Notes from the Panopticon

Waving not drowning

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting. ~ Mark Twain (1835-1910)

My muse keeps trying to prod me into action but fails to energise me so eager readers must wait a bit longer for me to return to the blogging fray. (See the cartoon at the end of this post for more details.) Instead, here again is the guide to what I have published up to now. Judging by Google's generation of passing trade it remains relevant.

My first article on this blog was published in June 2007. Since then I have posted another 44.

I have been inspired by books, films, television, and above all by BBC radio. I have tried not to be overly topical. News always distorts. We are too close to immediate events and news which is particularly shocking tends to cloud the judgement. I have made a special effort to be measured in my analysis and comments. But I still have strong views and these are reflected in my choice of subject.

I now feel the need to give myself a few weeks' break. It is therefore a good time to provide a map of the topics covered since June, so that new visitors (as well as those who have been here before) can review the themes I have covered in depth.

The original reason for writing this blog was disgust at the way Tony Blair used the role of prime minister to indulge his shallow, unreflective shoot-from-the hip style of government. This has made Britain a much grimmer place. His approach was a crude response to the simplistic lounge-bar comment ("It shouldn't be allowed – there should be a law against it"), and it resulted in the passing of law after law after law. He filled the prisons to overflowing and the government now has to let people out to make room for others. We shall rue what he has done for many years to come.

But however detrimental these laws are to our freedom and safety in Britain, they are far less serious than Blair's support for the Bush administration's ill-conceived and ill-thought-out campaign in Iraq. And this links to another major issue – the terrorist threat. I have given that a great deal of thought too.

My main themes have been these:

• The structure of power and its use (and abuse) by the powerful. What is the raison d'être of those in power now they can no longer hide behind the doctrine of the divine right of kings?
• The nature of democracy and the abuse of the concept of "mandate".
• The protection of liberty (and the protection of minorities) against the dictatorship of the majority.
• The weakness of government as a mechanism for getting things done properly, leading to the idea that "less is more".
• The folly of the war on drugs.
• The recklessness of the "war on terror" and the misery inflicted on its victims – mostly innocent bystanders – by governments who should know better.

My guiding belief is that we have only one life and, provided we do not hurt others, we should be free to lead our lives as we choose. If we need help, we should be able to ask for it, but no-one should think it their duty to push such help down our throats. As well as examining my main themes, I have had a shot at explaining complicated issues as simply as possible.

So as I start my break, here is a guide to what I have written. I have tried hard to be measured and clear (and I owe a debt of gratitude to my wife for her extensive editing of my text). The articles can be divided into the following categories:

1 Constitutional issues. Whether we are subjects or citizens is a key question for me. And so are the ways in which politicians and administrators abuse their power and make lives miserable for various groups of citizens:

Power structure

Political animal right or wrong

Bully boys

Child abuse Australian-style

Campbell on TV

2 Corruption. An ever-present danger, it is theft by those in power. Endemic in many parts of the world, it also exists (as Eva Joly points out) on a massive scale much closer to home:

Moral hazards

Justice under siege

Learning lessons

The curse of oil

3 The way in which politicians manipulate voters and the electoral system. The more they get sucked into the political process, the less they are interested in representing the voters. They end up merely wanting power and they behave like playground kids in their efforts to obtain it:

Coca Cola politics

Cheerleaders

The Sharks and the Jets

MMR vaccine truth and consequences

4 The inefficiency of government. I believe that government structures get things wrong simply because they are inefficient systems for doing anything ("less is more" again):

Why I love the Millennium Dome

Why nurses hate Patricia Hewitt

Everything in moderation

Foot and Mouth

How can I fuck things up today?

