When Models Collide

Yesterday I linked to a blog post that referred to a model I’d proposed to map the political spectrum.  In it, the author linked to a different model of the political/social/cultural spectrum, and built an analysis upon that framework that conflicted with my interpretation, with this line being the crux:

To understand the fight between Wilkinson and Brooks, you need to understand that Wilkinson’s tribe is not “Moderate Conservative,” it is “Brahmin.”

Now I like my model.  I have an emotional attachment to it, given that I designed it, but I also think it’s a very good approximation of the state of political discourse.  So one response I could take is to attack the Moldbug model that conflicts with mine.  Indeed, I think Moldbug’s write-up is pretty vague, and I’m unclear about some classifications.  But overall, I like the model.  It’s interesting and different.  And while it may conflict with my model at times, they’re largely compatible.  Going forward, I’d much rather use both models to assess political dynamics; at times my model will probably work better, and at times Moldbug’s will.

The analogy here is to maps.  If maps could be perfectly accurate, you’d only need one.  But when they’re not perfect, it’s better to have two than one.  When they agree, you’re more likely to find truth.  When they disagree, you realize you have to put additional work into understanding the situation.

I’d say the same about liberalism, conservativism, libertarianism, realism, interventionism, and so on.  I don’t think any of these is entirely wrong or right.  They’re models, maps, that help explain the world.  In some cases I’ll prefer one model to another.  Generally speaking, I’m most confident about claims where all the maps agree.

Blog Post of the Day

Why I am Not, an occasional commenter here, writes about my favorite subject: me!

Ben thinks it makes more sense to analyse it by his own model of the political spectrum. I agree that politics is a mixture of ideology and tribalism, but my take on things is rather different.

His post is good, it links to this interesting classification of American “castes”, and I respond in the comments section.

Somewhat Edgier Territory

And by somewhat edgier territory, I’m referring to the excerpt of, and link to, this post by David Clemens, which is about critical thinking in regards to holocaust denial.  Here’s Clemens’s conclusion:

The application of critical thinking’s processes and methodological objectivity simply won’t permit [granting any legitimacy to Holocaust denial].

But looking at David Henderson’s post, that isn’t obvious.  Here’s the beginning of Henderson’s excerpt:

Since students actually know so little, I must explain the differences between Holocaust deniers, Holocaust minimizers, and Hitler rehabilitationists. I must explain propaganda and euphemism and anti-Zionism. I must acquaint them with fascism, eugenics, Romantic struggle and surrender, Einsatzgruppen and Sonderkommandos, the Wannsee Conference, and so on. I must do so informationally and dispassionately, employing locutions such as “the Holocaust believer would say” and “the Holocaust denier would reply,” and “my understanding is.” Such reticence is necessary because it is essential that the students decide the capstone question for themselves.Students are dubious or indifferent about most things. Because of our digitized world, they are predisposed to think that documents are faked (think of Dan Rather’s manufactured Texas Air National Guard memos), pictures are Photoshopped, memories are unreliable, testimony is coerced, and so on. (Bolding mine, CM)

These passages leave Clemens’s beliefs ambiguous, and to some, talking about holocaust deniers without explicitly condemning them is itself condemnable.  Which is to say, they completely miss the point of Clemens’s piece, which is to disentangle emotion from reasoned analysis, and to focus discourse, insofar as possible, on the latter.

Interesting Sentences in an Interesting Post

“The way I try to get critical thinking in my class is not just to analyze the thoughts of those economists who disagree with me but also to analyze the thoughts and arguments of those economists and students who agree with me on the bottom line but who use lousy arguments to get there. Sloppy Wall Street Journal editorials (and, no, the word “sloppy” is not redundant because many WSJ editorials are very good) are one of my favorites.”

David Henderson here; his post ventures into somewhat edgier territory.

Obscenely Rich and Obscenely Richer

As the National Football League enters lockout due to team owners’ and players’ failure to agree upon a collective bargaining agreement, millionaires and billionaires  plead their case that they each deserve a larger share of the revenue generated by the league.  Considering that 40% of American households earn less than $40k per year–less than 1/8 of the NFL’s minimum salary, and less than 1/30 of the NFL’s average salary–and that NFL owners are far wealthier than NFL players, it’s really easy to write off both sides as selfish jerks whining about how rough they have it.

Meanwhile, across the U.S., unions are battling state governments over the value of their labor.  Considering that 40% of the world population earns less that $2 per day (my rough calculation, based on here and here)–less than 1/60 of the median union wage, it’s really easy to write off both sides as selfish jerks whining about how rough they have it.

Contrarians Moderates of the World, Disunite!

Today I link to Will Wilkinson’s lengthy, unapologetic take-down of David Brooks’s novel, The Social Animal.

This blog was founded on the idea that the conventional left-right spectrum does a disservice to political discourse.  I built a new model of discourse, which recognizes both political pundits’ convention left-right leanings, and their tendency to criticize members of their own side.  I furthermore argued that thinkers ought to evaluate each other both on the basis of ideological leanings, and on the quality and innovation of ideas being presented.

