The Virtual Stoa

James Joyce, writer, born 2 February 1882 in Dublin, died 13 January 1941 in Z�rich.

From the BBC breaking news ticker:

“Three Likud party ministers resign from Israeli cabinet”

And from the Guardian’s:

“Likud ministers defy Israeli cabinet resignation order“

Enkidu’s buggered off outside, and I haven’t seen much of him today, but it’s high time we had a TKB Andromache Special Edition. So here she is, surveying the chaos of my desk, with the collected works of Adam Smith clearly visible on the right of the picture:

And here she is again, on the stairs:

Nikolai Podgorny, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 1965-1977; born 18 February 1903, died 12 January 1983.

In a series of posts below, I tried to show that Anthony Browne committed a number of what he himself takes to be the sins of political correctness in his recent pamphlet, The Retreat of Reason, published by the “think” tank Civitas. In this post, I’m afraid to report that the PC virus has spread even further into the ranks of those who take themselves to be its most hardened opponents.

In the pamphlet, p.8, Browne castigates the politically correct, who “often believe you can justify their version of truth with a lie”. He uses the example of the Mirror’s publication of faked photos of British troops doing bad things to Iraqi prisoners, and says that “the paper’s supporters still justified them after they were proved to be fake on the grounds that they illustrated a greater truth.”

There’s a complete idiot in the United States called David Horowitz. If you don’t know who he is, you’re quite lucky. He’s one of the heroes of Anthony Browne’s wretched screed: having been a “leading (far) left commentator”, he is “one of the most high profile defectors from political to factual correctness”, and “has now become a scourge of the dishonesty of the left and political correctness” (p.81).

But what have we here?

But as hearings ended in Philadelphia Tuesday, critics of the Academic Bill of Rights were saying that they had scored key points. David Horowitz, the conservative activist who has led the push for the hearings in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, admitted that he had no evidence to back up two of the stories he has told multiple times to back up his charges that political bias is rampant in higher education…In a phone interview, Horowitz said that he had heard about the alleged incident from a legislative staffer and that there was no evidence to back up the claim. He added, however, that �everybody who is familiar with universities knows that there is a widespread practice of professors venting about foreign policy even when their classes aren�t about foreign policy� and that the lack of evidence on Penn State doesn�t mean there isn�t a problem…

The other example Horowitz was forced to back down on Tuesday is from the opposite end of the political spectrum. He has several times cited the example of a student in California who supports abortion rights and who said that he was punished with a low grade by a professor who opposed abortion. Asked about this example, Horowitz said that he had no evidence to back up the student�s claim…

Even if these examples aren�t correct, he said, they represent the reality of academic life…

Oh dear. So much for his conversion to “factual correctness”. Anthony Browne will be disappointed.

It may be a false dawn, but it looks as if the chaps at Harry’s are finally catching up with the rest of the world with the realisation that George Galloway’s not very important, over here .

(For the depth of the obsession, use this link.)

This may be premature, of course. The very next post is Galloway-themed, and H’s P isn’t terribly good at getting over its habits - Harry said he was quitting blogging not so long ago, but he’s posting as much as anyone these days. But we live in hope.

Article about crisps in tehgrauniad. I recently reintroduced a steady supply of ready salted crisps into my diet, and I am a happier man as a consequence, although I don’t think you get quite as many crisps in a bag of Walker’s crisps as perhaps is ideal.

Naomi Mitchison, writer and women’s rights campaigner, born 1 November 1897, died 11 January 1999.

The VS’s French Politics Correspondent writes:

“I had a look at the Stoa yesterday and noticed that the Dead Socialist Watch didn’t seem to have reported the tenth anniversary of the death of Fran�ois Mitterrand! (I was in Paris last week and a distinctly uncritical nostalgia is everywhere … you even can go on a Mitterrand-themed walk around Paris to observe the sumptuous tableaux put up for the anniversary outside, amongst other Mitterrand-related locations, the Panth�on, the Biblioth�que Nationale and the Institut du Monde Arabe…).

