This is the first of what might be a series of reflections on the dispute over modern monetary theory (MMT) that I have been involved in over the last couple of weeks. Others might come today and tomorrow. They each touch on a different theme. They are intended to support each other. I am taking today out to think about these issues.
I went, by chance, to see the film version of the National Theatre production of C P Taylor's play ‘Good' last night. Starring David Tennant and with a main cast of just three people, all of whom were outstanding, the play is deeply poignant.
At its core is a simple question, which is how come good people are enticed into doing what is so obviously bad, and can persuade themselves otherwise until a dreadful awakening brings them face to face with reality?
Tennant's character is Prof Halder, who is German. He is a specialist in Goethe. He has written novels. He believes in his own significance. And in 1933 he is persuaded to join the Nazis, then becoming an SS officer.
The corruption of his narrative and the betrayal of his friend then follows, but until the final scene he fails to comprehend the grossness of his own behaviour. He is just ‘normal' in his own eyes, and as his wife assures him towards the end of the play, ‘a good man'.
The play is a masterpiece. The acting is outstanding. I strongly recommend seeing it if you can.
I found the timing of my seeing it and the issues it raised both relevant and difficult. Halder was a public intellectual. That was the basis of his appeal to the Nazis. His early embrace of their violence was necessary to popularise and normalise what they had to say. A weak man, he delivered exactly what they wanted. He did what Goebbels knew was required: he told people the opposite of what was true, dressing it up in false plausibility to do so.
I am reluctant to use the term public intellectual of myself, but others do. I recognise the possibility that it is true. I also recognise why so many avoid the role. It is not easy.
You are abused. If you refuse to compromise with those who disagree with you or seek to enlist your support then that abuse grows in magnitude. Staying true to your principles undoubtedly costs you relationships with those you once thought of as friends. And throughout it all you have to continually question and doubt yourself just in case others are right, after all. Admitting to the possibility that you might be wrong is an essential part of the role. Doing so continually has a mental cost, as I know.
After the last couple of weeks of musing on MMT I found that timely and disruptive of sleep. But I was continually reminded of one thing. That is an idea of Karl Popper's, first expressed in 1945. He said that to maintain a tolerant society that society must be intolerant of intolerance. This is described as the paradox of tolerance precisely because it does demand intolerance of us. I hold to that view.
In the play, Halder embraced intolerance. It was his downfall.
I admit that I am not good at embracing intolerance. I won't do so. But I make no pretence that doing so is easy. It exposes you continually to the accusation that you are the one being intolerant. But then, Goebbels did always say that the art of propaganda was to accuse your opponent of that of which you are guilty.
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Richard, one of the reasons that I regularly follow your work is that I regard you as a man of principle and are open about what those principles are. I am grateful that you feel able to share with us the the disagreements you have with others but more so that you lay out in a logical manner the reasons for those disagreements. I think we all struggle with the issue of intolerance but it helps to have you discuss it in this blog. Keep up the good work.
Thanks
My view is that you are always in the process of becoming a public intellectual. It is not a point of finality. You are there. Stay there and complete the journey for the journey is the reason.
I’m sure Hannah Arendt would recognise Halder’s character straightaway – even the infamous SS Reinhard Heydrich knew what he was doing was cruel and evil but felt that it was justified – that he was sacrificing his own humanity for some sort of greater good.
To me it shows you why we now associate the word ‘science’ with politics because the science bit (psychology?) is the methodology that is tried on people to get them to do and say outrageous things. It also taps into our partiality – we are partial to what we feel and believe as humans.
You are a brave person OK – and yes, you enjoy what you do too OK so I’m not laying it on thick as they say – and you’ve got more battle scars I imagine than the supine the likes of Tony Blair will ever have.
But it’s not the intolerance of intolerance per se. It’s how we express it. That’s the key. And it will be severely tested – always. And sometimes we might fail the test. I know I have.
Thanks for the heads up on the play – I’ll have a look.
The Dominic Raab resignation is extraordinary. We still have not seen the Report, but the Conservative Party has already had perhaps thirty six hours to organise and execute a massive propganda exercise to remove the justification for the Report, and undermine the Report itself. Raab could have resigned before the report. He could have resigned when he received it. He didn’t. He resigned and issues a defence that skewers the civil Service and the Reprt; and we still do not know what it finds. This is the real “dangerous precedent”.
And for the avoidance of doubt; if Raab doubts the Civil Service then that is a constituional crisis. In which case he and the Government is damned for putting up with it and not facing up to the problem long before now.
anyway you look at it; this is the government using its enormous power in the media – almost every ‘journalist’ asked to comment, you discover has worked for Raab, or been a Spad. Our system is a total scandal and this whole operation is a national disgrace. The Raab Report and the resignation letter should have been published together, at worst. The public is being ‘played’ by a quite cynical, frankly despicable government.
