Slow Revolution

Are you happy with the way your country is being run these days? Are you happy with environmental degradation, with the depletion of natural resources and the prospect of climate change? Are you happy with the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the wealthy? Are you happy with the calibre of political discourse today? Are you happy with your politicians?

There is a better way.

I’m going to venture a guess and suggest you’re probably not terribly thrilled with many, or even all, of these things. Neither am I.

So what are we going to do about it?

It seems the time is ripe for revolution. The Occupy Wall Street movement called for one. So has Russell Brand. Egypt had one (and is still having one). And with dissatisfaction in government increasing in many developed countries around the world, it’s likely there will be many more itching for one.

But “traditional” revolution is not easy to get going. And even harder to get right. It takes a critical mass of people ready to risk all they have in order to push for something better. This works when the revolutionaries have little to lose, not so well when they covet their widescreen TVs and iPads. It also takes a wave of support to mobilise everyone at once; a trickle of rabble rousers doesn’t a revolution make.

I haven’t much stomach for the kind of fast and loud revolution that people like Brand are calling for. I’m not really the activist type. I’d prefer to think up a snappy slogan than hold one aloft in a crowd. I’d prefer to enact change carefully and methodically than risk it running out of control – which is how revolutions normally go (*cough* Egypt).

So I want to propose an alternative approach to overhauling The System, one that aims to enact the same radical change called for by OWS, Russell Brand and others, but seeks to do so without the pitchforks and guillotines.

I call it Slow Revolution.

Politics as Biology: Explaining the Razor Edge of Partisan Politics

Following Obama’s re-election, M.S. at The Economist ponders the startlingly improbable situation in the United States where such a strongly partisan country can keep rolling out elections that are knife edge finishes:

This is what strikes one most strongly looking back at America from across an ocean: the country seems repeatedly embroiled in savage 51-49 electoral campaigns, and it seems to be increasingly paralysed by irresolvable rancour between right and left.

And think about it for a second: this is bizarre. If Americans are in fact divided between two extremely different political ideologies, it would be an extraordinary coincidence if each of those philosophies were to hold the allegiance of nearly equal blocs of support. That situation ought not to be stable. Adherence to these two ideologies ought to shift enough just due to demographics that the 50-50 split should deteriorate. And yet the even split seems to be stable. What’s going on?

Good question. Here’s a speculative answer, using the tools of population biology as a lens to understand politics:

Should Voters Pass a Test Before Voting?

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” So (allegedly) said Winston Churchill. And who’s to disagree?

Exhibit A: the comments to my recent column on the ABC’s Drum, which bemoans that “we have stopped discriminating between argument and sophistry.” Seems few in the comments – even those who appear to agree – attempted to do just that in the spirit of elevating the debate. Instead, it wallowed in the usual name calling and obtuse table thumping. Irony died a little that day.

But what I want to do now is go beyond the call to arms for reasonable people and wonder what to do about the unreasonable ones, given the votes of both are weighted the same.

Often raised in this context is the debate between compulsory versus voluntary voting, such that the disengaged or apathetic are less likely to vote than the engaged and informed.

But I want to sideline that debate for now and get to a more fundamental question of electoral reform: should voters have to pass some kind of test before they qualify to vote?

The Ethical Project: Measuring Ethical Progress

In this post, I consider the notion of ethical progress. It follows on from my review of  Philip Kitcher’s The Ethical Project, then my post looking at the evolution of our moral psychology, and a post on moral functionalism.

One of the core themes of Kitcher’s is to chart, and account for, the notion of ethical progress. If we look back on the changes that have occurred in ethics through history and across cultures, is there any thread that we might declare as representing ‘progress’?

Does the move from a draconinan eye-for-an-eye lex talonis code of punishment to more moderate restitution and rehabilitation represent progress? Was emancipation progress? Was expanding womens’ rights progress? We want to say they were. But on what grounds?

This is ostensibly a problem for a naturalistic anti-realist account of morality – one such as Kitcher’s (and my own) – because there are no immutable moral truths (a priori, non-natural and/or divinely mandated) to which we can peg progress; ethical progress can’t simply be likened to scientific progress, where we gain a deeper understanding of ethical truth and then put it into practice.

Kitcher’s response to this problem is, I believe, the correct one. Once we acknowledge that ethics is a human invention which, according to the functionalist rendering, was created to solve the problems of social living (or “remedy those altruism failures provoking social conflict”, in Kitcher’s version), we can start to make sense of ethical progress.

