Digressions&Impressions

Marx on Ideology Critique and Social Explanation in the Jewish Question

Nevertheless, North America is pre-eminently the country of religiosity, as Beaumont, Tocqueville, and the Englishman Hamilton unanimously assure us. The North American states, however, serve us only as an example. The question is: What is the relation of complete political emancipation to religion? If we find that even in the country of complete political emancipation, religion not only exists, but displays a fresh and vigorous vitality, that is proof that the existence of religion is not in contradiction to the perfection of the state. Since, however, the existence of religion is the existence of defect, the source of this defect can only be sought in the nature of the state itself. We no longer regard religion as the cause, but only as the manifestation of secular narrowness. Therefore, we explain the religious limitations of the free citizen by their secular limitations. We do not assert that they must overcome their religious narrowness in order to get rid of their secular restrictions, we assert that they will overcome their religious narrowness once they get rid of their secular restrictions. We do not turn secular questions into theological ones. History has long enough been merged in superstition, we now merge superstition in history. The question of the relation of political emancipation to religion becomes for us the question of the relation of political emancipation to human emancipation. We criticize the religious weakness of the political state by criticizing the political state in its secular form, apart from its weaknesses as regards religion. The contradiction between the state and a particular religion, for instance Judaism, is given by us a human form as the contradiction between the state and particular secular elements; the contradiction between the state and religion in general as the contradiction between the state and its presuppositions in general. Karl Marx (1843/1844) On The Jewish Question, Proofed and Corrected: by Andy Blunden, Matthew Grant and Matthew Carmody, republished at marxists.org.

I returned to the early Marx of Zur Judenfrage after nearly thirty years because of a discussion in my department about the nature of ideology critique. And I did so because in the intervening years I had picked up somewhere that it is the original Marxist ideology critique. And indeed it anticipates, as Jo Wolff notes in his SEP entry, a standard criticism of liberalism: that the political project that is supposed to emancipate us both presupposes and promotes our separation and, thereby, promotes a false view of life (that is, greed) and a false (Hobbesian) view of freedom (that is, security from threats). It also anticipates the line of argument that liberal democracy just is a species of applied or debased christianity. I leave to others to trace the link of influence from this piece to Max Weber, Nietzsche, Freud, and Carl Schmitt and all the luminaries of modernity.

In re-reading the argument I was struck by the claim that the "existence of religion is the existence of defect, the source of this defect can only be sought in the nature of the state itself." In particular, the causal claim this presupposes -- viz., social defects are the effects of the nature of the state [hereafter: the causal claim] -- can be made best visible "where the political state exists in its completely developed form." It is no surprise that Marx quotes The Social Contract further down, because this kind of causal claim that deviations from human flourishing in social life can be explained by social even political causes is articulated in The Social Contract.+

The United States is then the main instance of such complete development because it, or at least some of its states, allows pure freedom of religion even granting that all political rights (including holding office) can be gained without a formal religious requirement.* Marx does not deny that the causal claim operates in other (post-Feudal) political contexts, but in those contexts there are interfering social mechanisms (so Marx is intuitively thinking of the causal claim in terms of its instantiation of a law with ceteris paribus conditions). 

The way Marx traces out the argument suggests something like the following: that there continue to be religious individuals is the effect of the liberal state's promotion of capitalism and individualism (since it does not promote a religion). Their religiosity is essentially a byproduct of this. And because religious association is constituted by individual choice it generates not community, but growing difference and differentiation (and so, as Weber notes, value pluralism). Now, in context this fact is used to criticize Bauer's argument that Jewish emancipation is only possible on the condition that Jews give up their Judaism. While the main criticism of Bauer is that he has an incomplete understanding of emancipation, the conceptual argument is that Bauer aims for the impossible (because the liberal state effectively promotes religious diversity). 

While Bauer's argument is developed in a Prussian context (where relations of subordination are christianized), Marx's criticism of Bruno Bauer remains of interest in light of the militant secularism of French laïcité (which is effectively anticipated by Bauer), which is the true Atheist state described by Marx. (More than the United States, France evacuates traditional religiosity from the public sphere.) From a Marxist perspective, even more than the US, French secularism (which presupposes our separateness in civil society) is doomed to fail in virtue of its effective tendency to promote religiosity among (sovereign) individuals, and simultaneously to insist that the French state itself is the only legitimate political tie in common.

But the proposed site of religiosity, civil society, is incapable of being truly heavenly according to Marx because it presupposes our separateness and promotes our greed. But because our religiosity has not been extinguished, it has in fact been stimulated, its only effective site is the state (which presents itself as striving for eternality). Thus, the state is effectively an idol not just from the perspective of the Marxist, who recognizes that the state continues the (essentially Christian project of) estrangement of abstract citizens from themselves (by secular means), but also from the perspective of those citizens who reject an individualist (i.e., protestant) conception of religion (and state).

In fact, if we think about the causal claim it is accompanied by a further claim (which Marx explicitly asserts): "the imperfection even of...politics [in the perfected state] becomes evident in religion." So, the presence of religious fundamentalism among citizens of a state that understands and presents itself as atheist, is indicative of the fact that the state itself has taken on the character of a supreme idol. So, rather than seeing fundamentalism as something archaic or atavistic it is a distinctly modern effect of a society that is capitalist and with a secular public sphere. 

Let me return to the building blocks of Marx's argument: his causal claim presupposes a proper functioning view of human nature. In his account of the effects of history this proper functioning is deformed/undermined by economic practices which are, in turn, secured by state power. (Again, note the echo of Rousseau here.) So, Marx here already anticipates features of his later view (recall) that is more articulated in (say) The Communist Manifesto and the Critique of the Gotha Program. Crucially, Marx's argument (in terms of social defects) in The Jewish Question does not get off the ground without such a proper functioning view of human nature. 

Now one may well wonder why from the perspective iof such a proper functioning view of human nature religion is a defect. Presumably because it is seen to undermine an authentic, communal life that belongs to our essence. It is possible Marx could allow that a non-individualistic religion -- one that glories our communal life in shared joyful activity (recall Plato's natural religion) -- wouldn't be thought defective. But perhaps he treats all religion as instances of superstition (there is language in the Jewish Question that suggests this). I am not sure.

Let me wrap up. Recall that for Mill ideology is the product of a system of hierarchy or domination in which the ruling classes promote falsehoods which justify their rule. Along the way this ideology undermines the proper functioning of the moral sentiments of the rulers and the ruled. In general the ruled see through these falsehoods, even if at times the ideology effectively promotes servility. What makes something ideological is not just that it is false and corrosive of our nature, but (and here Mill echoes Smith) that it serves a particular (factional/class) interest. (This sounds, in fact, like the kind of thing one would expect from a vulgar marxist.) So, we may say that the liberal idea of ideology requires the false to serve ruling faction and undermine our capacity to political and moral judgment. From a liberal perspective, one can always smell/rat out the existence of ideology if we ask 'cui bono?' and follow the trail. 

One attractive feature of the liberal conception of ideology is that the victims of it can see through it (and this eventually leads to standpoint epistemology). They generally do not need ideology critique to learn the truth of their situation. In this liberal conception if we could make our ruling ideas more impartial and reinforce our natural capacities, ideology can be overcome. And one natural route, although not the only one, to the undermining of ideology (and this (recall) anticipates Jason Stanley) (and here) is according to the liberal the flattening of hierarchy, which would undermine the 'demand' for such false justifications (and also undermine its supply by making it less profitable). Another route is to make sure that people flourish within a liberal polity.

If we go beyond Bauer's own aims, we can see that in Zur Judenfrage Marx, in effect, criticizes this liberal idea of ideology as itself a species of ideology. And Marx's main point is not that it serves the interest of capital (although clearly this is implied). But rather because the political emancipation implied by impartiality in the context of liberal state is, while worth having if you lack it, itself a defective ideal of emancipation. It is emancipation into a fragmentary and inauthentic life, and so no genuine emancipation at all.++ 

The explicit role of the Jews in Marx's analysis is, as is well known, not too flattering to Jews (or Christians). But the role they play in his analysis is also to show that on Marx's account it is by no means obvious that the subordinated victims of an ideology will see through the ideology. And so we see here already the rudiments of the need for a project of consciousness raising. That is to say, ideology critique takes on the shape of unmasking so that the victims of ideology can be oriented to a better ideal. This clearly has, although Marx does not alert his reader to it, the character of a kind of religious conversion.

