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Home › Coffee › Thailand Doi Pangkhon Black Honey
Thailand Doi Pangkhon Black Honey
Dark caramel, macadamia nut, cocoa nib
Roasted Whole Beans 250g - £10.00 GBP Roasted Whole Beans 1kg - £38.00 GBP Roasted Ground for Espresso 250g - £10.00 GBP Roasted Ground for Filter 250g - £10.00 GBP Roasted Ground for Cafetiere 250g - £10.00 GBP Roasted Ground for Jug 250g - £10.00 GBP Green Unroasted 250g - £8.00 GBP Green Unroasted 2kg - £60.00 GBP
Thailand is not traditionally known as a country that produces specialty coffee, yet it has been producing Arabica coffee since the early '80s. It started off as part of the Thai King's opium eradication project. Because Arabica coffee thrives in conditions similar to those favoured by opium, it was selected as a substitution crop against the cultivation of the illicit plant.
Today, Thailand produces about 8,000 tonnes of Arabica coffee, mainly in the mountainous north of the country. On top of that, Thailand produces about ten times as much Robusta coffee, making it the third-largest coffee producer in Asia. Thai specialty coffee is rarely seen in the top specialty roaster segment abroad.
Thailand is a middle-income country and has a thriving local coffee market. That means relatively high production costs for a relatively undemanding coffee market.
Having said this, a strong specialty coffee segment is emerging. At least on the consumer side, the Third Wave is quite well established, with artisan roasters and cafés in Bangkok and Chang Mai. These roasters have recently begun to develop and buy local coffees too, not least because of import tariffs on foreign coffees.
However, this scene is still very small and hardly creates enough incentives for farmers to improve the quality of their coffee to specialty grade – at least for now. So even though they have been doing a great job at pushing the limits of Thai coffee, the specialty coffee scene would be greatly aided with more specialty coffee knowledge and global integration.
Our sourcing partners Beanspire have been actively assisting the farming families of Doi Pangkhon to improve the quality of their coffee. For this lot, they specifically worked with two entrepreneurial siblings of the Becheku family from the Akha hilltribe: Ata and Pupae.
At 30, Ata is the oldest of the three siblings. His entrepreneurial spirit and leadership is a force for change in his community. Pupae is Ata's 26-year-old sister. She worked in both Korea and Taiwan before returning home to Doi Pangkhon to help her brother produce coffee. Pupae speaks fluent Chinese, and she's a Chinese language teacher at a local school.
The young Bechekus are third generation coffee farmers at Doi Pangkhon, and they represent one of the most inspiring aspects of the Thai coffee scene.
The future of the entire specialty industry around the world is unclear, because farmers and their children are quitting coffee manufacturing for other more lucrative opportunities.
Pupae and other people like her are returning home to work on coffee because they see a bright future in it, and they are farming coffee by choice; not because they lack other opportunities.
Doi Pangkhon's coffee farms, at 1,250–1,500 metres above sea level, contain Caturra, Catimor, Bourbon and Typica cultivars. Such a mixture of cultivars allows farmers to mitigate various risks. For example, Bourbon and Typica tend to be weaker plants and sometimes come under attack from leaf rust and other diseases, but they have great cupping potential. Caturra and especially Catimor are more rust resistant and have a higher yield.
Due to the famously fragrant soil in the Chang Rai area, even these hybrid varieties are capable of producing complex and delicious coffees, yet they could struggle if grown in different areas.
This is a big, gloopy coffee: it's the heavy mouthfeel that jumps out at me first. That texture pairs with dark caramel and macadamia nut flavours, and then a touch of cocoa nibs on the aftertaste.
Region: Doi Pangkhong, Chiang Rai
Altitude: 1,250–1,500 m.a.s.l.
Processing method: Black Honey
Varietals: Red and yellow Catimor, Caturra, Bourbon and Typica
Sweetness: (1–8): 6.5
Mouthfeel: (1–8): 7.5
Flavour: (1–8): 6.5
Aftertaste: (1–8): 6
Balance: (1–8): 6
Correction: (+36): +36
Total: (max. 100): 86.5
Roasting Information
Medium-dark – through first, but aim for a steady increase in temperature, dropping it just with the first pops of second crack as it cools.


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Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem (AFEDJ), may fair, new canaan, Religion, St. Mark's Episcopal Church Outreach Commission
St. Mark's Outreach Commission accepting grant requests
Here is a list of support groups available throughout the area. St. Mark's Episcopal Church sign New Canaan: The St. Mark's Episcopal Church Outreach Commission is accepting grant requests for 2019. "The mission of Outreach Commission is to evaluate and make grants to worthy local, regional, national, and international organizations to make a positive impact in the community and in the world around us," according to a press release. "Their mission is grounded in the mission of the church: To go and make disciples who live a deeper life in Christ, a more holy communion with one another, and a greater love for the world." Past grant recipients include Future 5,…
Chamber of Commerce, Events, Happenings, holiday stroll, new canaan, nutcracker, Religion
Holiday Stroll returns
New Canaan: The Holiday Stroll returns to downtown New Canaan this Friday, and Saturday. An ice sculpture of a car brings a boy to a screeching halt at a previous Holiday Stroll. This year's event will take place Downtown Friday evening, Nov. 30, and Saturday, Dec. 1. — Dave Stewart Photo A tradition will be renewed when the Village District becomes a winter wonderland for the New Canaan Holiday Stroll Friday, Nov. 30. Fourteen years ago, a group of local merchants wanted to create a festive way for the residents of New Canaan to celebrate the season of giving while highlighting downtown shops and restaurants. Now run by the Chamber…
Alexandra Bongaerts-DuVal, B.S., Calif., Community, Goldman Sachs, Joost Bongaerts, Julie, Ken Magrath, new canaan, Nicolien Alexandra, Nikki Bongaerts, Park City, People, Pete Magrath, Peter Ford Magrath, Religion, Richmond, ridgefield, Salt Lake City, son, South Norwalk, Summerland, tim brown, University of Connecticut, Utah, Va.
Nikki Bongaerts marries Pete Magrath in Utah
New Canaan: Nikki Bongaert recently married Pete Magrath in Utah. Nikki Bongaerts and Pete Magrath Alexandra Bongaerts-DuVal and Joost Bongaerts of Summerland, Calif., formerly of New Canaan, announce the marriage of their daughter, Nicolien Alexandra, to Peter Ford Magrath. The groom is the son of Julie and Ken Magrath, of Richmond, Va., formerly of Ridgefield. The ceremony and reception took place at the Alta Peruvian Lodge in Alta, Utah, on Sept. 22 and was officiated by Tim Brown of New Canaan, an uncle of the bride. The bride is a 2007 graduate of New Canaan High School and graduated from St. Lawrence University in 2011 with a B.A. She is…

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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JUUL admits role in youth vaping epidemic
As the company's home base of San Francisco moves to ban sale of all vape devices.
June 19, 2019 | Staff | Medical Drugs
Home / News / JUUL Lawsuit
JUUL Labs chief Kevin Burns admitted his company is "partly responsible" for the epidemic of youth vaping in the U.S., but insists it was never the company's intent to get millions of kids and teens hooked on nicotine.
"We are, of course, partly responsible (for youth vaping). We have 80% of the marketplace, how can we not be responsible for this?" Mr. Burns said in a meeting with The San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board. "I don't think it's intent, but we are responsible and we've got to take action on it."
Mr. Burns met with The Chronicle to discuss a multitude of issues the controversial San Francisco-based vape maker faces, including remaining in a city that could soon take measures to block the sale of all vape products.
According to The Chronicle, City Attorney Dennis Herrera's bill would prohibit the sale of all vape products in San Francisco until the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) completes a review to ensure the products' safety. JUUL and other vape manufacturers have until a 2021 deadline to submit applications to the federal agency.
JUUL says it is spending about $100 million on clinical and behavioral studies exploring the safety of its products. The company plans to submit an application to the FDA once that research is complete.
The company, whose recent pairing with Big Tobacco giant Altria has weakened its credibility as an anti-smoking advocate among critics, also finds itself in the position of trying to remain in a city that largely doesn't want it.
"I would like for [Juul] to have been gone yesterday," San Francisco City Supervisor Shamann Walton, who supports Mr. Herrera's proposed bill to bar the sale of vaping products in the city, told the press.
JUUL's valuation shot to $38 billion after Altria acquired a 35% stake, giving it almost limitless lobbying resources and political clout. The company has no intentions of leaving San Francisco and is reportedly planning to expand its presence on Pier 70, a city-owned property in the Dogpatch neighborhood.
"… We're staying," Mr. Burns told The Chronicle's editorial board. "San Francisco is our home. We want to be in San Francisco. We have 1,200 employees in San Francisco, a huge talent base in San Francisco. We want to be a resident, and I'm hopeful we'll find a way to be a resident."
According to The Chronicle, JUUL is working to put an initiative on the November ballot that would essentially undermine Mr. Herrera's proposed legislation. Although the bill is framed as a way to further restrict tobacco sales to minors, most of those restrictions are already in place under state law.