I find Sunak’s comment on the report more interesting than the report
He is basically saying the process was flawed and Raab must only resign because he said he would
Ansolutely zero political sense
Extraordinary – The Telegraph has published a piece today under Raab’s byline, just an hour or two after resigning. So he has been spending his time productively since since the report landed yesterday.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/04/21/dominic-raab-resigns-people-of-britain-will-pay-price/
The 47 page report is out now and it is pretty damning.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-report-to-the-prime-minister
I read the report (well speed read it) and you are right, it is damning
The hopeless ‘journalists’ on BBC Radio Scotland News are saying Raab resigned “shortly before” the report was published. This is a scandalous failure of journalism. There was an obvious, orchestrated media plan by the Government to manage the requirement to resign by managing publication of the report.
1. Face the problem on a Friday; the bad news issue day, because Friady coverage is weakest.The Report was presented to Government on Thursday morning. The result was clear; against Raab.
2. Give the Government 24 hours to plan their campaign to exonerate Raab and dish the Report (save a technical resignation) in the press.
3. Allow Raab to resign first. Allow him to publish his justifcation that actually destroys the Report; describing it as setting a “dangerous precedent”. Give the whole morning mdeia circuit to Raab and the defence. Then issue the PM’s support of Raab, and publish that support. Let that circulate in the media.
4. Publish carefully crafted justifications of Raab in friendly Press.
5. Only once that propaganda is well embedded do you the publish a 50 page report; that made the resignation impossible to ignore, in the hope most journalists will already have moved on. At least more time is bought while the report is read. Claim you have improved how these things are managed; which means the method is now established how you undermine official reports when you need to do so to save Governments.
This is a ‘stich up’ of the the public discourse of an official judgement of the British Government in action. It is an utter disgrace. Sunak and the few ministers he still has should go, because this breeding ground of bullies (how many have been found guilty now? Three?) is totally out of control. We are being governed by un-house-trained attack dogs.
Agreed
Bad memory day: I can’t recall where I read this explanation originally but someone had clearly been thinking about the argument that those people unwilling to tolerate intolerance were themselves, ‘intolerant’. The crux of the article was that the notion of tolerance (in all of its forms) is an item of social contract. Those behaving intolerantly have already by their act of intolerance have broken this social contract which demands that their actions and views should be tolerated by others and are no longer entitled to the tolerance of others because of this.
Rather sleep deprived myself today. I’m just waiting to find out that I’ve quoted Richard’s own words back at him – badly.
I’ve just found the original description – it was on thoughtportal.
To quote, “The paradox of tolerance disppears if you look at tolerance not as a moral standard but a social contract.
If someone does not abide by the terms of the social contract, they are not covered by it.
In other words: The intolerant are not following the rules of the social contract of mutual tolerance.
Since they have broken the terms of the contract, they are no longer covered by the contract and their intolerance should not be tolerated.”
Apparently this was inspired by ‘Tolerance is not a moral precept’ by Yonatan Zunger.
Thanks
The irony is that you are intolerant as they come..
No
You got on here
That takes some toleration
Agree entirely with John Warren’s points. One wonders what Adam Tolley, the reports author, makes of such a stitch up and the effective rubbishing of his work and findings (and I’ve read the report so know it’s a solid piece of ‘lawyering’ and investigation). It seems that yet another person who signs up in good faith to undertake a legitimate review of an issue within government (whether ethical or otherwise) is subsequently thrown under a bus. That’s a mark of how low and slimy government has become after way too many years in power.
Mr Horrocks,
You are quite right. Why would anyone now wish to lead an investigation into this Government? Taking such a role means only that you are putting your foot in a sewer; your reputation at risk, and offering youself as a sacrifice – raw meat to be fed to wild dogs, at the prerogative of politicians concerned only with themselves and their Party.
Following the Tolley report being published I begin to think of Raab as a man who thinks he is one of history’s great administrators; a Carnot, cometh the man, cometh the hour. Yet what we see in Raab is a fussy, slightly priggish soiciitor (a discipline that does not often attract leaders, but rather people who characteristically look for order and precedent to frame their discourse and makes them uneasy with decisions that are not contracted by someone else; people who most often are more comfortable offering ‘opinions; the exemplar ‘safe’ profession for childrn and grandchildren’).
The giveaway may be Raab’s reference in the resignation letter, I think to civil Servants “relitigating” his decisions; eh, no laddie, Government needs leadership and delegation if it is to work, not nit-pickers. Leadership requires teamwork, harmony, and best conducted with a little personal inspiration and motivation. None of the requiremtns of leadership fit Raab.
I have watched Raab in Parliament; a prim finger-wagger, a self righteous scourer of the small-print. Ironically his carefully planned and executed resignation seems typical of him; and even manages to appear almost as if intended to bully the man who judged his case, without doing anything at all, save resign for – from his entitled perspective – doing nothing wrong. Lawyers let loose in Government? This is what happens.
We really have hit the bottom of the barrel.
Tolley said since the investigation began his behaviour changed.
He could have just said sorry and he would have got way with this with an anger management course.