“May I suggest that the occasion be marked (and Laurent-Fabius-Watch updated) by publishing Fabius’ latest tribute to Mitterrand? (My translation from Lib�ration, 7-8 January 2006):”

“Fran�ois Mitterrand, who defined himself first of all as a free man, thought that the experience of one person never really works for others. But however he most certainly taught me a lot, on personal and political levels. The most obvious of his lessons is the power of will, the necessity of rallying the Left together and the decisive role of Europe: all that is so well known that it is becoming banal to speak of it. He also taught us several other things. I cite, in no particular order: the primacy of culture over economics, the pre-eminence of the historical and strategic vision of France over making media coups, the fact that nothing in politics is worth as much as having territorial roots, the attention to the right word and the useless epiphet, the faith in friendship, the necessity of thinking globally and acting locally. And, above all, the human dimension of all action. “Life is judo”, “When you want, you can”, “Politics is saying things to people”, “Don’t take every fly flying past for an idea”, “He who has betrayed will betray”, “We must move the lines”: these were some of his favourite phrases, carriers of a philosophical vision - at the same time volontarist and sceptical - and of a political and human practice. Without having looked for it, he taught us that we should beware of courtesans, of habits, of excessive powers and of too long terms of office. Ah! I was almost going to forget: he taught us that at least three essential qualities are needed for a good president: experience, competence and endurance. The man of state must know how to anticipate and to resist. It is not totally useless to remember this.”

Thanks for that, that’s very fine, and, yes, apologies for not posting on this Dead Socialist; I was away over the weekend.

James Forman, US civil rights organiser, born Chicago, 4 October 1928, died Washington DC, 10 January 2005. Here’s a piece on Democracy Now!.

Jaroslav Seifert, Czech writer and poet, Nobel laureate, expelled from the Communist Party in 1929; born in n �i�kov, 23 September 1901, died 10 January 1986.

From the front page of this week’s News of the World:

And from this week’s Observer (scroll down to the bottom):

Who’s who in the Primrose Hill setThey are the thirty-something set of friends being seen as Labour’s answer to the youthful, urbane ‘Notting Hill’ set around Cameron. They have had their differences - but facing a new threat, they are burying the hatchet.

Their linchpin is David Miliband the 39-year-old Cabinet Minister whose home in London’s Primrose Hill is the unofficial meeting place for like minds. Married to American violinist Louise, he headed Blair’s policy unit before becoming an MP but has deftly made his peace with the rising clique around Gordon Brown - thanks in part to his brother, Ed Miliband, the Chancellor’s former aide. Both brothers are close to Douglas Alexander, the Europe minister also tipped by Blair: married with two small children, he is a sharp Scot who cut his teeth as Brown’s researcher. The third former Brownite staffer in the set is ex-chief adviser Ed Balls, married to junior minister Yvette Cooper.

With the exception of Cooper - and the new MP Kitty Ussher who knows both Eds well from her former job as aide to Patricia Hewitt, and is tipped for a ministerial job - it is blokeish circle, but one largely of new men: Balls is regularly found in the kitchen at home, thanks to his wife’s hatred of cooking.

I don’t want to think about it. Though it’ll be tricky to have quite so many “lesbian romps” if the “set” is as “blokeish” as the paper suggests.

In one of the comments threads below, Marc Mulholland asks:

“I’m trying to swot up on Hegel a wee bit. Is there any ‘Hegel for Dummies’ text you’d recommend? I’m particularly interested about all this business regarding self-conscious subjectivities meeting with each other etc.”

Someone asked me if I had a recommendation for an introduction to Hegel’s social philosophy last year, and this is what I wrote then (edited slightly):

It’s Hegel and the Philosophy of Right in the Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks series (red covers) by Dudley Knowles, published a couple of years ago, and it’s really very good indeed: highly intelligent, genuinely introductory, and saying all the right things to help beginning students get to grips with the rather forbidding text of the Philosophy of Right.The only problem with this recommendation is that it’s very much a book by a moral philosopher, so the material in the first two chapters gets dealt with at greater length than the material in the third chapter, on Ethical Life, where most of the “social philosophy” gets discussed. So for something more specifically focused on that, there’s Charles Taylor’s Hegel and Modern Society (from 1979, I think, pub. by Cambridge), which is good, and, as I recall, fairly wide-ranging.

More advanced are Michael Hardimon’s Hegel’s Social Philosophy: The Project of Reconciliation, which is good (though I haven’t read it all the way through); Allen Wood, Hegel’s Ethical Thought, which offers a good analytical discussion of the Philosophy of Right; or Shlomo Avineri, Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State.

The best book of all on Hegel’s social theory in English (I don’t know the German literature at all), but a book that is - like Hegel - a tough read even for very advanced undergraduates is Frederick Neuhouser, Foundations of Hegel’s Social Theory: Actualizing Freedom, which is one of the best philosophical books I’ve read in the last decade.

