I suspect that we all hear a lot about discrimination by employers against people on the basis of sex, race, disability, religion and age, but there is also under the Equality Act 2010 (all 90,000+ words of it) in Great Britain protection against discrimination on the basis of philosophical belief, or the lack of it. Or rather, you have a means of legal retaliation against your employer.
The main case in this area came from an employee who had a profound belief in ‘man-made climate change’, but a recent legal case involving a Mr Harron has shed a bit more light on the issue. Mr Harron apparently had a problem with his employer, for which he sought legal redress, he had:
a belief (which the Employment Tribunal thought genuine) that public service was improperly wasteful of money
He worked for Dorset Police.
One might think that this sounds like a vegan putting himself on the boning line in a slaughterhouse. However, all we know is that Mr Harron though waste of money improper, not public service. It is not clear from the case how it was (or was alleged) that this belief led to Mr Harron suffering at the hands of his employer. Poor Mr Harron has also had a Tribunal waste public money holding a hearing listening to his case and getting the law wrong, and now he will have to go back and re-argue his case all over again.
At least we do know that in order for a ‘belief’ to qualify for legal ‘protection’, there are 5 criteria to be met.
(i) The belief must be genuinely held.
(ii) It must be a belief and not,… …an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available.
(iii) It must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour.
(iv) It must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance.
(v) It must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, be not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.”
Note that if your ‘belief’ is evidence-based (or even reason-based, like economics), as per (ii) above, your beliefs are not protected, but if you have a belief in an Flying Spaghetti Monster, your beliefs might be ‘protected’. But sacking a libertarian because he did not believe in climate change would be unlawful as it would relate to the ‘absence’ of a belief, rather than the holding of it.
Of course, no libertarian would be seen dead suing his employer over discrimination, so may we say that those of us of a libertarian bent would not sue if fired or harassed at work for being a libertarian (of whatever shade or degree)? In fact, claims of this sort seem to be quite rare.
For information, membership of a political party per se does not qualify one as holding a ‘philosophical belief’, which is an inadvertent judicial recognition of what is fast becoming the ‘bleeding obvious’ with some parties. And ‘Jedi Knights’ will find that the Force (of the law) is not with them.
As a libertarian, I support the right of bosses to hire, and fire, anyone- it’s the boss’s money!
At the same time, I also think that the preferred work model is of networks and syndicates, with only customers, not bosses, to consider.
As judged by whom, arbitrary overlords?
So if you genuinely believe little green men are forcing anal probes on you every night, this is due mandated respect?
Ah, so it can’t be fact and reality based. It must be a deeply held unfalsifiable belief…sans knowledge, indistinguishable from fantasy.
As judged by arbitrary overlords, all with their own parochial unsubstantiatable beliefs.
Said the Illiberal Leftists who don’t possess a single idea that doesn’t lead to contradiction.
BTW, “cogency and seriousness and importance” yet not fact based, not knowledge but rather free-floating “belief”. Yeah…contradiction.
In other words, most Joe Bag-a-donuts who is scientifically illiterate and wouldn’t know epistemology from a tree frog must agree with you. Enforcing law only when something is dubbed “worthy of respect in a democratic society” is lawyer-speak for mob rule. And guess who rules these mobs.
Anarcho-Tyranny, you are soaking in it..
Strong laws with large penalties selectively applied to political enemies.
Anyone tell me whats missing?
>(ii) It must be a belief and not, an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available.
There is no clear distinction between a “belief” and an “opinion” or a “viewpoint”. It’s astonishing that this got through. What happened to all those Oxford PPEs that run government? They wouldn’t get away with this in a first-yeasr tutorial.
As others have said, the wording of the whole thing is so vague that those in power can slant it however they want.
Presumably Mr Ed meant to write “lawful” rather than “unlawful”.
In any case, there is a distinction to be made between AGW skeptics, who have indeed no belief (unless you count the belief that there is no evidence for AGW), and AGW “deniers”, who do hold a belief, namely, that climate change is not affected by our burning fossil fuels.
Except that both AGW believers and AGW deniers (claim to) base their belief on the “present state of information available”, and therefore their beliefs are not protected, as per criterion (ii).
Thailover,
The rectal probes might constitute a man-date.
But seriously this is all nonsense. I recall working as a temp in Newcastle for the “Rural Payments Agency”. Guess what? It took me longer to process the forms for a Holstein going to join the Choir Invisible than for me to do the paper work. I got sacked mainly because I developed a scheme for queuing things to the laser printer (yes, it was so paper-based) and they (my line managers who were three women (three?) who could have stepped on the stage at The Globe for the “Scottish Play”. I was sacked and re-hired by someone else within the space of 20 minutes but I just walked anyway – I’d had a gutfull. My sin was to make the system more efficient. My job was essentially data entry. The two lads in front of were Pakistani and spent almost all the time watching the Indo-Pak test-match on the ‘net. A lass who wasn’t sacked hunted and pecked at 14wpm (note I said the job was data entry). I was doing 60wpm. But she just kept her head down. I didn’t. The line managers were from Cornwall (this was during foot and mouth) and were astonished by the bright lights of Tyneside! They would knock off early (faking their time-sheets) to go shopping in the fucking Metrocentre. They did this quite openly.
So I wasn’t surprised in the slightest when I read this…
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/the-naked-civil-servants-1537990
I was sacked for doing my job too well.
I know I have posted this before but it has to be rammed home good and hard that the state is not your friend. Waste and depravity is it’s friend. And that is why even when they farcically tried to rehire me I walked.
Snorri
No, sorry for opacity, it would not be lawful, or strictly speaking it would be tortious. The libertarian sacked for not believing in AGW is sacked for lack of belief rather than positively having a belief, but these are two sides of the same coin. Just as sacking someone for being Welsh is as unlawful here as sacking for not being Welsh.
I think the point here is that axiomatic beliefs are protected; predictions or conclusions based on empirical evidence are not.
Applying this test to libertarianism, we can see that this is the key leg that will determine whether libertarianism legally qualifies for this protection:
But does libertarianism qualify under test 2?
I would argue that belief in the non-aggression principle does: I am not interested in your so-called “evidence” that tax-fed State direction of my life is in “my best interests”, leads to “better life chances”, “promotes my health and well-being” etc. Trying to force me to life my life in a way differently from how I wish, absent prior misbehaviour on my part, is wrong in principle, and your “evidence” of how much better off I would be if I just submitted is entirely beside the point.
