EQUITY Questioning the Science of Government?

"...ill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be by any surprising accident in remote danger of doing it, with a minute, and a memorandum, and a letter of instructions that extinguished him. It was this spirit of national efficiency in the Circumlocution Office that had gradually led to its having something to do with everything. Mechanicians, natural philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners, memorialists, people with grievances, people who wanted to prevent grievances, people who wanted to redress grievances, jobbing people, jobbed people, people who couldnÕt get rewarded for merit, and people who couldnÕt get punished for demerit, were all indiscriminately tucked up under the foolscap paper of the Circumlocution Office."

Sourced from Charles Dickens - Little Dorrit - Chapter 10

http://www.miacat.com/Little_Dorrit.asp

WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR OWN HISTORY?

http://www.miacat.com/

 
 

This reminds me of something I came cross a few years ago.

For whatever reason an American academic did an extensive research project on the various local histories throughout the USA.
He found that most of the supposedly factual happenings which were celebrated, and which even had concrete memorials/statues too, just didnt happen. Were plain and simply not true.

I forget the author and the title of the book.

Ho Hum, that is brilliant.

(And on a rather different note) criticisms of so-called moral relativism are easy to find -- so easy that they have become cliches --
but have you ever found one that persuaded you its author had actually understood the sorts of ideas that s/he was criticising?

Long's article has not advanced us any closer to that starting point.

Long jibes "historicism" with a diatribe tainting the liberal, literary education which universities strive to impart with the "moral relativist" brush.

However objective one wishes to be, one approaches objectivity from an inherently subjective viewpoint. In reading literature -- from Plato to Hayek -- with an acknowledgement of the writers' position, we asymptotically, dialectically, improve our approach to truth. Absolute truth exists, in that events truly occurred, but our understanding is never perfect. Trees falling in uninhabited forests cannot become part of our history. The physical sciences accept the Heisenberg principle; why should history pretend an authority which cannot exist?

Moral relativism is easy to criticise by reductio ad absurdum, reducing it to a moral vacuum. In the same way, faith-based religions, especially those with holy books, are easy to criticise by reducing them to the basest anti-intellectual fundamentalism.

In my experience the students of social sciences who subscribe to some form of moral or cultural relativism (in that they are willing to contemplate the potential validity of other peoples' positions) are very far from being personally amoral. On the other hand anti-intellectual religious fundamentalists are common and scary.

The article seeks to justify paternalism towards Australian Aborigines by association with Rousseau's noble savage. Unfortunately for this argument and for the place of Rousseau in the history of ideas, the speechless, individualistic, asocial and "free" human animal from which Rousseau derived his moral thinking never existed. Rousseau's idea is about as realistic a model of human moral development as the story of Cain and Abel and their inexplicable wives.

Rousseau's error is not his fault -- it was a thought-experiment, like Schrödinger's cat. Rousseau had no understanding of the mechanisms or time-scale of evolution. Before Darwin and Wallace, no-one did. That's historicism.

1752 saw the British adopt the Gregorian calendar and Franklin conduct lightning. *Otherwise* it was relatively unremarkable :-)

David, do you believe an absolute truth and morality exist? Or is it the role of the sciences to discern what truth it can, and of conscience and philosophy to define morality in the light of scientific knowledge?

Xoddam

Doesn't accepting moral relativism remove any base upon which to claim a science of the study of society and politics.?

Physical sciences entirely rely upon concrete truths which deny the possibility of differing points of view. This is not the case with our current understanding of history, where the viewpoint is all important.

Following moral relativism down its logical path presents us with a world without morals. Yes I know you predicted it but that doesn’t make it any less true. Surely some things are moral for everyone no matter their point of observation.

Long, it seems to me, pointedly denied that ‘a liberal education’ was available at Australian universities. “Unfortunately, a liberal education has never been available in this country whose universities are dominated by the positivistic social sciences and, to a lesser extent, the value-relative science of history, historicism.”

I would argue that Long was not using Rosseau to justify paternalism at all. In fact the opposite. He is arguing the primacy of reason/philosophy over history.

To play along with your philosophical trap, we can not pretend that the tree never fell, if in fact it did.

