I assume the Remain folks have evidence of actual racism and xenophobia on the Leave side, but it certainly seems that they are also conflating those with perfectly reasonable concerns about immigration and other matters pertaining to nationhood (SOP in the immigration debate in this country, too). But this is the sort of argument I've heard. It may be right or it may be wrong but it's civilized.
Thanks for posting that! I had not seen it.
I do not know what kind of data could serve as evidence that Euroscepticism is motivated by racism, or that the Referendum campaign or its outcome caused racist attacks. As I have said before, racism and racist attacks could equally well be the outcome of a feeling of impotence regarding control of our borders and of immigration.
But outside of considerations of cause and effect chain, data, and evidence, racism is as we know one of the few activities today considered as objectively morally evil. Imagine Maclin, just imagine, if you could accuse people whose opinions you disagreed with of ‘racism’. The pure unalloyed joy of it must be overpowering.
Manifestly, some of them do enjoy it. I wonder if they’re unconscious of the pleasure they take in it, which would probably make it more powerful. There’s a certain pleasure in hating, but most of us recognize that it’s not a good thing and are at least a little ashamed when we do it. But if you think of yourself as by definition a non-hater you can indulge without guilt.
And then there are the practical benefits. Are y’all familiar with the “Journolist” scandal? It involved someone making public emails from a mailing list of liberal journalists that pretty much showed them engaged in malpractice. The most striking thing (as far as I heard) was one guy recommending that they pick a Republican and call him a racist in order to distract public attention from something or other that was making the Democrats look bad.
“.. racism and racist attacks could equally well be the outcome of a feeling of impotence regarding control of our borders and of immigration.”
I think there’s a lot to that. That’s one of the similarities between the Brexit and Trump phenomena. When legitimate concerns are ruled illegitimate and wicked, the silenced but still simmering resentment can be heated up and exploited by actual racists. That’s definitely happening with Trump.
Btw re the First Things piece: I’m pretty certain that English expat Charles Cooke of National Review is also on the Exit side.
We had (have?) a really vile group in GB called the National Front. They are racist boot boys. They were growing in the late 1970s, and I think in her first premiership Mrs Thatcher responded to that by curbing immigration. The National Front were not heard of again for a good while.
A country is not a fully sovereign state without control over its borders. One of the main good reasons any liberal should put forward as a reason for restoring national sovereignity and thus border controls in Europe is that it is likely to dampen the rise of the far right.
It won’t extirpate the far right – there is 50% youth unemployment in some parts of the Mediterranean. Elected premiers have been removed by EU technocrats (in Italy), and in Greece the results of referenda have been disregarded. So long as the EU carries on behaving like this, we will see no end to the rise of the far right, and with them ‘racism’, and the delight in denouncing the ‘racism’ of those who wish to leave the EU or to restrain it.
I like how Scruton sets the historical framework showing how the English have really a basically different mind-set in some ways from those in the continental European countries. Like the difference between English common law and the continent’s Napoleonic law system, with the latter creating laws first in the legislature and then handing them down, while English common law was developed by judges resolving conflicts between ordinary people.
by actual racists. That’s definitely happening with Trump.
Bar that the notion that Trump has it in for anyone (leaving aside business or political rivals) is not a demonstrable premise, just a talking point. Trump floated the idea of a temporary ban on Muslim immigration. That’s the rudest thing he’s advocated and, while it may seem overly categorical, it’s not difficult to see why people would adhere to the idea. Here’s a suggestion: what bothers both the libertarian and SJW element about Trump is that he cannot be shamed by them or intimidated by them. They like being able to get cretins like AM McConnell or Mike Pence or Nathan Deal to dance like ducks on a hot plate.
I wasn’t referring to Trump himself, who I suspect has only at worst a mild set of prejudices, but to some of his supporters. Not all by any means, not even most. But he has brought some real racists, wannabe Nazis, etc., out of the woodwork. That’s what I mean about the connection between Brexit and Trump.
“So long as the EU carries on behaving like this, we will see no end to the rise of the far right….”