That’s the kind of belief to which the second leg of this test appears to be directed.
Our qualifying for this protection may not be entirely a matter of academic interest for legally-minded geeks like me. Mr Ed writes:
True, but when does the Equality Act come into play? Is it limited to employment issues? I’m not sure, but I think not. I would be perfectly happy to use its protections to fend off further predations from the State. For example, over the pond I am told the IRS was targeting Tea Party groups for harassment on the basis of their views. If this Act could be used to fend off such a “the process is the punishment” inspection from HMRC, I would absolutely be willing to use it.
Snorri,
Re your second point, in fact Britsh law has developed so that AGW goons are regarded as ‘protected’ as the court accepted the view of the true believer was not science-based. The curious thing is that to be legally protected, a belief must be ‘discredited’ by the person relying on it as the basis of his claim. ?
Mary C,
The Act covers vast areas of life, including commerce and it imposes duties on the public sector broadly to follow its spirit, and there are other Acts and principles that come into play, and to use it as a shield not a sword, absolutely.
Cal wrote,
Well, I suggest that an opinion begs the notion, opinion of what? Ditto for “viewpoint”, it suggests that one is having a particular view of….something to see. i.e. the present state of information available. In other words, opinion or viewpoint of body of facts or claims X.
Whereas BELIEF is a “protected” nebulous sack of pink Lamacorn dreams when it’s not simultaneously a body of knowledge. Yes, it’s to the point where “beliefs” are worshiped in it’s own right when IT’S NOT regarding something proved rigorously enough to be said to be known.
It’s worshiped BECAUSE it’s arbitrary and NOT fact-based.
It’s worshiped because one can based one’s life on it without even understanding it, claiming that it’s beyond “mere” human understanding.
Belief (sans simultaneous knowledge), especially strong conviction, is mind cancer.
That’s why I do my damnedest to NOT believe….anything.
Do I gamble that this aircraft will not fall from the sky? You betcha. There is redundancy built into maintenance programs and people are creatures of habit. It probably wont fall from the sky.
Do I believe what I also know? Well, one would be insane to disbelieve what one also knows to be true.
Do I strongly suspect or have intuition about X, Y or Z? Sure. No problem there as long as we call these things what they are, speculation. The problems start when we start pretending that belief either IS or that it supersedes knowledge. Or when people confuse arbitrary personal conviction about unfalsifiable claims with fact based knowledge.
When theists make the typical (and typically inaccurate) claim that “atheists don’t believe anything”, all I can say is that I wish that were true.
Thailover,
You pretty much have nailed it. The reason for protecting beliefs as well as religions is to ensure that the atheists don’t get left out when the law protects people holding religious beliefs from discrimination. Clearly with religion is it usually easy to define the religion concerned and there is sadly no onus on a believer to show that their religion is true (for obvious reasons).
What I would like to see is that the law would require a person who claims discrimination by e.g. being required to serve pork, beef or meat in a restaurant (claims which would usually fail due to the objective justification of requiring say, a chef to prepare meals) for the complainant to say what happens if they don’t follow their religion and to be put to strict proof of their loss.
Of course, that would call the whole premise of the law into question, so it could not be required.
Did you notice that these laws protect “philosophical belief” ONLY if one’s philosophy is NOT fact based, that is, NOT “opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available”?
This entire body of law is dedicated to whim worship and rather tips the hand of modern day Illiberals. Their philosopher king is wearing no clothes.
I think Mary Contrary’s analysis is exemplary – and admirably clear given the mud in which she is wrestling. I hae ma doots only on the fifth leg :
(v) It must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, be not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.”
Check
This leg allows any belief to be ruled out if it fails to accord with conventional progressive opinion. Thus the belief that it is morally wrong to force X to associate with Y against X’s will runs smack into the oncoming train of Y’s fundamental right to require X to associate with him, lest his feelings be hurt. Any non associating by X is also destructive of Y’s human dignity. Leg 5 is not a “compatible with equal liberty” leg, it’s a “compatible with Polly’s opinion column” leg.
Incidentally, I’m not sure that the politicians wrote these lunatic tests, I think they just tried to tack non religious religious-type beliefs onto something that was essentially about outlawing religious discrimination, and we have the judiciary to thank for the additional “clarifications.”
In short, the usual rule of “let’s kill all the lawyers” applies in the normal way.
Lee M,
Indeed, the judicial interpretation is what has got to this point, whilst the wording of the law in the Equality Act 2010 , setting out what is a ‘protected characteristic’, is quite bland.
It is no accident that the judicial interpretation of the law is riddled with progthink. The ‘fundamental rights*’ of others include the right not to be discriminated against (if you have a ‘protected characteristic’, so by a nice bit of tail chasing, anyone who believes in freedom is opposed to the fundamental rights of others, ergo that person’s belief is one that is incompatible with human dignity etc.
* e.g. it is a fundamental principle of the canon of European Union law that discrimination (as defined and not specifically permitted or excepted) is prohibited.
In my experience, a libertarian is less combative than an atheist regarding his beliefs. Beside, liberals and progressives love you, secretly for the most part.
“In my experience, a libertarian is less combative than an atheist regarding his beliefs.”
That’s not my experience. Most atheists I know aren’t interested in engaging in theological debates; we find them pointless and tiring. We simply ignore people’s religious beliefs and utterances, and only engage them if forced to do so. Sure, there are a few loudmouths around who like stirring things up, as there are in any group, but they’re just annoyances (to everyone), no more welcome than aggressive religious proselytizers.
Libertarians, on the other hand, are more than happy to engage in political debate; it’s what we do. That may not usually rise to the level of “combativeness”, but it’s certainly more consistently vocal than your average atheist. In my experience, anyway.
I agree with Laird. I often get in people’s face over political/philosophical issues but frankly I have very little interest in discussing some else’s invisible imaginary friend. Not worth the effort, its like debating with someone about conspiracy theories. Moreover most people’s religion has no effect of me, so I regard it as a private matter, a bit like a fondness for Japanese tentacle sex manga or Icelandic fog dancing. Quaint and sometimes slightly endearing, but then we cherish eccentrics in England.
