Amia Srinivasan's contribution to conservative thought

I ought to give you a couple of warnings about this post: it’s a long one, and it’s about political philosophy. If you’re still interested despite those warnings then please read on below the break.

Liz Truss: yet more betting success, and how she can succeed too

Here we go again: Liz Truss' victory means yet another political betting success for me. Indeed, at 14/1, the Truss Triumph equals what was hitherto my best ever political win, the Macron Massacre.

I'll level with you: Truss was not the only bet I placed last November. Macron was simply someone who seemed wrongly priced to me, but I had a different strategy for the PM. As I said back in January, I was pretty confident that Johnson was not going to be in power for much longer. That meant that his potential successor was probably already identifiable. So I picked the most likely candidates and spread my (modest) stake around such that I was bound to come out ahead if any of them won. The net effect of that as things turned out is that I have had a 7/4 winner (i.e., after taking into account the money I lost on the likes of Sunak and Starmer). But a win is a win.

By way of thanking Ms Truss for her contribution to my retirement fund, here are three (or four) suggested policies for her. They are not 14/1 longshots - although I would recommend that she have a few such policies in her portfolio - but more like 7/4 sensible bets, designed to fit in the Venn diagram intersection of 'popular', 'feasible' and 'beneficial'.

(1) Establish a National Strategic Infrastructure Commission, i.e. an expert-driven, technocratic quango tasked with identifying and procuring strategic civil infrastructure for the UK (or perhaps just England and Wales, assuming Sturgeon would be difficult). I am not in principle a fan of "taking the politics out it": the allocation of limited resources extracted from the public by compulsory taxation and the exercise of compulsory purchase powers - and those are two key aspects of building infrastructure - are inherently political activities, and it is only right that they be subject to democratic oversight. But needs must. For the foreseeable future - the next generation or so - there is no real ideological divide as to what kinds of infrastructure the UK needs, but there are various technocratic decisions that need to be made about the details of where, when and what, and the present combination of judicial review and opportunistic political objection to any particular proposal mean that these decisions don't get taken in a reasonable timeframe. We will need appropriate amounts of energy infrastructure, with an appropriate balance between the 'available but dirty' and the 'unreliable but clean'; we will need reservoirs, flood defences, train lines, roads, tunnels; perhaps we need more airports or seaports; covid surely shows us that we need more vaccine infrastructure; perhaps we need better asteroid defences too - who know? these are all questions for experts. Just as NICE successfully de-politicised NHS drug offerings and Bank of England independence de-politicised interest rate changes, my proposed commission would de-politicise infrastructure. Also, the Commission should be based in Birmingham as that way the London classes will ignore it and it can get on with doing its job.

(2) New colleges at both Oxford and Cambridge - but ones that focus on STEM. This hits a policy sweet spot. It's a good idea: we need to build up our science research and education strength, and how better than by expanding our premier universities? The size of Oxbridge has not really kept pace with the fact that they are now global universities, educating large numbers of foreign students: that's a good thing in itself, but it means that a number of British students who would be suited to and benefit from an Oxbridge education are being edged out at the margin, and the parents of people at the margins of Oxbridge acceptance are the kinds of pointy-elbowed middle class people who have been drifting away from the Conservative Party. STEM subjects tend to favour state school pupils, so there is a social mobility angle that can be played. Moreover, the Conservative Party has been gaining a bit of an anti-elitist, 'had enough of experts' reputation and this would be a good counterbalance. It's an opportunity for good politics too. What should we call the colleges? I'd go with "Elizabeth" (for the Queen) for the Oxford one and "Turing" for the Cambridge one, although some combination of "Nightingale", "Seacole" and "Lovelace" seems inevitable, but the papers will love to talk about it, and people will want to vote for College-y McCollegeface or whatever. And can Labour oppose it? On what basis? Too expensive? Maybe, but it's investing in the future. It'll be funded by government borrowing, of course, but in the form of an exciting new National Savings product: the Science Investment Bond, which will feature in all the best buy tables, and allow people with savings (i.e. pensioners) to gain a competitive rate of interest while investing in their grandchildren's future. Oh and if you want to make everyone's head explode then why not make Boris Johnson the first Warden of the Oxford college? He would actually be quite well-suited to an Oxford Head of House role.

