The hardening of the Frankenreich arteries is now so obvious that it cannot be ignored by even the likes of Will Hutton:
With all eyes fixed on the American presidential elections, the scale of the looming crisis in France and Germany has gone largely unremarked. But it may so change the political geography of Europe that British arguments for and against the EU will be made redundant. A pervasive sense of decline in both countries, only partially justified but none the less virulent, is destabilising not just the structures of the EU – but the political systems of France and Germany.
Only in the Guardian could someone express these views and still be welcomed in polite society. Having a column in that journal is like possessing a magic amulet. Say them anywhere else and you are ‘xenophobic, racist and right-wiiiiiinnnng‘.
It could all turn ugly; an unratified European Constitution, stagnating economies, new dark nationalist politics and a fragmenting European Union.
It all sounds most ominous. Britain should leave now while it still can, yes?
To imagine that Britain will be immune from this is absurd; what happens in mainland Europe will directly impact upon us as it has throughout our history. What is needed is an understanding that if European states don’t hang together they will hang separately – and that because the European Union is the best we have, we’d better make it work.
The citadel is crumbling and the best way to save ourselves is to stand beneath the battlements and wait resolutely for the boiling oil to be poured over our heads.
Mr Hutton may have a magic amulet but that does mean that he is of any use in a crisis situation.
Olde Europe’s affinity for Mr. Kerry is evidently not shared by enough members of America’s Democratic Party.
David Carr writes:
“Mr Hutton may have a magic amulet but that does mean that he is of any use in a crisis situation.”
Oh, I don’t know.
Personally, I regard poor, mad Will as the village idiot.Whatever he says is guaranteed to be laughably wrong.
Will: “Ooh-Arrr! Oi do stand in the duckpond oi does and everyone do say I be sure to avoid they rheumatics.”
Passer-by: “But Will, they are Guardian readers.”
What poor Will is (correctly) angling towards is the upcoming civil war in the EU.
But he failed to bring himself to ask the correct question….. that being… Can Britain completely extricate herself from the EU before the war unfolds ?
The answer of course is YES….. but the political will to do so is yet to mature.
Umm, isn’t it the case that in all the times that Europe really went off the rails, Britain saved the day, for Europe and itself, by fighting against the prevailing trends?:
1. Napoleonic Wars
2. WWI
3. WWII
God help Europe if Britain ever ceased to be its rudder of comparable sanity.
Civil war? I think eventual death-by-tax-and-regulation (autopsy will report “patient died of downing in a wine-lake after tripping and falling down a butter-mountain”) is rather more plausible than a war within the EU. Lets not get carried away!
The citadel is crumbling and the best way to save ourselves is to stand beneath the battlements and wait resolutely for the boiling oil to be poured over our heads.
I thought it was more like, “The EU ship is sinking – we better get on board now before it’s too late.”
Perry,
I beg to differ…. The demographics alone show the direction Europe is taking what with declining working age population and a rising Muslim population who are already nipping away at the wealth creators within Europe aspecially Froggieland.
Pray tell…. what are your expectations from these unassimilated and uneducateable hordes ozzing from Europe’s muslim slums ? What is going to happen when they find out there welfare payments are going to be cut or better still cutout all together ?
As the economic mess inside the EU continues to sprial down please take the time to explain to readers why the EU will not violently implode and please include pointers as to why the rising anti-semitism within the EU will not be a factor.
Sorry but the evidence of my eyes is all I need. France and Germany are building up major structural problems but that does not mean it will all end in a ‘civil war’. “Unassimilated and uneducateable hordes ozzing from Europe’s muslim slums”… they will indeed eventually be assimulated, like all the peoples before them. Islam’s dark ages culture will not last in close proximity to the manifestly more attractive altarnatives.
” Islam’s dark ages culture will not last in close proximity to the manifestly more attractive altarnatives.”
Perry, I believe you are correct, but the evidence available at the moment does not seem to be trending that way. This of course comforts the Left in their hopes that the U.S. will come a cropper in Iraq, but I wonder if they realize what the unavoidable side-effect of that will be.
Regards,
Ric Locke
Probably not civil war, but I change imagine excessive violence flaring. Things are heating up in the old Soviet republics. France and Germany’s more extreme parties are gathering support. The second class muslims get restive as revenues decline and subsidies are cut. As French and German citizens feel more and more helpless, they’ll look for scapegoats. The Islamo-Fascists all the while are fanning the flames.
Calls for a Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan to step forward. Anything less, one should expect very little support from the US – Bush will be re-elected and he impresses me as someone who will not soon forget being stabbed in the back.
Perry,
………….”they will indeed eventually be assimulated, like all the peoples before them. Islam’s dark ages culture will not last in close proximity to the manifestly more attractive altarnatives.”
Surely you jest…….
“For both countries the European Union offers a different, brighter history”.
Gotta love it. Their current ridiculous bureaucracies and welfare states are destroying them….so they’d damn well better get more of the same and inflict it on others for a brighter history.
What the hell is a brighter history anyway? Future maybe? I guess if you really screw things up your history looks brighter. Was that his point about the EU’s meaning to France and Germany?
My immediate reaction to Hutton’s article was to start laughing. He’s been urging upon us a more corporatist, centrist state for decades (The State We’re In?) and has only just now managed to notice the downside of that structure.
We have problems, but this kind of panicky reaction is indeed way overblown. It’s the anxiousness of people who hate change but realize that they have no other choice.
For context, think of the British ‘Winter of Discontent’
We are not nearly as bad off, and it is a Social Democratic government that is right now pushing through some crucial reforms.
I’m much less optimistic than Perry is about European Muslims assimilating into their national societies.
I read a frightening article in City-Journal magazine a while back about the second- and third-generation North African immigrants in the suburbs of Paris who showed no signs of becoming (or wanting to become) French. They live in their own ghettos and maintain their own customs and culture. And unfortunately for France (and the rest of Europe), those customs and culture are inimical to what their non-Muslim neighbors believe and practice.
The demographics show that the problem is only going to get worse. As George Santayana famously said, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” And most Europeans have forgotten that centuries ago, their ancestors fought centuries-long wars to keep from being overrun by Islam. This time, Islam doesn’t have to outfight the Europeans, it only has to outbreed them.
Do not just look at the muslim underclass in Europe as it is far more complex than that. The bars and pubs of Britain have many nominal muslims happily drinking in them. They will indeed assimulate, despite the best efforts of the statists (particularly the ones of the left) to keep them in unassimulated (and therefore unemployed) ‘multicultural’ isolation.
I think the theory is that whenever two groups of people within a society have different ideas, the most attractive idea always wins, automatically. That’s why Vietnam turned capitalist in the 1970s, it’s why Tsarist Russia finally overcame Bolshevism in 1917, why German democracy was able to triumph against Hitler in the 1930s …
Demographics, cultural heritage, determination and manpower are all irrelevant as long as you have a good idea. 😉
Sorry Peter but you just vanished up your own rhetorical whatever… Vietnam did not turn capitalist because the government in Saigon was not really capitalist either, and all those Soviet/Communist weapons had juuuuust a little bearing on the outcome…Tsarist Russia was an authoritarian nightmare, so again, your selection of ‘choices’ is rather strange… and last but not least, the tragedy is that German democracy did indeed ‘win’: in July 1932, the Nazi Party won 37% of the Reichstag seats making them the dominant party rather than the other various collectivists on offer. Not democracy’s finest hour.
Modern western civ is inclusive and seductive by nature and that is why it will win in the end. We will make them us, or at least enough of them will be.