I suspect Christina meant atheists who are on their toes about it, as opposed to libertarians who are on their toes about it. Perry and Laird are right that there are many people who are atheists but not that interested in debating it. What Christina may have noticed is the tendency of the Grayling/Dawkins type to claim that all the evil in the world comes from religious belief, and to see a purely atheistic society as a huge and unmitigated improvement. By contrast, libertarians, unless they are strictly anarchists, want the state shrunk (massively) but not wholly gone. Many libertarians know that states arise because pure anarchy is neither pleasant nor naturally self-sustaining. Thus their claims are forced into a degree of moderation in absolute terms, even if they seem extreme when compared to today’s societies.
To “discriminate” is to choose – “anti discrimination laws” are laws against freedom of choice. People may choose to trade or not trade, employ or not employ, for all sorts of silly reasons (or even whims) – but that is no business of the Sword of State.
I am told that Governor Tom Dewey of New York started this “anti discrimination law” nonsense in the 1940s (although building on Roman Imperial law about “public accommodations” and “common carriers” and the general crushing of Civil Society by the Imperial Roman state) – as a reaction against the evil “Jim Crow” laws that forbad the employment of blacks in certain positions and so on, and the Nazi laws against the Jews.
Governor Dewey no doubt had the best of intentions – but he forget that two wrongs do not make a right. And, contrary to Victorian legal thinkers such as Maitland, it is NOT the function of the law to find a remedy to everything the public find bad (such a nasty hotel owner turning away people, into the snow, because he does not like people with blue eyes) – it is the function of the law to punish actual aggressions against the bodies or goods of others. And refusing to trade with someone (or employ them) is not an aggression.
Old Common Lawyers such Chief Justice Sir Edward Coke or Chief Justice Sir John Holt, would have had no problem understanding this (they would have rejected both “Jim Crow Laws” and “Anti Discrimination Laws” out of hand – as misunderstanding the basic nature of law), but later generations of lawyers have been mislead by the false and evil legal philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and Jeremy Bentham – which holds that “law” is simply the commands of the ruler or rulers, and is the effort of the ruler or rulers to “maximise happiness” or other such vague concept.
In the Victorian age the British elite (although not ordinary people) were eventually taken over by the false and evil philosophy of Hobbes and Bentham and so the old understanding of what “law” was gradually died. There were signs of this even in the 1700s – see Sir William Blackstone who held, at the same time, that natural law [natural justice] existed – and that Parliament could make anything it felt like saying law that must be obeyed. An obvious contradiction as people such as Chief Justice Sir John Holt would have pointed out to Blackstone (had they still been living). Indeed the American Revolution (in the old sense of “Revolution” of restoring lost or threatened liberties) could be described as a revolt against Blackstone’s innovations – although modern books of law (or course) pretend otherwise.
The corruption of the American elite started at Harvard Law School in the early 1900s and in academia generally at roughly the same time (if not slightly before).
For example the British socialist Harold Laski (essentially a totalitarian) was on good terms, and in general agreement, with the American Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes jr – think about that.
Someone, Harold Laski, who despised everything about the Bill of Rights and the private property philosophy upon which it is based, was on good terms with someone (Oliver Wendell Holnes jr) who was sworn to defend the Bill or Rights.
There is no contradiction – as Holmes had sworn falsely (he laughed in his heart and had nothing but contempt for the oath he had sworn – oath breaker from the start). Oliver Wendell Holmes jr rejected the natural law philosophy of the Bill of Rights (both American and British) and believed the government can and should do anything if felt like to promote happiness.
After World War II there was the final perversion.
Rather than limiting government – the Supreme Court often decided it was not doing enough to promote happiness (as followers of Sir Francis “The New Atlantis” Bacon, his servant Thomas Hobbes, and Jeremy “13 departments of state” Benthm would understand the word happiness).
The Supreme Court (like academia generally) even mocked the traditional language – by turning it on its head.
Instead of rights being about limiting government – the language was used to mock traditional legal thought, and new “positive rights” were invented to expand government.
Such as a right to welfare and “free” education for illegal immigrants in California and Texas (see the Supreme Court versus Texas – 1982).
I am sure a “right to not be discriminated against” is not beyond the deranged thinking of collectivist academics and judges.
“But what of government employment – surely here the taxpayer is the true employer and all groups of people pay taxes”.
This brings us to a whole different area of legal thought – which I leave to my wise and learned friend Mr Ed.
Yes, Niall. The person who define himself first and foremost as atheist tends to be more combative (bitchy, Thailover dixit) about other people’s beliefs than the person who define himself firstly as a libertarian. Both, by the way, tend to go hand in hand. I have never had the pleasure to meet a non-libertarian atheist.
Yeah the plonker wing of atheism.
How bizarre. Maybe its an American thing. I have met far more socialist and communist atheists that libertarian ones, and I know a lot of libertarians. I mean really a lot. And many of the samizdatistas are practising Christians, just not me: about half I would say.
“I have never had the pleasure to meet a non-libertarian atheist.”
That’s an interesting comment. I’m not sure I have either, come to think of it. I’ll have to ponder that some more. Anyone else?
You have never met a Marxist?
I have certainly met those who combined fanatical disbelief in Christianity (or any other religion) with fanatical belief in global warming, and in their moral duty to assume unlimited power over others so as to prevent it.
(I have also met Christians who preach global warming – one modern version of what C.S.Lewis called ‘Christianity and…’. )
As Perry notes, samizdatans are a mix of believers and non-. What we are not are the kind who credulously swallow the ‘science’ of global warming, whether because AGW is called ‘science’ so they know it must be as true as they know all religion is false, or because God told them to preach the gospel and be good, but above all to be _relevant_.
You didn’t meet Enver Hoxha then?
Paul, excellent as usual. And in particular:
Also,
This does indeed raise problems that are not logically resolvable except by the introduction of artificially-drawn lines. These, of course, never satisfy everybody, and some of the dissatisfied will have a good point. If I understand correctly, English Common Law (and earlier Roman common law) developed these lines of compromise based on history and personal experience, rather than drawing them arbitrarily … at least for the most part.
. . .
Cristina, Niall: I agree with you. Entirely!
.
Cristina, May 9, 2016 at 7:24 pm: I adore your second sentence. (Especially the first clause. 😉 )
Although some libertarians do think you have to be militantly anti-religion in order to be properly libertarian. These tend to be nutters, frankly, who fear above all else that YHWH is going to take over the Presidency.