I do not wish to try to settle the debate between Marx and liberalism. I just note that modern liberals may claim that such an ideology critique misses the mark. After all the proud modern liberal is, when legislating public reason, agnostic about the good life; this only works if the defectiveness of modern life is not widely felt. Such agnosticism does not tempt the older perfectionists like Smith and Mill, who have a conception of human flourishing that is a partial rival to Marx's. But I have gone on long enough today.

 

 

On Polanyi, Spontaneous Order (yes, Hayek and Kuhn)

The next example of dynamic order will be our main subject, Science. Every scientist in search of discovery is faced with the scientific results and opinions of all other scientists up to that date, both living and dead, which are summed up in text books or-for more recent work-in current publications and public discussions. The scientist differs from the judge in that he is not given his case to decide, but has to select his own problem for investigation. Early in life he specialises on certain branches of science which fit his own personal gifts and his own strongest inclinations. Then he looks out for an opportunity to apply his particular knowledge and gifts; and finally he selects a special problem by the pursuit of which he expects to achieve the most important results. In the setting of his problem and in the way he seeks its solution, he is applying the traditional methods of science and the particular procedure of his own branch: with such possible modifications as he may desire to attempt. His judgment, through which his results are expressed, is based on accepted scientific standards of reliability and precision: again, possibly, with some personal variation of his own. Discovery in the end will be largely based on thousands of previous discoveries; and though the new addition will always modify the previously prevailing ideas to some extent, and sometimes may cause revolutionary changes in outlook, the essential unity of science will be maintained. Scientific discoveries are published without delay, since each scientist desires to get the credit for his own achievements. Discoverers will often defend their claims emphatically against criticism and seek to assure their acceptance by the scientific public.

Science is thus seen to be growing by the characteristic process producing dynamic order. New scientific claims are made in due consideration of all previously established ones; and the results thus obtained continuously modify the previously achieved positions of science.

In the way a scientist, intent on a problem, consults the results and opinions of scientists who worked before him, he resembles a judge referring to precedent. But in the way in which he looks out for a problem to which to apply his special gifts to the best advantage, and later, when discovery is achieved, puts his claims before his colleagues and tries to gain their acceptance for them, he acts rather like the business man, first seeking the most profitable application of his resources and then soliciting the consumers' approval for his goods. We see here a variation in the nature of the methods of adjustment ("internal forces") that are operating in the formation of the dynamic order. Between different judges the adjustments are of a purely consultative character; between business men they are largely competitive ; while between scientists they show combinations of both types.--Michael Polanyi (1941) "The Growth of Thought in Society, "Economica, 8(32): 437.

When I was a PhD student, Mary Jo Nye visited and emphasized the significance of Michael Polanyi. I dutifully read Personal Knowledge, and found it useful to refer to his account of the role of passions in science. But suggestible as I am, I know how the sociological winds blow in analytic philosophy; I am not the first to notice (cf. Stephen Turner) that when the big guns of contemporary analytic philosophy went after know how, Polanyi's account and examples of tacit knowledge simply got ignored

The context of the quoted passage is Polanyi's attempt to graft on the "spontaneous ordering" (432) of "mutually adjusting units" (in context he is appealing to molecules in equilibrium) a description of a "kind of liberty that goes far beyond the claims of personal freedom." (438) The point is that "individuals, participating in the building up of a dynamic order, all act independently," in light of their own judgment. This judgment is not in the service of "the satisfaction of the desire to be left alone, or to do as you please" but rather ""to make discoveries that are important in science-as important as possible....[and to] see these discoveries accepted by science and credited to himself." (445) From this motive they serve the collective endeavor of science. This understanding of freedom Polanyi calls "public liberty." (438) Such public liberty is according to Polanyi constrained by one's own convictions and the judgment of others, and social "incentives" (444).

As an aside, Polanyi uses the reality of simultaneous discovery in science as an illustration of the existence of shared incentives and judgments and to downplay the influence of individual idiosyncrasy (445). This is a bit peculiar because he also treats individual conviction as a necessary feature of the efficiency of science; it's individuality that allows the possible search space to be explored (see Logic of Liberty, p. 34).* 

Be that as it may, the two main examples of a spontaneous or dynamic order Polanyi develops at any length are science and law. But he is quit explicit there "exist many other systems in the intellectual and moral sphere" that blend cognitive and normative features, including the economy. It is well known (see Caldwell) that these remarks appealed to Hayek. And I am not the first to wonder how much Polanyi shaped Kuhn's ideas. What I didn't previously appreciate is that Polanyi develops these ideas in order to combat both communist and fascist conceptions of science which presuppose social (including democratic) control of science. For me, at least, this makes more intelligible the idea that the initial reception of Kuhn was, in fact, facilitated by the cold war context.

I want to close with two observations. First, Polanyi treats the existence of Knightian uncertainty as real and as a ground to doubt the possibility of planning of science: "The main difficulty in handling men according to a pre-arranged plan lies in the fact that the outcome of human endeavour is mostly uncertain and is often worth while only to the extent to which it is uncertain." (433) It is notable that Polanyi treats the very worth of agency as presupposing uncertainty.

Second, I find it amusing that the image of science (recall) that Polanyi presents is itself grounded in a system studied by science. There is, thus, a fractal like quality to his thought.

On Demagogues and Democracy

The demagogue is not a romantic fellow who appears now and then, but...he appears whenever government is not effectively representative. Demagoguery is the falsification of representative government, the cultivation of the transient and apparent rather than of the considered and real will of the people...That is why the Constitutional Convention attempted to set up truly representative government; in order to protect the masses from the hypnosis of the moment, they invented devices for balancing the constituencies and delaying their decisions. They sought to make the people safe for democracy. What they meant to do every civilized people has to do, and if the checks and balances of the American Constitution are now antiquated, others will have to be devised to replace them.--Walter Lippmann (1938) The Good Society, 256. (In context, Lippmann is discussing Madison.)

Unlike most liberals who confronted the worldwide collapse of democracy in the 1930s, and who helped shape reflection on the post war revival of liberalism (under the guise of Pax Americana), Lippmann kept faith in the democratic experiment and had a healthy distrust of those that wished to prevent self-government. He also recognizes, correctly, that in modern conditions no account of legitimacy could ignore that "any government, despotic or liberal, is an organization of power drawn out of the reservoir of popular force." (p. 249; he credits Jose Ortega y Gasset!) And, more important for present purposes, unlike much subsequent liberal political philosophy, he confronted the problem that demagogues pose without complacency and the gravity it deserves. Demagogues are always a live possibility in democratic self-government.

By contrast the inability to take demagogues seriously is visible (recall) even in the response to the Trump presidency. The currently popular approaches center on proposals for abolishing the electoral college and to move toward a more straightforward majoritarian system. But while that addresses the feature in the electoral college that has generated minority presidencies and over-representation of rural areas, it is likely to increase the odds of demagogues attaining the presidency. And while partisan friends of the Democratic party or coastal electorates, may welcome such an outcome, it is not obvious why it's good for the country (or the world).* 

The effectiveness of the electoral college as a block to the rise of demagogues has been successfully undermined over time by making party selection of leaders more democratic, while maintaining the effective and [given winner takes all structure of most electoral contests Stateside], natural duopoly of the two parties. (Of course, the existence of a party-system was unwanted when the electoral college was devised.)

As the quote reveals, Lippmann was aware that the intended system of the Founders and American constitutional reality differed. In particular, the system of checks and balances was systematically undermined. As Jacob T. Levy recently has argued (here), the system of checks and balances has been further weakened since. So, while Hamilton (who offers, recall my post, an ingenious cost-benefit, risk-reward analysis) is very explicit that there is a non-negligible risk of a demagogue even under the original system, we must now assume the likelihood is rather high that more demagogues will be elected. 

Now, Lippmann's analysis presupposes a distinction between an apparent, false democratic will and a hidden, true democrat will. The former is transient and passionate while the latter is more reasonable and enduring. The true will tracks people's genuine interests, while the false will tracks people's momentary infatuations. For Lippmann it is obvious, perhaps too obvious, that a demagogue appeals to our false wills and not the authentic ones. Lippmann has a lot to say about the conditions under which such a mature (another term he likes) will is possible, but that will not concern me at present.  