"Juul said the ballot measure, if passed, would prevent the Board of Supervisors from enacting [a vaping] ban in the future — but it would not negate tobacco laws the city has already enacted, such as a ban on flavored tobacco that voters passed last year," The Chronicle reported. "It also would not prevent the city from passing additional tobacco regulations, such as putting tobacco products in a lockbox in stores, as long as those regulations do not amount to a ban."
Like the "Tobacco to 21" measures that JUUL and Altria support, which would raise the legal smoking/vaping age to 21, JUUL's San Francisco ballot initiative parades as a way to keep nicotine out of reach for minors. Beneath the surface, however, JUUL-sponsored legislation is full of language designed to protect the industry's interests, including its ability to peddle its products to kids.
JUUL executives have become very good putting a mask of cooperation and community concern on their aggressive sales agenda. According to The Chronicle, JUUL spokesman Matt David said the company wants to work together with the city "to figure out a solution … but if we have to go the ballot initiative route, we'll work with our coalition and pursue that option."
Beasley Allen lawyers Joseph VanZandt and Sydney Everett are handling cases involving injuries related to vaping. We are looking at cases involving adolescent addiction and injuries including seizures, strokes, lung problems, and cardiovascular problems related to the use of JUUL vaping devices. If you have these type cases, we would like to work with you.
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Many Jewish organizations throughout the world honor the Chasiday Umos HaOlam, the righteous among the nations but specifically referring to those non-Jews who risked their lives to help Jews survive the Holocaust. Unusually, a Polish woman who saved over 2500 children in the Warsaw ghetto was first identified and honored by a group of Kansas city public school students who discovered, researched and compiled her story into a unique project which they named "Life in a Jar."
The story of Irena Sendler was almost unknown until the schoolgirls embarked on their mission to ascertain the verity of the events and let the world know about Sendler's selfless acts of bravery.
Irena Sendler was a non-Jewish social worker who joined the Polish underground, Zagota, in 1939 following the Germans invasion of Poland. Zagota specialized in helping Jews escape the Germans and, as part of the effort, Sendler obtained a pass to enter the ghetto as a "specialist" in infectious diseases.
Sendler quickly realized that the Nazis intended to murder all of the ghetto's Jews. She began to smuggle children out of the ghetto, sometimes through sewer pipes that ran under the city and at other times through the Old Courthouse that sat on the far edge of the ghetto. She also sedated young children and carried them out in toolboxes or hid them under tram seats which ran out of the ghetto.
Many of the children that Sendler saved were orphans, but others had families and Sendler had to convince their parents to allow their children to be taken out. "I talked the parents out of their children" Sendler later recounted.
Once the children had been removed from the ghetto, Sendler and her associates located families who were prepared to take the children into their homes for safekeeping. This act was punishable by death but Sendler was able to find homes for all of the children. Sendler documented the children whom she saved by writing their names and hiding places on scraps of tissue paper which she then buried in jars in her garden. She hoped to reunite the children with their families after the war or, if not, at least with the Jewish community.
Irena Sendler was captured by the Nazis in 1943 and tortured, but she never revealed any information about "her" children. Zagota members were able to bribe a German guard to release her and Sendler lived out the last years of the war in hiding.
Irena kept a record of the names of the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived and reunite the family. Unfortunately most had been gassed at Treblinka.
Although Sendler managed to save an amazing number of Jewish children, her deeds and the deeds of the Zagota members, were not publicized until the 1990s when a school project, "Life in a Jar," exposed the incident. Since that time the project has continued to grow through the funding of a Jewish philanthropist and other researchers.
In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming. He picked up his prize after arriving on a private jet.
Mrs. Sendler passed away in 2008 at 98 years old, clearly one of the righteous among the nations.


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Building a First-Class Data Science and Data Engineering Practice
Discover how staffing agency Randstad unified its approach to data and analytics, in collaboration with Xebia
Randstad is the second-largest staffing company in the world, active in 33 countries, with over 4,861 offices. Randstad employs more than 38,000 people, and every day over 649,000 candidates work through Randstad. In 2019, Randstad's revenue stood at €23.7 billion, with a net profit of €766 million.
The company faced a lack of a unified way of working among data science teams, resulting in a longer lead-time to production for AI solutions. Difficulty hiring the right profiles for data engineering and setting up the correct platform architecture.
A lack of a unified approach to data and analytics
Create a unified way to work
An AI Maturity Scan assessing Randstad's data and capabilities
Provided solution
AI MATURITY SCAN assessing Randstad's data and capabilities, followed by strong support by one of our lead data scientists and a lead data engineer. Xebia consultants introduced standardized ways of working, set up chapters, supported hiring, and improved knowledge of data teams.
Outcome: Randstad's data scientists now form one team that works more effectively and efficiently drastically reducing the lead time to production for AI solutions. With the help of Xebia's lead data engineer, this data engineering team has expanded and improved its way of working.
Dutch multinational human resource consulting firm Randstad had a problem. Actually, it had a few of them. Its multiple data science teams lacked a unified way of working, so the lead-time on producing AI solutions was too long. On top of that, the company was having trouble finding the right people to hire to do its data engineering. It also wasn't setting up the correct platform architecture. Randstad needed more than a "quick-fix" solution. It wanted to develop a First-Class Data Science and Engineer practice.
Bringing the Tech to Randstad's Touch
Improving the company's data science practice was one of the goals Falco Vermeer set out to achieve when he joined Randstad as a data and analytics manager in late 2016. "Most people think of HR as a 'people process,' so when I joined, not much was informed or driven by data," he explains. He convinced the company to implement a "data-driven" approach so that decisions were based on facts & data instead of gut feeling.
"I spent about 20% to 30% of my time educating business users at Randstad and was often met with surprise. As an HR company, not many people are aware of the possibilities of data, and most employers don't know about the possibilities data offers."
Falco Vermeer Data and Analytics Manager
Despite his efforts to educate the company on the benefits of data analysis, he encountered lots of challenges. He explains, "People get used to making decisions based on feelings, so changing that mindset took some time, naturally."
Looking For a Standard Way-of-Working
After running several successful data science pilots and use case, Vermeer and his team ran into two issues:
1. Industrializing models didn't go smoothly.
2. The data scientists lacked a common way-of-working
"The tools weren't the problem; the challenge was in using them in a reproducible way," he says. "The issue was further complicated by the different ways of working and different visions among the data scientists." So Vermeer set out to find external help to solve these issues.
"We spoke with several parties and not only did Xebia stand out in expertise, but it also showed an ability to make a real connection with us. That human side was exactly what we were looking for," he says.
AI Maturity Scan as a Starting Point
Xebia executed its AI MATURITY SCAN at Randstad to create a baseline of the organization's AI capabilities that:
Created a clear picture of the organization's current capabilities
Set a baseline against which it could mark historical and future progress
Laid a solid foundation for the consulting work of Xebia
"For me, the outcome of the scan confirmed what I already experienced in everyday practice. But it was also valuable to have hard evidence to show the rest of the organization what we were up against," Vermeer explains. "It also gave Steven Nooijen, the Xebia consultant who would eventually work with us, a clear picture of where we were at before he started the assignment."
Chapter Lead for Data Science Teams
"When I see how fast we can deploy a model since working with Xebia, and also at the increased quality, I'm amazed by the vast difference compared to five months ago."
Nooijen's primary assignment was to bring together the data scientists working at Randstad and form a chapter. Vermeer paints the picture: "When Steven started, there was no unified way-of-working. Our data scientists came from many different backgrounds—some used R, some used Python—they were spread across multiple teams, making the challenge even bigger. We had tried to create standards before, but hadn't succeeded."
After a year of working with the team at Randstad, Vermeer sees distinct differences and improvements: "The data scientists are now a team; they work better together, and communication is better. It's all been very successful." He also applauds Nooijen's approach, "Steven doesn't barge in and tell people how they should work; instead, he leads and encourages the entire data science team in collaboration, while being part of it."
While at Randstad, Nooijen also mapped a growth path for the data scientists there, with an overview of the expertise required for junior, mid-level, and senior data scientists. He linked this map to a training plan that indicated the correct courses for each level. "It has already helped the team advance its capabilities," smiles Vermeer.
At the end of his assignment at Randstad, Nooijen helped the company find and hire a full-time, internal lead data scientist. Vermeer smiles, "We can't ever truly replace Steven, but we're confident the person we've hired will also do an exceptional job. He's excited about the opportunity, and that is in large part, thanks to the work Steven has done together with the data science team."
Setting a Data Engineering Standard
Six months after bringing in Steven Nooijen as the lead data scientist, Randstad hired Tünde Alkemade, a lead data engineer from Xebia. Vermeer explains his team's decision: "We needed to create a technical benchmark for our AWS platform and speed up the professionalization of our data engineering department. Tünde's experience with AWS at previous assignments proved incredibly valuable in this assignment. We also needed the right data engineers to work on the platform, but struggled to find the right profiles. We had applicants, but to assess their technical skills and fit with our technology is where Tünde also proved her worth."
Tünde's will continue at Randstad and help the company form a chapter of data engineers.
