tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91728511508199126722024-03-13T08:33:12.238-07:00Guerilla PhilosophyGuerilla Philosophy: spreading confusion, chaos, and instability through the use of reason and rational argument. PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-21655939091396186072016-11-19T07:55:00.000-08:002016-11-20T02:39:52.981-08:00Who's Angry Now?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">A conversation I had with members of my
family in the late 1980s has become vivid in my mind over recent weeks. We were
living through the height of Thatcherism, when the right had a seemingly
unshakeable grasp on politics and culture, a period when the gains of progressive
politics were under attack. My relatives wanted to ride this wave of reaction
and see the death penalty restored. They were confident Margaret Thatcher would
make this happen for them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I took a deep breath and argued with them
coolly and reasonably. But what I told them was that even under such a
government, our political leaders would not dare to bring back the death
penalty, because they knew it would unleash a level of fury amongst the
population that would rock the foundations of society – people would rise up in
opposition, and that opposition would know no bounds.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">My basic message was: if you think <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you’re</i> angry, bring back the death
penalty and I’ll show you what anger looks like.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">They were taken aback, because they really
did think all the anger was on their side, and that the ‘woolly liberals’ they
opposed had no emotion invested in any of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">their</i>
politics. They seemed to have no idea of the depth of passion their opponents
might have in their commitment to certain fundamental values.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">One of the characterisations of the Brexit
campaign is that while the Remain side used reason and evidence to make their
case, the Leave campaign appealed to people’s emotions, specifically to a level
of resentment and anger about immigration and the remoteness of government. All
the anger, so the story goes, was on the Leave side.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In fact there were appeals to reason and
emotion on both sides, but undoubtedly many supporters of Brexit were irrationally
angry with people who were not like them. The polling evidence shows that the
majority of Brexiters also disliked feminism, multiculturalism and
environmentalism. The dominant narrative seeking to explain the Referendum
result has been that large sections of the electorate felt that they were ‘left
behind’, and I think this is true, but not in the sense meant by that explanation.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">These people <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">had</i> been left behind, but not only by economic factors to do with
globalisation, but also by political progress. Their reactionary world view – framed
by misogyny, homophobia and racism – was not being listened to anymore. It had
been squeezed out of politics, as even the Conservative Party under David
Cameron sought to divest itself of its ‘nasty’ elements, and out of popular
media and culture as well. The dramatic rise in hate crime post June 23<sup>rd</sup>
provides evidence for this reading of the ‘left behind’ narrative, as many
people felt liberated to openly express their prejudice against those they saw
as ‘strangers’ in their midst.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">To characterise this form of anger as only
a symptom of economic marginalisation is to suggest that if such people had
prospered under the neoliberal order these attitudes would have disappeared. But
recent events have shown us what was always beneath the surface. The racism,
sexism and homophobia we are seeing have not been <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">caused</i> by the Referendum – they were already there, waiting for a
cause to unite behind, and Cameron, unwittingly, supplied them with one. While
some sections of the liberal media and political class may be surprised by
their re-appearance, for other sections of the community these prejudices never
went away – they were not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> far
below the surface and those communities have had to deal with them close up for
decades.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Donald Trump’s victory in the US Presidential
Election and the rise of the alt-Right tells the same story, not of the
economically left-behind but of those who felt excluded from power, influence
and significance during eight years of a black Democrat President. This is a
politics of resentment, in Nietzsche’s sense of a grudge-filled hatred, and the
misogyny, homophobia and racism during the Trump campaign and since his victory
tell us what to expect in the coming months and years – not an attack on
globalisation, but an attack on whatever gains progressive politics has made
over the past few decades. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">We now realise how fragile those gains
were, how the politics of hate many naively thought had been defeated had never
gone away, and how powerful those who champion that politics now believe
themselves to be – and how far they may be prepared to go. We also realise the
weakness of explaining reactionary prejudice in terms of economic deprivation,
as a good slice of the American population who are doing very well threw
themselves behind Trump with enthusiasm, and there is little doubt that the wealthy
political elite behind Trump actively share those prejudices rather than simply
exploit them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So how do we fight back? We must not lose
our commitment to rational argument and evidence as it is this that marks us
out, but we have seen that they are of limited use against reactionary
resentment. There are two others things we must do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The first is simply to learn once and for
all that victories in progressive politics are always fragile, that tolerance
has never been a dominating characteristic of British political and social
life, and that these gains always need to be actively defended. What we have
here is not a radical fracture with the past, but the continuation of a long
struggle that stretches back through our collective history.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Throughout that history there has always been
only a very thin layer of Enlightenment which a small part of the population
bought into. When it comes to political progress, the truth is that a large
section of the British people were left untouched by the liberal consensus
around gender equality, gay rights and multiculturalism which emerged over the
decades.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But the second thing we must do is remember
that the gains progressive politics made over the decades, or further back in
the United Kingdom’s history, were never achieved through rational argument and
evidence alone. Those victories were won by angry people. Those of us who
campaigned against racism, sexism, imperialism, for gay rights, rarely did so
through trying to reason with our opponents – we marched, we shouted, we
picketed, we demonstrated and sometimes we rioted.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">That is why that conversation all those
years ago has come back to me. Although I kept my cool, I remember the deep,
incandescent rage I felt inside that enabled me to draw a clear line which my
opponents crossed at their peril. I feel that same rage now.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And so those of us who believe in equality
and justice for all people wherever they are in the world and whatever their
history have to rediscover our anger and our passion, to push back against the
politics of resentment. We must remember that we and our predecessors only won
our battles against reactionary politics through passion, commitment and a
burning anger at injustice. It’s time to bite back.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-35527481451684118852015-04-26T10:41:00.001-07:002015-04-26T10:41:57.487-07:00The Heart of Darkness: Europe’s Response to Migrant Tragedy in the Mediterranean
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In her column in the Sun newspaper on April 17<sup>th</sup> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Katie Hopkins described migrants
attempting to cross the Mediterranean as cockroaches and suggested using
gunboats to tow the boats back and burning them (presumably once the migrants had
disembarked), and indeed, in an interview on LBC the next day she suggested
burning all the boats in North Africa.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She has been subjected to much ridicule for these comments,
but, apart from the comparison with cockroaches, it is hard to see much of a
gap between her hate-filled comments and the response of the European Union
with its ten-point plan to the crisis that is unfolding (http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-4813_en.htm).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That plan includes a “systematic effort to capture and
destroy vessels used by the smugglers.” The statement refers to the success of
the EU’s Atalanta Operation, which “should inspire us to similar operations
against smugglers in the Mediterranean.” (<a href="http://eunavfor.eu/mission/">http://eunavfor.eu/mission/</a>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Atalanta Operation was aimed to counter piracy off the
coast of Somalia (<a href="http://eunavfor.eu/mission/">http://eunavfor.eu/mission/</a>),
and included arrests of pirates and destruction of boats. The ‘Migrants at Sea’
blog points out, however, that operations against piracy have a clear
foundation in international law, but similar operations against people smuggling
have no such foundation and so may not get the UN mandate they would require (<a href="http://migrantsatsea.org/">http://migrantsatsea.org/</a>).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other proposed measures include expanding the area of
Frontex’s Triton operation, presumably so boats will be intercepted closer to
the African coast rather than in European waters, and to work with countries
around Libya, including deploying immigration liaison officers. The effort
seems to be to strengthen the ‘border’ between Europe and North Africa and prevent
migrants from taking to the sea at all, or if they do, intercepting them as
soon as possible and towing them back.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is the offer of 5,000 resettlement places for migrants
who qualify for protection, but that is alongside proposals to fingerprint all
migrants and for Frontex to establish a rapid return programme for those deemed
to be ‘illegal’.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 5,000 figure has to be set against the call from the UN
special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Francois Crepeau, for the
wealthy world to agree to take one million refugees from Syria over the next
five years (Guardian, April 23). Rather than make it harder for desperate
people to escape conditions in North Africa and the Middle East, especially
Syria, Europe should make it easier and establish and support safe routes. That
way “you reduce the number of deaths, you reduce the smuggling business model,
and you reduce the cost of asylum.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This alternative model, however, is unlikely to play to the
ears of European governments, especially in the United Kingdom during a general
election, where the Katie Hopkins view is not obviously unpopular with the
general population. It has been pointed out that comparing the people
attempting to reach Europe to cockroaches is reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s characterization
of Jewish people and others deemed ‘undesirable’ as vermin. Zoe Williams in the
Guardian says Hopkins’ column “recalls the darkest events in history”, and she reminds
us of the genocide in Rwanda where the Tutsis were similarly described as cockroaches
(http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/19/katie-hopkins-migrants-vermin-darkest-history-drownings).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But whatever we think of Katie Hopkins and the Sun newspaper
that published her ‘thoughts’, the fact that the European Union’s response is
almost identical to her policy proposals should make us wonder whether the
political atmosphere around migration and refugees in Europe as a whole means
that the continent has in fact<a href="" name="_GoBack"></a> journeyed to the heart of
darkness.</span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-17422332237603847312014-06-10T06:00:00.001-07:002014-06-10T06:00:10.146-07:00How to create 'British' values<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">The process of creating a national identity consisting of 'British' values has two creative elements which result in a work of fiction. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">The first is the construction of a set of values that all members of the 'nation' are taken to share such that they have a crucial <i>sameness</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">, setting aside the fact they do not all share these values. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">The second is the claim that national ‘others’ cannot share those values because they are <i>different</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">, again setting aside the fact that these values are widespread beyond the national border. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Just as members of the nation create a fictional account of themselves, they create a fictional account of others – it is, importantly, a process of <i>exclusion </i>of the other who does not share 'our' values despite the fact that they do share them and that many members of our 'nation' do not.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">And we can also see that the members do not only create a fictional account of the past, they also create a fictional account of the present. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">The fabrication is of the presence or absence of others in the national history and the national here-and-now.</span></span>PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-58415030787233969952013-05-10T06:13:00.000-07:002013-05-10T06:16:11.136-07:00University lecturers as border guardsThis is the programme of a workshop being run by a private sector organisation to train university staff in how to police the UK's border. I am posting it up not in order to recruit for it, but just to show the extent to which border regulation is being farmed out to other sectors, including the Higher Education sector, and also to note the extent to which the private sector are exploiting this. Be warned -- this is depressing:<br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">As I am sure you are aware, your institution has a
responsibility to prevent illegal working, provide evidence of an employee’s
Right to Work and comply fully with UKBA regulations. The failure to do so can
lead to punitive fines and a removal of your licence to hire migrant workers.
