Liberal environmentalism

Progressive liberal environmentalists argue that environmental legislation benefits local industry by encouraging firms to develop new technology and capture overseas markets in environmental technology.

In Growth Fetish Clive Hamilton argues that the introduction of aggressive environmental regulations by the German government have helped German firms to overtake their British competitors:

“Today, British officials publicly express regret they bowed to industry and allowed Germany to take the lead, because it is now to dislodge German pollution control firms from markets throughout the world”.

However, most developing countries do not have the same level of environmental standards as western countries. Subsequently, western countries, which impose heavy environmental regulations on their own firms, without demanding it of others, are effectively putting their own manufacturers at a disadvantage in the global market.

Unfortunately, right –liberals aren’t much help on this issue since they argue that developing countries shouldn’t have to abide by western environmental standards. With over 6 billion people in the world we can’t afford to have one set of rules for shrinking developed countries and one set for rapidly developing states like China.

This in another example how right liberalism mutates into left liberalism since liberal philosophy denies countries the right to put their own interests first.

Despite what liberal internationalists preach, we still live in a world of competing states where one country's success can come at another’s expense.

Conservative rock music

The other day I was reading an old National Review post about conservative rock songs. The idea of identifying songs as “conservative” is probably a bit dubious because it is difficult to identifies a writer’s meaning from a few lines of a song.

As far as I know, the only well known rock band that could loosely be described as 'conservative' are the The Kinks, who released a number of songs with conservative lyrics, such as their 1972 hit Lola which questions the ethics of transgender lifestyles.

Probably the Kinks most conservative album was Village Green Preservation Society, which many critics also regard as their best. A number of rock bands have fallen foul of the left wing music press from time to time, such as Gary Numan and Duran Duran in the 1980s, but it is unlikely that any had a coherent conservative philosophy.

The Canadian progressive rock band Rush was labelled “crypto-fascist” by some leftist music critics in the 1970s, but their lyrics are more right-liberal than conservative. A number of their albums have frequent references to libertarian themes and Ayn Rand literature.

In the late 1970s Rush did produce a couple of albums with some conservative lyrics- Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres. Unfortunately Rush’s music often leaves a lot to be desired, with unduly screechy guitar work and vocals that often sound like a high pitched Donald Duck imitation.

Hemispheres is about the only Rush album that reaches the artistic standards of leading early 1970s prog rock pioneers like Yes, King Crimson and Genesis.

Sports Rant

While living in the north of England I observed that Pakistani’s often tend to be temperamental, and this certainly seems to be the case in the world of cricket.

The Pakistan cricket team always seems to be getting trouble with administrators for something or another whether its ball tampering, drug taking or reacting to angry spectators. In the most recent case, all rounder Shahid Afridi is facing disciplinary action for threatening an abusive spectator with a cricket bat.

Given the middle class origins of cricket, the games administrators expect high standards of conduct and impulse control, and this seems to be a major problem for the Pakistani’s.

Another interesting aspect to the behaviour of the Pakistan team is their response to disciplinary action. They often seem unduly concerned with losing face, even when the disciplinary action taken against their players is minor.

In 2006, they refused to take the field against England rather than accept a ten run penalty for alleged ball tampering. Subsequently England, who had been behind in the game, were declared the winners and won the series 3-0.

This excessive concern with not losing face seems to be endemic among Muslims in the Middle East and South Asia and this probably adds to the instability of the region. In terms of performances, Pakistan are highly erratic and should perform much better than they do given that they have a strong and varied bowling attack. However, they often beaten by weaker, but more disciplined and tenacious teams like South Africa, and do poorly against the relentless Australians.

It seems that the hot-headed temperament that permeates Pakistani culture also seems to affect their cricket. Nether the less, Pakistan produces some very exiting players and the game would be less interesting without them.

Blog name change

I thought I'd cut down my blog title by removing the word "alternative" to make it less of a mouthful. I originally put the word "alternative" in, to make my blog stand out a bit, and to distinguish it from any other NZ blogs that might be have the world conservative in the title.

However, after 10 months of blogging I haven't come across any other NZ blogs with a traditional/empirical conservative slant.

Taking that into account, I am deciding to claim the term "conservative" for myself before any cheeky kiwi neocons think about grabbing it.

Paul Johnson's "Intellectuals"

Down at my local library I picked up a copy of Paul Johnson’s Intellectuals, which has been a real eye opener (acknowledgements to Michael Cadwallader).

Johnson’s work is a damning study of the lives of a number of leading left-wing intellectuals from the 18th Century philosopher Rousseau through to counter culture radical Lillian Hellman.

Many of these intellectuals experimented with liberal lifestyles long before they became mainstream in the late 20th Century. In almost all cases their experiments failed miserably, with the woman and children in their lives usually coming off the worst.

It is ironic that many of the great leftist intellectuals, like Marx who waxed lyrircal about emanication, were adept at exploiting woman and weren’t too keen on paying taxes or servants wages either.

Perhaps the most shockingly irresponsible intellectual covered in Johnson’s book is Rousseau, history’s first great radical intellectual, who sent four of his children to an overcrowded orphanage, knowing that they were likely to die there.

Given the damning nature of Johnson’s work from a radical liberal perspective, it is surprising that a left wing academic hasn’t tried to produce a counter study, pointing out examples of immoral behaviour by conservative intellectuals like Burke, Strauss and Oakenshott.

The fact that no such work has been forthcoming suggests that these right leaning curmudgeons aren’t necessarily the oppressive bad guys that left-wing academics would have students believe.

Double speak on race?

I’ve just been reading a popular book on evolutionary psychology, Mean Genes by Terry Burkham and Jay Phelan, which typifies the contradictory way in which a number of books on this topic deal with the issue of race and evolution.

The authors state that “Race is about as useful a distinction genetically as height” and that the assessment of race from a genetic perspective “is fraught with problems at every level”.

However, this contradicts other statements they made about particular racial groups in relation to various genetically derived traits.For example, on the topic of happiness Burkham and Phelan state: “Mood is substantially a function of personality, some people are just blessed with a positive outlook” . They also conclude that financial status is not an important factor in human happiness, stating instead that: “Happiness is a tool that our genes use to induce us towards behaviours that benefit them”.

But the author’s then point out: “African –Americans who are poorer overall, commit suicide at significantly lower rates than other Americans”.

Hence, Burkham and Phelan appear to believe that happiness is largely determined by genetics, and that African Americans are happier people than non-African Americans, yet they are unwilling to admit that race is a useful factor in explaining differences in human temperament.

Race is certainly a very controversial issue and it is understandable that Burkham and Phelan wish to be cautious about making controversial statements about racial differences. However, in that case the author’s should say something like:

“At this stage the verdict is still out on whether there are significant differences between races in areas like temperament, some studies suggest their may be important differences, but more studies need to done”.

Instead, they seem to be officially denying that race is significant, while privating thinking that it is important. It the authors were more honest and objective about race then I would be less likely to question their integrity. However, I am now left thinking that these guys have something to hide about race.