Philosophy On The Mesa

Some thoughts on the phenomenon of “voter envy” in Europe: Having recently returned from a visit to Denmark, I have witnessed, first hand, the almost feverish interest in our Presidential election shown on the other side of the Pond. When visiting with friends and family, the presidential election was all anyone wanted to talk with me about. An interesting idea was floated by a columnist in the culture-radical newspaper Politiken: that the US Presidential election will have a greater impact on Europe than on the individual American states, inasmuch as the States have their own local governments and legislation, while the decisions of the American President will have a global effect. During a previous election a Danish commentator even expressed the idea that European countries should be able to vote in our Presidential elections! I assume it was tongue-in-cheek. I hope. I am not posting any links to specific articles, because they’d be in Danish, but if you click here, you’ll see the extensive coverage. The newspaper—the largest in the country—has a running unofficial poll where readers get to vote for the presidential candidates. So far, Obama is winning.

The Danish state-sponsored radio station Program I (where I have been a guest commentator from time to time) has news updates on the election throughout the day, on the air and online. Candidates are profiled, and the latest polls are cited. Interestingly, the coverage of the Democratic candidates by far outweighs the coverage of the Republican candidates—you’d guess that the choice is exclusively between Clinton and Obama. What is interesting about that is (1) what it says about the preferences of the news editors, and (2) that the fact that the station is state-sponsored has no relationship to the actual politics of the current moderate/conservative government. Just in case anyone thought that having a state-sponsored media outlet in Europe automatically implies censorship.

However, this intense interest and scrutiny doesn’t mean that Danes/Europeans are familiar or comfortable with the US election process, being used to a parliamentary form of government, frequent elections, and a plethora of political parties that come and go. Primaries and caucuses etc. are a huge mystery to the otherwise generally well-informed population (In case we find the Danish style of country management attractive: It is easier to have a parliamentary style of government in a country of only 5 million people). And the interest doesn’t mean that Europeans look to the American system as an ideal, either—part of the interest is (1) fear of the future, and (2) a morbid fascination with the antics of a complex nation, with more political and social extremes than a European is used to, a kind of rubbernecking phenomenon…so when some Danes want to vote in our election, it isn’t because they want to become Americans—they want Americans to morph into Europeans…

Thank you Dwight for the fair summary of my heretofore disparate remarks. There is a great deal you wrote that I’d like to respond to (including Nina’s recent post), but I’ll save that for later and simply continue my critique and try to close the loop on my previous disparate remarks.

What I’ve left unsaid so far is just why our vote doesn’t matter, and why it actually has pernicious consequences. I find it curious that people think that ‘what’ a candidate is ‘for’ actually matters, that their policies are in some way sui generis. We are not voting for an emperor, or a führer, who’ll dictate actions and policies that others will have to endure or benefit from. Even with a Republican Congress George Bush was severely impaired from pursuing even modestly ‘conservative’ ideas, and could only get something done (prescription coverage for the elderly) when it also served Democratic ends. Ultimately we hire geldings. We wouldn’t even be in Iraq if the Democrats hadn’t shamelessly capitulated for personal political gain in November 2002.

What seems to be taken for ‘disingenuousness’ (seems to be a favorite retort here) is the failure to note what binds my critique together. I’m not into ‘name -calling,’ but I’d also like to defend myself from the charge of cynicism. I’m not offering cynicism, but I’m trying to offer a fresh perspective that you simply don’t ever hear, and that’s a philosopher’s role to question the comforts of the masses. I’m simply inviting people to take off the rose-tinted glasses that have become so comfortable because of the hidden interests they serve.

I’m not being disingenuous either when I’m trying to detail a subtle argument— subtle they are, but not disingenuous. If nothing could be different, then critiquing the American situation would be rather useless. My point though is that what is lamentable is the fact that it could have been different, but is likely now to be beyond redemption. It’s a diagnosis, not a prescription.