Similarly, the KKK and others (the actual KKK is probably pretty small potatoes now) will eagerly exploit any situation where blacks or other minorities favored by liberals are behaving badly or, as in the case of immigration and cheap labor, seen as undermining the position of natives. Perfectly expectable and from their point of view rational behavior for a radical group. The Communists had a grand propaganda time with lynching and other injustices.
“A country is not a fully sovereign state without control over its borders.”
Elementary. So the logical corollary of the belief that borders, or at least their enforcement, are in themselves somehow illicit and immoral is that nations really should not exist.
Marianne, I’ve been saying or thinking for twenty five years that England has a common law tradition whereas Europe has a Roman law tradition. Before I heard this, I had never come across the idea that the difference is, rather, that England is common law, and Europe is Napoleonic.
There is no such thing as case law in continental jurisprudence. If it ain’t spelled out explicitly and clearly in positive law, it ain’t a law.
Yes. I always thought that came from the Romans. Scruton says it comes from The Napoleonic code
Thanks, Marianne! I have been thinking a lot about this lately. I couldn’t really see how continental law could be so different from English law, when both came from Christian culture.
Also, is there nothing in Engliah law which comes from Roman law?
Anyway, I reasoned that since the “Enlightenment” much of continental law must have been influenced by that. Oddly, I hadn’t thought of Napoleon. This makes sense. Some of the English think the important differences in law are due to their break with Catholic Faith. I have a strong intuition that this is largely nonsense. I try to do what I can to put a dent in English anti-Catholicism.
I read Scruton’s England: An Elegy ten years ago or so and thought it fascinating, and so wise. I often think about how in literature alone, England has produced such a huge amount of cultural “material” over the centuries, it seems unlikely any other culture could ever catch up. Watching this video makes me want to read that again, or his book on Beauty. Or on that topic I could watch this video on “Why Beauty Matters”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHw4MMEnmpc
But we’re talking the U.K., and the legal system. Scruton went into detail about English law in that book, too. I haven’t read much by him since then, but I found this speech to be very convincing.
Civilized, yes! So refreshing to have someone talk about values other than economic. I haven’t followed the debates about Brexit much at all and I’m so glad you posted this.
I started that Beauty video a few weeks ago but got distracted (a huge problem with anything on the net) and didn’t finish it. Scruton is a pretty amazing guy. Recently knighted, btw, although the fact that people like Elton John have received knighthoods kind of makes you wonder what the point is.
I saw reviews of that book about England and thought it sounded good. I’ll have to look into it.
Glad you found the post helpful.
I’ve read a lot of Scruton, and I always find him enlightening, even when I disagree with him. The England book is excellent, and even his book on Anglicanism is worth a read.
If I remember correctly, he’s basically a sort of secular conservative who nevertheless values the cultural and psychological presence of the CofE (or maybe the latter as it once was?). A deficient view, but preferably to many of the alternatives. He’s awfully prolific. Writes novels and music as well. Just published a book on Wagner.
It seems that he’s come back to the Anglican faith of his youth to some extent, although it’s hard to say how “all in” he is. He certainly does value, and does see a place for, the CoE, at least in its healthier manifestations.
There’s an interesting-looking book of interviews with him that came out not too long ago, conducted/compiled by Mark Dooley, an Irish Catholic conservative philosopher-writer of Burkean stripe. I recently read the latter’s book Moral Matters: A Philosophy of Homecoming and liked it.
Conversations with Roger Scruton — out in the UK apparently, but not over here yet.
You can read some parts of Conversations with Roger Scruton on Google Books here. The table of contents shows it’s got a chapter titled “Rediscovering Religion”.
Since Craig’s post on Heidegger was still on my mind, while I was there I did a search on “Heidegger” and found this, which made me feel that maybe, just maybe, I’m not a complete dunce for not understanding him:
In the end, for all my complaints, I remain in the tradition of British philosophy — or rather, Anglophone philosophy, since the Americans have been very important to me too — and can never really abandon the art of lucid thinking for the kind of gobbledegook that creates such an impression when you stumble on it in the works of Heidegger. I respect Heidegger’s way of arguing. But it is a way that shows no respect at all for the rest of us.
