The Dilema for Conservatives

Antoon Claeissens - The Judgement of Solomon (c.1536)

The election is so weird. I try to put myself in the shoes of reasonable conservatives. What if the Democrats had someone who was so ridiculous, but for all the character flaws (ego, racism, misogyny, ignorance, sadism) at least had a somewhat progressive agenda, while the opposition was going to cut taxes on the rich, appoint conservative justices, eviscerate regulations, etc.? Who would I choose?

It's so hard to separate the personal from the policy in Trump, as often his policy (mass deportation of illegal immigrants, intensifying torture, Muslim ban) directly evidences his character. What would a democratic party that elected such an asshole even look like?

This article runs commentary on the transcript of the debate. When you see his words in print, they come across as even more inane than when delivered from his beefy face, which we've all grown somewhat used to.

I suppose if ever there would be a time to "send a message" to my party, this would be it. But of course, the problem isn't "the party", it is the great masses of Republicans who want this sort of man to represent them.

I'm not sure how many people read this blog, but it would be interesting if any were conservatives who are sympathetic to the dilemma I've described. How would one go about separating out the agreeable policy in a candidate from the disagreeable policy - especially when it is backed up by an obviously vile character?

Integrity of Thought

A critique one occasionally hears from the right is that the left is hypocritical when it stands behind the banner of "tolerance", yet seems awfully intolerant of right-wing attitudes or opinions.

It's an interesting straw man, similar to reverse racism or moral relativism. The meaning of tolerance, racism and moral relativism is intentionally misunderstood (or at least, intentionally not endeavored to be understood), thus able to be shot down and dismissed.

Interestingly, by never taking the time to understand the original critique embedded in these concepts (or the complexity of critique they have come to signify), one remains blind both to their objective debate, as well as the possibility that one might be engaging in behavior or thought that is wrong.

For instance, the concept of tolerance means (from UNESCO):

"Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. Tolerance is harmony in difference."

The concept has been embraced by liberals largely in response to the historical wrongs committed due to assumptions of superiority by white, male, Christians, etc. It emphasizes a power dynamic in which other groups have historically been disempowered, and assumed inferior, or at least less important. It is fundamentally democratic, in that by rejecting majoritarian dominance, it seeks to place every citizen on equal footing, equal enfranchisement, regardless of race, gender, class, disability, etc.

To ignore this critique, or to fail to understand it in all its complexity, is to leave oneself open to fulfilling its prophecy - assuming it has merit. Yet in order to determine whether merit exists, one must first fully understand its logic.

Quite relatedly, racism and moral relativism deal in similar historical critiques. Racism is not merely a belief in the superiority, or a preference for, one skin color over another. Because what does that mean? Why is that wrong? A comprehensive understanding of racism sees a much larger historical narrative of cultural and racial dominance and oppression that relies on the prejudice of cognitive bias to enforce group dominance. This pattern of enforcement, of real and brutal oppression is what makes racism so ugly. Saying you like white people better than blacks is, by itself, not so terrible. But place it in historical socio-political context and it becomes downright evil.

A decontextualized view of racism not only ignores likely motivations, but it prepares a path towards the repetition of history. By denuding racism of proper context, it diminishes its import. The concept of "reverse racism" (or reverse sexism, etc.) does exactly this. It defines racism so narrowly as to suck much of its meaning away. A black man who hates white people, or a woman who hates men, simply do not have the centuries of oppression behind their thoughts and actions that we have come to despise and that the concepts racism and sexism embody. They do not represent exponentially larger movements of ingrained social prejudice and cognitive bias that have infested our patterns of thought for generations.

Of course there are many critiques of these narratives of race and tolerance. There certainly are among those who accept their basic accuracy as descriptors of historical reality. Yet to ignore the deeper premises upon which they are based, and to redefine them into meaninglessness is at best sloppy thinking, and at worst outright dishonesty. It is an easy task to attack an opponent's argument after having mischaracterized it. It is much more difficult - yet mandatory - to attack it head on.

