All Power to the Arch Bishop of Socialism

I was having a conversation before this specific issue came up with a leading CWU militant who reminded me that Rowan Williams had always been a left leaning bishop. the scale of the media furore over the sharia speech is testament to the degree to which debate in the Church does matter. It is surely an arena of debate that as more influence on wider society than the debates among the far left.

I am not so sure that Rowan Williams argues that we should take our ethical principles from God – though he personally would.

But he does raise the question of where we do get our ethical values from. Quite often the left takes perfectly sensible political positions, but they don’t necessariy come from a worked out ethical view of the world.

For example the issues relating to late abortions. The slogan “as early as possible, as late as necesary” probably gives correct political expression that the balance of choice should lie with the mother, but I have never seen a convincing ethical (as opposed to pragmatic and political) argument for that. There certainly comes a point where the mother is carrying a viable child, and there is therefore an ethical issue over the point at which society takes responsibility for the safety of that child.

If those of us who are pro-choice don’t have an answer based in ethics, then it is harder for us to respond to people who wish to restrict abortion right based upon their own ethical standards, and shouting “bigots! at them hardly does it for me. I think there are severe ethical problems with an argument only based upon womens’ rights, that does also not recognise the fact that a soon to be born child is effectively the same as an already born child.

I raise this as only one example of an area where there seems to be no agreed ethical position among the left, and indeed no real discussion about where our ethics come from.

The argument that society only has a responsibility at the point of birth is not quite so clear cut as you make out, there comes a point where the abortion is actually an induced and assisted birth, and the foetus may be viable. In such circumstances the development of the foetus has an ethical dimension.

Any comments about ethics from the pro-war left, or islamophobic left have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

But i think the question that the left groups (and the SWP is not unique in this) treat their members and supporters like shit has at its heart a deeply unethical view to politics and society.

One example is that after I left the SWP over a perfectly political reason, all sorts of lies were told about me, to minimise any influence I might have. The smear against Linda Smith was not unique, I was told a disgusting personal (and totaly untrue) smear from John Rees’s own lips about a leading Socialist Allaince comrade from Walsall. And look at the way people like Anna Chen are airbrushed out of history and anathamatised.

There is no possibility of moving towards a more humane society based upon an ethical view of the world that is inhumane and dishonest.