An issue that I'm even more concerned about than what I covered in my last post is the tendency of elite's to create a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy that those qualities the elites value lead to success because the elites value those qualities. To a large extent, these qualities are usually of some value, the problem lies in that whatever a given set of valued qualities are needed to fulfill the roles valued by elites there will always still be important roles that require qualities other than what the elites value.
In the case of the US, I see the set of qualities being valued by our elite as being those needed to be a successful businessman and entrepreneur. This is probably very adaptive, I believe we need rather more businessmen and entrepreneurs as elites than we need other character types. However, in certain roles the kind of character traits needed to be a successful entrepreneur can be seriously maladaptive.
I'll admit this is more of an anecdotal personal observation than something I have firm evidence for. Still, something that struck me during the banking crisis was how often the bankers defended the huge payments they were getting by arguing about how they worked very hard and stressful jobs and put in 80 hour weeks. My gut reaction was that this is exactly the kind of person I don't want handling my money. I'm very conservative on financial matters and very risk adverse. I don't want someone that is taking high risks, very success focused, and probably sleep deprived handling my money. I want a boring, family-man, accountant type that goes home at 5 P.M every day and thinks driving 2 m.p.h over the speed limit is daring. Someone that hates risk, hates debt, and will watch every penny.
But we don't select our elites on these criteria. We select them for more entrepreneurial qualities. We look for risk takers, people willing to work hard, and people willing to sacrifice other aspects of their life to their careers. In business and new industry this is what we want. We probably don't want this as often in bankers (I'd add doctors and lawyers but they're a bit outside the elites I'm discussing here), or most political offices (the presidency would be a possible exception). I see this as a significant flaw in our system. There are important roles that we need filled that simply aren't well adapted for the risk taking type. But to get to the higher levels of society, we select strongly for people willing to risk high levels of debt, focus very narrowly on their careers, are willing to work very, very hard, and that tend to be very highly specialized. For many roles, this is exactly what we need. But it is important to remember that the best may not necessarily be the brightest, and that even the best and brightest may not be the hardest working. Our method of selecting the elite results in very good people but it requires certain qualities that may not be the best fit for a particular role. Finding ways of creating alternate paths into the American elite could only benefit our society.
I especially like the idea of forcing bankers to accept 40 hour weeks and not hiring anyone to a top banking spot that has high levels of debt. Not going to happen but I think the financial system is the place where high risk profit is ultimately least appropriate because externalities fall particularly disparately on the public at large relative to the person causing the fallout. And the rewards vice versa.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Part 1: What's Wrong with America's Elites?
I had meant to take this up rather later, after addressing schools, but the Economist's Schumpeter blog has been writing on the subject so it seems current.
There is currently a very strong current of anti-elitism in America. While much of this seems to me unjustified, I don't believe all of it is. The problem with any elite is that it will necessarily set the conditions of success in a way that self-perpetuates itself, even if not necessarily consciously so. This is a problem because it leads to a lack of diversity of viewpoint and selects people that match the profiles of the existing elite more than they do the needs of the current society. This of course isn't entirely avoidable though I do think recognizing it and mitigating the effects of this is within the capacity of the human animal.
In America, the particular quality that bothers me about the elite is its complete intolerance of failure, at least failure early in life. While I don't disagree that the elite is composed of extremely talented people from extremely diverse origins, it's remarkable the extent in which the elite's background is similar once they are past their origins. Pretty much invariably it consists of over-achiever in high school, remarkable college record followed by elite college education, and topped off with a pretty smooth progress up the career ladder.
What you don't see is someone becoming part of the elite after, self-educating themselves and doing odd jobs including as a ferryman until reaching 24 (Lincoln), resigning from law school to chase women around France not attaining a serious position until the ripe old age of 32 (Bismarck), or years of being unable to find a teaching position followed by years of low level government employment (Einstein). These are just the first three to occur to me, previously it seemed less uncommon for someone to rise to prominence later in life. We still allow this in the arts and a few other places, but few that are important in politics or other influential posts have these kinds of backgrounds. Not that such men were ever common but the system that selects the elite seems far more unforgiving of failure, and later redemption, than it ever did in the past.