I think you guys tend to overestimate the importance of “numbers” when it comes down to this debate about future of Europe… sure, demographic trends would indicate the young unassimilated islamic hordes will triumph over the aging pacifist European population, but it’s not simply just a numbers game.
What counts for more are those TOP people, your scientists and brilliant entrepreuners… who create economic wealth and advanced technologies. Fundamental islam not only is based on barter trade , but also prohibits free exchange of ideas or technologies. Combination like that will be a sure loser, which is probably why Israel has been kicking ass in Middle East against massive odds now for 50+ years.
I think the parallel with Israel’s fate is exactly what so many people are worried about, Front. I’m as eurosceptic as any British patriot, but I rather prefer the neighbours we have to the neighbours Israel has.
Perry, the Nazis were indeed the largest party in Weimar Germany for many an election, which is one of countless reasons I don’t understand your view that the best ideas always triumph through their inherent attractiveness. You seem to admit this yourself when saying that the superior weaponry of the North Vietnamese allowed them to triumph over the superior ideas of the South Vietnamese. Ideas matter, but so do birthrates, deathrates, migration patterns, determination, culture and laws.
Peter, your argument suggests you are not actually reading what I write but are rather trying to ‘read between the lines’. I do not and never have claimed the best ideas always win.
What I do claim is that modern 21st century western civilisation will win, which is why I find your examples both bizarre and irrelevant. We will win because we have better economics, better (and more) weapons, more insidious propaganda (for example our splendid movies and fascinating porn industry), more adaptive institutions and more resilience. We do not need to out-breed them, we just need to get enough of their women into short skirts and enough of their men into boozers… and eventually that is exactly what will happen. Not now, but eventually. And the sooner the idiots at the top actively stop that natural process from happening, the better. We do not need to get them interested in Shakespeare or Anglicanism, getting them addicted to East Enders and secularising them will do just fine.
A tad optimistic, I fear. It might win, but I don’t think this is anything like certain. I seriously doubt it will prevail without violence and dictatorship.
Yes, we have more and better weapons, but (a) we are usually afraid to use them and (b) they aren’t designed for that sort of enemy in the first place. We have good propaganda machines, but we soak up their propaganda and don’t broadcast our own. Our institutions are indeed adaptive, and they have adapted well and quickly to a multi-cultural everyone-is-equally-right mode of operation. Indeed, we are famously resiliant, and our systems will fight bitterly to oppose any move towards acknowledging the blunt reality that we face.
The west might win, but if it does it will only be after a long and unpleasant struggle against itself as much as against the new enemy.
Contemporary western culture is weak, enervated by decades of self-doubt and post-colonial guilt, and latterly by political correctness and a chronic aversion to risk in any form. If the body count goes up high enough, and if the threat to the west is not a direct and simple military one (it isn’t), there is a non-zero probability that the west will, in fact, just give up. Contemporary Islamic culture does not have these doubts or guilt, which is one of things that makes it attractive, and in that respect it is tougher. The weak, as Putin recently observed, lose.
It’s not just about how many guns and of what type you have. If your culture is weakened and dying, then so too are you.
EG
Perry,
Is this the assimilation at the pubs and bars that you are talking about……. ??
http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_2_when_islam.html
For your info its just like this down-under……
From my readings on the net its similar in Froggieland too…….
Perry,
On assimilation: You reckon without the idiocy of the multi-cult, the “left” is supporting faith schools for Muslims where they can learn the insidiousness of Western culture. Who knows then, if they will be allowed to watch TV, except Al Jazerra? You are right in assuming that people pick up their culture from the surrounding culture, by and large ( who knew that Morrisey was Irish?) – much in the way they pick up an accent, from their peers and not their parents. However if a immigrant group is sequestered amongst themselves they will not pick up the surrounding culture, and if they get too large – who knows if they will ever assimilate. A good barometer for this is, in fact, accent. In california , Asian American’s of the second generation speak Valley, but Hispanics have a recognizable accent – you would get it on the phone.
Also you miss something else: I am less convinced than you that the culture of Porn etc. is as attractive and as world defining as you think despite it momentary pleasures. You are missing what Carl Sagan called the God Shaped hole.
Explain the defection of John Walker Lindh, born in a most progressive version of the society you talk about, and found fighting for the most repressive force on Earth today? Explain the far left’s dissatisfaction with Capitalism – they too are of a religious mind, of sorts.
Lots of people look for rigidity and rules in life, there may be more defectors from our culture to theirs, than the reverse.
Perry, I accept your clarification, but I also think that the view that the best ideas always triumph through their inherent attractiveness was a fair interpretation of your view as expressed above and elsewhere. Certainly this is the first time I’ve seen you insert all the qualifiers you just did.
But given them, I think what we’re discussing now is less any moral or political disagreement than a factual one. I don’t think anyone on this site, with the possible exception of Paul Coulam, would rather see sharia law imposed on Britain – to take a worst-case scenario – than take a more pragmatic and less ideological view of migration and culture. I suppose the question then is on what grounds you can feel so confident that you’re willing to take the risk. It’s not just a question of absolute majorities, but of small but growing vocal minorities, which in France have used their political power to force the government to deny that Hamas is a terrorist organisation and in the UK have persuaded the government to ban criticism of Islam simply by voting Liberal Democrat in a few by-elections and council elections. On what grounds can you believe that any and every problem of integration is just going to fade away? All your defences seem to be anecdotal – or simply blindly hopeful. That you can see Muslims in pubs is hardly proof of their secularism. I know Muslims who drink more in an evening than I might in a month, but are otherwise devout. For that matter, to take a most extreme example, the 9/11 hijackers spent their final night in strip clubs. Hypocrisy is not proof of faithlessness – it is only proof of hypocrisy.
As for this idea of Muslim girls all seeing the ‘errors’ of their virtuous ways and jumping into mini-skirts, let me suggest that we are already seeing signs of the traffic in fact going the other way – for example, the recent Channel 4 account of the last white girls in one area who have started going to the local Mosque and are converting to Islam and learning about its values. This is happening for good reasons.
If you’re like millions of Britons now, and you’ve never known security, and you’ve never had parents and siblings all committed and happy, and the community down the road shows order, family loyalty, sharing and respect in ways you’ve never seen, it’s shouldn’t be difficult to see how tempting it might be to welcome the transgressions and impositions that come with what this new culture has to offer. If you’re a long-suffering wife, imagine how much you’ll greet Islamic efforts to close down local sex shops and move prostitutes out of the area. If you’re a man entering his thirties, ready to settle down and basically just wanting a good wife and a family he can rely on, what a wonderful thing an entire culture in which women are chaste, devoted and loyal will appear to those whose main experience of femininity comes from frequenting inner-city nightclubs every weekend.
You’re certainly over-confident, but most of all you’re over-confident about those things in which the modern West is wrong and Islam is less wrong. Even without new cars entering the road every day, the traffic is anything but one-way. And I suspect the direction of most of it will continue to go against us more and more every year.
Ralf,
As a Brit I have to say that I think your comparison with our Winter of Discontent is way off the mark. That was a result of an overly corporatist polity, and fixed quickly and easily (if not painlessly) as Thatcher demonstrated.
The problems of France and Germany are demographic and structural: either you undertake wholesale reform or start shooting pensioners.
Aaaah… the usual “argh, get out of the EU” chorus….
Did anyone see the interview with Digby Jones (CBI head) on Hardtalk the other week? He was quite hopeful about the direction of the EU, suggesting that the recent trouble over the constitution etc. was a good sign, & that Britain had new allies in the form of Poland etc, to move the EU in a far more competitive, less meddling direction. Seems to me this would be preferable (keeping the easy border-free movement etc. benefits) to withdrawal, & he certainly sounded as though he believed it possible.
