Sir Robert Peel - Principles of policing

Sir Robert Peel

Sir Robert Peel was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland twice; between 1834 and 1835, and then again between 1841 and 1846. As Home Secretary, he helped create the Police Force and in ‘Talking to Pharaohs’ he discusses the principles of policing and his reasons for adopting them.

Peel – police principles

RLF: Since you founded one of the first police forces in Britain, earlier ones being formed in the city of Glasgow, and in the industrial town of Stalybridge, would you like to say why your policing principles are as important today as they were in your day?

RP: For an impartial body of officers to enforce the laws of the land, and enforce it within the full rigour of the law and only within the law, then that body of men and women must be governed by some principles. Were they not so governed, they could hardly be said to be law enforcement officers, at least not ones commanding of respect and cooperation from the public they were set up to serve.

First, I stated that the basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder. It is not, in any sense, to be thought of as an arm of government – that is the role of the armed forces. The police enforce the laws of the land, legislated by elected governments in Acts of Parliament. They have no role to play other than that. It is not so in many other countries, but it is in this one.

The second principle conveys the sense that the ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.

RLF: This principle seems to imply a contractual obligation on two sides; on the part of the public, and on the part of the police, does it not?

RP: That is exactly what is implied by this second principle, though this contractual obligation is, of course, largely unwritten. For the police, the approval of the public is a vital prerequisite to the satisfactory working of the policing of this nation. Without the approval of the public for all the actions of the police, the enforcing of the law would break down and chaos would rule.

RLF: But surely there are those who would withhold their approval of police actions.

RP: We do not seek, for example, the approval of the felon, convicted or otherwise, and especially not while we are in pursuit of him after he has committed a crime.

RLF: But if undue force was used to apprehend him, then would any of us be right in approving of such action?

RP: You would be quite right in withdrawing your approval, more, you would be right in expressing your disapproval, through non-violent means, of course.

RLF: So even the felon has certain inalienable rights as a human being?

RP: It may surprise you to know that he does, even as he stands convicted of a crime, even then. He must forego his right to freedom of movement if he is sentenced to imprisonment, but he shall not expect rough treatment or any form of cruelty or brutality at the hands of the guards in that prison. He is serving his time by virtue of his having his freedom curtailed. That and only that is what the law has meted out to him in the way of punishment for his crimes.

The third principle is that the police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.

Two things are important to stress here – the willing co-operation of them in voluntary observation of the law.

Willing co-operation and voluntary observation of the law, notice. These are of prime importance to the correct enforcement of law and order. If one or the other is absent, we talk of a break-down of law and order.

RLF: Why should be willingly co-operate with the police?

RP: For the simple reason, my friend, that to do otherwise amounts to acting irrationally with respect to life.

RLF: Do you mean that man is acting rationally when willingly co-operating with the police?

RP: Exactly so. In so doing, man is in fact, looking after his best interests and those of his fellow man.

RLF: Why exactly?

RP: Because it is in respecting the rule of law, and by extension, those who represent it and enforce it, that he is ensuring a civilized society in which to live. Is that not rational to want – to live in a land in which the forces of law and order, governed by principles that are open to public scrutiny, particularly at times of re-election of governments – national and local?

The fourth principle by which law enforcement is governed is that the degree of public co-operation that can be secured diminishes proportionally to the necessity of the use of physical force. That this is so has already been argued; specifically, that even a felon, a murderer, even such an one as he, is deemed innocent until proven guilty, and in any case, even after being convicted of the crime of murder, even then, under our new laws, no body, not even a legislature answerable to an elected government has the right to take that man’s life.

RLF: But is incarceration at Her Majesty’s pleasure not a fate worse that death?

RP: Hardly, particularly since terms of life imprisonment rarely mean that to the letter. Prison is expected to reform the felon, the murderer, even, and to rehabilitate him until he is fit to join the society from which he was removed in the execution of his sentence.

We must admit that sometimes force is necessary in the apprehending of a felon, or in preventing violence to be visited upon an unsuspecting, innocent victim. I think in that latter case, some proper amount of force is wholly justifiable – though no more than is needed.

RLF: If police officers are seen to have used undue amounts of force, then the co-operation of the public should be suspended, should it?

RP: That would be too rash a reaction. Better if the offending officers be appropriately reprimanded for their use of unnecessary amounts of force in the pursuit of their duties.

The fifth principle is that the police seek and preserve public favour, not by catering to public opinion, but by demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law. Of course, public opinion is a powerful instrument when it applies to justice and right, which it most probably does most of the time, on most issues.

RLF: But what if public opinion goes against police action, what then? Who shall be adjudged to be in the right then?

RP: As I say, public opinion is rarely wrong – it has been called the genius of the British people, to favour the underdog, to come out on the side of right.

RLF: But who would decide, if it didn’t, on one particular occasion or case.

RP: Elected government, represented by the judiciary, and consisting of judges and barristers, applying some formerly approved instrument of the law of the land.

RLF: Are you then saying that public opinion would be disregarded?

RP: Not at all. It is a foolhardy government that does so.

RLF: Then where does the answer lie, from where is improvement to come?

RP: From consultation in the first instance, immediate and pressing as it would inevitably be, and from education in the longer term.

RLF: Who should play a part in this education of the masses?

RP: A responsible and free press has a vital part to play in representing both sides of an argument. Alas, I fear, the press is invariably lacking in this, falling short of impartiality, rather being more than impartial, and in that respect not fulfilling its obligations to freedom, democracy and justice.

RLF: There is room there for an entirely new discussion, is there not?

RP: There is indeed. Shall we move on to our sixth principle, promising to return to that discussion later.

The sixth principle of policing is that the police only use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order, only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient. This is an adjunct to the fourth principle, is it not?

Better that the police succeed in their duties by these acts of persuasion, advice and warning, than by resorting to force. Having said that though, this, one might almost call it a right, this right of the police to use force in the apprehension of wrongdoers is vital if peace is to be restored and life be allowed to resume its even tenor. I will only add the proviso that such force is limited and used as this last resort, to save life, in particular.

Unarmed officers are far less likely to use force than armed ones, I think you will agree?

RLF: But there are those who think that the arming of an officer of the law acts as a deterrent to the wrongdoer.

RP: In a case in which a crime has not yet been committed, this has some logic to it. However, in the case of a crime having actually taken place, desperation may have set in and in the heat of a moment, a shot be fired. Is that not worth the police being usually unarmed?

The seventh principle, somewhat verbose in its articulation is that at all times, the police should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interest of community welfare and existence.

RLF: A point well made by Socrates before taking the hemlock he was expected to drink as punishment for his crimes.

RP: That is so. We are all but human beings after all. It is in all our interests to behave like responsible citizens, and it ill behoves us to not co-operate with those selected to enforce laws that are put in place to secure that very quality that we needs must have in abundance to live a life that is worth the name.

The eighth principle of policing is that the police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.

RLF: There is a degree of overlap in these principles, is there not?

RP: And rightly so, we are trying to outline principles that cover each and every possibility for injustice or abuse to occur, are we not?

RLF: There have recently been calls by many to change the basis of our relationship as citizens of the country, with the legal requirements under which we are obliged to live.

RP: What are they exactly?

RLF: That people are only deserving of their rights when acting in a responsible fashion, taking their responsibilities to the rest of us seriously. That should they not take these responsibilities seriously and hence carry them out, they forfeit their rights, or at least some of them.

RP: Let me say that we must distinguish human rights from the civil variety. Man’s rights in the first of these, are inviolate – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for our fellows in the United States, unwritten here on this side of the Atlantic, though by no means absent from those parts of our constitution, which while being largely unwritten in one document, nevertheless do exist.

If you mean a person’s civil rights, then that is far more arguable than the latter right – human ones.

We see, don’t we, that wayward parents, not acting properly towards the upkeep and education of their children forfeit their rights to bring them up under the same roof. We see a convicted felon’s right to liberty taken away from him. Be assured that this is not done likely, or without principled deliberations.

The final principle of policing is that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

There is always a great deal of pressure on the police, to, get a result, as they say these days, particularly in the solving of crimes and the apprehending of the guilty in cases of high visibility to the public at large.

RLF: And the press seem to add to this pressure, don’t they?

RP: A press that behaves responsibly, not merely acting out of the full consideration for the government, necessarily, or to sell papers, but to write only what is considered to be for the general public good.

RLF: How would you define that?

RP: What an impartial, responsible, rational citizen would deem appropriate in the case.

But having principles by which a people are policed is vital if we are to receive the accolades due to us as legislators of laws to ensure a just and fair society.

Reasons for breakdown in law and order

RLF: Why do you think law and order is breaking down in today’s society?

RP: Well, first of all, let me say that I don’t think it is breaking down, although I agree that things have worsened on the streets of Britain. I wouldn’t call it breaking down, which seems to imply a continuous process, leading, ultimately to the total collapse of the fabric of society. I don’t think that is what is happening.

