11 Comments on One (or maybe two) good things to listen to …

Livy on Thu, 16th Sep 2010 7:41 pm


My speakers are busted.

Can we get the text?

James MacGregor on Thu, 16th Sep 2010 11:12 pm


It’s good to see more social measures being promoted, as opposed to classical economic ones. I enjoyed your wide-ranging treatment of the consequences of the sixties, although find it hard to relate my image of hippy collectivism leading to rampant individualism! The process certainly started then though, and I hope it has reached its nadir now as you suggest.

On the topic of freedom, anyone equating individualistic, free-market societies with individual freedom would do well to note the 40-plus-hour week and two weeks holiday per year, and chronic lack of social mobility in the US. Things aren’t much better here, and I believe your approach ties in with the research spread by the authors of the Spirit Level.

You suggest freedom is rising above one’s nature – I think this is easier, or perhaps less necessary, in more equal societies. Human nature is calibrated by context, so that in societies where co-operation is encouraged – i.e. the social hierarchy is less stratified – we tend to behave in a more pro-social manner. The evolutionary psychological explanation for this is that this behaviour is adaptive in that specific environment. Government policy should therefore encourage such conditions, by increasing community involvement and social capital.

Finally, if religious practice does involve mastering one’s nature, then it is telling that the religiosity of a country is very highly correlated with its inequality. This too suggests that which society one lives in heavily influences one’s nature. So all in all a very stimulating listen!

Olli Issakainen on Fri, 17th Sep 2010 10:38 am


Enjoyed your programme on the 1960s on the BBC iPlayer.
I do wonder how people nowadays who are addicted to consuming, TV, gadgets and stimulants etc. can call themselves free.
As for New Labour, instead of taking Labour to left Ed Miliband would take it back to the centre where it belongs. And I am now talking mainly about economic policy.

Ian CHRISTIE on Fri, 17th Sep 2010 10:50 am


An excellent radio piece, Matthew.
The 60s provide many examples of the law of unintended consequences: history always gives more than we bargained for. The 60s saw a lot of confusion of ideas that should have been kept distinct. ‘Liberation’ bundled too many things together – for reasons specific to the times and places where it unfolded, and also because revolutionaries don’t stop to think amidst the excitement – and we have paid a high price ever since. Liberalism is in part all about the removal of prejudice from our relationships, and in the 60s and since there have been huge advances in the West in challenging racism, sexism etc. But this was accompanied by something else, namely the removal of inhibition from many practices and relationships, on the grounds that this too is healthy and life-enhancing. So many liberals came to see anti-racism as part of a ‘liberationist’ bundle of attitudes and values that also meant that anyone warning about the costs of divorce, easy abortion, etc was suspected of reactionary & oppressive tendencies. There is now a swing back to a more nuanced approach that sees good and bad in the 60s legacy, and especially sees an unholy alliance between social ‘disinhibition’ and the economic neoliberalism that has ruled us for 3 decades. Hence the emergence of ‘Red Tories’, ‘Blue Labour’ and (to many liberals) perplexing figures such as Richard Sennett, John Milbank and Christopher Lasch, who are firmly on the Left in economics and in backing the attack on prejudice, but who also lament the losses that have come with ‘disinhibition’ and too much individualism. For them, as for proponents of good religion and good parenting, freedom is not just the absence of restraint but a social and personal good whose exercise depends on cultivation of virtues and what the economist Avner Offer calls ‘commitment devices’ – social bonds and values that raise our sights beyond the here and now and beyond our own self-interest.

Jorg Meurkes on Sat, 18th Sep 2010 10:11 am


Inspiring essay!

Margaret Bowker on Sat, 18th Sep 2010 4:57 pm


I also very much enjoyed your programme on the Sixties, Matthew, and loved the image you used as a background to focus on when listening. What you had to say took me back to 65, when I joined the CND march as it approached Ruislip base, infant in tow. I could see again, the cassocks, the dogs, the guns, the banners, the placards, and the enthusiasm. I’m sure there were guns, it was a military base. I had dabbled with feminism, as the Sixties were starting and the mental stimulus I got from the experience took me back into it a little later and kept me there into the Seventies. Images can be powerful. Dr Zeki and I discussed this last year when we met and I needed to explore what the dealers were experiencing, moving hundreds of milliions about. I think a Ferrari was mentioned. Did the dealing room ethos start there in the Sixties?A couple of years ago, one of my grandchildren was researching the Sixties at uni and it was quite inspirational for him to have a participant to talk to, his eyes lit up, saying it must have been great; and it was in lots of ways, but are we paying for it now?

David on Fri, 24th Sep 2010 3:07 pm


That 60′s essay has disappeared off the iPlayer already. Can a mirror be uploaded somewhere? Or perhaps the source text?

Dee on Fri, 24th Sep 2010 5:36 pm


Echoing David’s call, above, for a script of the radio piece! Missed it (even on iPlayer) and would love to know what you said.

Mark on Sun, 26th Sep 2010 10:58 am


Yes a very good essay, please publish the text!

matthewtaylor on Mon, 27th Sep 2010 9:01 am


Thanks, everyone, for your comments. We haven’t actually got the text on the website, so no links but pls do let me know if you would like me to email it to you (my email address is barbara.corbett@rsa.org.uk). I’ll send off the text now to those of you have asked for it.

Thanks very much, Barbara.

social media marketing on Sun, 29th Apr 2012 2:10 am


Im a 40 year resident of MA and as a conservative/libertarian the one silver lining has always been that no one bothered to spend money on advertising so we werent bothered at election times.

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