The argument between the moral chauvinist and the moral universalist is an argument over the standard for moral justification. For the chauvinist, if a rule or policy benefits the group to which the chauvinist happens to be a member, then it is justified. One of the chauvinist’s many problems, besides getting morality fundamentally wrong, is that she is a member of many groups. She may be a Catholic, of Chinese origin, and an American citizen. She may be a loyal Michigander, a stalwart of the local community, and a member in good standing of clubs and associations. The chauvinist who prioritizes the nation needs to provide some justification for choosing this membership as especially salient.
I don’t find communitarian conservatives confusing, but I do find communitarian nationalist conservatives confusing, especially when the nation in question is something so sprawling, diverse, and abstract as the United States of America. The USA is already more like, say, a North American Union than it is like the kind of tightly-knit gemeinschaft traditionalists crave. The massive, pluralistic, modern state is already so far down the anti-communitarian slippery slope that communitarian moral chauvinism asserted at the level of the state seems patently ridiculous, like a steam-powered laptop.
What I really think nationalist, anti-immigration conservatives would like is to establish some kind of strong right of cultural preservation without at the same time getting caught in a morass of relativistic identity politics. Well, good luck. At bottom of that desire, I think, is the conviction that cultural and moral chauvinism are necessary conditions for a rich and deeply meaningful life. But if you, like me, have actually been persuaded by the great thinkers of the Enlightenment about the universal nature of morality and rights, then this basically amounts to the claim that meaning in life requires immorality. Of course, it won’t do to baldly assert that the good life requires systematically harming outsiders and violating their rights as human beings, so the chauvinist generally answers the “Why be moral?” question be redefining morality as group partiality, or denying that it is even intelligible to recognize moral obligations simply in virtue of our shared humanity rather than in our shared sectarian identities.
I think low-brow, right-wing pop ideologues are rather more up front than most would-be right-wing intellectuals. They see the world as a place of irreconcilable conflict. Our culture is the best one. Our people are the best people. We are at war to preserve our culture and people against the interlopers, which requires keeping them away. The very presence of people speaking other languages in public threatens our culture, the best culture. And mixture of cultures and genes threatens to lead our people, the best people, to extinction. We may impose almost any cost on outsiders to preserve our culture and our people, because our culture and people are best, and those people are not us. Liberty, free association, dynamism, cosmopolitanism: these are code words for our destruction and those moralizers who rely on them are traitors.
I think you just described my extended family.
I think you just described my extended family.
I still want to know how those great thinkers of the Enlightenment persuaded you that black nationalism is better than white nationalism. Or do you not share this opinion? I’m afraid I remain curious.
I also wonder if a certain Mr. Hume is one of your Enlightenment heroes, or not. Perhaps his morality was “fundamentally wrong” as well?
The very presence of people speaking other languages in public threatens our culture, the best culture. And mixture of cultures and genes threatens to lead our people, the best people, to extinction.
Actually, it’s much simpler than that: the presence of Mexicans in our democratic electoral system tends to turn our political system into the Mexican political system, our government into the Mexican government, and our country into Mexico.
Do you live in Mexico? Do you want to live in Mexico? If so, why? If not, why not?
Or do you seriously believe that the difference between the US and Mexico is a function of climate, geology, electoral laws, or in fact anything but demographic disparities? Or is there some magic force – the public school system, perhaps – that turns the children of Mexican immigrants into Norman Rockwell characters? What “empirical basis” do you have for this belief?
Four out of ten Mexicans say they’d move to the US if they could. And that’s just Mexico. It just happens to be next door. The Pew Center didn’t ask, say, Nigerians. Presumably a different foundation is responsible for them.
Okay, I’m retarded. I just don’t get it. I have trouble understanding why people believe in democracy in the first place. But given that you do seem to believe in democracy, it strikes me that importing vast breeding colonies of foreigners so that you keep winning your elections makes any questions about hanging chads or voting machines or “superdelegates” rather silly.
The Democratic Party would not exist in anything like its present form if not for the Immigration Act of 1965. The last Democratic president to win the white vote was LBJ. I’m not sure if one of your Enlightenment thinkers is Machiavelli, but I’m pretty sure a touch of old Niccolo and a little less Jean-Jacques might add some cogency to your moralistic musings.
I actually rather admire your ability to realize that there is no essential moral distinction that can be made between national border controls and apartheid. Both assign an arbitrary classification to a newborn baby who has done nothing at all to deserve it. The grand idea of apartheid was that two separate nations, in the Latin sense of the word, could live under one government in one partition of the Earth’s surface, participating in the same labor market and all that fine stuff.
Since apartheid no longer exists, it’s hard to call it a success. Perhaps if the Afrikaners and Rhodesians had put some fences between themselves and their hereditary enemies, they wouldn’t have had to flee their homes and countries. (Which they stole, of course, from the noble savage. I can’t think of anywhere else that might have happened.)
Albert Brenner applies the same moral calculus here. Of course, he draws the opposite lesson.
Naturally, since Europeans are so much better than everyone else, we will always be running the show. It can’t matter at all that, in that single borderless utopian democratic world, you and I are – um – minorities. Europeans are the master race. It is our destiny, as white men, to dominate the world forever! I’m sure none of us could ever find ourselves in the same position as Nic Haralambous.
Oh, wait? You’re not for the single borderless world after all? Maybe not today, but in 2038, or something? Say hello to Mr. Auster’s unprincipled exception. For a religious nutcase, you’ll have to admit, that head of his is screwed on pretty tight.
Anyway. I tire of this badinage. I thought I would just explain my concerns about the whole open-borders thing. My first concern is the physical security of myself and my family. My second concern is the desire not to live in a Third World slum. I’m not sure what my third concern is, but I suspect that the likes of Voltaire, Hume and Smith would share it. I am certainly quite confident that they would advise Mr. Haralambous to pack his bag and go.
Perthaps open borders could work perfectly well in the absence of democracy. The existence of ancien-regime France, source of so many of your Enlightenment reveries, testifies to the fact that vast disparities in prosperity and civilization can exist within a single country. Dubai handles its hordes of Pakistani gastarbeiter quite effectively. Although their treatment is a little reminiscent of the good old days of Verwoerd. Shh – don’t let the Times hear about it.
I still want to know how those great thinkers of the Enlightenment persuaded you that black nationalism is better than white nationalism. Or do you not share this opinion? I’m afraid I remain curious.
I also wonder if a certain Mr. Hume is one of your Enlightenment heroes, or not. Perhaps his morality was “fundamentally wrong” as well?
The very presence of people speaking other languages in public threatens our culture, the best culture. And mixture of cultures and genes threatens to lead our people, the best people, to extinction.
Actually, it’s much simpler than that: the presence of Mexicans in our democratic electoral system tends to turn our political system into the Mexican political system, our government into the Mexican government, and our country into Mexico.
Do you live in Mexico? Do you want to live in Mexico? If so, why? If not, why not?
Or do you seriously believe that the difference between the US and Mexico is a function of climate, geology, electoral laws, or in fact anything but demographic disparities? Or is there some magic force – the public school system, perhaps – that turns the children of Mexican immigrants into Norman Rockwell characters? What “empirical basis” do you have for this belief?
Four out of ten Mexicans say they’d move to the US if they could. And that’s just Mexico. It just happens to be next door. The Pew Center didn’t ask, say, Nigerians. Presumably a different foundation is responsible for them.
Okay, I’m retarded. I just don’t get it. I have trouble understanding why people believe in democracy in the first place. But given that you do seem to believe in democracy, it strikes me that importing vast breeding colonies of foreigners so that you keep winning your elections makes any questions about hanging chads or voting machines or “superdelegates” rather silly.
The Democratic Party would not exist in anything like its present form if not for the Immigration Act of 1965. The last Democratic president to win the white vote was LBJ. I’m not sure if one of your Enlightenment thinkers is Machiavelli, but I’m pretty sure a touch of old Niccolo and a little less Jean-Jacques might add some cogency to your moralistic musings.
I actually rather admire your ability to realize that there is no essential moral distinction that can be made between national border controls and apartheid. Both assign an arbitrary classification to a newborn baby who has done nothing at all to deserve it. The grand idea of apartheid was that two separate nations, in the Latin sense of the word, could live under one government in one partition of the Earth’s surface, participating in the same labor market and all that fine stuff.
Since apartheid no longer exists, it’s hard to call it a success. Perhaps if the Afrikaners and Rhodesians had put some fences between themselves and their hereditary enemies, they wouldn’t have had to flee their homes and countries. (Which they stole, of course, from the noble savage. I can’t think of anywhere else that might have happened.)
Albert Brenner applies the same moral calculus here. Of course, he draws the opposite lesson.