This, of course, is at a time when most of us expect to go through many jobs in our life and when education has become more important than ever but difficult to access at elite levels if the standard path of elite preparation is not followed. There is an appearance that it has become very difficult to join the elite unless you are young, and either privileged, or dedicated enough, to be able pay dues in the form of unpaid internships or other activities that stand out from the crowd. A brilliant mind that led a distracted youth would have little chance today of joining the elite if they had spent their youth chasing women around the country working odd jobs, well unless they happened to be doing this in Asia or Africa.
This matters for two reasons. First of all, it neglects a large part of the talent pool. There are a lot of people that went on to be very successful despite dissolute youths, it is very hard for these individuals to break into the elite today (unless of course the parents are well connected, which would have been a requirement earlier as well, still it is the less well off that seem to me more likely to fall into this category than the ones that grew up with natural role models for the modern elite). Second, this leads to too many people in positions of power that haven't experienced the kinds of hardships common in the adult lives of Americans. It may be true they faced deprivation when they were young. But did they have the experience of not being able to find a job or of having to work for years outside their field? How about switching career paths in mid-life?
This of course shouldn't be an insurmountable problem. There are other ways of choosing elites. Consciousness of this could lead to a greater focus on giving people a second chance at education and making it easier to attend college while raising a family (extending unemployment benefits as long as someone is attending college would be a good first start). More means of acquiring needed certifications would help. In general, the problem isn't with the elites we are getting now, most of them are great people, the problem, and the resentment, is there are a lot of ways that someone worthy can be excluded. Admitting this, and dealing with it, would at least help mitigate the resentment Americans are feeling.
Of course, on a purely symbolic level, appointing someone to a prominent position that didn't get their degree till later and that experienced significant bouts of unemployment would probably help quite a bit. There may be someone like this in the administration but if so, they are doing little to promote the fact
There is currently a very strong current of anti-elitism in America. While much of this seems to me unjustified, I don't believe all of it is. The problem with any elite is that it will necessarily set the conditions of success in a way that self-perpetuates itself, even if not necessarily consciously so. This is a problem because it leads to a lack of diversity of viewpoint and selects people that match the profiles of the existing elite more than they do the needs of the current society. This of course isn't entirely avoidable though I do think recognizing it and mitigating the effects of this is within the capacity of the human animal.
In America, the particular quality that bothers me about the elite is its complete intolerance of failure, at least failure early in life. While I don't disagree that the elite is composed of extremely talented people from extremely diverse origins, it's remarkable the extent in which the elite's background is similar once they are past their origins. Pretty much invariably it consists of over-achiever in high school, remarkable college record followed by elite college education, and topped off with a pretty smooth progress up the career ladder.
What you don't see is someone becoming part of the elite after, self-educating themselves and doing odd jobs including as a ferryman until reaching 24 (Lincoln), resigning from law school to chase women around France not attaining a serious position until the ripe old age of 32 (Bismarck), or years of being unable to find a teaching position followed by years of low level government employment (Einstein). These are just the first three to occur to me, previously it seemed less uncommon for someone to rise to prominence later in life. We still allow this in the arts and a few other places, but few that are important in politics or other influential posts have these kinds of backgrounds. Not that such men were ever common but the system that selects the elite seems far more unforgiving of failure, and later redemption, than it ever did in the past.
This, of course, is at a time when most of us expect to go through many jobs in our life and when education has become more important than ever but difficult to access at elite levels if the standard path of elite preparation is not followed. There is an appearance that it has become very difficult to join the elite unless you are young, and either privileged, or dedicated enough, to be able pay dues in the form of unpaid internships or other activities that stand out from the crowd. A brilliant mind that led a distracted youth would have little chance today of joining the elite if they had spent their youth chasing women around the country working odd jobs, well unless they happened to be doing this in Asia or Africa.
This matters for two reasons. First of all, it neglects a large part of the talent pool. There are a lot of people that went on to be very successful despite dissolute youths, it is very hard for these individuals to break into the elite today (unless of course the parents are well connected, which would have been a requirement earlier as well, still it is the less well off that seem to me more likely to fall into this category than the ones that grew up with natural role models for the modern elite). Second, this leads to too many people in positions of power that haven't experienced the kinds of hardships common in the adult lives of Americans. It may be true they faced deprivation when they were young. But did they have the experience of not being able to find a job or of having to work for years outside their field? How about switching career paths in mid-life?
