RETURN TO P.P.E.

I have been struggling with coming to terms with Mr Trump’s forthcoming presidency of the United States. The news reports about his choices for members of his cabinet do not in any way alleviate one’s fears. Indeed there is even greater concern that his less than even amateur approach to constitutional government will cause greater conflict and lead to policies even more detrimental to civilisation than his election already has. The rule of law has been replaced by a ‘concept’ of governance. He seeks to immunise criminality on a colossal scale by deploying cruel and vicious sycophants throughout his administration. The fact that his republican party acolytes are in the majority in congress gives him the freedom to run roughshod over the constitution unless those senators and representatives remember their sworn oath to uphold the checks and balances of the constitution. Their devotion to Trump seems to override their actual oath of allegiance to the United States of America.   It seems clear therefore that the current leadership of the country is without character, ethics, integrity or indeed any civilised philosophy whatsoever. The rule of the gangster and the mob is all.

 

As well as the above mentioned cogitations, I have been contemplating the mater of a degree in PPE at the Open University. According to Wikipedia, a Politics, Philosophy and Economics degree was first offered by the University of Oxford in 1920 as an interdisciplinary degree combining study of the three disciplines. In theory one would assume such an endeavour would provide one with a very strong platform from which to put oneself forward as a public servant. A thorough grounding in the activities of government and members of law-making bodies who can influence the way a country is governed, and the way in which it is governed, would seem to be a prerequisite for any elected or appointed representative.  As a compliment to this, knowledge of the various types of economy and how different approaches to commerce, industry and public services can affect the nation would also seem of some significance to maintaining a country’s ability to function. To cap it off, some grip of logical and ethical thinking might be appropriate if one is going to present oneself to the public as someone who understands humanity or at least has developed some knowledge of what can be called the human condition. Does one know anything? How can one know what is right or wrong? What is freedom? What is the best form of government for my particular country?  What are human rights? What’s it all about?

 

There are institutions around the world that recognise the necessity for combined study of these subjects with a view to improving the quality of its government and, as a result the better wellbeing of its society. The École Normale Supérieur in Paris is an instance in point.

 

“The school is very small in student numbers. Its core of students…are selected via competitive exam…Two hundred are…recruited every year…and receive a. monthly salary…and in exchange sign a ten year contract to work for the state…”

 

This clause is not necessarily applied although a number of alums go on to occupy elite positions within government, administration, and corporate forms in France. Good, bad or indifferent as the case may be, these are people with some dedication to public service who have undertaken a very specific course of study to understand what their function, as hired civil servants or elected officials, ought to be.

 

In the United States there are a number of universities who offer a form of PPE although some merely call it Political Economy or Ethics, History and Public Policy. At Yale it is Ethics, Politics and Economics. Some only offer the course as a postgraduate degree.. Whatever its designation it seems to have had little effect in the United States. 

 

What we now have in place in America is the populist amateur insanity. He has already indicated he wishes to rule by executive order and will seek to pass legislation allowing him to make appointments bypassing legislative scrutiny and consent. This is exactly what Hitler did within two months of taking office with the Enabling Act of 1933 or Ermächtigungsgesetz, officially titled Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich (Law to Remedy the distress of People and State).  If that parallel is not a warning of things to come, I don’t know what is.

 

But I digress yet again. I spoke of a return to university education.  At this late stage, and with some worry about my immediate short term memory, it is perhaps a frivolous expense, and I can hardly see myself seeking public office in Lambeth at whatever level. I would be hovering towards 90 at graduation, assuming I even make it to putting on the Mortar Board. So perhaps a more autodidactic approach would be best. My inspiration would be Abraham Lincoln, the man Mr Trump likes so much to compare his alleged achievements.

 

Unfortunately I do not read as much as Lincoln did, but then in the early 19^th Century in Illinois and Indiana there were no smart phones or Netflix or 100 TV channels to choose from, quite apart from movie theatres. There was little displacement activity to distract Lincoln from books, apart from his father hiding them or throwing them away.  This went on from Lincoln’s birth in 1809 to 1831 when Lincoln left the parental home. Twenty nine years later he was elected President of the United States. He was first elected to office in the Illinois House of Representatives where he served four terms from 1834 to 1842 during which time he was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1836. He was elected to US House of Representatives as representative of Illinois’s 7^th district in 1847 until 1849. He was elected President in 1860. So he was not without some political education as well as commercial and legal experience in between civic duties, all the while continuously educating himself in all manner of ways. He was only 56 when he died. He achieved extraordinary things even though he, himself, claimed to be slow to catch on to concepts and ideas. Would that we were all so slow.

 

So, in looking at the Yale University list of core requirement for the study of Ethics, Politics and Economics, we have, inter alia:

Tradition and Modernity

Persuasion and Discontents

Recent Work on Justice

Normative Ethics

The Problem of Evil

Propaganda, Ideology and Democracy

Strategic Models of Politics

America from Scratch

Digital War

The European Union

Politics of the Environment

Debating Globalisation

Topics in Cooperative Game Theory

Platforms and Cultural Production

 

This is only a sample of what’s on offer.

 

As to the PPE course at the LSE, the 1^st year required courses are listed as:

PH103 – The Big Question: An introduction to Philosophy (Dr Paola Romero)

GV101- Introduction to Political Science (Dr Ryan Jablonski)

EC1A3 – Microeconomics I (Prof Ronny Razin)

EC1B3 – Macroeconomics (Dr Antonio Mele)

LSE100 – The LSE Course – flagship interdisciplinary course for all undergraduate students, designed to bring you into the heart of LSE tradition of engaging with big questions.

 

There are also options in the first year:

ST107 Quantitative Methods (Statistics), MA107 Quantitative Methods (Mathematics), MA108 Methods in calculus and linear algebra, MA100 Mathematical Methods.

 

In the circumstances, as much as I would love to get to grips with ‘America from Scratch’ and the ‘Problem of Evil’ at Yale, I thought I might get in touch with Doctors Romero, Jablonski and Mele, as well as Professor Razin, explain my situation and ask them for their reading lists and titles of essay assignments. I could then post the essays on the blog for comment.

 

Would anyone else living in London care to join in? We could meet up once a fortnight or month, or even week, for an hour or two, to discuss our progress. It could be a fun exercise and might keep the brain cells ticking over.