My dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?

To me, being liberal means, most directly, believing that people ought to be free to live their lives as they see fit, being subject only to the limitation that their actions must not take away others’ freedoms. It is thus a declaration that the liberal wants the greatest freedom that can exist without one person’s freedom oppressing another.

In practical terms, though, people do impact on one another, constantly. We share space, resources, common goods including even the air we breathe.  So realistically speaking we need to curtail our freedoms to some extent in order to live together peaceably.

Liberal thought has tended to seek out the sweet spot in the political spectrum that exists between many intersecting political dichotomies.  

Somewhere between the far left and the far right is a space that allows business to flourish but also respects human rights and the environment. Somewhere between Totalitarianism and anarchy, there is a government powerful enough to do its job but not so empowered that it turns to interfering with its citizens because it has more resources than work to do, and is big enough to provide services without getting so big that we struggle to afford to feed it.

Real liberals have thusly put themselves in the No-Man’s Land of a 100 years’ war between the Left and the Right, and get shelled by both routinely,  by accident and on purpose.  It is hardest to maintain a position in the Centre, as both sides seek to recruit or destroy you.

It’s also really hard to know quite where one is in such a space. Disagreements about exactly where that sweet spot is can turn nasty. When there is hard fighting on two fronts, a call to give ground on one of them can get characterised as betrayal by allies with sympathies lying further into the opposite frontier.  I have lost friends this way, whose goals, beliefs and values were absolutely no different from my own, to my regret.

It’s a tough gig to maintain liberal beliefs and keep friends. To run a country according to liberal values and keep office is One Really Tough Gig. 

Hats off to Mr O for selling it to America in a time of high unemployment and global uncertainty. Well done, Sir.

I think that perhaps the greatest failing of liberalism in the last century has stemmed from tolerating intolerant systems of belief.

Many liberals have been too kind to politics and politicians whose beliefs lay to the extreme Left and were highly Authoritarian.  These days, they are also finding false friends among religious extremists of various types, and amongst peoples with some truly awful cultural hangnails, dating straight from the Middle Ages.

One suspects a reaction- a word with a good Left wing pedigree-to the excesses of the Right, which leads people who really ought to know better, to see allies in Powerful Lefties Living and Dead.

Be they ever so dreadful, they end up on t-shirts worn by liberals’ kids.  

This is unfortunate, because the far Left has a lot wrong with it, morally and practically, as a brief tour of 20^th century history will demonstrate. Revolutions shed lots of blood and then elevate (inevitably Male) despots, who behave horribly until they die of natural causes considerably later.

Religious fundamentalism too has a lot wrong with it, morally and practically, as a visit to Utah will demonstrate.  A visit to many of the 4 dozen or so Sharia countries of the world might do the same. At least Utah doesn’t legislate the death sentence for being Hindu, Gay or atheist, but merely creates a city without pubs or coffee shops or fun. Or public transport. Or dense urban centres. Or nightlife.

But I digress.

I hope to see a Centrist liberalism with some teeth in the near future, that will keep the Left and the Right from each other’s throats and their boots and berets reserved for kinky parties. Lets be tolerant of anyone who will tolerate others, respect anyone who will respect others, and give a shit about the environment without shame.

 Its time. Again.

Physical Morality- a language problem.

I have a theory! No, really, I do.

I should add that my research is nowhere near good enough to be sure if it is actually new or previously expressed by someone else of whom I am unaware. And with that caveat I would like to spell it out here.

I think that humans, and possibly other social animals like dogs, place massive value on Intent when assessing how to respond to an action by a conspecific.

An act taken that has negative results, but was intended to be positive, will be most readily forgiven; an act that was taken without malice, but caused harm by accident, is also somewhat lightly forgiven, but an act that was taken with some degree of ill intent will be resented intensely, even if it comparatively trifling.

A friend of mine once hit me in the face so hard that it nearly broke my nose, but as we were just fooling about and he meant no harm, we were both laughing about it before I had stopped seeing stars.

On the other hand, and spite of trying to forget them, I continue to resent some unkind words that have been directed at me years ago, which objectively, hurt an order of magnitude less than my mate's epic backhand while we were playing some daft teenage game.

This makes sense for creatures that live in groups and rely on each other a lot, as you would not want to alienate an ally for hurting you accidentally, nor to tolerate abuse from a real enemy, however small the injury. Even if you could not retaliate at the time, tit for tat is a strategy that we use a lot, and remembering and keeping track of such slights is something that we are disturbingly good at, as we would be at avenging them too, if social strictures didn't keep our nano-vendettas under control for the most part.

This is all well and good when the issue at stake is social interactions between primates, but when, as has happened recently, we extend our notions of worth to other creatures and indeed to landforms and ecosystems, we are now trying to apply a very specific, primate-and-maybe-dog small group moral instinct to repositories of moral value which frankly don't give a toss about intent.

this can lead to some truly disturbing logic, in which all kinds of pointless acts are justified and even suggested: Its the principle of the thing, every bit counts, it sets a good example, etc etc, which in a more human context would amount to the social theatre of demonstrating good will; even if the results were inadequate, one could appease the wronged by demonstrating some effort in the right direction. The gods that we propriate seem to have a moral sense that is very remarkable in being so close to that of the higher primates; it matters to Him if you meant well/are sorry/do some nice things to compensate, or some pointless things to demonstrate loyalty.

But the physical world is neither a fellow ape, nor an Anthropomorphic God, to whom this kind of crap matters. The only language that an endangered species understands is undisturbed habitat. 

This leads us to the unexpected conclusion that the only kind of moral reasoning that can be justified in relation to environmental goals is consequentialist. What matters is the end result, and nothing else, if we are looking at environmental actions. 

I would welcome an argument on this point, should anyone wish to bring one. 

Regards, 

Brutus 

(a member of the same species, as the term is used by Lorenz, I feel happy to use it here too:)