A couple books I’ve read recently.
Rediscovering Americanism by Mark Levin
The Once and Future Liberal by Mark Lila
Apparently this month I’m reading books by Marks.
I found both of these books interesting but for very different reasons. I’m planning to review them both in some depth here, probably will do ‘Americanism’ first. If you want to be able to spot the glaring logical flaws and mischaracterizations that I’ll make in those reviews you should go read the books.
E
Monday, October 23, 2017
Monday, October 9, 2017
The gun riddle
Rather than attempt to paraphrase, analyze, or add my spin, for this post I’m simply linking to a very well written Article by Sam Harris regarding the ‘gun riddle’ in America. Prior to reading this article today I had not read Haris on this topic at all. After reading this I find that his position aligns almost entirely with my own. I appreciate the realism he brings to the questions that reliably arise after a tragedy like Las Vegas.
E
E
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Common Core
Finally back from my hiatabbatical (see what I did there?), I hope you all read the books I assigned as homework.
Several weeks off traveling for work and finishing up online courses, my email is full of notes to myself with ideas and random thoughts that may one day turn into posts.
The title of this post it misleading, I am not (right now) going to write about the much maligned set of educational policies called common core, rather I want to look at the idea of an American 'common core' and whether or not we really have one.....do we still have (or have we ever had) a common set of ideas, principles, values that unite us as a nation?
This topic arose in my mind for two reasons.
First, a feeling that I have sensed recently in American political dialogue. This feeling is one of increasing tribalism and decreasing respect for both the opinions and motives of the 'other side'. I feel this not only in the things I read, but also in personal interaction I've had with people on both sides of the political spectrum. It is common to hear the worst motives attributed to every action that anyone on the other side of an issue takes.
Two not very hyperbolic examples.........
- Liberals support a single payer healthcare system, not because they are patriotic Americans who think a single payer system is a reasonable solution to the problem of increasing healthcare costs and decreasing value, but because they are dyed in the wool Marxists actively plotting to turn the American government into a regime like Stalin's, and healthcare is just the next beach-head in the assault on liberty.
- Conservatives support increased enforcement of immigration law, not because they believe that the rule of law and its practical implementation is an important philosophical foundation for a nation, but because they are ignorant, racist, xenophobes who think that illegal Mexicans are the reason they got laid off and affirmative action has made it impossible for white kids to get into college.
The second reason that this topic is in the front of my mind; much of my recent work travel has taken me to Israel. Now I know that US foreign policy with respect to Israel brings a whole raft of issues that we could discuss, and I am not tackling those here. I bring up Israel in this context to serve as a counterpoint for the discussion of whether or not America has a common core of values that we can all unite around.
Cumulatively, the time I've spent in Israel can be measured in weeks, but even in that short time I've observed a tangible sense of shared purpose and common cause in the Israelis I have met. I think the fact that I have been impressed by that after such short time is evidence of how real this sense is. The shared purpose, the common core, in Israel as I see it is this;
"this is our homeland, and we all do whatever we have to do to defend ourselves and our homeland"
Now I am sure that my understanding of Israeli culture and politics is naive, I know that there is robust political debate and fierce disagreement within the Israeli body politic. My own naivete notwithstanding, the fact that I have consistently encountered this 'common core' in discussions with Israeli individuals of very diverse backgrounds (a sociology professor I met on the flight to Tel Aviv, high ranking military officers, young people doing mandatory military service, the guy serving me Israeli craft beer and good conversation at the beer bazaar .....) makes me think that it is a real phenomenon and distinct from the current American climate.
There are several things that make this question different in the Israeli context, and several major points of dis-analogy between the situation that country faces and the one facing ours. First, the modern state of Israel is explicitly intended to be a 'homeland for Jews', thus bringing in ethnic and religious uniting elements that the US does not share. Second, in general there is a much more tangible awareness of the existential threats that face Israel than there is in the US, and the reality that Israel faces many more existential threats to its existence than the US does. Third, there is universal military service in Israel, everyone (or nearly everyone, certain ultra-orthodox Jews are excepted from service, apparently a hotly debated political topic...) serves.
