Journal of Journalism

Ryan Giggs named in Parliament - An Injunction Defied

2011-05-24T00:29:00.000+01:00

John Hemming, the Lib Dem MP for Birmingham Yardely, has done what I urged him to do in a previous post. He has named Ryan Giggs as the premiership footballer holding a super-injunction against the reporting of his affair with Imogen Thomas. It his not the first super injunction he has struck out against using parliamentary privilege; he named both Fred Goodwin and Doncaster City Council as beneficiaries of legal gags against the press.

He was reprimanded immediately by John Bercow, the Squeaker of the House of Commons who said:

"Let me just say to the honourable gentleman, I know he's already done it, but occasions such as this are occasions for raising the issues of principle involved, not seeking to flout for whatever purpose."

I applaud Hemming for his actions. Even though I knew long ago the identity of those with super injunctions, the massed ranks of the twittersphere have only recently broadcast the name of the premiership footballer involved. Schillings, the legal company whose speciality is covering up immorality, were seeking to take legal action against twitter and its users on behalf of their client, Ryan Giggs. About 75,000 people on twitter broke the super-injunction in perhaps the biggest act of civil disobedience this country has ever seen.

This privacy law, stemming from the Human Rights Act, does not have popular consent. Parliament did not legislate clearly enough to prevent our disgustingly activist judiciary interpreting law in the way that they see fit. Our courts our suppressing the freedom the press, which has always been an effective check on the behaviour of the powerful, and negating our basic right to free speech.

Hemming names Giggs in the House of Commons. He also names Giles Coren as the journalist in trouble with the law for tweeting about another famous footballer with a super injunction. Check twitter to find out who..

Not only does parliament need to repeal the Human Rights Act, which allows for such pernicious meddling by the judiciary, it needs to reassert itself as the legislature against an overly powerful judicial branch of government.

It should also tell the ECHR where to get off, and the EU for that matter. Parliament must be sovereign.

Romanticism, Rousseau and Revolution

2011-05-23T07:54:00.003+01:00

It is often easy to see the origin of Romantic philosophy. The evocation of feeling via beauty in nature can persuade a romantic attempt to derive higher meaning from it:

At home in Gower, breathing my native Welsh air and watching the
waves crash upon fine sand, I understand the appeal of Romanticism.

The sublimity of nature's beauty, the ideal of a simple, rural lifestyle and the experience of human emotion are what drove the romantic movement that originated in the late 18th Century. It was a passionate rejection of the Enlightenment's reassertion of classical objectivity and the concurrent rise of industrialism. The Romantics idealised medieval rather than classical civilisation. They preferred the life of the rural peasantry to that of the urban proletariat, the eccentric aristocrat to the hard nosed businessman and the emotional rogue to the upright stoic.

The shift in attitudes from the reason of the Enlightenment to the Romanticism of the 19th Century can be seen in Western architecture:

The Bank of England, built in the late 17th Century, is typical of the neo-classical architecture of the Enlightenment period - which is itself reflective of the objective neo-classical outlook of the age.

The Palace of Westminster, rebuilt in the 19th Century by Charles Barry showcase the neo-Gothic style of the Romantic era. The building is intended to beautiful, the detail of the architecture is designed to enthral. It is a work of subjectivity - a central tenet of Romanticism.

Both institutions would benefit from a dose of neo-classical economics..

Romanticism is characterised by nostalgia, it views modernity as corrupt and progress as befoulment. The foremost philosopher of Romanticism, Jean-Jacques Rousseau regretted even the very beginning of civilisation:

"The first man who had fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 1754

One could be forgiven for inferring a great similarity between Marxist and Romantic philosophy based on the above quotation. Marx and Rousseau share, politically, a distaste of property and individualism, and both seek a regression to forms of communalism. Their wider philosophies are, however, quite different. Marxism is an attempt at empirical criticism of classical liberalism, conflicting with the liberal economists and philosophers on their own ground. Rousseau's Romanticism is not empirical, it is highly subjective and values feelings and nature above books and statistics. Marx developed his theories by pouring over records in the reading room of the British Museum, Rousseau conceived his by listening to waves on a beach.

JJ Rousseau - Romantic

Rousseau believed that civilisation had corrupted humanity. To him only savages, such as the recently discovered Tahitians, were truly happy, truly virtuous and truly free. Like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, Rousseau built his philosophy around a hypothetical 'state of nature' which was in existence before civilisation. In this state of nature man was pure, beautiful and fully human without the shackles of civil society, law, convention and etiquette.

Rousseau wrote of this idea in his major work Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, to which Voltaire responded:

“No one has ever used so much intelligence to persuade us to be so stupid. After reading your book, one feels that one ought to walk on all fours. Unfortunately, during the last sixty years I have lost the habit.”

Rousseau makes explicit Romanticism's rebellion against the enlightenment.

Rousseau's political philosophy, borne out of his romantic beliefs, is set out in his Social Contract. It is from this book that the quotation: "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." The chains to which he refers are the restrictions upon men's behaviour which are imposed by civil society. Rousseau realises that humanity can never return to the state of nature to live as noble savages; civilisation cannot be unlearned. Instead, Rousseau expresses a desire for a radically different political system to be ruled by that with which his glorified savage tribes have so much affinity; the general will.

The general will as described by Rousseau is not the will of the majority, nor sum will of all, but where the interest of all coincides. As Bertrand Russell puts it in his History of Western Philosophy:

"If the citizens have no opportunity of striking logrolling bargains with each other, their individual interests, being divergent, will cancel out, and there will be left a resultant which will represent their common interest; this resultant is the general will"

Rousseau, nominally, sets out his political philosophy with the admirable goals of liberty and democracy these are however constantly negated throughout in pursuit of the general will. Rousseau believes that freedom is achieved when all of the rights of all individuals are submitted to a community governed by the general will. To be ruled by the general will of the body politic is not tyranny in Rousseau's eyes as all are taken into account in a system of direct (rather than representative) democracy. In effect one can be forced to be 'free'. The tyranny of the general will is absolute as Rousseau advocates no separation between the public and private spheres for fear that private interests may conflict with the general will.

