On Information-Based Empathy
We had an interesting discussion yesterday about the tendency we all have to choose information that validates our beliefs and reject the information that doesn't. The conversation focused mostly on the politics of the moment, both the conservative/liberal divide and the Obama/Clinton divide. Certainly, we can see in some of the discussions that devoted supporters of both sides have a tough time digesting bad info but love to trumpet good info. That's an important thing for us as a community to contemplate.
But it's also essential, I think, to broaden the focus from just our little world of debate to the whole world itself. In fact, I think Obama has pointed us in a direction that encourages us to break out of these mindsets even beyond our partisan politics.
I wrote last May about a speech Obama gave in which he argued that we as a country suffer from an empathy deficit. He said, at the time:
There's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit - the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes; to see the world through those who are different from us - the child who's hungry, the laid-off steelworker, the immigrant woman cleaning your dorm room.It's an important point, and one that is foundational to his form of communitarian liberalism.
The question, though, is how we get there. Some of it has to just be cultivating more selflessness as simply a mental habit. Make an effort to think more about others, try to be more patient and open-minded, etc. That much most liberals usually agree is important.
But we can also now do it with information consumption. In this era when we can choose whatever information we want, we can cultivate our empathetic imaginations by making an effort to learn about the lives of folks different from ourselves.
Ethan Zuckerman, the founder of an organization called Global Voices that aggregates reporting and opinion from the blogosphere all over the world, calls this tendency for birds of a feather to flock together (socially, imformationally, whatever) "homophily." Homophily, he argues, makes us stupid. His point is essentially the same one that Atrios made in my post from yesterday. We all have tendencies to be hacks.
The opportunity we have, though, to cultivate our empathy (a desire Zuckerman ascribes to "xenophiliacs", people who love to learn about things that are different) is amazing. Zuckerman's approach is to reach out across the globe and try to bring "global voices" into American conversation. So, instead of relying on what the New York Times says people in Iraq are saying, we can go over and read it on their blogs for ourselves.
The same is possible, I think, here in the US. Obama asks us to learn to put ourselves in the shoes of a steelworker, an immigrant cleaner, or a child. But, as new media and high-speed internet proliferates, maybe we'll be able to go out and read their blogs as well. Find out from them what they think, what their lives are like, what they believe.
The choice online, then, is fairly radical. We can choose to be homophiliac hacks who read only content and live in only communities that validate us and our beliefs. Or we can cultivate our social empathy and reach out across not just the partisan or ideological spectrum, but also racial, class, age or gender divides that exist within what is supposed to be a single national community.
It's increasingly a matter of what information we choose to consume.
What I'd really like is all of this access into the lives of others to mean that the media stereotyping of "average Americans" or "middle class working people" or whatever will stop.
Perhaps folks will realize that the generalizations aren't true. That you don't have to live in a big city to want to buy organic lettuce.
There's just more diversity of opinion out there than we're told about.
May 9, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed.
May 10, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think a big part of this discussion is that our electoral system shoves us into a two-party system. It naturally polarizes us into one team or another and then a competitiveness creeps in causing us to shut out information that might score a point for the other side.
Mostly for this reason, I've always been an independent only registering as a democrat to be able to vote in primaries. I think one of our constitution's biggest flaws is this winner-take-all method of selecting candidates. It even forces our representatives to compromise their beliefs and cater to less-informed voters who will give them the majority they need.
Our country gets governed from one side or the other and rarely from the center. Each political trend is a reaction against the lopsidedness of the previous trend.
I hold no great optimism that this problem will ever be solved without a radical amendment to the constitution. But for now, I agree that Obama's call for empathy is certainly what is needed to bring some form of sanity to the process.
May 9, 2008 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry missed the thread yesterday, Andrew, but wanted to say thanks for your great post here.
I think many liberals are inclined to think of the American empathy deficit as originating with Reagan and his propaganda against the poor, but it's more likely an ancient tendency that's deeply ingrained in all of us. The "homophily" that Zuckerman describes may make us stupid now, in the modern world, but also may be a part of our lizard-brain, a primative holdover from the prehistoric time when the other did indeed pose a potentially dangerous risk and cleaving to our own group was absolutely necessary for survival.
