It's clear that some Futurework subscribers slot Harry and me into a "right-wing fascist-type" box.
Well, I haven't consulted Harry on this but I wouldn't mind betting that he was a left-winger when he was young. I was. I was a strong socialist, and even a member of the Communist Party for about a year. I started a branch of the AScW (Association of Scientific Workers) at Courtaulds (then a multinational, now a pale shadow of its former self) and this destroyed the possibility of my being sponsored for a doctorate. I left the CP when I'd had enough of the lack of democratic discussion of policy. Since then, aware that many ex-Communists in those days ostentatiously bounced to the other extreme almost immediately, I decided to have nothing to do with politics for ten years, and got on with raising my family. When I returned to politics I joined the Liberal Party (pretty well centre of the road) and became a member of their National Executive. A few years later, drifting further to the right in my economic views, I took part in the formation of the Social Democratic Party. When these parties coalesced into the Liberal-Democrats I resigned and have taken no further active part in politics since then. Meanwhile my views on economics continued to go to the right -- and they are now obviously somewhat to the right of the Tory Party in England. But I can't stomach Tories in the main, have never voted for them nor would I ever do so. My social concerns and sympathies for the poor are today as strong today as they were when I was a Communist. But, as I see it, the welfare-socialist type orthodoxy (indeed, a near-ideology, as Harry suggests) of the last half-century has hurt and demeaned the poor more than any other segment of society. Middle-class professionals have had a field day since the end of WWII, streaking away with most of the benefits and subsidies available. The history of England (and of most other developed countries) in the last 50 years was paralleled by the history of the USSR -- though, thankfully, in a much milder way. In short, most of the "progressive" political ideas of the last 50 years patently haven't worked. Modern society has become much too complex for the relatively crude political systems that we have today. I believe that we're at a critical juncture in human history. There have been several such so far when the old certainties suddenly vanished. The first period of which we have documentary records was around 500BC when the Psalmist in the Bible cried out "O Lord, why has Thou forsaken me!" At around the same time the Greeks forced Socrates to drink hemlock because they were not yet ready to face new ideas. The Reformation was another such juncture. The Enlightenment was another. As well as a great flux of ideas, both turning points were accompanied by great social distress. I believe that we're in another such period. Keith Hudson __________________________________________________________ �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