Reflecting on the collaboration with Xebia, Vermeer is impressed:
"When I see how fast we can deploy a model now, and also our increased flexibility, I'm amazed by the vast difference compared to five months ago. It's also great that Steven and Tünde did this together with our teams. The connection between data engineering and data science has improved and there is now a data science community within the company. I couldn't be more pleased."
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S.762 - Supplemental Appropriations Act to Support Department of Defense Operations in Iraq for Fiscal Year 2003108th Congress (2003-2004)
Sen. Stevens, Ted [R-AK] (Introduced 04/01/2003)
Senate - Appropriations
04/07/2003 See also H.R. 1559. (All Actions)
Roll Call Votes:
There have been 11 roll call votes
For further action, see H.R. 1559, which became Public Law 108-11 on 4/16/2003.
Array ( [actionDate] => 2003-04-01 [displayText] => Committee on Appropriations. Original measure reported to Senate by Senator Stevens. With written report No. 108-33. [externalActionCode] => 14000 [description] => Introduced [chamberOfAction] => Senate )
Array ( [actionDate] => 2003-04-03 [displayText] => Passed/agreed to in Senate: Passed Senate with amendments by Yea-Nay Vote. 93 - 0. Record Vote Number: 125. [externalActionCode] => 17000 [description] => Passed Senate [chamberOfAction] => Senate )
Economics and Public Finance
Cosponsors (0)
Amendments: S.762 — 108th Congress (2003-2004)All Information (Except Text)
See amendments glossary definition
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Search Results 1-88 of 88
1. S.Amdt.524 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4870 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Collins, Susan M. [R-ME] (Submitted 04/04/2003)
2. S.Amdt.522 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To make certain improvements to the bill. Sponsor: Sen. Stevens, Ted [R-AK] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Amendment SA 522 agreed to in Senate by Voice Vote. (All Actions)
3. S.Amdt.521 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4866-4867 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Leahy, Patrick J. [D-VT] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
5. S.Amdt.519 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4866 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Kyl, Jon [R-AZ] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
6. S.Amdt.518 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4866 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Stevens, Ted [R-AK] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
8. S.Amdt.516 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4866 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Bennett, Robert F. [R-UT] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
9. S.Amdt.515 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To increase funds for Protection and Preparedness of high threat areas under the Office for Domestic Preparedness. Sponsor: Sen. Specter, Arlen [R-PA] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Amendment SA 515 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 65 - 32. Record Vote Number: 122. (All Actions)
10. S.Amdt.514 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To increase the appropriation for the Office for Domestic Preparedness, Department of Homeland Security, by $2,330,000,000. Sponsor: Sen. Schumer, Charles E. [D-NY] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Motion to table amendment SA 514 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 51 - 46. Record Vote Number: 123. (All Actions)
11. S.Amdt.513 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4865 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Leahy, Patrick J. [D-VT] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
12. S.Amdt.512 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4865 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Harkin, Tom [D-IA] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
13. S.Amdt.511 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4865 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Inouye, Daniel K. [D-HI] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
14. S.Amdt.510 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4865 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. McConnell, Mitch [R-KY] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
15. S.Amdt.509 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4865 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Specter, Arlen [R-PA] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
16. S.Amdt.508 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To protect the prerogatives of the Congress in the allocation of homeland security funding. Sponsor: Sen. Byrd, Robert C. [D-WV] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Motion to table amendment SA 508 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 51 - 46. Record Vote Number: 120. (All Actions)
17. S.Amdt.507 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4864 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Kyl, Jon [R-AZ] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
18. S.Amdt.506 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4864 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Wyden, Ron [D-OR] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
20. S.Amdt.504 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To make applicable provisions of law requiring the use of privately owned United States flag commercial vessels for the transportation of U.S. Aid and other materials. Sponsor: Sen. Landrieu, Mary L. [D-LA] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Proposed amendment SA 504 withdrawn in Senate. (All Actions)
21. S.Amdt.503 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4863 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Kennedy, Edward M. [D-MA] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
22. S.Amdt.502 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4863 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Reid, Harry [D-NV] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
23. S.Amdt.501 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4863 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Sarbanes, Paul S. [D-MD] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
24. S.Amdt.500 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To state the sense of the Senate regarding procedures that ensure that fair and equitable resolution of labor integration issues in transactions for the combination of air carriers. Sponsor: Sen. Bond, Christopher S. [R-MO] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Proposed amendment SA 500 withdrawn in Senate. (All Actions)
25. S.Amdt.499 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To require certain air carriers that receive funds appropriated under this Act to accept procedures that ensure the fair and equitable resolution of labor integration issues in transactions for the combination of air carriers. Sponsor: Sen. Talent, Jim [R-MO] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Proposed amendment SA 499 withdrawn in Senate. (All Actions)
26. S.Amdt.498 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4862-4863 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Hutchison, Kay Bailey [R-TX] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
27. S.Amdt.497 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4862 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Collins, Susan M. [R-ME] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
28. S.Amdt.496 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4862 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Bunning, Jim [R-KY] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
29. S.Amdt.495 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4862 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Bond, Christopher S. [R-MO] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
30. S.Amdt.494 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To allocate additional funds for certain federal homeland security programs. Sponsor: Sen. Breaux, John B. [D-LA] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Motion to table amendment SA 494 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 52 - 46. Record Vote Number: 119. (All Actions)
31. S.Amdt.493 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4861 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Lautenberg, Frank R. [D-NJ] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
33. S.Amdt.491 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4861 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Clinton, Hillary Rodham [D-NY] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
34. S.Amdt.490 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4860-4861 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Reid, Harry [D-NV] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
36. S.Amdt.488 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To prohibit the use of funds in a manner that benefits citizens or businesses of France and Germany unless physically located in the United States. Sponsor: Sen. Ensign, John [R-NV] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Proposed amendment SA 488 withdrawn in Senate. (All Actions)
40. S.Amdt.484 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4859-4860 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Edwards, John [D-NC] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
41. S.Amdt.483 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4858-4859 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Murkowski, Lisa [R-AK] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
42. S.Amdt.482 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4858 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Murray, Patty [D-WA] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
43. S.Amdt.481 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To remove unauthorized and earmarked appropriations. Sponsor: Sen. McCain, John [R-AZ] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Amendment SA 481 not agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 38 - 61. Record Vote Number: 118. (All Actions)
45. S.Amdt.479 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate on paying the costs of the war with Iraq. Sponsor: Sen. Hollings, Ernest F. [D-SC] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Motion to table amendment SA 479 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 79 - 18. Record Vote Number: 121. (All Actions)
46. S.Amdt.478 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4858 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Hollings, Ernest F. [D-SC] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
50. S.Amdt.474 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To provide funding for grants to States for smallpox and other bioterrorism inoculation activities. Sponsor: Sen. Bayh, Evan [D-IN] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Amendment SA 474 as modified agreed to in Senate by Voice Vote. (text as modified: CR S4752) (All Actions)
51. S.Amdt.473 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4857 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Ensign, John [R-NV] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
52. S.Amdt.472 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To set aside $30,000,000 for the Department of Homeland Security for research and development and deployment of technology to protect commercial aircraft from the threat posed by man-portable air defense systems. Sponsor: Sen. Boxer, Barbara [D-CA] (Submitted 04/03/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Motion to table amendment SA 472 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 50 - 47. Record Vote Number: 117. (All Actions)
53. S.Amdt.471 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4857 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Allen, George [R-VA] (Submitted 04/03/2003)
54. S.Amdt.470 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4726 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Bayh, Evan [D-IN] (Submitted 04/02/2003)
55. S.Amdt.468 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4724 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. McCain, John [R-AZ] (Submitted 04/02/2003)
57. S.Amdt.466 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4724 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Smith, Gordon H. [R-OR] (Submitted 04/02/2003)
