In a post-Enlightenment society, particularly since Jeremey Bentham and J.S. Mill, the ethical culture of our politics, institutions, and society in general, has been captured by utilitarianism. For clarification, when I say ‘utilitarianism’, I am defining it in the broadest application of the word, meaning that the common goal of increasing the ‘good’ or ‘happiness’ of as many people as possible is what fuels our ethical decision making. It is important to say, if I may, that it is not the aim of this article to either prove or disprove utilitarianism. Instead, I wish to explore the degeneration of utilitarianism into what I call ‘faux-utilitarianism’, which now has such a tyrannical grip over the politics of this country that many are not even aware of its presence – we accept it, just as we accept that the sky is blue.
The processes of public policy research and implementation in this country are dominated by utilitarian motivations. Our political slogans from across the political spectrum – such as Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘For the Many Not the Few’, the Green’s ‘For the Common Good’, or UKIP’s ‘Empowering the People’ – are ripe with utilitarian undertones of a majority-rule common good. Of course, in large part this is due to the nature of democratic elections. In order to receive the majority vote, you need to make the majority of people content. Modern liberal democracy is, almost by its very nature, utilitarian. Within the Civil Service, policies are researched and advised upon through the lens of utilitarianism, in the hope of addressing issues or implementing policies that might increase the common societal good.
On the surface, this might all sound fine and well. After all, why wouldn’t we want to increase the common good of society, making decisions that will benefit majorities? The more people well-off and happier people are, the better, right? But it is at this point within the political discourse that the curious beast of faux-utilitarianism rears its ugly head. When a political culture is ruled by faux-utilitarianism, we focus so much on the theories and rhetoric of increasing the common-good that we actually lose sight of the effects of its practical implementation.
A perfect example of this is the political discourse (or lack thereof) surrounding the National Health Service. Whenever the NHS is mentioned, its utilitarian triumphs are praised to high heaven: it has increased the overall standard of health, giving the majority free access to healthcare and medicine, and so on. As MP West Streeting has very recently discovered, to have even the slightest nuance that, even on an extremely surface level, challenges the utilitarian interpretation of the NHS is to write your own political suicide note. Even if what you are saying is true or will improve things, that does not matter, as it is the utilitarian rhetoric that matters more than the utilitarian outcome. To question the NHS, even in the slightest, as an infallible arm of utilitarian ethics is a dangerous heresy, worthy of the wrath of our Eternal Health Leader, Nye Bevan.
But a spectre is haunting Britain – the spectre of NHS skepticism. Of course most people, myself included, are not suggesting the abolition of free healthcare. But if you look around, you will see and hear deflating groans of dissatisfaction towards the NHS – and they have always been there. During Tony Blair’s time in office, it was people moaning about getting GP appointments too quickly; nowadays it is people moaning about getting them too late. Yet, the political solution to these opposing things is always the exact same: the Government needs an even greater increase of power and money in order to truly establish the utilitarian aim of our social institutions. In faux-utilitarianism, it is no longer the common good as an outcome that matters, but rather the grasping of the political levers by which the “common good” can be controlled.
We see this grasping of the faux-utilitarian levers as clear as day in the recent news surrounding strike action. Apart from workforces such as train drivers or nurses, industrial (if we can really call it ‘industrial’) action has extended itself from the traditional working-class to the middle classes. Only a couple of days ago, it was announced that Civil Service Fast Stream graduates (earning £28k a year fresh out of university) were moving towards strike action, and the last few years have also been plagued with lecturers and professors striking. This is not to say these jobs are perfect and require no change, but it reveals something very interesting about the faux-utilitarian political system. In the faux-utilitarian narrative, all we ever hear about is talk of increasing equality, yet this exact same society has produced a political framework within which well-to-do bureaucratic servants and academics can strike, and receive establishment sympathy for it. But there is no chance for a minimum wage fast-food worker scolding his hands on hot grills of doing the same.
So, how is this justified? This strike action is justified by utilitarian rhetoric. They tell us they are not striking for themselves, but for the future of education, students, graduates, patients, taxpayers, and/or broader society as a whole. A McDonald’s worker, for example, cannot wield the weapon that is utilitarian rhetoric. For it is extremely difficult to make a sound utilitarian defence of McDonald’s (believe me, I used to work there). The moral justification of strike actions, particularly outside of traditionally working-class manual labour sectors, is no longer based upon relative or comparative conditions, or even social class, but rather by a utilitarian checklist that is justified by the mere political administration of these sectors/institutions. It is not a nod towards or battle for truth/justice, but rather a self-justification that is designed to fit within the approved framework of faux-utilitarianism in order to justify their own actions. To be valid, you must be able to prove your utilitarian worth, even if there is no proof of a positive contribution to the majority of society. Without this utilitarian worth, your pay, social class, conditions, hours, or discontent, do not really matter.
