I owe James Graham a drink, but that’s not going to stop me responding to his latest post, where he complains about libertarians and their reaction to the Jo Swinson ‘ban airbrushing’ fiasco.
By the end of this post I’m hoping you agree with me that this is a completely pointless and unnecessary fight – yet tackling James head on is something I’m absolutely determined to do – he’s the strongest of the LD blogosphere’s social liberal wing and I like a challenge.
James, please, do kick us off:
Frankly, if we did all live in a state of complete separation of mind and body, the libertarians would have a point. The fact that time and again we learn that environmental factors affect behaviour is a problem they have never come to terms with.
James is, once again, begging the question. Environmental factors change behaviour… but what business is this of the state, or politicians?
I’m not against bans in principle. If a judicious ban or restriction here and there can help people exercise their own personal judgement instead of being influenced by a bombardment of propaganda, then in principle it is the only liberal thing to do.
Substitute the highly indirect ‘only liberal thing to do’ for what James seems to really mean, ‘we must act’ then the fallacy becomes more obvious: “Advertising negatively effects people’s ability to make good decisions. Restrictions to advertising could limit the negative effects. We must act.” We do?
Yet Jo’s proposal is not concerned with people being tricked into thinking Product X is ‘cool’ by professional liars, so James’ argument is not even relevant (after all that).
Jo’s proposal addresses an unintended side effect of professional lying: In order to sell a product it sometimes suits advertisers to associate their products with beautiful, glamorous people. For Jo these models and actors are just too beautiful. She believes that young girls and women are being psychologically harmed, and the solution is to make the images less provocative. Okay! It’s a policy. An idea. Run with it.
To disagree with it on principle is not just a philosophical issue – it’s a psychological and sociological one. We’re talking about the state choosing to get involved with the mental health of girls and young women as a collective while reinforcing the idea that they’re helpless puppets incapable of differentiating between the glossy airbrushed world of magazines and reality. To presume this sort of interference would have nothing but positive or neutral psychological and sociological effects is… very, very brave and bold.
After having a pop at libertarians, James states his own grounds for being sceptical about Jo’s proposal: What’s the definition of airbrushing? Is using lighting, corsets and make-up to produce an image any different to hiding a spot and nipping in a girl’s waist with Photoshop? He also wonders about the evidence that ‘airbrushing’ causes measurable, significant harm. For example, have there been clinical trials showing a causal relationship between exposure to idealised images of people and serious, crippling mental damage? It seems unlikely.
Yet with this sort of evidence of serious harm libertarians would be interested in seeing the details of the proposed solution. In fact, this is exactly why I didn’t touch the Jo Swinson story when it first came around – no evidence, so no particular reason to pay it the slightest bit of attention.
James, on the other hand, agrees in principle with it but wants evidence before lending his full support… right. So, a world shaking ideological conflict then, I’m sure you’ll agree. We both, ultimately, want evidence before voting ‘yes’.
So, here’s the end of the post and we’ve learned… well… that this was a completely pointless?
Ollie Cromwell said...
10 Aug 09 at 12:09 am
Charlotte, not quite on topic but it does appear that Jo’s illiberal views on airbrushing have backfired on a comical level.
Devil's Kitchen said...
10 Aug 09 at 12:34 am
Charlotte,
Um… No, not really. Or, I might listen and then ridicule the idiots who proposed it anyway.
Look, libertarians say that one can do what one wants, as long as one does not initiate force or fraud against others—this is the very basis of libertarianism: the non-aggression axiom.
Are air-brushed image of women (or men) initiating force against young girls? Not “causing harm”, not “infringing their rights”—are those images initiating force? No.
Now, one might credibly argue that those doing the air-brushing are initiating fraud and try to ban it on those grounds, yes. But the harm or otherwise caused to young girls’ “fragile little miiiiiinds” (to paraphrase Cartman) is utterly irrelevent.