58. S.Amdt.465 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4724 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Dodd, Christopher J. [D-CT] (Submitted 04/02/2003)
61. S.Amdt.462 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To help protect the public against the threat of chemical attacks. Sponsor: Sen. Corzine, Jon S. [D-NJ] (Submitted 04/02/2003) (Proposed 04/02/2003) Latest Action: 04/02/03 Amendment SA 462 ruled out of order by the chair. (All Actions)
62. S.Amdt.461 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4720 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Cochran, Thad [R-MS] (Submitted 04/02/2003)
63. S.Amdt.460 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4720 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Bingaman, Jeff [D-NM] (Submitted 04/02/2003)
64. S.Amdt.459 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To appropriate an additional $375,000,000 for the Department of Veterans Affairs for Medical Care for costs of medical care for certain veterans of the current conflict in Iraq. Sponsor: Sen. Graham, Bob [D-FL] (Submitted 04/02/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Proposed amendment SA 459 withdrawn in Senate. (All Actions)
66. S.Amdt.457 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4720 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Edwards, John [D-NC] (Submitted 04/02/2003)
67. S.Amdt.456 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To strike the appropriations of $50,000,000 for the Maritime Loan Guarantee Program under title XI of the Merchant Marine Act, 1936. Sponsor: Sen. McCain, John [R-AZ] (Submitted 04/02/2003) (Proposed 04/02/2003) Latest Action: 04/02/03 Proposed amendment SA 456 withdrawn in Senate. (All Actions)
68. S.Amdt.455 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To provide humanitarian food assistance in connection with U.S. activities in Iraq. Sponsor: Sen. Kohl, Herb [D-WI] (Submitted 04/02/2003) (Proposed 04/03/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Amendment SA 455 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 67 - 26. Record Vote Number: 124. (All Actions)
71. S.Amdt.452 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To appropriate $1, 047,000,000 for procurement for the National Guard and Reserves. Sponsor: Sen. Landrieu, Mary L. [D-LA] (Submitted 04/02/2003) (Proposed 04/02/2003) Latest Action: 04/02/03 Motion to table amendment SA 452 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 52 - 47. Record Vote Number: 116. (All Actions)
72. S.Amdt.451 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To establish a panel to determine responsibility for an atmosphere at the United States Air Force Academy that was conducive to the recent acts of sexual misconduct at the United States Air Force Academy. Sponsor: Sen. Allard, Wayne [R-CO] (Submitted 04/02/2003) (Proposed 04/02/2003) Latest Action: 04/02/03 Amendment SA 451 as modified agreed to in Senate by Voice Vote. (text as modified: CR S4697) (All Actions)
74. S.Amdt.449 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4719 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Feinstein, Dianne [D-CA] (Submitted 04/02/2003)
75. S.Amdt.448 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Text of Amendment as Submitted: S4719 Purpose displays after an amendment is proposed. Sponsor: Sen. Kerry, John F. [D-MA] (Submitted 04/02/2003)
78. S.Amdt.445 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Relative to port security. Sponsor: Sen. Hollings, Ernest F. [D-SC] (Submitted 04/02/2003) (Proposed 04/02/2003) Latest Action: 04/02/03 Motion to table amendment SA 445 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay. 52 - 47. Record Vote Number: 115. (All Actions)
83. S.Amdt.440 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To provide critical funding to safeguard nuclear weapons and nuclear material in the United States and around the world. Sponsor: Sen. Reid, Harry [D-NV] (Submitted 04/02/2003) (Proposed 04/02/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Proposed amendment SA 440 withdrawn in Senate. (All Actions)
86. S.Amdt.437 to S.Amdt.436 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: Of a perfecting nature. Sponsor: Sen. Durbin, Richard J. [D-IL] (Submitted 04/02/2003) (Proposed 04/02/2003) Latest Action: 04/02/03 Proposed amendment SA 437 withdrawn in Senate. (All Actions)
87. S.Amdt.436 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To increase Imminent Danger Special Pay. Sponsor: Sen. Stevens, Ted [R-AK] (Submitted 04/02/2003) (Proposed 04/02/2003) Latest Action: 04/02/03 Amendment SA 436 as modified agreed to in Senate by Unanimous Consent. (text as modified: CR S4676) (All Actions)
88. S.Amdt.435 — 108th Congress (2003-2004) Purpose: To increase the National Debt Ceiling of the United States. Sponsor: Sen. Stevens, Ted [R-AK] (Submitted 04/02/2003) (Proposed 04/02/2003) Latest Action: 04/03/03 Proposed amendment SA 435 withdrawn in Senate. (All Actions)
Status of Amendment
Senate amendment submitted [88]
Senate amendment proposed (on the floor) [24]
Roll call votes on amendments in Senate [10]
Senate amendment agreed to [6]
Senate amendment not agreed to [1]
Senate [88]
Edwards, John [D-NC] [5]
Hollings, Ernest F. [D-SC] [5]
Leahy, Patrick J. [D-VT] [5]
Stevens, Ted [R-AK] [5]
Clinton, Hillary Rodham [D-NY] [4]
Clinton, Hillary Rodham [D-NY] [11]
Mikulski, Barbara A. [D-MD] [10]
Schumer, Charles E. [D-NY] [9]
Kennedy, Edward M. [D-MA] [8]
Stabenow, Debbie [D-MI] [6]
Democratic [53]
Republican [35]


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In a couple of weeks I'll be attending a public hearing in Columbus, Ohio, where anyone with an opinion on the use of barricade devices in schools can speak to the Ohio Board of Building Standards. In July, the Board will issue an official decision about whether to change the current Ohio code requirements and allow barricade devices to be used in schools.
Readers of this site know where I stand on this issue, but attempting to look at it objectively, I have not heard one good reason to allow devices which can deter or prevent evacuation, are not regulated, certified, or listed for use on a fire door, and that allow someone (anyone) to barricade the door and prevent access by staff or emergency responders. Why are we even talking about allowing someone to secure a door against not only the bad guy, but the good guys? And especially when there are already code-compliant ways to provide the needed security? The only reason I can think of is cost. Is that really a good reason to take three steps backward on safety?
I know there are people who think the current codes are outdated, that fires aren't an issue in schools, and that our top priority should be protecting against active shooters. I've already put together a lot of research, statistics, and evidence on those topics, so I won't repeat it here. But when I consider giving up the protection that the current codes provide, and abandoning the code development process that incorporates the expertise of many, it scares the heck out of me. Really.
At a bare minimum, a lock on a classroom door should allow access from the outside by a staff member or emergency responder with a key or other credential. If you can think of a reason why it would be ok to lock the door and completely prevent emergency response, I'd love to hear it.
Once that's out of the way then you could begin to talk about the actual code compliance issues etc. Either way I think you want to emotionally bring the point home. The whole point of these bills are to try and protect our children but they actually does the opposite. End of story.
I don't know… Maybe that's putting it a little TOO simply. I guess IMHO, the people backing these types of initiatives have the best intentions. They really do want to protect our schools. I think that the best way to get through to them is to explain that they backed the wrong horse so to speak, and that if they want to achieve their goal then they need to do it the right way.
I would say that the current door control devices have been designed and refined based on decades, perhaps even over a century of the effort to balance building security vs fire and life safety egress. There have been many lives lost and people injured during those years of refinement. Those losses have driven the changes and safety laws currently in place.
Stop trying to reinvent the wheel in order to address a lack of education in lock function options. Facilities and school districts need to pick a function, train their staff and students how to lock the door. The best safety barricade is good training. End of story.
Go Get Them! I know I'm preaching to the choir but a while ago you had a phenomenal statistic about the number of incidents where access was required to the classroom. Most involved theft. Unfortunately the code does not address this issue only fire. And because of the code mandated requirements the number of fire incidents doesn't attract attention. I know this isn't a legit reason to use a barrier but it is the "other" reason not to use one.
I would advise them against passing revising the current fire/security codes.
Of course for all of the reasons that you have previously stated but make sure to make 1 strong point!
If you provide barricade devices for schools, a typical classroom MIGHT have need for it once in 10 or 20 years.
HOWEVER, in that same 10 or 20 year period, how many times will that same device be used by the wrong people with ill intent? If you guess even twice, then that device should not be allowed on the property.
Instead of focusing on keeping an intruder out of the individual classrooms, they need to think a little bigger and do what they can to keep them either out of the building itself or off of the property entirely.
If it comes down to cost, then are you prepared to talk about the price of a compliant lockset versus the most popular barricade devices? Work with small numbers though, (for one lockset) as the difference between the two can be a large number when extrapolated for entire school or school district. Any way to offset the cost difference besides 'guilt', if something bad happened behind the secured door (e.g. insurance savings, etc)?
If your argument wins them over, the please share for the rest of us who are fighting this battle in the trenches with you.
Explain it this way: if students have access to the barricade device, they will use it, and not for their own protection. Imagine what will happen when a bully barricades the door with a special needs child in there with him. He could assault the other child (physically, sexually), and staff will have no way of stopping or preventing it from happening – because the door is barricaded.
Imagine the lawsuit that would happen if this scenario took place. That would cost 1000 times more than protecting the students properly with the correct lockset. In my opinion, this is a much more likely scenario than an active shooter situation.
I think I would talk to the point that there is code compliant hardware in existence, that will achieve the same wanted results.
Then throw in all the problems with non compliant barricade devices.
You might dig through your picture file and pull out twenty or so pictures of schools where after hour devices are allowed but have been found in use while the building is occupied. This could show them that if allowed, it might compound the issue.
No words to coach you on your presentation. However, a bit of encouragement. I firmly believe you are on the right track on this issue and those who can see past those peddling fear will agree that moving first responders into the building is also critical.


text:
Catching a Wave
There is an ever-evolving need for new ideas about sustainable development in a world of constantly shifting biophysical and social realities. This is especially pertinent in coastal land and seascapes: spaces where a myriad of societal activities and productive and dynamic natural systems co-exist.
Catching a Wave (CaW), an iterative sea-level rise multi-media installation, has brought together a research consortium from four universities based in the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland. CaW was deliberately conceptualized to act as a catalyst for constructing a transdisciplinary approach for shifting individual and collective mind-sets toward action for more sustainable oceans and coasts and the people who live, work, and interact within these spaces.
Focused on five SDGs; SDG13: Climate Action and SDG14: Life below Water, SDG3: Good health and wellbeing; SDG15: Life on Land; and SDG17: Partnerships for the Goals. CaW was designed to increase awareness and resonance of the SDGs and oceanscapes with multiple audiences.
