I should, however, also point out that of 1,001 folk who predict the future or confess to such forebodings, 1,000 will get it wholly wrong and we only remember – and celebrate as some kind of visionary – the lucky schmuck who did ‘get it right’.
He or she – though almost probably a ‘he’ – will be only to happy to bask in glory and henceforth also consider themselves to be far-sighted and, of course, even more worth paying attention to.
As I was already 45 years old when my daughter was born (I shall be 77 in November), I had been more accustomed than her to the then current world order and had rather more memories and experience of what was a comparatively cosy world here in Britain and other Western nations, though if anything that world had become even more cosy in the 29 years of her life.
My description of ‘comparative cosiness’ will undoubtedly outrage some, given that many are always keen to be outraged as often as possible about any number of matters – if they’ve not been outraged at least twice before lunch, they are decidedly miffed.
Thus the ‘left’ – the quote marks are intended to indicate that the description is so flexible and malleable as to be more or less meaningless – will shout at me for ignoring the poverty that exists in the otherwise affluent West and other social injustice of many of our governments’ arrangements.
The ‘right’ – ditto – will scream at me for ‘ignoring the danger’ posed by ‘illegal aliens’ and ‘Muslims’ and how bloody lucky we were to ‘get out of Europe [they mean ‘the EU’] in time!’)
However, I suggest life for the vast majority in the Western world has been ever more than acceptable than not: we do not in the West, as in the former Soviet and now non-Soviet Russia, run the ever-present risk of falling to our death from a high window if we step out of line. We do not, as in China, Iran, North Korea and too many other countries, risk a long term in jail for speaking out against the ruling party and its apparatchiks.
As I was already 45 years old when my daughter was born (I shall be 77 in November), I had been more accustomed than her to the then current world order and had rather more memories and experience of what was a comparatively cosy world here in Britain and other Western nations, though if anything that world had become even more cosy in the 29 years of her life.
My description of ‘comparative cosiness’ will undoubtedly outrage some, given that many are always keen to be outraged as often as possible about any number of matters – if they’ve not been outraged at least twice before lunch, they are decidedly miffed.
Thus the ‘left’ – the quote marks are intended to indicate that the description is so flexible and malleable as to be more or less meaningless – will shout at me for ignoring the poverty that exists in the otherwise affluent West and other social injustice of many of our governments’ arrangements.
The ‘right’ – ditto – will scream at me for ‘ignoring the danger’ posed by ‘illegal aliens’ and ‘Muslims’ and how bloody lucky we were to ‘get out of Europe [they mean ‘the EU’] in time!’)
However, I suggest life for the vast majority in the Western world has been ever more than acceptable than not: we do not in the West, as in the former Soviet and now non-Soviet Russia, run the ever-present risk of falling to our death from a high window if we step out of line. We do not, as in China, Iran, North Korea and too many other countries, risk a long term in jail for speaking out against the ruling party and its apparatchiks.
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Not as hopeful as many might like, eh? |
Incidentally and bizarrely, along those lines rather too many in the US accept as ‘fact’ the claim, by J D Vance and Elon Musk that Britain – my home country – is now a fascist state.
As ‘proof’ they cite our laws on protecting free speech and that folk can be hauled before the courts and tried for ‘hate speech’. So many MAGA cretins insists ‘there is no free speech any more in the United Kingdom and it is now a fascist country’.
That those laws are specifically designed to protect sexual and racial minorities is a detail they conveniently and unsurprisingly ignore. They also insist that Britain is now overrun with gangs of Muslim rapists and that women are afraid to go out at night.
Economically, the West has certainly had its ups and downs in my lifetime, but compared to the existence of previous generations over the past two centuries, life has become progressively ever easier. We can, for example, insure ourselves for anything.
That doesn’t prevent catastrophe but does mean that if and when catastrophe struck, the consequences were really not as dire.
As ‘proof’ they cite our laws on protecting free speech and that folk can be hauled before the courts and tried for ‘hate speech’. So many MAGA cretins insists ‘there is no free speech any more in the United Kingdom and it is now a fascist country’.
That those laws are specifically designed to protect sexual and racial minorities is a detail they conveniently and unsurprisingly ignore. They also insist that Britain is now overrun with gangs of Muslim rapists and that women are afraid to go out at night.
