Admiring conviction

One of the best features of the humanist left is its rightful scorn for the notion that we should respect people's strong beliefs, even if these are daft.
I was hoping, then, that it would criticize Brown for this:

I also admire the fact that [Thatcher] is a conviction politician.  She stands very clearly for principles.  I believe, and I have said before, that I am also a conviction politician.

But why admire someone simply for having convictions? Any idiot can have strong views. Indeed, they are often a sign of irrationality: over-confidence, the confirmation bias, or simply ignorance of Bayes' theorem. On this basis, we should think less of people for having convictions.
So, what's Brown doing here? I reckon there are three possibilities:
1. He thinks some of Thatcher's convictions were correct, but daren't say so.
2. There's a form of projective identification. Maybe Brown has not an idea in his head, so in admiring someone who (allegedly) did, he's trying to convince himself and others that he does.
3. He genuinely does think conviction, in itself, is admirable. He's bought into the narcissistic culture of our age, which says that self-expression, "being oneself" and sincerity are inherent goods.
I don't know which of these possibilities is most worrying.

Comments

[Peter Briffa]

4. He's drawing a distinction between conviction politicians, and the allegedly flakey types like Cameron, and even Blair.

[Bob B]

I have little doubt that Hitler and Stalin were also conviction politicians, as is George W Bush by his own account. As best I can tell, rather like having and displaying good intentions which Tony Blair did often and in abundance, having convictions doesn't ensure getting much of anything worth having. Just what are "convictions" supposed to be a sufficient condition for achieving?

By comparison, this little sketch by Rowan Atkinson is more profound and certainly more fun:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9162617835639477218

Beware - this video clip lasts 47 minutes.

[Alex]

5. PR knobbers have a vague notion that being nice to Thatcher worked for Tony Blair. They're sacrificing a goat to fix the plane.

[kinglear]

Alex - yes, but it worked. Brown has no convictions, beyond wanting to stay in power. Neither did Blair. That is the ultimate black hole in the NuLabour party.

[Alex]

Did it work? ISTR it came after the 1997 election. Primo Levi wrote a wonderful short story about a chemical plant where a (highly autobiographical) chemist is called in to solve a mysterious problem with the anti-corrosion paint it produces; he eventually hits on a solution, adding a small quantity of something or other to the ruined batch. Success! Years later he discovers that they're *still* adding it even though it probably slightly harms the paint's anti-corrosion qualities...

[Will Davies]

I agree. That's a totally vacuous thing of Brown to say.

But he's more likely to be playing politics than getting involved in sort of Sartrean ethics (Blair on the other hand...). This is triangulation. He knows full well that Thatcher is basically viewed as a good thing by the sorts of voters he needs to win over, but that the Tories pull themselves to pieces every time her name is mention in their ranks.

Positioning oneself as Thatcher's heir is far cannier politics for a Labour leader than for a Tory one.

[Dave Hill]

I agree with Will Davies. Alas, I also agree with your first point. I can but hope he thinks only SOME of Thatcher's convictions correct rather than all of them.

[Rob Spear]

Obviously he is dressing up at the anti-Blair (and therefore anti-Cameron), by comparing himself to the last person in British politics who actually stood for something other than lily-livered popularity-snuffling.

[james C]

Brown is just out-manoeuvering 'Dave' again.

[Bob B]

"Brown is just out-manoeuvering 'Dave' again"

Yes - it's all very adolescent but it's the sort of stuff that goes down well on the student debating circuit for Scottish universities.

[^sharp]

I have followed you link to Bayesian Inference and I'd like to thank you for introducing me to this subject (I am not very educated).

But I don't understand what bearing this has on the issue of Brown's belief in his own convictions. I'd really like to have it explained to me in patient and slow voice.

My take :
It stands to reason that Brown believes in his convictions. That's what makes them convictions. In like manner, we are all "conviction" people, and don't need MmeThatcheur's approval to make us so.

The comical way in which politicians state the obvious is one of the tools of their profession and hats off to them for earning a living!

In actual fact Brown is stating that he has the self-confidence to act on his convictions (and build consensus around them) where the alternative is to seek consensus by constantly polling the opinions of his companions.

This is to state that he wishes to be identified with the upward approval curve we associate with (dogmatic) Thatcher rather than the downward approval curve we associate with (diplomatic) Major.

As far as his Labour supporters are concerned, the great fear is that Blair was Thatcher and Brown will be Major. As far as Tories are concerned, the great fear is that Blair was Heath and Brown is Thatcher. As far we the rest of us are concerned, the great fear is that Blair was either Churchill or Eden and Brown will be [... erm, I forget] - This is the issue Brown's conviction conviction is intended to address, isn't it?

[bob]

Rob Spear: that was funny. keep them coming please

[Matt Munro]

He's making a contrived and transparent response to the view that there nothing to chose between mainsteam political parties. Everyone had an opinion on Thatcher and most people over 35 could quote at least one thatcherism, the same cannot be said about Blair, Brown or Cameron.
Contrast this with the 80s when there was genuine public debate about big issues; state v private ownership, individual v collective responsibility, nuclear weapons v disarmamant, etc etc. I can't remember the last time I heard anyone discussing politics in a pub, other than in a way which follows a new lab agenda - so we have pseudo debates about smoking bans, healthy eating, the olymics and other niff naff and trivia, but nothing about how society should actually be run.
Those with long memories will remember what heppened when the previous period of consensus politics (in the 1970s) collapsed.