More moral hazards

Yet more moral hazards

5 Drug laws, how governments have given themselves the impossible task of outlawing narcotic drugs (except, of course, alcohol). This gives intelligent and well-organised criminals an excess of riches and provides a career path for under-educated youth. It has fed a rise in crime, fuelled corruption and made the world a worse place in which to live. It would be a far less costly strategy to legalise the drugs, maintain a tight control on their distribution and manage the personal problems they cause. The pointlessness of the war on drugs is breathtaking:

Lady Chatterly's connection

The tragic death of Rhys Jones – the devil makes work for idle hands

Moral hazards

More moral hazards

6 The Middle East, the cradle of monotheistic religion and the source of some of the biggest dangers facing the world. President Bush has admitted (in so many words) that he sees his fight against Muslim terrorists as a Crusade. Not the best choice of words. I believe that the battle in the Middle East is predominantly Muslim-on-Muslim and that we in the West have merely been caught up in it (as not-particularly-innocent bystanders). I have tried not to be sucked in by the rhetoric of politicians or the press or even the victims, most of whom are innocent non-combatants living in Palestine, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Kuwait (and not forgetting those who had the bad luck to be in the World Trade Centre in 2001):

Learning lessons

The terrorist and the rubberneck

The curse of oil

Sunni/Shia theological differences

A really simple explanation of Sunni/Shia tension and the Middle East crisis – Part 2: People

A really simple explanation of Sunni/Shia tension and the Middle East crisis – Part 3: The oil

Logic 101 and the terrorist threat

Should burkas be banned

7 The media, which must share the blame with politicians for winding people up with exaggeration, distortion and half truths:

The terrorist and the rubberneck

Logic 101 and the terrorist threat

The Sharks and the Jets

MMR vaccine truth and consequences

Campbell on TV

The art of the blog

8 Erosion of freedom, the inspiration for my title: Notes from the Panopticon:

Why the Panopticon

Should burkas be banned

Damart days

Bully boys

Everything in moderation

Power structure

Child abuse Australian-style

Moral hazards

More moral hazards

Yet more moral hazards

9 Really simple explanations. I had the idea of a series of articles called "a really simple explanation of ..." The one on the sub-prime mortgage crisis has proved to be most popular, but the ones on the Middle East were also well received.

10 Reviews of books, theatre and television programmes (these have also proved popular):

Cool It by Bjorn Lomborg

Victory by Athol Fugard

Waltz of the Toreadors by Jean Anouilh

Televised version of Alistair Campbell's diaries

Little Nell by Simon Gray

Justice under Siege by Eva Jolly (A very important book)

The Last Confession by Roger Crane

I hope you will enjoy reading through some of these. I certainly enjoyed researching and writing them.

I you have not done so, try clicking on my heroes and villains. There are lots more underneath. I enjoy thinking of new ones and change those that grace the front page fairly frequently. If you have ideas about additions to either list, please leave a comment saying, in a few words, why you think they qualify. If I agree with you, I shall add them - it's my blog after all.

I shall be back before long when I shall be tackling: political parties being the problem not the solution, proportional representation, the fundamental weakness of fundamentalism, right wing Christianity, poverty, capitalism and globalisation, political correctness, a really simple explanation of government finance – and much, much more.

Damart Days

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower ~ Albert Camus (1913 –1960)

Damart is probably the best-known manufacturer of thermal underwear in the UK. Every year, as autumn arrives along with the falling leaves, a Damart catalogue pops through the letter box. Until now my wife has thrown it in the bin. This year she has kept hold of it. She is starting to feel the cold.

We're neither of us old but we are "getting on". The delusion of immortality is fading. Aches don't go away. Pains and other symptoms begin to seem serious and could presage an illness that will stay.

When you read about the latest health scare or news that this, that or the other activity predisposes or increases the chances of being afflicted with this, that or the other condition, nothing is said about the fact that the best predictor of getting cancer or succumbing to a heart attack or a stroke or going bananas is getting old.

Now I'm not trying to be morbid or to depress anyone. I am quite happy most of the time. I am content to be "getting on" despite the disadvantages. The drawing in of the years, like the drawing in of the days, makes me reflect on how lucky I have been. How lucky I am.