But here is the real kicker: it does not matter whether the claims of wielding utilitarian, common-good value are actually true. All that really matters is being able to control the utilitarian narrative, and faux-utilitarianism is precisely this. It is the domination of political discourse and social life through a utilitarian philosophy, but with no interest as to whether we are objectively witnessing utilitarian outcomes. All things politically permissible by the current system are justified by talk of the common-good, yet very little attention is actually paid to whether this common-good is manifesting itself in wider society. What is being defended in modern political discourse is not really utilitarianism, but rather a utilitarian rhetoric that preserves the status-quo of modern liberal politics, that reactionarily allows it to preserve itself against all criticism or change. So long as it can frame the opposing argument as being un-utilitarian, regardless of the proof in regard to policy outcome, no further justification is needed. And we swallow this en-masse daily.
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Roe v Wade Reaction
The news that the US Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade has divided opinion. Here is our first debate piece on the issue: we have two different views from two different young women about the issue.
Pro-Choice:
Olivia Lever is the director of Blue Beyond. You can follow her at @liv_lever on Twitter:
‘I feel very annoyed and frustrated. A woman should have the right to choose in the 2022, and the state should never have interference over a woman’s body – it is very similar to the vaccine debate, the state should have no say in what you do with your body. In a practical sense, sex education and social infrastructure in the States is very poor.
On a post note, there is no mention of social infrastructure being made better to help those that have to have babies not be struck down by the financial burden or making sure that these children don’t have less of a life than they should. The whole thing is so poorly thought out, plus the US is supposed to be secular. It’s the constitutional principle. We could lose same-sex marriage and gay marriage. It’s stupid to lose contraception seeing as it prevents abortion.’
Pro-Life:
@BeatriceSEM takes the opposite view:
‘Absolutely delighted and feeling pretty emotional. The number of babies who will now be given a chance at life is massive! I hope very much other countries follow suit!’
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A New British Bill of Rights will Keep Everyone Happy
Human rights are controversial. They probably shouldn’t be, being instead something we should all be able to rally around as the bare minimum we can do to protect our fellow man from the harms that could be inflicted upon them by the cruel. But that is not the case. As with most other things, human rights have been co-opted by both sides of the debate to feed the war-machines of angst. The Rwanda immigration policy is the latest battleground, but it won’t be the last. This will never fully be resolved, but a new British Bill of Rights will go a long way.
Personally I have never been a fan of a codified set of rights. I am not sure we need to be told by a specific document that we have the right to life. It should transcend a piece of paper into our way of being. We have, being a civilised people here in the United Kingdom, worked it out on our own, with many of the rights we have anticipated in the European Convention on Human Rights.
But that is often forgotten due to this constitution-style system. People seem to forget that these rights are as human to us as breathing, and that they didn’t just burst into existence upon drafting. The only time this happened was at Mount Sinai, and even then, I would contend that most of them were already held within the hearts and minds of the assembled peoples who heard them. Codified sets of rights take on a mythical status, used by those of a more puritanical bent to suggest that without said list, we would all fall the next day into some purge-like hellscape, acting with horrendous disregard for all others.
However, just as nature abhors a vacuum, the cogs of the judicial system thrive on vagaries. There will always be room for interpretation (especially, somewhat ironically, with things so fundamental), so it is the lesser of the evils to have these rights written down for all to see, so our intent is clear. There will always be lacunas to fill, but you can rest easy knowing it will be by like-minded individuals, attuned to the clear direction of the people they will impact, understanding their tradition, position, and direction.
But that isn’t the case as things stand, and it is where most of the current controversy around human rights actually sits. As things stand, we have a scenario where the interpretation of these fundamental items, these things so personal to a people, is conducted supranational, by a group not attuned to how these rights are embedded within us, and how we in the UK wish them to be used. It sows division within our country to have these matters decided for us, outside of our own structures that we have built to govern and protect each other.
Of course, we did sign up, there was originally consent for this position, but we are a long way now from the post-war mindset that led to the ECHR being created. We have moved on. Not to the extent that we wish to abandon any of the rights themselves (no matter what certain commentators would have you believe), but in terms of how we wish the grey to be made black and white.
The best thing to do, therefore, is to withdraw from the ECHR, and recreate the convention as an Act of Parliament. It shouldn’t be too difficult, given how involved in the drafting we were in the first place. This glorious legislation should then be given the fanfare and patriotic name it deserves. And in doing so we will free ourselves from the shackles of the current situation, while still providing a beacon of hope for all to rally around.
Each side should be happy with the result.
