Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Gripping debate between Henry Porter and Polly Toynbee this morning on the Today programme. Well worth listening to. Polly's view is, I was amazed, that the state is not just our essential friend and a great civilising force but almost the only civilising force around. We have to respect it. It was not clear what she meant by "civilising", it wasn't just looking after the poor and bereft.
Her effective debating points were that everything is the thin end of the wedge of something, eg having police does not mean to have a police state, and a rights culture can too easily lead to an individualist, me-first culture. I don't think that either of these touch the concerns that Henry has raised. While David Marquand and Guy Aitchison make the point in their comments in the OK discussion HERE that civil liberties and social justice go together. And if you have not read it, do. I am really proud that the comments are clear, cogent, take different views and are altogether better than the original post: this is what a web discussion should be.
The problem Polly posed for Henry was the need to come up with an alternative description of the state, society and government at 8.40 in the morning.
Update Peter Oborne has just emailed me, "Polly Toynbee did not say that the state was almost the only civilising force. She said it was the only one. It should, however, be borne in mind that the state did not write Dickens’ novels or Auden’s poetry. It never commissioned Picasso’s paintings or build Salisbury Cathedral. It did not found the Royal Academy or Cambridge University. On the other hand the state persecuted PG Wodehouse, promoted the art of Damien Hirsh, pretty well abolished the teaching of Latin in schools, employed Nicholas Serota, produced a semi-literate generation of schoolchildren, and bulldozed practically every town centre on England during the 1960s. Elsewhere the state has been responsible for the holocaust, Gulag etc etc"
