For a long time, I’ve talked about an attitude I described as ‘conservative’. I would have come to discuss this regardless, but now I have seen it spread across the left as well, and now it seems to be more a product of authoritarianism rather than conservatism.

So what is the punishment principle? It’s a very simple method of addressing an issue, in a few steps:

First of all, discover a problem. You don’t have to look deeply, just go with however it appears on the surface.

Then, identify who is responsible. Again, no need to follow the clues, your instincts will guide you to the people to blame.

Finally, punish the guilty party. Congratulations, you have ‘solved’ your problem!

Okay, okay, so you probably didn’t actually get much done. But the good news is, you got to feel really good about yourself, and you got to punish people you didn’t like. And since you didn’t solve the problem in the first place, you can continue to feel good and punish others for as long as you like!

That’s why this method is so popular with authoritarian governments. It allows you to look tough, reinforce inequality and suppress dissent without having to tackle the real issues.

I’ve noticed this within conservatism because it underpins our government’s approach to many social issues. The problem of unemployment is solved by identifying the unemployed as lazy and punishing them until they work. Regardless of whether they suffer from physical or mental disabilities.

Now, of course I believe, as I have always said, there should be appropriate consequences to people’s actions. But that’s a key word, appropriate. If you want to stop someone doing something, the best way to deal with it is to discover why they’re doing it and change the circumstances. This might not work on an individual level, but for a government it should be the only approach to take.

Unfortunately the media loves to whip people into a frenzy about lenient jail sentences and so on. Criminals, and now benefits claimants, are considered an underclass which must necessarily be poorly treated in order to elevate the status of the average ‘working’ man and woman.

Now I’ve seen the left adopt the same approach in the wake of rising populism and xenophobia. Although I have no sympathy for Richard Spencer the far-right spokesperson being punched on television, and agree that in many senses he deserves it, my philosophy cannot bring me to condone physical violence in such a fashion.

People are getting hurt during attempts to stop right wing speakers visiting universities. It’s not a big deal, in the grand scheme of things, but I’m worried about the level of support there seems to be in favour of violent action. I understand the sense of desperation and fury but I don’t believe this is a correct response, beyond it being against my philosophy.

The only suitable justification the left can raise in favour of political violence is that “it works”. If it doesn’t work, you’ve just hurt a bunch of people for no reason and potentially made the situation worse. People seem to have begun writing off vast sections of the population as essentially unconvertible, people who can only be persuaded through force. If that’s the case, in my view, you might as well give up now, and here’s why.

The actual worst case scenario is that it does work. That you can in fact halt and reverse the rise of right-wing populism with suppressive tactics. That would be an absolute disaster. The political left is still in an incredibly weak position. The mainstream is still dominated by neo-liberals and neo-conservatism. If Trump were impeached, the US would still be dealing with an entirely right-wing government. If Brexit were halted, we would still be dealing with conservatives in the British government and neo-liberalism in the European Union.

Do you think for one second that the establishment would be grateful to the left for routing our mutual opponents? Absolutely absurd concept. We would just have demonstrated that violent suppression of dissent is a viable tactic. Not only that but we would have proven ourselves a major threat in the process. As soon as we dealt with the populists they would ban left wing organisations and arrest the leaders for inciting political violence. Pepper spray and punches are no match for the tanks and helicopters which would be sent after us.

In fact, the left has been doing the dirty work of neo-liberals for decades now, suppressing radical feminist dissent and stamping out any objection to the commodified versions of feminism being sold to us as liberating. I don’t expect many people will change their minds so easily. But I also believe there must be many others who see things the same way, or are starting to come to the same conclusions, and it’s up to us to try and change course before the rest of the left drives us all off a cliff together.