This of course shouldn't be an insurmountable problem. There are other ways of choosing elites. Consciousness of this could lead to a greater focus on giving people a second chance at education and making it easier to attend college while raising a family (extending unemployment benefits as long as someone is attending college would be a good first start). More means of acquiring needed certifications would help. In general, the problem isn't with the elites we are getting now, most of them are great people, the problem, and the resentment, is there are a lot of ways that someone worthy can be excluded. Admitting this, and dealing with it, would at least help mitigate the resentment Americans are feeling.
Of course, on a purely symbolic level, appointing someone to a prominent position that didn't get their degree till later and that experienced significant bouts of unemployment would probably help quite a bit. There may be someone like this in the administration but if so, they are doing little to promote the fact
Some Preliminaries: Politics has Consequences
This is the last of these before I start zeroing in on some topics more particular to the US.
Something that strikes me a great deal with political discussions is how often it takes the frame of either simple tribalism, liberals are socialists vs conservatives are theocrats for example, or how often it is treated as simply some sort of complete abstraction where individuals struggle over a distribution of resources with little in the way of real world consequences to specific distributions beyond one group getting stronger and another weaker.
While I understand the potential usefulness of these attitudes towards rallying support or analysis (respectively) I think it is critical to remember that many policies have powerful long run impacts. There are a few that no doubt are purely distributional, these policies will distribute resources among various groups and reflect particular visions of society without any society-wide consequences beyond this distribution.
These policies are the exception. At the end of most of them, there may be a child later suffering long term unemployment due to insufficient nourishment or medical care early in life leading to long term deficiencies, slower economic growth leaving skilled people unemployed with broken families as a result, and on a broader level, mass unrest, political collapse, and war. These aren't often the consequences of a single decision but rather a series of them. Regarding many of our political debates, in the longer run one viewpoint, or a small handful, is correct, the rest are wrong. If we follow the wrong policies we will not be able to compete with nations pursuing the correct ones. We will fall behind, our standard of living will fall, and the consequences will eventually be huge.
This is why it is critical to step outside of partisanship and attempt to ask what our problems really are and how do we fix them. Sticking to political principles or a belief in how society should work is not enough, while I have the right, and perhaps the duty, to sacrifice my own success for deeper principles or beliefs I do not have the same right to apply this thinking to others through the political system. There is no justice in picking a principled course of action that results in harm, or even death, to others. It is rare to have a political decision that will not result in harm to someone; this gives us an obligation to think about the long term consequences of our actions to seek to minimize the extent to which the actions we take will cause this harm to others, which is something we have no right to do. Of course, at this level inaction is the same as action, failing to pursue a policy that would mitigate this harm imposes the same moral obligation on us that taking an action that causes would. Which is why it is so important not to prove any of our ideas right but to instead focus on getting the right idea, no matter how much this contradicts our existing beliefs.
Something that strikes me a great deal with political discussions is how often it takes the frame of either simple tribalism, liberals are socialists vs conservatives are theocrats for example, or how often it is treated as simply some sort of complete abstraction where individuals struggle over a distribution of resources with little in the way of real world consequences to specific distributions beyond one group getting stronger and another weaker.
While I understand the potential usefulness of these attitudes towards rallying support or analysis (respectively) I think it is critical to remember that many policies have powerful long run impacts. There are a few that no doubt are purely distributional, these policies will distribute resources among various groups and reflect particular visions of society without any society-wide consequences beyond this distribution.
These policies are the exception. At the end of most of them, there may be a child later suffering long term unemployment due to insufficient nourishment or medical care early in life leading to long term deficiencies, slower economic growth leaving skilled people unemployed with broken families as a result, and on a broader level, mass unrest, political collapse, and war. These aren't often the consequences of a single decision but rather a series of them. Regarding many of our political debates, in the longer run one viewpoint, or a small handful, is correct, the rest are wrong. If we follow the wrong policies we will not be able to compete with nations pursuing the correct ones. We will fall behind, our standard of living will fall, and the consequences will eventually be huge.