Naturally, since Europeans are so much better than everyone else, we will always be running the show. It can’t matter at all that, in that single borderless utopian democratic world, you and I are – um – minorities. Europeans are the master race. It is our destiny, as white men, to dominate the world forever! I’m sure none of us could ever find ourselves in the same position as Nic Haralambous.
Oh, wait? You’re not for the single borderless world after all? Maybe not today, but in 2038, or something? Say hello to Mr. Auster’s unprincipled exception. For a religious nutcase, you’ll have to admit, that head of his is screwed on pretty tight.
Anyway. I tire of this badinage. I thought I would just explain my concerns about the whole open-borders thing. My first concern is the physical security of myself and my family. My second concern is the desire not to live in a Third World slum. I’m not sure what my third concern is, but I suspect that the likes of Voltaire, Hume and Smith would share it. I am certainly quite confident that they would advise Mr. Haralambous to pack his bag and go.
Perthaps open borders could work perfectly well in the absence of democracy. The existence of ancien-regime France, source of so many of your Enlightenment reveries, testifies to the fact that vast disparities in prosperity and civilization can exist within a single country. Dubai handles its hordes of Pakistani gastarbeiter quite effectively. Although their treatment is a little reminiscent of the good old days of Verwoerd. Shh – don’t let the Times hear about it.
I really dislike nationalism, but it’s closer to individualism than internationalism as far as I’m concerned. It is the rubes who seem more supportive of smashing gargantuan states like the U.S into more independent jurisdictions (perhaps bringing back the Articles of Confederation) while the sophisticates are partial to the EU, so I’m afraid I must side with the former. Where I dissent from both the moral chauvinist and universalist is that I am far more open to the idea that there is no objective meaning to life and the whole thing is absurd, nor are there morals or natural rights.
Our culture is the best one. Our people are the best people.
I suspect that in a certain sense you agree with them. Our culture is quite cosmopolitan/universalist, relatively speaking. But if you cannot object to the chauvinist non-universalist cultures that make up most of the world outside this country’s borders, how can you do so a chauvinistic (though relatively cosmopolitan) one inside them?
I really dislike nationalism, but it’s closer to individualism than internationalism as far as I’m concerned. It is the rubes who seem more supportive of smashing gargantuan states like the U.S into more independent jurisdictions (perhaps bringing back the Articles of Confederation) while the sophisticates are partial to the EU, so I’m afraid I must side with the former. Where I dissent from both the moral chauvinist and universalist is that I am far more open to the idea that there is no objective meaning to life and the whole thing is absurd, nor are there morals or natural rights.
Our culture is the best one. Our people are the best people.
I suspect that in a certain sense you agree with them. Our culture is quite cosmopolitan/universalist, relatively speaking. But if you cannot object to the chauvinist non-universalist cultures that make up most of the world outside this country’s borders, how can you do so a chauvinistic (though relatively cosmopolitan) one inside them?
Communitarian nationalist conservatives tend to live in states that benefit from communitarian nationalist conservative goals(see:Texas, defense pork).
A chauvinist by any other name…
Communitarian nationalist conservatives tend to live in states that benefit from communitarian nationalist conservative goals(see:Texas, defense pork).
A chauvinist by any other name…
I detect a certain cultural chauvinism in Wilkinson’s argument. Nothing is preventing Nigerians from turning their impoverished and corrupt democracy into a genuine and prosperous democracy, nor are US conservatives standing in their way. Surely they are capable of it — or does he think otherwise? Or is their situation so hopeless that the only choice left is to move en masse to the US and Europe?
I detect a certain cultural chauvinism in Wilkinson’s argument. Nothing is preventing Nigerians from turning their impoverished and corrupt democracy into a genuine and prosperous democracy, nor are US conservatives standing in their way. Surely they are capable of it — or does he think otherwise? Or is their situation so hopeless that the only choice left is to move en masse to the US and Europe?
If the nation is a social contract, then why should it be any more concerned with the well-being of non-citizens than a corporation is concerned with the well-being of non-shareholders? Do you think that Microsoft or GE has an obligation to give some of its wealth to poor, starving 3rd Worlders? If not, why does America?
If the nation is a social contract, then why should it be any more concerned with the well-being of non-citizens than a corporation is concerned with the well-being of non-shareholders? Do you think that Microsoft or GE has an obligation to give some of its wealth to poor, starving 3rd Worlders? If not, why does America?
Dubai’s system works as well as it does because the guest-workers really are guests who send money home to their families rather than settling down and raising their children within Dubai. Lant Pritchett has advocated something like that here (though only as a compromise), which I could also get behind.
Dubai’s system works as well as it does because the guest-workers really are guests who send money home to their families rather than settling down and raising their children within Dubai. Lant Pritchett has advocated something like that here (though only as a compromise), which I could also get behind.
Dubai’s system also works because the good Lord has blessed Dubai with a complete absence of politics. (Or almost complete. There are some worrying signs of union activity.)
In a democracy, heads are soldiers. There is never any shortage of ambitious entrepreneurs ready to convert any hominid population, no matter how illiterate, ignorant and bigoted, into what in India they call a vote bank.
Perhaps your gastarbeiters can’t vote. But they can still cause trouble. This enables your various Sopranos, Gracchi and Alinskys to point out, quite reasonably, that a small expenditure in their direction will mollify the anger of the deprived. And then you are paying the vig.
Deport the illegals. Destroy the ghetto gangs. Fire the poverty pimps and race hustlers. Hit the sclerotic, mendacious New Deal mafia state where it really hurts – by smashing its vote bank.
Or even just suggest it, and you’ll see what it means to have enemies. On the other hand, if you measure your success in life by how often you are interviewed on NPR – by all means, Mr. Wilkinson, maintain your present perspective. It is certainly the right way to make friends and influence people.
I cannot speak for other commenters. Maybe they are just bored. But I waste my time commenting because I have a sneaking suspicion that somewhere, deep down inside, you are smarter and more sensible than this. I am probably wrong, but optimism springs eternal.
Dubai’s system also works because the good Lord has blessed Dubai with a complete absence of politics. (Or almost complete. There are some worrying signs of union activity.)
In a democracy, heads are soldiers. There is never any shortage of ambitious entrepreneurs ready to convert any hominid population, no matter how illiterate, ignorant and bigoted, into what in India they call a vote bank.
Perhaps your gastarbeiters can’t vote. But they can still cause trouble. This enables your various Sopranos, Gracchi and Alinskys to point out, quite reasonably, that a small expenditure in their direction will mollify the anger of the deprived. And then you are paying the vig.
Deport the illegals. Destroy the ghetto gangs. Fire the poverty pimps and race hustlers. Hit the sclerotic, mendacious New Deal mafia state where it really hurts – by smashing its vote bank.
Or even just suggest it, and you’ll see what it means to have enemies. On the other hand, if you measure your success in life by how often you are interviewed on NPR – by all means, Mr. Wilkinson, maintain your present perspective. It is certainly the right way to make friends and influence people.
I cannot speak for other commenters. Maybe they are just bored. But I waste my time commenting because I have a sneaking suspicion that somewhere, deep down inside, you are smarter and more sensible than this. I am probably wrong, but optimism springs eternal.
“Mr. Wilkinson, maintain your present perspective. It is certainly the right way to make friends and influence people.”
Right, right. People can’t handle the truth. Which would be what? That black people and Mexicans are functionally retarded? That freedom and peace are in conflict with apartheid, and therefore so much the worse for freedom and peace? Yes, you’re very brave, and proud of it, no doubt.
I do appreciate the fact that you recognize that stating your views clearly is rhetorically self-defeating. Keep it up.
“Mr. Wilkinson, maintain your present perspective. It is certainly the right way to make friends and influence people.”
Right, right. People can’t handle the truth. Which would be what? That black people and Mexicans are functionally retarded? That freedom and peace are in conflict with apartheid, and therefore so much the worse for freedom and peace? Yes, you’re very brave, and proud of it, no doubt.
I do appreciate the fact that you recognize that stating your views clearly is rhetorically self-defeating. Keep it up.
“If the nation is a social contract, then why should it be any more concerned with the well-being of non-citizens than a corporation is concerned with the well-being of non-shareholders”
A nation is not a social contract.
“If the nation is a social contract, then why should it be any more concerned with the well-being of non-citizens than a corporation is concerned with the well-being of non-shareholders”
A nation is not a social contract.
WW,
The reason people have affection for the nation-states in which they live is because of this funny little thing called the Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia which concluded it. I could explain all that to you, but I’m sure a good monograph or two has been written on the subject.
