It's a Wonderful Greeting

In countries like the UK, US, Canada, and many others, the winter break has for a long time been celebrated with cultural references to Christmas.  People with different religious beliefs or none have put up decorations, sent each other greetings, and talked about the ups and downs of family gatherings over this period.  Despite the contrasts in religious/secular backgrounds; preferences for food; inclinations to shop, drink, or watch TV; they share a common experience of ‘Christmas time’.

Thus, we greet each other ‘Merry Christmas!’

 

Appreciating that there are other cultural festivals that may be celebrated by other groups, some of us take note of these events, and send tailored greetings to friends and colleagues who follow, for example, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Chinese, or other traditional customs.  That is all well in itself.  But then, there are a few who seem to lose the plot.  They go from appreciating the customs of diverse groups in society, to calling for distancing from the inclusive customs that prevail across society.  In short, they want to see all references to Christmas removed.  They want us to give each other ‘seasonal’ greetings, and regard any display in public or personal communications mentioning ‘Christmas’ as unacceptable.

 

Not surprisingly, that led to a reaction against the perceived attack on prevailing customs.  Many feel that it was untenable that the diverse cultures of individual groups in society should be respected but the general culture characteristics of the whole society must be erased.  Unfortunately, this understandable reaction has been swiftly exploited by bigots and charlatans who try to turn it into a platform to condemn diversity and challenge multiculturalism.

 

In this season of goodwill, let us remember that Christmas in our society is a cultural event that promotes kindness, joy, and in truth, a fair amount of indulgence.  No one is pressured into going to church, sing carols, dress up as Santa, eat turkey, or watch the latest Xmas Special on TV.  Indeed, people are to enjoy themselves in whichever way they like.  It is fully compatible with wishing people with their own ethnic/religious/local customs the very best with their celebrations.  Anyone who try to hijack Christmas for their own fundamentalist sect poses as much a threat to Christmas as those who misguidedly want to blank it out.  

 

Christmas is a time for, not petty demarcation, but coming together.  It is a splendid tradition, as the year draws to a close, of reminding everyone to spread joy and hope.

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

What is Offensive?

People argue passionately about what is offensive and whether or not anything offensive should be banned.  But passion without reason tends to end in an incoherent mess.  Consider the following:

 

·      Should everyone – in the name of art, religion, freedom – be allowed to behave as they wish regardless of how offensive others may find it? Should racists, sexists, homophobes be given free rein to taunt and denigrate others in the most offensive manner?

·      Should everyone – in the name of tradition, sacred teaching, decency – be supported in stopping others from behaving in any way they find offensive? Should calls for racial equality, same sex marriage, rejection of creationism, all be ruled out as some people may otherwise be offended?

·      What about people, who demand to have the right to be offensive as they wish AND the support in banning others from being offensive in any way they would not tolerate?  How can anyone even begin to reconcile such arbitrary and conflicting demands?

 

The fact is that different people at different times find different things offensive.  If everything deemed offensive subjectively is to be banned, then few acts can escape from being banned as someone, somewhere, in sound mind or not, may well find it offensive.  Trying to differentiate what is truly offensive in itself from what is wrongly so regarded is futile since the nature of offensiveness is inherently subjective.  What we must recognise is that being offended by something does not necessarily render that something ban-worthy. 

 

How then should we respond when people complain about offensive behaviour they have encountered?  This question can only be answered in relation to our understanding of what kind of society we want to live in.  If we are to have any rules, assessments, and sanctions that are to apply to everyone, then it is a societal – rather than individual – matter as to what should be done.

 

This moral understanding of appropriate behaviour changes over time, but it does not mean that it is incapable of developing in a thoughtful direction.  If society is predominantly influenced by unreflecting views which overlook cruelty and neglect but hang on tightly to oppressive prejudices, then it could end up condemning as unacceptably offensive any expression that does not conform to some arbitrary sense of ‘purity’ or ‘tradition’, while concerns with, for example, racist or sexist behaviour will be dismissed as symptoms of over-sensitivity and misguided outrage.  But if society is moving towards greater thoughtfulness that brings with it deeper awareness of the difference between the manifestation of nastiness, callous neglect, or spiteful provocation, on the one hand, and the inherently harmless acts of people seeking love, creativity, or recourse against injustice, on the other; then that difference will be discerned and reflected in the rules and policies being advanced.

 

It is society that sets the norms regarding what causes of offensiveness should be restrained, and what should be allowed.  The challenge for us is not to come up with a definition of ‘offensiveness’ that can be used universally as the basis for banning behaviour that fits with it.  Instead, our endeavours should be directed towards promoting the moral culture of thoughtfulness, mutual respect, and generosity of spirit.  And we need to spread that ethos both educationally (so more people come to appreciate it) and politically (so governing institutions will act to safeguard it).

Trumpism: Old Con in New Bottle

There is a lot of talk about Trumpism – a new ideology, a new movement, a new kind of politics, etc.  Nothing like a new ‘ism’ to get commentators going.  But what Trump has brought to politics is actually just the same old Con, albeit in a gauche new bottle.

 

Con politics has always been exploiting lamentable tendencies in people who are susceptible to being manipulated into acting against their own interest.  

 

Here are four classic Con tricks:

 

[1] Recruit cult followers

Target people who would feel valued by joining a cult where a shameless and arrogant leader would be perceived by the flock as faultless chief to be followed with total devotion.  Give them a misguided sense of belonging, and they would back the cult regardless of its wrongdoing.

 

[2] Scam gullible buyers

Target people who would fall for con merchants selling snake oil, Ponzi schemes, or anything that would cost them and give them nothing in return but false hope.  Deflect them from good offers, and mislead them into buying into worthless, or even harmful deals.

 

[3] Feed rumour mongers

Target people who would gladly pick up and circulate malicious rumours to help stoke outrage, prejudice, mistrust, fear, etc., as that would get them attention from propagating shocking ‘news’.  Make them feel ‘special’ in spreading ‘information’ that established experts assess to be false or unsubstantiated.

 

[4] Gather law-breaking fodder 

Target people who would embrace any excuse to break the law to suit themselves, especially when it is dressed up as some self-righteous cause.  Encourage them to intimidate, or even attack, scapegoats and enemies with the help of verbal threats, display of weapons, and physical violence – all in the name of ‘freedom’.

 

Trumpian recycled Con

 

So-called ‘Trumpism’ is little more than recycled Con.  For decades we have seen the aforementioned tricks deployed, and Trump has simply made more brazen use of them.

 

First, evangelical cults have always tried to claim ‘God’ for the politics of exploitation, while trampling on religious values of love and fairness.  Like many cult leaders, the morally vile Trump was able to take on the role of the ‘one who can do no wrong’ in the eyes of his followers.

 

Secondly, the ‘free market’ scam is there to con people about the economics of redistribution from the poor to the rich.  Regulations are imposed or removed to suit the wealthy elite.  Trump continued to sell to the public that cutting funds for the less well-off to enrich the few at the top is a great bargain for all.

 

Thirdly, malicious fabrications to denigrate immigrants, public institutions, climate science etc are integral to the Con rumour mill to stir up distrust and animosity, so that the needed public policies are thwarted.  Trump extended the web of deception via social media and reached even more who preferred lies to reality.

 

Fourthly, Con politics has consistently waved the banner of Law & Order while whispering threats of disruption and violence.  From gun-toting gangs to supremist groups, Trump endorsed intimidatory behaviour, and encouraged rejection of the rule of law whenever his failings were being exposed.

 

Pour the old Con away

 

Many books and articles will be written about this tacky bottle called ‘Trumpism’, but what everyone should focus on is the dreadful old Con that it contains.  These tricks can be played in different ways by different performers.  But they all follow the same patterns, and should be thoroughly exposed.  Don’t let the face on the bottle distract you; keep the spotlight on the lies and misdirection. 

The Identity Trap

Careless talk about who we are supposed to be can throw us into a dangerous identity trap.