This is why it is critical to step outside of partisanship and attempt to ask what our problems really are and how do we fix them. Sticking to political principles or a belief in how society should work is not enough, while I have the right, and perhaps the duty, to sacrifice my own success for deeper principles or beliefs I do not have the same right to apply this thinking to others through the political system. There is no justice in picking a principled course of action that results in harm, or even death, to others. It is rare to have a political decision that will not result in harm to someone; this gives us an obligation to think about the long term consequences of our actions to seek to minimize the extent to which the actions we take will cause this harm to others, which is something we have no right to do. Of course, at this level inaction is the same as action, failing to pursue a policy that would mitigate this harm imposes the same moral obligation on us that taking an action that causes would. Which is why it is so important not to prove any of our ideas right but to instead focus on getting the right idea, no matter how much this contradicts our existing beliefs.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Ideology and History
One, of rather many, ways of interpreting ideas and history is through the great debates of the time. For the twentieth century I think I can rather uncontroversially say the debates were democracy vs. authoritarianism (three round match here, democracy vs. monarchy, democracy vs. fascism, and democracy vs. communist totalitarianism) and socialism vs. capitalism (pretty decisively settled with the Soviet Union's collapse).
It's very important to remember that these aren't debates that frame all of history. I'd argue that socialism vs. capitalism is a debate brought about specifically by the rapid change of the industrial revolution. While it retains some force, I'd say we've extracted pretty much everything we can from this particular debate. It turns out that this isn't a defining way of organizing society, try to organize society strictly by this philosophy and you get nothing besides eventual social collapse. Instead, we have various forms of mixed economies and it seems increasingly dated as a way of classifying much of anything. It's rapidly becoming as archaic as debates about religious identity and society would be today. No one is going to argue that it's a critical state interest if our citizenry ascribes to the monophysite or Nestorian nature of Christ or even that Catholic hierarchy is necessary for social cohesion. People fought and died over these beliefs because they believed they were essential to social and political identity. While few would deny religion is important today, even fewer would argue that it is an essential component of social organization. We can see that these beliefs simply had little relation to social outcomes.
Today, it seems obvious to all but a few academic theoreticians and idealogues that the debate of socialism vs. capitalism just isn't descriptive of what makes societies successful or not. It may remain a useful category for classifying certain economic beliefs or policies but in the end it is not an either/or choice and policies must be judged on individual merits, not on their place on the axis of socialism and capitalism. It is also increasingly obvious that a lot of economic theory and policy don't fit well within this frame, people may have fought and died over these ideas but the social reality has roared past the point where these remain useful concepts.
Democracy vs. authoritarianism by contrast can be seen as an iteration of the classic debate about paternalism. I believe it's undeniable that people have a certain degree of paternalistic instinct and an ingrained sense of hierarchy, these things just seem to form naturally. However, at any given time there seems to be a debate over what aspects of life should be subject to paternalistic authority and which instead need the consent of the group. In classical times, this was a debate about hereditary aristocracy vs. the masses. In the middle ages it seemed more suppressed, but the relative freedom of the cities vs. the nobility seems to perhaps be a roughly equivalent frame (one that wasn't really decisively resolved, we just passed beyond the point it made sense). By the Enlightenment we get the most famous iteration of this, liberalism vs. divine right. Then of course, twin domestic and international debates of universal vs. limited suffrage and democracy vs. monarchy then authoritrianism.
Today, I see this debate largely settled. Very few argue we should look to authoritarian states for guidance, in authoritarian states by contrast many argue they should look more to democracies. The iteration of this debate that I think has been forming over the past few decades seems to be about the wealthy investor vs. democratic decision making (I really need a catchier term for this). I call this paternalism because it closely resembles earlier iterations of this. Some subset of powerful individuals has a special quality that renders their ability to understand a situation necessarily superior to another group of individuals not so empowered. In this case, people with money have a proper understanding of social return on say, a tunnel, that people that don't have the money but might say, live in New Jersey but have jobs in NYC, don't have. In this view, if the policy was a good idea the powerful would have found a way to make money off of it and done it themselves. Since they can't, then obviously the not rich who want it must be wrong about its ultimate benefits.
