The Beautiful Dream II

Welcome friends!

Last time out I suggested the determination of American economic conservative to portray a rather overly simplistic and idealized mental construct they call “The Free Market” as a panacea for all of society’s ills may be related more to the world of dreams and fantasy than ethical or empirical theory.  In other words, I suggested those who would argue against this false and anti-social ideology on the basis of ethics, logic, or historical evidence may be barking up the wrong tree.  In some cases people live for their dreams and whether their dreams have any basis in reality or cohere in any rational or logical sense is really beside the point.  The narcotic effect of these sorts of life sustaining dreams has of course been noted before but more typically in the context of religious or spiritual beliefs as in Karl Marx’s famous description of religion as the opium of the masses.  However, I think a case can be made for essentially the same phenomenon playing out in terms of secular beliefs relating to economic issues.  I suggested it was likely not coincidental that here in the USA social conservatives attracted to religious modes of thinking tend to also be or at least make common cause with economic conservatives attracted to conservative economic ideology.  However, I didn’t really draw out what I consider the interesting ethical implications of this train of thought last week so I thought I do that now before I forget the whole thing entirely.

The ethical issue I wanted to take up this week is basically if one sees some junkies on the street corner and one is concerned for their welfare should one buy them some stuff or drag them struggling and screaming to rehab?  More to the point if one sees some people clinging to religion like drowning people clinging to a life raft should one bother explaining the rather obvious intellectual deficiencies and moral pitfalls of religious modes of thought or should one just light a bit of incense and sing a little song with them?  Even more to the point if one sees some poor economically struggling people working feverishly to shrink and minimize the influence of democratic government, outlaw unions, eliminate health and safety regulations, and do away with social safety net programs under the belief that doing so will usher in a golden age in which all their economic problems will evaporate should one bother trying to  explain why that is most likely not what will happen or should one just buy them a six pack and a funny cap and help them on their way?

It seems to me now the answer is not as obvious as I previously supposed.  Well, OK, I suppose the answer is still pretty obvious under some conditions.  If one is suffering oneself and unfortunately also educated enough to be immune to the mind numbing power of the conservatives’ pipe dream then of course I suppose one should speak up for oneself and try to talk sense to those in a similar situation.  Similarly if one isn’t really suffering oneself but notices signs of uncertainty or mental distress in the minds of those who are suffering then one might feel some urgency in helping them come quickly to their senses.  But I’m thinking about the case, all too common here in the USA because of the close relationship between liberalism, intelligence, and higher education, in which one is relatively well to do oneself but motivated in no small degree by one’s concern for economically struggling people who appear to be in the deep trance of conservative ideology.  That’s a tougher one right?  

One’s natural inclination may be to recoil at the sight of people essentially emasculating themselves (or whatever the equivalent would be for women) by endorsing the conservative mantra of shrinking and weakening the role of democratic government thus negating their own relatively equal voting power, of endorsing the fanciful conservative fairy stories that portray wealth as largely a function of individual merit and moral rectitude and poverty conversely as mostly a personal failing befalling only the morally compromised, and of supporting the elimination of government programs designed to address the inequities and imbalances and essentially instabilities of real market systems.  One may want to avert one’s eyes at the spectacle of these unfortunate people putting their own livelihoods and modest homes at risk and allowing their children to succumb to the social pathologies that inevitably accompany poverty and neglect.  

But I think to be realistic one must balance these sentiments with the knowledge that in many cases these people are benumbed and ensnared in the beautiful dream of conservatives.  They feel no pain or material hardship of any sort.  Indeed they live on a dream that if only we give The Free Market full rein we will attain a care free society in which all good people do well, activist government will become unnecessary and fall away (that is, any government beyond simply endorsing property rights and possibly a few other functions), and we need never think about the difficult and contentious issues associated with economic distributions again.  How happy life will be when we get to that promised land that never seems to quite arrive but is always just around the next bend.  Would one want to take this life sustaining dream from these people and replace it with the cold reality of empirical fact, the real variety of shifting market structures, the pros and cons of real market systems, the difficult trade-offs and complicated discussions that would really be required to reconcile conflicting notions of distributional fairness and ethically optimal results?  Many of these people simply don’t have the intellectual capacity or educational background to entertain such issues or deal with such a world.  Without their beautiful dream they may very well sink into the dark blue depths of reality never to emerge again.

Justice and fairness for the economically weak is always something worthwhile to fight for but I think we all need to keep things in perspective.  Fight the good fight of course but have a bit of a laugh and a song in one’s heart along the way.  Think of the wealthy conservative elite not simply as unscrupulous villains intent on preying on the intellectually and economically weak to further engorge themselves but more charitably as possibly more akin to greedy pushers selling their overpriced poison to desperate strung out junkies on the street corner.  Heroes to some, villains to others, but in a better world unnecessary to all.

The Beautiful Dream of Economic Conservatives

Welcome friends!

I was just reading yet another article about how the poorer salt of the earth variety of conservatives here in the USA are still very enthusiastic about the performance of our ongoing national embarrassment President Trump.  They are absolutely convinced he is on the right track.  This phenomenon has long been interesting to me because these are the people who have been losing out over the past several decades of conservative / neoliberal free market economic ideology and policies and there is really no reason to suppose they will not continue to lose out exacerbated now by any number of additional burdens such as the shredding of the social safety net, trade wars, elimination of worker health and safety rules, elimination of Obamacare and with it some of these people’s only realistic hope for affordable health care, elimination of Wall Street oversight, growth slowing restriction of legal immigration, destruction of the environment, and many other important conservative objectives and priorities.  I’ve generally considered that because these people tend to not be the most educated or informed they are simply prone to being easily deluded by fast talking con artists such as, well, President Trump and other leading figures in the Republican Party and the conservative hot air industry.  However, I must admit it’s always seemed a bit of a mystery to me why they don’t seem to ever catch on even after decades of getting the short end of the stick.  One would think a rock would have caught on by now.  Recently I’ve been thinking I may be the looking at the issue the wrong way round.  Perhaps what is important to these people is not their material conditions but something belonging more to the world of etherial fantasy: keeping their conservative dreams alive.  Perhaps it simply doesn’t matter to them how they actually make out in this world as long as they can continue to dream the happy dream of conservative economic ideology.

What is the happy dream of conservative economic ideology?  I think you must have come across it somewhere.  It’s basically the notion that we can set up a market system that captures all relevant ethical considerations relating to the thorny issue of distribution such that we will never need to bother discussing them again.  The people who should do well will automatically do well.  The people who shouldn’t do well will automatically get exactly what they deserve.  Democratic government and voting and policy making and so on will become irrelevant at least as far as economic issues.  Presumably private charity will likewise become irrelevant unless one has a personal  interest in undermining the ethically correct market distribution.  We can all look after our own selfish interests with nary a thought for our fellow humans or indeed nary a thought relating to any economic issue at all and the invisible hand of the market will ensure it all comes out right in the end.