Some may think that pinning down someone’s identity is an unequivocal matter. But what is one’s identity is a question that depends on the context in which it is asked. Is one being asked about one’s nationality, religion, moral outlook, attachment to customs, workplace position, cultural preferences, sporting allegiance, socio-economic background, biological traits, role in one’s family, or membership of some group that holds special significance? None of the elements just mentioned is sufficient by itself to cover every possible question about one’s identity. Furthermore, just because one cites a particular category in relation to any of these elements, it does not follow that it must be part of one’s identity to possess all the features some people may choose to ascribe to that category.

For example, pick any nationality, and there will be some who associate it with all that is noble and heroic, and some who regard as the embodiment of untrustworthiness and aggression. The truth, for just about every nation, is that there are proud and regrettable moments in its history, and while its members may be judged on how they feel about these moments, they can’t be held accountable for those occurrences over which they had no influence. Similarly, one may have grown up with certain customs, but it does not follow that one will continue to embrace all those customs and related beliefs, or interpret their meaning in the same way. Short-hand labels like ‘Catholic’, ‘Buddhist’, ‘Shiite’ can be totally misleading if we assume everyone with that label must resemble one another in every vital respect, and share responsibility for the actions of anyone who happens to apply that label to themselves.

Biological features could be relevant when referred to in specific contexts, but are likely to distort how people are viewed if invoked on the basis of dubious generalisation. If information relating to DNA, X/Y chromosomes, bodily health, etc can help to determine the diagnosis and treatment of people, then it should be factored in. However, to talk about someone’s ethnicity, gender, or age as though from that element alone we can deduce every significant statement about that person is clearly absurd. Identity politics may rely on rigid categorisation of people into pre-conceived ‘black/white’, ‘female/male’, ‘old/young’ types; but every attribution of inherent psychological or behavioural traits to these types has been refuted by experience.

Equally unfounded, but just as commonly made, are identity claims formulated about people in connection with their socio-economic circumstances. For instance, people who cannot make ends meet and are socially marginalised (because, e.g., they are hampered by the deprivations in their neighbourhoods, recession has left too few job opportunities, disability limits what paid work they can find, dire conditions back home have forced them to become refugees) may have in common the need for external support to obtain food and shelter, but how they see their predicament and what they do in response vary greatly. Yet, to group them as ‘benefit seekers’ and project them disparagingly, especially by equating them with a small minority who attempt to claim benefit payment on false terms, is simply misleading and viciously hurtful.

The identity trap is one of the most insidious propagandist tools. To counter it, we should:
[1] stress we have multiple characteristics and not any single one of these can be picked out as all-defining of who a person is;
[2] expose any attempt to make arbitrary generalisations about what any partial identity label is supposed to encompass; and
[3] remind everyone that there are other characteristics that are all too often overlooked – e.g., the important self-identification as someone who seeks to be a thoughtful person, a caring parent, an enemy of cruelty, a defender of reason.

Humans are complex beings. We must never let others stick us down with a simplistic label.

Make America Sane Again

The world needs the US to be of sound mind. For then it will see that to look after the American people, it should not be divisive either within or beyond its borders. It will seek to understand what really works to make lives better for everyone, and keep at bay the rantings of deranged narcissists.

Let us hope that on 3 November, an end is put to the madness of the last four years. In its place, we look forward to signs of a genuine recovery.

First of all, isn’t it time to get much closer to affordable healthcare for all? Did it really take an inescapable pandemic for the richest country in the world to realise how outrageously wrong it is that millions of its own citizens must suffer and die just because they are denied the necessary jobs and income? Universal healthcare has to be the most fundamental of human safety net.

Next up, the ‘unscrupulous takes all’ economy has to change. So long as corporate cheats can use tax loopholes, relentless lobbying, political donations, etc. to amass a fortune for themselves while leaving most people with insecure, underpaid jobs or no jobs at all, there will be insufficient demand to sustain supplies. Worker cooperatives, community enterprise, strategic regulation and investment, are needed to give people a dependable livelihood.

Thirdly, urgent action is needed to tackle pollution, depletion of non-renewable resources, and climate change threats, all of which have surged ahead under a leader who has cared more about playing golf than not inflicting harm on countless people. These problems require international collaboration, and the sooner callous unilateralism is moved aside, the more chance we will have for a sustainable future.

Fourthly, the world has had enough of Putin’s ambassador to the White House disrupting global security to serve Russia’s geopolitical interest. Sanity calls for, not a return to military intimidation abroad to boost a false patriotism at home, but for a new era of calm leadership and rational cooperation with other countries to secure peace and stability.

Last, and certainly not least, there has to be an unmistakable resolve to put an end to vile discrimination and the politics of hate. The gratuitous stoking of animosity against people based on their gender or race; the standing alongside of misogynists, homophobes, and racists as an shameless ally; and the abuse of executive power to target the vulnerable – all this must be irrevocably displaced by a new dawn of respect and decency.

All these changes are possible. A path to civic recovery is feasible.
On 3rd November – Make America Sane Again.

The Revolution Paradox

Revolutions. What are they good for? Some might say ‘absolutely nothing’, and many caught up in the unleashing of destructive forces and random violence would agree. Moreover, leading revolutionary figures have all too often toppled authoritarian rulers only to establish themselves as even more dictatorial oppressors.

A glance back at the two archetypal revolutions – the French of 1789 and Russian of 1917 – would remind us of a familiar pattern. Vocal denunciation of the prevailing autocratic regime, coupled with promises of a new era that will truly put the people first. Overthrowing of the established order, and dismantling of long-standing arrangements for all key aspects of the governance of society. Suspicion, fear, hysteria intensifying over threats to undermine or even overturn the revolution, leading to baseless accusations, arbitrary arrests, repressive measures, tortures and executions. Tyranny asserts itself and terror reigns.

Many have argued about whether or not these negative consequences of revolutions are ever outweighed by the beneficial changes they might have engendered. What is indisputable is the impact of these revolutions had on fuelling reform movements in other countries which had otherwise long ignored calls for social and political reforms.

Throughout the 18th century, many reformists in Britain had pressed for changes that would curtail corruption within the ruling regime, and enable more people to participate equitably in democratic elections. Their demands were repeatedly brushed aside until the 1789 French Revolution turned their attention to the danger of pent-up demands for change exploding into a violent uprising that could not be suppressed. On the surface, the British establishment remained disdainful of reformist ideas, but in practice, successive reforms were enacted in the following decades to move the country much closer to what the reformists were seeking.

The effects of the Russian Revolution on Western Europe and North America were even more dramatic. Laissez faire capitalism had become the dominant power system in the advanced industrial nations in the 19th century. Against this status quo, reformists called for the state to take on greater social responsibility in protecting citizens from highly damaging economic vicissitudes, and they were routinely ignored, if not condemned. But once the 1917 Russian Revolution and its aftermaths had shown how a ruling regime could be swept aside and replaced by radicals acting in the name of economic justice and respect for workers, political leaders in the West started to accept (however grudgingly in some cases) that the state must take seriously the role of regulating the marketplace properly and providing a decent level of social security for its citizens. The New Deal in the US, the welfare state in Britain, and the rise of social democracy in many parts of Europe illustrated the spread of the new political mindset.

Then came the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Communist revolutionary threat was declared over. Social reforms could not only be ignored once more, but relentlessly reversed. Deregulation, privatisation, welfare cuts, removal of public safety nets, were celebrated as the best policies.

Consequently, millions have suffered. It’s depressingly likely that any revolution would bring short-term terror and long-term oppression to one’s country. But paradoxically, a revolution elsewhere might cause reactionaries to wake up to the need for genuine social and political inclusion, and change course without violent upheaval at home. Of course, in all good conscience, we wouldn’t wish the bloody turmoil of a revolution on any country. Yet what else would it take to shatter the complacency of shameless plutocrats?

Being Thoughtful: a philosophy of life

[To mark the 300th article to appear on Question the Powerful, our latest essay is devoted to setting out the core philosophy of life that runs through our critical reflections on politics and society.]

By whatever term we call it, each of us has a philosophy of life that shapes our judgement and behaviour. However, attempts to compare or improve on such philosophies are all too often hampered by overused labels which carry divisive connotations. Instead of clarifying what people mean, they convey contrasting ideas to different audiences. A nominal affiliation, a short-hand ‘left’/’right’ reference, or a loose association with certain groups – can all be invoked to declare someone a follower of this or that ‘ism’ and what that must imply.

