Selected Readings 2018-2019

Wasted by Frank Furedi

A polemic against progressive interdisciplinary and child-centric education that would make for an interesting counterpoint to prevailing pedagogical philosophies if it wasn’t so badly put together. Furedi’s main point is that education is about passing on a body of knowledge from generation to the next and requires adult authority to work; he cites declining standards of classroom behaviour as a symptom of a pedagogical culture that has forgotten the value of adults as mentors and leaders. This is perhaps an understandable worry since some of the more radical proponents of ‘child centred’ education can sound as if they want teachers to have their role paired down from knowledgeable instructors to that of a glorified babysitter.

Unfortunately, Furedi’s attempt to critique interdisciplinary education involves recycling the lie that such an education necessitates the abandonment of traditional subjects; and many of his sources which ‘prove’ the existence of the trends he complains about are nothing more than hyperbolic tabloid articles. It’s nice to get a sense of what ‘the other side’ thinks if you are a progressive educator but empirically and philosophically, this book is a bit of a let down.

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

Exciting at first, then dark. A young boy caught up in gang culture is desperate to prove that he is man while simultaneously being too traumatised to ever really grow up - this is the picture painted as we follow Pinkie in his attempts to keep a murder under wraps. Vivid and heart-breaking portraits of both desperate and beautiful people punctuate a gripping thriller.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Witty and incredibly astute in its observations of the inner lives of humans. It’s somewhat funny, highly caustic and extremely cynical, enough so that its author declined to write more from the perspective of Screwtape less the titular characters' outlook poison his own view of humans. Conservative in a very old school way and so it is interesting that the book still appeals to people today.

God: A Human History of Religion by Reza Alsan

Pantheist is the wrong term, Aslan likes to think of all religion as the narration of a couple of key human themes. The book starts with an incredibly interesting look at paleolithic religion and moves forward from there exploring the way God/s became God, mimicking the transition from tribes towards kingdoms via the principle of politicomorphism, to ideas of a personal God, God in the Flesh and then to  God as Unity. The book has a number of unexpected detours but all of them entertain and inform in a way that leads us back to the central story richer for the experience. Utilising examinations of Neanderthal cave art, to debates over whether Judaism actually started as a monotheistic religion, or whether that was a later affection, this is a fantastic introduction to religious history.

Free to Learn by Peter Gray

Possibly the most interesting and impactful read this year. Peter Gray is an advocate for the importance of free unsupervised play in the development of the emotional and intellectual lives of children. Balancing on a log over a stream is an exercise in assessing risks and managing fear; playing softball with children of different ages is a natural lesson in kindness and, as Gray argues, children pursuing products and endeavours of their own choosing learn far more about self determination and problem solving than they ever could in a classroom.

Peter Gray draws attention to independent schools where compulsory teacher directed classes are non-existent and continue to have, anecdotal, success in producing well adjusted and intelligent young people. He puts his offspring where his mouth is too - his own son is enrolled in such a school, Gray successfully calls into question the legitimacy of state-mandated compulsory schooling and elevates free play above all. An incredibly philosophically challenging read but one that I really welcome.  

White Guilt and Middle Class Angst

Freudian explanations can be quite cheap, and in politics one has to be careful that psycho-analysis doesn't become ad hominem in analyst's garb. That being said there are two particular trends in political rhetoric that I think deserve an emotional probing, if only because a rational one would be fruitless. As the title suggests, I refer to the political right's obsession with accusing opponents of "white/colonial/national guilt" and the political left's passive-aggression directed at its own middle-class members.

Within British politics there are a certain contingent of pundits and campaigners who have a somewhat revisionist opinion of British colonialism. Naturally attempts by the left to dispute claims that British colonialism had the broad global interest at heart or improved the lot of the developing world are chalked up to "colonial guilt". The idea being that the left are possessed of a self-hatred motivating them to give undue credence to claims of atrocity committed by their forebears.

This kind of accusation is curiously silly when you unpack it. The left's traditional stance on nationalism can be summed up by a quote from the, not very left wing, comedian Doug Stanhope:

"Nationalism does nothing but teach you to hate people you've never met and take pride in accomplishments you had no part in".