What’s not to like right?  All our problems solved in one fell swoop.  We can all sit on our recliners drinking beer and watching fulminating conservative pundits excoriate their many enemies on the TV.  The problem of course with this particular pipe dream is that even a moment’s serious thought or attention to history will reveal it doesn’t really work.  It’s very difficult to set up a system that rewards that which we all agree on an ethical basis should be rewarded.  And once one loses that unanimity well it all becomes a matter of conflict between the haves and the have nots wouldn’t you say?  Not very magical nor necessarily all that happy.  And or course there are many well known conditions under which even perfectly competitive free markets can be shown to have problems even using the stripped down utility lite favored by the economics profession for its simplistic misleading baby social philosophy.  There are also many real world market structures other than the much discussed perfectly competitive market and without constant supervision or oversight there is not reason to suppose market structures will maintain constant over time.  In other words the pipe dream of the economic conservative is not something most reasonable educated thinking people can take very seriously.

However, I think one has to consider the issue from the perspective of people who just aren’t very educated and who really really don’t like complications or discussions.  It’s quite possible that for such people thinking and talking seriously about such matters is more burdensome than maintaining their simplistic dreams come what may and allowing their actual material conditions to deteriorate.  In that sense I suppose one might say free market ideology is for many of these people a sort of secular religion that like all religions must be shielded from the cold light of reason, evidence, and critical discussion.  Indeed I’ve long commented on the fact that the same people tend to be attracted to both economic conservatism and social conservatism involving religion.  It also fits in with the clear preferences for many of these conservatives to not subject themselves to real news or real information that might potentially challenge their beliefs and values and instead hew closely to the biased unreliable fake news of the conservative infotainment industry.  As reported in the papers surveys show many of these people consider a news source reliable and unbiased to the extent it protects and facilitates their dreams and not for any of the rather more prosaic considerations the rest of us tend to rely upon.  It also explains the anger and rudeness of many conservatives because of course if one is frustrated and trying to avoid serious discussion of an issue the best way to shut it down is to become angry and rude.

I find it an interesting idea because in my youth conservatives were typically portrayed as hard headed realists while liberals with their endless attempts to improve things were typically cast as starry eyed dreamers.  However, now that I’m older and have a seen a bit of the world I suspect that old saw had it exactly backwards.  Liberals with their willingness to confront evidence from the material world and take up the real world complications that make free market systems less than the panacea conservatives want them to be are the realists.  Economic conservatives at least of the salt of the earth variety are the starry eyed dreamers clinging confidently or perhaps desperately to the happy dream that would allow them to thrive without the hurly burly of debate and discussion or indeed education or even information of any sort.  Of course we must also recognized economic conservatives of another sort, the calculating schemers of the wealthy classes and their allies and cheerleaders and hangers on in the economics profession and conservative infotainment industry, who cynically use free market ideology as a rhetorical tool to amass more wealth for themselves with scant regard for the welfare of others.  Those elite economic conservatives are I suppose as much realists in their own way as liberals.  The difference is that liberals apply their realism to their sincere interest in the national welfare and honest intellectual exchange and discussion while elite economic conservatives apply their realism to making a buck for themselves any way possible and use words and arguments disingenuously and strategically in an attempt to keep other people in a sort of dream world with little or no sincere interest in the truth or national welfare. We should all resist the narcotic pipe dreams peddled by the economic conservative elite.  Fight for liberalism and the good of all humankind.

Liberty and Society

Welcome friends!

I don’t know how I got on the subject, probably the recent Christmas holiday and the annual rite of posing and gesturing for the good of all mankind, but I was just thinking how liberals tend to feel various social ills are best addressed through purposeful government action and conservatives (of the conscientious sort who actually think about such things) tend to feel these issues are more appropriately addressed through private charity.  A common argument one tends to hear on the conservative side is that the big advantage of their preferred approach is that it’s voluntary.  If one wants to help other people one is free to do so but no one is forced to part with their hard earned cash or let’s just say cash at the behest of some no good do-gooder.  In contrast the government policy approach favored by liberals generally involves the government’s power of taxation and hence ultimately its monopoly on the legal use of force and thus constitutes an affront to freedom and personal liberty.  Superficially it may seem they’re onto something.  Voluntary seems good.  Being forced to do anything seems bad.  But like much of the rest of conservative ideology upon deeper consideration the argument turns out to be a bit too simplistic.  Some other issues going on.  Big issues that get to the core of civilized society and democracy.  Not the sort of things people should really leave unsaid.  Let me explain what I’m talking about.

The first problem I have with the conservative take on this issue is that it seems a little lopsided or unbalanced in some way.  The private charity approach certainly seems consistent with the freedom of potential donors who can decide to give or not give as the mood suits them.  But this increase in freedom relative to the tax and spend approach seems to me counterbalanced by a commensurate decrease in freedom on the part of those on the receiving end.  Under a proper government program to address whatever social problems we’re talking about these people would be legally entitled to whatever it was and would be free to claim what would then be rightfully theirs.  Under a charitable regime they would of course not be entitled to anything in particular.  They would arrive hat in hand begging for alms.  Not really the same freedom-wise I wouldn’t think.  If we’re going to look at the net impact on freedom considering both groups of people I’d have to say I’m just not really sure.  One may think some people don’t really deserve more freedom so the calculation is really beside the point.  That’s fine with me.  We can discuss it.  But in that case let’s not present abstract freedom as an independent objective or consideration.  Let’s just say we’re interested in distributional systems.

Another problem with the private charity approach is that it appears to me a little sneaky or underhanded in some way.  We’ve set up together as a society through our political system our legal and economic institutions or if not set them up in the sense of bringing them into being then at least agreed together to modify them or not and to abide by them and so on.  However, if we’re talking about addressing some perceived social ills the way we’ve things up apparently has left a little something to be desired.  It’s not a big deal.  It’s not unexpected.  Hard to think of everything and to create a system that handles everything.  I suppose no society yet created is perfect and can carry on indefinitely without some remedial work now and then to keep it running more or less smoothly.  My point is simply that when I see people who make out very well indeed in our society accepting and supporting the system to the extent it works to their benefit but balking when it comes time to address the inevitable issues and imperfections associated with that system manifested typically in the suffering or relative want of their fellow citizens it looks to me like people shirking their duty to society.  It’s rather like eating a nice dinner and skipping out on the bill.  It’s fine to say I’ll only pay if I decide to volunteer a little something on the way out but in that case one shouldn’t be too surprised if the restaurant falls into disrepair or even ceases to exist one day.

And of course there is something inherently odd about setting up an economic system based primarily on monetary incentives and self interest and then trying to address social ills using a system that depends on people acting against those incentives at least in the short term.  Under a charitable system arguably good people who express their concern for others in a practical way by which I mean giving people money will lose out relative to those who choose to express a haughty disregard for the welfare of their fellows.  Sounds like a recipe to let problems go unsolved to me.  Sometimes people are willing to do things if we do them together and everyone pitches in but balk when they discover they’ll be doing all the hard lifting while their compatriots sit on the sidelines under very fancy canopies indeed cheering them on.  

