Monday's modest attempt at a comeback post by your humble and obedient ink-stained wretch turned into one of those wonderful instances where the discussion thread became much smarter and more substantive than the original post. My thanks to the commenters, and, for those who don't usually click through to the comments, I encourage you to see how insightful they can be.
My own contribution to kick off the discussion was merely to note that a language-studying group had decided that the word "narrative" was the buzzword of the year in politics and especially in the chattering of the chattering class about politics. Even this useful and fun "fact" is also a little silly, as if a single semi-official buzzword of the moment can be ascertained. Buzzwords, including "buzzword," come and go, ebb and flow in their power and popularity. But the concept represented by the fashionable use of "narrative" is large and important and can help us see around our own blind spots.
As a younger man, my former editors at the Strib (and, to tell you the truth, some of them are still my editors, now at MinnPost) were kind enough to give me several months to write about the history of the Cold War (still on at the time). Instead of "narrative" I relied on the slightly fancier word "paradigm" to understand how a particular, half-blind view of the Cold War worked and shaped American thinking on the biggest, most world-threatening issues of that period — yes, even bigger than the massive government takeover of health care.
Paradigm is a word borrowed from Thomas Kuhn, a historian of science, who used it to describe a kind of group-think among scientists. You could almost call it a "narrative," but it's more like a set of assumptions about how the world works; the assumptions are so widely shared within the scientific community that they seem like established facts, like the pre-Galilean "fact" that the sun and the other planets revolved around the sun.
In the U.S. Cold War paradigm, it was a "fact" that the Soviets were bent on world domination, whereas the United States wanted only to allow every country in the world to democratically choose its own system. There were dozens of other "facts," almost universally believed in our society, that mostly translated into a pure-good-versus-pure-evil simplification. One of the main points of my Strib series and subsequent book, "Rethinking the Cold War," was that we were more blinded than informed by such half-truths.
It's not much of a leap from the scientific or Cold War paradigms to the way many Americans see contemporary politics, believing that whichever side they are on is honest, clean, perspicacious and offers the policies that will be best for their state, the nation and for future generations. Of course they believe that, at least on a relative basis, or else they would be on the other side. Their loyalty to their side is supported by a narrative that they have embraced about the struggle between a better party/ideology and a worse one, and by several semi-concrete ideas about, for example, whether government tends to do more good or more harm when it regulates corporations or raises or lower taxes or offers carrots and sticks through the tax code to encourage certain behaviors.
One trouble with this overall pastiche of facts, half-truths, stereotpyes, falsehoods, principles, loyalties, etc., when applied to partisan politics is that one of the ultimate purposes of politics is self-government. The U.S. system (in contrast with others that have a tradition of one-party rule, or formal governing coalitions) relies more heavily on cooperation and compromise across party lines. I guess we can get by without it, as recent months have shown, but it isn't optimal and it brings out the worst in many citizens and many politicians.
"Kumbaya" is a lovely old folksong, but it's not possible, nor probably desirable, to compromise on everything. I do believe it is worthwhile to really try, to struggle against many centrifugal forces, to assume that those who disagree with oneself are nonetheless honest and well-intentioned in seeking the greatest good for the greatest number. One of the best ways to overcome the apparently natural tendency to tribal thinking (and to the most ungenerous assumptions about the other tribe) is to maintain contact, to engage in civil, substantive discussion across tribal lines. When you do this, it's harder to cling to the assumption that everyone on the other side is, to complete the silly analogy, bent on one-world domination (or hates poor people, or hates freedom, or parrots a party line that he doesn't even believe).
Even as a mere scribber, I've often hoped that my contribution, in addition to facts and arguments, could be to promote cross-tribal dialogue. That's certainly one of my aspirations for Black Ink. So, to close somewhere near where I started, it's important to understand how "narratives" and "paradigms" and "group-think" operate. It's pleasant to believe that these are some of the ways that the other tribe convinces itself of all that crazy stuff they spew around the campfire. But it's helpful to occasionally remind yourself that those qualities of human psychology are at work on your own side as well.
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I like to say: "brother can you para digm?"
Actually, getting to the business of perfectly useful concepts being rendered incoherent as buzzwords... now you've really gone and done it Mr. Black!
Not to knit-pick, but Mr. Black description of his own adoption of paradigms, is cool example of buzzwordom. I've always wondered how poor Kuhn ended up getting credit for upside down pyramids and now know it was all Mr. Black's fault!
