Essays by Language:
Reigning In the Power of Tech
The current era, at the beginning of the 2020s, is marked by a dominance of the tech industry. Most of the wealthiest people on earth are owners of tech companies, hoarding billions of dollars from their customers. The platforms they are running wield enormous power over their users and are excellent vehicles for targeted advertising and behaviour regulation. The balance of power between the platform owners and their respective users has become locked in an unbalanced position, with the owners able to accumulate ever more wealth and power. Without some countervailing power, there will be no end to this trend. It is not too hard to imagine what the consequences of this ever-continuing trend will be: a total power grab leading to authoritarian rule by a network of tech plutocrats and their friends. What can we do to organize some of the necessary countervailing power?
An Alternative Definition of Fascism Based on an Ethical Framework
Defining fascism is a notoriously difficult scholarly task. Most definitions up till now have been empirical, based on common characteristics of fascist movements in practice. These definitions do not really get to the core of what is the essence of fascism and what makes it inherently dangerous. In this essay, I will posit that it is possible to define fascism by positioning it within ethical categories, and that the resulting definition is approximately equivalent to existing definitions, to which I compare it. The definition I propose is the following:
"Fascism is collaboration between moral supremacy and nihilism, aimed at the violent implementation of a morally superior society."
In this essay I will explain the essence of what I mean with this definition, and how past and current movements measure up to this definition. At the end I will discuss some applications of my alternative definition in combating fascism.
Updated version
Is Public Health a fascist movement?
When describing and evaluating my new definition of Fascism, I tended to go back and forth over the question whether the Public Health-movement qualifies as fascist. In order to keep my article on fascism focused on the important movements, I have decided to write a separate essay to delve into this question deeper. My previous answers to this evaluation are not yet satisfying to me. I have dismissed the classification the first time around (May 2019) and corrected myself when re-evaluating it in December 2019. And I found my arguments unconvincing when I last read them back. So I'll try again.
Dilemma: Cultural Clashes
An essay in the context of GroenLinks' discussion on party fundamentals.
From the discussion paper “GroenLinkse idealen” (Green-Left Ideals)
Cultural clashes
Since 9/11 and the assassination of Theo van Gogh, globalization and migration have triggered political debates on cultural differences and our national identity. GroenLinks (the Green-Left party of the Netherlands) has refurbished its ideal of cultural openness by shifting its former plea for integrating while keeping one’s identity towards integrating by emancipation. Is integration as such primarily a cultural or a socio-economic issue? Our goal has always been to give newcomers and their children the chance to fully and equivalently participate in society. Until September 11, we mainly observed socio-economic barriers and solutions. But to what extent can cultural differences block integration? How will we deal with such barriers? Which demands will we subject newcomers to; which obligations will we put on them; which rights will they get in return? Is radicalization just a reaction to exclusion or injustice, or are there other causes in cultural and religious opinions that contain a political agenda (which could lead to violence)? Should we counter such opinions by political means? How tolerant should we be towards intolerance?In a globalizing world, there is a growing need for authenticity, for a definition of identity, because both indigenous and new Netherlanders feel alienated in a society in which a growing number of cultures, behaviors, values and religions coexist. How does this need relate to our cosmopolitan outlook and our values of diversity and tolerance? Do we need a sense of national identity for our values of community and solidarity? What is the rightful place of religion in our society? Why do we finance religiously affiliated education? What does the separation of church and state mean to us? Are there limits to diversity? For example, can you wear a head scarf while working in the civil service?
Libertarianism versus State-Nannyism: Who’s Right?
Let’s assume that we’re in a democratic society. The essence of a representative democracy is that we elect politicians, who then decide over the rules of society by majority. And consequentially, that we follow and respect the rules that are thus constructed.
Within this context, democratic society should be able to achieve some kind of balance between the two extremes: total state control and total individual freedom. Different political views will be debated and whoever gets the majority will decide the rules.
For representative democracy to be fully representative, politicians should make clear to voters their principles, aims and preferred methods of achieving those aims. And then they should vote accordingly. Of course, representative democracy doesn’t always work this way. The items of discussion are not always known up front, and coalition-building may lead to compromises. Furthermore, a party can be divided or unclear on certain issues, which leaves the voter in hope that their politicians will decide according to his preferences.
