Women describe chocolate cake as “orgasmic” or “better than sex”. Then there’s that scene in When Harry Met Sally (“I’ll have what she’s having”). Men talk about sports cars as if they were talking about women’s bodies.

“Sexy” or “hot” become a synonyms for “attractive.” Things that were once strongly associated with sex (eg cosmetics and revealing clothing) are just seen as just desirable in a more general and non-sexual way. When teenage girls dress like Paris it doesn’t mean they want to star in a home made video – they just want to look “hot”.

It’s become so natural to think of “hot” and “sexy” being non-sexual that people are shocked when you remind them of the metaphor.

what would you say and what would you do?

what does this have to do with morality anyway? what is morality? it’s a tool that we evolved for keeping traffic flowing smoothly.

Why would you say anything to someone who wanted to enslave you? Why debate a dictator?

You ignore such people.

If they try to force their beliefs upon you, well that’s what guns are for.

But seriously I think my response would be there is little you can, do but the sort of Nietzschean Ubermenschists you postulate in your hypothetical are not numerically preponderant. So it wouldn’t be an issue. The great thing about libertarianism is that is an appeal to rational self-interest. And true, most people are not perfectly rational. But they are self-interested and risk averse and most are not so confident of their strengths that they would prefer to fend in a world of perpetual war with ubermensch battling it out with each other. Muslim suicide bombers aside, liberalism suits the craven natures of most of us.

But what do you say to someone who doesn’t understand why they should allow others to live as they want to? What if they say that liberalism is the morality of weaklings — people who try to talk their way into privileges they can’t claim through their own strength? Rights, they say, are what powerful people say they are.

Liberals like Hayek argue that moral values are a product of the culture. But it seems to me that Hayek has no answer to the critic. He’s left himself with nothing to appeal to.

This is a little off topic, but I’m curious about how liberals answer this question.

Say somebody opposes university fees because they think it will increase inequality. Personally, I don’t attach much importance to inequality. In itself, it is neither good nor bad in my view. But given that is their concern, I can point out that given that most uni students come from affluent families, and an even larger percentage end up in affluent families, then free education in fact increases rather than decreases inequality. This is not being cynical: it is respecting other people’s beliefs.

This goes right to the heart of how to behave in a liberal democratic society: that it is not necessary to share a total worldview in order to agree on a policy.

For example, imagine if Jason started up a libertarian think tank and went out of his way to recruit theology graduates. He gives them a bit of media training and they then go out and argue that supporting big government is a sin. Some people might say that that was a little cynical.

A critic might describe the approach as “Who cares if it’s bullshit — just as long as it’s bullshit that gets you doing what I want you to do.”

But, as you say “If you are going to persuade anyone, you must address the concerns they have”. So this creates pressure on think tanks to promote ideas that get results — even if some of the people behind the organisation think those ideas are nonsense.

It seems to me that think tanks tread a fine line here. Part of what gives a think tank more credibility than a PR company or politician is the perception that — regardless of where the money comes from — they are an organisation of ‘true believers.’

I don’t see the religion programme as cynical, though. If you are going to persuade anyone, you must address the concerns they have, and these will often be derived from beliefs you don’t necessarily share, but in the context of which you will need to work. I don’t see how diverse societies can work unless we find ways to agree on ways forward, even if we do not share underlying belief systems.

If Sam Gregg had been pretending to be a Catholic then that would have been cynical, but I saw no evidence that he was anything other than entirely sincere.

One of the most significant sources of opposition to free market ideas is church-based social justice activism. Unless there’s a counterveiling message, many Christians might assume that their religious beliefs are incompatible with free market policies.

I can see how it would make sense to take on a Christian classical liberal in an effort to try to peel Christians away from the social justice lobby. Someone like Samuel Gregg could be a useful member of a coalition.

At the same time I can see how this would be awkward. As far as I can tell, most classical liberals tend to be tolerant rather than enthusiastic about religion and libertarians are often frankly antagonistic. (All that teaching about obedience and humility perhaps?) To outsiders it can look a bit cynical.

I’m curious about how this came together. Would it have happened without Gregg? And didn’t the CIS get some support from the Earhart Foundation for this?

It wouldn’t be a bad idea if you attempted to comprehend what people are discussing before turning them into stereotypes against which to vent your spleen. I was trying to seek clarification from Don of the point his post was pursuing. I didn’t see how the concept of “wedging” applied to thinktanks (as opposed to political parties) in a meaningful sense. The discussion between Don, Andrew and Jason has clarified that point. It was in that context that I observed that Ms Rush came across on TV as having a “humourless moralising left vibe” (note not ‘humourless feminist’) by contrast with Catharine Lumby. The point needs to be understood in the context of the discussion we were having i.e. how likely it was that socially conservative CIS or IPA members and supporters might be induced by TAI’s campaign to demand tighter regulation of advertising standards, thereby creating some tension for these bodies whose core ethos is essentially laissez faire liberal. In that context, whether Ms Rush IS in fact a humourless leftie (or humourless feminist), or even whether I think she is, is completely irrelevant. The issue is what effect the portrayal of the issue is likely to have on socially conservative CIS/IPA members/supporters/sponsors. What I was suggesting was that the effect of Rush’s public persona, as the front person for TAI marketing a particular idea (in this case that advertising should be more strongly regulated), was likely to be a negative factor in persuading the target market to respond in the way TAI presumably hopes they will. A more caring, motherly persona might have worked better.