It's interesting that the topic has arisen here at TPM Cafe, because I just had run across it, coming from a different angle. There was an interesting book written sometime ago by a sociologist, Herbert Gans, entitled The War Against the Poor - The Underclass and Antipoverty Policy, and I managed to find what appears to be a WaPo summary of Chapter One. According to Gans,
Sounds pretty depressing, doesn't it? It seems to me the only possible antidote to "homophily" is a conscious awareness that it's something within each one of us, and that it requires a concerted effort to recognize it and to question the assumptions about others that come all too easily to us.
BTW, the other term that Zuckerman coined, "xenophiliac", absolutely made my day (I love it!) and really does describe, I think, those of us who use the internet as a vicarious form of travel. The more people who use the web to visit other worlds and meet those scary strangers who turn out to be so much more like ourselves than we could ever have imagined, the faster we'll be able to overcome our empathy deficit.
May 9, 2008 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wordie,
Thanks for that reference. It looks fascinating. It doesn’t sound depressing to me, if only because there has to be other factors that temper our awareness and moral attitude towards the world. It seems to me that even though we make judgments and frame our own thoughts, observations and beliefs according to our experience and our in-group, there is also a basic set of universal ethics that seem to pervade all groups (like a human SOP in our DNA).
These fundamental morals are expressed in our stories and religions and what-have-you, but seem to always be there. And the higher educated and rational, I think the more those basic morals are accepted. I’m sure there are examples of small groups that disprove this and I’m sure that we all veer away from these standards and rationalize it, but they seem to exist, embedded in society (my $.02). Any philosophers out there?
PS I'm one of those xenophiliacs, too, but only because the internet is the only transportation I can afford.
May 9, 2008 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
That murder is wrong is just as certain as that 2+2=4. That's philosophy!
May 12, 2008 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
notice that neither truth lends itself to empirical verification yet their truth is nevertheless certain. Far more ceretain than that water is H2O.
May 12, 2008 12:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nice encapsulation, Andrew. It seems that it’s through this “homophily” that 2 + 2 often equals 5. Murder is wrong, except when it’s done in the strategic interests of our group. I agree that none of this is empirically verifiable (if something gives the same result every time it’s tried, I guess eventually it is considered true, but not proved). I still have a hard time grasping the source of our moral underpinnings outside of traditional norms that have evolved (again homophily). I think consciousness and development of conscience go hand in hand with early childhood growth. Empathy would seem to be more of a product of experience and relating to those around us (hence, tilted towards homophily), as opposed to sympathy, which is probably more connected to conscience.
May 12, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would amend that slightly to read "it is through homophily that people will go so far as to believe that 2 + 2 = 5." Reality itself is not flexible. As Aristotle said long ago (and I'm quoting from memory) To say of what is not that it is and to say of what is that it is not is FALSE. And to say of what is not that it is not and of what is that it is, is True.
Homophily leads to such contrary-to-empirical-fact beliefs as that women who are strong-willed must be bitches, that rich people are morally superior, and that OJ is innocent.
The white guilt syndrome is not strictly a case of simple homophily in my view but its opposite: It is a sense of self-loathing about one's own racism. I've called it benign racism elsewhere because the white person who feels this "racial phobia" can't escape their own feelings, but at least they do not lash out at African Americans as the KKK type do, but quite the contrary exhibit traits of overcompensation thus winding up dupes of the race hustlers.
The problem is, whites seem--for the most part--to gravitate either to being dupes or angry when what they need to be is mindful of what is true and what is false. Back to Aristotle!!
May 13, 2008 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd also like to clarify what I meant by the center in the above post. Universal heath care, environmental protection, worker and civil rights, a reasonable, not excessive defense, are all centrist issues. So our real center is somewhere left of what our distorted politics have placed it. The real far left - communism and full-blown socialism - doesn't even appear in our spectrum.
We have for so long been subject to such massive disinformation and vilification of causes for the common good, that people don't even recognize what should be an important, fundamental function of a good government.
May 9, 2008 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I meant the last post to be a reply to my first post.
Sorry.
I hope this finds its way to the right spot.
good luck, little post.
May 9, 2008 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Craig,
Your little post is finding its way ;-)
I am with you, how did ever basic human and civil right become leftist opinion?
May 10, 2008 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
You had my blood pressure creeping up for awhile there! I agree that the true center of politics in this country is to the left of where the news media has convinced us it is. But, if we are convinced that it is where the media say it is, isn't it actually there?
In today's world, obvious benefits to all of our citizens are seen as far left ideas, and obvious benefits only to the wealthy, to the detriment of the average citizen, are seen as being in the center. That leads to a lot of frustration among progressives (liberals) and makes holding a conversation on some subjects very difficult.