RLF: Why?

RP: Because that would spell the end, and it is too horrible to contemplate, but more; the collapse, the total collapse of law and order is a forerunner to the loss of any legitimacy government must possess in the minds of the electorate. I don’t think we are in any such situation in England.

RLF: So, if not that, how do you account for the escalation in crime in Britain?

RP: My time in the governance of Britain, and the time I spent forming our first body of policemen, in particular, has led me to understand, or at least believe I understand, certain principles, certain attributes of, reasons for, criminal activity.

RLF: Which are?

RP: Which are that conditions in society are largely responsible for rises in criminal activity? We say society, and we must understand what that means – it must include all of the people living here, not just certain sections of it – everybody.

And which would also include the underprivileged as well as the rest of us. We must not segregate, even in our minds, especially there, the haves from the have-nots. It was somewhat usual to do just that in my day, but those who did were mistaken. Forget all the arguments about the deserving poor and the undeserving poor, supposing such divisions were meaningful, which, in my opinion, they were not. Nobody deserves to be poor in any society, let alone this one of ours.

How can we, in what is one of the most affluent nations on Earth, countenance such poverty as exists in our towns and cities, though perhaps not in our countryside, as it undoubtedly did in your day?

Governments before and since the one of which I was a member, Prime Minister, have attempted to eradicate poverty, and just as many have failed.

RLF: Does that mean any attempt to eradicate poverty is ultimately a waste of time?

RP: Not at all, though I believe there is only so much that a government can do to prevent poverty. We can remove some of the worst effects of it, but whether we can really remove it is open to debate.

RLF: In the 20th Century, several elected governments did attempt to provide safety nets, I believe they were called, to soften or I should say, lessen the impact of poverty. The introduction of the National Health Service was just such a one, was it not?

RP: But it is in education that much can be done to remove or at any rate decrease the chances that some people will fall below the poverty line, as it has been termed.

Work has to be done prior to any serious trends in the increasing of criminal activity can be detected. It is no use waiting until the horse has bolted before barring the gate, as they say.

RLF: Would you say that crime is associated with a generally poorer people, or a more affluent people?

RP: That is not the divide, not the criterion by which crime levels should be or can accurately be judged.

RLF: Then how much does affluence or lack of it contribute to levels of criminal activity if at all?

RP: A propensity in a man to commit a crime may be affected by levels of affluence of his neighbours, for instance, but it is the origins of that propensity we should be attempting to understand and by understanding, lower or remove altogether.

RLF: Would you first explain how levels of affluence in society generally can influence – increase or decrease that propensity to break the law?

RP: We must look at the motives for that increase to understand why it has increased. There are certain things that must also be addressed to remove that propensity to commit transgressions, let us call them, but that is quite another question.

Living in the midst of affluence, with all the trappings of it in every house but his own our perpetrator finds it more inviting to take without permission than to strive to earn his living in ways that are more acceptable. He perhaps imagines those better off than he can spare the loss, or he allows his envy to colour his attitude to those people better off than he. In effect, he justifies his behaviour to himself, telling himself that they deserve it, that it is not evil or even a crime to take what is not his, because of the fact that they have it and he doesn’t. He rationalizes his behaviour. He acts in what some call a state of false consciousness.

RLF: But who is responsible for his having attitudes like this? Does it come from his peers? Is it a psychic phenomenon or a social one?

RP: I would say both. Uneducated as he undoubtedly is, our criminal has not been rational in his arriving at his reasons that justify his criminal activity. That is caused either by what is within or without. His parlous ability to use logic, to rationalize, to think beyond the short term is a product of his lack of education, with social conditions – in this case, affluence, working to undermine what little sense he has even further. He is easily persuaded to go out and thieve, whereas someone else, in exactly the same dire, financial states, and living in the same conditions, finds no such temptation, looking to improve his condition by his own efforts in ways that he knows will not land him in gaol, and thus totally undermining any effort he expends.

Education is the answer, pure and simple.

RLF: What kind of education – one that equips him with the skills required to make him employable?

RP: Yes, but not those only. Man would be but one-dimensional indeed if he were so poorly educated. In addition to those skills basic to our survival as members of the society in which we live – an industrial one in our case, a man needs those skills that emphasize that there is more to life than money and what it can buy.

RLF: Could you elaborate? Isn’t it the duty – the real function of education to enable people to live and work?

RP: You said it. To live and to work. Man must toil to earn his crust, but man must do an hundred, nay a thousand other things in his day besides earn a living, must he not?

Education must address and cater to these needs outside the workplace every bit as much as it must enable him to acquire the skills necessary to find gainful employment and retain it.

I will go so far as to state that if education does not cater to all of these needs, we should hardly be very surprised if more turn to crime to survive. What we sew, so shall we reap. We reward labour, encourage acquisitive nature in man, and we must also not debar him from pursuing the fruits we have brought him up to expect, by no fault of his own, which is what in effect we are doing if we do not ensure he is adequately educated.

Cause and effects are not just linked in chains, but are forged in temporal dimensions too, we must remember. If we look to short term economies in education, we must not be astounded to find we profit less from them. The so called laws of supply and demand work in ways we do not always fully appreciate, do they not?
Robert L. Fielding

Samuel Smiles What is in short supply - time!

Samuel Smiles

Samuel Smiles held down several posts before he wrote several volumes outlining self-help and biographies of prominent engineers of the day. He was born in Scotland but spent much of his busy life south of the border in England, living and working in Yorkshire where he became Editor of the Leeds Times.

In ‘Talking to Pharaohs’, Smiles extols the virtues of using valuable time. Specifically, he believes that time is much more precious than most people think.

Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.


RLF: We often waste what is in short supply.

SS: Principally, we waste time, and it is that, not wealth, that should be valued. We have but three score years and ten in this life, have we not.

RLF: And when it is over, on Earth, it is over.

SS: Exactly. And yet we would prefer not to waste our money, when that is a resource that is renewable, when time is not.

RLF: Of course, our health is a also valuable resource.

SS: It is the key to spending our time on Earth productively and happily. As you say, our health is of prime importance, and we can do things to keep ourselves healthy; we know how to do it and what to do, though many do not do what is required to remain healthy. Many, many more, however, perhaps the majority of us, act recklessly with our time, wasting it on the trivial.

RLF: What do you consider trivial? We cannot always be working on things of great importance, can we? Man must be amused.

SS: That is certainly true, and I would not consider doing things to amuse as trivial. It is when those things take over from more important things that I would say we waste our time by pursuing them.

RLF: So how much time would you allocate to keeping yourself amused?

SS: We should start by defining what ‘amusement’ is. I would say that it depends on the individual, and on several other factors.

RLF: Which factors?

SS: Principally levels of interest.

RLF: In what?

SS: In anything?

RLF: So an interest in keeping yourself amused – would that count?

SS: You are being flippant. I am not here to ordain what can be counted as an interest. I only say that it should be something that can be sustained over time.

RLF: Not something transitory?

SS: Most certainly not. That is what we refer to as hedonism, is it not? The attempt to keep a sweet taste in one’s mouth, some have defined it as. Others like Mill have gone further, though not much, and called it ‘the pleasure principle’ meaning the avoidance of pain, or at least the avoidance of anything that is not pleasurable.

RLF: And is that what you mean, or rather what you do not mean?

SS: What I mean as counting as a worthwhile interest is something that goes further than the ‘pleasure principle’, that involves some conscientious effort, for nothing much yields to a lack of effort, does it?

RLF: I agree, but for something to be sustained, some amount of pleasure must be obtained, or else a man will allow his attention to stray, I think.

SS: That is perfectly true, but if short term, immediate reward, is looked for, then I fear our man will not be sustained. An interest, such as an interest in geology, for example, would entail some hours, many hours of reading and study, as well as many field trips to verify and have illustrated what one has been read in books.

It can be clearly seen that what we refer to as pleasure has many definitions, most of which move away from our ‘sweet taste in the mouth’. Pleasure for the interested is much more than that; it is to be got by some form of discovery.

RLF: But in these days in which we live, very little in a field like geology is left for the individual to discover.

SS: In absolute terms, yes, you are right, but I am talking about the individual discovering something he never knew. That is something that gives pleasure, lasting pleasure, not ephemeral, temporary pleasure that cannot be sustained. Is that not a pleasure worth finding and retaining?

RLF: It does sound like it, but what is a prerequisite for the finding of that kind of pleasure?

SS: Two things, perhaps three: an enquiring mind and tenacity and some genuine interest in life.
RLF: Why life?

SS: Is not life the very centre of our universe?

RLF: Surely our planet is at the centre, or more properly, the sun.

SS: You are right, and what does the sun give us?

RLF: Life giving energy.

SS: And what about Earth, what does our good Mother Earth provide us with?

RLF: The means to live.