I haven't achieved a great deal in my life. In many ways it's been an "also ran" sort of life, the kind of life that most people lead. Many of us try to bulk up what we've achieved but, personally, I don't see much point in that. I hope I haven't made too many people unhappy during my life and, if I've achieved that, then I'm glad.

Life continues to offer challenges and moments of excitement and novelty, and in my small way, I keep trying to push my horizons forward, learning new things and sometimes making new friends. Listening to other people, mostly through what they write, is a good way to avoid stagnation.

There are things that make me sad. I feel sorry for people whose lives are closed and limited, and who can never experience the richness which I've enjoyed by having the luxury of choice. My parents left Czechoslovakia when I was less than two years old and I often think of what might have been. The lives of generations of people in the Eastern bloc were crushed by a dynasty of greedy megalomaniacs who claimed to know best how lives should be lived. They didn't of course. They simply enjoyed power and control and the luxury that came with them.

Today, people continue to live under the heel of other megalomaniacs and in even more misery than the compatriots I left behind. These monsters ensure the continuation of poverty in much of Africa, the Middle East and South America and are responsible for many broken lives.

How quickly things change when tyranny subsides. Many people in South East Asia are joining the lucky generation, even in China. And India shows that it is not only dictators who prevent people escaping poverty and enjoying the freedom that general prosperity brings. It can be overweening bureaucrats too. Indians call them the abominable no men.

I am one of the lucky ones who lived in an open society in the 20th Century. I am horrified by how carelessly that openness is being thrown away.

At the beginning of this piece, I mentioned the delusion of immortality which dominates our lives. I should also mention that many people cling to that delusion – in the face of all the evidence – by looking forward to an afterlife. (Remember that most suicide bombers are drawn into their terrible trade by the promise of an afterlife.) How much stronger we would be if we recognised that our lives are all that we know we have. Whether or not there is an afterlife, if we could just accept that life is the only thing we can be sure of we would, perhaps, recognise how very precious it is.

For me this is the very foundation of what is right and wrong. If I have nothing other than my own life, the same is true of every other person. If I fail to enjoy my life to the best of my ability, I have nothing. That is also true of every other person. So I should like to help everyone with whom I come into contact to enjoy their lives. Not to tell them how to live their lives – because their lives are theirs and not mine – but to offer a helping hand and to share. To share with absolutely everyone who wants to share with me. No-one is different: quick or slow, big or small, white or black, woman or man, weak or strong, old or young ...

Nothing big (it's far too easy to get it wrong) but in little everyday ways. The only true and lasting happiness, after all, comes from companionship with others.

    Damart days are good days for me. I hope they are good for you too – when you get there.

What is the panopticon?

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom." ~ Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

At the turn of the 18th century, Jeremy Bentham proposed a design for a prison. He called it the Panopticon. It contained a central point from which prison warders were able to watch all the prisoners simultaneously, while remaining themselves unobserved. Bentham claimed two important advantages for this design. Firstly it would reduce costs (prisoners would not know whether they were being watched or not, so warders would not have to be on duty all the time). Secondly the prisoners (potentially under scrutiny at all times) would improve their behaviour. Their morals would be reformed as a consequence.

Ideal prison

It is all too easy to draw a parallel between Bentham's ideal prison and today's world. Most obviously there are the "safety" cameras which enforce the rule of the road, congestion charge cameras which record comings and goings through swathes of London, Oyster cards which follow the movements of passengers on the underground and buses. A less structured system – for the moment – are the many private surveillance cameras. These have the potential of watching our actions wherever we are – if only their information could be co-ordinated, collated and analysed. And that time is not too far away.

Then there are initiatives by local government to watch our rubbish disposal habits and home improvement activities.