Rousseau's agenda is more about equality than it is about liberty and to put equality before liberty is the recipe for the collective tyranny he advocates. His political philosophy is a rejection of one of the most important aspects of the enlightenment; John Locke's conception of natural rights.

Romantics

The French Revolution was heavily influenced by Rousseau's political philosophy. The character and nature of the revolution was different to that the revolution that began the enlightenment; The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the revolution that helped define it politically - the American revolution. The French revolution, like Rousseau, sought a different sort of liberty to that which Americans won in 1776. As the French displayed through the relentlessly efficient decapitation of aristocrats and anybody else suspected of not being revolutionary enough, true liberty is not conducive to equality and fraternity. The 'liberty' fought for by the French revolutionaries, however, was not liberty as a liberal would understand it - it was the liberty of Rousseau, the liberty to be subject to the whim of a majority of which you are part.

It should not be surprising that the mass-murdering revolutionary leader Robespierre was a staunch believer in the teachings of Rousseau.

More Romantics

Rousseau's philosophy has inspired and provided a justification some of the worst totalitarian regimes of history, notably it provided an intellectual basis for the rise of Fascism in the early 20th Century. Fascism is a romantic ideology based upon romantic nationalism. Who are the the people that make up the general will? Does a common ancestry and nationhood make membership of the body politic racially and nationally exclusive? These were the questions for political Romantics to which Fascism was the answer.

Romantic film (not a Rom-com)

The National Socialists in Germany before the second world war were seen as an embodiment of the general will. Indeed it is obvious that that the Nazis were well aware of this perception, and sought to reinforce it through Riefenstahl's Triumph des Willens (The Triumph of the Will) - a semianl film in the field of propaganda.

Today's romantic political force is not fascism, but environmentalism. Environmentalism is somewhat less dangerous than rampant Nazism, but not entirely harmless. Environmentalists do not tend to be interested the the ideals of Rousseau's Social Contract, but their philosophy shares great similarity with his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. A disdain for civilisation and a desire to return back to the beauty, purity and virtue of nature is a romantic aspiration which motivates the idealistic attacks they make on the industrial prosperity of the west. They also, like the Nazis, are anti-capitalists. They share with Rousseau a disdain for property and reject the virtue of inequality.

It is interesting to have a philosophy that informs nature-loving eco-warriors and society-hating hippies along with genocidal National Socialists.

Romantic political philosophy is contrary to the prevailing liberal political philosophy set out by John Locke. Locke is first a liberal, secondarily is he a democrat.

Democracy is but another form of tyranny without constitutional limitations and the rule of law. The 'general will' should certainly not have absolute claim to the life, liberty or property of the individual. The unrestrained political power of a body politic driven by populism is the highway to statism.

Freedom requires a constitutionally limited state, government by consent, the rule of law and respect for the supremacy of the individual.

Defying Super Injunctions

2011-04-27T00:22:00.006+01:00

Andrew Marr, a BBC man who has long been prominent in the field of political journalism, today broke his own super-injunction. Accused of hypocrisy by Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye magazine and vocal cheerleader for the freedom of the press, Marr has revealed details of his affair blocked by an injunction - the use of which he says is now "out of control".

Mr Marr tried to justify his use of one of these legal gags to prevent reporting of his adulterous affair by saying "they should not last forever". In my opinion they should not exist.

Free speech should be held dear by our legal system, not fundamentally weakened as it has been repeatedly by Mr Justice Eady - the man behind the injunctions so severe that it is illegal to report their very existence. These unjust mechanisms, available only to the rich and famous, put the privacy of a few at the expense of the freedom that should be enjoyed by all.

I, personally, am not interested in the extra-marital adventures of the likes of footballers or even Andrew Marr and it is not because of a craving for unedifying 'celebrity' secrets that I am outraged. It is very dangerous for judges to be deciding what information, which would otherwise be public, can or cannot be printed by an independent media.

Indeed it is not only public figures that have been using these authoritarian instruments of suppression, but a super injunction has also been used by a supposedly accountable public body; Doncaster Council. I can only reveal this thanks to John Hemming MP who used parliamentary privilege (MPs have legal immunity in regard to statements made in the Commons), despite the Squeaker's attempts to stop him, to expose the despicable actions taken by Doncaster against a woman who spoke out against them to a parliamentary committee. Hemming, perhaps the only honourable Lib Dem politician, also previously exposed an injunction taken out by banker Sir Fred Goodwin in a similar way.

It is my sincerest hope that he makes the use of these injunctions futile by exposing every single last one of them.

The legal basis for much of the judiciary's assault on one of our basic freedoms comes ironically from human rights legislation; specifically Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees a "right to respect for private and family life". It is quite clear that this is designed to protect the privacy and the family from government interference and not adultery from a free press.

Unfortunately, coalition with the Liberal Democrats prevented the Conservative Party from fulfilling it's manifesto promise of scrapping the Human Rights Act and replacing it with another British Bill of Rights which would have hopefully eliminated this legal opportunity for illiberal judges.

Update: If I were to tell you, or give you any clue as to which well-known premier league footballer had an affair with the former Miss Wales I would be in very big trouble. Flying Pigs could not make me do it.

Update II: For an interesting journalistic take on Marr's gag: http://www.fleetstreetfox.com/2011/04/first-rule-of-journalism.html

France is wrong to ban the Burqa

2011-04-13T20:36:00.003+01:00

The banning of the burqa by Sarkozy's government is a measure which they claim is intended to tackle the 'un-French' oppression of women, which the garment represents. The ban, which came into force on Monday, prohibits the wearing of full-face veils in public and is punishable by a €150 fine (£133 in real money).

I do not object to this secular law on religious grounds; I do not think a person's adherence to any supernatural belief should confer extra respect or privilege upon them in the eyes of the state or anybody else. I instead object as a believer in the freedom of the individual. It is that which sets us apart from the Islamists which the French have legislated against.