SS: So is not life at the heart of everything? If this planet were Mars or Jupiter, having, as we believe, no form of life supported on their surface, with no means to support life, and that despite being within the same solar system from which we derive everything we need to live – where is the life to find an interest?

RLF: Being without life, as you say, there is none to be interested in anything.

SS: And yet both those planets, as well as the others in our sun’s orbit, are of interest to some of us. Why?

RLF: Because they are out there, part of our life, I suppose.

SS: And that is why man is interested in them. Because they are known to him, even as they are largely unknown to him.

What man does not know, he invariably seeks to find out. But it takes a certain kind of person endowed with certain qualities to frame questions and to find curiosity in something that is not absolutely vital to his existence, or so we sometimes think.

RLF: What do you mean by that; ‘or so we think’?

SS: I mean that we sometimes forget the value of knowledge, imagining we know all we need to know, discarding that we think we do not necessarily need to know.

RLF: That is true. Many do that.

SS: Why do you think that is so – why do many ignore what is important to our very existence?

RLF: Because of a lack of education, curiosity, and tenacity.

SS: QED!

The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.

RLF: What, in your opinion, dissuades us from attempting certain things, and what sort of things are you referring to?

SS: First of all, I am not saying that we do not do anything – we have done many things, and the vast majority of man’s endeavours have been beneficial to mankind.

RLF: But man is responsible for a lot of things that have not been beneficial to us.

SS: That is also true, unfortunately, but I would prefer to concentrate on the good things man does or doesn’t do, or attempts to do or does not attempt.

Before we move on to those, I would like to make the observation that of those things that are, shall we say, less than beneficial for us as a race, man seems to be plagued by no such hesitation or prevarication. Would you agree?

RLF: Absolutely. It seems to me that if something is discovered, or invented, someone will quickly find a use for it that goes against what it was originally intended to do. The printed word is a prime example of that, more’s the pity.

Here we have something that revolutionized communication, education, the dissemination of ideas, and yet one of its principal uses is the spreading of texts that are often wholly immoral. But let us move on to the other kind of things that you had started to think about – the benevolent things that are morally good.

SS: Thank you. If we think of ideas as the forerunners to activity, as they surely are, where conscious actions are concerned, and leaving out wholly involuntary actions, we would probably say that there should be more good ideas than bad ones, given the level of education in the civilized nations of the world – practically every country,

There are plenty of educated people with the ability to instigate revolutionary, creative ideas that could initiate actions that would remove many of the ills of the world, and yet we are, it sometimes seems, worse off in certain ways than we were an hundred years ago.

Many of the discoveries and inventions that should make our lives more interesting, more fulfilling, have never been allowed to realise their real potential, though they were forecast to do so at their outset.

Public broadcasting over the airwaves should have revolutionized the education of the masses, of our children, in particular, and yet here we are witnessing the dissemination, not of good things, good ways of living, of dealing with our peers, our friends and relatives, and those we meet by chance. The sad truth of the matter is that it has done none of these things. On the contrary, and perhaps because of its ubiquity, this form of mass communication, many believe, is wholly responsible for the furthering of the ills in our society, rather than their removal.

RLF: But why is that? Why has a boon, what seemed so at its inception, become a thing to despise?

SS: I do not think it is wholly despicable, though some of it undoubtedly is. Rather, as I have said, it has rarely reached out and touched lives in the way we might have hoped it would.

There does seem to be more coinage in bad than good, at times, and it does seem like man is quick to want to earn from it rather than learn from it, if you will forgive my little unintentional playing with words.

I think I have said enough about those things that ostensibly looked to have the possibilities for doing good rather than harm. Let me move on to projects – ideas first and actions later, that can do nothing else than promote high ideals.

Starting with thoughts, the creation of patterns, of relationships between concepts and objects that thought undoubtedly is. It is easy to imagine someone waking up one morning, having had thoughts, dreams even that, if followed up, would produce something of great benefit.

RLF: Do you think ideas are produced while we sleep?

SS: Even as we sleep, yes I do. Many a writer will testify to this fact, that having got an idea for a story, poem, or the beginning of a longer piece, say a novel, that it is better, more productive, to let the subconscious do the thinking before resuming its train in conscious, waking thought.

RLF: Dreaming, then?

SS: No, not exactly. It is hard to say, and even harder to know what name to give it – let us just call it the workings of the subconscious - a ‘black box’ if you will, of things that go on in our minds while we slumber, having once had the idea sewn, as it were, prior to resting and closing our eyes.

This man wakes, washes, gets dressed, breaks his fast, and goes about his daily routine, with the thoughts he has been nurturing, which he admittedly cannot access in any form that is translatable in speech, comes to sit down at his desk and write.

Now it is in writing that he is somehow able to gain access to something in his mind he is not able to verbalise. How can this be? That something he cannot utter aloud in words, he can nevertheless put down in those strange little arbitrary signs we call letters, words and sentences? It is a question I can only hazard an answer to.

RLF: Hazard away, my friend, or would you rather write it down.

SS: There is more truth in your jest than you can know, my friend. The truth is that I can only guess, conjecture, argue without proving. Are you willing to hear me out? Do you think I will say anything that is worth your time listening to and trying to fathom out?

RLF: That I cannot say, but I will try. You have my fullest attention. Commence, my friend.

SS: I can best illustrate by recounting my own experiences, which being my own, I am apt to believe, though whether you do or not is your own business. Bear with me.

In the course of the early evening, before my repast is prepared and duly served, before dining, it is my custom to write something. It may be a story, it may be just a thought, the beginning of a story, but I begin by writing it down. Then I am called to the table, where my good wife has prepared something delicious to sustain me. After dinner, I do not generally write anything more. I find my digestion impeded horribly by sitting hunched over a piece of paper, and in any case, food seems to dull my senses a little. I feel tired and require relaxation, so I leave off my writing until the following day.

Now, hark to my words. I am susceptible, in the night, to sit up with a thought in my head that requires me to jot it into a notepad, which I keep in a bedside table expressly for that purpose.

I write it and again address myself to sleep. Having slept well, generally, I awake refreshed and go about my daily chores. The ideas of last night, however, seem to have grown beyond their initial dimensions, and now are more coherent, with branches of thoughts I was not aware of, let alone considered or mulled over. In short, my friend, I have moved on, as they say, and come up with developments, let me call them, in my train of original thoughts, extrapolations, if you will, of my original idea of the night before. Tell me that is not illustrative of what I was outlining?

RLF: It certainly is, but what do you make of it? Why does it happen, that you can think of something without your being consciously aware of doing so, being asleep most of the time?

SS: It is just as I had stated earlier, that it is the subconscious doing my thinking for me?

RLF: But why – how?

SS: I can only guess at the mechanics of it, but the time when the mind is in its subconscious state, when one is asleep, for example, is a time when connections that one would not necessarily make while conscious are apparently forged, and that because no logic or rationality is called in, because no value is attached one way or the other to any idea, these ideas, floating around in my head come to coalesce in ways they would not or could not do while thinking consciously – awake. That is the nearest I can get to an explanation.

RLF: It sounds plausible enough. Why is this relevant to your hypothesis that so many ideas remain just that, are not put into action?

SS: I think it is because many do not trust their subconscious, or at any rate what it tells them. They prefer to forget it, or dismiss it as nothing more than ephemeral imagination, whereas what it really consists of is the product of the mind in its free state, unconstrained by the cares of the day that can sometimes press on our mind and make the possible sound wholly impossible, the plausible implausible, the rational irrational and the logical illogical, particularly when voiced to an unsympathetic ear or one not attuned to the nuances of what is being discussed. That is why!
Robert L. Fielding

A rich man's choices - John Paul Getty

John Paul Getty

One of the richest man in the world, John Paul Getty was the founder of the Getty Oil Company and became one of the first people in America to own 1 billion USD. He was an avid art collector who, in 1957 announced that a billion dollars was not what it used to be.

In ‘Talking to Pharaohs’, he talks about the value of wealth and what it really means to be rich.


RLF: Do you think wealth really gives you more choices in life?

JPG: How can you ask that question – are you serious?

RLF: Of course I am.

JPG: Well then, the answer is yes, most certainly.

RLF: In everything?

JPG: In everything and in every case, always, for everyone who is rich. Do you still have a question to ask?

RLF: Not a question, but I would like to discuss the subject of choice.

JPG: Go ahead, but I think I’ve said all that there is to be said on the subject – I don’t think there is really anything to discuss. But if you do, go right ahead. Let’s discuss it.

RLF: I agree that in the vast majority of things, people who have money have much more choice than those who don’t.

JPG: In everything.

RLF: We’ll see. First, let’s start by talking about your chosen career. Did you choose it or did it choose you?

JPG: Of course, I chose it. I could have had my pick of any career I wanted, but I chose the one I chose. It’s as simple as that.

RLF: I don’t think it is.

JPG: Why?

RLF: Because the options open to you were limited.

JPG: Limited by what or by whom?