Those girls are given a tool to protect their fragile little minds: it’s called… well… their mind. Their brain. Whatever.
So, enough of this banning shit.
DK
P.S. The only reason that Jo Swinson—one of the single most boring people on the planet—is doing this is to get some headlines. She is a tedious moron and the sooner she returns to her well-deserved obscurity the better.
Charlotte Gore said...
10 Aug 09 at 12:39 am
DK,
The point for me is if this sort of advertising could be proved to be causing serious psychological harm (and constituted a form of attack) and concrete proof that airbrushed images were the sole cause – then I’d be willing to look at the proposals.
But I think both of us know all too well that that evidence is never going to appear.
Ian B said...
10 Aug 09 at 1:05 am
The problem here is that once you start banning propaganda, you have to ban it all. And since everything is- or can be- propaganda, that means banning all communication. No exaggeration.
The whole problem with this “harm” bullshit (Hume and his fecking felicitous calculus) is that you cannot objectively define harm. You end up circularly defining it as whatever you think is bad, which depends what you believe. A christian might think that encouraging atheism is harmful. If we accept that it is harmful to lose one’s faith, we can easily show that atheist propaganda is harmful. So we’d better ban atheists promoting their views then. It’s circular.
The left are ruthless propagandists. What this is about is the desire to create a society in which only leftist-approved messages, images etc can be propagated. They don’t give a shit about girls with eating disorders- if they did they wouldn’t be harpie-shrieking about their imaginary “obesity epidemic” and dragging schoolgirls onto weighing machines. They just want total control of the media. They’re arseholes.
When you look at the harm collectivists have caused over the past century with their mad schemes- literally piles of bodies in the tens of millions, for which they refuse to even acknowledge a smidgen of responsibility- the suggestion that they really care about “harm” is absurd.
Charlotte Gore said...
10 Aug 09 at 1:09 am
Well yes, the obvious logic of James’ argument is that all advertising, branding etc affects people’s judgement and therefore you could justify interfering – in fact books that aren’t ‘balanced’ or websites that aren’t ‘balanced’ could be said to causing the same harm as advertising.
There’s no logical end to it, at all. :S
Jack Hughes said...
10 Aug 09 at 3:21 am
Charlotte you should expel Jo Swinson and James from your party.
James is an example of the false middle ground you were on about recently.
He starts with a straw man lib-dem blogosphere swirling with libertarian rage and SHOUTING IN CAPITALS. His link points to a mild-mannered anaemic message board with none of the behaviour he describes.
He then also points to the very real bansturbating control-freak Jo Swinson.
He reveals his own policy of a sensible and moderate middle ground, a nice compromise. Banning a few things here and a few things there. Then he snobbishly puts himself above all of this with his call for ‘evidence’.
He mentions smoking a lot without seeming to realise that there is a whole mountain of real factual evidence about the dangers of smoking – but this does not drive a new LibDem policy on banning smoking.
So on a topic with real evidence, the evidence is ignored – but on a different topic there is a tactic of a bogus ‘waiting for evidence’.
And talking of waiting for evidence, a true libertarian would let parents decide what their own children read and watch. Not a panel of ‘experts’.
Is it likely that there ever will be any real, hard evidence on this topic ? I mean real and not just a panel of Polly Toynbees tut-tutting about the modern world.
Old Hack said...
10 Aug 09 at 9:26 am
Yes hardly an earth shattering debate but an interesting matter of principle. I am old enough to remember when Marxists conceceded that there was not much freedom in Communist countries, but argued since there is no Absolute Freedom, we in Western Europe were equally enslaved because we had Advertising. Shameful.
Oranjepan said...
10 Aug 09 at 10:25 am
On it’s own I don’t think this is a good subject for discussion because it doesn’t illuminate all the issues. There are questions to be asked about gender representation and how far officals may go to control this, so let me bring a different example.
Spain has had this debate over the use of models as ball-girls during tennis tournaments (which was dropped voluntarily by the organisers after complaints) and they went so far as to ban anorexic models from catwalks.