This is all direct observation. But there is also indirect surveillance: mobile phone use, money transactions, the whole fingerprint, DNA database and identity card project. In China, information provided by internet service provider Yahoo was used to convict and imprison a writer who sent an email to an American journalist detailing media restrictions imposed by the Chinese authorities.

We are not watched all the time. But we can be watched whenever the authorities feel like it. So will our morals be reformed? And will that lead to a better society?

But wait – Bentham's design was intended for a prison, for convicted criminals. Is that what we have all become in our new surveillance world? If we are caught on camera, the consequences of accepting a quick fine and a criminal record are far less risky than arguing the case in court. As a result, more and more of us become criminalised.

Is there an advantage in having a better behaved population? And to obtain this, is permanent observation the price we have to pay?

Women whipped in the street

Again, we must pause for thought. The Taliban government in Afghanistan imposed moral values on the population. The religious police found women whose dress or behaviour fell below their standards and whipped them in the street. Is this the sort of justice to which we aspire? And let us not forget that until the 1960s incautious (male) homosexuals in our own country caught by the authorities were put on trial and sent to prison. They would have found it harder to be discreet if the Panopticon society that is being built now had existed then. They would have found it much harder to fight for their rights. Most would have become criminalised by default; the rest would have been forced to stay below the radar.

These are just two examples which demonstrate that authorities, when they think they have a right (duty) to improve morals, become both oppressive and dangerous.

Authoritarian governments have always sought ways to keep their population under control but in the past British governments curbed their controlling instincts. In 1898 an effort to treat anarchism as an international offence was crushed by the reluctance of Britain Switzerland and Belgium to participate. Interestingly the move was sponsored by the USA. Over the next few years the anarchist movement withered away as its efforts to disrupt society by, often suicidal, terrorist acts failed to generate sufficient following and support.

Why do the authorities feel justified in constructing this new high tech Panopticon? Why do they treat the population that they "serve" as prisoners, branding more and more of us as criminals? I believe there is a reason for this – but more of that another time.

Image credits:
http://www.prisonwall.org/postcard/pri.htm
www.runningscared.org

             

The art of the blog: a reply to Polly Toynbee’s article in The Author based on her Bagehot Lecture

…it behoveth him to have a vigilant eye to the proceedings of great princes, and to consider seriously of their designs ~ Sir Walter Raleigh (1554 –1618)

Before I started to publish this blog, I asked a friend for comments. She was very upset by what she read, believing it to be carping and critical. I took her comments to heart and have softened my tone and moderated my language. At the same time, she berated me for not voting because she believes that voting is the right way to take part in the democratic process. My opinion of political parties, however, is unchanged. Based on their behaviour and their attitude to the electorate, my feeling remains – a plague on all your houses.

Instinctive sympathy for the political process

My friend directed me to an article in The Author magazine by Polly Toynbee, "The art of the column", which I read with interest. Toynbee offers two golden rules for columnists:

• "If you are going to try to explain the world of politics to the world outside you need to have a strong instinctive sympathy for the political process and for the politicians who face the very difficult task of getting anything done"
• Spend … "a good long time as a reporter first … both a general reporter and a specialist in some particular subject … for politics is not about the miasma of Westminster … it is about policy and the real world."

Attack on the blogosphere

Toynbee's attack is on colleagues who are "overtly and strongly opinionated" and on the "alternative Rory Bremner voice (that) has become mainstream". She says there is a risk that the style of the blogosphere, its "unmediated sound and fury" coming from "unknown sources with unknown intentions", is "forcing conventional columnists to shout louder, to take up contrarian postures for the sake of it."

Towards the end of the article, she provides some good advice, referring to "the skill of crafting a column with a beginning, a middle and an end, a coherent argument, at least three facts that readers won't know, and information gleaned from talking to the leading players in the case."