It is also vital that academic institutions vigorously check their overseas
students documents and academic records. Sponsoring students who hold fake
passports, visas and educational certificates opens your organisation to wealth
of potential problems that could result following any UKBA audit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">BFI’s Document Verification Workshop for Universities,
Schools & Colleges will provide Admissions and HR teams with practical,
hands-on training in recognising fraudulent documents; enabling attendees to
get to grips with the legal responsibilities surrounding document verification
for applicants: staff & students, spotting fake qualifications and ID
documents, giving each delegate the chance to handle and compare fake and real
examples.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><b>Highlights include:</b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><b>Legal overview of institution’s responsibilities;</b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">* UKBA regulation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">* Discrimination<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">* Data protection<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><b>Combating education fraud;</b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">* What countries and agencies to watch out for<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">* Real life examples of fake degrees and diplomas<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><b>Masterclass in identity checks;</b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">* Passports<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">* Photo ID and driving licenses<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">* Birth certificates<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">* Supporting documents<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">* Stamps<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">* Visas</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><b>Agenda</b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">0930 Coffee & Registration</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">0950 Chairman’s welcome & introduction to the day</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;"><b>1000 DOCUMENT VERIFICATION: WHAT ARE YOUR LEGAL
RESPONSIBILITIES WHEN EMPLOYING STAFF & SPONSORING STUDENTS?</b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* What are the consequences of getting document verification
wrong?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Understanding your obligations to prevent illegal working
in the UK under the Immigration, Asylum & Nationality Act 2006.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Right to work – what documents do you need to see and
retain?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* What are the responsibilities of the employer regarding
ongoing checks?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Working within the law: avoiding contravention of
discrimination legislation</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Issues around recording and storing data that you must be
aware of</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">1100 Coffee Break</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;"><b>1115 COMBATING EDUCATION FRAUD: WHAT MUST YOUR
ORGANISATION BE LOOKING OUT FOR?</b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">This hands-on session will allow you to bring your policy
questions directly to an education fraud expert and handle example fake
documents ensuring that your staff members are fully equipped to recognise
fraud.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Demonstrating compliance: are your staff members able to
recognise fraudulent documents?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Avoiding pitfalls in your admissions policy</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Dealing with particular countries & agencies</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Spotting fake degrees: what red flags should you be looking
out for?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Practical examples of fraudulent documents</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* English language requirements</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Which agencies can help you?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">1245 Lunch</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;"><b>1345 MASTERCLASS - CHECKING IDENTITY: RECOGNISING
FRAUDULENT DOCUMENTS</b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Identity; attributed, biographical, biometric and chosen</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Do you know what to look for?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Common scams to be aware of</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* What to do when you spot an irregularity</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Passports</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Photo ID and driving licenses</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Birth certificates</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Supporting documents</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Stamps</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Visas</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Cross-referencing with other data</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* How to proceed if you discover inconsistencies</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Addressing concerns directly with candidates – possible
pitfalls</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Establishing and integrating secure documents and identity
verification processes</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* How easy is it to miss a forged document?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* What are the areas we should look at for verification?</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Live examples of fraudulent documentation</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Comparisons of real and fake documents</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 15.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">* Counterfeits and forgeries</span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-12752503904461399412013-05-03T05:58:00.004-07:002013-05-04T05:09:20.403-07:00UKIP and the seductive power of Heimat<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">UKIP and the
seductive power of ‘Heimat’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">The surge of UKIP
in this week’s local elections, and the influence they may have on where
political power lies in the future, has shaken the political establishment. But
why are people attracted to the party? What message is being sent out by the
voters who support it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Clearly it is an
anti-immigrant vote. It is tempting to dismiss them as Moe Szyslaks:
“Immigants! I knew it was them! Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them”
(<i>The Simpsons: Much ado about Apu).<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">But there is
something else happening, perhaps, that is reflected in UKIP’s popularity, a
mythological element, and UKIP reflect the power of myth. That is not only the
power of popular myths about immigration and its effects, but also deeper
mythologies, about what lies outside the boundaries of the nation and what lies
at its centre.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The mythology of
the ‘outside’ focuses on the immigrant is some kind of mythic threat, like a
vampire. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">That myth can take
various forms. For example, we have to protect ourselves from those who want to
over-consume liberal resources and drain the liberal state of its ability to
supply liberal goods -- the immigrant as a resource-sucking vampire, over here
to claim benefits, misuse the NHS, take our jobs and so on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Or we have to
protect our sense of community and identity from those who are so different
that they can’t be assimilated, and so would undermine the community solidarity
that we need for welfare institutions and democracy. Indeed, they may even have
the power to counter-assimilate members and change their identity, with their
strange customs and traditions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Or at the extreme
we need to protect ourselves from those who will bring with them disorder and
chaos -- the immigrant infects the liberal state with disorder, eventually
destroying it, the immigrant as a vampiric disease-carrier. They will bring
crime and violence with them, in the shape of gangsters and suicide bombers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">But note that this
mythic view of what lies outside the border rests on a mythic view of what lies
within it, that which needs protection. So what is it that needs to be
protected from the migrant?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">On the face of it,
our welfare services, traditions and communities need protection, but I think
there is something deeper here that UKIP appeal to, and the idea of ‘Heimat’
that we find in much European thought helps us understand this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">The idea of Heimat
is found in the German-speaking world. ‘Heimat’ is an extraordinarily complex
idea and I can’t hope to do it justice here, but it captures the feeling of
being at home, or, more accurately, is a reaction to the experience of <i>not</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> feeling at home. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">In other words,
‘Heimat’ is a reactive idea, a reaction against the fluidity and change
experienced under conditions of modernity, which result in alienation and a
feeling of lost-ness. Heimat is an idea of a place where one really belongs,
and so is an imaginary home set up against our experience of alienation. It is
essentially backward looking and nostalgic, and so it does not exist in the
present. But equally it does not exist in the past. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Although it is a
place, and exists in the past in one sense, it is not a place that has ever
existed. It is an imaginary place when things were, we are told, more innocent
and simple and stable: it is motion-less and change-less.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Elizabeth Boa and
Rachel Palfreyman tell us: “Key oppositions in the discourse of Heimat set
country against city, province against metropolis, tradition against modernity,
nature against artificiality, organic culture against civilization, fixed,
familiar, rooted identity against cosmopolitanism and hybridity, alien
otherness, or the faceless mass” (Elizabeth Boa and Rachel Palfreyman <i>Heimat:
a German dream – regional loyalties and national identity in German culture
1890-1990</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> (Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 2).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">This place of
Heimat is not open to rational criticism. When people say things were better in
the past, pointing out to them that this past has never actually existed – it
is an imaginary reaction to the present -- brings about no change in their
nostalgia. And although as an idea ‘Heimat’ has played a role in both right and
left politics in Germany, one key element of it is mistrust of the outsider,
whose presence is at least one cause of the loss of ‘Heimat’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Boa and Palfreyman
again: “Heimat must always be ultimately bounded and defined through visible or
hidden exclusion of the radically different and alien” (p.27). And: “Who must
be excluded and who can be integrated are as crucial to a community as who is
from the start included: a place is as much defined by its others as by the
self” (p. 28).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">And Peter Blickle
says: “… the idealization of a home ground in Heimat has led again and again to
borders of exclusion” (<i>Heimat: a critical theory of the German idea of
homeland</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> (Camden House, Rochester, NY, 2002), pp.
157-158).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">And so the
mistrust of motion and those who move is deeply embedded in the idea of
‘Heimat’. This mistrust certainly extends throughout European thought. Tim
Cresswell explains: “…the whole apparatus of state bureaucracy in most
countries has long depended on the notion that people should live, work, pay
taxes and vote in a fixed location, so that to be of no fixed abode is already
to be a suspicious character, and mobility itself comes to be seen as a form of
geographical deviance.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Mobility as
deviance comes from “the positive valuation of roots in a place-bound,
property-owning society…”, where “mobility…appears to be a kind of
superdeviance … [which] disturbs the whole notion that the world can be segregated
into clearly defined places … [and] becomes a basic form of disorder and chaos
– constantly defined as transgression and trespass.” (Tim Cresswell <i>Inplace/Out
of place</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> (University of Minnesota Press 1996) pp.
85-87).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">This mistrust of
motion certainly informed the anti-semitism of the German fascist movement.
Hitler said “…it is impossible that those who are at home everywhere [by which
he means the Jews] can know what Heimat is, because they do not have one.” And
we need to remember that this mistrust of motion and the mobile extends
throughout European thought. We have to keep reminding ourselves that the
anti-semitism that led to the Holocaust was European-wide, not confined the
Germany.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Although the idea
of Heimat is explicit in the German-speaking world and has no simple equivalent
in the English-speaking world, I have no doubt that it is present in the way we
think. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Patrick Wright’s
description of ‘Englishness’ in his article, “Last orders for the English
aborigine”, certainly fits the model. This Englishness “…finds its essence in
that sense of being opposed to the prevailing trends of the present. It’s a
perspective that allows even the most well-placed man of the world to imagine
himself a member of an endangered aboriginal minority: a freedom fighter
striking out against ‘alien’ values and the infernal workings of a usurping
state” (Patrick Wright, “Last orders for the English aborigine”, in Sally
Davison & Jonathan Rutherford (eds), <i>Race, Identity and Belonging: A
Soundings Collection</i></span><span lang="EN-US">, (London: Lawrence and
Wishart, 2008), p. 63)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">At its heart is an
idea of England “…in which the very thought of difference or change is
instantly identified with degeneration, corruption and death” (p.69).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">What we learn from
the idea of Heimat is that this is accompanied by a nostalgia for a lost
England which was a purer, more innocent place. The danger is, of course, that
people will struggle to restore this mythic purity, this mythic innocence, by
cleansing the nation of that which has corrupted it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">All the evidence
shows that the mythic idea of ‘Heimat’ is here, like a so-far-undetected black
hole, exerting enormous cultural power that can distort ethical and rational
principles. It is anti-theoretical, anti-intellectual. The facts will not get
in the way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">This presents
those of us who wish to confront anti-immigration politics with a very
difficult challenge. I have been in rooms of people who I consider to be
intelligent and well-informed, but who have been transformed into an irrational
rage when it comes to discussions of immigration, and who displayed a stubborn
refusal to even consider any empirical evidence on the question, and who
replied to my arguments with mythologies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">I have no answer
to this challenge here, except to alert those of us who do wish to pursue
evidence-based arguments to the seductive power of ‘Heimat’. But Patrick
Wright’s description of “an endangered aboriginal minority: a freedom fighter
striking out against ‘alien’ values and the infernal workings of a usurping
state” perfectly captures what is at the heart of UKIP and their appeal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US">The complexity of
that appeal lies in the fact that, although the migrant is the object of the
hostility, it is because they symbolize change, modernization, globalization,
all things that disrupt tradition and the sense of ‘home’ people carry with
them, an imaginary ‘home’ which never existed, and yet which must be defended
from change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
<!--EndFragment-->PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-53418028185984916642013-04-19T08:44:00.001-07:002013-06-27T07:04:45.449-07:00Speak no Evil? A Reply to Garrard and McNaughton<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">To download this paper:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">http://open.academia.edu/PhillipCole<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
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<span lang="EN-US"><b><u>A Defence of Evil Scepticism</u><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 3cm; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US">“Was I sleeping,
when the others suffered? Am I sleeping now?”, Samuel Becket, <i>Waiting for
Godot</i></span><span lang="EN-US">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Abstract<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 1cm; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US">In their paper,
“Speak no Evil?”, Eve Garrard and David McNaughton put forward challenging
criticisms of the position they describe as ‘Eliminativism’ and others have
called ‘Evil Scepticism’, the view that the idea of evil agency<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>should play no role in moral,
psychological or political theory. In this paper I defend Evil Scepticism from
those criticisms, and also examine their own positive argument, that a
phenomenological approach to the experience of moral horror points away from
scepticism and towards the need for a philosophical theory of evil agency. I
argue that Evil Scepticism is more robust than Garrard and McNaughton imagine,
and that it can give a highly plausible account of the experience of moral
horror without the need for a concept of evil agency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 1cm; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Part 1: Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US">In their paper,
“Speak no Evil?”, Eve Garrard and David McNaughton put forward challenging
criticisms of the position they describe as ‘Eliminativism’ and others have
called ‘Evil Scepticism’, the view that the idea of evil agency should play no
role in moral, psychological or political theory. They select my book <i>The
Myth of Evil</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> as the best philosophical statement of
that position<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><sup><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ii]<!--[endif]--></span></sup></a>,
and so their criticisms focus on my version of the argument. In this paper I
defend Evil Scepticism from those criticisms, and also examine their own
positive argument, that a phenomenological approach to the experience of moral
horror points away from scepticism and towards the need for a philosophical
theory of evil agency – Evil Scepticism is, they argue, an ‘error’ theory. This
is because we experience moral horror in the face of evil actions, and there
cannot be evil acts without evil agents -- as Evil Scepticism rejects the idea
of evil agency our experience of moral horror must always be a mistake. I argue
that Evil Scepticism is more robust than Garrard and McNaughton imagine, and
that, far from being an ‘error’ theory, it can give a highly plausible account
of the experience of moral horror without the need for a concept of evil
agency.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><sup><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iii]<!--[endif]--></span></sup></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
Part 2 of the paper I reply to their claim that that I make crucial logical and
moral errors in my version of Evil Scepticism. In Part 3, I consider their
phenomenological account of moral horror and their argument that it leads us
towards a theory of evil agency. I argue that Evil Scepticism can offer a
plausible account of our experience of moral horror, and so cannot be an
‘error’ theory in Part 4. And finally in Part 5, I argue that, far from Evil
Scepticism presenting us with a limited way of describing the world that leaves
out subtle and important detail, instead it presents us with the opportunity to
capture the complexities of human existence. It is those accounts of the world
of human experience that leave aside the idea of evil agency that reveal its
depth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Part 2: The Logical and Moral Objections<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US">In <i>The Myth of
Evil</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> I ask how we can explain why people do terrible
things to other people? I argue that the idea of evil agency fails to explain
this, and that it carries with it grave danger. It does so because it has its
source in mythology where the evil character has a narrative function, to block
the progress of the hero. Because such characters only have a narrative
function, they have no history, no motivation, and are not open to reason –
they are purely malignant monsters. This ‘monstrous’ conception of evil is to
be found in fiction, but has often erupted into human affairs causing enormous
damage. Garrard and McNaughton argue that there are two serious mistakes in my
account, the first logical, the second moral. The logical mistake is that I
focus on cases where the threat to the community is clearly imaginary – the
vampire epidemics in Eastern Europe, the witch trials in Western Europe, the
persecution of the Jews throughout European history but especially in Germany
in the first part of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. But Garrard and McNaughton
say nothing follows from this regarding <i>genuine</i></span><span lang="EN-US">
threats to people or communities: “…we can’t take the fact that there are
wrongful attributions of a property to show that there are no rightful ones.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>However,
it is wrong to suggest that I focus exclusively at this ‘weakest point’ of the
discourse of evil. I do discuss many cases where there is a genuine threat. The
book is filled with torturers and murderers as well as their victims. I devote
a whole chapter to Jon Venables and Robert Thomson, the killers of James
Bulger, as perpetrators of a terrible act. Throughout the book I discuss the
threat of ‘terrorism’, facing up to the realities of 9/11, 7/7, Madrid and the
Bali bombings. The argument is that placing that threat within the discourse of
evil agency leads to it being represented in ways that mislead and distort.