It wasn't a good idea to apply the concept of paradigms (not pronounced "pair-a-diggims by the way)to the cold war because it ruined a really nice concept. Kuhn wasn't simply describing scientific model, he was describing a scientific process whereby dominant flawed theories are replace by better theories. Paradigms aren't simply a set of assumptions, they are an integral part of the the process of changing assumptions over time.
The reason it's inappropriate to apply this concept to cold wars, corporate structures, quality assurance programs, and the like is because cold wars are devoid of anything even remotely comparable to the scientific process. Kuhn introduced the paradigm in a book titled: "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". Science is a process of investigating phenomena and explaining observations, it's ongoing and evidence based. The emphasis on observations and evidence makes revolution possible because new evidence can dislodge existing explanations. When you pull paradigms out of that context and plug them into quality assurance programs you obliterate the descriptive power of paradigms damn your eyes!
There is no ongoing process of observation and correction present in the cold war for example. The cold war was political military phenomena that did not evolve or change due to new evidence, it just was. The cold war didn't end or change because new discoveries undermined it's explanatory power, it ended because political and military conditions changed.
The problem with using paradigms to describe cold wars is that it's reductive, it over simplifies complex phenomena. Kuhn's paradigm in science is not at all reductivist. Paradigms in the cold war can actually obscure the complex political, social, military, and economic factors that created and maintained it. Instead of looking at the economic factors that Eisenhower referred to, or the propaganda that shaped American opinion, or the competing economic imperialisms that led to military interventions, you end up with a model that looks like the cold war just "emerged" from some dominant mindset. You end up distorting history rather than explaining it. See, the primary lesson of Kuhn's paradigm is that at the end of the day, evidence matters. The primary lesson of even a cursory glance at something like the cold war is that evidence is irrelevant. There was no missile gap, there was no Gulf of Tonkin attack, there was no soviet base in Central America.
Oddly enough, I think one reason people have been tempted to re-task the notion of paradigms is the progressive mindset that David Noble talks about in his narratives. I introduced Noble yesterday in the related discussion. The progressive mind sees history as a march towards progress. This is often analogous to the scientific process and as such is very seductive narrative. It tempts one to view history as progress, which means no matter how bad things are now, you know they're going to get better. That's reassuring. Maybe Mr. Black was seeking some shelter from the horror of nuclear annihilation when he stole the paradigm from Mr. Kuhn. The progressive narrative tells us we'll survive this, reason will prevail, and we did, so far.
In my thinking (vs "opinion") considerable blame for current focus on the "narrative" can be laid at the foot of Cartesian philosophical orientation, which holds that we do NOT have contact with reality through our five senses, and that "truth" is a matter of subjective perception rather than objective comparison of our judgements to the externally observed reality.
With this preconception, for something to be "true" it is only necessary to convince many others that it is so, and the "narrative" becomes the tool with which to do it.
As an old school Aristotelian epistemologist, I am uncomfortable with this posture, and soundly reject any argument based on "everybody says so."
I need "the facts, ma'am, just the facts," and am turned off by any argument such as "the bill has passed" in defense of a "pig in a poke."
On health care, spin on either side is a waste of time directed at me, as I patiently wait to be allowed to see the objective facts as to what has been enacted, what has NOT been enacted, and what has been glossed over in the debate.
At the moment, I am not optimistic that any real improvements have been made in the health care landscape, and pessimistic that the costs -- as is usually the case with a new government program -- will be double or triple what has been projected. But I will not really know until the spinmeisters are forced to acknowledge the factual reality that emerges.
We shall see.
In the academic discipline of Communication Studies, the seminal article on this idea was written by Walter Fisher. You can find a pretty reasonable summary on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_paradigm
Thank you so much for bringing narrative into you discussions of politics, Mr. Black. It's an incredibly useful way of thinking about public argument (please, please see Walter Fisher's work about this).
As someone who studies narrative, I am somewhat disturbed by how it has been cast in these articles and some of the comments. Just because we are making arguments in a narrative form does not automatically make them false. Fisher actually claims that all argument is narrative; when we disagree with a narrative, we tend to dismiss it as "just a story," even as we use our own narrative as the foundation of our criticism. In short, thinking of political debates as narratives does not necessarily render those debates false. It actually can help us understand the foundations of our own political beliefs and to reach a genuine understanding of how others view the world.
"In the U.S. Cold War paradigm, it was a "fact" that the Soviets were bent on world domination, whereas the United States wanted only to allow every country in the world to democratically choose its own system. There were dozens of other "facts," almost universally believed in our society,"
As I recall, actual polling done in the mid-80's showed only about 60% of the American people in agreement that "the Soviet Union is bent on world conquest and domination".