While CaW specifically set out to transform the way in which actors, stakeholders, and society interact with ocean and coastal spaces, the process of message development has remained dynamic and driven by an iterative co-design process Catching a Wave engages both artists and scientists to generate collaborative pathways for sustainability action.
Designed to move the conversation beyond a 'service mentality' of separate product delivery into the development of transdisciplinary collaborations, this integrated, interactive, and immersive project, Catching a Wave, demonstrates the power and synergies between art and science, and further the evolution of a model for collaboration by identifying challenges to integration.
The process of wave capture from technical through digital and physical forms (i) Camera rig designed for photographing the water, (ii) the resulting digital image of captured wave and (iii) a glass wave from above.
Examining the Potential of Art-Science Collaborations in the Anthropocene: A Case Study of Catching a Wave
Catching a Wave - What will it take to create a public for the ocean?
Catching a Wave: new technologies in art and science
Dr Shona Koren Paterson - Building on an academic transdisciplinary background in Natural Sciences (Marine Biology, Resource Management) and Social Sciences (Climate Adaptation, Social Justice, Environmental Policy), Shona's guiding focus remains the generation and translation of defensible research informed by the needs of society and co-created with the intended beneficiaries. Her research is motivated by international frameworks such as the UN 2030 Agenda, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the COP21 Paris Agreement. She has spent her working career building partnerships and knowledge exchange networks with local communities and stakeholders to achieve mutually beneficial social and ecological goals. With a special interest in marginalised communities and social justice and equity, Shona's recent research has focused on global flood risk and resilience, climate risk assessments, adaptation and adaptive capacity in urbanising coastal areas. Embracing a transdisciplinary approach, Shona works at the interface of science-policy as well as effective and fit-for-audience communication of data and knowledge to ensure increased impactful discourse around risk. She has research experience in the Caribbean, USA, UK and Ireland, as well as a global perspective through involvement with Future Earth and its associated global research project Future Earth Coasts.
Equitable Development and Resilience - Centred on development and social justice issues, our group continually reflects upon how individual and collective agency can contribute to meaningful change around climate action and sustainability across Global North and South nations.
Dr Shona Koren Paterson
External Principal investigator(s)
Hester Whyte (Coastal Matters)
Dr Martin Le Tissier (University College Cork- MaREI Centre for Energy Climate and Marine)
Professor Lisa Beth Robinson (East Carolina University)
Professor Kristin Thielking (University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point)
Dr Mrill Ingram (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Riding the wave - seeing and feeling music
Anthropocene; Art-Science Collaborations; marine; sea; Transdisciplinarity; Brunel Business School; Brunel University London; College of Business, Arts and Social Sciences; College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences; Communities; Dr Martin Le Tissier (University College Cork- MaREI Centre for Energy Climate and Marine); Dr Mrill Ingram (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Dr Shona Koren Paterson; Equitable Development and Resilience (CEDR); Global Challenges; Health; Hester Whyte (Coastal Matters); Ocean Sustainability; Professor Kristin Thielking (University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point); Professor Lisa Beth Robinson (East Carolina University);


text:
On the Despotism of Democracy
The idea that democracy and despotism are mutually exclusive is based on a mistaken understanding of both.
Thus, after taking each individual by turns in its powerful hands and kneading him as it likes, the sovereign extends its arms over society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.
I have always believed that this sort of regulated, mild, and peaceful servitude, whose picture I have just painted, could be combined better than one imagines with some of the external forms of freedom, and that it would not by impossible for it to be established in the very shadow of the sovereignty of the people.1
I would be curious to know what reaction a modern reader coming to these words for the first time might experience – whether they might elicit unease or dread or confusion in the soul, or rather a kind of slightly perplexed complacency, or perhaps even a kind of pleasant and vague agreement, as if to say, 'Yes, this is true, such a state of affairs really would be regrettable!' It may well be that these words are a testing stone for the contemporary soul.
The passage in question, which never fails to send a cold shudder through my heart, and the more each time I return to it after long absence, comes from one of the most intelligent and prescient minds of modern times. I have always considered it a mark of shame on my country that the greatest book, the deepest and most incisive thoughts, ever written regarding America, were penned by a foreigner; and it is an amusing twist on that shame that they should have sprung in particular from the mind of a Frenchman.
It is precisely the danger of a despotism arising within democracy as its special modern outgrowth that Tocqueville would awaken us to.
The writer is Alexis de Tocqueville, and the words are excerpted from his monumental work Democracy in America. They occur nigh the end, in a chapter entitled 'What kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear'. Not only this chapter, but the book in full should be read by anyone of our day who is genuinely interested in comprehending the nature of contemporary democracies, and who is not blind, or wishes at least to open his eyes, to the greatest limitations of contemporary democracy, and those malign forms which unhappily may be its consequence. The chapter here cited would be difficult to adequately understand in and of itself, without the light of the whole book to cast it into proper relief. This is the moreso true, as many today, blinded by the special and especially widespread form of propaganda that surrounds us, will at first consider the very idea of 'democratic despotism' to be an oxymoron. Yet it is precisely the danger of a despotism arising within democracy as its special modern outgrowth that Tocqueville would awaken us to.
Tocqueville's vision of despotism in a democratic state takes at least two forms. One, the more classic of the two, is very similar to that kind of despotism which is reviled and feared as much in our day as in the past. It is in a word a kind of classic tyranny into which democracies may atimes stray. We can infer moreover the horrifying form that this tyranny might take when combined with a technology which permits it, as past tyrannies never dreamed, to regulate all aspects of human life. We have called that specter Totalitarianism, a concept which is in need of much deeper critique than it has received,2 and we live yet near enough to it that the memory of its many horrors may yet protect us from it, to some extent. Having suffered the long illness of it, if only by proxy in our war with the Soviet, we are to some extent inoculated against it, so long as it does not arise in a new and more virulent strain. It is at least true that the awareness of this menace has been deeply enough lodged in our spirits, that there is no shortage even of public awareness of it, some of it even exaggerated and false. This last is to be glimpsed each time someone rises up in hyperbole and calls, in true democratic fashion, some peccant public figure a 'Hitler' or a 'fascist'.
But there is another and, as it were, more insidious possibility which Tocqueville identifies, and it is to this we should most emphatically turn our attentions: the possibility of a specifically democratic despotism, which replaces the bayonet with the cold shoulder, and the forcible oppression of dissidents with the infinitely more effective response of – utter silence.
In America the majority draws a formidable circle around thought. Inside those limits, the writer is free; but unhappiness awaits him if he dares to leave them. It is not that he has to fear an auto-da-fé, but he is the butt of mortifications of all kinds and of persecutions every day. A political career is closed to him; he has offended the only power that has the capacity to open it up. Everything is refused him, even glory. Before publishing his opinions, he believed he had partisans; it seems to him that he no longer has any now that he as uncovered himself to all; for those who blame him express themselves openly, and those who think like him, without having his courage, keep silent and move away. He yields, he finally bends under the effort of each day and returns to silence as if he felt remorse for having spoken the truth.
Chains and executioners are the coarse instruments that tyranny formerly employed; but in our day civilization has perfected even despotism itself, which seemed, indeed, to have nothing more to learn.
I wonder if this description of life in America in the time before the Civil War will not seem chillingly familiar to some of us? Certainly, it must cast into a new light the various campaigns of defamation and deplatforming which are brought against us, and which are often enough painted as though they had been the inventions of this morning. We are at war with a much older beast than we sometimes seem to think.
Naturally, one may well believe – and hardly will one be mistaken! – that the situation which Tocqueville so masterly sketches is after all not so bad a fate, as compared to that which awaits one in truer tyrannies. For in tyrannies, one may not speak without feeling the lash, and perhaps one will lose one's very freedom for the liberty one has afforded to one's tongue, or pay for one's words with one's life. The terror of this is under no circumstances to be belittled. Yet those of us who are not blind to the beauties of the soul nor numb to its finest products, would do well to listen on a time the longer to what Tocqueville would teach us:
Under the absolute government of one alone, despotism struck the body crudely, so as to reach the soul; and the soul, escaping from those blows, rose gloriously above it; but in democratic republics, tyranny does not proceed in this way; it leave the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says to it: You shall think as I do or you shall die; he says: You are free not to think as I do; your life, your goods, everything remains to you; but from this day on, you are a stranger among us. You shall keep your privileges in the city, but they will become useless to you; for if you crave the vote of your fellow citizens, they will not grant it to you, and if you demand only their esteem, they will still pretend to refuse it to you. You shall remain among men, but you shall lose your rights of humanity. When you approach those like you, they shall flee you as being impure; and those who believe in your innocence, even they shall abandon you, for one would flee them in their turn. Go in peace, I leave you your life, but I leave it to you worse than death.
That is chilling, and I will not be alone in feeling the bracing touch of it. As for its consequences:
If America has not yet had great writers, we ought not to seek the reasons for this elsewhere: no literary genius exists without freedom of mind, and there is no freedom of mind in America.
