1. There are no ultimate sources of knowledge. Every source, every suggestion, is welcome; but every source, every suggestion, is also open to critical examination. As long as we are not dealing with historical matters, we usually examine the asserted facts themselves, rather than investigate the sources of our information.

2. The proper questions of epistemology are not actually concerned with sources at all; rather, we ask whether an assertion is true – that is to say, whether it agrees with the facts. In connection with this critical examination of the truth, all kinds of arguments may be brought to bear. One of the most important procedures is to take a critical attitude towards our own theories and, in particular, to look for contradictions between our theories and observations.

3. Tradition is – apart from inborn knowledge – by far the most important source of our knowledge.

4. The fact that most of the sources of our knowledge are traditional demonstrates that opposition to tradition, that is to say, antitraditionalism, is of no importance. But this fact must not be held to support traditionalism; for every bit, however small, of our traditional knowledge (and even of our inborn knowledge) is open to critical examination and may be overthrown if need be. Nevertheless, without tradition, knowledge would be impossible.

5. Knowledge cannot start from nothing – from the tabula rasa – nor yet from observation. The advance of our knowledge consists in the modification and the correction of earlier knowledge. Of course it is sometimes possible to take a step forward through an observation or through a chance discovery; but the significance of an observation or of a discovery generally depends upon whether it enables us to modify existing theories.

6. Neither observation nor reason is an authority. Other sources, such as intellectual intuition and intellectual imagination, are most important, but they are also unreliable: they may show us things with the utmost clarity and yet mislead us. They are the main sources of our theories and are therefore indispensable; but the vast majority of our theories are false. The most important function of observation and logical thought, but also of intellectual intuition and imagination, is to help us in the critical examination of those bold theories which we need in order to delve into the unknown.

7. Clarity is an intellectual value in itself; exactness and precision, however, are not. Absolute precision is unattainable; and there is no point in trying to be more precise than our problem demands. The idea that we must define our concepts to make them ‘precise’ or even to give them a ‘meaning” is misleading. Every definition must make use of defining concepts; and so we can never ultimately avoid working with undefined concepts. Problems connected with the meaning or the definition of words are unimportant. Indeed, these purely verbal problems are tiresome: they should be avoided at all costs.

8. Every solution of a problem creates new unsolved problems. The harder the original problem and the bolder the attempt to solve it, the more interesting these new problems are. The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, clear and well-defined will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. The main source of our ignorance lies in the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

We get an idea of the vastness of our ignorance when we contemplate the vastness of the heavens. It is true that the size of the universe is not the deepest cause of our ignorance; but it is nevertheless one of its causes.

I believe that it is worthwhile trying to discover more about the world, even if this only teaches us how little we know. It might do us good to remember Rom time to time that, while differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal. If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far we may have penetrated into the unknown, then we can retain, without risk of dogmatism, the idea that truth itself is beyond all human authority Indeed, we are not only able to retain this idea we must retain it. For without it there can be no objective standards of scientific inquiry; no criticism of our conjectured solutions, no groping for the unknown, and no quest for knowledge.

Lecture delivered to the University of Salsburg 27 July 1979.  From In Search of a Better World. London: Routledge 1984.

But are there ultimate explanations? The doctrine which I have called ‘essentialism’ amounts to the view that science must seek ultimate explanations in terms of essences: if we can explain the behaviour of a thing in terms of its essence – of its essential properties – then no further question can be raised, and none need be raised (except perhaps the theological question of the Creator of the essences). Thus Descartes believed that he had explained physics in terms of the essence of a physical body which, he taught, was extension; and some Newtonians, following Roger Cotes, believed that the essence of matter was its inertia and its power to attract other matter, and that Newton’s theory could be derived from, and thus ultimately explained by, these essential properties of all matter. Newton himself was of a different opinion. It was a hypothesis concerning the ultimate or essentialist causal explanation of gravity itself which he had in mind when he wrote in the Scholium generale at the end of the Principia: ‘So far I have explained the phenomena… by the force of gravity, but I have not yet ascertained the cause of gravity itself… and I do not arbitrarily [or ad hoc] invent hypotheses.’

I do not believe in the essentialist doctrine of ultimate explanation. In the past, critics of this doctrine have been, as a rule, instrumentalists: they interpreted scientific theories as nothing but instruments for prediction, without any explanatory power. I do not agree with them either. But there is a third possibility, a ‘third view’, as I have called it. It has been well described as a ‘modified essentialism’ – with emphasis upon the word ‘modified’.

