In yesterday’s article I alluded to ‘a central contradiction going on in the Liberal Democrats at the moment: the incompatible melange of pro-asylum seeker and pro-interventionist rhetoric and ideology.’
Today, I will say firstly that I do support accepting some asylum seekers in the UK; in accordance with a rather hard-headed ethic of prudence and restraint, rather than the gushy sentimentality that so often afflicts our party (of which more shortly). I will also say that my reasons for accepting asylum seekers are completely different from some dominant lines of discussion in the Liberal Democrats; and that this is far from inconsequential.
What does this mean?
I cannot deny that politics cannot be based purely on ‘bare reason.’ Rhetoric is a fundamental part of politics; any party not wishing to be condemned to the electoral wilderness is obliged to take heed of Pascal’s reasons of the heart, as much as Dawkins’ or Hitchen’s reasons of the head. But I do not base my support for a ‘prudentially inclusive’ asylum policy (a policy neither ‘exclusive’ nor ‘sentimentally exclusive’) because of gushy, bleeding heart cant about ‘our common humanity,’ ‘the greater good,’ and other such ‘bad poetry from bad poets.’
To be brutally frank, such rhetoric generally strikes me as inauthentic and self-serving. I support our welcoming of asylum seekers not because ‘we are all in this together,’ but because our recent governments and parliaments have inflicted great wrongs upon the peoples of the Middle East and of North Africa. Here, justice must prevail over mercy; and if our thwarted Portias cannot bear this, so much for melodramatic performance theatre! It is right to accept asylum seekers not because of gushy sentimentality, but because, in the most hard-hearted way possible, ‘we’ have messed their country up beyond repair (and please do feel free to substitute the word ‘messed up’ with any suitable and more rigorous alternative you can think of).
And it is for this reason, and not because of trite appeals to the greater good of our common humanity and other flamboyant claptrap, that I support accepting asylum seekers in the UK. A wrong has been perpetrated, and although it cannot be atoned for, some restitution must be made.
But it seems that some want to have it both ways. Take the line of least resistance in terms of resisting Uncle Sam’s threats and promises; and then when things go wrong, claim the moral high ground, blaming the Tories for being hard of heart. This is radically incoherent; far better not to meddle and interfere in the first place; yet now there is talk of dropping Vaclav Havel’s proverbial ‘humanitarian bombs’ on Libya. The ‘ethical foreign policy’ trajectory of the Liberal Democrats is dragging us morally, if not also electorally, off the edge of a cliff.
So, let’s have no more pious platitudes about ethics, and let’s get our moral baseline right first. If you want an ‘ethical foreign policy,’ then do please feel free to help Tony Blair set up a new party for more intrusive meddling. So-called ‘ethics’ may well have its place; but sometimes, having a basic moral compass is more important. Before you worry about what you’re not doing, try and think about what you are doing first. It is beyond all doubt that any contemptuous refusal to get our priorities in order will be utterly fatal.
And tragically enough, the word ‘fatal’ is very far from a metaphor.
No, it will not touch you.
But the same cannot be said for everyone in this world.
Remember your privilege.
* Jonathan Ferguson is a PhD student. His socio-economic views are progressive/left liberal, with strongly libertarian leanings on non-interventionism, privacy and freedom of speech.
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14 Comments
I really object to the language in this article. Historically Liberals do support an ethical foreign policy and that notably includes William Gladstone. It is wrong to have such a patronising tone.
Where this article has some traction is that often we face moral dilemmas, we want to do the right thing but end up making things worse. We mostly agree that invading Iraq was the wrong thing to do. Yet if we had not done that, Saddam Hussein or one of his sons would be running the country today. Yet incredibly that would have been better compared to what has actually happened since. I would argue the same applies to Afghanistan and Libya. I know that those who supported regime change had good intentions but the policy they supported did more harm than good.
Since foreign policy in the Middle East has become so complicated we have reached a stage where the divisions within the political parties are almost as great as between them. Politicians are struggling to come to terms with the reduction of western power in the world and are often deceived by short term victories that mask longer term, more serious weaknesses.
Thank you for your comment, Geoffrey Payne.
The tone and style of this article is perhaps quite unconventional in a general sense; and I would say, particularly so, for Liberal Democrat Voice. I think that there is a great temptation for critics of the current neoconservative/liberal interventionist consensus to voice opinions in a manner that is gentle and that cannot ‘offend.’
However, my understanding is that the Liberal Party (perhaps also the SDP, with whose history I am less familiar) is partly one of radicalism, and of going against the tide; and going against the tide can never be free of offence. Of course, there is a place for baseline civility, and I will take care to be ethically serious in my articles here and my responses to comments, rather than to rant and rave, and thus trivialise the matter (I don’t think going down the road some people in Labour are currently taking would help matters). But I believe the distinction between being civil and being merely ‘mediocre’ and ‘respectably respectful’ is a tricky one, and there will be a certainly degree of risk in negotiating it.