Thus, unfortunately, our democratic society is not flawless. Representative democracy can be vulnerable to outside pressures which can tilt the balance of power to one side or the other (state-nannyism or libertarianism). In the past, access of lobbyists for both sides of the spectrum was very similar. With the increased media-influence, however, the political process is primarily driven by control over the masses. Politicians are increasingly pressured by media to conform to “public opinion”, which seems like some form of “new democracy” but which is in fact opinion created by media. Through the use of opinion polls, junk science, pressure groups and media-picked experts, a powerful lobby is created to sway politicians towards more state-nannyism. This state-control will lead to a noticeable shift in consumption patterns, which will in turn benefit some and damage others. The ones benefited by this shift readily provide the funds for the lobbying and pseudo-research activities. These funders might include corporations, philanthropists and the state itself. Noticeable, however, is the relative lack of private donations that these pressure groups seem to get. And those that do get lots of private donations, usually get those for other activities, such as research into cures for cancer.
Public Health is a religion, and should be treated as one
The movement that calls itself “Public Health” is increasingly trying to outlaw personal behaviours, that have until recently been viewed as innocuous pastimes. This development started with smoking in public indoor spaces and is being copied in other areas such as the use of alcohol, fatty foods, sugary drinks and meat. The public health movement insists that action is imminent in the battle against cancer, diabetes, heart disease and various other so-called ‘lifestyle related diseases’. And the targets for regulation have been shown, statistically, to have some sort of correlation with these ‘lifestyle related diseases’.
Does public health have a point here? And what is public health exactly? It claims to be a science-based movement, aiming to protect the health of humankind. There are two anomalies in this previous sentence. At first, the science-based claim is actually a mixture of science and speculation (i.e. opinion). Secondly, there is no such thing as the health of humankind, there is only the health of individuals, with health meaning: absence of disease. What public health primarily deals with is physical condition and the associated risks of getting diseases.
Epidemiology in the context of changing society
During the last few decades (approximately since the late eighties) epidemiology has been used by both public and private sector for political purposes. Predefined political views have been scientifically legitimized by “proving” the correctness of the measures to be taken, using epidemiological “evidence”.
The problem is that epidemiology is not a medical science, but a mathematical one. It is purely a specialization of statistics. Epidemiology is therefore no more than a machine to crunch numbers. Every form of interpretation of these numbers is pure speculation and has no scientific ground whatsoever.
Epidemiology is useful, of course. It can be used very well to search for possible cause-and-effect relationships. Proving cause and effect is usually more difficult. It can be done by taking away the supposed cause and see if the effect ceases to occur. Or it can be done by actually observing the effect and analyzing the process that triggered this effect. This depending on the branch of science involved.
Modern French philosophers
This document is a short abstract of the Dutch compilation “Moderne Franse filosofen” by Th. de Boer et al., Kok Agora, Kampen, Netherlands, 1993. This booklet contains eight transcripts of lectures given at the University of Amsterdam in 1992.
They concern the following philosophers respectively:
Michel Foucault, Paul Ricoeur, Luce Irigaray, Jean Baudrillard, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard and Julia Kristeva.
All of them are modern day philosophers who have performed their philosophic work mostly in Paris.
Capitalism versus Netocracy - De Soto vs. Bard and Söderqvist
In his book "The Mystery of Capital", Hernando de Soto argues that the reason the Third World lags behind the West is the fact that the Third World lacks formal property systems which allow assets to be turned into capital.
In the prophetic book "Netocracy" by Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist, it is argued that the emergence of Internet as a means for distributing information and building networks will lead to a new power hierarchy, in which people with supreme knowledge and networking skills will rule over everyone else, including capitalism’s elite: the bourgeoisie. Bard and Söderqvist argue that informationalism will make capitalist institutions, such as the enterprise, the nation state and the university, obsolete.
The problem I have with these two books is that they both state a case which is, to me, plausible, but that I feel they are in some ways contradictory. This bugs me, because both books have essential elements in them which are, and have been, decisive for my personal future.
In this document I will try to find out what the discrepancy is, and I will examine ways in which to resolve this discrepancy. Ultimately I hope to be able to choose one way to incorporate both views into my personal world view. I might have to disregard some things from either theory to achieve that.
Michel Foucault, a short summary of his world vision
Michel Foucault (1926-1984), French philosopher / historian
Foucault is a philosopher who sees philosophy not as a search for truth, as most contemporary philosophers have done. Foucault is not concerned with arriving at some final, objective truth, but with finding out why Western culture has been so dominated by the search for truth. “Why truth?” Foucault asks.
He started his philosophical career investigating the institutions of the nation state which are aimed at influencing human behaviour. His focus was especially aimed at mental institutions and prisons, and their relation to the shifts in the dominant boundary between good and bad behaviour, or sane and insane minds, over a period of time. This research uncovered the role of the nation state in defining ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘sane’ and ‘insane’, and showed this power of definition was used primarily for the good of the state itself.