Considering similar movements in Japan, Germany and other nations, I think we can add an extra symptom to our diagnosis of nationalism:


"Nationalism does nothing but teach you to hate people you've never met, take pride in accomplishments you had no part in and acquire guilt-complex's over atrocities you didn't commit."


Being ashamed of your nation or your race only makes sense if you have already adopted a framework within which your identity and self-worth are already tied to your nationality or race. The left wing perspective is as incapable of national shame as it is of national triumph. Sure there are the occasional melodramatic fools who engage in performative self-flagellation but these are generally cries for attention rather than a sincere apology for atrocity. While the left may have its own biases, derived from their combatitive struggle with the right, such biases do not, and cannot, stem from an affective attitude which the left considers to be irrational tout court.

The accusation of self-hatred via colonial guilt only makes sense from an inherently right-wing perspective. The right-winger perceives the left wing argument as an argument in favour of self-hatred precisely because accepting left wing accounts of history while observing a right-wing social ontology would necessitate self-hatred. All across the globe there are people who insist that belonging to their particular nation gives reason for celebration and these people can often provide vague historical justifications for such an outlook. More worryingly, within the nations that have historically been host to notable human rights abuses there are nearly always a small, but relatively vocal, group arguing that such histories are the product of self-hatred which Japan/Germany/Britain needs to move past.

It is only when you are ambivalent to your national identity that you can view its short-comings without succumbing to guilt. Conversely if you have already committed yourself to the notion that you are "Proud to be...." then your nations past failings are considerably more threatening leading to a desire to deny, minimise and blot them out.

So moving from something that the left doesn't feel guilty about to something it does, let's discuss the role of students and the middle-class in left wing politics.

   

 The term petite bourgeoisie is a common putdown in left wing rhetoric: it denigrates things/people/practises which are counter-revolutionary in part because of their affluent origins. This concept makes some intuitive sense. The language of the left, bar the liberal middle, is the language of class warfare and for justice to prevail the working class must triumph over their oppressors - this necessitates a similar rejection of the logic of the ruling class. There are some other elements of identity politics at play here and also a desire to be seen as authentically representing "the working people" but the overall aim is clear.

Yet this aim is frustrated by the fact that left wing movements are not necessarily always endorsed by the working class: if they were then capitalism would have ended a long time ago. Indeed there are, not just in contemporary life, many cases in which instigators, writers and participants in left wing struggle were of petite bourgeois origin (Marx, Engels, Kropotkin, William Morris, Emma Goldman).


This is not necessarily surprising. Middle class people, and students especially, tend to be more educated and well-read; consequently they are far more likely to have come across books and people who discuss Marxism/Anarchism/Liberalism at a volume and in a tone other than "screaming". There's also the logistical barrier in terms of protest; participation in left wing politics often involves a good deal of sign waving, civil disobedience and risk of arrest. If you are a relatively un-skilled labourer, as opposed to a relatively affluent university student, then spending a day in a jail cell may be quite prohibitive: missing some of your lectures is one thing, missing your shift at work can be another. The result is left-wing activity being disproportionately accessible to those who have yet to acquire any "real world" commitments.

Considering this, is it really so surprising that many of our revolutionaries come from a section of society who have been given the time and opportunity needed to develop left wing beliefs?

All of this must be quite painful to read for those on the left who imagine themselves as part of an uprising working class rather than an expression of petit bourgeois idealism. That's not to say that left-wingness is middle-class by definition: merely that so far as it is a break from the status quo leftism will find a cultural van-guard in the sections of society with better access to education.

But angst about this is un-warranted and rhetoric that refers to purging the left of middle-class hipsters is wasted breathe. It is only expected that the radicals in a society like ours will come from backgrounds where radicalism and creativity are more easily acted upon. An acknowledgment of this is perfectly compatible with working to untangle access to left-wing politics from the bohemian lifestyle but it does require dropping the rhetoric of "leftism as working class populism."