Like all approaches that rely on such a distinction one may well wonder how the true  will can be revealed. (There has been a lively debate over, say, Rousseau's general will.) Lippmann's answer is worth reflecting on. For, Lippmann takes very seriously the temporal features mentioned in the distinction between the true and false democratic will. He thinks an electorate's will can be "refined" ((p. 250; 261), this is Madison's (Humean) terminology). On his view the way to capture the authentic, refined democratic will is to ensure that it is revealed and, then represented, over time.+ He claims the American "founders sought to approximate a true representation of the people by providing many different ways of counting heads" (p. 254) at different times and in different configurations. [Full disclosure: I have learned to pay attention to political time by Elizabeth Cohen (here), especially, and Mathias Thaler (see here).] 

The idea being that the democratic will is neither formed instantaneously nor expressed in a given moment. That is democratic representation is not homogeneous, but, in fact, multi-faceted in time (and geographic space). This strikes me as the sound intuition in Lippmann's analysis. It also expresses the liberal distrust of appeals to the people who are taken to be unified and unidirectional by populists (and much worse) without being distrustful of democracy.

Lippmann thinks this fact requires regular elections (and geographically uneven constituencies) with the possibility to focus on different features of representation. We can be represented as citizens of a local place and, say, larger region and at different given times. And indeed the American way of government has, despite a peculiar fondness for November election days, a tendency to fragment the expression of the popular will. To what degree this way of counting heads truly generates an approximation of a true representation may well be doubted. It can also reveal the fact of heteronomy.**  

True or not, if temporally separated voting were to reduce the power of demagogues it would be a useful check for that reason alone. But, as we know, it obviously cannot prevent a demagogue by itself.  

Now, unlike other political philosophies, democratic liberals are willing to live with some uncertainty. (That's also part of our defense of markets.) So, perhaps one must simply accept that the demagogue is the natural byproduct of democracy--something that cannot be eliminated without undermining democratic self-rule. Regular readers may suspect that this fits my generally skeptical tenor.

As I noted, Lippmann thought part of the answer was changing the nature of how people think about the point of government.+ Something like that attitude is also visible in those with a preference for markets over elections, or a preference for experts over elections (this (recall) tempted Lippmann, too), etc. But it strikes me these do not exhaust the options. One of the problems of the evolution of the American system is that it has (d)evolved into (what used to be called) elective (temporary) kingship ((and it has its defenders recall Al-Farabi; Ibn Rushd); Mozi). But if kingship is the problem, as it was in 1776, then (more) elections alone won't solve it (recall).

What's needed is a more thoroughgoing realization than Lippmann allows that no human should have as much power as an American president. Democracy is the response to human imperfection. If we were truly virtuous and wise we wouldn't need this form of government. But why perpetuate an office that by its nature requires the best instincts of any saint?**

 

 

 

Beliefs become reality: The Berlin Wall on Campus, and Trump's Wall

As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: "This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality." Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.--Ronald Reagan, June 12, 1987.

Yesterday, I found myself staring at a janitor's office instead of a seminar room. After circling the floor carefully looking for the seminar with Vernon Smith and Bart Wilson, I asked a staff person for directions; she helpfully asked, do you need to be in Wilkinson Hall or Wilkinson College? I decided that I did not know, but that it was probably the other building. She took me to one of the exits, and said, past the slab of the Berlin Wall, you go into that building on the right. I thanked her. As I started walking, I passed a concrete slab with graffiti, hidden inside a monument, it suddenly dawned on me that's really a piece of the Berlin Wall!

The next morning I went back to look at it and take pictures. The slab of wall is part of a larger monument--on the outside are plaques with quotes by the mighty dead (although not all of them famous) about the nature of liberty, and a larger plaque with a quote from Reagan's famous 'tear down this wall' speech (see above).

When (recall) I visited Rice University a few years ago, I noticed a similar memorial with a section of the Wall (see here). Thanks to Wikipedia (here), I learned that there are bits of the wall not just at quite a few presidential libraries and assorted museums, but also at more US college campuses: Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California (which I will try to visit this month); Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia; Eureka College, Eureka, Illinois (Reagan's alma mater [recall]); Hult International Business School (Cambridge, MA);  Grand Valley State University; Westminster College, Fulton, (site of Churchill's famous Iron Curtain speech); University of Hawaii Honolulu Community College, Honolulu, Hawaii; Capital University, Bexley, Ohio; University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, (I can't believe this I missed this on a visit a few years ago); and The Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Washington D.C. I won't be surprised if some clever photo-artist has done a neat instillation reconstructing the wall from these and other in situ slabs, and perhaps reveal the cumulative meaning of these displaced corners of concrete.

In looking over the quotes on the side of the memorial, I was struck, perhaps naturally today, by a passage from a certain Paul Poirot (see my picture below the fold), "The most certain way to halt or prevent the development of a nation and its citizens is to fence them in." It's from a 1968 essay, "progress through travel." Poirot was an economist who worked for  the Foundation for Economic education (a pro-free-market institute).* While Poirot's essay is not unproblematic, and not without cliches, one gets the sense of a surprisingly noble vision. The fences Poirot speaks of are natural, artificial, historical, and emotional. And he is quite explicit that it not just trade and immigrants/refugees that get hemmed in by fences, but also travelers. It reminded me of a point in James C. Scott's Seeing like a State, in which he remarks, I think (I can't find it right now), that the great wall of China was as much intended to keep potential invaders out as it was to keep citizens in. It's not for nothing, that in Perpetual Peace, Kant treats the right to visitation as a non-enemy as an original, cosmopolitan right not alienated by the rise of property and states. 

Most critics of President Trump's wall and policies rightly focus on the effects on refugees and immigrants as well as trade. But as Poirot and Scott (and Kant) help us see, another great danger is that Trump's wall will encourage the narrowing of visions, the closing in on oneself. In some respects this need not be wholly bad (in reducing the temptation of empire and in addressing, perhaps, important local, social needs), but the diminution of spirit, may well discourage inquisitiveness, curiosity, and travel. Of course, this narrowing of focus, this eagerness to put oneself ahead is part of a larger process that also brought Trump and his wall to power.  

There is, of course, a risk in intellectualizing Trump and his supporters. And from the moment, prompted by Jason Stanley, I started writing about his rise (September 2015), I have been sensitive to this charge. But it's equally dangerous to ignore the role of beliefs altogether. Not just because it plays into the stereotype that Trump and his supporters are driven primarily by ('deplorable') emotions, but more important politics is the process by which "beliefs become reality." It is, of course, an interesting question if that slogan really was painted on the Wall, and in what language, but it's noticeable that Reagan insisted that faith, beliefs, and truth can change the status quo.

Many academics find it difficult to say anything positive about Reagan, and there is much to criticize. Even so, I think he is one of the great democratic orators, and I want to close with a modest reflection on his speech that the piece of concrete in Chapman made me revisit. 

While Reagan twice pairs himself with Kennedy's great speech, the great theme of the speech is the "rebirth" of democracy.  Reagan here echoes (recall) Lincoln's great "a new birth of freedom" at Gettysburg. This rebirth involves simultaneously, being "disabused of illusions" and a willingness to make symbolically grand plans for the future. For example, he plays with the idea of making Berlin a key global city hosting core meetings of the United Nations and Olympic games. 

Reagan's speech starts from duty toward freedom, a sense of history, and also beauty.  And it turns out aesthetics play a great role in the speech because Reagan makes a point of contrasting the beauty of the great parks/forests of Berlin with the ugly wall that runs from the Baltics down to Southern Europe. The wall is a "scar." The fruits of freedom are prosperity, but also culture and higher learning.+ 

Let me close. The key moment in the speech is when Reagan addresses those that protested him in 1982, when NATO was deciding to place cruise missiles, and those that protest him during the speech. Rather than vilifying them, he acknowledges their presence and continues his (side of the great) debate over his foreign policy with them. This turns out to set up the closing rhetorical flourish when he closes his speech not with a comment addressed to Gorbachev, the NATO allies, the German government, or Americans watching home (even if they are all implied part of the audience), but with a rhetorical question posed to the demonstrators, "I wonder if they have ever asked themselves that if they should have the kind of government they apparently seek, no one would ever be able to do what they're doing again."