Fortunately, our nation is not without great writers. But it is to this day without wide appreciation of the few it has produced, and their particular histories (its greatest writers have consistently been misunderstood, unacknowledged, and spurred into voluntary exile) do not much console. Those of us, at least, who do not satisfy ourselves with Norman Mailer and Sinclair Lewis – nay, nor even Steinbeck or Poe – must we not admit that, although the Tocqueville's statement here is not literal, it is, nonetheless, alarmingly generally accurate?
The terror of 'mild despotism' should be lost on no one who has love of greatness in his heart. Tocqueville himself was such a lover, and was well aware of the distressing qualities of democratic or mild despotism, also known today as 'soft totalitarianism', though he himself considered it preferable to that more classic form of tyranny which might issue from democracies. One has of course to agree with him – given the political situation of two hundred years ago. Indeed, apart from its inherent ills, Tocqueville seemed to consider the greatest ill of mild despotism, its proclivity to degenerate into pure despotism.
The advent of technology in our day has altered the quality of the democratic despotism that Tocqueville feared in a single fundamental respect: it has made it in principle perpetual.
But despite the fact that the judgements laid forth by Tocqueville, though they are nearing their two-hundredth anniversary, stand almost unqualifiably valid also in our own day, so thorough, trenchant, and ingenious were they at their birth, there have been in the intervening centuries only two events which compel a revisitation of Tocqueville's conclusions regarding democratic politics and mores: one, an event of 'history', the other, of philosophy; one to challenge certain aspects of Tocqueville's diagnosis of the illnesses to which democracies are prone; the other to widen the scope of his prescriptions.
The first event is nothing more nor less than the great technological revolution, possibility of which was foreseen by the greatest minds of past generations, but consequences of which are becoming visible only now for the first time in history. Tocqueville's analysis must therefore be emended, for the advent of technology in our day has altered the quality of the democratic despotism that Tocqueville feared in a single fundamental respect: it has made it in principle perpetual. As Leo Strauss so forcefully put it at the close of his response to Alexandre Kojève in their exchange on one of Xenophon's dialogues,3
Thanks to the conquest of nature and to the complete unabashed substitution of suspicion and terror for law, the Universal and Final Tyrant has at his disposal practically unlimited means for ferreting out, and for extinguishing, the most modest efforts in the direction of thought.
What we speak of here is the perfect conflation of despotism and democracy, the unification of the two apparently contrary principles into a single horrifyingly sinister synthesis.
To appreciate the gravity of this possibility, one can surely do worse than to read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, in which a most convincing portrait of such a world is drawn with a sure hand, by a man who was no stranger to the hard sciences and the ways in which they might be made to conform to tyranny.4 This is not Huxley's deepest nor most penetrating treatment of the question of science's effect on human life – for that, one must turn to Point, Counter Point – but it is certainly that work of fiction which so far as I know most clearly demonstrates the kind of despotism which we of today ought most to fear. Thanks to the conquest of nature and to the increasing and increasingly unabashed substitution of public opinion for law, the total debasement of the human spirit could radically be effected, not just for the next decades or for our historical epoch, but for centuries to come, if not for the remainder of human existence, by means of practices and institutions which might result in irreversible damage to our humanity.
We live, I am not afraid of saying, quite blithely unaware of the possibility of this kind of nightmare. We have been inculcated by our contemporary 'philosophy' and by the experience and outcome of long and terrible wars to believe that democracy and despotism inhabit two mutually exclusive and perfectly separate political spheres. We presuppose this simple dichotomy, believing tacitly that although one form might lead or give way to the other, the first leaves off exactly where the second begins. Were the cleanliness of these divisions really guaranteed, I would be considerably more sanguine about our prospects, and might rest content at holding my tongue on certain questions. I might even be a qualified 'friend of democracy'. But this must be impossible to anyone who perceives with sufficient an immediacy that danger against which Tocqueville warns us.
Now, Tocqueville himself was a somewhat unwilling prophet of democracy. He regarded its coming, not without regret at the world that was departing; he viewed it as an inevitability that must be accepted by equanimous souls, a dispensation of fate itself and an inescapable result of the great plan of God. He consoled himself for the splendour and human greatness which would be lost to the world through it, by reflecting on the increase in humaneness and the reduction of unhappiness and pain the coming democratic revolution would, if managed well, entail. His faith in God, and his consequent faith in mankind, was his specific against the vision of 'universal uniformity' which 'saddened and chilled' him. There is a very dire question as to whether or not we may any longer permit ourselves such consolations. For the 'plan of God', whatever it might be, includes also the element of human free will; then when the time for war arises, we must be ready to take up arms, rather than sitting quietly on our belief in Providence or in the final aims of the higher powers. If we look the matter squarely in the face we must surely face also the dread of it, particularly when we look think a moment in an untimely way, when we gaze beyond, and consider somberly the vilest possibilities that even now technology has made possible for a future and last humanity, compared with that more splendid vision of an unrealized human greatness, that we even now cherish in our hearts.
Tocqueville, we may say, learned to come to terms with democracy, and everywhere expresses his belief that aristocracy is no longer possible, that it cannot return to mankind in any guise whatsoever. His aim was therefore in teaching how the weaknesses of democracy might be strengthened, the dangers of democracy averted, and the strengths of democracy reinforced. In this he was master, and we would do well to make ourselves his intelligent pupils – to apply his teachings where they are still relevant, to supplement them where they are deficient, and to replace them in those few areas that they no longer seem adequate.
One of, if not the greatest of all, dangers to human greatness is to be found in the enervation which might seize promising individuals, when they find themselves utterly isolated in the democratic crowd, shunned without being punished and spurned without being oppressed, encircled in a suffocating sphere of opprobrium – a perfect prison of invisible walls, which bears the name of solitude above its impassable door. It is a rare and superhuman strength which can persist even so long as a few years in radical ideas, without even a shred of sympathy or agreement from one's fellows: imagine, then, the strength that would be demanded of an entire life like this. One who is divided from all others by his own rarity is doomed to the worst kind of oubliette, such as not even the wicked genius of the torturers of the past might have invented.
In drawing attention to the dangers inherent in even the most popular of our modern technologies (such as, for instance, our dubiously named 'communication technology') I risk saying things which are not likely to be very popular. I am willing in any case to press the matter quite far indeed, by expressing my belief that our technology today poses problems to far outweigh its advantages, and that we ought to be much more prudent in its use, its development, and its promulgation than I know we will be. It is, so far as I am concerned, the most troubling development in all of modernity, and the one most likely to do irreparable harm to our future. I think it suffices to note that our technology is the only invention ever to come of human hands capable of destroying the entirety of the race. And the ways in which it might do so are hardly limited to nuclear holocaust or the artificial production of a superdisease (though it goes without saying that these, too, are very real possibilities).
It will be responded, to be sure, that if it is capable of such evil it is capable of as much good. I do not deny this; I only doubt that it suffices as a counterargument. For precisely if this is true, then the decisive question is not the power of technology itself, but the virtue and responsibility of the hand that wields it. We have granted this power to no one individual, but to the entirety of humanity. Only the most doctrinaire liberal will claim that 'humanity' as such is responsible enough to bear such a power: and often enough, it is precisely the most doctrinaire liberal that contradicts his own belief, in his terror at the damage to our 'environment' that popular technology is even now wreaking. Today, technology has been given the power to inflict unquantifiable destruction, and that this power has been given willy-nilly to the most short-sighted and greediest human beings among us, who are even encouraged in their vices by an untrammelled economic 'liberty' and a general furor for the latest bit of technological 'progress'. This not to speak of the special dogma of our day, according to which we are all on the upward road, and the future must be greater than that past! On what grounds, then, are we permitted to suppose that the good of the results will even nearly approach the ill?
If a new Dark Age really is come upon us, as is suggested by many signs, we can hope for nothing more than that, this time, those of us who are wakeful both to past and to future, will know to prepare for its coming as no one in the last Dark Age could have known.
The destruction that this unbridled technological development could bring need not be physical. The Bomb is not the only threat that technology has birthed. Perhaps it is no longer even the greatest. But if this is so, and if what I have said so far is correct, then technology is the mightiest weapon that has ever been offered to the hands of humanity's greatest enemy – an enemy which does not, alas, become the less terrible for being so very benign in its intentions. I am speaking of that very personal inertia and meekness which Tocqueville identifies as the greatest threat in democracies, as that which will lead them to that mild despotism we have already discussed.5
A final passage of Tocqueville is worth citing, for the terrible degree to which it describes our present plight precisely:
I want to imagine with what new features despotism could be produced in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and regular pleasures with which they fill their souls. Each of them, withdrawn and apart, is like a stranger to the destiny of all others: his children and his particular friends form the whole human species for him; as for dwelling with his fellow citizens, he is beside them, but he does not see them; he touches them and does not feel then; he exists only in himself and for himself alone, and if a family still remains for him, one can at least say that he no longer has a native country.
Above these an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate. It is absolute, detailed, regular, far-seeing, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if, like that, it had for its object to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood; it likes citizens to enjoy themselves provided that they think only of enjoying themselves. It willingly works for their happiness; but it wants to be the unique agent and sole arbiter of that; it provides for their security, foresees and secures their needs, facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principle affairs, directs their industry, regulates their estates, divides their inheritances; can it not take away from them entirely the trouble of thinking and the pain of living?