"Rethinking Democracy" By Carol Gould: First Thoughts On Reading

 It is a tragedy that this kind of political philosophy is so overlooked. Carol Gould is one of the few authors out there who takes democracy seriously enough to construct a theory from it, and yet her work is often missed when reviewing the literature. Despite the fidelity of Gould's work to the democratic project she barely makes it into the democracy entry on the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy except as a foot-note. In fact the theories of democracy that are touched on in the SEP are largely restricted to liberal, neo-liberal and aristo-monarchic positions.

So why has the work of Gould and her peers been so ignored?

Personally I think the problem lies with its ambigious classification and heritage. The arguments that Gould offers are too radical to fit in with the liberalism of Rawls and Dahl yet too reformist to be discussed alongside Anarchism. Furthermore, theories of participatory democratic theory are so multifaceted in terms of their origins that it is very difficult to slot them into one singular account of modern democratic theory, ergo they are often left out. 

Pragmatically speaking, this kind of book would be very informative for those interested in anarchism: in so far as it delineates an actual modus operandi for future "liberated territories". While Gould does retain both the state and the market as methods of organisation they are so augmented by the time she re-formulates them that they can barely be considered to be the kind of things that anarchists rail against. Her view of a democratic economy, for instance, largely mirrors anarcho-syndicalism (though it is never described in such terms) and her approach to governance consists of bottom up participatory structures. In short, the market that Gould wants is a socialist one and the territorial governance that she envisions needs little tweaking to defy conventional anarchist critiques.

It's not all one way traffic though. Gould's model of democracy could learn a few things from anarchism vis-a-vis institutional practises. Her vision of democratic participation, the actual making of decisions, seems to be focused on conversations followed by, what one would assume to be, a majority vote. Her theory's defence against majoritarian tyranny and persistent minorities is simply an appeal to the democratic character of its subjects. The anarchist tradition could offer here both a model of consensus decision making and an emphasis on decentralisation in order to build a more robust systemic response to the various upsets that can result from majority rule.

The social ontology and the ethical underpinnings of her theory remind me of Susan Neiman's "Why Grow Up?": at its core there's a really invigorating vision of humans as creative beings seeking self-betterment. In line with this, the book's content rests on a moral conception of self-determination as a requirement for human self-development. Gould rejects both liberal individualism and socialistic holism for an intermediate ontology that views humans as individuals whose identities are understood, pursued and realised through social relationships.


In terms of economic justice, this social ontology provides her with a twin pronged attack. If the purpose of freedom is self-development then this defends both "welfarism" and worker control of the means of production. "Welfarism" is justified on the grounds that everyone is entitled, where possible, to the resources that make self-development possible and the "rights to worker control" become justified where work is a social activity in which self-development takes place.

The book is strikingly comprehensive. "Rethinking Democracy" deals with topics as varied and concrete as the relationship between freedom and equality; the role of technical expertise in participatory democracy,  and the consequences Gould's theory has for debates surrounding global interventionism. If you want an idea of how anarchist principles might play out in a future society, but can't stand the more tendentious elements of anarchist rhetoric, then this is a worthwhile read.

Vegetarianism: Is it Wrong to Keep Snakes?

Ethically speaking, vegetarians are better human beings and it's a shame I'm not one of them.

The meat industry is responsible for terrifying levels of food-waste, pollution and an overall contribution to animal suffering that is impossible to support in good conscience. Deep down we all know this. This barely acknowledged guilt is why non-vegetarians so frequently voice their petty gripes and quips about out-spoken vegetarians; this is despite "anti-vegetarians" generally being far more obnoxious and vocal. In short, we are guilty and we know it. Neither sneering t-shirt sloganism  nor panel show laddism will make this go away. When it comes to the moral question of vegetarianism, those healthy bastards have us cornered.

 I confess that I currently eat meat only because I like the taste of it: the ethical arguments have yet to overpower my appetite. This is a fairly common quandary for me: many of my moral failings emanate from a chasm between what I recognise intellectually and how I actually behave. I'm not a very rational person.

Anyway, enough self-flagellation...

