We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Samizdata quote of the day They say that the western liberal cosmopolitan establishment is itself a fanatical, depraved belief system. I like it when they say this because it makes me feel as if I have a belief system.
– Jon Ronson, in his preface to THEM: Adventures with extremists (2000)
For those of us whose beliefs are defined negatively, by our skepticism, by what we do not think institutions are entitled to do to people, then it might sometimes be a comfort to be told this amounts to a system. I think I have a system of procedure, rather than fixed substantive beliefs, however. So I know what Ronson means (and I am developing a comradeship for liberal cosmopolitans of all sorts), I recognise the feeling of affirmation in being marked out as a fanatic by the enemies of civilisation – but I do not like it. The idea that I might have a ‘belief system’ categorically equivalent to that of the conspiracy theorists and theocrats makes me feel queasy.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
If you don’t have a “belief system” then on what basis do you think humans have rights? Does your “system of procedure” morally entitle you to any rights?
Is your skepticism derived from anything objectively provable (or anything axiomatic, and therefore not disprovable)? If so, then it is not a “belief” system and is categorically different to the conspiracy theorist and theocrats you rightly deplore. If not, then you have every right to feel queasy!
Conspiracy theorists and theocrats surely have dogmata, not belief.
I think it is probably a general version of the scientific method.
Guy,
No, they believe that your world-view is fanatical. As we all know (or should) believing something to be true does not make it so. If you look at jihadi literature you will find many criticisms of the “liberal” west suppressing people’s “freedoms”. Their position is somewhat analogous to Rousseau’s idea “of forcing people to be free”.
Tim S,
…. on what basis do you think humans have rights?
I don’t believe they do, if by “rights” you mean some transcendental moral attributes antecedent to human institutions.
Is your skepticism derived from anything objectively provable…
No. It would be a pretty poor skepticism if it did. I think we are using the word “belief” in rather different ways.
Nick M,
THEY are a more varied crew than “jihadis”. I’m well aware, and so is Jon Ronson, that believing something doesn’t make it true. But that statement is incoherent dogma to true believers of all sorts, hence the deliciously quotable irony.
Ronson (and so was John Diamond, to whom he credits his title) is not very far in age from me; so I detect an allusion to THEM! Fanatics are ant-like and rigid. Liberal skeptics – recalling AJP Taylor – may have strong views very weakly held.
Surely everyone has a belief system, it would be impossible to operate without one.
Re Tim C ”on what basis do you think humans have rights”
They don’t intrinsically any more than coal scuttles do. Any rights, human, or otherwise, are dependant upon some person, or group, envisaging them, insisting upon them, enforcing them – and making them stick.
Simple as that, nothing more, or less.
That does not mean they are not, viewed through the lens of enlightened self interest, a good working solution.
Phil A, that is Tim S, not Tim C.
In long term political struggles one can not beat something with nothing Guy.
If some people have beliefs (or principles, or a “system of beliefs”, or whatever). and another group of people say “well I do not know what I believe, if anything” (or something similar). It is a fairly safe bet which group will win.
Now I believe that you do have beliefs.
For example, you may not believe in “rights” but you do believe that it is wrong to (for example) rape and murder other people.
Whether you would call this a belief in “natural law” (and, of course, one can believe in natural law without believing in natural rights) does not really matter, it is still a belief.
“No we are using the word belief in different ways”.
O.K. – you do not have beliefs, you have principles.
But you do have them. You are not just a nonentity that believes in nothing.
As for a system of beliefs (sorry a system of principles). Well you do not have random beliefs (principles) – what you think about some political subjects is connected to what you think about other political subjects.
This is a “system” – although you may prefer to use some other word (it does not really matter).
As for foundations for principles – I am the last person to attack you on that, as I do not believe that basic morality is based on anything else (i.e. it is its own foundation).
I do not believe that good and bad are but “cheer and boo words” (like the logical positivists), no I am about as far from that as it is possible to be.
Like Harold Prichard and Sir William David Ross (or, perhaps, Ralph Cudworth of old – and certainly with more recent thinkers such as Thomas Reid and the rest of the “Common Sense” school) I believe that the principles of morality (at least in regard to justice) are very far from arbitary, but I do not go in for long efforts to provide them (Aristotelian style) with “foundations” from the nature of man and the universe – although I have no problem with people who do.
If someone says to me (for example) “I do not agree that rape is wrong” this person is just wrong (and there is an end to it).
And if the person then “lives in accordance with his beliefs” by rapeing someone – well then he gets punished.
I suppose (at base) I am even more “intolerant” (as regards such principles) than the evil folk who rule Iran.
At least they are prepared to admit that other people have different moral principles (although wrong ones). At base I do not even accept that.
For example, when the present President of Iran claims (as I am sure he would) that he was doing good when he sent young children to be suicide bombers in the Iran – Iraq, I do not believe him. I hold that he knows that he did wrong – whatever he might claim.