Letters | 28 April 2012

Time-honoured paradox

Sir: Tristram Hunt’s argument (‘Gove’s Paradox’, 21 April) seems convincing. At first glance, economic liberalism does appear at odds with social conservatism. However, one cannot exist without the other, as Thomas Hobbes realised over 300 years ago. Without a social contract based upon shared values and common interests, anarchy would ensue, making it impossible to trade freely and conduct economic affairs. Nothing suppresses freedom as much as chaos, fear and poverty. Social conservatism and economic liberalism are therefore, and paradoxically, two sides of the same coin.
Hunt conveniently ignores Labour’s more profound, irreconcilable contradiction borne out of its revolutionary zeal. It advocates social liberalism to such an extent that it threatens the very contract that binds society together. However, it also champions central economic control through higher taxation and state ownership in an effort to redistribute wealth and create a fairer, more equal society bound together by collective endeavour. But how can this be combined with a commitment to non-judgmentalism and moral relativism?
Joe Baron
Hertford

Sir: Tristram Hunt will be pleased to hear that English history will be allotted six lessons per week at the Phoenix Free School in Oldham. The old Whig Historians weren’t entirely mistaken in claiming that such free institutions as exist in this world are largely the product of the intellectual ferment created by the likes of Lilburne, Locke, Priestley and Paine. We should not be surprised that this radical tradition has been airbrushed from our national curriculum. William Godwin claimed that ‘Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are torpor and imbecility.’ This is a pretty fair description of what happens when government presumes to decide what should be taught in schools. Michael Gove deserves full marks for encouraging free schools and academies, which are not obliged to follow the national curriculum.