Easy Answers to World Priorities

What is man’s biggest challenge? Science, medicine, law, engineering -- these all have their little conundrums. But where human welfare is concerned, their potential payoffs are meagre. If technology doubles food production and conquers environmental threats, if the genome is sequenced and cancer cured, our society will still fall terribly short on the most basic measures of human well-being -- education, health, justice, poverty and crime prevention.

When it comes to our most important shared objectives, it is fair to say that all challenges but one are mere distractions from the central priority: the ancient, elementary problem of how to organize ourselves more effectively. How, in other words, to achieve good government.

While the business-minded might be skeptical of any project aiming to bring contentment to the masses, good government also entails more productive workers, reduced taxes, a simpler and fairer legal and regulatory environment, and a lot more wealth for everyone.

The only reason good government is not a hot topic is (1) the almost unanimous, though unexamined, conviction that good government is a foolish dream, and (2) our failure to imagine a better world and view our familiar atrocities from its perspective.

Good government has everything to do with rationality -- a quality whose obvious benefits are often exploited by individuals in pursuing their self-interest. But somehow, when individuals aggregate into large groups, the usefulness of rationality is forgotten, and the gift of human intelligence is squandered. The lament of John Adams, the second U.S. president, is as true today as two centuries ago: “While all other sciences have advanced, government is at a stand; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.” In our irrational environment, immersed as we are in ignorance and the confusing noises of special interests, it is vain to hope for government that serves the people.

Only a few short decades ago, overt racial prejudice was widespread in our society. While that particular prejudice is no longer in vogue, we are still enamored of other prejudices based on just as little intelligent reflection. We love “democracy,” but rarely note that it is an absurdity when the electorate is incapable of perceiving its own interests. Many adore unrestricted “free markets” and abhor “the heavy hand” of government, but everyone should know this is an intellectually vacuous ideology. Every reasonable thinker recognizes, as did the “father of capitalism,” Adam Smith, that the public interest demands vigilant regulation of business.

Fundamental to the democratic ideal is another kind of free market -- the “marketplace of ideas,” where clashing ideas vie against each other and the strongest survive. But that marketplace -- supposedly one of the major benefits of freedom of speech -- is not a very bustling place at all in our society. Of the few who study and debate public policy issues, virtually all represent special interests -- not the public interest. Most individuals applying mental energy to public policy problems, in other words, are paid for their efforts by biased parties.

That the core topic of good government (as opposed to specific issues or political contests) is virtually nowhere on the national debate agenda is a reflection of how little we even attempt to harness human intelligence to social ends. This does not simply reflect a bizarre inattention to the things that matter to us. Something more radical is involved, an idea that contradicts the principles of democracy and the very idea of “good government”: the view that intellect is not a useful guide for understanding the world.

The way our culture has come to be, many of us have adopted an outlook in which truth, right, wrong are not meaningful concepts. We no longer attempt to evaluate conflicting points of view. All opinions are considered legitimate. It is ironic that this point of view has long been widespread even in universities, where one would think the authority of intellect would be on relatively firm footing.

A philosopher of science, commenting on this contemporary outlook, has observed:

The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is -- second only to American political campaigns -- the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time.

-- Larry Laudan, Science and Relativism (1990)

Laudan’s observation is quoted by physicist Alan Sokal, the perpetrator of a triumphant hoax that demonstrated anti-intellectualism in the academy. Sokal wrote a pseudo-scholarly article deriding scientists who “cling to the dogma” that “there exists an external world whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole.” The article called for a “liberatory science” based on a profoundly revised “emancipatory mathematics” -- a future form of mathematics that had to remain, for the present, “but the haziest glimmer” because of “our present ideological blinders.”

Sokal submitted the piece to Social Text, a leading journal of cultural studies, where it was taken seriously and published in the Spring/Summer 1996 issue. (See Sokal Articles on the “Social Text” Affair.)

Of course, the notion that intellect is not a guide to reality is preposterous on its face (in the context of public policy), inconsistent with all our axioms of existence. Without intellect and objective truth, how could we justify, for example, the extreme deprivations to which we routinely subject defendants found guilty in criminal court?

Nevertheless, our social mores reflect our skepticism about intellect. While people do of course voice opinions and influence each others’ attitudes, in some circles it is considered to border on rudeness to express a contrary point of view. Even in more relaxed circles, where diverse views are freely exchanged, it is noteworthy that for most individuals, an opinion, once adopted, is virtually never relinquished purely because of an exchange of ideas with someone else. This may have something to do with our capitalistic environment, where we are surrounded by voices pandering to every illusion we wish to harbor (“You deserve a break today”). Still, given that we have had the benefit of human language since prehistoric times, one might have hoped we would by now be at a point where insight is better able to bridge the gulf between distinct individuals.

Our politics reflect this state of intellectual inviolability. The voter’s opinions on issues are sacrosanct. The candidate’s job is to position himself so that as many voters as possible will favor him -- given existing opinions. Practical politicians seeking election rarely attempt to alter opinions, no matter how unreasonable.

What is amazing is how intellectually easy it is to recognize feasible, practical initiatives that would upgrade the rationality of government, and thereby the social conditions under which we all live. A functioning “marketplace of ideas,” if only we had such a thing, might yield such directions. But as things stand, political debate is oblivious to rudimentary civic insights. Some are listed here:

• Government is “for the people,” and its only legitimate purpose is to serve the general public interest.

