Thursday, January 07, 2010

Fabian History Lesson

This Cinders of a blog does not get enough passing trade to refer to its ‘readership‘, ( although unlike Liberal Conspiracy, readers are slightly more populous than writers ), .If it had a readership, though , they might have noticed mention of Sunder Katwala ,the General Secretary of Fabian Society
“ Fabian Society ?” ,you say ,“Is that really still going ? ”. Yes , like Bernard Cribbins and the Commonwealth , it is 'un-dead' , shall we say ,and well placed to provide a historical perspective .Take Nick Robinson’s ‘Brown putsch ’ howler …
“….a man or woman who has not been elected ...would replace a man who has himself not been elected by the public. This is without precedent -”
The GC ( as I will now refer to Sunder),quibbled thusly …“.the Conservative government resigned, and let the Liberals govern, in December 1905 (,blah blah) ..Arthur Balfour was selected, without a General Election, in 1902 to replace his Uncle Lord Salisbury as PM, and that Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman replaced him as Prime Minister in 1905 …” . Virtually standard practice then....

I must be fair the GC intended self deprecating humour , he is not bad chap . I only mention it to demonstrate his acute his sense of history informing the present .All the more worrying that this must include his employers , an organisation avowedly committed to Machiavellian deceit ,and with a Nietzschean contempt for ordinary people
Lets start with Fabian number 1, Sidney Webb , usually mentioned with Beatrice . The Webbs supported
Soviet Union until their death and wrote uncritically of Stalin's during agricultural collectivisation purges and the gulag system. Not afraid to break a few eggs to make an omelette then.
This is never more obvious than when they turn to eugenics , a great enthusiasm of most prominent Fabians . Sidney laid it out clearly “ No consistent eugenicist can be laissez faire… he must interfere interfere interfere”. He worried that the, ”wrong people “ were outbreeding the “right ones “ which he feared would cause the country to fall to the “Irish or the Jews”. Sweet sweet man , no wonder he is so venerated by the left
Comrade Wells ( HG) supported the extermination of the “Darker races”… to create the New Republic he said “ swarms of black , brown and dirty white and yellow people would have to go” ..” and “ It is in the sterilisation of failure and not the selection of success for breeding , that the possibility of an improvement to human stock lies
Brother Shaw (GB) was similarly enamoured .“ The only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of Man” he declared . He advocated the abolition of marriage and its replacement with eugenically acceptable polygamy under the auspices of the “Department of Evolution”. He further recommend a “Husband stud Farm”, to eliminate the “Yahoo , whose vote would wreck the Commonwealth".For criminal and undesirable elements were to be placed .." in a lethal chamber and get rid of them
Pah ..I can hear them saying , Pah pah ! Shaw was an entertainer a polemicist we do not take him seriously . Harder to say that about the lately exhumed John Maynard Keynes who served on the British Eugenics societies board of Directors in 1945..yes that’s 1945 a time when the horrors Nazi experiments were known to him. The New Statesman (founded by Webb) and the Manchester Guardian were also supporters to one extent or another as was Harold Laski Julian Huxley and many many more.
Now I am not saying Sunder Katwala , I mean the GC ,supports a programme of sterilisation and slaughter for our own good ,but his keen sense of history will surely detect ,as I do, that the instinct to “Interfere interfere interfere” as Webb put it , is unabated in Fabian and progressive thinking . My wish to remain unimproved remains indefatigable and the bad news is Sunder..I`m breeding !

8 comments:

Auntie Flo' said...

"Now I am not saying Sunder Katwala , I mean the GC ,supports a programme of sterilisation and slaughter for our own good "

I'm not so sure, the left will do anything to get votes :o)

Sunder Katwala said...

Thanks for the post. it seems a rather ad hominem attack. Shaw and the Webbs made terrible mistakes over Stalin and eugenics.

I have discussed that in pieces about Shaw, the Webbs, and what I see as the constructive left tradition.

Fabianism in particular is a revisionist tradition, which has long shown an ability to be both pluralist and self-critical in my view - take Crosland's assault on the Webb tradition - against a caricature of its critics.

That should be a useful approach for left, right or centre unless we want a hyper-modernised "year zero" politics of presentism where the past is always entirely off limits, as the ethos of Blairism (and Cameronism?) can sometimes imply.

For example, few on the right would want to offer an unqualified defence of ideas of imperialism and racial hierarchy which were dominant in the 19th century, and help by great 20th century figures such as Churchill, but it does not mean there isn't a broader conservative tradition which may have contemporary insights for a modern, democratic right.

Raedwald said...

Not only Eugenics, but the very notion of racial extermination was a concept unknown to political thought until promoted by Marx and Engels; the white-supremacist assumptions of the founders of socialism would have seen the extirpation not only of the melanin-gifted, but of the Basques, Serbs, Bretons and Scots, all 'inferior' in the eyes of Engels, and unworthy to carry the chalice of socialism.

It's a filthy and anti-human creed and the sooner it fades into obscurity the better.

Newmania said...