RLF: By you. Being wealthy, you would automatically discount or rule out many possibilities.

JPG: That’s true. I chose not to be a lavatory cleaner.

RLF: But you chose not to do something that would take up too much of your life. You chose not to be a professor of economics, instead preferring to be something in the world of high finance.

JPG: Absolutely correct. Who wouldn’t choose what I chose?

RLF: A professor of economics, presumably.

JPG: You are getting confused, my friend. A professor of economics – such a man, an academic, would not have the options to choose from.

RLF: And neither did you. You chose to be something in the world of high finance, discounting a career in academic life, did you not?

JPG: I did, what of it.

RLF: Then your choice was restricted, was it not?

JPG: But I did the restricting.

RLF: It matters little whether the restricting was of your own devising, or like our professor of economics, from some other source.

JPG: How can you say it matters little – I had the choices and he didn’t.

RLF: But you just admitted that you restricted your range of choices, ruling out a career at a university.

JPG: How many times do I have to say this, I made the choice.

RLF: But how can it be said to have been a choice between one or another option of equal value when you ruled one out as being unsuitable. Why did you opt for one and not the other?

JPG: Because I could see I had the chance to increase my fortune doing what I actually chose, whereas all I would have achieved if I had become a professor of economics would have been to show others how fortunes are lost or made.

RLF: And being rich already, can you remind me why you thought it important to increase your wealth, when you really didn’t need to do. You are very rich, aren’t you?

JPG: Incredibly rich, yes.

RLF: Then why did you opt to do something you really did not need to do – to become richer?

JPG: Because that is why I am rich, because I work at it.

RLF: And in working at becoming richer than you already are, you debar yourself from more interesting work.

JPG: What is more interesting than making money?

RLF: A lot of things, I should think.

JPG: You have obviously never made large amounts of money – there is nothing like it, let me tell you, my friend, nothing in the world like it.

RLF: Tell me about it. Why is the making of money interesting?

JPG: I suppose the uncertainty – overcoming the uncertainty of making money or losing it, pitting one’s wits against another person in the same game. Using your native astuteness to beat someone to the kill. How can any position at a university beat that? You tell me that.

RLF: Well, for a start, you have to realize that I may say things to you that you don’t understand or agree with.

JPG: I guarantee that, my friend. Continue.

RLF: Well, for a start, the professor is up against every other professor, beavering away to come up with an economic theory that will better describe the habits of consumers, for example. And he will not only be up against other professors, he will be fighting with his subject, and with his ability to analyze it in ways that yield valid explanatory theories.

JPG: But what is a theory, nothing more than an opinion, is it not?

RLF: Not at all. If it were that simple, just to hold an opinion, there would be millions of theories, as many as there are people to hold them. No, an economic theory is one that has the power, backed up by statistics and their analysis, to forecast with some degree of accuracy, or, I should say, a known degree of inaccuracy in which the margins of error are precisely known and assimilated into the theory.

JPG: All this is fine, but is it getting us anywhere. What has this to do with my choice – the one I made?

RLF: It has this to do with it, that you are unable to do something that another man can do, and it can be argued that his success has more far reaching effects on the world of finance than your success as a high flying financier can have.

JPG: That is a matter of opinion. My cornering a market and then selling goods off at a huge profit has meant a great deal.

RLF: To whom?

JPG: To me.

RLF: To anyone else besides you?

JPG: What do I care? I make a financial killing, increasing my personal fortune, that is quite enough for me, thank you very much.

RLF: And my point is made – by yourself. Your success rebounds on very few people besides yourself, whereas the successful creation of an explanatory theory of some power will have implications for many people, perhaps everyone.

You chose your way, and in choosing that way, discarded the opportunity to change a part of the world we inhabit – the financial world, a part you would say you are at the very centre of.

JPG: That is precisely because I am at the centre of it. Everything in the commercial world radiates out from people like me, entrepreneurs, capitalists, tycoons.

RLF: But once you have made the killing, what do you do then?

JPG: Move on to the next opportunity, of course.

RLF: Leaving those under you to work through the details of making your deal work.

JPG: That can be done by anybody with a degree of training in industry and commerce. I do not need to trouble myself further, my companies will do all that is required to make my acquisitions work for me and increase my capital return on my original investment. That is how the world turns, my friend, on money and what it can do.

RLF: And you take credit for that, do you?

JPG: What do you think? I most certainly do. Who else should take the credit for what I have done?

RLF: Those under you who make it work. They should take the credit. But let us return to the subject of our discussion. Would you choose to become one of those men or women who make things work, who use their skills learned at university as well as in the experiences learned from in their careers. Would you choose to be one of them?

JPG: Of course I wouldn’t.

RLF: Why not?

JPG: Because I can hire people to do that work for me, that is why. That is the advantage of being wealthy, my friend.

RLF: That is that you can pay someone to do what you would rather not do?

JPG: Absolutely.

RLF: And in that way, you limit your choice of career, do you not?

JPG: Yes, but it is mine to limit in ways I choose.

RLF: But do you really choose, or is it that your wealth chooses for you? I put it to you that you are every bit as much a prisoner of your wealth as you imagine your workers to be. It is just that the world thinks you are in a more fortunate position.

JPG: Tell me I am not.

RLF: What I will tell you is that your chains are made of a different metal, but that they are nevertheless chains, chains that prevent you from making certain choices, and the fact that you approve of those ways does not mean that they are of your making. Rather, all that it does mean is that the world of finance needs people like you, in your position, to secure the whole, to provide the motivation to all the others equally caught up in a spider’s web, with you at the centre.

JPG: But the spider is master of its web, isn’t it?

RLF: Not at all. The spider in the middle of the web it has spun is probably more of a captive than the flies it has entrapped. What of the flies that are not in the web, flying around out of your reach, are they prisoners like the spider, like you, or are they free to fly anywhere they like?

JPG: You are forgetting one very important thing, my friend.

RLF: What is that?

JPG: it is that my web envelopes the whole world, or at least that part of it desired by the flies.

RLF: There is some truth in that, but it is only partly true, and only true because it is willingly held to be so, not because it absolutely is so. If a man chooses to live outside your clutches, what of him?

JPG: He freezes in the dark and dies like a mouse.

RLF: And what would happen if everybody decided that they wanted to live outside your clutches, would it not be you who would shrivel up and die like a mouse?

JPG: That will never happen, will it?

RLF: You had better hope it doesn’t.
Earning a living
RLF: I want to talk about the children of wealthy next.




JPG: What about them?

RLF: Well, given the fact that their bread is buttered, as we say.

JPG: What does that mean, exactly?

RLF: That they have no need to go out and earn a living, they don’t really need to earn money.

JPG: Let’s get one thing straight, their bread might be buttered, as you say, but any kid of mine is going to have to earn his keep.

RLF: Do you really mean that, that your children have to earn money to live – like the rest of us?

JPG: Sure I do. They have to go out into the world, find a job and stick at it.

RLF: And what kind of a job would you expect them to stick at?

JPG: Anything that takes their fancy.

RLF: And is commensurate with their abilities?

JPG: Sure, how else are they going to find work, if they aren’t the type or can’t hack the work?

RLF: So if one of your children hasn’t the intelligence to work her way through university, or even get to university in the first place, what kind of work will she be looking for?

JPG: Anything she can find, that suits her and that she likes.

RLF: So presumably you wouldn’t mind if she trained to become a women’s hairdresser?

JPG: Of course I’d mind, what kind of a job is a women’s hairdresser?

RLF: The kind a girl like her might be expected to get with her educational attainments and abilities.

JPG: But she’s my daughter.

RLF: So, what difference does that make?

JPG: I’ll tell you what difference it makes, Mister, I’m the richest man in the whole world, and no daughter of mine’s going to do a job like that.

RLF: A job like what – a job she enjoys, can do well, and make some money at, perhaps opening up her own shop when she gets trained.

JPG: I could buy her a shop, a whole chain of shops, and she could start there, what’s wrong with that?

RLF: Nothing, except she wouldn’t know anything about her business.

JPG: But she’d be making money, lots of it. Women are always going to need to get their hair done

RLF: But what could your daughter do owning that shop or that chain of shops?

JPG: Haven’t you been listening to me. She wouldn’t have to do anything – the money would just come rolling in.

RLF: So she wouldn’t be doing anything?

JPG: You got it. She wouldn’t have to.

RLF: But what if she wanted to?

JPG: Why would she want to? She has all the money she could ever need, why would she want to do a job?

RLF: Because it was something she felt she could do in her life?

JPG: Baloney. Her bread is buttered, you said it!

RLF: Yes, I did. So having her bread buttered means that she can’t do anything, does it?

JPG: How on Earth do you arrive at that conclusion?

RLF: Because we’ve just established that she wouldn’t have to, and in any case, you wouldn’t want her to, isn’t that right?

JPG: Not at all. She could do anything she wanted to?

RLF: Even if that included training to be a women’s hairdresser?