• People means human beings. Commercial interests are of concern only insofar as they affect humans. It is misguided, for example, to apply concepts of human rights, like freedom of speech, to corporations.

• Whether a policy is good or bad is not always a matter on which reasonable people can differ. Many policies and routine practices of government -- e.g., political patronage -- are unequivocally bad.

• Bad policies often have energetic proponents despite their unequivocal badness.

• The badness of bad policies is not always intuitively obvious. Proponents routinely resort successfully to deception. They often hire attractive, genuinely sincere spokespersons and representatives.

• The faculty of reason is capable of discerning deceit and distinguishing good from bad policies. But the faculty of reason must be exercised. Gathering the facts and deliberating is sometimes necessary.

• It is usually foolhardy to have convictions on issues one has not examined in adequate depth. Policy issues should not be judged superficially.

• Public policy issues are usually abstract, rather than palpable. To understand them requires logical thinking. Democracy demands an upgraded education system which fosters this ability.

• Public policy affects many people. The aggregate cost of ill-advised policy is enormous. Deliberate distortions of policy for private gain are like commonplace theft, assault, or murder, except that the consequences are thousands or millions of times greater.

• Perpetrators who attempt to distort public policy for private gain should be publicly censured and lose credibility. (As things stand today, such antisocial actions generally entail no loss of prestige whatever. If they are carried through with panache and charm, they produce admiration.)

• Since democracy is an absurdity without reliable information, unbiased news is essential.

• Simplicity and clarity -- i.e., the elimination of ambiguity and gratuitous complication -- are fundamental democratic values where political speech is concerned. Ambiguity and complication are used to misrepresent, conceal, and exclude. Simplicity and clarity make ideas generally accessible. (See George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language.)

• Bias is as unacceptable in the political sphere, including the news media, as in the judiciary (yet conflicts of interest are commonplace).

• Affiliations between news and non-news commercial interests (1) offer no social benefit, and (2) introduce many unnecessary conflicts of interest.

• A central tenet of the U.S. Constitution is that concentration of power poses a threat to society. Since the ability to manipulate public opinion is power, the same tenet clearly argues against the current trend towards concentration of news media ownership.

• The means of achieving good government is not to search for and locate the leader who can save us. Such searches are more properly the concern of religion. Good government depends utterly upon developing a more enlightened and critical civic environment.

• Blind faith is a foolish basis for satisfaction that one’s agents are acting on one’s behalf. Accountability is essential. A central obligation of government is to respond openly to credible questions about its performance.

• In evaluating public statements, the common approach of seeking to gauge the speaker’s sincerity through facial or vocal cues, or through other emotion-based signals, is primitive and ineffective as a guide to the truth. Such an approach tends to favor leaders who either are dishonest or whose irrationality or personal instability gives them the ability to harbor contradictory beliefs simultaneously. In cases where the speaker may merely be an uninformed mouthpiece, sincerity is, in addition, irrelevant.

• Public statements should be evaluated critically and rationally. To do this, it is incomparably easier to deal with statements in written (as opposed to oral) form. The common techniques of deception work much more effectively in the oral medium.

• An absence of clarity and simplicity in public statements should be recognized as a warning flag of an intent to deceive.

• Problems do not necessarily work themselves out over time. It is true that from a longterm perspective, conditions have improved for mankind. But the past is not a dependable guide to the future, because we have never been in a situation similar to the one we are in now.

• The only valid objection to active government intervention (i.e., intervention on behalf of the people) in the affairs of society is the assumption of government incompetence.

Given these insights, one could hope for the definition and implementation of rules and policies to address the following problems -- the most urgent and fundamental threats facing our democracy. (It goes without saying that any measures, improperly implemented, can worsen a situation.) Note that the policies necessary to deal with most of these would have a directly adverse effect on powerful commercial forces, and would thus be certain to provoke fierce, aggressive opposition, while the only countervailing force would be the diffuse public interest.

1. The degradation of the minds of the people; the pollution of our culture by media: The media industry is socially harmful and must be regulated. (See Culture: Appealing Our Free-Speech Sentence.)

2. The electorate’s political naiveté: To address this directly, university programs should be instituted with sufficient government financing to attract bright students in large numbers to public policy analysis as a viable professional career. It would be desirable to have 1% of the workforce engaged full-time. A rational electorate is an investment that would pay for itself.

   Details of implementing such a program are not discussed here, but mechanisms to promote independence, non-partisanship, relevance and quality (through anonymous peer assessment and other means) would clearly be essential.

   In addition, the public education system must aim to equip citizens with an ability to understand abstract concepts, assess issues critically, and think logically.

3. News media monopoly should be stopped.

4. Affiliations between news and non-news business should be eliminated.

5. The current system of political campaign financing -- an abstract issue not considered important by most voters -- obviously promotes corruption and should be reformed.

6. Commercial interests must be completely barred from waging propaganda campaigns and from other attempts, direct or indirect, to influence voters or policymaking processes, in any manner other than through open, direct submissions to policymaking forums in cases where factors relevant to the public interest might otherwise be overlooked.