What my argument hinges on is noting the presence of a vicious symbiosis among our political parties that began roughly 47 years ago with Kennedy’s Inaugural Address (a convenient starting point):

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge—and more. To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.” (With apologies to Country Joe and the Fish) Next stop Vietnam

This notion of ‘using the future to pay for the present’ gained traction in the Johnson years, and finally came to concrete fruition in the Reagan years. The timing is unimportant, but the tangible result is crucial. What started in earnest in the 60’s was the belief that we can live a life of smug contentment on the backs of future unborn generations with a clear conscience. Madison expected ‘factions’ to compete yet he never suspected that they might end up colluding with each other at the expense of future generations. Kennedy’s “we” (as Tonto might note) quickly became an unspecific piece of rhetoric. So what happened here that led to the efficacy of colluding interests?

What had happened was that a general agreement, a consensus, was reached between the ‘factions’ here that recognized that their goals and interests were largely compatible. In the US there is a staggering homogeneity that is largely missing in even very small states (think of Kenya now). It is perfectly clear that most Americans largely want the same things and that these things were very predictable in nature (nice house, SUV or BMW, a chance to eat too much, win a lotto prize, etc.). This is also why politics that try to stoke ‘envy’ in some of our population (Edwards favorite ruse) never works in the USA. People don’t envy the rich here, they want to be rich themselves, they want to emulate the rich, not sneer at them— everyone wants to be in Paris Hilton’s position , they only disagree about her choice of cars, clothes, and mates to do it with. Our short-sighted pursuit of petty interests is a blatant trait in most Americans. Yet it isn’t anything particularly American though. People have always been like that. Most are palpably indifferent to the future. Job (21:21) said it concisely, “For what do they care for their houses after them, when the number of their months is cut off?”

You focus on my comments (in part) as if I’m offering an indictment of ‘the system,’ and that what I’m noting are signs of a ‘broken’ system. But the system isn’t broke, it is in fact quite intact, but it was simply overwhelmed, and usurped, by the powerful forces of colluding selfish interests that found a way to disable the checks set in place long ago. The system was originally designed to mitigate the ultimately malicious inclinations of people to be contentious and pursue incompatible ends. But what if the ends are largely agreed upon? What if people tastes and interests largely coalesce? Madison didn’t forsee that contingency. There is simply no safeguard against colluding interests. That’s why when Nina wrote: “So should we feel bad about voting selfishly? That argument seems to me strangely disingenuous. For one thing, what exactly is wrong with trying to create the best life possible for oneself and one’s group?” I considered that a symptom, not a response, to the issue I’m trying to point out.

For instance, I’m 100% behind drilling for all that oil off Santa Barbara and taking every ounce of it out, but we’re not the ones who should be doing it. We should leave that oil for future generations to exploit for their own interests, despite the fact that it may keep gas prices down for us. They should be free to pursue their own dreams, like going to Mars for instance, and they shouldn’t be saddled with impediments (in the form of taxes to pay the national debt) that reflect the pursuit of our own petty interests.

It seems odd that people don’t consider the future of their progeny and what effect we might have on them with the choices we make now. It’s odd too that people don’t seem to notice that this current collusion of petty interests was only possible because previous generations didn’t pursue their interests to the exclusion of their progeny. We are leaving a vast financial hole for future generations and we are seemingly expecting them to pay with their taxes what we enjoy today. But since it seems so natural to pursue our own interests even at the expense of others, I don’t see why we should respect a vote that will blatantly, and gloatingly express the pursuit of the petty self-interests of those who have no thought for the future. The very notion of sacrifice is missing, and any thought for tomorrow is expected to be paid back to our current citizens in the form of trade-offs that profit them.

In fact I’m placing a finger on something that isn’t broke at all, and that is the nature of people themselves. That humans succumb easily to flattery, credulity and gullibility, and aren’t even very noted for making sacrifices for their  own children, much less the children of the future, is our current malaise. In point of fact people will not vote against their own interests without considerable incentives. Adam Smith famously noted this human indifference to others. It isn’t cynical to lament the nature of people as they are, but it can be sobering and disillusioning.

