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
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