Far from "universally believed", it was just the uniting narrative for keeping the media's explanations of world events simple and entertaining. So if you read the newspaper you would probably think it was universal.
Eric, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the work of fellow journalist Bill Bishop, but your call to overcome tribal thinking echoes what he calls "The Big Sort."
His theory (backed with a great deal of demographic data) is that our country has divided itself geographically, economically and politically into like-minded communities over the last three decades. In a nutshell, like-minded people are clustering into the same neighborhoods and regions, losing touch with differing viewpoints in the process.
Living in such like-minded groups has had its consequences. As psychological studies have shown, people living in homogenous communities grow both more extreme and more certain in their beliefs. This phenomenon, Bishop contends, breeds economic inequality, cultural misunderstanding, political extremism and legislative gridlock.
I think we only have ourselves to blame for the hyper-partisan environment in national politics today, and unless more people realize how culturally segregated we've truly become, it’ll only get worse.
Just getting back from some time off, tuned into this discussion and am eager to participate. I've been studying the concept of narrative for some time and welcome a dialogue. I'll review comments and then likely have some of my own. Thanks, Eric, for kicking it off and the rest of you for chiming in. I've collected articles from diverse sources and posted some on my website, some with excerpts along with a few relevant quotations. http://www.wisethoughts.com/article_detail.cfm?articleID=584
If the narritive that the Soviet Union is, or was, bent on world conquest and domination was merely so much buncomb, Kruschev's shoe didn't do much to defrock it.
Conversely, if the US was cloaking it's own plan for global colonization with a candy coated narritive, Germany, Japan, Korea, Panama et. al., put peanut butter in our chocolate...or was it chocolate in our peanut butter?
John (#2),
I concur that facts are superior truth-makers to groupthink. I quibble only with your characterization of Descartes' epistemology and its allegedly somehow justifying subjectivism qua narrativism.
As a substance dualist, Descartes no more denied our sensory contact with material reality than did such traditional thoroughgoing empiricists as Aristotle, Locke, Hume, and even the logical positivists or contemporary hard-charging physicalists (e.g., Churchland).
In his Medications, Descartes engaged in a program of severe methodological doubt precisely to establish a firm foundation for knowledge of the external world. Doubt all that can be doubted, Descartes said, and you are left with one incontrovertible truth--the existence of a doubting agent; you cannot doubt that you are a doubter, for if so, whence the doubting? Thus his famous cogito: "I think, therefore, I am." With this knowledge secure, he gamely reconstructed the edifice of knowledge, including objective knowledge of the empirical order.
Those who deny objective truth and our ability to know it cannot use Descartes to support their position. In fact, I argue they cannot use even an idealist (substance monist) like Berkeley, who held that only the mental is real, not physical matter. Berkeley no matter doubted the existence of a real world "out there" than Descartes doubted the cogito.
Good articles and great comments.
Ross, I don't know how old you are, but having lived through the height of the Cold War (and "Duck and Cover," "Don't Have Snowball Fights. The Snow is Radioactive," "Don't Drink the Radioactive Milk," and countless Twilight Zone episodes with not-so-veiled fictional constructs of life under Communism, I would be surprised if the "Does Russia want to rule the world?" question wouldn't have scored appreciably higher in the late-1950s/early-1960s. It has to be pointed out that events like the Vietnam War and the Nixon/Kissinger efforts at detente likely softened American views toward the Soviets. I still don't know if that qualifies as a paradigm, but there is likely an intersection where a narrative takes on at least some elements of a paradigm.
Paul, the distinction you make between Kuhn's scientific application of the term "paradigm" and the appropriation of that word by social scientists is both relevant and astute. I'm not a social scientist (nor do I play one on television), but the over-century-long effort to create a scientific base for the study of human interaction--whether that be economics, sociology, political science, or other discipline--has led to the likely misapplication of a number of scientific terms and it's both maddening and leads to a system where jargon is often used to govern perceptions of reality.
My only addition here--and it's likely a lame one--is that while narrative and paradigm are different, as I stated in my response to Ross' point, there is likely an intersection
of the two. Aristotle was referenced and while I have never been a formal student of philosophy (and have not played one on television), it would seem that Plato's "noble lie" is applicable here, especially as it relates to the Cold War. What may be a narrative to the leadership can be translated to the populace as a whole as a paradigm. Sputnik, Missile Gap, the kitchen debate with Khrushchev were all used to create a simplistic view for the public of what national leadership knew was a complex issue.