There is clearly a distinction between real threats and imaginary ones, but to
the extent that both are framed within the discourse of evil, they are both
misrepresented, and that misrepresentation can lead to a response that is
itself extremely dangerous and destructive. In the case of the ‘War on Terror’,
that response did, indeed, result in the destruction of a great many innocent
people, but there is nothing in the book to suggest that I was unaware of the
real threat posed suicide bombers of the type that hit New York, London, Madrid
and Bali. They, and other ‘terrorist’ groups, are very much to the fore in the
discussion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Most importantly there is a long chapter on the Holocaust in which I
face the most difficult challenge, of how we can understand the Nazis in the
absence of the idea of evil agency, and so to say that I focus only on cases
where evil is attributed to groups that clearly pose no threat is simply not
true. My argument is not, as Garrard and McNaughton suggest, the obviously
false claim that wrongful attributions of the idea of evil show that there are
no rightful ones. It is that the discourse of evil leads us to fail to
understand the genuine threats, and that is one of the most dangerous things about
it. I therefore do not accept that I make the logical mistake Garrard and
McNaughton describe. I can only leave it to readers of the book to judge which
of us is right about its content.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">I have a similar concern with the claim that I make a moral mistake.
Garrard and McNaughton argue that I “say nothing about the … view that the
Nazis themselves were evil.” Worse, my account reduces all threats to the
imaginary, such that there is a “cognitive and moral equivalence between the
hostile beliefs and concomitant fears experienced by the perpetrators of
murderous oppression, and those of their victims…”. This means my account
“trivializes and degrades the rational and justified apprehension felt by those
who foresee a terrible future.” All this could be avoided if I addressed cases
of “genuine and deadly threats…”, but then my account would be implausible
since “fears of those who genuinely wish to kill us cannot be understood as
projections of purely inner distresses.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">But, as I pointed out above, I do clearly address cases of genuine
and deadly threats in the book. The point, again, is that to understand these
threats in the context of the discourse of evil is to <i>misrepresent</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> them, in some cases to mythologize them, and so to misunderstand
them. There is nothing that I can detect in my account that means I cannot
distinguish between genuine and imaginary threats. Both cases, real and
imaginary, are misrepresented within the discourse of evil. To suppose this
compels me to hold that all threats are imaginary seems to me to be a logical
mistake.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Garrard and McNaughton claim I say nothing about the view that the
Nazis were themselves evil. However, I discuss that view at length in the
chapter on the Holocaust. The majority of that chapter is about how we should
understand the perpetrators, not how the perpetrators understood the victims.
There is a lengthy discussion of Hannah Arendt’s notion of the banality of evil
and how it could apply, or fail to apply, to the arch-Nazis; a similarly
lengthy discussion of the Browning/Goldhagen debate about the role of the
willing executioners; of Robert Jay Lifton’s account of the concentration camp
doctors who carried out the most appalling experiments on their victims,
including Joseph Mengele; and, most importantly, of Arendt’s discussion of
‘radical’, as opposed to ‘banal’, evil. The whole thrust of that chapter is to
put my theory to its most serious test. I argue that it is only by learning to
do <i>without</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> the idea of evil agency that we can
truly grasp the full horror of the Holocaust. Time and time again, it is
accounts of terrible events that avoid a focus on evil agency that reveal the
true depth of those events.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">The charge seems to be that I make my position plausible by focusing
exclusively on cases where evil has been attributed to agents who are obviously
entirely innocent, and completely ignore those hard cases where the attribution
of evil strikes us as eminently and urgently sensible. But I don’t read the
book in that way at all. It is run through with precisely those hard cases. I
think I test my theory at the limits of human conduct. Garrard and McNaughton
may feel that my theory fails those tests, but I find the claim I do not face
up to them curious. The discourse of evil constitutes people as threats where
they pose none, but also constitutes people who do pose real threats in a
misleading and distorting way. Both of these aspects are dangerous and I
explore both fully in the book. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Garrard and McNaughton suggest that I end up in the alleged ‘moral
equivalence’ position because of my reliance on psychoanalytic theory to
account for our fear of others.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iv]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
However, I don’t claim in the book that inner ‘psychic dreads’ account for <i>all</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> fear of others. I do say that they contribute to us constructing
‘monstrous’ conceptions of others in particular cases, in other words a
particular <i>kind</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> of fear. This is a complex story
and in the book I’m careful about what follows from it. I do conclude, though,
that this story can shed light on how we project certain fears upon the world,
perceiving dangers where none exist, and perceiving the dangers that do exist
in misleading ways. It doesn’t follow from my discussion that <i>all</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> fears are the result of this kind of projection. This isn’t to do
with whether the fear is based on a genuine threat or not, but whether we
construct ‘monsters’ out of those fears. It is specifically around this
construction of ‘monsters’ where I claim some aspects of the psychoanalytic
story can help. There is nothing in my arguments to suggest that, in fearing others,
we <i>always</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> construct monsters because of inner
psychic dreads. Sometimes, indeed often, we get it right: we correctly fear
others because of the genuine threat they pose, and we correctly identify them
and their motivations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">But does the ‘moral equivalence’ charge still follow? If we take
potential victims and potential perpetrators who see each other as evil agents
then Garrard and McNaughton argue that I hold them as morally equivalent, each
being equally, in a sense, reprehensible. Rather, Garrard and McNaughton point
out, they are morally very different. The victims’ perception of the
perpetrators as evil agents is based on genuine and well-founded fear, and may
well be helpful in enabling them to take action to defend themselves. The
latter point, though, is odd, in that it suggests my argument is that if the
victims don’t see their potential attackers in terms of evil agency, they won’t
be able to see them as a threat at all. In fact, we can correctly see our
potential attackers as extremely dangerous without understanding them in terms
of evil agency, and that may place us in a better position to protect ourselves
(in a sense, the basic message of the book). Again, we very often get it right.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[v]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">But the first point, that my account necessitates seeing both
perceptions of ‘evil agency’ as equally morally reprehensible, is more worrying
for me. Are victims of extreme violence doing anything <i>wrong</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> if they understand their attackers as evil agents? This is a very
difficult challenge. I hope I am as sensitive as possible to the perspective of
the victims of violence. I am not charging them at all with immorality, but if
the victims do characterize the aggressors as evil agents in the sense that
their evil character explains why they are carrying out the attack, then they
are making a mistake, under many circumstances a perfectly understandable one.
Ethically, it is not the same mistake as that of the perpetrators, but
conceptually it is. To perceive <i>anybody</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> in terms
of the myth of evil agency is a conceptual mistake (and sometimes an ethical
one). So if we’re taking a case of the <i>victim</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> of
a potential or actual attack who perceives that threat in terms of the myth of
evil, and perpetrator of the attack who perceives their victim in terms of that
myth, then I’m not claiming that there is a <i>moral</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> equivalence here. I am saying there’s a <i>conceptual</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> equivalence, but I think that is defensible. If the myth of evil
leads to a mistaken characterization of others as evil agents, in the sense
that their evil agency is an explanation of their acts, then it doesn’t make
any <i>conceptual</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> difference who is making the
mistake. The United States and United Kingdom were victims of horrendous
attacks, but it is still important to point out that characterizing their
attackers in terms of the myth of evil agency was a serious mistake. And that
conceptual mistake could, and in the case of the United States and the United
Kingdom did, have serious <i>ethical</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> consequences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Steven de Wijze has put an objection to me that I take very seriously.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[vi]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
What do I say in reply to people who have suffered terribly, such as Jewish
people under the Nazis, who describe what happened to them and the people who
did it to them as evil? Am I really going to say they have made a mistake of
any kind? I think this objection is different to that put forward by Garrard
and McNaughton – here we’re considering the concept of evil as a moral judgment
not an explanatory concept -- and my response is to it here is very quick and
does not do justice to the depth of de Wijze’s argument or his own account of
‘evil’. I hope to respond more fully elsewhere. But that response is to
recognize that they have identified an important moral truth. I discuss this in
the book when I explore Hannah Arendt’s thoughts about radical evil, drawing on
Richard Bernstein’s important work.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[vii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
So far as I have understood him, de Wijze argues for the validity of this kind
of judgment recognizing that there are actions which move “beyond a set of
moral boundaries which we have for … normal social interaction” in some extreme
form. I don’t think there is a great conceptual distance between us here. Where
I would urge caution is when people, in making that moral judgment, also claim
that this gives them an understanding of what has happened to them and an
understanding of the agents that made it happen. I am walking a tightrope in
recognizing the force of the moral judgment but resisting the claim that what
we have here is ‘understanding’, but I think I keep my balance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">In a sense, of course, describing acts and their agents as evil does
give us understanding of a sort. But, in another, crucial, sense, it is not to
understand them all – the judgment that the act or the agent was evil, does not
help us to understand the act or the agent in any deep and valuable way. It is
this <i>failure</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> to understand that is the basic
message of my book, and it is, in my view, centrally important, morally and
politically, that we grasp this failure, which is why the arguments in the book
are so urgent. To think that, through using the concept of evil, we have
characterized the agent, or given a psychological account of them, is a
mistake, and a profoundly dangerous one. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">If there’s an overall moral message in the book, it is that we need
to find ways of describing the world that do without the concept of evil
agency, because if we <i>do</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> include it we are
misconceptualizing the world and so misunderstanding it, and that
misconceptulization and misunderstanding can have deeply serious moral
consequences. Again, the basic message is that we can prevent or guard against
these terrible events if we understand them more clearly, and the concept of
evil agency prevents us from doing that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Part 3: Moral Horror<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US">Garrard and
McNaughton’s second criticism places moral horror at the centre of their
account. They argue that my account of Evil Scepticism is a kind of error
theory: given that there is no such thing as evil agency then there cannot be
evil acts, and therefore the moral horror we experience at the actions of
people who do terrible things must be an error, because moral horror as an
experience is closed tied to the concept of evil. But given the terrible things
people do, to claim that moral horror is always a mistaken response is
extremely implausible. My position would create a moral blindness, a moral
insensitivity, a cognitive as well as affective deficit. What a philosophical
theory of evil will do is make sense of this phenomenological experience of
moral horror. This is the useful work that a philosophical concept of evil contributes
to our understanding of the world: “it categorises together those acts to which
we respond with moral horror; the pressing task of a theory of evil is to
provide an account of what features it is of such actions that justify our
horror, and explain why they do so.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">On their account, part of the role of a theory of evil is to make
sense of our experience of moral horror. That is, of course, make <i>normative</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> sense of it, not psychological sense. Basically, the theory can
tell us when that response is appropriate or inappropriate: that is, when we
are genuinely confronted by something evil. The point is that we can make
mistakes – we can experience moral horror when we shouldn’t, and we can fail to
experience it when we should. That’s why the role of the theory is normative,
not psychological. For Garrard and McNaughton it is the theory of evil that
fills in the detail of the experience – the theory tells us that this is an
evil: without it, there would be no experience of moral horror. Moral horror is
a response to the evil that our theory identifies. “What the phenomenology
delivers is not that acts are evil because we find them horrifying; rather,
it’s that we find them horrifying because they are evil.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">That makes a lot of sense, and we can see some kind of reflective
equilibrium at work here as we work between our experiences of moral horror and
our theory of evil and make adjustments either way. Of course, the adjustment
can be radical. It may be that a whole range of things we experience moral horror
at are inappropriate – not evil. And it may be that our whole theory of evil is
wrong and we move to a new one. My thoughts go to the philosophy of science and
the relationship between theory and observation, and some kind of constructive
feedback loop between the two. Neither is dominant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Two claims seem to follow from this: first that we will not
experience moral horror without a theory, or at least a concept, of evil; and
second, that we cannot make normative sense of our experience of moral horror without
a theory of evil. The first claim may be too strong, and may not be one that
Garrard and McNaughton hold. The second claim, though, is the central core of
their approach. I take it, then, that they would hold that Evil Scepticism does
have space for the experience of moral horror, but can never make normative
sense of that experience – it is always some kind of ethical mistake. But I
want to suggest that not only do we not need a theory of evil in order to
experience moral horror, we don’t need a theory of evil to make normative sense
of it either. To make that claim I need to provide a short account of what I
take to be Evil Scepticism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Garrard and McNaughton pick out three different ways in which we use
the term ‘evil’: first, to refer to any bad state of affairs that exists in the
world; second, all wrongful actions whether serious or trivial; and third, “a
specially objectionable sub-class of wrongful actions…”. I would offer a