That non-inclusive 'they' is a rhetorical mistake ('you' would have been so much more potent); even if Reagan gets to position himself as the thoughtful one and implicitly treat the protesters as thoughtless. This is not why I admire the speech. Yet, in so doing, and in the historical context, Reagan acknowledges that fundamental confrontations are at the heart of democracy. And, in fact, he turns the right to protest and denounce him loudly into the distinguishing hallmark of democracy; audaciously, his whole speech is a claim that his robust foreign policy is the safeguard of others to criticize him.

Thirty-two years is a longer separation between us and President Reagan than Reagan and President Kennedy. The cold war seems like a blip now briefly interrupting, with the horrific doctrine of mutually assured destruction, the natural rise and fall of demagogues. The vast majority of students who notice the slab of concrete were not born yet when 'the wall' came down. One wonders how many of them will be around to celebrate the fall of President Trump's wall. 

 

 

On Plato's Ship of State Analogy

There is the ship-owner, larger and stronger than everyone on the ship, but somewhat deaf and rather short-sighted, with a knowledge of sailing to match his eyesight. [1] The sailors are quarreling among themselves over captaincy of the ship, [2] each one thinking that he ought to be captain, [3] though he has never learn that skill…[4] On top of which they say it can’t be taught. In fact, [5] they’re prepared to cut to pieces anyone who says it can….[6] They beg him [the ship-owner] and do everything they can to make him hand over the tiller to them. [6*] Sometimes, if other people can persuade him and they can’t, they kill those others or throw them overboard. [7] Then they immobilize their worthy ship-owner with drugs or drinks or by some other means, and take control of the ship, helping themselves  to what  it is carrying. [8] Drinking and feasting they sail in the way you expect people like that to sail... [9] If someone is good at finding them ways of persuading or compelling the ship-owner to let them take control, [10] they call him a real seaman, a real captain, and say he really knows about ships. [Numbers added to facilitate exposition.]—Republic, 488a-d, translated by G. Ferrari.

There are at least ten criticisms of direct democracy in the famous comparison of the role of philosophy in a popular democracy to the captaining of a ship. Before I get to to those, in his notes, Ferrari suggests that 'the people' are likened to the ship-owner. This makes initial sense because they are, in some sense, the largest and strongest group. But I think it is more likely that this refers to the propertied classes (or gentlemen); after all, (a) the property of the shipowner is emphasized throughout the analogy, and (b) that the property can be seized by the masses. Even if (c) one reads the worthy (γενναῖος) as ironical, it makes more sense as a reference to the propertied than the people. This has additional benefit of making clear what I think of a more subtle point of Plato's: that a democracy also stultifies the propertied--they grow attached to goods not truth/virtue.

Okay, I think we can we summarize the ten criticisms as follows:

1. Democracy generates dissensus.
2. Self-rule generates overconfidence in each of us.
3. The members of the demos lack [distinctive] political expertise.
4. The people* deny the very existence of [distinctive] political expertise.
5. The masses threaten or kill anybody who claims intellectual superiority.
6. Everybody (is encouraged to) want(s) to rule. --> [6*]  This can generate murderous conflict.
7. The lower classes foment revolutions and steal property of others.
8. With the people in control there is much rudderless pleasure.
9. The majority are susceptible to flattery and demagogues.
10. The masses call demagogues 'skilled.'

This calls for some comment.

On [1] that direct democracy generates dissensus is so because everybody can have a say and be in control and (so?) [6] everyone, who will have different views, wants to be in control. While there is an important point lurking here -- that people adjust their desires to what's possible --, as stated this is implausible. But all Socrates needs for the analogy to work is that sufficient people want to be in control. And that seems more plausible. It's interesting that Plato thought that the  practice of direct democracy revealed the fact of pluralism. (Max Weber thinks this is a product of modernity and advanced division of labor.) In Plato this pluralism seems to be the product of the diversity and inconstancy of human desire/appetite [see 8] as such and the lack of regulation of these in a commercial democracy such as Athens.

On [2] that self-rule generates overconfidence in each of us is probably too strong. There are risk averse people. But that ruling, without external constraint (other states' power, etc.) creates overconfidence in some sense is not altogether implausible. Plato would have been able to point to the disastrous expedition to Syracuse as evidence.

Let's spot Socrates 3-4 for the sake of argument (although I return to these below). Obviously a friend of direct democracy or sortition would think this question-begging. (That's why I added 'distinctive.') On [5] Plato could fairly point to the trial of Socrates. Friends of direct democracy might argue (a la I.F. Stone) that the case of Socrates was the exception rather than the rule. On [6* & 7] much of the history of Greece as relayed by Herodotus and, especially, the (aristocratic-leaning) Thucydides, suggests an eternal return of local civil wars among the rich and poor. Interestingly enough, Athens seems to have been the relatively stable exception (presumably because the poor were subsidized by income from imperial tributes).+

In recent times, Plato's observations on [9-10] seem most prescient and relevant again. (Ahead of Trump's election, Jason Stanley drew on Madison and Plato -- but from Book VIII -- when describing the dangers of demagogues in the NYT; recall my responses here and here.]) The  implications of [10] are the most interesting. Because while the core idea seems to be that the many deny the very existence of expertise in statesmanship [3-4], a demagogue can persuade them that a kind of ersatz-political craft is, in fact, the real thing. And while the rejection of expertise is bad enough, the embrace of fake-skill as the real thing corrupts -- presumably by undermining trust and by generating confusion about what it is. -- the very idea of expertise.

That is, the true skill of a demagogue consists in overturning pre-existing opinions. And this also points to the demagogue's true danger: he undermines the habits of thoughts and reasonable expectations for the worse (by [recall]) making everybody complicit in a reign of falsity.  Okay, with that in mind let me sum up by way of a new presentation of [1-10]:

• [1] Direct democracy = dissensus [disorder/disunity].
• [2] Democracy generates overconfidence in each of us [reign of false].
• [3] The people lack of expertise [reign of false].
• [4] deny the very existence of political expertise [reign of false].
• [5] They threaten or kill anybody who claims intellectual superiority [disorder/anarchy].
• [6] Everybody wants to rule [disorder].
• [7] The masses ferment revolutions and steal property of others [disorder].
• [8] With the masses in control there is much rudderless pleasure [disorder].
• [9] The masses are susceptible to flattery and demagogues [reign of false].
• [10] The masses call demagogues ‘skilled’ [reign of false].

If we abstract from the details, all of Socrates's criticisms of direct democracy in the ship of state analogy can, then, be boiled down to two: (i) it generates disorder/disunity and (ii) a reign of the false (that is, lack of virtue). (Maybe that's too reductionistic; [5-6] both also predict murder and theft and these are, presumably, also bad simpliciter.)

So, first, in the ship of state analogy, Socrates presupposes some empirical facts about moral psychology of populations in and the normal functioning of direct democracy. And, second, Socrates also presupposes that (i) order/unity and a (ii) reign of truth are proper ends of statecraft.** Obviously, much of the Republic is devoted to arguing for these presuppositions and this post is not the place to scrutinize them.

The pressing question is how much the distinctive institutions of modern liberal democracy -- separation of powers, representative democracy, disestablishment of religion, wider franchise, the establishment of compulsory mass education, the abolition of slavery -- address Plato's challenge, or have made matters worse.

UPDATE: For a correction to this post see this digression of 21/10/2021.

 

On Spaces and Signs

My father, Manfred Stanley, passed away in 2004. By the normal methods of calculating such things, he was not a wealthy man. What he lacked in material resources he more than made up for in other ways. In addition to thousands of his books, I have many boxes of his family effects, including hundreds of letters.

In reading through these letters, I am struck by the wide discrepancy between what they reveal of his childhood and the stories of his childhood that he told his children. He had always told me, for example, that the shattered fingers on his hand were the result of a baseball injury that he was too embarrassed to reveal to his mother. The family letters tell the truth. They were rather the result of his raising his hand at the age of six to fend off truncheon blows, and his mother was too afraid to call a doctor. But it is not these inconsistencies that stand out. Rather, in the tale he told of his life, both his greatest wounds and his greatest comforts did not take such raw physical form. The narrative of his life, as he related it, had as its chapters not beatings but spaces....