Are you going to address the point, raised by both Moldbug and TGGP, that the best way to turn the United States into a chauvinistic, communitarian wasteland would be to import millions more unassimilable peasants? Those fellows make the rubes you grew up with in Nebraska look like Vladimir Nabokov.
I would think a necessary precursor for the borderless world you propose would be convincing everyone on earth of the merits of secular cosmopolitanism. So, learn Spanish, go forth, and evangelize. Until you are successful, quit trying to shame and browbeat your fellow citizens into an act of collective suicide.
WW,
The reason people have affection for the nation-states in which they live is because of this funny little thing called the Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia which concluded it. I could explain all that to you, but I’m sure a good monograph or two has been written on the subject.
Are you going to address the point, raised by both Moldbug and TGGP, that the best way to turn the United States into a chauvinistic, communitarian wasteland would be to import millions more unassimilable peasants? Those fellows make the rubes you grew up with in Nebraska look like Vladimir Nabokov.
I would think a necessary precursor for the borderless world you propose would be convincing everyone on earth of the merits of secular cosmopolitanism. So, learn Spanish, go forth, and evangelize. Until you are successful, quit trying to shame and browbeat your fellow citizens into an act of collective suicide.
That black people and Mexicans are functionally retarded?
White Americans are as well. Politics is the mind-killer, which is why we are against politics. It is also the case that blacks and hispanics tend to have lower IQs, but if you’d like we can ignore that for the purposes of this discussion.
That freedom and peace are in conflict with apartheid, and therefore so much the worse for freedom and peace?
His point seemed more along the lines of freedom and peace in the countries lucky enough to have it being impossible to sustain without apartheid, and so those who wish to preserve it should support apartheid.
A nation is not a social contract.
What is it then? There definitely does seem to be something called “the United States”. There is an organization called the “federal government” whose laws operate over that territory. There are discontinuous jumps in standards-of-living from south of the border to north of it.
Fred S., Will did something like that by saying that we need to put forth some numbers of how many immigrants will wreck the system. My point is that the real problem is the descendants of immigrants, whose numbers we can’t really control.
That black people and Mexicans are functionally retarded?
White Americans are as well. Politics is the mind-killer, which is why we are against politics. It is also the case that blacks and hispanics tend to have lower IQs, but if you’d like we can ignore that for the purposes of this discussion.
That freedom and peace are in conflict with apartheid, and therefore so much the worse for freedom and peace?
His point seemed more along the lines of freedom and peace in the countries lucky enough to have it being impossible to sustain without apartheid, and so those who wish to preserve it should support apartheid.
A nation is not a social contract.
What is it then? There definitely does seem to be something called “the United States”. There is an organization called the “federal government” whose laws operate over that territory. There are discontinuous jumps in standards-of-living from south of the border to north of it.
Fred S., Will did something like that by saying that we need to put forth some numbers of how many immigrants will wreck the system. My point is that the real problem is the descendants of immigrants, whose numbers we can’t really control.
It’s remarkable how quickly people go from believing in democracy as a political system to believing in democracy as an intellectual system.
I wonder what your Enlightenment thinkers would have made of that. If the percentage of people who hold a belief is any indication of either its righteousness or durability, we’d all still be Catholics.
What is the truth? I have no idea. I am not the Pope. All I can tell you is that there are two kinds of intellectuals: those whose goal is to make some kind of sense out of this gigantic, horrifying mess we call the real world, and those who seek to impose their preconceptions on it.
The former are seldom of any use to the State. The latter sometimes aren’t, but then again sometimes they are.
I write here because I sense that, just by virtue of your instincts and talents, you belong in the first group. This does not mean you cannot join the second. They certainly have a nose for talent, and they must appreciate yours. But I doubt you will ever be completely comfortable in their camp. You are just too smart.
And, if you really are more mercenary than I think, there is always the possibility that the shape of power really will change, and having been interviewed on the old government radio will not be something you want on your resume. Unlikely, I admit. But impossible?
What is the truth? Ask yourself: do you look for it, or do you avoid it? Do you, for example, read Gene Expression? I know a couple of the guys who post there. They are professors at Stanford and Harvard.
Of course, so were Gould and Lewontin. I grew up reading Stephen Jay Gould. I loved him dearly. But basically, the man was a Communist. How do you feel about Communists in general? Do you tend to find them trustworthy? Do you share their goals?
After 1945, control of the Third World was transferred from a political faction which believed in human neurological biodiversity, to a faction which believed in human neurological uniformity. Neither of these sides knew jack, by modern standards, about biology. The most they could do is sputter that the opposite side’s evidence was not strong enough. But the outcome of the conflict did not depend on evidence. It depended on power. It still does.
Ask yourself: has the quality of government in the Third World improved since WWII? Certainly one side has gained power. By your standards, it is the side that thinks good thoughts. Have these good thoughts led to good things? If you go to Google News and search for “poisoned arrows,” what are the results? If you go to your library and read travellers’ accounts of Africa in the ’30s, how does this compare?
I have no particular reason to be proud of the fact that I grew up believing the things you believe now. We cannot choose our parents. It’s not your fault that you are from Middle America and it’s not mine that I was a Foreign Service brat. And I’m sure this makes it especially difficult, as a matter of human psychology, for you to see anything in traditional Middle-American ideas that might happen to correlate with reality – just as I shudder instinctively at all noises out of Foggy Bottom, even if they might by some coincidence be true. This is not really a cogent analogy, but it’s the best I can do.
I am not asking you to experience some kind of instant Damascene conversion, based entirely on my pseudonymous say-so. I am asking you to recognize that there are serious and sensible reasons why serious and sensible people disagree with you, and the least you can do is refrain from sneering at them. Sneering is always unattractive and I do too much of it myself, but it is especially ugly when the sneerer is on the side of the big battalions.
It’s remarkable how quickly people go from believing in democracy as a political system to believing in democracy as an intellectual system.
I wonder what your Enlightenment thinkers would have made of that. If the percentage of people who hold a belief is any indication of either its righteousness or durability, we’d all still be Catholics.
What is the truth? I have no idea. I am not the Pope. All I can tell you is that there are two kinds of intellectuals: those whose goal is to make some kind of sense out of this gigantic, horrifying mess we call the real world, and those who seek to impose their preconceptions on it.
The former are seldom of any use to the State. The latter sometimes aren’t, but then again sometimes they are.
I write here because I sense that, just by virtue of your instincts and talents, you belong in the first group. This does not mean you cannot join the second. They certainly have a nose for talent, and they must appreciate yours. But I doubt you will ever be completely comfortable in their camp. You are just too smart.
And, if you really are more mercenary than I think, there is always the possibility that the shape of power really will change, and having been interviewed on the old government radio will not be something you want on your resume. Unlikely, I admit. But impossible?
What is the truth? Ask yourself: do you look for it, or do you avoid it? Do you, for example, read Gene Expression? I know a couple of the guys who post there. They are professors at Stanford and Harvard.
Of course, so were Gould and Lewontin. I grew up reading Stephen Jay Gould. I loved him dearly. But basically, the man was a Communist. How do you feel about Communists in general? Do you tend to find them trustworthy? Do you share their goals?
After 1945, control of the Third World was transferred from a political faction which believed in human neurological biodiversity, to a faction which believed in human neurological uniformity. Neither of these sides knew jack, by modern standards, about biology. The most they could do is sputter that the opposite side’s evidence was not strong enough. But the outcome of the conflict did not depend on evidence. It depended on power. It still does.
Ask yourself: has the quality of government in the Third World improved since WWII? Certainly one side has gained power. By your standards, it is the side that thinks good thoughts. Have these good thoughts led to good things? If you go to Google News and search for “poisoned arrows,” what are the results? If you go to your library and read travellers’ accounts of Africa in the ’30s, how does this compare?
I have no particular reason to be proud of the fact that I grew up believing the things you believe now. We cannot choose our parents. It’s not your fault that you are from Middle America and it’s not mine that I was a Foreign Service brat. And I’m sure this makes it especially difficult, as a matter of human psychology, for you to see anything in traditional Middle-American ideas that might happen to correlate with reality – just as I shudder instinctively at all noises out of Foggy Bottom, even if they might by some coincidence be true. This is not really a cogent analogy, but it’s the best I can do.
I am not asking you to experience some kind of instant Damascene conversion, based entirely on my pseudonymous say-so. I am asking you to recognize that there are serious and sensible reasons why serious and sensible people disagree with you, and the least you can do is refrain from sneering at them. Sneering is always unattractive and I do too much of it myself, but it is especially ugly when the sneerer is on the side of the big battalions.
MM, Yeah. I read Gene Expression. And I am more or less abreast of the latest genetic determinist arguments. I am also more or less abreast of the latest work on brain plasticity and cultural adaptation, which I find rather more powerful than genetic explanations for understanding human diversity.