So Peter’s argument is that Islam will win out because it’s actually better than secular Western society?
Wow, and I thought the left were defeatist…
I think it’s more that Islam offers the spiritual authority and uncompromising morality (however right or wrong, and whatever one personally thinks of them) that the West lacks. This is one of things that attracts people.
People don’t necessarily want complete freedom, just enough to get on with their lives. But alongside that they want rules, they want order, they want someone to tell them what is right and what is wrong, they want someone to explain why things are the way they are. This doesn’t mean they cannot think for themselves, but one has to accept that most people most of the time don’t think deeply about such things and are happy (or even happier) to have someone tell them. Islam gives them this. Secular western culture does not. In this respect contemporary Islam is stronger and more appealing than western moral relativism.
One also might notice that the Christian churches which are growing in the West are the ones which promote a stronger and more confident, perhaps more absolutist, moral view, whereas the more established churches are losing congregations as they adopt secular liberal pieties.
When the Anglican church consecrates a homosexual bishop, there is hand-wringing, there is debate, there is a fear of offending the homosexual community. But when a Russian Orthodox priest blessed a gay couple in Moscow, he was sacked without any debate and no soul-searching. The Orthodox church, I understand, is the fastest growing mainstream Christian church in the UK, and I would not be in the least bit surprised if this type of uncompromising moral standpoint is a significant reason why. Islam offers a similarly (rather, more) uncompromising moral code, which perhaps explains a good deal of its appeal to certain non-Moslem people. By contrast, the essentially atheistic West can’t offer anything beyond weasel words and good intentions.
There is more to life than porn, booze and soap operas. Unfortunately, the west doesn’t seem able to offer it, and people will turn to someone or something that does offer it.
EG
John, no, that’s not my argument. It is not defeatist but realistic to note that Islamic cultures do some things better than we currently do, and that they have attractions that may actually have a wide appeal. Perry talks about secularising existing Muslims, assuming that the life of hedonistic zombies is irresistible, but as eoin and Euan explain so well, there are pretty strong reasons to expect more people to defect the other way.
Peter, I look forward to you citing my remarks where I said the best ideas always win, rather than ‘Western Civ will win’. Some ideas are so powerful that it is indeed unliely they can be buried forever and there an enough of those mixed in with all the ghastly crap that makes up Western Civ that it will continue its halting, unequal but inexorable development into World Civ.
And one of the reasons it will win is because it has jettisoned so many of the socially conservative ‘one size fits all’ views you espouse, and replaced that with a far wider range of acceptable lifestyles. The sex shops, gay bars, philosophy-free entertainments, junk media, moronic press and messy-but-largely-free choices that are available are symptoms of exactly what makes western civ so successful and so viral. They are not bugs, they are features. It ain’t always pretty but it works.
The ‘security’ of a traditional nuclear family is and always was largely a virtuous myth at best and a toxic fiction at worst. Nothing can fuck you up quite like your parents and to hold the breakdown of the traditional family unit as a sign of the decline of western civilisation shows just how far apart we are ideologically.
I am delighted more people get divorced these days as it is an absurd notion that people naturally stay together for their entire adult lives… I can think of few notions more preposterous that cohabiting with a person you have grown to truly understand, and as a result, truly loath. It is not a good or virtuous thing, particularly if you are doing so ‘for the children’. The basic building block of society is not the family, it is the individual.
there are pretty strong reasons to expect more people to defect the other way.
Except that this simply isn’t what’s happening. Overwhelmingly, people opt for soap operas, booze and porn over spiritual purity. This is the preference revealed by their spending power. That the few who make the reverse journey, or at least claim to*, are sufficiently newsworthy – man bites dog – is a token of their being the exception rather than the rule.
* the scale of the porn industry and its popularity, even in supposedly conservative societies, ought to caution against taking the professed spiritual purist at his word when he claims to spurn such base pleasures.
But some people ARE going the other way and becoming Moslem. For that matter, others are leaving the more established Christian churches and joining more assertive and self-confident ones. I’m not suggesting this is a huge number, but it is wrong to think that it doesn’t happen.
The interesting question is “why?”. Why do some people make this choice?
I really cannot bring myself to accept that the ultimate ascendancy of western culture is a given. The west has largely lost its self-confidence, as witnessed by the pervasive political correctness and moral relativism. The obssession with celebrity, the triumph of presentation over content, the avoidance of any risk, and so on, also suggest that there is no longer any “big idea” driving the west onwards and upwards. To an extent there is a moral vacuum in large parts of the west that porn, junk tv and alcohol cannot fill. I have a hunch that the increasingly vacuous western culture is proving somewhat unsatisfactory to a (slowly) growing number of people. Although it offers transient pleasures and fleeting satisfactions, these are not enough, I think, to tempt large fractions of certain minorities away from their moral certainties. Whether this will prove a fatal weakness or not remains to be seen, but I think it certainly is a weakness.
I have to disagree strongly with Perry’s view of family and marriage. I suspect one would find that societies on the upward part of their development curve generally do have strong social institutions like marriage and, particularly, the family. Perhaps it is not incorrect to consider that society at large and the nation & its culture are but family writ large, and that when the institution of the family disintegrates then so does wider society and ultimately the nation and its culture.
Perry may be an exception, but for most people family and some form of community are important things. And many millions of people manage to live together in marriage without coming to loathe each other. The institution of marriage has generally worked for thousands of years, and is I think strong in ascendant cultures & weak in declining ones. The basis of a strong and confident civilisation is the family, not just the individual. However, both are important.
EG
But some people ARE going the other way and becoming Moslem. For that matter, others are leaving the more established Christian churches and joining more assertive and self-confident ones. I’m not suggesting this is a huge number, but it is wrong to think that it doesn’t happen.
Well, nobody’s saying it doesn’t happen. What we are saying is that this is such a freakishly rare occurence that it merits attention. If it were such a growing trend it would be obvious and not newsworthy.
The interesting question is “why?”. Why do some people make this choice?
No, the interesting question is not “why?”- I couldn’t care less what is the rationale of such individuals, any more than I care what is the rationale of an individual who is obsessed by spotting trains or collecting star trek memorabilia. In any large population there will always be minority interests – western civilisation caters for them. The interesting question is – “how many?” and the answer turns out to be “hardly any”.
The west has largely lost its self-confidence, as witnessed by the pervasive political correctness and moral relativism. The obssession with celebrity, the triumph of presentation over content, the avoidance of any risk, and so on, also suggest that there is no longer any “big idea” driving the west onwards and upwards. To an extent there is a moral vacuum in large parts of the west that porn, junk tv and alcohol cannot fill. I have a hunch that the increasingly vacuous western culture is proving somewhat unsatisfactory to a (slowly) growing number of people.
The trap you have fallen into is to imagine that your own concerns are shared by everybody else. Look: what this boils down to is that it bothers you that other people are interested in this “vacuous” stuff. Well: tough! The hallmark of a free society is that people, more or less, get to do what they want to do and are not forced to conform to “correct” behaviour or engage in less “vacuous” pursuits. Turns out this freedom idea is attractive – who’da thunk it? You want to spurn “transient pleasures” and engage in lofty noble pursuits – go ahead, knock yourself out but don’t presume to instruct everyone else in correct behaviour.
I am not suggesting that either and Frank specifically said that some are indeed going the other way… but so what?
The “big ideas” are all over and thank Cthulhu for that. Fascism and Socialism, those were the ‘big ideas’ and most people now realise where they lead. The only big ideas we now need are the ones which are big TO ME. I do not give a damn about anyone else’s “big idea” other than in an entirely negative sense.