But for an introductory text, though, Knowles’s book is exemplary…

I think that’s still what I think, but that may not be helpful for Marc, who mentions “self-conscious subjectivities meeting with each other”, which makes it sound to me as if he’s more interested in the Phenomenology of Mind than in the Philosophy of Right - and I just don’t know the P of M literature at all. So if there are any Hegelians out there, can we have comments on these recommendations, additional bibliography for readers-approaching-Hegel and, in particular, suggestions for getting started with the Phenomenology?

A friend came round this morning to drop off a New Year present, for which I am extremely grateful.

Louise Michel, Paris Communard, born 29 May 1830, died 9 January 1905.

Norberto Bobbio, Italian philosopher, born 18 October 1909, died 9 January 2004.

Rest in Peace, Tony Banks, died yesterday after a massive stroke aged 62. Here’s the Guardian obit.

I’m not sure this is an entirely scientific game, which is why I’ve felt free to express no preference, or, on occasion, a fourth option.

1. Beatles, Stones or Beach Boys? Beatles, though less than I used to.
2. Kant, Hegel, Marx? Hegel, in a three-way photo-finish. (I enjoy lecturing on Hegel more than on Marx, though I’ll concede that Kant was, in fact, the Greatest Philosopher Ever.)
3. Cluedo, Monopoly, Scrabble? Scrabble
4. Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford? Jack Nicholson, for Chinatown
5. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart? Beethoven, I think, though The Magic Flute is something special.
6. Australia, Canada, New Zealand? New Zealand (filial piety).
7. Groucho, Chico, Harpo? Harpo.
8. Morning, afternoon, evening? Evening.
9. Bridge, Canasta, Poker? Bridge.
10. Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou? OBWAT. Didn’t think a great deal of Fargo, and haven’t seen TBL.
11. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau? Rousseau, though Hobbes is, of course, fabulous.
12. Cricket, football, rugby? Cricket. Test Match Cricket.
13. Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte? Whichever one of the B’s wrote Wuthering Heights.
14. Parker, Gillespie, Monk? No preference.
15. Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham? Arsenal, I think, because Thierry Henry is so much fun to watch when he’s on form.
16. Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld? Seinfeld (but only because I’ve seen an episode which I enjoyed, which is more than I can say for the other two)
17. Henry Fonda, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart? Jimmy Stewart.
18. France, Germany, Italy? Italy.
19. Apple, orange, banana? Banana.
20. Statham, Tyson, Trueman? Too young, I’m afraid. Larwood.
21. Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Rio Lobo? Are these films?
22. Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Ingrid Bergman? No preference.
23. Chinese, Indian, Thai? Indian.
24. Handel, Scarlatti, Vivaldi? Handel.
25. Oasis, Radiohead, Blur? No preference.
26. Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones, Yes Minister? Yes, Minister.
27. Chekhov, Ibsen, Shaw? Ibsen.
28. American football, baseball, basketball? Baseball.
29. FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton? FDR.
30. Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky? Luxemburg.
31. Paris, Rome, New York? Rome.
32. Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck? Raymond Chandler.
33. Blue, green, red? Red.
34. Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady, West Side Story? Oklahoma!
35. J.S. Mill, John Rawls, Robert Nozick? John Rawls.
36. Armstrong, Ellington, Goodman? Goodman.
37. Ireland, Scotland, Wales (at rugby)? Wales.
38. The Sopranos, 24, Six Feet Under? No knowledge.
39. Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Saturday.
40. Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear? Macbeth.
41. Fried, boiled, scrambled (eggs)? Fried.
42. Paths of Glory, Cross of Iron, Saving Private Ryan? N/A
43. England, Australia, West Indies (at cricket)? Not Australia. Otherwise, it depends. I’ve certainly cheered for the West Indies against England in my time.
44. Chabrol, Godard, Truffaut? N/A
45. Bringing It All Back Home, Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks? John Wesley Harding
46. Trains, planes, automobiles? Trains.
47. North By Northwest, Psycho, Vertigo? Vertigo.
48. Third, Fourth, Fifth (Beethoven Piano Concerto)? Third (Eroica Symphony).
49. Coffee, tea, chocolate? Coffee.
50. Cardiff, Edinburgh, Dublin? Dublin.

Joe Slovo, South African Communist, born 23 May 1926, died 6 January 1995. Nelson Mandela’s funeral address is here.

From the BBC:

“Mr Cable said he was not threatening to resign but the position of a lot of frontbenchers “would have to be thought through…depending on what happens over the next few days”.