A rather more fundamental issue is that I’m not at all convinced taxation really qualifies as any great assault on one’s liberty.  Goes with living in a human society.  Things need doing and it’s not really all going to be done through the magic of the marketplace.  But of course it depends on the form of government we’re talking about doesn’t it?  If we’re talking about monarchism or fascism or what have you then I suppose taxation might be rather arbitrary and arguable an assault on one’s liberty.  This is where the idea of democracy comes in.  We vote on things and then we abide by them whether that’s what we’ve personally voted for or not or in extreme cases we abide by them as much as we’re able within the bounds of our perceived moral duty because, well, that’s just the way society works.  One wouldn’t have a very effective society if everyone does only what they choose to do from one moment to the next.  Some places have tried that approach.  In practice it tends to lead to what I believe is known technically as a dysfunctional hellhole.  And in this context as well I’m struck by the distinctive imbalance inherent in much of conservative ideology.  Although often up in arms over the government’s use of force as it applies to enforcing the tax code conservatives rarely express concerns over the government’s use of force in other contexts such as for example enforcing our system of property rights.

Of course this imbalance really gets to the heart of the whole issue I suppose.  It has nothing to do with freedom or liberty and everything to do with haves and have nots.  Conservatives are enamored of the institutions surrounding the market and or current property arrangements.  They perceive no social ills under such a regime and nor do they care to receive the opinion of their fellow citizens delivered via the democratic political system.  In a sense they’ve become too cool for school.  It leads to that particular form of egotism by which conservatives imagine themselves a law unto themselves or in some cases the beneficiary of laws not made by their fellows but delivered from the cosmos by the forces of nature or helpful deities of one sort or another.  It’s the mindset that leads many conservatives to speak of government beyond that required to express and enforce the market institutions they find so attractive as a great evil with no apparent concern over what form that dark force may take be it democracy or fascism or communism.  Indeed many conservatives tend to use the terms interchangeably.  What they fail to appreciate is that the very system they excoriate as infringing upon their precious liberties is the system we used to set up and maintain the system of property rights and contracts they so adore but that others may find the source of suffering and want and injustice.  It’s a system of thought predicated on egotism and a defective and incomplete anti-social moral philosophy that results in selective perception expressed in peculiarly unbalanced reasoning in which government legitimacy and individual rights and duties appear and disappear like will-o’-the-wisps depending on one’s vantage point.  

We should all fight against conservatism and reaffirm our commitment to society, democracy, and the solving of social ills through purposeful co-ordinated collective action.  It’s time we gave up the ancient deist pipe dream of an invisible hand leading society to morally optimal results with no more effort on our part than assiduous attention to our own selfish wants and desires.  No mysterious providence guides markets to mutually desirable and salutary results.  Markets do what they do.  Some of it good for some.  Possibly even most of it good for most.  However,  under any reasonable system of moral ethics the market will be seen to allow some issues to remain unsolved.  We should recognize those issues and take steps to address them to make our system work for everyone.

New Year 2018

Welcome friends!

Happy New Year everyone!  Woo hoo!  2018!  Oh I’ve got a very good feeling about this year!  Well OK not really but hey let’s show a little optimism shall we?  My goodness we’re only a few days in.  Too early to get all mopey and depressed just yet.  Last year was …. well …. maybe not the best the old USA has ever seen.  And huge or as I suppose some might say yuge challenges for the country lie ahead.  The next three years are going to be tough that’s for sure but of course they will inevitably be a heck of a lot tougher for some than for others.  Indeed some Americans are making out very well indeed.  We’re not all in it together by any means.  I read an article recently that noted the richest one percent of Americans now hold forty percent of the nation’s total wealth, a greater share than at any time in the past fifty years and significantly more than the bottom ninety percent, which currently lay claim to about twenty percent of the nation’s total wealth.  And of course with President Trump and the Republican Party in charge the share going to the wealthy elite is set to rise dramatically in the short term due to their recent top heavy changes to the tax code and in the near future by the elimination or drastic reduction of the public programs and resources hitherto devoted to helping out the less fortunate that will be necessitated by their top heavy changes to the tax code. Well, either that or we’ll have a rather notable increase in our national debt.  Seems like an auspicious time to think about the future wouldn’t you say?

First let me just quickly review the article that got me going this week.  Lots of fun statistics.  I already gave the one about the richest one percent of Americans claiming forty percent of the total wealth.  Did I mention the top twenty percent hold a full ninety percent of the wealth?  Well they do.  Also fun to compare the USA to other developed countries.  Our closest competitor in the inequality game must be Germany where the top one percent own about twenty-five percent of the wealth.  I say competitor but honestly they’re a rather distant second aren’t they?  The fat cats are getting only about half what they get here in the USA.  In terms of inequality at least the USA is Number One!  In the UK and France the top one percent claim a relatively modest eighteen percent of the wealth and in Canada sixteen percent.  And how about little Finland where the League of Fancy Pants only manages a measly twelve percent?  Got to love Finland.  I think I read they do their traffic tickets based on a graduated scale according to the wealth of the malefactor as a gesture toward making tickets equally onerous to people at different wealth levels.  Can one imagine the USA ever doing anything like that?

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that our respectable national wealth statistics can give foreigners a rather inaccurate idea of life here in the USA.  I know I’ve discussed in previous posts articles that have pointed out the median American (by which I mean in this instance residents of the USA) by wealth, that is, that hypothetical person with the characteristic that exactly fifty percent of Americans have greater wealth and fifty percent less, is rather worse off than the median resident by wealth of many or dare I say most developed countries.  In other words the person in the middle of our wealth scale is basically tanking compared to his or her counterpart in most other developed countries.  You can see the same phenomenon by looking at the share of wealth claimed by the richest percentiles.  But numbers can be so impersonal can’t they?  Let me just lay it out in words.  The USA is a county in which some people live like kings and many many others live like paupers.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking of it as roughly similar to other developed nations in the EU or elsewhere.  Think more along the lines of Czarist Russia or Medieval Europe or colonial Haiti and you’ll be closer to the mark.  Basically a vast sea of poor, ignorant, unemployed, frequently violent, quite often drug addled and basically forgotten people surrounding a few shining gated communities of successful greedy self infatuated jerks lolling on couches and divans with guns under the pillows.

But you know what’s even more comical?  The funny ideas about distributions Americans hide away in the dark recesses of their confused minds.  Another humorous bit from the article I was just discussing involved a little survey conducted in 2010 by some researchers who asked a random sample of 5,500 Americans what sort of wealth distribution they thought would be reasonable or justified.  As one might expect it came out to nothing at all like what we actually have.  They had in mind the top twenty percent might be getting thirty-two percent of the wealth with the bottom twenty percent claiming about eleven percent. Rather different from the reality wouldn’t you say?  Ninety percent of wealth to the top twenty percent and a resounding negative one percent for the bottom twenty percent?  Yes, on average that benighted lower wealth group actually has negative net worth.  Ouch.  So if many Americans think the distribution we actually have is so different from the one they feel might be justified does that mean they’re prepared to stand up and do something about it?  No.  Not at all.  They’ll elect Republicans all but guaranteed to make the real distribution of wealth diverge ever more from what these Americans say they would find justified.  And they’ll do it again and again and again.  Why do they do that?  Hmm.  Interesting question.  I have a few ideas.

First, many Americans just don’t like to talk about money and in particular distributions of income or wealth.  It’s awkward.  It’s uncomfortable.  Addressing it would require people to come together and discuss their values and so on and we’re just not very good at it.  We’re fine touting our own value or even talking with other people who share our values.  We’re just not very good talking with people holding other values.  It’s most likely a function of the fact that most Americans view their values as delicate little hot house flowers more akin to religious sentiment of the etherial swoony sort than intellectual propositions.  Values for most Americans are meant to be protected from scrutiny and potential criticism not brought out into the light of open debate.

