Dec
24
If Things Are Going Well, Why Should Anyone Be Active Politically?
Filed Under politics | 7 Comments
If things are comfortable, and issues domestic and foreign entrusted to individuals competent enough, then why should anyone be talking about politics? Why should we in America be so passionate about this Presidential election? Is there really an enormous amount on the line, or are we making stuff up because we’re bored?
It could be dangerous that we discuss politics, get angry about something, and then go vote. After all, if things are going well, then tampering with how things are is tampering with our present and perhaps even future wellness.
It is tempting to say participation in the political process makes the system work, that the popular will acts as an ultimate check and balance on governance, and forces elected officials to be competent enough. What needs happen for this check and balance to take effect is for the popular will to be heard over and over and over in dissimilar meaningless ways.
Perhaps our inquiry should challenge this whole “democracy”/”republicanism” concept directly – the popular will ultimately means that millions of people who are barely able to take care of themselves are going to tell those who actually know what they’re doing what they should be doing. “Public servant” doesn’t begin to describe the people who want to govern or educate: “abject slavery” is a more apt description for those seeking and working for the common good.
When we conceive of regimes beyond the democratic, we realize why it is critical for people to be involved politically. Other regimes separate the few from the many on the basis of a principle: the few are the more perfect instantiation of the greater good to which the regime is dedicated.
We democrats/republicans do not make such a separation; differences of ability and willingness among us mean that anyone can serve or be served at any time. In participating properly in democratic life, there is the genuine good of equality through appreciation. That genuine good is critical to democracy surviving and not being torn apart from within: Jefferson and Hamilton agreed on nothing and yet, together, were able to bring this nation about.
Popular participation in politics now is worse than useless. Our ancestors were moral people who didn’t pretend to be dispassionate. Now we’re all political scientists in a sense – we vote for candidates we think can win over those we disagree with (noble), we hold our personal experience on some issue to be the same as the common good (not so noble), and we use “issues” and “stances” to create a checklist so as to determine a candidates feasibility (ugh). This is a very dangerous set of affairs, as there’s no aiming for equality – we’re aiming for converts for our own selves; without moral rhetoric, with only an appeal to utility, we are knowers more than mere believers. Perhaps our real obsession with self-help gurus is that we think we can be like them one day (Oprah, watch out: your fans may want to surpass you at the soonest possible moment).
So we should be active politically, but not in the way we are now. The new science of politics should take at its starting point a moderate, rather than moderated, self-expression. To this end, music groups and gurus telling us what is moral should matter less than our telling our own stories, with conviction, reflection and unanswered questions. The honesty involved, coupled with a desire of each of us to hear more stories and equally appreciate the other, should bring back a truly moral voice to politics, as it is the first step to evaluating the common good – finding out who we are and what we want.
Dec
22
These are just notes. As said before, trying to describe political positions as good/bad purely abstractly is the refuge of the scoundrel – the major reason why people do such things is to argue for inhumane things. The foundations of any given regime are a grappling with necessity for the sake of something higher, but injustice cannot therefore be explained to the point of elimination.
And yes, things are going well in Dallas. I hope to be blogging regularly when I get back, I’m just happy to have the time online that I have now.
1. I watched exactly 10 seconds of Bill O’Reilly, and I think he said during that time slippery-slope argumentation was incompatible with a free society. He didn’t bother to elaborate on this position, and so I didn’t bother to keep watching. I turned the TV off and started writing.
As you know, a slippery-slope argument is one where someone argues that if one thing happens, that lowers our resistance to another worse thing happening, that other worse thing following the same logic as the one before. A famous slippery-slope argument (which in this author’s opinion is exactly correct) is:
If you allow birth control, abortion necessarily follows, and the family as an institution becomes a questionable good instead of a primary one.
The best argument against slippery-slope logic probably starts from something like this:
Birth control does not entail abortion.
Since rights in a free society depend on being able to do as much as possible that does not hurt another, the mere possibility of abortion – if one wanted to prevent that possibility – cannot be used as an argument against birth control. Neither can deletrious effects on the family as an institution.
The key to the argument is that each step of the way in a free society, we have the ability to deliberate over laws. There is no firm and final link between birth control and abortion; the threat to the family has to be accounted for in birth control itself, not in a chain reaction it might start.