One woman who took a stand against France's new law:
Islamist or Civil Libertarian?

I share some the stated concerns of anti-burqa activists, I too am dismayed at the authoritarian misogyny of a community that would impose such restrictive apparel upon so many of their womenfolk. We cannot know, however, how many women are forced to wear the Burqa compared to the amount that make a genuinely independent choice to do so. Many could be motivated by faith, or perhaps even fashion.

The state cannot assume that every veiled woman is being publicly subjugated any more than it can assert that everyone who wears a tracksuit is a criminal. Besides, what business is it of government to determine what an individual is allowed to wear? Freedom of expression is a fundamental tenet of western civilisation. The right of an individual to dress as they wish should not be restricted by authoritarian legislation borne out of fear of an illiberal alien ideology. To do so is to descend closer to the level of the Ayatollahs of Iran or the Saudis, who do not allow women to go out in public with some sort of covering, partly motivated by fear of the West's liberal ideology.

I would rather live in a society where some individuals may unfortunately be pressured into wearing garments by other individuals than live in a society where the state restricts the clothing choices of all individuals.

Update: One of my coursemates has written a reasoned reply to this post which you can read on his blog: http://georgeberridge123.blogspot.com/2011/04/is-france-right-to-ban-burqa.html

Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto

2011-03-16T00:23:00.000Z

To see my criticism of The Communist Manifesto and Marxism click here. Marx was so fundamentally wrong about so much and yet he is probably the most influential 'philosopher' of modern history.

Unfortunately the pointless and deeply flawed practice of Marxist analysis pervades practically all academic subjects such as philosophy, law, media studies, sociology, film studies, theatre, literary criticism, and aesthetics etc...

My vitriolic attack on Marx via this seminar paper surprisingly earned me a round of applause in today's seminar.

Biased BBC to appoint left-wing extremist as Question Time Editor

2011-03-13T16:08:00.001Z

Nicolai Gentchev, the man chosen by the BBC to head the popular political panel show when it makes its unwelcome move to Glasgow - has a history of left wing extremism. He has written for mouthpieces of the far left such as International Socialism Journal and Socialist Review.

Neil Midgley over at the Telegraph tells us:

Mr Gentchev wrote an article in the International Socialism Journal in 1995 entitled “The Myth of Welfare Dependency”. He wrote: “Even capitalism’s supporters do not see an end to mass unemployment and low wages… all they offer is to make living on welfare so unbearable that even more people are forced off benefits and into conditions which were common… before the creation of the welfare state. While we fight to make sure such plans never become reality, we have to get rid of the system which has brought us to this point.”

The website of the International Socialism Journal says that it is associated with the Socialist Workers’ Party. The website continues: “The International Socialist Tendency unites revolutionary organisations around the world on the basis of workers’ power [and] revolution not reform.”

The man is an unreformed Trotskyite who's views belong in early Soviet Russia - these views are however compatible with those of the modern BBC.

For some very recent examples of BBC bias read Ed West here.

The Philosophers (I)

2011-03-13T01:14:00.001Z

An overview of the first philosophers I looked at as part of my History and Context of Journalism module so far:

Niccolo Machiavelli was a Florentine statesman infamous for his morally devoid work Il Principe (The Prince). The cunning real politik he displayed in practical terms, written as if a handbook for maintaining power - was one of the first examples of political analysis. It has caused moralistic outrage ever since - but served as a significant example of the new-found objectivity of the renaissance. Read my post on Machiavelli here.

René Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician of the 18th Century who is best known for three words: Cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am. Descartes' mistrust of all but the certainty of his thought is often called Cartesian doubt and is important in understanding rationalist philosophy. Read my post on Descartes here.

Sir Thomas More, famed for his defiance of Henry VIII and opposition to the reformation, embroiled himself in theological controversy. Philosophically he was a humanist - opposed to the traditional scholastic tradition of his catholic faith. He also invented Utopia, a fictional 'perfect' state in the South Atlantic. Utopia however is far from perfection in the eyes of any liberal thinker - it is an Orwellian nightmare. To read my post, which focuses on Utopia, click here

David Hume

2011-03-12T02:37:00.002Z

Statue of Hume by Alexander Stoddart.
He is depicted in classical attire to show
the timelessness of philosophy.

David Hume (1711-76) was a Scottish philosopher of the enlightenment period. He was an empiricist, like John Locke who preceded him, and like his contemporary, George Berkely.

A great amount of Hume's philosophy is concerned with taking Locke's empiricism to a ridiculous but logical extreme. Hume's epistemology is deeply sceptical. Scepticism in epistemological terms is a position which asserts that actual knowledge is unattainable - and that the universe (if it even exists) is not knowable.

Empiricism argues that all knowledge is derived through the senses. Thus causing Hume to come to the position that the only assertions that anyone can make about the world are those which place human experience at the centre of reality. He believed that human experience is as close as we can ever get to the truth.

These beliefs conflict heavily with those of the rationalist philosophical tradition - who mistrust the senses as a means of deriving knowledge. The well-known rationalist philosopher René Descartes exemplified the mistrust of the senses through his system of Cartesian doubt. All that was seen and heard was impossible to trust, thought Descartes, as the senses are fallible and can give false impressions; auditory and visual hallucinations for example. The conclusion drawn by Descartes is the famous 'cogito ergo sum' (I think therefore I am) - which is based on his realisation that he can doubt his senses but not the fact that he is thinking. This why why rationalist epistemology is based on human reason, not sense data.

We will see how these philosophical viewpoints conflict by looking into the idea of God:

Hume was a closet atheist (he couldn't be open about it - atheism was a capital crime), he saw that the idea of god had no basis in empirical fact. There is no way of arriving at the idea of God through sense data alone - the only data that, according to Hume, confers anything close to reality. A viewpoint based on evidence (or lack of it).

