No Pain, More Progress

Dr Yoni Freedhof is an obesity expert. I can't find the quote now, but I know that he has said something along the lines of People aren't designed to suffer, and any diet that requires them to suffer will fail because they'll give it up. I think this has wider applicability.

The Puritans didn't last very long in power in England. They made cursing illegal and cancelled Christmas. Rather than put up with the utter joylessness of the cronies of Cromwell, when he died, the English took back Charles II, dodgy with Catholicism as he was. And who can blame them?

I'm left-wing. I'm pretty certain that socialism is the best economic system, *if* we can get it right. I used to think I was liberal - I'm staunchly pro-free speech, pro-freedom of thought and religion, I believe that people share a universal humanity - the ability to reason and empathise - and that this dwarfs our differences. I believe in the principle of due process and the possibility of rehabilitation, and that punishment for punishment's sake is hideous. I mean, all these things now throw my liberal credentials into doubt, but once, these were liberal values.

And I think they will be again.

Because we're not designed for suffering. We're not designed to embrace the joylessness, the bitterness, and the lack of humanity that has currently beset the liberal left. The ones who enjoy punishing people for the sake of punishing people, the ones who censor instead of debating, the ones who believe that our differences define us, and can never be surmounted by empathy - these are the New Puritans. And they'll go the way of the old.

We'll shrug you off, like the bad dream you are. We'll explore ideas and talk to each other, and gain understanding. We'll inch forward, hopefully making the world better. We'll engage our opponents and win them over if we can, not bull-doze over them and try to get them fired. All this engagement and debate will give us the chance to know when we're the ones who are wrong. And most of the people currently acting as Puritans will cop on, as people do, when the feverish zeal passes. Some of them will write about how they got caught up in something unpleasant, and warn other people of the pitfalls that we all, all being human, have to be wary of. Some of them will forget it ever happened.