Anyway, great stories and discussion.
Actually John's description of Cartesianism misses the mark somewhat. Descartes didn't postulate the subjective/objective duality that John infers. On the contrary in his principles of mathematics he described the process by which reliable objective measurements can be made. Cartisian dualism does not deny objective reality, it merely postulates a mind body separation, the Cogito- " I think therefore I am" is a demonstration of how the mind accesses objective facts, it doesn't deny them or force them to submit to subjective interpretation. Cartesian Dualism has been a problem, but to the extent that it's presented as a advocating separate realities, that's a misread of Dualism.
My experience is that the problem guys like John have is getting their heads around the idea that all facts require context in order to be useful or meaningful. This is frequently misinterpreted as a denial of objective reality. The point is that facts don't exist in a vacuum from an epistemological perspective. For instance, the number "6" is a fact. So what? While it may exist independently of the mind, the mind can't use it without context. So "6" is meaningless, but "there are six people on the Hennepin Country Board" tells us something. Aristotlian's have always had their issues ;)
Ross's use of the term "paradigm" is a good example of how when misapplied it obscures rather than explains history. Facts are not merely believed-in things although one may or not accept any given fact. Many of the facts Ross refers to were never actually facts, they were just believed in. In science, the facts don't necessarily change, apples fall from trees whether your Newton or Einstein, it's the explanation that changes. That change is driven by new discoveries, but it's not a process of facts becoming not facts. Confusion about all this is one reason so many people have such a hard time getting their heads around things like evolution. And near as I can tell, Eric Black is responsible for the whole thing! What Ross is describing is a mindset, not a paradigm.
Speaking of science, that's the problem with Walter Fisher. His narrative paradigm isn't a bad way of looking at things but taking to it's logical conclusion it become incoherent. Obviously narratives do not render people impervious to facts, if they did, humans would be incapable of science. Narratives don't govern human perception or decision making, they play a greater or lesser role under different circumstances. Narratives are powerful, but they're penetrable. What's really interesting is to look at when and why narratives are more powerful than evidence. Oddly enough, this was actually examined last night in an episode of "The Good Wife". The episode floated back and forth between the jury deliberations and flashbacks to the lawyers strategy. At one point the lawyers wrestled with whether or not to present new evidence because they were afraid it would ruin their narrative and lose the case.
Thomas Kuhn himself was not very happy with the conversion of his phrase 'paradigm shift' into a buzzword.
Here's an alternative perspective in order to bypass more academic philosophical fragments...
Narrative (one use of the word) is a story some years ago in the late fifties. Place...Fort Campbell Kentucky. As a spouse I could view the military without being infected.
A most infamous charactar I had the pleasure to meet was an 81 year old woman; and my first meeting with a dissenting activist.
Most of the land where the military post now exists was her family's land sold or given to the military at a much earlier date...but I digress.
Men on base could be locked in solitary confinement for varied reasons by the military that being, sans visitors,which was never questioned...until Anna Mabry-Barr decided to change the 'military narrative' and the model, 'paradigm' of the military which had/has always been...do-not-question.
Every week for a year or more, she would quietly visit the provo-marshal's office and simply make a formal request to visit the boys in solitary. She was consistantly refused but her persistence paid off.
Through intervention from some higher authority; and directly followed by the order of President Eisenhower who heard of her story, she was given a pass. So weekly she she visited them; even created a rose garden which they cared for...their stories which she told extensively to me; a narrative I never forgot and added to my respect for the singular dissent.
Tiny woman in black; always wearing silk pink gloves and a broad brimmed hat...victorian in dress but futuristic in her active role to make change and establish a new paradigm.
She was a paradox. She is my narrative paradigm.
Paul, you are misreading Fisher. "Facts" are not the opposite of stories, they are stories themselves. If you don't science is full of narratives, then think about the story of the human genome, the big bang, etc. These theories hang together on the basis of their narrative fidelity and consistency. Narratives are not the opposite of evidence; to the contrary they are both comprised of evidence and are evidence. This is the part of this article and the subsequent discussion that I find vexing. It's the anti-theatrical prejudice embedded in it - that there are facts, a reality, that stand outside story, impervious to it. I really disagree most with your assertion that "Narratives don't govern human perception or decision making, they play a greater or lesser role under different circumstances." We characterize events and their relevance to our decision-making by testing them for consistency and fidelity. Our perceptions are not based on a collection of disparate "facts" but an internally consistent narrative comprised of the facts woven together in a fashion than makes meaning of them. Fisher's theory is not that "telling stories" in the vernacular sense is better than facts, it is that humans inherently organize these facts into narrative and test their coherence through narrative.
