Letters

As one who gets paid to do metaphysics for a living, it was a little uncomfortable being told (Letters, March) that I was part of a "rare, perhaps extinct, breed." Metaphysics was certainly unpopular among philosophers in the English-speaking world for a period of about 50 years in the early 20th century; but reports of its death were, happily, exaggerated. There remain philosophers who are sceptical of it—which keeps us on our toes. But, as a glance at current activity in journals and conferences will confirm, there are plenty of us who aim to discover how the world is in and of itself—to peer beyond Plato's cave.

Ross Cameron
University of Leeds

Against the snip
3rd March 2008

David Green's excellent piece on law and faith (March) has striking relevance to the practice of circumcision. He avows: "although many constraints imposed by private associations are acceptable, some such requirements are or should be against the law." In our legal system, there can be no more frequently practised "requirement," self-evidently an assault on the defenceless, more blatantly highlighting the issues discussed. Why are liberals always so mute about it?

David Preen
Marple, Cheshire

China's new intellectuals
5th March 2008

Mark Leonard (March) has, encouragingly, actually got out and done some good old-fashioned reporting on China instead of just theorising from afar. He accurately charts the Chinese shift towards income redistribution, social infrastructure and party reform. But I think he rather overestimates the role of Chinese intellectuals in this. In my view, the cause of these changes has mainly been growing popular discontent at the costs of wasteful all-out growth: rapidly widening income inequality, a marked deterioration in education and healthcare, severe water pollution and, above all, the naked greed of corrupt party officials. Devoid of any ideological convictions, since 1979 the party has based its popular legitimacy on its ability to deliver steadily higher living standards to the masses. When it became obvious that simply raising headline GDP every year was yielding diminishing returns, the party leadership concluded that it needed, as a matter of political survival, to change course. It did not need think tanks to tell it this.

Chinese policy, however, has a serious weakness: it is based on self-interested materialism and utilitarianism. Even repressive regimes in Africa, flattered by China's attention, are beginning to suspect that ultimately Beijing is in this game only for itself. Truly effective "soft power" needs to be about more than this—at bottom, it is about communicating social values, aspirations and dreams that ordinary people abroad can identify with. Here, China has not much to offer: the prevailing ethos is get-rich-quick materialism. Talking to young people in China, I have been repeatedly struck by how many of them still warm to the American dream. I have never met anyone who said they wanted to live the "Chinese dream."

Guy de Jonquieres
via the Prospect blog

Happiness studies
17th March 2008

Adam Phillips (March) does not want schools to teach children how to be happy. Instead, he argues, "education should be showing children good ways of bearing their unhappiness, and good ways of taking their happiness when it comes." What a dismal philosophy. In fact, of course, parents and teachers have been teaching children the secrets of a happy life for thousands of years.

The secret is this: that if you try to promote the happiness of others, you will yourself be happier. This truth has been verified through a series of surveys and experiments that are well summarised in Sonja Lyubomirsky's The How of Happiness: in the short term an altruist may forgo his own happiness for the sake of others, but in the long term he feels better than someone who is more concerned with himself. This fact is crucial. If it were not so, we should surely not talk about happiness, because this would only produce a more self-regarding generation, and less overall happiness would result. But because it is so, we can—and we should. For happiness is not going to result as a by-product of lifestyles devoted to other objectives—be they wealth, success or appearance.

What most parents want from a school is that their children learn to be happy. So I want us to take social and emotional learning seriously, as a major responsibility of schools. It should inform the whole ethos of a school with a passionate commitment to happiness and nonviolent human relationships. And it should involve a new cadre of specialist teachers in secondary schools, as missionaries for happy living.

Even quite short programmes aimed at self-understanding, and understanding others, can have striking effects. For example Martin Seligman's 18-hour "resiliency programme" is now being used with 11-year-olds in 22 schools. In random controlled trials, it has already been shown to halve depression over the following three years and to reduce bad behaviour by a third.