George Monbiot, whom no one could doubt having “liberal” credentials (he was Oxford Professor of Environmental Policy, and Professor of Environmental Science at the University of East London– to name a very few), wrote about his experiences at the European Social Forum:

“In Paris, some of us tried to tackle this question [of the evils of capitalism] in a session called ‘life after capitalism.’ By the end of it, I was as unconvinced by my own answers as I was by everyone else’s. While I was speaking, the words died in my mouth, as it struck me with horrible clarity that as long as incentives to cheat exist (and they always will) none of our alternatives could be applied universally without totalitarianism.” And therein lies the rub. Can we govern ourselves without hurting the future? My suspicion is that we cannot.

When cynicism takes over, and the culture is falling apart, Voltaire’s advice is to go cultivate one’s backyard. Josef’s backyard must look very pretty in this election season. I would like to add a different, personal perspective to this debate: I lived in this country for 22 years as a legal resident alien, without being able to vote. When you are a reasonably rational, caring adult living in a society that has, and wields, the power to change history, and you cannot vote, you realize exactly why voting is important: Not only because it gives you the illusion of participation, a mere feel-good means of keeping the people content, a modern version of “bread and circuses” (as Marcuse might say), but because it reveals the fundamental duty and privilege of a citizen: to participate, and one of the ways we participate is by voting. I’m reminded of the vehemence and passion with which intelligent women fought for the right to vote in the 19^th century, simply because it ought to be a right, not because it necessarily yields immediate results, or automatically makes the world a more authentic place. If nothing else, then, vote to celebrate the principle of voting—because the alternative, losing the right to vote, is dismal.

So, when I became a US citizen in 2001, I proudly registered to vote, and I have been doing my best to be an informed voter ever since. The argument that if you choose not to choose, you let others choose for you, is indeed a good argument, because we can’t dismiss all ballots and elections as being manipulated, rigged, etc., as much as the hype and the ballot language excel in confusing and misleading the voters. Sometimes issues are important, and at face-value, and sometimes the people we elect are not corrupt. Sometimes we indeed find afterwards that we have been manipulated, and duped, or we find that the issue we voted in gets stuck in courts until it disappears, or we find that money has outweighed ideology, or ideology has outweighed common sense. The voice of the people isn’t absolute—but it isn’t nonexistent, either. Sometimes a simple majority can make an enormous difference.

            So should we feel bad about voting selfishly? That argument seems to me strangely disingenuous.  For one thing, what exactly is wrong with trying to create the best life possible for oneself and one’s group? You don’t find me defending egoism very often, but in this case it would be a blatant disdain for reality to think that we can engage enthusiastically in a process that consistently disregards our own interest. On the other hand, that doesn’t have to exclude a concern for others. I agree with Dwight that virtue ethics opens up the possibility to display and express care for one’s fellow human beings without being trapped by the impossible, cold ideal of impartiality. When we vote, we vote according to the interests of “our group,” but we can be a member of many “groups,” physically as well as emotionally, and we are capable of caring about issues across the board. Indeed, one of the problems with Rousseau’s social contract theory is his concept of the general will that can never be wrong if applied toward the interest of all, but is corrupted when tainted by personal interests—the quintessential impartiality ideal. It doesn’t work. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t weigh in, in a concerned way, about what, in our view, may benefit a large group to which we belong—such as our state and our nation.

            What may be more important than any of these arguments is the concept of hope—that we hope our vote can make a difference. In other words, we engage ourselves in the future, with responsibility, a forward-looking engagement. So I’m “looking forward” to voting, and believe me, around the world there are lots of good people who wish they were in the shoes of an American voter. I’ll post something about that later.

Josef has an interesting (albeit dispersed) argument for why he doesn’t vote. (Here, here, and here) I agree with (most of) his premises but come to a different conclusion.

I vote because (a) I care deeply about global warming, poverty, health care, wars without justification, and the fate of our nation (b) I think at least one candidate, if elected, will pursue policies that will advance the cause of what I care about, (c) to care about something without caring for it is to lead an alienated existence, and (d) one way to care for items listed in (a) is to vote.

To care about something but then do nothing to nurture what one cares about is to allow one’s actions to drift apart from the commitments that define who one is. That is the very definition of a loss of agency.