And as for non-libertarian atheists, the loudest public squawkers I know of, except for the Objectivist contingent (I will skip the 2000-pg. volume about that for now) are people like Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Both of them certainly are (were) libruls at best, although Hitchens moved some distance into the Light as he grew older.
. . .
Laird, May 9, 2016 at 5:56 pm: It’s perfectly possible to debate without being combative. Side observation: A good deal of debate does devolve into combat, but that’s an unfortunate side-effect of personality and style, not required by the concept of (interpersonal) debate. A well-conducted interpersonal debate consists of facts and arguments presented by the interlocutors with civility and intellectual honesty; the purpose of which is to examine the ideas and viewpoints of others and to clarify or even re-examine one’s own. I admit that this does not arouse the blood-lust of the debaters and audience (if any) the way that verbal combat does.
(I keep saying “interpersonal debate” in the interest of clarity, since “debate” also refers to an individual person’s internal thinking about the pros and cons of this or that position, or decision, or course of action.)
. . .
Mary Contrary, I can only quote Lee: “I think Mary Contrary’s analysis is exemplary – and admirably clear given the mud in which she is wrestling.” Very well done, I say, regardless of debatability of various points of the analysis.
Singled out for special notice as clear, correct, and well stated.
. . .
Mr Ed, May 9, 2016 at 2:21 pm: Very helpful, both the quote and the comment. Thanks.
Marxist, socialist, and communist are just marketing adjustment in response to the needs of the moment. That sect is not atheist at all. That belief system differs from the traditional ones, but is not atheist.
Mr Ed, thank you for the reminder. Such a lovely personage 🙂
Julie, thank you very much.
You clearly need to spend more time around European Marxists because they do tend to be very hostile to the whole God thing (which is not to say they favour notions of objective truth and rationality, but rather they demand a monopoly on irrational belief sets).
Then again, perhaps what I am suggesting is “cruel and unusual”.
Julie, FWIW, “combative” was Cristina’s word, not mine.
Laird, yes, I do realize that. :>)
However, I see this:
………………………..
Laird
May 9, 2016 at 5:56 pm
That’s not my experience.
………………………..
From which, I took your meaning to be either
“In my experience, a libertarian is not less combative than an atheist regarding his beliefs.”
OR, the equivalent but less awkward-sounding
“In my experience, a libertarian is no less combative than an atheist regarding his beliefs.”
But I don’t mean to make a Federal case out of it. It’s just a partial explanation of why I used your comment as a springboard to make my remark about “debate.”
And you did end that comment by writing,
While it’s certainly true that “combative” and “combativeness” are distinctly not the same word, and since one is a noun and the second an adjective I conclude that while both are extensions of the root word and root concept of “combat,” the extensions differ; that is, the two words don’t, in their full meaning, symbolize the same concept.
Anyway, I see no need to throw crockery, let alone apply for divorce, over this, and I hope you don’t either. And as I said at the start, I know that Cristina actually used the word “combative,” whereas you only implied that you were speaking of who is more likely to combative than whom. :>)
If you have ever seen or heard Charles Dawkins, you’ll know what dogmatic atheism is all about! I have never seen any libertarian who was as strident in his/her thinking.
Cristina,May 9, 2016 at 11:03 pm “Marxist, socialist, and communist are just marketing adjustment in response to the needs of the moment. That sect is not atheist at all. That belief system differs from the traditional ones, but is not atheist.”
I’m with Perry on this. By any dictionary definition of the word atheist, those people are very, even fanatically, atheist: they aggressively deny all transcendence and platonism and spirituality, let alone all specifics such as a personal God and life-after-death. Communists deny free-will (“economics determines consciousness”), and, even more aggressively than the others, deny your right to disagree with them.
There’s a colloquial use of the word ‘religion’ to mean any strongly-held belief, e.g. “Global Warming is a religion to these people” When Dawkins administration of the rationalia website fell out with its users, there were many jokes about ‘”schisms in the church of atheism”. All this is perfectly fair in context, but does not alter the fact that communists are atheists, and so is Dawkins. While being so, of course, they may exhibit, in spades, precisely those behaviour patterns they claim are characteristic of religion.
(Religion is not the only word thus abused; people talk about the ‘war on poverty’, for example.)
There is also a subset of atheists (probably significantly overlapping with communists, and even with libertarians to some extent) who are nihilists – i.e. believe in nothing.
Regarding “combativeness”: as a secular agnostic who values spirituality and tradition, but who happens to move in libertarianish circles, I personally have met with much stronger proselytizing tendencies from the atheist side of the map rather than from the religious one. With atheists this tends to be much more subtle and indirect – such as sneering and mockery any time religion or god are brought up, etc (Dawkins and co. aside).
However, this is my subjective personal experience, resulting from the time I spent in places I spent it, people I met, etc., so I fully realize that this same tendency some of these atheists exhibit, may itself be a result of and a backlash towards their personal experiences from the religious side, and the traditional proselytizing with which that side is associated.
Quite a few communists/socialists are actually nihilists, but I cannot off-hand think of any libertarians who are, at least none I know (which does not mean they do not exist, of course). Most libertarians are very much invested in notions of free will and the value and consequences of choice.
The only true unalloyed nihilist I ever met personally had vaguely marxist ideas there was no free will and we were just leaves blown in the winds of economic forces, and it did not matter what we did, because morality was just bourgeois artifice constructed to justify fencing off the commons, so to speak.
During our final meeting, I kneed him in the balls and then punched him in the face repeatedly, followed by the forceful application of my size 43s (continental) at the conclusion of our forthright exchange of views, because after all, it doesn’t matter what we do and I was compelled to act thusly by economic forces. Not joking. Of course I am being rather glib as there was a bit more to the sequence of events leading up to the violent bit 😉 Suffice to say it was an issue pertaining to “property rights”, defence thereof. I saw that moment as my contribution to lighting the candle of enlightenment in a charmless little corner of Novi Zagreb.
I should have qualified that with self-described/proclaimed, people moving in libertarian circles and ostensibly working towards the same goals as libertarians do. Having so qualified my previous comment, I’ll add that I have met several, although not many.
Of course one could argue that such people are not real libertarians, and I would agree. But that would be in the philosophical context – in the political context they are, even though I don’t like it at all.
