Peter Hitchens's Blog, page 294

The Millican Tendency

Professor Millican, having accurately summarised my position, and confirmed with me that his summary is accurate,  has now posted his response to it. ( It appears on ‘The Quieter Millican’, a title that seems to have failed to amuse my readers, or even catch their attention. Think of Graham Greene, and of Saigon)

 

Here I reply to Professor Millican’s contribution ( as before) by interleaving my responses with the original and marking them ***. Even if you haven’t seen the original, its full operative text (shorn of some greetings) is here.

 

The Professor begins: ‘Here are the two principles that you said accurately reflected your position: 1. That assent to God is something so important that one has to decide "yea" or "nay", even in the absence of sufficient evidence to determine a reasoned answer. 2. That the evidence for and against God is so "subjective" and unmeasurable "in any independent, objective way" that no reasoned answer is possible.’

 

***Once again, I accept this as a summary of my position,  though I am uncomfortable with the idea that the choice which then follows is unconnected with reason. It just doesn’t claim that reason *dictates* the choice. Reason leads us *to* the choice, and helps us to make it. But the decisive element in the choice is our preference. And the preference concerns the nature of the universe in which we live.

 

The Professor :’ So let's take quick look at each of them. First, 1 seems to suggest that the more important a question is, the more a decision is required even in the absence of evidence’.

 

***No. It doesn’t, so far as I know, apply in any other matter.  It is unique and specific. The question of the existence of God is uniquely important, because of the implications of the answer we give to it to the way in which we subsequently live and die.  I can think of no other question which begins to approach it in importance.

 

The Professor :’ I don't find this convincing; on the contrary, I would generally say that the more important a *theoretical* question is, the more it deserves deep investigation and suspension of judgement while evidence remains inadequate. I suspect you would respond to this that belief in God is an intensely important *practical* issue, and hence that a decision is required *to inform behaviour*, perhaps analogous to the situation in a burning building, when there is no time to weigh up carefully which escape route is best, but it's vital to make a choice one way or the other, and to do so urgently. It would be interesting to know if this would indeed be your response.’

 

***My response to this is ‘close, but not exactly right’.  Even if we had eternity to decide the question on proof, we never could . It is not speed that is required, just a decision. If we wait for proof, we will never get it in this life. So we have to decide without proof. Even if we claim to be agnostic, we will live as if one answer or the other is true. But apart from the lack of time (unless you count an entire lifetime as analogous to the time allowed to escape from a burning building, which I would not), this is more or less my position. The question is too important to be ignored. Even if we claim to ignore it with our mouths, we shall act upon it through our hands. Also, you can investigate a subject deeply, and find no proof , only evidence (this difference between poof and evidence is important and will recur later) . My view does not suggest a shallow or thoughtless decision.  

 

The professor :  ‘Regarding 2, I do not understand why you would think that the evidence for and against God is any more "subjective" than evidence for many other things in life.’

***I am afraid that inability to understand seems to me to be a bit obtuse. I think he understands it, but rejects it.  But because he does not wish to discuss the reasons for his rejection, he says he does not understand it.  It seems quite clear. For me, for instance, every daybreak is evidence of the existence of God, as is the plumage of the Goldfinch and the profound yet simple ingenuity of the apple or the egg, or of the miraculous substance we call ‘water’ and take so much for granted. I could go on for pages. But I will leave it at that.

 

As an unbeliever, he quite correctly and reasonably regards my joy and wonder at these things as part of a circular self-affirming process, in which I see the  unity, complexity and intricacy of the universe as powerful evidence of a benign Creator.  But he is unwilling to say so. This is because, if he did say so, he would have in all fairness have to accept that his own explanations of these things are, likewise, part of a circular self-affirming process, in which he – bafflingly to me, though I accept that it is the case that he thinks this  – regards the beauty, unity, complexity and intricacy of the universe as powerful  evidence of a capricious cosmic train crash, without meaning or significance, which might just as easily never have happened. What he and all dogmatic unbelievers  absolutely sheer away from is any step which would allow them to be modest enough to admit that their belief (like mine) is just that, a belief, not a demonstrable truth before which others must bow. As he is obviously very intelligent, this can only be explained (like most refusals to see the blindingly obvious) by his strong desire that this should be so. The cleverer people are, the better they are at concealing such things from themselves.

 

So we can never discuss this desire. It must not be acknowledged. It is the sacred mystery of the unbeliever. At every point in the road where we might turn towards this issue, the unbeliever erects a sturdy roadblock, insisting that reason dictates unbelief, and it is not therefore a choice; and he did not therefore choose it; so his motives for choosing it do not exist and cannot be discussed.  We had this here before from a contributor who called himself Mr Bunker. He wasn’t half as clever as the professor, but his resistance to this subject was just the same.

 

 

The Professor continues :’Lots of things require judgements that cannot be precisely quantified, but in which nevertheless we recognise that some people have special expertise (usually gained over a long period of relevant experience). Indeed it is often precisely *because* the decisions are not reducible to objective measurement that we specially value expert judgement. Thus lack of precise "objective" measurement is no obstacle to the application of rational judgement; nor to the recognition that some answers are better warranted than others.

 

***I got lost half way through this.  Where is ‘special expertise’ involved in the discussion of God’s existence?  Great Scientists and Great Philosophers, equipped either with superior knowledge or superior skills at thought  have over many centuries taken both sides in the quarrel. What sort of judgements are we talking about? In what way are they comparable to the choice between God and No God?  Surely we revere experts because they *know* more than we do, and understand that if we *knew* as much as they did, we would share their judgements.  But the currency of *knowledge*, essential among all experts from plumbers to brain surgeons, is not available in this discussion. There simply isn’t any knowledge. And we cannot even agree about what constitutes evidence.

 

 

The professor again :’A second point concerns the alleged lack of objective evidence in the God case. Suppose I visit a stately home which has two gardens, each tended by a different gardener. I know nothing about these gardeners, except that they are called Josh and Meph, and that Josh is a slightly better gardener than Meph. Because there is little to choose between them, it is not likely that I will be able to tell, just by looking at the gardens, which of them is tended by which of the gardeners. But now suppose I learn that Josh and Meph are fantastically different in quality: Josh is the best gardener in the entire world, while Meph is the worst. Now I *would* expect to be able to tell easily which of them tends which garden: Josh's supreme excellence as a gardener would surely leave clear traces in his own garden (and likewise for Meph's appallingness). Hence in so far as it is hard to tell how good a garden is, that very lack of manifest quality tells against the supposition that it is tended by a brilliant gardener (or by an appalling one). Now suppose that the gardener is supposed to be *infinitely* wonderful: it is surely incredible that he would produce a garden so unimpressive that its apparent quality was equally consistent with being created by a mediocre gardener.

 

***Once again I’m lost. We have only the one universe, not a first created by a benign God, and a second next door which happened by accident. As we lack omniscience, and are still floundering on the shores of knowledge and understanding of that universe, we would be wise to be modest about concluding whether any aspects of that universe are certainly good, bad, pointless etc. A brief history of medical practice tells us just how wrong we can be about things which appear obvious to us, but turn out to have meanings and purposes we have not yet guessed at. Note also the claim that 'evidence' rather than 'proof' is under discussion. We have  evidence. But we do not have proof. Nor does he. We must avoid this confusion if we are to get any further.

 

The Professor resumes :’A third point concerns a tension between 1 and 2. In so far as you see the God question as urgent practically, this is apparently because you draw important practical consequences from the relevant beliefs (e.g. wanting to avoid hellfire).

 

***Personally I view it as matter of seeking, wherever possible, to discover the good, and to follow it. I am more interested in the purpose of such deterrents than in the deterrents themselves. But that’s just an obiter dictum.

 

The Professor again :’But if you are highly sceptical about our ability to draw empirical consequences from theism (and hence to discover predictions which could confirm or disconfirm the theory - the view you appear to espouse), you should apparently be equally sceptical about practical consequences.’

 

***Well, of course I am. I doubt everything. It’s in my nature (to me, a fact that’s more interesting than it is to him) . That is why I have to discipline myself into choosing and continuing, as far as is possible for fallen man, to live according to my choice. I don’t and can’t know. I am left with faith.  That’s why it’s called the Christian Faith.

 

The Professor :’ Hence it is hard to combine your view that there is no rationally significant evidence for or against theism, with your view that it is vital to make a decision on the matter in line with what we apprehend to be theism's practical consequences.’

 

***Here we go again, slipping ‘evidence’ in as a synonym for proof. Oncer again, there is plenty of evidence, but no proof.  This  comes into every atheist argument at some point, just as King Charles’s Head would get into all Mr Dick’s writings in ‘David Copperfield’ . I have to discount every sentence in which this confusion is made, and the professor really ought to know better. He pleads shortage of sleep, so I’ll let him off, but really, he must try harder to avoid what is either a mistake or a sort of ‘find the lady’ switcheroo.  There is a great cloud of rationally significant  evidence for the existence of God, to which his mind (which has excluded the possibility of God from the start)  is firmly shut, because he has himself shut it. There is not, however, absolute proof.