Second, many Americans and in particular conservative Americans believe the free market allocates wealth, wages, and just in general goods and services in the ethically correct and optimal way and that consequently whatever level of inequality falls out of such a system must be both equitable and appropriate.  Liberals ted to compare the results of real world markets to results they would find ethically justifiable or optimal on other bases but conservatives do things the other way round.  They are enamored of the ethical principles expressed in the mechanics of free markets and are more likely to adjust their thinking about what results are ethical and appropriate based on what happens in a market system.  When one comes at the issue from this perspective fretting about inequality and the share of wealth going to different bits of the population is irrelevant and really rather unethical since changing it would require one to change what happens in a market system.  According to this view it’s really irrelevant if for example most Americans end up dying on the street because if that’s what falls out of the market then that’s what should happen.  If some people are destined to die they should get on with it and reduce the surplus population.

Third, many Americans and in particular conservative Americans hold the rather fanciful belief that market systems tend naturally to spread wealth about rather than concentrate it.  This is view expressed in so-called  “trickle down” economics in which resources allocated to wealthy people are understood to help the less fortunate as well.  I would argue this is pretty much the opposite of what real markets do.  Indeed, one of the notable features of market systems I would say is that it’s a lot easier to make money if one has money.  In other words, the natural result of a market system is most likely an ever increasing concentration of wealth.  Anyway that’s how it has seemed to me during my fleeting lifetime.  We tax income from working at a much higher rate than we tax income from investments.  Now that I’m older and investments contribute relatively more to my total income than when I was younger I’m finding it relatively much easier to make a buck.   And that’s just one example.  Many rich people have money simply fall into their laps as their wealthy parents pass on to that great country club in the sky.   Before that happy day if they find they need to prepare for actual work they can afford the best education and can undertake the sort of activities like unpaid internships and so on that poor students may find untenable.  As adults they can relocate easily, have no messy financial commitments to struggling relatives, can afford to take risks, can easily find the money for any ventures they might care to try, will always have plenty of second chances, can take their time to find the fields and areas in which they excel, and are likely to have friends and relations with well paying positions who can help them along.  How different is their experience of life from that of the poor in this country.  How simple for them to prosper where others struggle.  And so the share of wealth going to the already wealthy rises year after year.  Why would it do anything else?  Certainly nothing inherent in a market system.

So on it goes.  Here in the USA the wealthy elite have relentlessly increased their stranglehold on all facets of American life including most notably our national politics.  The man and woman in the street or many of them anyway go along with it hoping forlornly and impotently for better days just around the corner, their thinking and imaginations manipulated by both the confused and the unscrupulous in academia and our burgeoning infotainment and propaganda industries.  Living vicariously.  Watching the rich cavort on TV.  Hunkered in their little houses, the lucky ones anyway, surrounded by their precious guns they trust will defend them against their increasingly poor and desperate neighbors who they fear may fall upon them at any moment like the proverbial rats in a sewer.  Taking drugs to ease the pain.  And how will it end I wonder? Well, let’s not think about that right now shall we?  It’s not the time to think about endings but the time to think about beginnings.  It’s a new year!  Let’s all dream a happy dream!  Let’s say we liberals rally and defeat conservatism and that the little guys and gals learn to stand up for themselves against Mr. and Mrs. Moneybags.  Let’s say we reaffirm the power of democracy to give voice to the economically weak and to serve as a counterpoint to the market power of the wealthy.  Let’s say we strengthen our national government instead of weakening and shrinking it.  Let’s say we reduce the influence of big money in politics rather than ever increasing it.  Let’s say philosophers and maybe even some economists begin to get real and people finally start to understand some of the real issues involved in social ethics including the ethical weakness and implausibility of so-called welfare economic theory.  Let’s say they start to look seriously and critically at market systems to understand both their strengths and weaknesses rather than being content to contemplate them in starry eyed wonder.  The future can be beautiful.  We can make it happen if we try.

References

The richest 1 percent now owns more of the country’s wealth than at any time in the past 50 years.  Christopher Ingraham.  December 6, 2017.  The Washington Post.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/06/the-richest-1-percent-now-owns-more-of-the-countrys-wealth-than-at-any-time-in-the-past-50-years/?hpid=hp_regional-hp-cards_rhp-card-business-technology%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.68f307c45f59.

Originally published January 5, 2018

The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

Welcome friends!

Well that was a right royal cock up as my brothers in the UK might say or maybe might once have said.  If you recall a few posts ago I declared my intention  to change the URL and title of my little blog to add the word “secular” in front of the word “humanist” just to avoid anyone here in the USA getting confused about what we’re talking about as we’re prone to do with the slightest of provocations.  Result?  Well, apparently I didn’t set up the redirects correctly because it seems no one was able to find anything for a while there.  My most heartfelt apologies if you attempted to find one of your favorite posts only to get clobbered over the head with some weird error message.  My bad as the kids might say or might once have said.  Don’t know if I’m coming or going anymore.  Anyway I’ve put everything back where it was and as a sign of contrition I kept it at the new site as well for the benefit of anyone who actually managed to find it.  Guess I’ll just post on both locations for now.  I promise not to mess with it again unless and until I’m confident I can do it right so based on my less than formidable computer skills probably never.  The whole incident got me thinking of one of my favorite English aphorisms “the perfect is the enemy of the good,” which I’m sure must have come from somewhere and most likely has a counterpart in many other and possibly all other languages.  You know maybe the old URL and title weren’t perfect but good enough.  Of course if you’ve read my blog at all you know the way my brain works.  Once I started thinking along those lines it occurred to me that aphorism might also apply to some other things as well.  Let me explain.

You may recall the USA was recently having a good laugh at a Senate race in the deep deep southern and oppressively conservative state of Alabama, which old timers may remember as the site of a great deal of anger, agitation, and violence during the civil rights era of the 1960s and 70s.  It seems the top candidate for some time was some elderly, cowboy hat wearing, horse riding, quite possibly deranged redneck by the name of Roy Moore who as a district attorney was formerly in the habit of trolling shopping malls for teenaged girls to the extent he was apparently banned by at least one such institution... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!

Conservatism and the Power of Negative Thought

Welcome friends!

Every now and then I read one of the frequent articles that have been appearing in the mainstream press here in the USA recently that try to shed some light on the thoughts and attitudes of supporters of President Trump for the benefit of people like me who imagine they may have some idea of what traditional conservatives think but find the mindset of the particularly febrile and inconsistent subset of conservatives who support Mr. Trump quite a mystery.  One hears accounts of them saying all manner of curious things in interviews and focus groups and surveys including such notable utterances as they can’t think of anything President Trump could do that would make them not support him, the more people complain about him the more they support him, and if they had a choice between believing Jesus Christ or Donald Trump they would believe Donald Trump.  These kinds of rather puzzling statements don’t seem to represent an entirely rational or mature perspective on the world if taken at face value.  However, after thinking about it the requisite five minutes I think there may be one plausible explanation for this sort of behavior: these people are not concentrating so much on what they think would be helpful for others or themselves but on the other side of the coin so to speak: what they think will be annoying or damaging to others.  In the USA contemporary conservative ideology appears to be drawing largely on the perverse power of negative thinking.  As such the depressing and unrelenting negativity of current conservative ideology and rhetoric stands in stark contrast to the optimistic, pragmatic, and forward thinking philosophy of liberalism.  Perhaps it would be worthwhile to say a few words about that this week? ... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!