This ‘third view’ which I uphold modifies essentialism in a radical manner. First of all, I reject the idea of an ultimate explanation: I maintain that every explanation may be further explained, by a theory or conjecture of a higher degree of universality. There can be no explanation which is not in need of a further explanation, for none can be a self-explanatory description of an essence (such as an essentialist definition of body, as suggested by Descartes). Secondly, I reject all what-is questions: questions asking what a thing is, what is its essence, or its true nature. For we must give up the view, characteristic of essentialism, that in every single thing there is an essence, an inherent nature or principle (such as the spirit of wine in wine), which necessarily causes it to be what it is, and thus to act as it does. This animistic view explains nothing; but it has led essentialists (like Newton) to shun relational properties, such as gravity, and to believe, on grounds felt to be a priori valid, that a satisfactory explanation must be in terms of inherent properties (as opposed to relational properties). The third and last modification of essentialism is this. We must give up the view, closely connected with animism (and characteristic of Aristotle as opposed to Plato), that it is the essential properties inherent in each individual or singular thing which may be appealed to as the explanation of this thing’s behaviour. For this view completely fails to throw any light whatever on the question why different individual things should behave in like manner. If it is said, ‘because their essences are alike’, the new question arises: why should there not be as many different essences as there are different things?

Plato tried to solve precisely this problem by saying that like individual things are the offspring, and thus copies, of the same original ‘Form’, which is therefore something ‘outside’ and ‘prior’ and ‘superior’ to the various individual things; and indeed, we have as yet no better theory of likeness. Even today, we appeal to their common origin if we wish to explain the likeness of two men, or of a bird and a fish, or of two beds, or two motor cars, or two languages, or two legal procedures; that is to say, we explain similarity in the main genetically; and if we make a metaphysical system out of this, it is liable to become a historicist philosophy. Plato’s solution was rejected by Aristotle; but since Aristotle’s version of essentialism does not contain even a hint of a solution, it seems that he never quite grasped the problem.

By choosing explanations in terms of universal laws of nature, we offer a solution to precisely this last (Platonic) problem. For we conceive all individual things, and all singular facts, to be subject to these laws. The laws (which in their turn are in need of further explanation) thus explain regularities or similarities of individual things or singular facts or events. And these laws are not inherent in the singular things. (Nor are they Platonic ideas outside the world.) Laws of nature are conceived, rather, as (conjectural) descriptions of the structural properties of nature – of our world itself.

Here then is the similarity between my own view (the ‘third view’) and essentialism; although I do not think that we can ever describe, by our universal laws, an ultimate essence of the world, I do not doubt that we may seek to probe deeper and deeper into the structure of our world or, as we might say, into properties of the world that are more and more essential, or of greater and greater depth.

Every time we proceed to explain some conjectural law or theory by a new conjectural theory of a higher degree of universality, we are discovering more about the world, trying to penetrate deeper into its secrets. And every time we succeed in falsifying a theory of this kind, we make a new important discovery. For these falsifications are most important. They teach us the unexpected; and they reassure us that, although our theories are made by ourselves, although they are our own inventions, they are none the less genuine assertions about the world; for they can clash with something we never made.

From Ratio, December 1957.  Reprinted in Objective Knowledge.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986

via youtube.

Mr. Condell says (0:22 – 0:53): “People keep framing this as a religious freedom issue.  But there’s a difference between practicing your religion, which everyone has a right to do, and rubbing your religion in people’s faces as a triumphalist political statement, which is what’s happening here.  I’d be interested to know just how bad an insult has to be before it’s no longer protected by the First Amendment.  After all, the Second Amendment gives Americans the right to bear arms.  But in practice you need a permit to walk around packing hardware, and not everyone can get one despite the Second Amendment.”

I enjoy Mr. Condell‘s videos very much and have posted quite a few at ovo127.com.  I have not always agreed with everything he says or how he says it, but the agreement was general enough to post the videos without comment.  This video is an exception.  Here Mr. Condell confuses what is right (moral, respectful, virtuous) with rights (legal status).  And Mr. Condell appears to be suggesting that insults, if they are bad enough, do not deserve First Amendment protection.  I disagree on both counts.  What is legal and what is illegal are not necessarily what is right or what is wrong.  And First Amendment protection is deserving of the most vile of insults.  Otherwise, enjoy the show.