. . .
Economically, the West has certainly had its ups and downs in my lifetime, but compared to the existence of previous generations over the past two centuries, life has become progressively ever easier. We can, for example, insure ourselves for anything.
That doesn’t prevent catastrophe but does mean that if and when catastrophe struck, the consequences were really not as dire.
On the other hand if you were a rich or even not-so-rich bod in the 16th and 17th centuries when you lit your home by candlelight, an overturned candle leading to you home being burned downed could mean ruin – there was then no such thing as ‘home insurance’.
Yes, we still develop cancers, suffer heart attacks and can unexpectedly face unemployment. But in the second half of the 20th century we, at least in Europe as well as elsewhere, became entitled to free or subsidised health care, and could apply for a range of state benefits to help us when we need assistance. There is also a greater range of legal protective remedies for everyone.
It might not be too much of a stretch to suggest that one reason for the comparative ease of our lives since the end of World War II is that most countries in the ‘developed world’ politically operate a system of ‘liberal democracy’.
Yes, we still develop cancers, suffer heart attacks and can unexpectedly face unemployment. But in the second half of the 20th century we, at least in Europe as well as elsewhere, became entitled to free or subsidised health care, and could apply for a range of state benefits to help us when we need assistance. There is also a greater range of legal protective remedies for everyone.
It might not be too much of a stretch to suggest that one reason for the comparative ease of our lives since the end of World War II is that most countries in the ‘developed world’ politically operate a system of ‘liberal democracy’.
In fact, living in a ‘liberal democracy’ seems so much the norm now that many of use can’t conceive of not doing so. The intrinsic problem is that metaphorically ‘liberal democracy’ might have made us fat, soft and lazy.
. . .
Twenty-four years ago [in 1992], an American historian, Francis Fukuyama, suggested that mankind had more or less reached the final stage of its development. He did so in his book The End Of History And The Last Man, and his thesis might well be – satirically – be summed up as ‘well, that’s it, lads and lasses, we’ve reached perfection. Enjoy!’
Even at the time when I read about its publication, the title and Fukuyama’s claim, I remember thinking ‘and who the fuck do you think you are kidding except yourself?’ But apparently I was in a minority and others did opt to kid themselves – almost predictably, Britain’s Sunday Times, in full pontifical mode, described Fukuyama’s work ‘as one of the 12 most influential books since World War II’.
The book appeared in the wake of one very significant change in recent world history: the mighty Soviet Union collapsed in on itself in pitiful ignominy in 1989 and its many satellite dictatorships behind ‘the Iron Curtain’ followed suit.
Certainly it will be clear to future historians that the writing was on the wall for Communist Russia and its political minions: most were economic basket-cases and their systems were decaying ever more by the year. But at the time it, almost, seemed to come out of the blue.
This, all the wiseacres predicted, was the time when ‘Western values’ and capitalism would take over. And no free market can exist, to the thinking went, without political freedoms as in the political freedoms guaranteed us by a liberal democrat system.
Really? Don’t you think that China and Vietnam, economically and commercially very successful, politically less free than we in the West would like, disprove that point wholly and reduce it to the status of triumphalist nonsense?
Nevertheless: drum roll please as ‘universal liberal democracy’ is about to take over and humanity could now at long last breathe a sigh of relief. Nirvana!
NB Both China and Vietnam had some way to go to establish their successful economies at the time Fukuyama was spreading the good news.
In tandem in the early 1990s was the development of the internet or as it was then called ‘the worldwide web’. It too, in its superhero guise of ‘the information superhighway’ – and I did not make that up – would ensure peace, peace, prosperity and peace everywhere.
The reasoning ran that as ‘information’ became readily available to everyone with a web connection, democracy would spread and creep into every nock and cranny where so far it had never thrived. Once again, rejoice!
It didn’t quite happen like that (and I can’t resist adding a mealy-mouthed ‘of course’ in a ‘told you so voice’). Most recently, the totalitarian dictatorship in Iran was instantly able to close ‘the information superhighway’ and the ‘free flow of facts and information
Fukuyama argued – this description is from Wikipedia – that ‘the worldwide spread of liberal democracies and Western free-market capitalism, as well as the Western lifestyle may represent the final step in humanity's sociocultural evolution and political struggle, alongside becoming the final form of human government, an assessment meeting with numerous and substantial criticisms’.