I absolutely agree that the real far left ideas are those relating to fully socialistic government, where production is state controlled, and where economic rewards are doled out entirely by the state. I don't know anyone who favors those ideas.
I do know I have zero interest in reading about what are far right ideas, so I just might not want to join in the party
May 9, 2008 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Much like it makes no sense to consider far left ideas of communism to solve our problems with, you would think that we would likewise ignore far right ideas. Yet, privatization of social security, health care, defense, even the roads we drive on has become staple ideas of the current administration and its party.
I think we can point to Reagan for when the conversation got off course and he successfully demonized the people's government. What a patriot! The masses have never recovered from that brainwashing. And the corporate media is here to see that they don't.
If you go back and listen to some of Eisenhower's speeches, there's no doubt he would be labeled a liberal today. Perhaps the movement Obama has started will awaken those sleeping Eisenhower Republicans and we can all get back to a political discourse on common goals. And not this have and have-not divide promoted by the controlling far-right.
May 9, 2008 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pleased to meet you, Hoppy. My first response missed - got lost in the login, probably.
I advocate public ownership. Call that state control if you wish, but public ownership doesn't mean non-market. The US Postal Service is nothing if not competitive, but uses no taxes, last I heard - it runs on its revenues, just like any private business.
I further advocate a shift towards more public ownership via eminent domain.
I believe that private corporations of the scale of public government should be socialized - bought out by the public just like Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo, and like so many other corporate buyouts in recent years.
There are obvious candidates, once the idea is on the table: big oil, health insurers, Wal-Mart, and so on.
I see two immediate advantages: their profits become public revenue; and they become subject to democratic control which isn't cost-intensive, unlike futile attempts to impose regulation on privately owned entities. Regulation may not work, but public ownership makes it moot.
I fully expect and intend that at least the oil companies and Wal-Mart, and to a large extent the health insurers and pharmaceuticals, will still operate in a market context, just like the day before they become public.
By the way, it seems to me the hesitation about single-payer health is that it requires putting the health insurers out of business and thus forcing job loss and the like. Not so, if they are socialized. A single-payer program will need administrators, and health insurance employers are professionals at that; they don't need to do much different. The companies can even stay in place; they will just not be privately owned or profit-motivated.
People who have never met or talked to a socialist have all kinds of strawmen for knocking down socialism. That's unfortunate. Albert Einstein was a socialist; by and large, socialism is not a dumb idea. Even Marx, who in some respects plagiarized the New Testament, thought socialism to be an evolutionary stage beyond capitalism.
Insurance is really just socialism, and it thus makes sense that insurance for profit doesn't work, especially where insurance is necessary because individual market transactions make no sense.
"From each according to ability; to each according to need." Not just the Marxist creed; it's also directly expressed in the New Testament.
May 10, 2008 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Amen to that!
Government takeover of Oil is long overdue in my opinion.
May 12, 2008 12:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Andrew, for the link to Global Voices.
"homophily" is precisely the reason that I quit visiting Atrios and Kos about a year and a half or so ago, and why I am incresingly less frequently visiting Huffington Post.
May 9, 2008 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Robert Farley at LGM had a good post on this as well:
Here's part of it:
May 9, 2008 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another illustration of your point which just came to mind Andrew is those who bitched about pointing out the Peggy Noonan article in the WSJ because of republican credentials.
Knee jerking.
May 9, 2008 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Barack Obama is not a spiritual leader or great philosopher; just a politician. In as much as he calls for a more civil and civic society, I agree. In as much as he talks about ethical government, ending the war and the war on the poor, getting rid of lobby influence and putting our country right, I agree. When he calls for “coming together” meaning join his campaign, I will agree with him when I feel I must.
Of course, to work on your moral self and to develop more empathy is a laudable goal, and it is incumbant on each of us individually to live better lives. The liberal and leftist bloggers are probably the most empathetic people overall to begin with, at least I used to think so. But I would not turn to Obama to find my value system anymore than I would turn to Clinton (it might be said that they are polar opposites but that is arguable).
To preach some kind of unity Obamism now, while his camp (including TPM) is still falsely accusing Clinton of racial politics and when empathy is not quite the attitude that has been expressed to half of the Democratic voters these past months, seems a bit cynical. Obama is a politician, love him or not. He can talk Gandhi all he wants; when he walks Gandhi, I may heed his call. I don't question your sincerity, Andrew, and I think both of these calls-to-action, to work on losing or taming our prejudices and empathizing with others, are important. But I don't think ethics mix well with realpolitik.