So it is that every day it renders the employment of free will less useful and more rare; it confines the action of the will in a smaller space and little by little steals the very use of it from each citizen. Equality has prepared men for all these things; it has disposed them to tolerate them and often even to regard them as a benefit.
We may ask ourselves – no, it is our pressing duty to ask ourselves, with all due ruthlessness – just how far this portrait is our own, and to what extent our much-vaunted technology has become the principle power that the 'tutelary power' today holds over our heads – its greatest and most precious tool in the cowing of our souls. My own position, I think, has been suggested clearly enough.
But if it is true – as I believe it is – that technology is a potent weapon in the hands of a dangerous and largely unintelligent ruler, it is only good strategy to take that weapon, and turn it against its master.
Tocqueville notes in many places the importance of association in any effort to counteract democracy's worst tendencies. In Tocqueville's day, of course, the possibilities of association were for clear reasons limited. Restrictions on means of travel and those eternal barriers to communication (distance and time), set up natural borders to association. To mention no other difficulties, it would not have been a simple matter for a radical American of fifty years ago (radical either toward the left or toward the right, as my reader prefers) to find the company of others like him, particularly if he did not reside in one of the great cities of the country. Even his chances to associate would be few and far between.
Today, thanks to the internet, these distances have been all but nullified. This is a situation ripe with perils all its own, some of which we are only now just beginning to glimpse in dim outline. But it has this to its favour, and this is no small advantage: the internet has made real diversity of opinions possible, in a way it was perhaps not in even the recent past, by providing individuals possessed of utterly eccentric ideas to find their peers, the which often dwell in distant places or even in other countries. The solitude of the idiosyncratic today is less prevalent than ever before, and in consequence ideas that are not favoured by the majority, ideas that are even regarded as obnoxious and pernicious, may yet root and grow, reinforced by nourishment of distant aquifers. To anyone who does not believe that the truth is the unique preserve of one or even both of our popular political parties, this cannot help but appear as a hopeful sign. It has often been noted the degree to which this has played into the advent of populist leaders and parties in our day; and whatever may be said against them, it is clear they at least buy us much-needed time to be about our deeper work. If, as price for this, we must accept the exponential increase as well of ignorant, vulgar, and superficial opinions, that is in the end may well be an acceptable price to pay.
I leave off, after these dark thoughts, with a more hopeful vision of the future, as found in the closing of yet another monumental book, this time a work of cultural history. From Dawn to Decadence was accomplished at the exceptional age of ninety-three by one of our greatest intellectuals, the late Jacques Barzun. This book is also eminently worth reading for any lover of European culture. I cite here but choice fragments of Barzun's closing prophecies, as imagined from some day in the year 2300. The quotation marks are Barzun's.6
'Some writers have called our time the end of the European age. True in one sense, it is misleading in another: it overlooks the Europeanization of the globe. … The shape and coloring of the next era is beyond anyone's power to define; if it were guessable, it would not be new. But on the character of the interval between us and the real tomorrow, speculation is possible. …
'The population was divided roughly into two groups; they did not like the word classes. The first, less numerous, was made up of the men and women who possessed the virtually inborn ability to handle the products of techne and master the methods of physical science, especially mathematics – it was to them what Latin had been to the medieval clergy. This modern elite had the geometrical mind that singled them out for the life of research and engineering. …
'It was from this class – no, group – that the governors and heads of institutions were recruited. The parallel with the Middle Ages is plain – clerics in one case, cybernists in the other. The latter took pride in the fact that in ancient Greek cybernetes means helmsman, governor. It validated their position as rulers over the masses, which by then could neither read nor count. But these less capable citizens were by no means barbarians, yet any schooling would have been wasted on them; that has been proved in the late 20C. …
'As for peace and war, the former was the distinguishing mark of the West from the rest of the world. The numerous regions of the occident and America formed a loose confederation obeying rules from Brussels and Washington in concert; they were prosperous, law-abiding, overwhelming in offensive weaponry, and they had decided to let outside peoples and their factions eliminate one another until exhaustion introduced peacableness into their plans.
'After a time, estimated at little over a century, the western mind was set upon by a blight: it was Boredom. The attack was so severe that the over-entertained people, led by a handful of restless men and women from the upper orders, demanded Reform and finally imposed in the usual way, by repeating one idea. These radicals had begun to study the old neglected literary and photographic texts and maintained that they were the record of a fuller life. They urged looking with a fresh eye at the monuments still standing about; they reopened the collections of works or art that had long seemed so uniformly dull that nobody went near them. They distinguished styles and the different ages of their emergence – in short, they found a past and used it to create a new present. Fortunately, they were bad imitators (except for a few pedants), and their twisted view of their sources laid the foundation of our nascent – or perhaps one should say, renascent – culture. It has resurrected enthusiasm in the young and talented, who keep exclaiming what a joy it is to be alive.'
Barring the advent of a technocratic totalitarianism such as we have intimated above, the gravest future we might imagine is a gradual descent into a new European Dark Age, in which the inimitable cultural patrimony of Europe is once more threatened with extinction by the twin dangers of stagnant forgetfulness and violent and barbaric animosity. If such a future really is come upon us, as is suggested by many signs, we can hope for nothing more than that, this time, those of us who are wakeful both to past and to future, will know to prepare for its coming as no one in the last Dark Age could have known. We are in a position – we who will not sleep though our neighbours drowse and slumber, we who will not despair though hope becomes dim to our eyes, we who will learn again how to build for the centuries, perchance even the millennia, as much as lies in our small power – we are in a position today to prepare for this contingency as never before, and to ready ourselves before the necessity of bearing this torch across the bleak times ahead of us.
There are households in the very land wherein I dwell, which have kept alive the embers of their hearths for as long as any human memory or any human tradition can recall. We must bear fixedly before us their modest example.
1All quotations from Democracy in America in what follows are taken from the Harvey C. Mansfield translation of Tocqueville. See Tocqueville, Alexis de, Democracy in America (Chicago and London. University of Chicago Press: 2000).
2A few notes in the right direction: in the first place, it should be observed that this concept arose in democratic times as a means of joining together Nazism, Fascism, and Communism all into a single category. The fingerprints on the idea are thus unmistakably 'democratic'; it is clearly a concept formulated by the winners of World War II and the Cold War in order to justify their victory on an intellectual and moral level. Yet it is clear that Nazism and Fascism were already two very distinct phenomena – not to speak of the much more salient differences between these forms and Communism! – and it would be well, both for our intellectual conscience but also for the formulation of the principles of the Deep Right itself, to understand these differences with a degree of rigour. Only then would it be possible to correctly diagnose their similarities as well, which is to say, the extent to which they all employed propaganda, scenery and celebrations, parades, and technological control in order to maintain their reign. This point of similarity, which is essentially modern and which is essentially common to all these forms, could then be understood as the specifically 'totalitarian' element of these regimes, and could be understood, and evaluated, in its own right. But until we have done the initial work of analysis, this final work of synthesis is not only premature but also doomed to end in confusions and confoundment.
3See Strauss, Leo. On Tyranny, Revised and Enlarged (Ithaca. Cornell Paperbacks, Cornell University Press: 1963), 'Restatement on Xenophon's Hiero'.
41984 will also come to mind; but I believe that the specific danger it warned against was extinguished with the fall of the Soviet Union, and could, moreover, have only come to fruition in the world through a most remarkable series of global accidents. In particular, the notion of three superstates engaged in a perennial and unwinnable war seems to me unbelievable. Much more credible would have been a single world government, in unambiguous possession of the entire globe, which, using its tyrannical and unchallenged power, might fabricate wars wholesale, pitting its citizens against one another in a great theatrical display unheard of in the history of the world. For, barring the advent of a technological superstate à la Brave New World, Orwell's point does stand: a society without enemies cannot long continue.
5 I direct the enterprising reader, who would more intimately understand the thought here presented, to the following chapters of Democracy in America: Volume I, Part 2, Chapter 7 and Volume II, Part 4, Chapters 6-7; cf. Volume II, Part 2, Chapters 20.
6 Barzun, Jacques, From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present. 500 Years of Western Cultural Life (New York. Perennial: 2000).
democracymodernitysoft totalitarianismTocqueville
Peter King says:
11th January 2019 at 6:35 pm
John, predictably you have come up with another fascinating and thought-provoking essay. There are many points that I could respond to, but I shall just make a couple if I may.
First, as you allude to yourself and your use of Tocqueville makes clear, the critique of democracy is not new. Indeed, reading your opening quote (which I did not recognise, not having read the book for at least 20 years) I thought initially that it might be taken from Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish. I hope you'll forgive me for making this association, but Foucault, speaking from the left, made exactly the same points about democracy in this book, particularly the idea of the apparently voluntary or 'soft' forms of discipline. Modern western societies, he argued, discipline their citizens by rules, which we are conditioned to accept, rather than violence. Perhaps all this shows is that Foucault was not as original as he and others claimed him to be, but it is interesting to see how general this critique has been.