Open Letter:Mr Howard PM, Mr Rudd Federal ALP Leader and, ALL of Australia.

We are spending MILLIONS and MILLIONS of Dollars and the people who are administrating our business are burdened with the party policies and politics which have been blocking our "whole" nations pathway regional - AUSTRALIA.

I don't care how stupid my NAIF- sounds, nor for negative judgement in party politics. What I care about is the EMOTIONAL LIFE of our NATION, along side the people of the ASIAN PACIFIC, AFRICA, LATIN AMERICA and Europe....

Unlike yourselves ... I have LIVED being near homeless most of my life. I have had little tutored education and wandered the world curious "as a youth kid", working wherever I can - paid or not.

My life is a SUCCESSFUL OUT COME because of the post WWII MARSHALL PLAN. I am here in this country because the world came together to do something constructive for worn-torn “Europe”... a place that is only called this because "Others" named it... A world that decided to HARD talk without GUNS + BOMBS.

My point is my heart is looking for shared (combining) policies... and I am extremely apprehensive about the way this present election is panning out. I do not want more of the same.

I write because of the MILLIONS of DOLLARS resource possible with Government - Business Groups and Foreign Investments working together. I feel that the Broadband issue, the ALLIED Health issue, the APEC issues like the Community Service and Future Development National issues are ALL inter-connected. What ever we DO... I am honestly asking you Mr Howard PM and your LIBERAL Government to really listen.

Listen to Kevin Rudd - his civic advisors and to little people like ME.

This is a letter to Mr Howard PM and the Opposition Leader Mr Rudd, and the Australian public.

It can be found on www.miacat.com

(as soon as I finish this part.)
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Does it matter anyway, especially if its outside the Holy Bibles history? Whats more important is whats coming and, of course, whom. Jesus Christ and His Second Coming (Luke chapter 21 and Revelation chapter 6 onwards). Throughout history seemingly accurate records were kept at certain times, some survived but most got lost (imagine what got lost that was in the great library at Alexandra. Would have been heaps of occult...so that dont matter). Mostly there are huge gaps in what has occured. Much went to myth like Camelot and Arthur, though if Arthur was in a serious two-way relationship with a wizard (Merlin) it explains to committed christians why anything recorded... got blotted out. Civilisations exist or fall on how they behave (seen Mel Gibsons film Apocalypto?).
History therefore is like spaghetti thrown at a fan...its all over the place. Not really worth getting too much involved with unless we are looking at the fall of civilisations from a "way not to be" position. A good solid Bible focus is best.

As Winston Churchill famously said "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it".

you're having a laugh, right gibo?

very few absolutes exist due to the vagaries in personal perception and the nature of our chaotic universe. People come to agree on events not because of any equality of perception but, to share the reward of a common perception.
The us.

No Paul.L I'm serious. Ive been a born again christian 24 years and thats part of what Ive learnt. All of the really wise men in history went for Gods Word instead of the imperfection of mans recording of events. The Holy Bible is the truly reliable standard. When one confesses his/or her sin and receives Jesus as Lord and Saviour and what He did on the Cross with His Shed Blood for all of us; and becomes born-again (John 3:3) he/or she receives The Holy Spirit...Who...confirms everything in The Word as being truth. The new life, now on Gods Side and filled with The Holy Spirit, begins to forget mans version of things and continues on as The Holy Spirit Guides and changes things inside the body. Rotten addictions drop away. In truth, to the new believer, it doesnt matter much about mans version of history or what man decides is the right way. The new christian now knows Gods Will and His plan for mankind, which is written in the Book; generally taken as 6000years in length is His Plan so far since Adam and the fall. The earth maybe old, but not The Plan. As for civilisations. Once they give themselves over to the worship of idols (todays love of modern tech), sexual immorality (todays "everything goes") and to sacrifice (todays abortion) they fall. Christians worldwide see the fall coming; and draw closer to Jesus Christ where His Peace is.

The sub-title of this article concerns the methodology of history - yet it seems to me that the author has an imperfect grasp of that methodology.

Often, upon reading sweeping statements concerning Universities per se I wonder if my own Universities are a-typical. But just as often I wonder upon what comprehensive basis this knowledge of "all" Universities is based.