Josef’s posts (if I understand them properly) add up to a compelling indictment of our political process. I am taking some liberties here in the interests of being concise, but I think Josef’s argument is as follows:

(1) Our political traditions assume that people are fundamentally selfish and self-aggrandizing and seek to marshall other people to their cause in order to achieve power.

(2)  Thus, Madison (and others) designed a system, not to produce excellence in our leaders, but to prevent undue accumulations of power, thus protecting individual liberty and a diversity of interests.

(3) This is accomplished by giving power to states and to legislatures.

(4) However,  power now rests with the media that, ( I am assuming) in collusion with big government and big business, manufactures consent. That is, the voting public’s real preferences are being manipulated, in ways they may not fully grasp, to support the plutocrats who run things.

(5) This undermines the checks and balances, leaves voters ill informed, and fails to constrain their selfishness.

(6) The liberal intellectual tradition’s (Hume-Rawls)  commitment to impartiality as a way of dealing with selfishness is ineffective and (perhaps) encourages a bureaucratic mentality that enables the powerful to hold on to power.

(6) Thus our political system does not protect individual liberty or serve a diversity of interests.

(7) Therefore, the system is corrupt

( and voting cannot diminish the corruption.

I have some quibbles with some premises, though I agree with most of them. I doubt that, in a interconnected, globalized world, giving power to the states or local legislatures will protect individual liberty and a diversity of interests. That is an 18th Century solution to a 21st Century problem.

And, although I think the mainstream media’s influence in manufacturing consent for a corrupt system is deplorable, I don’t think that American voters are “sheeples” utterly without agency. They are being manipulated but are complicit in that manipulation.

But on the whole I think Josef is exactly right–except for his conclusion about not voting. 

Political (and economic) systems do not exist in a vacuum. They function within cultures, and culture shapes how political systems work. Voting will not change the system. Only cultural change will do that. But as long as people are not “sheeple”, elections can serve an educative function and help galvanize cultural change.

Furthermore, voting is about putting people in power who can articulate a vision that most of us can share and who can solve problems without screwing  things up.  If we elect responsible people with good ideas that can solve problems, instead of dimwitted, moral cretins with itchy trigger fingers, we give people the cultural space to shape our social and economic systems to serve our diverse interests.

Yes, the people we elect will be beholden to the plutocrats who pull the strings. But good politicians can service them with one hand while doing the people’s work with the other.

I’m not here trying to persuade anyone. I’m not even trying to inform per se, but I am trying to explicate an idea that I think has something to it. Obviously I’m also very open to anyone who can offer an insight I’m failing to notice, and I’d be grateful for any detailed explanation that detailed what it is that I’m missing. But in the absence of this I will continue.

I’m also aware of my own elipsis that may foster false impressions, or may lead to a lack of understanding (that is unavoidable in a blog where the space is limited). To that end I’d happily respond to any queries that sought to draw out my thoughts more clearly.

In my last post I mentioned something pertaining to Davis Hume and I thought I might detail that thought out more a bit more assiduously.

Hume was very influential in noting what we might call the “grabby nature” of people. This is what I was noticing in many people’s desire to vote: the desire to get your way done, and by extension, using other people’s votes to facilitate the attainment of some perceived desirous end.

Madison saw how ‘factions’ did in fact work in this way. He saw no way to end the motives that create ‘factions,’ but he did see a way to ‘neutralize,’ or mitigate, their strength by avoiding ‘majoritarian rule.’ This protected the interests of small states from those states with large numbers of people. We often forget we are “These United States”— notice the grammatical inaccuracy we’ve adopted for nearly a hundred years?

Well we can thank Hume for laying the ground work that people like Madision all the way to people like John Rawls have tried to exploit.

Hume is the one to fault for being the first to try identifying impartiality (and later justice) with the ‘neutralizing’ of the “grabby nature of man” I mentioned above. The impact of this on Rawls is impossible to miss and is a great fault in Rawls, if for no other reason than that it makes it impossible for Rawls to deal with “retributive justice” in any meaningful way. It is Rawls’ Gothic detail that makes it so difficult to notice how much and how often he confuses “means” and “ends.”