Of course happiness is "subjective." That is why it is so important, because nothing matters more than our inner lives. But we shall only produce better inner lives if we make a happy society our explicit goal.

Richard Layard
LSE

Phillips vs Obama 1
19th March 2008

Trevor Phillips (March) has every right to take any view he chooses of Barack Obama. But he did not present much of an argument.

If his piece intended to be primarily about America's reaction to Obama, Phillips strayed offside by supplementing the counter-intuitive prediction that Obama could postpone racial reconciliation with the claim that the candidate "probably knows this" but was cynical enough to put ruthless personal opportunism first. That would be a devastating personal indictment—if true.

Leave aside the important, if imperfect, progress made by "bargainers" from Martin Luther King Jr to Nelson Mandela. Shelby Steele's charge is that Obama never "became himself." Yet Obama's Dreams of My Father, published 13 years ago, offers a candid and moving account of his personal journey on race and identity, strongly reflected in what is perhaps the least cynical political campaign of the last three decades.

There are good reasons for Obama-scepticism. For instance, does the "unity" message appeal too much to anti-political sentiment? But Obama has challenged the idea that one election could deliver post-racial nirvana. If we viewed his candidacy less exclusively through the prism of race, we might see too that he would be more likely than any president since LBJ to use the bully pulpit to make the US think and talk about class disadvantage and the American dream.

Sunder Katwala
General Secretary, Fabian Society

Phillips vs Obama 2
28th February 2008

Trevor Phillips peddles the erroneous view that Obama is incapable of winning in majority white constituencies, presumably because his article was written before Obama's post-5th February wins across 11 diverse states.
What is surprising for many blacks of African descent like me, however, is Phillips's self-confessed indignation towards Obama, which he says derives from Obama's ancestors not having endured the brutality and experience of transatlantic slavery. It appears Phillips has no qualms about descendants of slave masters of European origin occupying the seat of power for over 200 years, but believes an African-American not descended from slaves is less deserving.

Perhaps the most disturbing reason Phillips gives for his lack of enthusiasm for Obama is the belief that "the very thing that makes him the first person of his kind has 'bound' him to failure: if he fulfils the hopes of whites, he must disappoint blacks—and vice versa." Phillips suggests that Obama is a "bargainer," presumably because he promises to bring everyone together and will not hold the past against anyone as long as they promise to behave in the future. But the implication that the hopes of whites and blacks are somehow irreconcilable and in opposition is not only wrong, it is also the politics of the past. Blacks care about health costs and availability, good quality housing, education, crime, antisocial behaviour, employment and retirement pensions just as much as whites do. We all, as individuals, elect politicians to address these issues, regardless of our race.

Ekow Nelson
Pinner, Middlesex

Does america still work?
15th March 2008

As the author of books documenting the implosion of American economic prowess in the last two decades, I have long believed that those on the other side of the argument are in acute denial. Michael Lind (February) does little to cast doubt on this. Nowhere does he address the key point: trade. America's current account deficits in 2006 and 2007 represented 6.5 and 5.4 per cent of gross domestic product. The last time any major power incurred a deficit on this scale was after 1945, when Japan, Britain and other war-devastated combatant nations incurred huge deficits as they imported American machinery to jump-start their recoveries.

The basic problem for America today is that inappropriate economic policies have resulted in destruction of American manufacturing capacity on a scale broadly similar to what other nations have suffered only at a time of war. For the US to balance its trade now, I estimate that it would have to increase its manufacturing workforce by more than 30 per cent—and virtually all the new jobs would have to be at the top end of manufacturing. In reality, America continues to haemorrhage such jobs. The question is: how can American continue to see itself as the world leader while it is has to borrow ever more massively from its fast-rising rival, China? For the record, China's current account surplus in 2007 represented 11.2 per cent of GDP, probably the strongest performance of any major nation in history.

Eamonn Fingleton
Tokyo