Brooks’s nostalgia for aristocracy
A month ago, David Brooks drew fire for a column about Haiti that many readers found offensive. His broad generalizations about Haiti’s supposedly irresponsible and entitled culture prompted accusations of racism.
Brooks’ most recent column is likely to add charges of “classism” to the list. He suggests an interesting frame from which to view our current crises of trust in our most important political, economic, and cultural institutions - the transition, over the last half-century or so, from aristocracy to meritocracy.
As we’ve made our institutions more meritocratic, their public standing has plummeted. We’ve increased the diversity and talent level of people at the top of society, yet trust in elites has never been lower. It’s not even clear that society is better led.
Hmm… That’s a pretty wide sweep, but interesting. But why would this be? Brooks offers up a few suggestions, which I’ll try to summarize in one sentence: Yesteryear’s elites had broader skill sets, lived locally, got along better, took the long view, and were more private; Today’s elites are too technically specialized, geographically centralized, partisan, short-sighted, and transparent.
There’s a lot that could be said here, since he’s put a lot on the table. But let me offer one thought. If it’s indeed true that things seemed so much simpler back then, it’s probably because things were much simpler back then. The core point here, which Brooks seems to be aware of, is that it’s obviously easier to share power among a homogeneous few than it is to conduct business democratically in a large, racially-, culturally-, and ideologically-diverse populace. If the subtext of Brooks’ Haiti piece was “Why can’t these poor, foreign black people behave like middle class American white people?”, then the subtext here is “Wouldn’t we have a lot less drama if America looked like Leave it to Beaver again?”
There are some points worth seriously considering in his piece-by-piece analysis of where today’s elites go wrong (especially by over-specializing and shooting only for short-term wins / political points), but the general thrust here is no more profound than George W. Bush’s jovial suggestion that “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.”
Simplicity and trust are often inversely proportional to democracy and equality. Freedom ain’t free, right?
-Colin
The Life of the Mind, and other stories
It’s certainly no secret that graduate school in the humanities is a risky proposition, entailing years spent toiling for little to no money, very often debt, and very rarely full-time, tenure-track positions upon graduation. Thomas Benton (strangely, a pen name for a tenured professor at Hope College) has been doing the work of publicizing the structural difficulties associated with academic life. It’s sobering for anyone considering taking this path, and well worth the time.
Benton’s latest article expands a bit on the intriguing class issues that, according to him, are at the center of the problem.
But the system over which the privileged preside does not ultimately depend on them for the daily functioning of higher education (which is now, as we all know, drifting toward a part-time, no-benefit business). The ranks of new Ph.D.’s and adjuncts these days are mainly composed of people from below the upper-middle class: people who believe from infancy that more education equals more opportunity. They see the professions as a path to security and status.
The myth of the academic meritocracy powerfully affects students from families that believe in education, that may or may not have attained a few undergraduate degrees, but do not have a lot of experience with how access to the professions is controlled. Their daughter goes to graduate school, earns a doctorate in comparative literature from an Ivy League university, everyone is proud of her, and then they are shocked when she struggles for years to earn more than the minimum wage. (Meanwhile, her brother—who was never very good at school—makes a decent living fixing HVAC systems with a six-month certificate from a for-profit school near the Interstate.)
This is incredibly persuasive and important to me, and points at a strong disconnect in the way that America generally talks about education. It’s well-known that a college degree raises lifetime income substantially. But beyond that, there’s a class of graduate degree with strong job prospects associated (Wharton MBA, Stanford JD, etc), as well as a class with quite murky prospects (online masters, unaccredited law schools, PhDs in the humanities). The difficulty is not so much the uselessness of the degrees themselves (though that’s certainly problematic) but the deep debt loads many students are resigned to take on to complete the degree.
Government has certainly played no little role in reinforcing this. The easy availability of federal student loan money, which is disproportionately directed towards disadvantaged students, is what has in large part enabled the rise of the for-profit university.
This is an issue which cuts to the core of discussions surrounding equality. Simply making money available for students to get some degree (any degree!) has become, in many instances, counter-productive. The problem will be challenging to fix; industry incentives strongly support more federal money in education and less federal oversight (if any exists at the moment). It’s high time to realize that education may, if driven by the financial interests of for-profit colleges, lobbyists, and the generally benign Classics department, be a force for increasing inequality.
-John
What if equality and growth were compatible?
How one economist could change egalitarian distributive justice forever
An interesting article in the Santa Fe Reporter last week on an economist whose work has major implications for theories of economic distributive justice. Samuel Bowles of the Santa Fe Institute, a research institution dedicated to the study of complexity, is one of the leading economists in a movement challenging the assumptions of the Milton Friedman/Chicago School of free-market economics.
According to the Chicago School, distributive inequality is an inevitable consequence of economic growth. Bowles challenges this notion, claiming that while the theories of the Chicago School may work in ideal models, in the real world the story is much different. The Chicago School assumes an economy that is efficiently organized. But in reality, economies are actually quite inefficient, those with greater inequality, Bowles contends, particularly so. Instead of the distribution of wealth being dependent on economic growth, economic growth is dependent on the distribution of wealth.
Justice? Yes, but at what cost?
How far must society go to accommodate the blind?
Driving around DC this weekend, I noticed for the first time signs along one street that read “Blind Child.” Intrigued, I did some research and discovered that that many states will, if requested, post street signs around the houses of deaf and blind children alerting drivers to be extra cautious. Such signs are a relatively inexpensive way society can help increase the safety of children for whom circumstance has unfairly made dangerous the most basic of activities.
The signs got me thinking. What else could society do to help eliminate some of the unequal consequences of blindness? Read more
Should Harry Reid step down?
