My politics

Yes, I know, this blog is starting to resemble one long mash note to Ta-Nehisi Coates. I can't help the way I feel.

Anyway, he has a long post on his politics. This made me think about my own. Some random thoughts:

* I think most people think that they have good reasons for believing as they do. It is rare that they are simply malicious.

* I think most people try about as hard as everyone else to be good people.

* I think there is no way to derive a comprehensive moral or legal framework from a few first principles. In some situations, some values will be incommensurable; you need to pick one. And the choice is rarely obvious.

* I think the world would be a vastly better place if people recognized that the right response to disagreement is debate, not rage.

* I think things are usually more complicated than they look.

* I think actions interact in complicated and often unpredictible ways.

* I think incentives matter.

* I think almost no one adequately appreciates how much heavy lifting hidden cultural norms do in our political and economic systems.

* I think that no system is perfect, and the fact that something has gone wrong is not evidence that change is desireable.

* I think people are biased towards affirmation and action, with often unfortunate results.

* I think most people, undoubtedly including me, give themselves too much credit.

* I think the knowledge that you might be wrong is the most valuable asset a human being can have.

* I think that speaking of one culture as "better" than another is a meaningless statement. Culture gives you the preferences by which you evaluate it.

* I think that too many people in political debate are looking for reasons to be angry.

* I think that it is kind of creepy when everyone in a room, or a comment thread, agrees with each other.

* I think that we have a moral obligation to, as the bumper sticker says, be the change we want.

Comments

"I think that it is kind of creepy when everyone in a room, or a comment thread, agrees with each other."

I agree completely. I hope that wasn't too creepy.

Posted by Mike Antonucci | June 20, 2008 5:05 PM

I think that speaking of one culture as "better" than another is a meaningless statement. Culture gives you the preferences by which you evaluate it.

The first sentence here, which is false, does not follow at all from the second, which is true. When you say that one culture is "better," it's true that there's no standard external to human culture that renders your statement true or false. But that doesn't make your statement meaningless. If it did, all evaluation of any kind would be meaningless!

From my culture I take both standards of evaluation and means of critiquing those very standards. What's wrong with that?

Posted by Christopher M | June 20, 2008 5:11 PM

Not to be didactic, but this sounds like an explanation of your worldview, not your politics. While the former certainly informs the latter, they aren't really the same. Your politics should be describably a little more concretely, whatever they are.

The post that this refers to does just that - explicit views on gay marriage, abortion, religion in education, etc etc.

Posted by Brad L | June 20, 2008 5:16 PM

That is: describable a little more concretely.

I never know whether to post typo corrections, but that one read so poorly...

Posted by Brad L | June 20, 2008 5:22 PM

I agree with Brad. The problem with politics is that, while most people try to be good, power and money attract narcissists whose definition of good is "good for me." If these narcissist politicians can get ahead by appealing to people's baser instincts, they will. And history shows us that good people, if a bit thick and self-interested, have shown themselves quite willing to be persuaded into beliefs that actually are evil, and were designed by people whose self-interest trumps any desire to do actual good.

Posted by Diana | June 20, 2008 5:23 PM

"I think that it is kind of creepy when everyone in a room, or a comment thread, agrees with each other."

Wow, there are a lot of blogs that must creep you out. (Unless you count disputes about things like whether Bush or Cheney is a bigger war criminal as disagreements.)

Posted by y81 | June 20, 2008 5:25 PM

Where's the post to which this post refers? Shouldn't there be a link?

Posted by y81 | June 20, 2008 5:30 PM

"* I think there is no way to derive a comprehensive moral or legal framework from a few first principles."

"Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness", in that order, seems like a reasonable starting point. A few starting principles may not sound like much, and may not cover every topic, but is it really better to not have any guiding principles at all?

"* I think that speaking of one culture as "better" than another is a meaningless statement. Culture gives you the preferences by which you evaluate it."
"* I think almost no one adequately appreciates how much heavy lifting hidden cultural norms do in our political and economic systems."