It seems to me that for our system of government to work well, the ability to understand, empathize with, compromise with, and work with the political 'opposition' is critical. For that type of relationship to function, a basic set of foundational, shared, values or ideas is critical. We have to trust the most basic motives of those on the other side of a political issue from us. Regardless of the disagreements, we all have to be able to agree that we are on the same side at the end of the day. We have to be able to agree that we are all Americans. I guess another way to ask the question of do we have a 'common core', is 'what does it mean to be an American?'
So, if there is a core, a set of values that we can all agree on as Americans, that we can unite around in times of crisis, what is it? Is it the Constitution? The Bill of Rights? The 'self-evident' truths listed in the Declaration of Independence? The desire to be responsible 'global citizens'?
Does the very fact that our system of government and our culture values individualism so highly work against having a set of common values? Does our cultural commitment to freedom (and resulting diversity) of religion take away a context that could serve as uniting influence? Is the idea of individual liberty itself powerful enough to serve as the common core? How does the concept of civil service and duty play into this question of common core? Could universal mandatory civil/military service serve a role in developing this mutual understanding?
What does it mean to be an American?
E
Several weeks off traveling for work and finishing up online courses, my email is full of notes to myself with ideas and random thoughts that may one day turn into posts.
The title of this post it misleading, I am not (right now) going to write about the much maligned set of educational policies called common core, rather I want to look at the idea of an American 'common core' and whether or not we really have one.....do we still have (or have we ever had) a common set of ideas, principles, values that unite us as a nation?
This topic arose in my mind for two reasons.
First, a feeling that I have sensed recently in American political dialogue. This feeling is one of increasing tribalism and decreasing respect for both the opinions and motives of the 'other side'. I feel this not only in the things I read, but also in personal interaction I've had with people on both sides of the political spectrum. It is common to hear the worst motives attributed to every action that anyone on the other side of an issue takes.
Two not very hyperbolic examples.........
- Liberals support a single payer healthcare system, not because they are patriotic Americans who think a single payer system is a reasonable solution to the problem of increasing healthcare costs and decreasing value, but because they are dyed in the wool Marxists actively plotting to turn the American government into a regime like Stalin's, and healthcare is just the next beach-head in the assault on liberty.
- Conservatives support increased enforcement of immigration law, not because they believe that the rule of law and its practical implementation is an important philosophical foundation for a nation, but because they are ignorant, racist, xenophobes who think that illegal Mexicans are the reason they got laid off and affirmative action has made it impossible for white kids to get into college.
The second reason that this topic is in the front of my mind; much of my recent work travel has taken me to Israel. Now I know that US foreign policy with respect to Israel brings a whole raft of issues that we could discuss, and I am not tackling those here. I bring up Israel in this context to serve as a counterpoint for the discussion of whether or not America has a common core of values that we can all unite around.
Cumulatively, the time I've spent in Israel can be measured in weeks, but even in that short time I've observed a tangible sense of shared purpose and common cause in the Israelis I have met. I think the fact that I have been impressed by that after such short time is evidence of how real this sense is. The shared purpose, the common core, in Israel as I see it is this;
"this is our homeland, and we all do whatever we have to do to defend ourselves and our homeland"
Now I am sure that my understanding of Israeli culture and politics is naive, I know that there is robust political debate and fierce disagreement within the Israeli body politic. My own naivete notwithstanding, the fact that I have consistently encountered this 'common core' in discussions with Israeli individuals of very diverse backgrounds (a sociology professor I met on the flight to Tel Aviv, high ranking military officers, young people doing mandatory military service, the guy serving me Israeli craft beer and good conversation at the beer bazaar .....) makes me think that it is a real phenomenon and distinct from the current American climate.
There are several things that make this question different in the Israeli context, and several major points of dis-analogy between the situation that country faces and the one facing ours. First, the modern state of Israel is explicitly intended to be a 'homeland for Jews', thus bringing in ethnic and religious uniting elements that the US does not share. Second, in general there is a much more tangible awareness of the existential threats that face Israel than there is in the US, and the reality that Israel faces many more existential threats to its existence than the US does. Third, there is universal military service in Israel, everyone (or nearly everyone, certain ultra-orthodox Jews are excepted from service, apparently a hotly debated political topic...) serves.