One of the great misfortunes of men who do not like democracy is surely that Hitler began his political action with nine comrades in the basement of a beer hall. Too many excellent young men have concluded that with a half-dozen pals and a mimeograph machine they were also going to seize power. Clarence, in spite of his excess enthusiasm as a neophyte, was a courageous and estimable young man. He had dared to sacrifice his career and, his comfort in order to protest violently against the Nuremberg trial, an indignation which was unwise at that time. He gave himself over entirely, without money, without support, to a difficult and hopeless apostolate. One does not meet very often men of that stamp. Why is it necessary that nearly all of them have in themselves a predisposition to a jealous and implacable despotism? I have known, after Clarence, very many “fascists,” for the race is not dead. Some of them had boots, they were familiar with the runes, and they camped out on the night of the solstice in order to sing under the stars the beautiful solemn songs of their ancestors. The others did not have boots, they held up their skinny reformers’ heads severely, they wore glasses, they collected cards, and they made furious speeches. All were poor, they believed, they fought, they detested lying and injustice.

quoted in Dreamer of the Day by Kevin Coogan.

According to the General Accounting Office [pdf], “as of 31 December 2003 [there are] a total of 1,138 federal statutory provisions classified to the United States Code in which marital status is a factor in determining or receiving benefits, rights, and privileges.”  Due to the Defense of Marriage Act, these federal statutory provisions are available only to hetero married couples.  If legal access to same-sex marriage occurs in the United States, some or all of these federal statutory provisions will have to change.  I predict they will not change at the same time. I predict that they will not change to the same degree or in the same way.  I predict that sometimes a federal statutory provisions will cease to exist rather than be extended to same-sex couples.  I predict that they will not all change at the federal level, but rather at both the state and the federal level and that they will not be uniform in all states.  During the time these federal statutory provisions change, some same-sex couples will lose out while other same-sex couples will benefit.  Attentiveness now to these benefits, rights, and privileges might make their transitions more smooth.

Interracial hetero marriage was banned in some states as late as 1967.  The Loving v Virginia decision of the Supreme Court that year found miscegenation laws to be unconstitutional. Interracial marriage has been legal for over forty years. But it is not the case that interracial marriages occur with the same frequency as same-race marriages. According to the US Census for 2000, around 97% of whites married whites and around 96% of blacks married blacks. I predict these statistics will remain constant if legal access to same sex marriage occurs in the United States.  The State has no role in encouraging or discouraging marriage diversity.

Citizenship in the United States can be conferred by marriage.  I predict that legal access to same sex marriage will confer citizenship to some men and women who otherwise could not be citizens.  I predict this will be a small number and will not influence society much at all.  What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Domestic violence occurs among same-sex couples as well as hetero couples.  According to the American Bar Association [pdf], “seven states define domestic violence in a way that specifically excludes same-sex victims.” I predict that legal access to same sex marriage will include an increase of reports of domestic violence.  This increase in reports of domestic violence may be caused by a change in the ability to report domestic violence as much as or more than an increase in actual domestic violence. Domestic violence among same-sex couples does not occur with the same frequency among all sexes.  According to the U. S. Department of Justice, 11.4% of same-sex cohabiting women report being victimized by a female partner while 15.4% of same-sex cohabiting men reported being victimized by a male partner. Men raping men occurs much more frequently than men raping women.  According to the U. S. Census Bureau, 78.3% of murder victims are male and 21.4% of murder victims are female.  According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics [pdf] 65.3% of murders involved a male offender and a male victim while 2.4% of murders involved a female offender and a female victim.  I predict that legal access to same sex marriage will show more domestic violence among men than among women.  Acknowledging a difference between men and women and funding State services accordingly might lessen the problem of domestic violence.

Same sex couples cannot conceive children.  Same sex couples who wish to raise children are limited in their ability to adopt in the United States.  Some states allow it, some forbid it, and federal law has said only that an adoption in one state must be recognized in other states.  (Compare this with the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law stating same-sex marriage in one state need not be recognized in other states.)  Many states that forbid adoption by same sex couples base their law on same sex couples being unable to legally marry.  I predict legal access to same sex marriage in the United States will cause changes in adoption laws.  I predict some states will make it no more or less difficult for same sex couples to adopt than for hetero couples to adopt, while other states will make all adoptions more difficult to make adoption more difficult for same sex couples.  Same sex couples who wish to raise children are limited in their ability to use birth surrogates or artificial insemination in the United States.  Legal limits on birth surrogates exist for hetero couples as well and vary by state.  There is no legal limit on artificial insemination but some insurance companies will not compensate single women who use artificial insemination.  I predict some states will make it no more or less difficult for same sex couples to use birth surrogates or artificial insemination, while other states will make using birth surrogates or getting artificial insemination more difficult to make these procedures more difficult for same sex couples.  I predict the number of children adopted will increase if legal access to same sex marriage occurs.  State by state differences in adoption, birth surrogates, and artificial insemination will be similar to the legality of abortion.  Abortion is legal at the national level but access to services varies by state and is not a service the state is compelled to offer.  Adoption laws should be inclusive of same sex parents.

