http://www.seangabb.co.uk/flcomm/flc158.htm
Free Life Commentary,
A Personal View from
The Director of the Libertarian Alliance
Issue Number 158
31st March 2007
The Emperor Has No Clothes:
by Sean Gabb
On Fraternity:
Politics beyond Liberty and Equality
Danny Kruger
Civitas, London, 2007, 95pp, £7.50 (pbk)
ISBN 978 1 903386 57 6
At the beginning of the short book, its author insists that "I do not
speak for
the Conservative Party". This being said, Dr Kruger is a special adviser
to
David Cameron and is a former leader writer for The Daily Telegraph. He
also
showed the manuscript of his book to David Willetts, Oliver Letwin, Daniel
Hannan, and to various other people more or less closely connected with
the
Leader of the Conservative Party. It was, moreover, discussed before
publication
at one of the lunchtime seminars hosted by Civitas. I have attended
several of
these, and it is easy to imagine that this one was attended by just about
every
im****tant academic or intellectual connected with the Conservative Party.
The disclaimer, therefore, is a matter of form. The book is - and is
intended to
be regarded as - an authoritative statement of Conservative Party thought.
I do
not see how there can be any reasonable doubt of this. But it is a point
that I
must ask my readers to bear continually in mind. I once sat next to Dr
Kruger at
a private dinner party. I do not recall that we disagreed on anything. He
wrote
a very nice article last year, regretting the death of Chris Tame. Some of
the
names given his his Acknowledgements are of friends. If I now say that
this book
is an intellectual fraud in its intention, and shabby in its execution, I
hope
he and they and you will not take my comments as personal.
So far as I can understand him, Dr Kruger is trying to analyse the current
state
of affairs in this country. During the second half of the twentieth
century, he
says, we tried two great experiments. The first was socialist equality.
This
began to break down in the 1960s, when trade union privilege and heavy
spending
on welfare led to inflation and a loss of competitiveness.
The second was a return to market liberty under Margaret Thatcher. This
restored
the economy, but led to a collapse of various customs and institutions
that gave
meaning to the lives of individuals. Before coming to power in 1997, Tony
Blair
did promise to sort out the resulting disorder and general loss of faith
in the
system. However, since then, that promise has been comprehensively broken.
We
therefore need a new government that will reconcile the jointly necessary
but
often opposed impulses of liberty and equality. Thus the title of the
book.
Exactly how these impulses are to be reconciled within a new and stable
order is
not made clear. But Dr Kruger does excuse himself in advance with the
statement:
In this essay I try to outline the political philosophy which justifies
the
'communal [but] not official'. It is necessarily abstract, a 'resort to
theories', in Burke's disparaging aside. It is devoid of detailed
policy, yet
I hope it demonstrates that, all our common rhetoric notwithstanding,
there
are real differences between Right and Left, founded on very different
ideas
of how society works.[p.11]
This is a wise excuse, as it saves Dr Kruger from having to admit the
fraudulent
nature of his analysis. For there was no return to market liberty in the
1980s.
If it took me until nearly the end of the decade to shake off the false
assumptions I had made as a teenager, I was one of the earliest
conservatives to
understand the real nature of the Thatcher project. It was to reconcile
the fact
of an extended and meddling state apparatus, plus big business privilege,
with
the need to generate enough wealth to pay for it all.
There was no reduction in tax for the middle cl*****. There was no overall
cutting of regulations. Instead, the taxes and regulations were revised so
that
we could, by immense hard work, reverse the long term relative decline of
the
British economy.
As for the working cl*****, their ability to slow the growth of gross
domestic
product was checked by the ending of various - and perhaps indefensible -
protections, and by the im****tation of a new proletariat from elsewhere in
the
world that had no perceived commonality of interest with the native
working
cl*****, and that would, by its presence, drive down their living
standards.
So much for economic liberty. Where other liberties were concerned, we saw
a
consistent rolling back of the gains made since about 1600. Procedural
safeguards were shredded, so that the law was turned from a ****eld for the
people into a sword for the state. A close surveillance was imposed over
our
financial affairs. Freedom of speech and association were eroded - partly
by
direct changes in the law, partly by creating a general environment within
which
disobedience to the expressed will of the authorities became unwise. At
the same
time, verbal and institutional associations that bound us to a more
liberal past
were progressively broken; and structures of democratic accountability
were
replaced by indirect rule from Brussels and from a more general New World
Order.
The election of a New Labour Government changed very little. Government
under
Tony Blair became more politically correct than it would have been under
the
Conservatives. But this was balanced by a greater caution in matters of
European
harmonisation. The destruction of the Common Law and its replacement by a
panopticon police state went on regardless.
There is not - and has not been during the past quarter century - any
political
conflict in this country between liberty and equality. We are both less
equal
today than we were in about 1980, and we are less free. Such debate as
there is
between the two main political parties is over details. The project common
to
both Labour and Conservative Parties is the transformation of this country
into
a place where the upper reaches of the ruling class can enjoy a status and
relative wealth not known since early Stuart times - and in which there
can be
no challenge from below.