It seems to me that for our system of government to work well, the ability to understand, empathize with, compromise with, and work with the political 'opposition' is critical. For that type of relationship to function, a basic set of foundational, shared, values or ideas is critical. We have to trust the most basic motives of those on the other side of a political issue from us. Regardless of the disagreements, we all have to be able to agree that we are on the same side at the end of the day. We have to be able to agree that we are all Americans. I guess another way to ask the question of do we have a 'common core', is 'what does it mean to be an American?'
So, if there is a core, a set of values that we can all agree on as Americans, that we can unite around in times of crisis, what is it? Is it the Constitution? The Bill of Rights? The 'self-evident' truths listed in the Declaration of Independence? The desire to be responsible 'global citizens'?
Does the very fact that our system of government and our culture values individualism so highly work against having a set of common values? Does our cultural commitment to freedom (and resulting diversity) of religion take away a context that could serve as uniting influence? Is the idea of individual liberty itself powerful enough to serve as the common core? How does the concept of civil service and duty play into this question of common core? Could universal mandatory civil/military service serve a role in developing this mutual understanding?
What does it mean to be an American?
E
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Sabbatical
I know that you have all been sorely disappointed at the recent infrequency of my posts. I'm finishing up an online class for the next few weeks, so all of my available read/write time is sucked up in discussion board posts and papers.
I'm also learning that the writing process is slower than I expected. Editing, re-editing, consolidating, it takes awhile. I'll make an effort in future posts to hold myself to a single topic, and be ok with the time that it takes to let it fully develop.
In the meantime, take the time you would have spent reading my posts, and read these two books that I recently finished.
On Tyrany, Timothy Snyder I thought this book was excellent. It's short, an easy read. A historical look at the fundamental mechanisms that have allowed tyranny to form and simple practical suggestions to combat them on a personal level.
In Defense of a Liberal Education, Fareed Zakaria A look at the value of a 'liberal education'. I thought the discussion of the American founder's views on the value of education, and the State's interest in ensuring its availability was particularly interesting.
I'm also learning that the writing process is slower than I expected. Editing, re-editing, consolidating, it takes awhile. I'll make an effort in future posts to hold myself to a single topic, and be ok with the time that it takes to let it fully develop.
In the meantime, take the time you would have spent reading my posts, and read these two books that I recently finished.
On Tyrany, Timothy Snyder I thought this book was excellent. It's short, an easy read. A historical look at the fundamental mechanisms that have allowed tyranny to form and simple practical suggestions to combat them on a personal level.
In Defense of a Liberal Education, Fareed Zakaria A look at the value of a 'liberal education'. I thought the discussion of the American founder's views on the value of education, and the State's interest in ensuring its availability was particularly interesting.
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Are fundamentalists rational?
First of two posts I have been working on on the topic of religion and how our understanding of religion and religious liberty relates to radical Islam in today's context.
Shortly after it came out I read this piece What ISIS really wants by Graeme Wood in the Atlantic. It was the first piece I had read on ISIS that felt like a thorough effort to understand what the group was about and what motivated them. Nearly all of the writing and news coverage about ISIS I have encountered before and since takes little time to try and understand ISIS, but seems assume that ISIS is either 'just another terror group that hates America and the West' or 'just another group of thugs and warlords twisting a religion to their own nefarious ends'. I don't think either of those two explanations are adequate. Several months ago I read The Way of the Strangers , also by Graeme Wood and in many ways an expansion of his Atlantic article, I found the book fascinating and I would highly recommend that you read it.
One of my major take aways from the book was how rational the behavior of people within ISIS is. I realize that probably sounds odd, so let me expand.