But he has been belligerent and Sunak has let him be so. As result he’s gone for good, I think.
I think you are correct to allow yourself a caveat as to Raab’s possible reappearance in public life.
If, God help us, the Tories and their backers manage to gerrymander and manipulate the next election sufficient to win the next election then I would expect to see him once again be made a minister for no other reason than the Tories ever present ruling motivation to stick-up two fingers to us plebs.
Adam Tolley KC is quite careful in his report to say up front “It is important, for a proper understanding of its content, to read the report as a whole.”
The report also dismisses a slew of representations made by or on behalf of Raab:
* that bullying requires intent to bully, or at least that a person should have known they were bullying (no – and in any event, Tolley finds he should have known some of his unreasonable and persistently aggressive conduct and unconstructive criticism was at times intimidating and/or taken as unfairly personal and/or humiliating)
* that some “targeting” of particular individuals or groups is required (no – and in any event, the allegations show some people were repeatedly intimidated by him)
* that it was unfair to go back more than a few months (why? the Ministerial Code applies all the time)
* that some allegations can’t be important because they were not reported at the time (but some people were put under pressure not to complain)
* that no issues were raised with him (they were, and after a few warnings he changed his behaviour as a result)
* that some events did not happen because they were not minuted (honestly – as if everyone is making contemporaneous notes of every personal interaction)
* that he was just “direct, demanding, challenging, rigorous … questioning” or “inquisitorial, direct, impatient and fastidious” and “often encounters what he genuinely sees as frustrations” (if he can’t keep his temper in adversity, and still behave like a reasonable human being, he should not be doing the job)
* that some officials were not sufficiently “resilient” (no – Tolley detected no material lack of resilience in his civil service interviewees, many of whom had years of experience)
The behaviour mention in the report is horrible. Raab sounds an absolute nightmare to work alongside, let alone as a boss. He demands written material in a particular format; he interrupts people when they are speaking if he thinks they are not being sufficiently “direct and straightforward”; he delivers unvarnished criticism direct to particular individuals in a roomful of people, and on occasions referred to the Civil Service Code (taken to imply a threat of disciplinary action); he uses aggressive physical gestures to emphasise his points, banging the table or thrusting his hands towards people’s faces to shut them up. Very carefully “There was no persuasive evidence that the DPM shouted at individuals” (so there was some evidence – given what we know, I’m sure he raised his voice on occasion). And he was “on some occasions ‘abrasive’, in the sense of a personal style which is and feels intimidating or insulting to the individual” even if “not intended to be so”. He has expressed regret, but “He has not offered any apology, given that he does not accept that he has done anything wrong.”
Of course, he has recently fallen back on the non-apology apology – “I’m sorry *if* any feelings were hurt. ” – which effectively blames the victim of his abuse for being hurt.
Now Raab is reduced to saying his actions were not bad enough to count as bullying (that is, he only did a little bit of minor intimidation and humiliation, not what you would call actual proper bullying); that he never meant to do it (see above – some of it, he should have known was wrong); that he only hurt “subjective” feelings (all feelings are subjective); and he has been stitched up by “activist” civil servants. What deflective self-justificatory nonsense, and classic DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender).
Anyone reading the report as a whole will see, he is bang to rights. And what he has done afterwards only goes to prove it.
Agreed
Contrition was his only way out with a chance of coming back
Who would even employ him now?
Would highly recommend ‘Good’ as well. I interpret Halder as compromising on what he believes in step by step but accrues private advantages as a result and is then in too deep that he can’t/doesn’t want to escape. I don’t see that happening to you! Always seem to be evidence based here and provide sources, a great asset!
Yet another condemnation of this despicable government. Thank you Richard. Running out of deviant candidates for PM they have now been obliged to put in someone with a core of decency who is clearly torn between absolute loyalty demanded of his party’s right-wing, anti-democratic hierarchy and the morality of his religion. Your quote from Goebbels was so fitting:
‘Goebbels did always say that the art of propaganda was to accuse your opponent of that of which you are guilty.’
It applies perfectly to Raab. But then it also reminded me of the default behaviour of that other degenerate across the pond, Donald J. Trump.
…demanded BY his party’s right-wing anti-democratic hierarchy…..
SORRY!
Ivan Horrocks
It is not just the government ignoring or rubbishing reports by reputable lawyers. One has only to look at the Labour Party’s reaction to the Forde report
I’ve just read Open Democracy ‘s account of how Labour Party parliamentary candidates with even a whiff of socialist ideas are being excluded from standing
In a First Past the Post electoral system with only two effective choices Labour’s intolerance of left policies is profoundly depressing. It both legitimisers intolerance and undermines the democratic process that underlies the social contract between government and taxpayers
Time for a new political party of the left? There’s a question.
Articles like this are the reason why I Richard Murphy every day: It shakes you inside and makes you wonder if you are maybe doing more things that are wrong than you thought.
Not an easy read, no.
But keeps you human.
Thanks again!
Thanks