Well,
I have just returned from a Linguistics Colloquium in Spain, where I
gave a paper on Description Logic, at the University of Alcalà de
Henares, the place of birth of Miguel Cervantes, author of Don
Quixote. So why not talk about Quixotism or Quixoticism or perhaps
Quixotry for this week’s Issue? Not least when I have only just
come back, so having little time to prepare this paper.
Well,
in my articles on Liberalism, I was working up to the issue of the
freedom to do as one wishes, so long as nobody else suffers. This
differs from economic liberalism, which in its extreme form justifies
suffering at the altar of the market. In fact a society has to
balance the interests of survival and self-fulfilment in an
environment where one doesn’t necessarily know how much activities
freely pursued causes suffering for others.
We
might capture this uncertainty by a risk pyramid: here we show safe
risks at the bottom and the more speculative at the top. Some people
say that men are expected to take risks while women provide a more
secure environment, perhaps a source of role differentiation, for
better or worse:
Here
we can see that survival will relate to a lower level of risk than
self-fulfilment. A
right-winger may look at this and say “doesn’t this prove that
survival is more important than self-fulfilment?” Well, we might
also say that we need security for the weak and vulnerable, not just
for major investors.
But
along with Tony Blair, we know that there can be a Third Way: and
that is of course The
Quixotic Society.
This is the immediate reaction to events as you choose to see them.
And of course this is what the market economy is all about: you are
focused on the immediate equation of supply and demand, and for each
of these you are free to act according to your whim, whether this is
sound or not.
And
by satisfying the immediate need to equate supply and demand, one can
ignore how much one exhaust resources to extinction. In this regard,
windmills need not be at all risky, since they use a renewable
source.
Well,
to balance all these factors, I shall post here a flow chart which I
designed recently, which sort of marries all three considerations.
At least, sticking to the flow-chart balances survival and
self-fulfilment. And the Third Way tends to break the rule:
represented mainly by the amber, it is not a happy medium: it is OUT!
The
third choice also leads to the amber light: perhaps it is for those
who tilt at windmills knowing they are windmills. They may or may
not be Sancho Panzas.
But
it is the essence of modern conservatism (and others) to create
scapegoats. Tilting at windmills! As the great man himself said to
Sancho Panza:
“Fortune
is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished.
Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking
giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their
spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the
removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a
service God will bless.”
My
bold: in effect, Quixotic Society claims to be opposed to its enemies
and what they stand for, but perhaps it is the contrary - it
nevertheless needs them.
Martin
Prior
From Philosophy Takeaway Newsletter - 57
From Philosophy Takeaway Newsletter - 57
