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Liberal societies such as the UK, USA, and Australia are among the most harmful to their citizens, according to new research from the University of Birmingham.
And the austerity programmes unfolding across Europe are likely to increase the 'social harms' experienced by people in those countries.
A new book by Dr Simon Pemberton, an expert on social harm — defined as the avoidable injuries caused by the way a society is organised &mdas; looks at measures such as suicide, road traffic accidents, obesity, poverty and unemployment across 31 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The book, Harmful Societies: Understanding social harm, is published by Policy Press at the University of Bristol. ( http://www.policypress.co.uk/display.asp?K=9781847427946&dtspan=0:90&ds=Forthcoming%20Titles&m=2&dc=32 )
http://phys.org/news/2015-03-british-society-citizens.html
[Source]: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2015/03/harmful-societies-16-03-15.aspx
(Score: 5, Informative) by Soybean on Thursday March 19 2015, @12:14AM
The british article says "liberal" but an American ear will hear a different meaning. The article is talking about economic liberalism (and neoliberalism [wikipedia.org]) which is what most Americans would call libertarian. Cultural context matters.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday March 19 2015, @02:10AM
Libertarian is the extremist end of classical liberalism - which has for most of it's brief history been the child of Locke, Smith, Hume and Mill - even the outrageous Malthus - more than the bizarre Ayn Rand.
Still, Classical Liberalism has been the cradle for such abominations as Eugenics and Industrial Imperialism - as much as the Rights of Man.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2015, @03:34AM
They are a specific extreme offshot characterized by somewhat liberal outlook, but I wouldn't call them "the" extreme of it. That title should belong to anarchism.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday March 19 2015, @01:37PM
I'm saying this because you included Eugenics in your list, which didn't really make sense.
You're thinking "Modernism" the broader philosophical umbrella that gave us great things like science and industrialization. People had this notion that you could objectively solve every problem, from philosophical to social to practical, oh and by the way our way of solving them is objectively right, no need to ask too many questions when we take you over and impose our will. It also gave us Marxism, for another flavor of failed social philosophy.
A lot of people inexplicably hate postmodernism, that arose to raise concerns that subjective problems exist. Like the idea that maybe we should see how people feel about being subjected to eugenics programs. I don't get it, because it's not like modernism disappeared because postmodernism appeared.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday March 19 2015, @03:03PM
The seeds of eugenics are in Malthus and Carlyle - arguably Liberal tradition thinkers.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2, Disagree) by ikanreed on Thursday March 19 2015, @03:26PM
That's a hell of a stretch, Jeremiah Cornelius.
"Population can't grow forever" has only the most abstract relationship to "Some genes are better than others and it's society's role to determine that".
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday March 19 2015, @03:41PM
I "jump" is not that far - it was in fact, no jump at all, but a historical next step: The arguments went straight to the heart of "who should be allowed (the privilege) to breed". There is an immediate debate started in both of these writers about the rights and freedom of "darker" or "barbarian" peoples, etc.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday March 19 2015, @03:49PM
Yeah, that's bullshit. Because we've seen non eugenics based approachs to the problem: increased availability of birth control causes a natural elective decrease in birth rates, and even other unethical approaches like China's one child policy made no judgements of this sort.
So... basically just shut up. You're reaching.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday March 19 2015, @07:43PM
Don't tell someone to shut up. It's poor argumentation and outright ill-mannered - especially without citations.
I should think it almost obvious and well-documented the direct connection of Malthus to Darwin [berkeley.edu] - and Darwin to the entirety of social-Darwinism and it's later manifestation in eugenic "thinking".
It is most enlightening to note the subtitle of On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. “There is no exception to the rule that every organic being naturally increases at so high a rate, that if not destroyed, the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair.
Social Darwinism isn't some political/economic "aberration" of Darwin's ideas - rather it is the use of Darwin's discoveries to perpetrate the Malthusian vision to further the construction of a Classical Liberal world. There is definite correspondence and successive correlation. In fact, Huxley's Brave New World is exactly an examination of the outcome of this Liberal proto-eugenics.
Race theory and eugenics were not unique to Classical Liberalism, nor a singularly defining characteristic. They were a definite and almost predictably certain product. Later, obviously non-Liberal movements in Fascism used eugenics themselves - but were again, informed by U.S. Utopian movements, nominally organised for realization of the Classical Liberal ideal in the American republic.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday March 19 2015, @08:08PM
None of this comes around to supporting eugenics. You're making conspiratorial leaps here that are crazy.