Slippery-slope argumentation is an attack on our freedoms; it is the verbalization of fears stemming from moralism without rationality. The moral assumes it is the reason for any action or non-action, and it only looks at consequences in light of the moral. It does not take into account human progress and that we can have more freedoms as we are empowered more. Any right can be argued against via slippery slope reasoning – scientific inquiry might lead to people trying to play God, etc., therefore no one should do science.
2. And you can already see the problem with the anti-”slippery-slope” argument. If you think all rights are in danger because of slippery slope argumentation, you yourself are using a slippery-slope logic. People seem to think slippery-slope logic can be avoided. I think the logical form is so general it is impossible to avoid. Here’s the logical form as I see it:
If A, Then B, where A of necessity threatens a principle/moral sentiment which would prevent B.
It’s just a conditional where the antecedent and consequent are linked by being different degrees of destructiveness to something we don’t want to see go. So if you’re against censorship on the Internet, you’re using a slippery slope argument. If you were mad about the Danish cartoon brouhaha, as Bill O’Reilly probably was, there’s a slippery slope argument underlying that: Is one caving into Islamists too much, if one doesn’t “stand with Denmark?”
There might be a way of getting a tighter logical form for a slippery slope argument, and you’re more than welcome to discuss those and trackback to this post. Again, these are just notes.
One might complain that when bringing up censorship/caving into Islamism I’m not taking on the particular argument that slippery-slope argumentation is detrimental to rights. What’s tricky about that argument is that giving as many rights as possible to as many as possible is a fairly good start to characterizing a free society, and the complete definition of a free society for many in academia or politics.
Would that it were true. Aristotle holds that any regime carried out to its logical terminus destroys itself – i.e. a too-democratic democracy becomes anarchy. It’s easy to see why this is: governments are instituted to implement a principle, make it workable within the sphere of the human. They are imperfect authorities in an imperfect world. If one assumes that a principle is perfect enough to implement itself – that gov’t need only stand aside for it wholly – then one assumes (perhaps unknowingly) that we live in a perfect-enough world, where the necessity of government is questionable.
Furthermore, in our government as constituted now, something besides rights for individuals is important, and that something is the general will which allows us to have a government that is even remotely effective/legitimate. Popular opinion has to be on the same page to some degree in order for there to be a rights-granting institution. That “degree” is covered by tradition and norms which slippery slope arguments are usually used to protect. Please note that “let’s have as many rights as possible for as many as possible” can be used as rhetoric to suggest that we have a common enterprise as Americans, an enterprise I’m more than willing to work for. But it usually is used to argue that someone can do as they like for the most part and I have to shut up about it.
3. A further argument could be that society is prior to gov’t, and that slippery slope reasoning impedes the progress society naturally makes – it uses the gov’t to make a partisan interest, one very particular vision of society, the law/norm. Against this I would say that Locke is lying (knowingly) when he gives us two contracts – one for society, another for government. We’re only able to talk to each other now because I, of Indian ethnicity, live in the US. Constitutionalism is in a sense prior to American society – we even talk of the Puritans in terms of how they made freedom possible and how they struggled with certain issues that we struggle with now. (This argument does not contrast with the “popular opinion” one above; work it out, I’ve been careful enough with my terms I think, and you’ll see why).
In my mind, one cannot discriminate against arguments for merely being slippery-slope arguments. One has to assess the problems any change may bring about, and be willing to err on the side of caution. Not every slippery-slope argument is a good argument, quite obviously. But the much maligned “slippery-slope” has been right more often than not.
Dec
19
In case I don’t get to say it later, please have a Merry Christmas.
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Dec
18
On the Eagles’ Prospects for Next Year:
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Ned Macey at Football Outsiders put it perfectly:
A rehabbing quarterback, inconsistent secondary, and poor red zone offense have spelled the difference between a 9-5 team heading to the playoffs and a 6-8 team questioning the direction of the franchise. If they stay the course, odds are they would be right back in the thick of a playoff chase next season. If they panic and dump one of the best quarterbacks in football because the team around him has regressed and the local talk radio shows are calling for his head, the Eagles will get the sustained mediocrity they deserve.
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Dec
17
December Afternoon
Filed Under poetry | Leave a Comment
a gentle sky-blue backdrop:
bright clouds tinged with gold.
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