While in the case given I obviously have an opinion on which side is right and which wrong, in general I don't think this particular debate has a clear answer. I do think these debates on paternalism in society move a society forward, however, I believe they must be recognized for what they are. This is a debate of the same kind that democracy vs. authoritarianism is. It's about whether some people have special capacities by virtue of their social role (whether some people have special knowledge because they have spent a great deal of time learning about said subject would be a different debate, though still paternalistic. As with other debates about paternalism, the paternalist often has a point, the problem is when it is taken too far) or if instead people who don't have that position can have just as strong arguments in favor of it. Of course, as in other iterations the waters get muddied by those who benefit from obscuring the terms of debate. In the end though, I don't really see how this is any different from other iterations of this particular battle.
It's very important to remember that these aren't debates that frame all of history. I'd argue that socialism vs. capitalism is a debate brought about specifically by the rapid change of the industrial revolution. While it retains some force, I'd say we've extracted pretty much everything we can from this particular debate. It turns out that this isn't a defining way of organizing society, try to organize society strictly by this philosophy and you get nothing besides eventual social collapse. Instead, we have various forms of mixed economies and it seems increasingly dated as a way of classifying much of anything. It's rapidly becoming as archaic as debates about religious identity and society would be today. No one is going to argue that it's a critical state interest if our citizenry ascribes to the monophysite or Nestorian nature of Christ or even that Catholic hierarchy is necessary for social cohesion. People fought and died over these beliefs because they believed they were essential to social and political identity. While few would deny religion is important today, even fewer would argue that it is an essential component of social organization. We can see that these beliefs simply had little relation to social outcomes.
Today, it seems obvious to all but a few academic theoreticians and idealogues that the debate of socialism vs. capitalism just isn't descriptive of what makes societies successful or not. It may remain a useful category for classifying certain economic beliefs or policies but in the end it is not an either/or choice and policies must be judged on individual merits, not on their place on the axis of socialism and capitalism. It is also increasingly obvious that a lot of economic theory and policy don't fit well within this frame, people may have fought and died over these ideas but the social reality has roared past the point where these remain useful concepts.
Democracy vs. authoritarianism by contrast can be seen as an iteration of the classic debate about paternalism. I believe it's undeniable that people have a certain degree of paternalistic instinct and an ingrained sense of hierarchy, these things just seem to form naturally. However, at any given time there seems to be a debate over what aspects of life should be subject to paternalistic authority and which instead need the consent of the group. In classical times, this was a debate about hereditary aristocracy vs. the masses. In the middle ages it seemed more suppressed, but the relative freedom of the cities vs. the nobility seems to perhaps be a roughly equivalent frame (one that wasn't really decisively resolved, we just passed beyond the point it made sense). By the Enlightenment we get the most famous iteration of this, liberalism vs. divine right. Then of course, twin domestic and international debates of universal vs. limited suffrage and democracy vs. monarchy then authoritrianism.
Today, I see this debate largely settled. Very few argue we should look to authoritarian states for guidance, in authoritarian states by contrast many argue they should look more to democracies. The iteration of this debate that I think has been forming over the past few decades seems to be about the wealthy investor vs. democratic decision making (I really need a catchier term for this). I call this paternalism because it closely resembles earlier iterations of this. Some subset of powerful individuals has a special quality that renders their ability to understand a situation necessarily superior to another group of individuals not so empowered. In this case, people with money have a proper understanding of social return on say, a tunnel, that people that don't have the money but might say, live in New Jersey but have jobs in NYC, don't have. In this view, if the policy was a good idea the powerful would have found a way to make money off of it and done it themselves. Since they can't, then obviously the not rich who want it must be wrong about its ultimate benefits.