Let us try to explore one particular philosophy of life without pigeon-holing it into some pre-conceived box. We’ll call it the Philosophy of Being Thoughtful. In essence, it prompts us to be thoughtful about:
[1] what we value, since none of us can ignore how the pursuit of our values can impact on others and vice versa, and we should recognise the mutual responsibility we have for our respective actions and their consequences;
[2] what we believe, since accepting dubious claims and rejecting sound assertions can lead us down erroneous paths, and we should engage in cooperative enquiry to ascertain what does or does not merit our assent;
[3] what we decide, since the implications of our decisions can’t be fully grasped without discovering the relevant views and concerns others may have, and we should ensure citizen participation is the norm in reaching collective decisions.

In practical terms, this means we should always try to be thoughtful empathically, cognitively, and volitionally – seeking information and understanding to appreciate how others may feel, what views should be revised, and which course of action ought to be chosen given the circumstances. It also means we must anticipate when we will have insufficient evidence, resources, or time to think everything through – we should be ready to act on the basis of what is available to us but prepared to revise our position if and when we can access more that is relevant; and just as importantly, we must constantly help expand inter-personal understanding, empirical knowledge, and collaborative arrangements as essential long-term development for our common wellbeing.

And what difference would it make? We can look at a few examples.

First, how do we view others? There are some who regard others as inconsequential when they go about getting what they want. There are some who look down on others just because of their skin tone, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, or economic background. But being thoughtful means we regard others as we would want them to regard us; we try to understand what it is like to be in their shoes; and we respect their preferences so long as they respect us and intend us no injury.

Secondly, how do we respond to ignorance? There are those who want to spread misconception and superstition, because they want to deceive others for their own ends, or they are lost in their own delusion. But being thoughtful means we are to learn from experience and experiment; apply objective tests and explorations to assess what deserves to be accepted as credible; and promote education that is grounded on science and critical scholarship.

Thirdly, how do we behave in society? There are those who are content to leave everyone to their own devices even though some will hurt and subjugate others. There are those who simply want to have the power to exploit and dominate others. But being thoughtful means we give our support to inclusive arrangements to give everyone a meaningful say; to collaborative structures for making decisions with wider social implications; and to forms of governance which protect us from harm by individuals, groups, or corporations.

Finally, how do we deal with threats? There are some who want to strike hard at whoever they deem a threat – severe punishment for alleged lawbreakers, torture for anyone accused of being a terrorist, military attacks on any foreign country designated an enemy – and do so regardless of whether or not the accused in question is guilty. But being thoughtful means we are to focus on establishing what poses the real threats; find the most effective and proportionate means of dealing with those who threaten us (deploying diplomacy, offensive action, rehabilitation, and incarceration where it is appropriate); and treat the threat from those who abuse the power to protect us as seriously as the threat they claim to protect us from.

While many will recognise the traits and dispositions characteristic of this philosophy of life, few will agree on a name for it. Elements of it can be found across diverse cultures since ancient times; they feature in the ideas of a number of Renaissance and 17th century thinkers; in the writings of many Enlightenment advocates; and in the advice put forward by numerous cooperative and progressive-minded reformists from the 19th century on. Being Thoughtful is perhaps the closest we can get to capturing the common strand in all of them that reflects what has been outlined here.

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A guide to further reading for ‘Being Thoughtful: a philosophy of life’ can be found at: https://hbtam.blogspot.com/2020/08/being-thoughtful-reading-guide.html

What Makes Better Communities: the communitarian case

There is no shortage of ideas for making communities better. To consider what communitarian thinking may have to offer, we need to retrace what the key formulations of that thinking involves.

The initial set of formulations appeared around the middle of the 19th century. It related to the ideas and practices of Robert Owen and people who wanted to apply these to the development of cooperative arrangements to facilitate better social and economic relations. ‘Communitarian’ emerged as a common term for describing Owenite efforts to set up new forms of enterprise, work communities, and associations of workers. While a common aspiration was to realise the age-old potential for collaboration and solidarity, the strategies that were tried out pointed, not to a return to some idealised past, but to new rules and structures to deal with the prevailing reality. This was exemplified by the Rochdale Pioneers, formed in 1844, this group of worker-owners pooled their resources to buy goods needed by local people and sell them at a reasonable price with any profit to be shared amongst members of the group. Customers and workers alike could become members and everyone had an equal vote in determining how the group was run.

The next set of formulations of ‘communitarian’ came in the 1980s via the commentary on the writings of Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, Michael Walzer, and Charles Taylor, all of whom had penned critiques with a common target – the ideas of John Rawls. The four of them came to be considered as sharing a ‘communitarian’ stance in opposing a form of liberalism that is premised on what they deemed a deeply flawed conception of the self. They argued that a person conceptually stripped of all relational connections with others is not the ‘real’ person with the utmost clarity of thought, but an isolated entity with no sense of belonging, obligations, or concerns, without which there can be no meaningful moral reflections. Significantly, all four of these philosophers’ aversion towards the atomistic self is reflected in their objections to economic individualism and the consequent rise in inequality in society.

The third set of formulations appeared in the 1990s from a number of writers who drew on the cooperative ideals of solidarity and reciprocity in putting forward theories of communitarianism. David Miller argued for a communitarian form of market socialism that could avoid the pitfalls of top-down socialism and laissez faire capitalism. Jonathan Boswell set out a theory of ‘democratic communitarianism’, which explains why neither an over-reliance on the market nor the state can solve the problems facing society, and how mutually supportive human relations sustained by multiple communities at different levels should be cultivated through cooperative institutional practices and public policies. These views were echoed by Robert Bellah in The Good Society; while Charles Derber maintained that combining the Scandinavian model of state-citizen cooperation and the inclusive approaches of cooperative enterprises exemplified by the Mondragon Corporation and others, could hold the key to the development of what he called ‘left communitarianism’. And in her article, ‘A communitarian approach to local governance’, Elinor Ostrom noted that “appropriate institutional arrangements for cooperative housing and neighborhood governance are necessary to facilitate co-productive efforts for monitoring and exercising control over public spaces”.

The fourth set of formulations were put forward by a group of public intellectuals who wanted to use the ‘communitarian’ banner to champion a different approach to public policy development. Amitai Etzioni and William Galston were the main driving force behind the initiative, with Philip Selznick and Thomas Spragens amongst the key contributors to its scholarly exposition. The group launched its Responsive Communitarian Platform to set out its main concerns with the lack of balance between meeting demands for individual rights and promoting responsibility for the common good, and went on to issue policy recommendations on strengthening family support, improving schools in value education, engaging communities in crime reduction, focusing government intervention on where it is most needed, and a wide range of other subjects. Their underlying aim is to bolster liberal politics by empowering communities through moral dialogues, civic education, and policies that pursue public goals as defined by an informed public.

The fifth set of ideas emerged in the synthesis of philosophical and policy considerations I developed in my 1998 book, Communitarianism. In addition to drawing out the three key communitarian principles of cooperative enquiry, mutual responsibility, and citizen participation, it integrated theories and practices from a wide range of countries and sectors. These offered a comprehensive critique of both unrestrained market forces and arbitrary state actions, argued for inclusive community development as opposed to the revival of old dysfunctional community relations, and explained the need for more deliberative and participatory engagement to be advanced in government institutions, business organisations, and voluntary groups.

Taken together, these five sets of formulation of communitarian ideas provide a conceptual DNA profile that can help us trace their development through history, understand their significance in challenging prevailing assumptions, and recognise what they offer in reshaping the theory and practice of community improvement.

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You can find out more from The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019): https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783030265571

Communitarianism: a new agenda for politics and citizenship (Palgrave Macmillan, 1998): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Communitarianism-New-Agenda-Politics-Citizenship/dp/0814782361

The Home-centric Redevelopment Scheme

Ease or revive lockdown? What are we to do with this Covid-19 pandemic that has mired us in fear and uncertainties? Is there anything we can put in place to deal with this predicament?

There is an approach which can, not only solve many of the immediate problems we face, but also help us achieve a range of critical improvements that have for too long been held back. I call it the Home-centric Redevelopment Scheme. It has three components.

