The Road to King's "Other" Dream

On March 18, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, TN. He emphasized the importance of low-skilled labor. Famous for his "I Have A Dream" speech, King was no less passionate about economic justice.

So often we overlook the worth and significance of those who are not in professional jobs, or those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight, that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity, and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity, and it has worth. One day our society must come to see this. One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive. For the person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician. All labor has worth.

At the time, these were the only jobs blacks could get. Times have changed, and as racism has become an unacceptable attitude among all but the most embittered populace, opportunities have opened up for blacks in every economic sector. Yet large gaps in achievement continue to haunt us, breaking down as they do along familiar racial lines. Simply removing racism is not enough when generational poverty provides a structural barrier to equal opportunity.

King spoke of a future in which the least-valued jobs are recognized as worthy of dignified pay. And yet today, in 2010, that future still seems a long way off. Union membership is at an all-time low, but even then there are broad segments of the workforce that will always be difficult to unionize.

Many people are finally realizing that education is the key to social justice. However many still don't realize how the structural issues involved in poverty undermine our best efforts at creating quality schools.

As an education graduate student, the mantra was always - "every child can learn", with the ultimate goal of "every child going to college". But this is somewhat of an absurd proposition. One only has to ask: "Who will clean the toilets? Who will operate the registers? Who will pump the gas?"

There are just too many areas of our economy that require relatively low-skilled service. And in a market system, where wages are relative, devalued labor results in low pay. Thus an underclass is born. Housing concentrates by income and ghettos appear, society stratifies. Wealth becomes cyclical as generations conglomerate around habits of position, influenced by family and peer group behavior.

Education can break this cycle, essentially by implanting the child into an artificially designed and coordinated environment conducive to success. The fact that this so rarely actually accomplished is testament to the enormity of the task, given its myriad components that all must be coordinated with perfect and sustained simultaneity in cities and states across the nation.

Of course one of the main barriers to this endeavor is finding the political will among the populace. This is what King was up against. Because it is fundamentally a narrative of inequality, it will always be an asymmetrical proposition: the haves must sacrifice for the have-nots.

And yet this concept is in direct opposition to the classic American narrative of individualist opportunity. Even as we know that children who grow up in poverty - more specifically, with a sufficiently harmful set of risk-factors - are categorically at a disadvantage and will reliably be much less successful, we still promote the idea that they are just as able as their advantaged peers to be successful. Our policies reflect this incongruity in thinking.

And so the ball is well towards the bottom of the hill. I suppose that the problem of who to clean the floors is a "good" problem to have if every child has the option to go to college. But we certainly aren't there yet. Until then, King's words on economic justice seem as distantly in the past as they do the future. Yet through his memory we continue the conversation.

The Difficulty of Sainthood

I imagine very few of us are really moral, in the sense that we are making rational decisions about our lives based on what is always right.

Peter Singer's thought experiment on sacrifice illustrates this well: we in the first world make daily decisions that favor our own small benefit over less fortunate others who would experience vastly greater benefit, even though were we to face these individuals we would make the sacrifice in an instant. For those unfamiliar with his point, he asks you to imagine yourself witness to an ice-skating child falling through an icy pond, whose rescue would then depend upon you ruining your $100 fur coat.

I think the really moral thing for us all to do is to take vows of poverty and donate all our free time to charity work. The obvious response to this is that our pleasures serve as a reward, thus generating more overall behavioral efficacy. I think this argument is mostly lazy, and serves nicely as a convenient justification for immoral behavior. After all, losing our shoes and jumping into ice water would just as well diminish our reward-stimulus yet the moral imperative is as strong.

So then why are we not all more like Saints? What is it about them that allows them to possess such vigorous discipline and moral courage? And then, maybe, what is it about us that keeps us from acting saintly?

It seems very difficult to answer this question at the individual level. But at the larger, social level I think we can more reliably find structural trends, and possibly apply universal human behavioral patterns. I may not be able to see why right now, up until this point in my life I have rarely acted saintly. But I can find patterns in others with similar life experiences.

I know that the more comfortable and satisfied I am in my life, the more appealing the idea of sacrificing for others becomes. And much of my position in life is owed to the fortunate experiences I have had over the years. I have been able to learn sets of behaviors that generate for me the life results I desire. At the broader social level, similar experiences are predictive of similar capacities for self-efficacy. (Of course, sorting out causal relationships is enormously challenging. And any causal hypothesis, after identifying clean correlations, is dependent upon continued predictive strength.)

Yet getting structural factors involved in group compassion is complex. Determining social outcomes that support individual satisfaction in order to promote efficacy is part of it. There are also the cultural institutions that act as mechanisms for stimulating the compassionate response. Foremost among these would be the media as a way to deliver information. Then there would be the actual delivery of care, facilitated by NGOs and governments.

