Liberty/equality

Liberty

- We should have a free press where everyone can voice any views they like on society. Power must be scrutinised at all times and all individuals can voice dissenting views. No opinions should be silenced.

- Autonomy should be a human right. Most individuals want to choose what to do with their own lives - depriving them of that right deprives them of their humanity.

- Markets are usually the most effective way of allocating resources.

- There should be property rights - individuals should be able to start businesses and own their intellectual property.

- Society is more interesting when it is pluralistic and diverse, not homogeneous. Difference should be celebrated, not ostracised. 

Equality

- There should be safety nets that mitigate the excesses of a free-for-all market capitalism.

- Health care should be socialised. Health problems can't be predicted and are accidental - hence, it rests upon the state to provide health care for everyone, free at the point of use.

- Education should be a human right and quality education should be equally accessible to everyone.

- Markets should not be left alone - they should be regulated so that the public is not taken advantage of. There should be a minimum wage and some union labour rights.

- The government should control equality of outcome to some degree. There should be some redistribution of wealth to ensure that one segment of society is not exceedingly richer than the rest, as this creates inequality, resentment and it is unjust.

- There should be social reforms that tackle social injustices, unfairness and other forms of discrimination.

- There should be social programs that assist people and help them back to work.

- Utilities should be publicly owned, as they are something that people need and private companies should not ratchet up prices to chase profits.

Epiphanies

An epiphany is a moment when an individual suddenly realises something important and life-changing. It is an almost mystical experience – you encounter something and this experience changes your entire world-view. This type of experience has been recreated many times in art. The modernists, for instance, sought epiphanic experiences. Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time starts when its protagonist eats a madeleine and he subsequently looks back on his entire life.

Many people shape their political world-view after such an experience. Roger Scruton became a conservative in 1968 when he witnessed radical leftists looting and pillaging the streets of Paris. He was twenty-four at the time, when his politics had been ‘vaguely left-wing.’ These leftist activists wanted to stage a revolution and replace it with something vaguely Marxist. Scruton said at the time: ‘I decided, yes, of course there is such a thing as the bourgeoisie and you are it, these well-fed, pampered middle-class students whose one concern was to throw stones at working-class people who happened to be in a policeman’s uniform.’ His politics underwent a volte-face and he has been an arch conservative ever since. The radical leftists were certainly twits, but Scruton decided that they were so bad that he would espouse a world-view that was diametrically opposed to theirs.

P. J. O’Rourke is another example. A self-styled ‘Republican reptile,’ O’Rourke is a libertarian. He believes that government invariably damages and stultifies economy and society and should be limited as much as possible. He claims that he used to be a communist in the 1960s. His own politics took a 180 degree turn when he started his first job, when his income had been taxed. Following this, he came to the conclusion that the U.S.A. ‘had communism already’ and he became an ardent libertarian. He really was a bit naive, since he surely must have known that his income would be taxed. 

Michelle Bauchman is a Republican congresswoman who underwent a similar conversion. She had been a Liberal until she read Burr by Gore Vidal. Vidal has always been on the left of American politics and has always criticised the wealthy, greedy and powerful. Bauchman claimed the following: 'Until I was reading this snotty novel called Burr, by Gore Vidal, and read how he mocked our Founding Fathers. And as a reasonable, decent, fair-minded person who happened to be a Democrat, I thought, 'You know what? What he's writing about, this mocking of people that I revere, and the country that I love, and that I would lay my life down to defend - just like every one of you in this room would, and as many of you in this room have when you wore the uniform of this great country - I knew that that was not representative of my country.’ So at that point she decided to become a small government, conservative Republican.

None of this makes sense. I, personally, correct my views over a long length of time. I read, learn and experience new things. I don’t have one sudden revelation that forces me to radically change my views. Maybe these people are exaggerating, but I am sure that they also form their views after long, protracted and careful consideration of facts and ideas.

Nature and stress

Nature is beautiful in the same way art is beautiful – it is pleasing to the eye. However, like art, it is has high utilitarian value. Walks in nature help us to cope with depression and stress and they also help us to escape problems.

There is mounting scientific evidence that nature does do these things. The reason for this is that urban environments are crammed with excessive information. People come to contact with constant stimulation, which is termed ‘hard fascination’ and this leads to cognitive fatigue. Meanwhile, in natural environments we deal with less information, which leads to ‘soft fascination.’ The environment that we process is also aesthetically pleasing, which leads to feelings of pleasure. There is also, of course, a sense of escape from the problems that we encounter in urban environs. Nature often makes us feel better, which is why they are called ‘restorative environments.’
Many scientists believe that our minds are not equipped to deal with so much information. The internet inundates us with multiples sources of information and we often access such information compulsively. Hence, these ‘restorative environments’ lead to a healthier state of mind, which help us to be more creative and also enhance our problem solving skills.

We lived in green, natural environments for thousands of years. Another interesting theory is that we feel less stressed in natural environments because our minds adapted to live in such environments. This theory holds that urban environments are unnatural and cause us to experience stress, depression and anxiety. Additionally, nature was crucial in helping us to survive. Plants helped us to find shelter and water and thus helped us to evolve our brains, which is an unnatural ‘mismatch’. Some of these mismatches were beneficial, such as sleeping on mattresses instead of the ground. Others may have contributed to disease and reduced our quality of life and these negative mismatches are termed ‘discords.’ Our brains are vulnerable to discords because they are complex organs that mature after birth and respond to external stimulation. Exposure to plants might have been what our minds were naturally predisposed to processing and the absence of this might have predisposed us to develop mental illnesses. 

There have been political movements that have revolted against technological progress and sought to return to a more natural mode of experience. The most notorious movement were the ‘Luddites’ during the Industrial Revolution. The Unabomber – otherwise known as Ted Kaczynski - was an anarchist neo-luddite who launched a crusade against technology from the 1970s to the 1990s. He was a formidable mathematician who left a comfortable job as a university lecturer and fled to the woods to lead a hermetic existence. He wrote works of political philosophy and, most disturbingly, sent bombs out to airports and universities. He believed that technology was unnatural and that a human society built upon technological progress regulates and stifles human freedom. Wild nature – that is, nature that is not regulated by technology – allows individual freedom to flourish. Unabomber said that ‘it is only necessary to get rid of industrial society.’ He did not think that it was necessary to create a new social order, as the French and Russian revolutions did. He wanted to eliminate ordered society and technological progress so that individuals could be completely free in natural environments.
Of course, this was psychotic behaviour. It is still vital for us to engage with nature, however, and it should, ultimately, be a vital aspect in our lives.

Let's all meander with Simon #5