Secretes, Shoots and Leaves

Once upon a time, all we had to prevent us eating each other in public places was Civic Virtue and the Old Bill. Now we have over 4 million surveillance cameras in the UK. We British really love ’em — New York gets by with a paltry 5,000, where London has more than 400,000. Keep smiling, because unless you are in Church or on the can, you can pretty much bet you're starring in someone’s real life Big Brother show. And they call it a liberal society.

Tate Modern is putting our ongoing Snoopy Show into context with a summer exhibition Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera. I thought I’d go along to find out where it all began. The Victorians had a variety of gadgets, including cameras hidden in shoes and the tops of canes, to record the unwilling. Cartier-Bresson snapped his Leica around the streets of Paris with sublime results, some of which are in the exhibition.

Developing technology since the nineteenth century has delivered images to feed a growing culture of celebrity. Here is Garbo sheilding herself from the camera with a perfectly formed hand, and an utterly wonderful shot of Kim Novak trying to sit down discretely in a dining car whilst a row of men in homburgs sit and stare. The exhibition includes Weegee’s iconic shot of Marilyn Monroe accidentally on purpose flashing her thighs over a stream of hot air. All culminates in the Paparazzi martyrdom of the Princess of Wales, captured in some newspaper stories of the day. There was interesting work by Alison Jackson, who spoofs the whole idea by using lookalikes in a way that makes you think “surely it can’t be...” It isn’t.

There were some fine historical examples of Candid photography, in the Monty Python sense — Brassai’s images of 1930’s secret and scenes from mexican bordellos to travellers on the New York Sunway. Stripped of the accoutrements of glamour photography most people look surprisingly contemporary, simple and innocent.

There is a harrowing section on war, which takes us from the shocking images of carnage thrown up by the American Civil War to the human débris of concentration camps, Nick Ut’s Vietnam and various recent gulf wars. One image stays on the memory — Lee Miller’s shot of the fair-haired daughter of Leipzig’s Bürgermeister, draped exquisitely over a chair, hours after she had committed suicide with Nazi Germany collapsing around her.

The extraordinary mechanisation of snooping has not improved the quality of the images. The final rooms make you wonder who watches this stuff, and how close we are coming to an entirely surreal position where we are all constantly photographed for the amusement and edification of machines. Once nobody’s watching any more, what is the point? The almost complete elimination of privacy raises interesting questions about the integrity of the person, and the almost complete elimination of liberty by the control mechanisms required by unfettered liberalism. Time for a re-think?

Sleepwalking over a cliff?

Exploring the state of society with colleagues in Oxford, David Marquand gave a presentation describing the drift from a market economy to a market society. This has produced an increasingly problematic order in which a myriad of individual choices has brought about, not the promised land, but a state of affairs nobody actually wanted. The decay of civil society and rampant inequality produce what he called this paradox of choice. The aggregate of small scale desirables is large scale breakdown. We become trapped in our own choices. Meanwhile, central government stuffs the books with new statutes, limitations, controls and defensiveness, and communties die. He signed iff with a slightly dread warning from John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty:

The worth of a state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it... A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands -- even for beneficial purposes -- will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished...

Just logging other interesting quotes I’ve heard on this event that say anything potentially significant about the Church’s calling in our present fragmented and often despairing context, I also noticed this, from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

& North Korean Civil Liberties for all

Team Huddle. Diary Room. The Government, concerned about the waning popularity of Big Brother, is bringing the experience into all our homes. It’s proposing a new super database, to enable it to read all our emails, phone calls, and internet searches. And for added fun and expense, it’s proposing to farm out the job to some private company. That way, when the disks are left in a briefcase on the train, it’s somebody else’s fault. Only £12Bn, and Big Brother really will be tagging all our private conversations and outings on the internet. It’s all about terrorism, see? If the terrorists won, they’d take away our civil liberties, and we’d have a government that spied on us all the time...