I take exception to the statement that a liberal education is unavailable in Australia - and to the implicit generalisation that historicists as a general group are not liberal thinkers.

As to: "The science of history asserts that it alone understands man, that its truth about human affairs is superior to that of philosophy."

Who eactly is it that asserts such an ethos? Obviously the subject of the sentence - "science" - being inanimate can make no such assertion: therefore it is in fact the proponants of said science who presumably do so. It has not been my experience ever to have heard any such assertion made by either my lecturers or colleagues. Cross disciplinary studies are in fact encouraged.

One wonders exactly in how many history subjects the author, studying Law,was tutored? If indeed such assertions were made during the course of his career in tertiary education I still take issue with the fact that this experience is used to codify all historicists as having the same bent.

I also take exception to the fact that throughout this essay the historicist is gender-specified as male. Discrimination such as this is also outlawed both at the University through which I am continuing post-graduate work and the one at which I lecture.

Paul,

Australian unis *do* provide a liberal, literary education. Historicism is not in opposition to this but part and parcel. Long's claim is part political aspertion and part hysteria. To give him the benefit of the doubt, it may also be part misundertanding, but I doubt it.

You ask

>>Doesn't accepting moral relativism remove any base upon which to claim a science of the study of society and politics?<<

Perhaps it was an error on my part to adopt Long's reductive term for the sake of argument. If the question refers to the practice of refraining from moral judgment whilst seeking understanding, the answer is a patent no.

You write
>>Following moral relativism down its logical path presents us with a world without morals. Yes I know you predicted it but that doesn’t make it any less true. Surely some things are moral for everyone no matter their point of observation.<<

Academic disinterest does *not* lead down this path. Real people do have morals, we are agreed on this point. There are sociopathic and psychopathic exceptions, but these are necessarily rare.

The disinterest of "historicist" academia is not real, personal moral relativism but a recognition that different people, and different societies, have different moral compasses -- and are no less human, and no less capable of insight or beauty or truth, for their distance from the observer's moral milieu.

A healthy person's moral sense is synthesised through a process of instinct, socialisation, learning and contemplation. The morals of societies and of individuals evolve in response to learning and experience.

To pretend instead that morality is something objective puts one firmly in the camp of religious fundamentalists (whose holy books bottle the moral zeitgeist of distant history and distil it as a prescription for all time) and of "objectivist" prophets like Ayn Rand or Ludwig Wittgenstein, who pretend that moral truth can be inferred from some universal human condition.

It's fine for you to hold such a position, but all such absolutist opinions are equally "true", and where they repudiate the validity of contrary positions, equally likely to be false.

Ok I admit I never had any formal education in Australia as to its history as I grew up in The Netherlands but then again on the other hand it does not prevent me as an Attorney (not a lawyer) and “CONSTITUTIONALIST” to present constitutional and other legal issues before the Courts and succeed in them using Australia’s legal history that those educated in Australia and so also having law degrees never even knew about.
It all comes down to how one looks at history and its meaning.
As a “CONSTITUTIONALIST” (See also my blog at http://au.360.yahoo.com/profile-ijpxwMQ4dbXm0BMADq1lv8AYHknTV_QH) I pursue the true meaning of the Framers of the Constitution and not some version politicians and judges of the High Court of Australia pretend to make from it.
Local Government is historically State Government in the Constitution, not the Local Government we know of today being Municipal Councils.
When States are teaching their own versions of history they can bring out what is significant in its State history whereas a Federal Government dictated “history” can be what suits the politicians most.
For example the federal politicians will pretend that “Australian citizenship” is a nationality, whereas constitutionally Australian citizenship can only be obtained by obtaining “State citizenship”. This, as the framers of the Constitution specifically refused to give the Federal Government any legislative powers to define/declare “citizenship”. “Citizenship” being a “political status” and has nothing to do with nationality.
On 19 July 2006 I succeeded on those and other constitutional ground in Court, after a 5-year legal battle against the Federal Government, and as such my lack of formal education in Australians history is made up for in my quest for JUSTICE and to pursue the true application of the Constitution!
No one should be expected to know everything of history, as what is needed is a mere general perception of the world and blended with local history of once State.