No, Perry is not really an exception at all. I do indeed value ‘some form of community’, which is why I call myself a ‘social individualist’. However I value the community I choose to join, the people I choose to associate with, not ones foisted upon me by birth or nation or religion. I honoured my grandparents because they were worthy of my honour and earned my undying respect. Their actions were their choice and my respect for them is mine. The Bible says “honour thy father…”. Yeah, as if. I would not cross the road to piss on him if he was on fire because I owe him nothing. But guess what? My life worked out just fine without him. I cheer when England scores a goal because I choose to, not because it is some form of imposed obligation. I like Elgar and listening to ‘Rule Britannia’ played really loud. I also like Bhangra and eat curry.
In other words, the modern secular smorgasbord approach of urban cosmopolitan ‘roll your own community’ works just fine, thanks.
Perry, you’re straying rather a lot from the point here. I found your views expressed in the last post very interesting, but unless you think I was suggesting *you* are going to convert to Islam, it’s hardly relevant.
You accuse me of believing in a one-size-fits-all social model, and to the extent that I recognise that there are a fairly limited number of ways of living that leave the vast majority in any state other than poor, miserable and purposeless, you are right. But I would make the same accusation against you, in your liberal view that everyone is equipped to enjoy and love moral permissiveness and that only reactionary hang-ups about sex and the ‘nuclear’ family stand in the way of this. Almost everything we know about human nature, and almost everything we can gather from genuine sociological data on family breakdown suggests this is not the case.
The stark reality is there for anyone to see, in council estates and poor areas torn apart by the consequences of liberal policies and attitudes – and the corresponding crime rates. The danger for us all is that before long liberalism will destroy itself by inducing people to desire only security and order. That is where Islam comes in, and where it is coming in already. As these problems get worse, and as the Islamic portion of the population grows, you may be surprised to find the results are rather as I described in my long post above.
Perry and Frank would have a hard time explaining the Arab invasions of North Africa. Why did the indigenous culture – sruely more enticing than the Islam of the deserts – not subsume the invaders rather than the other way around? Why, on the other hand did the Vikings abandon their religion – a religion that seemed to be winning wars – and accept Christianity? Both peoples were minority invaders.
what is there in ridid, uncompromising belief systems that cause people to stay in them, and defect to them?
Over time, there will be more defectors to Islam than against. I agree with Peter, and the solution may be to allow low chruch groups, or American evangelicans into the council estates. Certainly the big ideas have failed, radical individualism among them.
Pardon if I steer this back to the specific article and author…..
Didn’t Will Hutton just happen to write ‘The World We’re In’? One review on Amazon reads as thus:
“Hutton challenges – with persuasive evidence – the idea that the US is a uniquely productive economy with unparalleled levels of social mobility. Rather, he argues that Americans can learn much from the European model of capitalism, and warns of serious consequences if we fail. This book should be required reading for anyone who claims to be serious about understanding our present economic and political crises.”
OOPS!
eoin… “the solution may be to allow low chruch groups, or American evangelicans into the council estates.”
errr… they’re already allowed! As far as I’m aware, there’s nothing stopping them from popping in any time they like. So what more would you like?
In the context of
“what is there in rigid, uncompromising belief systems that cause people to stay in them, and defect to them?”
your Viking example seems a tad bizarre; I don’t think Odin etc. or their priests were particularly into a lax, shambolic system of worship full of compromise. It may well be that Christianity provided a far more flexible breath of fresh air.
If what you’re seeking is an increase in selfishness, crime, disorder, vandalism, etc., then yes, it works fine. This sort of thing might “work” for you, but it doesn’t work for most people most of the time. People are difficult things – too individual to make Communism work, too community-minded to make out-and-out libertarianism work.
Well, you have my sympathies for the difficulties you seem to have encountered, but that doesn’t mean that families don’t work for other people.
Actually, it’s not. Christianity is an ascetic religion which requires high standards of personal and group conduct, certainly more so than the old Norse religions. It should not be thought that the woolly liberalism of the contemporary western churches obtained in those days, because it certainly did not. At that time, Christianity was a far more severe and rigid faith than that the Vikings already had. Indeed, one might compare the contrast between the licentious Norse religions and Christianity (then) with the contrast between the strictures of Islam and liberal Christianity today.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
EG
Generally, I prefer not to be told what I think, but there it is. I really don’t care what people do as long as they aren’t bothering others, but why they do it is interesting. And, I think, it is important. If you think otherwise, read some history and look what happened to other complacent and weak societies who thought they had found all the answers.
I suspect that Eoin and Peter are correct. We see now relatively few people moving away from the so-called post-modern culture. It has undoubted advantages in some respects, and it is in historical terms a new thing anyway. But I do think that this movement might accelerate, and for that reason it is important to consider why people might do this.
If we consider the progress of Islam in the west dispassionately, we might see that it enjoys a coincidence of declining (non-Moslem) moral authority & social cohesion in the west and unprecedented movement of people and ideas. This, as any student of history will know, is the sort of coincidence that can lead to radical change in society. Unfortunately for the hopes of secular western society, most people actively want some degree of moral guidance and social order – we are, after all, social animals – and the moral relativism of contemporary western civilisation simply does not provide this. We see already largish numbers of people turning to esoteric cults such as wicca, or worshipping some mythical Earth-mother-goddess, and so on. We also see some people turning to the Eastern church, preferring its stricter moral teaching to the all-things-to-all-people western liberal theology. And we see some people embracing Islam, for exactly the same reason.
In another time, this would not be quite as important as it is. But, since we also have radical Islam in the equation, it becomes important. Islam is a relatively intolerant religion, and, coupled with a not insignificant militant element, the potential Islamicisation of the west (or a big enough part of it) is dangerous. It is, in my view, by far the greatest danger facing western civilisation. The proportion of Moslems in western societies is increasing through immigration and higher birth rates. If this is assisted by native conversions, the actual extra numbers will probably not be that much BUT the fact that Islam also persuades some non-Moslem western natives to convert makes it politically and socially harder to deal with – you’re now up against your “own” people, as it were. The potential for exacerbated social division is clear enough, I’d have thought.
If this happens, and I suspect if nothing changes then it will happen, it will be because the west doesn’t have anything meaningful to offer in reply to Islam’s moral strictures and simple answers to difficult questions. Perry applauds the passing of “big ideas”, but perhaps overlooks the fact that Islam might yet become the next “big idea”. Unless the west can find something with which to counter this big idea, the worst might yet happen.
Selfish individualism will not do it, I’m afraid. It might get you 200 channels of cable tv and cheap pizza, but it doesn’t answer the fundamental questions of life, nor does it provide social cohesion, and nor for that matter does it deal with burgeoning problems of drug abuse, crime, vandalism, etc. Islam does – it might provide the wrong answers, but it does at least address the questions.
We need to find something that does the same thing, but more humanely and more efficiently. Identifying this problem is one of the reasons the question of why people might move towards Islam is not only interesting but important.
EG
A_t writes:
“Did anyone see the interview with Digby Jones (CBI head) on Hardtalk the other week?”
No doubt inadvertently, you’ve picked just the right pundit to undermine your argument. The CBI as an organisation represents the bloated corporate sector which will do well out of the EU (at the expense of smaller businesses and the consumer). It is hugely unrepresentative of more dynamic and more globally-minded enterprises.
Like its old sparring partner, the TUC, the CBI is a dinosaur relic of a bygone age. And Digby Jones is chief Brontosaurus.
windowlicker,
structural, but not insurmountable. We’ll have´to make people retire later in life, continue to privatize the pensions and cut social spending; we already have started to do those things. A lot of people are angry about that, but they know that there is no other choice.
