Montesquieu and the Taniwha.

The below is simply the comment I have made to Deborah Russell’s (Massey Tax Lecturer) blog post: Taniwha and Belief. I don’t think I need supply context; my comment gives my thoughts on Shearer’s taniwha interview.

 My comment was (exactly – other than cleaning up my typos) as follows:

Name: Mark Hubbard
Philosophy: Objectivist (‘largely’)
Politics: Classical liberal / Libertarian
Economics: Laissez faire capitalist

I just have one line of thought regarding this thread. Craig stated, quote:

 “Yet Deborah is naive too. It goes too far to say a liberal ‘respects’ mythology. A liberal surely is interested in enlightenment, in truth. Even if some values exist outside logic and deduction (love, beauty, goodness, evil, for example), an enlightened liberal should not pretend that illogical statements are of equal value to logic and truth.”

Because via the taniwha we are dealing with a cultural artefact, my bead on Shearer, and Deborah, comes from my thinking around the man I see as the originator of modern thought on multiculturalism, namely, Montesquieu; particularly in his 1748 ‘The Spirit of Laws’ – (a line of thought that has been undermined by Left politics, with serious consequences). Namely, while Montesquieu professed a delight in cultural diversity, he always held that while all cultures might be equally valuable, they were not equally good, thus underlying any celebration of cultural diversity, there was (is) a justice that is eternal. Off the top of my head, I think he called it the ‘eternal flame’, but don’t hold me to that.

Anyway, interpreting that within my opening trinity, which takes me to absolutes over relativism, ‘respect’ for belief in a taniwha while part of that ‘delight in diversity’ – and I don’t think ‘respect’ is quite that, but regardless – can have no part of the politick for a ‘free’, classical liberal society: that is, such mythology must not be referenced vis a vis the rule of law (most certainly, because that leads to the worst sort of moral relativism), nor of property rights, et al. And for me, obviously, taniwha can be interchanged with both Judeo-Christian Law (more precisely morality), and with Sharia Law. So Shearer expressing ‘respect’ for belief in the taniwha doesn’t concern me: where it does, however, is if he carries this over to influencing the politick and policy making of a Labour Government; and on a Labour MP’s ability to make that distinction, I’m pretty cynical. That’s where my problem would lie (well, that and Left policy making).

Final note: regarding the ‘eternal flame’ I have little in common with Deborah: for me that is the non-initiation of force principle and via a minarchy, constitutionally protecting that smallest minority in a society, the individual, and the rights thereof, whereas, I suspect for Deborah, it is the state as centre-piece, which makes her absolutely wrong :) . And so to declare a further interest in [Deborah's] blog, I have on my own blog made an initial ‘sortie’ – and sheer fluff at this stage – against her, as a precursor to a much longer piece regarding the Dominion Welfare article, in which, for me to write, looking through [Deborah's] blog, I shall need to be much more respectful of getting my own thoughts down clearly to rebut it adequately. Deborah’s definition of ‘free’, is from quite a different dictionary to what I use. The initial sortie was ‘Feeling Our Way to the Police State, Without Thinking.