Timmyhawk

OLIVER "AFFLUENZA" JAMES: HAS HE HEARD OF DURKHEIM?
This may strike readers as a polemical question, but it is kind of genuine. I am not going to bother disentangling James's various points about the link between either "selfish capitalism" and inequality and mental illness or however he wants to put it exactly (see here for more). What I haven’t seen in the debate that’s been on the blogs and in the papers the past week or so, but it may of course be in the book, is the wider reason for the problem of "affluenza", i.e. affluent societies suffering from high rates of mental health problems.

And that’s why I ask whether James has heard of Emile Durkheim. Durkheim is often considered the founding father of sociology. His seminal and defining work was on the most extreme outgrowth of mental health problems, Suicide. Durkheim ignored any individual factors leading people to commit suicide, and rather looked at the statistical likelihood of suicide occurring in a given group of people or under specific circumstances. The common view on suicide was, and I suppose still is, that it is done by people who are having a hard time so to speak. But Durkheim had a look at the evidence and found the data showed a slightly different picture, although much of it seems received wisdom these days. Suicide is more likely in cities vs villages, married vs unmarried, childless vs parents, involved in clubs vs not involved in clubs . . . even societies at peace vs societies at war.
What Durkheim distilled from this is that what increased the likelihood of suicide wasn’t about objective hardships, but rather more due to people feeling unconnected to others. Durkheim termed this anomie; later this has also been termed individuation and other sociological terms . . . but the point remains, that the less people feel connected to others around them, the more likely becomes suicide, and by extension the more likely other mental illnesses.

So what drives mental illness on the bigger level is this lack of community sense. Now, it is perfectly possible to argue that "selfish capitalism", particularly as practiced in Anglo-Saxon countries increases this decline of community feeling. But I wonder if that’s really the case? The Unicef study on childhood wellbeing -also out recently- found for example that the UK and the US at the bottom of the pile were joined by France. As usual the Scandinavians came out on top. So, let's run Durkheim's approach along this. One of the obvious differences is size: compare the small Scandinavian countries and compare them to the fairly large and populous France, Britain and America. The bigger a society, the more complex it inevitably becomes, and the more complex the more anomic it will become. This has a cultural dimension to it as well. The big three are countries that due to their internal structure, their history and their present role on the world stage have far raging and often painful debates about national identity and connected issues (from anecdotal evidence much more than the Scandinavians do). These debates inevitably put the national community into question, thus potentially weakening it, thus increasing anomie. In addition, and I hope this doesn’t come across the wrong way, France, Britain and America are societies that are culturally very diverse, and certainly more diverse than the Nordic ones. Again this possibly lowers the strength of community.

Are these factors negligible compared to income inequalities, as some seem to believe? I’m not so sure. I tend to take the view that cultural problems have cultural causes and need cultural solutions. I don’t for example think that multi-cultural societies need to be lacking in community, nor do I think that the same has to apply to societies with high-powered capitalism.

I don’t find there’s an entirely obvious answer to the problem of high incidences of mental illnesses in our societies. Particularly I find it hard to see how state intervention to redistribute income will make much of an impact. But perhaps I’m not quite on top of this yet?

Right, that’s Professor timmyhawk’s lecture for this week. And for next week: figure out how to fix this problem!

WHAT A DOUR WEEK
I should be blogging properly on all of this, but it’s not so much anger but despair that marks my reaction to what’s been going on in the past days. Where to start?
ID cards. Has anybody anywhere seen anything resembling a convincing argument that we actually need these breathing licenses? Sure their cheerleaders have argued well, if not convincingly, that they won’t turn this country into a police state and that they won’t bankrupt us. And that’s it. And some of the cheek they use in their arguments - just consider our probable future prime minister:

More shocking abuse in Iraq . . . well not really. We get a journalistically indefensible running of abuse image of Abu Ghraib. Why this qualifies as “news” escapes me, as it’s the same incident, the same day, that we have already worked through and it offers nothing in the way of new evidence. The only thing it does is provide material to the opponents of the Coalition. It’s almost like the responsible media want us to lose this war . . .
And as for our own boys, am I missing something here? I only read about it and didn’t see the images so I was expecting something disturbing. So I was rather dismayed to see the whole furour was kicked up only about a few troops in rather desperate circumstances kicking and hitting a little too much during an arrest. Admittedly, too much is too much and it is necessary for disciplinary action to be taken. But given the circumstances of an mob assault on the Army base, a mere few kicks and hits are pretty mild to the possible alternative of machine gunning the crowd. Again, this abuse only really shows again how we remain on the moral highground even if we lose the PR battle.
Which moves us on to the smoking ban. What to make of that? Is this fox hunting for pubbers? I don’t really see how this can be popular, or why we need it. In consequence pubs will wither lose customers, or change their licences to being private premises. As for people who don’t go to pubs, and who are probably the majority backing this move, they’re not going to be showing up in Ye Old Rose anytime soon. The only change is that now we have to waste the resources of public order on implementing this idiocy. What a day for limited government.
The final straw I think was the bizarre Dick Cheney shooting incindent. Sure, given that the victim seems in good shape, it’s certainly worth a giggle and some jokes in satire shows, but can anybody give me any reason why this was given whole minutes on prime time British tv news? Or why does it warrant any real attention? It’s all beyond me. It does however, along with the above raise questions about the competence of the journalistic profession.
All in all I just feel that sensible argument is just being lost.