I do sneer at people who I think cherry pick science to make themselves comfortable in their bigotry, and I think I’m right to do it. No doubt we are all to some extent self-deceived, but I REALLY DO think expanding the scope of cooperation by spreading liberal norms will tend to make people better off.
If my goal was popularity, do you really think I’d be a libertarian? No, I’d either wave a flag and curse the Islamofacists or write love poems to Barack Obama. If the Council of Foreign Relations has the same view as me on North American Integration, well, then good for them I say. But my brand of hyper-capitalist liberal individualist anti-nationalism is popular with almost no one. It seems that you want to fault me for doing my best to be effective in making my honest views somewhat less unpopular rather than just shooting myself in the foot and abiding in the glow of my epistemic virtue and strategic incompetence.I don’t get that.
MM, Yeah. I read Gene Expression. And I am more or less abreast of the latest genetic determinist arguments. I am also more or less abreast of the latest work on brain plasticity and cultural adaptation, which I find rather more powerful than genetic explanations for understanding human diversity.
I do sneer at people who I think cherry pick science to make themselves comfortable in their bigotry, and I think I’m right to do it. No doubt we are all to some extent self-deceived, but I REALLY DO think expanding the scope of cooperation by spreading liberal norms will tend to make people better off.
If my goal was popularity, do you really think I’d be a libertarian? No, I’d either wave a flag and curse the Islamofacists or write love poems to Barack Obama. If the Council of Foreign Relations has the same view as me on North American Integration, well, then good for them I say. But my brand of hyper-capitalist liberal individualist anti-nationalism is popular with almost no one. It seems that you want to fault me for doing my best to be effective in making my honest views somewhat less unpopular rather than just shooting myself in the foot and abiding in the glow of my epistemic virtue and strategic incompetence.I don’t get that.
WW,
What is this “latest work on brain plasticity and cultural adaptation”? Do tell, please.
If you have any evidence of neurological uniformity across all living hominid subpopulations, you should forward it at once to Jim Goad. I recommend also contacting John Derbyshire, who will be delighted to hear of any support for his DZGD.
Ever since Mill wrote his response to Carlyle on The Negro question and probably well before, writers in the English Protestant tradition have been defending the blatantly theological proposition that “all men are created equal.” In the absence of any evidence for this proposition, one can always assert that evidence for the contrary is unconvincing. Note that exactly the same rhetorical strategy can prove the existence of God, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster for that matter.
Here is Mill:
We are told to look at Haiti: what does your contributor know of Haiti? “Little or no sugar growing, black Peter exterminating black Paul, and where a garden of the Hesperides might be, nothing but a tropical dog-kennel and pestiferous jungle.” Are we to listen to arguments grounded on hear-says like these? In what is black Haiti worse than white Mexico? If the truth were known, how much worse is it than white Spain?
Note the ugly stench of anti-Papism in that last crack. Haiti today can’t really be described as a “pestiferous jungle” – it’s more of a pestiferous desert. The idea of “white Mexico” is also fascinating.
Here is more Mill:
It is by analytical examination that we have learned whatever we know of the laws of external nature; and if he had not disdained to apply the same mode of investigation to the laws of the formation of character, he would have escaped the vulgar error of imputing every difference which he finds among human beings to an original difference of nature. As well might it be said, that of two trees, sprung from the same stock one cannot be taller than another but from greater vigor in the original seedling. Is nothing to be attributed to soil, nothing to climate, nothing to difference of exposure — has no storm swept over the one and not the other, no lightning scathed it, no beast browsed on it, no insects preyed on it, no passing stranger stript [sic] off its leaves or its bark? If the trees grew near together, may not the one which, by whatever accident, grew up first, have retarded the other’s development by its shade? Human beings are subject to an infinitely greater variety of accidents and external influences than trees, and have infinitely more operation in impairing the growth of one another; since those who begin by being strongest, have almost always hitherto used their strength to keep the others weak. What the original differences are among human beings, I know no more than your contributor, and no less; it is one of the questions not yet satisfactorily answered in the natural history of the species. This, however, is well known — that spontaneous improvement, beyond a very low grade — improvement by internal development, without aid from other individuals or peoples — is one of the rarest phenomena in history; and whenever known to have occurred, was the result of an extraordinary combination of advantages; in addition doubtless to many accidents of which all trace is now lost. No argument against the capacity of negroes for improvement, could be drawn from their not being one of these rare exceptions. It is curious, withal, that the earliest known civilization was, we have the strongest reason to believe, a negro civilization. The original Egyptians are inferred, from the evidence of their sculptures, to have been a negro race: it was from negroes, therefore, that the Greeks learnt their first lessons in civilization; and to the records and traditions of these negroes did the Greek philosophers to the very end of their career resort (I do not say with much fruit) as a treasury of mysterious wisdom.
Perhaps the first recorded sighting of the “Black Athena” hypothesis. Mill is quite wrong about the Egyptians, needless to say. So what we see is that all of Mill’s substantive arguments turn out to be false, and all he has to fall back on is the old “no evidence” routine. And yet – in the marketplace of ideas, Mill wins and Carlyle loses. Don’t you find that slightly disturbing? Doesn’t it make you want to ask where your preconceived assumptions come from?
Contra Mill, I know of no examples of civilized societies which are the consequence of externally applied cultivation. Perhaps the most impressive attempt to validate Mill’s hypothesis was the Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay, which by dint of extremely un-libertarian paternal supervision created something very like a European society from a population of Guarani Indians, fresh from the rain forest. Unfortunately, when the Jesuits were expelled, the Guarani went back to the forest. Read about it – the episode is fascinating.
Do you really seriously believe that the difference between Haiti and Japan is one of climate or geography? What would it take to turn Haiti into Japan? If you had a trillion dollars, the US Marines, NPR, and the Society of Jesus in its black-robed prime, could the job be done? And would it stay done?
The proposition that modern human populations are, like dog breeds, the product of strong recent selection – I have even seen the word “domestication” deployed – is essentially established at this point. There is no good reason to think that the European or Asian hunter-gatherer populations of 10,000 years ago could adapt instantaneously to modern lifestyles, any more than the hominid populations of 100,000 or 1 million years ago could. I suspect the converse is also the case – I would make a pretty crappy hunter-gatherer.
What forms of societal dysfunction would ancient populations display if inserted into a modern society? Probably the same dysfunctions we see in all human populations which have not experienced many generations of selection for successful adaptation to urban lifestyles.
I have no doubt that a good human breeder could turn Australian aboriginals into Ashkenazi Jews in twenty or thirty generations. Belyaev’s work with the silver foxes is impressive. Unfortunately, I don’t expect to live that long. So my feeling is that there needs to be a fence between me and all populations of wild hominids – as much for their benefit as mine.
So why do so many of us still believe that “all men are created equal”? Perhaps because of the West’s Christian heritage? And more specifically, because of the English Dissenter tradition of primitive Christianity, which evolved into Whiggery (not to be confused with wiggery) and gave us John Stuart Mill? It’s easy to call yourself an atheist. Anyone can do it. Actually discarding the whole package of received assumptions which came along with the theism is quite a bit more difficult.
As for your brand of hyper-capitalist liberal individual anti-nationalism, it is popular enough to get you employed as a brain for hire. Steve Sailer’s views, which I find more liberal but less progressive, aren’t. Moreover, if you were to embrace Steve’s views, at least publicly, you would be fired. And no one would hire you. Kind of a hefty thumb on the scale in the ol’ marketplace of ideas, n’est ce pas?
Now here is the nut of the matter:
It seems that you want to fault me for doing my best to be effective in making my honest views somewhat less unpopular rather than just shooting myself in the foot and abiding in the glow of my epistemic virtue and strategic incompetence.
Note the rhetorical relationship of this, which I think is your most genuine and most serious argument, to “neural plasticity.” You are essentially arguing that you didn’t kill the victim, if you did it was in self-defense, and anyway he needed killing. Pick one and stick with it. This one is definitely the best.
In a democracy, power is a function of public opinion. In a fascist state power is a function of the number of thugs in your entourage. Both accomplish the same goal – influence over the decisions of the State. If fascism and democracy were the only two options, I’d certainly choose the former. But its downside should not be ignored, which is that instead of corrupting army officers, in a democracy power corrupts intellectuals.
DC is an entire jewelry store full of rings of power. Our official university system and official press is the most sophisticated machine for managing public opinion that has ever been constructed. It makes the Catholic Church look like the Buddha’s bo tree.
And every single person who wears the rings – yes, even the flag wavers and the Obama lovers – sees himself as a Boromir, wielding that dark power for good rather than evil. Mencius’ rule of media whores: everyone whose words appear regularly in the press is a media whore. That feeling of “making your honest views somewhat less unpopular” is the feeling of power.