The Conservatives under Mrs Thatcher started this. It was continued by
Labour
under Mr Blair. It will not be reversed by the Conservatives under Mr
Cameron.
Given these facts, it is not surprising that Dr Kruger has refused to
discuss
any detailed policies. Where nothing new is intended, nothing at all
should be
promised.
But this brings me to the apparent purpose of the book. Our politics may
be
degraded from the level even of the late 1970s. But we have yet to sink
entirely
to the level of America, where elections seem to be decided wholly by
money and
competing armies of drum majorettes. It is still expected that political
debate
in this country should proceed from an intellectual basis. The
Conservatives
have no intellectual basis that they dare honestly explain to us. They
must at
the same time convey the impression of one. They have, therefore, put Dr
Kruger
up to write a whole book about Conservative principle, but to do so in a
way
that will allow almost no one to understand him.
The language of his book is in all matters of im****tance pretentious and
obscure.
Take, for example, this:
Central to the Hegelian concept of Aufhebung or 'sublation' is the
preservation of the antithetic stages passed through by the thesis. Not
only
is the thesis 'realised' by its sublation: the antithesis too is
strengthened
and perpetuated. But the thesis only preserves those elements of the
antithesis it finds conducive to itself - there must be, in the key
Hegelian
word, an 'ethical' relation****p between thesis and antithesis, by which
one
relates to another in a natural and organic manner.[p.18]
Or take this:
The person abstracted from all contingent cir***stances - the main in
isolation - is not truly a man at all, merely (Hegel again) 'the sheer
empty
unit of the person'. The original Kantian individual who signs the
social
contract from behind the veil of ignorance, with his objective intellect
and
dispassionate morality, is admirable and necessary. But he is not
enough.[p.49]
Or take this:
For freedom is attained, said Hegel, not by the individual divorcing
himself
from society but by marrying it. True - what he called 'concrete' -
freedom is
not 'the freedom of the void'. It is the freedom of 'finding oneself' in
society; of 'being with oneself in another'. By my marriage with society
I
attain my true self, which before was abstract. I am realised,
socialised; I
whisk aside the veil of ignorance, 'the colourful canvass of the world
is
before me'; I plunge into it, and find myself 'at home'.[p.51]
The meaning of this second and third can perhaps be recovered. They appear
to
mean that individuals function best when they are surrounded by familiar
things
that give meaning and security to their lives. As to the first, your guess
is as
good as mine.
There is page after page of this stuff. We have commonplaces dressed up to
look
profound. We have manifest nonsense. We have knowing references to Plato
and
Aristotle and Hobbes and Burke and Mill. We have untranslated words and
phrases,
or words that have been taken into English but never widely used. There
is, of
course, "Aufhebung". This is at least translated - though, until I looked
it up
in a dictionary, I could only understand "sublation" from its Latin roots.
But
there is also "noumenal"[p.13], "heteronomous"[p.38],
"soixantes-huitards"[p.40],
"thetic"[p.66], and much else besides. Oh - and we
have the word "discombobulated"[p.58]. This is an illiterate Americanism
from
the 1830s, and has no fixed meaning. Such meaning as Dr Kruger gives it
must be
gathered from the context in which he uses it.
There are many subjects, I grant, discussion of which requires a
specialised
language. There is music. There is the law. There are the natural
sciences. But
this is so only for the most elaborate discussions. For basic
presentations,
plain English has always been found sufficient. And it is not so for
discussing
political philosophy. For this, plain English is ideally suited. I do know
languages - Slovak, for example - where foreign or unfamiliar words are
needed
for meaningful discussion of political philosophy. Even here, though, I
deny the
utility of asking thinkers like Hegel or Kant for guidance. German
philosophy is
notoriously a learned gibberish. For nearly two centuries, it has been
used to
justify every imaginable lapse from humanity and common sense. Dr Kruger
is
supposed to be an expert on Edmund Burke. It is worth asking why he has,
on this
occasion, avoided all attempt at imitating the clear English of the
Enlightenment.
The likeliest answer is that enlightenment is not among his intentions. As
said,
that must be to express himself in a manner that almost none of his
readers will
understand. This book has been sent out for review to hundreds of
journalists
and general formers of opinion. It is hoped that these will all skim
though it
and scratch their heads. "What a bright young man this is" we are all to
say.
"What he says is all above my head, but I do not wish to look stupid, so
will
join in the applause at his erudition and profundity."
It is all like the story of the Emperor's New Clothes. Newspaper articles
will
be written about the "intellectual revival" in the Conservative Party.
Gossip
columns will be filled with references to the gigantic intellect of Dr
Kruger.
Even hostile articles about Mr Cameron will contain some flattering
mention of
the philosophical depths with which he has been put in touch.
If this were all one could say about his book, there would be much reason
to
condemn Dr Kruger. But there is more. His book is not only pretentious and
obscure. It is also incompetent. If he were one of my students, and he
were to
offer this to me as a long undergraduate essay, he would have it thrown
straight
back in his face.
