The Supreme Court … thoroughly politicised

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The US Supreme Court, with the addition of two hard-right justices appointed by Trump, has now become so politicised that one could argue that a Republican Senate is almost unnecessary. The Court has five of the most conservative justices there have been for a hundred years. Although John Roberts tries to temper the extreme views of people like Brett Kavanaugh the fact is that we can now “look forward” to dire changes to laws on abortion, affirmative action, voting rights for minorities, workers’ rights, and such gun safety laws as there are. Then there are likely to be decisions in favour of religious groups which would allow them to opt out of civil rights and other duties of a normal citizen.

Whatever else Trump has done to dismantle the effectivenes and image of the US overseas, at home he has potentially cemented a right-wing judicial coup. And this is without the scores of judicial nominations which were held up by Republicans under Obama until there was a Republican President. These now threaten to make the country suspiciously like Hungary or Turkey, where dissidents and minorities increasingly are deprived of their rights. We no longer have politicians willing to compromise; on the contrary, they are mainly “yes-men”.

The above sounds alarmist and distopian, and I sincerely hope I am wrong. But where are the old-style good guys with integrity and honour? If you can name any, please comment below.
(Oh, and while you are about it, explain why the GOP, formerly the party of honour, patriotism and fervent support for the Constitution and democracy, became the lapdogs of the rich and purveyors of bigotry and xenophobia. This is an issue now being discussed by right-wing writers like Max Boot, Charles Sykes, Rick Wilson and Jeff Flake in books being published in a steady stream, omitting, of course, any discussion of their own responsibilty).

Why is this connected to Epicureanism? Because you cannot have a pleasant, enjoyable life under the rule of law if you know that the rulers care only for rich donors and are prepared to dismantle a “country-for-all” in favour of an oligarchy where the ordinary, struggling citizen is promised the Earth, but gets zilch, nada or nothing, in that order. And the worst of all disgraces is the packing of the Courts of Law with nobodies who, one fears, will do what they are told.

Time to rein in corporate power!

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One of the few areas of agreement in Washington’s “bitterly divided politics” is “the need to tackle the omnipotence of the Faangs (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google). Donald Trump may be a Twitter addict, but he has been “sharply critical” of the power of big tech. The Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives and its powerful committees are also “committed” to taking them on. No one is expecting the sort of “full-throated antitrust pursuit” that had the White House taking on the monopoly of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil more than a century ago, but public opinion is turning against Big Tech. San Francisco voted recently voted to adopt “Proposition C”: an extra tax on its biggest businesses that will raise funds to combat homelessness. A good thing too!

Nonetheless, the power of big companies to push governments around seems unchanged at the moment, and is demonstrated by the way in which Amazon set about choosing locations for its new HQ. As well as demanding good roads, public transport and educated locals (all paid for by taxpayers), the company stated that “incentives” from state and local governments would be “significant factors in the decision-making process”. We can see much the same thing in Britain, where the chemicals giant Ineos (which is run by the UK’s richest man, Jim Ratcliffe, and made some $2bn in profit last year) appears to have persuaded local authorities in the Tees Valley, one of the poorest areas in England, “to build a factory for him”. Leaving the EU will probably make Britain “more vulnerable” to such “corporate blackmail” as it tries to retain and attract jobs. It may well make short-term sense for companies to treat people’s jobs as “bargaining chips”, but if it ends up eroding support for capitalism and globalisation, “it will come back to bite them in the end”. (The Week, 17 November 2018)

Actually, what we do need is precisely the sort of “full-throated antitrust pursuit that had the White House taking on the monopoly of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil more than a century ago.” These arrogant people, especially the tech companies, have coarsened discourse, encouraged crude, vulgar bullies, racists and political extremists, weakened the traditional Press and caused huge social changes, in my opinion none of them good. The bosses never meant, I’m sure, to undermine society, even elections, but, having done so much damage they are now prevaricating and avoiding doing their duty to society. They need to be brought up with a jolt, and the weak-kneed, mamby-pamby Congress must stop paying obeisance to them and treat them like any other public service (especially regarding tax). Otherwise the public will turn against modern, disagreeable, divisive capitalism altogether.

Alleluia!

Happiness

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The Greek word that usually gets translated as “happiness” is eudaimonia, and like most translations from ancient languages, this can be misleading. The main trouble is that happiness (especially in modern America) is often conceived of as a subjective state of mind, as when one says one is happy when one is enjoying a cool beer on a hot day, or is out “having fun” with one’s friends.

