I'd guess that the key ingredient in hatred is a feeling of inadequacy: the last person I can recall hating seriously was our PE master, who used to make me touch my toes, so that he could hit me with a plimsoll when I couldn't or - once - kick my arse, at which point I thumped him and it stopped. I don't think anyone can be overcome by pointlessly negative feelings unless reverting to childhood powerlessness.

Britannia was the name of the Country when it was part of the Roman Empire. There must surely have been some reason, like being British?

The British came here from the Basque Country as the ice melted. A few foreigners have appeared from time to time since, but other than changing the language they were mostly a few gangsters stealing the land or mercenary troops like the Germans who didn't make serious differences. The people in the south east like to pretend they are somehow the people who've conquered them, but I don't see why we should believe it, any more than we should pretend that 'England' was the only country on earth that not only gave up Christianity for paganism, but for a foreign paganism. I think we are still basically the same people as we ever were, British.

S - It isn't that I have no opinions 'against' anything, capitalism for instance, but that I think that except where people have been very heavily brainwashed - in which case we are probably wasting our time anyway - positive approaches are probably better at suggesting a shared humanity in which ideas can be shared. If Socrates had gone around Athens announcing himself to be an opponent of democracy, for instance, he would have lasted even less time than he did.

I had some answers I can't re-reach - apologies. I live in a society that is not desperately religious, I don't feel very strongly about all this 'God' stuff - the concept seems pretty unlikely, but all things are possible - and I don't think it is useful to define oneself as 'anti-' anything. I have enough of a job to find anything about which I feel strongly enough to go beyond bemused boredom. Hope this answers the points made.

It seems to me - outside the US at least - a bit odd to define yourself in terms of a belief you don't hold. As I have rather tediously reiterated, I do not put myself down as an anti-phlogistonist or an a-flat-earther.

It seems to me that all religious arguments start off with a spoken or unspoken series of "given that"s.
I have nothing against re-living the eighteen-fifties if that's what people want to do, but the 'God' idea as expressed in the Bible and such documents seems a bit distant from what we know about the nature of things currently, and I wonder how useful such re-enactments now are.

Except I left out 'vote' in 'their vote'. it is an extra-ordinary instance of how people can get hugely worked up about something they'd never bothered about before, isn't it!

It's amazing that before Cameron introduced this insanity, it was a nonsense confined to Tory fanatics. Once he'd produced a referendum, it got heavily mixed up with tory ambitions and the mugs seem to have regarded their as a bit like a football team you support against all reason. Fake 'democracy' has never looked quite this ludicrous, has it?

Well, once upon a time I learned to read classical Greek, whereas German has been way beyond me. The thing is mixed up heavily with matters like emotional reactions to Germany, I reckon, partly because I find their novels-in-translation almost unreadable. Both are highly inflected languages, of course, which are tough for English-speakers: I found Chinese hugely easier. Would that not do?

'Personalities' are made up in back rooms, Serious politics are about what we are to do. Because the rich intend to destroy the world rather than lose two-pence, we have these silly personalities instead of thinking.

If we insist on non-British set-ups like referendums to settle tory squabbles, we'll into non-British politics like assassinations and Civil War (which we gave up for voting). The tories have always hated the UK and democracy and, fair play, have never made any secret about that. The fault lies with the mugs who believe whatever their masters tell 'em.

The whole idiocy is as wonderful lesson in not allowing internal tory ambition-battles to destroy our Country. Next time, if we must have one, let's send to Switzerland to discover how to organise meaningful referendums. For me, though, it would be pleasing to return to traditional British Parliamentary Democracy.

It seems to me that the various 'religions' are large-scale intellectual constructions by which to justify acceptable behaviour (which behaviour, oddly enough, tends to be remarkably similar everywhere). Unfortunately, these jury-rigged constructions can be used also to justify a great deal of nastiness - which gives rise to discussion (if you are lucky) or the repression of the decent by the theologians. Philosophy, or so I'd gather so far, is a great deal further abstracted from behaviour, but provides an area for the same sort of discussion of 'ideas' - as, indeed, do political discussion sites - so I suppose it is natural that the three should tend to get mixed. I find myself more inclined to approving decent behaviour, but I don't suppose I'd win an argument on those grounds! :)

It is a great pity that political parties now feel compelled to have fuhrers to prevent serious issues being discussed. The rich manifestly do not want to lose control of the various countries, so their newspapers and other media constantly denounce any Labour politician who stands for traditional Labour policy in a most extreme and obsessive way. It is very boring.

Jesus was a human being in a culture that made 'God' totally other. Paul/Saul was a Roman citizen and therefore used to the idea of human beings becoming/being voted 'gods'. I suppose, in those dark days, it was a way of making socialist feeling respectable.

Cris - Capitalism is and economic system based on greed, where those who are most greedy have learned to brainwash, bully or kill everyone else, making it impossible for anyone to make moral decisions about anything. Typically, you have been brought to believe that there is some other system and, weirdly, that there is no choice. We don't need any of this crap if we are free beings. If we are all just programmed automata, end of discussion..

Freedom for me would be the end of capitalism, the only power-system that still exists. If we got shot of that nonsense we could be could begin to think seriously rather than merely posture.

Doug - I don't find much to disagree with in that.