Hume wrote: “If every one had the same affection and tender regard for every one as for himself, justice and injustice would be equally unknown among mankind,” and, “Encrease to a sufficient degree the benevolence of man and you render justice useless.” Hume saw the problem of man as neutralizing “the selfishness and confin’d generosity of men.” The uselessness of this conception with any notion of “retributive justice” is plain, but it is also false in regard to “distributive justice.” Rawls too had a terrible blind spot for this and it leads his ideas into incoherence, though his Gothic detail buys him cover from this. As Hume and Rawls would agree, it leads to the idea that all we need are “impartial judges” to determine a ‘rational solution’ to a dispute, yet this it perfectly in error.

I will pick up later this idea and finish it because I wish to be as brief as possible here, but as you probably know by now, that’s one of my faults.

With these two responses I sense the need to quickly proceed to Part II of my point, but I must confess that the plums offered here in these two responses are almost unendurably tempting to pursue instead of continuing in the manner I intended. I doubt I could have summarized as briefly as it was done for me here just why we are played like the pianos we are, with all the predictable results so neatly, and unwittingly detailed with these two contributions responding to my posting.

Although my original intentions were to spell out my philosophical concerns in detail, and then hope for an intellectual sympathy to fill-in any ‘functional’ gap with the readers’ own wit, I sense now that I might need to also furnish sufficient functional detail of my own to obviate certain potential misunderstandings. As it was mentioned here on this blog once before, this could be called the urge to misunderstand, which should never be underestimated. I think it is clear that many people are always drawn to misrepresent others when their own pet notions become a point of contention. It just doesn’t seem to be much of a human passion to render sympathy to views that are sensed to be inimical to our own.

It was written, ” … if your opinions are ratified, you have cause for celebration; if they are not, only then may you complain.” I couldn’t summarize myself in fewer words what it is that I object to more. The vote isn’t a reward for being conscious, nor is it a chance to vote for a prom queen, or for pet of the year, it may though actually be an embarrassing expression of your own ignorance, which would be a lamentable reality to face. But it ultimately begs the question, “Why should I seek to have it, or anything else, my way?” Why should I glory in having my ways inflicted on others? Couldn’t I be perfectly mistaken (and potentially a danger) if I seriously pursued my own interests to the exclusion of the interests of others? When you add the fact that very few people have either the time, or the intellect, to contemplate the effect of the potentially momentous choices they’ll make (that may very well affect millions–think of the Florida goofs who can’t punch holes), why should we encourage and solicit such incompetent (and dangerous) opinions?

I think the root of this misunderstanding can be found in a pervasive, yet tacit notion, that is accepted by many. It was Hume that pointed out this human urge that the two responses depend on. That’s why he thought of justice and government as a ‘mediation’ between the competing selfish urges. That’s why he made a point about saying that ‘ending the selfish urge would render justice unnecessary.’ Now I don’t doubt for a second that people of this sort are pervasive and, or, many, but is it really an axiom about public action we wish to accept without question? Why shouldn’t older people vote for measures against their ‘personal’ interests, and for something that may be in the interests of their grandchildren, or friends? Think of social security here. Why should we vote for something that may hurt others? Might we not vote for something that hurts us, but would benefit others that we may, or may not, care for?

To just take one type of example that most should be aware of, my experience of life (although blessed in this, I don’t think of myself as alone) has shown me repeated examples of parents who know quite well, and it comes easy to them as well, that for your children (to just name some obvious examples) you forgo personal interests, temper personal demands, mitigate personal goals, all in keeping with being a good parent. That no outside mediation is necessary, nor are reminders required, to pursue the interests of others to the exclusion of one’s own is a commonplace among parents, friends, and neighbors (why couldn’t countrymen be added easily to the mix?)

In short (and I’ll respond with more, but this is getting too long already as I feared), why shouldn’t people who have a more direct interest in any particular voting issue be allowed to make their choices without the meddling interference of masses of uninformed and vulgarly interested people?