 

The Professor concludes :’I'm in need of sleep, so that will have to do for now. I suspect that we're heading towards Pascal's Wager!’

 

***He may head that way if he wishes. Pascal’s wager is for utter cynics, who have passed by beauty, poetry and glory and felt nothing.  I have never offered it to anyone.

Sinking into the Sofa

I am reduced to a slow-moving caricature of my normal fairly energetic self by a particularly filthy cold and a stiff neck. But I am also  beguiled by the beautiful misty winter afternoons,  which recall Priestley’s description of the ‘Smoky Gold’ of the light in pre-1914 Bradford. I feel, as I do at this season very much in touch with the past  what I most want to do is to sink into the sofa cushions in a lamplit room and read, preferably one of those enormous, thick novels that I have read before , its pages softened by use (but not too recently) and which promises to keep me company for many days.

 

But, thanks to my own vanity, I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.  After the full-scale debate at Oxford last week (of which a little more later, though not about Professor Millican, whose hypersensitivity I fear to wake again), I had agreed to talk to the Warwick University student Tory association, and debate cannabis (almost the last of these) against  Tim Wilkinson.

 

 

Warwick University is closer to Coventry than to anywhere else , but being one of the Robbins plateglass universities of the 1960s (most of which were in agreeable , picturesque Cathedral cities), it preferred to take its name from ancient Warwick, whose tremendous church is almost of Cathedral standard, and whose name echoes through English History, as that of Coventry doesn’t quite.

 

So, it being my day off, I thought I would make a day of it and take another look at Coventry, a city I lived in for six short but rather intense and (at the end) troublesome months in 1976. One reader here takes issue with my description of it as sad. I am not sure why. I have been led to believe that Coventry before 1940 was a hauntingly lovely mediaeval city of ‘Guildhalls and carved choirs’ as Philip Larkin, who grew up there, might have put it, of half-timbered houses leaning over narrow streets, of warm red sandstone. It certainly isn’t that now, and there’s been a long debate over whose fault that is. Most people, who have heard of the terrible German bombing of the city in 1940, blame the Luftwaffe. But others, in Coventry, will tell you that much of the ancient city either survived the bombing, or was recoverable. But it wasn’t recovered. It was swept away for a shiny new plan (‘I have a Vision of the Future, Chum’, as John Betjeman put it).

 

Certainly there’s an interesting contrast between Coventry - now an almost entirely modern place with a few islands of the old - and Nuremberg, with which it was often compared before the war and which was even more ferociously bombed by the RAF than Coventry was by the Luftwaffe. Nuremberg is obviously not what it was. You have to go to the miraculously unspoiled city of Bamberg to get an idea of what was lost, and indeed to weep for the loss of so much beauty in Germany as a whole. But a considerable effort has been made to retain and rebuild the former character and pattern of the old town.

 

Coventry, by contrast, is blighted by those dogmas of English post-war planning - the scything ring-road, destroying all continuity between the heart and the limbs of the place,  and the pedestrian shopping precinct, which looks as if it has been lowered from a not particularly enlightened or architecturally advanced planet on top of what was there before.  This creates extraordinary, jarring stark borderlines between the new and the old. Where there is anything old, it is concentrated in a tiny museum-like zone.

 

When I first knew Coventry, it was, even so, a pretty cheerful place. We thought we lived in modern times. We didn’t realise than that we were at the end of an old era, and the approaching world (in which we now live) would regard our way of life as absurd. Coventry in 1976 was a proud manufacturing city, where men made things and earned good wages for that.  People still lived in married families and brought up their own children. It had an almost American feel of prosperity. Its clean, efficient electric trains (then quite rare in Britain) were still a sign of optimism and modernity.

 

Now the shopping centre is full of pound shops and horrible establishments offering ‘pay-day loans’,  that modern curse. The pleasant suburban road where I rented a bedsit, in the enjoyably mixed suburb of Earsldon, looked considerably shabbier than it did when I lived there. And of course the old-fashioned grocery, with its urn-shaped coffee grinder and bacon-slicer, had vanished to the Grocery Valhalla where all such shops have gone.  And in the centre there were the  all-day bars with their unlovely clientele,  supervised feebly, if at all,  by Community Support Officers, and promising much worse to come after nightfall.

 

I visited, out of a sort of duty, the Basil Spence cathedral. This has always had a melancholy effect on me because I remember so well the fuss that was made when it was being built, and after it opened. It dates from the ‘New Elizabethan’ optimism of the years just before and after I was born, and was a focus of some national excitement during my childhood, so it makes me feel my age  -as does the Russian Foreign Ministry on Smolenskaya Ploshchad in Moscow, which proudly carries the date of its opening, the year of my birth, 1951. The last time I was there, it looked as if it had weathered the years a bit better than I have. But I digress.

 

I cannot like Sir Basil Spence’s architecture. I think that anyone building an English cathedral should so as they did in Liverpool (the Anglican one) , or at St John the Divine in New York, or at the National Cathedral in Washington DC. There is one pattern, and it will always work, and always endure. But it was part of the conceit of the 1950s that we could begin the world over again, and did not need to be bound by silly old rules. Almost the only wholly good thing is that the glorious local stone, a tawny red sandstone, is used for the exterior. Otherwise it would just look rather like the Festival Hall.  The glass is, well, modern. Of course it’s preferable to a shopping centre, but it has no real relation to the long tradition of English stained glass, full of scriptural detail,  still surviving at York Minster, at Fairford  and at King’s College Chapel in Cambridge.

 

The building is large but has little atmosphere, and the city seems to turn its back on it – the day I went,  skateboarders were crashing around on the flagstones just outside the East Door (which in modern Coventry is of course not in the East, but the North) .  I bet a lot of modern clergymen are sorry that the great Biblical passages , carved on huge blocks of stone, were done when the Authorised Version was still in use. How they must dislike this reminder of the poetry they have so furiously and zealously extirpated.

 

The words ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls’  would once have set off a great throbbing burst of music in the head of any Englishman or Englishwoman, because they form one of the greatest passages in Handel’s ‘Messiah’. Now, I suppose they just baffle the few puzzled tourists, who have been told this is a great building and visit it. Some years ago, I attended Choral Evensong in its chilly, modern space. Somehow, it seemed uncomfortable and out of place, transplanted from elsewhere.

 

I walked out across the ring road, past Philip Larkin’s old school (now of course private) through the suburbs, across a golf course and a curious remnant of countryside, until I reached the university, a City of Youth out beyond the places where semi-detached suburban folk dwell.

 

And it was a very pleasant experience, a full room, not too big and an interested audience with a sense of humour, not all by any means friendly. There’s an account of the occasion here, though I must stress that I would never use the word ‘toilet’ in a public speech .  I might resort to it in places where asking for the ‘lavatory’ would be a class issue, but otherwise I would be too scared of my mother’s ghost to utter those hated syllables. She didn’t think Nancy Mitford’s ‘Noblesse Oblige’ was a joke at all, or John Betjeman’s  sneering verse ‘Phone for the fish-knives, Norman’. These for those of you fortunate enough to have been born too late, were the  essential texts of lower-upper-middle-class snobbery of the early sixties. I’m still amazed (and amused) that so many people simply don’t care about distinctions that were considered decisive in my boyhood.

 

There’s a brief independent account of the occasion here

 

http://theboar.org/news/2012/nov/15/peter-hitchens-gives-talk-warwick/

 

As I struggled homewards on a delayed train (they all are at this time of year) , I pondered on a novel I had recently been persuaded to read, Jane Gardam’s ‘Old Filth’, whose central characters are a distinguished lawyer and his wife, neither of them wholly what they seem to be. I hadn’t read anything of hers before, and it was certainly a memorable, well-crafted and interesting study of several lives, and in particular of the awful privations and ordeals of the children of the Empire, parted from their parents at incredibly early ages and damaged for ever afterwards. But the thing which stuck in my mind was the description of a 1940 winter train journey from the North of England to Oxford ( along some of the route I took from Coventry that evening).

 

I had never before read a depiction of post-Dunkirk England that was so unsparing. It really did sound like a bankrupt, militarily defeated country whose last Gold Reserves had just been shipped off to America (which they had been ). The trains unheated and hopelessly crowded, with the , er, toilets, disgusting with overflow,  and besieged by desperate passengers waiting their turn in awful public discomfort, the station signs crudely painted out to confuse the Wehrmacht,  but really only confusing us, and ( an amazing detail this) the drawers of the empty chocolate vending machines and cigarette vending machines (which I remember as a feature of the railways of childhood) hanging out as if they had been plundered. It actually sounded much more like an invaded, pillaged and occupied country than like Britain Standing Alone. A bit, in fact, like the Eastern Europe I first encountered more than 30 years ago.