My father told me that until he was in his early twenties, he would set out his clothing before he went to sleep and turn his alarm clock to two in the morning. When it rang, he would spring out of bed and dress quickly. For some reason, this made him less anxious. One day he decided to tell his mother about his strange habit. She said to him, “I taught you to do that when you were four, to dress quickly in case the knock comes.” What she meant was a knock of warning, to alert them to a visit by the Gestapo.

Between 1936 and Kristallnacht, the German government flooded public spaces with Gestapo agents. In my grandmother’s memoir, she describes the growing familiarity of the German people with seeing agents appear at doorways, in restaurants, asking for documents, looking for enemies of the people where they were rumored to be. It became typical, normal, ordinary, to see such sweeps. At a certain point, people stopped asking when they saw two agents knocking at the apartment next door. Having agents of the government drop by to remove a neighbor was an event that no longer required an explanation.--Jason Stanley February 02, 2017 "On Becoming the Enemy" The Boston Review [emphasis in original]

It would be a convenient mistake to read Stanley's essay as a slippery-slope-road-to-serfdom warning. Rather, it marks, matter of factually, how far we are already down the slope: deportation (in word and deed) has already been normalized. According to ABC news (not exactly a radical source) last fall, Between 2009 and 2015 [President Obama's] administration has removed more than 2.5 million people through immigration orders, which doesn’t include the number of people who "self-deported" or were turned away and/or returned to their home country at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

That's a lot of knocking.

Occasionally, after some media-savvy campaign by middle-class school-kids, some European government minister pardons -- what a grotesque word when we are referring to the mere-being-there-of-a-young-child* -- a child, a class-mate, who has lived her whole life in a familiar neighborhood, but such a pardon is a reminder of the legal violence exercised on others.

At some point, Mill writes (channeling Adam Smith, Sophie de Grouchy, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man), That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will is to prevent harm to others. Granting that there are open-ended debates over the nature of the will, one might have thought that the key (contestable) term is harm if one allows that 'civilized' here means something like 'law-governed' (and not 'culturally superior' as it may also sometimes mean, alas, in Mill); 'but' experience teaches a more sober truth that if you may be harmed by a civilized state, you must not be a member or uncivilized (or both--a non-member becomes treated as a savage). Evidently membership comes with privileges.

The previous paragraph may sound unduly cynical. But Mill's harm-principle is the unmovable foundation of a liberalism worth having, and re-discovering time and again. The rest of the trappings of liberal democracy are means, often noble and moral means, to securing this (marshy) ground.

The key concept in Stanley's piece is spaces which (as the quotes above from the essay's start and end reveal) frames it. He uses it primarily to refer to 'public spaces,' in particular the violent removal of particular individuals (including his father) from these spaces. But spaces also refer to the gaps, omissions, even inconsistencies in his father's narrative of his life. Stanley is explicit about the significance of the former: Public spaces are for the people. Stanley reminds the reader that any individual-would-be-even-once-member-of-the-people may well be confused or mistaken about one's membership of the people.

As an aside, I have considerable ambivalence about Jewish testimony about the Nazi era. As a kid I grew allergic to the slogan Never Again, which often, all-too-often just means, Never Again the Jews. It is to his credit that Stanley's essay artfully avoids the moral excesses and cringe-inducing nature of such testimony. Perhaps my ambivalence is really disillusionment: as a young adult, co-existing with Rwanda and Srebrenica, I witnessed the hollowness of the liberal global order when the means to prevent known genocide where available.

So, and to use the previous sentence as a means to return to the main narrative, I wonder if removal from "public spaces" is still a means to removing from "public view," whereby the fate of the removed is "masked" (as it is in Stanley's historical account). My reservation here is not that I am less convinced (which I am) than Stanley that the fate of the Jews was really masked (sie haben es gewusst!). But my point here is not historical. We live in an age of sincerity and shameless public cruelty (e.g., reality TV, talk-show programs, disaster tourism, music videos, etc.). Not to put a delicate point on it, the removal from public spaces today is the opening act of a cruel, public spectacle. (I return to this below.)

The other key concept in Stanley's essay is sign. This is most manifest in Stanley's presentation of the unsentimental education of his father, Manfred Stanley:** His first memories were of his struggle to read the numerous signs on the grand avenues, his initial excitement about his growing mastery of reading tempered by the realization that so many of them were about him. He learned from these signs that he was the enemy, though at that time he could not quite understand what that meant. Signs point to and even define a reality outside themselves. This reality need not be understood for it to be effectual.

To be sure, Stanley is no skeptic; he confidently (the historian in me suggests gently, a bit too confidently) announces that "the family letters tell the truth." And, in fact, to read Stanley's essay is to be reminded how much we still, despite knowing better, take a rule-following Weberian bureaucracy, which accepts the power of and gives power to authenticated documents and paper-records, for granted even in savage circumstances. For, Manfred Stanley's "signed" and numbered "(No. 13888)" Quota Immigration Visa operates as a right-of-exit from Germany and entry-right Stateside for him.**

Weberian bureaucracies can harm even harm grievously (cf. Kafka); but the way they harm is fairly predictable. In reflecting on Stanley's essay, I see our present unease with greater clarity. A few weeks ago green-card holders were detained at airports Stateside in front of cameras and protesting U.S. Senators, even discouraged/prevented from flying back to their homes and communities at foreign airports. I signed up for the ACLU that week-end. But I did so in order to register my dissent. For, the signs may well mark the transformation of Weberian bureaucracy into a different kind of entity.

 

 

 

 

On Jason Stanley and Jacob Levy on Liberalism and Truth

Clinton’s campaign made a devastating error by failing to recognize the appeal of illiberalism. The strategy of their ad campaign, which featured lengthy snippets of the president-elect at his most illiberal, presupposed a general commitment to liberal democratic values. It is in any case a familiar point from George Lakoff’s 2004 book Don’t Think of an Elephant, that one should not repeat the opposition’s rhetorical frames even if it is to condemn them. Instead, one should provide an alternative positive vision, in this case of liberal democratic values. Anything else is campaign money spent on advertising for the opposition.

...

From a perspective that regards tradition, identity, or religion as the chief sources of value, liberal democracy is an existential threat to what gives meaning to human life. If liberal democracy’s disturbances of the social order bring no obvious benefit, materially or spiritually, to those to whom the losses have been most deeply felt, we can hardly expect universal support for its values.--Jason Stanley "On the Question of the Stability of Democracy."

Unlike most responses to the Trump victory, Jason Stanley's essay confronts the uncomfortable fact that a quarter century after the end of the Cold War, which was supposed to inaugurate a liberal era, liberal values (rule of law, open society, free trade, free movement of peoples, mutual tolerance, etc.) are rejected by large portions of the population in the liberal heartland (Stateside and in various bits of Europe). Unlike most commentators, Stanley does not treat the rejectionists as fools or as irrational nor as fundamentally immoral. He recognizes, that the forms of illiberalism that are, as it were, homegrown, are the product of liberal society. Indeed, Liberalism disrupts and undermines many sources of value -- I would just add to his list: a sense of place, community, and social order --, and this loss generates rejection of liberalism.

Stanley, thus, opens up discussion of the central tension within liberalism: the rule of law reduces all kinds of uncertainty and it is morally grounded, in part, in the reasonable expectations this stability generates. (It is also grounded in norms of equality and impartiality.) But these expectations, in turn, are undermined by the permanent flux found in liberal society (due to trade, technological disruption, and eased transportation); liberal society undermines all kinds of expectations. Liberalism is, in fact, especially noxious to expectations that take forms of hierarchy for granted. The problem is, thus, not the "lack of obvious benefit, materially or spiritually," -- for many of the enemies of liberalism benefit materially from it -- but the permanent (and justified) fear of violation of  expectations (about, say, one's place in social hierarchy or one's judgment of other people's worth).

After all, it is not those that do not benefit at all from the status quo that turn to authoritarianism. But rather those that fear further disruptions to their privileges and advantages.  It is pretty clear that on the whole, Trump's supporters were not the poorest or most vulnerable in society, for example, but those that have reasons to fear further change. Liberalism finds it difficult to address such fears -- because to do so it would have to be different than it is -- and resorts to high minded moralism instead. 