Descartes, who believed in the acquisition of truths "without any sensory experience", found in his own mind the concept of a perfect being (God). This gave rise to him questioning how could an imperfect being (himself) have a perfect being in one's mind? He concluded that as an imperfect being he could not have the concept of a perfect being in his mind without the receipt of it from God. He therefore sees fit to trust his faculties, as they are God given and God is not a deceiver. A viewpoint based on individual reasoning.

Hume Versus Descartes

Empiricism Versus Rationalism

Hume's belief that sense data is the centre of reality lead him to put forward the unconventional concept of Bundle Theory. Bundle theory may sound 'batshit insane' as I've heard it described, but it actually makes a lot of sense. It's central idea is that objects do not exist. Only the features of an object are discerned by the senses, that object is only projected into the world by its properties; hence it is only the features that exist. I will give an example to explain:

Imagine, if you will, a banana. It is yellow, curved, soft and dull. These are its properties. Now imagine it without properties. It is impossible. The banana does not exist. Only the properties that we perceive from it. Sorry if this sounds a bit like The Matrix.

So if one were to apply bundle theory to human existence? You would find that you do not exist. Hume believed that sense data colliding with the brain gave us the illusion of the self. Thus delivering the final blow to René Descartes - just because you think does not mean that you exist.

Hume wins. Descartes was too dead at the time to be downhearted about it though.

Hume was of course a fan of the emergent and empirically sound scientific method which had been championed by the likes of Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon and Galileo Galilei. He did however have an insolvable problem with it in the form of the induction fallacy. According to Hume, you cannot generalise an outcome to an event based on its previous occurrence. This however, is what the scientific method is based on - generalising results based on their reliability.

Even though relying on reliability for scientific understanding defies the induction fallacy - even Hume admitted that it still somehow works.

In conclusion; Hume was a very clever chap.

You can find David Hume quotes here.

Cameron tries to save 115 threatened Winchester Jobs

2011-03-10T01:07:00.001Z

David Cameron has agreed to send a minister to meet representatives from the German company Storck UK, the owners of the Winchester based chocolate company Bendicks. Storck are considering moving production of the Royally Warranted Bendicks chocolate's to Germany - which would mean the loss of 115 private sector jobs in the local area.

Steve Brine MP during yesterday's
PMQs

Winchester MP Steve Brine (Conservative) highlighted the issue in Parliament during yesterday's session of Prime Minister's Questions. Mr Brine asked the prime minister to arrange a meeting between one of his ministerial colleagues and representatives of Storck to try to persuade them to stay. Mr Cameron agreed and reminded the house of forthcoming government policy to boost business and enterprise by cutting corporate tax rates and loosening the burdensome regulatory framework here in the UK.

The policies being pursued by the government have the potential to make Britain one of the easiest places to do business in the G20 - a considerable achievement considering the culture of 'tick box regulation' imposed by the last labour government. This is all necessary to grow our way out of Labour's legacy of a colossal budget deficit and a strangled economy.

The Guardian - Trying not to offend Gadaffi

2011-03-04T10:42:00.001Z

This email went out to all editorial staff at the Guardian yesterday, expressing concern at the language used to describe the 'mental illness sufferer' Colonel Gadaffi:

The copy of this email taken from the ever brilliant order-order.com

Interesting to see the warped priorities of the vocal left. The Guardian is obviously far too politically correct to give Gadaffi his moniker - The Mad Dog of the Middle East.

It would be gratuitous of me to say that it's political correctness gone mad.

Get Paid for Your Opinion

2011-03-04T03:25:00.001Z

I've found that a brilliant way to make money online, especially for cash strapped students, is to sell your opinions to the leading polling company You Gov.

Have you ever wondered where many of the opinion polls come from in newspapers? Or how politicians gauge what reaction they'll get to a particular policy proposal? If you want your opinion on topics such as politics current affairs and consumer brands to matter, sign up for the You Gov panel here.

Have your say and make some money for it. It's far easier to sell your opinion than your labour..

Hunt Says Yes to Murdoch - Lefties Whine

2011-03-03T18:42:00.002Z

Rupert Murdoch - Tycoon

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt (or Cunt, as the BBC like to call him) has agreed to allow Rupert Murdoch to take over the rest of BSkyB, albeit with an important caveat:

“The undertakings offered would ensure that shareholdings in Sky News would remain unchanged, and indeed offer it more independence from News Corporation than it currently has.”

This means that Sky News is to be licensed to a new corporation, conveniently called Newco. This is to prevent News International from changing Sky News from mediocrity into a British version of the incredibly successful FOX News. FOX, owned by Murdoch it is the leading US cable news channel and the only conservative broadcaster in the otherwise left-leaning US media culture. Not nearly as left wing as British television news though.

Allowing Murdoch to buy up BSkyB has caused much consternation on the left, many claiming that this will adversely affect media plurality.

I would argue that a bigger problem facing media plurality is the uncompetitive dominance of the BBC. As the chart below shows, the share of news consumption provided by the biased BBC significantly exceeds that of Sky and News Corporation combined:

This chart was produced by Dan Sabbagh, an anti-Murdoch
campaigner who wanted to show how at 22%, we consume
too much of Murdoch's broadcasting.

The BBC, lest we forget, is an arm of the state funded by a tax on television ownership. The license fee, in left wing parlance is a 'regressive' tax because the poor pay exactly the same amount as the rich. The BBC competes unfairly and at our expense in the media market, reducing the ratings of the channels that actually require viewers to make a profit. If we are truly commited to media plurality and fair competition the BBC has to be made smaller and the license fee reduced.

Otherwise the case may be made on the right that we scrap the license fee and privatise the BBC. Which would force it to pay for itself through optional subscriptions or advertising.

Blogging For Better Local Democracy

2011-03-02T18:16:00.005Z

A picture of Eric Pickles that
I took myself whilst working
with the Welsh Conservatives.

A few days ago some of my fellow blogging journalism students (of the prestigious single honours variety) went to observe a meeting of Hampshire County Council. Little did I know that they were there at the request of the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, whose Department for Communities and Local Government have been pursuing a localist agenda since the government was formed. They are seeking to devolve more powers from Westminster to local councils, bringing decision making closer to the people it affects. Trying to solve the democratic deficit as well as the fiscal deficit..