We all have a 'woldview'; a conscious and unconscious mashup of our education, social interactions, and unique experience that frames the way that we think about life and the world. For argument's sake, imagine that your framework has three facts at its core, that Allah is God Omnipotent, that Mohammed was his prophet, and that the Quran consists of the literal and inerrant words of Allah. To those of us who are not Muslim, these three things seem like wild leaps of faith. It is more comfortable to explain the actions of an ISIS suicide bomber or executioner as simply deranged if we imagine that they are 'religious fanatics' completely devoid of the ability to reason, but it is not reflective of reality to act as if basic worldview shaping beliefs like these are simply chosen off of a menu of options after rational debate. The process by which we come to foundational beliefs like these is messy, evolutionary, and often transparent to us as it happens. Of course we are capable of rationally assessing our beliefs. Of course we are capable of changing based on experience or the assimilation of new information, but if we are honest there are probably things that we believe that we have never truly questioned or subjected to rational assessment. If you grew up in the USA, you probably place a high value on the rights of the individual, and you probably believe that the right of the government to govern flows from the consent of the governed. Did you come by this belief by sitting down one day in your adult life and weighing the merits of this part of your worldview against one that included the divine right of kings?
So if we grant that certain beliefs can be present in our worldview without undergoing a strict assessment of their rationality, we see how someone might build an internal system of beliefs that is entirely consistent, rational and logical within itself, although it is based on a foundation that might be completely irrational. If you believe those three fundamental ideas about Islam, there are a whole list of behaviors that are perfectly logical and consistent within that framework that are pretty incomprehensible to those of us who do not have those facts at the core of our framework. If you believe that those things are truth, fact, like gravity, then it is feasible to build an understanding of the world where the actions of ISIS are not only justified, but good and right.
Let me be clear here, I believe ISIS is evil. I'm perfectly at peace with the fact that the work I do every day directly enables the delivery of US bombs to ISIS positions in Iraq and Syria.
My discussion of the 'rationality' of a worldview like that of ISIS is not an attempt to legitimize it, but to understand it more thoroughly in order to effectively combat it. Inadequate understandings of an enemy and what motivates them can only lead to policies and decisions that are ineffective at best and massively harmful at worst. US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 is full of examples of this.
All that to say, the first major conclusion I took from Wood's writing was that ISIS is an inherently religious movement, one that is animated by the belief that what they do they do because it is right in the eyes of their god. That understanding should be given adequate weight in the formation of US policy and strategy.
The second thing that struck me as I read this book was the similarity between the arguments, language, and hermeneutics (props if you don't have to google that word;) that the ISIS scholars Wood writes about used, and those I grew up immersed in.
Pause to breathe, I am not saying that my rural american christian Church of Christ upbringing is the same as being brought up in the faith that motivates ISIS, but I am saying that there are certain ideas, concepts, ways of looking at scripture (the Bible or Quran as the case may be) that were almost indistinguishable between the two.
Religion has a tremendous power to motivate, as history bears out, and that power is subtle. We just discussed how certain beliefs can enter a worldview without strict scrutiny, and with that context I think the motivating power of 'fundamentalist' religious movements (like ISIS in this case) comes not from their tendency to forsake reason, but their seeming eagerness to embrace simplicity, reason, and logic in their interpretation of their faith.
Here is the specific concept that struck me as most similar between the ideology that I was brought up in and that that Wood describes from ISIS scholars. The simple idea that scripture is literal, it is the word of god, it means what it says, and it does not require complex, nuanced interpretation.
A common phrase in the tradition I grew up in was 'the Bible requires no interpretation'. While I now believe that assertion to be laughable for a number of reasons, there is something extremely attractive about an understanding that is this straight forward. If god says 'stone the adulterer' in scripture, then it means that if I want to do his will, I should stone adulterers. I don't need to create a system of increasingly ambiguous interpretations by which I turn the literal meaning into something different and more culturally palatable. This simple approach to scripture was the crux of what I found so similar between the religion that Wood describes and the one that I was raised in. I think even a completely non religious person can understand and appreciate the attraction of a system that says, it doesn't matter what other people think, it doesn't matter what is appropriate, what is culturally acceptable, this is the RIGHT thing, this is TRUE, do it this way. A simple understanding of scripture feels honest, it feels genuine, it feels empowering.
So what do you believe that you haven't assessed rationally? Is it worth our effort to diligently and continually scrutinize everything we believe? Is 'human reason' an adequate tool to decide what to believe?
