Liberalism vs authoritarianism is fast becoming the philosophical divide within developed societies.
9/11 and other terrorist atrocities have heightened a sense of anxiety about security in an increasingly globalised world.
The response from governments has been to try to gain ever greater knowledge and control of the lives and activities of their citizens.
The British government is one of the worst offenders. Identity cards, the excesses of the DNA database, and a relentless drive towards extending the period of detention without trial are all symptoms of its authoritarian tendencies.
There is no “war” against terrorism. The terrorist is a criminal and should be treated accordingly.
The creeping power of the state is the order of the day, but terrorism thrives where civil liberties are denied.
Liberals must make that point forcefully and oppose and reverse the trend towards authoritarianism.
Menzies Campbell
Saturday 3 March 2007
AS Byatt, novelist and critic
A 100 writers and thinkers were asked: Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next? Hardly any of them think the world will get better in the coming decades; many think it will get worse
We will be governed by a kind of consensus populism—beliefs, ideas and policies that arise on blogs, websites, focus groups and so on. (Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton announced their candidacies on the web.) This has its appeal. It is also frightening, as Tocqueville found American democracy, because it leads to tyranny of the majority.
It goes with vast quantities of not wholly accurate information—Wikipedia is splendid and maddening.
AS Byatt
We will be governed by a kind of consensus populism—beliefs, ideas and policies that arise on blogs, websites, focus groups and so on. (Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton announced their candidacies on the web.) This has its appeal. It is also frightening, as Tocqueville found American democracy, because it leads to tyranny of the majority.
It goes with vast quantities of not wholly accurate information—Wikipedia is splendid and maddening.
AS Byatt
David Brooks, journalist
A 100 writers and thinkers were asked: Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next? Hardly any of them think the world will get better in the coming decades; many think it will get worse
Instead of left/right we’re moving to open/closed. It’s really a debate about how confident people feel. And the next big intellectual development will be unifying what we know about the brain, about genes, about human nature, to maximise human flourishing.
David Brooks
Instead of left/right we’re moving to open/closed. It’s really a debate about how confident people feel. And the next big intellectual development will be unifying what we know about the brain, about genes, about human nature, to maximise human flourishing.
David Brooks
Joe Boyd, music producer
The big divide in the coming decades will be between the “reality-based community” and the “ideologically-based community.”
It was often observed in the 20th century that extreme right and left curved round behind the spectrum and met each other—sort of like Hitler and Stalin sharing a beer in Hades.
The common ground extreme groups share is a deep-seated resistance to facts, whether Bush's resistance to climate change data or Brezhnev's refusal to accept that reversing the flow of Siberian rivers was not a good idea.
There is now a clear divide between those who are prepared to face uncomfortable truths and those who persist in insisting that their views of what ought to be will ultimately trump what is.
Joe Boyd
It was often observed in the 20th century that extreme right and left curved round behind the spectrum and met each other—sort of like Hitler and Stalin sharing a beer in Hades.
The common ground extreme groups share is a deep-seated resistance to facts, whether Bush's resistance to climate change data or Brezhnev's refusal to accept that reversing the flow of Siberian rivers was not a good idea.
There is now a clear divide between those who are prepared to face uncomfortable truths and those who persist in insisting that their views of what ought to be will ultimately trump what is.
Joe Boyd
Robin Banerji, journalist
A 100 writers and thinkers were asked: Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next? Hardly any of them think the world will get better in the coming decades; many think it will get worse
Robin Banerji
Robin Banerji
Julian Baggini, philosopher
A 100 writers and thinkers were asked: Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next? Hardly any of them think the world will get better in the coming decades; many think it will get worse!
The new conflict is between liberal universalism and a communitarianism which asserts the need for cultures to maintain their own values and traditions. Is the latter just a temporary brake on the former, or will the universalist dream die? One of the tasks of politics is to work out which values are universal and which are not.
Julian Baggini
The new conflict is between liberal universalism and a communitarianism which asserts the need for cultures to maintain their own values and traditions. Is the latter just a temporary brake on the former, or will the universalist dream die? One of the tasks of politics is to work out which values are universal and which are not.
Julian Baggini
A 100 writers and thinkers were asked: Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next? Hardly any of them think the world will get better in the coming decades; many think it will get worse
Arthur Aughey political writer
A 100 writers and thinkers were asked: Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next? Hardly any of them think the world will get better in the coming decades; many think it will get worse
Immanuel Wallerstein defined the politics of the 20th century in terms of an irresolvable tension between the modernity of technology—the capacity of human inventiveness to increase our material wellbeing—and the modernity of liberation, the capacity of political action to enhance our secular wellbeing.
The ideological faithful on the left and the right, albeit for different reasons, believed in the harmony of technology and liberation; the ideologically sceptical on the left and the right, again for different reasons, agonised about technological enslavement masquerading as emancipation.