That’s the theory. The practice has, though, several years on, turned out to be rather different. And an irony is that it is the Achilles heel of ‘liberal democracies’ which has meant it might now slowly all be coming unstuck.
Certainly there are many ‘understandings’ and ‘interpretations’ of what living in a ‘liberal democracy’ entails, but I suggest one of its prime and essential principles is that ‘all votes are of equal value’ – everyone has a say not matter what they believe politically and to which mast they nail their flag.
A liberal democrat – note, small ‘l’ and small ‘d’ – will assure you, because for her or him it is axiomatic, that no ‘intelligent’ and ‘rational’ man or woman would ever not subscribe to the ‘broad range of liberal democratic values’. It’s as obvious was wiping your bum after taking a dump.
‘Yes,’ our liberal democrat will carry on in the manner of an Anglican / Episcopalian clergyman hoping to persuade you that ‘the church’ is now very broadminded and long ago divested itself of its former reactionary tendencies, ‘there is a broad range of values in a liberal democracy, raging from those espoused by – presumably intelligent and rational – Conservatives to those espoused by – presumably intelligent and rational – Left-of-centre socialist to those.’
Even at the time when I read about its publication, the title and Fukuyama’s claim, I remember thinking ‘and who the fuck do you think you are kidding except yourself?’ But apparently I was in a minority and others did opt to kid themselves – almost predictably, Britain’s Sunday Times, in full pontifical mode, described Fukuyama’s work ‘as one of the 12 most influential books since World War II’.
The book appeared in the wake of one very significant change in recent world history: the mighty Soviet Union collapsed in on itself in pitiful ignominy in 1989 and its many satellite dictatorships behind ‘the Iron Curtain’ followed suit.
Certainly it will be clear to future historians that the writing was on the wall for Communist Russia and its political minions: most were economic basket-cases and their systems were decaying ever more by the year. But at the time it, almost, seemed to come out of the blue.
This, all the wiseacres predicted, was the time when ‘Western values’ and capitalism would take over. And no free market can exist, to the thinking went, without political freedoms as in the political freedoms guaranteed us by a liberal democrat system.
Really? Don’t you think that China and Vietnam, economically and commercially very successful, politically less free than we in the West would like, disprove that point wholly and reduce it to the status of triumphalist nonsense?
Nevertheless: drum roll please as ‘universal liberal democracy’ is about to take over and humanity could now at long last breathe a sigh of relief. Nirvana!
NB Both China and Vietnam had some way to go to establish their successful economies at the time Fukuyama was spreading the good news.
In tandem in the early 1990s was the development of the internet or as it was then called ‘the worldwide web’. It too, in its superhero guise of ‘the information superhighway’ – and I did not make that up – would ensure peace, peace, prosperity and peace everywhere.
The reasoning ran that as ‘information’ became readily available to everyone with a web connection, democracy would spread and creep into every nock and cranny where so far it had never thrived. Once again, rejoice!
It didn’t quite happen like that (and I can’t resist adding a mealy-mouthed ‘of course’ in a ‘told you so voice’). Most recently, the totalitarian dictatorship in Iran was instantly able to close ‘the information superhighway’ and the ‘free flow of facts and information
Fukuyama argued – this description is from Wikipedia – that ‘the worldwide spread of liberal democracies and Western free-market capitalism, as well as the Western lifestyle may represent the final step in humanity's sociocultural evolution and political struggle, alongside becoming the final form of human government, an assessment meeting with numerous and substantial criticisms’.
That’s the theory. The practice has, though, several years on, turned out to be rather different. And an irony is that it is the Achilles heel of ‘liberal democracies’ which has meant it might now slowly all be coming unstuck.
Certainly there are many ‘understandings’ and ‘interpretations’ of what living in a ‘liberal democracy’ entails, but I suggest one of its prime and essential principles is that ‘all votes are of equal value’ – everyone has a say not matter what they believe politically and to which mast they nail their flag.