Depending on political persuasion, one might be more of an advocate for taxation as a way of embedding compassionate sacrifice into a governmental-social framework. This is dependent upon a choice of ultimate efficacy - broken both into belief in governmental efficacy and emphasis on a social contract specifically designating compassion by all member citizens. Others may opt for an emphasis on private delivery of services, either out of mistrust in government's efficacy or a de-emphasis on inserting compassionate sacrifice into any social contract.

In the end, we will all determine what is a comfortable level of sacrifice, even if, except for the saints among us, it is never quite moral enough. That sacrifice might look different for different people. It may take many forms, from the simplest act as smiling at a stranger, or volunteering at a soup kitchen. In our social behavior though, it is through our interactions that we experience compassion - as we communicate, then place ourselves in the minds and hearts of others, and then choose how to act towards them.

Terrorism-ism

There's an interesting coincidence of philosophical justifications among those who approve of torture. They tend to make the following arguments:

1)Because of the nature of their alleged crimes, they are beyond the rule of law. "These people are terrorists!"

2)The information they might have is worth the sacrifice of their rights. The "ticking-bomb" scenario.

These are two distinct philosophical positions. The legitimacy of each is independent of the other. While the two together form a more substantial case for torture, neither is dependent on the other for legitimacy. Either may be accepted regardless of the truth of the other.

For instance the gravity of the situation may not require the use of torture, even as the nature of their crimes overrides their claim of human rights. And likewise, if the information they hold requires the administration of torture, the nature of their crimes may not be sufficient to deny their rights.

Yet both are almost always accepted together. One would expect to find more people willing to admit that while one may be legitimate, the other is not. The fact that torture advocates are in near lockstep agreement on both counts, and frequently make the case for one or the other - while not directly refuting either argument, calls into question the intellectual honesty, and thus integrity of those who would appeal to the justification of torture on moral grounds.

On its face, one would assume that advocacy of torture would alone determine one's moral integrity. But the fact that not just one, but two very contentious propositions are so frequently argued together seems telling.

The American Vodou of Pat Robertson

By now we've all heard Pat Robertson's comments on Haiti:

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you get us free from the prince'. True story. And so the devil said, 'OK, it’s a deal.' They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free."

Something I've been thinking about these comments is how they might fit into our other social narratives about "terrible things", especially as Pat Robertson is a conservative, and how his perspective draws upon a broader trend in conservative thinking.

One critique of religion is that it arises from a human need for creating meaning out of the unknown. Thus you had early humans basically creating stories for phenomena that they had no system of knowledge to rationally comprehend. By creating reason where there was none, these stories would have been emotionally satisfying.

In the modern world, science has provided a rational structure for natural disasters. We have come to believe in a generally rational world, dependent on natural, not supernatural laws. So mudslides, earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters are the effect of geological forces. There is no need to appeal to any God for a rational explanation of events.

Although in human affairs, the need for rational clarity still seems to be found wanting. People still wonder why men do such terrible things. Even as science has been able to pinpoint neural mechanisms that are responsible for much of brain function and behavior, we still seem wary to apply the same sort of mechanistic understanding to human action as we do to the rest of the world. When a tidal wave strikes an island, or a mountain lion attacks, we do not call them "evil". Yet this somewhat magical word is invoked frequently whenever an action is committed which we find ourselves asking "how could someone do such a thing?!"

In truth, we have no where near the theoretical sophistication in our conceptual framework of the mind that we do of natural events. So it is understandable that we still appeal to metaphysics for a rational explanation. But how rational is the term "evil"? There is a certain logic to explaining a flood by describing the anger of the Gods. Angry people do mean things. Yet to the modern mind this explanation is preposterous, in that, aside from the fact that it ignores material laws of nature, it assumes the possibility that there are magical creatures in the heavens with powers over the natural world. To the extent that we do not know precisely all the mechanism at work behind a flood - the exact way clouds form, or maybe the saturation of certain rock layers, the function of gravity, etc., we certainly know enough to be reasonably satisfied that a scientific explanation is sufficient. And when such events have devastating consequences, it this rational understanding that gives us comfort. Where in the past comfort was had in the form of appeals to magical stories for rational satisfaction, we now take comfort in the rationality of scientific laws. The story may be different, but the emotional effect is the same.

And now let's return to Pat Robertson. I would argue that his quest for a religious narrative is hindering his ability to to find solace. If a tree fell in a rainstorm and crushed your house, you would certainly be upset, but because of your modern rational understanding of science, you are able to take comfort in knowing that the world operates according to certain laws. And you just happened to be unlucky. You would experience loss, yet it would likely not occur to you to become angry and resentful of the tree that fell (it was not, of course, the tree, it was the wind, which came from the storm, which came from the heat and the cold and the water, etc.).