Beyond OWS: The Slow Revolution

In three earlier posts I outlined what I believe to be some of the core underlying problems that have inspired the Occupy Wall Street movement – problems with our current economics, politics and society – even if the Occupy movement itself is yet to identify these problems itself while it rails against the symptoms of inequality and greed. In the next couple of posts I’ll offer some solutions to these three underlying problems.

The good news is they’re fixable. The bad news is that we have to do the fixing by fixing ourselves. And that’ll take time. And discipline. There are no quick fixes. That’s why I refer to my approach to fixing these deep societal problems as the Slow Revolution.

Beyond OWS: Problem #3: The Age of Unreason

What is society? Or, more importantly, what’s it for? And how do we want it to be?

It seems there are precious few asking questions like these. And while the Occupy Wall Street movement appears to be rebelling against the way society is structured today, and the direction in which it’s travelling, this rebellion is only the first step. Identifying that there’s a problem is one thing, diagnosing it in detail another. And then there’s the ultimate goal of figuring out how to fix it.

In this post I offer my take on the underlying issues with our conception of society and its function that I believe underlie the Occupy Wall Street movement’s grievances, and in a future post in this series, I’ll offer some suggested alternatives that might take us in a more fruitful direction.

Beyond Occupy Wall Street

I’ve been patiently awaiting the revolution for some years now. It’s inevitable that it was coming. The only question was when. And in what form.

It seems it’s arrived, at least in its embryonic guise, in the form of the Occupy Wall Street movement. But is this really the revolution? Is this movement – without goals, without leaders, without a guiding ideology – fit to call itself a revolution?

Not yet.

But it’s a start. The first step in enacting change is to identify that there’s a problem. That’s fundamentally what OWS is today: it’s a broad protest movement making an unambiguous expression that we (maybe not 99% of us, but a lot) are mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.

If I could sum up the Occupy Wall Street movement to date in one line, it’d be this: the system is broken and it’s not going to fix itself.

I’ve heard the Occupiers voice this notion in many disparate, fragmented ways. But I have yet to hear or read any Occupier articulate precisely what the problem with the system is. Or, more poignantly: how to fix it.

But to me, the malaise is clear. I’ve been watching it brew for many years. The sickness in the Western capitalist system has many diverse manifestations, but the underlying causes are actually few and simple.

I’m adamant that if OWS is to have any lasting impact, it urgently needs to move beyond being merely a protest movement before people tire of it (or the weather sends it indoors, at least in the northern hemisphere), and move to embrace some positive ideology, one that might genuinely enact change in the world. One that might genuinely be called a revolution.

In the next several posts I’m going to outline my diagnosis of the three core problems with ‘the system’ – the problems that fundamentally underlie the grievances of the Occupy movement – and then offer three solutions as to where the movement could go next if it wants to change the system for the better.

I’ll update this post as a single landing page with links to the others:

Problem #1: The Market Ain’t So Free

Problem #2: The Problem with Politics

Speak Up Against Irrationalists, But Speak Well

Some say that it is not wise to engage with those who fail to respect reason.

Some say it’s folly to attempt to correct the misinformation spouted by climate change deniers because engaging with them only gives them more exposure, it legitimises their voice and fuels the controversy.

Some say it’s imprudent to argue with persons of faith about the folly of believing in a supreme being responsible for creating a rational universe yet who hides behind a veil of unreason, demanding his followers shun reason in order to to demonstrate their love for him.

Some say pushing back against wildly spurious claims such that legislating to allow gay marriage will entail a slippery slope that will end up permitting polygamy and incest is pointless; just let those extremists continue to tout their positions and further alienate themselves from the reasonable views of the mainstream.

I disagree. We who do respect reason should push back. Vigorously. But we should do so well.

Yes, engaging with extremists and Irrationalists of all flavours does elevate their voice. And engaging with them is almost certainly not going to change their minds. But the Irrationalists often have a loud voice, and their voice is heard by those who are as yet undecided, or those who are too busy living their lives to read up on the details of each issue.

So it’s up to those of us who do respect reason and facts to speak loudly against unreason, not to convince those who have committed to a path of irrationality, but to demonstrate to those who are still open to reason that there are better ways to engage with complex issues, and to change the nature of the discourse to elevate reason to where it deserves to be: a prerequisite for any argument meant to persuade.

But we should argue well. Engaging in ad hominem attacks against those perceived to be irrational, ignorant or stupid does the cause of reason no favours. Remember, when voicing dissent against the Irrationalists, we’re not trying to convert the purveyors of unreason but those who hear their loud rantings.

And we need to maintain the standards of rational argument, first and foremost acknowledging the first rule of thumb of rational discourse: there must be something that can prove us wrong.