Advocates of legal access to same sex marriage want treatment under the law identical to hetero marriage, and that includes legal access to divorce.  Making predictions about legal access to same sex marriage must include predictions about legal access to same sex divorce.  Statistics relating to hetero divorce have a limited value in making predictions about same sex divorce. According to the National Center for Health Statistics [pdf] “Approximately 61 percent of the divorces in 1988 were petitioned by the wife, 32 percent by the husband, and 7 percent by the husband and wife jointly.” More hetero couples are divorced today than in the past, and differences exist between the percentage of divorced men and divorced women.  According to the US Census Bureau: “Of the first marriages for women from 1955 to 1959, about 79 percent marked their 15th anniversary, compared with only 57 percent for women who married for the first time from 1985 to 1989. People born in the leading edge of the baby boom experienced high divorce rates in the 1970s and 1980s. About 38 percent of men born from 1945 to 1954 and 41 percent of women in the same age group had been divorced by 2004.”  The trend for women to initiate divorce more than men is also found in Denmark, where legal access to same sex marriage has been available since 1989. Male same sex married couples in Denmark seek a divorce 14% of the time, while female same sex married couples in Denmark seek a divorce 23% of the time. I predict legal access to same sex marriage in the United States will reveal that women seek divorce more than men in both hetero and same sex marriages.  According to the US Census Bureau [pdf], among hetero divorced couples in 2008 56.9% of mothers were awarded child support and custody while 40.4% of fathers were awarded child support and custody.  I predict custody and child support issues among divorcing same sex couples will incur less legal fees and occupy less court time among men than women.  I claim that some discontent to legal access to same sex marriage is caused by discontent with hetero marriage.  Discontent with hetero marriage comes in part from the prevalence of divorce.  No-fault divorce has existed in every state since 1985.  Discontent with hetero marriage comes in part from the disparity of who initiates divorce and who benefits from divorce.  Women initiate divorce more often than men, and benefit from divorce more often than men.  Divorce and women’s rights are largely spoken of as having only benefits, never any cost.  Divorce and women’s rights are largely spoken of as bringing about only equality, never inequality.  For these reasons, what might have been a debate about women and divorce has become a debate about homosexuals and marriage.  I predict legal access to same sex marriage will not bring about the former debate.  Acknowledging a difference between men and women and funding State services accordingly might lessen the problem of divorce.

See also: Three Predictions Part One, ‘Who’s That Girl?’

The British government and the Catholic Church colluded to cover up Father Jim Chesney’s role in the 1972 bombing that killed nine people, it was revealed today.

Salt Lake Tribune: LDS Church Sued for Baptism for the Dead Injury

In a civil suit filed in 3rd District Court on Wednesday, Daniel Dastrup claims he suffered a severe herniated disk in his lumbar spine after performing about 200 baptisms on Aug. 25, 2007. The then 25-year-old claims some of the young men and women he completely immersed in water in the name of the dead weighed as much as 250 pounds.

BV Black Spin: Martin Luther King Jr.s Niece Calls Gay Marriage ‘Genocide’

The niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a crowd at a National Organization for Marriage rally last weekend in Atlanta. Dr. Alveda King passionately addressed the issue of same-sex marriage, stating that it would lead to “extinction” and “genocide.”

Jeannie Nuss: Bikini-Clad Strippers Protest Church in Rural Ohio

The strippers, fueled by Cheetos and nicotine, are protesting a fundamentalist Christian church whose Bible-brandishing congregants have picketed the club where they work. The dancers roll up with signs carrying messages adapted from Scripture, such as “Do unto others as you would have done unto you,” to counter church members who for four years have photographed license plates of patrons and asked them if their mothers and wives know their whereabouts. [also]

AFP: US Catholic Church Tarred with New Child Sex Abuse Scandal

The Roman Catholic Church in the United States has become embroiled in a new pedophilia scandal with six women and one man alleging sexual abuse by a priest over three decades. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Oakland, California accused Father Stephen Kiesle of acts of sexual abuse between 1972 and 2001, and alleged that Catholic Church officials knew of the crimes but did not stop them.

Anne Rice: ‘Today I Quit Being A Christian’

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

Reuters: Austrian Churchgoers Quit in Record Numbers

A record 100,000 Austrians are expected to leave the Roman Catholic Church this year after abuse scandals which have badly damaged its image, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. Some 57,000 quit the church in the first six months of the year, Austrian daily Der Standard reported, citing figures from local state authorities. This is already more than the full-year total for 2009 when 53,216 walked out.