[1] Strategic Adaptation to make Home-Working the Norm
Technology has advanced to a point that there can be no excuse for not facilitating home-working in the most effective manner, and making it the norm. Being trusted, empowered, and safe, people will certainly not be any less productive than having to waste time travelling to work. Transport-related pollution is correspondingly reduced. Absenteeism from family life due to work-related time away from home is cut. And contact with colleagues can be made more extensively and rapidly across a computer network than having to go physically to different places. All this requires universal provision of high-quality internet connections, which is something every government should urgently secure.

[2] Conversion of City-centre Offices into Affordable & Sustainable Homes
What about all those empty office blocks, and all the local services that depend on the custom of office workers? The answer is in converting the office buildings that are no longer needed into decent accommodation that can be purchased or rented by people on all income levels. The new homes should meet the highest sustainability standards with low cost energy supplied from renewable sources. Their occupants will be within walking distance to local shops and other facilities, and with masks and other precautions they can keep numerous businesses in the area vibrant.

[3] Establish a Comprehensive Home Delivery Service
Beyond serving customers in their vicinity, businesses will need support in reaching people who live much further away and are disinclined to venture out. To help all businesses get their products to customers in a reliable and cost-effective way, there should be a comprehensive delivery service (e.g., an enhanced nationwide postal service) that enables businesses to send their goods (from furniture to food, clothes to computers) to any home in the country at a fast and economically viable rate. This national service will in turn guarantee its workers an income above the minimum wage, proper sick pay, and reliable health and safety conditions. It will also help many businesses compete with corporations that exploit their own large-scale/low-pay delivery service to dominate the market.

There may remain businesses where direct physical presence is unavoidable. But in parallel with the three components outlined above, it is worth paying much closer attention to how practices in these businesses can be changed as well. As automation increases, worker supervision of machine operation can more and more be done via remote monitoring. Face-to-face consultation and instruction giving can be done on screen. Technology is opening new ways for collaborative working for people who are in fact far apart. We must not, of course, ignore the need to make workplaces safer to carry out what genuinely cannot be done from home. But with the Home-centric Redevelopment Scheme, our safety, sustainability, and economic health can be greatly enhanced.

Reflections on China & PPE (Philosophy, Politics & Economics)

When I began my undergraduate course in PPE at the Queen’s College in 1978, I did not know that I was to be the first student of Chinese descent to read Philosophy, Politics & Economics at the University of Oxford.

Looking back, it was not that surprising. PPE has always been a subject associated with the development of critical and democratic governance. Prior to the reforms brought in by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s, Communist China was unlikely to be sending any of its young people abroad to study PPE. Of the two Chinese-majority states outside the People’s Republic, Taiwan was ruled under martial law until 1987, and Singapore had been controlled by a single party (the PAP – People’s Action Party) since it gained independence in 1965. As for Hong Kong and Macao, they were British and Portuguese colonies respectively, and were governed with little input from the local Chinese population.

Against that backdrop, I was an odd exception who turned away from the common Chinese parental aspiration for their children to become a ‘professional’ (who’d leave politics to others), and headed instead towards a discipline which certainly at the time looked like the preserve of the white establishment. Guess being the odd one out fitted in with the inclination to question the powerful. What I went on to learn from my PPE experience has played an important part in my subsequent academic research, political writing, policy work in government, and collaboration with civic activists.

It therefore saddens me greatly that in 2020, the centenary year of the launch of PPE at Oxford, the prospects for critical and democratic governance in China and the former colonies now under China’s rule, have fallen under a long shadow. Authoritarian control is intensifying, and any expression of critical views is met with threats and punishment. And as relations between the UK and China become increasingly strained, could we be returning to a time when the likelihood of Chinese youths studying PPE is zero? It would be symptomatic of the widening gulf between an education in political criticism and a ruling ethos that cannot tolerate free political thinking.

I had at one time believed that from the 1980s on, the grip of authoritarian rule over most Chinese people’s lives – be it in its Communist, colonial, or military form – would loosen, and be replaced by a more open and democratic culture. But the trajectory is now clearly going in the opposite direction. Instead of ideas, historical lessons, objective analyses relating to the development and governance of society, being more widely shared and studied, opportunities for learning and open discussion of philosophy, politics and economics are fast dwindling.

Authoritarianism thrives on giving the impression that society cannot be governed in any other way. This impression must not be allowed to take hold. Educators, East and West, have a responsibility for opening minds to diverse ways of thinking. It is when each new generation are able to explore new possibilities and discover alternative paths, that they are most likely to herald the changes needed for a better future.

The Scientific v. the Arbitrary

Some people dismiss scientific claims when these conflict with their instinctive views or their religious beliefs. But while instincts can be important and faith can be valuable, when it comes to reliability, what makes ‘scientific thinking’ distinctly dependable is that it is characterised by its approach to reason and evidence. In short, for any claim to be scientific, it must stand up to the on-going tests of rational analysis and evidential examination. To make any claim that fails or ignores such critical tests is to make an arbitrary assertion, which offers nothing to justify its believability.

It is important to remember that what validates a claim as scientific is not that some particular person – formally designated a scientist or not – has made that claim. What is crucial is the manner in which that claim has been tested and found to be provisionally sound. It does not have to be declared absolutely, eternally correct. Indeed, any such declaration would cast doubt on the claim being scientific at all. What we are looking for in the testing process is genuine attempts to demonstrate what the claim entails would happen does happen under conditions of objective observation, and that systematic searches for counter-examples or alternative explanations have not produced a case to undermine its credibility.

In medical research, forensic investigation, or electrical engineering, we can see how claims that are put forward from different quarters are subject to vigorous tests, and only upheld if confirmatory findings are obtained and replicable, while no contrary evidence is discovered. And the acceptance of such claims is open to revisions should further challenges and explorations lead us to reconsider what is being put forward.

By contrast, an arbitrary stance reveals itself when one insists on the correctness of a claim regardless of the evidence. This can be seen with people who would reject any questioning of their assertions even though they have no tangible basis for making them. For example, anti-vaxxers dismiss all vaccinations as unacceptably dangerous irrespective of extensive studies of different types of vaccine; climate change deniers maintain whatever substantial climate changes are detected have nothing to do with human activities in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary; cult followers would not rethink any of their leaders’ claims even when they are blatantly false according to every objective assessment; and xenophobic conspiracy theorists attribute blame to foreigners for things with which there are no detectable causal links.

Of course, makers of arbitrary claims can resort to the old ‘science hasn’t got all the answers’ proclamation. But it has no relevance. Science, or more accurately, the totality of scientifically validated claims at any given time, does not have all the answers to every conceivable question. Neither has any other source of information – be they preachers, self-styled clairvoyants, astrologers, or the rumour mill. The difference is that those who work on scientific claims know the limits of the available evidence and are prepared to suspend their judgement, or revise their views, in light of what actual investigation and experiment are able to find.

So long as we remember that ‘pseudo-science’ – the pretence that absolute knowledge is attained in the name of science when it rests on anything but scientific evaluation – is not science, we can safely say that we should let claims be put on a scale that has scientific at one end and arbitrary at the other, and where any individual claim sits would indicate to us what credence we should attach to it.

Skin-Tone Negativity Syndrome (STNS)

There are people who reacts to others’ skin tone, without any coherent justification, with one or more of the following tendencies:
• Fear
• Unease
• Distrust
• Hatred
• Anger
• Rudeness
• Condescension
• Stereotyping

Now we can argue about the extent to which each of these tendencies may qualify as racist, and perhaps different words should be used to differentiate mild/occasional manifestations from intense/frequent ones, but no one would dispute that such these tendencies, prompted purely by skin tone negativity, ought to be corrected. Anyone at the receiving end of any of these tendencies would understandably feel wronged and aggrieved. Why should anyone have to put up with being perceived and/or treated in an unfavourable manner just because of one’s skin tone, irrespective of one’s real character, abilities, and track record in life?

It is notable that many people who exhibit the Skin Tone Negativity Syndrome (STNS) and seek to defend it publicly, seek to focus debates on the meaning of words – should a particular act be called ‘racist’? should an organisation be classified as ‘institutionally racist’? was an expression merely ‘politically incorrect’? And since they prefer to use their own ‘definitions’ of terms which bear little resemblance to those of their critics, the debates can go on and on without any resolution in sight.