Lovely.

Imagine 2 cultures A and B. The majority of people in A are glad they are in A and wouldn't want to live according to culture B. The majority of people in culture B think their own culture sucks and would much rather live according to culture A, but can't for some reason (say a corrupt and harsh political system ruling over them for instance). Is culture A better than culture B?

Posted by Nelson | June 20, 2008 5:33 PM

Where's the post to which this post refers? Shouldn't there be a link?

I used the Google to find it because it made me quite curious.

Also curious about this: isn't there a fair amount of tension between:

I think most people try about as hard as everyone else to be good people.

and

I think the world would be a vastly better place if people recognized that the right response to disagreement is debate, not rage.

+

I think that too many people in political debate are looking for reasons to be angry.

Overall, this sounds like an extended plea for some humility, which really has become our culture's lost virtue.

Posted by Brad L | June 20, 2008 5:39 PM

I think almost no one adequately appreciates how much heavy lifting hidden cultural norms do in our political and economic systems.

And conservatives mistake superficial cultural drift for deep cultural destruction.

Posted by Mike | June 20, 2008 5:50 PM

It's interesting the different ways you and Coates frame what I guess you intend to be similar ideas. Coates' consists of a list of fairly specific ideas ideas he won't entertain discussion on. Yours is a list of generalizations about people (not individuals so much, except as part of a group) and the way they interact. I didn't particularly disagree with either of you, but the lists had no resonance at all for me - reflecting, I suppose, that it can be a big enough difference for politics or worldviews to differ by weighting. In the continued theme of being boring, this can be summed up using the-opposite-of-love-is-indiffence line.

Posted by Random | June 20, 2008 6:07 PM

You state that you think most people are good and don't act from malicious motives, morality is too hard and complicated to understand, and moral choices are nearly impossible to distinguish between. Obviously you are talking about yourself.

People who choose to support power and authority over the powerless are almost always seeking to satisfy an inner need they were denied in childhood, a time when they themselves were powerless. Their parents demanded unquestioning obedience and out of revenge and habit the now-grown child demands others do the same. The person can't understand any other point of view, and is angered and frightened by anyone who disagrees with him. To disagree with one's parents (the Authority) meant the risk of losing their love. From the child's persepective, this fear is natural. They are utterly dependent on their parents, and their parents' love.

People raised with acceptance and tolerance learn who they are and what they want. They are not confused and drawn away from making the right decisions by the need to obey an authority and keep the illusion of a perfect childhood. They don't need to worry about what their father or priest or president or party chairman thinks they should do. Morality is simple when it is based on self-respect and empathy. You will know the right choice to make when you know, understand, and accept yourself.

You obviously want to do the right thing. But people who learn to supress their emotions in childhood carry this on to adulthood. You can't care about anyone else if you can't care about yourself. By your own words you have shown you can't feel empathy for others and know you are lacking something, but can't figure out what it is. You're in the same boat as most of the rest of the world. Do something about it besides sniping at the poor and powerless.

Posted by Susan of Texas | June 20, 2008 6:15 PM

Susan,

What motivates people who 1) are stunningly condescending 2) believe that people who disagree with them suffer from a childhood-based psychological defect, and 3) insist on characterizing complicated issues as simplistic quasi-Marxist power struggles?

How can we help people like this help themselves?

Posted by Rob Lyman | June 20, 2008 6:35 PM

I think that no system is perfect, and the fact that something has gone wrong is not evidence that change is desireable.

Sure it is; it's just not conclusive evidence.

Posted by Anon Y. Mous | June 20, 2008 6:51 PM

* I think almost no one adequately appreciates how much heavy lifting hidden cultural norms do in our political and economic systems.

I think almost everyone appreciates the heavy lifting accomplished by cultural norms (for better or worse) whether they admit it or not.