There’s a whole lot in academic/ intellectual life these days that strikes me that way. It’s like there’s a whole body of jargon you have to be initiated into before you can even start. I guess philosophy has been somewhat that way for a long time, but getting worse.
Yes, it’s a big problem with what is called “continental philosophy”. I was talking about it with an academic philosopher friend a few weeks ago — also an analytic philosopher at heart — and he said that the problem originated with a certain number of thinkers who wrote opaquely but, after careful study, insightfully. In their wake came plenty of opacity but little insight. In his view, Heidegger was a borderline case.
Is there a connection with post-modernism there? That seems to be the source of some of the worst of it.
Scruton’s assessment of Heidegger is funny! That reminds me of this article that is going around Facebook
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/comment/how-not-to-write-fourteen-tips-for-aspiring-humanities-academics
(I’m sorry I don’t know how to put a short hyperlink) Several of the comments are from people who say in so many words that the criticism of obscurity comes from people who are just ignorant. But I think it does have to do with post-modernism….
Most European jurisprudence pre-1800 was essentially customary law. Roman law was an important influence on canon law, on legislation (which was relatively rare and ad hoc), and on the codification of customary law. The Napoleonic Code was purely civil – there was no criminal code. Even where a civil code deriving from the Napoleonic Code is in force (as in Belgium), case law is still important as providing guidelines of how to apply the law consistently (contracting and subcontracting, for example, are only dealt with in the Napoleonic Code in in terms of construction projects; for other trades, a judge has to decide whether and how the law applies). Case law doesn’t create “precedent” or “finding of law” in the common law sense, but it certainly exists.
A lot of what Scruton says about the EU is simply not true (to give just one instance, to say that it prohibits discussion of immigration is laughably wrong). It was cunning of him to cover himself in advance by saying “We English are very ignorant of foreign languages and what is said in them.” I’m not sure that entirely justifies a series of factual inaccuracies though. His attempts to draw some sort of rhetorical equivalence between the EU and both the Nazis and the Soviets is frivolous but fairly typical of British discourse. He touches on the reason for this: the British have no first-hand experience of either.
I’ll have to leave it to someone else, if there is anyone, to argue the facts of the EU case. I just don’t know enough. I’m just an observer, although I admit my instinctive impulse is to side with Brexit. As I think I said somewhere above, or maybe it was in the other post on this topic, I was struck by the difference between what I saw and what the Remainers described (hysteria and bigotry on the Brexit side, sweet reason on the other). My impression was that racism and immigration were the big concerns of Remain, and sovereignty of Leave. But I make no claim to have surveyed the landscape thoroughly.
It’s been long enough since I listened to the Scruton talk that I don’t remember exactly what he said, and I don’t have time to listen to it again now. But did he mean that the EU somehow legally or by regulation forbids discussion of immigration, or just that discussion is frowned upon, discouraged, avoided, etc.?
That piece is half-funny, half-excruciating, GretchenJ. I don’t read much of that sort of writing, but enough of it has come my way that I’ve developed a pretty intense aversion to it. Really, it’s become almost fingernails-on-blackboard excruciating to me.
He doesn’t name, but used a few times, one that particularly grates: use of plurals where they don’t really make much sense: “modernities.”
The last one, however–using dashes to interrupt and interject–made me wince, because I do it–albeit more or less unconsciously–all the time.
The thing is, when you look at US media what do you see? Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on the conservative side; lovely civilized NPR on the other. I just don’t know how to figure out what’s really happening anywhere.
I don’t understand Brexit and I have no time to learn any more than I do, so I don’t have an opinion.
AMDG
The Napoleonic Code was purely civil – there was no criminal code.
http://ledroitcriminel.free.fr/la_legislation_criminelle/anciens_textes.htm
Several criminal codes were issued between 1788 and 1815.
I don’t understand Brexit and I have no time to learn any more than I do, so I don’t have an opinion.
A referendum instructed the British government to withdraw from the European Union. That means the writ of EU institutions will no longer run in Britain and trade between Britain and the continent will be according to rubrics which prevail in trade between Russia and the EU or America and the EU, unless some special dispensations are worked out. It also means that the standards and practices by which British subjects acquire a residence and work permits on the continent will change.
