Allies Against Humanity

'Far left' Hopi Sen,joined 'far right' Guido Fawkes, in dismissing Red Tory Phillip Blond as beneath their professionally cultivated dignities . Hopi is a skilful propagandist, and a fascinating read, but shallow and very possibly Keith Vaz`s bastard child ,.Guido Fawkes is a more interesting political mix, but he is not a Conservative . He opposes socialism and Liberal elites but from a near anarchist perspective . He sees the lie in artifice and expects to find ugliness and truth close together . Let us assume he abandons this silly pose when he is trying to stay married ( and he needs to )…. We are all Conservative about what really matters to us . Both are tip top bloggers in my opnion the apex of this odd little form , but I begin to notice how much else they have in common
1 They see man as chiefly a product of economic forces . Fawkes is religiously committed to the “Market", Hopi equally committed to government intervention . He would deny this but if you read his entire blog , and I have , you would find not one word in praise of less state less intervention or less tax.
2 Both are technicians . Guido has financial background Hopi is a wonk ,marketing wunderkind and lifetime Labour Party propagandist. They like details. Hopi sifts Policy detail for contradiction Guido snuffles for hypocrisy and plot
3 Both respect elites . Guido believing the market to be a almost divine force for good assumes its beneficiaries to be deserving ones . Hopi , because he believes in the State’s duty to intervene necessarily believes that those best qualified in a given subject are best placed to order other people’s lives for their own collective good
4 Both are rationalists . Hopi is part of a tradition of quasi scientific analysis of history and society , Guido believes in the individual intellect , notably his own and its power to invent an identity . Neither have any time for the sacred , the imaginative inner life or the possibility of cultural enrichment
5 Both are cynics , Guido sees greed everywhere and Hopi believes that without the benevolently intended discipline of the state man would be more or less feral
6 Both are ferocious Puritans .Guido`s uniform outrage implies a moral code cast in wrought iron , Hopi for all his efforts cannot avoid the slightly congealed beatific simper of a Vicar in a pub …
7 Both are Utopians ( see above )
8 Both are individualists . Hopi because he sees man as a seed which the water of economic resources can cause to grow . The current clause four says ,...“ we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential “ The potential is latent in the individual . Guido is more obviously an individualist opposing collectivist diktats.
10 Both are simplifiers . For Hopi Policy is something that animates a passive jelly into some pleasing new shape . For Guido , opposition is absolute , he does not inhabit the penumbrian world of compromise and doubt most of us do
I am out of sympathy with each shared quality and I hope that locates my own view which I have great difficulty in stating positively