DC runs on this feeling. And if your honest views ever turn into the wrong views – views that actually delegitimize the New Deal state, rather than suggesting improvements – it can and will turn you off like a switch. Perhaps some people are honest enough to withstand this kind of intellectual pressure. I don’t think I am.
Can power be used for good? Can the New Deal state be improved? Absolutely. But not perhaps as much as you think. When you look at the entire system across the history of the 20th century, the pattern you see over and over again is that those who are willing to play harder and less scrupulously win. Thus the DC libertarians, who I’m sure all think of themselves as idealists just as you do, have had very, very little impact. And the beast just grows and grows and grows.
Worse, institutional libertarianism creates the appearance that the system can reform itself, but not the reality. In other words, it’s bait. It is very effective in distracting its subjects from the genuinely dangerous idea that maybe the whole ring shop should just be dumped, shopkeeper and all, into Mount Doom.
There is a completely different way to be an intellectual, which is not to concern oneself with power or impact or influence, but just to think what you think, type it up and post it where anyone can read it. Concern yourself with reality, not with public opinion. You can’t throw away everyone else’s ring, but you can start by throwing away yours.
Unfortunately, there is no money in this. But it doesn’t mean you can’t do it in your copious spare time. If you ever start to think disturbing thoughts, why not get a pseudonymous blog? I hear they’re free. You can post through Tor if you need the extra security.
WW,
What is this “latest work on brain plasticity and cultural adaptation”? Do tell, please.
If you have any evidence of neurological uniformity across all living hominid subpopulations, you should forward it at once to Jim Goad. I recommend also contacting John Derbyshire, who will be delighted to hear of any support for his DZGD.
Ever since Mill wrote his response to Carlyle on The Negro question and probably well before, writers in the English Protestant tradition have been defending the blatantly theological proposition that “all men are created equal.” In the absence of any evidence for this proposition, one can always assert that evidence for the contrary is unconvincing. Note that exactly the same rhetorical strategy can prove the existence of God, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster for that matter.
Here is Mill:
We are told to look at Haiti: what does your contributor know of Haiti? “Little or no sugar growing, black Peter exterminating black Paul, and where a garden of the Hesperides might be, nothing but a tropical dog-kennel and pestiferous jungle.” Are we to listen to arguments grounded on hear-says like these? In what is black Haiti worse than white Mexico? If the truth were known, how much worse is it than white Spain?
Note the ugly stench of anti-Papism in that last crack. Haiti today can’t really be described as a “pestiferous jungle” – it’s more of a pestiferous desert. The idea of “white Mexico” is also fascinating.
Here is more Mill:
It is by analytical examination that we have learned whatever we know of the laws of external nature; and if he had not disdained to apply the same mode of investigation to the laws of the formation of character, he would have escaped the vulgar error of imputing every difference which he finds among human beings to an original difference of nature. As well might it be said, that of two trees, sprung from the same stock one cannot be taller than another but from greater vigor in the original seedling. Is nothing to be attributed to soil, nothing to climate, nothing to difference of exposure — has no storm swept over the one and not the other, no lightning scathed it, no beast browsed on it, no insects preyed on it, no passing stranger stript [sic] off its leaves or its bark? If the trees grew near together, may not the one which, by whatever accident, grew up first, have retarded the other’s development by its shade? Human beings are subject to an infinitely greater variety of accidents and external influences than trees, and have infinitely more operation in impairing the growth of one another; since those who begin by being strongest, have almost always hitherto used their strength to keep the others weak. What the original differences are among human beings, I know no more than your contributor, and no less; it is one of the questions not yet satisfactorily answered in the natural history of the species. This, however, is well known — that spontaneous improvement, beyond a very low grade — improvement by internal development, without aid from other individuals or peoples — is one of the rarest phenomena in history; and whenever known to have occurred, was the result of an extraordinary combination of advantages; in addition doubtless to many accidents of which all trace is now lost. No argument against the capacity of negroes for improvement, could be drawn from their not being one of these rare exceptions. It is curious, withal, that the earliest known civilization was, we have the strongest reason to believe, a negro civilization. The original Egyptians are inferred, from the evidence of their sculptures, to have been a negro race: it was from negroes, therefore, that the Greeks learnt their first lessons in civilization; and to the records and traditions of these negroes did the Greek philosophers to the very end of their career resort (I do not say with much fruit) as a treasury of mysterious wisdom.
Perhaps the first recorded sighting of the “Black Athena” hypothesis. Mill is quite wrong about the Egyptians, needless to say. So what we see is that all of Mill’s substantive arguments turn out to be false, and all he has to fall back on is the old “no evidence” routine. And yet – in the marketplace of ideas, Mill wins and Carlyle loses. Don’t you find that slightly disturbing? Doesn’t it make you want to ask where your preconceived assumptions come from?
Contra Mill, I know of no examples of civilized societies which are the consequence of externally applied cultivation. Perhaps the most impressive attempt to validate Mill’s hypothesis was the Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay, which by dint of extremely un-libertarian paternal supervision created something very like a European society from a population of Guarani Indians, fresh from the rain forest. Unfortunately, when the Jesuits were expelled, the Guarani went back to the forest. Read about it – the episode is fascinating.
Do you really seriously believe that the difference between Haiti and Japan is one of climate or geography? What would it take to turn Haiti into Japan? If you had a trillion dollars, the US Marines, NPR, and the Society of Jesus in its black-robed prime, could the job be done? And would it stay done?
The proposition that modern human populations are, like dog breeds, the product of strong recent selection – I have even seen the word “domestication” deployed – is essentially established at this point. There is no good reason to think that the European or Asian hunter-gatherer populations of 10,000 years ago could adapt instantaneously to modern lifestyles, any more than the hominid populations of 100,000 or 1 million years ago could. I suspect the converse is also the case – I would make a pretty crappy hunter-gatherer.
What forms of societal dysfunction would ancient populations display if inserted into a modern society? Probably the same dysfunctions we see in all human populations which have not experienced many generations of selection for successful adaptation to urban lifestyles.
I have no doubt that a good human breeder could turn Australian aboriginals into Ashkenazi Jews in twenty or thirty generations. Belyaev’s work with the silver foxes is impressive. Unfortunately, I don’t expect to live that long. So my feeling is that there needs to be a fence between me and all populations of wild hominids – as much for their benefit as mine.
So why do so many of us still believe that “all men are created equal”? Perhaps because of the West’s Christian heritage? And more specifically, because of the English Dissenter tradition of primitive Christianity, which evolved into Whiggery (not to be confused with wiggery) and gave us John Stuart Mill? It’s easy to call yourself an atheist. Anyone can do it. Actually discarding the whole package of received assumptions which came along with the theism is quite a bit more difficult.
As for your brand of hyper-capitalist liberal individual anti-nationalism, it is popular enough to get you employed as a brain for hire. Steve Sailer’s views, which I find more liberal but less progressive, aren’t. Moreover, if you were to embrace Steve’s views, at least publicly, you would be fired. And no one would hire you. Kind of a hefty thumb on the scale in the ol’ marketplace of ideas, n’est ce pas?
Now here is the nut of the matter:
It seems that you want to fault me for doing my best to be effective in making my honest views somewhat less unpopular rather than just shooting myself in the foot and abiding in the glow of my epistemic virtue and strategic incompetence.
Note the rhetorical relationship of this, which I think is your most genuine and most serious argument, to “neural plasticity.” You are essentially arguing that you didn’t kill the victim, if you did it was in self-defense, and anyway he needed killing. Pick one and stick with it. This one is definitely the best.
In a democracy, power is a function of public opinion. In a fascist state power is a function of the number of thugs in your entourage. Both accomplish the same goal – influence over the decisions of the State. If fascism and democracy were the only two options, I’d certainly choose the former. But its downside should not be ignored, which is that instead of corrupting army officers, in a democracy power corrupts intellectuals.
DC is an entire jewelry store full of rings of power. Our official university system and official press is the most sophisticated machine for managing public opinion that has ever been constructed. It makes the Catholic Church look like the Buddha’s bo tree.
And every single person who wears the rings – yes, even the flag wavers and the Obama lovers – sees himself as a Boromir, wielding that dark power for good rather than evil. Mencius’ rule of media whores: everyone whose words appear regularly in the press is a media whore. That feeling of “making your honest views somewhat less unpopular” is the feeling of power.
DC runs on this feeling. And if your honest views ever turn into the wrong views – views that actually delegitimize the New Deal state, rather than suggesting improvements – it can and will turn you off like a switch. Perhaps some people are honest enough to withstand this kind of intellectual pressure. I don’t think I am.