Yet if your house was burned down by a man with a can of gasoline, you would experience not only loss but profound anger toward the man who did it. You would likely want revenge - at least in form of justice, to see the man locked up in prison. Who would do such a thing?! There would be no clear chain of causality. You would be filled with unresolved questions - and then the sense of hopelessness at your inability to find answers. There is a good chance that asking the arsonist himself may not provide relief - as he may not even know (how many of us truly know why we do what we do?

A more simplistic illustration of this difference in emotional response is well illustrated by the sensation one has had in accidentally stubbing a toe on a piece of furniture. The anger and pain one immediately feels is only matched by the sense embarrassment after taking "revenge" on the thoughtless table leg by kicking it. The human mind can be truly idiotic.

Pat Robertson, instead of chalking up the tragedy of the Haitian earthquake to the rationality of perfectly knowable geological forces, is rationally compelled by his own fundamentalist Christian narrative to invoke the magical powers of the devil to explain the events. One must wonder whether he is introducing an added level of personal anguish. Remember, in the context of his comments, he was highlighting the historical nature of Haitian poverty - something much less explainable than fault-line earthquakes. While there are certainly many broadly agreed-upon narratives as to why Haiti has suffered such tremendous poverty, the specifics begin to become less clear as you delve in the the assorted political perspectives. At the most basic level, there will have been individuals who through their actions were responsible for events leading to the present economic conditions. There is a lot of human failure at work. And attached to this human failure is a sense of incomprehension. By invoking the devil, Robertson was seeking a rational answer not only to the earthquake, but also to Haiti's troubled past.

A principle belief of conservatism is in the free will of man, and therefore a high tolerance for both social inequality and retributive justice. If man is perfectly free to make his own choices, then he should suffer the consequences of his actions. Yet implicit in this philosophical assumption is the problem of causality. If man is perfectly free to act, then discovering why he does what he does becomes impossible: causality ends at his moment of action. Whereas in nature you can follow a clear line backwards through the infinite chain of causal connections, man is thought of as somehow arriving at his actions a blank slate. If man is successful it is because he and he alone achieved it. Social inequality is a simple matter of action versus inaction. If man does wrong it is because he and he alone did it. Retribution is a simple matter of following through on deterrence.

Yet because this philosophical narrative is implicitly uncertain, if man is "free" to act and thus the originator of causality, why he did what he did is unknowable - except through asking him, by nature an unreliable witness. Thus we have born the concept of "evil". What better way to define the difference between why a man does ill and why a tree does ill? The man is the magical originator of action, while the tree is simply the last domino to fall. And so while we can stand before the ruins of our tree-crushed house and feel no anger towards it, we feel compelled to lash out at the criminal.

Our level of emotional pain is in direct correlation to the uncertainty of causal clarity. And yet the philosophical assumption of free agency, a core assumption of conservatism, has this capacity for emotional anguish built in. As a liberal, while I may feel the impulse to react violently toward one who has done me wrong, I know that there - somewhere - is a perfectly good reason for why they did what they did. In a biological and cultural sense, they are no different than a tree in a rainstorm.

Maybe I am fooling myself. Maybe “evil” does exist, perhaps in some intra-dimensional plane accessible only to the powers of human cognition. But then again – would that not imply some manifestation of causality? Alas, scientific materialism is a tautological construct, in that truth must be truth. In the meantime I’m always thankful when I am able to console myself with the reminder, in the worst of times, that there is indeed a “reason for everything”. A scientific one, mind you, and one that includes my fellow man.

Haiti Needs Our Help

The situation in Haiti is obviously desperate. From the Haitian president, Rene Preval:

“Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed. There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.”

Please donate what you can to one of the relief organizations on the ground. Our family is donating $25 to Oxfam.







The American Red Cross
"Red Cross sees immediate needs for food, water, temporary shelter, medical services and emotional support."









Partners in Health
"With our hospitals and our highly trained medical staff in place in Haiti, Partners In Health is already mobilizing resources and preparing plans to bring medical assistance and supplies to areas that have been hardest hit. In Boston, our procurement and development teams are already fielding numerous offers of support and making arrangements to deliver resources as quickly as possible to the places where they are needed most."








Oxfam America
"Oxfam has long experience in Haiti, and we're rushing in teams from around the region to respond to the situation where our assistance is most needed. Our response will include providing clean water, shelter, sanitation and helping people recover. Your donation will go immediately to the most critical needs in Haiti, and we will ensure that every penny is used wisely."

Moral Growth

Economics has always given me a headache - especially because despite being difficult, even the big boys get incredibly partisan. Someone has to be right, but one is skeptical when their economic theories seem to match up so nicely with their sense of social fairness and human behavior.

But one thing that is always particularly irksome to me, as a leftist, is the degree to which the right blames leftist policy for a lack economic lack growth. So you have a principled opposition to redistribution as being illiberal, which then just happens to be bad for economic growth. Those to me seem like two distinct problems. If redistribution was illiberal, yet good for economic growth, it would still be wrong. And likewise, if redistribution was necessary for freedom, but bad for growth, it would still be right.