With more responsibility and accountability, there is an obvious need for more openness and transparency at council level, which is why Mr Pickles wants councils to open up their meetings to local bloggers such as us hack wannabes. This move is taking the Public Bodies (Admissions to Meetings) Act 1960 a step further. The original act was private members bill sponsored by Margaret Thatcher long before she became leader of the Conservative Party. Eric Pickles recently said:

"Fifty years ago, Margaret Thatcher changed the law to make councils open their meetings to the press and public. This principle of openness needs to be updated for the 21st Century. More and more local news comes from bloggers or citizen journalists telling us what is happening at their local council. Many councils are internet-savvy and stream meetings online, but some don't seem to have caught up with the times and are refusing to let bloggers or hyper-local news sites in. With local authorities in the process of setting next year's budget this is more important than ever."

I've checked the blogs of those who were at the meeting in the council chambers, but not one of them seems to have blogged about it. Perhaps for people to engage properly with local politics, the devolution of power needs to be more radical. The pressure group Direct Democracy have called the government's localist reform programme 'localism lite' due to their suspicion that too much Labour-style over-centralised executive power will remain in Whitehall. They maintain that the only way to achieve true local democracy is to link taxation and representation; make councils self financing with a Local Sales Tax to replace VAT.

Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations

2010-12-16T21:04:00.004Z

My Seminar paper concerning Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations can be found here: http://journalofjournalism.blogspot.com/p/adam-smith-seminar-paper.html

Keeping the free market spirit of Adam Smith's work alive today are the ASI (Adam Smith Institute), who endeavour to find non-state centred policy solutions.

As Mark Corrigan from Peep Show says:

"...economic stability, interest rates, growth. It's not all a conspiracy to keep you in little boxes, alright? It's only the miracle of consumer capitalism that means you're not lying in your own shit, dying at 43 with rotten teeth."

For a free and prosperous society, we must have a free economy.

John Locke - Empiricist Philosopher and Father of Liberalism

2010-12-16T21:03:00.308Z

John Locke (1632-1704) was a British empiricist philosopher of the Enlightenment and is regarded as being the founder of the Liberal ideological tradition. He is not in any way similar to the relentlessly annoying idealistic character of the same name from the pointlessly plot-twisting US television drama: 'Lost'.

Intelligent & Influential
(John Locke, Philosopher)

Fictional & Follicularly Challenged
(John Locke, Lost)

Locke's Epistemology
John Locke's theory of knowledge is found in his work: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. He maintained, against the philosophical tradition of his time, that the human mind contains no innate ideas at birth. It is as 'Tabula Rasa' (a blank slate). To Locke, we are all born equal, equally blank at least. He also held that without a soul aware before birth (as Plato amongst others believed), we are the authors of our own character.

Locke's epistemology was empirical. He asserted that all knowledge is originally derived from sensory perception which forms the medium for our experiences.

His theory includes a distinction between simple and complex knowledge. Simple knowledge is information received directly, via the senses, from the outside world. It consists of informational units that cannot be broken down into simpler parts. Complex knowledge is explained as that which is made up of concepts assemble from simple knowledge. An example of simple knowledge becoming complex can be achieved with an object such as a gold coin. The simple sensory concepts of the object being solid, gold coloured, round and shiny can be constructed into the complex idea of a coin. This idea can be scaled up to even more complex ideas such as trade, value and currency.

According to Locke, ideas are based upon one's own experience of sensory perception, and the construction of more complex ideas stem from this original simple knowledge through intuitive (not innate) reasoning .

Locke's Political Philosophy
John Locke's political philosophy is set out in his social contract and the Two Treatises of Government. His politics based on his wider philosophical theory of knowledge. He believed that man's intuitive reasoning made him reasonable and tolerant. Like Hobbes he understood that self-interest is the primary motivating force, but unlike Hobbes he did not believe that life the state of nature would be characterised by a "war against all". A system that allows for rational self-interest leads leads to trade, independence, peace and prosperity - as Adam Smith demonstrated in The Wealth of Nations.

Natural rights are a dominant feature of Locke's social contract. These natural rights are discovered by man in the state of nature and are necessitate civil society for their protection. They include the right to life, liberty and estate (property). These rights are inalienable, they reside with the individual. Government, must not interfere with these rights, unless it is to protect life, liberty or property on behalf of the individual. This, to Locke, is the point of government - to defend liberties which in the sate of nature would have to be defended personally. This is why right-wing libertarians often make exceptions for the military or the police when campaigning for a smaller state.

The historical backdrop to Locke's development of liberalism was the English revolution, which was fought by the emerging merchant middle-classes against an absolutist monarch and the mercantile system. Locke's political philosophy of tolerance and restrained government is often seen as providing justification for the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688 which ended absolutist rule. The Glorious Revolution allowed Britons to enjoy more liberty than any other peoples on the earth until the American Revolution in 1776. The right of revolution was formed part of Locke's social contract theory as a safeguard against a government that did not respect life, liberty or property. Locke's liberal ideas, such as the separation of powers to prevent tyranny, heavily influenced one of the most truly liberal documents of all time - the US Constitution. The line "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" found in the Declaration of Independence is practically plagiarised from Locke's Second Treatise of Government. The founding fathers of the US did not see themselves as revolutionaries, but as conservatives protecting their rights as Englishmen from arbitrary government taxation.

The Torch of Liberty was
the Conservative Party logo
in the 80's - coinciding with
the emergence of the new
right.

Liberty, reason, equality under law, toleration and limited government by consent are the main principles of liberalism set out by Locke. They are the values which has guided the Anglosphere to freedom, independence and prosperity. Today those that remain in political adherence to these principles are called classical (or neo-) liberals, libertarians and conservatives of the new right. The use of the word liberal in politics has changed somewhat over the course of the 20th Century. Modern 'liberals' often have more in common with the statist left than the libertarian right.