Part of a series that never ends [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10][11] and etc.  May Christianity wither away under the twin suns of reason and scorn.

Jim Goad: Planet Islam

For the past 1000 years, the Muslim world has given us almost nothing in the way of math or science. It has, however, given us a slave trade that predated the Atlantic slave trade by seven centuries and shackled nearly twice as many black Africans as the Europeans did – a fact that continues to get lost on black Americans who cozy up to Islam.

Yahoo! News: Afghan Girls Fall Ill After Apparent Gas Poisoning

About 40 schoolgirls became ill and were taken to hospital after a suspected gas poisoning in the Afghan capital Wednesday, another apparent attack by hardline Islamists opposed to female education.

SSC Times: Alshabaab Cuts Tongue

The Mother of Ahmed Ali Shuuke has told the media that her son receives all food through injection and according to her statement he gets fed using the needles often used for injecting Camel herds. [includes photograph of a man with his tongue cut out.]

New York Times: In Bold Display, Taliban Order Stoning Deaths

The Taliban on Sunday ordered their first public executions by stoning since their fall from power nine years ago, killing a young couple who had eloped, according to Afghan officials and a witness.

BBC: Taliban ‘Kill Adulterous Afghan Couple’ in Marketplace

Two witnesses from Mullah Quli told the BBC that the Taliban asked the villagers to attend the stoning through an announcement on loudspeakers in the mosque.

Reuters: Iran Stoning Case Lawyer in Turkey, Seeking Asylum

The lawyer who defended a woman sentenced to death by stoning in Iran is in Istanbul and has applied for asylum in a third country, a source at the United Nations’ refugee agency said Thursday.

canada.com: Muslim Women’s Group Opposes Addition of Honour Killings to Criminal Code

The Canadian Council of Muslim Women opposes the addition of “honour killings” to the Criminal Code on the grounds “murder is murder” and a special category could stigmatize new immigrants and some ethnic or religious groups.

Middle East Quarterly: Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings

Although Sikhs and Hindus do sometimes commit such murders, honor killings, both worldwide and in the West, are mainly Muslim-on-Muslim crimes. In this study, worldwide, 91 percent of perpetrators were Muslims. In North America, most killers (84 percent) were Muslims, with only a few Sikhs and even fewer Hindus perpetrating honor killings; in Europe, Muslims comprised an even larger majority at 96 percent while Sikhs were a tiny percentage. In Muslim countries, obviously almost all the perpetrators were Muslims. With only two exceptions, the victims were all members of the same religious group as their murderers.

All articles continue at links. Part of a series that never ends… [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] and etc. Cutting out a man’s tongue is in compliance with Islam. Stoning those accused of adultery is in compliance with Islam. Honor killings are in compliance with Islam.  These evils co-exist with Islam, and I’ll venture a guess they are related.  Perhaps the secularization and reform of Islam will cause a reduction in these evils.  Pending the complete withering away of Islam under the twin suns of reason and scorn, I’d like to give that a try.

Sometimes people scowl at me when I talk about religions like Islam or Christianity withering away to nothing.  But the evidence is on my side.  All religions die out, given enough time.  If we learn from our mistakes (if) then religion itself may also wither away, given enough time.  If.

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.

For we may distinguish two main types of government. The first type consists of governments of which we can get rid without bloodshed – for example, by way of general elections; that is to say, the social institutions provide means by which the rulers may be dismissed by the ruled, and the social traditions ensure that these institutions will not easily be destroyed by those who are in power. The second type consists of governments which the ruled cannot get rid of except by way of a successful revolution – that is to say, in most cases, not at all. I suggest the term ‘democracy’ as a short-hand label for a government of the first type, and the term ‘tyranny’ or ‘dictatorship’ for the second. This, I believe, corresponds closely to traditional usage. But l wish to make clear that no part of my argument depends on the choice of these labels; and should anybody reverse this usage (as is frequently done nowadays), then I should simply say that I am in favour of what he calls ‘tyranny’, and object to what he calls ‘democracy’ ; and I should reject as irrelevant any attempt to discover what ‘democracy’ ‘really’ or ‘essentially’ means, for example, by translating the term into ‘the rule of the people.’ (For although ‘the people’ may influence the actions of their rulers by the threat of dismissal, they never rule themselves in any concrete, practical sense.)