May 9, 2008 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I should have prefaced that with what I see as poor framing of this issue: a call for unity and empathy with others from one of the two most polarizing figures to commenters here. It wasn’t meant to be a rant against Obama but questioning the fronting of Obama on this issue of “homiphily.” This campaign has been the most divisive among different Democratic groups that I’ve seen. I do not think, for example, that college students have gained a better understanding or affection for PA steelworkers (and it seems to me that information on the net might encourage sympathy but not empathy). I understand why Obama might be used here as a siren to come together, but right now, it can only have the opposite effect.
May 9, 2008 7:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
What difference does it make who calls for it? We should all be calling for it.
Unity and empathy are basic elements needed to just begin working on the problems we face. A good leader will point this out. But it's up to the people to recognize their importance.
May 9, 2008 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, and we should be calling for change and hope, too. But calling on each other is one thing; shouting slogans at each other is another. I have no problem with a political campaign messaghe or theme. But I resent being asked to take it to heart and believe in it as gospel to further a politician's ambition, even if I believe they are the right person for that position. MLK could make a moral appeal because he was above politics.
The reason it makes a difference who is calling for it is because the reasons, motivation, and authenticity of any movement or appeal is underwritten by its leadership. I’m sure Obama believes in everything he espouses, but he is not espousing them because he believes in them. His message is the means not the ends. He is preaching what he needs to in order to get elected. Go back and read how Axelrod decided to present Obama and why.
The people who become enrapt in his message will be disappointed in the extreme when it turns out to be somewhat cynical. Besides, I don’t know that most people are truly motivated by the appeals of a politician. While an inspiring orator like Obama is going to draw many to his cause, to believe in and fight for him, ultimately he not we is the one they’re waiting on. I think a community grew up, especially on the blogs, that shared common aims and outlook but mostly a vehement antipathy to our current government. Many flocked to Obama because he offered a change that wasn’t cynical. But it is just politics, based on polls and lobby groups and constituencies not higher principles or a moral movement. Politics is all about factions not togetherness.
I don’t know that religions, cults, and social movements are all that successful at converting everyone and instilling values either. But a political movement has to be the worst. And I’d add that a perusal of the hate expressed by the proselytizers of that empathy message will bear that out. Mainly, it matters because the audience here has been divided by the candidates and a post marketing Obama’s call for unity and empathy is by default a political appeal, whether it’s valid or not.
May 9, 2008 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, let's just forget all of the campaign politics that bogs down every civil servant who runs for office to try and represent us and manages to corrupt more than a few. Once you mix in the media, corporate lobbyists, and more special interests than either of us can count, it's quite a daunting task for anyone to attempt.
Let's just say we want to get the smartest one elected that's going to sincerely represent our views as close as possible. We had three excellent choices - Clinton, Edwards, & Obama. My choice originally was Edwards. He was much closer on policy for me. Maybe he didn't play the media right, but for whatever reason, they buried him. I thought Clinton was brilliant on policy. She can debate circles around most any politician out there. But her name is also a rallying cry to the Republican base. Remember we want to get the smartest one elected that will represent our views. It does no good to mobilize the opposition against us. Despite my admiration for Clinton, that just seemed counterproductive to me.
All of his oratorical skills aside, I think most of us have recognized Obama as the smartest one who will represent our views who has the best chance of getting elected. The ability to inspire large crowds, in my book, is just a bonus. I think most people see the same qualities that the Harvard Review saw when they elected him president. He was the smartest guy who appealed to the most people. No underhanded politics or flowery speeches. Just one very smart guy.
But I think people also notice what Obama did after his term at the Review. He went off to work on the streets of south Chicago. If there's something cynical there, then you're right, I'm really missing it.
So to respond to your comments, I think Obama's support is just as much pragmatic as it is inspirational. And his call, which should be our call, for unity and empathy, is equally pragmatic.
May 9, 2008 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Craig,
I added that preface above because I didn’t want to sidetrack the discussion into an “Obama or not Obama” argument. But I don’t disagree with a lot of what you say. I see his call for unity and empathy as pragmatic and inspirational but mostly as politically convenient.