To see a longer, more detailed essay on liberalism that I've written please click here.

Soon I'll be posting about the inferior, interventionist, idealistic political philosophies of continental European idealists such as Rousseau, Kant and Hegel.

Hobbes and his 'Leviathan'

2010-12-16T21:00:00.001Z

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an empiricist philosopher mainly remembered for his political book 'Leviathan' in which he advocated strong central government. Philosophically, Hobbes was a determinist who believed that thought was controlled by laws of association and laws depending on the purpose of thinking. He did not believe in 'free will', believing 'will' to be nothing more than desire versus aversion.

In Leviathan he depicts a 'state of nature' that existed before communities and states developed. In it he claims that everybody attempts to secure liberty for themselves and acquire dominion over others as a means of self-preservation. This forms the basis of "Bellum omnium contra omnes" (the war against all) which makes life "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". Hence the need arises for a centrally governed community; a state. men come together and agree to restrain themselves as a means of self preservation in order to avoid constant conflict.

Hobbes' proposition in Leviathan of massive executive power, preferably through an absolutist monarch, included one of the first incarnations of social contract theory. The social contract which Hobbes suggests is based on the artificial restraint and cooperation necessary to escape the 'state of nature'. The contract, unlike Locke's (on which I shall later blog), is between citizens rather than between citizens and the state. The citizens' contract with each other is to collectively submit their liberty to an all-powerful central authority, to be elected by majority. The election is a one-off event and the limit of political power afforded to the citizen in the Leviathan commonwealth. Citizens do not have rights which the government does not see fit to grant, and have no right of rebellion as the executive is unconstrained by the social contract which exists only between the citizens.

Hobbes saw liberty, as praised by ancient philosophers, as a problem which had led men to engage in revolt and sedition. To Hobbes, as a determinist, liberty was just the ordinary motion of a person but without (arbitrary) impediment. In the Leviathan state there is a duty to submission and no inalienable rights apart from the right to self-protection (which makes sense as it is the whole point of submission). There is no private property that cannot be seized at will by the administration. According to Hobbes, private property cannot exist in the state of nature anyway; so property, as a creation of government, is subject to it.

Thomas Hobbes: Not a Liberal

The argument which Hobbes makes can be applied to different undemocratic forms of government. He prefers monarchy (claiming that tyranny is a subjective term) to rule by assembly. Assemblies can have conflict within and thus cause instability. They will conflict with the public good when it is in their interest (so in that respect assembly is in no way superior to monarchy). He also recognises that an assembly can extend corruption beyond that of a single individual. MPs expenses as a modern day example?..

Hobbes was not writing of democratic assemblies, but of those similar to the House of Lords, there would be no electoral check on their actions. He was completely opposed to the separation of government, such as between an assembly and a monarch, as it would cause tension and instability, as in the English Civil War. He was also opposed to the international power of the papacy, believing instead that the sovereign should also hold religious power.

Hobbes thought that the authoritarianism that he advocated was preferable to the anarchy of 'the state of nature' and the instability of weak and dived government that he witnessed in his lifetime. He held that apart from the security brought by an absolutism, the sovereign would also act in the best interest of his citizens economically: the more tax revenue they produce, the wealthier the his state and the he personally becomes. The Wealth of Nations had not yet been written so Hobbes was not to know that economic activity controlled from the centre is an impediment rather than an aid to prosperity. There is no excuse for modern advocates of big government not to know this though..

I think that Hobbes placed to much faith on the sovereign for his social contract to be entirely effective. Aside from the sheer contemptibility of autocracy, it does not in practice achieve the lasting stability that Hobbes sought. The French Revolution (1789) and the Russian Revolution (1917) were popular reactions against the type of government that Leviathan espoused.

Hobbes' social contract in Leviathan was certainly influential, as was his justification of absolutist rule. He could be viewed as the most regarded writer on the subject of politics since Machiavelli less than a century earlier.

Next time I'll be blogging about a man with quite different ideas to Hobbes: John Locke

More's 'Utopia'

2010-12-15T07:22:00.001Z

Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) is perhaps best known in the popular mind as the Lord Chancellor who defied Henry VIII, campaigned against the reformation of the English church and was executed for his efforts. Bertrand Russell mentions More in his book The History of Western Philosophy in relation to the Northern Renaissance and theological controversy of the Reformation.

Philosophically, More was a humanist and despised the Scholastic philosophy. Not strictly a philosopher; he did write religious polemics from a theistic basis defending the supremacy of the Catholic Church as he deplored Protestantism, but still aimed for internal ecclesiastic reform. His social philosophy is not explicitly theorised but instead espoused through his magnum opus: Utopia.

Utopia is an account of the social, political, economic and religious systems of a fictional island nation of the same name located somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Utopia is a totalitarian state reminiscent of classical Sparta, but without the extreme militarism. There is complete economic and social equality in Utopia (but not for criminals or prisoners of war who are enslaved). Private wealth and property do not exist on the island, as in Plato's Republic - as Russell states: "without communism there can be no equality". Equality is often overvalued by those who see it as more important than liberty.

Houses are standardised, accessible to all, and for temporary residence only (to prevent any feeling of ownership from developing). There is standardised clothing, work is allocated, and the length of the working day is regulated, as are sleeping patterns (all take to bed at 8pm and sleep for eight hours). There is common ownership of the means of production, and resources are centrally distributed. Currency is not required. There is no production or consumption of 'luxury' goods. All healthcare is state provided and universal. Internal travel is not permitted without documentation. Hunting is not acceptable. Some of these statist 'utopian' ideas still blight us today.

There is a manner of indirect representative democracy in Utopia; elections are held to determine who is allowed concessions from work to become learned. Only the learned may be selected to hold governmental posts. A prince is elected for life, but may be deposed if he becomes tyrannical. How a prince could exert more tyranny than the oppressive Utopian system of which he forms a part is questionable.