So isn’t a pragmatic question more of whether better behaviour is motivated by raising awareness or sanctions, rather than an ideological issue.
I tend to be against all bans, but I accept there will always be a case of temporary necessity (provided the conditions for it are upfront and centre, strict enforcement during the tightly defined period is possible, and effort is made to show what is being done to change the underlying conditions so that any temporary measure can and will be lifted). So I’m prepared to give Jo Swinson the benefit of the doubt and credit her with awareness raising which demonstrates a preparedness and desire to improve the situation.
Of course it will upset libertarian ideologists to be reminded that real world answers matter more, but I think they should grow up a bit to understand that people like Jo Swinson and James Graham aren’t to be equated with Polly Toynbee. I find it perverse that someone like Jack Hughes would rail against the extremism of bans by making the extreme suggestion that they should be expelled from the LibDems.
James Graham said...
10 Aug 09 at 11:00 am
No I don’t. I don’t disagree with it in principle. There is a big difference.
Actually, no “we” are not. You might be. I have only gone as far as to suggest that if there is a negative force out there affecting girls mental health, it should be removed. I haven’t suggested women are “helpless puppets” – I’ve asked for the evidence.
In principle, no there isn’t. The question is, does it? Could you define the ‘ban’ precisely so that it would be effective and not have unintended consequences? And would banning them actually achieve anything? My default position to all three is no, which is why (for example), I spent time earlier this year on my blog defending the right of people to own pictoral representations of children performing sexual acts. But if you could answer all three of those questions with a “yes” then I would concede there is probably a case for banning.
That’s pragmatic liberalism. I can see why libertarians would have a problem with it but then libertarianism, like communism, isn’t really a political ideology at all; it has most of the hallmarks of a religion. It ignores all facts which are inconvenient to it, as DK illustrates above (bad luck by the way Charlotte, I suspect your hall pass into the Inner Circle may be revoked if you keep taking an interest in “evidence”).
I will concede one point however: you are absolutely correct to say that one of the other riders I should have added is that Jo must be able to demonstrate why a ban would be more effective than self-regulation. If the evidence is out there, then it is surely incumbant on the advertising industry to get their house in order. But as I say, I don’t think the evidence IS out there.
Charlotte Gore said...
10 Aug 09 at 11:04 am
By ‘pragmatic’ you seem to be saying we should skip straight to the bit where we have to make a choice between ‘raising awareness or sanctions’
I know you find the idea of debating these ‘should we?’ questions tiresome.
Joe Otten said...
10 Aug 09 at 11:06 am
Charlotte, you’re saved! Talking about harm rather than force, you are clearly one of us not one of them after all.
It must be remembered that Mill’s harm principle gives a necessary condition for banning something and not a sufficient one.
So people on the fairly authoritarian left can claim Mill’s support (wrongly) when they seek to ban lots of activities that cause some minor harm to a few, at the cost of a lot of freedom and other good to others. (Such as free markets.)
At the other extreme, a narrow view of harm is taken, so that unless you actually assault somebody, no harm can possibly be done. (For the purposes of polemic taxation and trespassing are considered magically equivalent to assault.)
I think this all misses Mill’s point. It doesn’t matter so much that a ban is permissible under the harm principle – that still doesn’t tell us that a particular ban would be a good thing. Mill, remember, is a utilitarian of sorts, and there is still a utilitarian test to be applied to any such measure.
So I take a fairly broad view of harm and yet a fairly narrow view of what ought to be banned.
Charlotte Gore said...
10 Aug 09 at 11:14 am
James,
I haven’t suggested women are “helpless puppets”
I didn’t say you had. I was talking about Jo’s proposals. If someone says the only way to protect women is to take a paternalist approach to protect them from images they don’t want women to see, you are choosing to view women as helpless and passive, and that’s why I do disagree on principle.
bad luck by the way Charlotte, I suspect your hall pass into the Inner Circle may be revoked if you keep taking an interest in “evidence”
I think DK, you and I all know that the evidence to support this (and for DK and me the level of harm done would have to constitute an actual, inescapable infringement of liberty to justify action), so entertaining the possibility that there might seems like a waste of time.