By contrast, if the focus is kept on what STNS does in specific cases, on what tendency is manifesting, and what impact it is having on affected people’s lives, then there is no hiding from public scrutiny. Defenders of STNS can, for example, keep spouting the mantra that the way they like to talk about ethnic minorities is not ‘racist’, but just ‘plain speaking’. But if the insulting and injurious behaviour they would not accept for themselves is discovered to have been perpetrated on others, then the case for intervention is made.

The need for intervention often brings up another question in connection with STNS – namely, what is THE cause of it? However, to understand STNS is to see that it does not have a single definitive cause. Some people become susceptible to xenophobic manipulation because they have suffered through socio-economic marginalisation. But deprivation is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for STNS. Some people inherit the casual prejudices from their parents and neighbours. Some people come from privileged families, and their wealth-based status leads them to succumb to a delusionary ‘superiority’ complex that encourages them to look down on others who are visibly different from them. Some may have had personal experiences that diminish their self-esteem to such a level that hating and intimidating others who could be branded as ‘alien’ might be their way of boosting their fragile ego.

Instead of looking for a one definitive cause, we should trace its manifestations to the different conditions that give rise to them, and formulate preventative and corrective measures as appropriate. These would include civic education to nurture moral awareness; public scrutiny and curtailment of egregious communication that is designed to deceive, incite, or hurt people; exposure and removal of symbolism that serves to normalise, or even glorify, wrongful deeds; child protection that ensures families are not left to abuse or corrupt their young; support for people whose personal circumstances render them vulnerable to the embrace of blind suspicion and arbitrary hate; and mechanisms for reporting incidents to be investigated at all levels of society for early intervention to commence whenever necessary.

STNS is harmful because it generates negative impact on people on the wholly arbitrary basis of their skin tone. We should not let those who revel in its spread deflect us with rhetorical sleight-of-hand. Wherever it is detected, it must counteracted with swift and effective action.

Left Without Words

What is the difference between ‘Left’ and ‘Right’? The terms arose from the seating arrangement in the National Assembly convened in the wake of the 1789 French Revolution. Those who wanted to press for greater liberty, equality, and fraternity, and bring in policies that would secure the necessary changes sat to the left of the assembly’s president. Those who sought to defend the position of the monarch, aristocratic privileges, and the hierarchical structures of the status quo sat to his right.

Two centuries on, Left is still in essence the label for those who challenge oppression, inequalities, and discriminatory exclusion, while Right embodies the mindset of those who desire the preservation of concentrated power, rigid divisions, and unquestionable customs.

On the surface, the Left ought to be the natural rallying point for everyone who suffers from the iniquities perpetuated by champions of the Right, and should readily appeal to the unfairly disadvantaged and the critics of prejudice and exploitation. But for decades, the Left appears to have forgotten that they need to remind people what they stand for, and that to do so effectively requires the deployment of key words.

One of the most critical errors of the Left is to let go of any term which has been hijacked by the Right. Just consider the following:

• Community: the Right obsesses about communities that are controlled by tight hierarchies and deferential to the powerful, but the Left should support the development of positive community life by enabling people to act cooperatively and deliberatively as democratic citizens.
• Customs: there are customs that are positive in uniting people and celebrating positive memories, but there are also customs that are outmoded and harmful. The Right wants to preserve prejudices and discrimination as integral parts of selected customs, but they should be exposed, while valuable customs and historical symbols ought to be embraced by the Left.
• Faith: There is no single spokesperson for God and there is no religious sect that can condemn all other faiths and beliefs as wrong. The Right has no compunction in claiming it is the standard bearer of ‘true faith’ when that is simply whatever they pick to suit their rhetoric. The Left welcomes faith that promotes love and harmony, but opposes false prophets who preach hatred and spread lies.
• Family: why let the Right pretend only they care about family values? They actually want to retain patriarchal family structures and attack all other forms of loving family relations as unacceptable. The Left should promote real family values.
• Freedom: the Right’s ‘freedom’ is about the freedom of the powerful to oppress others, the freedom to act irresponsibly, and the freedom to deceive and intimidate. The Left’s role is to defend everyone’s freedom from the oppressive, irresponsible, and unjust acts of others.
• Law and Order: the Right wants to be associated with ‘law and order’ but they are quite ready to undermine legal due process or incite riots if that would help them win/keep power. The Left wants law and order for all irrespective of their connections or bank balance.
• Patriotism: the Right is ever ready to dress up their xenophobia and aggressive stance against other countries as patriotism, but true patriotism is about doing what is in the real best interest of one’s country, and that is at the heart of the Left’s dedication to enhance the wellbeing of the country’s people.
• Prosperity: the Left has allowed the Right to caricature it as wanting fairer shares of a shrinking pie. In reality, the Right wants the privileged few to have more and more at everyone else’s expense, while the Left wants prosperity for all with renewable resources helping to enrich everyone’s life-chances.
• Security: the Right sees security as protection for themselves whenever they take ownership of property or control of government, but they are not concerned about the lack of security for the poor and vulnerable, or about public institutions if they were not in power. The Left stands for security, in all forms, for all citizens and all institutions.

If the Left keeps dissociating itself from any word that the Right has tried to claim as its own, it will end up with nothing to signify what it stands for. It’s time for the Left to rebuild its vocabulary.

Priority One: Political Power

People who routinely lament “nothing ever changes”, clearly have their eyes shut to both the many good and disastrous changes that happen around us. A glance at history tells us that significant improvements to health provision, the environment, business reliability, welfare support, dispute resolution, etc. can be achieved through the appropriate public policies. Equally, every indicator of quality of life can dip, or even plummet, when callous and exploitative measures are implemented by undesirable regimes.

Changes are real. They are substantial. They are not random. And the most important means for controlling them is political power.

We should not neglect campaigning for causes, joining groups to raise shared concerns, donating to charities, or protesting against iniquitous acts. But they are no substitute for political power. If we do all the other things, and yet keep away from electoral politics, the result is that the unscrupulous will step in, take power, and use it to advance their self-serving agendas at everyone else’s expense.

It may be comforting for some that retreating from political contests to concentrate on ‘good deeds’ means they can feel positive about their role in life. In reality, nothing can alter lives more than the exercise of political power. To allow charlatans to take political office is to open the door for them to introduce laws, policies, arrangements to impoverish more people, put more lives at risk, damage the environment irreparably, pervert the course of justice, extend corrupt practices, and spread distrust and hatred.

Our first priority as citizens must be to help secure political power for those most likely to help society with that power and least likely to abuse that power against the public interest. That means we have to assess every political contest as it is, and not pretend we are living in an alternative idealised world where a ‘perfect’ candidate will appear and win with our unwavering support.

Each contest presents us with critical choices. Increasingly these come down to a run-off between an arch-manipulator (charismatic to their followers, ever ready to lie and distort, shamelessly corrupt, indifferent to the suffering they cause others), and someone willing to fight for a better alternative. That alternative may not satisfy everyone, deliver all desirable changes as fast as possible, or meet the expectations of all sections of society. But when it is either that challenger with the alternative vision or the arch-manipulator, it must be obvious that anything short of backing for the former would lead to victory for the latter and the most dire consequences would ensue.

Nonetheless, some people are quite content to stand back and let charlatans win because they insist they will not vote for anyone except for the ‘perfect candidate’ in their eyes (even if that person has no chance of winning); or in some cases, they believe that letting swindlers take power will stir public anger and hasten the day when the revolution comes.

Such delusions must be cast aside. The only ‘revolution’ that comes is the dismantling of public services, subversion of law and order, undermining of human rights, and escalation of preventable suffering. If life is to get better, if the ruthless is not to keep hold of the power to rule over us, we must accept that, above all else, we need to rally behind the candidate who will offer a more decent alternative, AND who is best placed to defeat the charlatan who endangers the common good.

We have seen in the US and the UK what happens when too many people refuse to follow this course. Let’s not make that mistake again.

The General Theory of Responsibility (part 3)

The final set of issues covered by the general theory of responsibility relate to the influence we have over the decisions made by others that can affect how we live. Just as we would not want to have no influence over others’ choice of action when that can impact on us, we should not leave others with no influence over our choice of action that can impact on them.

