There’s an extremely unfortunate tendency for modern left-liberal types to advocate some form of soft relativism, such that any moral truth-claim is seen to be ”just your opinion”. In part I’d suggest this is down to a partial recognition of the dynamic I discussed in my previous post: there’s a historic opposition between oppressive hierarchical moral systems and individual freedom of conscience. So a strong defense of the latter (each person has the right to choose what they think and, given that right, those choices ought to be respected) is, in spite of its obviously self-refuting character when rendered formally, seen as a blow struck against tyranny. This is not a good thing.

Each moral agent now spoke unconstrained by the externalities of divine law, natural teleology or heirarchical authority; but why should anyone now listen to him?

I think Alisdair Mcintyre poses what I see as the moral dilema of modernity (from which all others follow) rather well. The same cultural processes that underwrite our freedom of conscience – the understanding that each individual has the right to come to his or her own conclusions – also rob the conclusions we come to of an understood grounding in anything outside of ourselves. Freedom to choose comes but it comes in a manner which means it no longer matters. At least in the sense in which it did when morality has an objective grounding in a universal order.

Can freedom of conscience co-exist with any sense of binding obligation? I would suggest that logically it cannot. Yet the sheer sociological necessity of preserving some framework of normative regulation leads, with the development of the liberal democracies within which freedom of conscience is bound up, to a bifurcation of morality into the procedural and the substantive: individual ends are relegated to the private sphere. Each person has the freedom to reach their own conclusions and choose their own ends but it is understood that those ends are irrevocably private. Their invocation in the public sphere is contrary to a procedural morality which aims to regulate each individual’s pursuit of their own ends by being neutral amongst substantive conceptions (i.e. the private ends and evaluations of inviduals) of morality.

Thus a previously unified and coherent, yet oppressive and external morality fractures. It compartmentalises into an anemic public morality and an irrational private morality. The former so devoid of affective content that individuals ‘bound’ by it are, at best, bound instrumentally; thus ready to disobey it when it conflicts with their own ends. The latter devoid of sense or reason, understood as on a par with personal preference, about which rational debate is not possible.

All this is not good. The question I’m interested in is whether this is a necessary feature of detraditionalization, individualization, liberalization (whatever you choose to call it). Can rational, coherent and (crucially) non-subjectivist moral discourse co-exist with an assertion of individual conscience? If not, why not? If so, why hasn’t it?

No Platform

The idea of No Platform often seems counter-intuitive to people when they first encounter it. Arising out of a long tradition of militant anti-fascism, No Platform policies hold that racist and fascist groups should be denied access to public forums for debate. If they are given a platform, other political parties and organisations should refuse to share it with them. When presented with this proposition, many people’s first reaction is to ask whether this is not a gross violation of freedom of speech. Perhaps even on a par with the intolerance it’s designed to prevent? The problem with this question is that it misunderstands the idea of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech does not include a right of unhindered access to public forums. If it did then I could demand the Daily Mail put me on its front page and claim they were violating my liberties when they (unsurprisingly) refused. To deny someone access to a public forum is not the same thing as censoring them. Likewise tolerance is not an abstract but rather a political question. As one of the greatest liberal philosophers of the twentieth century wrote: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them”. Karl Popper was an Austrian Jew who lived through the rise of the Nazi regime. His point is one I suspect is too little understood in modern liberal society. A tolerant society is not a given but an achievement. If we value it we must constantly work to preserve it. To extend tolerance to the racists and fascists who would seek to destroy it is a catastrophic mistake.

The British National Party is far and away the most prominent racist party in the UK. It would be easy to see them as just one party like any other, with views that perhaps happens to be a little difficult to stomach. This is an impression they’ve worked hard to cultivate and they’ve largely succeeded, as increasing numbers of people see them as a viable political choice or worthwhile protest vote. Yet it was only in 1980 that they formed as a splinter group from the violent and ultra-right National Front. They claim to have left their racist past behind and yet the party is still replete with militant racial supremacists. Leader Nick Griffin has been a member of most pro-Nazi groups in the UK and calls the Holocaust the ‘holohoax’. His deputy Tony Lecomber spent three years in jail for an attempted nail bomb attack on a London office, has been convicted of making home-made explosives and spent further time in jail for assaulting a Jewish school teacher he saw removing a BNP sticker outside a London tube station. The former youth leader of the BNP and current publicity director Mark Collett was filmed undercover by channel 4 expressing his admiration for Adolf Hitler and explaining how he considered AIDS a “friendly disease because blacks, drug users and gays have it”. A former BNP member, affiliated to the group Combat 18, setup a website Red Watch which posted photos and contact details of anti-racist activists and invited violence against them. Fomer union president Kat Stark is one of many others who have been placed on the site. In 1993 the same group attacked and firebombed a left-wing bookshop where many friends of mine have worked. The list goes on. These are not people with views like others. Their political parties are not parties like others. Their core support is rife with violent neo-Nazis. To extend tolerance to groups led by those who eulogise Adolf Hitler, praise the Nazi regime and deny the Holocaust is more than a political mistake. It actively puts people at risk.

This is why current moves to overturn No Platform polices are so wrong headed. The University of East Anglia recently passed a policy stating that “in order to discredit illiberal, extremist or racist ideologies it is necessary to openly confront these ideas and not merely pretend they do not exist”. No Platform polices are not ‘pretending’ racism and fascism don’t exist. They’re a very effective means of hindering the organisational activities of these groups and preserving universities as safe and tolerant spaces. Much like UEA’s, the current attempt in the Students Union to partially overturn the No Platform policy, so as to allow these groups to attend debates but not organise politically, is motivated by a belief that No Platform policies prevent direct confrontation with racists and fascists on the Warwick campus. Surely this lack of confrontation is a good thing? These groups are not going to give up their political goals simply through being exposed to the force of the better argument and the Students Union has a responsibility to ensure that students feel safe on their campus. I don’t think it’s at all hyperbolic to suggest that many would not feel safe with the afforementioned groups organising on campus. The No Platform policy doesn’t preclude students campaiging against racists and fascists in Coventry, as I and many others did during the council elections last year. It simply preserves the university campus as a safe space free from these people which, given the active BNP presence in Coventry, must be a priority.

Scary shit

A GANG of 25 men dressed all in black and carrying guns marched through Manchester streets – triggering a massive police operation.It is understood that police received 999 calls from five different witnesses in different streets shortly before 4pm yesterday.

Several callers said that shots had been fired, but there were no reports of any injuries.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1027050_gunmen_march_through_streets