JPG: No, why would she want to do that?

RLF: I don’t know. Ask her.

JPG: I’m telling you, she wouldn’t.

RLF: You mean you wouldn’t like her to?

JPG: No!

RLF: So you’d be quite happy to let her go out into the world and choose any job she wanted to do?

JPG: I sure would, I’d be very happy.

RLF: Even if she chose a job you didn’t approve of?

JPG: Why would she choose a job I didn’t approve of. My daughter’s got enough sense to know she’s not going to try for a job that doesn’t pay well, or would mean her doing stuff that would degrade her.

RLF: Like some form of training.

JPG: I wouldn’t want her to be told what to do by just anybody.

RLF: Not even by someone who knew the job inside out?

JPG: Not by someone who only makes peanuts, no.

RLF: But that’s what the vast majority of us who aren’t rich do, we make peanuts.

JPG: And I’m not having my daughter doing anything to make peanuts. She’s my daughter, so she’s going to have to think big and make some dough.

RLF: Even if she doesn’t want to?

JPG: You don’t know my daughter. I brought her up to be like me.

RLF: To like money?

JPG: To know how to make it.

RLF: And you think that will be enough for her, do you?

JPG: Sure I do. Why wouldn’t it be enough for her, for anybody. Who doesn’t want to make dough?

RLF: Most people would like to, I agree, but the world just isn’t big enough to allow everyone in it to be rich.

JPG: That’s a poor attitude to take. The world is out there, it’s big enough, varied enough to let some, some who really want to be, to become rich.

RLF: It’s big enough to be used by the rich to become richer, and for those who can and want to, to become wealthy. Is that it?

JPG: Now you’re getting it.

RLF: The world is big enough to be used, is what you are saying?

JPG: You bet, there’s oil in Alaska, let’s go git it, as a pal of mine once said.

RLF: The world and everything in it, everybody in it, is there to be used by people like you to become richer.

JPG: Sounds better every time you say it. You’ve learned something today, haven’t you, son?

RLF: I sure have.


Whose money is it?


RLF: Isn’t your obsession with money a bit ludicrous? After all, you already have more money than you will ever be able to spend. What is the use of making more and more?

JPG: First of all, I don’t make money, that is done in my name, not by me but for me. All I do is manage to call it my own and hence have a say in where it goes and what it does.

RLF: You, all the wealthy people of the world, in fact, are merely custodians of that wealth.

JPG: That is it. What else could we be? We cannot spend it, not on ourselves at any rate, as you have said, but we do collect it, and ensure it is not squandered, but well used.

RLF: Used to further your own ends, to make you richer?

JPG: That is true, but it is of no matter. What matters is that is made, accrued, stored, banked, and reinvested. That is the way the world turns, is it not?

RLF: So what you are saying is that you personally do not get any advantage from your increasing wealth?

JPG: Not any physical advantage, no! How could I? We have already established that my vast fortune cannot be spent on my own personal life, have we not?

RLF: So who benefits from your money, if not you?

JPG: The people who are helped by it being invested where they work, for example. Some of my money is invested in Japanese corporations, some in German ones, some in companies here in the US, and my money, invested in those companies and corporations helps the people who work for them, as well as the people who benefit from the goods and services provided by those companies. Now do you see who benefits from my money?

RLF: So what do you get out of it, if not an increase in your physical well-being?

JPG: What can I get out of it, if not the physical benefits that wealth brings – which I already possess, I might add. I do not need any more homes, I have a place in almost every country I visit, more than one in some countries.

RLF: Fine and dandy. Bravo! Good for you. My question remains to be answered.

JPG: The benefits to me of my most recent acquisition benefit me hardly at all, personally. If they do it is a psychological benefit only – making me realize my wildest dreams, of becoming the richest man on the planet. That I have done. Then, I can think of leaving, bequeathing my wealth to certain deserving cases, of my choosing, of course, since it is my money to do with as I please.

I might leave some of my money to a home for stray cats, since I have always liked the feline species. I might leave millions to the Guggenheim, because I believe they are doing good and necessary work there.

I will have a new concert hall built to rival the Carnegie Hall, so the Met has somewhere else to put on Das Rheingold or some such.

I will build a new theatre solely for the presenting of the works of the late Arthur Miller, our greatest playwright, in my opinion. Now ask me who is benefiting from my fortune after I die.

RLF: All of us, it would seem, but isn't what you have done all your life little more than to divert capital and resources from one place to another, from one country to another, from one ownership to another, until it is all sequestered in banks in the US?

JPG: You haven ‘t been listening to me, have you? I spoke earlier of my money going to Germany and Japan. Is that helping the US?

RLF: Indirectly, since those countries principally trade with American corporations or are their subsidiaries. All you are really doing is playing God.

JPG: Explain yourself, young man. That is a terrible thing to say.

RLF: I am sorry to have put it that way. What I mean is that in your decisions to invest in that country or another one, are you not, in effect, deciding who has a good standard of living, and by not investing in others, who doesn’t?

JPG: My hands are tied.

RLF: In what way, by whom?

JPG: Capital goes where it is profitable, where returns are highest. I do not just do this on a whim, you know, deciding who gets money on the basis of personal choice.

RLF: On what then?

JPG: My team of advisors do what they are paid to do and do it well. If they do not do it well, if I end up losing money, they lose their jobs. They do their jobs well and I make money. I invest in the places they advise me will bring the greatest returns for my money. It is called capitalism, my friend, and it is the system that runs the world and distributes wealth in the most effective way possible. I am but a custodian, directing my capital where it will do the most good, and help the most people.

RLF: But I repeat, that is a bit like, sorry to say it again, playing at being God.

JPG: And I repeat that it is capital and the logic of it that governs who gets helped and who doesn’t.

RLF: But what of the poor, I might say, starving people of the world, who is going to help them?

JPG: Charitable organizations and national governmental agencies, run by responsible people and funded by philanthropic people like myself.

RLF: Is that enough, do you think?

JPG: I am hardly in a position to be able to answer that question reliably and truthfully. Each of us does what we can. I do my bit, and you do yours. If we could all say that, I believe those unfortunate people would be much, much better off. But start forcing people to do something, when they are unable to is to be unjust. The world and its resources are distributed unequally. Our way is merely one way, the best way, in my opinion, of doing that distributing.
Robert L. Fielding

Benny Rothman - forgive us our trespasses - sometimes they are necessary

“Bliss it was, in that dawn, to be alive, but to be young was very Heaven."

RLF: Do you think Wordsworth’s words, written on the French Revolution could be applied to your day, to the times you protested?

BR: Perhaps I wouldn’t go so far as Wordsworth did, but he was a poet and I am not. It’s given to those who can write like that, I may even say, think like that, to pen something as lyrically sentimental as that. I don’t think I could have done it.

RLF: Would you not categorize yourself as an idealist, like so many poets?

BR: Absolutely, I’ve always been an idealist. I think anyone who survived the Great War, and then the second lot, became either an idealist, or suffered and became an inconsolable pessimist or a cynic.

RLF: Yet you remained an idealist, having gone through everything that everybody else did. How did you manage that? What helped you?

BR: I’m not sure, really. I suppose having a good family and good friends helps a lot. I always did work I enjoyed, being a mechanic, so that helped too. One more thing though…

RLF: What?

BR: Being able to get out of the smoke and the noise and dirt that Manchester is – was, out up on the hill, that made a difference to my life, to everybody who did the same.

RLF: What did hiking, as you call it, do for you?

BR: Well, for a start, it blows the cobwebs off you, you get good and tired doing it, which is good for anybody, you get your lungs full of good, clean air, and you make good pals – what more can a pursuit offer?

RLF: So you protested about the limits on public access to those hills.

BR: I did. We all did, and the feeling when we’d done what we set out to do was wonderful. I could feel Wordsworth’s words then – thought they applied to me, to all of us who trespassed on our way up to Mill Hill and Kinder Scout.

RLF: Why did you feel that way?

BR: Protesting against something you feel in your heart of hearts is wrong empowers you. It may sound like some sort of self-righteousness, and I suppose it is, but it was more than that, more than just feeling good about yourself. It felt like we had done something to be proud of, to tell our kids about, and our grandchildren in their turn.

RLF: And what about the sense of camaraderie you spoke of. How did that feel?

BR: We felt like there was a special bond between us, it almost felt as if we could build the perfect society from those people and their principles, the things we all expressed that day, and the things we felt and knew we had achieved.

RLF: Has anything given you anything similar, in terms of those feelings you have just mentioned?

BR: Let me say that anything you do that contributes to the general good makes you feel good, as you put it.

RLF: And why do you think that is?

BR: For the very simple reason that you are doing something in concert, and that sort of de-emphasizes your own ego and builds up the collective consciousness of the multitude. On a day like that, in 1932, on the slopes of Kinder Scout, everybody there knew they were of like mind. How often do you get a feeling like that in your life?