Citizen Participation: our decision-making involving each other

People’s responsibility can be diminished to the extent their influence over a course of action is reduced. Beyond matters of which individuals are fully in control themselves, there are many activities in society that involve others by design, accident, or unwelcome interference. It is not uncommon that out of impatience, excessive certitude, or low regard for the perspectives of others, some people make decisions without those affected ever getting a chance to have a say about them. This can happen in the context of any social group, from a neighbourhood, workplace, to a region, a country, or the world. If we are to involve one another in the decisions we make, we need to have citizen participation – secured through processes of informed and deliberative engagement. It is why over the course of history, democratic and participatory practices have been found to limit irresponsible behaviour much more than dictatorships or anarchic free-for-all.

The Problem of Imposition

To protect people’s capacity for responsible behaviour, we need to deal with the problem of imposition, which arises when individuals’ options for what to do are cut out by extraneous factors. Imposition can range from physical forces that cause involuntary movement and thus nullify responsibility completely; to interference such as duress that presents immoral options as alternatives to more painful outcome, which may not take away a person’s responsibility (even though in cases where the threatened pain is severe, the person’s actions may be forgiven). It may also come in the form of internal mental pressure, which can remove responsibility if it is truly irresistible in the sense that a person makes demonstrable yet unsuccessful efforts in rejecting it, but not if the person actually embraces the obsession/addiction as an integral part of their identity. Attempts to tackle the problem of imposition must also navigate the arguments deployed by those such as philosophical determinists who maintain that there is no such thing as responsibility since everyone’s behaviour is ultimately determined by a chain of causes that go back before a person’s birth; sincere or devious advocates who insist the weakness of will exhibited in any blameworthy action is sufficient to deny responsibility for it; and well-off reactionaries who want to impose impoverished life choices on others and hold that the poor and powerless must take full responsibility for how they live.

Volitional Thoughtfulness

We need to cultivate volitional thoughtfulness in people so that they can reflect on the choices they make, learn to have greater control over their thoughts and desires, and engage more effectively others who may be affected by their decisions as they would want to be engaged by others who make decisions that affect them. There should be better understanding of subsidiarity – regarding how decisions are best taken at the most local level except for when it has to be passed to an authority with wider jurisdiction and greater capacity because otherwise no decision can be effectively made or carried out. People should also learn about when decisions need to be delegated to others to take on the role of formulating a collective response, and how they can maintain real influence over their decisions.

Power Balance as a Socio-Political Goal

Responsibility is sustained by mutual consideration, and we need to reduce power inequalities in society if it is to flourish. We must promote power balance across communities by means of: [a] the development of more effective participatory decision-making, with better utilisation of tried and tested participatory approaches, so as to raise people’s understanding of and influence over decisions that can affect how they live, and improve the chances of all decision-makers going with the most responsible options; [b] the securing of greater civic parity, so that wealth and status gaps are reduced, no one is left vulnerable by deficient public safety net, and the influence of money over policies and practices is greatly curtailed; and [c] the strengthening of public accountability, so that where we have to entrust decisions to a number of elected or appointed figures (for reasons of efficiency, emergency, or simple feasibility), we can be confident that they will have to seek our views and can be held accountable by us for the decisions they take.

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For ‘The General Theory of Responsibility (part 1), go to: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html
For ‘The General Theory of Responsibility (part 2), go to: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility_11.html
For an overview of the theory and a guide to further reading, go to: https://hbtam.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html

The General Theory of Responsibility (part 2)

Let us turn now to the second set of issues that are central to the general theory of responsibility. We have looked at the importance of our concern for each other and what we accordingly need to do. It will be seen that in order to act appropriately on our concern for each other, we also need to be aware what will help or hinder others in practice. To differentiate responsibly between what merits belief or not, we need to be prepared to take account of the reasons and evidence put forward by others, as we would want them to be prepared to take account of the reasons and evidence put forward by us.

Cooperative Enquiry: our reasoning with each other

Human knowledge has been advanced through cooperative enquiry, exemplified by the empirical exchange and examination of information in scientific research, legal due process, and impartial public inquiry. It would clearly be self-defeating if all sides were to throw in groundless declarations or incoherent assertions. Cooperative enquiry requires logical and testable information to be brought together and scrutinised openly to see what stands up best at any given time and thus warrants assent. To act responsibly, we need to ascertain the veracity of conflicting claims, which involves being ready to give defensible reasons, listen and respond, and revise views in the light of verifiable evidence; and this approach requires all sides to engage in a mutually receptive mode of reasoning.

The Problem of Ignorance

Misunderstanding, confusion, deception, lack of information can mean that what people do may have very different effects from what they anticipate. Although it is often said that ignorance is no defence, that is only relevant where there is a clear obligation for people to find out about the implications of certain behaviour before they engage in it (for example, people cannot shrug off responsibility by deliberately not checking if certain activities would break the law when they know they should check; nor can responsibility for any harm resulting from drunken behaviour be bypassed when it is common knowledge how excessive alcohol consumption can lead to injurious actions). In all other situations where ignorance of the relevant facts cannot be avoided or foreseen, responsibility would be nullified. However, efforts to improve our knowledge and understanding will encounter obstacles from, for example, philosophical sceptics/relativists who deny there is any basis for distinguishing truth from falsehood; those who are overwhelmed by irrationality as a result of psychological or physiological damages; or fanatic followers of cults or dogmas who recoil from objective examination of their beliefs.

Cognitive Thoughtfulness

Ignorance can be reduced through the cultivation of cognitive thoughtfulness on two levels. For people who are open to learning, we should ensure education for all ages enhance their understanding of and skills in assessing rival claims and settling disagreement. They should be familiarised with how assertions, from ones about everyday occurrence to those putting forward complex theories, are subject to exchange of observation, evidence and arguments so that they can be accepted provisionally, revised or rejected. Supplementing direct enquiry would be indirect evaluation of claims made by a given authority or expert, based on the latter’s track record in complying with cooperative enquiry. For those whose minds seem closed to cooperative enquiry, we should connect their ‘unquestionable’ assumptions to experiences of events that may lead them to think again. By enabling them to live through what their dogmas or prejudices insist could not possibly happen, they could be brought round to re-examining what they think they ‘know’. Another effective technique is to link their deepest interests to trying out what would in practice achieve them – for example, discovering how science-based medication rather than superstitious rituals help their loved ones recover from serious sickness.

Objectivity as a Socio-Political Goal

Aside from minimising ignorance amongst individuals, there are many societal obstacles to cooperative enquiry that should be tackled. We need to promote objectivity across communities by means of: [a] the teaching and application of collaborative learning in all organisations, so that people working together can discover and appreciate how reliable claims are established through mutual testing and revision; [b] the establishment of systems for critical reviews with trained investigators and evaluators to oversee their operation, so that claims invalidated by new findings can be identified and put aside, while hitherto unaccepted claims can be reassessed as dependable if new evidence or conceptualisation warrants such a change; and [c] the support for responsible communication through the dissemination of up to date information, and the necessary regulation and enforcement to prevent false and deceptive communication that subverts ‘freedom of speech’ into a shield for vicious lies and egregious manipulation.

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To be continued in ‘The General Theory of Responsibility: (part 3)’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility_21.html.
For ‘The General Theory of Responsibility (part 1)’, go to: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html
For an overview of the theory and a guide to further reading, go to: https://hbtam.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html

The General Theory of Responsibility (part 1)

Why should people take responsibility for how they affect the lives of others? What is the basis for differentiating responsible behaviour from irresponsible ones? And how can society help its members act more responsibly?

According to the general theory of responsibility, these questions can be answered with reference to three interrelated sets of issues:
• Our concern for each other
• Our reasoning with each other
• Our decision-making involving each other

Through looking at these issues and their implications, we will get an overall picture of how responsibility connects in a way that is crucial to advancing our wellbeing. We will begin with the first of these in this essay (and in parts 2 and 3 we will look at the other two sets of issues).