As to demographics: Automatization is no panacea, but it goes a long way to help with any labor-shortages.
“What is needed is an understanding that if European states don’t hang together they will hang separately…”
That’s cleverish. Give the poor mumbling fool that.
[ … . Overwhelmingly, people opt for soap operas, booze and porn over spiritual purity. … ]
Said one Late Roman to the other.
[ We need to find something that does the same thing, but more humanely and more efficiently. …. ]
Joseph Schumpeter: “The stock market is a poor substitute for the Holy Grail.”
Tim writes:
“That’s cleverish. Give the poor mumbling fool that. ”
Umm.. why? Because it avoids paying royalties to Ben Franklin?
Or am I missing some deeper irony here?
[ I do not give a damn about anyone else’s “big idea” other than in an entirely negative sense. … ]
But that attitude may be a minority opinion. There were probably sophisticated, Epicurean Romans who didn’t give a damn for the big idea of ascetic, early Christianity.
Peter et al, I have said that I am all for ‘community’, just not the sort imposed on me by legal force rather than one which is the product of social interactions. The notion that you guys seem to have is: on one hand you have the state regulate society by force (well beyond the ‘nightwatchman’ function) and redistributing money to prop up certain social models (i.e. the modern regulatory state of both left and right)…
…and on the other hand you have what I want, which you think is isolated selfishness. And I find that very odd.
I am a very social creature and as a result what I dislike is other people coming in and using force to interfere with my social opportunities. I am all in favour of cooperation, collaboration, social organisations, charity, affinity (and dis-affinity)… but not appreciating you statists taking my money via the state to fund far more than just an army and a court system does not make me selfish, it make you a thief-by-proxy. I do not want crime or vandalism or the sundry other social problem that have plagued urban society long before now. I just do not think the regulatory statists of left or right are the ones who can cure what they themselves have caused. Peter says:
And so you would have me believe that the people doing the tearing apart are not on the dole and being in effect paid to make destructive decisions? Blighted council estates are not an argument for more socialism or more conservatism, they are a compelling argument for not allowing the state in its left or right guise to destroy civil society in the first place. Labour and Tory government both created those problems and it was their shared statism, not ‘liberalism’ that cause what happened. Socialists and Tories both claim to ‘believe’ in civil society but that is clearly false, all they really believe in is the state. It is classical liberals like me who actually believes that people acting together in a social setting can achieve what regulatory states cannot. There is nothing selfish about that.
eoin says:
Hard time? Not at all. Easy-peasy in fact. Was the indigenous culture better armed and higher tech than the Islamic invaders? Were they vastly richer? Did they have assimilative self-actualising cultures? As I have already said, it is WESTERN CIVILISATION that I see ultimately destroying Islamic culture by secularising and assimilating it. I have never said ‘the best culture always win’. I said WESTERN culture will win.
[ Was the indigenous culture better armed and higher tech than the Islamic invaders? Were they vastly richer? Did they have assimilative self-actualising cultures? As I have already said, it is WESTERN CIVILISATION that I see ultimately destroying Islamic culture by secularising and assimilating it. I have never said ‘the best culture always win’. I said WESTERN culture will win. ]
Why didn’t the WESTERN Roman Empire survive? Weren’t the Latin Romans better armed and higher tech than the barbarians? Weren’t the Romans richer, with an assimilative polyethnic culture?
[ Socialists and Tories both claim to ‘believe’ in civil society but that is clearly false, all they really believe in is the state. ]
Socialists, Labourites, and Democrats believe in the votes of immigrant, welfare-beholden clients.
Tories and Republicans believe in cheap labor.
I’m not trying to square the circle, but isn’t the difference between the two main points of view being debated here, less one of statism versus individualism, than what the politically unconcerned may actually do in the face of a collapsing social structure?
To put it another way, I doubt that the protagonists arguing that another bout of religious fundamentalism is a real prospect are actually advocating it, nor (though I wouldn’t like to put words in their mouths) are they suggesting that the state could somehow head it off at the pass, by turning Cromwellian.
Rather, they seem to be observing the ebb and flow of fundamentalism that has repeatedly taken place in history – not least in this country. The rise and fall of Methodism is one such example – currently being reprised by the holy church of Greenpeace.
The debate is a fascinating one, and well argued on both sides. But the battle will take place on those council estates where even buying the Daily Mail is regarded as a sign of intellectual snobbery. It won’t be decided, or even very much influenced, by political theorists.
It will not be an intellectual tide that changes. It will be more like the mentality of the flock, where birds suddenly seem to change direction in flight as if on an unspoken command. All it would take would be a small push on the well-placed lever. Christian fundamentalism? Unlikely – the Christians have long-since shot their bolt in this country. Islam? Not a chance – the creed is far too alien for Sun readers.
But the mood is turning. You can feel it on the streets. These are dangerous (and interesting) times and something – Yates’s Rough Beast – is on the prowl again and my guess is, he’s bringing some form of fundamentalism with him. People cleave to simple answers – even if in their hearts they know they are the blackest of lies.
GCooper,
“The CBI as an organisation represents the bloated corporate sector which will do well out of the EU (at the expense of smaller businesses and the consumer). It is hugely unrepresentative of more dynamic and more globally-minded enterprises.
Like its old sparring partner, the TUC, the CBI is a dinosaur relic of a bygone age. And Digby Jones is chief Brontosaurus.”
That may well be; I’m not sufficiently familiar with the man or the organisation to be honest, but the things he was suggesting; lower taxes & less intrusive regulations on business, the abolition of farm subsidies, flexible employment laws, free trade & outsourcing, all seemed sensible & would benefit businesses, big & small alike. He also seemed wholly in favour of the globalization of trade & labour, arguing that both are beneficial. If he’s in an influential position & able to encourage such things within the EU, I can’t see how that’s a bad thing, however anachronistic his organisation may be in terms of who it represents. He certainly didn’t speak of much that smacked of protectionism towards any particular group.
On the EU front, the business community is by no means opposed to membership as a group, suggesting many feel they derive some benefit from it. If we could get it back on track as a free trade zone, ditch the silly drive towards standardisation & kill off the idea of an undemocratic superstate, all of which are looking more possible currently than they have for a while, I see no reason why membership would be anything but beneficial. We (the UK) are in a strong position to influence things, regardless of which entrenched interests have previously guided the project, and we have a brace of new allies, quite disinterested in the fate of French farmers, to help us.
On the Digby Jones front though, I accept he may say one thing & turn out to do quite another; it’s hardly unheard of in politics or business.
Perry wrote – “We do not need to out-breed them, we just need to get enough of their women into short skirts and enough of their men into boozers… and eventually that is exactly what will happen.”
Make love, not war – preferably to hot arab women in mini-skirts. Good idea Perry 😉
[ People cleave to simple answers – even if in their hearts they know they are the blackest of lies.]
You obviously feel that you know the whitest of complicated truths. Please enlighten the rest of us, O smart one.
….
What do I think I think the future is? An evolved Christianity, with heavy metal music and bagpipes instead of sickly sweet hymns … and with LSD and speed in the communion wine. An evolved Christianity which preaches that Christ died so that His folk can live — and defend themselves.
An evolved Chistianity, or alternatively, a very archaic Christianity, with the Crusader Christ with a flaming sword, Christ in Majesty, instead of the pitiful sufferer on the cross.
[ As to demographics: Automatization is no panacea, but it goes a long way to help with any labor-shortages.]
[ Make love, not war – preferably to hot arab women in mini-skirts. ]
Question: if Britain needs more babies, why can’t British women have more babies? Can anybody answer that?
Why must British children and future workers be supplanted by Muhammadan children?