Clinton and Obama are both very smart and politically astute. McCain is not. He is another macho patriot-mongering values pandering corporate shill. Still, on important issues they play the same game (i.e. On FP and the ME, bowing to the Lobby that must not be named). Regardless of campaign rhetoric, I doubt anyone will bring radically new politics to DC and a change in tone alone is meaningless. In politics, unity and empathy can be mutually exclusive objectives. Politics is about competing interests. Yes, a leader should be civil and flexible and accommodate others to the extent possible. But if you want to unify a majority, you’re going to leave out some.
Whose statements after the officers who shot Sean Bell fifty times were acquitted is more empathetic?
Barack Obama: "We're a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down. Resorting to violence to express displeasure over a verdict is something that is completely unacceptable and is counterproductive."
Hillary Clinton: "This tragedy has deeply saddened New Yorkers - and all Americans. My thoughts are with Nicole and her children and the rest of Sean's family during this difficult time. The court has given its verdict, and now we await the conclusion of a Department of Justice civil rights investigation.” (From Counterpunch.org)
If there has been a candidate of empathy in recent times, it might be Ralph Nader who has always been about the people who are powerless, yet he has been demonized more than any other. Obama’s post-partisan and post-racial views are pretty much the same that Bill Clinton was promoting when he was president. Compromise is triangulation and too often with Obama the compromising takes place with the corporate interests involved not the other side of the aisle (though they may be the same). Someone mentioned losing the binary thinking but we have a binary (tweo-party) system locked in now and the Republican Party, the opposition, has sold out completely. They are not standing on principles but representing the interests of their backers, so compromising with them is compromising your own principles.
May 10, 2008 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bingo!
For a bunch of people who profess to be advocating a post partisan American politics, I have never seen the kind of hatred they have dished out towards Hillary.
You say a movement is defined by its leaders. Maybe so. But a leader is beholden to his followers too.
Obama would show he has some backbone if he renounces some of his more extreme sociopaths. But he does not. Implicitly he encouraged them all along. It is no accident that they inundated this site and all the other liberal sites with venom .
So his blather about "unity" is bullshit. If he is going to unite with anyone it will precisely be with those powers he is busy renouncing today.
May 12, 2008 12:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
It matters because the text of the message is not the whole message. Obama is a politician, and in my view, as crass an opportunist as any that have come down the pipe recently. His credentials as a leader are not established.
It matters because if he can't walk his talk, he discredits the message. Then, the nation loses; while he retires to write his own ticket as we try to figure out how to reassemble Humpty-Dumpty.
Ask yourself: when former President Obama hits the streets, what is your best guess of his career? Hammering nails for Habitat, a la Jimmy Carter; or travelling to Japan to make speeches for $1 million, a la Ronald Reagan? The answer to that question, I believe, is a clue as to where he will be taking us as a nation in the meantime.
Thanks.
mp
May 9, 2008 10:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I actually read Noonan, Brooks, Sullivan and other self confessed conservatives. I haven't graduated to the National Review but I always find a good historical analysis of current political events from the History News Network.
I wrote this other day after the conclusion of this weeks past two Democratic contest:
May 9, 2008 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another illustration of your point is the two intellectually challenged posters of the Hitler video.
May 9, 2008 10:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Back in the day, before the "internets" was publicly available, I spent many hours exchanging barbs and missiles with conservatives in the FidoNet political echomail forums. I encountered my epiphany during the first Gulf War. A group of conservatives learned that one of our leftwing correspondents had a daughter in the Army, who had crossed into Iraq and was out of contact with her parents for several days. These heroic defenders of The American Way commenced a kind of virtual boot party upon this man, repeatedly expressing their hope that his daughter would be killed. Worried sick about his daugher, the guy nearly had a breakdown.
Not a single self-identified conservative in that forum condemned this sickening spectacle. Not one. As a result of that experience, I lost all respect for "conservatives" of any stripe. I do not consider them either moral or intellectual equals. I have no interest whatever in "bridging the divide" with that pond scum.
Thanks.
mp
May 9, 2008 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
To me, the story you just told is the definition of a "deficit of empathy." It has become the trademark of the far right, like a bunch of brownshirts running rampant in the streets of pre-war Germany. And their enemy is some fictitious image of liberalism. How do you reason with that?
May 10, 2008 12:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
What point is there to have empathy with those you find heartless and crass? None whatsoever.
The first thing to do is to agree on the facts. That's hard enough in politics and other macro fields.
But the second is to integrate those facts into a coherent theory that reflects oyou ethical values.
