Today’s Denver Post carried an interesting story about the Southern Utes having transformed themselves into a successful mineral extraction corporation (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_16039376). It is a fascinating story of how one form of organization (tribal) can be deployed in innovative ways (commercial and industrial), and of how the innovation can serve the interests of the members of the organization. But what does it mean for the identity of the Southern Utes? How much of their traditional identity will survive such a transformation, and does it matter if the answer is “not much”? As in all such stories, the underlying question is “how much is gained, and how much is lost?” And how does this transformation fit into the existing social institutional landscape? Are tribal tax exemptions and paternalistic federal policies under such circumstances relics of the past, exploited and suffered in the present?
These kinds of questions, and the questions of how to keep up with social institutional transformations on the ground, so that our public policies do not address the conditions of the past but rather the conditions of the ever-changing present, represent a critical underlying challenge to our policy makers and, as the ultimate sovereign, to each and every one of us. Our fixed beliefs and stagnant certainties do not meet that challenge: We need to constantly strive to apply a broadly applicable system of analysis to a constantly changing world.
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Some recent on-line interactions, and many that came before, have brought home the importance of addressing the role that anger plays in political discourse. There are many dimensions to the problem (and I do see it as a problem), involving both empathy and narcissism, fragile egos and legitimate concerns.
First, a disclaimer: I do not consider myself either immune to or innocent of the expression of anger in political discourse. This is not one of those political divides with some people on one side and some on the other, but rather one in which aspects of each of us can be found on either side of the divide, with some individuals more to one side than the other.
This is not a problem that belongs exclusively to one ideological camp or another: Within the last week, I’ve been angrily lambasted by two ideologues, one on the left and one on the right, cascades of enraged pejoratives issuing forth from each, each upset with me for disputing their respective highly combative certainties. The problem, as I repeatedly tried to tell them both, isn’t the ideology, but the attitude. It may be that the attitude correlates more strongly with one ideology or another, but that is not the relevant point; rather, the attitude, wherever it occurs, is toxic, and far more of an obstruction to progress than the substance of any particular ideology.
Still, there are legitimate questions involved: Is anger ever useful? Does it ever serve an indispensible political or social function, motivating people who would otherwise be unable to motivate themselves, or disincentivizing behaviors that are on the wrong side of such reactions? If so, to what extent and under what circumstances? Is anger ever the best possible reaction? Or is it sometimes the best attainable reaction, even if not the best imaginable? Or is it simply dysfunctional, in all circumstances?
A moderate, reasonable poster on a Facebook thread where the angry left-wing ideologue tried to convince Democrats not to vote for Democratic candidates in protest of their not being pure enough for him, gently praised his anger, while opposing his call to inaction. She viewed his anger as a productive, motivating force, putting the feet of the powerful to the fire. This may be the case sometimes, but I think it is grossly exaggerated, and more often an excuse for engaging in something for the most part dysfunctional.
First, we exaggerate the degree to which our public officials are “the other,” serving their own interests at our expense. While there is certainly some of that, I think it is far more often the case that our public officials are sincerely dedicated to some view of what produces the greatest public good, and are passionately working in service to that agenda. More often than not, public service involves accepting a salary well below one’s earning potential (though there are arguably much larger long-term financial benefits), and certainly far more public scrutiny and constraint of personal liberty and personal space than adheres to work in the private sector, or in lower-profile positions. Some of this is off-set by the honor involved, by the prestige conferred, but being an elected official is not an unambiguous boon for those who successfully pursue that path.
Second, the ideological certainties that spark inter- or intra-partisan public anger with elected officials, on average, are wrong more often than they are right (I am not including anger over alleged ethical breaches, which is not the issue here). If we assume, generously, that in interpartisan disputes, one side is on balance wrong and one side is on balance right in any given instance (it may often be the case that both sides are on balance wrong, though it is almost impossible for both sides to be on balance right), then the split between false certainties and justified outrage would be about 50-50. But the intraparty ideological disputes reduce the portion of those who are “right” into some balance of those who are right and those who are wrong once again, leaving significantly more than 50% of the individual instances of angry certainty in the wrong on the substance of the matter (even disregarding the disutility of the form, in those instances in which individuals are in the right on the substance of the matter).
So, if we all employ righteous anger on behalf of those positions we are each absolutely certain are the right positions to advocate, more righteous anger, on average, is being deployed on behalf of positions erroneously held than on behalf of well-founded ones. The Czech author Milan Kundera, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, captured both this, and the more general dysfunctionality of anger even when right, by putting in the mouth of his main character, observing an angry protest in Paris, “Don’t they understand that the raised fists are the problem?”
