Peter Cave - The Myths We Live by: Adventures in Democracy, Free Speech and Other Liberal Inventions

THE MYTHS WE LIVE BY

PETER CAVE lectures in philosophy for New York University (London) and the Open University. He is the author of numerous articles some academic and serious, others humorous and several philosophy books, including the bestseller Can a Robot Be Human? He has scripted and presented philosophy programmes for BBC Radio 4 and often appears in the media, taking part in public debates on matters of ethics, religion and politics.

First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2019 by

Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright Peter Cave, 2019

The moral right of Peter Cave to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

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Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN: 978 1 78649 520 4

E-book ISBN: 978 1 78649 521 1

Printed in Great Britain

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DEDICATED TO

those many victims of liberal and democratic myths including those victims who think they are no victims at all

Perseus wore a magic cap that the monsters he hunted down might not see him. We draw the magic cap down over eyes and ears as a make-believe that there are no monsters.

Karl Marx

This is a book about political and public hypocrisy or, more generously, political and public myths. These myths are espoused by many politicians, judges, captains of industry, commentators, religious leaders the great and the good and, more generally, by much of the population of our liberal democracies. They are myths by which they and we live. They are myths embraced by many with an unquestioning and unbridled enthusiasm.

Picture the following farm. The geese are arguing imaginatively, and with gravitas, over which sauce will go best with them once they are cooked and ready to be eaten. We may easily agree that they could be discussing a far more fundamental matter how to flee their unfortunate fate but that discussion is not on the agenda well, not in this version of the tale. Perhaps they are so deceived that they fail even to grasp the possibility of escape. Perhaps a myth holds them captive, the myth that to be eaten is how things ought to be.

The myths of our liberal societies hold us captive; they also captivate. They relate to how things are, according to some; they also relate to how well things could be, according to others. The myths apply to certain ideals as much as to what is maintained to be the reality. They are metaphorical monsters monstrous myths that need to be openly acknowledged, confronted, exposed, if there is to be any chance of slaying. Here are a few examples.

We are all equal before the law is a mantra much cloaked in praise, yet we know that its mouthing is of a myth. Some are, so to speak, more equal than others namely, those who can afford the most talented attorneys, solicitors, barristers. That, of course, ignores a further injustice: namely, how many, many people cannot afford even to gain access to the law to the courts; to justice. In 1215 King John of England issued the first Magna Carta, the Great Charter; it and subsequent versions are admired internationally as shining examples of first steps towards citizens rights. British politicians celebrate such rights, bask in their glory. Clauses 39 and 40 of the 1215 Charter, all those centuries ago, forbade the sale of justice and insisted upon due legal process yet, week after week, practices of the British legal system, government policies and wealth inequalities undermine the operation of such clauses, ensuring that the shining glory of rights is deeply tarnished.

Both the political left and political right extol aspiration, ambition and realizing talents; they are curiously quiet on how they rely on millions to be in employments that few deem aspirational: street cleaners, sewage workers, slaughterers in abattoirs the list could go on. Talk of equal opportunities continues to be fashionable, yet the ideal is as mysterious as the reality is distant.

Liberty, freedom here the terms are used interchangeably is much lauded in liberal democracies. Singing its virtues, businesses, particularly with the political right in support, worship free markets, curiously forgetting that we need money to enter those markets. Millions of people lack the money; hence they lack the freedom. Free markets do not thereby make people free; on the contrary, they can be oppressive, luring people into wanting what they cannot have or getting what they would be better off without.

Governments promoting freedom conveniently forget the adage that freedom for the pike is death for the minnows. Freedom for the wealthy to own vast private estates has meant that millions of people have had their liberty to roam much curtailed. Unfettered freedom for property developers can fragment local communities, replacing them with towers of luxurious apartments, owned not as homes but as investments; some locals remain, their sky views blocked, their green spaces destroyed, while others are moved to distant parts, maybe trekking back daily to work. Of course, untrammelled freedom for certain minnows is not that great either because others find themselves terrorized by gangs by small shoals of the alienated, alienated from society through hopelessness and that mysterious nonsense of equal opportunities for all.

In many instances, related to those above, principal claims by our leading politicians, corporate executives, commentators et al. are manifestations of straightforward hypocrisy. They know what the truth is, yet they would have us believe otherwise. With a wave at a certain US president elected in 2016, they are, we may say, trumpists. Trumpism with regard to truth has been manifested for centuries. Alternative facts are nothing new save, maybe, for the trumpeting of them as, in some way, entertaining. It should not, though, be entertaining to hear governments proclamations of their respect for all human life, while promoting arms fairs and approving the export of rocket launchers and other military equipment and expertise to the Middle East with devastating consequences for millions of innocent civilians.

The intentions of politicians, intellectuals and others are, in some cases, noble; they deceive people as a stimulus, in the hope of achieving a better world. In 2010, to secure support for his Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that would help millions of Americans, United States President Barack Obama lied, saying that, under the Act, If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. Obama was relying on public ignorance; his aim, in this instance, was the public good. Often, though, politicians deceive voters just to secure their own power. In Britains 2010 general election, the Conservative Party forcibly impressed on the electorate that the then Labour government was in some way responsible for the 2008 global financial crisis and for earlier not fixing the roof when the sun was shining. The party neglected to mention that it had supported Labours earlier spending plans, had furthermore called for greater financial deregulation and would no doubt also have had no option but to bail out the banks when the crisis hit.