Arthur Aughey
Immanuel Wallerstein defined the politics of the 20th century in terms of an irresolvable tension between the modernity of technology—the capacity of human inventiveness to increase our material wellbeing—and the modernity of liberation, the capacity of political action to enhance our secular wellbeing.
The ideological faithful on the left and the right, albeit for different reasons, believed in the harmony of technology and liberation; the ideologically sceptical on the left and the right, again for different reasons, agonised about technological enslavement masquerading as emancipation.
Arthur Aughey
Michael Axworthy, former civil servant
A 100 writers and thinkers were asked: Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next? Hardly any of them think the world will get better in the coming decades; many think it will get worse
The end of the cold war removed the edge of the left/right division, and left a question about the direction of political leadership.
Political spin moved into that space, but the spin doctors got overconfident, and scandals and cover-ups followed.
Truth reasserted itself, and the people became disillusioned. They see a country that has real problems: terrorism, climate change, an overblown civil service that neither governs nor critically analyses the operation of government.
Above all, a country lobotomised by the failure of state secondary education, and the failed theories of comprehensive schooling and child-centred teaching.
The division in future will not be between left and right, but between the vested interests of governmental incompetence on the one hand, and the democratic urge for reform on the other.
Sooner or later some politician will discover the opportunity to reassert honesty and integrity, tackle the problems, and achieve popularity.
The end of the cold war removed the edge of the left/right division, and left a question about the direction of political leadership.
Political spin moved into that space, but the spin doctors got overconfident, and scandals and cover-ups followed.
Truth reasserted itself, and the people became disillusioned. They see a country that has real problems: terrorism, climate change, an overblown civil service that neither governs nor critically analyses the operation of government.
Above all, a country lobotomised by the failure of state secondary education, and the failed theories of comprehensive schooling and child-centred teaching.
The division in future will not be between left and right, but between the vested interests of governmental incompetence on the one hand, and the democratic urge for reform on the other.
Sooner or later some politician will discover the opportunity to reassert honesty and integrity, tackle the problems, and achieve popularity.
Lisa Appignanesi, writer
A 100 writers and thinkers were asked: Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next? Hardly any of them think the world will get better in the coming decades; many think it will get worse
Global vs the local. Environmental issues seem to belong to the first, but their political reality will be translated by the wind farm or nuclear station next door.
Web and new technologies connect us globally, but can be banned locally; ditto with human rights.
Meanwhile, we have no institutions, bar an emasculated UN, with which to deal with the global, while local politicians—from oil barons in Russia and the US to Sunni or Shia militants in the middle east—instrumentalise all problems in the name of power.
Goodbye, oh heating world.
Lisa Appignanesi
Global vs the local. Environmental issues seem to belong to the first, but their political reality will be translated by the wind farm or nuclear station next door.
Web and new technologies connect us globally, but can be banned locally; ditto with human rights.
Meanwhile, we have no institutions, bar an emasculated UN, with which to deal with the global, while local politicians—from oil barons in Russia and the US to Sunni or Shia militants in the middle east—instrumentalise all problems in the name of power.
Goodbye, oh heating world.
Lisa Appignanesi
Bruce Ackerman, political writer
A 100 writers and thinkers were asked: Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next?
Hardly any of them think the world will get better in the coming decades; many think it will get worse
Cosmos vs patriots. Cosmopolitans come in two varieties: for left cosmos, the pressing need is to deal with world problems—global warming, nuclear proliferation, and the unjust distribution of wealth and income.
For right cosmos, it is to break down barriers to world trade.
Cosmos of all stripes demand a big build-up in the powers of world institutions, and a cutback on state sovereignty.
For local patriots, the cosmos represent a new imperialism of Davos-man and his do-good hangers-on.
Left pats insist on protecting local workers from foreign competition and local cultures from McDonaldisation.
Right pats want to protect the natives from strange ethnics and engage in pre-emptive strikes against threatening foreign powers.
Pats of all varieties insist that the nation state remains the best last hope of democracy against the meritocratic pretensions of cosmo-elitists.
Bruce Ackerman
Hardly any of them think the world will get better in the coming decades; many think it will get worse
Cosmos vs patriots. Cosmopolitans come in two varieties: for left cosmos, the pressing need is to deal with world problems—global warming, nuclear proliferation, and the unjust distribution of wealth and income.
For right cosmos, it is to break down barriers to world trade.
Cosmos of all stripes demand a big build-up in the powers of world institutions, and a cutback on state sovereignty.
For local patriots, the cosmos represent a new imperialism of Davos-man and his do-good hangers-on.
Left pats insist on protecting local workers from foreign competition and local cultures from McDonaldisation.
Right pats want to protect the natives from strange ethnics and engage in pre-emptive strikes against threatening foreign powers.
Pats of all varieties insist that the nation state remains the best last hope of democracy against the meritocratic pretensions of cosmo-elitists.
Bruce Ackerman
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