If we make use of the two labels as suggested, then we can now describe, as the principle of a democratic policy, the proposal to create, develop, and protect, political institutions for the avoidance of tyranny. This principle does not imply that we can ever develop institutions of this kind which are faultless or foolproof; or which ensure that the policies adopted by a democratic government will be right or good or wise – or even necessarily better or wiser than the policies adopted by a benevolent tyrant. (Since no such assertions are made, the paradox of democracy is avoided.) What may be said, however, to be implied in the adoption of the democratic principle is the conviction that the acceptance of even a bad policy in a democracy (as long as we can work for a peaceful change) is preferable to the submission to a tyranny, however wise or benevolent. Seen in this light, the theory of democracy is not based upon the principle that the majority should rule; rather, the various equalitarian methods of democratic control, such as general elections and representative government, are to be considered as no more than well-tried and, in the presence of a widespread traditional distrust of tyranny, reasonably effective institutional safe-guards against tyranny, always open to improvement, and even providing methods for their own improvement.

He who accepts the principle of democracy in this sense is therefore not bound to look upon the result of a democratic vote as an authoritative expression of what is right. Although he will accept a decision of the majority, for the sake of making the democratic institutions work, he will feel tree to combat it by democratic means, and to work for its revision. And should he live to see the day when the majority vote destroys the democratic institutions, then this sad experience will tell him only that there does not exist a foolproof method of avoiding tyranny. But it need not weaken his decision to fight tyranny, nor will it expose his theory as inconsistent.

From The Open Society and its Enemies Volume 1. Princeton University Press 1966

If you pick up some crap book about the history of punk rock, chances are there will be about 90 pages dedicated to Joe Strummer’s jackets but only two sentences about Crass. This is despite them selling millions of records, singlehandedly creating the DIY punk blueprint, and maintaining their hard-line libertarian and anarchy principles even as they reach their mid-60s today. A lot of you reading this will be aware of their logo and the fact that they were a punk band, but not a lot of people know their actual story. Because it’s so inspirational and so “anti-music” (in the sense that it was a total revolt against the established music industry of the time) we feel that everybody with even a passing interest in punk rock should hear it.

And so we interviewed founding members Penny Rimbaud and Steve Ignorant for a brief history of the group and to procure their ideas surrounding this issue’s theme. During the talks between myself and Penny that preceded this interview I discovered that the unthinkable has happened and that Crass, the most anti-authoritarian, anarchy-endorsing free spirits in the history of punk music, are on the verge of going to Crown Court to ask lawyers and judges to intervene in a huge row over some remastered CDs. Despite our efforts to include all sides of the story here, a couple of former members of Crass declined to participate. [...]

What was the reason the band folded?
We always all had the idea that ’84 was the mythical, Orwellian thing. And I think it largely folded because I was becoming interested in something broader than punk. Our interests were going out, and really it was after we’d done that last gig in Aberdare which was so disillusioning and so sad, which was the fucking result of Thatcher’s vicious Britain. And I think all of us felt that jumping up and down on a stage saying “No more war!” was a joke in light of the poverty and desperation we saw that night.

What happened?
It was a benefit gig for the sacked miners in Aberdare. We went down in the van as we usually did, loaded with bins of food because people were literally starving in those villages. It was inevitably raining, which it always does in those valleys, and it was just so sad, the sense of destruction and the sense of despair. There were lots of men who didn’t know what they were doing anymore. Lots of men who just didn’t know what had happened. It was horrible. And the gig was great and everyone enjoyed it, but it was still just so sad. It was the next morning that Andy came through and said, “I’m leaving the band, Pen,” and I didn’t react because I thought,“Fine, I completely understand.” So he sort of initiated what I think would’ve inevitably happened anyway. It was 1984 and we had said we were going to end then, which is what the countdown was all about in our catalog numbers. We’d said everything that was to be said in that context, fucking hell. The fact that it’s still just as pertinent today is indication that nothing’s changed. You can’t say more than what we’ve said, really, except possibly offering a few answers. But you know, I’m still looking for them. And they’re certainly not ones that will be found in the context of punk rock. I think within the context of punk rock we did everything we possibly could.

We’d been doing it since 1977. It had been all those years, nonstop. We lived at Dial House, the doors were always open, and who we were onstage wasn’t any different from who we were in life. It wasn’t like we could come off tour and have a week’s holiday. We were doing it all ourselves and running the other label, Corpus Christi. Pen was always in the studio; I was doing vocals with Conflict or something like that and writing songs for other people. And it wasn’t like a nine-to-five job. It went on and on forever. When Margaret Thatcher came in, it all went up a notch. It was endless. Looking at horrible images, living in a horrible time, dealing with things like the Falklands War, the miners’ strikes, unemployment. It was a horrible time. There was violence at gigs; I was wearing black clothes all the time. I got fed up. If I went out for a drink there was an unspoken responsibility I always felt that if I went and got drunk I couldn’t show it. If I fell over in the gutter it wasn’t just me falling over in the gutter, it was Crass. So there was this responsibility to not fuck it up.