Once you have gutted what Polly Toynbee is saying, it comes down to "clear off you amateurs and leave the job to us professionals, you contaminate us". And maybe she has a point. Tony Blair was an amateur when he leapt straight into the job of Prime Minister – and look how we, and more tragically the people of Iraq, have paid the price. This is despite the fact that Blair was ably assisted by Alistair Campbell, a professional journalist who had passed through Polly Toynbee's career development mill. Yet it was only at the end of Blair's career that one glimpsed how much he had done for Northern Ireland and how admired he was in Sierra Leone. With a professional journalist at his side, how did he fail focus public attention on these not inconsiderable successes?

Two objections

I have two greater objections to Polly Toynbee's position:

• First, she turns inclusion in the cosy, inward-looking, elitist world that is professional politics into a virtue for the columnist. How would she cope if the BNP, UKIP or an extreme Islamic party became mainstream? (Not out of the question – let us never forget how quickly the Nazi Party took power in Germany in the 1930s).
• Second, she places emphasis on the moderating effect of working for a newspaper, its editor and its publisher . My thoughts may come from an "unknown source", but I can assure her that I have never worked for Robert Maxwell, Conrad Black or Rupert Murdoch.

On one point I must agree with her – "… if you fail to be entertaining no-one will read you. It takes bravado to go out there and tell the world what you think." Finding readers is many, many times harder in the blogosphere. The blogger does not have the benefit of passing traffic as Toynbee does from the comfort of her newspaper column.

But even without readers, I benefit from the process of writing. With its discipline, I clear my thinking and there is always the faint chance that some passer-by may read and be interested in what I say. I have no illusions.

Incandescent fury

My original motive for starting to blog was an incandescent fury at having to live in a country led by the shallow and inconsequential Tony Blair, whose mindless actions led to the deaths of tens of thousands in Iraq and the erosion of civil liberties and the right to free speech at home. Only fundamental constitutional reform will protect us from another leader of his ilk: simultaneously besotted by his own convictions and propelled into knee-jerk policy-making by a hysterical and hostile press. I am heartened that Gordon Brown sees a need for constitutional reform and I now watch and wait for a better future.

Smell of competence

Polly Toynbee's article, and my friend's original criticism, have made me focus on what I can bring to the party. I want to do better than Richard Littlejohn who sees his job as "sitting at the back and throwing bottles". I try to look at what people do and not at what they say. For example, my wife and I have often argued about the merits of Gordon Brown. Whatever criticism was made against him, I was unable to get away from the fact that he has run the economy much better than any Chancellor in the twentieth century. He just smells of competence. His first days as prime minister feel right too. I will not make a firm judgement until the honeymoon period is over – I am only too well aware that politicians are masters of the finesse. I could not care less about his performance in Prime Minister's question time. For the moment he is making the right noises. If he follows through with liberating policies, with opportunities for better, freer lives, and if he doesn't view the public as potential criminals who need to be watched or as children unable to look after themselves or to make their own choices, I shall breathe a sigh of relief.

I am however, cautious about his reputation for bullying, autocracy and bad temper. But again, his willingness to give up power, first to the Bank of England and now to the Commons, belies this reputation. And if his bad temper was the result of watching the moronic antics of the Blair/Campbell double act, I am inclined to sympathise.

Unnoticed in the stalls

I find I have digressed but hope the diversion has strengthened my defence of blogging. I have one big advantage over Ms Toynbee and other political columnists – I am sitting here and watching from MY vantage point. I might not have a front row seat, but from up here in the gods I occasionally spot things – juxtapositions of actors, things happening off stage – that may go unnoticed in the stalls.

One more point: in democracy, no-one is an amateur. We all pay our taxes or receive our benefits, we all have a right to vote (or in my case not to vote), and we can all have our say, despite Blair's efforts to stifle free speech. The internet has yet to settle but it has the potential to be massively democratising, to become a moderator of the power of the cosy elite to which Ms Toynbee is privileged and proud to belong.