Conservatives Proliferate in the USA

Welcome friends!

So many types of conservatives trying to do a number on the old USA these days it’s getting a little hard to keep track of who’s who.  Fortunately I ran across an article this week that discussed a little political typology prepared by the Pew Research Center based on some opinion surveys they conducted this past summer.  According to their interpretation of the results conservatives of one sort or another comprise 42 percent of the American electorate compared to 51 percent who lean more toward the liberal side of the aisle with an addition 8 percent classified as bystanders, which adds to 101 percent so I suppose must be a bit of rounding in there somewhere.  That bit isn’t exactly news.  I think we all figured out some time ago we weren’t really all on the same page.  No, the interesting bit for me was the way Pew divided conservatives into four separate groups based on distinctive and sometimes contradictory attitudes and beliefs.  If you’ve been reading my little blog at all you’ll know that trying to figure out the various types of conservatives and what they really think is something of a hobby of mine.  Indeed I’ve previously come up with three types of conservatism based on what appear to me to be different intellectual frameworks as opposed to shared attitudes or beliefs although I suppose they might equally represent simply different styles of talking: economic conservatism, political conservatism, and social conservatism.  This week I thought I’d take a quick look at the Pew classification scheme and compare it the scheme I’ve been using in my previous posts.  So let’s get to it... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!

National Coming Out Day

Welcome friends!

Certainly plenty of big issues to write about this week such as the Clown President’s most recent attacks on one of the foundations of our democracy and traditional way of life: the free press.  Yes, he apparently threatened to revoke the “license” of media outlets that don’t kowtow to his Orange Eminence in the manner of Fox “News” and such dishonest faux journalists as Sean Hannity.  No one really knows what license the man had in mind but that’s beside the point.  He often babbles nonsensically about things he clearly knows nothing about.  The noteworthy bit is just his obvious hatred for the free press.  But as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before with conservative nut jobs in the WH, dominating Congress, heading up all the Executive Branch agencies, and increasingly infiltrating the judiciary I could write something like that every week.  On the other hand, since we still do have a free press in this country at least for now maybe I can take a week off now and then and let others cover the long sad decline and quite possibly eventual fall of our American way of life under the Republican / Russian Party.  With that thought in mind I thought I’d set aside the news of the day and look to something a bit more lighthearted this week.  In case you’re not up on this sort of the thing for the past twenty-nine years October 11 has apparently been considered by some National Coming Out Day in which gay people (aka queer people or to be perhaps overly precise and prosaic homosexuals) are meant to dramatically announce their sexual orientation to the world or some carefully selected bits of it anyway.  I’ve been reading a lively debate about whether this practice is still necessary or even advisable.  It got me thinking about sexual minorities again and then as fate would have it I bumped into an article that seemed relevant to the topic about a teacher in the UK who was banned from teaching after making some homophobic comments.  Could be a coincidence I suppose but I choose to think the magical guardian fairies of Rainbow Land are trying to tell me to say a few words in defense of sexual minorities this week so let me just do that.  I’ll get back to the Conservative Menace next time or maybe the time after that.  No need to rush.  It’s going to be with us for a while.

Let’s take the latter story first.  Seems a science teacher in the UK named Joshua Onduso was recently banned from practicing his profession by some official organization known as the National College for Teaching and Leadership Panel.  Apparently a student had asked him about gay people during class at his school (incidentally for five to nineteen year olds) and he had explained they “have a disease” and “have something wrong upstairs.”  Later in the day he clarified his position by rephrasing his remarks to say gay people are “sick in the head.”  When he was eventually confronted by the head teacher over his remarks he explained that his Christian beliefs meant he didn’t condone “what gay people do.”  Now I know he might have been referring to any number of things such as holding hands or dancing or frequenting antique stores or drinking tea from fancy cups but I suspect he had something a bit more sexual in mind.  He apparently never saw any problems at all with what he had told his class and was eventually helped to the exit.  This is the sort of story that would have every red blooded conservative here in the USA up in arms.  How dare the powers that be prevent this teacher from expressing his Christian beliefs!  Oh the outrage!  Political correctness run amok!  Freedom of speech and freedom of religion both trampled under foot!  As I’m sure my readers will have already surmised I’m entirely with the authorities on this one.  Let’s break it down shall we?

While it’s perfectly fine for Mr. Onduso to follow his religious beliefs and not condone what gay people do it’s not perfectly fine for him to make up fake facts in a science class.  No mainstream medical organization in any advanced country currently considers homosexuality a “disease” and mental health professionals in such countries stopped characterizing the phenomenon as a mental disorder many decades ago.  When the student asked about the phenomenon in his science class one can only presume he or she was interested in the current science relating to the issue not Mr. Onduso’s personal code of ethics or his religious beliefs.  Indeed, as a science teacher one might have expected Mr. Onduso to well understand the conceptual difference between the positive and normative, that is, fact and value, and possibly even use the occasion to explain the difference. There is no requirement at all for a science teacher delivering comments on homosexuality to “condone” it or to repudiate his religion’s ethical stance on it or anything of the sort.  The only requirement is that a science teacher be prepared to tell the students about the science of the phenomenon.  Of course it’s quite possible given his rather obvious biases he may have simply avoided the science and not known the answer.  However, if he didn’t know the answer that would have been his best answer.  I don’t know.  Go look it up.  It’s always preferable in an educational setting to just tell people one doesn’t know something than to make things up or provide disinformation.  Anyway, one can well imagine the serious emotional damage this halfwit might have done to a young gay student wondering what current science has to say about his or her mental or physical condition only to be incorrectly informed he or she has a physical disease or a mental disorder.  If on the other hand some of his students wanted to discuss the ethics of homosexuality then they should have been directed to an appropriate venue for that sort of discussion: a course in philosophy if they were interested in discussing it in a secular context, or the local seminary, church, mosque, temple, or what have you if they were of a more otherworldly temperament and wanted to discuss it in the context of mystical beings and ancient texts.  Free speech was certainly never in any real danger.  Rather there are proper contexts to talk about certain issues in certain ways and those contexts are especially important to observe and maintain in any institution that purports to involve education.