(3) Both of the policy ideas above are long term ones. That's good in itself and also good for the Truss government, which needs to look big, sensible and long-term to distinguish itself from its predecessors: Brexit was not May's fault, and covid was not Johnson's fault, so they each had premierships defined by short-term priorities that were not their own. Truss has the chance to be different and better. But she will need short term policies too, and preferably distinctly Tory ones that Labour has to oppose and look bad for doing so. The economy is tricky and there are no easy answers: I'll leave Truss and Kwarteng to think about energy prices, but the most that can be hoped for is damage control. Immigration and culture war issues are always tempting, but those can be left for the moment. Rather than look opportunistic by raising them now, wait: at some point, someone on the Left is bound to accuse the government of being racist and/or use a racist epithet against the government (in fact the latter has already happened: google "coconut cabinet" for details), and that is only going to help the current Cabinet. That leaves crime. There is a lot of it about, noticeably low level but unpleasant crime in London, and I detect a widespread feeling of Something Must Be Done But Won't Be. The kind of anti-crime measures that people notice and like are ones that involve visible police presence on the streets. That's expensive. But how about trialling giving the power of arrest to Community Support Officers, in certain cases and with certain safeguards? Just a trial - surely it's worth seeing if it can reduce low-level anti-social behaviour? It's the sort of thing that will annoy the right people too. Another anti-crime topic is cameras: there are now lots of cameras around that can play a role in crime prevention and detection, not just CCTV but mobile phones, Ring doorbells and so on. A new Use of Cameras in the Prevention and Detection of Crime Bill that would 'put the anti-crime use of these devices on a sound and modern statutory basis', i.e. making it clear that people can use these things sensibly without infringing the GDPR or privacy laws or whatever, would be popular. It would also have a potential 'benefit of Brexit' angle that could be helpful and, again, it would annoy all the right kind of people from the point of view of a Conservative Party facing a Labour Party headed by a human rights lawyer.

So there you have it. Truss has helped me and I've done my bit to repay the favour. I'll wait to see if she follows my advice before placing my bets for the next General Election. 

Normal People by Sally Rooney - some thoughts

This post is about Sally Rooney's book Normal People and it's in two parts. I'll start with a no-spoiler review, but after the break I will be setting out some longer thoughts arising out the book and in doing so I will give, if not exactly spoilers (it's a will-they, won't-they get together? book), then at least so much of the flavour of the book as might ruin it for people who haven't yet read it. If you haven't read it and think you might want to then please stop at the break.

I came to Normal People with few preconceptions. I have not seen the TV adaptation, for example, and if I read the reviews when it came out then I have forgotten doing so. But I was aware of the book as a cultural event - the kind of thing that features in Books of the Year lists - and there is a vestigial impulse in me to keep abreast of modern literary fiction, a feeling that being oblivious to the latest 'serious' books is akin to being unaware of who the Prime Minister is. Why do I mention this? Because Rooney makes fun of people like me at one point in the book (when a character attends a literary reading) and I feel it only fair to mention that perhaps Rooney is indicating that her book is not aimed at me. But here goes anyway.

My copy of the book is festooned with the kind of excessive praise that appears only on literary fiction that has caught the zeitgeist: The Guardian describes it as a "future classic", for example, while The Times' reviewer apparently "finished the book determined to look at the world differently", whatever that means. It has won more prizes than you did at the end of primary school. Unsurprisingly, it is over-rated and over-hyped: there's no smoke without at least a hint of fire, true, but in my view the book is ultimately a minor one. 

The strengths of the book are twofold. First, its story-telling is well-paced and direct. It proceeds in chronological order from beginning to end, with chapters that have nice clear headings of the kind "Three Months Later (July 2012)", but it does so in an interesting way, with the characters (or a free indirect narrator) going back over episodes and looking at them a little differently from time to time. Nothing tricksy - no radical re-casting of past events of the kind that (for example) Sarah Walters might do - but just a nicely done adding of depth and texture by gently circling back.

The other strength is the descriptions of the characters' thoughts and their appreciation of their relationships with others. Rooney has put a lot of work into this and I thought it 'came off'. 

Any notable reasons why you might want to avoid it? Sadly, yes. 