While in the case given I obviously have an opinion on which side is right and which wrong, in general I don't think this particular debate has a clear answer. I do think these debates on paternalism in society move a society forward, however, I believe they must be recognized for what they are. This is a debate of the same kind that democracy vs. authoritarianism is. It's about whether some people have special capacities by virtue of their social role (whether some people have special knowledge because they have spent a great deal of time learning about said subject would be a different debate, though still paternalistic. As with other debates about paternalism, the paternalist often has a point, the problem is when it is taken too far) or if instead people who don't have that position can have just as strong arguments in favor of it. Of course, as in other iterations the waters get muddied by those who benefit from obscuring the terms of debate. In the end though, I don't really see how this is any different from other iterations of this particular battle.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Some Preliminaries: On Determining What is Natural
I'm lingering on the subject of what is natural for a bit because it seems fairly common for a political belief to be defended because something is human nature or to develop a theory based upon the notion that something is an intrinsic trait of humanity. While I do agree that there is no getting around human nature, I believe there are very, very few things that are actually human nature and very, very many things that people mistake for human nature that are in fact cultural. I also have strong doubts that enough of human social behavior is intrinsic and natural to base a society on. Most things called human nature seem to me to instead be culturally specific beliefs rather than ones that transcend particular cultural values.
In the words of Ibn Khaldun
(as translated by Franz Rosenthal and edited by N.J. Dawood anyway) many:
Words as true today as in the 14th century.*
So, I regard a simple test as appropriate whenever anyone claims anything to be human nature. Very little passes it. That test is that whatever is being claimed as human nature or as a principle or foundational or anything of the sort must be shown to:
a) Emerge independently in multiple time frames
b) Emerge independently in multiple cultural frames
c) Emerge independently in multiple geographic regions
Anything that does not pass these three tests should be considered to be particular, rather than general. Of course, even if something passes the three tests on a nominal level, more research would be required to establish general applicability. If the concept under discussion emerges in writings by a lone writer and is not picked up more generally in a given society I wouldn't count it, for instance.
This isn't to say that something should be dismissed just because it is not natural, as long as it is not being used as a starting point to derive general rules from, in which case I find it impossible to accept that something that is the product of a particular culture is in fact general. Our ancestors weren't stupid, if something was part of the general human condition they were perfectly capable of comprehending it. What modern man has a step up on is that we can create all kinds of wonderful things that have absolutely nothing natural about them that do amazing things for mankind. It is important not to fool ourselves into thinking these things are natural, or essential. They are fragile things built upon extremely complex foundations and thus subject to disruption and ruin. They only persist because of the systems we have created, if we try to break things down to their essentials there is no reason to believe that our complex social organization would survive, very few of our cultural and social ideas have a sufficient natural basis that I believe they could survive in isolation from other ideas less congenial to the social theorist trying to start from first principles.
Which is why I believe it is better to just accept social theory and history as being entirely contingent and building from what we have rather than trying to imagine some state stripped of all that has been built up. We're better off not going back to essentials.
* Ibn Khaldun is largely criticizing that those who write or speak of history don't try to make any more general theory to understand the past. I think we have the opposite problem, people try to make too much general theory without trying to understand the past which is just as bad. There is a tendency to accept the culturally specific as being instead general to the human condition. But cultures and ideas change and what is natural to one generation is an alien species to another.
In the words of Ibn Khaldun
(as translated by Franz Rosenthal and edited by N.J. Dawood anyway) many:disregarded the changes in conditions and in the customs of nations and races that the passing of time had brought about. Thus, they presented historical information about dynasties and stories of events from the earliest times as mere forms without substance, blades without scabbards; as knowledge that must be considered ignorance, because it is not known what of it is extraneous and what is genuine... It concerns species, the genera of which are not taken into consideration, and whose specific differences are not verified. They neglected the importance of change over the generations in their treatment of (historical material)...Ibn, Khaldūn, Franz Rosenthal, and N. J. Dawood. The Muqaddimah, an Introduction to History. [Princeton, N.J.]: Princeton UP, 1969.
Words as true today as in the 14th century.*
So, I regard a simple test as appropriate whenever anyone claims anything to be human nature. Very little passes it. That test is that whatever is being claimed as human nature or as a principle or foundational or anything of the sort must be shown to:
a) Emerge independently in multiple time frames
b) Emerge independently in multiple cultural frames
c) Emerge independently in multiple geographic regions
Anything that does not pass these three tests should be considered to be particular, rather than general. Of course, even if something passes the three tests on a nominal level, more research would be required to establish general applicability. If the concept under discussion emerges in writings by a lone writer and is not picked up more generally in a given society I wouldn't count it, for instance.