You see, what’s really at issue is that the so-called ‘winners’ wish to have their success “legitimized.” This was a very Lockean notion. For this they need numbers, which is precisely my point. By denying them the ‘numbers’ they seek, we incrementally delegitimize their success, and hence the kind of gloating I sensed in the responses. To me I would be given pause, and sobered by the responsibility of ‘winning’ on an issue. But I sense only the desire to crow about such successes in many. In this way I sense the psychology of the crowd taking over, with all the rancid inplications. Politics as a football game is in no one’s interest, especially in the long-term. That’s why reading Madison is sobering, and perhaps also why he isn’t on many American’s reading list— few Americans risk having their conscience winning.

Why I Won’t Vote (Part I)

I find it odd that I’m not expected to explain why I don’t eat broccoli, or like hockey, or prefer Paris to Costa Rica, but the fact that I refuse to vote seems to require an explanation. What I find odder still is that average people seem to understand my position much better than do educated people. Being a political year I sense I will be asked to explain myself more than once, and because of that I thought I might detail my position in one space here and base all subsequent fending on this posting.

First off, I’m not advocating that anyone follow my example, but I might have the temerity to ask that my reasons be duly and soberly considered. Some issues that find themselves on a ballot may very well be close to the heart (or the pocketbook) of any dedicated voter, and in their case I find it perfectly understandable why they may be moved to vote.

I might very well begin all this by maintaining that the issues of this election really don’t pertain to me, or even move me. Let the Indians decide the issues that pertain to them, I might say. But I won’t begin there. It is the very nature of American politics that I wish to put my finger on, not its issues. The political foundations leading to my nonparticipation have been known long and well by the finest minds of America, and spelled out much better that I can do here. But I’ll begin with some sketching of their influence on me here.

Henry Cabot Lodge wrote in 1876, “Politics have ceased to interest me. I am satisfied that the machine can’t be smashed this time. As I feared, we have ourselves saved it by a foolish attempt to run it, which we shall never succeed in. The [political] caucus and the machine will outlive me. . . When the day comes on which it will be considered as disgraceful to be seen in a caucus as to be seen in a gambling house or brothel, then my interest will wake up again and legitimate politics will get a new birth.” (June 4, 1876, Letters Vol. 2)

Tocqueville is something of an American mania, but I think largely because it is so easy to find and cite flattering and placating passages about America to suit any purpose. But the American psyche seldom taxes its conscience when it comes to some of his much more sobering observations. One idea noted well by John Stuart Mill (1840) in his piece on Tocqueville was the inherent dilemma of the American system: in a liberal society deference succumbs to egalitarianism and to a deep suspicion of ‘elites,’ and because of that our best and sharpest people will never get elected to office. This idea was fully recognized in the Federalist papers. Our system is not designed to promote the recognition of excellence. Rather, it is designed to defend us from the unfortunates we do elect. Ultimately, it is a system designed to mitigate the consequences of our lamentable choices. (How many will confess their vote for Nixon TWICE?—he won in two landslides).

In this past century Walter Lippmann made such observations central to his diagnosis of what ails the American political body. His book, Public Opinion, is a thinly veiled meditation on the ‘Platonic cave’ of American political discourse where ‘the people’ have been disconnected from their power by the rhetoric of the modern hypertrophic media.

Madison maintained that “all governments rest on opinion,” and in this he anticipated the problem that consumed Tocqueville, and later Lippmann. They saw in ‘public opinion’ the powers of conformity that would stifle dissent and threaten individual liberty. But for Lippmann the opinions of the people become much more ominous and threatening to democracy because the power no longer rests with the legislature, as designed by the founders to protect us from ourselves, and in its stead this power has been stealthily purloined by the media that shape the very ‘opinions’ our people are expected to base their opinions on. In this way popular “consent” is now manufactured by a constant barrage of ‘factoids,’ ‘pols,’ graphs, ads, and ‘consultants’ and the Jeffersonian ideal of each American duly considering the fate of his choices on his fellow countrymen has become a quaint and unfathomable ideal.

As the election season begins, we are likely to hear a lot about family values from the Republicans, which usually means preventing gays and lesbians from forming them.

Throughout much of Europe, “family values”  means actually helping families flourish.

Ingrid Robeyns at Crooked Timber has an interesting discussion of paid family leave for fathers.