You're making a tenuous leap from Malthus' carrying capacity to Darwin's totally fucking accurate scientific observations about the origin of biological diversity, to the social policies of social darwinism, to eugenics programs. And all those huge gaps just so you can fit your really flimsy excuse of claiming that an almost exclusively a-liberal phenomenon can be blamed on liberalism.
Which itself is to support a broader argument that classical liberalism is inherently problematic.
There was a wider umbrella to describe the collection of ideas that you were describing, and I pointed that out, and you got crazy, so I got rude.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Thursday March 19 2015, @07:19PM
Well, it's right next door to ""Some genes are better than others" which is what Darwin got from it. The jump was in moving on to "and it's societies job", but for those who wanted to justify their own privileged position that was also an easy jump. I'll agree that the similarity of "Social Darwinism" to Darwinism is mainly in the name, but a bit of fast talking let self-interested bastards confuse everyone else to the point where they still are.
Actually, the reasoning is a bit subtle, and even Darwin's actual supporters tended to jump into "nature red in tooth and claw", at least in Britain, the US, and much or Europe. Mutualism is a generally more successful strategy, but that wasn't as dramatically appealing, so it took a lot of math to prove it, even though it should have been obvious by inspection. (You can't get a eucaryote without mutualism.
The problem is that a lot of really bad ideas are close in feeling space to really important ideas, and sometimes it's hard to pry them apart. But I find it hard to think of Malthus as a Liberal, more of a statistician.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2015, @02:20AM
So this article is basically saying that socialism is a good thing, and that non-socialist economies are among the most damaging to society?
(Score: 1) by Mr Big in the Pants on Thursday March 19 2015, @02:42AM
In other words they are using the term correctly whereas most of the people who use the word "libril" are just using it as a smear and effectively means they are putting their fingers in their ears and shouting "I can't hear you, yeehaww!" over and over again.
This is the same as the use of the terms "socialism", "communism", "pinko", etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2015, @03:28AM
No. Like every word in every human language, the definition is whatever enough people say it is.
The word liberal is used multiple ways by multiple people.
That doesn't make any of definitions incorrect, they are all simultaneously correct.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Mr Big in the Pants on Thursday March 19 2015, @06:10AM
Nope. You are just plain old wrong.
Words have standard definitions which can change over time. But these being used incorrectly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2015, @11:53PM
> Nope. You are just plain old wrong.
> Words have standard definitions which can change over time.
As usual with dictionary pedants, the OED says you are wrong - all definitions are there.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/liberal [oxforddictionaries.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Thursday March 19 2015, @07:25PM
While you have an important point, it's also true that frivolously (or maliciously) changing the meaning of a word from it's original meaning impedes communication, and that in this sense it is proper to consider it improper usage.
OTOH, at this point with the word "liberal" there are several large populations with different meanings of the word, so that it has become essentially meaningless. I consider those who originally altered the definition, or who adopted the change for propaganda purposes to be quite evil, but at this point I'm not sure that it makes any sense. It's like protesting the altered meaning of the word "hacker". Those who originally altered the meaning performed an evil action, usually for monetary gain. Those who currently use the altered meaning, however, are sufficiently numerous that to argue for the traditional meaning is not itself an impedance to communication.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2015, @02:48AM
Careful, while liberal is a right-wing thing everywhere in the world but the U.S., (liberal == privatization, with gov growth to be in military, police, and prisons), libertarianism is a far left thing everywhere in the world but the U.S. Libertarians (capital L) are a far right-wing group in the U.S., while libertarianism has been around for decades, and is a far left thing, that grew out of the anarchist-syndaclists, so the socialist wing of the anarchists. Yeah U.S. is pretty much opposite land (you see it in the naming of their laws too).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2015, @04:20AM
If we go by the definition [reference.com] of the word, it seems the US version of "liberal" is closer to the meaning of the word:
liberal
adjective
1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
...
3. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism, especially the freedom of the individual and governmental guarantees of individual rights and liberties.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, especially as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, especially with respect to matters of personal belief or expression
6. of or relating to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.
7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant
8. open-minded or tolerant, especially free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.
while "conservative" is also closer to its definition [reference.com]
conservative
adjective
1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
2. cautiously moderate or purposefully low:
3. traditional in style or manner; avoiding novelty or showiness
(Score: 1) by deathlyslow on Thursday March 19 2015, @01:06PM
Just curious why you omitted number two?
2.
(often initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2015, @03:53PM
I deleted the definition entries referencing the political parties of the same name since its a bit too circular for me; eg, "Conservative - a member of the conservative party" may technically be true but there's very little information there with regards to defining the word itself.
(Score: 1) by deathlyslow on Thursday March 19 2015, @04:02PM
Thanks for the clarification. I was trying to not lean toward some tinfoil hat assumption.