And finally, to show that I have been paying attention, here are three facts that are not well known. In the 2005 general election:

• For every 96,482 votes, the Liberal Democrats won one seat
• For every 44,306 votes, the Conservatives won one seat
• For every 26,031 votes, Labour won one seat

So what is there to sympathise with? To my mind, these figures – alongside other weaknesses – seriously undermine the legitimacy of the political process.

I have slipped in a few harsh words here and there to satisfy Ms Toynbee's prejudice against bloggers.

Picture credits:

www.safecom.org.au/lawrence03.htm

www.lboro.ac.uk/.../pages/07-commending.html

Why I am writing this Blog

"Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised" ~ Tolstoy (1828-1910)

I should explain why I have decided to write this blog.

Naïve assumptions

I have always been bewildered by the world that surrounds me. It makes no sense. This is probably because my assumptions are naïve. For example, for me, honesty is a fairly straightforward concept. It is not hard to tell the truth most of the time. Yet all around me I see people – especially politicians and those in authority – lying, cheating and twisting words in order to distort or hide the truth, cover their mistakes, or obscure their motives. And these are the members of society whom we need to trust the most. Why? Because we cede so much power to them and because they have such a huge impact on our lives.

The same is true of many who claim to follow the Christian faith. The gospel of love, forgiveness and charity is very simple. The injunction "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" is clear and straightforward. Yet many Christians are very quick to condemn and impose their will on others. And many tolerate hypocrisy and bigotry with a frightening level of enthusiasm.

There are other, less dangerous, things that I don't understand. Fashion for example. Why are the colours and designs that were so popular in the 1960s and 1970s so reviled now? (Or are they coming back; I really can't keep up.) And why are the gothic shapes and flourishes of the Victorian era, which were until fairly recently covered up with hardboard and white paint, now so popular? St Pancras Station springs to mind, a joke – a bit of an eyesore – just a few decades ago; now one of the most loved landmarks of London.

Power of celebrity

I also find the power of celebrity inexplicable, although I too can be seduced by heroes. So maybe I can use my own experience to help untangle this particular conundrum. (I doubt it but I will try.)

Celebrity is connected with charisma and charisma is very important and very dangerous as we know from the example of Hitler. Yet society seems to crave leaders with charisma. It seems as if we have failed to learn from a recent – terrible – lesson of history.

Mounting body count

And how can we live with ourselves when our government has, in our name, invaded a foreign country. It disbanded the police force and army, and then watched as its own army was helpless to stop the civilian body count mount to a (minimum) estimate of 60,000. And that government has since been re-elected. When our politicians speak about this horror and there is little indication that they see these people as human beings. Where is the outrage that was expressed followed the bombing of the London underground? The number of people who died here was in the tens not the tens of thousands.

So it seems to me that I must be coming at the problem from the wrong direction. Instead of listening to what people say, I should look at what they do. If the theory which is supposed to explain how things work does not fit the facts, I should seek a theory which has a better explanation.

Restricted freedom

What I find distressing is that, in a world which is clearly getting better in many ways (far more people now have the opportunity to live rich and fulfilling lives, hunger and poverty are being pushed back in many parts of the world) serious efforts are being made to restrict freedom. We are moving from a time when the gap between rich and poor was getting smaller to one where it is getting bigger, a time when more people are spending a longer time in education but their skills and abilities fail to meet the expectations of employers.

In no way do I pretend to have answers to the problems which make me so confused. But I do want to share my reflections about them. I have ideas about how a few of the problems might be addressed, although I don't claim any special status for them. All I have done is try to think through why efforts to solve problems seem to fail repeatedly – and search for alternative ways of looking at them. The object is never to offer definitive answers but always to provide food for thought.

My perspective is Anglocentric. I have limited experience of how things work elsewhere. My focus is on the way in which politics and government works, and the way in which ordinary people like myself react to what governments and administrations do.

I hope you find this random walk through my mind maze interesting. If I succeed in throwing new light into some dark corner, I will have achieved my objective.

Image credit: http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/show_print.aspx?Id=1018