I’ve said it before, but Dawkins is a God-fearing atheist.
There are quite a few of those around. I always find it amusing that some people get so worked-up about something they claim does not exist.
On the nihilst issue, is this actually a useful definition for dividing libertarians from the various strands of anti-government conservatism that are seemingly based on fear of the other/of others being successful? Libertarians (and classical liberals more generally) being those who do not believe in a zero-sum game, and therefore see destruction and negation as a negative move rather than an objective?
Watchman: no, IMO – see my clarification above.
I agree and that is a key distinction. A great many ‘conservatives’ who are not also classical liberals subscribe to the fixed quantity of wealth/lump of labour fallacies.
BTW, some of the libertarians I know – whether real or merely political – are in fact former communists (almost needless to add that they tend to be on the younger end of the scale). One such guy once went to one of those “occupy” events, walked up to a random 99-percenter there, and grabbed the bottle of soft drink she had next to her. As can be imagined, an instructive discussion ensued on the merits or lack thereof of private property 🙂 It’s a funny old world out there.
LOL! ‘Kin ‘ell mate, you do have a way with words! I’ve conducted my fair share of kinetic debriefings over the years relating to ‘property rights’, but I’ve never written up the after-action report so well 😛
Alisa,
I am not sure that it makes sense to have political libertarians who are not philosophical libertarians. If they do not believe in freedom of individual choice, lack of compulsion and do no harm, to rather generalise libertarian philosophy, they are at best fellow travellers. Without the philosophical belief, these people are likely to choose to support rules that are restrictive on others simply because they perceive competion as being for existing resources (which they wish to control) rather than being a way of producing existing resources, even if they are ‘sound’ on the idea of reducing the state.
There may be Liberatarian parties or libertarian organisations within parties, but I am not sure libertarianism (any more than communism, which in its ideologically purest form is also adverse to zero sum thinking – see the Iain M. Banks culture novels for the best illustration of this I have encountered in action) survives organisation into a political movement, which requires individual members to compromise their beliefs in the name of the party. This produces the situation we sometimes see in the US where it is possible to lable movements as libertarian despite the fact that their objectives are often actually negative and conservative.
All the features of religion (simple definition in Wikipedia) are present to the T in the Marxist sect. They simply substitute most elements of the traditional systems for their own sacred book, customs, practices, and so on. That’s all.
The nihilist has been historically an enemy for the Marxist sect. Understandable that, of course. Marxism requires strong believers for them to overcome the unbridgeable divorce from reality of the system.
“BTW, some of the libertarians I know – whether real or merely political – are in fact former communists” That’s my experience as well, Alisa. I wonder why?
Watchman:
It makes perfect sense if one’s objectives are political, rather than moral or philosophical.
Note that I began this line of discussion with a note on nihilism. The thing about nihilists is that, unlike the rest of us who don’t believe in X, because we prefer to believe in Y, they believe in nothing in particular, or nothing at all – and therefore, rather than object to the (in this case libertarian) beliefs, they simply don’t care either way.
And yes, such people are at best fellow travelers, although they are rarely honest enough to admit that, even to themselves.
Not necessarily – some of them will appear to hold anarchist opinions, and in fact they often have much in common with anarcho-communists, and often come from that background (and this may answer part of Christina’s question).
I very much feel the same way, and this is one of the reasons that I am by default skeptical of Libertarian parties everywhere.
@ Alisa: “I always find it amusing that some people get so worked-up about something they claim does not exist.”
Cute, but inaccurate. I can’t speak for Dawkins (having read very little of his work), but from my perspective atheists don’t get “worked up” over a (non-existent) God. Rather, they get worked up over the actions of humans who claim to believe in that God and who try to force that belief (or, at a minimum, adherence to its tenets) on others. If your religion “requires” acceptance of a series of (allegedly) moral precepts to which I do not subscribe, or prohibits actions which I find unobjectionable, I certainly reserve the right to get “worked up” when you try to impose those strictures on me. And that most certainly is something which does exist.
Christina, see my comment to Watchman. That said though, there all kinds. Some are individuals who are driven by genuine compassion and the desire for everyone to have a better life. They usually grow out of communism through life experience and serious reflection.
Laird, cute or not, quite accurate, from my experience. Note that my comment was not an attempt to describe anyone you may know 🙂 Sure, there is also what you describe, but that was not what I had in mind. There are many kinds.
“I am not sure libertarianism . . . survives organisation into a political movement”
I agree, but that doesn’t make such political parties unimportant. Libertarianism as a philosophy serves one purpose and Libertarian political parties serve a different one. The former establishes a Platonic ideal and an intellectual foundation; the latter attempts to move society in that direction, recognizing that it’s a slow, difficult process necessarily requiring the acceptance of compromises which are inconsistent with the ideal. But if we’re ever to achieve something approaching a libertarian society it’s a fight which must be waged. Libertarian political parties are the foot soldiers in that war.
Alisa, please cite me to someone who gets “worked up” over the mere postulate of the existence of a god, as opposed to the actions of humans claiming to be following his/its commands.
“adherence to its tenets”
Oh please! If it’s Christianity, it’s also called Western Civilization, Laird.
True, Alisa.
Laird, I am talking about atheists who for some reason feel compelled to prove the non-existence of God to those who believe in him/her/it, including “arguments” about the perceived immorality/ineffectiveness of that God: “Look, He almost made Abraham kill his son – is that the kind of god you expect me to believe in???”, with the more dramatic types bringing up the Holocaust.
I can’t really cite you to anyone, as these are just random people I run into online and off. Again, if you have never met them, it does not mean they don’t exist. And no, they are not generally stupid – they are just very passionate about their brand of atheism and its supposed intellectual superiority.
Laird, with regard to Libertarian political parties: are you saying that they should exist while not attempting to actually win any elections?
Alisa,
You start your last reply to me noting that there is the possibility of political objectives defining libertarianism, and then end it noting that organised libertarianism (which is what politics would require) is something of a problem… I accept this is not actually illogical, but it does make me wonder whether there is any value in actually allowing for political libertarianism, as opposed to encouraging libertarian thought (which does require philosophy) across the political spectrum – that libertarianism is currently seen as right-wing due to its economic engagement is but an artifact of the moment, and the natural link with communism (not Marxism, Leninism or any other belief system claiming to be communist) you note is an indication that libertarian thought sits well in other niches as well.