As you might have realised if you had removed the ideological blinkers for a couple of seconds, in a tangential way this aspect of the issue does in fact raise the very points that you say concern you (and they concern me too). To what extent does marketing shape culture and vice versa? To what extent do consumers (in this case consumers of thinktanks’ ideas) make real choices and to what extent are their responses intuitive and therefore capable of manipulation by framing, heuristics and other mechanisms adapted from cognitive science and employed by marketers and political spin doctors? Employing “actors” who subliminally portray the desired message – e.g. concerned motherly type for this message – is a part of the armoury marketers use; you don’t generally see fat middle-aged blokes like me used as models for teen-oriented products, for example (except occasionally as figures of fun to contrast with the cool kids they want the consumer to identify with). To what extent therefore can consumers sensibly/usefully be regarded as self-interested, rational utility maximisers? Given that children are even more susceptible to this form of marketing manipulation than adults (or are they?), to what extent does that justify a more stringent regulatory response than for marketing in general (at present all marketing is essentially self-regulated by the Australian Advertising Standards Bureau). These are all important and interesting issues, and they are potentially raised by the TAI paper (and Hymowitz’s one from 2005). But they weren’t the subject of our discussion above, which was merely about whether IPA/CIS supporters etc could be “wedged”.

The issue again which no-one has addressed here, is how and who determines the nature of the culture that people both ‘create’ and within which they must operate as ‘aware’ and critically ‘engaged’ consumers. I know the question has no ‘answer’ as such. My post was in response to the ‘who cares’ shoulder shrugging pose adopted on a topic that is serious, not because I happen to be a cultural conservative, but because the issue of children, and their obvious, proper claim to ‘care’ on the grounds of a ‘blameless dependence’ , (in contrast to able bodied scoungers), exposes the shallow and facile poses of both ‘hey its up to the market’ on the one hand, and on the other, that the issue of the representation of children to themselves, is a matter of no cultural curiosity whatsoever. Strange indeed.

You don’t have to be a fan of Clive hamilton to understand that the issues in themselves raise interesting and improtant quesitons, and the jibe of ‘humourless feminist’ directed at the women who did the study is so obviously peurile, that its very use suggests a great deal of unwillingness, or an inability to engage with the issues.

You don’t need complete purity in a think-tank – in practice there are plenty of disagreements. But I think overly wide and persistent deviations from the ‘brand’ ideological position are at best confusing, and at worst as you suggest ‘divisive’. Many of the CIS’s more libertarian supporters criticised the now-defunct family and religion programmes (though I think the latter programme was widely misunderstood; people thought it was promoting religion when it was intended to convince religious people that their anti-liberal ideas were unsound).

I don’t think anyone associated with the CIS would find the stance Jason and I took on the child models the least bit controversial. Even if they were more uncomfortable than we are with the pictures, there is a sensible solution we can all agree on. People who are against free speech just don’t get involved with the CIS in the first place.

In practice, I think more internal disputes arise over how ‘pragmatic’ we should be than about ultimate policy goals – do we go for the pure liberal position, or one that is less liberal but more likely to be accepted and move us in the direction of liberalism. As I think the first thing you ever wrote about me suggested, I am a bit conflicted on this, but retain Liberal Party membership in the hope that this contributes to getting things done, even if they are not what would happen in an ideal world.

The main variable in deciding whether we pursue issues is whether we have/can find anyone capable of doing a good job with it.

I’m assuming that most groups in the ideas business form around shared policy goals — not shared principles. The more successful they are at influencing policy, the greater the incentive for the group’s members to ignore their differences.

To use just one example, Heritage’s Ed Feulner has never made any secret of the fact that:

Libertarians are at odds on many questions with Burkean conservatives; cultural conservatives sometimes think economic conservatives have misplaced their priorities; and so on. Heritage actively seeks to dismantle fences and build coalitions among such disparate groups.

It seems to me that it’s impossible to attract the funding you need to run a successful think tank, recruit skilled staff and influence policy if you insist on being ideologically pure. The people who fund you, the people who work with you, and the people who you are trying to influence all need to be on side.

To make sure it stays that way, there are some issues it’s best to avoid. These are issues that:

* promote disagreement between the various constituencies the group depends on; and
* where the group has no hope of influencing policy makers because its position puts it on the wrong side of public opinion.

Andrew – I take your point about the term ‘wedge’.

BTW: it would be useful to know if you think I’m mistaken about this. Both of you are in a better position than I am to know how the business works.