Ideas of racial hierarchy were common to all Europeans and not specifically Conservative Sunder so that is a false equivalence .As to Empire in would indeed defend it .You probably noticed in The Lion and Unicorn “ Orwell`s opinion that India could no more be independent , than a dog , a striking phrase so late in the day but in any case its opposite ,ethnic self determination, did not have a good 20th century shall we say ...in any number of ways .
Your revising should include an honest recognition that Nazis were socialists as was Mussolini .Yes they were also Nationalists as well does that will we be associated with the PLO and the IRA in the next century ? The constant association between fascism racism and ordinary Conservatives is a continuing an a historical outrage and an asymmetrical one . Nazi racial ideas were closely related to the eugenic enthusiasms of the British left, they were “scientific”
The Labour Party is about to reinvent itself it is hardly a sustainable alliance
even on the 37% it won last time . Who do we see as the bookies favourite but David Milliband whose father wrote the book on the limits of democracy ( favourably reviewed by Polly Toynbee’s auntie ..some Toynbee anyway ) . These are real issues alive today Sunder look for god`s sake at what has been done in Europe. No is not accepted and yes is ? Is that ok with you ?

Having said all that I did not means to make am personal attack on you its just that I have been reading your stuff . Generally I find it interesting .My presiding point is this. We have just paid for Andrew Marr to tell us that Conservatives are always wrong , look at history he says , and so it might appear. Look at the furtures that did not happen ,though, and it will be quickly apparent that Conservatives have been more often right and more crucially . Perhaps the eugenic epiosode might alert you to where you are currently wrong .

Thanks for your interest, hope all well


R- Socialism , as I see it , has done little but harm , but collectivism more broadly is a good and inescapable part of humanity isn`t it ?
I know you and I agree on this from reading your stuff over the last year or two

Auntie Flo' said...

"The constant association between fascism racism and ordinary Conservatives is a continuing an a historical outrage and an asymmetrical one . Nazi racial ideas were closely related to the eugenic enthusiasms of the British left, they were “scientific” ...These are real issues alive today Sunder look for god`s sake at what has been done in Europe. No is not accepted and yes is ? Is that ok with you ?"

Excellent points, Newms, as you've been bigging up Sunder for ages on your blog, I'll be interested to read his reply to see if he's really as clever and reasonable as you suggest he is :o)

Sunder! It's interesting to hear your point of view at last. I've had a look at your blog on a few occasions after Newmania's bigged you up here, but by the time Newms tells us about a good debate on your site its generally reached the stage where it's only comprehensible to those who've followed it from the outset. So, I'm looking forward to your reply to the above.

One point I would like to put to you regards the relationship between the Nazi and communist states, Hegel and Marx. I accept, I think, that Marx wasn't the oldest young Hegelian. While there was profound unity between Marx and Hegel in so many respects - not the least being the dialectical method and integral concepts like the concrete universal - there was profound difference between Marx and Hegel in terms what they identified the concrete universal to be. So the relationship between Marx and Hegel was not a slavish, master and slave relationship, but more of a dialectical interpenetration. Marx grasped and took forward the moment of truth he found in Hegel, which for me is the dialectic, though for many it would be the pivotal role he gave to the working class.

For Hegel the concrete universal was the state, whereas for Marx it was the working class. What they were saying was, this is where the dialectic stops, or comes full circle at a more complex level of development, and humanity begins to perfect itself: for Hegel, it was in a strong, interfering state, for Marx in a strong, interfering working class. Accepting that it would have been profoundly utopian for Hegel to have theorised the working class as the concrete universal as there was no working class in Hegel's Germany, it's interesting, isn't it, that Hegel and Marx, who both thought they were theorising about the realisation and freeing of humanity, had such powerful influence in bringing about two of the most inhuman, corrupt and oppressive forms of society humanity has seen: Nazism (Hegel) and Communism (Marx). I accept that Capitalism has some horribly oppressive states too, but human oppression has reached its apotheosis in the Nazi and Communist states and the ideological thrust of both the Nazi and Communist states was from the left.

Doesn't that worry you? Doesn't the oppressive nature of the Nazi, socialist and communist states that humanity has been forced to overthrow in order to free itself make you wonder if the British far left are making a terrible mistake in working to establish yet another oppressive state?

Newmania said...

Bloody hell Fko thast was deep , I fear that Mr. K has bigger fish to fry than my little shop but I have done my best to follow you.

Next Left is worth a look its a bit "proffessionally" political though , most of the lefty stuff is

Auntie Flo' said...

"That {revisionist tradition] should be a useful approach for left, right or centre unless we want a hyper-modernised "year zero" politics of presentism where the past is always entirely off limits, as the ethos of Blairism (and Cameronism?) can sometimes imply. " (Sunder)


I strongly agree with your historical approach, Sunder, the problem is, and this is where I think Newms and I are at odds with you, is how we define history. You are necessrily going to strain history through a left wing conceptual filter, whereas Newmania and I are necessarily going to strain it through a right of centre one: I was a life long Liberal until Cameron became leader of the Conservatives, I then became a liberal Conservative.

How do we transcend our respective conceptual filters? Atticus's dictum? Climb inside the other person's skin and walk around in it? We're still going to end up on our own segment of the political spectrum. Is there room for a Hegelian synthesis? Is that what you're suggesting? :o)

Auntie Flo' said...

It's a bit too deep for me too at this time of night newms, I have to be up at the crack of dawn.

All I'm basically arguing is that Marx was profoundly influenced by Hegel. Hegel over idealised the strong state as the summit of human achievement. Hitler's theorisation of Nazism was profoundly influenced by this tradition.

Marx developed his own theory, he wasn't a simple slave of Hegel, however he took Hegel's oppressive, idealised state (appotheosis in the Nazi state) and transformed it into an oppressive working class state. Little wonder then that Marxism found it's apotheosis in the oppressive communist state.

Socialism is the hybrid heir of all of that, so it's not surprising it invariably fragments into oppression: that's where its roots are buried.

Blog Archive