Words that matter
Remember when Washington rancor used to be directed at the vicissitudes of health care reform? Ah, those were the days. Now it’s back to politics as usual. You know what that means–attacking inappropriate conduct. A few months ago it was Joe Wilson speaking lies to power. Last week it was Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Already caught in what pundits regard as a tough reelection battle at home, Reid landed himself in trouble when it emerged that a new book on the 2008 presidential campaign quoted Reid as suggesting that then-candidate Obama could be the first black president due to his fairer complexion (”light-skinned”) and because he had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Unfortunately for Reid, the word “Negro” was left behind as politically incorrect several decades ago, as did most of the appropriate contexts for the way Reid referenced President Obama’s skin color.
Reid has already issued a public apology, and has called the President to apologize directly (which Obama has publicly accepted). Should he also step down? Read more
Healthcare is nice, but (morally) expensive
Robert Samuelson at the Washington Post does some moral cost/benefit analysis on healthcare reform.
Pro-reform:
…almost everyone thinks that people in need of essential medical care should get it; ideally, everyone would have health insurance.
Con:
First, the country has other goals — including preventing financial crises and minimizing the crushing effects of high deficits or taxes on the economy and younger Americans — that “health-care reform” would jeopardize. And second, the benefits of “reform” are exaggerated. Sure, many Americans would feel less fearful about losing insurance; but there are cheaper ways to limit insecurity. Meanwhile, improvements in health for today’s uninsured would be modest. They already receive substantial medical care. Insurance would help some individuals enormously, but studies find that, on average, gains are moderate. Despite using more health services, people don’t automatically become healthier.
The first point reveals the problem of prioritization I discussed in an earlier post and the second shows, once more, how the factual and empirical invade the moral.
-Jake
You were fired the day you were conceived
Genetic testing and employment
The ethical boundaries of the 21st century have increasingly focused on the rapid pace of scientific and technological advancement. The more we seem to know about how our world works, the fuzzier that world grows ethically.
In a week, one of those boundaries will be tested when the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act comes into effect. The Act prevents employers from either engaging in genetic testing or taking genetic information into account when deciding whether to hire, fire or promite someone. It will also bar health insurance companies from considering genetic information in decisions to provide coverage or set premiums.
This approach broadly reflects the sensibilities of modern liberalism, with one twist. Read more
“Belief” in climate change
A judge in the U.K. has ruled that belief in global warming is protected under the 2003 “Religion and Belief Regulations,” which prohibit employment discrimination based on such beliefs. Tim Nicholson, a former “Head of Sustainability” at a British property firm, claimed that his termination resulted from disagreements about his environmental stances.
Lawyers for the firm argued that belief in climate change is “a scientific view rather than a philosophical one”, because “philosophy deals with matters that are not capable of scientific proof.” Nicholson calls his approach “a philosophical belief that reflects my moral and ethical values and is underlined by the overwhelming scientific evidence.”
Confused? You should be. Determining what qualifies a personal “philosophy” or “belief” for protection under freedom of conscience regulations - particularly when such regulations are framed with respect to religion - is a difficult, if not impossible task.
-Colin
Is Fatism justified?
Part 1
Jon Corzine, incumbent governor of New Jersey, recently ran an ad not so subtly mocking his opponents ample weight. This has provoked commentary discussing whether discrimination against the overweight is qualitatively different than other kinds of discrimination which society generally opposes, or whether “fatism” is simply the latest in our society’s track record of morally reprehensible “isms” to be overcome.
To start thinking through this question it’s worth pointing out that fatism shares some of the same qualifying characteristics as other, less acceptable isms.
- Science continues to reveal that much of the cause of obesity is genetic. While weight can be controlled or reduced, for a high percentage of those overweight their natural weight is simply above average (of course this does not explain the rapid increase in obesity over the last few decades)
- Being overweight makes one the victim of societal prejudice - most concretely, the obese make less money
- Like race, obesity is tightly correlated with poverty
In many ways, fatism looks like homophobia ten years ago. Homophobics then claimed that homosexuality was a a learned and chosen behavior, one that could be reversed (with dire and very sad psychological consequences). However, as scientific evidence continued to pile up and enter the mainstream consciousness, anti-gay attitudes dropped and are likely to continue to do so since the young are much more gay-friendly than the old.
Slate published an article charting the rise of a distinct “fat rights” movement, one that has both political action groups and it’s very own academic specialty. The response, predictably, has been very much negative, seeing fatness as a personal weakness or a symptom of a broken consumer culture.
The critical question may just be whether being overweight is, to be blunt, bad for society. Ultimately racism etc were and are doomed to failure not simply for philosophical and ethical reasons but because members of every oppressed group have proven their equality as excellent citizens and people. (There is a strong correlation between tolerant attitudes towards homosexuality and simply knowing a gay person). There is simply no downside to a world with racial equality. However, there are significant costs to be born by an overweight society, primarily vast medical expenditures. There is a utilitarian argument to be made for fatism. I’ll examine this argument in the coming week.
-John
Religious Holidays for Everyone!
How much is too much?
Marc may have opened liberalism’s pandora’s box last week when he asked what, exactly, religious freedom ought to require. We began with a well-known dilemma: is it fair that in the U.S., Christians are unencumbered from observing their holy days (holidays and the Sabbath) but most minority religions get no such help? Should Muslims get Fridays off? What about time to pray during the work or school day? And if so, have we not begun barreling down a slippery slope of accommodation?
Christopher Hitchens vents here about a recent New York City resolution to add two Muslim holidays, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, to the city’s school calendar. Mayor Bloomberg has come out against the resolution, arguing that a religion needs to claim a large proportion of the student population before necessitating a mandatory school holiday, and that if this trend continues for all religions, there will hardly be any school days left.
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