The Perils of Rigidity

The recent discovery of Dr. Kermitt Gosnell's malpractice has been fanning flames in the abortion debate.  I think one of the biggest problems in this debate - is a lack of nuance.  This is really tricky ethical/moral stuff.  There is a lot on the line for people, and the issue is in many ways a sort of Rorschach test. 

For instance, I don't believe there is a God or creator, or that any of us has any soul, or "meaning" in the grandest sense.  I believe we are simply a highly evolved set of molecules placed in a specific sequence, that the original "life" was able to assemble a series of amino acids and self-replicate trillions of times over, covering the Earth with all manner of life we now see around us.  In this way my ear cells, when placed in a petri dish are just as "alive" as anything or anyone.  Yet I not only believe but know that life has meaning in a smaller sense - actually quite literally as a manifestation of my ability to sense and "make sense" of the world.  Thus, I feel emotion and am able to empathize with fellow creatures. 

Yet any meaning I assign to life is well, not arbitrary, but relative to my world view, my culture, my reasoning, etc.  This is how I believe, for instance, that it is wrong to cause animals to suffer.  But I realize that this is a meaning that I have created in my mind, at least in so far as it is something I have thought about and come to a conclusion on.  Yet I realize that others may have different, yet reasonable views.  I think they are wrong, but they won't think so, because their meaning is different than mine.  And their views are likely entirely consistent with their worldview.  They don't view animals the same way as I do, and so don't empathize the way that I do. 

When Rick Santorum brought his dead child's fetal body home to sleep with, he had given it a much different meaning than I would have.  When my wife had a miscarriage, I couldn't have cared less.  The baby didn't feel pain, we didn't know it, and I had no reason to empathize with it - no more than I would my sperm or my wife's unfertilized eggs.  There's nothing especially significant to me about the fertilization process.  At a certain point, a the baby begins to feel, or at least develop the capacity to suffer.  Although even then, suffering doesn't come into it so much - I no doubt suffered considerably when I was circumsized. 

In any event, there must come a point at which infanticide is wrong, either within or without the uterus.  We certainly can't have people killing their children.  So how does one find that line?  The sort of strict, black & white approach would be to draw a line in the sand at a definition of "life".  But isn't that a sort of tautological, semantic device?  As I mentioned previously, biologically, I don't believe anyone is really a "life" any more than any cell anywhere is.  This is where we each simply create meaning.  For me, "life", or human life at least, is experiential - in the sense that it is something that emerges from the uterus, and immediately takes on special significance to the immediate relations, and to a lesser extent larger society.  The baby has feelings and needs, and the community has an interest in giving it great significance. 

Do I have a perfect line I can draw that says after this moment the baby takes on enough meaning for its life to be spared?  Certainly not.  "Meaning" is almost unquantifiable by definition.  When do cookies become "good"?  When is a song "beautiful"?  Yet we obviously have to make rules as a society, even if they must in a sense be very arbitrary.  Rules often are.  What should the sentence for theft be?  How do you quantify the wrong that was done?  It seems that if any debate demands nuance, it is abortion.  Yet as is often the case in controversies where one's worldview is at stake, rigidity seems so much the more powerful and "righteous" - one might even say easy, stance. 

Some will think me a murderer.  Some will say my nuance leaves the door open for a slippery slide into the evils of moral relativism.  I see no reason for that to be the case.  Just because I know a 70 mph speed limit is somewhat arbitrary, I know that speeding is dangerous.  So too do I know that killing people is wrong.  I just don't know exactly when one becomes that sort of "human".  In standing up for nuance, and rejecting the safe, firm chains of rigidity, one goes out on a limb.  Yet there is a great faith there.  It is a faith in the reasonableness of humanity.  Sure we can be brutal and inhumane.  But we can also be incredibly wise and reflective.  The irony of nuance may be that the greatest evils have come not from nuance, but rigidity itself.  Because with rigidity comes a closing of the mind.  That may be a good thing if the cause is good.  But what if the cause is bad?  And once rigidity has set in, how would one know?