RLF: I felt it the day they buried Princess Diane, though for probably very different reasons.

BR: You were probably experiencing similar emotions, as we were that day in the quarry outside Hayfield, at the bottom of William Clough. But whereas we had direction as well as emotions to bind us, you probably just had the emotions associated with bereavement.

RLF: I am sure you are right, Bennie. But it did feel real.

BR: I am sure it did. What I felt, I could see on the faces of everybody around us, except the gamekeeprs with their guns. They gloated, and looked malevolent, but we knew they were beaten, and they knew it too.

Guns have often been used to quell unrest, even down yonder in Manchester – at Peterloo. Guns can be used to prevent dissent from storming barricades, but guns can never subdue protest, real feelings that are based upon right, rather than might.

You go into the Free Trade Hall on Peter Street nowadays and you will see the magnificent frescoes depicting the tragedy of Peterloo, condemning the use of force, expounding the voice of protest. Oppression can never last, nor be allowed to stand. That is as relevant today as it was in my day, or in the days of the martyrdom of the working classes in the streets of Manchester in 1819.
Robert L Fielding

Tom Stephenson – “So I’ll go where I will, over heather and hill!”

Rights to roam


RLF: Did you think the mass trespass on Kinder Scout was worth going to prison for?

TS: Absolutely, we all knew the potential consequences, and we were all the more resolute for that. There are some things that are worth fighting for, you know.

RLF: And what would those be, exactly?

TS: Principles.

RLF: Related to what?

TS: Related to our freedom as individuals in a democratic society.

RLF: Which particular freedoms?

TS: Those that every man has a right to as a free man.

RLF: But to roam over private property, how does that not interfere with the owner’s rights, his legal rights, I may say?

TS: First of all, we must state that the rights of any man are not necessarily just those that legislation provides us with, or that those denied us by legislation should not be ours.

RLF: But in going against legislation, are you not behaving undemocratically – going against duly elected governments and their mandates to govern us using the laws they have enacted to protect us?

TS: On the face of it, it does seem wrong of me to act in that way, going against legislation put forward by a democratically elected government, which, I may say, I support on most issues but this one.

No government, democratically elected or otherwise, has the right to deny its population certain ineluctable rights. By way of example, let me take an obvious right, the right to express oneself freely and without let or hinderance.

Are we to allow this right of ours to be withdrawn merely because a constitutionally elected assembly says so? I say they have no right, even though they were elected by the people to enact laws to direct us in ways that are lawful and peaceful.

RLF: But how can it be otherwise? How can laws created by elected government be wrong, and if they are wrong, who is to decide what is right or does not contravene our rights?

TS: If you were to listen to people like Edmund Burke, that illustrious Irishman, writing his reflections of the revolution in France, you would be arguing that man has virtually no rights except those legislated for by an elected assembly.

RLF: I do not approve of your example, particularly. That man was writing at a time when mob rule had got the upper hand in Paris, when heads rolled in front of the people.

TS: And why did those heads roll, as you so graphically put it?

RLF: Because the people demanded it.

TS: And why did they demand it?

RLF: Because those exercising power were deemed to have misused it for their own ends.

TS: So what must we do, if we feel the same. Should heads roll in Westminster?

RLF: That is surely too drastic.

TS: Maybe so, but some action is called for in the face of legislation that denies us our basic human rights, is that not true?

RLF: Yes, I suppose some action is called for in such a case.

TS: Then is not a mass trespass on the moorlands above Manchester such an action – one that is needed to show our legislators that we disapprove of it?

RLF: But you are going against another’s rights, are you not?

TS: Yours is a valid objection, and one that I will answer. It is true that one person’s rights must not remove, damage or interrupt another’s rights. The writer, Rawls has said ‘rights are trumps’ by which he meant that in dealing us our cards, so to speak, using the analogy of a card game to illustrate, others’ rights may not be allowed, by the rules of the game, to outstrip - trump mine or otherwise deny me them.

RLF: That still does not answer my question.

TS: Which was?

RLF: How can you act in ways that go against the other’s right to have property? You do not subscribe to Marx’ notion that ‘all property is theft’ do you?

TS: Most definitely not.

RLF: Then how do you differ, if you trespass on what is not yours?

TS: By the practical principle, that no one man has the right to deny another access to wildernesses in his own country – that he is asked to defend with his life at other times – in times of war. Why should I not walk the hills of Lancashire when I am a Lancastrian, born and bred.

RLF: But those moors are used for grouse shooting, on the glorious 12th, are they not?

TS: Indeed they are, but we moved over those heather slopes without any intent to disrupt or destroy any such activities.

RLF: Why do you want to walk over those hills?

TS: That is for me to say; being a wage slave on Monday does not mean I am not a free man on Sunday, does it? We are all bound as labourers through the week, have had our rights to move curtailed somewhat by the clock and the factory wall for 40 hours in every week.

RLF: For which you are paid.

TS: Quite so. Comes the evening though, have I not got the same rights as the foreman, manager or indeed the mill owner? Should not every man count as one and none as more than one when it comes down to issues that relate to freedom? This is England, are we not free men rather than slaves?

RLF: We are, but who can arbitrate in cases such as these?

TS: History will be my judge. I must go to prison for my actions. I go freely without any struggle or protest, as others must do before the Enclosure Act is seen for what it is, what it always was – a monstrous invasion of our rights as citizens of England. It will fall, mark my words, and my actions and those who trod on Kinder Scout that day are working towards that fall. Is that not a better way than violence, that embitters all and sets neighbour against neighbour, seeming to make us enemies when in fact we are nothing of the sort?
Robert L. Fielding

Albert Schweitzer - reverence for life

Inward freedom – having the strength to deal with what is hard in your life – self-assertion - self-affirmation

RLF: What is inward freedom?

AS: It is the freedom gained by being able to face difficulty in your life – not to be bowed down by it.

RLF: But how can it be called freedom – freedom from what?

AS: Freedom from yourself, ultimately, I suppose, but also freedom from oppression.

RLF: The oppression from others?

AS: Yes, from others, from threats open and clear, but also from attitude too, and from opinion.

There will always be those who disagree with your appraisal of life. It is natural to have disagreement – it sharpens one’s argument, but it can also bring one low too. We must protect ourselves from adversity and from criticism of the type that means harm. Again, a healthy criticism is worth much – it sharpens and it hones an argument or an opinion. It is criticism of the type that seeks to criticize for its own sake, degrading the one for the advantage of the other.

It is from this that we need strength, for just as there are those that will disagree or criticize on some point or principle, there are also those who would disagree or criticize merely to play the devil’s advocate, stirring up emotion for some form of amusement to be had from it.

RLF: But you still haven’t said how that can be said to be freedom.

AS: It is freedom, in as much as it allows the holder of a thought or an opinion to be proud, sufficiently proud to hold her head high, look people in the face and say, “This is my opinion, it expresses who I am and what I believe!”

RLF: Is that not cocking a snook at someone else.

AS: Not at all. Self-assertion, if done with some sensitivity, is uplifting and something that can and does provide confidence. It is an essential part of being a member of the human race, and although many appear not to possess it, the worm often turns, as they say, and most of us can be self-assertive when needs must.

Recognizing the outward signs of self-assertion makes us respect the person asserting herself, and also makes our own position clear in the case. What should not occur is that, when meeting with this boldness in others, we be beaten down by it, or even feel beaten down by it. Merely respecting another’s will, is to admit our own to them.

If face to face dialogue is to be anything other than a battle of wits, which probably dulls wit by diverting energy into mere parrying, it should be the healthy, adult acknowledging of the other’s rights to self-expression, thought, opinion, idea and argument. Yet, sadly, this acknowledgement is often lacking in one or both in a debate over an issue.

It is pettiness indeed, to want to score points, as it were, over the other in the debate. What the goal of debate, formal or otherwise, should be is the production and development of ideas and their improvement until a position nearer to truth is reached. Truth is our ultimate goal, and we need inward freedom to find it out, in ourselves as well as in the opinions we espouse.
Robert L. Fielding

Toussaint L'ouverture - great allies - man's unconqueable mind

Toussaint, the most unhappy Man of Men!
Whether the whistling
Rustic tend his plough
Within thy hearing, or thy head be now
Pillowed in some deep dungeon's earless den; -
O miserable Chieftain! where and whenWilt thou find patience?
Yet die not; do thouWear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow:
Though fallen Thyself, never to rise again,Live, and take comfort.
Thou hast left behindPowers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies;
There's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and Man's unconquerable mind.
William Wordsworth













RLF: Every man has dignity.

TL: That is true – every man, whether he is born into slavery or royalty. Nobody can claim otherwise.

RLF: But there are many who would deny that every man has dignity. Would a slave-master driving men to work harder and harder, depriving them of their liberty, consider that his slaves have anything remotely akin to dignity. Does dignity not signify position?