My ethical values are different from the conservatives, or at least many of those ethical values that are relevant to politics. Why then should I have any "empathy" with these people?
That's why I think Obama is all wet behind his ears. There is no reconciling the two camps like he thinks he can do. They want you to fend for yourself on health care, mortgages, social security, health care and a host of other things. THAT'S THEIR ETHICAL VALUE SYSTEM. The don't disagree on any facts with me, they disagree on values. On the proper role of Government
This notion that we need to have empathy with them on these issues is nonsense.
Liberals will never learn that lesson though; that it's not a misunderstanding what we have between us, it is a fundamental difference in values. And implementation of our values is what is at the root of what we want our government to do.
So you guys better wake up and smell the coffee. You cannot shrink from political battle.
If you go hat in hand to Republicans and beg for "bipartisanship" you will get burned time and time again.
The American people will see you as WEAK and vote you out of office.
But you never learn.
I sincerely hope that Obama is not serious about his postpartisnaship America. Different groups have different interests and often they conflict. That's why we have government in the first place.
It is not all one big misunderstanding that Obama can clears up and brings us all together in some harmonious state of cooperation. It is intrinsic conflicts of interests at work and we better face that. Hillary understands that Obama has no clue
May 10, 2008 2:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I find this kind of facile, binary thinking really disturbing, both in substance and its pervasiveness in the public discourse.
Dividing the political dialog into "liberals" and "conservatives" is just more the "they" and "us" thinking. Choose your "they" and "us" groups.
Binary thinking denies, in the present case, the fact that there are very many shades of gray along the political spectrum. And that almost all of us hold some political ideals that would generally be considered liberal and others that would be considered conservative.
May 10, 2008 8:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
While I am an Obama supporter, I share your sentiments about empathy with the far right.
I don't believe in pure, value-free "information". I struggled with how to articulate this yesterday and that's why I didn't join in on Andrew's thread. Information does not *support* or *refute* your basic worldview, and it is not possible to purely evaluate either a worldview on the basis of information or some information on the basis of a worldview. Take the effectiveness of the surge strategy in Iraq, for example. Violence actually did go down for awhile. If an anti-war thinker had taken this "information" as the MSM would have us take it, it would utterly refute the ideas that Iraq is a failure, that withdrawing from Iraq is a good idea, and that increasing our commitment to Iraq will eventually allow us to win. Now we can begin to see the surge for the temporary phenomenon that it is, and other reasons for the temporary reduction in violence. Furthermore, the putative effectiveness of the surge is utterly irrelevant to whether or not the Iraq invasion was a good idea in the first place; even in a disaster, it is possible of course to do better or worse.
I also agree with Karl Rove on one point he made, about the role of the Bush regime in *creating* its own reality. This sparked the congratulatory self-image of the blogosphere as the "reality-based community". But in fact, at least for awhile, I think BushCo actually succeeded in creating this reality. To argue otherwise is not to accept the deep, and to some extent irreversible, damage that has been done to our country. But the "facts", the pieces of information, that inform us about this damage, don't refute the wrongness of what Bush has accomplished. If Bush set out to weaken the effectiveness of government, to drown government in the bathtub, the fact that he succeeded doesn't mean that all government, forever and inevitably, is doomed to fail to better the lives of the citizenry.
But look at how Bush accomplished this! He did it by marginalizing the 60% of the population that disagreed with him, of which 10.5% didn’t really care. Bush’s idea of being a uniter was to unite the minority that supported him. He sneered at his opponents and disrespected points of view other than his own. This is an effective strategy if what you are setting out to do is to undermine the system in the first place. It is not an effective strategy if you are trying to fix the system.
This is where I think you are wrong about Obama and Clinton. The fight is about the policies, but it is also about how you arrive at the policies. Clinton, I agree, would be a tough fighter to reverse the policies that Bush has brought about. But I fear that the way she would do that would be by utilizing Bush’s playbook, and in the process, the belief of the citizenry in the effectiveness of good government would be further eroded. Furthermore, any policy reversals that she was able to put through would themselves be temporary and reversible, because they would be seen as the whims of a powerful and underhanded executive.
Where I think you see Obama as someone who is willing to compromise principles on the altar of non-partisanship, I think the model of governance that he is actually putting forward is one of being willing to listen to the opposition, to compromise on points of strategy and rhetoric, but not on the principles of making American government work in the interests of the little guy. I don’t believe he will go "hat in hand to Republicans and beg for 'bipartisanship'" – I agree with you that that would be weak and that he would be voted out of office. Instead, I believe and hope that he will demonstrate to the American electorate that a politics that is depersonalized, respectful, focused on empowering the disenfranchised, and working for those who really need government’s help, is not only possible but is what people like and will continue to want.
