I do, very much however, object to the strong thread of anti-humanism that runs through the book. Allison is the sort of utilitarian willing to flog an innocent man in public - ‘enthusiastically’ at that – so long as the ‘deterrent value and the entertainment value outweigh the pain caused’ (p33). Assuredly not one of those Kanto-Marxist lily-livered humanists who ‘respect people just for being people’ (p32). For it is respect in general, and respect for his fellow humans in particular, that Allison has an issue with.

One can be sympathetic to his generic starting point, that the politics of multicultural parity of esteem and mutually assured self-respect have reached the point of idiotic no return, and he usefully notes how the entire spectrum of political opinion in Britain – from David Cameron to George Galloway – has embraced the politics of respect. He is correct ‘that governments should not be trying to manipulate us into respecting each other’ (p29). He is not even taken in by the prevailing argument that beliefs should be protected from offence: ‘academic freedom in particular, and intellectual freedom in general, is nothing unless it includes the freedom to offend’ (p37). If mutual respect is commanded by the authorities – simply on the basis of people being alive, rather than for what they might have done – then it becomes a hollow sham: a smiling but cynical mask. I am sympathetic to his argument so far. We part company though when he fails to realise that, while governments may be riding the respect bus, the driver is individual atomisation and vulnerability, contempt and fear for the strong-minded purposeful subject. I fall even further behind as Lincoln tries to take us back to the 18th century to find a ‘Hanoverian solution’ to our contemporary malaise.

Really. The Hanoverians, at least in this mangled version of Hume’s theory of government, made ‘excellent monarchs precisely because they lacked both virtue and legitimacy’ and thus ‘were unworthy of respect’ (p45). One should not, he argues, accept government ‘because it is made legitimate by its contract with the people, but because the consequences of having government (and of accepting it) are much better than the alternatives’ (p46). All that is needed is a framework of non-interference to allow people to ‘get on with it’. ‘It’ presumably being the happy business of early capitalists enriching themselves at the expense of others: ‘laying the foundations of a global commercial empire’ (p46). The implication is that government today – New Labour is presumably the target – is all too worthy of respect and that is what is wrong with the world. Governments are setting a respect agenda and we are following it. It’s an odd argument and quite wrong. Contemporary governments are demonstrably unworthy of respect and in fact command very little. Just consider the extent of popular disengagement from politics: not only is ‘politician’ a swear word, but fewer of us even bother to vote.

What has gained prominence, in the absence of a confident and authoritative political elite, is the idea of relative value: your point of view is every bit as good as mine and no one should be so arrogant as to presume to challenge it. That old form of arrogance – my idea is better than yours: discuss – is dismissed as the kind of Enlightenment ratiocination that ended up at the gates of Auschwitz. As for active historical agents laying the foundations of a global commercial empire, today’s view of the market is rather as natural and without alternative. We can only suffer its effects (like tornadoes or earthquakes) as best we can. That feeling of powerlessness supports the thought we should respect forces we perceive to be external, be they the market or the environment.

While some environmentalists call for more regulation of the market, their real target is human consumption. (Allison makes no specific mention of the green agenda of respect for nature, although he does express a violent hatred of four-wheel drive vehicles, which might lead one to suspect that he has some sympathy for the anti-human sentiments of many environmentalists.) We should do less, minimise our impact, our footprint, in order to avoid waking the sleeping dragon of nature. Human action itself has become the problem on this view. The diminished and vulnerable subject calls forth two responses: 1) protection from each other (the respect agenda); and 2) restraint, being treated like children, because they cannot be trusted to behave. These two responses can co-exist quite happily. Allison believes we should have freedom of speech but not freedom of ‘action’: ‘protest’ is not speech in his book and ‘governments should be allowed to deal with pickets, road-barricaders and port-blockers as harshly as they see fit’ (p100). His choice of opponent dates him more than a little, but his fear of the ‘mob’, of untrustworthy people, of us, is clear. Anyone who can cheerfully conceive the role of government as ‘waste-disposal’ espouses a philosophy based on anti-humanism. Now it is one thing not to be taken in by the politics of respect; another actively to promote contempt.

Allison’s anti-humanism oddly leads him to agree with many of the positions he sees himself opposed to. For example, he finds himself forgiving race relations legislation: ‘criminalising certain kinds of insult and private discrimination may help protect us against violent inter-communal conflict’ (p110). This from the man who wants to write ‘fuck you’ on the walls of the town hall and put bricks through the windows of 4x4s. Allison on paper at least is in favour of inviolate national sovereignty. Maybe not because he believes people should determine their future themselves, but because ‘we [sic] are happier not having to bear responsibility for Africa’ (p113) and he wants to wash his hands of former colonies. But he becomes indistinguishable from many human rights campaigners and NGOs when he says that ‘there must be levels of misery and cruelty at which we conclude that the sovereignty rule is not working and that we should invade’.

There is a point where anti-humanism makes Allison’s disrespect agenda the very mirror image of the respect agenda. He shares a view of humanity as in the main (with exception for himself) greedy and self-obsessed. Just as the government’s Respect Agenda was only lip-service to being nice to each other, and really about reporting one another’s bad behaviour to reward it with ASBOs, so he may talk big about treating each other as autonomous human beings, but really he is full of contempt for the wrong kind of people. This is every bit as much intolerant tolerance as that espoused by the respect-mongers. Neither camp is prepared to treat us as adults.

Humanity is not thought to be up to much these days, and its weakness is celebrated by the respect people or deplored by people like Allison. Both share a thoroughgoing anti-humanism that precludes the possibility of people making anything any better. I recommend grinding this book through the waste-disposal and setting out instead to challenge the real dangers of anti-humanism and the infantilisation of politics and society. It’s time to develop a politics for adults.