slightly fuller schema of ‘evil’ – it is used to refer to:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<ol start="1" style="line-height: 200%; margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US">The fundamental fact of the
existence of extreme human suffering in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US">The causes of that suffering,
which are either natural causes such as disease earthquakes and floods, or
human actions.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US">The human agents who carry out
those actions (setting aside the natural causes).<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US">The reasons, motivations,
character, dispositions to act, etc., which we take to explain why those
human agents carried out those actions.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US">So first we have
the evil of human suffering, second we have evil causes of suffering including
human actions, third we have evil agents, and fourth we have evil
characteristics or dispositions. It is at this fourth level we have evil as
explanation, and it is here that Garrard and McNaughton and others believe we
must construct our philosophical theory of evil: the focus of a philosophical
theory must be upon the characteristics or dispositions that lead agents to
carry out evil actions. It is important to note that the idea of evil as an <i>explanatory</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> concept makes no sense at the first two levels, and only makes <i>philosophical</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> sense at the fourth level. If we were to apply it as an explanatory
concept at the third level alone, with no reference to characteristics,
dispositions, etc., we would be trapped within the mythological discourse of
evil agency, where people do terrible things for no reason. Of course, if we do
not take ‘evil’ to be an explanatory concept, it <i>can</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> make philosophical sense at all four levels, but we need to be
clear in what sense we are using it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
take the position that it is the presence of human suffering in the world that
is the basic sense of evil: this presence of suffering, specifically the
suffering of innocents, is the classic problem of evil that theologians have
been struggling to account for throughout history. If we apply the concept of
evil at any of the other levels this use can only be derivative. It is that
derivation that Evil Sceptics object to – they would want to restrict the
concept of ‘evil’ to the basic sense. But philosophers of evil want to extend
the concept of evil to take in actions, human agents and their dispositions and
character, and they see this extension as legitimate, helpful, illuminating and
explanatory. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">But the Evil Sceptic sees illumination and explanation coming from
elsewhere. Their focus would be on the second level of my schema, but adding a
more sophisticated account of the causal conditions that help us understand how
dreadful events happen, what Garrard and McNaughton describe as social,
psychological, historical and neurological conditions, and I would add
political, economic and cultural conditions. This is to widen the second level
beyond a simple distinction between natural causes and human actions to take in
the social, political, economic, historical, cultural and psychological
complexities of the human condition – this is to take, if you like, a ‘realist’
position on social structures and their powers, and to recognize that they can
be the cause of human suffering and therefore sources of evil in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Once we have this more sophisticated understanding of the conditions
of suffering it is very hard to see what work the idea of ‘evil’ is doing
anywhere beyond the basic sense I described above. Garrard and McNaughton
provide an example from the conflict of the Congo: “a combatant who disembowelled
and dismembered his adversary, and forced the dead man’s wife to gather up the
dismembered body parts into a heap, on top of which he then raped her.” How can
something so dreadful happen? How can a human being do something so dreadful to
another human? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Their example comes from a report by Adam Hochschild, ‘The Rape of
the Congo’.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[viii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Towards the end of that report, Hochschild asks precisely that question, and
provides an account, talking of brutalized and exploited soldiers as well as
the complex and longstanding chaos in the Congo. He says: “… looking at people
I meet, even an entire encampment of gold miners who are almost all
ex-combatants, do I see those who look capable of killing hospital patients in
their beds, gang-raping a woman like Rebecca Kamate, jabbing a young man’s eye
with a bayonet? I do not.” He asks: “What turns such people into rapists,
sadists, killers? Greed, fear, demagogic leaders and their claim that such
violence is necessary for self-defense, seeing everyone around you doing the
same thing—and the fact that the rest of the world pays tragically little
attention to one of the great humanitarian catastrophes of our time.” The word
‘evil’ does not occur anywhere in the article. All I would add is the horror
arising from the use of child soldiers in the Congo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">So what do we say about this soldier? What does calling him ‘evil’
add to our understanding of what he did? Even in this extreme case, one that
fills me with moral horror, I am baffled as to what work the idea of ‘evil’ does
here. What light does it shed on this awful event? What do we learn from
applying the concept of evil <i>anywhere</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> here? For
Garrard and McNaughton, and other philosophers, the key point is that it plays
an <i>explanatory</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> role – not an exclusive one, but
alongside the other factors I’ve mentioned. But my suggestion is that this
explanatory sense of evil is both derivative and parasitic. It is derivative
because the fundamental sense of evil as the condition of human suffering does
all the conceptual work. It is parasitic because character or motivations or
reasons have explanatory force, along with the other background conditions, but
the suspicion is that the concept of evil is being given explanatory force by
attaching it to <i>something else</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> that has
explanatory force. This parasitic concept of evil adds nothing here. We can
eliminate it from the explanation. So my suggestion is that some of the
philosophical accounts of evil agency may be using the concept in this
derivative and parasitic way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Garrard attempts to show that the concept of evil is explanatory in
an earlier paper.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ix]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> There she
argues that the evil agent suffers a severe cognitive defect such that they are
blind to reasons against the action. They cannot see them. This explains how an
agent can perform an evil action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What we have is an “… account of evil … which identifies the evil act as
one in which the agent is impervious to reasons of the most conclusive kind
against his act, is therefore apt for figuring in an explanation of the act in
question.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn10" name="_ednref10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[x]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Saying the
act is evil will “amount to saying that the agent acted as he did because he
was blind to the reason-giving force of (for example) the suffering of his
victims – he just couldn’t see that as a reason for him to desist.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn11" name="_ednref11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xi]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
This explains why he performed this act – “because he couldn’t see that there
were overwhelming reasons against it…”.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn12" name="_ednref12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
“Because the proposed account of evil locates it in the agent’s motivational
state (that is, in the reasons he saw and failed to see), attributing evil to
an action will always partially explain why the agent performed the act, since
it will always reveal something about what the agent saw as reasons for acting,
and about what reasons he failed to discern altogether.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn13" name="_ednref13" style="mso-endnote-id: edn13;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xiii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">But this seems to me to be a derivative/parasitic account. We might
want to say: “This person is evil because they have a cognitive structure which
leads them to perform evil actions,” but while this is an interesting thing to
say, the concept of ‘evil’ in this sentence plays no explanatory role. The
cognitive structure has been identified as evil because of the actions and
their consequences that flow from it, and describing that cognitive structure
as ‘evil’ does not give the concept any degree of explanatory power. Garrard,
and others, offer sophisticated psychopathological accounts explaining why
people do dreadful things, but the concept of evil, despite their assertions of
the opposite, plays no useful role in their accounts at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Garrard and McNaughton argue that other moral concepts play an
explanatory role, and </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">that the
concept of evil “takes its place among the other moral concepts, both those
which are features of actions and also those which are features of
character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And these moral
concepts all figure quite naturally in our explanations of human actions and
reactions; indeed, we will be unable to adequately understand how our fellow
humans are behaving without some reference to virtues such as courage,
generosity, and honesty, or vices such as selfishness, cruelty, and hypocrisy.”
However, there are ways of understanding the role these moral concepts play in
our explanation without making them <i>causal</i></span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> concepts. </span><span lang="EN-US">Julia Tanney makes a distinction
between reason-explanation – to which these moral concepts belong --<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and causal-explanation, and argues that
we shouldn’t expect reason explanation to fit a psychological/scientific model
we expect of causal explanation. It is not an explanation of how an event came
to happen, but one that characterizes it as a particular kind of action, a
context-placing explanation. This is part of a Wittgensteinian approach that
says we are not looking for psychological depth when we use those terms as
explanations, and if we are talking about concepts such as courage, honesty,
generosity, etc., I think this must be right. We are certainly not looking for
deep cognitive structures that correspond to these moral characteristics, such
that they can act as explanations for action in that causal sense.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn14" name="_ednref14" style="mso-endnote-id: edn14;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xiv]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">If reason-explanations are not meant as causal, and if the explanations
the philosophers of evil are using the concept to construct are not meant to be
causal, then my objection falls. But I read Garrard in particular as putting
forward a causal account and looking for psychological depth, as she works the
concept of ‘evil’ into a complex psychopathology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The question, then, is whether we can do both things: have
‘evil’ as an explanatory concept like the other moral concepts Garrard and
McNaughton refer to, and have it play a causal role in a deep
psychopathological account of the type Garrard offers in her other work. My
intuition here is that we cannot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Part 4: The Phenomenological Objection<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US">But the
phenomenological challenge remains. Can Evil Scepticism make normative sense of
our experience of moral horror, or is it really an ‘error’ theory? I will offer
a strong response to that challenge but will acknowledge that there is a weaker
one available. The strong response is that, not only do we not need a theory of
evil to experience moral horror, we do not need one to make normative sense of
it. Evil Scepticism is therefore not an error theory and can make normative
sense of our moral horror. The moral horror I experience is two-fold: first
that such dreadful suffering is possible at all, and second that it lies beyond
our powers to prevent it. It is our <i>failure</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> to
prevent it that horrifies me most, a failure that fills me with the moral
despair I take to be a part of the phenomenological experience of moral horror.
Such an account is not, as Garrard and McNaughton seem to imply, a logical
impossibility – and more than that, it strikes me as being a plausible
possibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Some might be happier with a weaker response: that while we do not
need a theory of evil in order to experience moral horror, we do need one to
make normative sense of it. Notice, though, that there is space within Evil
Scepticism for such a theory. Garrard and McNaughton make it clear that what
Evil Sceptics are concerned with is the extension of the concept of evil to
human agency. But that means the basic concept of evil remains, and it may be
possible to construct a theory of evil around the existence of dreadful
suffering and the conditions that make it possible. Such a theory that can do
all the work that Garrard and McNaughton want from a theory of evil without
extending the concept to human agency. Again, this is not a logical
impossibility, and has some degree of plausibility. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">In fact there is not that much of a gap between the strong response
and the weaker one, if we allow that all we might need in order to make
normative sense of the world is not a ‘theory’, but a concept of evil, an idea
of what it amounts to. I go back to the basic idea of evil as the presence of
human suffering in the world. With that basic idea and our understanding of the
social, political, economic, historical, cultural and psychological
complexities of the human condition that make such suffering possible, we may
have all we need. What a philosophical theory of evil then amounts to is an
ethical account of those conditions and their relationship with human
suffering, and a political programme for making sure that those conditions do
not occur, or if they do that we respond to them appropriately. What we have
abandoned here is any claim that the concept of ‘evil’ explains why suffering
exists in the world or why people do the dreadful things they do. It does not
have a role to play in a philosophical illumination of the world. If the role
of philosophy is to illuminate, not obscure, the world, this amounts to the
abandonment of the philosophy, as well as the mythology, of evil.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Part 5: Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US">As philosophers we
have to be aware of the origins of concepts. Evil is a concept that has its
roots in mythology. There it has a narrative role in story-telling that we can
still see in fiction – the character who has no history, no motivation, no
background story, but who desires our destruction for its own sake and for no
other goal, and against whom the only protection is their destruction. This
gives us a way of understanding what is happening in the fictional story. The
danger is that this narrative role can move from myth and fiction into reality,
and so give us the illusion that we have understood actual events and people in
the world. This, I have argued in my book, is extremely dangerous but also
extremely common. Throughout human history it has been used to mark out people
for destruction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
leads me to ask why moral theorists would want to conserve the concept of evil.
The answer has to be because they believe it helps us to illuminate the moral
universe, but they are profoundly wrong about that. It darkens and distorts
that universe. It is those accounts that set aside the idea of evil agency that
reveal true moral depth and meaning. Of course, moral theorists don’t want to
conserve the concept in the destructive, mythical sense, but in that case they
have to understand that they are doing something new – they are not, in their
theories of evil, simply reviving a concept that has been around in our moral
conscience, or clarifying an idea that people have used throughout history.