I don’t see Clinton’s way of governance as leading us to that happy state. You are correct that "different groups have different interests and often they conflict." Bush’s and Clinton’s, way of governance will ensure that even when our interests do *not* conflict, there will be sizable minorities of people who will stand in firm opposition to whatever she tries to do.
May 10, 2008 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
As well she should! That Hillary would be as tough as Karl Rove et al in her implementation of her policy agenda IS A PLUS ON HER SIDE
Thank you for such a thoughtful comment on my post
I think however we must differentiate between two things
1) the tactics that a politician uses to get his/her agenda across
2) The actual agenda that the politician wants to get across.
We should NOT confuse the two.
Obama babbles on about how he is going to change the "tone" of the debate. How he is going to reach out to the other side in a spirit of unity. That's I take as his stated position as to what tactics he will use to get the agenda across. I really hope he is not serious about that bullshit. The Republicans are going to hand him his lunch in a New York second if that's his game plan.
As to Obama's policy agenda: I like Hillary's better in some areas and Obama's better in others. For example I think Obama has expressed a willingness to be more conciliatory in ME issues that "obliteration" Hillary.
But who do I trust more on actually being able to pass the liberal agenda? Definitely Hillary. Why? Precisely because she has proven she is tough and can fight as dirty as they can. Obama is a phlegmatic type who sighs and despairs when faced with confrontation. I hate to say it but the guy lacks balls in my opinion.
But the Volkgeist is clamoring for a “conciliator” be3cause they are appalled by Bush’s arrogance without realizing that arrogance is fought with even more arrogance not by turning the other cheek.
So that's one major reason why I was pro Hillary.
Now I will be pro Obama. But everything I said about him still stands. One hopes he will improve. McCain is not an option.
May 12, 2008 1:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hoppy, how many "full-blown socialists" do you personally know?
I consider myself one - and have, for about 30 years. Let me introduce myself, of a sort.
I self-identify as an African-American fundamentalist evangelical charismatic Christian. I also have a Ph.D. in a technological discipline. Before I became a Christian, I was an atheist.
Ludwig von Mises, father of the so-called Austrian school of economics, who influenced Fredrich Hayek, who influenced Milton Friedman, wrote in his tome attacking socialism that any objective analysis of Christianity would conclude that it is socialism. That's one of the few things I'd agree with Hayek about.
What Andrew has been talking about here is what theologians call exegesis - objective interpretation, as opposed to eisegesis - self-subjective interpretation. Exegetically, Jesus Christ was a socialist of the sort of which you claim you've never known, and the 1st-century Christian church were communists by modern dictionary definitions of the word (in fact, an ancient Greek word which even transliterates as communism - koinonia - is used in Acts to describe them - see Acts 2:42).
I would refer you to Matthew 6. Jesus notes there, to paraphrase, that if one serves two masters without hating one, one is loyal to neither, and one of the masters he specifically mentioned was Money - capitalism (philarguria in the ancient Greek: preference for silver/capital, not patharguria: obsession with capital - see 1 Timothy 6:10).
He goes on to describe how we should not worry about ordinary material concerns - the well-known "lilies of the field" passage. And he ends this discussion by saying, "but seek first the government of God and its righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."
Government? Yes. The Greek word, basileia, is derived from basis, which means the same in modern English as in ancient Greek, so I take basileia to mean provisional infrastructure. I.e., there are two fundamental aspects to government: authority and provision, and the "kingdom" Jesus spoke so much of was about the latter.
Again paraphrasing, Jesus was literally suggesting that if we pursue what we now consider to be socialist government in a full sense, we won't have to worry about material concerns.
People on the right believe in authoritative government, e.g., the military and the force of law, but they dismiss the idea of provisional government, instead believing in market freedom. Socialism is not about the penultimate in authoritative government, though that mistake is easy enough to make; it's about provisional government, which is little more than the synergism of collective society, being used actively for the benefit of society.
I used to note that the difference between capitalism and socialism is about motivation, not mechanism. Markets are mechanism, and do not define capitalism. In any even, Hayek's "economic calculation problem" has been solved in modern times by global but private concerns like Wal-Mart - it's called supply-chain management (SCM) and similar terms, so the mechanism no longer matters. The difference is motivation: capitalism is motivation by capital, i.e., profit; socialism is motivation by society, i.e., "the general welfare", as in "... promote the general welfare."