I’ve argued in another post (The Foundational Progressive Agenda: http://coloradoconfluence.com/?p=317) that humility is the necessary cure for this defect in our discourse: We have to each strive to recognize, especially in matters that are contested by large segments of our society, that, in any given instance, what we are certain is true may not be, and that by each admitting that, we open up greater opportunities to approach, together, understandings that are closer to the truth.
The perennial counterargument to this, of course, is “but they’re not willing to do this, so by doing so unilaterally, we only weaken ourselves.” I don’t believe that this is accurate (of course, I may be wrong! :)); I believe that those who argue with the most reason, goodwill, and humility are, in the long-run, the most attractive to the persuadable majority, and provide the best and most useful contrast to the unmovable ideological zealots who have almost always dominated public discourse.
What anger does is to divide and entrench us, to divert more of our energies to non-productive conflict and away from productive efforts to serve human needs. The inevitable conflict over how best to govern ourselves, in general and particular, serves us best when it is least rancorous, and most rational. The commitment to striving to be reasonable, humble people of goodwill is the cornerstone of such constructive public discourse. Anger, both within and without, is our common enemy.
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http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_15978047
I strongly recommend this article by Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University and former chief economist at the IMF. It is a clear-headed, highly informative, non-ideological analysis that everyone should know and understand.
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(The following was originally written as a Facebook post in response to one of the typically overwrought, implacable demands for some sort of a purist rejection of our current Democratic leadership, due to its failure to satisfy the writer’s view of what they needed to be doing):
The most important principle in politics is “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” or even of the least bad. Politics is the art of the possible, and the pursuit of the best attainable arrangements, all things considered. Every decision by every individual should be measured by its effect.
The reality we are dealing with includes not only what we each identify as what should be, but also what everyone else identifies as what should be, and what can be accomplished within the context of that distribution of values, beliefs, and opinions, including to what extent they can be moved and changed.
It’s also critical to remember that, in a complex and subtle world, designing the best policies and making the best decisions on pending legislation is an information intensive activity, necessitating not only a sophisticated understanding of the complex systems involved (the articulation of human social institutional, technological, and natural systems), but also of the details of what is happening on the ground. A great piece of legislation, for instance, often becomes a Trojan Horse for a horrible rider, and a smart legislator has to weigh the benefits of the great bill against the costs of the horrible rider. A lot of the armchair quarterbacking that goes on is oblivious to this dimension of the challenge, and many such dimensions exist.
We accomplish the most, and progress the most robustly, when we gravitate toward a pragmatic realism, cultivating a calm belief that it is possible for human beings to govern themselves wisely, in service to human welfare, and keeping all involved (including the electorate) focused on how best to do so. We accomplish the least (and do the most to undermine any and all positive efforts that are being made) when we gravitate to conflicting poles, insisting that our own faction’s vision is the only acceptable one, and that nothing else will do. It fails both on pragmatic grounds (it paralyzes our ability to progress) and on realism grounds (there is more genius in the humility of the many than in the hubris of the few).
There are political goals more fundamental than advancing the policies of the moment. Those goals require cultivating, each in ourselves and all of us together, certain qualities that improve our collective ability to design and implement the best policies in any moment.
One such quality, as I’ve already suggested, is humility. We serve a truly progressive agenda best when we each strive to recognize that what we individually believe to be true may or may not be, that our own certainties may be mistaken, that our own conclusions may be incorrect. This breeds two positive behaviors: 1) It motivates us each to keep learning, to keep examining, to keep absorbing information and recognizing that we never know or understand enough; and 2) it improves our ability to work in productive concert with those who have sincere and legitimate disagreements with us. The second is most useful when the ultimate ends are less disputed than the means for achieving them, as is often (though not always) the case.
Aligning the ultimate ends is best served by striving to be people of goodwill, driven by empathy more than by mutual indifference. Not everyone is willing to agree that that is a laudable goal, but most are. Some will argue that it is a laudable goal, but not the proper purview of government, which is fine, because it provides a foundation of agreement about the ends within which to debate what the most effective means are, a foundation that works as long as we cultivate the other necessary qualities as well (humility and reason).
As I just said, the third quality is striving to be reasonable. Many believe that they are doing so, but few are. An important first step is to recognize how our minds really work, by thinking in frames and narratives which may or may not serve the cause of reason in any given instance. Being aware of this helps us to coopt the reality in service to the ideal, of guiding our frames and narratives in service to reason.
These three qualities (striving to be humble, striving to be empathetic, and striving to be reasonable), together, comprise a deeper political goal, that of creating the most robust and fertile cognitive and cultural context for social and political progress.