Posted by themightypuck | June 20, 2008 6:52 PM

This blogger covers some of the same territory, and includes a link to Coates....

http://bannedindc.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/ta-nehisi-coates-is-exactly-right/

Posted by Marjorie L. | June 20, 2008 6:52 PM

Susan Of Texas -

Reread Megan's post, please. You totally missed her point.

First, she didn't say that most people are good. She said
most people are trying to be good. There's a huge difference.
There were probably quite a few Nazi soldiers who were "trying to be
good" but who expressed that desire in horribly destructive ways. This point is often lost on those who believe that bad actions come from bad or unhealthy motivations.

Morality is simple when it is based on self-respect and empathy.

Not really. There are a lot of people who are willing to heavily
tax some people to assist others, for instance. They are blind to the harms done by heavy taxation because the harm is diffuse. They see the benefits of their desired program, ignore the harm, and assume that those who disagree with them must have something wrong with them. Morality based entirely on empathy easily leads to this problem of helping one individual at the expense of many others.

Or what about whether to go to war at any particular time?
There were some Iraqis happy to see Saddam fall, the Kurds especially. There were some who were horrified. And of course
many American parents were distraught that their children in uniform might be harmed. When you have a situation where some people
benefit and some are harmed, the situation suddenly isn't clear cut (though people still have strong opinions), at least for those who are honest with themselves. I was opposed to the war, incidentally, but I can see how someone might have been otherwise.

There was this personality test my father used to give out to groups of close friends. People were divided into "results oriented" "relationship oriented" "social oriented" or "process oriented" based on how they formed rapport in a sales situation.

After the results were disclosed, it would become clear that most people considered the groups that they were not in as inferior in some way and would mock them. Of course, each individuals enjoyed being who they were. (The exception to the mocking results people, who often viewed process people as useful. Usually the results people were managers and the process people were the folks like their accountants, subordinate programmers, etc.)

Finally, please consider that those who defer to a certain standard are not nessicarily doing so out of a desire to conform or some emotional weakness. Asking "what is right" (rather than "who is right" or simply saying "the weaker person is right") can be a helpful means of resolving a problem. And there is not a single standard to defer to. Sometimes the "poor and the powerless" are wrong and "the wealthy and the powerful" are right. But unless you have an objective standard, you won't see this.

Self respect and empathy, by themlseves, will not help a person out of that trap.

Posted by Ryan W. | June 20, 2008 7:36 PM

The exception to the mocking results people, who often viewed process people as useful. Usually the results people were managers and the process people were the folks like their accountants, subordinate programmers, etc.

This would be clearer if it read "The exception to this rule were the results people who didn't mock the process people because they viewed them as useful. Usually the results people...."

Posted by Ryan W. | June 20, 2008 7:42 PM

some values will be incommensurable

Two (or more) examples would be nice so that I could see 'where you are going with this.'

You might could replace 2 NFL teams with the following standards:

1.I think that speaking of one culture as "better" than another is a meaningless statement.

2. I think almost no one adequately appreciates how much heavy lifting hidden cultural norms do in our political and economic systems..

Then on any given Sunday (or blogpost) we could see which one wins.

Posted by Michael | June 20, 2008 7:54 PM

I believe that the dirty f----- hippies (who's parents, of course, couldn't get into a Decent School) who don't support Our Leader should be smashed with a 2 x 4. Those types aren't the types who try to be good, that's for sure.

Posted by ed | June 20, 2008 8:11 PM

I have to ask, and there's a chance one of the bright folks here will be able to answer:

If I accept my moral responsibility to be the change I want, and I'm changing my life to be the way I want it, but that conflicts with what you want me to do politically, do I have a moral responsibility to be the change you want?

Posted by drlivipr | June 20, 2008 8:52 PM

Cultural Anthropology includes a basic principle known as "cultural relativity." This is routinely mis-interpreted as meaning that these are a bunch of social scientists who have no standards.