But hang on,

1. It’s not easy for crimefighters to process and use the information they have now. Can you imagine how misleading and useless the proposed mass of unfocussed information could possibly be? Right now, the authorities need warrants, and, more importantly, some sense of direction, when they rifle our digital dustbins. It’s quality information, not sheer quantity, that aids detection. Beyond a certain point, excessive useless information actually misleads. Fascinating trails can lead nowhere, but be followed anyway. That’s how false convictions happen. And, take it from me, the real crooks will soon find ways to play this thing like a violin.
   
2. Collecting this mass of 99·999% useless information will be hell. So will sorting it, storing it, accessing it, and interpreting it. But all those activities can be guaranteed to be a Sunday School outing, compared to the joy of straightening out the mess when misperceptions occur. You can bet your bottom dollar that this activity will be solidly exempted from any data protection legislation. When the billions of cockups we can anticipate start piling up and impinging on our private lives, don’t think it’ll be easy to do anything about it.
3. Pub Licensing hours came in during the first world war to hasten the downfall of Kaiser Bill. Within four years, Kaiser Bill went and done an Untergang. Eighty years on, all we had was Kaiser Chiefs. But we still had our World War 1 licensing laws.
   Funny, isn’t it, how panic measures for one purpose stick around and find others?

I’m struggling with this whole hare-brained thang. But tell you what, we can all try this out for a day. There’s a group on Facebook called “cc all your private emails to Jacqui Smith Day.” Let’s all share our private information with the Home Secretary by blind copying everything to public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk. The Facebook group will say which day to do it, because we mustn’t overwhelm out poor hardworking Home Secretary with useless titbits, spam, and garbage. That would be a terrible waste of time, wouldn’t it? We can then measure how much Crime, War and International Terrorism fell that day, and, armed with that hard knowledge, we can all calculate whether this obvious erosion of our basic human rights is worth the candle. If we decide not to go ahead, anyone missing the scheme can move to North Korea, where nobody would bat an eyelid at this police method, and there’s a constant stream of Norman Wisdom movies on TV to keep them cheerful.

Milton-Obama; liberty, faction, faith

How can nations founded on liberty and difference hold together and get anything done? Or churches, for that matter? Is what you need centralised nutcrunching authority? Head Office? Your own Mikado?

Absolutely not, says John Milton. Preparing an address for his 400th birthday bash I was struck by the power of Milton’s broad vision for England, at a time it lay in ruins after the civil war. His recipe was not repression, but liberty. Rulers should release the inherent strength of people, rather than holding them down, censoring, or suppressing their energies. Thus his Address to the Lords and Commons of England (1644):

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an eagle muing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging and unscaling her long abused sight at the fountain it self of heavenly radiance.

It is the duty of the Lords and Commons to nurture free private citizens, not slavish conformists, in a way Milton associated with Roman Catholic countries. This develops people’s capacities, rather than treating them like naughty children and enforcing servitude.

Consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governours: a Nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to...

He talks of sectarianism, and the energy faction induces, and the seeming weakness of Liberty, that actually encourages difference to flourish; seemingly a weakness... In fact the broad dispersing of authority is a strength, not a weakness:

For now the time seems come, wherein Moses the great Prophet may sit in heav'n rejoycing to see that memorable and glorious wish of his fulfill'd, when not only our sev'nty Elders, but all the Lords people are become Prophets. No marvell then though some men, and some good men too perhaps, but young in goodnesse, as Joshua then was, envy them. They fret, and out of their own weaknes are in agony, lest these divisions and subdivisions will undoe us. The adversarie again applauds, and waits the hour, when they have brancht themselves out, saith he, small anough into parties and partitions, then will be our time. Fool! he sees not the firm root, out of which we all grow, though into branches: nor will be ware untill he see our small divided maniples cutting through at every angle of his ill united and unweildy brigade. And that we are to hope better of all these supposed sects and schisms, and that we shall not need that solicitude honest perhaps though over timorous of them that vex in this behalf, but shall laugh in the end, at those malicious applauders of our differences, I have these reasons to perswade me...