Of course, in practice, whatever the merits of liberal ideals, these are regularly compromised by the intervention of politics which advances some interests over others. In practice, of course, the liberal political order favors one interest or another: bailouts, subsidies, affirmative action, hand-outs, tax-breaks, social security, etc. With a few exceptions, every government program favors one group or another. The problem is not that the political process is messy and favors the well organized (and wealthy). Rather, the problem is that the liberal responses to the reality of the wheeling and dealing of ordinary politics tend to sound like especially noxious species of hypocrisy, which is, alas, the ruling sin of modern life. Obamacare is (whatever its merits) complicity in crony capitalism, but to reject it is immoral.* It is, thus, no surprise that (as Stanley notes, starting with Carl Schmitt) critics of liberalism constantly return to examples of liberal hypocrisy alongside liberal high minded rhetoric, which often de-legitimizes opponents ("deplorables").

So, for those that think that crony capitalism and group politics just are the way the world works, and fear further change, authoritarian closure of ordinary politics is (recall) an attractive option. As Stanley notes (and as I remarked during the campaign), constantly pointing out the illiberal features of Trump and his supporters just reinforces the attachment to these illiberal values and the authoritarians that defend them of their supporters.

I want to give a fresh example of how the purported defense of liberal values can back-fire. I will do so by criticizing an essay by somebody I admire greatly, Jacob T. Levy; this essay is popular among my friends and it is apparently published in the spirit of revitalizing liberalism (a theme that runs through my own reflections on these matters). I quote at length before I comment:

Saying something obviously untrue, and making your subordinates repeat it with a straight face in their own voice, is a particularly startling display of power over them. It’s something that was endemic to totalitarianism. Arendt analyzed the huge lies and blatant reversals of language associated with the Holocaust. Havel documented the pervasive little lies, lies that everyone knew to be lies, of late Communism. And Orwell gave us the vivid “2+2=5.”

Being made to repeat an obvious lie makes it clear that you’re powerless; it also makes you complicit. You’re morally compromised. Your ability to stand on your own moral two feet and resist or denounce is lost. Part of this is a general tool for making people part of immoral groups. One child makes a second abuse a third. The second then can’t think he’s any better than the first, the bully, and can’t inform. In a gang or the Mafia, your first kill makes you trustworthy, because you’re now dependent on the group to keep your secrets, and can’t credibly claim to be superior to them.

But in totalitarian and authoritarian politics, there seems to be something special about the lie, partly because so much of politics is about speech (and especially public speech) in the first place. Based on the evidence of his presidential campaign, I think Donald Trump understands this instinctively, and he relished the power to make his subordinates repeat his clearly outlandish lies in public. Every Sunday he provided fresh absurdities that Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, and Kellyanne Conway repeated on the talk shows. They didn’t persuade anyone who were strategically important to persuade; the audience for Meet the Press isn’t low-information, undecided, working-class voters, and the kinds of people who did watch those shows knew the claims were false. But making his surrogates repeat the lies compromised them; that tied them to him. And it degraded them, and made clear where power lay.--Jacob Levy  "Authoritarianism and Post-Truth Politics" @Niskanencenter.org

By using the phrase 'totalitarian and authoritarian politics,' Levy distracts from the cardinal feature about the facts he presents: the submission to Trump is given willingly without resort to force or even the threat of force. Rather, it is the lure of power and favor that is, as it were, the lever which President-elect Trump exploits here. To criticize Levy here, is not to deny that I agree with much of the the final paragraph. Trump is degrading and compromising his subordinates by letting them repeat the outlandish and absurd. This binds them to him, makes them complicit in his future rule, and exhibits his would-be-powers for friends and foes alike. Presumably, Trump thinks doing so will allow him to rule with their loyalty and obedience and, thus, sets up the conditions for would-be-totalitarian-and-authoritarian politics, if he so wishes.

By invoking outrage over the lie, Levy ignores the fact that when others degrade and subordinate themselves willingly to a bully the proper response to their predicament is something akin to pity or concern. To do so would be to recognize in their servility the roots of our shared humanity. To put my polemical point tersely: a liberalism worth reviving is not, in the first instance, founded on truth (recall), but, primarily, on mutual recognition of shared humanity, even vulnerability which is the starting point for an alternative vision of society.

Levy closes his piece with the claim that "insisting on the difference between truth and lies is itself a part of the defense of freedom." This may well be so under totalitarianism--with him, I trust the moral compass of Orwell, Havel and Arendt. (Recall also my piece on Koyré written before Trump's victory.) But it is worth reminding ourselves, before we are swept away altogether, that we are not yet under totalitarian rule and that the defense of freedom requires a different rhetoric.

For, in a a liberal society, you have every right to utter and believe falsehoods except in the court of law (and in universities). (Some other falsehoods are also prohibited: e.g. slander, etc.) To say this is not to advocate public lying or to advocate deception. It is not to condone other people's lies (but it is to suggest that doubling down on fact-checking is a mistake). Rather, it is to recognize one of the essential differences between a totalitarian and free society: a free society does not require, does not even aspire to the rule of truth. If anything, if truth could rule then politics would not be necessary,+ which is precisely the dangerous fantasy peddled by some totalitarians.

 

 

 

On Lynch on the Politics of Deception, and Truth

Not coincidentally, it was also the year of “fake news,” in which pure fiction masquerading as truth...But framing the issue solely in terms of lying actually underplays and mischaracterizes the grand deception being perpetuated inside the internet’s fun house of mirrors.

 

To better see this, we must distinguish lying from deception. To lie is to deliberately say what you believe to be false with the intention of deceiving your audience. I can deceive you without lying (silence at a key moment, for example, can be deceptive). And I can lie to you without deceiving. That may be because you are skeptical and don’t believe me, but it may also be because what I say is inadvertently true. Either way, you are lied to but not deceived.

 

That might suggest that deception occurs when someone is actually caused to believe what is false. “Deception,” as philosophers say, is a “success term.” But that’s only halfway there. Deception can happen even without false belief.

 

Consider that oldest of cons, the shell game... You don’t know what to think, and so simply guess. You can be deceived not only by believing what is false but by not believing what is true.

The use of social media to spread political misinformation online is partly just a giant shell game. Propagandists often don’t care whether everyone, or even most people, really believe the specific things they are selling (although it turns out that lots of people always do). They don’t have to get you to actually believe the penny is under the wrong shell. They just have to get you confused enough so that you don’t know what is true. That’s still deception. And it is this kind of deception that dreadful for-profit conspiracy sites like Liberty Writers News have been particularly adept at spreading.

...

It used to be that when someone would say something outrageously false (“the moon landing was faked”) it would be ignored by most folks with the reasoning that “if that was true, I would have heard about it by now.” By that, they meant “heard about from creditable, independent sources.” Filters (primarily, editors) worked to not only weed out the bad, but to make sure the truly extraordinary real news made it to the surface.

The internet has made that reasoning moot.

Many of us are ensconced in our own information bubbles. Few people reject crazy claims based on the fact they hadn’t heard about them before now, because chances are they already have heard about them, or something close to them, from the sites that tend to confirm their biases. That makes them more susceptible to taking fake news seriously.

One reason all this matters is that it perpetuates a feedback loop of deception that is particularly useful to demagogues here and abroad. Deliberate postings invented by entrepreneurs are the manure that make the seeds of doubt and credulity grow. ...It becomes a cycle where few are deliberately lying, but deception is spiraling ever outward.

A second reason this sort of deception matters is subtler, and concerns our attitude toward evidence and even truth itself. Faced with so much conflicting information, many people are prone to think that everything is biased, everything conflicts, that there is no way to get out of the Library of Babel we find ourselves in, so why try? ... [W]ho among us has not shared posts without fact-checking them? Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it right. Almost everything that we encounter online is being presented to us by for-profit algorithms, and by us, post by post, tweet by tweet. That fact, even more than the spread of fake news, can be its own sort of shell game, one that we are pulling on ourselves.