I know what you’re thinking.  Funny story but how does it relate to National Coming Out Day?  Well, the debate on this whole “coming out” issues seems to involve on the one hand the ostensible benefit to gay people of letting other people know they exist and are not unusually diseased or sick in the head and so on and on the other hand the potential personal cost to the person coming out and on a more general note the potentially unfortunate consequences of accepting the implicit assumption that one’s sexual orientation is anyone else’s business and that sexual minorities have a choice of either hiding themselves away in the proverbial closet or making an announcement to the world.  Seems like a tough one to me because I see merit in both sides of the debate.  I certainly remember the ugly and repressive olden days here in the USA during which one would never have willingly identified oneself as gay or even spoken up in defense of a gay person for fear of being branded gay oneself and mentally or emotionally or legally or even physically attacked so I can well understand the perceived need to avoid that trap.  However, I don’t think any gay person in that sort of imminent danger should come out to anyone even now and I mean particularly young people who are not financially and emotionally secure and also people whose heads are wrapped up in the unfortunate belief systems of certain religious or cultural groups (or who have parents and friends with heads wrapped up in that sort of thing).  As Mr. Onduso’s comments serve to remind us there is still a lot of ignorance and hatred directed at gay people most of it generated and nurtured by religious ideology.  If one is not in a position to adequately defend oneself against this sort of persecution the more sensible approach would seem to me to remain mute or deny, deny, deny but of course express oneself as best as one is able in one’s private life.  That’s how gay people survived in the bad old days wasn’t it?  But did nothing really improve until gay people stopped doing that sort of thing?  Or did the more general intellectual climate change in a way that made that sort of thing increasingly unnecessary?  I don’t know.  But anyway I think if there is a case to be made for gay people coming out I think the people in the best situation to do so are gay people with educated, open minded, secular friends and family who can reasonably be expected to be able to deal with the information in a reasonable way or strong secure mature people who are prepared to sever ties with the haters in their lives possibly forever.

But on the more general question of whether this sort of coming out is even necessary or advisable these days I just don’t know.  I wonder if we’ve moved past this point at least in the USA.  Everyone and certainly gay people would I’m sure prefer to live in a world in which one’s sexual orientation was like any other aspect of one’s personality.  We don’t have days on which we’re meant to proclaim if we are or would like to be married, have or would like to have children, are more physically attracted to blonds or brunettes, are partial to the missionary position or doggy style, or anything else of a relational or sexual nature.  If one wants to find out about such things for some reason such as perhaps one is looking for a suitable mate or to start a family then I suppose one can always ask someone about them.  Might be a bit rude or obnoxious to ask random people simply to assuage one’s curiosity.  Perhaps we’ve reached that stage for sexual orientation?  Perhaps gay people can just live their lives not in the proverbial closet but freely and openly and yet also not feel a need to announce their presence to all and sundry?  Perhaps we’ve reached a stage where young gay people can simply look for other young gay people if they want to form relationships with one another and if they’re unsure can simply ask one other people if they’d go for it?  Or will the stultifying and oppressive weight of religious conformity and hatred toward sexual minorities descend the moment gay people put away their rainbow flags and stop making announcements and marching and just in general making a fuss?  One would certainly hate to have to go through the whole thing again.  A year ago in the USA I would have leaned toward supposing political gestures were no longer necessary in this country.  Today I’m not so sure.

So what’s the answer?  Sorry.  No idea.  Sometimes I just talk.  I guess if you’re gay and you want to make a public gesture in support of equal rights for gay people and you’re in a position to handle any haters then knock yourself out.  If you’re gay and you or your partner have relationships with people whose minds have been twisted into knots by religion or other unfortunate belief systems and you want to maintain those relationships as long as possible then maybe no need to rush to come out to anyone.  Maybe just keep things on the down low. I can’t recommend a closet though.  Too stuffy and confining.  If people can’t be bothered to remain purposefully ignorant and meet you halfway and it’s either you or them then I suppose you should probably choose you.  It’s always nice to be nice to other people but living solely to uphold the values of other people and not speaking up for your own rarely works out well in the long run.  Other people come and go but you will always have you.  Best wishes to you all my brothers and sisters.  Happy Coming Out Day!

References

Thatcham teacher Joshua Onduso banned over homophobic comments.  October 11, 2017.  http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-berkshire-41581774.

Conservative Ideology and Socialism Two Ways

Welcome friends!

I must apologize for the breakdown in my scheduling the last few weeks.  It’s been a little crazy around here and I’m not just talking about President Trump and the Republican Party.  So let’s make up for lost time and dive right in shall we?  What caught my eye this week was an amusing online comment about wealthy American “socialists” who live in gated communities and high rises not caring that immigrants and “black” people are taking jobs from hapless “white” people.  Always fun to read these sorts of posts if one can get past the fractured syntax and inventive spelling because it’s a little window into how other people see the world and by other people I mean in this instance people one might not otherwise engage in conversation in everyday life.  Ah yes the beauty of the internet.  Bringing people together, right?  Of course I’m not entirely sure if I was connecting with a semi-literate American redneck or a professional Russian troll still learning the English language but anyway they seem to get along quite well these days so doesn’t really matter much to me.  I am on the other hand always interested in how conservatives use and understand others (such as Russian trolls for example) to use the term “socialism.” It occurred to me although all conservatives are trained from early childhood to despise “socialists” with a passion verging on clinical paranoia they quite often display certain socialistic tendencies themselves.  Ironic.  Anyway, I thought I’d say a few words about that this week.

When American conservatives excoriate  domestic “socialists” what they have in mind is what you and I might call liberal / progressive democrats who support social programs designed to help struggling people.  I’m sure we all understand the haughty Ayn Randian elitist conservatives who despise that sort of thing on the principle if struggling people are destined to die they should get on with it and reduce the surplus population.  That type of conservative has been common both here and abroad for a very long time most likely from at least the time of the ancient pharaohs.  I talk about those conservatives often enough but they’re not really the focus of this post.  No, there’s another species of conservative in the USA that is more of the economically struggling salt of the earth “populist” variety.  It’s a running joke of course the latter group of conservatives finds common cause with the former group because the former group clearly views the latter group as little more than a mildly amusing species of vermin they need to play with in the name of political expediency until they manage to sufficiently shrink and neutralize democratic government to render such distasteful interactions unnecessary.  It may seem superficially curious these struggling working class conservatives would have such a rabid hatred of the people who have their best interests at heart.  Some of these conservatives are convinced liberal “socialists” are only concerned about struggling immigrants and racial minorities and funneling resources to them in particular.  Humorous of course because although there may be a few programs specifically tailored to immigrants and racial minorities most of the programs under consideration are means tested programs available to all.  Others are convinced the reason some people are struggling is that liberal “socialists” are trying to help them and if we just got rid of the programs designed to deal with these social problems the problems themselves would evaporate.  Also rather comical because historically of course the social problems predate the programs designed to address them and there is no reason at all to suppose something has changed in the interim that would prevent them reappearing if we no longer attempt to address them.  But that’s the story fed to them by the traditional conservative elite that has never seen the need to deal with social problems or I suppose more accurately has always refused even to acknowledge social problems as such and that’s the story they’re going with.

The funny thing about recent developments of course is conservatives of the struggling salt of the earth variety have re-discovered their own version of socialism in the guise of former presidential advisor Mr. Bannon’s pet project“economic nationalism.” Many conservatives seem to be struggling to recognize this agenda for what it is.  So let’s just set the record straight.

The non-socialist traditional conservative elitist response to white working class Americans losing their jobs is a big shrug of the shoulders.  So what?  What happens to you or your family is none of our concern.  We’re not your nannies.  If you lose out in the modern competitive economy that’s your problem not ours.  If insufficient jobs are available on the free market then it’s right and fitting you not have a job.  You should just go someplace and die.  Did an immigrant take your job?  So what?  You competed and the immigrant was either willing to work for less or had some other advantage.  Did some sort of minority take your job?  So what?  No one is entitled to a job.  The non-socialist approach is open borders, free movement of labor, free markets both domestically and internationally, and whatever happens happens.

