I have recently entered the emotionally charged debate of the London housing crisis with some seemingly outrageous, callous and arrogant propositions, triggering epithets like ‘this nasty man’ and ‘the Donald Trump of architecture’. While I did get a lot of moral support and encouragement – especially from those who witnessed the whole event including the Q&A session – my comments were here largely (although not exclusively) met with disbelief and disgust (raising also the suspicion that these represent a deliberate sensationalism in search of notoriety).
These gut reactions represent not only the current left-liberal (anti-capitalist) consensus within our discipline – a consensus I shared until relatively recently and which I would like to challenge now – but are also fuelled by the feeling that my statements offend a much deeper set of values. These are universally shared values and longings that I do neither want to offend nor challenge – namely a deep sense of human solidarity, compassion and the longings for a better world for all. This longing is – at least in my brightest moments – my primary and ultimate motivation, not only for sometimes sticking my head out over the parapet, but of all my professional and discursive strivings.
I hope we can all agree that if we want to have a real, honest and open political discussion – a discussion about the common weal that is – we must (at least provisionally) grant and attribute to each other this commitment to human solidarity and progress. If a debate is seen as a game of manipulation and domination, then truth and real insight can no longer be the expected or hoped for outcome. To give truth a chance at all we need to see each other as honest, unselfish truth seekers to begin with, and this attitude must be sustained even in the face of highly “offensive” contributions, even with respect to contributions that prima facie seem to violate basic shared premises. (The deepest shared premise alluded to above should be presumed to lie below.)
This requires some calm nerves and sometimes the deliberate suppression of emotional heat. It also requires that the over-anxious screening and protection of public discourse from prima facie divisive or seemingly derogatory or potentially offensive propositions must be relaxed. I believe that our recent discourse culture of PC censorship is very counterproductive and debilitating. Direct ad hominem attacks and bigoted defamation of social groups should be the only tabu. And this suggests another good faith heuristics for productive debate – we should try to interpret what might be construed as ad hominem discriminatory propositions as non-discriminatory. If we cry “elitism” or “fascism” or “racism” or similar conversation stoppers at every second turn of argument, we cannot hope to reach very far.
Characterisations of certain social groups like public sector workers, the long-term unemployed, welfare recipients, planners, counsellors, the 1 per cent, investors, bankers, developers etc should not be construed as ad hominem offensive or discriminatory, even if systemically problematic behavioural/moral features of such groups are identified. In my discourse such characterisations are theorized as sociological system effects due to incentive constellations and are not attributed personally. In any case nobody is ever only “rich” or a "welfare recipient". These concepts are useful abstractions that should never cause offence, no matter what the hypothesis proposes.
No generalisation in the human sciences is ever fixing a judgement on the thus classified individuals, each of whom is always already given the benefit of the doubt to be the exception from the statistical rule. The analysis might lead to proposals that disadvantage certain groups, hopefully only in the short run, for the sake of an overall progressive dynamic which should benefit everybody in the long run, including those who are apparently or really being disadvantaged in the short run.
I hope that my remarks made at WAF can be taken as attempts to engage in a constructive conversation about how to improve the conditions for freedom and prosperity for all. When I used the title "housing for all" I meant it!
I have recently entered the emotionally charged debate of the London housing crisis with some seemingly outrageous, callous and arrogant propositions, triggering epithets like ‘this nasty man’ and ‘the Donald Trump of architecture’. While I did get a lot of moral support and encouragement – especially from those who witnessed the whole event including the Q&A session – my comments were here largely (although not exclusively) met with disbelief and disgust (raising also the suspicion that these represent a deliberate sensationalism in search of notoriety).
These gut reactions represent not only the current left-liberal (anti-capitalist) consensus within our discipline – a consensus I shared until relatively recently and which I would like to challenge now – but are also fuelled by the feeling that my statements offend a much deeper set of values. These are universally shared values and longings that I do neither want to offend nor challenge – namely a deep sense of human solidarity, compassion and the longings for a better world for all. This longing is – at least in my brightest moments – my primary and ultimate motivation, not only for sometimes sticking my head out over the parapet, but of all my professional and discursive strivings.
I hope we can all agree that if we want to have a real, honest and open political discussion – a discussion about the common weal that is – we must (at least provisionally) grant and attribute to each other this commitment to human solidarity and progress. If a debate is seen as a game of manipulation and domination, then truth and real insight can no longer be the expected or hoped for outcome. To give truth a chance at all we need to see each other as honest, unselfish truth seekers to begin with, and this attitude must be sustained even in the face of highly “offensive” contributions, even with respect to contributions that prima facie seem to violate basic shared premises. (The deepest shared premise alluded to above should be presumed to lie below.)
This requires some calm nerves and sometimes the deliberate suppression of emotional heat. It also requires that the over-anxious screening and protection of public discourse from prima facie divisive or seemingly derogatory or potentially offensive propositions must be relaxed. I believe that our recent discourse culture of PC censorship is very counterproductive and debilitating. Direct ad hominem attacks and bigoted defamation of social groups should be the only tabu. And this suggests another good faith heuristics for productive debate – we should try to interpret what might be construed as ad hominem discriminatory propositions as non-discriminatory. If we cry “elitism” or “fascism” or “racism” or similar conversation stoppers at every second turn of argument, we cannot hope to reach very far.
Characterisations of certain social groups like public sector workers, the long-term unemployed, welfare recipients, planners, counsellors, the 1 per cent, investors, bankers, developers etc should not be construed as ad hominem offensive or discriminatory, even if systemically problematic behavioural/moral features of such groups are identified. In my discourse such characterisations are theorized as sociological system effects due to incentive constellations and are not attributed personally. In any case nobody is ever only “rich” or a "welfare recipient". These concepts are useful abstractions that should never cause offence, no matter what the hypothesis proposes.
No generalisation in the human sciences is ever fixing a judgement on the thus classified individuals, each of whom is always already given the benefit of the doubt to be the exception from the statistical rule. The analysis might lead to proposals that disadvantage certain groups, hopefully only in the short run, for the sake of an overall progressive dynamic which should benefit everybody in the long run, including those who are apparently or really being disadvantaged in the short run.
I hope that my remarks made at WAF can be taken as attempts to engage in a constructive conversation about how to improve the conditions for freedom and prosperity for all. When I used the title "housing for all" I meant it!