The difficulty with all these discussions is one of definition. Most people now use 'communism' to mean despotic state capitalism and 'socialism', except in the 'States, to mean a vague and fairly meaningless Good Thing that, like the Second Coming, is showing no signs of coming about any time soon. What I - and many other people - mean by socialism is political control by the (vast majority) working class rather than the very small minority of capitalists, and by 'communism', as far as I give it much thought, I mean the stage at which we can do away totally with the state and all the rest of that archaic nonsense. I tend to feel that the heat has been taken out of this discussion by the extreme likelihood that humanity isn't going to last more than a century or so anyway, but it would be interesting to hear what other people thought.

Hi Frank. Got shut off from the other place, had to change my name. What about you? All well?

Just and unjust are human mental constructs. How can they apply to anything beyond?

Why's it a cage? It's just a fact, surely? Why this aimless scepticism?

We belong to a species that developed consciousness as a survival technique, living in an economic order that controls our lives and thinking for profit. It looks entirely likely that we have already buggered the world we live in so as to destroy our species anyway. Within this context, to be human seems a bit of a waste of time, honestly, and our thinking is almost totally conditioned, though we aren't, thank goodness, controlled by instincts. It seems to me that the only useful thing to be thinking about is how to construct mechanical replacements for us - though probably that is just conditioned nonsense anyway. What for? Happy days! :)

Apes are better at being apes, humans are better at being humans; other comparisons can only be irrelevant. surely?

Dusty of Sky wrote:
What are smart phones for? A number of different things. But clearly, there are some features we want our smart phones to have, and others that we don't want them to have. The same goes with humans, and I'd say that this is a clear indication that we do have purposes. I think our primary purpose is to sustain and improve upon the life of our species, particularly those lives which we are most capable of impacting.

I think a very large number would disagree with you, and the chances are that the species is not going to be allowed to live much longer. People have no purpose - they just are, and this debate is aimless

Doesn't 'equal' or 'unequal' depend on what things are for, so that knives, being for cutting, are not equal because some are better at that. What are people for?

In the UK at the moment 'anti-Semitic' is more and more being used to mean 'opposing the crimes of "Israel"', which complicates matters considerably. Compared with, say, Mr Corbyn, Scruton seems to be talking about Jews rather than Zionists, and some of his statements do seem a little smelly. I hardly think we are in such a state of Nazi revival that they justify sacking anyone though. Anti-Islamic drivel, on the other hand, is par for the course, and probably does need heavy opposition.

Immigrants were born outside the Country, mostly in England, We have a lot of excellent native Somalis, Chinese, Italians and Spsaniards..

I'm always a bit baffled by 'Ze Vill of Ze Peepul'. Which people - the ones of 2016 or now? If this idiocy breaks up the UK, that's great, but I fear that the huge (30%) immigrant vote here might mean that we were left alone with the English, to be robbed and bullied forever. Better death!

It seems to me that a religion is a very archaic belief in an outmoded view of the universe, centring on a Fifth-Century tyrant in the sky who is so utterly non-ok that He requires constant praise to build Him up, whereas what Jesus seems to be talking about is an early version of socialism, with a much more mature emotional back-up than is usual. Fair play, Jesus came from a society with a very powerful religious bias, so he talks in those terms, but, basically, I'd argue that we don't feel the need to get worked up about Socrates's daemon but do need to 'translate' what Jesus says into current terms.

We're am odd mix, I think, of sort-of-chimpanzees and abstract thinkers. The chimpanzee bit would hit back when hurt, then forget it, but the abstract bit would either go in for large-scale revenge on the basis of an alleged continuous consciousness that was harmed and should be avenged or that the offending consciousness should be reformed, or forgive and forget on various grounds, especially that the alleged offending and harmed personalities had disappeared a few seconds later. I think we should stop violent harm, because it is difficult to live together if it is accepted.

Belonging to a State means you need to accept its (not necessarily very sensible) laws and institutions and not rock the boat too evidently or the bully-boys will get you. Belonging to a national group means shared historical language, history and - with luck - aspirations. They are very different, and have a lot to do with size. A country like mine, Cymru/'Wales' is far more complex than many with more powerful institutions because it has spent history being divided up by attacking groups and has currently a population of which a third were born elsewhere and of which less than a third speak the historical language. It is still far more fun to live in, because we feel more equal and share much experience than do the populations of larger countries. We have a choice of two identities at all times too. It gives you to wonder what possible sense citizenship of much larger countries really has.

I fear that, the way things are going, this idiocy is going to create such contempt for Parliament that it will seriously weaken democracy. An issue that only a few cranky tories really cared about has been blown up to the point where it seems likely to destroy the UK entirely, It is weird, isn't it?

Hi Frank - wondered where you were. Yes, it's a good place, but rather hard work for intermittent and un-philosophical one liners of my low type. One can but soldier on!

It seems to me that, despite desperate attempts to brainwash everyone, the obvious fact about any society is that some people exploit and dominate all the others. When they get especially greedy, or when the brainwashing breaks down, tensions increase. Can anyone seriously deny these well-known facts?

ftd - it seems to me that, since capitalism and class relations are constantly in change and development, we are, alas, not given any 'before' in which to consider. So it goes - at present, very badly!

I'm impressed by the scholarship, but my upbringing in Marxism always stressed the unity of theory and practice. I am left, in my later years, to be just a person who knows a little about the subject, but no longer a Marxist because I am cut off from action. What, fdrake, would you see as the implications for practice?

After the insane treatment given to President Obama, it is difficult to believe that the vast majority of Republicans are not racist, I'm afraid.

Socrates evidently supported the upper class in Athens and dislikde democracy. I can't see anything about decadence in his story, just political division such as happens in all societies. After the reign of the Thirty Tyrants he was extremely lucky to be offered the chance of martyrdom or going quietly abroad.