As the late-19th-century mathematician W. K. Clifford noted in his famous essay, “The Ethics of Belief,” ambivalence about objective evidence is an attitude corrosive of democracy. Clifford ends the essay by imagining someone who has “no time for the long course of study” that would make him competent to judge many questions. Clifford’s response is withering: “Then he should have no time to believe.”--Michael Lynch (NOV. 28, 2016) "Fake News and the Internet Shell Game" @The New York Times. [Bold and Italics added for discussion--ES]

Michael Lynch's very fine essay has been shared with  approval by my friends. And, indeed, it has a fine analysis of the difference between deception and lying as well as the "feedback loop of deception" that can be exploited by demagogues, and worse. Yet, I wish to demur from two strands of argument in the piece: (i) one on the nature of the demise of editorial "filters;" and (ii) one on the nature of truth in a democracy.

It's true that the internet disrupted the traditional news media. It did so by undermining the political economy of traditional city/region-based newspapers, who were the best place for advertising. (I focus on newspapers here, but one can tell a related story for other media.) But on the way to the  internet and the demise of "creditable, independent sources,” newspapers did a couple of things to promote their own decline. (I focus on the New York Times because Lynch is writing in it and it is a non-trivial agent in the story I wish to tell.) I mention two: first, as the New York Times eventually (partially) acknowledged, it became an especially significant instrument of US warmongering in the service "to have Saddam Hussein ousted" (Hussein was the former dictator of Iraq; the NYT puts the point more delicately, as follows, "Administration officials were allowed to hold forth at length on why this evidence of Iraq's nuclear intentions demanded that Saddam Hussein be dislodged from power.") Not to put too fine a point on it, the NYT reported as facts, the outrageously false. I am not suggesting that the NYT was the cause of the greatest foreign policy and ongoing humanitarian disaster of our age, but it played an indispensable role in facilitating it. It undermined its own ability to be creditable and an independent source of news. (I am not expecting Michael Lynch to explain this in the very pages of the NYT.)

Second, any attentive reader of the NYT will notice that its pages are filled with promoting, judging, and displaying lifestyles of the rich and famous. That is, the "filters" are not busy "weeding" out "the bad;" they are actively promoting the bad. They do so, in the first instance, not to promote the outrageously false, but they do actively promote the trivial and irrelevant, and thereby contribute, if not cause, the undermining of good judgment. The deception I am calling attention to here is the undermining of what counts as 'news' altogether. This is also a species of deception. As Lynch suggests correctly, deception can happen even without false belief. That is, the NYT and most of the 'free press' became part of the entertainment industry a long time ago (as sociologists have noticed long before). Whether that can be avoided in a capitalist-liberal-democracy is an unnerving question for liberal political philosophy, I leave aside here. But the problem of 'profit' did not just affect "conspiracy sites." President Trump is a product of the ways in which entertainment has taken over news.

Note, that unlike Lynch, in the previous two paragraphs I am disinclined to use the language of truth. But that's because (echoing Plato, Madison, Arendt), I would argue that political life is dominated by opinion not truth, and the key to political life is the existence of salutary opinions. This is also true in a liberal democracy. Society does have two institutions devoted to the discovery and establishment of truth: universities/research institutes and independent law-courts. (The previous sentence is compatible with these institutions being corrupted and malfunctioning.) There may be more; in particular, a free press can play some truth-conducive role, although due to constraints on time and resources (and, as noted above, influence of the rich and powerful) one should not expect too much truth from it. That's also compatible with the non-trivial role that Lynch emphasizes that a free press filters out the obviously false.

In fact, not even Clifford thinks that political life is governed by truth. Rather it is governed not by truth, but by what he calls "moral precepts." These can be "excellent" (or not) and facilitate social functioning (or not). In context, Clifford is discussing the political success of Islam, which allows him to grant that a moral precept can be excellent and undoubtedly merely a matter of opinion (he clearly does not want to grant that they might be true in the case of Islam).

Somebody may worry that by allowing that political life is dominated by salutary opinion, I am opening up the door to the propagandists. But that's why we need workable, political theories of ideology and propaganda in terms of (as Jason Stanley correctly noted [recall and here]) the right ideals. Lynch wants to eradicate the false (by doubling down on "fact-checking") whereas what we need is far better political rhetoric for the right ideals.* 

One may also worry that I am giving up on an Enlightenment project which advocates, as it were, a republic of truth. But most Enlightenment thinkers were not so foolish to assume a nation of philosophers, which (to echo Spinoza) would not require a state at all--if all of us were moral and informed we would not need politics. Rather Enlightenment requires mass, ongoing education (among other institutions) so that individuals can form independent judgment and attachment to the right ideals. Education is not the solution to all social ills, but to paraphrase (and transform) Clifford: members of a liberal society need a "long course of study” not to believe, but to judge.

 

Koyré On Brazen Calls for Injustice & Contradictions in Political Speech (Donald Trump and Conspiracies.)

The initiated, the members of the elite, by virtue of a kind of intuitive and direct perception are aware of the profound innermost thoughts of the leader, know the true secret aims of the movement. And so they are not troubled a whit by the contradictions and inconsistencies in their chief's public utterances: they know that these have only one object: to deceive the crowd, the enemy, the "others," and they adulate the leader who manipulates and practices the lie with such skill. As for the others those who believe they evince by their belief that they are insensible to contradictions, impervious to doubt, incapable of thought. Alexandre Koyré (June 1945) "The Political Function of the Modern Lie," Contemporary Jewish Record, 298-9. [HT MA Khan]

Two of the more fascinating features in Donald Trump's political activity are (a) the brazen calls for unjust measures and (b) his effortless self-contradiction. Koyré's piece analyses both in light of each other. To the best of my knowledge contradictions in public speech are not well understood as such and as a species of propaganda and this explains my interest in Koyré here. Yet it is worth spending some time on (a) first, which Koyré traces back to Bismarck and calls the "second order lie:" because the brazen liar knows knows he "will not be believed by the "others," that his declarations would not be taken seriously by the uninitiated" it is precisely by telling them the truth, that he makes "certain of gulling and lulling his foes." (296)*

Koyré treats the second order lie as part and parcel of the propaganda of totalitarian societies. It fits his larger explanatory scheme because he models public lying, propaganda, and the public use of contradictions on the nature of conspiracy, which has (i) an elite initiated who guard the secret, (ii) the believing (mob) followers, and (iii) the enemy, the "others."** So, for example, the second order lie is (mistakenly) not believed by (iii), but is (correctly) believed by (i-ii). Koyré is clear that the modeling assumptions about human nature (he calls it an 'anthropology') that figure in the conspiracy model are not universal, but (and here he anticipates Arendt) he suggests that in totalitarian societies they can become self-actualizing (an "experimental proof of the doctrine" (300)).

One tricky aspect of the way Koyré's argument is unfolded is that at first it is not entirely clear if he treats the conspiracy model at arm's length (as a model that helps make intelligible the actions of others) or that he embraces its assumptions, too. By the end of the piece it is clear that he treats democracy with a different model, and he announces that he is agnostic about the assumptions of the conspiracy model. (Sadly, he does not model his own philosophical activity either in light of the conspiracy model nor in light of the inverted model he applies to democracy.)

As an aside, Koyré is not well known among philosophers anymore except those with an interest in the history and philosophy of science. This is a bit of shame because his life and intellectual formation are fascinating. His soft-Hegelian treatment of the history of science, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe (1957), first presented at Hopkins paved the way for the uptake of Kuhn. [His account of the debate between Huygens/Leibniz and Newton over action at a distance was the target of my first (and, perhaps, best) paper I ever (co) wrote.] Reading "The Political Function of the Modern Lie," which has not been cited much, helps explain his prominence during the cold war--he is an unabashed critic of totalitarianism and he makes fun of the "self-styled social elite" (300) that falls for totalitarian propaganda in liberal democracies and he praises "the popular masses of the democratic countries, alleged to be degenerate and debased, who in accordance with the very principles of totalitarian anthropology have proved they belong to the higher category of humanity, composed of men who think." (300)

To get to the main point: Koyré treats (b) the acceptance of blatant contradictions in political speech of authoritarian leaders as follows: (i) an initiated elite who can see through the contradictions and who understand the true aims of the leader, but who guard the secret, and (ii) the believing (mob) who do not grasp the contradictions because they are -- and this is crucial -- incapable of doubt--they are true believers.

