Editor’s Notes: A dose of rational optimism blew away the fog of Brexit
After another week of Brexit-related chaos, I was determined to cheer myself up yesterday, and so set a course for the annual Adam Smith Institute lecture in the House of Lords. This year’s speaker was Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard – and a master optimist. If Pinker’s empirical case for the constant improvement of the human condition couldn’t distract me from Brexit, nothing would.
I picked my way through the sea of eccentric pro- and anti Brexit protesters outside parliament (a group of people who have joined the ranks of monarchy enthusiasts who camp outside the Lindo Wing for weeks ahead of a Royal birth) and joined the crowd gathered in the Cholmondeley Room.
If you’re not familiar with Pinker’s work, you should get hold of his book Enlightenment Now, which makes a compelling case for science, reason, progress and humanism – underscored by a mountain of evidence that shows humanity’s remarkable march towards better health, greater freedom, a decline in poverty, rising wealth and a host of other improvements that go unreported and underappreciated.
Pinker is an optimist – and stresses that this isn’t about having a rosy disposition or being a ‘glass-half-full’ kind of guy, it’s about looking at the data and appreciating the scientific, technological, social, economic and cultural progress that we have the immense good fortune to witness – and to benefit from. Nor is it about overlooking the serious issues of our time, such as climate change. On the contrary, to be an optimist is to grasp these problems and recognise that we have the capacity to deal with them.
Defeatists are everywhere, wallowing in pessimism or using it to advance their own radical political agenda.
Pinker is the antidote to this short-sightedness, and his approach to looking at the world is needed now more than ever.
Hayek’s still got the magic
Friedrich Hayek advanced the principle that markets are infinitely superior in determining value than central planners. He would therefore be amused to learn that while Sotheby’s auction house put an estimate on his 1974 Nobel Prize medal at £400,000-600,000, it sold this week for £1.15m.
Sotheby’s offered the Hayek Nobel Prize and family collection for auction, and fans of the great economist delved into the market with enthusiasm. His writing desk sold for £17,500 – a bargain in my opinion. His typewriter went for a little more than that, while his annotated copy of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations found a buyer for £150,000. His Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by George H. W. Bush in 1991, fetched £112,500.
My friend Paul Staines, the man behind the Guido Fawkes mask, feels that his signed copy of Hayek’s “Denationalisation of Money” is suddenly looking more valuable. Hayek’s legacy, of course, is priceless.
A rugby workaround
I have a very clear memory from my brother’s wedding a few years ago of half the guests huddled around a radio listening to a key England rugby game. There was no phone signal or wifi, so the radio was found. What to do if the big day clashes with a vital match? At my friend’s wedding in Edinburgh last weekend, speeches began just as England and Scotland kicked off. To compensate, the rugby-mad (and Scottish) bride and groom had placed a £1 bet on behalf of each guest. Those whose slip was for a draw ended the night £35 up.
Crackers Corbynistas
Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to storm out of a meeting of party leaders because Chuka Umunna was invited may have underlined how ridiculous he is, but the move delighted his fan-base, who value loyalty to the cult above all else. Former BBC journalist and now full-time Corbyn cheerleader Paul Mason was delighted, tweeting “Finally the elite are going to realise, Labour is an insurrection… not part of your cheese and biscuit circuit.” So, no cheese course come the revolution.