Mutual Responsibility: our concern for each other

Responsibility matters because of our concern for each other. This is not about pure altruism, or about instrumentalist help for others to secure gains for oneself, but essentially about reciprocity – in caring about the wellbeing of others as we would want others to care about our wellbeing. It is embodied in the Golden Rule which, over the course of history, has been found to run through the emergence of the earliest civilisations down to diverse contemporary social structures. It endorses our treatment of others as we would have others treat us, and castigate attitudes and actions that go against this. Mutual responsibility – the recognition that we need to account for how our behaviour may support or hinder each other – is an unmistakable social reality that is at the heart of human existence. People who would pay no heed to how their behaviour might impact on others, could expect others to treat them with similar disregard.

The Problem of Indifference

As concern for others is the foundation of responsibility, its absence leaves us with the first key obstacle to responsible behaviour - indifference. Some people may not feel any concern for others because of their unfortunate upbringing, acquired prejudice, psychological trauma, or some form of pathology. There are also people who reject concern for others on different grounds: for example, philosophical egoists who refuse to accept that we can ever genuinely care about the wellbeing of others; free-riders/exploiters who without hesitation neglect the wellbeing of others when they seek to take advantage of them for their own benefit; or adherents to some extremist doctrine that celebrates apathy or even disdain towards the suffering of others, and leads them to care nothing about how their actions may impact on others. If we allow indifference to persist as a result of any of these factors, we would end up with more people perceiving others as beings whose feelings count for nothing, and hence lack any sense that they should take responsibility for how their behaviour may affect others.

Empathic Thoughtfulness

We cannot solve the problem of indifference by invoking some ‘absolute’ justification for our position. Our sense of mutual responsibility comes from our interpersonal connections with other people. To avoid such connections becoming deficient, we should cultivate empathic thoughtfulness by means of education, social support, and where necessary, rehabilitation. We know from developmental psychology that empathy and a propensity towards mutual concern grow from infancy under normal caring conditions. There are techniques for strengthening these sensibilities, and methods to restore them if they have been depleted. They can enable people to appreciate how others could be/have been hurt by their actions, and reflect on what changes they would want to make in the future. There is no guarantee they would always work, and in cases where we are dealing with those whose irresponsible acts cause harm or pose a dangerous threat to others, then proportionate forms of punitive as well as restorative response may also be required to remind transgressors of the implications of not taking others’ wellbeing into consideration in their behaviour.

Togetherness as a Socio-Political Goal

Beyond dealing with individual cases, there are society-wide challenges to counter the neglect of mutual responsibility. We need to promote togetherness across communities by means of: [a] the development of shared missions, so that people can recognise and appreciate the threats and opportunities they can handle much more effectively by working collaboratively, and learn about practical ways to help achieve common goals; [b] the championing of mutual respect, through formal protection of everyone’s entitlement to dignified treatment, systemic countering of prejudice, and impartial adjudication of complaints against discriminatory acts; and [c] the provision of coherent membership that explains why people are admitted as members, what mutual commitment is entailed by being a member, and the transparent basis on which membership terms may be revoked or restored.

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To be continued in ‘The General Theory of Responsibility: (part 2)’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-general-theory-of-responsibility_11.html
For an overview of the theory and a guide to further reading, go to: https://hbtam.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-general-theory-of-responsibility.html

The Impact of Communitarian Empowerment

Communitarian empowerment is about enabling diverse communities to cultivate mutual respect and cooperate at all levels to advance their wellbeing. Some people feel that it is an idealistic aspiration that can have little impact in practice. I would suggest that practical impact is precisely what can be achieved – on a substantial scale.

Let’s take a look at the civil renewal strategy implemented by the UK Labour Government in the 2000s, and the wide-ranging benefits it brought about. The strategy had three core components. First, it promoted wider deployment of good practices in improving state-citizens relationship. This involved setting up the network of Civic Pioneers, investing in the Community Development Foundation, and convening the Councillors Commission, to ensure practical advice and key research findings are widely available, which helped to increase the use of the most effective techniques for community participation, and give citizens more informed control over the decisions that affected them.

Secondly, the strategy channelled support to targeted groups to develop collaborative arrangements on the ground. Actions covered providing help for local authorities and community groups to learn more about using techniques such as participatory budgeting to enable citizens to deliberate together in setting priorities for the use of public funds; setting up Guide Neighbourhoods whereby residents from different parts of the country could learn from neighbourhood groups with a good track record in shaping and improving the public services in their respective localities; creating the Asset Transfer Unit to help communities take over public buildings when they could add greater value in meeting local needs; and advancing Take Part projects which led to diverse citizens and groups bringing their influence to bear on civic matters.

Finally, the strategy ensured there was sustained momentum to learn about and apply empowerment approaches in the development of government policies across the board. Young people were proactively sought to become involved in shaping integrated children services, employment training, and social inclusion initiatives. Older people and people with disabilities were invited to serve as advisors on government policy development groups, so that they could highlight problems that might otherwise be overlooked, and share ideas on workable solutions. The Communities for Health programme was launched to enable local people to set health promotion priorities. Local authorities were given incentives to engage people more widely and effectively in neighbourhood and parish plans, spatial planning framework, and Home Zones (for residential street design). Support was given to engaging local people in ‘myth busting’ campaigns to tackle racism and misinformation. Furthermore, neighbourhood policing was rolled out with a strong focus on seeking community views; while Community Justice Centres were set up with locally based judges who regularly met with the people in the area to discuss their concerns and what might be done differently.

The net impact of the strategy transformed numerous communities, many in the most deprived areas, and raised trust in public services and satisfaction with the local quality of life. After a decade, greater participation went hand in hand with increased confidence in communities’ ability to work with government partners to improve people’s lives. More would have been achieved, but a change of government in 2010 put an end to the civil renewal activities, and sadly, disappointment and alienation began to surface again. Yet we know that if and when the political will is there again, communities can be empowered to thrive once more.

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NB. This essay is based on my experience as the Head of Civil Renewal in the UK Government during the 2000s.

3 Steps to Democratic Consensus

If collective action is to reflect the concerns and informed judgement of all those who will be affected by that action, then it has to be grounded on a high degree of democratic consensus. But how feasible is it to obtain democratic consensus when people’s views seem to be becoming more polarised in society?

What needs to be recognised is that polarisation is not inevitable. And agreement cannot be guaranteed either. Any group seeking to reach a common understanding on what they should do, require a systematic approach, which is encapsulated by the following T.O.P. tips:
Togetherness
Objectivity
Power Balance

TOGETHERNESS
Democracy cannot function with one voice dictating to everyone else or each insisting on doing what one wants regardless of the impact on others. The only way for people to feel that they ought to take each other’s concerns and perspectives on board is by cultivating a meaningful sense of togetherness, whereby interdependence is recognised as a fact and appreciated as an asset. In practice, this calls for:
• Promoting a shared mission, so people can see and remember what are the essential objectives they have in common, and why they need each other in meeting them.
• Declaring a commitment to mutual respect, so that rules and procedures are visibly in place to root out discrimination, and no one’s needs will be brushed aside.
• Formulating the terms of coherent membership, so everyone knows the basis of how people become members, what responsibilities and rights are to be expected, and when membership might be refused or suspended in light of specified criteria.

OBJECTIVITY
Lies and innuendos from social media deception as well as mass propaganda have made it extremely difficult to conduct informed discussions about what any group, from a neighbourhood to a country, should do. But remedial actions can be carried out to ensure that distortion is substantially curtailed, and people’s capability to assess the veracity of claims is greatly enhanced. These actions should cover:
• Extending opportunities to learn through cooperative enquiry, so that people are familiarised and skilled in reasoned discourse that progresses by means of exchange of objective evidence and cogent analysis.
• Building in systems for critical review of claims and arrangements, so that both dogmatic assent and arbitrary doubt are displaced by beliefs linked to rigorous scrutiny and appropriate re-evaluation.
• Enforcing rules for responsible communication, so that the spreading of lies and misleading information is prohibited under clear definition and curtailed by adequate sanctions.