I’m also interested that you introduce morals into the discussion – morals are (to link into Laird’s post, and then draw on sociological theory at the risk of upsetting some here) generally socially-imposed norms of behaviour. In so far as libertarianism considers morals, then surely it should only be to disregard them as attempts to impose your own requirements on others. Doing harm is not morally wrong – it is absolutely wrong. Anything else might be immoral in someone’s view (I am not saying libertarians have no morals) but that is totally irrelevant as long as those doing it consent. So I am not sure there is a moral element to libertarianism.
Christianity is prone to try and take vastly too much credit for its role the ascendancy of western civilisation. Indeed Christianity’s best feature was its disunity and ability to be finessed to the point it stopped getting in the way, in a manner that has proven more precarious with, say, Islam.
Cristina, is you wish to see Christianity and Western Civilization as synonymous, that’s your prerogative.
Alisa, yes I am saying that. Or rather, it’s not that they shouldn’t attempt to win elections (one can always hope), but they are unsurprised when they don’t. The purpose of having an avowed Libertarian on the ballot is to offer a de facto “none of the above” option to the electorate, and to keep libertarian ideas in the public forum (recognizing that most people don’t spend their time reading libertarian manifestoes!). There is a cumulative effect to this, which can (indeed, does) result in libertarian ideas being adopted into the mainstream of political thought. Here in the US even the word “libertarian” is gaining widespread recognition which it didn’t have a decade ago.
Just last night some friends who are active in Republican party politics, and who attended their party’s state convention last weekend, told me that the talk of the convention was about the Libertarian Party and who it would be nominating for President (that won’t occur until the end of this month). These are people unhappy with the prospect of Trump being their party’s nominee, so they’re casting about for alternatives. In the end I think they’ll hold their noses and vote for Trump. But it’s nonetheless heartening that their first thought is Libertarian. We are making progress, even if sometimes it’s difficult to see. The Progressive movement didn’t get where it is overnight, and neither will the libertarians.
Watchman:
That is a moral statement 🙂 The fact that morals may be (and most often are) socially imposed, does not mean that their origin is social.
But that is beside the point of this discussion as far as I can see, as what I was getting at with regard to the moral aspects of libertarianism is simply practicing or failing to practice what one is preaching. One of the easiest ways of identifying the “political” libertarian who is not a moral or philosophical one, is to observe how he or she treat others in their daily life.
I very much prefer the latter.
Well, no, that is really not how it works. We form critical preferences for moral theories, much as we do for any other theory about how the world works. Morals are what we call certain conclusions we come to for deciding what is and is not the right thing to do. You say: “Doing harm is not morally wrong – it is absolutely wrong”… well that is you expressing a moral theory. Harm is not some manner of elemental particle to which we can objectively assign a negative characteristic by looking at it through an electron microscope. It is something we have to use reason to understand and contextualise it within moral theories.
Indeed to quote what floridly gay anarcho-capitalist libertarian Paul Coulam once said to me: “I am totally in favour of punishing immorality.” And that is because he would strongly differentiate between morality and life-style choices.
Laird, I’m fine with that strategy – but then it should be kept secret 🙂
Quite.
“Cristina, is you wish to see Christianity and Western Civilization as synonymous, that’s your prerogative.”
LOL. Thank you, Laird. Now I can breathe again. 🙂
“Christianity is prone to try and take vastly too much credit for its role the ascendancy of western civilisation.”
Does that mean there were other religious, philosophical, and political influences in the formation of Western Civilization, beside Christianity? Care to expand?
Cristina,
Correlation does not equate to causation, quite how the bestial nuns that imposed fear in one generation above mine’s education can be said to have contributed to ‘civilisation’ is opaque to me.
Culture, art and knowledge are things that flourish with civlisation, but a state of civil society fundamentally comes from civil relations between individuals, which ultimately flows from the rule of law and the expectation of it, and a willingness to accept the principle asserted by Lord Denning to a bullying Labour Attorney-General Sam Silkin in the mid-1970s.
Mr Ed, thank you for the delicious addition to my file of Swipable Quotes:
:>)))
. . .
Laird, May 10, 2016 at 4:30 pm:
1. For an example of a whole group of people who do get so “worked up,” I present the Orthodox Objectivists. They object to:
2. What you so —> accurately, correctly, and felicitously <— call "the mere postulate of the existence of a god” — boldface mine.
The word “postulate” is the key. They label this postulate “faith,” attempting to take it outside the realm of logic altogether. But every non-trivial logical system has a postulate or a set of postulates at its (logical) foundation. It is true that “faith” is very commonly used to express some part of the essence of religion (as well as being often used to express trust, expectations, or hope in a non-religious sense). But that doesn’t change its logical nature as a postulate.
Also, there is the objection that ” ‘faith’ is a belief in something for which there is no evidence.” But first, what is called “religious ‘faith’ ” is not always unsupported by evidence, as the believer sees it. And second, it’s pretty widely accepted that often, A simply cannot accept B’s report — either because he’s never had been in a situation similar to B’s, or because he has but reacted entirely differently to the same situation, such as their differing reports as to the desirability of broccoli despite their both having chewed on the stuff.
Aside from this, some proportion of the Convinced Religious have had experiences which they themselves are convinced are the result of interventions by God. Paul on the road to Damascus, and many others. Other people may have a different and far more “everyday” explanation of the event, but a fundamental tenet of Objectivism is supposed to be to think for yourself, based on your own observations. If people are sufficiently convinced that they saw what they’re sure they saw, or “felt” what they felt, or had the experience they’re sure they had, they would transgress this tenet if they abandoned their perception of the evidence on somebody else’s say-so, even if the opposing argument is weighty to most of the world.
Actually, of course, when we try to isolate the principles which serve as our postulates when trying to reason about the real world, we do look for some sort of actual evidence justifying their acceptance as such. Not proving it (proof is ruled out by definition of the word “postulate”), but supporting the idea that the principle does hold “in the real world.”
And what constitutes sufficient justificatory evidence to one man may be seen by another as either trivial or a complete misinterpretation of events or far from sufficiently credible to serve as evidence at all.
So, to finish with a summary digression, we humans discuss various postulates, and what are the rules of evidence, and what are the requirements of both logic and its correlation with real-world (“empirical”) observations or experience, and what we’re reasonably sure we already know (in the Sahara, it’s usually cooler at night than around 2 or 3 p.m.), and gradually there comes to be what we consider an “addition to human knowledge.”