Even my step-daughter (46), with several law degrees made known she learned more from me about certain historical legal matters then she ever had before!

Xoddam,

You say “The disinterest of "historicist" academia is not real, personal moral relativism but a recognition that different people, and different societies, have different moral compasses -- and are no less human, and no less capable of insight or beauty or truth, for their distance from the observer's moral milieu.”

This is all well and good in theory, in practise what you are saying is that the historicists view all morals as equal.

Historicists want to avoid making any value judgements at all. But the fact of having morals does not make you a ‘good’ person. Not all morals are equal. By doing this Historicists are rejecting the idea that there is such a thing as ‘good’.

But there are universal principles that occur in all the good books of the world’s religions. Surely they are on to something there

Paul.L,

You write

>>In practice what you are saying is that the historicists view all morals as equal<<

No, David Long says that, my position is clear. Perhaps you missed the discussion under Long's previous article:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6293

Donald Blake's single post last Friday was particularly pertinent.

The purpose of scientific study is to discern facts. One's moral values inform one's curiosity and whatever use one makes of one's knowledge, but factual assessment must be dispassionate *especially* when studying human behaviour.

Someone whose passionate moral sense causes them to dismiss information coming from "immoral" sources or presume "Biblical inerrancy" is very likely to miss the mark.

I think Long wants readers to conclude that there is one objective morality, but he would prefer that they lead themselves there by reading the timeless classics of moral philosophy rather than simply be told to follow his mores. A noble goal, but undermined by Long's approach of denigrating the rigorous study of human behaviour. He would prefer a cultural canon of European philosophers to the progressive and evolving scientific understanding that always informed them.

Long gets my goat with his close-minded assumption that all open-minded people must come to the same inescapable conclusion, and with the insufferable way he belittles the social sciences, as though seeking facts in the field is itself doomed by hubris.

You write

>>But there are universal principles that occur in all the good books of the world’s religions. Surely they are on to something there<<

The books have the morality of the human animal in common. The archaic morality of vendetta and of narrow tribal loyalty is there too. Morals evolve subject to contemplation and socialisation, and it is a valid and noble goal to seek to direct that socialisation through education and public policy.

It is neither valid nor noble to denigrate the pursuit of science whilst espousing "liberal education" and an arbitrary "already moral" cultural norm.

Long says the mind should be cultivated by reading great books. The greatest and most truthful book is Bacon's book of nature. It is read by skeptical, rigorous science.

Disgraceful Downer. You are trying to divide Australia. It is you as our Foreign representive government who confuses the Humanitarian issues.

Australia does not support the Death Penalty.

This is not a Club-med subject. We need to Stop Playing these Mindless Politcal Games.

Death is the one topic that is bound to confuse and under-mine the core principals of human rights and I am SHOCKED that you would even attempt to imprint our fear or focus of war, boarder security and now the death penalty as you wrangle for desperate brownie points over "sensitivities" trying to finger-shame at the opposition in the shadow of Bali rememberances.

Worse is the darkness of positive issues you fail to promote with your resources.

As Indoneasia's people historically struggle with poverty, poor infrastructure, industrialisation, complex forms of crime, military and economic structures... Where progress is being made by the people of Indoneasia, you abuse their rights as you do the democratic rights they struggle for, not to mention the tireless work of people who work on the issues (NGO's) which you fail to adequately fund, which do help ground level conditions.

We need to learn more to Solve Problems. Become more aware of how cartel movements operate and share the work with international movements against war, poverty and crime.

Australian needs to assist and work constructively to influence the complexity of debates valid in the UN context of Human Rights. We need to face the causes of crime so there is less chance of people becoming mixed up with the issues around attracting the death penalty. We need to het to the bottom of the problem,

People daily lives are at Stake!

As Foreign Minister I learn little from you, which is sad, given the wealth of knowledge and skill you are exposed to throughout Australia.

Listening to other Australians cope with this media tonight gives me strength to know of their soundness, regardless of the governments ill-advised cartoon not-gaffs being made in leadership.

http://www.miacat.com
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