A lot of “punk” was being proud of falling in the gutter. People would pretend to do it even if they weren’t drunk. What made Crass different?
Well, we thought that the message was important enough to make people come and listen and buy the records. We couldn’t shit all over that by being idiots in the pub afterward.

So it was anti everything that rock ’n’ roll stood for.
Yeah. I never got all that. I have been around people who should know better. I mean, throwing a TV out the window, nothing new. I have seen people throw food around, and that really annoys me. I mean, someone has taken the time to cook the stuff. I have seen people onstage giving it all large about “nonviolence,” and the next minute they are in the street fighting with someone who comes from Manchester because they are from down south. Complete and utter bullshit. I have never been into that rock ’n’ roll image. Yeah, you get a bit of adulation; fair enough, I can deal with that. But the limousines and paparazzi and all that? You can stick it! Stick it as far as it can go. Bullshit! I have seen musicians who have so many people around them telling them they are great that in the end the idiots actually think they are and that they can tell people what to do.

Did that ever happen to anyone in Crass?
No. But it happened to a couple of close friends of mine. So, in that sense, for us it was never about being a part of a rock ’n’ roll band, though sometimes I did want some of the things associated with it. I wanted the blonde girls and the free drinks, which I never got. The only people I spoke to at gigs were spotty blokes in anoraks asking me about anarchy.

Haha. But that’s what you signed up for. Do you regret that?
I suppose sometimes it’s a little thing, I don’t know. It would have been fun for it to happen now and again. Regret it? Not really, we did what we did. As you said, that’s what I signed up for. It was a commitment; and my own fault, really. [...]

And now you’ve remastered all the albums and Gee’s done new artwork and Southern is going to release it, but that’s all caused a bit of a hullabaloo, right?
Yes, well, in the remastering I’ve been doing of the Crass material, I’ve incorporated stuff which is otherwise only available as bootleg. And why is this stuff only available otherwise in bootleg? It’s because we never bothered to do it ourselves. We’re to blame, not the bootleggers. So what we’ve done now is to sort of reclaim that, give really good sound to it, as good as we can, and then put it out so that if people want our version of it they can buy it. The bootlegs will probably still be there.

I discussed the plan to remaster everything with John in the year that he was ill. I was visiting him once a week or so. We talked a lot, obviously, about the future and that. We fantasized about going in to remaster the entire catalog, remaster a lot of my own works like Acts of Love, do new material, but I have to say that most of the time I knew it was a fantasy because it was quite obvious he wasn’t going to survive. When he died, Southern had a lot of trouble coping with it all and during that time I spent a lot of time worrying about what the fuck was going to happen to our material because with John there’d never been any formalities, nothing had ever been signed, who owned what, what owned who. There was nothing to go by. What I was really worried about was the receivers being called in. I thought, “Well, if Southern goes down, they’re going to go in and all the fucking stuff’s going to get nicked. I want to know what’s ours so we can have it.” I sort of made halfhearted attempts, but really the place was such a fucking mess that I thought, “OK, I’ll back off and let them sort whatever they need to sort out, and then we’ll go from there.” That coincided with trying to stop the house being taken over by a lot of property investors, so I got very embroiled in a big legal battle.

Who has the house now?
We do.

You nearly didn’t?
Yeah, you know, several times over. During the era of the band, we could have sat down and said, “Look, we don’t own this house. Why don’t we buy it?” We could easily have done it, but it never even occurred to us. Every time we got any money we were like,“Oh, we’ve got a grand! Let’s go ask those people down the road if they want to put out a fanzine!”

It was the same when we did fucking gigs, actually, which I’m not so pleased about. Like we’d go and do a gig, pick out a place somewhere, hand all the money over to people in need or charities or whatever, and then realize we hadn’t left enough money to buy supper that evening. We were that stupid, seriously. We didn’t look after ourselves. If we had looked after ourselves, the house would’ve been ours and Gee and I wouldn’t be living in what’s close to poverty most of the time. We’d have looked after it, but we didn’t, and that’s because we weren’t interested and we’re still not interested, so I’m not complaining, it’s just that’s a fact. [...]