Put another way, your example from "The Good Wife" is evidence for Fisher's understanding of the world. The lawyers recognized that the story of the case they wanted the jury to believe would be shattered by a piece of evidence. This is not an indictment of the power of narrative versus a "fact," but an illustration of what happens when you introduce a fact that destroys the fidelity of the story. Consider, too, what a jury does. They can choose to "buy" the story of the prosecution or the story of the defense in its totality. More frequently, they understand the stories told by both sides by testing them against their own stories. "Would I act that way in that circumstance?" "Is this story consistent with all of the facts as I know them?" "Something doesn't seem right."
Aaron,
I think is more a matter of language preference and emphasis than of substantive disagreement, but to claim it is mere prejudice to believe there exists a reality independent of and outside the "story" is, at the least, a slippery slope towards solipsism.
Though they are often pitted against each other as titanic rivals, I do not think the correspondence theory of truth and the coherence theory of truth are mutually exclusive. Basically, the correspondence theory holds the common-sense view that something is true only if it is the way things really are. In other words, a belief is true only if it links up with (corresponds) to some fact of the universe.
As you intimated, the coherence theory stresses that truth is determined by how well a particular belief coheres, or is consistent, with other beliefs. The "story" analogy works in this case (our various beliefs are parts of the story), but only superficially. A set of beliefs may cohere very well indeed, yet still fail to connect with the ways things really are.
This is why I am disquieted by talk of science (or for that matter reality) as a mere story or social construction. Many a post-modernist has absurdly cited Kuhn in defense of such piffle, though it is somewhat understandable inasmuch as Kuhn himself, for odd reasons, never used unequivocal language when saying that his notion of paradigm shifts was not a refutation of the classic correspondence theory of truth.
Thanks to those who have refined my admittedly truncated allusion to Cartesian thinking.
Still, I believe my statment is substantively true, as evidenced by the divorce between "scientists" and "philosophers" that occurred after his time.
Regardless of attribution, however, it is a "fact" that all too many in our society subscribe to the "notion" that "truth" is just a matter of what you can convince a majority to believe, known facts -- scientific or otherwise -- be hanged.
It would be fun, if it were not so discouraging, to see lawyers, politicians and public servants stumble to explain or to change the subject when the claims they make turn out to be patently false. One would think they would learn...
Like a good scientist, or Aristotelian epistemologist, I will await the slow (and probably hidden if negative) emergence of the factual evidence before judging the health care "historic" bill.
These facts will inevitably change the perception, regardless of intervening narratives or paradigms or whatever one chooses to call story created general public understandings.
And if things run as usual, there will be blame for the innocent and awards for the guilty all along the way.
Regarding the Soviet Union's intent to dominate the world, those of us who lived during those times were not persuaded of their intentions by a "narrative," but by a continuing persistent effort on their part to introduce their system of government by guerilla warfare, terrorist acts, and subversion of existing governments.
They made Hitler's effort along that line in Austria, Silesia, and other places look like the work of an amateur.
The soviets WERE intent on world domination, and the efforts to restrain them were both necessary and sometimes successful.
The "narrative" was successful because it was confirmed over and over again by the facts.
(#6)Mitch Anderson says:
"His theory (backed with a great deal of demographic data) is that our country has divided itself geographically, economically and politically into like-minded communities over the last three decades. In a nutshell, like-minded people are clustering into the same neighborhoods and regions, losing touch with differing viewpoints in the process."
That our country is so divided is clear. But it is not a phenomenon of "the past thirty years." It has been true since at least the beginnings of our nation, with "nob hills", Summit Avenues, and Kenwoods throughout the land separating geographically those of like economic standing and usually like political mind.
The clusters have, however, become larger. Perhaps this is what Mr. Bishop perceived as "new."
Dan, it's undoubtedly true that this is less a matter of substantive disagreement, but you have to understand that the use of phrases such as "mere story or social construction" is what causes me to bristle. Kuhn's notion of paradigm, indeed, doesn't seek to demolish the notion of facts or truth, only to demonstrate how they are assembled into a meaningful body of work, and then again how a community of scientists engages in a shift from one body of work to another.
I would note that it's instructive that those who oppose this idea return incessantly to science, where facts and truth are stubborn things, supposedly resistant to human influence. The reality is that most of our truth is social, and that most of our sense-making in everyday life is not about whether a thing "really exists," but about making sense of human actions, which are much less absolute and far more malleable. If it's true that narrative theory is not helpful in understanding science (I disagree, but let's assume) then I argue that the "correspondence version of truth" is not very helpful in understanding how human beings understand social behavior.