As the precious document will still exist, the ‘frothers-in-chief’ will be content that the UK won’t slip into lawlessness overnight, while the rest of us can be happy that we will be in the position where any interpretation is done within our own judicial structure, using our thought processes, aligned to our own (lower order, but still important) values.
There will still be much need to call on the judiciary to interpret our fundamental rights, and there will still be cases that cause division. But we will be able to at least point to our own shared national heritage, and our wonderful common law, as the reasoning for these decisions. They will have been made by us, for us, to protect us. Just like our human rights.
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A Toast to the Luddites
Are the kids alright? 30 years ago, the news that two children had taken it upon themselves to murder a third was a moment in the national consciousness that stopped us in our tracks. Nowadays, it appears that we’ve either gone numb or deaf to the phenomena.
I have in the last few years lost track of how many teenagers and young people appear to die at the hands of others. Just this month, I can think of three; but it seems week in and out we see minor headlines on the BBC about another stabbing victim somewhere (who invariably ends up being a minor) and nothing more is said or done.
The causes are difficult to diagnose and difficult to treat. “Community centres” have become the go-to meme response as people – left and right-wing alike – debate whether a community centre or a skate park could have prevented these deaths, but none seem to grasp the wider issues that feed into these unfortunate and tragic outcomes.
Since 2010, almost 25,000 police officers were slashed, as were their budgets. The effects could not have been felt harder: crime feels almost decriminalised in Britain as thefts and burglaries go uninvestigated, and conviction rates for serious crimes dwindle. The prison system invariably is also under strain as a lack of infrastructure, staff, and adequate sentencing leads offenders to be often out and back on our streets sooner than is necessary for community protection. What is the result? Police forces pursue “easy” victories that use limited resources, and you end up being investigated over offensive tweets whilst the assailant who robbed you at knifepoint the night before is left to slink into the shadows. Reporting a crime to the police now seems more of a formality for the sake of your insurance, rather than anything else.
However, the structural issues – policing, prisons, courts – only explain the proliferation of crime itself; not this apparent uptick in youth criminality. How have we reached a position whereby two 15-year-old children feel capable of stabbing another to death? At the risk of becoming a jaded geriatric, I fear the cause of the issue lies in the technology itself, and the way we now socialise children. In the 24 years since David Bowie said that the internet would become both exhilarating and terrifying, his words could not have come truer. In my pocket, I now carry the means to communicate instantly with anyone I want; to scroll page after page of Wikipedia and see what the people I care about are up to. I also have access to the social undercurrents that pre-internet were confined to alleys and abandoned warehouses, and those undercurrents have access to me.
The internet has ended childhood as we know it. The mistakes and foibles of adolescence, which previously were left on playgrounds, are now a part of your digital footprint that will follow you into adulthood. You are exposed to predators, pornographers, peddlers and perverts far easier and more conveniently than our parents were, and you as a child are expected to negotiate a culture where sex, drugs and criminality in adulthood is now available – dare I say made attractive – to you.
How does a 15-year-old find themselves carrying a knife with the intention of using it on another person? How does a 15-year-old find themselves crossing national borders to join a terrorist organisation? How does a 15-year-old find themselves escorting illegal substances on behalf of older, organised criminal gangs? Because they have been left online and found – or been found by – people that have groomed them to do so. Parents who would not dream of leaving their child alone in a shopping centre, leave them on the internet for hours at a time with the same level of vulnerability because they do not understand, or do not care to understand, the internet and the threats it can pose.
This is not to say that the internet does not bring benefits. This topic is so thorny because of that truth: that to restrict children from the internet in their entirety would be impossible in a world where adults have made technology and tech literacy a core component of civilisation. Government legislation has attempted to strike a balance and thrown up more issues as adults have to contend with how methods of protecting children may negatively impact their own ability to use the internet the way that we do.
Internet usage is perhaps going to end up being a topic that, like sex, drugs, and alcohol, parents will have to talk to their children about moderation and limits. You only have to scratch a 20-something with a presence in online spaces to realise the extent of the issue: whether that be people joking about liveleak videos of ISIS executions, the prevalence of self-harm and the culture around it on tumblr in the last decade, all the way through to online communities that eventually breed terrorists – some as young as 13.
We cannot begin to understand why children commit crimes as shockingly as adults without understanding that in the age of the internet we have abolished childhood. Children grow up faster now but with all the instability and recklessness that marks adolescence, and unfortunately this leads to some slipping through the cracks and into things that lead to negative outcomes for all involved. If Conservatives seek to protect children, and build functioning and cohesive communities, they must accept this reality and begin to understand how we can preserve some semblance of childhood for generations which have no understanding of a world without the internet.
