Nobody has yet claimed that systematic ideology has all the answers; if it had, then all human problems would be solved and IC could close down. Yet knowing that further answers are needed is one thing; finding out what they are, or indeed what the unanswered questions may be, another. One approach is to look… read more »
WHAT ARE WAGES? Michael Frayn, who used to write a satirical column in the Guardian, reprinted in The Book of Fub (1961) a piece in which a public-relations consultant explains, on behalf of the responsible Ministry, why the various professions get paid at different rates. He starts with the principle that the more devotion a… read more »
Winner, 2013 George Walford International Essay Prize. In an evolutionary context, a belief in the supernatural is costly. Evolutionary cost refers to anything that reduces an individual’s eventual reproductive success from what that individual would otherwise achieve. Such cost includes unnecessary practices that either neglect or consume resources that otherwise could be used provision oneself… read more »
Since 1979 spending on criminal justice has leapt from £2 to £5 billion; an increase of 50 per cent in real terms. The number of police has increased by 13 per cent and of prison staff by 50 per cent; 49,000 prisoners are now managed by 33,000 warders. 28 new prisons are being prepared, with… read more »
Science has been showing up badly lately, “dozens” of its practitioners in the US having been exposed as willing to stretch a point – or two, or three – if there was profit or kudos to be had. Things are no better in Britain, although stricter libel laws have restricted publicity, and the early scientists… read more »
For clear thinking and reliable conclusions logic is the thing. Emotion, rhetoric, even ideology may be useful in the political struggle, but when we want to get at the truth of a matter, rather than to win an argument or an election, what we need is logic. Logic provides the standard by which thinking, and… read more »
In IC39, under the title From Politics to Ideology, we saw that each of the main-sequence political movements behaves as it does because of the assumptions its members have in common. It is not only in politics that the assumptions made determine the course of behaviour followed. Every step we take depends upon the assumption… read more »
This article follows on from the one entitled THE POLITICAL SERIES in IC34. The six groups spoken of are the main-sequence political movements, those known in Britain as conservatism, liberalism, socialism and communism, with the non-political people preceding conservatism and anarchism (including the (A-)SPGB) following communism. – GW We now have before us six groups… read more »
The vast mass of non-political people set the limits within which society is able to operate, anything they refuse to accept being “politically impossible.” Effective prohibition of alcohol is one example of this, effective prohibition of abortion another. The people rarely try to argue a case for drinking or abortion, they just carry on with… read more »
Dear [redacted] Your response to my letter rather takes me aback; I’m just not accustomed to having the ideas picked up and returned immediately in phrasing that improves on my own efforts. Speaking of those I called non- politicals you say: Most people, it turns out, favour neither control nor freedom in either intellectual or… read more »