It's not anti-scientific to point this out - think of all of the follies where we've tried to quantify human behavior and it has failed to be helpful. But when I try to make sense of political "truth," or understand the "truth" of why my friend is upset with me, or to apprehend the "truth" of why I'm attracted to someone, or ascertain the "truth" of what the best course of action in political advocacy, then we are in the realm of narrative reasoning.
One more example. Consider the case of the man convicted of manslaughter in the fatal car crash of a few years ago (I forget his name.) Was he "truly" guilty? A jury thought so, then. Then when the "truth" of Toyota's problems of unintended acceleration became a matter of public concern, his case began to be seen differently.
The physical reality of what the "true" cause of the accident was exists. Our ability to apprehend it is inherently limited. But the meaning and culpability from that accident in the eyes of the public has significantly changed.
Unlike many on this thread, I don't think that science and truth need to feel threatened by a narrative view. Indeed, if they stand apart from the meaning that humans make of them, they can't be offended. But what we lose by insisting on "just the facts" is a more nuanced understanding of what we do as social actors and why.
//Kuhn's notion of paradigm, indeed, doesn't seek to demolish the notion of facts or truth, only to demonstrate how they are assembled into a meaningful body of work, and then again how a community of scientists engages in a shift from one body of work to another.
Aaron it looks like your substituting your concept of a narrative for Kuhn's concept of paradigm. Your position appears to headed towards circularity, everything's narrative because nothing meaningful exists outside the narrative. Kuhn's paradigm isn't about narrative, it's about consensus, there's a difference. I don't think anyone said facts oppose narratives, but they may or may not support a given narrative.
Put another way, look at your manslaughter example. If that accident turns out to be a result of faulty gas peddle, it doesn't change the "truth". The truth always was that the gas peddle malfunctioned. Nor does it change the majority of facts in the case, it simply adds a new information that lets us reinterpret the evidence. It doesn't transform it into different evidence or change the facts.
Yes, Fisher's narrative incorporate facts, but his whole point is that narratives are durable, and resistant to change regardless of evidence. All I'm saying is that can indeed be true in some circumstances but there are limits to the power of narratives. It has nothing to do with science vs. anti science. I think your problem is with positivism, that's a whole nuther deal.
//by a continuing persistent effort on their part to introduce their system of government by guerilla warfare, terrorist acts, and subversion of existing governments.
Well it's a good thing as bringers of freedom and light the US didn't do any of that stuff!
Thanks to that 'young fellow' still, and media veteran Eric Black who has offered the readers a forum which stretches the mind and the capacity to discuss the idea - here, the narrative paradigm in all its variations..he provides the question or an open-ended idea and whomever bites the 'carrot' becomes the voice.
Call it a cafe. Call it a dialogue but it is a fine alternative to promote more than a simple discussion.
I'm enjoying the comments with some nostalgia and much hope for the future of those who debate here without totally established, qualified certainties crammed in their rucksacks, eh? Thank you indeed!
#18 John E Iacono says:
"That our country is so divided is clear. But it is not a phenomenon of "the past thirty years." It has been true since at least the beginnings of our nation, with "nob hills", Summit Avenues, and Kenwoods throughout the land separating geographically those of like economic standing and usually like political mind."
"The clusters have, however, become larger. Perhaps this is what Mr. Bishop perceived as 'new.'"
John, you're right in that division is nothing new in this country, but I don't think people are aware of the extent to which it has ramped up in recent decades.
In 1976, only about a quarter of America's voters lived in a county a presidential candidate won by a landslide margin. By 2004, it was nearly half.
Economically and politically diverse neighborhoods are an exponentially shrinking commodity. I just don't think most people perceive this as a problem. But it’s the root cause for why our country’s problems continue to worsen while Congress remains stalled in legislative gridlock.
Mitch (#6):
Thanks for your reference to Bill Bishop’s “The Big Sort”. Great stuff; it matches my experience living in Minneapolis over the past twenty years. Why would a conservative choose to live in Minneapolis, a city who elected its most recent (and last ever) Republican mayor in the 1950s? Why would a conservative choose to read and write for MinnPost? Perhaps, I’m most comfortable where I’m least welcome.