- It's depressing. The main characters - and most of the minor characters - are depressed and depressing. The world it depicts is atomistic, anomic and sad.

- The dialogue is disappointing. I'll say more about that below.

- No speech marks. It might not bother you, but I didn't like it. I think it's a pointless affectation - like writing a menu in pence - and I don't see why it was done: it's always clear when someone is talking and when they're not if you read to the end of the sentence or paragraph, so why not use the conventional punctuation marks that help us get there more quickly?

Anything else to mention? Well, there is a lot of sex in it. Mostly rather depressing, I thought, although I suppose, as the characters in the book perhaps show us, tastes can vary. At any rate, Rooney was probably right to think that the book is not for me. 

Catching (and resisting) the viral virus

This is one of the most unexpectedly interesting things I have read recently. It's about some of the most successful people in the world of viral videos. Did you ever see that one about a woman spreading a whole load of pasta on a marble countertop? One of theirs.

A couple of thoughts struck me as I was reading the piece. The first is just how entrepreneurial Americans are. Making viral videos is not necessarily a sphere of human activity in which Americans should have great advantages: as the article says, "Viewers from Manhattan to Mumbai should be able to understand every second, when watching on a phone screen without sound." What we are talking about is the little videos that people watch on public transport or (so the article makes clear) while sitting on the loo: simple, often soundless and mostly very silly. The most lucrative videos are the ones that appeal to the most lucrative market (i.e. Americans) but, even so, with a bit of trial and error, surely anyone could find out what kind of silliness Americans like to watch? One might think that the world sees enough American popular culture to have a good guess. And the potential rewards, I should say, are phenomenal: "On a good day, one of these short clips could earn Rothfuss enough to buy a Tesla." That's worth a bit of trying things out. One can imagine a parallel universe in which, say, the French, with their history of mime, make the big bucks. Yet the work ethic and get-and-go of Americans seems to stand them in good stead here, as in so many areas of life.

As it happens, there was a non-American who made it big in this world: a British magician called Julius Dein. He is quoted in the article: “Let me give you my two cents as someone that went to number one in the world. I made a lot of money out of it. I would give every penny back, to reverse everything I did and to not have a single one of these views.” But that striking comment is not followed up. Why, exactly, does he say that? one wants to ask. Instead the article goes back to the main subject, a chap called Rick Lax, and we are with him in his Mercedes as he tells us that "it’s great to have money ... because that’s how society keeps score." Which, perhaps, gives us a hint as to why Dein might have come to a different view of the matter.

Anyway, there's a bit to think about and lots of fun details to enjoy - highly recommended. You can even read it on the loo if you want. And don't forget to share!

The Romance of the Past; or How to be a Happy Conservative

Not that long ago, the ever-entertaining Ben Sixsmith had a piece in The Critic about the various groups that gather under the umbrella of "traditionalists". 

While having some fun along the way (e.g., accurately skewering a certain subculture of online trads whose philosophy appears to consist in "a passionate enthusiasm for uploading photographs of slim young women in regional dresses and arguing about whether civilisation fell in 1789 or before"), he makes the point that if we want to revive a vanished ritual or custom then it is not enough merely to say that it is charming or traditional, rather we must show that it serves some purpose for us now.

This made me think about the various ways of life known to antiquity that have not fallen by the wayside of modernity but survive to this day. My professional life provides various examples. Not only am I a lawyer - a profession long-established by the time of the Romans - but it is not unusual for one of my cases to be readily explicable, both to laymen of today and those of classical times, by telling a story about a Greek merchant who wanted to buy a ship to carry cargoes of oil. Various technical details of the story would seem like science fiction to the ancient Greeks, but they would have no more difficulty in understanding what it is essentially all about than you would have in understanding the frustration of a Flargle-trader from the planet Xargan who wanted to buy an interstellar space cruiser but found out that the hyperdrive wouldn't reach the Gamma Quadrant (allegedly). Indeed, any ancient Greeks listening to my story would not be terribly surprised to hear that the ship in question was designed to fit through the current Suez Canal, which is merely the latest in a series of canals built in the region since the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt.