And all that disagreement does not mean that knowledge is unavailable to us, but only that in a great many (most?!) cases our knowledge is incomplete and is always up for review.
I’ll just get my coat now….
Alisa:
Exactly so. :>)
. . .
Main influences shaping Western Civilization:
Actually, there are at least four — five, if you separate out the Judaism from which Christianity sprouted — very important strains of thought and custom (statute law is one part of the latter) that have resulted in Western Civilization as we know it
1. Judaism, if for no other reason than as the progenitor of Christianity — although in fact, it has had rather a considerable direct effect on Western Civ, in custom certainly, and in thought and scholarship and knowledge generally: the Old Testament as informing the thought of the American Founders; Maimonides, Hillel; accomplishments of Jews in the fields of scholarship, science, music, most of which must have been at least partly a result of Jewish culture and custom, including its adaptation to circumstances after the Diaspora (and, of course, Law: The Mosaic Code — also very important in the Founding Era); and more.
2. Ancient-Greek philosophy, and to some extent political orders, such as Athenian democracy.
3. Christianity, yes indeed. And in more ways than two!
4. Roman philosophy and political order. Not to mention the Imperial conquests, which did spread Roman ideas (and methods or custom, at least to some extent, as in the adoption of the Latin language as lingua franca throughout the Empire). Note also that after Cæsar, Christianity became an important influence on Roman thought and political order.
5. Germanic influence, about which I know virtually nothing up until, say, the influence of Hegel; ask our Mr. Marks about that. (Although the signal achievement of Charles Martel certainly influenced Western Civ away from the awfulness of Islam.) I’m thoroughly convinced, by the way, that the best parts of Western Civilization owe a great deal to philosophy as it developed in what is now Great Britain. The Magna Carta, so forth and etc. Perhaps this is partly derived from Germanic philosophy and custom? Again, please ask Paul.
Mr Ed, I know you are an intelligent man. That’s why I find your last comment surprising.
Do you think that “culture, art and knowledge” (which you mention as an aside of the civilization per se) spring out of a vacuum?
Do you recognize that the rule of law, the expectations that from it derive, and the acceptance of this organization of the civil society are part of the civilization?
Er, Pagan Rome? Ancient Greece? Vendels? Ostrogoths? Vikings? Magyars? European geography? It goes on and on and on. The way Christianity primarily managed to influence the ascendancy of European civilisation was by failing to dominate the many disparate political centres in a cohesive unifying political manner in the way Islam did in its much less formalistic but more structural way. Paris was worth a mass, and so was Aachen, London, Antwerp, Florence, Milan, Krakow, Vienna etc etc.
Cristina,
Perhaps I should state that FMPOV ‘civilisation’ is a state of mind, an attitude, found only in individuals, from which peaceful co-operation flows. From that, and the resolution to maintain standards in the face of savagery or barbarism, such things as culture may develop.
We see historically that many a ruler adopted Christianity, and so it ran like a tributary to a great river, with other inputs.
Yet I have also read of the hard-working Einsatzgruppen officers, who relaxed after a hard day’s machine-gunning Jews and others, listening to piano recitals, and who no doubt considered themselves cultured. And then many a German army officer of WW1 may well have had similar attitudes.
@ Perry
All these influences were received and adapted under the unifying banner of Christianity, who gave the definitive form to this magnificent thing called Western Civilization.
@ Mr Ed
“Perhaps I should state that FMPOV ‘civilisation’ is a state of mind, an attitude, found only in individuals, from which peaceful co-operation flows. From that, and the resolution to maintain standards in the face of savagery or barbarism, such things as culture may develop.”
Do you recognize the existence of something called Aztec Civilization?
Is there any evidence for such a thing? Show me and I’ll tell you.
There have been societies ruled by barbarians, those who would know what civilisation is and reject it.
There have been people who misuse the term ‘civilisation’ or perhaps use it loosely.
Indeed, it had some structural similarities to how Islamic civilisation interacted with its religion. Western civilisation on the other hand has long been heterogeneous, and whilst Latin was for a long time a useful lingua franca, it never occupied the same central role as Arabic or Nahuatl. Why? Because Christianity did not have even nearly the same homogenising effect on the multiple power centres of Europe as Islam did or the simply delightful Aztec faith. London, Krakow and Milan were ‘Christian’ but that mattered less than the nature of their secular power.
Laird, Alisa, Julie, Cristina and others discussed Mr Ed’s remark, ‘Dawkins, the God-fearing atheist’, in the context of rational concern over the threat of religion-inspired oppression versus ideological fear of the idea of God as such.
I’d suggest there is an easy test at this present time. Someone rationally concerned will talk most about islam. They may also note that such others as Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity have historically been the names under which wars occurred or oppressors acted, just as in WWII a Briton may have also noted that France under Napoleon was a threat to our freedom while still being quite clear that in 1940 Germany was the source of the threat. By contrast, western pacifists in WWII were always keen to get away from immediate dangers and prime threats onto the general evil of all armies and all war. Likewise, the kind of atheist Alisa was talking about are always keen to get onto the general ‘evils of religion’ gig, away from specific threats of any specific religion at this time.
I’d cite Dawkins and Grayling as obvious examples. More generally, the left brought in anti-free speech laws nominally in response to 9/11 but use them much more vigorously against Britain’s native religion than against a certain immigrant religion. So I’d say the distinction Alisa was making is valid and has contemporary examples.
Niall, on a much smaller scale and on a much more individual level, this also has a psychological angle to it: in my experience (which is, again, purely anecdotal), Western atheists – especially those who were not brought up as such, but rather grew up in religious families – tend to be hostile specifically to their native religion (by which I obviously mean either Christianity or Judaism, or both), while often being indifferent to other, foreign religions. Which is all quite natural and understandable, if not for the fact that this indifference often takes the form of blindness, specifically these days with regard to Islam. IOW, these people spend so many years convincing themselves that their native religion is a threat to humanity, that they just cannot see that Islam is a far greater threat. Although, I’m sure, we can all think of some notable counterexamples.
And again, in addition to the rational objection to societal and legal religious impositions, such people exhibit an unmistakable animosity towards God itself – an entity they claim does not exist.
