The tyranny of certainty: and how to avoid it

Splendid lecture by Andrew Sullivan on the scepticism of Michael Oakeshott. Quote:

“Oakeshott’s conservatism, his defense of liberal civil society, liberal constitutionalism — of what many people today would call conservatism but which strictly speaking is a brand of liberalism — was based not on the notion that there are some rights of man that we can know for sure, let alone truths that are self-evident. It wasn’t based upon the notion that a free society generates more wealth or power. It was simply based upon the notion of the limits of human understanding.

This radical defense of liberalism on the ground of skepticism can be described in a certain basic way, which is that we cannot know. As an empirical matter, as a practical matter, human beings do not know the consequence of their actions. They cannot see the future. Their information and data, based on what has happened in the past, is extremely limited. We operate constantly, as human beings, in a fog–a mental, intellectual, psychological fog. This is our reality.

This fog extends not simply to abstract conceptions of what is true or not–which Oakeshott never fully abandoned, but gradually came to relinquish in his interests–but practically speaking as well. How do we know that what we’re going to do is produce the results we want? How do we know that a certain policy is going to bring about the consequences it is designed to bring about? How do we know, when we start a war, where we will end up in that war?

This skepticism leads Oakeshott to two very basic ideas. One is because no one–no one–has the right to certainty, we should do all that we can to prevent anyone with that certainty from running our lives. What this means is that you keep the principles of certainty out of politics. He was thinking, as Montaigne was thinking at that time, of theocracy. Montaigne lived in the time of the wars of religion, and tried everything he could both to uphold the existing norms of Christianity while quietly, bravely, interestingly, fascinatingly dissenting.

Oakeshott’s defense of a small government, therefore, is not based on what traditionally conservatives believe it to be based upon. It’s based upon the lack of knowledge of any group of people in knowing what on earth they’re doing. Keep the government small so it can do as little damage as possible. Whenever certainty arises in public debate, question it, suspect it, doubt it. And alongside this, a form of government, a form of statesmanship, of politicking, which deeply understands the limits of its own knowledge, which moves forward with a sense of judgment, not certainty; by prudence, not conviction….”

In a strange way there are some parallels between Oakeshott’s philosophical approach and the end-to-end design philosophy of the Net’s architecture. And an appropriate humility towards the future on the part of its designers, who knew that they could not know what people would use the thing for in the future.

Mea Culpa, says former Editor of The Industry Standard

James Ledbetter, writing in the “NYT”. Well, it’s nice to see a bit of humility, but given the arrogant hype his magazine peddled during the dot-com boom, a longer term in Purgatory would have been more appropriate.

The case for Big Brother?

From Salon:

“On Aug. 28, 2001, a 33-year-old Egyptian flight-school student named Mohamed Atta walked into a Kinko’s copy shop in Hollywood, Fla., and sat down at a computer with Internet access. He logged on to American Airlines’ Web site, punched in a frequent-flyer account number he’d signed up for three days before, and ordered two first-class, one-way e-tickets for a Sept. 11 flight from Boston to Los Angeles. Atta paid for the tickets — one of which was for Abdulaziz Alomari, a Saudi flight student also living in Florida — with a Visa card he had recently been issued.

The next day, Hamza Alghamdi, a Saudi man who was also training to become a pilot, went to the same Kinko’s. There, he used a Visa debit card to purchase a one-way seat on United Airlines Flight 175, another Sept. 11 flight from Boston to Los Angeles. The day after that, Ahmed Alghamdi, Hamza’s brother, used the same debit card to purchase a business-class seat on Flight 175; he might have done it from the Hollywood Kinko’s, too. And at around the same time, all across the country, 15 other Arab men, several of them flight students, were also buying seats on California-bound flights leaving on the morning of Sept. 11. Six of the men gave the airlines Atta’s home phone number as a principal point of contact. Some of them paid for the seats with the same credit card. A few used identical frequent-flyer numbers.

It’s now obvious that there was a method to what the men did that August; had someone been on their trail, their actions would have seemed too synchronized, and the web of connections between them too intricate, to have been dismissed as mere coincidence. Something was up. And if the authorities had enjoyed access, at the time, to the men’s lives — to their credit card logs, their bank records, details of their e-mail and cellphone usage, their travel itineraries, and to every other electronic footprint that people leave in modern society — the government might have seen in the disparate efforts of 19 men the makings of the plot they were to execute on Sept. 11, 2001. Right?

We could have predicted it. That’s the underlying assumption of Total Information Awareness, a new Defense Department program that aims to collect and analyze mountains of personal data — on foreigners as well as Americans — in the hope of spotting the sort of “suspicious” behavior that preceded the attacks on New York and Washington….”.

A nest of pirates

Jon Udell’s Blog: “I was shocked to discover a nest of pirates yesterday, operating brazenly right here in my hometown. They were gathered in a large nondescript building, reading and talking quietly and in some cases listening to music. Some kind of social club, perhaps? Yes, but with a profoundly subversive theme: “sharing” content. This establishment houses large collections of books, magazines, audiotapes, videotapes, CDs, DVDs. And it “shares” these with its patrons. I watched in amazement as people left the building carrying armloads of these content assets, which they “borrow” without paying a nickel to the copyright holders. It’s frightening, really. Who knew?”

How to find out who’s linking to your Blog

Fascinating tool. A bit sobering when one examines links to, say, Dave Winer’s Scripting.com. Also illustrates the kind of influence Dave must have on the community.

The Internet was 20 yesterday

January 1 1983 was the day when the switchover to TCP/IP was made. One of the most significant dates in our history, IMHO. (But then as the author of a brief history of the phenomenon, I would say that, wouldn’t I?) “Call it one small switch for man, but one giant switch for mankind.com”, was how Wired put it. Personally, I would have left out the dot-com bit.

Blogging and the fate of Senator Lott

Steven Johnson on the role of Blogs in unhorsing Lott: “I think the last few days have been a great example of what political blogging is capable of: not breaking new stories, but keeping stories alive that the mainstream press, for whatever reason, decides to ignore. It’s like a journalistic flotation device: the blogosphere can pump air back into a story that’s starting to sink, and when it bobs back up to the surface again, big media has to pay attention. If Lott actually ends up stepping down over this, it will be a watershed event for bloggers everywhere.”

Lott did have to stand down, and Steven was right.

More on the ‘social’ effects of wireless

The “NYT” reports that, on campuses that have installed WiFi networks, lecturers are finding it even more difficult than usual to retain students’ attention! Well, well, well.

Tagann an Breathar Mor go hEireann

Translation: Big Brother comes to Ireland. There was a time when Irish legislation on e-commerce and the Net was a beacon of good sense and government restraint (especially compared with the UK’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000. No longer. The current Irish regime is planning a Bill with ferocious data-retention powers. Karlin Lillington has written a fine opinion piece in the Irish Times attacking the proposal and pointing out the slippery slope down which the government now proposes to slide.

Dave Winer: “I just realized that we now have two Irish tech bloggers, Sean McGrath and Karlin Lillington“. [Scripting News]

Wonder if I count — an Irishman living in Cambridge UK and writing for a London newspaper? Nice to see Sean’s Blog and to see that he runs an interesting company from Enniscrone — a lovely seaside resort in which I spent many happy childhood days. It was famous, if I remember correctly, for its seaweed baths, which were supposed to have excellent restorative powers. [Just looked at the map and Lo! Kilcullen’s Seaweed Baths are still in business. Hallelujah!]