The challenge of socialism is to balance provision against authority. The founders of the US took that very challenge as foremost. Jesus said, "the basileia is within you;" the founders specified government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."
The picture I use here it not me - it's Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and socialist, who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance as a statement of socialist commitment.
As long as we fear socialism as something it's not, we won't realize how important it is to cease our worship of capitalism, which is not democratic, especially when it becomes oligopoly and monopoly, as Adam Smith himself warned it could become.
The enemies of totalitarians in the 20th century were not capitalists first and foremost, but socialists. But that's why totalitarians usurped the term "socialist" for their own use. Ask George Orwell, who was a socialist.
Our heads are in the sand.
And by the way, isn't homophily the same as zenophobia?
May 10, 2008 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I meant to reply to hoppycalif - please forgive. Also, I meant "one of the few things I agree with von Mises about"... von Mises was certainly "anti-Christian", and Christian followers of him and those he influenced, should be aware of that.
May 10, 2008 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry Andrew, hate to bust into your thread. But could you please block this spammer? He is spamming almost every post.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/profile/bigpatty23
May 10, 2008 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
No problem, took care of it. Feel free to shoot an email to help at talkingpointsmemo dot come if you see these in the future.
May 10, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
My apologies, too, for the sidetrack. I asked about this on another thread but apparently you'd already left. Do you know what happened to a post of MJ's about Obama's VP choice and the Brazile-Begala fight? It was posted last Sunday or Monday. I was blocked from it at first, but can't find it at all now. Thanks for your help.
May 10, 2008 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Andy, your the best :)
May 10, 2008 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some people like to read about Iraqi experiences in blogs:
Real empathy means stop blogging about it, stop blogging about reading about the disadvantaged who are blogging. Go live it, and connect with those who have no access to computers.
Empathy by Osmosis: Read about it, or do something
This is a good start, but misses the point of empathy. Others like to do something about real victims. Not in Iraq, but in Louisiana. Real empathy is needed for our own in Louisiana, then we might seriously consider empathy for Iraqis.
Do the disadvantaged really have the time to blog, or are they more concerned with other things: Getting food, sleeping, avoiding dangerous conditions. Real disadvantaged people do not have access to electricity. If they can post on the internet or a blog, they're doing comparatively well.
The call for "let's have empathy" should be demonstrated by actions on TPM, not continued assaults against those with different views. Another playful misdirection without a legacy of demonstrated performance. Some Republicans deserve empathy in their current plight: They're wrong, but they're still in charge.
May 10, 2008 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can say that again.
I think the thrust of this post by Golis is right on, but this has been the liberal approach for all of my adult lifetime. There nothing new about it.
It kind of jumps out at me how so many Obama supporters act like it's something new and refreshing. It's certaining good, very good, but it's nothing new.
May 10, 2008 10:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
When the U.S. first launched the unprovoked terrorist attack on Baghdad known as "Shock and Awe" I got online, looking for a different view of what was happening over there. I was lucky enough to stumble across the amazing "Where Is Raed?" blog by Salam Pax. A little reminder:
http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/2003/03/last-two-days-we-didnt-have-internet.html
I read The American Conservative on a regular basis, and I'm just now watching Fox News Sunday, where David Axelrod is debunking the rumor that Obama will pay off Hillary's campaign debt. I know, I know--they're the devil, and we're all supposed to be trying to put them out of business. All that MoveOn bullshit. But I like the fact that I have full, unrestricted access to what those on the other side are thinking. Know thy enemy and all that. I still can't bring myself to click the hillary44 link, though.
May 11, 2008 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think this is the time to remind people of the work of psychologist Robert Altemeyer. He has studied what he calls the "right wing authoritarian" personality type.
This is someone who follows a strong leader, believes the ideology, refuses to consider alternative viewpoints, and/or avoids exposure to such information.
What his researches have found is that this type of person tends to be strongly conservative. On the other hand "liberals" are much more likely to listen to arguments by those with whom they disagree.
He has summarized his 40+ years of research and put it in a book which is available for a free download at his web site: theAuthoritarians.com
John Dean was very taken with his finding and used the work as the basis of his recent book "Conservatives without Conscience".
Read Altemeyer and much of what is being discussed here will become clear.
May 11, 2008 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink