From: Steve Davies (steve365@btinternet.com)
Date: Wed May 21 2003 - 10:06:50 MDT
Anders says
> However, I think one could usefully (for our discussions) add a
> third axis: technological coercion. Some people want to determine
> what and how technology is used and developed, others want to leave
> this free and legislate when actual problems develop. So there is
> an issue of technological freedom, or freedom to tinker.
>
> So we get the following cube (I won't try to ascii it), with +
> representing freedom:
>
> Tech Social Economic
> - - - Anti tech authoritarians (reactionaries)
> - - + Anti tech conservatives (Kass, Fukyama)
> - + - Anti tech liberals (Rifkin)
> - + + Anti tech libertarians (small is good?)
> + - - Pro tech authoritarians (high tech fascism,
prometheans)
> + - + Pro tech conservatives (good for business)
> + + - Pro tech liberals (left transhumanism?)
> + + + Pro tech libertarian ("classical" extropianism)
>
> Some of these combinations are less common than others. People
> accepting social and economic freedom but not technological
> freedom seem to be rare, but I think I have encountered a few.
> Most seem to want a free "small is good" society with no roaring
> singularities.
>
> The content provider fraction is strongly against technological
> freedom (at least for others) but does not have much political
> ideology; I would guess they are pro economic freedom (at least
> for them), so they would be somewhere in the
> authoritarian-conservative-centrist region.
This is very helpful. I remember that back in the 1970s Nigel Calder had a
chapter in his book "Technopolis" that argued for an emerging political
division between "mugs and zealots" on the basis of differing attitudes to
technology that was very similar to this. I have a similar take on the
politics of the last 250 years (roughly), i.e. that there are broadly two
kinds of variable, producing four kinds of combinations. These are liberty
vs authority (do you trust people to make decisions and let those decisions
aggregate through markets and other mechanisms or do you think most people
can't be trusted to make good decisions or their aggregated decisions will
be bad so you need some kind of authority) and optimism vs pessimism (do you
broadly think that modernity is a good or a bad thing which includes the
view you take of technological progress). This produces
Optimistic libertarians (classical liberals/libertarians)
Optimistic authoritarians (socialists/social democrats)
Pessimistic libertarians (most Anglo-Saxon conservatives)
Pessimistic authoritarians ("Throne and Altar"/conservative revolutionaries
of the German and French type)
Anders' model is better because by separating out the attitude to technology
and science it enables you to locate some groups who otherwise pose problems
such as fascists. Worth saying that as ever the kind of debates we are
having now are not new. Anyone who thinks otherwise should read Macaulay's
review of Southey's "Colloquies on Society" (TBM does a fantastic job - we
need someone like that today!). I also think that both today and in the past
we can see periods when the main axis of debate shifts. In the 19th century
it's mainly Optimistic Libertarians vs Pessimistic Authoritarians because
most people who liked modernity and believed in progress thought that
"progress" meant a movement in the direction of less government and greater
individualism. In a generation around 1900 most "optimists" came to think
growing collective action through government was the path of progress. The
few remaining Optimitic Libertarians had to ally themselves with Pessimistic
Libertarians, opposed to Optimistic Authoritarians. I think that now we are
in the middle of another shift back to a more 19th century style axis. One
sign of this is the increasing similarity of argument (and increasingly
alliances) between people who are allegedly on opposite ends of the old way
of defining "left and right".
Steve Davies
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