They are creating new concepts of evil, changing the meaning of the term,
presenting ideas of it that people have never held before. The fact is that
when the vast majority of people use the concept of evil, they mean it in the
mythological sense that I warn against in my book. That is, of course, not
unusual, but we as philosophers need to be aware that we are walking in the
hinterland between philosophy and mythology here, and those of us who wish
abandon the idea of evil agency want to do so partly because we want to set
ourselves free from mythology and do philosophy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">The question, in the end, is the one asked by Nietzsche: why do
people want to categorize others as evil?<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn15" name="_ednref15" style="mso-endnote-id: edn15;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xv]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Of course, Nietzsche’s answer is a psychological one based around the idea of <i>ressentiment</i></span><span lang="EN-US">, that grudge-filled hatred that leads us to want to see others
destroyed. I don’t attribute that motive to moral theorists, but we still have
to ask them why they want to develop a theory that enables us to categorize
other human beings as evil? Of course we have already heard the answer: because
this will illuminate the world for us. But there is a supplementary question
here which is this: once they have a theory that enables them to characterize
other human beings as evil agents, what do they want to <i>happen</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> to them? One answer may be that they don’t want <i>anything</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> to happen to them – it’s not for moral theorists to answer <i>that</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> question (perhaps like the scientists who helped create nuclear
weapons). But moral theory is <i>all about</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> what
happens to people. It can’t be about anything else. So the question they have
to answer is: what should happen to ‘evil’ people? To suppose that we as
philosophers can construct moral theories that categorize people as evil and
set aside the question of what society should do to these people strikes me as
morally irresponsible.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn16" name="_ednref16" style="mso-endnote-id: edn16;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xvi]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Of course, we may not want their destruction, but how do we avoid
it? I described the contents of moral horror as I understand it as two-fold:
first, how can one human being cause such suffering to another? Second, how can
we allow this degree of suffering to happen? It is that second aspect that is
important to us. We are saying, with all our moral conscience, that such events
should not be allowed to happen and that we must do everything in our power to
prevent them. That is why evil is an apt description of extreme human
suffering, suffering we can’t imagine enduring. But in a sense, our concept of
‘evil’ here is still destructive, in that we want to abolish the conditions
that make such suffering possible. We want to stamp them out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">When it comes to the natural, political, economic and social
conditions that make such suffering possible, that destruction is a noble aim –
we want to eliminate disease, poverty, oppression. But what happens when we
extend this idea of ‘evil’ to include human agents? Human agents who, some
argue, have a character that cannot be changed? We can still say we want to
abolish the conditions that make such characters emerge, but what of those who
have emerged with those characteristics, and who, we think, are beyond reform
and redemption? What do we think should happen to <i>them</i></span><span lang="EN-US">? We do not want them to exist, but there are two ways of ensuring
that they don’t, and the second way brings us right back to the destructive,
mythological aspect of the idea of evil. We cannot escape it. Or rather, we <i>must</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> escape it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
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</span>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]-->
<hr size="1" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> This is a response to a paper presented by Eve Garrard and David
McNaughton, “Speak No Evil?”, presented at “The Idea of Evil: Secular
Approaches” Mancept/Mancev conference, University of Manchester, November
22-23, 2012. I would like to thank Steven de Wijze for inviting me to reply to
the paper, and Eve Garrard and David McNaughton for their challenging paper.
That paper appeared in <i>Midwest Studies in Philosophy</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> 36.1 (2012), pp. 1 -- 17. My response here is to the paper that was
presented at the Mancept/Mancev conference. Thanks also to Gideon Calder and
Steven de Wijze for reading this paper and their helpful comments, despite
their disagreements with its contents.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> Phillip Cole, <i>The Myth of Evil</i></span><span lang="EN-US">
(Edinburgh and New York, Edinburgh University Press and Praeger, 2006). It is
worth observing that theoretical positions are often named by their opponents
and the fact is that I know of no ‘Eliminativist’ or ‘Evil Sceptic’ who has
described themselves in those terms. I do not use them anywhere in my book. The
danger of these labels is that the focus of concern is upon the idea of evil <i>agency</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> as an <i>explanatory</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> concept, and that
leaves a great deal of work for the concept of evil to do. For the purposes of
this paper I will accept ‘Evil Scepticism’ as a description of my position as
it is a clearer identifier than the term ‘Eliminativism’. But one challenge for
‘Evil Sceptics’ is to come up with a more accurate, but equally catchy, name
for their position.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> Their paper and this one can be seen as a debate between Evil
Scepticism and another approach that has been described as ‘Evil Revivalism’.
The latter points to a body of recent work that argues that the concept of evil
must be reclaimed by moral theory. The best examples of Evil Revivalism are
Garrard and McNaughton’s paper, and also see Eve Garrard,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Evil as an Explanatory Concept”, <i>Monist</i></span><span lang="EN-US">, April, Volume 85, Issue 2, 2002, pp. 320--336; Luke Russell, “He
Did It Because He Was Evil”, <i>American Philosophical Quarterly</i></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>46. 3, (2009), pp.
267-82, ”Dispositional Accounts of Evil Personhood”, <i>Philosophical Studies</i></span><span lang="EN-US">, Volume 149 (2009), pp. 231-250, and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Evil, Monsters and Dualism”, <i>Ethical Theory and Moral
Practice</i></span><span lang="EN-US">, Volume 13 (2010), pp. 45-58; and Paul
Formosa, “A Conception of Evil”, <i>Journal of Value Inquiry</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> 42.2 (2008), pp. 217-239,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>and “The Problems with Evil”, <i>Contemporary Political Theory</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> 7, no. 4 (2008), pp. 395-415. I do not wish to place all
philosophers who discuss the idea of evil in either the sceptic or revivalist
camp, and other important works in philosophical debates concerning evil that
transcend this distinction are Adam </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Morton,
<i>Evil</i></span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> (New York and London,
Routledge, 2006), and </span><span lang="EN-US">Richard Bernstein (2002), <i>Radical
Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> (Cambridge,
Polity Press, 2002). Other important scholars working in the field are Stephen
de Wijze, </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext;">“Defining Evil:
Insights from the Problem of ‘Dirty Hands’”, The Monist 85 (2002), pp. 210-38,
and “Recalibrating Steiner on Evil” in Stephen de Wijze, Mathew H. Kramer and
Ian Carter (eds.), <i>Hillel Steiner and the Anatomy of Justice</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext;"> (London, Routledge, 2009), pp. 214-232; </span><span lang="EN-US">and Gideon Calder whose work, at the time of writing, has not yet
been published. There is, therefore, a highly interesting field of work
developing around the philosophy of evil. I do not address the general field of
‘Evil Revivalism’ here, but have the narrower aim of giving a convincing
statement of Evil Scepticism against the highly interesting and challenging
objections presented by Garrard and McNaughton.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iv]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> See Cole, op. cit., chapter 5.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[v]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> The implication of Garrard and McNaughton’s argument here seems to
be that we can <i>only</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> recognize others as threats
through the concept of evil agency, an implication I’m sure they would reject.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn6" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[vi]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> In personal correspondence.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn7" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[vii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> See Cole, op. cit., pp. 239-241, and Richard Bernstein (2002), <i>Radical
Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> (Polity Press),
pp. 209-211.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn8" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[viii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> Adam Hochschild,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Rape
of the Congo,’ <i>New York Review of Books</i></span><span lang="EN-US">, July
15, 2009: <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/aug/13/rape-of-the-congo/?pagination=false">http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/aug/13/rape-of-the-congo/?pagination=false</a>
[accessed April 19, 2013].</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn9" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ix]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> Eve Garrard, op. cit.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn10" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref10" name="_edn10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[x]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> Garrard, op. cit, p. 332.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn11" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref11" name="_edn11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xi]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> Garrard, op. cit, p. 332.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn12" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref12" name="_edn12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> Garrard, op. cit, p. 332.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn13" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref13" name="_edn13" style="mso-endnote-id: edn13;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xiii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> Garrard, op. cit, pp. 332-333.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn14" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref14" name="_edn14" style="mso-endnote-id: edn14;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xiv]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> See Julia Tanney, “Reasons as non-causal, context-placing
explanations,” in Constantine Sandis, ed, <i>New Essays on the Explanation of
Behaviour</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn15" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref15" name="_edn15" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xv]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> See my discussion of Nietzsche in Cole, op. cit., pp. 77-84.<u style="font-weight: 800;"><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn16" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref16" name="_edn16" style="font-weight: 800; text-decoration: underline;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xvi]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> An honorable exception here is Mathew H. Kramer, <i>The Ethics of
Capital Punishment: a Philosophical Investigation of Evil and its Consequences</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011). However, his ‘purgative’
theory of punishment, where society has the right to purge itself of those
identified as evil through executing them, also serves as a warning to those of
us opposed to capital punishment, and shows why philosophers of evil must
address this question.<u style="font-weight: 800;"><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">
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<!--EndFragment-->PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-17170343747874607602012-12-18T08:39:00.002-08:002012-12-18T08:39:59.353-08:00The Immorality of Borders
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
The Immorality of Borders<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
My focus in this article is on a
specific problem concerning the protection of asylum seekers, refugees and
other migrants, and that is the tension between the framework of human rights
and international law that sets out their protections, and the sovereignty of
nation states who actively seek to undermine those protections. I’m not going
to distinguish particularly between different kinds of migrants because I’m not
sure that’s helpful. Part of my work has been on the right to health of
irregular or ‘illegal’ migrants, pointing out according to the international
conventions that the United Kingdom has signed up to, to refuse them access to
public health care is a violation of their human rights. Anybody within the
national territory falls under the protection of the framework of human rights,
regardless of status. That’s what human rights are for – protecting humans, not
just protecting people with a particular status.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
But nation states
don’t see it that way – their sovereignty over their territory means they have
the right to control who crosses their borders. There is freedom of movement at
the international level but it’s very limited. Everybody has the right to <i>leave</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> any state, and citizens have a right to </span><i>return</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> to their own state. As Selya Benhabib points out,
Article 14 of the UDHR, the right to asylum, does set out a right to actually
cross a border as well, and Article 15 states that everyone has a right to a
nationality, such that they should not be arbitrarily deprived of their
nationality or denied the right to change it.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
The problem is
the clash between these international human rights regimes and national
sovereignty. Benhabib again: “… the Universal Declaration is silent on states’ <i>obligations</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> to grant entry to immigrants to uphold the right of
asylum, and to grant citizenship to residents and denizens. These rights have
no specific addressees and they do not appear to anchor </span><i>specific</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> obligations on the part of second and third parties
to comply with them. Despite the cross-border character of these rights, the
Declaration upholds the sovereignty of individual states. Thus, a series of
internal contradictions between universal human rights and territorial
sovereignty are built into the logic of the most comprehensive international
law document in the world.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
And so the current system places asylum seekers, refugees and residents seeking
nationality in a precarious position.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
There are many
ways in which states are over-riding their obligations and violating the rights
of migrants, but I’ll mention just two of them here now. One of them is
detention. <span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
number of migrants in detention in EU has increased from 30,000 to 50,000 in
past 10 years.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> The UK has
one of the largest immigration detention estates in Europe. From 2009 to the
end 0f 2011, between 2,000 and 3,000 migrants were in detention at any given
time. Around 27,000 people were put in detention in 2011 – that figure has been
around that for the last three years. The most common category of immigration
detainees is people who have sought asylum in the UK. In 2011 that was 50% of
the total immigration detainee population. The Migration Observatory at Oxford
University has estimated that the Campsfield House IRC costs about £8.5 million