( “British” — I’m being euphemistic. )
Said john b:
Yes, for values of “better” that make sense only to you.
As I reminded you on your own blog, a prerequisite for defeating a position or argument (or, I might add, critiquing it meaningfully) is the ability to state it correctly. Do you seriously think that this is what Peter was arguing? Or is this another “gag” that you are free to step back from if someone calls you on it?
David Davenport – “Question: if Britain needs more babies, why can’t British women have more babies? Can anybody answer that?”
Yes. I can.
Because Tessa Harmon or Harriett Hodgeson or Patricia Jowell decided that women not going back to work after having had a baby was a matter of national concern. As in quotes along the lines of “We are only succeeding in getting 35% of new mothers back into the workforce…” Because the aim of the Gramscians is to destroy the family.
Except the Islamic family, because they don’t take it seriously and figure they can stop playing footsie with the Islamics once they (the Gramscians) begin to seriously erode the Western family structure. The Islamics in Britain, at any rate, are like a dog with a bickie on its nose. “Trust! Trust! Good doggie!” Except, they’ll grab the bickie off its nose when it no longer suits their purpose.
In other words, I think the Islamics are being used as tools in Britain. (Don’t know about the continong.) They’re being employed to undermine normal society. Once they’ve got this underway, trust me, they will be encouraged to sling their hooks. Populating the world with islamic fascists is not part of the programme.
Everyone takes it for granted that the left loves Islam. But I believe it’s an interim step and Islam will be brusquely swept off the steps as soon as it’s done its task.
Because when a society becomes sufficiently stable and prosperous and when the rate of childhood mortality drops at the same time as life expectancy increases the mainstream population reproduces less frequently. This appears to be an unconscious process, and I’m not sure what precise levels of prosperity, mortality, life epectancy, etc., are needed, but it seems to happen in every society. Presumably some sort of self-correcting mechanism built into human genetics.
Families in less developed (or only very recently developed) societies such as black Africa and many Middle Eastern states tend to be large, whereas in developed western civilisation, they tend to be small. In fact, in most western societies the average number of births per mother is below the population replacement rate of 2.1, with the net effect that the population is decreasing.
The obvious result of this is that the working population base is shrinking at the same time as the number of people surviving to the stage where they need financial and medical support is increasing. It makes no difference whether this support is paid for via taxation or private insurance, the end result is the same – the burden on those who can pay becomes ever greater. The fix for the problem is to increase migration of working people into the economy, and immigration of skilled foreigners is the way to do this. Unfortunately, the presence of a large state welfare system tends to attract the unskilled immigrant seeking an easier life, and this leads to or at least worsens some of the problems we experience today.
I suppose the ultimate answer is to abolish state welfare entirely and open the borders to whomsoever wants to come in and work. The militant Moslem problem in such a case would be reduced due to far greater assimilation into society, but there is still the (albeit considerably lessened) potential for trouble.
It’s nothing to do with sinister Gramscian conspiracies to destroy the family, it’s just human nature.
EG
As I reminded you on your own blog, a prerequisite for defeating a position or argument (or, I might add, critiquing it meaningfully) is the ability to state it correctly. Do you seriously think that this is what Peter was arguing? Or is this another “gag” that you are free to step back from if someone calls you on it?
In Britain, we have a tradition of satire, and of injecting humour into debate as an inherent part of the debate rather than by making jocular asides. I’m aware this is less the case in the US, and will try and restrain myself from debating with Americans in this fashion.
The serious point behind my comment was that PC’s views on Life In General seem far closer to Islamic values than they do to any values that I share (or that Perry appears to hold). Since PC is a campaigner against the influence of Islam on the UK, I didn’t think he would appreciate having these pointed out.
Obviously, ‘better’ was meant in PC’s terms not mine.
[ I suppose the ultimate answer is to abolish state welfare entirely and open the borders to whomsoever wants to come in and work.]
I ask again, if Britain needs more workers, why can’t British women have more babies of their own?
Why do you evade my question?
I ask again, if Britain needs more workers, why can’t British women have more babies of their own?
Cos they don’t want to.
(this comment brought to you by the Department of Providing Obvious Answers For Silly Questions)
Actually, I answered it above, in the post you just quoted from. Perhaps you’d care to read it through again?
To put it really simply – uneducated poor people have lots of kids, educated wealthy people have few kids. State welfare distorts this by discouraging the production of children for economic reasons (i.e. to support the family) because the dole pays. Furthermore, the (better educated and richer) middle classes have fewer children because their increased tax burden (to pay dole to the poor) makes it economically disadvantageous, and they already don’t need children to support the family. Net result, declining population, but the population would decline anyway as the average wealth and education levels increased – welfare just makes it happen faster.
So, “British” women don’t have more babies because the tax-and-dole system discourages it. Social problems like vastly increased divorce rates don’t help. “Ethnic” women in Britain have more children because they still live at least in part within the big-family culture they immigrated from. They also tend to have the supportive family structures needed to raise more children. As the generations pass, this cultural heritage fades, of course, and they tend towards the same reproduction rate as the native population – by which time, of course, they are part of the native population.
It should also be borne in mind that most of the “ethnic” mothers are in fact British citizens and a great many are second generation British citizens. However, I read your use of the word “British” to mean, charitably speaking, “indigenous British”. Or bluntly, “white”.
EG
Bringing the discussion back to the topic of the EU in general and the fate of Germany and France in it, there are many commentators here in France who think that the British idea of the EU (essentially a Zollverein, or customs union, with a few extras thrown in) and which was the main reason why De Gaulle rejected Britain’s first attempt at entry is likely to triumph over the federalist idea which was valid when the Union was composed of Germany, France and the Benelux countries, but is unworkable now that the entry of whole of the former Eastern Europe plus possibly Turkey is a reality. Germany is making an effort to end its featherbedding of the unemployed but France is, of course, incapable of changing its statist system without another(the 6th) revolution
David Davenport:
1. Use the ‘quote’ option. It is there for a reason.
2. Read the damn reply before replying to it. The militarily superior force generally wins in a war. duh. What possible relevence do your rejoinders to my replies have?
David Davenport: I am inclined to agree with Euan Gray’s suspicion of what you are really driving at. Just to to avoid any misunderstandings, if you are yet another ‘race realist’, take your long refuted position and express it somewhere else as we have no intention of allowing yet another idiotic discussion here of what has as much intellectual usefulness as debating the merits of ‘flat earth theory’.
Race realism doesn’t necessarily go away merely because bien pensants wish it so.
i want to deal with Perry’s claim that the strongest army always wins. Islam came out of Arabia, a bedouin trading people with few resources and two major towns – Medina and Mecca, proably in the low tens of thousands living in either city. The Arabs were no more advanced in technology than their surrounding neighbours – and probably less so, and invented no known tactics besides Jihadism, and yet conquered much of what was the cilvilised world at the time, much of the Persian and Byzantine empires. Had these empires aligned in attacking the Arabs prior to Mohammad they would have easily won.Within a century after Muhammad’s death, Islam had spread all the way to Spain in the west and as far as China in the east. Only military defeat at Tours, France, in 732 kept the Muslim armies from conquering large parts of Europe.
Explain that. Explain why the Arabs won so much land. They did not have the best army. They were not more technologically advanced than the armies they defeated.
To deal with something else he asked – before the thread got diverted
“Was the indigenous culture better armed and higher tech than the Islamic invaders?”
Yes. It was the Roman Empire in the East, and the Persian Empire – both could never defeat each other over thousands of years,and both were far more advanced than the Arabian peninsula.
” Were they vastly richer?”
Yes.
Did they have assimilative self-actualising cultures?