 

Perhaps these thoughts are intensified by my other current reading ( which I shall return to at length when I have finished). This deals with an era we tend to regard as one of more-or-less cosy post-war recovery. Not for  everyone, it wasn’t. The great new historical breakthrough of the season is the bitterly-titled ‘Orderly and Humane’ by R.M.Douglas . It is, as far as I know,  the first work in English to address fully the great guilty secret of World War Two – namely that it ended with the savage, bloody and cruel expulsion of millions of German citizens, mostly innocent civilians,  from their ancestral homes, an act of politically convenient ethnic cleansing and crude revenge that must number among the greatest crimes of our times or any.

 

The words ‘orderly and humane’ featured in the Potsdam Declaration which set the horror in motion, though Mr Douglas shows clearly that its progenitors knew perfectly well, before they launched it, that it would be neither orderly nor humane. Any reader of this cold, judicial account will be engulfed in a mixture of rage and pity.

 

Of course, anyone who raises this topic has in the past tended to be accused (as are  critics of the Harris policy of deliberately bombing German civilians in their homes) as National Socialist apologists or Holocaust deniers. Well, the accusation is false, and enough time has passed for us to acknowledge this wrong, or we shall learn nothing. But if what is set out here is true the need for a total re-evaluation of our belief in a ‘Good War’ is stronger than ever. Especially as Mr Slippery seems to be trying to get us into another war of benevolence in Syria.

 

Wednesday night’s London debate (I’ve posted an independent account elsewhere, and would be happy to post others)  was an unusual; experience for me  in that the audience largely supported me on the drug issue. How ‘typical’ this is I have no idea. Either way it was perhaps a little unfair on my opponent, who may not have shone as much as he would have done if he’d felt he had more of a home crowd. I won the vote at the beginning and the end, and few minds can have been changed. I’d only say that this couldn’t have happened if my side didn’t at least possess a coherent moral and political case.

 

One other thing. One of my opponents at the Oxford Union last week, Michael Shermer (or someone claiming to be him) has said on Twitter that ‘Peter Hitchens's argument for God was to attack me as "the most obnoxious irritating person I have ever met" and accuse atheists of amorality.’

 

Of course that’s not quite right. The person I condemned in these terms was my own adolescent self. I said Mr Shermer and his ally reminded me of that adolescent self. This was partly the truth and partly a joke, and was recognised as such by the audience.  Mr Shermer’s version leaves that out. I think the point is subtly but definitely different, and it is naughty of Mr Shermer to give what I think is a misleading impression. I understand that Twitter has character limits. Well, if you can’t give an accurate account within those limits, then don’t Tweet in the first place.  There’s no need to accuse atheists of amorality. It’s axiomatic that they are amoral, since they don’t believe in morals, which as I understand it are absolute and religiously defined. They believe only in situational ethics and evolutionary advantage. 

An Interesting Reflection on 'Addiction'

 

This interesting article on ‘addiction’ was drawn to my attention, and discusses many of the points which have been aired here in the past.

 

http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/2012/11/12/why-addiction-is-not-a-brain-disease/

 

The Fourth Epistle to the Millicans

My apologies for neglecting this debate. I was travelling yesterday, to and from the sad city of Coventry and to and from a meeting at the University of Warwick about which I might write a little, later.

 

Here beginneth my Fourth Epistle to the Millicans. Once again it takes the form of a direct rebuttal of the professor’s contributions here, opening with his words. My responses are marked:

 

 

The professor -who has earlier suggested that I have employed ‘invective’ against him  now complains:’ It is immensely frustrating to see such a lot of "noise" in this debate arising from the faux-indignation of those who want to complain about the alleged manner in which something has been said, rather than genuinely addressing the logic of the arguments. When Anselm put forward his Ontological Argument, his fellow-monk Gaunilo criticised it by parody, with an argument for a "most excellent" island.’

 

 

*** Let me try a metaphorical description. He and I (with our rag-tag armies) are both standing on low grassy elevations,  are warily contemplating each other across a boggy and dubious patch of ground, the kind Eeyore might have lived in. He invites me into combat by declaring that my position is logically ludicrous, and his is therefore right. Actually, the only force he can deploy in this argument is his own prejudiced opinion versus my own prejudiced opinion, which excludes any evidence for God before it can be considered, and claims, on no independently testable authority, that the weight of probability lies on his side.

 

This is irritating and provocative, especially as it is larded with implicit suggestions that I’m not quite right in the head, but that’s all in the way of business.  I thumb my nose for a moment, just to let him know I’m neither fooled nor subservient. Not wanting to lead my troops into the bog between us, I then call back . ‘Please, believe what you like. I’ll do the same. Neither of us can prove his case. I can see no point in plunging into yonder quagmire, or Slough of Despond, out of which none ever emerges again. If you look carefully, you can still see the great bubbles and disturbance caused by the many thousands who have blundered into this quarrel over the centuries. You can also see that many tracks lead into the mire, but none emerges from it.

 

I’m staying out , and I advise you to do likewise. I’ve *chosen* this side.  That’s why I’m here and not with you. You’ve *chosen* that one. Our weapons are of no avail in there. Neither of us can win.  All I ask of you is to reciprocate – concede that you don’t know the answer for certain. The argument is elsewhere, and lies in our choices about what sort of universe we wish to inhabit, and how we wish to live our lives. If you want a fight, I’ll fight you there on dry land, where our weapons, of fact and logic can be deployed.

 

 

The Professor notes that ‘When Descartes presented his own version of the Argument, Gassendi parodied it with an argument for a "perfect Pegasus". This is absolutely standard philosophical fare: if you think some form of argument is invalid, you illustrate that invalidity by a parallel argument for a ridiculous conclusion. Neither Anselm nor Descartes was offended - indeed they both published the response together with their original text. Likewise, when PH seems to imply that "God exists" - since it is neither provably true nor provably false - must therefore be a matter of choice, it is *entirely* appropriate to point out the fallacy of this argumentative move by pointing out an instance it which it would lead to a crazy result (e.g. that on these principles, belief in invisible Martians would become a matter of choice). That is a perfectly logical move,’

 

***Well, no, it isn’t. Why not? Because I have not deployed my argument as a proof.  I have no proof. There is no such thing in this argument. I have deployed my argument as a reasonable and instructed person’s explanation of his inability to know the answer to what is to me the most important question facing the human mind – namely, is there a God?  I couldn’t care less if there are invisible aliens on Mars, and the subject is of no interest to me at all. Nor is it to the professor

 

The question of God’s existence or non-existence also important to the professor (though perhaps not as important as it is to me, we may yet find out). He publicly espoused one side of it at Oxford last week. Then he came here to argue about it.  The importance of the question, set against the unknowability of the answer, requires us to be honest about our limitations. Both of us can convince ourselves. Neither can convince the other. But what one begins to detect here is a strong sense that Professor Millican doesn’t like that arrangement. He doesn’t like my refusal to accept his version of the cosmos. He wants to do something about it, whether I wish to be persuaded or not. Hence his honeyed invitations to join him in the swamp.

 

I have no such impulse. While I’m subject to Christ’s Great Commission, to bring all mankind to the Christian faith, I can see that Professor Millican is way beyond my powers. I have written elsewhere that case for faith is made far better in poetry than in prose, and that some people have bricked themselves up in strong towers of unbelief, which have no doors or windows through which we can speak to their occupants (or prisoners)  only arrow-slits through which they can hurl fiery darts at us.

 

If he is to consider (or in his case reconsider) the possibility that God exists , then he will have to *want* to reconsider it. At present, he really doesn’t want to do so, and I can’t change that. I might change that if only I could tempt him away from the ground where he is comfortable.

 

But I don’t offer a claggy, squelching doomed battle in a swamp. I offer a reasoned discussion about what is better and what is worse, about the merits of an ordered and purposeful universe, versus a meaningless, abrupt chaos where nothing has any purpose  beyond its immediate effect. I think the professor is nervous of such a  discussion. Because I think he knows perfectly well what it is about, as ( I keep saying this ) do all honest atheists.

 

 

The professor continues ‘and I wish that we could now focus on the logic of the position, instead of getting hung up on the spirit in which something has been said. Complaining at one's opponents' manner is a classic method of avoiding facing up to the logic of their arguments.’

 

***Oh, by all means. I’m not going to bother to argue any more about who’s been ruder, though am happy to resume this at a later stage if he wants.