Shortly after it came out I read this piece What ISIS really wants by Graeme Wood in the Atlantic. It was the first piece I had read on ISIS that felt like a thorough effort to understand what the group was about and what motivated them. Nearly all of the writing and news coverage about ISIS I have encountered before and since takes little time to try and understand ISIS, but seems assume that ISIS is either 'just another terror group that hates America and the West' or 'just another group of thugs and warlords twisting a religion to their own nefarious ends'. I don't think either of those two explanations are adequate. Several months ago I read The Way of the Strangers , also by Graeme Wood and in many ways an expansion of his Atlantic article, I found the book fascinating and I would highly recommend that you read it.
One of my major take aways from the book was how rational the behavior of people within ISIS is. I realize that probably sounds odd, so let me expand.
We all have a 'woldview'; a conscious and unconscious mashup of our education, social interactions, and unique experience that frames the way that we think about life and the world. For argument's sake, imagine that your framework has three facts at its core, that Allah is God Omnipotent, that Mohammed was his prophet, and that the Quran consists of the literal and inerrant words of Allah. To those of us who are not Muslim, these three things seem like wild leaps of faith. It is more comfortable to explain the actions of an ISIS suicide bomber or executioner as simply deranged if we imagine that they are 'religious fanatics' completely devoid of the ability to reason, but it is not reflective of reality to act as if basic worldview shaping beliefs like these are simply chosen off of a menu of options after rational debate. The process by which we come to foundational beliefs like these is messy, evolutionary, and often transparent to us as it happens. Of course we are capable of rationally assessing our beliefs. Of course we are capable of changing based on experience or the assimilation of new information, but if we are honest there are probably things that we believe that we have never truly questioned or subjected to rational assessment. If you grew up in the USA, you probably place a high value on the rights of the individual, and you probably believe that the right of the government to govern flows from the consent of the governed. Did you come by this belief by sitting down one day in your adult life and weighing the merits of this part of your worldview against one that included the divine right of kings?
So if we grant that certain beliefs can be present in our worldview without undergoing a strict assessment of their rationality, we see how someone might build an internal system of beliefs that is entirely consistent, rational and logical within itself, although it is based on a foundation that might be completely irrational. If you believe those three fundamental ideas about Islam, there are a whole list of behaviors that are perfectly logical and consistent within that framework that are pretty incomprehensible to those of us who do not have those facts at the core of our framework. If you believe that those things are truth, fact, like gravity, then it is feasible to build an understanding of the world where the actions of ISIS are not only justified, but good and right.
Let me be clear here, I believe ISIS is evil. I'm perfectly at peace with the fact that the work I do every day directly enables the delivery of US bombs to ISIS positions in Iraq and Syria.
My discussion of the 'rationality' of a worldview like that of ISIS is not an attempt to legitimize it, but to understand it more thoroughly in order to effectively combat it. Inadequate understandings of an enemy and what motivates them can only lead to policies and decisions that are ineffective at best and massively harmful at worst. US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 is full of examples of this.
All that to say, the first major conclusion I took from Wood's writing was that ISIS is an inherently religious movement, one that is animated by the belief that what they do they do because it is right in the eyes of their god. That understanding should be given adequate weight in the formation of US policy and strategy.
The second thing that struck me as I read this book was the similarity between the arguments, language, and hermeneutics (props if you don't have to google that word;) that the ISIS scholars Wood writes about used, and those I grew up immersed in.
Pause to breathe, I am not saying that my rural american christian Church of Christ upbringing is the same as being brought up in the faith that motivates ISIS, but I am saying that there are certain ideas, concepts, ways of looking at scripture (the Bible or Quran as the case may be) that were almost indistinguishable between the two.
Religion has a tremendous power to motivate, as history bears out, and that power is subtle. We just discussed how certain beliefs can enter a worldview without strict scrutiny, and with that context I think the motivating power of 'fundamentalist' religious movements (like ISIS in this case) comes not from their tendency to forsake reason, but their seeming eagerness to embrace simplicity, reason, and logic in their interpretation of their faith.