But did he mean that the EU somehow legally or by regulation forbids discussion of immigration, or just that discussion is frowned upon, discouraged, avoided, etc.?
The EU has in the past attempted to sanction governments of which it disapproved, the Fidesz ministry in Hungary and (some time ago) a coalition government in Austria in which the Freedom Party was the senior partner. Also, member governments harass the opposition. The Vlaams Blok in Belgium – the leading party in Flanders at that time – was actually subject to a court-ordered dissolution. Sweden and Germany have laws and institutions similar to those used against Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant in Canada.
He touches on the reason for this: the British have no first-hand experience of either.
They’re quite old now, for the most part, but surviving POWs and those who lived through the Blitz have as much experience of the Nazis as anyone would care to have.
Case law doesn’t create “precedent” or “finding of law” in the common law sense, but it certainly exists.
IIRC, the mode in French jurisprudence is to offer brief per curiam opinions which are not of much use as binding or persuasive authority.
lovely civilized NPR on the other. I just don’t know how to figure out what’s really happening anywhere.
The problem with public radio and public television is that the issues are framed so as to exclude alternatives which complicate the gliberal and leftoid narrative.
“A referendum, etc.” Right, well that I do know, I just don’t begin to understand the ramifications and consequences of that.
And about NPR. I know exactly what NPR is, I’m just saying that just because something sounds nice and civilized doesn’t meant that it has anything to do with the truth.
AMDG
Actually I don’t see the American media as Janet describes it. I mean, those elements are there, but they don’t define the landscape for me.
If you meant to be juxtaposing ugly on the right and civilized on the left, yeah, that is the perception of a lot of people. But my impression now (for what it’s worth) is that MSNBC and Salon, both of which are pretty ugly, are at least as influential on the left as NPR.
Oh, I’m definitely not familiar with a tenth of what’s out there, but that element is there. It may be on both sides, but it isn’t something to judge by. I’m just saying there isn’t a correlation between politeness and truth.
AMDG
“I don’t understand Brexit and I have no time to learn any more than I do, so I don’t have an opinion.”
Tru dat. I’m trying to read up on the U.S. religious liberty question, and there’s enough stuff out there just on that issue to make one’s head spin.
Are you reading this month’s issue of Touchstone?
AMDG
Gretchen Joanna, that was a funny link!
Paul, I’m so glad you commented. I’ve been wanting to understand the major differences, if any, between English law ans continental law, but I don’t have the time to study up properly. It seems that many English people are very much against continental law and I have heard that there is presumption of innocence in English law, but not continental. Also that continental law tends to be positive in that the assumption is you can’t do anything unless the law says it’s ok, rather than being able to do anything unless the law says it’s not ok. That’s what I’ve heard I have no idea if that’s true and I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
“Are you reading this month’s issue of Touchstone?”
No — books and essays, mostly.
They have a symposium on religious liberty. I have not have time to do more than glance at it, so I can’t tell you if it’s good.
AMDG
Yes Art Deco – several criminal codes were issued between 1788 and 1815. And indeed many have been since. But there was no criminal code that was to have the European status in criminal law that the Napoleonic Code was to have in civil law.
What you have to say about the EU mostly seems to be deflection. Vlaams Blok, for instance, was convicted of incitement to racial hatred in a Belgian court, and chose to disband to avoid the legal consequences. It has exactly nothing to do with the EU. If you think that discussion of immigration is particularly limited in Europe, it just shows you don’t get about much.
As to the Blitz, that was hardly first-hand experience of Nazism. You remind me of the old lady who told a Holocaust survivor that she should stop going on about hard she’d had it, because sleeping in the Tube was no picnic either.
I recently watched two French television series that are especially interesting in light of this discussion: Spiral (Engrenages), a cops and criminal justice series, and A French Village (Un village français), a series about one town under German occupation. In the first series, one of the characters is an independent investigative judge, whose job it is to collect evidence that is then used by justice officials to try or dismiss a case. The second series does a good job of showing what life was like under the Nazis.
As to the Blitz, that was hardly first-hand experience of Nazism.
OK, it was a first hand experience of chocolate meringue pie.