What it actually means is that cultures (and the people who move in them) have to be understood in terms of that culture. Whether they are "better" in their own terms is the proper question for anyone studying that culture. Unsurprisingly, most cultures see themselves as "better" than most of the cultures around them.

But it is entirely possible for a culture to come across another one which appears, from what they know, to achieve more of what the first culture feels it should value. (Or, more likely, to see them achieving something valuable...while not bothering with all the other features which are undesirable.) The critical point there is "from what they know." Mostly, they have a couple of facts and a lot of assumptions.

An obvious example being the romanticized view of the lives of native peoples living "in harmony with nature." People like this somehow seem to have missed, for example, that the usual technique for Native Americans on the Great Plains to slaughter buffalo was to light a grass fire which would drive a large heard over a cliff. Leaving a huge burn area...not to mention a lot of dead meat that they could not actually consume themselves. Ecological disaster ?=? harmony with nature -- what is wrong with this equation?

Posted by wj | June 20, 2008 9:46 PM

*I think that if I make a list of utterly banal, painfully meaningless, and somewhat vague aphorisms which make Forrest Gump's mom sound like freakin' Oscar Wilde, that people will somehow take me more seriously.

Posted by ed | June 20, 2008 10:10 PM

This post reminded me unfortunately of a Larry King newspaper "column." Missing only the "...." Could it be a cryptic response to request from a few days ago about the lowest level celeb who Megan would hook up with?

Posted by Gene | June 20, 2008 11:55 PM

.... It's a shame what's happening in Sarajevo.... Kudos to those fine folks who make Bugles so consistently delicious.... The Amish make fine houses.... Some of the most beautiful women in the world work in diners.... If I had four awards to give, I would give them all to the Golden Girls.... Teach a poor city kid how to love and you've made the world slightly better....What in God's name am I talking about here, anyway?.... The difference between top-shelf vodka and bottom-shelf vodka is only a few dollars.... Shoes make the man, but it takes men and women working together to make a pair of shoes.... Betrayal can bring about the coldest season of the human heart.... I disapprove of anyone who might cheat on a test.... I am afraid of scary bats.... Are you famous? If so, I love you!.... What was I talking about again? Oh yeah.... If I could be any nationality in the world, I'd be Flemish.... Of all the major religions, Buddhism has the best outfits.... If I was God for a day, I would eliminate the terrible scourge of rickets....

Posted by 1997 Onion Larry King Parody | June 21, 2008 12:35 AM

* I think the knowledge that you might be wrong is the most valuable asset a human being can have.

When is the last time George Bush ever thought he might be wrong? Probably never. Hell, he probably blames that Maine cop for his DUI.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | June 21, 2008 1:23 AM

"I think almost no one adequately appreciates how much heavy lifting hidden cultural norms do in our political and economic systems."

Could this read, "I think culture is more important than just about anybody else."?

I think it would be better expressed as the conviction that culture is very important, not with a ranking system of who has the correct belief.

Posted by stuart | June 21, 2008 6:10 AM

* I think almost no one adequately appreciates how much heavy lifting hidden cultural norms do in our political and economic systems.

I like to call this line of reasoning, "why I am a conservative in one sentence."

Seriously, though. It's amazing what effect cultural norms will have on individual behavior. I've seen it in action during my deployment to Afghanistan. A buddy was talking about the difficulty of getting individuals in the Afghan Army to do anything, and I've seen examples as well. However, individual Afghans are neither stupid nor lazy, and are capable of incredible feats of ingenuity given the most worthless scrap material. I have seen shit that I would never have expected to see outside of "MacGuyver." But getting anything done with a group is even harder than it is in the US Army, which is not a model of efficiency. The system in which Afghans operate is such that they are able to get away with doing the minimum (or less) much more than their American counterparts, and they fulfill the expectations of their peers, just like we do.