This article by famed Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek says some very interesting things: (1) China recently legislated about who can or cannot be reincarnated in Tibet, so in a roundabout way religion has found its way back into official China. But what kind of religion? The kind that will make the citizens comply, and (2)  China has realized that “unbridled capitalism” works better than political force and threats as a deconstruction of traditional values. But more importantly, Zizek does a cultural critique of the West (“the sophisticates”) when we laugh at China regulating the afterlife, and condemn the Taliban for blowing up ancient statues of Buddha in Afghanistan. Zizek, a “Lacanian postmodern” culture critic, sees the Western “sophisticates” as the ones with the problem (even though he includes himself): Our participation in cultural traditions has become precisely that, a cultural phenomenon rather that a phenomenon of passion:

“The significant issue for the West here is not Buddhas and lamas, but what we mean when we refer to “culture.” All human sciences are turning into a branch of cultural studies. While there are of course many religious believers in the West, especially in the United States, vast numbers of our societal elite follow (some of the) religious rituals and mores of our tradition only out of respect for the “lifestyle” of the community to which we belong: Christmas trees in shopping centers every December; neighborhood Easter egg hunts; Passover dinners celebrated by nonbelieving Jews.

“Culture” has commonly become the name for all those things we practice without really taking seriously. And this is why we dismiss fundamentalist believers as “barbarians” with a “medieval mindset”: They dare to take their beliefs seriously. Today, we seem to see the ultimate threat to culture as coming from those who live immediately in their culture, who lack the proper distance.”

So somehow, fundamentalists are more “authentic” than Western “sophisticates”?  For one thing, Zizek doesn’t take into consideration that some of us Westerners actually do take our cultures seriously, and think that some secular Western political and, yes, cultural traditions are worth celebrating, teaching, and in some cases dying for. (When I said something similar in a previous blog, a student accused me of being biased. Am I biased? You bet I am, in favor of systems that value human dignity, over systems that don’t.) And the reason why some of us call the fundamentalist mindset medieval is not because they take their beliefs seriously, but because they don’t allow for others to have different beliefs, to the point of beheading the unbelievers.  He calls the Chinese attempt to legislate reincarnation a purely political move, which of course it is. But likewise he sees all our respect for other cultures as just a way to manage the political consequences of coexisting different mindsets. Here he forgets that we “sophisticates” actually don’t respect all other cultures, unless we are ethical relativists (and if we are, then we don’t criticize the Taliban, either)—our “culture” teaches us that cultures who respect other cultures are to be respected. Otherwise, they’re fair game for our criticism. So is Zizek sympathizing with terrorists? It looks to me as if this is merely an intellectual (and very witty) exercise, in the old Down-With-Capitalism-and-the-Degenerate-Capitalists vein, flirting with the forbidden: the ways of the fundamentalist terrorist. But what are we then supposed to be passionate about? The Postmodernist doesn’t say…

Economist Bryan Caplan has written a book entitled The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Politics , in which he argues that voters are irrational because they don’t think like economists.

According to Caplan, the typical voter favors government regulation of the economy to avoid economic bad times, is suspicious of excess profits by corporations, wants to protect domestic industry from foreign competition, and puts too much value on existing jobs. These are irrational beliefs because they violate economist’s faith in minimally regulated free markets.

So workers are irrational if they don’t want their jobs to go away, prefer to avoid the negative social consequences of recessions, and don’t like cheaters and thieves? There ought to be laws against economists making pronouncements about rationality, and perhaps more studies on the peculiar psychopathologies to which economists seem susciptible.

As Louis Menand writes in his review of this book, “Most people, even if you explained to them what the economically rational choice was, would be reluctant to make it, because they value other things—in particular, they want to protect themselves from the downside of change. They would rather feel good about themselves than maximize (even legitimately) their profit, and they would rather not have more of something than run the risk, even if the risk is small by actuarial standards, of having significantly less.”

Maximal economic efficiency is not the only thing we value–it is not irrational to value stability, risk reduction, or moral virtue.

If Caplan is the exemplar, contemporary economics is utilitarianism gone completely off the rails.