If anyone utters a belief or argument and there is no possibility of it being proven wrong, either by logic or evidence, then that belief doesn’t qualify to enter into rational discourse. Such an utterance is little more than an opinion, a subjective attitude, a conspiracy theory, pseudo-science or a expression of faith, none of which belong in rational discourse about serious issues.

But we can also wield this rule of thumb as a weapon against our irrational opponents. If we can encourage more people to acknowledge this rule of thumb of rational discourse, then we can brand those who fail to conform to it as Irrationalists – a new pejorative that ought to enter our discourse to counter the ‘elitist’ and ‘intellectual’ flung about by the Right – and as disqualifying them from rational debate.

This rule of thumb also means not tackling irrational arguments head on – which is surely an exercise in frustration, if not folly – but by undermining irrational arguments as a whole.

And if they accept this rule of thumb, then it’s game on; it’s time to engage in vigorous, rational and respectful debate – and let the best argument win.

Religion’s Retreat from Politics and Other Good News

The current fancy of religion being intertwined with political conservatism in the United States (and here – we have our own Family First party) is a fleeting trend, and one that is entering its final throes. So said Robert Putnam in a wonderful lecture he gave tonight at Sydney University.

I’m inclined to agree – and not only because I want to agree.

Putnam’s argument – also espoused in his new book, American Grace – was that the close relationship between religiosity and Republican partisanship that we see today only started in the early 1990s, and began as a wedge strategy intended to galvanise a conservative base against encroaching liberalism by appealing to the pervasive religiousness of most Americans, tapping in to socially conservative issues such as abortion as the hot buttons.

And it worked. Putnam showed evidence that around the early 1970s there was no correlation between religious attendance (as a proxy for religiosity) and partisan preference. In fact, in the late 1960s, if you were more highly devout, you were more likely to vote Democrat. But that had all changed by the 1980s, and particularly into the 1990s.

Makes sense. Old school Republicanism used to be represented by the north-eastern industrialists – hardly a religious bunch. Too distracted by money and cigars. Conversely, there were the ‘southern Democrats’ who, until the quakes of the civil rights movement rocked their foundations, were deeply religious but were working class and voted for labour and community issues.

But in the 1990s that changed. And it’s already beginning to backfire.

The United States now sports a record number of what Putnam drolly calls “young nones”; the now 18% of the population – and upwards of 30% of youth – who list their religious affiliation as ‘none.’ However, it’s presumptuous to assume they’re atheists; many still profess a belief in God, but they disassociate with organised religion.

Putnam’s thesis is that they see the vitriol of the religious right directed towards progressive social issues, and they identify religion – particularly evangelical Christianity – with homophobia, militant anti-abortionism, bigotry and other socially conservative positions that are thoroughly unsavoury to minds shaped by the liberal 1990s.

So they move on. Both from organised religion and from Republicanism. As the old conservatives – the relics of the pre-1950s world – die off, these ‘young nones’ will start to have a much greater impact on politics.

The upshot: perhaps we can hope for a world where religiously-fuelled extreme social conservatism is divorced from politics. In fact, let’s not hope. Let’s expect it.

Let’s stop giving credence to the extreme religious lobby. When they pop their heads up and spout some ludicrous line, such as that art should pass through a classification board, let’s just chuckle and say “well, extremists would say that” and move on to more important matters, like deficit reduction or mitigating climate change.

Religion isn’t necessarily socially conservative. Certainly, organised religion leans that way – group membership, loyalty, in-group favouritism and out-group vilification etc are how organised religion stays organised. But religions also preach love, charity, forgiveness, peace – all bastions of progressivism.

By crikey, it’ll be nice to look back on all this. To look back on the 2000s and remark at how aberrant this religiosity was. It may not take long before we’re looking back with a wince and a sigh and saying just these things.

The Revolution is Dead (For Now)

There aren’t any revolutionaries any more. The closest contemporary figure I can muster from the cloudy reaches of my imagination who might qualify as a revolutionary is Julian Assange. Certainly he’s an original thinker, far more so than most people these days.

But even Assange’s revolution is incremental, if profound. He a seeks to change the landscape of democracy without necessarily wiping the slate clean entirely. His is not a prescriptive vision of a better world, but a solution to the ills of this one, underpinned by a conviction about the particular nature of corruption – or, as he calls it, ‘conspiracy.’

So where are the true revolutionaries? Where are the visionaries with a compelling view of a better world, one for which we ought to fight to bring into reality? Who’s thinking beyond the contingencies of this world to the possibilities of the next?

There was a time, not so long ago, when revolution was in common parlance and bold visions of a new world were talked about openly, debated, fought over and striven for. Only 40 years ago there was talk of building nothing less than a new civilisation.

What happened?