What one may call the traditional liberal or at least neoliberal brand of “socialism” is to have the same sort of free market for labor and goods and services traditional conservatives embrace but to acknowledge and attempt to address the rather obvious distributional issues associated with that approach by coming up with programs to help people who may be losing out or temporarily struggling.  We’re talking about help for people having trouble finding a job.  Help with education.  Help with housing or food if necessary.  The most drastic option is probably spending tax dollars to generate jobs that would otherwise not be forthcoming on the market.  As many people have pointed out these fixes aren’t the same as dumping money down a hole in the ground as many traditional conservatives might suggest.  When we find a way to get money to struggling people they spend it, consumer demand increases, and the economy inevitably grows.  People are a lot happier as well and that has to count for something.

The new / old “economic nationalism” implicitly acknowledges the drawbacks of the free market but instead of allowing it to function and trying to fix problems after they appear it attempts to manipulate the conditions surrounding the market to head off potential problems.  Examples of this approach would be laws to buy only products made in America (regardless of whether those products are the best or the cheapest) or to prevent companies relocating to other countries (despite the potential competitive advantages of doing so) or to prevent companies from automating or using labor saving technology (despite the potential cost savings).  Depending on the “society” this form of socialism is meant to address it might involve preventing people immigrating or I suppose even ensuring that members of some ethnic or racial groups get certain jobs, etc.  As any traditional conservative or neoliberal will tell you these types of market restrictions and manipulations come at a cost.  One may be unable to get the cheapest or most qualified worker.  One may lose out relative to foreign competitors.  The problems are in the same category as those associated with other more common market manipulations like minimum wage laws and union contracts.  However, this rigging of the market approach is one way to keep everyone or at least some people in the game.  Nothing is free in this world including trying to help struggling people.  And to the extent we’re getting money to struggling people we may at least still get the consumer demand effect.  My point in this post is not to adjudicate which type of socialism works best or makes the most sense.  It’s simply to point out they’re both forms of what is essentially socialism.  They’re both predicated on the proposition we should care what happens to other people in our “society” however we choose to define it.  We should care if our neighbor has a job.  We should care if people can afford housing.  Other people matter.

Now if one is truly opposed to socialism that’s fine with me.   Everyone is free to hold his or her own opinion on the matter.  I tend to think what happens to other people in our society is important.  Other people should have jobs and a way to make a living.  We need to keep thinking and working until we have a system that does that.  But that’s just me.  If one supports one type of socialism over another that’s also fine with me.  As I just explained I’m not entirely sure what would work best myself.  But you know what I really can’t abide?  Someone who rants on and on about the evils of socialism from one side of his or her mouth all the while promoting a form of socialism out the other side.  We’re not going to get anywhere at that rate.  Can we at least agree to try to talk sensibly about these issues?

Memorials to Lost Causes

Welcome friends!

Seems this week we were treated to the spectacle of a president of the USA springing to the defense of what I’m sure all good American recognize as the famous basket of deplorables Ms. Clinton tried to warn us about: the KKK, Neo-Nazis, Neo-Confederates, and other random racists, nativists, and xenophobes belonging to various other crazy fringe groups.  Apparently they descended upon a small liberal college town in the US state of Virginia to engage in their usual rabble rousing and intimidation but were met with local counter protestors prepared to stand their ground.  General mayhem rather predictably ensued climaxing in this case with the murder of a young lady by a Midwestern Neo-Nazi who drove his car into the counter protesters very much in the manner of some recent attacks by Islamic terrorists.  (However, one should not necessary assume any particular affinity with Islamic terrorists.  Turns out our own domestic conservative websites and media outlets have been running stories encouraging people to run over their political opponents in the street for some time now.)  The president’s rather unhinged performance was just the latest in a long list of rather embarrassing spectacles the likes of which I never thought I would see in my lifetime.  The shocking thing is we really have to expect more of the same at least for the foreseeable future.  According to a recent Monmouth University poll over sixty percent of the Americans who support Mr. Trump say they can’t think of anything he could do that would make them disapprove of him.  (That figure goes up to over seventy percent for his female supporters.)  They will support him blindly and robotically no matter what he may do.  Mr. Trump once boasted he could shoot someone on the streets of Manhattan and not lose any of his supporters and on that point at least it seems he was absolutely correct.  His conservative base has given him carte blanche to do whatever he likes in very much the same way the same sort of people gave Adolph Hitler carte blanched to do as he wished many years ago in Germany.  It’s all really rather horrifying and nothing at all like the America I thought I knew.  But of course knowledge is always good.  In order to fight conservatism we must see it for what it is.  Anyway, a flashpoint in the development of this new low, twisted, violent version of America the Republican Party is conjuring from the dark recesses of their imagination is the fate of some statues put up years ago by the racists and nativists of the day to honor the generals and statesmen of the failed Confederate States of America (CSA) and their attempt to preserve the abhorrent system of racism and slavery upon which the economy of the old agrarian American south relied upon for so long.  Most of the story of the statues is run of the mill conservatives versus liberals of the sort I’ve been talking about a lot recently.  Indeed, I wasn’t sure I had anything in particular to say about it this week but then I read something that got my mind working just a little bit.  It involved someone with an ancestor who had died fighting for the Confederacy.  He or she was concerned that removing statues and symbols glorifying the Confederacy equated to insulting his or her dead ancestor. It got me thinking it’s not an unusual sort of issue and not all that obvious either.  Perhaps something worthy of few moments discussion and contemplation?

Humanity being what it is we’ve had our share of wars and in each case or most cases anyway one side has won and one side has lost.  But of course the ancestors of those who fought for the losing cause don’t just evaporate from the face of the earth. They live on in the new system that has melded with or at least reconciled with the winning side.  One ends up with people one likes well enough, countrymen, whose ancestors fought for discredited systems that have long since disappeared.  We have the American Civil War, many European nations have the fascist states of WWII, other countries have their own various civil wars and traumas.  This situation brings up the awkward question of how to honor these people’s dead ancestors.  What makes the issue awkward of course is we have always multiple dimensions of potential approbation and disapprobation to contend with.  Someone may have fought for what we would now consider a rather disreputable system but may be considered honorable along some other dimension.  Perhaps they did their duty to their nation, or government, or king, or dictator, or what have you.  Perhaps they fought with unusual valor or humanity.   The point is simply these people may have exhibited some things we consider worthy of some degree of respect along with some other things we don’t.

To take it out of a war context let’s say some criminal, Joe Schmo, is robbing a house and has just slit the throats of the sleeping adult owners of the property but upon discovering he has inadvertently set the house on fire runs into a burning bedroom to save the baby sleeping in the crib.  Yes, he’s a conscientious sort of murderer who draws the line at offing babies.  It’s called a thought experiment.  Philosophy 101.  OK, so the guy risks his life to save the kid.  Is he a hero?  It’s not very hard to see the problem when we set things up like this is it?  We can’t say one way or the other without a little more specificity.  A hero with respect to what?  He’s certainly not a hero in some global sense defined and united by his personhood because he murdered innocent people in their sleep, which is not a particularly heroic sort of action in anyone’s book.  But on the other hand I suppose it was pretty heroic to run into a burning room to save the kid.  With respect to one action the guy was a scoundrel and with respect to the other a hero.  When we discuss this sort of thing in words and can spend all day long setting up the scenario it’s not difficult to sort it all out.