What kind of political fantasy-land is this, where you can publicly announce you have no confidence in a party leader and still think that you can remain on the front bench? Or is this yet more evidence that those of us who smirk when the Lib Dems talk about their “shadow cabinet” are absolutely right to do so? I know this isn’t politics-as-usual, with Kennedy’s leadership dead in the water - or perhaps drowned in the proverbial butt of malmsey - but even so, there are political decencies to be observed here, and Cable’s cabal do seem to be a bunch of remarkably cowardly politicians. Norman Lamb was pathetic on Newsnight last night, agreeing that his crew had some talking together to do. Yes, indeed.

UPDATE [5PM]: Given that much of the front bench is publicly threatening resignation now, I should retract some of the above. But I’m still puzzled. Why are these people saying they will resign from the “shadow cabinet” if Kennedy stays? Why not just resign and wait to see if a new leader will appoint them to the same or different posts? Are they worried that if they resign from the “shadow cabinet” they will be at some kind of a disadvantage during the leadership contest? Or are they all terrified of being the first person actually to do something, in case they get some kind of Judas reputation, and so want to make sure that they all act together, and can only find unity in these weak “if you don’t go we resign” formulations?

Quick round-up: from the archives of the Stoa, here’s a post from back when Paxo was asking CK whether he went to bed with a bottle of whisky (complete with the words to the CK-themed Skye Boat Song); here’s William McGonagall’s reminder that “the abolition of strong drink is the only Home Rule”; and here’s a general remark about Prime Ministers who drink too much.

To these we might add a link to Guido’s fine (photoshopped? or not?) photo; and another entry in the survey of PMswDTM — William Pitt the Younger was known as a “three-bottle man” (port, usually, though the bottles were smaller in those days), and on one occasion shortly after the war with France began in 1793 Pitt and his lieutenant Henry Dundas were sufficiently unsteady in the chamber of the House of Commons so as to inspire this little bit of doggerel:

“I cannot see the Speaker, Hal, can you?”
“What! Cannot see the Speaker, I see two!”

[Hague, Pitt, p.220, p.308]

In response to the news that Charles Kennedy was going to be making a “personal statement” at 1745 today, one inspired commentator at politicalbetting.com wondered, “Wasnt that when his hero Bonnie Prince Charlie got his comeuppence too!” No, that was 1746. But it’s a good joke, and the next few weeks should be tremendous fun.

We were hoping that he was going to announce that he was resigning from the leadership of the Lib Dems in order to seek to lead the Kadima party in the Israeli elections, following in the footsteps of his predecessor Paddy Ashdown in an attempt to bring peace to a troubled part of the world.

And, oddly enough, if we discount interim arrangements (Jo Grimond in 1976, MacLennan as co-leader in 1988), if Kennedy were to be purged now, by whatever means, he’d be the shortest-serving Liberal leader since Herbert Samuel (1931-5), despite having led the Liberals during a period which has seen four Tory leaders come and go (or just one or the other). With remarkable consistency, the Liberal leaders since 1935 have served about ten years in post, and Kennedy may only manage six-and-a-bit:

Archibald Sinclair 1935-1945
Clement Davies 1945-1956
Jo Grimond 1956-1967
Jeremy Thorpe 1967-1976
David Steel 1976-1988
Paddy Ashdown 1988-1999
Charles Kennedy, 1999-2006?

Here’s David Cameron, in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday:

“But I don’t believe in the politics of Right and Left; I believe in the politics of right and wrong.”

That’s almost as good as my favourite bit of Al Gore:

“I come before you today to issue a new challenge. Six years ago, we moved politics forward — beyond left and right. Today, let us move politics not only farther forward, but also upward, to a higher place — to a place far beyond the false divisions and dichotomies of the past.”

Further to the discussion of Phillip Whitehead, below, sources tell me that it’s a little odd for Roy Hatterseley to write in his obituary in tehgrauniad that “Politics came comparatively late into Whitehead’s life. At Oxford, he played no part in the Labour Club.” The last part may be true, but that would seem to be because Whitehead was prominent in the Conservative Association at the time, serving as President around 1958 or so. He’s remembered by people who were there at the time for a sharp attack on Harold Macmillan and Alan Lennox-Boyd, one time they were visiting the Oxford Union, over the indefinite detention-without-trial of Dr Hastings Banda, after the Government’s rejection of the judicial findings of the Devlin Commssion, which had reported that Nyasaland was a police state.