Possibly, if I knew what theat meant. The Roman Empire certainly assimlated a lot of different cultures. I am not sure that they were “self-actualising”, but I doubt that that would – if I understood it – have made a difference.
‘Best’ military means many things (largest and/or best led and/or most advanced)… but more importantly, you keep missing my point: I do not care about and was never talking about ANY OTHER CIVILISATION. I am talking about modern 21st century western civilisation. The combination of several rights and choices, technology and economics, numbers and flexibility make it so much stronger and more formidable than Islam that it is hard to see what people are so worried about. Radical islam is a short term threat. A serious and deadly threat that needs to be confronted with resultion and ruthlessness, but a short term threat nevertheless. 100 years from now the notion of ‘radical islam’ will be as hilarious as the idea of ‘radical anglicanism’.
I’d suggest you should care, and that you should consider the pattern of rise-peak-fall that every society goes through.
What happened to other civilisations in other times is very important, since humanity seems to have knack of continually repeating the same mistakes – usually because they think “we’re different than them”, “we know better now”, “this is the fourteenth century, after all”, or the most hubristic dumb statement of all time (so far) “we are witnessing […] the end of history”.
Ours is not the first civilisation to think that it has such a great qualitative and quantative advantage over any possible potential rival that it has, essentially, triumphed. They were wrong. We may well be wrong, but if we are right it will be bucking a long historical pattern. To consider that we must be right, that we have ultimately triumphed, is not only vanity and hubris, it is EXTREMELY naive.
EG
Eoin: I’m with Perry on this, and I think his point about ‘self-actualising’ cultures could have been elaborated to some effect. Earlier posts on this thread drew a contrast between a spiritual Islam and a materialistic West. Perry’s term ‘self-actualising’ gives the lie to this contrast – what could possibly have more spiritual value than liberty, of striving to fulfill one’s very own hopes? Taking responsibility for the consequences of one’s own actions. Of managing risk and facing up to uncertainty with resolve – appetite even. The West is about having the courage to fulfill your own ideas – and of having the patience and temerity to even have an idea/hope/goal/project/dream in the first place. What could possibly be more spiritually appealing than that?? (If this sounds like quaint 1950s americana – go and read Nietzsche*).
The trouble is that it is hard, but then it wouldn’t have much value if it was easy would it? And this is what the attraction of Islam (and even perhaps collectivist ideology in general) boils down to – having it easier, a bit more security, a little less change and struggle and effort.
Euan: we must pay attention to the ebb and flow of civilization, eh? Perhaps the West never really triumphed over communism either? I don’t believe that the historical course of other civilizations has anything much to tell us about our own future, simply because it is such a complicated mess (therefore not easy to rigorously analyse) and because our knowledge of it is severely limited. I think we simply have to stick to our guns 😉 and what intelligence/courage we have, and march off into the future like the Greek heroes we still revere in the cinemas.
*It’s always slightly curious to me that libertarians generally stay clear of Nietzsche – he is the only ‘great’ philosopher whose views really sit well with libertarianism (even Popper was something of a social democrat).
So, Perry de Havilland thinks that nothing has importance apart from economic wealth, and Euan Gray wants more immigration and seems glad it bothers most people. I think you are both very small-minded.
PdH:
I agree that Muslims living in Europe tend to give up their religion. Even if islamic violence gets worse in the next few years, it may be over and forgotten by the end of the century. However, Europe will not be the same anymore. And I do not think most Europeans are happy with that. Besides, religious and racial tension are a real problem for people who are living now.
Well that is certainly news to Perry de Havilland! He looks forward to you citing where he says that…
I was rather under the impression I made it clear that I value liberty and civil society rather highly too.
Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them. The other neat phrase about ignorance of history is – history teaches us nothing except that history teaches us nothing.
I’m sorry if you find it challenging, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
I’m not glad it bothers people. However, immigration is a good thing PROVIDED the immigrants assimilate into the host culture. Cultures which consistently oppose immigration tend to stagnate and decline. In contemporary western civilisation, immigration is to be encouraged in order to mitigate the growing demographic problem of a shrinking productive base and growing unproductive population (in proportion, not in absolute numbers). Some countries face worse problems than others, but the general trend is there – as would be expected from even a cursory glance at history.
Things change. One has to allow the culture to develop, not try to freeze it. If other cultures change, develop, learn and grow but ours doesn’t, then we get left behind. People generally don’t like change, but that doesn’t mean you can stop it or that you should try. Again, history will show you many examples if you care to read. Most people, of course, don’t – see above re: lessons of history, lack thereof. But America is an immigrant culture which thrived in no small part because it was open to new peoples with different ideas who learned from each other. It doesn’t appear to be like that any more, but of course all societies become more conservative (and indeed complacent) as they age.
EG
Why is it a bad thing if they do not assimilate ?
Where did you get that idea ?
Financially, immigration is a burden, at least in france (as Shaun Bourke said). Besides, Europeans are not so degenerate that they can’t make babies for themselves.
You should take a turn in the French Arab suburbs to see for yourself how developped the culture has become !
You need to do some learning and growing for yourself instead of parroting the BBC.
It is easy to stop immigration. And in a democracy, you are supposed to take into account what people want, especially on such an essential question. Most people do not want immigration.
Michel,
Because you then get ghettos of unassimilated people, many of whom may not speak the language of their host country or understand how to function effectively in that culture. You tend to get higher levels of unemployment and disaffection in non-assimilated communities. This is not good, because it leads to resentment and antagonism, and the ensuing social unrest is prejudicial to sound government and economic development.
History. It’s a fascinating resource.
Because you have a generous welfare system which discourages assimilation (people don’t need to function in the host culture in order to earn money, the dole system provides it for them) and onerous employment regulations which militate against economic development (thus further discouraging employment take-up amongst the immigrant population). Get rid of the welfare system and the feather-bedding employment laws and these problems will go away.
Sigh. I hope I don’t smell “race realism” here? Anyway, see earlier posts for the reasons why “Europeans” don’t have enough children.
Which means you understand what happens when immigrant communities do not assimilate. I wonder, then, why you asked your first question, since you appear to see the answer anyway.
Most people don’t want to work, or to have to think too hard, or to do much of anything. Tough. Life doesn’t necessarily work the way people want.
But more specifically, many “European” people do want welfare. If they are to get it, they must accept immigration to boost the working population (i.e. the people who actually pay for welfare). Unfortunately, the very existence of the generous welfare system tends to attract the indigent rather than the industrious immigrants. Another example of life not working the way people might want it to, I’m afraid.
EG
Euan, as it happens I don’t find much time for reading history although I would like to, but say I pick up some history books tommorow with a view to ‘learning from history’, then yes I think I would find it bloody difficult.
Your posts indicate that you are interested in foretelling what will probably happen in the future (re Europe and Islam or America and immigration), so I take it that the phrase ‘learning from history’ must imply some reference to being better prepared for, or even predicting future events.
The reason I would find it difficult to ‘learn from history’ is that the study of history is concerned with explanations of specific events rather than the discovery of universal laws.
The explanations of historical events are ad-hoc and can only be brought to bear on current conditions and the prediction of future events by inductive generalisation. I might accept this if we were talking about small scale events which had a great many similarities and we were only concerned with proximate explanations (e.g. specific actions by specific individuals such as political leaders with similar psychological make up), but given that you seem to be talking about large scale events and ultimate explanations (immigration will save dying cultures etc etc), the scope for potential factual difference between your historical event (America and immigration) and your possible future event (Europe and immigration) becomes so large that it may even eclipse what similarity there is and thus far reducing the odds of making a valid inductive generalisation.
