13 Comments on Zizek, Hayek – and Cowell

Paul Smith on Wed, 25th Nov 2009 4:40 pm


This is why social mobility in itself is not good enough as it suggests that those who don’t ‘rise’ are to blame. Its a little like the survivors of disasters saying that God spared them, implying that God didn’t care about all those that died. A fairer society has to also include greater equality as well as greater equality of opportunity.

matthewtaylor on Wed, 25th Nov 2009 5:04 pm


Absolutely Paul

Joe Nutt on Wed, 25th Nov 2009 5:16 pm


One comment you made Matthew seems to me to be terribly revealing, “Much less attractive to us is the idea of people whose specialness comes from simply working hard and sticking at it.” For me, this is the kind of celebrity I most value and I refuse to believe I’m anything special in this respect. That’s exactly what makes watching something as otherwise gladiatorially grim as the X-Factor watchable, seeing those who have actually done what it takes to be good…succeed.

The real pity is that so many youngsters watching have not the slightest inkling into what is required to get that good…at anything, and expect someone else (all too often the state) to compensate for their inertia in so many ways.

As I have commented before, I just don’t get (and never have) this bizarre hang up with equality: since inequality is the inevitable product of free will. I can’t perceive of anything more dismal than an equal society. Donne would have thought it an oxymoron.

Sam McLean on Wed, 25th Nov 2009 11:35 pm


Hi Joe,

Practically everything you say in this latest post seems to me deeply questionable.

What young people do you know? Perhaps some fit your description but I think most young people are all to aware of the need to work hard.

Why is a concern with equality ‘bizarre’ when we know the huge impact inequality has on society and social outcomes?

But your statement ‘inequality is the inevitable product of free will’ is the most interesting.
First, I don’t think a major thinker post-Nietzsche (either from the analytic or continental tradition) seriously contends that such a thing as free will exists. Its a metaphysical myth. Perhaps early Sartre but even he radically changed his mind. Second, is this just a more complicated way of saying people are all fundamentally free to do what they want – irrespective of complex social, cultural, economic conditions – and socio-economic outcomes merely reflect either how hard someone works or the innate capabilities of people? Surely you don’t really believe its this simple so I must have misunderstood?!
Third, there is no logical or necessary causality between self determination (which is not really free will) and inequality.
Fourth, I don’t think that wanting to make a society more equal is the same as flattening difference. Equality is perhaps best understood as cultivating the capabilities of individual difference so social outcomes are fairer and more equal than they currently are.

mas on Thu, 26th Nov 2009 12:18 am


from my experience of young people they’re no different than the rest of the population – some are lazy, some want the world on a plate, some are extremely hard working and some are genuinely talented. From my opinion I respect people who are either hard working, determined or talented or all of those things.

What I don’t respect is the vast amount of industry that serves to gain either by using other people or that are parasitic to the talents of others and wealth they attract. Arguably many of those people are none the less hard working, maybe even talented at what they do – but it is to those that I blame for the celebrity culture and consequent dumbing down of ambitions for young people/unrealistic expectations.

I think the X-Factor analogy isn’t so good though – it is afterall a ‘talent’ show (albeit often dubiously) – not a ‘hard worker’ show – there are however plenty of examples of contestants who failed at an audition and tried again until they succeeded and where they have talent they’re usually well supported. Likewise in sports fans recognise the need to balance ‘work horses’ with ‘creative talents’ – just the same as we all do in our various working lives. Few however like a leech or somebody that hasn’t earned their position/role.

Charles Frith on Thu, 26th Nov 2009 3:54 am


I find it encouraging that there is still progressive discussion about how to re engineer this world. That’s a talk I’d like to have attended.

Charles Frith on Thu, 26th Nov 2009 5:14 am


Incidentally Joe. The world is less in need of hard work than smart work. Effort I admire. But hard work is I often feel welded to unthoughtful people. Not always. But often.

matthewtaylor on Thu, 26th Nov 2009 11:42 am


Hi Charles

The podcast will be up on the RSA’s website in a couple of days.