On the occasions I have chosen to post yard signs in support of political candidates, I have found them to be extremely unwelcome. If I decide to post yard signs this fall, perhaps I will have them delivered directly to the bottom Minnehaha Creek or take them down there myself, to cut out the middle man.
Opposing a K-4 social values curriculum at our local elementary school, I learned that it is not OK to disagree. I heard “this is not controversial!” If we are arguing heatedly about whether or not this is controversial, it just might be.
In my experience in Minneapolis, I have observed that those that worship at the altar of diversity have no tolerance of diversity. I’m talking about diversity which is deeper than skin tone, the differences in what we think and believe.
On MinnPost comments, I have dared to doubt the global warming groupthink. That will get one some vitriol. I have been called a denier, a label typically reserved for deniers of the Holocaust. Really?
According to Bishop, The Big Sort breeds economic inequality, cultural misunderstanding, political extremism and legislative gridlock. Now, more than any time in America, we got all that.
//On MinnPost comments, I have dared to doubt the global warming groupthink.
You're absolutely correct to doubt that global warming is product of group think Steve ;)
What is the meaning and impact of the narrative (or worldview) that is in a citizen's mind as he/she enters the voting booth? I don't want to dumb down this enlightening, educated dialogue, but consider it pragmatically (another current buzzword). By the time the average person votes, the narrative in their head has taken several turns through the spin cycle. Some phrases have amazing stickiness like Reagan's "Government is the problem" thst was said 30 years ago and still reverberates.
//What is the meaning and impact of the narrative (or worldview) that is in a citizen's mind as he/she enters the voting booth?
Well for one thing it's made it nearly impossible to develop and implement decent public policy in the US. Reagan's narrative was adopted by both the Democrats and the Republicans creating a warped political landscape that precludes any organized collective action. The small government narrative is devoid of any quantitative information.. i.e. how big should the government be exactly? In the voting booth, people have basically refused to vote for anyone who doesn't promise to cut taxes or shrink government. The majority didn't stop to think where exactly we were going with that. The idea was that markets would sort it all out better than we could with any deliberate policies.
Well, it seems our founders also feared "big government" and did their best to limit the powers of the federal government.
And, while not the last, Reagan was not the first president who hung his hat on getting the government out of the way of the people, and counseling caution regarding the growth of special interest-political partnerships. Thomas Jefferson comes to mind, and Teddy Roosevelt (Trusts), and Eisenhower (military industrial complex). And even Andrew Jackson (national bank).
This attitude (toward the dangers seen worldwide in governments which control everyday lives) is a healthy one, and citizens rightfully resist the encroachments of centralized power, knowing how power corrupts leaders who have it.
Blaming Reagan for what is universal common sense on the part of the ordinary citizen seems to me nothing short of the arrogance of the elites.
Thankfully, however, the ordinary citizen ignores them and persists in this most appropriate prejudice against those who would control him "for his own good."
"Universal common sense" can be another description for an individual's paradigm or ideology. What's common sense to a conservative is not necessarily common sense to a liberal, for example. I don't know anyone who thinks it's common sense for government to "control" someone for their own good, unless it puts others at risk such as vulnerable children. Putting boundaries around certain individual liberties to protect the rights of others is an important role for government, done appropriately. There will also be bullies and greed and there will always be people who need compassion.
Rallying for lower taxes and lower government across the board is not common sense and has led to serious problems, things like bridges falling down and unacceptably high poverty and unemployment. How about some critical thinking and reasoned decision making?
Quoting John Kenneth Galbraith (economist, 1908-2006): "I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of somebody who says, 'I'm in favor of privatization,' or, 'I'm deeply in favor of public ownership.' I'm in favor of whatever works in the particular case."
Oh common, why can't we blame Reagan for commons sense?
Actually the founding fathers didn't argue about large or small government, they talked about what they wanted to do and not to do. The were very smart and educated men who tended to stay away form nonsensical arguments.
Of COURSE they didn't argue about it: they ALL wanted a small, circumscribed federal government, and they "were unanimous in that."
(#30)Phyllis Stenerson says:
""Universal common sense" can be another description for an individual's paradigm or ideology."
Sorry, I have to disagree. The commonly shared thinking about money matters by plutocrats is NOT common sense. The commonly shared thinking about religious matters by believers is NOT common sense. The commonly shared thinking about what is good for all of us by the intelligentsia of all sorts is NOT common sense.
And a hard won political consensus among power brokers is particularly NOT common sense. In fact, in this latter case, the very difficulty in getting that consensus suggests just the opposite.
Deciding to come in out of the rain IS common sense. So is excluding from the community those who would murder or prey upon it IS common sense.