Despite the totalitarian collectivism of Utopia, a surprisingly liberal tolerance of euthanasia and religious diversity is to be found on the fictional island. Christianity had only recently been introduced to the islanders by one of the book's central characters; a sailor, by the name of Raphael, who had discovered Utopia. It was embraced by many Utopians who saw it as fitting with their communistic belief system. The religious freedom in Utopia extends only to those who have religious faith. Atheists are despised and not granted full citizenship, as they are seen as having no stake in the communistic society because they do not believe that they will be rewarded for living as drones in the afterlife. Advocating religious freedom through his ideal fictional state was extremely hypocritical of Sir Thomas More, who in his time as Lord Chancellor was quite content with actively persecuting protestants.

More's Utopia, I think displayed the development of his philosophical thought in terms of political ideology, albeit through a fictional medium that doesn't explicitly state his motives.

The word 'utopia' is used today in the context of the pursuit of societal perfection. It is quite obviously a subjective term; some may find such a centrally planned society attractive, whereas it makes me recoil in horror. Even Bertrand Russell who was a socialist wrote:

"It must be admitted, however, that life in More's Utopia, as in most others, would be intolerably dull. Diversity is essential to happiness, and in Utopia there is hardly any. This is a defect of all planned social systems, actual as well as imaginary."

Here's a video of Thomas More being executed in the popular BBC costume drama; The Tudors:

What goes around comes around.

Next time we'll be having a brief look at Hobbes' Leviathan.

René Descartes

2010-10-20T21:37:00.001+01:00

Descartes is famous for his contributions to mathematics as well as philosophy, but he is well known amongst the masses for just three words: "Cogito ergo sum" ("I think therefore I am"). The achievements of Descartes in various fields is made even more remarkable by his laziness. Russell writes: "He was not industrious; he worked short hours and read little" - This is hardly surprising for a Frenchman, but perhaps it is for a founder of modern philosophy. Descartes was an important figure in 17th-century continental rationalism, putting him directly at odds with some English empiricists who I shall later study such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.

Descartes felt that the scholastic formal education he received at a Jesuit College in La Flèche only gave him knowledge of his ignorance. He travelled Europe, became a soldier and fought for different states (notably for Maximilan of Bavaria during The Thirty Years War) - this gave him experience of a world with more 'reality' than academia. In war actions had more consequences than they did when he studied Law at the University of Poitiers or at Jesuit College. Descartes found as he travelled that traditions and culture are only relevant to their time and place. He decided therefore that one should not learn custom or example and that all received knowledge is suspect.

Descartes, in the pursuit of a rationalist epistemology, decided to completely and systematically overhaul everything that he knew or believed he knew. He did this through a process of systematic doubt. The existence of everything and anything was considered uncertain, often with the help of imagined constructs such as the possibility of a deceitful thought-planting demon. Descartes recounts an example of systematic (Cartesian) doubt in which he sits near the fire wearing his dressing gown. He thinks that it is possible that he may not actually be there. He may be asleep in bed dreaming that he sits by the fire as he has done before. He may be hallucinating as a madman might. Another example, which was used by one of my lecturers was the example of one's name. Is it not possible that one's name might not be one's name, is it not at least possible that one's mother may have lied. As Descartes systematically destroyed all certainty of knowledge, there was one thing he found that he could not doubt; 'The Cogito'.

The Cogito is what Descartes built his rationalist epistemology and the certainty of his own existence upon. The fact that he was thinking was, to him, undoubtable. Everything else could be false due to the possibility of the misleading imaginary demon (which was used because he thought that God, even in a hypothetical situation, shouldn't be assigned such nastiness). This imaginary demon could alter thoughts and perception, making all else except thought doubtable. Even if the thoughts could be doubted, the fact that he was thinking couldn't. "I think, therefore I am". Even the doubt of thinking is thinking, therefore it cannot be doubted.

The demon is just a device to represent the possibility of a supernatural being distorting or controlling our reality. Do not be alarmed.

Descartes, now sure of his own existence, sought to prove the existence of God. He found in his own mind the concept of a perfect being (God), which gave rise to him questioning how could an imperfect being (himself) have a perfect being in one's mind? He concluded that as an imperfect being he could not have the concept of a perfect being in his mind without the receipt of it from God.

He therefore sees fit to trust his faculties, as they are God given and God is not a deceiver. Some argue that Descartes may have been a closet atheist who only wrote of God's existence to please the Church. I don't see this argument as valid however as Descartes bases his rationalist philosophy upon his God-given ability to reason.

I think that the Cogito itself does not withstand Cartesian doubt. "I think therefore I am" recognises not only the existence of thought, but also of 'I'. The 'I' can be doubted by Descartes own beliefs, eg. that the mind is separate form the body. If there is body and mind what is 'I'? If I is the mind is it not at least possible that a demon not only controls and distort one's thoughts, but is one's thoughts. If 'I' is the body, 'I' does not think - as that is a faculty of the mind. As we now know, thoughts are physiological, so if 'I' were the body as a whole, 'I' would think - but that was not his belief. Descartes could prove through Cartesian doubt that there was thought, but not that it was he doing it, or even that 'he' existed.

The development rationalist epistemology was however very important and influenced later philosophers such as Berkeley and Kant who based their philosophies on the rationalism of the ego.

Doubt is very important for us aspiring journalists, without it the media would just be a series of positive press releases.

Niccolò Machiavelli

2010-10-17T20:43:00.000+01:00

Niccolò Machiavelli is one of the most well known philosophical figures of the renaissance, perhaps mainly due to the widely used and often pejorative adjective incorporating his name. His incisive realism and uncompromising view of the nature of political power place him at the forefront of how we understand the the new direction of philosophical thought during the renaissance.

A statue of Niccolò Machiavelli

In 'The Prince', the book for which he is infamous, he set out guidelines for seizing and maintaining power. The book was written as a practical political guide educating the reader of the methods, principles and skulduggery of statecraft that Machiavelli had learned as a Secretary of the Florentine Republic. In his role as Secretary of the Second Chancery and Secretary of an important military committee he was often called to accompany ambassadors on diplomatic missions to the highest courts of Europe, which is where he learned much of his particular art. The Prince is not a philosophical book, but it reflects the philosophical nature of renaissance Italy in that it focuses on truth (ie. Machiavelli's political advice based on experience) over dogma, religion or morality.