True leadership is not about suppressing dissent, but helping free people frame smaller issues in their bigger context. Intractable issues are usually based on false antithesis; ask a silly question and you get a silly answer. Worrying away at intractables in their own terms is what gums up the works. Of course there are people in any organisation who thrive on gridlock and frustration, because it provides an arena within which they can posture and bully their way, indulging ego, building their own significance.

What the impossible issues need is reframing in some context within which people can get traction, discover and release their inner energy, and come gather, persuaded, around a bigger vision. Release that energy, and all the Lord’s people become prophets...

Liberalism, religion, Milton at 400

Today’s the Day! John Milton’s 400th Birthday. In Horton Church I accidentally trod on Milton’s mother’s grave, back in October. Tut, tut. As well as his family’s home, this county boasts Milton’s Cottage at Chalfont St Giles, where he wrote Paradise Lost, whilst sheltering from the London plague. There is a timeless quality about Milton’s writing, and relevance. Awhile back the Church produced a report called In Tune with Heaven, duly excoriated by Paul Johnson, especially the title, which he denounced as typical trendy Church of England, a mindless genuflection to the ad-speak of the 1960’s. People who knew much about music would instantly recognise this title (from Parry’s anthem) as a quote from John Milton’s Sonnet At a Solemn Musick — a mindless genuflection, perhaps, but to the sixteen sixties, not the nineteen sixties. Some people, but not Paul Johnson, could tell the difference between a Sixties advertising jingle and John Milton. But it’s an interesting mistake.

Milton is hardly a likeable figure, but the power of his mature epic writing stands him head and shoulders above the crowd. There’s something maddening about the precocious effeminate boy who conceives the bold design of being a writer, often treading the narrow line between brilliant and insufferable. Milton certainly suffers from some modern critics whose religious and biblical illiteracy doth not help them understand what they are reading. So why read Milton today, apart from poetick grist to the lit crit mill?

It is fundamentally wrong to think Milton a “Puritan,” in blanket terms. As an adult he was very much an Independent, emphatically not a Presbyterian (thus his quip about new presbyter being old priest writ large.) His own personal theology, De Doctrina Christiana, unpublished in his lifetime, was pretty much libertarian, with touches of Arianism, and eccentric flourishes like having a personal theology in the first place. Now all our theologies are profoundly personal, like it or not.

Milton detested bishops, or what he called prelaty, with its controlling tendencies, prisons and enforcement schemes. He detested all tyrannies, civil and religious. He radically rejected any notion that faith for grown ups can be based on authority and coercion as opposed to conviction freely arrived at. Like his views on divorce, these are not comfortable positions, even today, but they are his considered view. It is interesting how we now live in a Monarchy with an established Church, but whose processes have transformed from within over 350 years to a point strikingly similar to much that Milton enivisaged. As we all have to learm when we leave student politics behind, Railing against the system is cheap and easy, but process is infinitely more important than structure to quality of life and human outcome.

As much as Milton would have abominated the Diocese of Oxford along with bishops and all their works, he might have endorsed two aspects of our present operations:

1. The abolition of tithes, an almost obsessional bugbear of JM. He believed it wrong to run the Church off anything except voluntary contributions. From 1843 to 1920 his wishes came true, and tithes were abolished. I couldn’t say everyone is that much more keen on their replacement, Parish Share, than Milton was on tithes!
2. His famous tract on the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates warmly endorses servant ministry — the legitimacy of authority for Milton rests not on anointing, custom or revelation, but on its conformity to Christ’s servant example.

At a time the word “Liberal” has for some become simply the habitual term of abuse; the catch-all sneer-at label, it’s worth reading Milton’s Areopagitica again. In it Milton lays down one of the basic foundational building blocks of an open society. Neither Pope nor State have any privileged role, says Milton, in censoring, defining or defending public truth. The most dyed in the wool political and religious Conservatives use and take for granted this liberty of thought and speech, along with the rest of us.

Thanks to Graham Peacock for a Poster which, in itself, serves as an instant summary of English History 1649-1660. John Milton neither panicked, nor freaked out. A resurrected Milton would doubtless be online, blogging away at the tyrannies and self-deception of our powers that be. He believed that monarchies and theologies of infallibility in the Church bred a sick, servile society. He would fall about laughing at people craven enough, as he would see it, to imagine final religious authority could be found in any human source, least of all popery, Protestant or Catholic.