I was a 35-year-old man when a 17-year-old boy turned up and wanted to form a band, and the band that he and I formed together denied him everything he should’ve had. He should’ve been fucking the groupies, snorting coke, and having a laugh. He never had a laugh; he never had a fucking adolescence. It was denied him by our hard line. I realize that now, I didn’t realize it at the time. I thought we were having fun, but Jesus what fun it was. I mean, I suppose I could get more fun out of it because my fun has always been more cerebral and intellectual, so for me some of the conflict that we created with the state and that sort of stuff was fun. But Steve wanted to be having proper fun, and I can completely understand that now. And also I can’t actually believe that he is so underappreciated. I think the guy was brilliant, among the best of the punk voices.

Why do you think Pete is so opposed to the rereleases?
When the band broke up and we no longer had that common ground, it increasingly became obvious that there were distinct differences between the various members. That didn’t rest well, and so certain conflicts started developing in the house. Notably I would say between those who didn’t see the folding of the band as a collapse of security, the individuals who were secure in their own being and quite happily got on with whatever it was they might be doing or not doing, whereas another part of the band was worried, like: “Where’s the future now? Our security has suddenly been taken from beneath our feet.” I think that was the root of the conflict, but it became expressed in lifestyle arguments. I created this house as a center for anything anyone wanted to do with it, in a way. It wasn’t for me to define, it wasn’t for me to judge, it wasn’t… I’d found the house, I was quite happy to finance it, and everyone could do what they wanted within certain parameters. I’ve since been accused of standing back when I should’ve helped a situation. So the objection that Peter’s making, by his own admittance, is that I would not give support to his criticisms, some of which were probably just, but in large number were bloody infantile or impractical.

Such as?
Well, one infantile one was to not recognize a natural authority. A natural authority is one that produces 65 percent of the material that you’re making a living from. Not for their own ends, but for a genuine belief that there’s a shared purpose here, which is why I wrote all those Crass songs. I don’t take kindly to someone turning around and being critical of that authority when they’re not directly benefiting in the way they want to directly benefit, while at the same time benefiting in all sorts of ways in which they continue to benefit. I don’t think that’s graceful. I think it was infantile to feel that one could change a situation by stamping your foot and being rude. It’s not how to do it. I’m willing to sit and listen if someone is willing to sit and talk, but I’m not willing to be insulted by anyone. I don’t think it’s very graceful of people not to acknowledge that; to live somewhere for seven years, rent free, for fuck all, to use every little iota of space which could’ve been mine in a selfish way, and then to make a big cacophony about it all. [...]

There’s no question that during the period that we lived 15 people in the house with 25 cats there was unbelievable accord. Obviously there were occasional rows about something, but they were very, very rare and we managed somehow. We couldn’t have done what we’d done otherwise. However many albums, all of the stuff, it ran like a machine. We did it at the cost of our emotional lives, and we were very good at it. But when it all ended the emotional baggage wasn’t properly dug out from all the dark holes around the house and dealt with by us. We should have deprogrammed, but we didn’t. We deprogrammed in our own slow way and within that a lot of bitterness formed. [...]

No contracts were ever signed.
There’s no contract, there’s no written anything in the history of Crass and Southern, and there never was between any of the bands that Crass recorded. It was done on trust or it was not done at all. And in fairness to John, I think that was a principle he kept on Corpus Christi. If Pete wants to play the law, in the real sense of the word, it’s a very foolish line to take. If I were to play the law on a 65 percent ownership of the songs of Crass, I could be sitting with a swimming pool just close to us, rather than a cat bowl, and he would have to work a little bit harder at whatever part-time jobs he does now. That’s the truth of it. [...]

When was the last time you saw Pete?
I think it was the week John was dying. He knew he was going to die and I bumped into Pete at the studio, and I said, “Pete, we really need to talk,” so we went over to a café and sat down, and it was cordial enough. I said, “Look, John’s going to die, we need to sort out our material.” He said, “No we don’t, it’ll be all right.” He just wouldn’t even hear of it. [...]

To my mind, the dispute has its root in ideological differences that existed between the individual members of the band. In my understanding, Pete was fundamentally a socialist, and socialists like wagging their fingers at anyone except themselves. He claims to be an anarchist. Well, I claim to be an anarchist, but I’m fundamentally a libertarian and a fierce individualist. I think that does fit into an arena of anarchistic thought. I certainly draw a line at all this stupid anarchistic organization of industry and that sort of stuff, because I’m just not interested. If people want to do that, then I’m not going to criticize them. But frankly, it’s not my thing. My thing is rising with the angels and flying in the sky.

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