 

 

The professor then makes this interesting and rewarding offer    

 

‘ I remain interested to continue a focused debate if you wish to respond (preferably briefly) to the question raised at the end of my previous contribution: "To come now to the nub of the matter, you make two points towards the end of your piece that are potentially important, and which appear - if they are accepted - to support your position quite strongly. Here is my attempt to summarise them: 1. That assent to God is something so important that one has to decide "yea" or "nay", even in the absence of sufficient evidence to determine a reasoned answer. 2. That the evidence for and against God is so "subjective" and unmeasurable "in any independent, objective way" that no reasoned answer is possible. It would be interesting to discuss these two points further ... so perhaps you could respond if you are happy for this discussion to go on, telling me whether my summaries of 1 and 2 here are more or less accurate." ‘

 

***That’s easy. The summaries are entirely accurate. His move.

The Quieter Millican

Oh, and there I was thinking we had got somewhere. Professor Millican presented what I regarded as an accurate summary of my position. I said (in 'the Fourth Epistle to the Millicans' that I accepted this as a basis for further argument. Yet, unless I have missed something (and it is a quarter to eleven on Thursday morning) , the Professor has not yet addressed the points he so concisely set out.

I shall simply ignore any more stuff about Martians, visible or invisble, as silly, giggly Senior Common Room stuff of the sort that put me off academic philosophy 40-odd years ago. It's not interesting. It's not serious. It's not the point. It' a sort of Scrabble for people who think they are cleverer than other people, and it invariably chews more than it bites off.

The questions which are open to reasoned discussion between opposing camps (without tickle-minded mockery or claims of rectitude)  are these : are 'Are we free to believe or disbelieve in God?' and 'Why do we choose what we do choose?'

 

The first question must be settled first. Except that it often cannot be, because so many of the modern materialists are filled with a rage against God.  Many of the 'new Atheists' (I examine this in the book which I have sent to Professor Millican) take the view that the matter is closed.Several of them are profoundly intolerant of, and angered by,  religious expression and unashamedly state that they wish to limit it . With such people there is no possibility of a reasonable discussion. That is why I said at the start fo my speechin oxford lastw eek that 'I hate this debate'.

But if we can agree that the matter is a free choice, we may then have the only debate that is of any interest, namely 'Why do we believe what we believe?'. I believe many if not most atheists are fundamentally ashamed of, or uncomfortable, about the impulses which drive them to unbelief, or fear that if their belief becomes general, they will themselves suffer at its hands. They will erect a Maginot Line of distracting arguments to avoid this discussion.

 

That is why almost all the 'debates' between anti-theists and believers over the past decade have turned out to be sterile, gladiatorial contests in which 'victory' is assured by the most bullying manner.

 

I will here provide the definition of God set out by my own Church, in the first of the Thirty-Nine Articles, in case it is helpful to anyone :'There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom and goodness; The maker and preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be three persons of one substance, power and eternity; the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost'.

 

 

 

 

Last Night's Cannabis Debate - an Independent Account

I'll perhaps say a few words later about my Wednesday night debate with Tim Wilkinson, which dealt with the immorality of cannabis, and the need to use the law to reduce its use. In the meantime, here is an independent account of the evening for anyone interested.

 

http://bensix.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/on-drugs-on-the-train/

 

 

 

 

More (Former) Cannabis Users Tell How this Drug Damaged Them - plus a debate and an interview

A final reminder here of my debate in London this evening (Wednesday 14th November 2012) about cannabis, details of which can be found here:

http://surelysomemistake.blogspot.co.uk/

I believe a few tickets are still available.

Also here is a link to an interview I recently gave to the ‘American Spectator’ on the drugs issue:

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/11/13/the-straight-dope-a-telephone

 

As background to both, two more readers have written to me about their experiences of cannabis. In the first place the source is known to me:

 

‘I can tell you from direct experience and am under absolutely no doubt that cannabis causes mental health problems.

During a period of unemployment in my late teens and early twenties and prior to a return to full time education I smoked cannabis for around five years.  At the time I was living in the South Wales valleys, an area of high unemployment and high drug use. During those years an individual who didn't take drugs was seen as some sort of pariah. The valleys in those years during the early 1990's had a very strong drug/cannabis culture. 

I first tried cannabis in the late 1980's but began smoking it full time in 1991 when I was 19 years old. Over the five years I smoked cannabis on a daily basis I became withdrawn and reclusive. I experienced symptoms of agoraphobia, memory loss and paranoia. Although these symptoms were acutely felt I belonged to a group (a large group) of people who felt the same. This sadly 'normalised' the symptoms and lessened their apparent severity.

 

If an individual happened to be among friends when particular symptoms were being acutely experienced the sufferer would be described as 'having a wobbler'.

 

When I look back it seems incredible. We all accepted that we were not mentally well but it didn't seem to matter.

After around four years of cannabis use I was clearly aware that I would get nowhere in life smoking it. I also knew that without a return to education my chances of getting a job were zero. But unless I kicked the cannabis habit there was no way that I was going to be able to study. my memory was non-existent. as was my powers of concentration.It took me two years to properly kick the habit and smoked my last joint in 1997.

 

I moved from the valleys,  which helped me break away from the group of users I belonged to but eventually moved back to Wales and embarked upon full time education. Over those year of full time study I worked  on a number of Psychiatric wards  and regularly came into contact with sufferers of long term psychiatric problems who freely admitted that their use of cannabis significantly contributed to their ill health.

 

I then completed a first and second degree. My studies included working with a clinical team consisting of a number of Psychiatrists and Psychologists who specialised in treating patients with Personality Disorders. Again nearly all the patients I researched and who formed part of my clinical analysis in my thesis admitted that cannabis had a part to play in their deteriorated mental health.

 

I look upon those who think that Cannabis is harmless as woefully naive.  As to whether cannabis has done me any lasting damage, the answer is both yes and no,  if that makes sense. My memory, powers of concentration etc. have returned to a healthy level and I no longer experience agoraphobia or paranoia -  but I believe that I was lucky to have kicked the habit when I was still relatively young; 26 years of age at the time. I am 41 this month.

 

The lasting damage lies in the fact that my life was virtually on-hold during the cannabis years. When smoking cannabis on a daily basis I feel that an individual cannot grow and mature. So the lasting damage is that the person is set back, or behind in life.

The longer an individual takes cannabis to the extent it prevents them looking for work then the longer they are cognitively, emotionally and socially set back.

 

I think a point is reached however where an individual's position is irrecoverable. I believe that if an individual smokes cannabis long enough their personality changes to the extent where temporary states of paranoia, poor memory and agoraphobia (plus other symptoms) become more permanent trait type features. I see old friends I knew over 20 years ago who have literally done nothing since those days except collect their unemployment or disability benefit every two weeks and spend every day smoking cannabis.

 

It is as if they have never grown up and moved on in life. They have physically aged but their lives are the same as they were when they started smoking cannabis. Their personalities seem to also be on-hold, as does their cognitive development. 

I can't see any of the people I know who still smoke cannabis and have done so since I first started,  ever recovering and making something of themselves.They have become entrenched in their ways.

 

But more often than not cannabis leads to the use of other drugs. The reason that happen is because the cannabis dealer can't make enough money from selling only cannabis so he often also deals in other drugs depending on their availability. So if an individual visits their dealer intent on buying cannabis they can't help but be exposed to other drugs purely because they are present at the dealer's house.

 

Within the culture I experienced there would be those who would use cannabis plus those who would use cannabis and something else. Often 'something else' would be either amphetamines, or LSD. The latter was always very uncommon,  as was Cocaine.

 

During the mid 1990s Heroin use exploded in the South Wales Valleys as well,  so I saw many (and I do mean many) people start taking heroin, swearing that they would never inject. Most went on to do just that. Those who went down the heroin road formed their own subculture within our subculture. Many eventually died and some committed suicide.

 

To use some sort of analogy the drug culture that grew in the South Wales Valleys in the early 1990s is like a hole with steps that lead deeper and deeper. Cannabis is the top step into the hole whilst Amphetamine, LSD and Magic Mushrooms can be seen as the second step that takes you a bit deeper. The third step is heroin. Everybody took the first step. Many took the second step. Some took the third. Those who took the third step usually didn't come back out of the hole. Anybody who ventured onto step 2 often didn't come back out even though quite a few did. Anybody on step one had a chance of recovery if they didn't linger.

 

I could tell you a very great deal about what I have experienced. I am a firm believer that we should be very, very firm with our approach to drug use. We need much tougher penalties for possession and we need to be very severe for the offence of drug dealing. Those who deal drugs usually do so for the money. All the dealers I knew did it for no other reason.

They would work out how much drugs they needed to sell to make a certain amount of money before being 'busted' and going to jail. Often their rationale was that they could afford the risk because they would make enough money in the period they dealt the drugs to merit a spell in prison, safe in the knowledge that they had a large amount of money stashed upon their release.

 

I was around 15 when I first tried it but I was 19 when I started using it daily. But it was literally an overnight phenomenon. I went from hardly using it at all to smoking it daily. I did that until I was 24 and then spent about a year or so trying to stop. I finally stopped completely when I was 25. Just short of my 26th birthday.