We all have our mental short cuts but there’s no reason for you to assume that libertarianism isn’t grounded in reason while ‘pragmatic liberalism’ is. In the real world Lib Dem policy finds itself supporting mutually contradictory positions – this proves there’s nothing inherently more logical or reasonable in ‘pragmatic liberalism’ and in fact the opposite may well be true.
Liberatarians do, at least, have logical consistency.
I’ll happily concede that pragmatic liberalism is the ‘weaponised’ version of liberalism, one packaged up to be used by real world politicians.
Charlotte Gore said...
10 Aug 09 at 11:16 am
What constitutes ‘harm’ to me would be “a mental assault that cripples a person’s ability to exercise their liberty” – force does not always mean physical force. Don’t get too excited Joe.
Charlotte Gore said...
10 Aug 09 at 11:39 am
Sorry Joe, I should have added some kind of emoticon to that. Looks a bit harsh there
I mean, I could bully someone for 6 months and then ask them if I can borrow a couple of thousand pounds – they’re probably more likely to say yes if they’re afraid of saying no. I’m not using force when I actually ask but I have, in effect, set the ground work for ‘implied’ force, an implied argumentum ad baculum, you know?
So the ‘harm’ here is the sort of harm that theoretically – if it can be proven both that the harm is happening and that removal of X will be effective – could justify acting, but in the first instance individuals should be able to have legal recourse to sue if it’s not an actual criminal matter.
Regulation usually exists because it’s clear that if individuals attempted to sue companies (say magazines) for doing certain things (like publishing pictures of airbrushed models) that they believe caused them harm (literally gave them aneorexia) they would lose – not a chance in hell of proving a causal link.
I suppose I do have a broader definition of ‘force’ than some libertarians, but then a much, much narrower definition of ‘harm’ than some lib dems, too.
Matt Wardman said...
10 Aug 09 at 1:06 pm
Oh soddit … I can’t stop myself.
Replace the dishonest adverts with a bar chart.
Joe Otten said...
10 Aug 09 at 1:38 pm
Does that mean I can get excited after all?
Anyway, yes, as well as the spectrum of concepts of harm – narrow to broad, there is another spectrum of ease of proof. Proving that restaurant X poisoned person Y is difficult. It is safer and more cost-effective all round to have inspectors checking the kitchens are clean. Replacing regulation with litigation might make us less free.
And these spectra are not the same. Causing food poisoning is like an assault, even if a person freely chose to eat at your establishment.
A better example of a harm in the grey area would be if I were to erect, say, a noisy industrial plant on my land next door to your house, which a) kept you awake at night, and b) reduced the value of your property by a third.
Both harms are real, but banning things like my plant would be the thin end of the wedge ending in my not being allowed to fart towards the fence.
Charlotte Gore said...
10 Aug 09 at 1:43 pm
Matt, in fairness, you deserve credit for resisting for as long as you did.
Joe, quote of the day goes to you
Oranjepan said...
10 Aug 09 at 2:01 pm
Logical consistency or real-world pragmatism? Why are they axiomatic?
“I know you find the idea of debating these ’should we?’ questions tiresome”
You’re only half wrong there – I find it tiresome that some people prefer not to balance the oughts of a question against the means, manner and mode of any action. James uses the word ‘rider’, I think ‘caveats’ and ‘conditionality’ work equally well.
While we may make a general principled stance specific instances require calculation.
So on the case of Vince Cable and bank nationalisation, for example, I can fully agree with his argument that the seriousness of the situation demanded action, because liberalism is more about relevance and opposition to dogma than personal preference.