Stubborn Ignorance or Dishonesty?

I've been thinking a lot lately about political dialogue, and specifically where to draw the line when choosing to engage. 

It seems reasonable that in order to have an honest debate, the opponent needs to either, A) Understand the legitimate premise of your viewpoint, or, B) Admit that they don't and thus make a good faith attempt at understanding why you believe what you believe.  Only then can we critique one another's assumptions and present opposing opinions.

So, an absurdly popular right wing argument right now is that Democratic spending is out of control (mainly TARP & ARRA), with no mention of either the Keynesian or emergency basis to either plan.  The idea is simply an extension of the usual conservative opposition to government social spending, as if the financial crisis never happened, as if the bank bailout wasn't an emergency attempt to shore up an imminently collapsing banking system, as if the stimulus wasn't entirely based on Keynesian economic assumptions.

So one either knows these things or one doesn't.  To not mention them is then either ignorant or plainly intellectually dishonest.  At this point, the vast majority of conservative commentary I hear falls squarely into one or the other camp.  The real wackos seem to just be ignorant - which would explain much of their vitriol.  (Glenn Beck at CPAC today argued that failure would have been a good thing because we need the "freedom to fail" in order to learn to do what is right.  How his self-help gobbledy-gook applies to an over-leveraged financial market upon which our entire economy hangs in the balance is beyond me.) But the more calm and reasonable figures I'm guessing are just being dishonest.

If Keynes was right, then the stimulus was too small if anything, according to what his model predicts.  If he was wrong, then by all means explain to the mainstream of economists that has generally accepted his theories.  If bailing out the banks was a bad idea, explain why doing nothing would have been the better option - when most estimates also widely agree that a domino effect would have brought our economy) if not the world's) to its knees? 

Why waste time with someone who is either being dishonest or won't take the time to try and understand where you are coming from?

An Island of Thought

Our absurdly large amount of defense spending, and the fact that Republicans rarely criticize it (where are you Ron Paul?!!), is fascinating to me.  Especially because it presents such a good refutation for many conservative arguments about big government. 

Basically, if they don't believe in a government program, they say the "market" can do it better.  Yet if they believe in it, the fact that the market can't is simply assumed.  So, the silliness of relying on a private military to protect every citizen is off the table.  Yet expecting private health care, parks, libraries, schools, mental health services, forestry, etc., etc. to guarantee equal access doesn't seem silly at all.

It seems fundamentally childish to not accept that in a democracy we have different preferences, yet this is what conservatives are always arguing.  Defense spending = good, everything else is socialist pork.  Yet liberals could just as easily make the exact opposite argument.  To the extent that liberals don't, at the risk of sounding superior, I honestly feel that it is a simple lack of chauvinism on the part of liberals.  In fairness, this ad hominem suggestion has less to do with an innate character flaw in modern conservatives, but that the conservative philosophy deprives from those who accept it many of the means of thought from which temperate, reasoned thinking is derived.  The absolutist nature of conservative thought is contrary to the relativist aspects of liberalism, thereby always pushing it into a didactic posture of defensiveness.  Not only is the philosophical trajectory one of enormous self-infatuation, but it puts the self in the position of always having to put up a "fight".  In other words, "I am right, therefore you are wrong and a threat to me."

Conservatives have much more difficulty with heterogeneity.  Certainly on an individual level, with regard to specific issues, they can be very "tolerant".  But it is no coincidence that the most boorish, chauvinist opinions are always found in higher levels on the right.  Pick any social issue and you'll find a tendency toward myopia, not plurality. 

This is of course, conservatism's strength.  Conservatism is frequently exactly what is needed to temper liberalism's more dangerously deconstructive tendencies.  But to the extent that its insular traditionalism is its weakness, it can make for a very undemocratic political and social conversation.