The reason I link to this review, is that it doesn’t make any sense to analyze it through the lens of the conventional spectrum.  Wilkinson is a libertarian-leaning moderate conservative.  Brooks is a more populist moderate conservative.  Ideology, that’s not too far distant.  But Wilkinson is fiercely attacking , because he objects to the quality of the arguments presented.  He’s calling out Brooks as a hack, an unthinking moderate conservative, or at least that he hasn’t thought through the ideas as well as Wilkinson has.

Of course, I take Wilkinson’s writing a 2,400 word review, however scornful, as indicating some degree of implicit praise of Brooks’s work.  Wilkinson is using Brooks’s high-profile writings as a focal point around which he advances his and other writers’ views on a number of important topics.  Wilkinson’s throwing down the gauntlet, challenging Brooks to respond to his arguments.  And while Wilkinson might be harsh, Brooks is a NYT columnist, able to withstand the flames of young libertarian whippersnappers.  Whether Brooks responds to Wilkinson or not, this is an example of high-quality discourse.

Beware Penumbra

Bryan Caplan writes about a libertarian penumbra, which includes ideas that aren’t explicitly libertarian, but are nonetheless disproportionately embraced by libertarians:

Libertarians have many beliefs in common that have little to do with the consequences of liberty.  They’re just part of our vibrant, iconoclastic intellectual subculture.

Penumbra (a word I didn’t know the meaning of) when used in this sense, is even more present in more mainstream political movements, which are defined less by coherent though frameworks, and more by coalitions of groups with compatible but independent objectives.  It’s hard–not impossible–to tie opposition to abortion, tax cuts, and gun rights together a common theory.  But people who believe strongly in one of these are more likely to support the other two.  The mechanism for this, I think, is that strongly holding one of these views leads you to vote Republican.  This in turn exposes you disproportionately to other members of the Republican coalition, who will present you with a disproportionate number of arguments supporting their stance.  The same mechanism applies to liberals, libertarians, and any group of like-minded thinkers.  In most cases, people who hold certain views are more likely to listen to people who share their views, even when the ideas being presented are entirely unrelated to the shared views.

Caplan asks:

Which [libertarian penumbra ideas] are most subject to abuse?  Are there any that make you cringe?

My answer: all of them.

The Influence of Conservative Media (continued)

Commenter I am not writes:

It’s an empirical question as to how much leeway a proprietor has to influence debate without losing eyeballs. What I think the leftist analysis misses is that proprietors aren’t the only ones exploiting this leeway – editors and journalists are too.

This is an empirical question, and it’s one I’d like to see studied in greater depth.  (If you’re aware of existing research, please post links.)  I would think that political polling firms, largely dormant when elections are further away, would be interested in studying the interaction between policy preferences and media.  And if not polling firms, then perhaps academic social scientists.

On the broader point of media influence, I agree that media figures–owners, editors, writers, bloggers(!?)–have the power to influence people.  I think that the liberal narrative I hinted at earlier can be paraphrased as: conservative media power is both more concentrated and, as a whole stronger, than liberal media power.  Or in contrarian moderate terms, American conservatives, on average, tend to be lower down on the vertical axis of my two-dimension political axis.  That is, the average American conservative is more to accept the arguments that a small number of conservative media figures proclaim than is the average American liberal.

I’m sympathetic to this broad claim, with the relative abundance of low-quality, high-popularity conservative media serving as evidence, but the extreme version of this position–that all tea partiers are mindless drones that can be converted to any position at any time at the whim of four people–is wildly absurd.

The Influence of Conservative Media

Matt Yglesias speculates over what (who) drives tea party members:

Suppose there’s some sellout that John Boehner wants to implement…he sits down in a room with Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Donohue, and David Koch and persuades all three (sic) of those people that this is the right way to proceed…coordinated action among a very small number of people can cut the oxygen off from the tea party fire any time they want to.

This follows a common narrative amongst the left, which says that the tea party movement, or conservatives generally, are largely controlled by their media consumption.  If Rush and Fox News say X, then conservatives/tea partiers will believe X.  This theory is viable, but as someone who’s done my own speculating about tea partiers, I’m pretty skeptical.  I tend to view tea partiers as some combination of thinking and unthinking conservatives, whose views tend to align with a range of conservative figures.  Yes, to some extent, media figures influence the grassroots.  But simultaneously, media consumers have considerable influence on media.

Suppose, for instance, that Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh spontaneously decide that Americans ought to move to Nebraska.  They shift their programming and constantly present arguments for why Americans should move to Nebraska.  Does it follow that Americans move to Nebraska?  Some might.  But more likely, conservatives would simply find different media outlets that better reflect their views and attitudes.

The tea party phenomenon is, I think, a fairly complex movement that has a basis in legitimate concerns about the governance of the country.  To dismiss the movement as being completely subject to the whims of a small number of power brokers is, I think, a pretty serious mistake.

Commenters Who Should Be Bloggers Award

Patrick, responding to Conor Friedersdorf’s post at the American Scene, has a long and highly substantive comment.