 

I must admit that I feel lucky too. Lucky that I found a way out. But it’s about choice I believe. An individual must want more than 'their perceived lot'. The most frightening thing of all was the thought that I could be stuck jobless without any prospects in my home town and never get out. That fear drove me forwards and a few lucky breaks and will power got me out of the mess I was in.'

 

And this

The second account (in which the emphases are the author’s not mine) comes from an anonymous correspondent, who wrote : ‘The reason I am writing to you is to add the story of my disastrous contact with marijuana to the many I’m sure you’ve already heard.

 

‘I started taking the drug in my gap year, before going up to university. Certain aspects of my life were already troubling me at that point, but the marijuana quickly sent me into a kind of free-fall that ended in a horrible psychosis that took about two years out of my life; badly incapacitated me mentally so that to this day I cannot process information quickly (an aspect of schizophrenia called thought-blocking) and experience thought-poverty and emotional flatness; left me needing anti-psychotic medication, without which I cannot sleep , and which makes me depressingly overweight; and generally made me unrecognisable from the person I was before I started taking it.

 

‘Looking back, I find myself gasping at how dangerous I was, to myself and to others, while on the drug, taking one selfish decision after another while almost unconscious of what I was doing. In the ensuing decade  I have crawled slowly towards recovery, with the help of professionals and friends, though I will always wonder what I could have achieved if I had steered clear of the drug.

 

‘In particular I wanted to say two things, both relating to the actual nature of psychosis. First, when I was taking marijuana I would have bad trips, but I also had this creeping feeling that something terrible was going to happen. But what? Surely this was just my imagination?. Not knowing what psychosis was, or that marijuana could cause it, and not caring, I dismissed this feeling as paranoia. Though many people taking the drug will have heard about this ‘psychosis’, I believe that if they really knew just what ‘it’ was and seriously considered that they might experience it, I’m sure they wouldn’t be so blasé.

 

‘Which brings me to my second point. It is incredibly hard to describe psychosis. I remember lying down on a bed, I don’t know for how log –it could have been seconds or hours. It was *literally* like having my mind torn apart, like being made to believe two and two were five. It was just unbelievably horrible.

 

Afterwards, it just seemed like my life was over. I really feel there should be more attempts made in discussion of this subject, to educate people about psychosis. But also there is no doubt in my mind that my psychosis was prompted by marijuana, for the simple reason that the experience of it and leading up to it was *almost exactly the same as a marijuana trip*.

 

I had actually gone without the substance for around three months, and then took it about a week before my breakdown, and had the most disturbing trip I had ever experienced; there is no doubt in my mind that when, a week later, the psychosis hit me, it grew out of the same twisted emotions/imagery/ perceptions.

 

So when people say there is no way of proving the link between the drug and the mental illness, I just laugh. Sadly, I don’t need a proof; I simply know that there is one’.

   

 

 

 

Who Has the Thin Skin? The Millican Exchange Continues

Yes, a lot of people do accuse me of being 'thin-skinned'. This is because this is the easiest and cheapest way of ignoring my detailed rebuttals of criticisms and attacks. If my opponents can portray these rebuttals as cries of pain and shouts of 'unfair!'(which they are not) rather than as reasoned responses, they won't have to pay any attention to them, and they can portray me to the lazy (and indeed to themselves) as someone who can't stand the heat.

Here I respond to the Second Epistle of Professor Millican

I have no idea why Professor Millican thinks I have taken offence. Nor have I described him as a ‘God-hater’  If the cap doesn’t fit,  he has no need to wear it. ( I was amused by Douglas Wilson’s summary of the ‘new atheist’ position as ‘God doesn’t exist - and I hate Him’, as being paradoxically accurate, and developed the expression from that).  I have also found that the other side tend to do quite a lot of labelling of Christian believers, and felt it was time they had a taste of their own medicine.

 

I sought on Thursday night to distinguish him from his two debating partners, especially the one who did the little parody of liturgy, to whom I there and then took a strong personal dislike.   In retrospect, I find it hard to tell those two apart.  Professor Millican did then, alas, rather disappoint me with much of what he said, but at least it contained a certain amount of common decency, the post-Christian world's substitute for morality. He then chose to bring his argument to this blog. That's fine by me. Nothing could please me more. But’ if you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined’ , as they say in the Army.  He shouldn’t expect me to miss any opportunity to point to flaws in what he says. He is accusing me of irrationality, which in fact I freely admit,  while simultaneously denying and  excusing his own.  That won’t do.

 

Quite how or why he mistakes this response for an outbreak of personal umbrage that I do not feel and have not expressed, I have no idea. I simply said that one of his points was ‘just rude’ as it seemed to me to be, and to be intended to be. He can be rude if he likes. as I've said elsewhere, I am sometimes rude, though I like to think it is always with a purpose. My main point was that it wasn’t an argument. As I have many times had cause to say on this site. I have been insulted by experts, and Professor Millican is not one of them. The Internet is full of abusive comments about me. Two recent Prime Ministers, and the leader of Sinn Fein have said disobliging things about me, my fellow journalists enjoy calling me ‘bonkers’ . I yet live.

 

My recent book has been abusively reviewed (as I predicted it would be) in both the ‘Guardian’ and the ‘Observer’. Likewise, this gave me a good opportunity for robust rebuttal (see entries elsewhere on this site).

 

Does he really think this grieves me?  If I am invited to speak, especially in universities, I generally respond by saying that I much prefer to debate with an opponent than to do a solitary harangue (only the other day I debated the issue of drugs with Howard Marks). Would a sensitive person do this?

 

Nor  do I think the  ‘aliens on Mars’ sally was ‘abusive’. I just think it betokens a silly, giggling scorn for religious belief which was rather current in late 19th-century Cambridge, when some people believed that ‘science’ was on the edge of explaining everything.   This long ago proved not to be the case. In fact it seems to me that ‘science’ has in recent years ( especially in the field of Physics) tended to suggest that we know even less than we thought we did.   So I treated it with contempt. Intelligent people really shouldn’t say this sort of thing.

 

My point about agnosticism was and remains simple. Professor Millican conceded that he was not certain of the non-existence of God (just as I am not certain of His existence). His calculations of the relative size of the probability or improbability are irrelevant, in such a decision, as they are influenced by a choice he has already made.

 

In that case, his jump to declared non-belief is  (like my decision to choose belief) a departure from reason. He could only call reason in, if he could *prove* His non-existence.  And the comparison between God and invisible aliens on Mars was kindergarten-level non-debate. I often get it here, and am a bit bored by it. Once again, 'proof' and 'evidence' are not synonyms, any more than knowledge is a synonym for belief.

 

His use of ‘overwhelming probability’ to mean ‘in my opinion’ is plain to me, and ought to be plain to him, given that the careful use of language is his profession, just as it is my trade. In dealing with the evidence for or against the existence of God, we cannot even agree what the evidence is, and neither of us have seen, or will in our earthly lives see,  most of the evidence either way, so ignorant are we of the history and extent of the universe.

 

I get the impression that it is Professor Millican who is the sensitive one.

 

There are substantial factual and condemnatory references to pagan practices in the Bible (Isaiah 57, which happened to be the lesson I  read in Church last Sunday,  contains a lengthy condemnation of child sacrifice). Fundamentally, they are not so much pagan as non-Christian, Christianity alone having obviated sacrifice entirely.  My reference to the ‘full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, satisfaction and oblation for the sins of the whole world (by his one oblation of Himself, once offered)’ is a quotation from the Prayer Book service of Holy Communion, itself quarried from scripture. It is not any sort of accident that this emphatic, deliberately repetitive section is to be found at the very heart of the Church’s most central and intense ceremony. It says clearly ‘There are to be no more sacrifices’. Such deeply-engraved signs, like all warnings and prohibitions, are memorials to the things they seek to prevent.

 

Before the destruction of Herod’s Temple, Judaism was a sacrificial religion. Muslims still sacrifice sheep at Eid  ( I have seen it done, in Kashgar, and a very potent and disturbing occasion it is). And I seem to recall there’s some discussion of the practice of sacrifice in ‘Atheist Delusions’ by David Bentley Hart.  I had no idea its existence or importance were disputed. Paganism was, as I say, demoralised and infected with pessimism and despair at the time of Christianity’s triumph, which was of course one reason why that triumph was so easy. I made no comment on the  ‘enlightened’ nature of the Roman Empire, though it strikes me that an empire ruled by capricious despots and dependent upon slavery is not *that* enlightened.

 

Nobody ever said Professor Millican was a ‘careless disclaimer’ of Christianity. Well, I certainly didn’t. That’s not my point. My point is precisely the opposite, that people turn away from Christianity because they care very deeply about it and are disturbed and in some cases actually angered and repelled by the message of the Cross.  While the teenage clever-clogs imagines he knows everything and seeks to cast aside parental influence and conformist teaching, the lifelong disbeliever has a much more serious motive.  As I have said, my view of the matter is that it concerns grave things – as the confession puts it,  ‘The remembrance of them is grievous unto us. The burden of them is intolerable’ . Does he really have no recollections of his past behaviour which, even though they happened 30 or 40 years ago, still make him wince with shame?  I have several, and do not think this is unusual.