Here is the specific concept that struck me as most similar between the ideology that I was brought up in and that that Wood describes from ISIS scholars. The simple idea that scripture is literal, it is the word of god, it means what it says, and it does not require complex, nuanced interpretation.
A common phrase in the tradition I grew up in was 'the Bible requires no interpretation'. While I now believe that assertion to be laughable for a number of reasons, there is something extremely attractive about an understanding that is this straight forward. If god says 'stone the adulterer' in scripture, then it means that if I want to do his will, I should stone adulterers. I don't need to create a system of increasingly ambiguous interpretations by which I turn the literal meaning into something different and more culturally palatable. This simple approach to scripture was the crux of what I found so similar between the religion that Wood describes and the one that I was raised in. I think even a completely non religious person can understand and appreciate the attraction of a system that says, it doesn't matter what other people think, it doesn't matter what is appropriate, what is culturally acceptable, this is the RIGHT thing, this is TRUE, do it this way. A simple understanding of scripture feels honest, it feels genuine, it feels empowering.
So what do you believe that you haven't assessed rationally? Is it worth our effort to diligently and continually scrutinize everything we believe? Is 'human reason' an adequate tool to decide what to believe?
Monday, July 17, 2017
Is Healthcare a right?
Tons and tons of info, argument, fantasy and rhetoric floating around out there right now with regard to healthcare, so lets ask some questions that inform the foundation of how we think about this.
I don't hear these questions directly addressed that often, but the answers to them are important to and implicit in the arguments that are currently being thrown about.
A few of what I think are the basic questions that underlie this debate. How do you answer these?
- Is access to healthcare a fundamental right?
It's not explicitly addressed in the constitution or the Bill of Rights, should it be?
-Does the state have any appropriate role in the healthcare system?
- Should healthcare be a completely free market?
The Senate is struggling, maybe we should we let Mr. Smith's invisible hand fix Obamacare.
- Should hospitals/healthcare providers be allowed to turn people away based on their ability to pay for services?
We're talking the ER turning away gunshot wounds and impoverished children with broken limbs here. Market forces?
- Do you believe that a person's means/income level/social class should dictate (or limit) the quality of healthcare they have access to?
- Is healthcare an 'industry'? If it is an industry, is it fundamentally different than other industries (i.e. agriculture, manufacturing) in the way it responds (or doesn't) to market forces?
-Whether or not healthcare is a fundamental right, does the state have a compelling interest in investing in the health/well-being of its citizens?
-If the state has an obligation to provide access to healthcare, how should it appropriately ration scarce resources?
I don't hear these questions directly addressed that often, but the answers to them are important to and implicit in the arguments that are currently being thrown about.
A few of what I think are the basic questions that underlie this debate. How do you answer these?
- Is access to healthcare a fundamental right?
It's not explicitly addressed in the constitution or the Bill of Rights, should it be?
-Does the state have any appropriate role in the healthcare system?
- Should healthcare be a completely free market?
The Senate is struggling, maybe we should we let Mr. Smith's invisible hand fix Obamacare.
- Should hospitals/healthcare providers be allowed to turn people away based on their ability to pay for services?
We're talking the ER turning away gunshot wounds and impoverished children with broken limbs here. Market forces?
- Do you believe that a person's means/income level/social class should dictate (or limit) the quality of healthcare they have access to?
- Is healthcare an 'industry'? If it is an industry, is it fundamentally different than other industries (i.e. agriculture, manufacturing) in the way it responds (or doesn't) to market forces?
-Whether or not healthcare is a fundamental right, does the state have a compelling interest in investing in the health/well-being of its citizens?
-If the state has an obligation to provide access to healthcare, how should it appropriately ration scarce resources?
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Pragmatism & Principle
I read two articles on Wednesday that caught my attention and made me think about this topic. What particularly caught my attention was that these are two opinion pieces from the same publication with pretty dramatically different understandings of the same set of issues.
Now I've heard that in the internet age people don't have the attention span to click on multiple links let alone read multiple articles, but that is stupid, and we are 'raising the level' here on Arrogant Musing, so put on your big boy/big girl pants and take 10 min to go read these articles so we can talk through this....