The contents of his book, which included advice concerning the taking and maintenance of power in a number of pragmatic, ingenious, deceitful and often villainous ways has shocked the moralistic for centuries. The most famous maxim taken from the book is perhaps: "It is better to be feared than loved". Machiavelli explains that it would be better to be feared and loved, but since these don't often co-exist it is far safer to be feared; as love is fickle but fear is constant. The book contains many in-depth hypothetical situations and well explained general rules. Overall the qualities Machiavelli thought were the most important for Princeship were the ability to:

Act Boldly and Decisively
Protect Power
Appear Unwavering while being Flexible

There have been many 'Machiavellian' characters in film and literature, none more so than Francis Urquhart in the 90's political drama 'House of Cards'.

Many maintain that Machiavelli wrote 'The Prince' in order to impress the Medici family, who had taken control of the Florentine government, so as to gain political employment with them. This is not the case. Machiavelli did seek at one point to obtain a position from the Medici in recognition for his honesty and statesmanship - but he did not write 'The Prince' for this purpose. If Machiavelli had intended to write the book in order to gain employment it would have been very different. Machiavelli knew how to win favour through skillful flattery, but he does the opposite in the book. 'The Prince' challenges the Medicean principles of statecraft that were dominant at the time (favours and patronage), that would surely have not disposed his potential employers to him had they read it. Machiavelli instead wrote the book because he wanted to be recognised, although he had been dismissed from his governmental position, as having the best understanding of the art of state.

Machiavelli did have political principles and wrote about them in his other book 'Discourses'. Whereas 'The Prince' was a realist book, focusing on the practical means of gaining and maintaining power, 'Discourses' was more idealist and described how Machiavelli personally wanted to see power exercised. Machiavelli was a republican and believed in the unification of Italy - making 'The Prince' an incredible feat of putting solid practical truth first as even he ideologically disagreed with what was written. This focus on fact-based writing unblemished by idealism is very important for anyone studying the philosophical outlook of the age.

Next time I'll be blogging on René Descartes...

Some Notes on Philosophy and Philosophers - The Italian Renaissance

2010-10-04T10:00:00.000+01:00

I took notes during my first lecture about 'The History and Context of Journalism'. These notes, along with my reading of Russell's 'History of Western Philosophy' inform my first proper blog post.

The Italian Renaissance (Rinascimento in Italian) was period of great cultural change in Italy, starting near the beginning of the 14th century and continuing until the end of the 16th. The renaissance was marked by renewed interest in classical antiquity (hence the term renaissance), especially the philosophers of ancient Greece. The Renaissance, which according to Russell, was "a movement of a small number of scholars and artists encouraged by liberal patrons" marked the end of Medieval thinking.

The pre-Renaissance Medieval and Dark Age periods were dominated by Religious doctrine and dogma. Aristotle's Scholasticsm was taught dogmatically across Europe in an attempt to maintain harmony between Christian thinkers. Aristotle's thinking was merged with the message of Christ - notably by St Thomas Aquinas. The Church had a monopoly on philosophical thought, hence new theories did not develop.

At the beginning of the renaissance many philosophers still revered authority, the authority of the Church however was substituted for the authority of the ancient philosophers. This was however a massive leap forward as the ancients disagreed with each other, so individual judgement was required to choose between them in an attempt to come to a philosophical position. The Renaissance revival of the study of Platonic philosophy, with which Aristotelian philosophy often conflicts, was a catalyst for independent thought.

Aristotle and Plato disagreed about the conceptualisation of universal forms. Plato expressed the view (through his widely recited cave analogy) that man has no true vision of reality, we merely see 'reflections' or 'shadows cast' by the perfection which exists invisibly. Aristotle philosophised that reality could be perceived through observation, that the only way to conceptualise universal forms is through particulars.

The School of Athens: Plato and Aristotle are the central figures.

The individual perception involved in, and the new thought caused by the revival of ancient Greek philosophy led to the development of a more individualist, humanistic culture. Petrarch is considered to be the 'Father of Modern Humanism' and named by not only Russell as the founder of the renaissance. Petrarch was one of the first to believe in the practical and intellectual value of studying the ancients to better understand human thought. Humanism, which has existed to a degree since 500BC values human reason over myth or tradition. It is displayed by the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Protagoras in his statement "man is the measure of all things".

The humanism of the renaissance period is reflected its art, which when compared to medieval design, illustrates the change in outlook. The art of the renaissance is individualistic, varied and celebratory of the beauty perceived by the artist, portraying visually the intellectual culture of the time.

Medieval Sculpture at Chatres Cathedral

Renaissance Sculpture - Michaelangelo's David

The renaissance was based on a revival and maintenance of humanism. Bertrand Russell saw it as just a preliminary to the achievements of the 17th century - it broke down the "intellectual straight jacket" that was the scholastic system. Russell wrote that "The Renaissance was not a period of great achievement in philosophy". This is true in sense that no major new philosophies were developed; but classical revival and the culture of regarding intellectual activity as an enjoyable pursuit, rather than a 'meditation aiming at the preservation of a pre-determined orthodoxy' spurred philosophical thought and understanding.

Coming soon: A blog post about Niccolò Machiavelli

To Embed a Video..

2010-10-01T19:55:00.000+01:00

Others on my course seem to have practised embedding a video, here's my attempt:

I made this video with a friend for my now discontinued blog which you can still read here. Some more in-depth posts relating to my lectures are on the way. I promise.

Introduction

2010-09-24T15:53:00.000+01:00

My name is Ross England, I come from Cardiff and currently study Politics and Journalism at The University of Winchester. I'll be updating this blog with posts discussing many aspects of Journalism over the coming months. Enjoy.