Yes Art Deco – several criminal codes were issued between 1788 and 1815. And indeed many have been since. But there was no criminal code that was to have the European status in criminal law that the Napoleonic Code was to have in civil law.
So what? It was a codification. Statutory consolidation was something not completed where I grew up until 1909.
What you have to say about the EU mostly seems to be deflection.
It seems that way because that’s what’s convenient for you.
Vlaams Blok, for instance, was convicted of incitement to racial hatred in a Belgian court, and chose to disband to avoid the legal consequences.
Yes, and those charges were fraudulent. And Belgian courts have no business telling the country’s leading political party what it may or may not advocate in the public square. The only legitimate circumstances for proscribing speech or publication would be to contain obscenity, suppress sedition, protect state secrets, enforce a defamation suit, maintain decorum in courts and legislatures, or allowing people to sleep at night. Even so, you can hold persons liable for discrete acts in a court of assize or in the course of a tort suit. There can be no such thing as ‘group defamation’ in any country which aspires to be governed by deliberative and electoral institutions.
“European values” are humbug.
It has exactly nothing to do with the EU. If you think that discussion of immigration is particularly limited in Europe, it just shows you don’t get about much.
I specifically distinguished it from EU acts, something you’d know if you’d read my remarks before whipping our your talking points. If you fancy legal harassment of political dissent does not limit political discussion, I’m selling bridges.
I’m not a legal expert, Louise, but I can say very firmly that “innocent until proven guilty” is as much a basic premise of criminal law in those parts of the Continent I know well as it is in England, and so is the principle that “whatever is not prohibited is allowed”. Although German legislators do seem to take “whatever is not prohibited is allowed” to mean that you have to prohibit any imaginable undesirable action, just to be on the safe side.
In so far as I understand these things, the main legal difference is that the role of the judge is less passive in Continental systems (in theory an English judge only considers the evidence and arguments that either side brings; a Continental judge can ask for more evidence or for independent expert opinion if they aren’t satisfied with what either side has provided; in some systems and some cases the judge seems effectively to be in charge of gathering and considering evidence, the public prosecutor only having to show that there is a case to answer). This means that the Continental criminal system can look more like the accused is facing a judge, while in the English criminal courts they are facing a prosecutor with a judge looking on to see what sort of a case the prosecutor makes, but I don’t know in practice whether that makes much difference. And if it’s a question of suing a contractor, rather than the prosecution of a crime, the question doesn’t even arise.
The biggest difference of all, I suspect, is not a legal one but one of social expectation: whether judges generally are thought of as impartial and concerned with justice rather than merely with self-aggrandisement or the law as an abstract entity; and whether a legal decision against a powerful person will be expected to stand. There are plenty of corrupt dictatorships that inherited a common law system from the British Empire, so it’s not the system itself that determines these things.
It complicates things that when people talk about “Continental law” they usually mean either French law or German law (and not even always current law, but often 19th-century law), and generalise from that to the whole of the rest of Europe. In actual fact, certainly in terms of criminal law, there is a lot of variety – not just in what is illegal, but also in how the system functions. Belgians regard jury trials as fundamental to “democratic” law, but in the Netherlands and Germany there are no jury trials (the judge or a panel of judges assess the evidence and arguments and reach a verdict, and they think this can only preserve the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law from contamination by popular emotion). In France they have juries in serious criminal cases, in the assize courts, but not in lower criminal tribunals (although they did experiment with making jury trials more frequent a few years back and decided it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to get people to do jury duty). All these systems are “Continental”.
The Belgian constitution enshrines free parental choice of education, but the German constitution makes education a responsibility of the state. Both are “Continental”.
With regard to freedom of movement, several EU countries introduced transitional measures to prevent a sudden and socially disruptive influx of tens of thousands of workers from Central and Eastern Europe when those countries were becoming new members of the EU. The UK didn’t adopt such measures, and then blamed EU rules on freedom of movement for the result. That’s fairly typical of the UK attitude to the EU: it was there to take the blame when Whitehall or Westminster wanted to do something unpopular. I’ve even seen pre-emptive attempts to blame the EU for any downsides to the UK leaving: if anything is sub-optimal, it will be because the EU didn’t give us a decent deal. But this is rather off-topic. I do hope some of this at least seems useful or interesting.