In fairness, your point about an ethical foreign policy is perfectly valid. But my article does trade on the difference between ‘ethical’ in the usual sense of the word, and ‘ethical’ in the Blairite sense, i.e.: ‘we can’t just sit there,’ ‘just do something!,’ ‘I just can’t sleep at night if we don’t save these people, and that’s all that matters to me!’ I am genuinely grateful that you pointed out the matter of the meaning of ‘ethical,’ because on account of your comment, I am not sure if my play on the word ‘ethical’ is 100% clear to everyone. So I’d really like to take this opportunity to emphasise the intentional irony of this play on words.
Jonathan, if you focused your anti-intervention case on outrage over civilian casualties and damaged local economies then it would make your case stronger.
I struggle a lot to see how people can get outraged over intervention per se. As Maajid Nawaz has said: a lack of intervention can radicalise people too.
A better way to Keep Britain safe would be to develop a United Nations anti-terrorism force – that way we get the intervention without the big target sign on our backs!
“The last thing the Liberal Democrats need is an ethical foreign policy”.
What a great (not) slogan.
Jonathan
You are welcome to your views , but as someone also very welcoming of newer members even I , from the view of wanting a broad church , am perplexed by this .
I think your whole stance sits oddly with our party , it looks more like the sort of stance left Labour or the Greens believe.
Liberalism and social democracy is ethical and pragmatic , it is idealistic and realistic.It is internationalist and localist .It is not pacifist if it is without the compassion or the humanity added , which you decry ! It is odd that you have chosen this party .And interesting .Why ?
Thank you everyone for your comments. I will think carefully before providing more responses. It is late at night, but I will try to answer at my best tomorrow.
The central proposition of this post is ill-thought-out and illogical. There is also a rhetorical juxtaposition of false alternatives (reason versus rhetoric, for example).
Values cannot be based purely on Reason. Reason helps us work out what our values mean, particularly in terms of action. Politics cannot be freed of value-judgements and this is nothing to do with rhetoric. I cannot derive my caring about the survival of other species, or my belief that the lives of people in other countries should matter as much to me as the lives of people in Britain, purely from Reason; and yet these beliefs are in no way anti-rational.
Nothing is more rhetorical than setting up “gushy sentimentality” against Reason. It looks as if Jonathan does not believe feelings should play any part in political decisions. This sets him against just about everyone outside the hard materialist right and the what’s-in-it-for-me-none-of-my-business anti-politicians. If I care about the fate of people who have been tortured and think I should do something about it, yes, this cannot be justified purely by Reason; and yet it’s misuse of language to describe it as “gushy sentimentality”. By that line of argument the surge of new members who joined the Liberal Democrats because they felt they should do something about the election result were being weakly sentimental.
There is a legitimate use of the word “sentimentality” as criticism. That applies when someone has legitimate feelings and fails to apply logic or perceptiveness to their thoughts about action that flows from them. For example, to believe any hard-luck story is sentimental (but to reject evidence on what really works in the criminal justice system is anti-sentimental illogicality). To devote much energy to opposing factory farming while doing nothing about threats to whole eco-systems is sentimental (which is not to say that campaigning against factory farming is wrong).
An ethical foreign policy should mean one based on fundamental values. One that isn’t is based on narrow self-interest and we are an internationalist party in our very bones. It should not mean shying away from hard decisions: for example, we may condemn Putin’s actions in the Ukraine but decide that ending the conflict in Syria is more important and we can’t achieve our aims in both places at the same time.
Thanks for more thought-provoking comments. I am going to address everyone by their first names here, because it seems to be the convention on this site; apologies if this may not be fully appropriate, I am not sure really. Another comment will follow this one immediately.
Eddie: ‘Jonathan, if you focused your anti-intervention case on outrage over civilian casualties and damaged local economies then it would make your case stronger.’ It’s certainly important to raise the question of what makes a case stronger; it is not only about truth, but about convincing people. Truth that does not convince will remain weak. I would suggest that this is a tricky one to negotiate, because while brute material facts like civilian casualties and damage to the local economies are of crucial importance, their are other factors (rhetoric, semantics, personal psychology, etc. which do also condition how decisions are framed, formulated, disseminated and legitimized. I feel that the brute facts and the rhetorical/semantic points are like two blades on a pair of scissors; neither is fully dispensable.
David: I knew the irony would not be to everyone’s taste. I feel the value of headlines is to a certain degree subjective.
Lorenzo:
You have genuinely hit on something very important. The mainstream current right now is against non-interventionism, and in favour of intervention.
That said, while liberalism can be thought of as a single tradition (loosely speaking), there have always been disagreements and tensions, as well as conflicts of interest. The liberalism of a 19th century white slaveholder and the liberalism of a 21st century Black Lives Matter activist, for example, would look different; the liberalism of Gladstone and of a 20th century liberal he would have deemed a ‘Sodomite’ would also be different. (The merger of the Liberal Party the SDP adds a further complication; the kind of ‘liberalilm’ represented by the Lib Dems is complex).