Look at this:
But the 1980s also saw the defoliation of the natural landscape. In The
City
of God Augustine quotes a Briton saying 'the Romans make a desert and
they
call it peace'.[p.2]
Never mind that defoliation happens to trees, not natural landscapes. What
matters here is that St Augustine did not say this, and could not have
said it,
bearing in mind the purpose of his City of God. The correct reference is
to
Tacitus in his biography of Agricola: "Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis
nominibus imperium atque ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant". Dr
Kruger
went, I believe, to an expensive public school, I to a comprehensive
school in
South London. Perhaps the classical languages are not so well studied in
these
former places as they once were. But anyone who wants to quote the
ancients
should make at least some effort to do it properly.
Is this pedantry? I do not think so. The quotation should be familiar to
everyone of moderate education - even to people who do not know Latin. Its
use
is not absolutely required for the meaning of what Dr Kruger is trying to
say.
Like much else, it is there to impress. And he gets it wrong. And the
fault is
not confined to him. This book has gone through many drafts. Remember that
it
has been read and discussed by every intellectual close to the
Conservative
leader****p. Even so, this glaring error on the second page was not picked
up and
corrected. This says more about the intellectual quality of modern
Conservatives
than anything else in the book.
Or take the casual reference on p.71 to Frederic Bastiat as a
"nineteenth-century anarchist". Bastiat believed in far less government
than Dr
Kruger or his employers. But he was a liberal, not an anarchist.
Or take this:
Not everything that 'is permitted', said St Paul: 'is beneficial'.[p.55]
This is a reference to 1 Corinthians 10:23: "All things are lawful for me,
but
all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things
edify
not". The meaning of the verse is difficult, and may refer to the eating
of
sacrificial meat. It does nothing to advance whatever point Dr Kruger is
making.
It is, again, there to give an impression of learning that he does not
seem, on
examination, to possess.
Or take this:
'The state is an association' says Aristotle in the first sentence of
The
Politics.[p.79]
Aristotle may not have said this. In Greek, he says - and do pardon the
Roman
transliteration - "epeide pasan polin horomen koinosian...". The word in
question is given in the standard translations as "community". It might
bear the
Oakeshottian sense of "association" - but this is a gloss that needs to be
explained.
Or - to inhale yet another blast of Teutonic hot air - take this:
Hegel famously argued that the slave could be more 'free' than the
master, for
the slave is contextualised, subject to cir***stances, and related to
his
fellows even if only through their common bondage. Even though he lacks
liberty, one of the three rights of negative freedom (even slaves, in
ancient
Rome, had the right to life and property), he has more positive freedom
than
his master, whose wealth makes him independent, and so unrelated to
others.
The slave is realised, and the master is not.[p.70]
Regardless of whether Hegel actually said anything so ridiculous - not
that I
would put anything past him - these words astonish me. In the first place,
Roman
slaves did not have a right to life: they had, from fairly late in the
Imperial
period, a right not to be butchered by their masters without what a court
run by
other slaveholders considered to be good reason. Their property was at
best a
peculium, to which they had no legal right. In the second place, no
playing with
words can possibly obliterate the factual difference between freeman and
slave.
If Dr Kruger doubts this, I only wish I could oblige by chaining him to an
oar
for a few days, or putting him in one of those disgusting underground
prisons,
or setting him to tend the fish for Vedius Pollio.
Much else in this book is worth despising. These three sentences simply
make me
angry.
But I turn back to the foreign words. I have found three uses of
"Aufhebung".
These all look like the products of a cut and paste operation. They are
all
unexplained. When I come across phrases like "the crash of Platonic
speculation
into Aristotelian reality"[p.19], I now find it worth asking if Dr Kruger
himself has the foggiest idea what he is trying to say.
Some decent endnotes might help to answer this question. But the notes are
about
as slipshod as they could be without not being added at all. Quotations
are
referenced with the author and title and date of the relevant work. But no
editions or page numbers are given. Bearing in mind the length and
complexity of
the works cited - by Adam Smith, Hegel and Hayek, for instance - we can
legitimately wonder how many of these Dr Kruger has actually read.
Of course, I blame the Conservative leader****p for trying to make us
believe it
intends to do other than continue the work of turning England into the
sort of
despotism that would have made James II gasp and stare. But I also blame
Dr
Kruger for executing his commission so incompetently. And I must blame
many of
my friends for having let their names be used as an endorsement of his
efforts -
and for having brought themselves into disrepute by not objecting to so
many
scandalous blunders.
Above all, I blame Civitas - otherwise the most authoritative and radical
of
modern policy institutes. It has published the longest petition of
intellectual
bankruptcy I have read in years. I do most strongly urge David Green to
withdraw
this book at once and remove it from the Civitas catalogue.
NB - Sean Gabb's novel The Column of Phocas (£8.99) will be withdrawn from
sale
in the next few months, prior to its reissue in February 2008 by a
multinational
publi****ng group. Buy copies of the first edition while you can from
http://tinyurl.co.uk/z31v
or via Amazon: http://tinyurl.co.uk/2cnw
The
sequel
has already been completed.
You can download the first three chapters free of charge from:
http://tinyurl.co.uk/kkl4
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