After mentioning Sidney Webb’s history of the Russian Revolution I tried to find it online. Couldn’t find it in free form, but an accidental reference was worth reading. A 1929 article in a British journal of socialism [Klugmann, p 48 of PDF] discusses the takeover of politics by ideology. Sounds mighty familiar.
Klugmann was focusing on Lenin, an abstract thinker who tried to force humanity into an abstract mold. Inevitably he failed, and Stalin took over with a brutally pragmatic approach. Most of Stalin’s actions happened after 1929, so Klugmann couldn’t foresee the results. Stalin aimed to establish industrial prosperity. He succeeded at the expense of agriculture. We pretend that Stalin’s brutality was unique, but he was no more brutal than the tsars, and similar famines had happened in tsarist times without any industrial growth to compensate.
Klugmann in 1929 hoped that philosophy could serve as a balance for pragmatics instead of a rigid force:
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From the political point of view such adherence to hard philosophic dogma has the disadvantage that it excludes from the party all those who, though sympathising with its immediate aims, find it impossible to subscribe to its philosophic doctrine.
[This happened before Facebook and Twitter’s echo chambers! Maybe it’s not so modern after all.]
From the philosophical point of view it is even more disastrous. Philosophy receives its death blow when it becomes a religion.
At present political policy, if it is not entirely opportunist, is governed ostensibly by economic considerations. But economics is merely a tool. Economists describe social structure and can say what is likely to happen if certain changes are made; but whether these changes are desirable or not is an ethical question, a problem of philosophy.
[Economists gave up objectivity. Since 1980, economists are nothing more than stock shills. A change that juices the Dow is a desirable change.]
It therefore seems a pity that the contempt for clear thinking should be so general in this country. Clear philosophical analysis of a political policy is not to be confounded with a philosophic dogma attached to a political policy. The latter is a sheer calamity; the former, it seems, might be extremely valuable. It is very easy for the leaders of a party, surrounded by problems all demanding immediate action, to lose sight of the ultimate goal for which they are aiming; it is easy for a party policy to become opportunist, to degenerate into a sort of soothing syrup for potential voters, if its fundamental assumptions remain unanalysed and muddled.
[Political parties no longer have policy goals. They’re just sports teams.]
But philosophy may have a very real influence on politics even though they remain untainted by philosophic analysis. A good philosopher should be capable of considering ethical problems without prejudice or passion. Most social problems today are made greater by the prejudices which influence those who have to deal with them.
= = = = = END 1929.
I firmly agree that a good philosopher SHOULD be able to consider without passion. Professional philosophers lost their purpose a long time before professional economists.
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The latest piece at Nieman is also British, and also a question that desperately needs good philosophical thinking.
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Impartiality was central to the BBC’s mission under its 1947 royal charter. It emerged in a period when there was still broad agreement on shared facts, and a civic space where citizens could reason together even when they disagreed.
This era has broken down over the past 20 to 25 years, with the rise of digital platforms and populist politics that eroded traditional journalistic gatekeeping. Today’s information environment is shaped by technology companies, populist leaders, political strategists, and partisan media outlets. All have strong incentives to create confusion and distrust. When political figures deny evidence, distort facts, or lie as strategy, reporting their claims as equal to verified facts is not neutrality or impartiality — it is distortion.
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Populist, partisan, deny evidence, distortion, lie = Synonyms for “Not a copy of DNC talking points”.
Neutrality, impartiality, journalistic gatekeeping, truth = Synonyms for “Verbatim copy of DNC talking points.”
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As the sociologist Niklas Luhmann has noted, the function of news is to create a shared reality, a minimal consensus about what exists and what matters. When that consensus collapses, the public sphere itself begins to fragment and journalism loses the ground on which democratic discourse depends.
= = = = = END 2025.
NO, NO, NO. The function of news is the same as the function of eyes and ears and noses. Our genes and brains and culture create shared reality and consensus. News is simply a remote sensor, a focused camera or microphone that lets us see or hear events outside our immediate neighborhood. That’s all. If news is going to be worth paying for, it needs added value. Food has value after a cook has added sauce or spice to make it more tasty. News has value after a reporter has added sauce or spice to make it more tasty.
Cooked food shouldn’t remove important nutrients or add damaging chemicals. Cooked news shouldn’t remove important facts or add damaging philosophies.
The Fairness Doctrine performed the same function as the Pure Food and Drug Act. Both prevented dilution and adulteration, both forced commercial providers to avoid damaging additives.
Polistra's Mill 