Challenging stuff — So, he might well be asking us,“However much you hate the word, are you not all Liberals now?”
What’s the difference between liberalism as an essential precondition of an open society, and the liberalism people use as a term of abuse?

Abdul the Bogeyman

White heat Brouhaha over the Archishop of Canterbury and Muslim Law. You wouldn't think a densely packed academic law lecture would be much good for soundbites, particularly given general public ignorance about jurisprudence theory. You’d be right. One of the few things less understood in Fleet Street than jurisprudence is religion. Ignorance plus Hysteria equals juicy heat. Among the commentators, Andrew Brown hits the nail precisely on the head:

Dr Williams, characteristically, is interested in the arguments over what sharia law actually says. The rest of the country is more interested in whether and how it might be enforced. Only if Islamic law can be reduced to a game played between consenting adults can it be acceptably enforced in this country; and that's not, I think, how it is understood by its practitioners.

English law is a funny old thing. Its very purpose is unclear — For fifty years there’s been a fascinating row (known in the trade as Hart/ Devlin), about whether English law is designed to secure minimal social cohesion (Hart) or enforce morals (Devlin). At the time of Roman Catholic emancipation back in 1829 we experienced big social hysteria about how people who theoretically owe allegiance to other systems of law could be completely part of English society. We've pretty much managed to work that one out — the whole idea that Roman Catholics are a sinister fifth column is just wrong, though this crazy notion has deep roots in English history. Loyal is as loyal does. Within the overarching framework of monarchy we’re all still here, and the deep fried hysteria from 1780 (the Gordon riots) or 1685 (the Popish Plot) seems, frankly, potty. From this we learn that the English sometimes do hysterical kneejerks. Best check that the bogeymen really are bogeymen. In a country containing people who don’t know the difference between a paediatrician and a paedophile, this is particularly important.

Fast forward. Muslims, in fact, represent 3% of the UK population. In the cold light of day, fear that Bearded Ayatollahs are about to march up Whitehall and Take Power is utterly ridiculous. It’s particularly babyish when you remember 99% of actual British Muslims live decent, law abiding lives, according to rather conservative standards of family life. Forget that fact, and we make big fools of ourselves. Muslims know the UK is not a Muslim nation, and don't either expect or want it to be. They just expect basic standards of decency and respect towards their faith; which they are entitled to do, because decency and respect are values we all profess, secured by basic charters of human rights.

Are there other areas of UK life where the rule of law is apparently compromised or even suspended? In theory, no. The Queen’s writ runs throughout the realm, and that is a basic principle that secures civil society. But in practice, English law is sensibly pragmatic. Take a boxing match, a lawful activity, as long as the (non statutory, private) Board of Control rules are followed. This always involves acts which would otherwise be considered Common assault contrary to section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. Particularly bloody rumbles in the jungle would also appear to contravene section 47 of the Act, by occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH). There’s a fascinating wavy line here, and assault cases have been successfully brought arising from incidents on the rugby field. Does that mean sports arenas are “no go areas” for the law? Of course not. In all kinds of areas of life, simple and obvious requirements of general law are, if you like, superseded in a particular context. Sensible pragmatism, common sense, sorts it all out. In a well-worn groove like sports, we know instinctively where to go and how. In virgin forest like Sharia law, we don’t.

Now consider a Jewish couple divorcing. Their faith lays down legalistic procedures for interpreting their behaviour towards one another. If they chose to bring evidence or decisions from those procedures into civil courts in the UK, they will, of course, be taken into account for what they are. This isn’t replacing the law by Jewish law, just sensible pragmatism within the overarching framework of the Queen’s justice. In the same way, 18th century marriage law made provision for Quaker marriage. If religious procedures were to transgress the law, or deprive either party of equity, of course, the rule of law and the principles of equity would apply. Hysteria about Bogeymen is a great British Tradition. It gets people talking. But when they do, historically, they usually talk rubbish.