But to resist having someone else, no matter how "qualified," decide what is "good" for us is common sense. As human beings, we are very reluctant to enact legislation of this ilk. The politician who recognizes this shares this reluctance.
Edits:
Delete after "upon it." in second last paragraph.
Delete "But" capitalize "It" in least paragraph.
Sorry -- the grandkids arrived.
//Of COURSE they didn't argue about it: they ALL wanted a small, circumscribed federal government, and they "were unanimous in that."
This is somewhat off topic but John's position is a perfect example of contemporary Republican narrative. This is Gindrich history, it's fantasy pretending to be nostalgia masquerading as history. In fact there were huge debates about the proper role of government, some wanted a larger role than others, some wanted strong central government, some wanted decentralized government. To say they all wanted "small" government distorts history and the constitution. The narrative framework of any small vs. large government debate is simply incoherent, and the guys who designed our government knew that. The government needs to be however big it needs to be to whatever you want it to do. A decentralized government may end up being as big or bigger than a centralized one. A democratic government may end up being larger than a Monarchy. It all depends on what you decided you want the government to do, and in democracies, the people make that decision. The constitution is deliberately designed to allow for expanding powers and function of government as well as limiting them. The framers knew that the issue of slavery would have to be settled some day for instance so they designed a government that allowed future generations to expand or limit government powers accordingly. What John is doing is confusing the framers concern with limiting the police powers of the state with limiting the role of the state. His narrative assumes, wrongly, that the framers were just as confused about this as Rush Limbaugh is. Ironically, the Republican narrative always seeks to expand police powers while limiting services, they have it exactly backwards. The fatal flaw with the libertarian narrative (the subtext if you will) behind the (or under) the Republican narrative is it essentially negates the whole idea of democracy by pretending the community is irrelevant to the interests of the individual.
The Tea Party provides a wonderful little vignette of this narrative's historical distortion in that it assumes the Tea Party revolt was about taxes when in fact it was about being taxed without representation. The framers weren't anti tax, they specifically gave the government the power to levy taxes. The framers were concerned that those being taxed needed be represented. This anti tax narrative gives some Republicans ( I say Republicans because many conservatives actually know their history well enough to distinguish between fantasy and history)the authority to claim that this ani-tax nonsense is directly descended from the framers.
You can see how resistant this narrative is to evidence while at the same time pretending to be based on objective truths.
Eric - Is your "Rethinking the Cold War" available anywhere?
Sorry, Paul,
You don't get your own facts no matter how eloquently you put them.
Those who have carefully studied the life, times, and deliberations of the men who wrote the Constitution have a full understanding of how jealous the states were of their powers, how fearful the authors were of an autocratic central government, and how determined they were to carefully circumscribe the role and powers given to it.
Without the assurance that the tenth amendment would be added ("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the States respectively, or to the poeple.") the Constitution would not have been ratified. It has been a thorn in the side of "big government" activists ever since, as it was intended to be.
Rants about conservatives do not alter these facts.
//("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the States respectively, or to the poeple.")
And the reference to the size of the government is where John? It's really very simple, if it's about the size and not the role of government show me the formula that the framers ( or those that study the framers) were working with. Is there some ideal ratio of government workers to civilians? Is there some maximum number of square feet to be occupied by government offices? Perhaps there's some ideal ratio of government to private dollars in the economy? Show me this stuff in the constitution, or the writings or the debates. There isn't even anything in the constitution limiting tax rates, only permission to levy them. Was the civil war unconstitutional because it was big government in action against the states? Arguing about government being too large or small is like trying to work out the properties of gravity by debating ice cream flavors. That is not how the constitution was written.
Even by your account the fact that the tenth amendment had to be added as a compromise means there was no consensus, you can't have it both ways. If everyone wanted a "small" government why did they have to put the tenth in there to get ratification? The tenth was a compromise, between a bunch of guy who wanted a small government and a bunch of other guys who also wanted a small government? Makes no sense man. Obviously, and history actually documents this, there was considerable disagreement about the role of government, not the single mindedness of your narrative. The framers weren't perfect, but they knew the country was a work in progress and they wrote a constitution to accommodate that. And since this is the oldest continuous surviving government in the world I'd say they did a pretty good job.
We got where we are with the constitution they wrote, the government is as big or small as it needs to be do what we want it to do, and that's how it should be, it's our government. As the nation has grown the role of government has evolved, as it was designed to do. We can debate what we the government to do, but the the answer isn't always "smaller" anymore than gravity is vanilla.