Emancipation
England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales
The new collective, the new dawn?
Political parties can consolidate power by promoting collectivism based upon so-called "common values" which are promoted through politica party agendas and a range of social and verbal etiquette considered to be "politically correct". The danger of such collectivism is that it becomes a mechanism whereby the population is controlled externally by law as well as internally through social and peer pressure arising from fear of non-conformity and the state . The symptons of such a collectivist agenda is when politicians package the "identity" and the "values" for the people but they themselves neither value of even believe in such propaganda.
In Britain today therefore rather than enduring the outrage of government defining the rights and duties of citizens we should note the failure of British political parties to define the responsibilities of their Parliamentary members in exercising their right to serve, derived wholly from that citizenry. |
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Citizenship as a concept of collectivism
Lord Goldsmith, the has released a report entitled, "Citizenship - Our Common Bond" 1 which reviews the status of the concept and meaning of citizenship and he makes proposals on how this might be promoted.
The report is extremely disappointing.
It reflects a scary image of a paternalistic collectivism where members of political parties gravitate towards a notion of separateness from the people and who will, when they deem fit, decide upon the future relationship between the free people of the nations of the United Kingdom and on what passes for a concept of the state very much under the control of political parties.
In support of a so-called Review of British citizenship several documents have been produced 2 and all of them fail to address the central question to citizenship which can be decribed as follows. As a citizen a person can only remain confident of the value of that citizenship if those they elect to represent them act as agents of citizens as principals. Thus in so far as the citizenry represents the sovereignty of a nation, it is imperative that representation upholds the preferences of the people. This is the basis for defending the sovereignty of the nation. But is citizenship regarded in such a constructive light by our politicians and assorted analysts? The evidence is that it is not. We have writers and politicians like Goldsmith contributing to a degradation in the status of the people of Britain by suggesting that there is a need to define the "rights and duties of citizens". The imperative is not this. The problem in the United Kingdom is not the citizentry but the abuse of the duties of politicians in exercisisng their rights of representation which should not include challenges to the status of those who elected them. The first order of business is for politicians to first of all define their rights and duties on a basis acceptable to the people.
In the work, "The Briton's Quest for Freedom.." 2 the illegitimacy of the type of approach set out in Goldsmith's report can be better understood by quoting an early section in that book:
"A man and a woman can only go so far to protect their children. Life goes. We all age and eventually pass on leaving the next generations to fend for themselves. A stable and peaceful society, which promotes security for future generations, is one which sustains a clear conscience by each acting in a fashion so as to avoid undue impositions on others."
"The continuation of a general contentment rests upon the confidence of all that such a state of affairs can and will endure so as to benefit future generations. Such confidence cannot be sustained by handing responsibility to others. It can only be achieved if people can exercise their individual freedom free from impositions as well as possess the direct means to protect that freedom through proactive and practical means of defence."
The expression, consideration and satisfaction of personal preferences
"Within the family, the daily exercise of freedom relates to the degree to which consideration is given to the regularly expressed individual preferences on any matter. The satisfaction of preferences is a measure of the degree to which family members have their freedom of expression upheld or suppressed. Beyond the family, the satisfaction of personal preferences is an important yardstick of how society, our extended family, performs in upholding the freedom of individuals and families."
Consistency in cultural patterns as the basis for development of expectations of behaviour
"Willing and self-imposed limits on freedom provide the most constructive practical and acceptable basis for good relationships. Such an inter-personal dynamic provides a basis for recognizing notions of such constructive behaviour which, with practice, becomes the normal social expectation of generally acceptable behaviour. The normal attentive and loving relationships within most families help to create a culture of empathy with other people. So if someone is being offended or harmed there is a natural tendency to defend and protect. If an elderly person falls over in the street, people will normally assist and also make sure he or she are all right or take other actions if they are not. The family-based culture of expectations is in essence a collection of natural ways of behaving and reacting to different, sometimes complex, circumstances and for the most part has no immediate relationship to external processes such as law or religion. One of the most remarkable aspects of this rich culture of expectations, of what is normal within the family, is that it remains a code of practice deeply ingrained in the soul of each person; unwritten but understood by all."
Community conscience
"Being honed and refined by practical experience of human motivations, actions, interactions and outcomes, the community conscience is pre-conditioned to the need for people to accept self-imposed limits on freedom as the most practical and acceptable basis for community relationships. This accommodation points to normal expectations of behaviour being reasonably consistent and, therefore, providing a reference for helping resolve conflicts affecting individual freedom. In an ideal world, the community conscience should be sufficient to guide a peaceful oversight of the practical bounds of individual freedom with the minimum of external coercion in the form of laws, regulations and enforcements. As the English activist, Anne Hutchinson3 said:
"As I understand it, laws, commands, rules and edicts are for those who have not the light which makes plain the pathway."
A comment on writing "rights" into law
"There has been a presumptive historic development in which legislators have assumed that in order to advance the cause of civilization they should take natural, largely family-based expectations of behaviour and equate these to a legally-defined set of rights. Experience in the field of human rights seems to suggest that such an approach works if these are set out as principles as opposed to detailed specifications of all of the possible motivations for such rights being attacked. Under such circumstances, their well-meaning efforts end up with difficult to interpret and intrusive legislation. Such an approach encourages legislators to go so far as to consider that people only have rights to the degree that these are provided for in the law. So what they assert is that naturally nurtured individual freedoms should become disposable rights according to the views of legislators and political parties. Such a perception is unacceptable, for any natural behaviour which does not harm others is there already within the social culture of expectations, and therefore cannot be “given” to people as a right through law nor "taken away", even selectively, when governments deem fit."
Conclusion
What Lord Goldsmith has written seem to be far from such notions of a governance representing the will of the people, safeguarding freedom of expression based upon accepted expectations of behaviour. The approach smacks of social engineering and collectivism. No doubt the intent was honourable but the outcome isn't.
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