Of course, the devil is in just how far one influences the other. If any policy is bad enough for growth, leading ultimately to a decline, then whatever freedom gained would be irrelevant. And here is where, I believe, the right gets its wedge in: the immorality of social inequity is always justified by the larger emphasis on growth - the rising tide and all that. And to the degree that the tide just doesn't rise high enough for those at the bottom to be considered truly free, well, that battle can be fought another day.

"Look at all the generational poverty!"
"Yes, but they have COLOR TVS!"

So here we have the "rising tide", the "trickling down", being philosophical gold. So much of conservatism's economic and moral construct becomes dependent upon the validityof this premise: not only is redistribution wrong, it is actively harmful to the economy. Redistributive social spending, while well-intention, is actually hurting people by dragging down the entire economy. At the far end of this spectrum, you get the wingnuts claiming that any day now the hammer and sickle will replace the stars and stripes.

But what would a moderate increase on taxation really do? We know for certain that it would be helpful to many struggling Americans. There are any number of ways to do it effectively. There are also many ways to do it poorly, but the fact is that concrete things can be done if we believe in the idea. (Much of the outrage over wasteful spending has more to do with the fact that it is unwanted then that it is poorly executed).

But what we do not know for certain is how much of a drag any of it really is on the economy. It may be unfair, or immoral, but does that make it that bad for the economy? If I steal from my neighbor, and invest the money in something that creates growth, I've just done something wrong for one person, yet something right for the economy.

We can argue all day about whether social spending represents a better investment than private business investment. But the two are not mutually exclusive. Considering how much better - from a left perspective - Europe is on social initiative, I'm pretty happy about the margins of real disagreement on who is better at growth. One thing is certain, Europe isn't painting a hammer and sickle on its flags any time soon.

The Real Reid Gaffe, Pt. 2

To continue from my last post, Obama's response to the event, highlighting Reid's commitment to "social justice", says it all. He's referring to the liberal belief that the current state of racial inequity - in the classic words of former president G. W. Bush - "a history of racial discrimination".

Black achievement rates are much lower than whites. Some liberals say this is because of active discrimination. But even more say it's a little of that, but mostly a dysfunctional social system in which families, neighborhoods, and schools aren't providing the same opportunities for development for black children that white social structures do. And because liberals believe in socialization, we see this dysfunction as a result of our immoral, racist past. Thus it is our responsibility to actively redistribute resources into the black community to help build social capital.

Republicans have no such commitment to "social justice" because they define it differently. They see the current inequality as the fault of blacks themselves. They see our racist past as having no bearing on current structures. Thus they feel no obligation to make personal sacrifices, either at the personal or state level in order to repair a broken system.

It is a logical position. But it reflects deeper beliefs about consciousness and personal identity that would seem to give support to a racist perspective, even though not necessarily racist itself. I think most conservatives would love to see blacks do well. But they obviously are not.

So why is this? There are only three possible answers, and only two are available to the conservative: genetics or free choice. The third option is socialization, but that is a view contrary to the conservative philosophy of individual autonomy, and the embrace of which would require social ownership of individual outcomes - and any social ownership implies human rights and must lead directly to redistributive taxation. Genetics is racism, defined. So leaving that aside, the only available option is the mysterious notion of free choice. This would, one presumes, allow the individual to overcome any genetic or socialized determination within reason.

This is a fair enough position, granting the long and complex philosophical history of debate over free will. Its embrace by conservatives is not radical. And by doing so one is freed from many obligations to create a society in which certain freedoms are guaranteed, as long as those freedoms are the domain of individual, not social origination.

And so in the Republicans we have a modern conservative party that has little interest in social justice. In fact, it spends much of its time defending individual justice from the concept of social justice, as its logic sees misguided social obligations as a threat to the freedoms of those being compelled to sacrifice.

And of course, if one were a racist, the modern conservative movement would seem a sensible fit: blacks don't deserve our charity, just not because their self-efficacy is originated individually but instead because they're simply inferior. And so political aims become aligned. The tricky part, for those of us on the left, is parsing the difference.

Since racism has become almost unanimously seen as wrong, all but the most extreme racists hide their true feelings for fear of public outrage. And as any one who has spent much time trying to understand the racist mind and its historical expression will know, racism is a highly subversive and subconsciously driven pathology. Many people who in fact hold deep-rooted racist feelings will not admit to being racist, either to themselves or others.

One could then see how a liberal, who believes that black inequality is due not to genetics or free choice, but to socialization, and sees many parallels between racist and conservative thinking, would be skeptical of conservatives when they claim not to be racist. Of course it is perfectly possible that they are not. Yet it is also perfectly possible that they are.