Whether being 24 hours from complete collapse of the whole global banking system without any back-up or contingency plan is a serious enough situation to merit action, and whether the precise nature of the action taken was correct can be debated endlessly, but the fact is that it is too late now to cry over spilt milk and we have to deal with the consequences as they arise.
If it was a choice between a couple of institutions being bailed out by the tax-payer and millions of people having all utilities and services cancelled as the chain-reaction developed and creditors shut down profitable companies dependant on cash-flow I am perfectly happy to argue that you’d be much angrier than you are now at the prospect that the govt may make a profit by re-privatising them eventually.
In a more general sense intervention is not a bad thing PER SE, though it often does turn out bad (Iraq is a good example here), because it is often done for false reasons (9/11 & war on terror, WMD, the democratic ‘mission’ etc), is not thought through sufficiently beforehand (the lack of resources, botched diplomatic efforts and unilateralism etc) and is not handled well at the time (Abu Ghraib, the Kangaroo court which executed Saddam, the hasty first election etc).
My point is that the future ability of, and confidence in authority is weakened if intervention is not concluded without problem, so anyone who ever is tempted to consider it should be very cautious and considered when they do. Angels rush in… etc etc. However, to react negatively against previous failings is even more restrictive to freedom of action and may result in storing up bigger problems in the future.
But I had to laugh at Joe’s slippery slope argument – being wary of precedents is one thing we definitely ‘should’ be.
Richard Gadsden said...
10 Aug 09 at 2:03 pm
Look, libertarians say that one can do what one wants, as long as one does not initiate force or fraud against others—this is the very basis of libertarianism: the non-aggression axiom.
So you propose the legalisation and acceptance of theft so long as it is not robbery?
After all, stealing things doesn’t initiate force against the another person, and trying to stop them does.
Libertarians think they can dream a universal property principle from thin air and then impose it on everyone else.
Ian B said...
10 Aug 09 at 2:45 pm
After all, stealing things doesn’t initiate force against the another person, and trying to stop them does.
No, theft is very clearly an initiation of force.
However, it is because the word force can be misconstrued, as above, that I’ve suggested the principle can be better described as a principle of consent; that is a principle that you may not do anything to another person or their property without their consent.
We libertarians are a crazy bunch you see, who think that there should be laws against murder, rape, assault, theft, fraud etc. Clearly we’re quite mad, unlike our opponents who pragmatically approve of any of those things in the pursuit of whatever they think is a greater good.
Richard Gadsden said...
10 Aug 09 at 2:59 pm
After all, stealing things doesn’t initiate force against the another person, and trying to stop them does.
No, theft is very clearly an initiation of force.
But it’s not force against the person, which is what DK said.
If you don’t agree with DK, then you don’t need to defend his position.
Ian B said...
10 Aug 09 at 3:16 pm
No Richard, you’re imposing a deliberately narrow interpretation on DK’s comment in order to attempt to make it look silly, rather than discussing the substance of it.
Language is a blunt instrument. If we desire to get anywhere while using it, we have to make the effort to be honest and fair about what other people mean by their words, rather than nitpicking semantics, since virtually any sentence can be found to contain exploitable flaws.
DK said “initiate force or fraud against others”; you have applied an arbitrary interpretation that the word “others” means in that sentence only the specific physical persons of human beings. Unfortunately for you, the sentence didn’t actually declare that specific, as I’m sure you can see if you read it again.
Semantic arguments are tiresome. Discussing substance is generally more fruitful.
Richard Gadsden said...
10 Aug 09 at 3:20 pm
So you suggest that a parent can’t do anything to their child without the child’s consent?
Or are children property, that the parent can kill without restraint?
You’re assuming that everything is either a person or property, and that there’s a universally accepted definition of property and of who owns it.
I don’t accept any of those assumptions – I think there are lots of things that fall between the independent adult and the inanimate made object, such as children and animals, and things that fall outside the whole system, but form the universal commons – air, land, water, “the bounty of nature”.