 

But if he rejects vicarious redemption and Divine Grace, which in a just universe are the only release from guilt, then he really does have to cast off the whole thing, doesn’t he?  Well, I would. Because if these don’t operate, then,  if there is a judgement I’m certainly done for. Better that there shouldn’t be a judgment, that in fact there should be no justice, and thus I can persuade myself. Or I could. Then I found I couldn't, because I no longer wanted to, and slunk, reluctant, to the altar-rail.

 

Personally I do not think that Grace is irresistible.  I greatly dislike the doctrine of predestination, as tending towards hopelessness, and I think the best summary of the danger in which we lie, and our road out of it  is to be found in the Epistle of James (which Luther hated), which refuses to dismiss the importance of works and contains some very specific and rather disturbing warnings directed against people such as me.

 

It’s true that facts and logic sometimes force us to change our opinions, but in my experience, and I argue a lot,  most people respond to such a challenge by denying the logic and ignoring the facts. I have done this myself, and am aware of it, which is why I find it so easy to spot.  But he can’t argue reason and truth for his decision to abandon faith. He can’t, because they can play no part in it. 

 

Enter the sphere of belief, either in God or in No God,  and you leave facts and logic behind you.  Thus we must look elsewhere for an explanation, mustn’t we? And if we wish to deceive ourselves, then we are the best people to undertake the task.

 

 

Professor Millican says: ‘if I thought there was any plausibility to the claims, and a real possibility that my eternal happiness or torment would depend on accepting the offer of Divine Grace, then I would surely avoid heaping the coals of Hell on my own head by offending against a God who - according to the Old Testament - is perfectly happy to obliterate whole lineages for turning away from Him, and who in the New Testament repeatedly warns about the eternal torment awaiting those that reject Jesus.’

 

Yes, indeed, though I would dispute some details of his summary of the situation.  I think there’s a good scriptural warrant for a more inclusivist and generous position than the one he sets out. But the conditional clause at the beginning invalidates the rest. He *chooses* to think that the claims are implausible. In our society, this is very easy to do and will find wide acceptance, even popularity, in the class of people in which he lives, and moves and has his being. Also, in the very high level of civilisation which is 21st-century academic Oxford, how often does a man encounter the real nature of life, or even see the stars as they are? 

We are materially so cushioned, cocooned and separated from these things that they only obtrude at moments of high drama and tragedy, death, injury, sickness, hurrican and earthquake, the birth of a child. And afterwards we sink back into our material comfort, rapidly putting these things to one side.  Paradoxically, this material comfort results from the fruits of the widespread effects of 19th century Protestant Christianity, itself rooted in the Wesleyan revolution, and in whose afterglow we still live. Maybe if he found himself alone in the glummer, more raw parts of Oxford on a Saturday evening, where practical atheism is widely practised by big rough men with tattoos, he would not be quite so sure.  

 

For good or ill, my life hasn’t been so protected from the reality of the world as most people’s. While it often wasn't fun at the time, I think I have learned some things which are unknown to those who have lived more conventional lives.  I do urge him to read my book ‘The Rage Against God’ for an explanation of this position that I haven’t space for here

 

 

Justice Denied - Our Worst Retreat since Dunkirk

In my Mail on Sunday column last Sunday (11th November) I promised a fuller account of the scandalous downgrading of serious crime by the authorities in England and Wales ( I have not made a similar analysis of Scotland, which has its own separate legal system, but suspect something similar will be under way there).  What was most distressing was to receive several personal confirmations of police uninterest in pursuing quite serious matters. The use of so-called ‘restorative justice’ to negotiate a supposed reconciliation between criminal (or in value-free jargon ’offender’) and victim is a growing part of this array of devices to reduce pressure on prisons, massage crime figures downwards and give the illusion of action.

 

Here is what I have found.  

 

 

This country has not seen such a retreat since Dunkirk. Prosecutors and Police are in headlong flight in the face of a flood of crime and disorder unseen in this country since the Victorian era.   And, just as at Dunkirk, skilled propagandists seek to portray the defeat as a triumph.

 

For some time, I have scoffed at official figures claiming that crime was falling. It is plain to anybody outside the elite cocoon of money and power that such a claim must be garbage of a high order. But as always, when the state has a monopoly of information, it was hard to show where the flaw was. Now, thanks to the brave and astute action of the Magistrates Association, some light has been shone on this dark place.

 

The story is enormous. In 2008 Magistrates began to suspect that a falling workload in the Magistrates’ Courts was a national rather than just a local phenomenon. The Magistrates’ Association tried to find out what was really happening. They were of course told there was a reduction in crime . The published statistics, of course,  supported that.   

 

Rather than accept what they were told (as so many people gullibly and acquiescently do) the Magistrates launched their own inquiry, using the Freedom of Information Act.

 

I regret that much of the information here is three years old or more, but it has (to my embarrassment and regret) taken me that long to get on to this story, which has been hiding in plain sight for anyone to pick up. My excuse is that at the time it first surfaced briefly, I was travelling abroad a great deal.  I suspect that more recent figures would be even worse. The rape total given in my article of 11th November (higher than the one shown below) results from figures obtained since this report was written.

 

Its origins lie deep in the Blair Government which in 2001 passed the Criminal Justice and Police Act, a gimmicky measure designed to give the illusion of action. Its effects - and, I would suspect, its purposes – were quite different. Suddenly the police no longer had to take cases to court if they thought them worthy of action. In return for an admission of guilt, they could deal with them through on-the-spot penalties, a gross break with English legal tradition and a direct contravention of the Bill of Rights of 1689, but then nobody’s heard of that nowadays.

 

I am not sure exactly when the increased use of so-called ‘cautions’ a form of letting off without trial,  and also with only a minor criminal record, was put into law. But that has also grown enormously

 

In practice, huge numbers of the informal penalties are never paid, so they end up being not very different from cautions(or the even weaker ‘cannabis warning’ introduced without Parliament’s permission discussed here many times) . But there’s another crucial detail. Once an offence has been disposed of in this way *it cannot be reopened*. The wrongdoer can own up to it (thus receiving a fine he probably won’t pay and a small mark on his criminal record. After that, it cannot be raised again.

 

We shall see why this is significant. For all of what follows I am indebted to Richard Monkhouse and the Magistrates’ Association, whose sceptical,  inquiring spirit and hard work have uncovered one of the most interesting stories of our time.

They actually managed to stop the previous government extending the scheme to even more offences, though I should expect the existing government or the Lab-Lib coalition which will be in office from May 2015 will be back for more in time. After all, if you can’t reduce the problem, you can at least reduce the statistics.

 

 

Their document refers to OCDs (this stands for ‘Out of Court Disposals’). At the time of the survey, these were used for just over half all offences  (54%) and thus of course make nonsense of official ‘sentencing guidelines’ which apply only to cases which come to court.

 

They include : •     

o          Simple Caution

o          Street Warning for Cannabis use

o          Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN)

o          Penalty Notices for Disorder (PND)

o          Conditional Cautions

 

The document notes ‘…Magistrates were reporting serious concerns about the use of Out of Court Disposals (OCDs).  At the Annual General Meeting [of the Magistrates’ Association] in Nov 2008 the following proposal was unanimously agreed :

 

‘This Annual General Meeting opposes the inappropriate use of out of court disposals.  It contends that serious offences, including offences involving acts of violence, are being dealt with out of court to the detriment of the criminal justice system.  It calls for the use of out of court disposals to be scrutinised to ensure that justice is being done and it urges the government to gather and publish detailed evidence on both the scale and consistency of use of such disposals in all areas of England and Wales.’

 

I quote again : ‘Magistrates Courts are open to the public, sentences are recorded and can be appealed, there is full scrutiny of the process, yet such disposals are not subject to such stringent procedure.  In many cases there is a victim and they cannot receive compensation of a Caution, FPN or PND is administered - but they can in court.  In addition almost 54% of FPNs [Fixed Penalty Notices] and PNDs [Penalty Notices for Disorder]are not paid and so come to court – but the court cannot deal with the original offence even if is a serious one.  There is extra cost to the court system to administer the fine when the Home office has already had a budget for the process.  Further the police are now accrediting non police officers to administer FPNS and PNDs and the government plans to extend the use of such disposal to Careless Driving.    

 

The data indicates that the use of out of court disposals is neither consistent, transparent nor open to public scrutiny’

 

Remember, these are the words of Magistrates, responsible, concerned, sober, respectable people with no political axe to grind. I have seldom seen such strong feeling in a document from such a restrained group of people.