SLOPPY REPORTING, TODAY: THE TIMES
(As a blogger it should of course be my duty to rap the msm over the knuckles noe and then, and this is certainly a duty I have neglected. But betterment begins today.)
The Times reports today on a study which claims that Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side':

I have my doubts. Either way, the report in the Times is not actually helpful is it? For the most interesting aspect for me would be the question, why a decrease in religiosity would improve society causally. Simply listing statistical correlations, which is the only part of the research the Times reports here, doesn’t really get us very far in understanding the problem. I haven’t read the full article yet so at the moment, so I can’t make any statement about the article’s utility or otherwise. What I want to criticise here is they way that the Times’ religion correspondent Ruth Gledhill has reported the academic article (or maybe it was editor’s cutting?).
Her story doesn’t show up the possible causal connections between atheism and a good society made by the academic Gregory Paul. Equally she doesn’t ask or query what his statistics show or don’t show. Undoubtedly on a lot of indicators such as murder and abortion, the comparatively secular European societies perform better than the more religious US. At the moment that is. What I would need to know as a reader though is, what the rates of change are. That is what really matters. Religion has rebounded in America in the past two decades, while it has kept floundering in Europe. How have the indicators developed in that period? Did Paul make a difference between people in the US who (re)embraced religion and those who didn’t? Did the study look at differences between people who believe in the existence of God and people of a religious mentality? The two are not the same, certainly not for me. Did the study take into account other factors that would influence society’s wellbeing, such as character and extent of a welfare state?
I only mention these factors, not to disparage Paul’s research which may have serious political, social and cultural implications, but simply to question the quality of the Times’ report. Without taking stock in any way of the issues about methodology I raise above the article is clearly of little informative value. Additionally I wonder why Gledhill reports no criticism of the article which there surely is. Was there no time? Surely this news story was not such a priority that it couldn’t incorporate different views on the subject due to time constraints.
The disappointing conclusion is that the Times shouldn’t have run the article. Instead of enlightening its readers, it simply provides a possibly misleading first impression, and thus makes its readers less well informed than if the page had been left blank.

(More to follow when I have done my homework and actually read the study. . . )

SOME OBSERVATIONS FROM STROLLING THROUGH LONDON
I’m not very focused on blogging at the moment, what with my real life making quite some demands, but I am at last trying to give this blog a proper focus and have made my by-line a bit more meaningful. Admittedly it’s still rather more aspirational. . .
But to keep this site alive I though I’d post about some things that caught my attention in London today.

Saw some volunteers of Shelter. The motto on their t-shirt is “bad housing wrecks lives”. Won’t disagree with that, but Shelter’s main task is to fight homelessness, rather than bad housing, and it sends out a rather confusing message. Which is a shame because homelessness is a real problem as a look this city around will confirm. “Bad” housing is a rather subjective term in the end.

Took the no11 down Whitehall. There are Union Jacks flying from all the lampposts. I don’t know how recent an addition this is, as I don’t normally travel through there. Does anybody know whether they’re staying up? I hope so. Beyond giving my patriotic heart warm feelings, the flags also introduce some much-needed colour into Whitehall, which would aesthetically be more aptly described as Greyhall.

Saw the new monument that is up, “To the women of World War Two”. Sorry to say this, but I don’t like it. It is too big, too plump and in the wrong place. Leaving aside whether there should be such a monument to begin with. Who does it commemorate after all? People who had the bad luck to be caught up in a war, but who due to being adult and female somehow warrant special attention. Sorry again to say this, but children and old men suffered and served on the home front just as much as the women did, and they won’t be getting a monument, simply because that would not serve any cause of identity politics. Monuments should either be individual, entirely universal or dedicated to those who purposefully put themselves at risk for the greater good.