Richard Gadsden said...
10 Aug 09 at 3:22 pm
I think it’s an even sillier semantic argument to argue to that “others” refers to inanimate objects. It’s not a natural meaning at all.
I hope DK will clarify for us, but unless and until he does, I’ll leave it there.
Devil's Kitchen said...
10 Aug 09 at 4:22 pm
Richard,
I know that you do not seem to be familiar with libertarianism, so I shall clarify the non-aggression axiom—as generally accepted—for you.
I used others in this case because we were talking about an effect on people (I’m sorry but I still haven’t got used to having to spell out every tiny thing because I still assume that people might be able to understand nuance).
However, the terms can be seen as being interchangeable: a fundamental—actually, the fundamental—principle of libertarianism is that you own your body (and your life): it is your property (to claim otherwise is to claim that someone else has a higher claim on your life).
Any property which you have legitimately come by is as much yours as your body is—because it is by your body’s efforts (and your mind’s talents) that you have earned said property.
Is that clear enough for you, Richard?
DK
Richard Gadsden said...
10 Aug 09 at 4:32 pm
Thanks, DK. I don’t agree, but it’s clear as day.
So, I’m left with my standard objections – what about things that are neither people (in the “independent actors with free will” sense that libertarianism means) nor property?
Land in the broadest sense
Copyright, patent and trademark
Children
Animals
Do I own the air above my house? If so, can I force aircraft to fly around it? If so, can I prohibit a satellite from orbiting over it? If so, do I own a little bit of the moon when it’s in the right orbital position? If so, do I own a star that’s directly above my house?
And, more importantly, who decides those questions?
The last of those is easy for me to answer – the government decides, by the consent of the governed, and government without such consent is tyranny and is illegitimate, but consent in this is something like Jon Postel’s vision “rough consensus and working code”, where “working code” is a functioning society. I guess there’s something essentially conservative about not wanting to overthrow everything for the sake of an ideal, but I’m a reformist, not a revolutionary.
Oranjepan said...
10 Aug 09 at 5:06 pm
DK,
I’ll assume that you accept the concept of shared ownership and ask, what do you do when people with equal shares disagree?
I shall also point out to you that murder, slavery and theft are not crimes unless sanctions against the perpetrators are enforceable – they are just arbitrary death, bondage and exchange by another name…
Without the rule of law, and without legitimate use of force to support it (and therefore the means to determine that legitimacy, as Richard describes) you have tyrrany.
I suppose being King Libertarian appeals to you because you wouldn’t have too many problems with the support of your acolytes to act as a bodyguard (how long would you last without them?), but what about the rest of us?
So you are either a hippy or a charlatan.
Charlotte Gore said...
10 Aug 09 at 5:09 pm
All right, all right, this is all getting a bit too Liberal Conspiracy now.
Joe Otten said...
10 Aug 09 at 5:09 pm
DK, if your relationship to your body is merely ownership, and nothing stronger than that, does that mean if you owe me money, and have no other assets, I can sue you for your body. To feed my dogs or something.
Ian B said...
10 Aug 09 at 5:37 pm
See, this is the basic problem with the philosophical discipline. You start off with some set of axioms, then prove the absurd, then everyone argues about the semantics. All the reasoning is ultimately circular, since any philosophical postulate can only be discussed in terms of other philosophical postulates. So it’s all ultimately pointless.
One way to look at it; an assertion of ownership is an assertion of exclusive control; that is the person who owns X gets to decide what is done with X. If you believe axiomatically (as libertarians do) in self-ownership, then the consciousness inhabiting the brain of a particular human body is the consciousness which gets to decide what is done with that body. If you don’t believe in self-ownership, then others are arbitrarily free to do what they wish with that body regardless of its inhabiting consciousness’s opinions.