TL: I fear you are working with an incorrect definition of the word. You seem to be talking of something like that species of dignity accorded to high rank or wealth, whereas I am working with the meaning of dignity as true worth, leading to respectful treatment by others.

RLF: But are not men of high rank respected, called commanders because they command respect?

TL: Commanding respect by virtue of position can sound like little more than a sort of reverence based upon fear. Being treated respectfully, on the other hand, by virtue of being a human being, not resorting to position or rank, but according a man estimation because he is one’s equal – that is the dignity I speak of.

It little matters to me whether I address Napoleon in his high office or an urchin playing in the mud in the fields of Haiti. To me they are of equal worth. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that I would accord the boy more respect that I would the Emperor. That supposedly great man, conqueror of all he surveyed until greater men than he stood against him, that man treated his fellow man cruelly, and for that, he is in no ways deserving of my esteem or deference as a man of honour. The boy playing in the field has honour – the honour of innocence.

RLF: But if that boy were to grow up and inherit the values of Napoleon Bonaparte, would you still say he had honour and dignity, was worthy of your respect?

TL: I would say not.

RLF: Then where does this come from, this dignity, and this honour, deserving of respect?

TL: From the nobility of one’s forebears. Though I was born into serfdom – slavery, my father was born a free man in Africa – knew the freedom to roam his green land, and knew he had been born with brains and dignity – never let go of those and in bringing me up , gave me those same values and aspirations.

He read about the rights of man to be free, many did, in those days when so many were having their freedom taken away from them. One of your countryman, writing much later talked of man’s unconquerable mind, and that is what drove me on, the knowledge that I was not born to inherit chains, but rather to throw them off and free my fellows from the burdens of slavery and imperialist power.

Being educated, my father educated me, we had no need of hallowed halls or guilt gowns to prove the worth of our education. We had knowledge to sustain us and ensure that our rise to freedom was inevitable.

That is one of the most important aspects of education, is it not, that openings and opportunities that were previously thought impossible, or more probably, were not thought of at all by uneducated people, become glaringly obvious once education takes hold, once wisdom supplants fear and superstition.

Our overthrowing of French tyranny in our island home came about because enough men could dream of freedom and then work towards achieving it. Let books be your weapons, and fight with ideals, and tyranny will fall. History will attest to the truth of that.
Robert L. Fielding

Joseph Campbell - Jump!

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you really are.

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

The old skin has to be shed
before the new one can come.

If we fix on the old, we get stuck.
When we hang onto any form,
we are in danger of putrefaction.

Hell is life drying up.
---------------------------------
If you follow your bliss,
you will always have your bliss,
money or not.

If you follow money,
you may lose it,
and you will have nothing.
---------------------------------
It takes courage to do what you want.
Other people have a lot of plans for you.
Nobody wants you to do what you want to do.
---------------------------------
Nothing is exciting
if you know
what the outcome is going to be.
---------------------------------
You enter the forest at the darkest point,
where there is no path.

Where there is a way or path,
it is someone else’s path.
You are not on your own path.

If you follow someone else’s way
you are not going to realize
your potential.
-------------------------------------
A bit of advice
given to a young Native American
at the time of his initiation:
“As you go the way of life,
you will see a great chasm.

Jump.

The Joseph Campbell

The ties that bind

RLF: You tell us to get rid of the life we planned, but in most cases either someone else does the planning or there is no planning – things just happen.

JC: Is that true – things just happen?

RLF: Well, that is an oversimplification, but it can seem that way looking back at parts of your life.

For a start, certain things conspire against you so that you really have little choice of a path or a career.

JC: Things don’t conspire, people do, but I think I know what you mean. Let’s start from the beginning.

RLF: OK, from birth, you mean.

JC: Probably before that – the circumstances of the family you are born into began before you were even thought of, most probably.

RLF: So let’s start with our family – their place in the pecking order – their attitude to life.

JC: Certainly those things, but their perception of who they are, what their life chances should be.

RLF: Do you think ‘should’ is the right word here?

JC: Sure I do. People adopt the attitude, the way of thinking, opinions, beliefs of those around them, don’t they?

RLF: Workmates, family, neighbours, friends, social class, you mean all that?

JC: You bet. Peer group pressure is an odious thing working away unseen – people are generally unaware that they are influenced in so much of their life choices – in the decision making that goes on behind those choices, I mean.

It’s all around you, voiced and unsaid, explicit and tacit, obvious and hidden from view, but it is ubiquitous.

RLF: But people have free will, they can do whatever they want, within certain limits, surely?

JC: You hit the nail right on the head. On the face of it, people have free will, but how much is that worth if they are unable to exercise it as they wish.

RLF: Are you saying that they can’t?

JC: What I am saying is that there is a plethora of factors at work to constrain and limit – real ones, certainly, but also psychological ones, even philosophical ones.

RLF: It’s difficult to see how philosophy could influence the decisions of a mill worker.

JC: You think so?

RLF: Yes, I do.

JC: That’s because you are thinking of philosophy as something that is only done at the Sorbonne, or in the reading room of the British Museum, whereas, in fact, philosophy holds sway all the time. People act upon some notion that has its base in some form of philosophical position. That position may not be a clear, coherent one, and probably rarely is so, but nevertheless the man acting this way or that does so because of some preconditioned disposal to act in certain ways and more or less in only those ways.

If he acts in ways that could not have been predicted by those closest to him, who know or think they know him best, then his actions would have various motives ascribed to them. People would say he was mad, crazy, stupid, or just plain wrong.

They would imagine they know the man’s motives, and in a way they do, for a very good reason.
RLF: Which is?

JC: That his motives are not dissimilar to their own. If he acted as he was expected to do, he would gain approval from those around him, if in ways that were less so, he would receive varying amounts of censure or criticism, depending upon the magnitude of the margin of difference, and the importance of the decision made.

RLF: And those who do so, from what motives are they acting in approving of his decision or in remonstrating with him?

JC: Their motives have to do with their own prejudices, their own ways of thinking, that they, probably rightly, think are most probably identical to his.

RLF: They might almost want them to be identical. Solidarity is a comfort, isn’t it?

JC: It certainly is. To know that what you have decided to do meets with the approval of those you think important provides you with a tremendous lift – gives them the confidence to go on, to continue along the path they imagine they have chosen.

RLF: Whether that path is the optimum one for them or not.

JC: It really doesn’t matter, if it is a path that has been trodden by countless people – generations, friends, family members, it doesn’t particularly matter whether it is the optimum path. It is the path for them, and once on it, most people will put up with second best, adopting a sort of Stoicism.

RLF: Being philosophical, I understand you better now.

JC: Good. Now let us think about the decisions that would have to be made to choose a different path entirely. A schoolboy decides he wants to go to university. Where does any support for him come from? From his family? Possibly, but by no means certainly. From his school-pals? Again, quite possibly. From his teachers? Most definitely, if they believe he has a chance.


But who gets to make the decision for him, supposing he is in a position to pass his exams and actually try for a place at a university – who decides – him?

RLF: Probably his parents, if not him.

JC: Right, and what would they take into account?

RLF: What is good for the lad.

JC: You would hope so, but in reality a myriad of realities come crowding into their heads, only a few of which will create conditions favourable for him to go up to college.

RLF: What realities?

JC: Real ones.

RLF: That is the nature of a reality, isn’t it – that it is real?

JC: You would think so, but what about the reality of the opinions of family and friends – are they real or imagined?

RLF: Probably both.

JC: Good answer. Half the problem with peer group pressure is that most of it goes unspoken – it is in the mind of every member, one thinks, but doesn’t know. What we do is anticipate reaction and then act accordingly. Do you still think we are capable of free will?

RLF: If you put it that way, then we are clearly not able to exercise our free will.

JC: Unfortunately, that is true for most of us. You would have to live on an uninhabited island not to be affected by pressure from otherwise well meaning people all around you.

RLF: Do you really think those around us are well meaning all of the time?

JC: If you ask them, they would certainly reply in the affirmative, but in the more private moments that none are privy too, no – I don’t think we do always mean well.

RLF: Why?

JC: For the very simple reason that we tend to think of ourselves first and everybody else second. Things like jealousy, greed, insecurity, inability come into play until an opinion, if one is ever voiced, comes out as something jaundiced and distorted.

RLF: It will also depend upon who is being asked and who is doing the asking. In a quieter, more reflective moment, one man might give a more considered opinion, in a more open assembly, the opinion might come out twisted to suit the hearers. We like to think well of ourselves, and we like others to think well of us. Voicing opinions that go against the grain does nothing to ingratiate a man to his fellows. It requires courage to have such an opinion, let alone voice it.

RLF: But if the opinion is not voiced, how does anyone know what it is?

JC: We all make assumptions about people based upon incomplete knowledge, sometimes with no knowledge whatsoever.

RLF: Which is prejudicial.