Vegetarianism has obvious implications for one's dietary requirements and the ethical premises on which it is founded often leads one to veganism. That is to say that the kind of argumentation that inspires vegetarianism, whether it be animal rights or simple utility calculation, often demands refusing not just the ingestion of animal products but also the use of them in general.

Alongside the renouncement of leather-jackets is the question of pets. Can a vegan/vegetarian keep one? If you are of a moral rights strain then the answer is generally yes but within reason. If you are a utility focused ethicist then there is a little more wriggle room, but still a number of variables to account for.

How ethical is the pet-trade in hamsters et al? Are all hamster sellers morally equal or are there some who are morally preferable? What harms might be inflicted on a domesticated hamster and does it out-weigh the pains endured by not-existing?

More interesting is the question of carnivorous pets. I have kept snakes myself so I will use them as a somewhat racier case study than the more mundane, and probably more ethically concerning, example of cats.

 A snake lives only in virtue of other animals dying. Bearing this in mind, is the snake a moral effrontery to a decent minded vegetarian? Is the vegetarian obliged to kill it in order to save the other animals whose suffering is needed to feed the snake?

 If one had a moral rights inclination then the answers would probably be something to the tune of yes to the former and no to the latter. However, if one were more inspired by utilitarians such as Peter Singer then the question of killing the snake becomes more difficult to answer.  In closing, I don't have anything particularly deep or insightful to say; I'm just waiting to see an ALF activist torch a reptile store.

The Problem with Public Intellectuals

Public intellectuals have a habit of presenting a false consensus. This is not a dig at the kinds of people who become public intellectuals; it's a problem with the way public intellectualism works.

Allow me to incriminate myself...


If I was to lecture you on the topic of moral philosophy for an hour then you may very well come away with the impression that moral rights, both natural and constructivist, are ridiculous. If however, you put an equally skilled defender of moral rights next to me you might come away with a somewhat more nuanced opinion. At the very least you wouldn't be led to believe that only fools and An-Caps trust in moral rights.

Managed by an intermediatary, any relationship between information and the public is open to abuse. Sometimes it can manifest as overt abuses that result from the intermediary refusing to acknowledge an argument, position or fact or sometimes as the more casual failure to give due credence to one's opponents. Such a problem is endemic to our culture of public intellectualism and is a good reason for seeking alternative methods of public education.

In my perfect world, universities, schools and the media would work to make the term "public intellectual" obsolete . To that effect, the training of academics in press relations and making more journals accessible to more people would be great steps forwards (though the latter probably isn't going to happen anytime soon). Offering young people educations that properly prepare them for participating in an intellectual culture would also be a fantastic measure to take. While modern educators are pushing for more emphasis on self-reliant learning and critical thinking, we need to cover a more academically practical curriculum.

Teaching young people not just about the subject matter that they are studying but also about how our knowledge of that subject matter is created and disseminated is vital to building an independent academic culture. If one wants to build a society where everyone can benefit from research, watch new developments and foster interests of their own then schools need to teach students these kinds of skillsets. Our educators must provide young people with knowledge about things like journal articles, peer-reviewal and meta-studies; even if people are not at a level where they can comperehend the content they should at least understand how it is produced. We don't expect a child to understand agriculture but we do teach them about where the chicken drumsticks they love come from: why can't we doing the same for science, economics and philosophy?

In closing I will admit that we do already have a rich and varied culture of public intellectuals. There are academics of every stripe bringing the most exciting and important aspects of their respective fields directly to our coffee tables. There is nothing ignoble about that. Indeed there are so many public intellectuals that if you don't like whoever is in vogue then with a little bit of digging you can easily find someone else. The problem is that for the most part, in my experience at least, people don't go digging; people largely engage with academic subjects as passive receptacles and wait to be filled in by public intellectuals. The problem of popularity and its obstruction of the quest for knowledge is nothing new but its effects can be mitigated by encouraging others to take up a more active and intimate relationship with the subjects that interest them. Until we have a pedagogical revolution in the field of public education I suppose the best we can do is recommend books and articles that are not on the best sellers list and diversify our debates. Let's just try not to be too smug when we recommend authors that people have "probably never heard of".