In the latter philosophical system, the state can say “you are a pretty girl, you are obligated to go and work in a state brothel for the greater good of society” and there’s nothing she can do about it, since she has no right to choose what her body is used for. I prefer to be a libertarian because I would prefer that not to be the case. But in the end it’s just a matter of taste. Those of you who would prefer obligatory service in state brothels for young women are as free to believe that as I am to believe what I do. If you try to impose your worldview, I will do my best to kill you. I can’t prove my right to do that either. I just would, because you offend my arbitrary sense of taste.
Joe Otten said...
10 Aug 09 at 5:45 pm
Ian B, yes there is a basic problem with foundationalism – that your foundations, your axioms cannot be justified, ever, because that would mean moving the foundation.
So don’t be foundationalist. There are lots of alternatives. I prefer this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_rationalism although it is not perfect.
Devil's Kitchen said...
10 Aug 09 at 8:25 pm
What Ian B said. The non-aggression axiom is just that—an axiom. I believe that it is a good axiom because—were everyone to stick to it—we would live in a near perfect society.
“DK, if your relationship to your body is merely ownership, and nothing stronger than that, does that mean if you owe me money, and have no other assets, I can sue you for your body. To feed my dogs or something.”
Well, in theory, yes; or, indeed, I could rent you my labour until the debt is repaid.
But, if there is a hierarchy in the principles, that of life is sacrosanct—thus, you may claim my labour to repay the debt, but you may not kill me.
DK
Joe Otten said...
10 Aug 09 at 10:29 pm
That’s great DK. Not sure what you mean by if there is a hierarchy in the principles. They are your principles aren’t they?
But if you are saying non-initiation of force is a good principle because if people followed it we would have a good society, then you aren’t treating it as an axiom any more. Instead you are justifying it as a “thing that leads to a good society”. This is much better than treating it as an axiom.
But then logically other principles that lead to a good society should also be supported on the same sort of basis. And to be consistent these other principles should then trump the rhetorical generalisation of the non-initiation of force principle to cover issues it doesn’t such as taxation or trespassing.
Matthew Huntbach said...
10 Aug 09 at 10:41 pm
Ian B
In the latter philosophical system, the state can say “you are a pretty girl, you are obligated to go and work in a state brothel for the greater good of society” and there’s nothing she can do about it, since she has no right to choose what her body is used for. I prefer to be a libertarian because I would prefer that not to be the case.
Your “liberatarianism” says that we are born into this world with only the right to use our body as we like and as others are willing to trade with us to make use of it. In many parts of the worls this DOES result in pretty girls who own nothing being forced into prostitution as it’s the only thing they can do to keep them and their relatives alive. I personally would prefer a little state support, even if this does cost something in taxation on those in more fortunate positions, which means those born into poverty aren’t faced with such a horrible choice.
It is precisely because your “liberatarianism” denies the poor freedom, and because your type just cannot see that, that leads me to oppose it and to think your type are at best naive, and at worst deliberately trying to put forward a politics which is about freedom for the rich at the expense of lack of freddom for the poor.
Ian B said...
10 Aug 09 at 11:05 pm
“Liberatarianism”? To err once is human, to err twice is deliberate. What is this, some kind of philosophy of playing the piano in an outrageously camp way?
Your “liberatarianism” says that we are born into this world with only the right to use our body as we like and as others are willing to trade with us to make use of it. In many parts of the worls this DOES result in pretty girls who own nothing being forced into prostitution as it’s the only thing they can do to keep them and their relatives alive.
Yes, but the difference between allowing something, and the state having the right to require it, is that you can escape from the former but not from the latter.
There is a fundamental difference between making a choice between circumstancially limited alternatives (every human alive, even the wealthiest, suffers limitations by circumstance) and being forced into doing something by state power. Many people do unpleasant jobs purely for economic reasons. I used to work in maintenance, which involves a great deal of sewage. I’ve been splashed with it, sprayed with it, had a face full of ancient piss from a surprise leak. My dear departed mum was horrified that her son was doing such work. Me, I didn’t exactly revel in it, but still preferred my job to those done by the miserable office sweats on the Orwellian open plan floors above. But if the state is going to save one girl from sex work (as you seem to desire), will it save another from sewage work? Who’s going to decide what are acceptable professions and which are beyond the pale? Liberace?