POWER BALANCE
There can be no genuine consensus if some are so powerful that they can force or bribe others into backing their demands, or if many are left weak and vulnerable that they cannot speak up for themselves. Power inequalities must be reduced to a level where people are confident and able to exchange ideas and question one another’s assumptions without fear or hesitation. The key elements to be put in place include:
• Facilitating participatory decision-making, so that as much as possible those affected by a potential course of action get the chance to take part in deliberating what form that action is to take.
• Maximising civic parity, so that by means of reduction of income/wealth gaps and strict limitations on corrupt or intimidatory practices, people can influence collective processes on equal terms.
• Strengthening public accountability, so that where power needs to be vested in certain individuals for efficiency or emergency reasons, they can be held to account effectively by others.

In conclusion, while we must never be complacent about how securing the conditions to facilitate democratic action, we should not slide into the opposite extreme of assuming that it reasoned consensus is an impossible goal to reach. Many groups, from the local to the international level, have found that taking the key steps outlined above can be transformative in enabling people to reach a shared position on what should be done for their common wellbeing.
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For a detailed exposition of how democracy should be developed and safeguarded, see Time to Save Democracy: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/time-to-save-democracy

The Case for Regulation is Going Viral

For decades we’ve been bombarded by anti-government propaganda. Leave things to the Free Market, to the Big Society, to generous philanthropists, to brilliant entrepreneurs – and tell government to back off, and we’ll end up with the best of all possible worlds.

This mantra knocks every regulatory measure as unnecessary ‘red tape’, every rule as an infringement against our liberty, every policy initiative as a drain on resources that should have been left in individuals’ own pockets.

But the reality is that without a democratically responsive government to deal with the many problems that would otherwise be left to fester, we would all end up significantly worse off. While this is obvious to a lot of people, it is sad – and at times tragic – that there are many who are disposed to ignore it until something terrible happens.

Health and safety requirements are dismissed as irksome, until innocent people are killed and then we get the outcry about deficient legal standards. Financial institutions wind people up about the state getting in the way of their business, until they mess up and insist the government must step in to help them. Environmental protection is resented as costly and unnecessary, until repeated flooding destroys homes and residents call for urgent action. Privatisation is lauded as the way forward, until the gross inadequacy of profit-based care provision leaves families in despair and people demand government to come up with an alternative.

Now the rapid spread of Covid-19 around the world is leaving us with no doubt. Just leaving individuals and businesses to act on their own with no coordination or supportive intervention would be disastrous. We need government to pool resources when few individuals can spend their own way out of a global pandemic. We need regulation to prevent a dangerous problem from worsening. We need collective planning and action to find the means to tackle a major threat. We need an established authority to bring the evidence and expertise together and apply them to devising suitable solutions.

Anti-government ideologues and laissez faire opportunists will no doubt continue to make out that the world is better off with government powers shrunk to just the level sufficient to help the rich or defend certain fundamentalist sects, but no more. Yet the case against them is inescapable. Everyone across the world can see, we cannot leave what happens all around us to irresponsible individuals who care more about the hotels and gold courses they own than the fate of their fellow citizens. We need government institutions that engage in the democratic concerns of the public, and we need political leaders who prioritise citizens’ wellbeing above all else. If we haven’t got them, we must make urgent changes.

The Five-A-Side Model for Electing National Leaders

Bitter in-fighting, draining of time and resources, and airing of ‘flaws’ and ‘weaknesses’ that ultimately only help their real opponents – these are what the Democrats in the US and the Labour Party in the UK have been undergoing as they try to select someone to challenge for their respective country’s top political position.

A common problem with both the US presidential primaries and the UK party leadership election is that they in effect eliminate any meaningful choice for voters in the election that really matters down the line (the ones that decide who will take over at the White House or 10 Downing Street). Worse still, the process of elimination is unreliable, and often counter-productive.

Absurdly, people who dislike the Democrats or the Labour Party can get involved and vote for a candidate they believe would be easier for their preferred party to defeat when the main national election comes. The candidates themselves are put in a position where they have to find high profile ways to appeal to sections of activists to maximise votes at this stage, and thus fuel polarisation within their own party. And a small minority in the country end up ruling out all candidates bar one to face the electorate when the big choice has to be made (in the US, figures for participation in presidential primaries range from 20% to 30%, while in the UK it is an even smaller percentage since party leadership is determined by the party’s members and the Labour Party’s members, for example, amount to only about 1% of the UK’s overall electorate).

Can it be done any other way? Yes, and here’s the ‘5-a-side’ model I would put forward.

Political parties can choose their own chair, leader, secretary-general, etc in their own way. However, when a presidential or general election is coming, the party must ask their members for two things: [1] any of them wishing to be a candidate to indicate their interest and reasons why they should be considered; and [2] all of them to register the candidate they would like to nominate for the main national contest. The 5 candidates with the most nominations in any party would become the representatives from that party.

In the presidential and general elections, voters will be asked to cast their vote for one of the approved candidates from the party they favour. All the votes cast for the candidates of any given party will be totalled up as the votes for that party. The party with the highest number of votes will be declared the winning party, and whoever out of the five candidates from the winning party has the most votes against their name would be the one elected to take the highest office.

In such a contest, instead of attacking others in their party for an excessively long period of time, the five candidates on each team may devote some time to showing why they offer more than their colleagues, but they will concentrate on showing up the deficiencies of the party they all oppose. Voters would not need to worry about having to choose between the party they support and that party’s sole representative whom they do not want to back. Instead of the prolonged, unhelpful, intra-party discord we have been witnessing, we will have a straightforward 5-a-side contest, giving voters real choice of who they want to lead their country.

And instead of arguing viciously and speculatively about who would be most electable, each party can put forward its top 5 candidates and see who might actually get elected.

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Note: some questions that may arise:

Question 1:
Would this displace the electoral college system in the US?
If the US wants to continue to give the citizens of its less populous states a boost to match the voting power of citizens in the more populous states, it can make the process more transparent by allocating a higher weighting to the votes from smaller states. That would show how the vote from a citizen in a smaller state in effect counts more than the vote from a citizen in a larger state – which is what the electoral college system in a more obscure way delivers currently.

Question 2:
Is it not possible that the top candidate of the party with the most votes could end up having fewer votes than the top candidate of the party that has lost out overall?
With the prevailing electoral systems in the US and the UK, it is already possible for the person who ends up as President or Prime Minister to have won fewer votes from citizens compared with their opponent (in the US because of the electoral college system, in the UK because the leader of a party can win a bigger personal majority than everyone else but still not get to be Prime Minister because their party has fewer seats overall). With the proposed system, the country gets both (a) the party with the highest support from the people, and (b) the candidate within that party who has the highest support to take charge.

Question 3:
In the UK, the leader of the party is the one who has by convention been the one contesting to be Prime Minister. Would the 5-a-side proposal not sever that link?
The link made sense when the leader of a party was chosen by the majority of the party’s MPs, and the Prime Minister was whoever could command the majority support from MPs in the House of Commons. But all political parties have already stopped their MPs from determining who their leader is, and handed that decision to party members. And it is now possible, for example, with the Labour Party choosing a leader (Jeremy Corbyn) who was neither chosen by his fellow MPs nor able to command their confidence of his ministerial team. The proposed approach would mean that while the leader of a party can be one of the 5 candidates for that party to be considered by the country to be Prime Minister, voters would have a chance to choose someone else from that party. Furthermore, unlike the current system, there is no room for spoiling tactics to back someone who may be more easily defeated by one’s favoured party, because on the crucial ballot, the vote must be cast for one party.

Question 4:
Why turn the UK system into a quasi-presidential system? And what if the party with the most MPs fails to win the contest to decide who should be Prime Minister?
The UK system has become increasingly a de facto presidential system. But instead of ensuring the person who is to become Prime Minister has to undergo a transparent and accountable process, the case of Boris Johnson taking over from Theresa May as Prime Minister has illustrated how the present system would allow someone to be picked by 0.43% of the electorate (who were Conservative Party members), and give him the country’s highest office when he did not command a majority in the House of Commons. As for the scenario of a party securing most MPs and yet failing to win the Prime Ministerial contest, the candidate chosen by the people to be Prime Minister should be offered the first option to form a coalition government – since the people’s wishes are for the legislature and the executive to be under the direct control of different parties, but that the two sides should work together. If that does not prove possible, the next option could be to invite the candidate with the next highest number of votes from any party to negotiate on the formation of a government.