Which brings me on to the fairly new memorial to fallen police officers. Now this is an entirely different story. After all the police volunteer to serve, and given the risen importance of policing for national security it is also timely that their sacrifices should have a proper representation. Unlike the WW2 women one, this elegant Lord Foster-designed memorial is neatly tucked away in a quite space between Horse Guards and the Mall. This is a memorial I like, even though I should admit that I wouldn’t have suggested it myself.

It is true that there’s quite a lot of armed police out and about, but personally I think it’s good there’s more police on the street. That said that depends where you encounter them. Out in the exurbs where I grew up and most of my family live, I would find the presence of police anywhere, let alone sub-machine gun wielding ones on public transport, distinctly threatening. And in case you’re scared they might gun you down because of confusing you with a Brazilian electrician, err, suicide bomber, London transport are trying to give you tips how to stay alive . . .

After last week’s rather less pleasing offering, the New Statesman is trying to redeem itself this week, with a cool-designed cover “Why Britain is Great”. Mind you, not yet bhaving read the article I wonder if there are going to find rather other things great about this country, than, say, last week’s Spectator did . . .

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Lee Harris writes:

But isn’t he comparing apples and oranges here . . .

UNFORTUNATE TURN OF PHRASE
In a column in which Ferdinand Mount criticises the lack of a social conseravtive approach to improving society there’s this:

Make Daisy chains? Yes, but I assume that thery’re already quite busy at that.

LEGALISED PROSTITUTION AND THE CASE FOR A CATCH-ALL WELFARE PAYMENT
I was a little clueless in
a recent posting
about how to solve the dilemma of having legalised prostitution and still have a welfare to work programme. Over at No Blood for Sauerkraut there has been a little debate about this problem with some interesting ponts raised. Paul13 reminded me of this idea, about having a single-type payment paid out to all citizens, irrespective of circumstances. I had vaguely, in my new year predictions for 2004 hinted at my interest in:

. I’m not entirely sure about the costing, but such a system would have two great advantages. Firstly, it would make it possible to cut out the wasteful and ineffective bureaucracy that currently hobbles the administration of welfare pay-outs. Secondly, and this somewhat closer to my heart, it would make it possible to roll back the state and get government a little bit more out of our everyday lives.

LEGALISED PROSTITUTION QUANDARY
Now, this story about an unemployed German waitress who will have her benefits cuts because she refused taking up a job in “ “ in one of Germany’s legalised brothels, at first made me laugh. I mean, there is something supremely ridiculous about it; or perhaps I’m just being old-fashioned.
On second thoughts though I see quite a problem here. This is in fact one issue that puts me in a particular quandary.

Let’s look what people of other political persuasions would make of this. If you were more of a social conservative type you would presumably argue that that’s another reason supporting your position that the whole thing should be illegal. Straightforward enough.
Let’s say you’re more of the libertarian persuasion this is an easy one again: the welfare state shouldn’t exist in the first place, so the welfare state couldn’t try to force people into prostitution.
If though you like it a little more leftish-liberalish your views can be easily reconciled with this state of affairs, since you probably oppose the whole enforced welfare-to-work policy.

So, what am I going to say? Ideally I would like to see prostitution reduced or better still, vanish completely. I support legalising prostitution as I see that as the only way of breaking up the nexus between prostitution and the whole organised crime problem coming with pimps and drug dealing, not to mention forced prostitution, primarily of the illegally immigrated. My basic point is one of damage reduction.
On the other hand I support welfare-state measures that expect people to take up work rather than live at the taxpayers’ expense, even if that work isn’t necessarily their dream job. And to cover every aspect, I support the existence of the welfare state and don’t believe it to be an illegitimate function of government as dedicated libertarians argue.
On the face of it this puts me in a position, where I can’t have my cake and eat it. And, naturally, that annoys me. The solution would have to be a restriction on the jobs that unemployed people can be forced to accept or else forfeit their benefits. There are other jobs where such restrictions could apply, the armed forces being an example, because that isn’t a normal job. I’m just not sure what kind of restrictions would be necessary.

Anyways, I think it’s worth giving some thought to it.

”NATALISM” INVERSE?
This piece by David Brooks is quite interesting. In it it traces the rise of large families in the US, and the relationship between this phenomenon he calls “natalism” and wider social, cultural and even political forces. It’s certainly worth a read.
Here’s what got me thinking::

I think there may indeed be something to this. But perhaps it also works the other way round. If you live in a place or a society full of bad influences and the like, that is surely going to lower your desire to put children into that world. To give a slightly charicatured view, if Melanie Phillips’ observations of modern Britain are ten per cent accurate, who in his right mind would want to raise children in such a country. There is a certainly a wide-spread feeling in Britain, that something just isn’t right, even though it’s difficult to put the finger on what it is. Is that perhaps dampening the desire for offspring? I actually think that’s quite a convincing idea.