This isn't to say that something should be dismissed just because it is not natural, as long as it is not being used as a starting point to derive general rules from, in which case I find it impossible to accept that something that is the product of a particular culture is in fact general. Our ancestors weren't stupid, if something was part of the general human condition they were perfectly capable of comprehending it. What modern man has a step up on is that we can create all kinds of wonderful things that have absolutely nothing natural about them that do amazing things for mankind. It is important not to fool ourselves into thinking these things are natural, or essential. They are fragile things built upon extremely complex foundations and thus subject to disruption and ruin. They only persist because of the systems we have created, if we try to break things down to their essentials there is no reason to believe that our complex social organization would survive, very few of our cultural and social ideas have a sufficient natural basis that I believe they could survive in isolation from other ideas less congenial to the social theorist trying to start from first principles.
Which is why I believe it is better to just accept social theory and history as being entirely contingent and building from what we have rather than trying to imagine some state stripped of all that has been built up. We're better off not going back to essentials.
* Ibn Khaldun is largely criticizing that those who write or speak of history don't try to make any more general theory to understand the past. I think we have the opposite problem, people try to make too much general theory without trying to understand the past which is just as bad. There is a tendency to accept the culturally specific as being instead general to the human condition. But cultures and ideas change and what is natural to one generation is an alien species to another.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Some Preliminaries: On Natural Right
Most ideologies begin with some notion of natural right. This can be Locke's defense of property, the religious justification for the political order of Christendom, Marx's concept of the right to the product of one's labor (generally expressed through the negative of this, alienation from one's labor), or the Thomas Jefferson's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
This is perhaps the most cynical part of my project. I don't believe in natural right. I believe all rights are artificial. This makes them no less important, I personally believe it makes them more rather than less special and important, rights can be justified because they ultimately have resonance with a broad range of individuals and have real positive impacts on societies that adopt them.
I realize for many people this takes away much of the moral justification for rights. Personally, I feel the opposite about it. Nothing makes me more certain that there is a good end for humanity than that we can create concepts of such power with such universal resonance that benefit mankind so much with no ultimate rational or traditional basis for them (the right to life I feel slightly different about, there does seem to be a natural compulsion against murder that may be an individual basis for a more general societal right to life, this is a rather more complicated topic and in any case, the right to life alone is far too little to form a society or ideology around).
In any case, I will be starting by looking at problems and seeking to derive an appropriate ideology rather than using a notion of natural right as a starting point, mostly due to this belief. I think this is just as good as a starting point, Locke's defense of property can be seen as a protest against the personal discretion that ruled property relations in favor of the monarch and law, Marx can be seen as a protest against industrial capital, and Thomas Jefferson as a protest against the divine right in favor of a basis for society in rationality.
I should also confess that I've never quite wrapped my mind around why something natural is better than something artificial, not just in politics but everywhere else. This may be the root of my lack of understanding why the idea of rights being natural is important to some people, I don't get why natural is important anywhere.
This is perhaps the most cynical part of my project. I don't believe in natural right. I believe all rights are artificial. This makes them no less important, I personally believe it makes them more rather than less special and important, rights can be justified because they ultimately have resonance with a broad range of individuals and have real positive impacts on societies that adopt them.
I realize for many people this takes away much of the moral justification for rights. Personally, I feel the opposite about it. Nothing makes me more certain that there is a good end for humanity than that we can create concepts of such power with such universal resonance that benefit mankind so much with no ultimate rational or traditional basis for them (the right to life I feel slightly different about, there does seem to be a natural compulsion against murder that may be an individual basis for a more general societal right to life, this is a rather more complicated topic and in any case, the right to life alone is far too little to form a society or ideology around).
In any case, I will be starting by looking at problems and seeking to derive an appropriate ideology rather than using a notion of natural right as a starting point, mostly due to this belief. I think this is just as good as a starting point, Locke's defense of property can be seen as a protest against the personal discretion that ruled property relations in favor of the monarch and law, Marx can be seen as a protest against industrial capital, and Thomas Jefferson as a protest against the divine right in favor of a basis for society in rationality.