If you want another example of ways of life that happen today that would be perfectly comprehensible to those in Biblical times then I give you the entertaining recent case of Reeves v Drew, a dispute about a will featuring a number of colourful characters. You might want to read the whole thing, but to whet your appetite I will tell you that it includes passages such as "... [she] suffered an horrific injury during this period by being glassed in a pub by another woman in a random attack but the deceased responded to this by using the memorable but highly disturbing phrase “lay with dogs and you get fleas”" and "There were uncomfortable parts of Bill’s evidence. There were elements of racism and he, like most of the family, has engaged in drug use. He has not been immune from the family’s use of violence ... // I had a largely favourable impression of Bill ..." - you know your family is unusual when Bill is one of the good guys. 

You may well think that these ways of life - shipping goods, litigating, fighting in pubs - range from the merely mundane to the frankly unattractive. But, of course, almost anything that is in constant use today will be mundane and we will be well familiar with its unattractive aspects. The most glamorous film star, lived with day to day, will be a person who smells, moans and irritates. Those regional dresses are often dirty, cold or uncomfortable, or 'teamed with' (as the fashionistas perhaps say) a nice warm cardy and an anorak.

Here I think of John Masefield's poem "Cargoes". You know, the one that starts:

"Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir

Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,

With a cargo of ivory,

And apes and peacocks,

Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine."

The epitome of the romance of the past! But the shipping lawyer in me has some questions. Have you ever wondered where Ophir is? I looked it up and it's probably east of Suez. So, to get there from Palestine by boat would have required a Red Sea port - or perhaps a Suez Canal of some kind. And if you think about it a little more, when the ship was making the voyage out from Palestine to pick up the cargo of ivory and so on, presumably the captain would not have wanted to make the voyage in ballast, so it would have been worth carrying a low value cargo out there, perhaps even firewood or cheap trays. And when the vessel unloaded the apes and peacocks at the discharge port, there must have been a tally clerk counting the live and dead ones off the boat, and perhaps litigation to follow if the numbers came out wrongly.

You will recall that the poem ends with the "dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack". Disgustingly quotidian, no doubt. But consider this. I was driving through a charming corner of the English countryside yesterday and crossed a railway line belonging to a heritage steam railway, lovingly run by a charity as a tourist attraction. Ah, the romance of steam trains! Surely there is no one who is immune to it. Yet isn't the British coaster with a smoke stack simply a magnificent steam train of the sea? Indeed, isn't it even more romantic, given the addition of the tang of sea-spray, the freedom from rigid train tracks and the danger of drowning to the glories of coal, fire and cast-iron solid British engineering that we love about steam trains?

This, I think, is one reason why conservatives seem to be perpetually disappointed. Either their society has successfully preserved some way of life, and so we all get to see it close-up, warts and all, and of course it's something awful like heavy industry or money-grubbing, or else that way of life has perished and we can see nothing but its glamour and romance, photographed in soft-focus by those who love it. 

There is an alternative. I once read a story set in the future in which aesthetes sigh over the elegance of power station cooling towers, created by a past culture whose glories they cannot reproduce. It will take a bit of effort, but I invite today's conservatives to take the chances that tomorrow's ones will envy us for: why not admire the graceful parabolic curves of cooling towers? Or wonder that the ancient and solemn tradition of consuming alcohol and fighting, one might almost say nobly, with nothing but one's body and the materials readily to hand still endures in these quiescent and risk-averse times? Or, at the very least, I invite you to rejoice that the classical custom of paying people money to argue in court, a strange and time-honoured custom, but one which serves a great deal of purpose (for me at least), is going strong when so many of the other rites and habits of antiquity are lost to us.

On Effective Altruism

Effective Altruism (EA) seems to be in an introspective mood at the moment. Various people are thinking about it at the meta level (as, I am sure members of the EA community would say). Here is my modest contribution to the zeitgeist.

Update on 2022 predictions

As you may or may not remember, on 11 January I posted some predictions for this year:

"(1) Macron will be re-elected President of France.

(2) Boris Johnson will cease to be Prime Minister.

(3) Article 16 of the Brexit Protocol will not be triggered.

(4) No new British political party, whether centrist, Corbynist or other, will get any real traction

(5) The cool new thing in European politics will be pro-natalist policies."

6 months down the line, those predictions are looking pretty decent.