Then & Now: Philosophy, History & Politics

Modernity is many things. Urbanization, industrialization, technologization. At its simplest, it’s a project of supposed improvement, science, and progress. As a project, then, modernity seeks to expand itself. If improvements can be made, they should be made.Exploration was at the heart of the modern expansionist drive that began in earnest in the 17th century. But why then? Why not before? What shifts in psychology led to this new attitude in Europe about an unexplored world?We can sometimes see shifts in the most unexpected places.In the early modern period, philosophers like Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and Adam Smith, began to reinterpret morality as the pursuit of pleasure, power, and profit. In 1747 Jean-Jacques Burlham wrote that ‘Now let man reflect but ever so little on himself, he will soon perceive that everything he does is with a view of happiness’. By 1776, Adam Smith could write that “It is not from the benevolence (kindness) of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."Since, the scientific revolution it was beginning to be assumed that human nature was calculable, scientific, had simple principles, that people act in rational and predictable ways.Happiness, pleasure, utility, whatever it was, was pursued, stored up, or, to use a word that the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham invented in 1817, maximized. How did this have an effect on world history? On the mentalities and psychology of people in the West.We explore the links between modern philosophy and British Imperial, particularly through William Dalrymple’s book on the rise of the East India Company and the decline of the Mughal Empire – the Anarchy.The history looks at the life of the megalomaniacal Robert Clive, the idea of Gentlemanly Capitalism, theories of Imperialism, and, most horrifyingly, the Great Indian Bengal Famine of 1770, where a third of the population of Bengal died.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do we deal with coronavirus? I look at the 'Great Barrington Declaration' - a group of scientists against lockdowns - and the history of how science is always political.The Declaration has been signed by over 20,000 medical practitioners and scientists, including Professor Sunetra Gupta from Oxford.There are some problems, though. First, anyone can sign the form – a look through the signatures reveals signatures from Johnny Bananas and the notorious serial killer, Dr. Harold Shipman.But the so-called Great Barrington Declaration event was also hosted by a libertarian think-tank funded by multi-billionaires including the Koch Brothers. But this doesn’t immediately delegitimize their position.Another letter signed by Professor Gupta said:‘Any objective should be framed more broadly than COVID itself. To place all weight on reducing deaths from COVID fails to consider the complex trade-offs that occur: (i) with in any healthcare system; and (ii) between healthcare, society and the economy.’How do we make sense of this? I take a tour through history from the Scientific Revolution and Isaac Newton through to today's COVID-19 lockdown science to find out.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I look at the thought of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, his anarchism, his mutualism, and his theory of politics. Proudhon was the first self-declared anarchist. He wrote What is Property in 1840. He was not a wide-ranging and difficult writer, he wasn’t a system builder, he was critical of utopianisms, and was fascinated with contradictions.For Proudhon, The ideal society was a contractual one – where individuals are free to arrange their relationships under conditions of justice. But for justice to flourish, its laws had to be known to all.The tension between liberty and order is always at the heart of Proudhon’s politics.He intended his mutualist philosophy to be an approach to political life that could be a ‘synthesis of the notions of private property and collective ownership,’ a synthesis of liberty and order.Both private property and collective ownership had major flaws; so what could the solution be?As we saw in What is Property? Justice is at the heart of the solution.fairness, right, morality, should be the premise of economic, social and political arrangements.But at the same time, Proudhon argued that the only law people should follow is the law they choose for themselves. Why would people voluntarily follow any law? And where would it come from?I look at his views on anarchism, communism, the labor theory of value, and contracts to find out.I find some answers in his work 'General Idea of Revolution in the Nineteenth Century' and 'What is Property?'Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An introduction to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's 1840 book, What is Property?Pierre Joseph Proudhon was the first self-declared anarchist. He wrote What is Property in 1840. He was not a wide-ranging and difficult writer, he wasn’t a system builder, he was critical of utopianisms, and was fascinated with contradictions.For Proudhon, The ideal society was a contractual one – where individuals are free to arrange their relationships under conditions of justice. But for justice to flourish, its laws had to be known to all.Proudhon looks at the justifications for property - occupation and labor - and argues that they both really only justify possession.Proudhon ultimately argues that all possession has a dual nature. A part that is ours by virtue of needing it for the flourishing of our own liberty, and a part that is society’s who have contributed to its value, and still has a right to it based on need. Another way of saying this might be that everything is only borrowed.His theory of property can be summed up by his phrase:‘‘The right to product is exclusive – jus in re ; ¬the right to means is common – jus ad rem’Proudhon is one of the most important figures in the history of socialist and radical thought.As George Woodcock writes he argues that ‘property is incompatible with justice, because in practice in represents the exclusion of the worker from his equal rights to enjoy the fruits of society.'Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An introduction and overview of the British/Latvian philosopher, Isaiah Berlin's 1958 classic lecture on Two Concepts of Liberty.Berlin thought that where philosophers, politicians, and commentators had talked about the idea of freedom as one definable concept, throughout the history of modern thought you could identify two different ideas about what freedom or liberty meant.He called them negative and positive liberty. And in short, they’re the freedom from, and the freedom to. Negative freedom is the freedom from coercion, interference, authority.But positive liberty, he writes, 'derives from the desire on the part of the individual to be his own master. I wish my life and my decisions to depend on myself and not on external forces of whatever kind.’It’s the desire to Self-directed, self-determined, independent, competent; it's the the will to self-mastery, to autonomy. I want to be the master of my own life, to choose for myself.I also look briefly at critiques, including Gerald MacCallum's triadic formulation of liberty.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his 1977 essay, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”, Michel Foucault criticizes the traditional historical method and makes an argument for why a ‘genealogical’ approach is important. But what is genealogy?It’s a history of us. Of the attitudes and dispositions we embody today. The way we approach and do things. These things often seem like they don’t have a history, that they’re human nature. That they’re normal, eternal, unchangeable. Genealogy attempts to uncover how they’ve changed over time – how there are different ways of approaching them. It uncovers how they’re not the way they are because they’ve gradually improved; they’re not part of an inevitable linear progression through history. They’re contingent.Genealogy often examines attitudes, beliefs, presuppositions. – Morality, discipline, sexuality. It addresses a traditional history that assumes simple movement forward over time. It draws out, uncovers, and critically examines the origins of a specific conception of what’s morally good, or the source of a particular way of disciplining societal criminality, or the genesis of attitudes about what it means to be a feminine woman.Foucault is influenced by Nietzsche, the first person to show that morality – our ideas of what’s good and bad - has a history, has changed over time.He is searching for the 'origins' of the genealogical method in Nietzsche.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

'Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights).'This is American philosopher Robert Nozick’s bold pronouncement at the beginning of anarchy, state, and utopia, a 1975 book that is largely a response to Rawl’s 1971 A Theory of Justice. It's the classic modern defense of libertarian political philosophy.For Nozick, the rights that individuals have are natural, of fundamental importance, and completely, universally, unequivocally inviolable. These rights, he argues, must be respected at all costs.They aren’t designed by institutions, or dreamed up by revolutionaries, written into contracts and protected by lawyers. They are part of being human.How then is a state justifiable? Taxation, the rule of law, a system that forces its citizens to pay for roads, schools and hospitals is surely a violation of an individual's natural rights as a human to be free to make their own choices.‘Boundary crossing’, as Nozick calls it, crossing the line and infringing upon a person's freedom, is surely only permissible with consent.This, loosely, is the position of the anarchist. The anarchist argues that because of the inviolability of individuals, no state can be justified.For Nozick, this is the fundamental question of political philosophy: whether there should be any state at all. He wants to justify what he calls a minimal state. One that simply protects an individual’s right to freedom, and nothing else. He wants to argue that this is both justified philosophically, and, could develop from a state of nature historically. Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I respond to some of your comments on the Rawls video, specifically thinking about utilitarianism, rights, race, and radicalism.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does it mean for a body – flesh and bones – to be politicized? For the rhythm of heartbeats, the density of muscles, and the flow of the arteries to be molded and shaped by power?What's the best way to rank citizens on a scale? To make the child’s body still, obedient, but strong? How far can we go in engineering modern utopian bodies? Is it possible to forge the iron of the national body through recommendations or if not, by force?Throughout the 19th century, bodies emigrated in droves from the country to the city. Their stomachs were hungry, for food, for work. They crowded flesh on flesh into slums. “Little Ireland” in Manchester had two toilets between 250. 5 or more often slept in one bed. Cesspools and dunghills were everywhere.At the same time, factory owners needed these bodies to be productive, energetic, malleable.We take a look at the Philosophical Radicals, who were inspired by Jeremy Bentham, Edwin Chadwick, Social Darwinism, Eugenics, and enforced sterilization. The 1846 Nuisance Removal Acts, Robert Bayden-Powel and his concerns about national degeneration that led to the development of the Scouts, productivity during the First World War, and the development of eugenicist thought and societies.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Rawls, as we saw last time on Then & Now, came to the following conclusions about what a just society should like. He said that:‘‘All social values—liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect—are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any, or all, of these values, is to everyone’s advantage.’’But what would this look like in practice? It’s only in recent years that attention has begun to be focused on how this might be implemented politically.Rawls barely addressed this question, but he did suggest two possible systems: liberal or democratic socialism, and property-owning democracy, and while he said that justice as fairness is agnostic between them, he leaned towards the latter.So what is a property-owning democracy?Property-owning democracy means citizens have a real stake in the productive capital of society, some ownership of the means of production.He writes: ‘Property-owning democracy avoids [inequalities], not by redistributing income to those with less at the end of each period, so to speak, but rather by ensuring the widespread ownership of productive assets and human capital (educated abilities and trained skills) at the beginning of each period’.If all citizens have a stake in a sizeable amount of property, access to capital and the productive decisions of society, it prevents power from resting in the hands of the few.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.