I should also confess that I've never quite wrapped my mind around why something natural is better than something artificial, not just in politics but everywhere else. This may be the root of my lack of understanding why the idea of rights being natural is important to some people, I don't get why natural is important anywhere.
Some Preliminaries: Are There Objective Criteria to Judge Societies By?
There is exactly one objective criteria that societies can be judged by in any frame of reference, ancient or modern. That is survival. After all you have to be in the game to play it.
This isn't to say that other criteria aren't important as well but ultimately these are subjective and limited in their ability to compare across broad sweeps of human history. It's not really fair to talk about Qin dynasty China in terms of its ability to secure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness or the consent of the governed. They weren't even thinking of politics in terms of the individual in this era (though it's not 100% clear to me that the writers of the declaration were thinking entirely in individual terms either, too many signs of corporatism). Their reality was simply too much different to be judged in our terms.
Of course, judging societies by their ability to survive should mean more than just counting how many years they were around. I see three basic qualities, the ability to project power, the ability to maintain stability, and the ability to spur internal development. How these three are framed and recommendations to enhance these qualities very highly across eras, though modern conception certainly seem more effective then older ones.
The reason I regard survival as essential is that other conceptions have what I see as a fatal flaw. That flaw is that while looking at a society at any given time may make economic development, human happiness, or simply responding to people's preferences seem important, in the longer term if society makes the wrong choices reality will come along and mug it, no matter how happy the people are or how well it responds to people's desires. Reality is a harsh mistress, the wrong choices will leave society broken and in pieces, even if every step along the way conformed with the current thinking on how a society should work. The success of a society can be judged by its ability to recognize, and effectively confront, those problems that threaten its long term survival. A society unable to do this is ultimately a failure. While at the time it may be obvious, to history there are right and wrong choices and we will be judged against those, not against how satisfied we are with choices in the moment.
Of course, less than effective societies can survive for a rather long period of time by a conjunction of social forces, such as location and being non-threatening. Since this survival is not due to a society's conscious choices but the choices of others it is more of an exception that proves the rule than something to take guidance by. In any case, this isn't an option for a state of the US's size and ambition so isn't really an option for us. We've already developed enough of a reputation that even if we set aside our ambition I highly doubt we'd be left alone.
This isn't to say that other criteria aren't important as well but ultimately these are subjective and limited in their ability to compare across broad sweeps of human history. It's not really fair to talk about Qin dynasty China in terms of its ability to secure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness or the consent of the governed. They weren't even thinking of politics in terms of the individual in this era (though it's not 100% clear to me that the writers of the declaration were thinking entirely in individual terms either, too many signs of corporatism). Their reality was simply too much different to be judged in our terms.
Of course, judging societies by their ability to survive should mean more than just counting how many years they were around. I see three basic qualities, the ability to project power, the ability to maintain stability, and the ability to spur internal development. How these three are framed and recommendations to enhance these qualities very highly across eras, though modern conception certainly seem more effective then older ones.
The reason I regard survival as essential is that other conceptions have what I see as a fatal flaw. That flaw is that while looking at a society at any given time may make economic development, human happiness, or simply responding to people's preferences seem important, in the longer term if society makes the wrong choices reality will come along and mug it, no matter how happy the people are or how well it responds to people's desires. Reality is a harsh mistress, the wrong choices will leave society broken and in pieces, even if every step along the way conformed with the current thinking on how a society should work. The success of a society can be judged by its ability to recognize, and effectively confront, those problems that threaten its long term survival. A society unable to do this is ultimately a failure. While at the time it may be obvious, to history there are right and wrong choices and we will be judged against those, not against how satisfied we are with choices in the moment.
Of course, less than effective societies can survive for a rather long period of time by a conjunction of social forces, such as location and being non-threatening. Since this survival is not due to a society's conscious choices but the choices of others it is more of an exception that proves the rule than something to take guidance by. In any case, this isn't an option for a state of the US's size and ambition so isn't really an option for us. We've already developed enough of a reputation that even if we set aside our ambition I highly doubt we'd be left alone.
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