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106 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
106 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
Childhood's End
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A review of "Escaping From Childishness: The Need For a
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Conserver Party" by Robert Johnston
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The "hedonist radicalism" of the 1960s eventually settled
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into a combination of demands for plurality and tolerance
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in lifestyle choice with a censorious attitude towards
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actually-existing social norms. An anti-family attitude
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may have aimed to subvert the supposed breeding-ground of
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authoritarian attitudes through which commodity society
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reproduced itself, but it snuggled in beside lifestyle
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purchase. The management of difference and intrusive
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social engineering had come to offer suitable professional
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career opportunities.
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One attempt at a critical angle on these developments
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took aspects of the works of Richard Sennett and
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Christopher Lasch and argued in favour of "the condition
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of anonymity which is privacy in public". Such a liberal
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viewpoint could usefully be opposed to the idea that
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"transparency" was a better way to live and that anything
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else was just a token of repression.
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It may be time to acknowledge the limits of such an
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approach. After all, it derives from, and refers to the
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virtues of, a society in circulation. The approach
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recognises managerial special pleading in the way that
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real issues play out, but has been unable to embody
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itself in new forms of activity. One response to that
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failure may involve a more critical attitude to
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liberalism itself; another digs deeper into liberalism in
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an attempt to imbue the political norms with a new
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ecological and ethical position.
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Robert Johnson's pamphlet follows that second path.
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However, the problems which it faces in taking the
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ethical high ground are the same as those identifiable in
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a critique of liberalism.
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For example, both positions see in current social
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conditions a dependency culture which erodes "untutored
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common sense, emotional reserves and intrinsic skills"
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(p.4) and qualities of "restraint..., moderation and
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obligation to others" (p.9). It is dangerous to locate
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such qualities as innate / instinctual or elevate them to
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a political-ethical position. Where they exist, they
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derive from something resembling apprenticeship: learning
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in and through a tradition to obtain a measure of things
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appropriate to accession to a community.
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But under liberalism the commodity has corroded the
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values based on anything being handed-down. The Left was
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complicit in this progressivism, and continues to be so.
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Traditional values are marked as reactionary. For
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example, Simon Frith and Jon Savage ("Pearls and Swine",
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NLR 198) set up the "conservative ideal" of the
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"defiantly dull" allotment culture. They contrast this
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stolid figure with the "strange people - young, female,
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foreign, homosexual", whose "strange ideas" supposedly
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identify them as agents of social change (although
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usually under professional mediation). This allegiance to
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progressivism as the norm of social theory provides the
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difficulty in pigeonholing Lasch or the anti-
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Enlightenment positions of Alasdair MacIntyre's recent
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books.
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Johnson discusses the inabilities of the socialist,
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green, social-democratic and conservative political
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agencies to base an agenda on anything other than
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progressivism. Through discussing the inadequacies, he
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intends to identify a constituency which is disillusioned
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by the existing parties and has withdrawn from politics.
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This apparently provides an opportunity to base a
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politics on ecological imperatives, such as that "Eco-
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politics can give a lead by restating the principle that
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the basic needs of everyone should take precedence over
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the demands of anyone" (p.5). But what agency is to exert
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that principle? It seems to invite the intrusion of a
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bureaucratic-technical agency. That can only further the
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malaise of disempowerment.
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This attempted political renewal acknowledges the crisis
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produced by liberalism, but seeks position within the
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hollowed-out area of liberal politics, and even shies
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away from the real ecological oppositional campaigns. A
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sense of imperative is allowed to substitute for agency.
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But a bedrock of popular apathy plus a voluntarist layer
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of imperative-fired politicians forms a strange and even
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dangerous political structure.
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Alex Richards
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From Here & Now no. 15
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Title: Childhood's End
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Author: Alex Richards
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Date: 1994
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Description:
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A review of "Escaping From Childishness: The Need For a
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Conserver Party" by Robert Johnston
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Keywords:
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Green, Conserver
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