This takes me to the second point I wish to make. I was reminded of Churchill's comment about democracy in the House of Commons in 1947, when he stated that 'democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time'. This obviously leads to the question of what then the alternatives to democracy are and how they might be better.
But I think there is another more sophisticated point to make, and this is what is it about democracy that makes it the least bad. One argument that I believe is important is one that we can take from Arthur Seldon and his defence of capitalism. Seldon argued that the unique feature of capitalism was that it was corrigible. It was open to reform and change and can and would adapt to meet threats and challenges to it. Other forms of economic order did not have the same facility and could not deal with rapid economic change. We might argue that democracy has a similar quality to capitalism in that despite its manifest faults, it is capable of reforming and reinventing itself. If one takes the USA, those who despaired of Obama could take comfort from the fact that he would be out of office in a maximum of 8 years. Likewise, those who wish to see the end of Trump know it will come in either 2020 or 2024. Beyond that there are checks and balances, which, while being certainly imperfect, allow for a policy to be rigorously tested. This rigorous testing also applies to individual politicians and it will be interesting to see how the new cohort of 'socialist' Democrats elected to Congress match up to public scrutiny. While democracy allows for these sorts of people to be elected, it also has within the means by which these people can be challenged and removed, and this is by no means a negligible quality to hold on to.
Neither of my points are intended to detract from the key points you make, but I suppose my main question to you would be: if not democracy then what and is it not just a case (to parody Churchill) of choosing which form of despotism is least bad?
Kerry Bolton says:
12th January 2019 at 10:29 am
The Right alternative is the organic state; the 'normal' condition of civilization in the way Evola for e.g. described it. The corporatist means of social organisation also allows for a more direct form of representation, and elevates the electorate above the nebulous franchise of liberal democracy. The organic state is based on rights of group association; this was destroyed by the liberal concept of individual rights, rendering the individual detached and meaningless other than being part of a production and consumption process (capitalism) . One of the great travesties of Jacobinism against the traditional social order was the prohibition of the guilds.
Corporatism was one of the three ideologies contending with communism and capitalism after World War I, but the origins lay in a crisis of both democracy and Marxism shortly prior to the War , which saw a synthesis of elements of Left and Right (such as the followers of Sorel and Maurras in France, likewise syndicalists and nationalists in Italy) and the impetus of Catholic social doctrine, giving rise to a new but nonetheless Rightist ideology that swept the world, from Europe to South America.
That this ideology lost a physical war against a temporary alliance of the other two is an indication of the decay of the epoch rather than the failure of the new synthesis. Another factor is that democracy is a facade of plutocracy. How much sovereignty does a nation state possess when it does not have control over its own banking system?
Capitalism and democracy have added to the existential crisis of Western Civilization, the 'progress' has been an illusion; we're in the same place of rot and putrescence as many other civilizations over millennia. The pathogenic impact on the collective unconscious commented on by Jung, Lorenz, Alexis Carrel and others of the Right is intrinsic to democracy and capitalism.
Very interesting points as always, Peter. Thank you.
I would have aught to say about Foucault, but I will restrain myself to your main question, which already demands a deal of elaboration. It is a point commonly brought against critics of democracy; and it is commonly brought against them, indeed, because it is a good point. It is, however, a point which departs already from a modern perspective, and must be understood as such.
To ask in the first place which form of government must be chosen already supposes that governments are the matter for the rational selection and construction of human beings. Up until the past four or five centuries, this view was not only unheard of, but would certainly have been considered the height of hubris, impiety or madness, had it ever been aired. Men have always sought to remedy the errors in their societies or to improve the quality of their governments, but it is only in modern times that one seeks a 'rational system', a 'better form of government' to replace a worse; and hence very idea of revolution itself is born in modern times. This must be made clear before anything, for in a certain sense, I do not think that any government at all should have to be chosen; such a state of affairs already indicates a nation which is in a certain sense fundamentally sick.
Now, if you ask me instead what government I think is better than democracy, I will tell you, though obviously it be a highly unpopular response in our day and time, that to my mind hereditary aristocracy, such as it existed for more than a thousand years in Europe, is the far better regime. I would be happy to make a defence of my view, should you be interested; barring that, I will direct you to Kerry Bolton's comment above, with which I largely agree. At present, however, I would like to address your standing question. For whatever anyone might think about it, we are living at a time in which it really is necessary to choose, according to our poor lights, a form of government which can be the rightful aim of our efforts and our hopes.
Despite my favouring hereditary aristocracy, it is decidedly not a matter of decision, and cannot merely be imposed on a state. It is an organic outgrowth of the life of a people, not the artificial selection of a portion or the whole of its population. It cannot be voted into office, nor even imposed from above, because it depends on a whole organic context which cannot be reproduced via logic, institution or fiat, and which includes, among other things, a certain morality, a certain religion, a certain view of justice, a certain view of the world, of things and people, of human responsibilities and of the duties of the ruler. All of these organic elements of a healthy society can be undermined and destroyed, as the last five hundred years abundantly demonstrate; they cannot be so easily reconstituted. It would be impossible in our day to transform our present systems into the kinds of aristocracies which once were commonplace and even standard in European nations; hereditary aristocracy, though it might be our ideal, cannot be our immediate goal.
We thus find ourselves in dire straits, in which we are forced to live beneath what I believe is the worst or second worst form of government – democracy – and have no way of mending it by seeking its natural replacement or superior. It would seem then wise to attempt merely to tame it and rectify it as much as possible. But for any number of reasons, which I have indicated in this article and also elsewhere, and which I will without doubt be revisiting in the future, I do not believe that such rectification is possible – not generally, and certainly not in the contemporary period.
I limit myself to one facet of this problem, which you explicitly mentioned in your comment: namely, the claim that democracy is 'self-correcting'. Here again, we see mark of modernity, insofar as it is supposed that by means of mere mechanisms, one can establish a system capable of righting itself when it begins to capsize. I will be the last to deny that such mechanisms do exist within our present 'order', both in capitalism and in democracy; but, being mechanisms, they are strictly mechanical, and are as subject to the law of entropy as any machine. The present populist wave is a case in point. The masses object to the ways in which they have been manipulated or abused by the present 'leaders', and seek to replace those leaders with others that are more favourable to them. Yet what finally is the locus of their concern? That they do not have work, that they are being neglected economically or in terms of government welfare, that they do not have the means of earning sufficient money, not merely to live, but to purchase the totally superfluous accessories to 'modern life' (as televisions, cellular phones, designer clothes, etc.) which those same 'leaders', or the men standing behind them, have developed and promulgated. When the masses 'right the ship', it will merely be so that they can pursue the emptiness of modern existence with better success and greater means. This self-righting mechanism is something like the motion of a falling feather, that now swings up, and now swings down, but overall continues in one direction only. Whereas the self-regulating aspects of older governments were to be found in their moralities, their faiths, and the bonds of loyalty to one's class, one's family, one's folk, etc. — in all the various moral elements which compose the soul of a nation, and which actively and upwardly regulated against the decline of the acts, thoughts, and inner level of human beings.
This present 'system', despite all its checks and balances and its inner mechanisms, is therefore sooner or later doomed, I believe, to self-destruct; it will either decay into tyranny, or it will be replaced.
We are thus forced to seek a replacement for it, the best one available to us; and that replacement can only come in the form of an imposed authority, the replacement of this artificial 'system' with another, which, however, is seeded with a sufficient number of the correct principles that it might, if seconded by happy fortune or by divine favour, grow into a healthier society, one more nourishing of human virtue and excellence. To even begin preparing for such a revolution requires our commandeering of modern philosophy, of Modernity itself, for non-modern or super-modern ends. It also represents a great gamble, insofar as it could easily lead to any number of abuses or vicious travesties, or even into a worse form of that very despotism we would obviate; which is why the most needful thing in this moment is to cultivate virtue in ourselves and in our kith and kin, in hopes that this will insulate us against the dangers involved in so risky an attempt.
Ours is a deplorable situation – but it is a deplorable situation that has been forced on us, not one we have chosen. All that we can legitimately choose is how to attempt to liberate ourselves of it in the most promising way possible. I believe that the best attempt that can be made is probably something like that which Kerry Bolton indicates in his comment above (as elsewhere). Such, at least, is my view of things.
Stefano Orlandi says:
20th January 2019 at 3:49 am
I have finally found the articles of John Bruce Leonard again.
So glad.
And it is not only produced by the usual genius , but it is on one of my favorite topic.
" The lie of the equivalency of democracy with freedom".
Mister Leonard , where could I find more of your work ?
You might( or might not ) remember me from the altright site
Of course I remember you, Stefano! I was keenly sorry that we lost contact in the censorship of AltRight.com, as I always greatly enjoyed our exchanges, and I am delighted to be able to dialogue with you once more. I also thank you for your kind words, which I am sure I do not deserve.
In response to your query: I write regularly for Arktos Journal, where a number of my essays are published (you can find a complete list by clicking on my name above). I also have a book forthcoming from Arktos in the not-so-distant future, part of which discusses at some length the topic you mention: namely, the conflict between freedom and democracy.
I shall look forward to conversing with you again!
31st January 2019 at 8:16 am
Big heart from Mister Leonard male groupie here .
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