A liberal democrat – note, small ‘l’ and small ‘d’ – will assure you, because for her or him it is axiomatic, that no ‘intelligent’ and ‘rational’ man or woman would ever not subscribe to the ‘broad range of liberal democratic values’. It’s as obvious was wiping your bum after taking a dump.
‘Yes,’ our liberal democrat will carry on in the manner of an Anglican / Episcopalian clergyman hoping to persuade you that ‘the church’ is now very broadminded and long ago divested itself of its former reactionary tendencies, ‘there is a broad range of values in a liberal democracy, raging from those espoused by – presumably intelligent and rational – Conservatives to those espoused by – presumably intelligent and rational – Left-of-centre socialist to those.’
It all again ends with a ringing chorus of ‘rejoice, rejoice for we are all in this together’. The exceptionally irritating might even repeat the, by now distinctly clichéd line, ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,’ apparently misattributed to Voltaire. That sentiment, they believe, proves how exceptional broadminded they are.
But things seem to be changing, and the – I’ll say it – complacent to downright smug confidence of card-carrying liberal democrat’s is increasingly taking a battering.
A case in point might be – though this is my interpretation – the conviction of Hillary Clinton and the Democrats in the 2016 US presidential election that no one in his or her right mind would elect a total fraudulent buffoon like Donald Trump.
But they did and did so again eight years later in November 2024.
Here in Britain there seems – to me – to have been a similar smug complacency in play in the June 23, 2016, Brexit referendum: no one but no one in her or his right mind, our assorted bien pensant believed, would ever vote to leave the European Union!
But they did – as in a British majority did, Northern Ireland and Scotland overall voted to Remain – and the UK left, to its own demonstrable economic detriment.
As I say, things are changing and the tide of ‘liberal democracy’ worldwide seems now to be on its way out to sea
Here in Britain there seems a very real prospect of the Conservative Party (the Tories) the hitherto traditional home of those who identify politically as ‘conservative being eclipsed by Reform UK, now led by that disreputable carpetbagger Nigel Farage (right, doing his bit for the cancer industry).
But I shall not here delve any further into what seems to be going on as it would be yet another detour and I must, must, must avoid though.
Pertinently, though, is that where the Conservative Party likes to tout itself as a ‘broad church’ and can comfortably encompass those on the ‘not too far right’ as well as what were once referred to as One-Nation Tories, bods who had a social conscience, Reform UK nakedly and proudly parades its intolerances of pretty much everything.
Nothing new there, that a far-right party should do that, but Reform UK is gaining widespread voter support, drawing support not just from the Tory Party but, apparently, from former Labour supporters. And – that Achilles heel again – those who dress towards ‘liberal democracy’ where every vote counts must lump it. There is fuck-all they can do about it.
Cross the Atlantic and examine the situation in the United States: the far-right is most certainly on the rise there and although Trump’s bizarre behaviour seems to be alienating increasingly many independents (upon whose votes he will have to rely), it would seem his core support his still holding firm.
Thus his extraordinary programme of deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to Democrat states, ostensibly to round out ‘illegal aliens’ but certainly intended to intimidate the folk who live there is proceeding with impunity.
And it is not an exaggeration to point out those ICE agents (two pictured here) have had almost no training and seem to have been recruited from the several far-right white supremacist gangs who turned out in DC on January 6, 2021, at Trump’s behest to ‘stop the steal’.
Worse than that, they seem to have absolute immunity for any of their actions, which now include the extra-judicial killing of a female protester, with the Trump administration claiming the death was justified because she was a ‘domestic terrorist’ who had attacked the ICE agent who shot her dead.
Further afield, the far-right is on the rise – as in ‘liberal democracy’ and its values are in retreat – in many other countries, from Germany, France, The Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czechia, Sweden, Denmark and Italy.
Pertinently, though, is that where the Conservative Party likes to tout itself as a ‘broad church’ and can comfortably encompass those on the ‘not too far right’ as well as what were once referred to as One-Nation Tories, bods who had a social conscience, Reform UK nakedly and proudly parades its intolerances of pretty much everything.
Nothing new there, that a far-right party should do that, but Reform UK is gaining widespread voter support, drawing support not just from the Tory Party but, apparently, from former Labour supporters. And – that Achilles heel again – those who dress towards ‘liberal democracy’ where every vote counts must lump it. There is fuck-all they can do about it.
