Keith wrote,
>I am a not enamoured of your use of phrases such
>as "Hayekian inspired nostalgia" and "neo-liberal resurgence" at the end of
>your message because it means that you are putting up a division between
>you and me. Such labels don't help useful discussion.
Hayek's thought has a worthwhile and an indefensible side. His critique of
statism (what he sees as socialism) is apt. But his escape-hatch
prescription relies as much on state intervention to "dismantle" the state
as it relies on an entirely one-sided appreciation of the glories of 19th
century liberalism.
There were positive aspects to 19th century liberalism but those positive
aspects were themselves embedded in older, paternalistic institutions and
traditions that both checked some of the more egregious tendencies and
highlighted some of the more progressive aspects. In other words, liberal
(in the 19th century, free market sense) is a relative term not an absolute.
A more free market may well be an improvement over a less free market -- as
well in a broader sphere than the narrowly economic -- but THE free market
is a non sequitur.
Hayek was intelligent enough to recognize the need for a moderate residue of
welfare paternalism, but he seems to have assumed that it would be
administered by philosopher kings rather than by bureaucrats playing to the
peanut gallery, like anything else.
Let's not overrate the uniqueness of Hayek's critique of "socialism",
either. Friedrich Pollack and Max Horkheimer developed critiques of
totalitarianism in the 1930s that became the basis for Frankfurt School
critical theory. And, of course, George Orwell wrote novels on the theme
(not the first, by any stretch). One could even speculate on the extent to
which Frankfurt School cultural pessimism and Orwellian cynicism opened the
doors for neo-liberal Pollyannaism.
>It is not so much the closed minds of the educational boards and government
>funding bodies that you ran up against that is the problem. It is their
>very existence. There is no way that they can be reformed or their views
>changed because they consider it axiomatic (and also by you, presumably)
>that they are necessary. In truth, they have no real idea of what their
>customers feel because they are too removed from them and never receive
>direct feedback.
You're right. If you take into account both the original disciplinary
purpose of the institutions and compound that with the capture of the
institutions by self-serving internal cliques, there's not a lot of hope for
reform.
>Fortunately, and at long last, the situation has now become so serious in
>America and England . . .
At this point, Keith, I would like you to step back and take a look at the
grammar of your sentence. Do you really mean to say that it is a good thing
that things have gotten so bad? And is this really THE END ("at long last")?
My narrative policy analysis specializes in rooting out such garden-variety,
idiomatic apocalypticisms. There's no such thing as just a teensy bit of
apocalypse. A moderate, sensible-shoes, no free lunch, polite middle-class
utopia (vouchers, charter schools) is no less a utopia than a rip-roaring,
pull-out-all-the-stops revolutionary communist free-love and
eat-all-you-want-without-getting-fat utopia (Summerhill, Illichian
de-schooling).
Unfortunately, as always, no matter how bad things get they can always get
worse. Fortunately, things can also get better without getting worse first.
What we need to do is free our thinking from the formulaic but strictly
narrative consolations that close off the real possibilities.
Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213