I can see you’re selling bridge, Art, but I’m not in the market for them.
As to your main point in the post, Mac, I agree completely. It was perfectly possible to vote to leave the EU without being a racist or a xenophobe, and the leave voters among my friends are none of them ignorant of the issues of unduly swayed by fear of strangers. None of them would dream of telling anyone, as a stranger in the street told my niece in Nottingham, that “remain” voters were traitors who should be shot.
In the wake of the vote, the racists and the xenophobes do seem to think that the number of people voting the same way as them on this one issue, however different their reasons, gives them more leeway for venting their hatred than they had before.
Not surprising. Trump has had the same effect here. It doesn’t mean that Trump’s support comes mainly from racists. But he has emboldened them.
When I use the word “racist,” by the way, I mean real hostility, not just the sort of mild discomfort or prejudice that’s pretty much inevitable between groups.
he UK didn’t adopt such measures, and then blamed EU rules on freedom of movement for the result.
It became grossly clear last summer that ‘freedom of movement’ was a problem when the hag-chancellor triggered a flash mob of migrants and then EU officials, citing obligations under EU treaties, attempted to impose job lots of them on various unwilling member states.
One purpose common institutions might have is to operate a coast guard and supplementary border inspectorate to assist national guards and inspectorate. Well, there is an agency, and it proved completely ineffectual.
And, of course, the Euro and the associated central bank has managed to destroy the labor market of four of the continent’s member states. Departing from the Euro is certainly advisable for these four states, but will be costly as it will require a bank holiday and exchange controls and action by one member will quite possibly trigger a crisis in another for which they may or may not have contingency plans. Now you’ve got EU officials demanding federalization to counteract this problem even though the EU’s elected bodies are toy telephones.
“hag-chancellor” wouldn’t help your argument even if it was accurate, which it doesn’t seem to me to be. She looks like a normal 61-year-old woman to me.
“They have a symposium on religious liberty.”
Thanks. I’ll see if I can get hold of it, as I’m not a subscriber.
“It doesn’t mean that Trump’s support comes mainly from racists. But he has emboldened them.”
A friend of mine has suggested that if Trump can energize the poor and lower middle class ‘alienated’ whites to get out and vote like Obama did the ‘alienated’ minorities, he’ll kick Hilary’s butt. The trick is to do this without appearing to be racist (although as you said, Mac, racists will inevitably be attracted to such a campaign.)
This idea arose in a conversation about the recent book White Trash by Nancy Isenberg, which neither of us has read. On first glance it appears to be a strike on the contemporary Left by one of their own for ignoring class by concentrating so much on race. But I’m not sure. I’m going to get it from the library to see.
I was at a formal dinner the other night with the people from the magazine where I’m having my sabbatical and a bunch of left wing journalists. A young guy from the magazine asked the left wing journalists if (and how) the left could regain the working class now that the left stood for immigration, and generally regards restricting immigration as ‘racist’. The left wing journalists didn’t have much answer. I thought it was an interesting question.
There’s also the fact that the left in general now really dislikes the working class, and it shows.
Rob, I’m curious about all this delving you’re doing on the religious liberty question. The broad issue seems fairly straightforward to me where Christianity is concerned, and the tension ought to be resolvable in good will, which of course is conspicuously absent.
Rob, I’ll be glad to send you my copy if you want. I should be finished with it soon.
AMDG
I haven’t read that yet, either. Should be good. Touchstone has been excellent at exploring the implications of the latest phase of the sexual revolution.
There’s also the fact that the left in general now really dislikes the working class, and it shows.
The journalistic / academic left has disliked the (non-exotic) working class since about 1966. Politicians like Walter Mondale knew better.
Thanks, Paul, that was very helpful!
http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/466077985-580.jpg
“hag-chancellor” wouldn’t help your argument even if it was accurate, which it doesn’t seem to me to be. She looks like a normal 61-year-old woman to me.
The subject of the sentence is not the argument, nor is it intended to ‘help’ the argument. (And the sexagenarians in my family are more attractive, and they don’t dye their hair).
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