a year to run.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iv]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The conditions under which
migrants are detained have been a cause of great concern. In April and May
2004, Bail for Immigration Detainees employed a doctor from MSF UK to carry out
medical assessments of 13 adults and three children under detention. The key
findings were: mental health problems in eleven of the 13 detainees, features
of post-traumatic stress in nine of them, and more serious conditions such as
self-harm and suicide attempts. There was also a range of medical conditions in
12 of the 13 adults that should have been receiving medical attention, such as
a breast lump, and symptoms of TB, which were not being addressed by the health
staff at the IRC. The British Medical Journal has reported that, “detainees,
particularly those held for long periods, suffer from profound hopeless,
despair, and suicidal urges…”. The Institute of Race Relations recorded 16
self-inflicted deaths of those held in custody under the Immigration Act powers
in prisons and removal centres between 2002 and 2004.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[v]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
A report by Medical Justice, called <i>The Second Torture: the immigration
detention of torture survivors</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">, found that victims of torture are routinely held in
IRCs in breach of the government’s own rules.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[vi]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The second feature is the
externalization of immigration controls. In their recent report Amnesty
International point out that: “Over the last decade, European countries have
increasingly sought to prevent people from reaching Europe by boat from Africa,
and have ‘externalized’ elements of their border and immigration control. Externalization
refers to a range of border control measures including measures implemented
outside the territory of the state – either in the territory of another state
or on the high seas. It also includes measures that shift responsibility for
preventing irregular migration into Europe from European countries to countries
of departure of transit.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[vii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Their study of the measures agreed between Italy and Libya leads them to
conclude that they “result in serious human rights violations.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[viii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
They argue that similar agreements between other European governments and north
and west African states, and between the EU as a while, should be looked at,
but they’re concerned with the lack of transparency about these agreements and
their practices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Polly Pallister-Wilkins says:
“Matthew Gibney from the University of Oxford’s <a href="http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/">Refugee Studies Centre</a> <a href="http://archive.wikiwix.com/opendemocracy/?url=http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/&title=Refugee%0AStudies%20Centre">↑</a>
has argued that outsourcing migration-management allows liberal governments and
institutions to eschew the constraints placed upon them by the very liberal
democratic norms they are trying to circumvent. Thus, the need for the EU to
maintain its liberal identity has meant that many of the everyday practices of
migration-management, such as immigration prisons and various militarised
responses are situated outside of Europe, outsourced … mostly in North African
states with fewer humanitarian obligations and pretensions to a liberal
identity with the knowledge and the funding of the EU and IMS and away from the
prying eyes of the fifth estate.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ix]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We could go on, but what we can
see is that while we have an international regime of human rights and
conventions designed to <i>protect</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> migrants, European states, and others
throughout the world, are seeking to attack, intimidate and brutalize irregular
migrants including asylum seekers, through the violation of their human rights.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What I want to suggest is a
radical solution, and because I’m a philosopher I’m allowed to dream about
alternative possibilities that would otherwise be dismissed, and the radical
solution I argue for is a world without borders, a world of freedom of
international movement. At the moment nation states claim sovereignty over who
can cross their borders but we’ve seen it is possible to challenge and limit
that right through international law. My suggestion is we remove it altogether.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">That’s a big argument to make so
I’m not going to try to make it here. I just want to make three points:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The first is to notice that this
proposal is not that difficult to imagine as it seems. A world without borders
is not a world without political boundaries and territory. The fact is that
there are all sorts of political boundaries that mark out territory which are
completely open in the way I’m suggesting. For example I crossed the border
between Wales and England today without any drama, and there are boundaries
below that level, between counties, provinces, councils and so on. All these
boundaries mark out political territories that demarcate democratic
institutions, tax raising powers and so on, and yet people cross them everyday,
including to take up residence. Nation state borders as they currently exist
are actually comparatively rare, the exception rather than the rule when it
comes to political boundaries. So what I’m suggesting is in one sense a very
tiny change – that the border between the United Kingdom and France become like
the border between Wales and England and Scotland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The second point is related –
again that what I’m arguing for is not in fact that difficult to imagine. In
effect what I’m proposing is that immigration comes under the some global
regime as emigration. At present everybody has the right to leave any state,
including their own, but this right is derogable. That means it can be
overridden by individual states under extreme circumstances, for example a
health pandemic. There’s been much legal debate amongst scholars about the
threshold for triggering the suspension of the right to leave, but everyone
agrees it has to be set very high. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What I’m suggesting is that
immigration be brought under the same arrangement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Immigration controls would be the exception rather than the
rule, and would stand in need of stringent justification in the fact of clear
and overwhelming evidence of national catastrophe, and become subject to
international standards of fairness and legality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The third issue I want to explore
is what the content of a human right to international movement might look like
and here I’m going to have to be terribly sketchy, but hopefully it will be
obvious the extent to which this would change the international order when it
comes to migration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>My
argument is that this particular right has to be embedded in a wider
perspective of global justice, connecting theories of rights, justice, and the
ethics of migration. The right to freedom of international movement must give
people to power to resist global domination and exploitation, giving them
control over when, where, why and how they migrate, rather than the opening of
international borders alone.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
The international
migration regime as it exists creates conditions of oppression, domination and
inequality, and border controls function mainly to prevent movement of the
global poor. We need to think about the right of migration within this context
of power and domination. We have a global migration regime, through which a
block of powerful liberal capitalist states seek to prevent access for the poor
and unskilled while at the same time exploiting their labour at cheap costs
where they happen to be; and also actively seeking out those it considers
economically valuable from the poor world to meet their own needs, creating
more difficulties for ‘sending’ states in terms of the ‘brain drain’; and
maintaining more or less free movement between themselves as a block. The
European Union explicitly acts in this way, with free movement for citizens of
EU states, and immigration regimes which seek to recruit the skilled and
prosperous from the developing world, while presenting a fortress of fences and
detention camps for the poor and unskilled. This migration regime plays a role
not only in maintaining extreme inequalities of wealth across the globe, but
also extreme inequalities of global power. The right to freedom of
international movement – which will be the ground, along with other rights, of
one’s ability to control when, where, why and how one migrates – is at least
part of the answer to that domination and exploitation. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
All this points
to the need for multilateral, rather than unilateral, governance of migration,
and the need for multilateral institutions to oversee that governance; and if
my arguments here have held any force, those multilateral institutions must
have a concern for human rights at their core. Arash Abizadeh argues that these
institutions must also be democratic, calling for “the formation of
cosmopolitan democratic institutions that have jurisdiction either to determine
entry policy or legitimately to delegate jurisdiction over entry policy to
particular states (or other institutions).”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn10" name="_ednref10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[x]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
This would result in “jointly controlled and porous (not closed) borders.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_edn11" name="_ednref11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xi]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
The overwhelming evidence is that leaving the right to control migration in the
hands of individual states has in the past and the present led to blocks of
powerful states dominating and exploiting the rest of the world. We need
multilateral democratic institutions to combat that domination. My claim is
that those institutions must embody and protect an fundamental human right to
freedom of international movement, which itself is part of a framework of
rights that empower people to have control over where, why, when and how they
migrate. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Phillip Cole<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Visiting Professor in Applied Philosophy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Social Ethics Research Group<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">University of Wales, Newport<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 2.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:pcole01" datetime="2010-08-20T11:08"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></ins></span></span></a><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:pcole01" datetime="2010-08-20T11:08"> Seyla
Benhabib<span class="msoDel"><del cite="mailto:macc" datetime="2010-08-28T12:37"><span class="msoIns"><ins datetime="2010-08-20T11:08"> (2006)</ins></span></del></span>,
<i>Another Cosmopolitanism</i></ins></span><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:pcole01" datetime="2010-08-20T11:08"> (</ins></span><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:macc" datetime="2010-08-28T12:37">Oxford: </ins></span><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:pcole01" datetime="2010-08-20T11:08">Oxford
University Press, <span class="msoDel"><del cite="mailto:macc" datetime="2010-08-28T12:37"><span class="msoIns"><ins datetime="2010-08-20T11:08">Oxford</ins></span></del></span></ins></span><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:macc" datetime="2010-08-28T12:37">2006</ins></span><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:pcole01" datetime="2010-08-20T11:08">), p. 30.</ins></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:pcole01" datetime="2010-08-20T11:07"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ii]<!--[endif]--></span></ins></span></span></a><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:pcole01" datetime="2010-08-20T11:07"> Benhabib</ins></span><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:macc" datetime="2010-08-28T12:37">, <i>Another
Cosmopolitanism</i></ins></span><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:pcole01" datetime="2010-08-20T11:07"><span class="msoDel"><del cite="mailto:macc" datetime="2010-08-28T12:37"> (2006)</del></span><span class="msoIns"><ins datetime="2010-08-20T11:07">, p. 30.</ins></span></ins></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GISTI- MigrEurope -- <a href="http://www.gisti.org/doc/plein-droit/58/migreurop.html">www.gisti.org/doc/plein-droit/58/migreurop.html</a>.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iv]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Data from
The Migration Observatory, University of Oxford, <i>Briefing: Immigration
Detention in the UK</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, published 22<sup>nd</sup>
May, 2012.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[v]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">www.biduk.org/.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[vi]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Medical Justice, www.medicaljustice.org.uk/mj-reports,-submissions,-etc./reports/1953-qthe-second-tortureq-the-immigration-detention-of-torture-survivors-220512.html.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[vii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Amnesty
International, <i>S.O.S. Europe: Human Rights and Migration Control</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> (AI, 2012), p. 5.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn8" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[viii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> AI, p.
17.</div>
</div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ix]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Polly
Pallister-Wilkins, “Searching for Accountability in EU Migration-Management
Practices,” <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: ArialMT; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/polly-pallister-wilkins/searching-for-accountability-in-eu-migration-management-practices"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">www.opendemocracy.net/polly-pallister-wilkins/searching-for-accountability-in-eu-migration-management-practices</span></a>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref10" name="_edn10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[x]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Arash
Abizadeh, “Democratic Theory and Border Coercion: No Right to Unilaterally
Control Your Own Borders”, <i>Political Theory</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
Volume 36, Number 1, February 2008, pp. 37-65, p. 48.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn11" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172851150819912672#_ednref11" name="_edn11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[xi]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Abizadeh,
“Democratic Theory and Border Coercion: No Right to Unilaterally Control Your
Own Borders”, p. 53.</div>
</div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment-->PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-40709125651778462052012-07-27T01:51:00.001-07:002012-07-27T01:58:46.655-07:00The Importance of Failure<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chapter Arts Centre is holding a ‘Festival
of Failure’ at the weekend, July 29</span></span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">th</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">/30</span></span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">th</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, and I’ve been
asked to take part in an event organized by the arts collective </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Elbow Room</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, a roundtable discussion of unanswerable questions, or at least
questions people can never agree the answer to. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If, by the end of
the afternoon, we succeed in finding answers, the event will be a failure.
Hopefully we’ll all remain stymied.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the
invitation set me thinking about the importance of failure. It’s valuable to
have the space to fail, and we can learn a great deal both from the experience
of failure and the fact of failure itself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What if the Large
Hadron Collider at CERN fails, in the end, to find the Higgs Boson particle?