 

Some important figures follow. These are quoted directly. NB ‘ Summary Offences’ are less serious offences normally dealt with by magistrates. :

 

‘105,671 cautions were given for Summary Offences in 2007. Many of these seem appropriate and have not been shown below. The offences shown below, taken from Table S3.7 (B) Persons Cautioned For Summary Offences (Excluding Motoring) highlight offences where many cautions were given and for offences which if dealt with in court would be serious enough to consider at least a Community Penalty. These would therefore seem to be inappropriate  for a number of reasons (victim, repeat offending, habit feeding, seriousness) :

 

 

 

England And Wales 2007  - Summary Offences       

Assault: On Constable       3,264

Assault: Common, etc       52,465

Firearms Acts          519

Offence against Public Order     13,301

Interference with Motor Vehicles         281

Unauthorised Taking of a Conveyance            1,514

Summary Aggravated Vehicle Taking  191

Drunkenness, with Aggravation            3,981

Summary Criminal or Malicious Damage Offence    22,555 ‘

 

 

Then we have these figures (remember here that ‘Indictable Offences’ means ‘more severe offences which can be tried at Crown Court’)

 

Tables S3.7 (e & f) – (18 – 21 and over 21) have been added together to show Persons Cautioned For Indictable Offences (over 18)  for 2007. This shows the following breakdown by indictable offence type.

 

Offence Group – Indictable Offences 

Violence Against The Person       38,411

Sexual Offences      1310

Burglary        2497

Robbery        95

Theft And Handling           33,087

Fraud And Forgery            7,209

Criminal Damage    4,311

Drug Offences         34,967

Other Indictable Non-Motoring 8,005

Total Indictable Offences 129,892’

 

 

The report then goes into more detail, showing the kinds of offences which are not coming to court.

 

Clearly these offence types range from the less serious to the more serious.

 

5.3.     Cautions by category of Offences

 

Violence against the person

Threat or Conspiracy to Murder            297

Wounding or other act Endangering Life        154

Other Wounding etc.        36,758

Cruelty to or Neglect of Children           1,167

Child Abduction      27

 

Sexual Offences

Indecent Assault on a Male         64

Rape of a Female – indictable ONLY     6

Rape of a Male - indictable ONLY          2

Indecent Assault on a Female     540

Unlawful Sexual Intercourse with a Girl under 13    40

Unlawful Sexual Intercourse with a Girl under 16    200

Incest 29

Procuration 36

Bigamy          18

Abuse of trust         26

 

Burglary

Burglary in a Dwelling       1,145

Burglary in a Building Other than a dwelling  1,347

 

Robbery

Robbery        95

 

Theft and Handling

Aggravated Vehicle Taking          183

Money Laundering (not drugs)  103

Theft from the Person of Another        667

Theft by an Employee – Position of Trust       3,497

Theft from Shops   17,233

Theft of Motor Vehicle     325

Handling Stolen Goods     1,705

 

Fraud and Forgery

False Accounting    55

Other Fraud 6,294

Other Forgery etc. 791

 

Criminal Damage

Arson 225

Criminal Damage Endangering Life       11

Other Criminal Damage   3,573

Drug Offences

Production, supply and possession with intent to supply a controlled drug  - Class unspecified    26

Production, supply and possession with intent to supply a controlled drug - Class A            358

Production, supply and possession with intent to supply a controlled drug - Class B            247

Production, supply and possession with intent to supply a controlled drug - Class C            1,930

 

 

Other Indictable (Not Motoring)

Going Equipped for Stealing, etc.          214

Blackmail      12

Kidnapping, etc.     23

Violent Disorder     44

Perjury          20

Perverting the Course of Justice            303

Absconding from Lawful Custody         33

Firearms Act Offence        1,078

Possession of Obscene Material etc.    283

 

Some of these could perhaps be explained by the original charge remaining on paperwork after an actual reduction in charge had been effected. However, it is illogical to assume that this is the explanation for all 129,892 indictable offences where cautions had been given.’

 

Next we move on to ‘Penalty Notices for Disorder’, a Blairite invention which is supposed to empower police to take immediate action.

 

‘6.       Penalty Notices for Disorder

 

These are intended to be used for   a set of specified offences. The following data shows these disposals for 2007.

 

DATA WARNING!

The original data sheet from which these figures came, offers caution. The data have been amalgamated from various individual forces’ data and they should not be regarded as definitive.   This is understandable as the totals do not match the totals given in Table 1 (147,393), from the same source.

 

There is a 60,000 odd discrepancy with the figures below being the higher set of data and no explanation as to why these figures might be different.   This shows that not only is the application of these disposals inconsistent but that the recording of such is also inconsistent.

 

                        England and Wales  £80 tickets

DA01             Wasting police time           3,966

DA02             Misuse of public telecomm system       1,193

DA03             Giving false alarm to fire and rescue authority         96

DA04             Causing Harassment, alarm or distress            77,827

DA05             Throwing fireworks           649

DA06             Drunk and disorderly        46,996

DA11             Criminal Damage (under £500) 19,946

DA12             Theft (retail under £200) 45,146

DA13             Breach of fireworks curfew        39

DA14             Possession of category 4 firework        22

DA15             Possession by a person under 18 of adult firework 106

DA16             Sale of alcohol to drunken person        81

DA17             Supply of alcohol to person under 18  54

DA18             Sale of alcohol to person under 18       3,583

DA19             Purchase alcohol for person under 18            555

DA20             Purchase alcohol for person under 18 for consumption on premises    64

DA21             Delivery or allowing delivery of alcohol to person under 18        431

                                    200,754

 

                        England and Wales £50 tickets 

DB03              Trespass on a railway        1,527

DB04              Throwing stones at a train / railway     25

DB05              Drunk in a highway           2,066

DB07              Consumption of alcohol in public place           1,544

DB08              Depositing and leaving litter       1,374

DB12              Consumption of alcohol by under 18 on relevant premises          85

DB13              Allowing consumption of alcohol by under 18 on relevant premises     11

DB14              Buying or Attempting to buy alcohol by person under 18 158

                        TOTAL            6,790

Table 2                     

Few would disagree with many of these disposals, however Public Order, Criminal Damage and Theft offences, leave a victim and Theft, particularly shoplifting, is often used to feed a habit. These offences are often perpetrated by repeat offenders.

 

 

7.        Additional Information

 

Magistrates are still reporting concerns.  In the last week a report from a magistrate who had to deal with an offender who has been given a Fixed Penalty for a Public Order Offence for which the Sentencing Guideline is a custodial sentence.   The issue of Possession of a bladed weapon has been subject of much debate yet 1,599 cautions were administered in the year up to March 2009 despite the Povey Judgement stating that such possession must receive a custodial sentence.’

 

 

The Association argued ‘Our main concerns are:

 

i.          Out of court disposals undermine the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system as victims will not see the perpetrator of the offence against them dealt with in open court or will they find out the results of the sentence;

 

ii.         Decisions are made in on the street, or in Police or CPS [Crown Prosecution Service]offices and not in open court thereby not safeguarding the rights of offenders and more importantly victims. There can also be delays in issuing the disposals;

 

iii.        The rate of non-compliance is high - in the case of Fixed Penalties and Penalty Notices for Disorder in the order of just over 50%. In these cases they will then come to court but only as an offence, which is registered as a fine. The court cannot deal with the original offence no matter how serious or how long the offenders record.  35% of offenders given Conditional cautions not being charge after they failed to comply with conditions;

 

iv.        The 50% unpaid FPNs [Fixed penalty Notices] and PNDs [Penalty Notices for Disorder] are registered with courts as fines, thus a drain on the HMCS [Her Majesty’s Court Service]budget which may not have been included in the budgeting forecasts.  Should not a recharge then be made to the Home Office budget;

 

v.         Out of court disposals were originally introduced for ‘low level offences’. Now used for violence, threat of violence, theft, obstructing police type offences which cannot be considered ‘low level’; For example 10% of Conditional Cautions have been used for Common Assault offences;

 

vi.        Out of court disposals are driven by Police Forces wishing to meet targets and not the need to provide a safer community;

 

vii.       However, some minor offences, for example shop lifting, can mask a more serious issue such as drug dependency. An out of court disposal will not tackle the underlying cause of the offending and add an unnecessary financial burden;

 

viii.      There are significant differences between the police and CPS areas in the issuing of out of court disposals data is not available widely and therefore not open to public scrutiny or discussion;

 

ix.        Solicitors are telling magistrates that police in some areas are now taking inappropriate action in many cases. In one area of Staffordshire, a solicitor has claimed that on average only two out of 12 suspects interviewed by the police are being charged. One or two may be being given a fixed penalty or caution, but the majority are being allowed to leave on the basis that there is insufficient evidence;

 

x.         No detailed analysis, by either the criminal justice inspectorates, Home Office researchers, or independent researchers has so far been carried out to assess the scale and use of out of court disposals across England and Wales;

 

xi.        Extensive net widening has occurred over recent years drawing in more young people and adults into the criminal justice system, mostly through the use of out of court disposals. It is not clear whether these are offenders who were previously able to offend with virtual impunity or is it the criminalisation of marginally criminal behaviour which in the past was dealt with through the application of various informal community sanctions. If the latter is the case then the net-widening may be counter-productive in terms of both crime prevention and public confidence;

 

xii.       Full information on all out of court disposals is not being made available to Magistrates or Judges when they are sentencing defendants at a later date;

 

xiii.      A fundamental principle of justice is that no one with any interest, whatever that might be, in the outcome of a case should be involved as judge or sentencer. Police investigate cases and charge individuals they therefore have a biased interest when it comes to sentencing;

 

xiv.      Some out of court disposals do not require the offender to admit guilt. Police just have to be sure an offence has been committed;

 

xv.       The offender may appreciate that it is not a conviction but may not realise that such disposals are recorded, can be cited in court and will be listed on CRB checks when applying for employment.