Thanks for posting,
Matthew

Joe Nutt on Thu, 26th Nov 2009 1:27 pm


In answer to Sam, I taught teenagers for 20 years, mentored some of the UK’s brightest graduates (and still do!) and because I work in education I am constantly aware of young people’s attitudes. Having said that, of course I’m not pretending there is a generational wasteland out there. But what there is, is an appalling weight of cultural pressure that undermines so much of what great teachers and good schools are trying to do. Ironically for the very kids, people most anxious about inequality, fret over! (And I think X-factor really is pretty much the archetype mas.)

Only last week I met dozens of teachers in Singapore, from the whole of that region, and they say exactly what I do about teenagers’ lacking motivation, drive or even often the slightest intellectual curiousity. What they don’t say ( and I’d love to hear them say) is what’s necessary to undermine and challenge cultural vices like the X-Factor, so that kids aren’t victims of it, but can see it for the exploitation it really is (as I think mas believes too.)

And as far as free will goes. My choice to type….or not to type. I prove it’s existence and value to myself, and those people who life brings me into contact with, day after day after day. What else is life but a series of fascinating and wonderful choices we are all free to make? Insisting it isn’t: is just the autocrat’s way to repression.

And though I may well agree with the sentiment behind your much more precise definition of inequality, it is just that, sentiment. Has there ever really been any meaningful difference between “fairer social outcomes” and “flattening difference?” in the imaginations of history’s keenest advocates of equality?

mas on Thu, 26th Nov 2009 1:41 pm


exploitation is a good term. I’m interested in whether XFactor et al. are thought to be products of culture (consumer driven) or driving change within culture. I hate the arrogance of popular media that it feels it is able to manipulate society and I often argue that people are not that stupid – and then feel stupid when I hear so much of what comes from that same media echoed in conversations.

Before I went out to Malawi a couple of years ago I had a discussion with a professor at the University of Malawi about the needs of young people and it was interesting that despite the obvious vast differences in the challenges they face how much similarity there was between the concerns she had and those we hear in this country for young people – interestingly she laid a lot of the blame for that on the changes brought about by democracy within Malawi (apathy, lack of respect, lack of ambition etc. etc.)

Livy on Fri, 27th Nov 2009 12:55 pm


Superb post MT. But with all due respect I didn’t want to touch this one with a barge pole until I could no longer help myself.

@MT. Explain, are you no longer watching X Factor because you agree, and can only tolerate the super gifted Leonas or cringeworthy fools? Or are you saying that because a despicable programme like X Factor is exploiting these remaining mediocre performers you no longer want to contribute to their viewing figures? Knowing which will help me understand your actual view.

@Joe. The problem is that when you begin your piece with statements like that, anybody on the left will immediately roll their eyes and stop listening to you until its their turn to speak. If you’re lucky. It would be a bit like scrapping with them over IHT and beginning with, “Well its money that’s already been taxed blah blah blah…”. Just don’t bother… they don’t want to hear it and they’ll likely nod their heads and smile, virtuously believing themselves in that moment to be no different to Colonel Gaddafi’s psychiatrist.

Whether or not you’re right is largely irrelevant. Unfortunately so are the merits of the case. What matters is not so much what pieces you have on the board but how they’re played, and who moves them around.

The reason ‘Broken Britain’ was ridiculous wasn’t that it said the wrong things but the fact that David Cameron was the one who said it and not Shawn Bailey.

Moronic mistake.

The problem with patrician liberals arguing in favour of positive discrimination (or what our friends in the US call ‘affirmative action’) is that each and every one of them should really give up their jobs on Monday morning for a less qualified woman or a minority candidate to fill their post. If asked, how many of them do you think would agree to do so?