I also think that people seriously underrate the value of hypocrisy in enforcing positive cultural norms. The US Army has a saying: "take care of your Soldiers." It's drilled in leadership training courses over and over and over. It would be nice if we could find born leaders who always put their troops first by nature for every leadership slot. However, due to the sheer size of the organization, we have to deal with the people we've got, and there are definitely people who don't believe it. Even these jokers have to at least make token attempts at doing so or pay lip service to the rule. This has the effect of reinforcing it as a cultural norm to the "marginal middle" who would slide to the most self-serving position possible, given the opportunity.

The problem with our current tendancy to treat hypocrisy as worse than the underlying bad behavior is that it gets harder and harder to enforce positive cultural norms, since a significant fraction of people are going to slip up or outright disregard the norm. This tends to erode the norm, sometimes to the detriment of the group as a whole.

Posted by CatCube | June 21, 2008 7:20 AM

* I think politicians should refrain from using the expression "the American people"
* I think while Yoohoo is more chocolately than it used to be, it still just doesn't taste right.
* I think wearing flip-flops to work is dangerous.
* I think that lists are of limited utility.

Posted by MB | June 21, 2008 8:10 AM

I'd agree with most of this except one. When it comes to politics, I think far too many people do not try to be "good", as opposed to being "right" according to whatever worldwiew they subscribe to. They will criminalize actions commited by groups they oppose, while forgiving the same actions perpetrated by their own side.

Posted by JohnM | June 21, 2008 9:23 AM

* I think that speaking of one culture as "better" than another is a meaningless statement. Culture gives you the preferences by which you evaluate it.

Nelson already made this point, but this one's hard to swallow.

Maybe it's because my politically formative years coincided with the mass exodus of eastern europeans across the falling Iron Curtain, but it's always seemed obvious to me that there were cultures that were vastly inferior even by the standards of their own people.

And anthropologists of the '60's notwithstanding, cultural values that actual flesh-and-blood human beings will in fact believe in are not infinitely malleable. There really are fundamental human values against which any culture can be judged.

Posted by Clint | June 21, 2008 10:19 AM

I think most people think that they have good reasons for believing as they do. It is rare that they are simply malicious.

Given that you've lived in blue-state metropolises, I'm going to have to call you on this one.

I lived in such places for over a decade, and watched well-educated transplants trash middle America, the middle class, and the middling-educated. I listened to them rage against how those horrible 'murcans didn't like them, didn't pick them for the kickball team, didn't appreciate their art, and those horrible, nasty 'murcans must be subjugated as punishment. Nasty, nasty folks in flyover country.

And I thought of men like my father, working an honest day in middle America to raise his children. I thought of my neighbors and my friends, my classmates and my coworkers. I thought of all the decent people I grew up with, and how our liberal elites would smear them.

And I said I must defend my people.

But you say there is no anger?

I have seen them, wild-eyed and spittle-flecked, shouting anti-American (and more specifically) anti-middle-class epithets that would shock Hezbollah. I have seen them burn the flag of my country and my parent's adopted home, and I have seen them raise the flag of the dictatorship my parents fled from.

You say there is no anger?

I have seen them in person, and I have seen them on zombietime after I moved back to America proper. I see it on liberal blogs. Hell, I see it in the smug comments left on other Atlantic blogs.

You say there is no anger? That's a load of male cow's feces.

You have seen the anger. You just choose to ignore it.

Posted by secret asian man | June 21, 2008 1:17 PM

Yes, yes, S.A.M. Finer, more poignant analysis!

I, too, railed against and denigrated middle America despite having my own roots there. At some point I began to question the validity of my own assumptions based on the caricatures I had railed against, realizing that these had little to do with the actual people I grew up around and lived with.

There certainly is rural squalor and dreck and brutishness, but most folks here in the American hinterland disapprove of it and apply group pressure. Few seem to think gun crimes, for instance, require suspending the Second Amendment any more than urbanites would think the existence of pick-pockets would call for amputating everyone's hands.

Yes, yes, S.A.M. is right. There is anger trained o caricatures. And those caricatured aren't happy about it, either, once the anger turns into self-righteous, leftist political activism.

