Those who knew me as "EEL123" may recall that I was last here about nine months ago when I decided that I have "nothing further to contribute to this community". But during those months this polsim, and more importantly this community, has never been too distant from my thoughts. Given that I'm approaching the one-year run-up to my school-leaving exams, it will be impossible for me to be as active as I was in my previous 'incarnation', but I have nevertheless decided to return.
As you may have noted, I have decided to start a new account and adopt a (somewhat) different name. That's because I think that it's important for me to signal a new start of sorts. Let me explain.
For me, ideologically, a lot has changed. I arrived here in mid-2012 as a barely pubescent kid with largely undefined political views, but a certain libertarian streak quickly became the primary basis for my political views. During my absence, however, I have concluded that libertarianism can no longer be reconciled with my capacity for rational judgement. (Yes, it was a bitter pill to swallow.) Obviously, libertarianism makes sense if liberty is the lynchpin of your worldview, but I have been unable to find any rational basis to support the view that liberty should occupy such a privileged position. Furthermore, while some of you would associate me with fairly uncompromising views, I have never been the sort who would advocate the wholesale abolition of social security, taxation etc. Of course, this does mean that I have always accepted that there must be exceptions to the general rule of liberty. Only recently, however, have I realised the implication of this: if there are exceptions where liberty must be balanced against other principles, there must be a higher principle which determines which balance is most appropriated. Lately, I have become partial to the idea of utilitarianism because I feel that only utilitarianism can be justified from first principles (I won't go into it here). I would never suggest, though, that liberty is unimportant; far from it. There is an innate human instinct to be in control of one's life, to seek one's own ends through one's own means, and that means that liberty has to be one of the highest forms of utility, but to say that it is the only, or overwhelmingly pre-eminent, form of utility is absurd. As a consequence I no longer consider myself a libertarian, even if my views do retain a libertarian element to them. Obviously that means that many of the positions for which I have advocated in the past no longer find favour from me.
Secondly, some of you will know that I had a tendency to be abrasive - in fact plain obnoxious at times - in my dealings with other members of this community. Although I assure you that never have I done anything here out of spite or malice, I acknowledge that the way I have interacted with some of you has not reflected well on me personally or contributed to this community. In my defence, there is only so much social and emotional maturity you can expect from a 14-year-old kid, but nonetheless I do regret it. I want to draw a line under all that. Accordingly I return with hopefully a little more wisdom, a little more humility and an aspiration, at the very least, not to piss too many of you off. That is not to say that I do not expect our discussions here to be frank, robust and often passionate, and nor does it mean that I will not, occasionally, get carried away and say something I regret. Not everyone can be like Aquinas (congrats on being appointed to the mod team, by the way), but I will do my best.
Now, let's get down to business. What have I missed? And, given that I haven't chosen a country yet, where's the good stuff happening?