It is notable that in this paper Koyré, who was an accomplished historian of religion, is careful not to stress the analogy with religion/theology. But it is striking that for those who know the history of science, the contours of the Kuhnian model are clear: there is a shared hegemonic paradigm, and the scientific community is divided between worker-bees (who don't grasp the big picture and don't really pay attention to possible contraditions) and the scientific legislators/elite, who understand  that they belong to a sect which does not take objections from outsiders (the enemy) seriously. Scientific revolutions are initiated when part of the elite starts contemplating defection (in light of some rather salient anomalies).

Either way, I am not suggesting that Koyré's treatment of contradictions in public speech modeled on conspiracies is fully convincing. Having said that, it is worth noting that Trump invokes conspiracies somewhat regularly (for a funny overview see here). [I am not the first to note the continued relevance of Hofstadter's (1964) "The Paranoid Style in American Politics."] It is part of the logic of a conspiratorial world-view that we can be surrounded by conspiracies. One peculiar feature of this world-view is that the person who sees conspiracies in others can also be itself at the head of a conspiracy surrounded by an inner cabal who can see through the ("funny") rhetoric and devoted followers who are true believers. Koyré's analysis is optimistic because he implies that democratic masses are resistant against it. (This is a bit odd for somebody who lives through the collapse of Weimar and the collapse of the third republic.) Hofstadter's work is, thus, a useful corrective.

To sum up: it is no surprise that in an age of mass media and (purported) transparency, we encounter the second order lie; it is less obvious how contradictions can survive their exposure. Koyré's model may be a useful starting place to start thinking about the prevalence of articulated contradictions in modern political life.

 

Hannah Arendt (and Chomsky) Predicted How Our Epistemocracy (almost) leads to Donald Trump

Daniel Bell is cautiously hopeful because he is aware that scientific and technical work depend on "theoretical knowledge [that] is sought, tested, and codified in a disinterested way" (op. cit). Perhaps this optimism can be justified so long as the scientists and technologists remain uninterested in power and are concerned with no more than social prestige, that is, so long as they neither rule nor govern. Noam Chomsky's pessimism, "neither history nor psychology nor sociology gives us any particular reason to look forward with hope to the rule of the new mandarins," may be excessive; there are as yet no historical precedents, and the scientists and intellectuals who, with such deplorable regularity, have been found willing to serve every government that happened to be in power, have been no "meritocrats" but, rather, social climbers. But Chomsky is entirely right in raising the question: "Quite generally, what grounds are there for supposing that those whose claim to power is based on knowledge and technique will be more benign in their exercise of power than those whose claim is based on wealth or aristocratic origin?" (Op. cit., p. 27.) And there is every reason to raise the complementary question: What grounds are there for supposing that the resentment against a meritocracy, whose rule is exclusively based on "natural" gifts, that is, on brain power, will be no more dangerous, no more violent than the resentment of earlier oppressed groups who at least had the consolation that their condition was caused by no "fault" of their own? Is it not plausible to assume that this resentment will harbor all the murderous traits of a racial antagonism, as distinguished from mere class conflicts, inasmuch as it too will concern natural data which cannot be changed, hence a condition from which one could liberate oneself only by extermination of those who happen to have a higher I.Q.? And since in such a constellation the numerical power of the disadvantaged will be overwhelming and social mobility almost nil, is it not likely that the danger of demagogues, of popular leaders, will be so great that the meritocracy will be forced into tyrannies and despotism?--Hannah Arendt (1972) "On Violence,"note XVI, in Crises of the Republic, pp. 196-7

The note quoted above is attached to a paragraph that treats Bell's analysis of a then-new phenomenon in history: the rise in importance of a credentialed technocratic class (of scientists and engineers, but also bureaucrats) that is indispensable in securing the open ended economic growth of modern (liberal) political economies. While Bell treats technocrats as a new species of disinterested agents, Chomsky and Arendt know better: as the social rewards of technocracy grow, the special ethos that governs an intellectual credit economy gives way among technocrats to mores more apt to political rule (and, in turn, this infects the academy).*

Since Bell, Chomsky, and Arendt discussed these issues, this credentialed class has increasingly secured the economic gains from its own contributions and is steadily supplying the political and economic elite (perhaps also the military elite). Along the way this class also rigged the system in its own favor, by permitting a rent-seeking financial elite to secure private gains at the expense of social costs since the great financial crisis  (in 2008), and by making patents and copy-rights ever more protected.** Thus what was only a speculative thought in the 1960 has become reality: we live in an epistemocracy, or (if you think our modern credentials are spurious) we live in a credentialed elite that purports to be meritocratic.*** Obviously, it is not a perfect epistemocracy (the elites’ self-selection mechanisms are imperfect), but we are heading there.

In an earlier piece on meritocracy, I noted it is very annoying to be told that one deserves to lose. It is worse, I think, if one is told repeatedly and frequently by a whole society's morality and shared commitments that the systematic pattern of outcomes in which one always end up on the losing side is morally just and due to your cognitive, physical, psychological, aesthetic (etc.) flaws, especially, perhaps, if it all seems true. [Note that the true can be ideological if it presupposes a status quo bias [recall]; it can also be a form of supportive propaganda in Stanley's sense [recall]] I would now add that the worst feature of a meritocracy is that the ruling elites treat their own values as constituting rationality.

It is very hard to combine an epistemocracy with democracy because as Arendt notes", in the counterfactial limit the numerical power of the disadvantaged will be overwhelming and social mobility almost nil. Even if the meritocracy is run in accord with Rawls' difference principle and the rising tide of prosperity benefits the least advantaged materially, there is no reason to expect that the majority will accept being second-class forever (even if its accorded all the procedural trappings of democratic participation). Obviously, Arendt smuggles in an assumption of considerable heritability of intelligence, and we may well think (with a nod to plasticity) that ceteris paribus there will be open-ended progress in improving intelligence via social/cultural/educational factors and, thereby, with clever social engineering constant renewal of the elites. But other things are not equal: those will money and influence will nudge the system in their offspring’s favor.

Because rationality and facts are, by (social) definition, on the side of the credentialed elites, the disadvantaged are susceptible to demagogues. And, in fact, if one thinks that power is a genuine end, as it must be in politics, then it is quite rational by the majority to turn to demagogues. While Arendt correctly notes the murderous traits of a racial antagonism that accompanies this turn to demagoguery she mistakenly assumes that its primary target is the credentialed elite rather than members of low status groups that are advancing in relative status due to economic success (I call this the enduring ‘Jewish problem’).

And so we can distinguish between two kinds of demagogues: (i) the ones [Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, etc.] that on the whole leave the credentialed elites pretty much alone and re-direct the majority's energies at scapegoats (immigrants, refugees, dark-skinned citizens, etc.), and (ii) those demagogues that channel the anger at the credentialed elites. It turns out that (i) is can be a serious nuisance to epistemocracy (as the disruption caused by Brexit shows) and harm some of its members (especially if they beling to targeted scapegoat communities), while only (ii) is lethal to credentialed elites as such. Credentialed elites are able to accommodate themselves to (i); from their vantage point Donald Trump is ultimately mere entertainment. We see this calculation at work, first, in the favorable media coverage Trump garnered and, second, because Trump is not being treated as an existential threat to the status quo by those that have most to lose from it.

Once a demagogue along the lines of (ii) arises democracy is finished because the credentialed elites will not defend it. For, they have no attachment to democracy as such: already 'ignorant voters' are treated as a self-evident fact by many of the most ardent epistemocrats; there is increasing fondness to use arguments from complexity to favor either markets or experts. Rather, as Arendt suggests the credentialed will desert the democratic cause, and defend their power against the more egalitarian impulse in the name of a moral cause: merit. 

Obviously these outcomes are not inevitable. It is possible liberal democracies muddle on. It is notable that there is a huge atmosphere of crisis that permeates Arendt's writinsg from the late 1960s and early  70s. There was a genuine crisis that was arguably worse than what's being faced now, but for all of our many imperfections liberal democracies have not imploded since. In particular, it is more likely that external threats (fill in your favorite: climate change, violent Jihad, China, etc.) will allow the construction of some kind of unity that will involve some compromise between the principle of merit and the principle of equality.