Things would get a bit more difficult if we decided to commemorate the man using some sort of statue or memorial.  Why?  Well, I suppose because it’s just hard to get very specific with those sorts of objects.  They tend to be interpreted as referring to the person in general rather than a particular person activity combination.  This is not to say it’s logically impossible to memorialize a person activity nexus in this sort of medium.  One could I suppose do a statue of Mr. Schmo running with a baby in his arms and maybe show the clothes with little burn holes or whatever.  One might in that case suppose the statue must be commemorating the role Mr. Schmo played in some dramatic event involving babies and burning clothing but there still seems to be some room for confusion.  One might reasonably assume based on this action that Mr. Schmo must have been a real stand up kind of guy and this baby scenario was the highlight of a life filled with heroism.  Might be a little annoying to the parents or offspring of the people he had murdered in their sleep wouldn’t you say?

Might be hard to clear up this potential confusion through the medium of a more elaborate statue.  I suppose we could depict Mr. Schmo running past a bed holding some murdered people and maybe holding a razor in one hand and the baby in the other or show a cop in hot pursuit but I think that might confuse the heck out of a casual observer.  I think for something this messed up we’d have to resort to some verbiage somewhere.  I suppose we could do a plaque explaining the statue is to memorialize the actions of Joe Schmo in saving the life of baby Cutie Pie on whatever date.  But I guess that wouldn’t get us all the way there would it?  One might still suppose Mr. Schmo was rather a better sort of person than he really was.  How about a plaque that lays out all the potentially relevant details adding to the previous statement a statement to the effect that although Mr. Schmo saved the baby he was later convicted of having murdered ninety-nine people in their sleep and was incarcerated for life for his crimes?  I guess that would pretty much do it right?

Now let’s take up the case of a memorial of someone who died fighting for the CSA.  On the one had, fighting for the Confederacy does not necessarily equate to slitting someone’s throat while sleeping but of course I suppose equally doing what one may have felt was one’s duty doesn’t exactly equate to running into a burning room to save a baby either.  The point is this person will combine some things we consider worthy of respect and some things perhaps less so.

If we’re talking about private memorials and gravestones and so on the issues isn’t really very important.  We have a general belief in this country one should at least try to be charitable to the dead including those who may have done some things we would find conventionally reprehensible or difficult to understand because they can’t speak up for themselves and also out of respect for their ancestors who many have done nothing wrong but may have mixed feelings.  So I don’t suppose too many people would mind even the most committed racist soldier having his or her gravestone and so on.  I suppose if we were talking about someone famous for outrages and atrocities that might not hold but in general I think that would be the case.

In addition we all know in this kind of conflict some people are rather more committed to the cause than some other people.  Some confederate soldiers may have been fighting in passionate support of racism and slavery but some others were probably fighting more for hearth and home and perhaps wouldn’t have cared too much about the big issues one way or the other or perhaps they even disapproved of those particular aspects of their system.  Again, we’re typically willing to give dead people the benefit of the doubt on this sort of thing as far as private monuments go.  In most cases we don’t really know why someone was fighting for a particular side and we don’t really want to know.

Finally, when we’re talking about a private memorial of this sort it’s hard to envision it as a public endorsement of a movement.  Local or national authorities didn’t come in and install it.  It’s not situated in front of a court house or some other public space.  Well, maybe a cemetery is a public space but if so it’s a public space for private memorials and markers.  Even a grave marker emblazoned with the stars and bars flag of the Confederacy would I think tend to not bring much to the mind of most people beyond that that person apparently died fighting for the Confederacy.

Now when we move on to public statues and monuments and so on we’re in a rather different sort of situation.  We usually slap statues of people in public places because we want to suggest there was something particularly laudable or inspirational about something that person did.  In many cases a famous personage will be famous for some feat or action and one supposes that must be what we’re talking about.  We have a statue of George Washington because he famously led the fledgling US army during the revolution that established our democratic nation.  Maybe he also did some other things that weren’t so great.  He may have owned slaves for example.  But one would have to be rather obtuse indeed to suppose we placed a statue of the man on the lawn because we’re impressed with his slave holdings.  Many wealthy early Americans owned slaves.  They don’t all have statues.  They aren’t all considered fathers of our nation.

It all seems a bit more complicated when we’re talking about a statue of a Confederate general or statesman.  These people are typically famous for their activities in service to the CSA.  That’s really their claim to fame.  That’s why people know them.  I suppose one could argue it’s not really their association to the CSA but really something more general.  Perhaps we have a statue of Jefferson Davis because he exemplified a hard working public servant.  (I don’t believe he really did but it doesn’t matter here.)  Perhaps we have a statue of Robert E. Lee because he was arguably a great military leader.  I suppose that might work but one must admit it’s a bit of a stretch.  I suppose as was the case for our fictional Mr. Schmo we could construct a sufficiently explanatory plaque that would probably clear up much of the ambiguity for those who took the time to read it.  We’re honoring General Bigbeard despite the fact he was fighting for the discredited cause of racism and slavery because of his unusual bravery or honor or kindness to civilians or whatever at the Battle of X.

However, when one sees statues of a long list of high level CSA generals and statesmen one can’t help but suspect there’s some intended connection to the Confederacy itself.  We’ve had a lot of generals and a lot of politicians.  It would be a little odd if a great number of those we chose to honor with public statues just happened to come from the CSA during the four years of the Civil War one hundred and fifty years ago.  And this is the sort of thing  I think we’d all like to be pretty clear about because the values of the CSA are inconsistent with those of the modern USA.  Wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong end of the stick on something like this.

Turns out many of these statues were erected not immediately in the aftermath of the Civil War but during a resurgence of racism and bigotry in the early years of the twentieth century.  It’s hard not to suppose any confusion about their purpose or significance was entirely intended.  Although ostensibly to honor notable dead people it seems rather likely the purpose was just as much or more to affirm the racist theories and policies of the CSA.  Whatever the source of this confusion it has led generations of American southerners to believe the USA or a large segment of the USA endorses the values of the CSA and that the Civil War is widely recognized as a famous tragedy in which the forces of good were put down by the force of overreaching federal aggression.  It’s past time we set this narrative to rest.  Let’s clear up this confusion.  We should commemorate the Confederate dead in cemeteries.  We should use our public statuary to commemorate those who lived inspiring lives without awkward moral ambiguity so they can inspire us all to greater things not leave us scratching our heads in confusion or stomping off in disgust.  Let’s look for figures that represent our common and shared values not divisive characters of unknown or questionable moral beliefs from an at least partially unwholesome culture and system that has long since passed from this world.  Let’s celebrate the USA, not the CSA.

References

Fox News, Daily Caller delete posts encouraging people to drive through protests.  Tom Kludt.  August 15, 2017.  CNN. http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/15/media/daily-caller-fox-news-video-car-crashing-liberal-protesters/index.html.

6 in 10 people who approve of Trump say they’ll never, ever, ever stop approving.  Ryan Struyk.  August 17, 2017.  CNN.  http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/17/politics/trump-approvers-never-stop-approving-poll/index.html.

The Real Story Behind All Those Confederate Statues.  Kevin Drum.  August 15, 2017.  Mother Jones.  http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/08/the-real-story-of-all-those-confederate-statues/.