Can power be used for good? Can the New Deal state be improved? Absolutely. But not perhaps as much as you think. When you look at the entire system across the history of the 20th century, the pattern you see over and over again is that those who are willing to play harder and less scrupulously win. Thus the DC libertarians, who I’m sure all think of themselves as idealists just as you do, have had very, very little impact. And the beast just grows and grows and grows.
Worse, institutional libertarianism creates the appearance that the system can reform itself, but not the reality. In other words, it’s bait. It is very effective in distracting its subjects from the genuinely dangerous idea that maybe the whole ring shop should just be dumped, shopkeeper and all, into Mount Doom.
There is a completely different way to be an intellectual, which is not to concern oneself with power or impact or influence, but just to think what you think, type it up and post it where anyone can read it. Concern yourself with reality, not with public opinion. You can’t throw away everyone else’s ring, but you can start by throwing away yours.
Unfortunately, there is no money in this. But it doesn’t mean you can’t do it in your copious spare time. If you ever start to think disturbing thoughts, why not get a pseudonymous blog? I hear they’re free. You can post through Tor if you need the extra security.
I meant “choose the latter” (of fascism and democracy), of course. I may be awful, but I’m not that bad!
Not that black uniforms aren’t cool, synchronized mass calisthenics aren’t good exercise, or harsh measures against antisocial elements aren’t sometimes necessary. But fascism basically has the same relationship to my ideal state that the Mafia has to Google.
I meant “choose the latter” (of fascism and democracy), of course. I may be awful, but I’m not that bad!
Not that black uniforms aren’t cool, synchronized mass calisthenics aren’t good exercise, or harsh measures against antisocial elements aren’t sometimes necessary. But fascism basically has the same relationship to my ideal state that the Mafia has to Google.
“And I am more or less abreast of the latest genetic determinist arguments. I am also more or less abreast of the latest work on brain plasticity and cultural adaptation, which I find rather more powerful than genetic explanations for understanding human diversity.”
Not exactly mutually exclusive, but you are right to think as you do. Epigenetic rules, though themselves determined, allow for quite a huge amount of diversity in outcome.
Epigenetic Rules + Sum of Experience = Mental Quanta (Mindspace).
Epigenetic Rules can’t even be considered constants, since they can brighten, dim, and even turn off over time. Add to this the fact that the other variable, experiences, differ between humans even on the radically local level (e.g. siblings), and the fact that experiences combine non-commutatively while being subject to a complex array of limbic accents (themselves subject to scheduling), I would say you are on extremely solid ground to reject the genetic determinists and their followers.
“And I am more or less abreast of the latest genetic determinist arguments. I am also more or less abreast of the latest work on brain plasticity and cultural adaptation, which I find rather more powerful than genetic explanations for understanding human diversity.”
Not exactly mutually exclusive, but you are right to think as you do. Epigenetic rules, though themselves determined, allow for quite a huge amount of diversity in outcome.
Epigenetic Rules + Sum of Experience = Mental Quanta (Mindspace).
Epigenetic Rules can’t even be considered constants, since they can brighten, dim, and even turn off over time. Add to this the fact that the other variable, experiences, differ between humans even on the radically local level (e.g. siblings), and the fact that experiences combine non-commutatively while being subject to a complex array of limbic accents (themselves subject to scheduling), I would say you are on extremely solid ground to reject the genetic determinists and their followers.
Interestingly, if you modulate the A-theoretical experience of a subject, you can increase or decrease the genetic determinism of that subject’s behavior, almost like a thermostat.
An experience which “looms large”, say an immediate crisis like a bear trying to eat you, generally bypasses all the learned responses and constraints held in your neo-cortex. This leaves just the behavioral script written by evolution — i.e., it is highly probable that your next behavior will be genetically determined (you can, of course, fix this by training — e.g. the military).
Immediate crisis quite literally takes away the franchise. The flip side — diminishing uncertainty (entropy) in the local environment — restores it. An interesting fact, no?
Interestingly, if you modulate the A-theoretical experience of a subject, you can increase or decrease the genetic determinism of that subject’s behavior, almost like a thermostat.
An experience which “looms large”, say an immediate crisis like a bear trying to eat you, generally bypasses all the learned responses and constraints held in your neo-cortex. This leaves just the behavioral script written by evolution — i.e., it is highly probable that your next behavior will be genetically determined (you can, of course, fix this by training — e.g. the military).
Immediate crisis quite literally takes away the franchise. The flip side — diminishing uncertainty (entropy) in the local environment — restores it. An interesting fact, no?
Pingback: Eunomia » Rights And Citizenship
Will, I’ve suddenly forgotten what a “genetic determinist” is. Please explain it to me. I know it can’t possibly mean “someone who thinks that the genetically-mediated phenotypic differences between individuals (and between racial clusters) have considerable practical relevance both on an individual and sociological level”, because that would just be using a weird shibboleth for someone who acknowledges the obvious. So what, above and beyond that, do you have in mind here?
(NB, I am pretty much where I’ve been for a while now on the immigration issue: Labor mobility needs to be separated from citizenship and all that entails. Coming into any country to work should be easy; becoming a citizen should be hard.)
Will, I’ve suddenly forgotten what a “genetic determinist” is. Please explain it to me. I know it can’t possibly mean “someone who thinks that the genetically-mediated phenotypic differences between individuals (and between racial clusters) have considerable practical relevance both on an individual and sociological level”, because that would just be using a weird shibboleth for someone who acknowledges the obvious. So what, above and beyond that, do you have in mind here?
(NB, I am pretty much where I’ve been for a while now on the immigration issue: Labor mobility needs to be separated from citizenship and all that entails. Coming into any country to work should be easy; becoming a citizen should be hard.)
Ugh. s/shibboleth/epithet
Ugh. s/shibboleth/epithet
Matt, It’s really a comparative claim about the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in explaining variation in observed cognitive and behavioral traits. The genetic determinist believes genes should get a lot of weight while environmental factors should get little. One can be more or less of a genetic determinist about different traits, since genes really do explain most differences in some things but not so much in other others. I’m pretty determinist about eye color, say, and sort of determinist about personality, slightly less so about intelligence, and not at all about, say, what religion one belongs to (despite the fact that the correlation with parents’ religion is impressive!) When it comes to explaining differences in economic performance and political organization, I find genetic explanations deeply unhelpful. I think all this is more like the practical effects of having different religions than it is the practical effects of having different lineages.
Matt, It’s really a comparative claim about the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in explaining variation in observed cognitive and behavioral traits. The genetic determinist believes genes should get a lot of weight while environmental factors should get little. One can be more or less of a genetic determinist about different traits, since genes really do explain most differences in some things but not so much in other others. I’m pretty determinist about eye color, say, and sort of determinist about personality, slightly less so about intelligence, and not at all about, say, what religion one belongs to (despite the fact that the correlation with parents’ religion is impressive!) When it comes to explaining differences in economic performance and political organization, I find genetic explanations deeply unhelpful. I think all this is more like the practical effects of having different religions than it is the practical effects of having different lineages.
“Immediate crisis quite literally takes away the franchise. The flip side — diminishing uncertainty (entropy) in the local environment — restores it. An interesting fact, no?”
That is very interesting. Thanks! That’s one reason I think wealth and technology enhance freedom. By reducing the need for evolved scripts, it makes space for greater self-creation.
“Immediate crisis quite literally takes away the franchise. The flip side — diminishing uncertainty (entropy) in the local environment — restores it. An interesting fact, no?”
That is very interesting. Thanks! That’s one reason I think wealth and technology enhance freedom. By reducing the need for evolved scripts, it makes space for greater self-creation.
Will,
At first it sounds like you’re talking about disagreements over the degree of phenotypic canalization, which is something nice and empirical that I can get along with. But I suspect you may have an inadequate appreciation for how even small but consistent genetic biases at the individual level can make a big difference at the level of groups, for things like social organization and economic performance.
Say you’ve got two populations, A and B. Say that A has a slight genetic bias that results in its average IQ being 5 points higher than B’s (or makes them just slightly more hardworking, or more conscientious, or whatever other trait you take to be a big contributor to prosperity). If you picked two individuals at random from the respective populations and compared their productivity you wouldn’t expect them to perform all that differently. But at the population level A could end up vastly outperforming B because these small biases accumulate over many trials to result in a significant effect on total productivity.
So let’s say that, holding these (small but not insignificant) genetic biases constant, you start transplanting people from population B to A. This will tend to cause the rate of increase in prosperity for A to decrease. On average this will be a large win for the transplants, a small loss for the older As, and presumably neutral for the remaining Bs. Maybe this is a change worth making and maybe it isn’t, but it seems clear that there’s a tradeoff in this kind of situation between inclusiveness and rate of economic growth.
The same sort of reasoning applies to social organization too (I’m thinking of your old essay about ethical infrastructure). All you need to presume are relatively small biases in relevant traits that persist across environments and this becomes an issue. I think this is what Moldbug was clumsily getting at when he talked about the US becoming more like Mexico. Maybe it’ll turn out that the tradeoff is morally worth it up to some inflection point, but it’s still a tradeoff.
It’s very hard to get a reliable idea of where the magic balance point of ethical optimality is here because there are so many variables at play. So predictably it turns into a game of “pick your favorite moral intuition and hammer it which as much rhetorical force as you can, and under no circumstances examine your own assumptions as closely as you scrutinize the other guy’s”. Which is pretty much where I lose interest. My policy instincts are to lower transaction costs and let the market sort it out, but unfortunately there’s a lot of non-market factors that keep it from being this simple.
BTW, if you’re looking for a small cudgel with which to beat back Vdare types, check this out.
Will,
At first it sounds like you’re talking about disagreements over the degree of phenotypic canalization, which is something nice and empirical that I can get along with. But I suspect you may have an inadequate appreciation for how even small but consistent genetic biases at the individual level can make a big difference at the level of groups, for things like social organization and economic performance.
Say you’ve got two populations, A and B. Say that A has a slight genetic bias that results in its average IQ being 5 points higher than B’s (or makes them just slightly more hardworking, or more conscientious, or whatever other trait you take to be a big contributor to prosperity). If you picked two individuals at random from the respective populations and compared their productivity you wouldn’t expect them to perform all that differently. But at the population level A could end up vastly outperforming B because these small biases accumulate over many trials to result in a significant effect on total productivity.
So let’s say that, holding these (small but not insignificant) genetic biases constant, you start transplanting people from population B to A. This will tend to cause the rate of increase in prosperity for A to decrease. On average this will be a large win for the transplants, a small loss for the older As, and presumably neutral for the remaining Bs. Maybe this is a change worth making and maybe it isn’t, but it seems clear that there’s a tradeoff in this kind of situation between inclusiveness and rate of economic growth.
The same sort of reasoning applies to social organization too (I’m thinking of your old essay about ethical infrastructure). All you need to presume are relatively small biases in relevant traits that persist across environments and this becomes an issue. I think this is what Moldbug was clumsily getting at when he talked about the US becoming more like Mexico. Maybe it’ll turn out that the tradeoff is morally worth it up to some inflection point, but it’s still a tradeoff.
It’s very hard to get a reliable idea of where the magic balance point of ethical optimality is here because there are so many variables at play. So predictably it turns into a game of “pick your favorite moral intuition and hammer it which as much rhetorical force as you can, and under no circumstances examine your own assumptions as closely as you scrutinize the other guy’s”. Which is pretty much where I lose interest. My policy instincts are to lower transaction costs and let the market sort it out, but unfortunately there’s a lot of non-market factors that keep it from being this simple.
BTW, if you’re looking for a small cudgel with which to beat back Vdare types, check this out.
I should also add that my meta-policy instincts are to eliminate as many of these non-market factors as possible from the equation, hence why I’m happy to raise the citizenship bar if it makes it politically easier to increase labor mobility.
I should also add that my meta-policy instincts are to eliminate as many of these non-market factors as possible from the equation, hence why I’m happy to raise the citizenship bar if it makes it politically easier to increase labor mobility.
What about immoral free-riding by the disloyal citizen; can he pretend global citizenship while accruing the undeserved benefits of participation and residence in a polity which depends the citzens being loyal to one another over against the foreigner? Why would smear terms such as chauvinism have to be used to refer to patriots, unless there is no rational argument for the stateless person as being somehow better? Prove that you’re not a chauvinist, no, let the anarcholibertarian prove that a stateless world is valuable in some way. Disloyalism is not known to be rational, feed it to the sharks.
What about immoral free-riding by the disloyal citizen; can he pretend global citizenship while accruing the undeserved benefits of participation and residence in a polity which depends the citzens being loyal to one another over against the foreigner? Why would smear terms such as chauvinism have to be used to refer to patriots, unless there is no rational argument for the stateless person as being somehow better? Prove that you’re not a chauvinist, no, let the anarcholibertarian prove that a stateless world is valuable in some way. Disloyalism is not known to be rational, feed it to the sharks.
We may impose almost any cost on outsiders to preserve our culture and our people, because our culture and people are best, and those people are not us.
My goodness. To exclude foreigners from our country is no more “imposing a cost on outsiders” than is to exclude strangers from our homes. Our culture and people may or may not be best, but this is entirely beside the point. This is our country.
Will, look, I realize: people who think like me probably cannot persuade people who think like you. My Italian-American Catholic pastor, whom I love, believes that there is basically no such thing as an American, because we are all immigrants. I don’t argue with him because it is not my place in that context to do so, but he would agree with you. My side on the other hand believes that America is an actual nation that holds a proposition, not a proposition with a mythical nation built around it. My side actually believes in Blood and Soil, believes that the pioneers that tamed our land and the heroes that spilled their own blood in our wars did it for their own posterity’s sake. We are that posterity. Loyal immigrants regard themselves as adopted children to that posterity. This matters.
Immigrants of course are part of America, but it is strange and disturbing that many of them should come to regard themselves as the chief or most representative part.
I am really at a loss as to where to take the argument from here. All my premises seem to differ from yours. I am not sure that you and I can even agree to disagree, because I am not sure that you and I are even capable of discussion the same point. I wish however that you would come around to a view of the nation that truly honors the sacrifices and achievements of those that tamed the North American wilderness and carved a great nation out of it.
Howard
We may impose almost any cost on outsiders to preserve our culture and our people, because our culture and people are best, and those people are not us.
My goodness. To exclude foreigners from our country is no more “imposing a cost on outsiders” than is to exclude strangers from our homes. Our culture and people may or may not be best, but this is entirely beside the point. This is our country.
Will, look, I realize: people who think like me probably cannot persuade people who think like you. My Italian-American Catholic pastor, whom I love, believes that there is basically no such thing as an American, because we are all immigrants. I don’t argue with him because it is not my place in that context to do so, but he would agree with you. My side on the other hand believes that America is an actual nation that holds a proposition, not a proposition with a mythical nation built around it. My side actually believes in Blood and Soil, believes that the pioneers that tamed our land and the heroes that spilled their own blood in our wars did it for their own posterity’s sake. We are that posterity. Loyal immigrants regard themselves as adopted children to that posterity. This matters.
Immigrants of course are part of America, but it is strange and disturbing that many of them should come to regard themselves as the chief or most representative part.
I am really at a loss as to where to take the argument from here. All my premises seem to differ from yours. I am not sure that you and I can even agree to disagree, because I am not sure that you and I are even capable of discussion the same point. I wish however that you would come around to a view of the nation that truly honors the sacrifices and achievements of those that tamed the North American wilderness and carved a great nation out of it.
Howard
JSBolton, the premier anarcho-libertarian was Murray Rothbard. Just Raimondo discusses him and internationalism/immigration here. I do not believe that Will Wilkinson is an anarchist.
JSBolton, the premier anarcho-libertarian was Murray Rothbard. Just Raimondo discusses him and internationalism/immigration here. I do not believe that Will Wilkinson is an anarchist.
Maybe he’s a liberto-deontologist, or a pro-aggressionist, one has to infer by what is opposed.
In any case, it is not known to be true that we have any duty or responsibility to maximize the global utility, as if it were known. What is known is that there are huge numbers of hostiles out there, so we can’t ignore aggression, sovereignty, organized aggression by foreigners towards those of our nation to whom loyalty is owed. An unreasonable, undemonstrable universal brotherhood and equality of concern for everyone’s utility disregards the loyalty owed to those of our sovereignty, when foreigners arrive in a way which increases aggression here. Some nations are more valuable than others, to humanity , to civilization and its progress. The nihilist may rage that he cannot bring in enough foreign hostiles to bring down the even 100-fold differences in production which today exist between nations, but our real responsibility is even enhance these differences, since the progress of civilization is not known to be capable of proceeding any other way. The nihilists know this, which is why they have to use smears to promote universal poverty.
Maybe he’s a liberto-deontologist, or a pro-aggressionist, one has to infer by what is opposed.
In any case, it is not known to be true that we have any duty or responsibility to maximize the global utility, as if it were known. What is known is that there are huge numbers of hostiles out there, so we can’t ignore aggression, sovereignty, organized aggression by foreigners towards those of our nation to whom loyalty is owed. An unreasonable, undemonstrable universal brotherhood and equality of concern for everyone’s utility disregards the loyalty owed to those of our sovereignty, when foreigners arrive in a way which increases aggression here. Some nations are more valuable than others, to humanity , to civilization and its progress. The nihilist may rage that he cannot bring in enough foreign hostiles to bring down the even 100-fold differences in production which today exist between nations, but our real responsibility is even enhance these differences, since the progress of civilization is not known to be capable of proceeding any other way. The nihilists know this, which is why they have to use smears to promote universal poverty.
Wilkinson describes himself as a “Rawlsekian”, which is not quite deontologist or utilitarian. Rothbard believed in natural rights, a deontological approach. Neither Wilkinson nor Rothbard are aggressionists.
I think you exaggerate the hostility abroad, or at least its significance. It’s overblown.
our real responsibility is even enhance these differences
Why do I want other countries to become less productive? I view the world in more positive sum terms. The more productive nations also tend to be easier to get along with.
Wilkinson describes himself as a “Rawlsekian”, which is not quite deontologist or utilitarian. Rothbard believed in natural rights, a deontological approach. Neither Wilkinson nor Rothbard are aggressionists.
I think you exaggerate the hostility abroad, or at least its significance. It’s overblown.
our real responsibility is even enhance these differences
Why do I want other countries to become less productive? I view the world in more positive sum terms. The more productive nations also tend to be easier to get along with.
the loyalty owed to those of our sovereignty
Where does the loyalty debt come from?
the loyalty owed to those of our sovereignty
Where does the loyalty debt come from?
Let’s say I’m a Humean contractualist, if that helps anyone. I think the aim is individual flourishing, very broadly and pluralistically construed. I don’t think we’re obligated to maximize anything. I think the bindingness of moral rules is a matter of convention, but some rules acquire a deontological flavor, which is to be encouraged, when they are good rules. Libertarian negative rights are like that.
Let’s say I’m a Humean contractualist, if that helps anyone. I think the aim is individual flourishing, very broadly and pluralistically construed. I don’t think we’re obligated to maximize anything. I think the bindingness of moral rules is a matter of convention, but some rules acquire a deontological flavor, which is to be encouraged, when they are good rules. Libertarian negative rights are like that.
Then there would seem to be no extra-national conventions enforceable, if universality holds no attributes of sovereignty.
Answering Micha, the debt comes from our being already committed to an allegiance with fellow nationals, relative to the foreigner coming in with aggression, intentional or otherwise. This allegiance has attributes of sovereignty, but the Kantian categorical imperative does not, not in this world. It is universalizable, though, since we don’t know that there is anything wrong with each sovereign polity commanding its minimal allegiance as above: that of nationals to each other, and relative to the foreigner, who crosses in a certain way which triggers the minimum.
Then there would seem to be no extra-national conventions enforceable, if universality holds no attributes of sovereignty.
Answering Micha, the debt comes from our being already committed to an allegiance with fellow nationals, relative to the foreigner coming in with aggression, intentional or otherwise. This allegiance has attributes of sovereignty, but the Kantian categorical imperative does not, not in this world. It is universalizable, though, since we don’t know that there is anything wrong with each sovereign polity commanding its minimal allegiance as above: that of nationals to each other, and relative to the foreigner, who crosses in a certain way which triggers the minimum.
I have not, and will not, commit to any kind of allegiance to “fellow nationals” relative to others. And I see far more aggression coming from nativist bullies than poor undocumented workers just trying to get by. The foreigner presents me with positive-sum opportunities; your kind does not.
Amusingly (ironically?), the ideal autarkic society of the present day conservative xenophobe reminds me an awful lot of the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Hint: It wasn’t all about the butt sex.
I have not, and will not, commit to any kind of allegiance to “fellow nationals” relative to others. And I see far more aggression coming from nativist bullies than poor undocumented workers just trying to get by. The foreigner presents me with positive-sum opportunities; your kind does not.
Amusingly (ironically?), the ideal autarkic society of the present day conservative xenophobe reminds me an awful lot of the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Hint: It wasn’t all about the butt sex.
Micha,
I suspect you’ll enjoy these moving portraits of “poor undocumented workers just trying to get by.”
Of course, I’m sure they’re just defending their community against “nativist bullies.” Motivated, perhaps, by an unhealthy interest in their butts? I’m afraid your “hint” has left me quite bemused.
Micha,
I suspect you’ll enjoy these moving portraits of “poor undocumented workers just trying to get by.”
Of course, I’m sure they’re just defending their community against “nativist bullies.” Motivated, perhaps, by an unhealthy interest in their butts? I’m afraid your “hint” has left me quite bemused.
I have not, and will not, commit to any kind of allegiance to “fellow nationals” relative to others.
Needless to say, Micha, I’m happy to live in a country in which you’re free to say a thing like that.
However, I’m not sure it’s an adequate statement of your position. I’d be happy to leave you alone if you could work your way up to just being neutral toward your fellow nationals. To at least this observer, however, you seem to actively despise them. And that bothers me. Shouldn’t it?
I have not, and will not, commit to any kind of allegiance to “fellow nationals” relative to others.
Needless to say, Micha, I’m happy to live in a country in which you’re free to say a thing like that.
However, I’m not sure it’s an adequate statement of your position. I’d be happy to leave you alone if you could work your way up to just being neutral toward your fellow nationals. To at least this observer, however, you seem to actively despise them. And that bothers me. Shouldn’t it?
Have we disrespected the Angels of God, who appeared as earthlings Ghertner and Wilkinson? Or is there supposed to be an Idolatry of the nation, which occurs when one speaks of its moral community of allegiance for counter-aggression, as the ONLY one which may in this world, command? Basing universalism on non-universal religion would be an act of faith at least, and perhaps an attempted theocratic bullying. Why did not God love and preserve for us the polyglot empires? Why does God send barbarians to the open societies before he destroys them, and why does he smite the stateless person without mercy? Citizens of the world are not known to be other than, or morally superior to nihilists, or not?
Have we disrespected the Angels of God, who appeared as earthlings Ghertner and Wilkinson? Or is there supposed to be an Idolatry of the nation, which occurs when one speaks of its moral community of allegiance for counter-aggression, as the ONLY one which may in this world, command? Basing universalism on non-universal religion would be an act of faith at least, and perhaps an attempted theocratic bullying. Why did not God love and preserve for us the polyglot empires? Why does God send barbarians to the open societies before he destroys them, and why does he smite the stateless person without mercy? Citizens of the world are not known to be other than, or morally superior to nihilists, or not?
“Micha Ghertner
February 17th, 2008 07:03 34I have not, and will not, commit to any kind of allegiance to “fellow nationals” relative to others. ”
This is such a naked statement of disloyalism; the effrontery of it is breathtaking. If Ghertner lives in Israel, he needs to be visited by state security forthwith. If he is a resident alien in America, he is in an obviously undesirable category of highly deportable aliens. There is no place in the world for such a mentality, except perhaps parts of the Eastern Congo or the remainder of Somalia. That is, places so worthless, impoverished and ridden with freedom-for-aggression, that no one can be bothered to set up a functional government there and maintain it. The undesirable alien Ghertner should be told that there is still in force what is called the Smith Act in America.
Note also how the mass-murder excusing left slides into such neat alignment with these libertarians of the disloyalist (see the Ghertner quote above) kind. they are disloyalists first and foremost, then differentiate.
Ghertner has the further rank effrontery to describe patriots as not generating positive value for their society, while illegal aliens and disloyalistic resident aliens somehow do, and have a right to be here, ahead of the actual loyal citizens!
Only nihilism could hatch so many inversions of the moral realm.
“Micha Ghertner
February 17th, 2008 07:03 34I have not, and will not, commit to any kind of allegiance to “fellow nationals” relative to others. ”
This is such a naked statement of disloyalism; the effrontery of it is breathtaking. If Ghertner lives in Israel, he needs to be visited by state security forthwith. If he is a resident alien in America, he is in an obviously undesirable category of highly deportable aliens. There is no place in the world for such a mentality, except perhaps parts of the Eastern Congo or the remainder of Somalia. That is, places so worthless, impoverished and ridden with freedom-for-aggression, that no one can be bothered to set up a functional government there and maintain it. The undesirable alien Ghertner should be told that there is still in force what is called the Smith Act in America.
Note also how the mass-murder excusing left slides into such neat alignment with these libertarians of the disloyalist (see the Ghertner quote above) kind. they are disloyalists first and foremost, then differentiate.
Ghertner has the further rank effrontery to describe patriots as not generating positive value for their society, while illegal aliens and disloyalistic resident aliens somehow do, and have a right to be here, ahead of the actual loyal citizens!
Only nihilism could hatch so many inversions of the moral realm.