Posted by Yesman (aka: MarkG) | June 21, 2008 2:08 PM

Megan

I have a hunch that you think, additionally:

* .....the ways to hell (including such places as a certain camp on Guatanamo Bay, and most of the rest of Cuba)tend to be paved with good intentions.

* .....muddle is the most reliable ally of the malign.

* .....the wheels of the US Constitution sometimes grind rough and sometimes grind slow, but they crack a hell of a lot of issues.

Posted by Diversity | June 21, 2008 3:17 PM

*I think that some professional bloggers suffer from a lack of self-awareness so acute that serial self-parody ensues.

.

Posted by ed | June 21, 2008 4:46 PM

You say there is no anger?

Word, S.A.M. I remember this one blogger who suggested that peaceful Iraq Invasion protesters (who were obviously proved dadgum right) get smacked with a 2 x 4. That's some serious anger right there. And you're right, it's a serious problem in this great country.

Posted by ed | June 21, 2008 4:55 PM

Whoever this 'secret asian man' is, we'd all do well to pay him heed.

The Truth of what he is saying should be obvious to anyone who has more than two synapses to fire.

This: "You have seen the anger. You just choose to ignore it." directed toward MM, to no response, is the tale of the tape.

Following on this: "*I think that some professional bloggers suffer from a lack of self-awareness so acute that serial self-parody ensues."

Posted by ed | June 21, 2008 4:46 PM

What, exactly, makes a Pro-State BoosterGirl pretend to be 'libertarian'?

Posted by Mark E Hoffer | June 21, 2008 8:24 PM

I'd add:

* I think dissent should be honored.

* I think the rift between those who thrive on change and those who don't is bigger than commonly thought.

* I think the frequent inability of creative people to recognize the creativity of others, outside their own oeuvre, is a major reason for harsh judgments about others' motivations.

* I think labeling is more important than thinking for many people. Counting makes this worse.

Posted by David Tufte | June 22, 2008 11:28 AM

"I think that it is kind of creepy when everyone in a room, or a comment thread, agrees with each other."

I find it even creepier when a bitter nutter (http://thegspot.typepad.com) spends every waking moment obsessing over another person. The only explanation is that Ms G. is in love with you.

Posted by W Schmidt | June 22, 2008 7:21 PM

I believe in coyotes
And time as an abstract

Posted by Woody Bombay | June 22, 2008 7:36 PM

Yesman wrote:

Yes, yes, S.A.M. is right. There is anger trained o caricatures. And those caricatured aren't happy about it, either, once the anger turns into self-righteous, leftist political activism.

Having just moved from the middle of the country to the east coast (for work, not lifestyle), there's plenty of right wing hubris, hatred and caricature going around. I have a vivid memory explaining to a clerk from my old bank when I was closing an account that, in fact, the vast majority of people in NYC don't live like Carrie Bradshaw, but are instead going to and from work to feed their families just like everyone else.

Posted by Crimfan | June 23, 2008 1:19 PM

"Culture gives you the preferences by which you evaluate it"...well, what about people who live at the intersection of multiple culures?

Consider, for example, a German officer in the late 1930s (I'm thinking of a sophisticated intellectual like Gen Ludwig Beck.) He is a member of European Englightenment culure, also of Prussian military culture. Not to mention Catholic or Protestant culture. And he is now surrounded by National Socialist culture.

All of these cultures are telling him to do different things. Within your model, how is he supposed to decide which to follow?

Posted by david foster | June 24, 2008 12:16 AM

I think almost no one adequately appreciates how much heavy lifting hidden cultural norms do in our political and economic systems.

So true. They're the real reason most people "behave" themselves ("behave" being a culturally-defined term, of course), even in the absence of oversight.

They're the reason limited government -- limited to the point you can hardly see it, I hope -- is a viable option, and a desirable goal.

Posted by sh(A)ne | July 8, 2008 5:24 PM