A Free Left Blog

In The Open Society and Its Enemies , Karl Popper quotes a passage from Hegel that shows how social ideologies can end up giving free rein to all sorts of bad behaviour. Hegel says in it: “ We may fairly establish the true principles of morality, or rather of social virtue, in opposition to false morality; for the History of the World occupies a higher ground than that morality which is personal in character – the conscience of individuals, their particular will and mode of action.” Here we can see social virtue, or ‘social justice’ you might say, being consciously put up against personal morality and conscience, and beating it. Hegel’s true principles of morality trumped the false trivialities of people being good or bad to each other in real life. The incredible failings of Rotherham Council and police in relation to the industrial-scale child sex abuse going on in that town show how such ideas are not mere fodder for dry debates in the fusty rooms of academia. They ar...

I only decided to post this list having compiled it as a comment in response to a post on LabourList from The Fabian Society's Deputy General Secretary Marcus Roberts . I think anyone who is interested in the wider political world would take something good from all of these books, while hopefully not getting bogged down too much. 1)  Dee Brown - 'Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee'.  I recommend this largely because of Jon Cruddas' recent speech mentioning the book 'Radical Hope' by Jonathan Lear. That is a fine book with good insights, but this one has much greater depth of history and background on the existential and material dispossession of the American Indians , with moments of joy and hope across the cultural divides. It helps to break down what is good and right in amazing, diverse, confusing situations. 2)  J.B. Priestley - 'English Journey'.  A travelogue across England published in 1934 during the Great Depression. It's a ...

(Part IV on Popper and contemporary ideologies ) The avoidance and attempted suppression of contradictory arguments and evidence is a typical feature of ideologies. This tendency is also a natural feature of everyday politics of course. Practically, it is worth tolerating – though with an awareness that to tolerate something is to dislike it. However, when we are talking about matters of truth and right, and attempts to control what is said based on exclusive authority, reserved for certain groups or people, it is a different matter. This is where authoritarianism still raises its ugly head in our supposedly liberal Western societies - including from supposedly liberal people. As Karl Popper said in ‘ On the Sources of Knowledge and Of Ignorance ’ , a lecture given in 1960: “ The question of the sources of our knowledge, like so many authoritarian questions, is a genetic one. It asks for the origin of our knowledge, in the belief that knowledge may legitimize its...

This is the first part of a four-part essay applying the powerful critiques of Karl Popper to contemporary ideologies which have gained significant social power – focusing in particular on Islamism and ideological forms of feminism (those forms which have become dominant in left-wing politics). This first part engages with the way Popper has been mistakenly appropriated by the free market right, and makes the case that he should be adopted by the liberal-left, not least because he was liberal and of the left. “ The future depends on ourselves, and we do not depend on any historical necessity. There are, however, influential social philosophies which hold the opposite view .” ~ Karl Popper If guilt comes with association then on the left you do not get much guiltier than receiving Margaret Thatcher’s seal of approval. This is the fate of Karl Popper; perhaps the best critic of authoritarian and totalitarian ideologies there has been, yet somehow associated...

Last week Tony Blair delivered a high profile speech at Bloomberg in London on the Middle East in which he placed Islamist ideologues in a ‘Titanic’ struggle with those who want to embrace ‘the modern world’ of pluralistic societies and open economies. As with most of Blair’s speeches that I can remember, it was impressive, cogent and well-delivered. But for me it also exposed a kind of utopianism about that modern world he talked about, and a false dichotomy. As he put it,  “ Underneath the turmoil and revolution of the past years is one very clear and unambiguous struggle: between those with a modern view of the Middle East, one of pluralistic societies and open economies, where the attitudes and patterns of globalisation are embraced; and, on the other side, those who want to impose an ideology born out of a belief that there is one proper religion and one proper view of it, and that this view should, exclusively, determine the nature of society and the political ...