Nolte Shapiro
Now that you have read those, a couple caveats to start off. Yes, I realize that these articles are from the Daily Wire. Yes, I read the Daily Wire. No, I am not endorsing any positions taken by that publication or any of its contributors. Yes, I know Shapiro has a bit of a controversial reputation. No, I don't agree with everything Ben Shapiro says. No, I don't think Shapiro is an idiot and dismiss anything he says out of hand.
It's important to expose yourself to a variety of opinions, actually seek out people who disagree with you, and then listen to what they say and why they say it. I'm tired of the tendency I see recently to look at where a particular article, opinion, or comment comes from, and then without even reading it decide whether or not it is correct, or biased, or crazy. Read stuff. Let yourself be surprised. Admit when you find yourself agreeing with something that doesn't come from your 'tribe'. That little rant is going to show up again on here...
Ok, so now hopefully we have dispensed with distracting questions regarding the provenance of these articles.
The basic question that I have in my head today is this, Pragmatism and Principle, what is the right balance?
I realize that this is a basic ethics question, and hardly an original one. I'm sure if all the philosophy seminar term papers in the world of which this was the required topic were stacked up, it would be a big pile. Though it's not new, and though I know we wont answer it definitively here, I do think it's interesting to think about what this question means in our current political context.
Nolte essentially argues that in the most recent election (and in the current political climate generally) that the ends justify the means. He specifically says that a team "... who will do anything — ANYTHING — to win, and as long as it remains legal, those are my kind of Republicans."
Implicit in the Nolte article are two basic premises on which I strongly disagree. Namely, that the election of Hillary Clinton would have represented an existential threat to values like individual liberty, religious freedom, and the institution of western civilization, and that the election of Donald Trump will serve as a victory in the fight to preserve those same values.
I'm definitely interested to hear opinions on this specific case, but I also want to think about the generic question. In a political context, when IS the right time to do 'ANYTHING'? To what standards should we hold those who would lead us? Is there an ethical 'no-go' zone short of illegality? Or, like Nolte asserts, should we applaud our candidates for getting as close as possible to that line of illegality in pursuit of victory? If there is an ethical zone that we should'nt venture into, are we willing to back it up with our voice and our vote? Are we still willing to cast that vote when it's 'our guy/girl' who has stepped into the zone?
It seems to me that the the behavior of both presidential campaigns in 2016 pushed those ethical zones (if they even exist) much further than they have been pushed before.
Shapiro argues (and I agree) that using the kindergartenish “but he did it, too” defense can easily devolve into a club to destroy the principles that we love rather than a shield to defend them. I appreciate Shapiro's argument here even more because I know that he is strongly conservative and is calling out other conservatives to be honest with themselves.
I also find it very interesting to think of how different the question looks when applied on a personal level vs. on a national/political level.
I know many people who would consider themselves 'on the Right' who would hold themselves to an incredibly strict understanding of this ethical question on a personal level. These people would say that the ends NEVER justify the means, that any attempt to argue that means should be compromised based on an outcome is a step onto the slippery slope of 'moral relativism'. However, these same people when confronted with this question on a national/political level tend to be much more flexible, supporting a muscular foreign policy, military solutions sooner than later, and, like Nolte, cheering that all available means were used to defeat HRC in 2016.
On the flip side, I know many people who would consider themselves 'on the Left' (more on 'Right' and 'Left' in a later post) who entertain a much more flexible 'morally relativistic' outlook in their personal life, but when confronted with this question in a national/political context are incredibly rigid. These people tend to hate the idea of anyone making a 'moral judgement' toward anyone else on a personal level, but are then incredibly rigid with respect to the moral obligations that the believe the country has. How dare the US defend it's interest with it's military? How dare policy makers shirk their moral obligation to mankind by even considering anything less than 'throwing open the gates' to any refugee, economic immigrant, or asylum seeker?
How do we separate these contexts? Why are we willing answer the ethical question of the ends and means so differently in different contexts?