Niall, good point.
Alisa (and Niall for agreeing), very good point about those atheists who grew up in Christian homes and now reject Christianity as the very Fount of All Evil.
.
Thoughts about the NOT-hellfire-breathing “moderate” atheists who yet reject religion, especially their native Christianity, at least in public:
Actually, I think maybe quite a few atheists who were brought up Christian don’t have all that much animus toward their former religion. (Delete side observations about the backgrounds and other factors influencing the attitudes of those who do.)
But the point is, that among what I would consider the more rational atheists, quite a few seem to have been bitten by the bug of not wanting to display anything that might be called favoritism. Also, in many circles being in favor of Christianity is simply not the Done Thing.
I think that the same impulse lurks in other contexts. For instance, people who have a hard time coming to the defense of their original (or even present, sometimes) families, or of their country, regardless of circumstances and their own private belief that said family or country is, in the given case at least, deserving of defense.
I think this might be partly a streak of leftover childhood developmental individuation and rebellion, and partly a fear of rejection by one’s friends.
(As well as rejection by other figures, sometimes people or even fictional personages, whose approval one seeks.) In other words, there is a need urge to please that seems to me almost universal, though present in widely varying degrees among humans.
Or so it seems to me.
Mr Ed, your remark to the effect that civilization resides within the individual reminds of Mrs. Thatcher’s comment that “there is no such thing as society.”
So a question: Did you mean your observation to be taken as the same sort of remark as Mrs. Thatcher’s?
And another: Given your comment, I am interested in your definition of “civilization” (or an explanation of your understanding of the term). Enlightenment please?
Julie,
1. No, and Mrs Thatcher’s comment is often misrepresented by Lefties.
2. I take the word ‘civilisation’ to be used to relate a process whereby people become civilised, i.e. they no longer live as beasts, but become or rather are made (in a broad sense) ‘civil’, this word carries the implicit assumption of inherent savagery (Lord of the Flies or worse) that has to be held at least in check for civil behaviour to prevail.
Thus a criminal aggressor is not civilised, be that aggressor a head-chopping cannibal or a socialist.
Remember ‘A cannibal is a hungry socialist in a hurry’.
Yes Julie, that too. There are all kinds within all kinds.
Thanks, Mr Ed. :>)
1. As to Mrs. Thatcher’s comment, I’m well aware that she did not mean it in the gutter (Lefty) sense.
2. I will chew on that some. Metaphorically, of course, as I am neither a cannibal nor a socialist. :>)
–Still, does that mean you take the Hobbesian view? And after some chewing, it seems to me you are saying that (at least some) individual persons carry at least a seed of a civil attitude within them, which with some luck develops into something like a tomato transplant which may be picked up by other people and nurtured within their bosoms — if tomato plants can grow within bosoms, of course. Hopefully this process leads to an ongoing Tomato Feast. Is this anywhere near the mark?
I confess to being the only person in the Anglophone world who has no personal acquaintance with Mr. Caulfield … and the more I hear of Mr. Golding’s magnum opus, the less palatable it sounds. 🙁
By the way, I’d prefer the reverse:
Mr Ed, if I understood you correctly, there is not civilization proper, but scattered individuals in some human groups deserving the adjective “civilized”. Is that correct?
Julie, funny the analogy of the tomato transplant. 🙂
Cristina,
I take the concept of civilisation to be a concept applicable at the individual level. And given sufficient critical mass, ‘civilisation’ will prevail.
However, it frays when one lives by the State or one’s own criminal deeds rather than by law and peaceful co-operation. At present, the forces against civilisation are emboldened and growing again.
Melding some quotes from Thomas Sowell’s “A Conflict of Visions’ produces the following:
“Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of society by little barbarians who must be civilised before it is too late. Those individuals on whom this process does not take during the malleable years of childhood – whether because its application was insufficient in quality or quantity or because they were especially resistant – are unlikely to be made civilised later.”
Civilisation can be called the process of trying and/or the result of often succeeding and/or or the existence or acts of the successful individuals.
Cristina said,
Atheist’s beliefs…er, uh…what would those be? An a-theist is simply a non-theist.
Alisa wrote,
Unfortunately, most atheists in “the west” tend to be lefties, even sometimes neo-marxists. And as such, they, the lion’s share, tend to embrace “multiculturalism”, i.e. the idea that all cultures and beliefs have intrinsic value (even if no value can be given as an example), that is, EXCEPT “western” culture and “western” beliefs. These western ways and beliefs are to be hated and despised. So Islam is to be “respected”, but christianity (oddly considered a western belief rather than middle eastern) is to be despised. To facilitate this irrational hatred, leftists often irrationally accuse their target as being “racist” even if the term makes no sense in context, and they accuse every western idiom as “colonialism”. Again, the accusation doesn’t need to make sense for it to poison it’s prospective well. Accusations of “western colonialsm” always gets audience clapter, regardless of whether it acually applies to the conversation.
That being said, we should make a distinction between the atheist that bangs-on about the evils of religion and uses christianity as an example but gives Islam a free pass….and that of the atheist who does the same, but doesn’t go on about Islam and it’s atrocious “prophet” only because he or she likes keeping their head, and/or because the evils of Islam is already an blatantly obvious point to everyone already in the conversation and there is no additional point to be made.
Mr. Ed,
I agree with you completely that actual civilization is a social system, groups composed of individuals that freely choose to cooperate and trade with one another to mutual benefit, where rules and just laws serve as guidlines for willfully civilized, law-abiding people. This, IMO necessitates the enlightened knowedge that laws don’t stop criminals, nor do laws stop “vice”, which is why any “criminal” can go downtown right now and pick up a hooker, gamble illegally, and purchase any number of illicit drugs and buy a “hot” unregistered gun. Making even more laws/rules only affects the civilized, i.e. the law-abiding, as criminals are defined as those who don’t give a rat’s ass about rules or laws.
I also agree that “civilization” is only civilized if it’s not collectivst or utilitarian. Any system which touts “it’s for the greater good” will sacrifice the individual to the collective, which is no civilization at all.
Tribe, yes. Civilization, no.
And, like it or not, christianity is not compatible with western civilization, i.e. the ideas touted by the American Constitution’s Bill of Rights. The idea of having a sky monarch, the “king of kings”, and the idea of inalienable rights as individuals, contradict one another.