JC: Which is prejudicial, yes. And, if asked to defend that opinion, we will very often go a long way to try to convince others, even though we may not truly believe it. Once an opinion is out in the open, so to speak, it is often defended, merely because one man has taken possession of it and uses it to define who or what he is.

In the main though, people will usually only voice opinions they are sure will not get a hostile reception from those people they value as friends.

The boy ends up not being given the chance to go to university because of a decision that is underpinned by a species of false consciousness called sameness, or conformity.

RLF: So what must be done for the boy to get to university?

JC: Sadly, very little can be done if his family is set against him going. If he has the means to support himself through his years at college, and if he is strong willed and determined to get himself a college education, determined to make something of himself, then he will succeed. Otherwise, he probably will not, following his father and his older brothers into the mill, or down the pit.

Going against the grain

RLF: But how can a person become an individual in the face of such intrusive influence?

JC: I would say it is largely a matter of circumstance. One person becomes more individualistic than another. Ostensibly they both inhabit similar niches, both come from similar families, but one breaks the mould while the other continues in the shoes of his father and his grandfather before him.

RLF: Is it something innate – something one is born with while another is not?

JC: I am sure that is always partly the case – that one person has inherited qualities another has not.

RLF: Even if the two are brothers, from the same parents – how can that be, that they turn out differently?

JC: That cannot be known, all we can do is look at people and make assumptions, do longtitudinal studies, analyze what has happened to each, and then, most unscientifically, make a guess – an educated one, maybe, but a guess nevertheless.

RLF: One way, surely, is through case studies in which a person talks through their life, telling someone of their motives, the influences that made their mark.

JC: But that would still be probably only a sort of guesswork, relying too heavily on one man’s understanding of his own life to a degree that is virtually unknown. A man keeps a journal half his adult life, and you think you might have something from which to quarry a closer estimate of why he did this rather than that.

RLF: Why would that be unreliable? Surely if a man keeps a close record of the events that shaped his life, and if he does it honestly and conscientiously, then why could we not take it as instructive?

JC: Because we would have to admit that anyone writing, describing his life and the reasons behind his actions, we would still need to interpret what he had written, and in that we would again have to make guesses, approximations to truths, if you prefer.

RLF: If we could ask him to relate the story of his life, wouldn’t that suffice?

JC: But then his narratives would suffer, quite naturally.

RLF: From what?

JC: From memory lapses, embellishing the colour of grey, insinuating hues that did not exist at the time. Looking back is to look through rose coloured spectacles, is it not – making summer holidays free from rain, free from tears, free from anything that would taint a fond memory.

RLF: I suppose you are right. Then how can we know why one made it and one didn’t?

JC: We can’t. All we can do is infer. I will start by giving you an example to work on – a lad that, by virtue of his being a bit less tough, not as strong in the arm, for his height, came to be bullied by those boys who were only on the periphery of his life, not his friends, but other boys at school, say. How would that boy look upon his those other boys?

RLF: I should think he would dislike them. He would hold their opinions in disdain, would not subscribe to the things they thought or believed.

JC: And how would this affect him in terms of what direction he imagined himself moving?

RLF: You would have to help me here. I am not really in a position to say, with any degree of accuracy.

JC: The boy, and later the man, would gain some independence of mind, a vital prerequisite to making your own mind up to take this course rather than that one, a course you have decided to take rather than one mapped out for you. It would be in living a life at variance with those around you, one’s peers, as you may call them, that a man could find his own feet, find his own opinion, rather than the ones so loudly voiced at every turning.

It is often as much what is not said as what is that is instrumental in making a young man decide to take this path, the one he has chosen.

But what rewards lay in wait for him if he succeeds.

RLF: And what minefields too, I shouldn’t wonder.

JC: In gaining confidence from such a huge undertaking as following one’s own directions towards one’s own goals, a man would be able to avoid any such hazards, or at any rate, if they were unavoidable, he would not be knocked off course so easily. Life throws things our way, and we learn to deal with them or be defeated by them. Tenacity is vital here, and it is more likely to be found in someone who has found his own path and is sticking to it, rather than in someone who is doing something merely because he has been told he must do it, or who only feeds on the praises of others rather than on his own self-knowledge.

RLF: So who is your Superman?

JC: Why do you call him that?

RLF: Because he would have to be to disregard all but his own mind. Our charismatic leaders are such as these, but they are few and far between. Mostly, we abide by unspoken rules, are diffident to people even when we think we know better.

JC: Are you sure you are not just speaking of yourself, rather than other people with a little resolve to do something?

RLF: Quite possibly, yes. But I still think such a man would have to be what we call a loner.

JC: Not necessarily. There is a place in all of us that none can inhabit or even stray into. A part of the mind in which innermost feelings remain hidden and sheltered from the world of prying eyes, and wagging fingers, second guessing, or trying to, at any rate, the better to intimidate and control. Familiarity breeds contempt, precisely because one person thinks he knows all there is to know about another person, and then uses what he knows against that person.

To strive is to push ahead, and to do so is to overtake, to do that is to find yourself more alone than those that always run with the pack, and while running with the pack is much safer, it holds far fewer surprises and thus fewer rewards too.

Reaping what has been sewn

RLF: And should the lad go to university, what then?

JC: If he has been diligent and gained a good degree in something useful, a world, the world opens up before him.

RLF: And what would you call a useful degree, one that helps him get a job?

JC: Not necessarily. Remember that he is on a path of his own determining. Getting a mundane job in an office, however well paid it might be, would not really do for someone with the confidence gained by achieving what he has just achieved – a place at university, probably against all odds, and then an Honours degree in something he is enthusiastic about – that is the usefulness of which I spoke.

RLF: And why should that be more useful than one that would certainly get him paid employment?

JC: If it was paid employment in a field of his choosing, then fine, but merely getting a job for the sake of it is to make too much of the getting and spending part of life that most of us seem to have resigned ourselves to.

RLF: What would you have him do – go to India to find himself.

JC: If need be, certainly, travel is said to broaden the mind, is it not?

RLF: Undoubtedly, if done in the right frame of mind, careful to avoid the habits of the British of earlier times.

JC: Which were?

RLF: Occasionally imagining that the world owes them a living, and then becoming disillusioned when it fails to supply that living.

JC: Let us steer away from travel and talk of our new graduate, what should he do after he has obtained his diploma?

RLF: Something that will further him on his way of self-determination, forcing him to stand on his own two feet, something that will satisfy that part of him that is developed by becoming more confident.

JC: That is well said. Exactly that sort of thing, whatever it happens to be.

RLF: But are there not false trails, traps for the unwary, everywhere?

JC: There most surely are, but let it not blind you to the fact that many strive to be decent and honest, work hard to attain high aims. Above all, he would do best not to get cynical, while retaining some amount of wit and a small degree of healthy skepticism. If he is careful, works hard and keeps at it, as they say, he should find that he has the life he deserves, or even the one he planned, if he is very fortunate.

RLF: And what would characterize such a position, would you say?

JC: Something in which an amount of learning was required, with him able to face new challenges and meet them, more than meet them, and continue to learn and face the next and the next.

JC: Until what?

RLF: Someone recently said that in the race for excellence, there is no finishing line, and it is true.

RLF: Could that not also be said of the race for wealth?

JC: Indeed it could, but there is one important difference between the race for wealth and the race for excellence.

RLF: What is that?

JC: It is that whereas whilst accruing more and more money, there goes with it the law of diminishing returns, in the rate for excellence, no such laws exist.

The advantages of wealth very soon level out as money pours in. A person’s first million allows him to live the life he always dreamed of, but does the second and the third and so on have the same effect on his life?

RLF: Men continually strive for more and more wealth.

JC: So you think that they must – that the subsequent millions give advantage in equal proportions to that first one?

RLF: That I cannot say, as I have never been fortunate to find out.

JC: And neither have I.

RLF: So how are you qualified to say whether the sixth and seventh million bestow advantages equal in magnitude to those bestowed by the first?

JC: By virtue of observing, that and using some amount of knowledge of the laws by which money returns investment.

Since any man’s needs are more or less finite, being but human, then it is obvious that once they are met, he must look in some other direction for his advancement, or throw his money away on trifles.

RLF: You mean on town houses and country estates, yachts and fine attire?

JC: Even those, yes. Especially those. They are finite, are they not. One can but live in one suit of clothes, eat only four square meals a day and sleep in one bed.

RLF: But that is the argument from someone with no imagination.

JC: In what way?

RLF: Because wealth does not merely mean a person can buy more.

JC: What else can wealth do then?

RLF: It can alter lives, making a difference in ways that cannot at first be comprehended. The extensions it provides are not linear ones – more and more of the same thing.

JC: So how does wealth branch out its chief function – which is primarily to render anything affordable?

RLF: By equating with power – the power to influence, what most men think they have until they try to exert it. Wealth brings influence, almost without it being spent. Merely the promise of its being spent, almost its very existence guarantees those with it so much more coinage than can be counted in banks.
Robert L. Fielding