On the Pandemic

Sadly, the pandemic, like just about everything else in society today, has been politicized and tribalized. Naturally, this “belief by conformity to my side” blinds ideologues to what each tribe got right and wrong about COVID 19. Tribe-left said the virus was bad and we could stop it (with lockdowns, masks, social distancing, etc.). Tribe right said the virus was not bad and we couldn’t stop it. With a year’s experience and data, we can see that each side was half right. The reality is that the virus was bad and we couldn’t stop it. Over half a million Americans are dead, but non-pharmaceutical interventions appear to have made either no difference (lockdowns) or marginal difference (masking). It seems that the only way the virus could have been “stopped” was to nip it in the bud with a vigorous test and trace program in late 2019, but since that wasn’t even on the table, the pandemic was, sadly, going to take its deadly course and those who want to blame certain politicians or “opening up” don’t seem to have the facts on their side.

Systemic Racism

Both tribes have a point in the debate over systemic racism. It’s clear that institutions can have inertia and consequences independent of human will meaning there can be racism without racist intentions. Ivy League quotas on admitting Jews, for instance, were racist and had racist consequences, even if nobody at those schools was anti-Semitic. The problem is that once we invoke “systemic racism” it is often used as a blanket statement to indicate that “racism is everywhere” like the air we breathe, and this reduces evidentiary standards. Is there systemic racism? Certainly. But that should start the inquiry and not stop it. Using evidence to locate precisely where institutional disadvantages exist (as in current systemic Ivy League discriminations against Asian Americans) so that they can be corrected is the appropriate response. Saying we don’t need evidence because systemic racism is “everywhere” seems to me a superstition (like witches being everywhere in 1690’s Salem).

Epistemology and Chronology

Epistemology of the Past: Those in previous eras embraced an epistemology of the past. The idea was that the wisdom of the ages were embodied in institutions and something was trustworthy by virtue of being old. They said we should trust old institutions (like the Constitution or Great Books) because, in a Darwinian sense, they would not have survived if they were not superior.

Epistemology of the Future: Today’s orthodoxy adheres to an epistemology of the future. The idea is that things are always on an upward course and so newer is necessarily better by virtue of being closer to the future. Reject old ideas and institutions (the American Founding, Great books) and embrace whatever is the latest, since it’s necessarily the greatest (tech companies, wokism). The key to being correct on any given issue is simply identifying trends: see which way the winds are blowing and then conform to those fads. In a Darwinian sense, there is continuous improvement so being closer to the future means being more correct.

Epistemology of the Present: I prefer the epistemology of the present, which evaluates ideas and institutions on the basis of reason and evidence. Truth is independent of age, and we determine belief based on visible evidence in the here and now, as in science.

This shouldn’t be controversial, and if people thought about it, they would agree that a present, scientific, rational approach is better than the epistemology of the past or the epistemology of the future, but it’s remarkable how much those mistaken epistemologies have captured our public consciousness, probably because each one easily attaches to narratives justifying our two political tribes.

Anti-Racism, Anti-Communism

To understand the “anti-racist” phenomenon today, we might profitably compare it to the “anti-communist” phenomenon of the 1950s. In both cases, the threats were bad and real. There were communist spies in the U.S. in the 1950s and there are white supremacists today. Both communism and racism are deplorable and decent people are “anti” both of them. Both communism and racism had their nationally publicized trial in which the bad thing was on display (Alger Hiss, Derek Chauvin). The problem today as in the 50s, is that opportunists (McCarthy, Kendi) have taken a legitimate cause to an extreme. They define their “anti” in narrow terms, link it to a political ideology, and then tarnish those who doesn’t share the ideology as somehow guilty of the bad thing in question. McCarthy couldn’t accept honest disagreement about the extent of communism in America or how best to defeat it and that seems true of too many “anti-racists” today. Just as McCarthy took a legitimate anti-communist cause and turned it into an ugly witch hunt with loyalty oaths and anti-communist training programs, so a legitimate anti-racist cause has turned into an ugly witch hunt with loyalty oaths and anti-racist training programs. The establishment seems more on board with anti-racism today than they were with anti-communism in the fifties, but in each case, there was widespread acquiescence as cowardice prevailed over courage and everyone went to extreme lengths to prove that they were not associated with the bad thing. I’m just waiting for a turning point when someone asks, “Have you no decency” to break the fever of a legitimate cause turned into hysteria.

Secession: Why it Might Happen, Why it Might Succeed

Why it might happen: the new orthodoxy that reigns in academia, media, entertainment, and now corporations, is fundamentally hostile to the old orthodoxy (Judeo-Christianity) it has replaced. Furthermore, this orthodoxy is assertive (foreground, rather than background) and will enforce acceptance through compulsion (unlike the old orthodoxy which believed in separating church and state). As the new orthodoxy becomes ever more compulsory through state power, those adhering to the old orthodoxy will resist and, at some point, feel that the government compulsion has become intolerable. They will want out of the compulsory/tyrannical political order altogether.

Why it might succeed: the new orthodoxy is fundamentally self-contradictory. It is at once radically in favor of expanding state power (to achieve “social justice,” to “end racism,” to “enforce gender equality,” to “achieve socialism”), but at the same time radically opposed to the violent means by which state power is enforced (police and military), and radically opposed to the forces of unification that hold a nation together (e.g., patriotism, national symbols, common education). This means that they will expand state power to enforce their orthodoxy, even as they weaken the power of enforcement and the desire of the public to comply.

This is the first time that I am aware of in human history where this paradox has existed. Nationalism, Socialism, and militarism generally go together (as with Hitler, Stalin, and Mao), but they are fundamentally at odds in the new orthodoxy. Tribe-left is hostile to nationalism and militarism, but supportive of socialism.

The first attempt at secession (1861) didn’t succeed because Lincoln was at once wanting to expand state power to end slavery (a correct use of expanded state power to achieve social justice), but also willing to use the ultimate means of enforcement of state power (the military) and the symbols of nationalism (as in the Gettysburg Address) to achieve his goals. Our current tribe-left has no such consistency meaning they could fail where Lincoln succeeded.

Low vs. High Decouplers

I just came across a study showing that people in the hard sciences are "high decouplers"--meaning able to separate unrelated issues from each other--while artistic types and those in the humanities are low decouplers. This could explain why humanists are far more ideological and dogmatic in their ideology than are hard scientists. An ideology is a collection of unrelated positions (e.g., high taxes, abortion rights, pacifism). High decouplers will be able to see the unrelated nature of these issues and approach them one by one. Low decouplers will lack that ability and adopt them as a package.

Applying Conspiracy vs narrative to the climate change debate

It’s generally a bad idea to reject established wisdom on the grounds of conspiracy theory, but it is a good idea to evaluate conventional wisdom by challenging narratives. So, for instance, there are “climate deniers” who claim that climate change is a hoax—a pretext to grab control by a conspiracy of scientists and public officials. I consider this position illegitimate on the grounds that it would require an impossible combination of secrecy among thousands of people. But it is legitimate to challenge the narrative of climate alarmism since it requires no conspiracy, just groupthink (an extremely common psychological tendency). It’s reasonable to read the evidence (as Obama’s energy Czar, Steven Koonin does), to come to the conclusion that although climate change is real, it doesn’t appear to be a threat on the level that many in positions of power would have it be. We shouldn’t dismiss facts (by invoking “conspiracy”) to dismiss climate alarmism, but we should challenge dominant, elite narratives in light of the facts. As far as I can tell, rejecting consensus can be done using conspiracy theory or narrative theory, but the former is generally misguided while the latter is important and necessary since bad narratives that distort or deny facts can take hold for social reasons.