 

 

Almost six in ten shoplifters punished with £80 on-the-spot fines fail to pay them, official figures have revealed.

The figures were released in parliamentary answers to Tory justice spokesman Dominic Grieve. The breakdown given by Justice Minister Maria Eagle showed that, in 2007, 45,146 fixed penalties were handed out to shoplifters of goods worth less than £200. The number of fines unpaid was 26,035.

 

The fines are supposed to be paid within 21 days, and if no payment is made then a magistrates' court is supposed to levy a higher fine. But Miss Eagle said: 'The overall fine payment rate at court is 87 per cent. The courts' fine registration system cannot differentiate between those fines arising from unpaid penalty notices and any other fine.'

While the fact that 58 per cent ignore their tickets suggests that many offenders are getting away with their crimes scot-free, those who fail to pay should be given higher fines by a court, but there are no figures to show how many are later successfully punished by magistrates.’

 

************

 

 

I make no apology for publishing so much verbatim material from a highly trustworthy and well-regarded source. One of the great advantages of the Internet is the freedom it provides to go into far greater detail than is allowed by the pages of a newspaper or the brief minutes permitted to broadcasters.

 

The points I would make are these: Any criminal justice system is, in a sense, a form of street theatre. It is of course impossible (and undesirable) to prosecute formally every single case. I myself (to the shock of some) favour the police being allowed to inflict informal, unrecorded punishment on local troublemakers, as they used to.

 

But the changes recorded here are not of that sort. In these cases, offences which would once have come before the courts are being kept out of the courts. These are significant crimes, and they are happening in significant numbers. If our general disapproval of these actions cannot be expressed by public trial, conviction and sentence, and is  instead reduced to something like a parking ticket, morally neutral and often unenforced,  how many other comparable offences are not even being dealt with by the police? The higher we set the bar at which formal prosecution begins, the more crimes will go entirely unrecorded.

 

I would add that, now that the police and politicians are no longer co-operating to use increased crime as a reason for increased spending and recruitment, and while the government is claiming success in reducing crime as evidence of the ‘success’ of its policy, the pressure on officers to combine several offences into one, to keep them off the books through ‘restorative justice’ or to bargain (say) theft down to lost property is increasing, will increase, and ought to be diminished.

 

In the meantime, beware of all official statistics which are politically sensitive, from exam results to inflation figures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crime ISN'T falling, it's just that we've given up trying to combat it

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail On Sunday column

Has anything been happening while much of our media have been obsessed with a foreign contest between two mediocrities for a post that isn’t as important as it looks?

Well, how about this blood-freezing statistic? More than 50 rapists have been let off with cautions, without ever facing a trial.

No doubt you thought that cautions were the sort of thing they gave to teenagers found drunk and flat on their faces in the street. But rape? Isn’t that important?

In fact, isn’t it – thanks to political correctness – one of the few crimes that everyone still takes seriously, even Guardian readers? And more than 50 rapists, who have admitted the offence, have been given cautions for it? Shouldn’t the Government have fallen?

You might expect the Tories  to make a fuss about this  but – now of course you remember – the Tories are in this  Government and, in fact, dominate it.

Actually, this is only a small part of a much bigger problem uncovered by the Magistrates’ Association, whose members had begun to wonder why business in their courts was getting so slack. Had crime stopped?

No, it hadn’t. Something else had happened. Criminals, the Government and the police were co-operating in a vast project which benefits everyone except the British public.

The police benefit because they look as if they’re doing something, when they’re not. The criminals benefit because they get let off so they can go and commit more crimes. And the Government benefits because it does not have to build the hundred or so huge new prisons that would be needed to house malefactors if we still took crime seriously.

Actually, it’s far worse than I can fully state here, a horrible catalogue of unpunished evil, under which severe violence, child cruelty, burglary and even blackmail have been dealt with through the law’s equivalent of a shrug.

I plan to put a much fuller version of this scandal on my blog in the next few days, drawn from the jaw-dropping report by the Magistrates’ Association which should by now have been on every newspaper front page in the country.

When you read – as you often do – that ‘crime is falling’, you must understand what this really means. It means that large numbers of wicked acts are no longer considered as crimes by the authorities. If we had the standards of 60 years ago, half the young people in the country would be locked up.

If the police and courts of that era had judged crime by our standards, their prisons would have been empty.

It is not crime that has fallen, it is partly our own moral standard, our expectation of good, considerate, honest behaviour from our neighbours that has fallen.

But it is also that the police and the Government, seeking a quiet life, have found it easier and cheaper to ignore wrongdoing until it gets out of control.

Like all appeasement of evil, this policy invites a reckoning in the future.

Bowing to a despot? That’s an odd way to promote freedom, Dave

The happiest picture of the week comes from Saudi Arabia, where our Prime Minister was festooned by King Abdullah with the King Abdul Aziz Al Saud Excellence Medal.


I do hope it was the First Class kind, rather than the Standard Class. After all, Mr Slippery has been incredibly busy promoting so-called ‘freedom’ in the Arab world, almost everywhere except in Saudi Arabia itself,  one of the most secretive, sectarian and repressive despotisms on the planet.

Please note that this ‘freedom’, often achieved and sustained through terrible violence, has invariably suited the foreign policy objectives of the Saudi Kingdom.

If we are going to sell our souls for oil and arms sales, I’d rather we said so openly than pretended it was a struggle for Arab liberty.

Propping up an army of addicts

If you deliberately and openly injured yourself, for instance by breaking your own fingers, and made yourself unfit for work, would you seriously expect the taxpayer to keep you?

Of course not. In that case, why are millions of pounds of my money and yours being spent on benefit payments to  so-called ‘alcoholics’ and ‘drug addicts’?

Roughly 34,000 such people receive Employment Support Allowance, and more than 21,000 receive Disability Living Allowance. I get into terrible trouble with Guardian readers and the Twitter mob for saying that I don’t believe in ‘addiction’.

But why should I, and  why should you? The word ‘addiction’ simply assumes that human beings have no will of their own. But they do. Nobody forces anyone to start drinking too much, and it takes quite  a lot of effort to become a habitual heroin user.

Even assuming it was true (which  it isn’t) that such people  cannot stop if they want to,  why would they want to stop  if they are told by society that their gross appetites are a disease, and they are paid unearned money because of their alleged sickness?

This is an insult to the  truly ill, whose problems  are not their own fault, and  who in many cases deserve more generous treatment than they actually get from the welfare state.

A weird development on the ‘Did Edward Miliband receive private tuition while at his comprehensive school?’ question. I first put this to  a so-called ‘source’ a month ago. The ‘source’ stopped answering his telephone for several days. Then he sent me a text message from an airport lounge saying he was ‘going on holiday’.

Even after his return from his politically correct beach, the silence dragged on. Then on Friday the source responded to a text message to say that  Mr Miliband ‘didn’t have a private tutor’. I rang  him. ‘When did you put the question to Mr Miliband?’ He wouldn’t say.

I asked: ‘Did you actually put the question to  Mr Miliband?’ He said: ‘Mmm.’ Under pressure,  he converted this ‘mmm’ into a hesitant ‘yes’. He emitted only a reluctant ‘yes’ when I asked if I could write that the Labour leader had personally said he had not been privately tutored. I suggested to the source he would look much less silly if he gave me a straight answer, but he declined.

Thus do we pursue the truth, in an age when politicians have never been so infested with aides and press secretaries. Perhaps I have misunderstood the function of these people.

In the old days, unscrupulous students used to take dangerous, illegal amphetamines to help get them through tough exam revision.

Now they use  . . . Ritalin (methylphenidate hydrochloride), the legally prescribed and very potent pill which is increasingly given to children, some of them very young.

Would doctors or parents give amphetamines to small boys and girls? Of course not. Why then do they give them a drug that has such similar effects?

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