There are plenty of intelligent compassionate people like that who essentially want people to make sacrifices for the greater good, just as long as it isn’t them. I don’t doubt for a minute that most of us who are on the left (and know why) are no doubt compassionate people.

The problem is, the liberal left tend to feel they have a monopoly on compassion.

Here and in the US. And it infuriates the conservatives over there, who in a 180 to Great Britain outnumber liberals 2:1 and in another 180 tend to be more represented by the working class. Hence Palin’s enormous popularity despite her questionable intellect, and 90% of British people having no clue who the hell Michael Gove even is.

The left enjoy demonising people who believes in a strong sense of individual responsibility as a way of advancing social change, and it irritates me personally to be both one of them and one of their enemies. Its convenient to place those people on the right and believe that they just hate poor people, because that’s what mankind’s tribal instincts, evolutionarily hardwired into all our social programming, tell us to do.

Similarly if you’re on the right, then what turns you on the right isn’t so much your love of self reliance and hard work, but your hatred of the state. The namby pamby social worker / guardian reader types. Groups draw their strengths from their antagonism towards other groups, not their own merits (Where did I hear that again??)

Forget the merits of the case. Just play. And beat the other guys.

You can’t do anything if you don’t get elected.

Matthew Kalman on Sat, 28th Nov 2009 8:03 pm


Abraham Maslow had an innovative suggestion that might remove the ‘envy’ issue around the ’super rich knowlege elite’…

Maslow suggested that “society’s leaders, strong ones, high achievers, and winners receive their pay in relation to higher needs and metaneed gratifications rather than in the obvious, lower-need gratifications like money and material wealth”.

Average people might actually be paid more in “dollars, appliances, automobiles, and so on and, therefore, not have to feel envious, resentful, or jealous of society’s leaders”.

Interesting thought…!

Matt

PS Ooh, time for ‘X Factor’…

Oday on Sun, 10th Jan 2010 11:13 am


Suppose everyone works hard. Suppose everyone becomes as hard working as everybody else. Who will be the janitor then? Who will collect the trash then? Who will be the cook at an average restaurant? The matter of the fact is, no matter how much hard work you put into a task, as long as there are other competitors, someone is going to achieve more than others. Think of the Olympics. Even the guy who gets “last” in the race, is like 1 second slower than the one who finishes first. Think of the guy in 4th place, who was 0.3 seconds slower than the 1st place. Can we say that the guy in 4th place didn’t work hard enough? I mean, it could have been a breeze blowing at the wrong time with his arm movement that slowed him down a fraction of a second. But what are the results? The 1st guy gets gold, 2nd silver, 3rd bronze, and 4th goes back home empty-handed, and erased from history.

But in real life, the loser in the competition of “making a living” ends up totally ruined and will probably never get the chance to rise up again. The world is way too competitive. Even the guy you consider as “lazy” in the UK, could actually be the hardest worker and most motivated guy in Yemen. It’s all relative. Labeling someone as “hard worker” or “not working hard enough” is all in relation to how others behave. So, the question is: why should someone who geniunely tried his best, worked as hard as he could, but simply couldn’t get promoted (maybe because the boss didn’t like him; maybe because there was no openning available for promotion; maybe because someone else way more qualified showed up to take the higher position) get a less share of life’s fruits than the one who got promoted?

And come to think of it, when you reeaally think of it, you notice that the ones who work the hardest seem to be making the least money. Take a quick look around you. Who works harder? The server at a restaurant or the manager of that restaurant, the teacher in school or the principal, the engineer or the construction worker, the phone operator of the floor supervisor, the soldier in the battlefield or the general in the air-conditioned center of command, the taxi driver or the taxi company owner?

If you want to be completely honest with yourself, you will notice that this culture of “work hard and you will receive more” was simply propaganda fostered by the owners. The owners want to make more profits, and the way to achieve more profits is to motivate their workers to become more productive. So, what better way to motivate workers than to tell them: “work harder, and you shall receive more or get promoted”?

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