For Aristotle, however, happiness is was final end or goal that encompassed the totality of one’s life. It is not something that can be gained or lost in a few hours, like pleasurable sensations. It is more like the ultimate value of your life as lived up to this moment, measuring how well you have lived up to your full potential as a human being. For this reason, one cannot really make any pronouncements about whether one has lived a happy life until it is over, just as we would not say of a football game that it was a “great game” at halftime. For the same reason we cannot say that children are happy, any more than we can say that an acorn is a tree, for the potential for a flourishing human life has not yet been realized. As Aristotle says, “for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.” (Nicomachean Ethics, 1098a18)

Pursuing this idea, let us imagine postponing any conclusions about our happiness until the end of life (or near to it anyway – one would have to be sentient). Then can I propose some searching questions? Ask yourself, for instance:

– Have I lived a full life, using all the abilities and talents given me to good effect?
– Have I lived an honest life, privately and in my job?
– Have I treated other people with consideration and kindness?
– Have I been generous in spirit and in giving?
– Have I done enough to help the sick, the poor and those not blessed as I have been?
– Has there been enough beauty and tranquility in my life?
– Have I given love and support to those closest to me?
– Have I come to terms with any regrets I have?

It is a rare human being who can honestly claim a perfect, happy life, but a quiet conscience gives a clue.

Brains and bias

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Female students do better at school and are more likely to go to university than their male peers, but a gender bias study has found they are seen as less capable of “brainy” tasks. In one experiment by US researchers, women were about as likely as men to be referred for a job requiring “consistent effort”, but less likely than men if intelligence was specified. In another, children tended to pick male teammates for games that they were told needed someone very clever. Athene Donald, a physics professor from Cambridge University, said the findings should be “a wake-up call to our society to change our thinking and how we pass on these biases in our daily lives to the next generation”. The findings were written up in American Psychologist.

The idea that women are less capable of “brainy” tasks than men is baloney, and always has been. Until fairly recently a good education was offered to boys because “girls get married and have children; they don’t need extra schooling or higher education”. (I quote my father, a dear man, but with an infuriatingly atavistic attitude on this subject). Epicureanism teaches that gender doesn’t matter; are all born with a huge variety of talents and mental abilities, regardless of gender; the problem is to bring those talents out and nurture them (education!).

In my old university college (a men-only institution when I was there), 60% of the students are now women, all addressing “brainy” tasks equally with their male colleagues. We should sincerely celebrate this fact of human nature and use the talents of women for the benefit of humanity – and abandon old-fashioned prejudices still lingering among those who should know better. (How much does the prejudice owe to the competition from women for jobs and preferment, and resulting resentment? Who knows? No one is going to admit it).

Giving the elderly a raw deal

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It’s a major issue that every rich country has to deal with today: how to care for the swelling number of old people. And in Britain we’re dealing with it badly. Local councils have been squeezed of funding; residential homes are being sold to property developers; home services are closing. Allied Healthcare, one of the largest home-care providers, is in danger of going bust. And in hospitals, around one in ten beds are occupied by an elderly person who’s medically fit to leave, but has nowhere else to go. They do things a lot better in two of the most rapidly ageing nations. In 1995, Germany introduced a long-term care insurance system: workers and employers each pay half of the compulsory levy; the retired pay all of it. Japan did the same in 2000, when it introduced a tax that everyone over 40 has to pay. Each system has flaws of course, but what both ensure is security – a centrally funded system that doles out funds to be delivered locally. In those two countries, no one “is living with the crippling uncertainty or the sense of unfairness that haunts us here”. (Camilla Cavendish, Financial Times)

Much is made in the media of the resentment among some young Brits about the difficulty they have buying homes and the insecurity of the jobs available. I entirely sympathise, and feel angry about what is happening to them. But when they criticise the elderly who do not have houses they own and have only Social Security to live on then they are not being fair. Not everyone, when younger, had a fancy income from a City bank or owned a house free of a mortgage. On the contrary, such people are/were a minority. Tens of thousands live on a meagre pension, have no family to care for them, and have to live in for-profit homes where the care is lousy, the food is worse, and the inmates sit watching TV all day in a dreary dayroom. I had an elderly, distant cousin who had been disabled from youth. She depended on the local Council for preparing her daily food and for her personal care. Her death at home was in a way fortuitous because the Council, starved of money by government, was apparently about to cut her benefits while pretending to offer her “choice” (what choice had an old lady who was incapable of helping herself?). But increasing impoverishment of the elderly has been Conservative government policy for years. People were better off with fish, olives and bright sunlight in Greece in the time of Epicurus.