Cross the Atlantic and examine the situation in the United States: the far-right is most certainly on the rise there and although Trump’s bizarre behaviour seems to be alienating increasingly many independents (upon whose votes he will have to rely), it would seem his core support his still holding firm.
Thus his extraordinary programme of deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to Democrat states, ostensibly to round out ‘illegal aliens’ but certainly intended to intimidate the folk who live there is proceeding with impunity.
 |
Two undoubtedly patriotic ICE agents serving their country and keeping it free of nasty free-loading foreigners, though their prime means of doing that seems to be stuffing their faces with burgers and hot dogs – you don’t get to be that fat by chance alone |
And it is not an exaggeration to point out those ICE agents (two pictured here) have had almost no training and seem to have been recruited from the several far-right white supremacist gangs who turned out in DC on January 6, 2021, at Trump’s behest to ‘stop the steal’.
Worse than that, they seem to have absolute immunity for any of their actions, which now include the extra-judicial killing of a female protester, with the Trump administration claiming the death was justified because she was a ‘domestic terrorist’ who had attacked the ICE agent who shot her dead.
Further afield, the far-right is on the rise – as in ‘liberal democracy’ and its values are in retreat – in many other countries, from Germany, France, The Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czechia, Sweden, Denmark and Italy.
I can’t speak for the Near, Mid and Far East as I don’t know enough about their affairs, except to say that many were never ‘liberal democracies’ in the first place – try Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar.
It is all very odd. There is a firm belief that ‘history’ is essentially a slow progress towards enlightenment. The belief began in the Enlightenment itself (cap E) two and a half centuries and has, to use a clumsy phrase, ‘ruled the roost’ ever since: it is summed up in the word ‘progress’.
The obvious objection, however, is that ‘progress’ and what is ‘progress’ is is as clear as mud – you pays your money and you makes yours choice.
A good example might be our attitudes to male and female homosexuality. In many countries, same-sex marriage is not just legal but now well-established can commonplace, and the ‘liberal democrat’ cheers. But is that ‘progress’?
Well, yes it is ‘progress’ if ‘progress’ is understood simply to mean a development; and ‘developments’ are morally neither here nor there. It is us who declare them to be ‘a good thing’ or ‘a bad thing’, yet for many the notion of ‘progress’ (as in ‘social progress’) a priori ‘a good thing’. Is it really? Says who?
. . .
It is all very odd. There is a firm belief that ‘history’ is essentially a slow progress towards enlightenment. The belief began in the Enlightenment itself (cap E) two and a half centuries and has, to use a clumsy phrase, ‘ruled the roost’ ever since: it is summed up in the word ‘progress’.
The obvious objection, however, is that ‘progress’ and what is ‘progress’ is is as clear as mud – you pays your money and you makes yours choice.
A good example might be our attitudes to male and female homosexuality. In many countries, same-sex marriage is not just legal but now well-established can commonplace, and the ‘liberal democrat’ cheers. But is that ‘progress’?
Well, yes it is ‘progress’ if ‘progress’ is understood simply to mean a development; and ‘developments’ are morally neither here nor there. It is us who declare them to be ‘a good thing’ or ‘a bad thing’, yet for many the notion of ‘progress’ (as in ‘social progress’) a priori ‘a good thing’. Is it really? Says who?
And thus we are back to the dilemma faced by all moral philosophers that there is no ‘fixed point’, no universal absolute imperative.
Is ‘progress’ a ‘good thing’? I am not going to answer that question because I don’t think there is one, just as there is no answer to the question ‘how long is a piece of string’.
You needn’t fret, however, because there will be several thousand folk out there only too happy to provide you with an answer and while they have your attention, equally as happy to lecture you as nauseam about many other moral questions.
Me? That’s not really my bag.
Is ‘progress’ a ‘good thing’? I am not going to answer that question because I don’t think there is one, just as there is no answer to the question ‘how long is a piece of string’.
You needn’t fret, however, because there will be several thousand folk out there only too happy to provide you with an answer and while they have your attention, equally as happy to lecture you as nauseam about many other moral questions.
Me? That’s not really my bag.
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