assume that there will be no problems, as Nigel appears to.)
And yet Nigel simply believes that there won't be a problem because growth in the economy and advances in technology will make everything fine.

As a burgeoning Leftie back in my teens I was routinely accused of being naive and unrealistic. Left wingers also tend to be the ones accused of living by dogma and ideology instead of in 'The Real World'. And yet our Nigel looks at the future described above and says 'Growth and Technology will solve everything.'
Technology is going to have to make us the equivalent of five or six earth's worth of energy and resources in the next  fifty years. And the only way to make this happen apparently is to free up the economy. As his old boss would have said 'There is no alternative'.
Now who's the naive dreamer? Now who's living by dogma?

But what's the alternative? Anything less than unrestrained (wild) Western style growth and development is holding back progress, and the pursuit of happiness. Aspirational is the key word here, and who can deny it? Who does not want to aspire to greatness? It's the one thing the previous government and this agree on - the right to aspire - to want more than the previous generation - to do more - to have more. Who can argue with that?
Well I can. Most of us in The West are already pretty comfortably off materially (People in Ulster telling us their problems with the water supply recently made it 'like living in the Third World' not withstanding.) The fact that we don't seem to be any happier is another thing I'll come back to in another post.
But why are we framing our ideas of Aspiration only in material terms? Surely there's more to life. We've been sold the idea that any pass-time that doesn't involve buying the latest this or the most advanced that is just a bit 'Sad', but is spending so much time at work doing something you don't really care about for someone you don't respect, just to earn the money to pay someone else to do things for you that you could do for yourself if only you had more time, really all that liberating (or aspirational)? And can we really afford to have half as many people again as there are now expecting to live that way?
GMOs are a good example. Normally they are, at least partly, promoted as solving the problem of malnourishment in the developing world. And yet there is already enough food in the world to feed everybody (and well - not just on gruel). The reasons we don't feed everyone are economic and political. GMOs won't change that. Like most new technology, GMOs will mostly be used to provide more choice (aspirations) for those who already have more than they know what to do with.
There is an alternative to growth then, and it's the 'R' word - redistribution. But who wants that? How anti-aspirational is that?

Well Nigel doesn't want it, that's for sure, because the truth is that all this stuff about Capitalism improving life for everyone is Bullshit. (Technically, the difference between Bullshit and Lies is that the bullshitter doesn't care whether what he says is true or not, as long as it serves his purposes.) There is no moral agenda in the Free Market. Nigel Lawson advocates the expansion and deregulation of the Free Market because he wants to make money. Deep down he may even know that there's very little chance of Growth and Technology bringing the benefits to the world he predicts, but he doesn't care. He simply calculates that he will be on the right side of the razor wire when the day comes.