I think we serve ourselves best by prioritizing our commitment to this “deep structural political goal” above all of the other more ephemeral and superficial (though often critically important) goals which depend upon it. Doing so serves our long-term ability both to advance those immediate political goals most effectively, and to ensure that they are the right goals to advance before doing so.
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Here are concise and informative summaries of these three ballot initiatives in Colorado:
These three ballot initiatives would have the individual and combined effect of completely destroying Colorado’s revenue base, eliminating or decimating our last remaining revenue streams, retroactively removing from voters’ discretion the ability to suspend the draconian limitations we’ve placed on the state and local governments’ ability to tax citizens, and disabling us from providing the minimally necessary funding to run our schools and maintain our infrastructure.
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This thread had begun as the reposting of a discussion with a conservative friend of mine on Facebook, whose willingness to engage in such civil discourse I respect and admire. She hadn’t intended to publish her thoughts in a forum such as this, however, and asked me to take her posts down. So, instead, I am converting this thread into an invitation to all: Let’s lay out the two (or more) sides of this debate, work together at discovering what underlying values we agree on, and what precise details are contested, and then examine that contested range of beliefs, values, and conclusions with a willingness to produce something together that is superior to what either side is capable of producing alone.
I will posit this for starters: We all value individual liberty. We all value striving to ensure that any member of our society who embraces personal responsibility, and makes an effort to succeed, benefits from that effort to the degree warranted by the combination of their effort and their ability. We all value, I presume, ensuring that we have the most robust, sustainable, and fair political economic system possible, producing adequate wealth, doing so in a sustainable way, and ensuring that anyone who works hard prospers by doing so.
Unless I’m mistaken, it would seem that the ends are not really in contention, but rather the means (though we often confuse the two). What does it take to achieve these goals? It should not be so difficult for us to use all of the empirical and theoretical tools at our disposal to address that question together, and narrow the range of disagreement to that which is legitimately disputable.
Following, in the comments, is my part in the exchange with my conservative Facebook friend. The questions we must confront, with this as a starting point are: Where is the common ground? What are the things upon which we can compromise without surrendering our deepest beliefs and values? What is the range and detail of consensus that we can arrive at, working together? How do we get past this deadlock of incompatable world views? And what elements of each really are the most functional, really do best serve the public interest?
Having lost my conservative counterpart in this debate, I need some new takers! Who can represent the position of less government in general, less federal government in particular, and more reliance on voluntary contributions to public welfare? (I sent Jon Caldara of The Independence Institute a message inviting him, or a proxy, to participate).
Please join in.
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The challenges and opportunities posed to humanity by our dependence upon, and articulation with, the natural environment are immense, urgent, and of enduring consequence. The set of interrelated issues involving energy, natural resources, environmental contamination and climate change, and their impacts on the biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and even the lithosphere, as well as on human political, economic, demographic, and cultural systems, are complex, intertwined, and systemic.
I’d like to start a far-ranging and detail-laden discussion here concerning these issues and system dynamics, exploring how human actions alter the systems in which we are ensconced, and thus alter the context of our own existence. The rapid deforestation and desertification of the world not only releases carbon into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming, which in turn increases the frequency and ferocity of forest fires, increasing the deforestation which increases global warming, in an accelerating feed-back loop; it also eliminates rich repositories of biodiversity, at enormous costs to humanity and to the natural world. Our dependence on fossil fuels, also contributing to global warming, contributes as well to volatile and dysfunctional relations among nations and cultures, forcing petroleum dependent developed and developing nations to pander to the sometimes tyrannical and violence-exporting regimes of oil-rich countries.
Considering just global climate change, both well-known aspects (e.g., rising sea levels as a result of global warming, and the threat that poses to low-lying coastal areas), and less well known aspects (e.g., feedback loops such as those involving the albedo effect through decreasing ice caps reflecting less heat into space, thus causing accelerated global warming; and potentially catastrophic chain-reaction effects, such as those involving disrupted marine food chains due to decreased protophytoplankton production), the breadth and complexity of interacting systemic dynamics demand more from us than the superficial and barely informed popular concern and denial that dominate popular discourse on the topic.
In addition to the immense body of systemic theory, empirical observation, and informed speculation concerning how our actions impact our natural context, and how the resulting changes in our natural context impact our existence in return, there is the entire subset of thought and action regarding our actual and potential responses to this reality. The New Energy Economy, focusing on more extensive use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, and the technical problems of storage and transmission involved, provides a basis for discussion. Within that framework, specific policy issues, such as the efficacy of cap-and-trade carbon markets, or carbon taxes, or taxes and subsidies more generally, come into play. The history of these efforts, including the intense international negotiations culminating in the tentatively promising Kyoto Protocol and disappointing Copenhagen Accord which followed, and current possibilities, such as more decentralized interconnected carbon markets, belong in the conversation.