But if the state decides it needs brothels for the good of its troops, and it will conscript girls into working in them, now there is no possibility of them avoiding that work. Rather than being victims of circumstance- which is unfortunate- they are victims of deliberate collective malice. Let’s get away from sex. My uncle was enslaved during the war as a mineworker. He died this year, gasping desperately from emphesema. The state who enslaved him didn’t even say thank you. Conscription- slavery- is what happens when you take the brakes of the state by saying that the mob’s will is more important than the individual’s will. There is really no difference between a Bevin Boy and a girl in Hitler’s Joy Division, except the latter job is cleaner and has fewer health risks.
It’s funny. Us ivory-tinklers are portrayed by collectivists as being extremists. And yet the desire for self-ownership is the most natural thing in the world, an inherent part of the human spirit. Try forcing a girl to have sex with you, and you’ll see her natural instinct for self ownership in all its glory. Respect her instinct, by asking politely, and you’ll see how natural the idea is.
If you start from self ownership as axiomatic, all the laws everyone agrees on on an everyday basis- against murder, assault, rape, theft and fraud naturally follow. Take it away, and all you are left with is the hope that some bastard won’t shove you down a mine or into a brothel some time. You’ve nothing but the hope that the dictatorship will be benign. Liberatarians are after something a bit more solid than that.
Joe Otten said...
11 Aug 09 at 1:44 am
Ian B, property rights are insufficient. Self-ownership is too weak a concept to capture the full extent of my rights over my person.
Quite how your dilution of human rights to mere property rights represents a bulwark against conscription into state run brothels is a complete mystery.
Your conception of self-ownership is not the only idea of human rights around, and to represent its opponents as being against human rights and the rule of law in general is quite profoundly mistaken. And I struggle to see how this is not obvious to you.
Ian B said...
11 Aug 09 at 2:14 am
Joe, it’s all very well saying that my idea is pants and you have a better one, but you then need to actually say what it is.
There’s nothing “mere” about property rights. It presents a firm basis on which to proceed in discussing laws etc.
I hope your alternative “idea[s] of human rights” aren’t just one of those lists of entitlement type rights, like, say the “right” to be forced to go to school, or the “right” to have whatever healthcare a state committee thinks you should have, etc etc.
Letters From A Tory said...
11 Aug 09 at 9:58 am
“have there been clinical trials showing a causal relationship between exposure to idealised images of people and serious, crippling mental damage?”
Actually, there has been a lot of psychological research into this issue. In short, it’s a classic case of ‘Not everyone who sees the images gets an eating disorder, but people with eating disorders often report that the images contributed to their problems’
Very, very tricky situation.
Jack Hughes said...
12 Aug 09 at 10:14 pm
Tory Letter Writer you get no marks because you answered a different question.
No there has been no research at all into whether anorexic teens were influenced by air-brushed photos.
James Graham said...
12 Aug 09 at 10:17 pm
That’s an interesting assertion, as potentially flawed as the argument it is objecting to.
Perhaps when I have a bit more time I will put it to the test.
Ian B said...
12 Aug 09 at 10:39 pm
It would be impossible to do any meaningful study into the question. And no, a survey asking whether people feel they’ve been influenced by a particular thing doesn’t provide any useful data at all.
James Graham said...
12 Aug 09 at 10:45 pm
That sounds like an interesting challenge. I’ve certainly seen research in other areas that test more difficult hypotheses. You folks sure love your absolutist language.
Ian B said...
12 Aug 09 at 10:56 pm
Oh, there’s certainly lots of research testing the impossible to test. Our society is awash in it. It doesn’t mean any of it is actually producing meaningful results, though.
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