E
Now I've heard that in the internet age people don't have the attention span to click on multiple links let alone read multiple articles, but that is stupid, and we are 'raising the level' here on Arrogant Musing, so put on your big boy/big girl pants and take 10 min to go read these articles so we can talk through this....
Nolte Shapiro
Now that you have read those, a couple caveats to start off. Yes, I realize that these articles are from the Daily Wire. Yes, I read the Daily Wire. No, I am not endorsing any positions taken by that publication or any of its contributors. Yes, I know Shapiro has a bit of a controversial reputation. No, I don't agree with everything Ben Shapiro says. No, I don't think Shapiro is an idiot and dismiss anything he says out of hand.
It's important to expose yourself to a variety of opinions, actually seek out people who disagree with you, and then listen to what they say and why they say it. I'm tired of the tendency I see recently to look at where a particular article, opinion, or comment comes from, and then without even reading it decide whether or not it is correct, or biased, or crazy. Read stuff. Let yourself be surprised. Admit when you find yourself agreeing with something that doesn't come from your 'tribe'. That little rant is going to show up again on here...
Ok, so now hopefully we have dispensed with distracting questions regarding the provenance of these articles.
The basic question that I have in my head today is this, Pragmatism and Principle, what is the right balance?
I realize that this is a basic ethics question, and hardly an original one. I'm sure if all the philosophy seminar term papers in the world of which this was the required topic were stacked up, it would be a big pile. Though it's not new, and though I know we wont answer it definitively here, I do think it's interesting to think about what this question means in our current political context.
Nolte essentially argues that in the most recent election (and in the current political climate generally) that the ends justify the means. He specifically says that a team "... who will do anything — ANYTHING — to win, and as long as it remains legal, those are my kind of Republicans."
Implicit in the Nolte article are two basic premises on which I strongly disagree. Namely, that the election of Hillary Clinton would have represented an existential threat to values like individual liberty, religious freedom, and the institution of western civilization, and that the election of Donald Trump will serve as a victory in the fight to preserve those same values.
I'm definitely interested to hear opinions on this specific case, but I also want to think about the generic question. In a political context, when IS the right time to do 'ANYTHING'? To what standards should we hold those who would lead us? Is there an ethical 'no-go' zone short of illegality? Or, like Nolte asserts, should we applaud our candidates for getting as close as possible to that line of illegality in pursuit of victory? If there is an ethical zone that we should'nt venture into, are we willing to back it up with our voice and our vote? Are we still willing to cast that vote when it's 'our guy/girl' who has stepped into the zone?
It seems to me that the the behavior of both presidential campaigns in 2016 pushed those ethical zones (if they even exist) much further than they have been pushed before.
Shapiro argues (and I agree) that using the kindergartenish “but he did it, too” defense can easily devolve into a club to destroy the principles that we love rather than a shield to defend them. I appreciate Shapiro's argument here even more because I know that he is strongly conservative and is calling out other conservatives to be honest with themselves.
I also find it very interesting to think of how different the question looks when applied on a personal level vs. on a national/political level.
I know many people who would consider themselves 'on the Right' who would hold themselves to an incredibly strict understanding of this ethical question on a personal level. These people would say that the ends NEVER justify the means, that any attempt to argue that means should be compromised based on an outcome is a step onto the slippery slope of 'moral relativism'. However, these same people when confronted with this question on a national/political level tend to be much more flexible, supporting a muscular foreign policy, military solutions sooner than later, and, like Nolte, cheering that all available means were used to defeat HRC in 2016.
On the flip side, I know many people who would consider themselves 'on the Left' (more on 'Right' and 'Left' in a later post) who entertain a much more flexible 'morally relativistic' outlook in their personal life, but when confronted with this question in a national/political context are incredibly rigid. These people tend to hate the idea of anyone making a 'moral judgement' toward anyone else on a personal level, but are then incredibly rigid with respect to the moral obligations that the believe the country has. How dare the US defend it's interest with it's military? How dare policy makers shirk their moral obligation to mankind by even considering anything less than 'throwing open the gates' to any refugee, economic immigrant, or asylum seeker?
How do we separate these contexts? Why are we willing answer the ethical question of the ends and means so differently in different contexts?
E
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)