Authority and Delinquency by Alex Comfort

Out of print, but buy it from abebooks.co.uk

First published in 1950, I was reading the lightly revised 1970 edition, and yet in many placed Comfort seemed to be speak very much of the contemporary era not an age 70 years past.

Comfort see “the persuasive, who replaces impact by the power of ‘selling himself’, is a conspicuous feature of democratic political life.” and Trump would seem to be a clear example of this dynamic at work.

He notes that “… governments seem to control the expert advice they receive, and ensure that it coincides with predetermined policy, far more by selecting advisers known to be like-minded than by attempting to bribe or coerce...” does this ring bells of requests for alternative facts? It always reminds us that “being guided by the science” is never as straightforward a process as we are encouraged to think.

On the potential for reform of society, and government, “the temptation is to hang on a little longer… implementation is something to be put off until ‘after the final victory’ or ‘after the end of the emergency’. Cultures which gravitate into a chronic emergency can postpone them indefinitely. The time for revolution is never ripe.” And so the “war on terror” was useful to some, as it was open ended, and therefore not only essentially unwinnable but also endlessly ready to be deployed as a justification to defer attention away from any particular domestic ills.

He also reflects on the move towards nuclear capability “…for while no sane tyrant will look with favour on a plan to end human history, the modern politician may do so – he needs a threat of this calibre to satisfy his own sense of importance and to enable him to compete with Superman and space fiction, but at the same time the tin soldiers and the imaginary bombs from which he derives such profound satisfaction in fantasy are being translated into real weapons by a minority of technicians who are uninterested in, or fail to recognize, the instability of the finger on the trigger.”

It can all feel a bit depressing, but maybe to end with a more hopeful quote “The dangers to humanity are, as always, grave; but at no time has man [sic] been better placed to deal with them. The true defence is not to turn back to anything but to turn forward – not less knowledge and freedom but more.”