The point is, it is only with the generalising sciences with their use of deductive testing of theories that we can learn from history (the history of such deliberate, methodical testing), and not from partial interpretations of specific large scale and complicated historical events. This latter option which you seem to favour was also that favoured by Marx, so if you think I’m an idiot at least you can rest easy knowing whose great company you’re in.
Euan, having just seen your last post in response to Michel Bellego I want to say I agree with you. My post was merely in response to your ‘lessons of history or lack thereof’ point, not your opinions on immigration, assimilation and the welfare state per se, which I happen to agree with.
I don’t mean to sound rude, but this DOES help to explain why you, in the subsequent paragraphs, seem to have misunderstood what “learning from history” actually means. It doesn’t mean “studying history”, which is what your definition succinctly covers.
There NO universal immutable “laws of history”, whatever Marx might have thought (and as a historian, he really sucked). Because something happened in the past does not mean it will happen again in the future. Equally, it doesn’t mean it can’t, of course.
There is no exact comparison between say America and Rome (see above: history does NOT repeat). However, some of the circumstances that affect America now are very similar to some of the circumstances that affected Rome around the time of Nerva and on into the early Antonines, i.e. the second century AD, and for some of the same reasons (historical trends DO frequently recur). This comparison could reasonably also be drawn, and indeed was drawn, between Antonine Rome and late 19th / early 20th century Britain. The relevant factors are: strategic domination, economic development, absolute and relative wealth, cultural dominance, the effective defeat or neturalisation of all major enemies; education.
You might like to find a condensed version of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall – read it, think about it, and then think about some of the parallels between Rome and the UK 100 years ago & the US now. This doesn’t mean western civilisation WILL collapse, but it is highly suggestive that similar trends are happening for similar reasons. Since every society that has ever existed has risen, peaked and then declined (and often collapsed completely), it further suggests that such decline is highly likely, although not inevitable. It’s more complex than just that, but this is not the place to go on in depth.
Alternatively, or also, study the eclipse of Sparta; or the later eclipse of Greece by Rome; the rise of Rome at the expense of other advanced societies in Italy; the decline of Egyptian society and its surrender to the Ptolemies; the long, slow collapse of Ottoman society; etc, etc, etc. History is full of this sort of thing, after all.
The question most important is “why”. Why do people do things certain ways? Why do powers rise and then fall? Most people don’t ask, and it is painfully obvious that many on this blog don’t even think of considering the possibility of contemplating asking, as it were. Ignorance of history is not a good thing, and at a country level it can be and frequently is ruinous.
It’s worth making the effort.
But two handy things to remember: firstly, there is nothing new under the sun, and secondly, all things are relative. The last one is really important.
EG
“…but this is not the place to go on in depth.”
Oh I dunno, we’re on to eighty-odd posts on this thread already! I might accept your qualification, however…
My argument was obviously just the standard put-down of historical prediction. If you are not talking about historical prediction (and this is where I am uncertain since you mention historical trends and future liklihood though with the qualification against inevitability) and you are talking instead about using history to help us formulate our problems clearly then I am, in principle, sympathetic to your stress on the importance of historical knowledge.
However, I see the importance of history as contingent – its’ usefulness in helping us to interpret our own problems is entirely down to our own rigour in noting valid similarities and differences between the historical events and our own current events. If such historical interpretation can contribute to how we formulate our problems over and above the contributions from our technological knowledge and our relevant social sciences, then fine – allow historical analysis to make its’ contribution. [By the way, the reason I place history last in the list is simply because our historical interpretations may be greatly derivative of developments in our other social sciences]. But I would like to see a lot more detail and argumentation before I believe a future probability on the basis of some compelling historical parallels alone.
We may just be on an internet blog discussing opinions at the end of the day but I like to have mine backed up by a little bit of philosophy if need be (as I’m sure you like to have yours backed up by history) – but I admit I’m the disadvantaged party here, not having any detailed historical knowledge of the Roman Empire to illustrate my point!
I might buy a copy of Gibbon this afternoon if they have it in Waterstone’s for a tenner or so, but it’ll have to go on my ‘yet to read’ shelf.
I’m not. You can’t say “history says event x will happen”. But you can say that sets of similar circumstances and trends in period y resulting in event x happening would suggest a relatively high likelihood of events of the kind of event x happening now. Admittedly “history repeats” trips off the tongue a little more felicitously, but there it is.
Precisely. However, I think many people fall into the trap of assuming that we are different now. We may not wear togas or speak Latin, but we are still human beings, and that part has not changed. The same selfishness, indolence and greed that motivated people in antiquity still motivates them today, leading them to, in similar circumstances, do on the average broadly similar things.
By the way, Machiavelli is another good one to put on your “yet to read” shelf. Sometimes I think Machiavelli tells us what people tend to do (time after time), and history tells us what happened to them after they failed to read Machiavelli and did it again anyway (the blood, the screaming, the all-this-is-ours-now, and so on…).
EG
Already have Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’, but have only casually perused so far.
Qualified, tentative, and probabalistic predictions from historical cases are still predictions from historical cases and as such are still subject to the problem of induction, especially when the cases concerned are large scale (and large scale events tend to be the ones we take an interest in of course). So you *are* talking about historical prediction, and thus the point of my earlier post (the extreme difficulty, not to say absurdity of valid inductive generalisation from large scale historical events) still stands.
However, I agree with your point about ‘assuming we are different now’ – it is surely true that we often too lazily accept a view of ourselves as different from others, without being thorough about it. Accepted. If our civilization is significantly different from the Roman Empire (i.e. significant in terms of characteristics which might mean ours avoids the same fate) then I think it would be fair for you to demand to know in what way, over and above your [detailed] arguments as to the significant similarities of course. This would be a fascinating discussion. Of course we might also approach the topic from a question as to the significant similarities and differences of the threat(s) facing the West and those which faced the Roman Empire – which of course, in combination with a discussion of internal characteristics may further complicate our deliberations as to whether the West will suffer the same fate as the Roman Empire.
However, aside from all this historical interpretation, we can simply ask ourselves how likely it is that a significant majority of Muslims will integrate into the West given current circumstances and what we know about sociology and economics. We might also ask ourselves what we can do to facilitate this integration – for example would removing the welfare state and thus exposing people to the harsher consequences of not integrating help to do the job? – these kinds of questions we can ask (and answer I dare say) without any necessary reference to what happened with the Romans in AD such and such, although as I said before we should be open to the possibility that historical interpretation may refine both our statement of the problem and our choice of possible answers to it. Are we in agreement then, or what?
By the way, I did just buy Gibbon’s book (£3.99!) and I knew it wouldn’t be small, but 71 [abridged] chapters over a thousand-odd pages! I wouldn’t finish my doctorate if I started that bloody thing.
Mike,
Pretty much, I’d say, but I reserve the wiggle room to maintain that I’m not strictly making predictions based on history. What I am trying to do is spot analogues between the current situation in the west and the situations earlier major powers found themselves in, and to go from there to postulate what *might* happen in the near future in broad terms. Perhaps it is merely semantics, but I think “prediction” is too strong a word. Semi-educated guesstimate is probably closer to the mark.
There are indeed many fascinating avenues of exploration here, but I’d hate to get the blame for you not completing your studies. Enjoy Gibbon when you get the chance.
EG
Hmm cheers. I was thinking actually when I wrote that last post that your point really turned on the difference between conjecture (or as you say ‘postulate’) and generalisation. The difference between an hypothesis and a claim is all the difference in the world. So yes you shall be granted your wiggle-room!
I seem to be doing a fine job of mucking up my studies by making comments on Samizdata – quite unaided by anyone else, but let’s not get into a discussion of free-will…