I would say that relative degree of acceptance of the neoconservative/liberal-interventionist consensus is indeed a fact of history and of the present, but it need not be eternal. The way things are now does not have to be the way things always are.
One key question going forward is: what kind of liberalism will the Liberal Democrats stand for in future?
he liberal individualism which values human beings, or the liberal interventionism which values ‘humanity,’ ‘the national interest’ and ‘the greater good of the global village?’
It is,I admit, certainly possible that the Lib Dems will eventually end up fully entrenching a Blair-Lite and a warmed-over New Labour ethos. Tis would be very risky from an electoral perspective, but it would also be a capitulation to conformity and collectivism.
Finally, I feel with all my heart that it would be a real shame to leave non-intervention to the left of the Labour Party (there are a lot of questions remaining unanswered and a ‘sinister’ air about some figure which is not merely the result of tabloid hype); or indeed to the Green Party (who are fairly inexperienced, but who also come across to me as fairly whimsical and erratic).
Simon: You have actually expressed quite clearly one of my main ideas I have attempted to convey in the article, which is that the choice between reason and sentiment is a false dilemma or false dichotomy.
As you say, feelings can direct one’s actions, but they cannot be divorced from sound reasoning and logic.
In my view, this is in keeping with my argument that rhetorical abstractions, while they may carry a high emotional purchase, are logically weak.
To give a blank cheque to notions like ‘the national interest,’ ‘the greater good,’ ‘our common humanity,’ so that merely by appealing to these notions, one can justify anything, is illogical and unreasonable.
The point is not to advocate quenching one’s passions and sentiments; but to let one’s emotions and one’s reasoning work in relative harmony (given that perfect harmony may be impossible).
Re: “An ethical foreign policy should mean one based on fundamental values. One that isn’t is based on narrow self-interest and we are an internationalist party in our very bones.” This is precisely why I am a non-interventionist.
Globalism and internationalism are often weasel words for the pursuit of nationalistic goals in ‘universalist’ guise. I do not believe there is anything to choose, morally or ethically speaking, between a barefaced nationalistic chauvinism, and a ‘cosmopolitanism’ that is merely narrow jingoism writ large.
The point is not to choose to ride on either wing of such a dirty locust. Instead of rhetorical appeals to potentially self-serving abstractions and humanitarian jargon, it is possible to reject nationalism and globalism as two variations on the same theme: the sacrifice of individual wellbeing to fuzzy, jargonising abstractions.
I believe the Liberal Democrats can and should be outward-looking; but there are many ways to be outward-looking; and not all such are equal.
Jonathan
Thank you for your excellent manners and considered approach , on this .In that , far more even than your views , which , like many of us I am sure vary , you seem to display qualities both at home and welcome , in our Liberal , Democratic party !
You talk a lot of sense in your specific response to me . I would like all our members to stop the labelling of members , in an era of self describing that can get a little vague , even confusing , if someone decent , non racist , well mannered ,says they are a Liberal Democrat and pays their subs and respects those other decent members even when they disagree ,would be welcomed as such , we would be better off as a party .
You never know , some may even forgive Nick Clegg ?!
Thank you, Lorenzo. I think that people underestimate sometimes the good that Nick Clegg has done, including as a ‘public communicator,’ for want of a better word. In his publicly expressed views, he has stuck his neck out about surveillance, a very contentious issue, and he defends a robust vision of freedom of speech, in a period where such ‘old-fashioned’ understandings of freedom of speech are viewed with suspicion, and even hatred.
He is a cultural ambassador who is making the most precious elements of liberalism available to a wider public.
I can’t agree with him at all on his foreign policy views, but it is simply not possible to pick and choose, so that one can find someone who can publicly communicate liberalism in a way that is 100% compatible with one’s own deeply held convictions.
Where he has stood up for what I value most, I congratulate and applaud him, and it would be great to see more people and more Lib Dems, even in spite of any disagreements, standing up for some of the key elements of the liberal heritage, which aren’t just for one country, or one ethnicity, or gender, or any other group of people.
Lorenzo: Further to your comment, I guess this might be a case of ‘attack the idea, not the person.’ The latter is not a moral absolute for every conceivable case, but it is a good general principle which is true a great deal of the time.
If one moves beyond general criticism of ideas and tendencies to criticize an individual, then I’m sure there will be cases where it is reasonable and justified, but I doubt very much it should be the default norm for all occasions. Apart from anything else, it can be counterproductive.
I guess one could say, the default is to focus on the more ‘objective’ ideas or factors first, and then if there is to be criticism of a person, there will have to be a higher ‘burden of proof’ to justify that. I guess this is all a contestable area of how to approach criticism, but these are my thoughts as things stand right now.
Jonathan
Very full and thoughtful response , thank you. I agree that members angry with Nick Clegg are so because of missed opportunities and mistakes he and others made.Your being able to accept him and the party warts and all, even with the strong differences you have , says a lot about you ,and those who are more personalised and bitter than you , in their approach .