Would that be a catastrophe? Scientists would have learned a great deal from
the experience of building the collider, and the fact of failure may also tell
us something important about the nature of the universe – maybe the ‘God’
particle doesn’t exist?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I taught
philosophy at various universities I always thought it important to give my
students the space to fail. We were looking at some of the fundamental
questions concerning the meaning of life – the existence of God, the mind/body
problem, the nature of morality. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why study those
questions? Why study the answers philosophers have proposed throughout history
and try to see why they don’t work? <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Socrates supplied
two good answers here. First, that the unexamined life is not worth living – we
</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">have</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to ask these questions. Second, that true
wisdom lies in being aware of the limits of our knowledge – knowing how little
we know.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fact was that
if great philosophers have failed to answer these questions satisfactorily,
undergraduate students didn’t stand a chance. But plunging in and trying to
puzzle them out taught them a centrally important human skill – how to think. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many questions
can be answered by looking them up in a book or applying a formula or,
increasingly, consulting the internet. But that isn’t thinking. Thinking happens
when we have to try and work something out ourselves, hopefully with other
people sitting around a table laden with food and drink.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is
increasingly scarce under the conditions of what some call late capitalism is
time to think. We need answers and we need them more or less immediately. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That attitude
affects all fields, including the arts and intellectual research. Those of us
who work in those areas, or any area these days, know that the key words are
‘impact’ and ‘outcome’. We need to state clearly what the outcome of our
project will be, and what impact it will have. Otherwise we won’t get funding.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We’re not allowed
to say: “I don’t know, why don’t we find out?” And we’re certainly not allowed
to say: “Well, we won’t find out for a while if there’ll be </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">any</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> outcome or </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">any</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> impact. But it’s
worth doing anyway.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Teachers at all
levels of education will know about outcomes. In recent years I had to identify
the learning outcomes of all my lessons before my courses started. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although I
obediently did the paperwork, I was always thinking to myself, and complaining
to colleagues, “I don’t know what the outcome of this lesson will be. Anything
could happen. And that’s the point.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so the </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Elbow
Room</span></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> event is a radical intervention in the
capitalist rush to impact and outcomes. It’s the carving out of a space and
time where people can fail to find the answer or reach an artificial agreement
that lets some bureaucrat tick a box and say, “We’ve got a policy!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So – no answers, no impact,
no outcomes. But we might just all learn something valuable.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span>PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-25488529463697160982012-04-12T06:31:00.002-07:002012-04-12T06:33:47.997-07:00It's not Complicated -- Why I Don't Believe in God.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Why don't I believe in God? It's not complicated. I call it the argument from insignificance -- </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">that the universe is so huge and so timeless, and the earth so insignificant and the human species even more insignificant, that it is the height of arrogance, and just a little bit stupid, to believe that it has been created for us. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Humanity has been around for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a moment in the history of the planet, and an even tinier fraction of an unimaginably small moment in the history of the universe, and we will disappear just as quickly. It's </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">such</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> a brief moment we can't get our heads around it.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When the intelligent designers say that if the Big Bang that created it all had been a little bit hotter or cooler we would never have existed, and this proves God was in control of it, especially when you take account of the enormous odds of it working out the way it did, I reply that this is like a lottery winner thinking that the whole lottery has been designed just so that they could win it.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If things had been different, sure, something else would have happened and we wouldn’t be here. But that doesn't mean the whole thing unfolded the way it did just to get to us, especially if you go back to the point about insignificance, that we will be around for such a tiny moment that if any cosmic historian writes a history of the universe we won't even be included, not even as a footnote.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And if they say this can’t be all there is, I say what more do you want? Take a look around you. This planet and its inhabitants may be insignificant against the backdrop of the universe -- but it is, and can be, a glorious place.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's not complicated. </span></span>PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-11959918058678180532012-03-09T09:35:00.003-08:002012-03-09T09:36:34.356-08:00Scrapping of PCC a cynical move to undermine Leveson Inquiry<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72.0pt;">The news that the Press Complaints Commission is going to close and re-constitute itself in a different guise before the end of the Leveson Commission shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s an astute and cynical move by the newspaper industry to pre-empt any Leveson recommendations. Whatever Leveson comes up with, the industry can say that it has already acted, and that we have to give the new body time to prove itself effective before we move onto something else. So Leveson gets undermines and self-regulation gets perpetuated.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72.0pt;"> The news reports say the new system has been approved in principle by most newspaper and magazine groups. The suspicion has to be that the push for this came from those groups, rather than the PCC itself, as a manoeuvre to avoid statutory regulation.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72.0pt;"> The print media is exclusively privately owned in the UK, so why would a privately run industry want to be seen to regulate itself when it comes to matters of ethics? This might be because the industry wishes to present itself as credible and trustworthy. In the case of the news media, this amounts to having a reputation for reporting accurately and truthfully on matters of significance. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">But is there a strong motivation for the news media to appear to be credible and trustworthy in this way? On the face of it, it makes sense to suppose that there is, because why would anybody buy a newspaper that had demonstrated that it has no credibility and cannot be trusted? But this is to assume the ‘ideal’ reader, and all the evidence seems to show that people will buy a newspaper in large numbers even though that newspaper makes little serious claim to be credible or trustworthy, or to report accurately on matters of significance. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">So why would the industry want to be seen to be self-regulating in a thorough and efficient way? The answer is, of course, that self-regulation has always been seen as the price the industry pays for keeping statutory regulation off its back. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">The Press Complaints Commission was the latest version of self-regulation the industry thought it could get away with. The Seventh Report of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, considering what it then knew about the phone-hacking scandal involving the <i>News of the World</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> in 2007, concluded: “</span><span lang="EN-US">We do not believe that there is a case for a statutory regulator for the press, which would represent a very dangerous interference with the freedom of the press. We continue to believe that statutory regulation of the press is a hallmark of authoritarianism and risks undermining democracy. We recommend that self-regulation should be retained for the press, while recognising that it must be seen to be effective if calls for statutory intervention are to be resisted.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">This was just another statement of the ‘last-chance saloon’ commentators have said the newspaper industry in the UK has been drinking in when it comes to regulation. The industry looks as though it wants to extend those already very late drinking hours. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Will Leveson call time? It seems unlikely, but unless the threat of statutory regulation becomes credible, then self-regulation by the newspaper industry will remain weak and inadequate, whatever the industry has up its sleeve to replace the PCC.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US">My guess would be that what we will get from Leveson will be something like a halfway solution, in between self-regulation and a statutory legal body – a body without statutory power but completely independent of the newspaper industry, and, importantly, with greater powers to enforce a more effective code of ethical conduct: most importantly with the power to impose fines. Whether such a hybrid monster can be effectively created is a question we will have to face by the end of the enquiry.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-90501052557229499892012-01-09T03:41:00.000-08:002012-01-09T03:45:20.427-08:00MigrationWatchUK: Slippery LogicI'm not in a position to oppose the statistics used by MigrationWatchUK in their latest 'contribution' to the debate about immigration -- that's being done very capably elsewhere. But as a philosopher I can comment on their logic.<br />
<br />
Sir Andrew Green's comments to the BBC [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16463861] display the slipperiness of that logic. Basically, MigrationWatch are saying: "We cannot prove there is any connection between Eastern European immigration and youth unemployment in the UK, but in order to refute our claim that there must be a connection, our opponents have to prove that there is <i>no</i> connection <i>at all </i>between them."<br />
<br />
Well, nobody can prove that, and anyway, the likelihood is that at least <i>one</i> young British citizen has been looked over for a job because at least <i>one </i>Eastern European immigrant got it instead. We're not in a position to know that this has never happened.<br />
<br />
But we can't allow MigrationWatch to rig the argument in this way. The onus remains on them to provide proof that this has happened in a systematic way, rather than on their opponents to prove that it hasn't.<br />
<br />
This is a favourite tactic of the right -- to assert a causal connection between two things and then claim their opponents can't disprove it. I remember the debates about single parent families and the rise in youth crime -- both had gone up at roughly the same time statistically, so, claimed some on the right, there <i>must be</i> a connection. Well, there was no empirical proof at all for this, and eventually they dropped it [it might come back].<br />
<br />
There's much more to say here about the use of statistics in empirical argument, and what they can establish, and, of course, much more to say about immigration. But for now, look at the logic, or its absence.<br />
<br />
See http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/01/immigration-unemployment.PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-33786497639526624392011-12-06T03:12:00.000-08:002011-12-06T03:12:16.429-08:00What is the point of journalism? What Leveson won't do for us.<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">What is the point of journalism? What is it <i>for</i><span style="font-style: normal;">? Of course, under ideal conditions we know that the news media constitute the public sphere, where citizens become informed about important issues, and so reach responsible decisions. It is also the place where the political sphere of government and the private sphere of the market are kept under critical scrutiny by the citizens. That is the ideal model that shapes much of the discussion around media ethics, but we know that this model doesn’t actually apply in practice (which means much of the discussion about media ethics misses the point).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">The reality is that the purpose of journalism is determined by the owners of the news media, not by the journalists themselves nor by the readers. So why do people own and publish newspapers? In some cases it is to make profit and become rich, but that is clearly not true in a large number of cases, because newspapers are notoriously unprofitable. Another answer is to have influence and exercise power over political events. That takes us back to the public sphere model, where the purpose of the media is to enable citizens to exercise control over the political sphere – but now we see that it is the owners of the media, not the citizenry, who exercise that control.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">So while we can say that the purpose of much of the newspaper industry is to provide entertainment to the widest possible audience and so make a profit for the owners, there is another aspect here which is just as important – that the point of owning a newspaper is to exercise influence and control over political events: that is, to exercise power over the political sphere.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">And it is <i>this</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> aspect which the Leveson Inquiry is in danger of missing, as it focuses on the harassment of celebrities and violations of privacy and lapses in taste. The whole point of the summoning of the Murdoch’s to appear before the Parliamentary Select Committee was to play out this drama of power and influence. Who is really in power? The politicians or the Murdochs?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is the game that is being played out in between the lines of the Leveson Inquiry – do the politicians dare bring the media owners under control? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">The sad thing is that the choice we are faced with is between a public sphere owned and controlled by a few very powerful people with a narrow political agenda, or one that is severely constrained by the rules set out for it by the political elite. The ideal model, of a news media that genuinely informs the citizenry and enables them to exercise critical scrutiny of the powerful political and business elites, is not on offer from Leveson.<o:p></o:p></div><!--EndFragment-->PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-43259250293881918032011-12-05T08:21:00.000-08:002011-12-05T08:21:16.896-08:00Key questions for Leveson 2: What is the difference between print and broadcast media when it comes to regulation?<!--StartFragment--> <div class="MsoNormal">What is the difference between print and broadcast media when it comes to regulation?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">So why does the print media get away with regulating itself, while the broadcast media is subject to much heavier state control and scrutiny? Is there any principled difference between the two that can carry the weight of their different status when it comes to regulation?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">The only answer I can come up with is that it’s an accident of history. The print media arose through private ownership, while the broadcast media in the UK started out as a state-run enterprise. The state has slowly and perhaps reluctantly handed out the right to broadcast to the private sector, but only under a strict system of licensing and with clear rules and a statutory body to regulate it if it steps out of line. Meanwhile, the print media has resisted any attempts to have itself regulated by anybody but its own puppets and no government has wanted to take them on.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">So we didn’t get here through any reasoned process. It’s just what happened. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">The question we have to answer here is whether the type of system that covers the broadcast media is suitable for the print media. The trouble is, if we say yes, whether that places too heavy a burden on those who want to set up newspapers or other news outlets. How would this effect the internet, which is now the primary site for ‘citizen’ journalism? Would it mean that our freedom of speech could only be exercised through state-approved outlets? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">How do we regulate the media in a way that respects everybody’s right to be a citizen journalist? Of course, you could question whether there is any such right – does the right to freedom of expression entail the right to be a citizen journalist? Is it that important for our society that everybody has such a right? My own gut feeling for what it’s worth is that it is important, so important that it shouldn’t be compromised by the fall out from the Leveson Inquiry.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">So if there is going to be a heavier system of regulation, it has to be one that doesn’t interfere with citizen journalism. The key to this is understanding that what got us to the Leveson Inquiry was not what newspapers printed, but the way they went about finding things out. The Inquiry is having trouble distinguishing the two questions: (1) how newspapers go about getting their information; (2) the information they publish. But that isn’t surprising as it is, in fact, an extremely complex distinction, and in the end both issues are at stake when it comes to media ethics and intrusions into privacy. Privacy can be violated through the methods used to discover the information (e.g. phone hacking), but also violated through the publication of certain information (not only, importantly, information gained through illicit methods).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">‘Citizen’ journalism is unlikely to violate privacy in either case, in that they typically don’t resort to the sorts of methods that have been criticised, and nor do they pursue the type of story that has upset but entertained the public so much. </div><!--EndFragment--> <br />