As always, I invite any and all to participate, hopefully bringing some combination of expertly informed knowledge and insight, on the one hand, and popular perception and curiosity on the other.
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There is plenty of shouting across the national aisle, false certainties on both sides, with Tea Partiers and their fellow travelers insisting that government spending is destroying the country, and some progressives insisting that public spending on social services and entitlement programs can never be a bad thing. Once again, the nation is embroiled in a false dichotomy of extreme views, with the real business of line-drawing lost in the process.
The real economic debate, the one we’re not having, is the one over what, precisely, are the costs and benefits of particular kinds of spending under particular economic conditions. Under what conditions and in what forms does government stimulus spending help or hurt an ailing economy? Does the apparent political inevitability of directing spending toward lower rather than higher short-term multiplier effects (funding too many languishing programs and too few shovel-ready projects) undermine it’s utility as a stimulus strategy? And, a historical favorite, did government stimulus spending end or prolong The Great Depression?
I’ll offer some thoughts on the last question: As this timeline (http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Timeline.htm) demonstrates, economic growth was very robust from 1934-1937: In 1933, when FDR took office, the freefall in GDP was brought to an almost complete halt, dipping only 2.1% (after falling 31% over the previous 3 years). In 1934, GNP rose 7.7%, and unemployment dropped about 3%. In 1935, GNP rose another 8.1%, and unemployment went down another 1.6%. In 1936, GNP rose another 14.1% (a record growth rate), and unemployment dropped another 3.2%. In 1937, GNP rose another 5%, and unemployment fell another 2.6%.
According to one argument, the one that 2008 Nobel Prize Winning Economist Paul Krugman subscribes to, Roosevelt, seduced by these years of phenomenal success in his program of economic recovery, was persuaded to reduce spending and focus on balancing the budget in 1937, driving the nation back into recession. According to the counterargument, it was the spending itself which resulted in the 1937 economic downturn.
But the one piece of evidence that seems to be most consistently disregarded is the one upon which virtually everyone agrees: WWII definitively ended The Great Depression. And just what was it about WWII that accomplished this feat? The fact that it was the most massive public spending project in world history, with enormous deficit spending in the production of heavy industrial equipment that kept getting conveniently blown up and needing to be replaced, a stimulus package far larger than any that could otherwise have been politically accomplished. And one whose success, along with the foundation laid by New Deal policies, set the nation on a path of decades of enormous economic growth.
Those who argue that it wasn’t New Deal spending, but rather WWII, that ended The Great Depression are not demonstrating with their evidence that government stimulus spending is inefficacious, but just the opposite, and that it needs to be truly massive to be truly effective.
Okay, folks! Have at it. I’ve invited professional economists to join this discussion; I hope I have some takers.
To many Americans, a phrase like “social control” makes fingernails on a chalkboard sound like dulcet strains. But, in reality, our national birth amidst cries of “liberty” was a particular response to a particular situation, one which has fed a national mythos lopsided in its orientation, and loath to explicitly address the flip-side of liberty: Governance. The U.S. Constitution, despite the ahistorical myth treasured by most right-wingers, was not drafted in order to guarantee individual liberties and preserve states’ rights, but rather to constrain them both. “Federalism” meant stronger, not weaker, national government, and the constitution was the dramatic response to the toothlessness of the Articles of Confederation, which failed to bind the nation into a single political-economic entity.
The real challenge we must face is not how to preserve liberty, or maintain social control, but rather how to balance and integrate these two simultaneously competing and complementary demands. Following, in the comments, is something I wrote a few days ago on another blog, incidentally addressing this issue. I would love for others to jump in, and engage in this most salient of all political discussions!
Michael Bennet just released the following campaign ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUKGym_iVYI.
I responded on his Facebook page:
It’s all about narratives, Michael! We need to make dysfunctional extremism recognizable for what it is, and our commitment as progressives to intelligent and just self-governance recognizable as what mainstream America, and the Founding Fathers themselves, have always been all about. The Bucks of the world can try as they might to make it uncool to believe that we aren’t just a bunch of unconnected individuals, but are also members of a society, but we’re not going to succumb to the brutality of their ideology of mutual indifference!So, what do others think? What would it mean for America, for Colorado, and for the World, if Buck’s views were to prevail?