<!--EndFragment-->PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-11201066019151219312011-12-02T06:58:00.000-08:002011-12-05T03:46:00.893-08:00Research and the Ethics of 'Impact'<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 24px;">An important part of my future research focus is on the ethics of research itself and the ethics of public engagement – who should we be engaging with and for what purpose?</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">Informing this is a view that research itself has a moral purpose – it is an ethical activity. That’s why, partially at least, we have a framework of research ethics for that activity. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">I used to teach media ethics and one question which framed the whole course was whether there was any such <i>thing</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;"> as media ethics? The answer was, only if the media as a practice has a moral purpose, and the rest of the course was an attempt to find that out. But I had to say to those students taking the course who wanted to go into PR that, no, there was no professional ethics for them, because PR does not have a moral purpose, just as you can’t have professional ethics in the arms trade, the tobacco industry, the oil industry … well, the list goes on.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">So what is the moral purpose of our research? At the minimal level this is given to us by the charitable status of our universities. Our research must give rise to public benefit, and any private benefit has to be incidental. The public benefit requirement is, in the end, minimal in that charity law is satisfied if our research is made public, if it is shared. But there are hints here of a more robust conception of public benefit in the charity law requirement, and I would certainly want to go further in my personal understanding of the moral purpose of research. Our research should have a positive impact on the public good, one that includes those traditionally excluded from that public good. The Charity Commission’s view is that the way we disseminate our research must “not be unreasonably restricted or excluding those in poverty from the opportunity to benefit”.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">Talk of impact is timely, of course, given the importance of impact in the forthcoming Research Excellence Framework. And I’m all for impact, given the words engraved on a tombstone in Highgate Cemetery. But the question is what sort of impact and where?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">Apart from its crucial impact on our teaching, the kind of impact I’m looking for is on critical social movements in their struggle against barriers of social exclusion. I have no problem in talking about this engagement in terms of knowledge exchange, as I think theory and activism need to learn from each other. But increasingly the sharing of our research, the act of public engagement, is being placed in a framework described as the ‘knowledge economy’, talked of in terms of ‘intellectual capital’, and being put up for ‘commercialization’ and ‘exploitation’. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">Here I begin to lose track. If there is a knowledge economy we need to think about what sort of economy we’re talking about. Certainly, the collapse of competitive market economies around the world and the catastrophic consequences that is having on ordinary people’s lives – caused by the sort of sleep walking thoughtlessness Hannah Arendt warned against – should make us very cautious about seeing our research as capital for exploitation in that kind of economic marketplace. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">We should be thinking about alternative models for the marketplace of ideas, perhaps a cooperative one, or perhaps we need to move away from the idea of the marketplace altogether and think in terms of the public ‘forum’. The primary requirement of the moral principles of research, and again of our charitable status, is not that we make money out of research, but that we make it publicly available – we share it. A ‘knowledge economy’ which exploits our ‘intellectual capital’ may not be the best way of doing that.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">One reason for caution here is, of course, that the capitalist market makes no moral judgment – it will trade anything with anybody if there’s a profit to be made. Ethics always has to be imposed on the market from outside. And so public engagement itself has to have an ethical framework. We have to ask what ethical purpose our research and expertise will be put to. We cannot be so anxious about the commercial exploitation of our intellectual capital that we fail to ask that question. I’ve always argued that our social justice obligations don’t stop at the national border. Well, our research ethics obligations don’t stop at the university gate. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">We are being urged by government to engage with business. It’s a theme running through the Welsh Assembly’s “For our Future” document on its Higher Education Strategy, which talks of “exploitation” of knowledge “to feed wealth creation and business growth”.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">But we have to remember that what the business person wants from us, if anything, is help in getting rich, or richer. The argument seems to be that helping a local business increase its profits will help regenerate the local community, but this is an assumption which is not born out by the evidence – to stick to Wales, have a look at Cardiff Bay then wander over to Butetown.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">There is no necessary connection between private profit and regeneration, and so rather than assume it, we have to ask our business ‘partners’ whether our relationship will contribute to the project of regeneration, and if they don’t have an answer, perhaps we shouldn’t be in that relationship, and indeed again our charitable status says we shouldn’t. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">The Charity Commission is so concerned about the push to exploitation by government that it recently issued clarification and advice to universities. It was anxious to say that charitable status and commercialization of research are not necessarily incompatible, but the fact that it felt the clarification was necessary shows its unease with what is happening in higher education. Its advice emphasizes that private benefit has to be incidental and public benefit paramount, and: “There cannot be an automatic presumption either of public benefit or that private benefit is incidental.” And: “Research must be justified and undertaken for the public benefit and not solely or mainly for self-interest or for private or commercial consumption.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">The Welsh Assembly Government “For our Future” document talks of the “two pillars of social justice and supporting a buoyant economy” – but we know there is no necessary connection between booming or buoyant economies and social justice: that connection has to be made, has to be fought for, and perhaps we are one of the agencies who need to make it and fight for it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">In all of this debate the burden of justification has fallen upon us as academics– we have to justify our ‘usefulness’ to the business community. But if there is to be a connection between economic wealth and social justice, and if we are obliged to ensure that there is a public benefit arising from our research over and above any <i>incidental</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;"> private benefit, there are questions we must ask of our potential business partners. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">What universities have to face up to is that the push towards doing business with business gives rise to an enormous ethical tension around the question of interests. Businesses will fund research if it is in their interests, but our research must be in the <i>public</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;"> benefit, and we cannot presume that the interests of the business and the benefit of the public coincide. There are all sorts of cases where they clearly do not. Some universities have ethical codes of conduct which simply rule out any funding or any support from any organization involved with the tobacco industry – the University of Sunderland and the University of Portsmouth both take this stance, for example. But with government pushing us towards closer relations with business, and with institutions also looking for those closer ties, the pressure on the individual researcher or team of researchers may grow, regardless of ethics policies. And that tension between business interest and public interest will become all the more intense. The tobacco industry is an extreme example of a general ethical problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">And so it becomes all the more crucial to ask, if we are entering into a knowledge ‘economy’ where intellectual ‘capital’ is to be ‘exploited’ – on whose behalf is it being exploited? To whose benefit? In whose interests? What sort of economy is this? Is it one that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of those who already possess it, and re-enforces social exclusion and injustice? Is it our purpose to make the strong stronger, the rich richer, the powerful more powerful? Or should we be doing the opposite?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">An institutional ethics policy is, of course, is only part of the answer. The more important part is that we as individual researchers retain our moral compass, whatever is happening around us.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">To not <i>think</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;"> about the ethical dimension of what we are doing, is to be drawn into the realm of the anti-theoretical, to be drawn into a black hole where there is no ethics. And the collapse of the banking and financial sector and the enormous cost of this for ordinary people around the world shows us what this kind of ‘thoughtlessness’ can lead to. Let us not be sleepwalkers.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">We do not do research in order to make money, for ourselves or for the institution, and research itself should not be valued or ranked in terms of its potential for commercial exploitation. We do research in order to have a positive benefit on the public good, and sometimes that benefit will simply be that it changes how people think. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">Of course, we have to raise money to fund our research activity. We must engage in the moral enterprise of research, and we need money to be able do that. But that need must not change the ethical framework or moral purpose of our research. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">These are difficult times and they are going to get more difficult. But history shows that it is during difficult times that ethical commitments become more important than ever. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">In my role in supporting those beginning their research careers, I’ve offered the following advice:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">1. Decide your research identity – who you want to be, what you want to be recognised as: you need to be recognised as an expert, and you cannot be an expert in all things.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">2. Keep your direction, whatever the pressure to react to research bids and opportunities which have money attached to them – keep your balance.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">3. And amidst all the pressures, above all keep your dignity.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">And today I’ll add another dimension, another piece of advice which I think applies to universities as institutions as well as to individual researchers: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Palatino;">4. Keep the clarity of your moral vision, because that moral vision will act as the foundation for your identity, your direction and your dignity.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">We must not allow ourselves to be fragmented into egoistic, competitive individuals by being drawn into a particular model of the market of ideas – let us remember that best way to lay the foundation for our own research career is to support and encourage and cooperate with others in the development of theirs.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">As Hannah Arendt observes: “The manifestation of the wind of thought is not knowledge: it is the ability to tell right from wrong…”. (<i>The Life of the Mind</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino;">, Volume 1, p. 193).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
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</div>PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-35686228330735161652011-12-01T09:24:00.000-08:002011-12-01T09:24:21.637-08:00Key Questions for Leveson 1: What next for self-regulation?<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div>Having identified the key questions for the Leveson Inquiry, I shiuld have a go at answering them myself.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The first concerned the future of self-regulation.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The print media is exclusively privately-owned in the UK. Why would a privately-run industry want to be seen to regulate itself when it comes to matters of ethics? This might be because the industry wishes to present itself as credible and trustworthy. In the case of the news media, this amounts to having a reputation for reporting accurately and truthfully on matters of significance.</div><div><br />
</div><div>But is there a strong motivation for the news media to appear to be credible and trustworthy in this way? On the face of it, it makes sense to suppose that there is, because why would anybody buy a newspaper which had demonstrated that it has no credibility and cannot be trusted? But this is to assume the ‘ideal’ reader, and all the evidence seems to show that people will buy a newspaper in large numbers even though that newspaper makes little serious claim to be credible or trustworthy, or to report accurately on matters of significance.</div><div><br />
</div><div>So why would the industry want to be seen to be self-regulating in a thorough and efficient way? The answer is, of course, that self-regulation has always been seen as the price the industry pays for keeping statutory regulation off its back.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The Press Complaints Commission is the latest version of self-regulation the industry thinks it can get away with. The Seventh Report of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, considering what it then knew about the phone-hacking scandal involving the <i>News of the World</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> in 2007, concluded: “</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We do not believe that there is a case for a statutory regulator for the press, which would represent a very dangerous interference with the freedom of the press. We continue to believe that statutory regulation of the press is a hallmark of authoritarianism and risks undermining democracy. We recommend that self-regulation should be retained for the press, while recognising that it must be seen to be effective if calls for statutory intervention are to be resisted.”</span></div><div><br />
</div><div><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span>This is just another statement of the ‘last-chance saloon’ commentators have said the newspaper industry in the UK has been drinking in when it comes to regulation. That saloon seems to have very late drinking hours. Will Leveson call time? It seems unlikely, but unless the threat of statutory regulation becomes credible, then self-regulation by the newspaper industry will remain weak and inadequate.</div><div><br />
</div><div>My guess would be that we might get something like a halfway solution, in between self-regulation and a statutory legal body – a body without statutory power but completely independent of the newspaper industry, and, importantly, with greater powers to enforce a more effective code of ethical conduct: most importantly with the power to impose fines. Whether such a hybrid monster can be effectively created is a question we may have to face by the end of the enquiry.</div><div><br />
</div><div>At the moment, though, what we are witnessing is a distorted and degraded public sphere being fought over by a newspaper industry which has clearly lost its moral compass if indeed it ever possessed one, an army of celebrities who are taking the opportunity to take revenge, a few genuine victims of press intrusion, and a government which would probably prefer not to get involved and doesn’t want to take the industry on. This is being witnessed by a public who are disgusted by newspaper practices but are only too happy to buy the newspapers that print the kind of stories that have led us to this sorry spectacle.</div><!--EndFragment-->PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-23694618282704800192011-11-29T07:29:00.001-08:002011-11-29T07:29:31.285-08:00The key questions for the Leveson Inquiry<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">What scope is there for self-regulation on ethical questions in an industry that is run for profit?</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">What is the difference between print and broadcast media when it comes to regulation?</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">Does print journalism serve any purpose beyond public entertainment?</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">If print journalism is going to serve the purpose of keeping citizens informed so that they can take responsible decisions, how are we to make a distinction between ‘news’ and ‘entertainment’, such that the former must serve that purpose, but the latter does not?</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">If a print medium primarily serves the purposes of entertainment, can they have any recourse to the ‘public interest’ defence when it comes to intrusions into people’s private lives?</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">Even if the print medium is a serious news publication, how are we to define ‘public interest’ when it comes to intrusions into privacy?</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">How are we to regulate the media in a way that respects every individual’s right to freedom of speech, which amounts to every individual’s right to <i>be</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> a journalist? The internet has restored the status of journalism as a hobby for anybody to engage in. This must be defended.</span></li>
</ol><!--EndFragment-->PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172851150819912672.post-83764869775428554582011-05-10T07:12:00.000-07:002011-05-10T07:22:08.017-07:00The Guerilla Philosophy CollectiveIn a few months I will find myself outside of an academic institution for the first time in 25 years. This is a result of the cuts to Higher Education that are sweeping through British universities, and I'm sure that I won't be the only one to find myself surplus to the requirements of the neo-liberal vision for Higher Education. Research excellence in Philosophy and other Humanities subjects is, in the end, not 'valuable' enough for institutions to protect as they come under pressure to trim their expenditure and meet market demands. If we do not have 'intellectual capital' that can be 'exploited' in the 'knowledge economy', then we are of little worth to universities who now see research primarily as a source of 'income generation'.<br />
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Philosophy and Humanities courses are also under threat. The Philosophy programme at Middlesex is closing down, and there are similar threats to the Philosophy and the Professional Ethics programmes at Keele. These subjects will, eventually, be the preserve of the elite who attend the top few universities that can afford to host them. The post-1990 revolution which saw the expansion of the teaching of radical theory to students who were only supposed to be trained for the jobs market is being dismantled. And the tragedy is that the Philosophy and Humanities courses that will get offered in those few elite institutions will be far from radical in content.<br />
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Guerilla Philosophy is about finding a way to keep the fire of radical critique burning, especially for those who find themselves without an institutional context. We have to become Guerilla Philosophers, standing outside and in opposition to institutional power, finding ways of speaking and having our voice heard. And that voice has to be critical and oppositional.<br />
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The aim of this site is to offer an initial space for those critical voices, and lead to the formation of The Guerilla Philosophy Collective, which can create more spaces and a louder voice. We can also offer support to those who are under threat, or who find themselves outside of an institution through no fault of their own, ensuring that they do not disappear from view. The danger is that we will be silenced, and this is a very small step towards ensuring that this does not happen.<br />
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There is no manifesto here, just a determination to enable an oppositional critique of the neo-liberal revolutionary movement that, for the moment, is setting the agenda for Higher Education and the wider society. We can use this space to develop arguments, post news, organise and publicise events, create networks and resources for resistance. This is the beginning, not the end.PhillColehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825354601245806760noreply@blogger.com2