Just something I've been thinking about recently: why are we leftists?
I can hear the protests right now - more than one three-percent-thinker doesn't consider him/herself easily characterized by an abstract stereotype like "leftist", but the truth is that we hold many opinions shared by those traditionally associated with, or self-identifying as, leftists. This is a little bit odd to me, as in terms of personality and personal values we're closer to libertarians than we'd like to admit. I imagine that we like to think of ourselves as self-reliant, creative, intelligent, educated and able to make informed and reasonable decisions about our lives, probably better than other people can do for us. These traits are also championed by libertarians, since it is through these values, and personal freedoms, that an individual can flourish.
I also don't think that the left has any kind of monopoly on sound policy. In fact, I don't think sound policy has any kind of ideology behind it. "Sound", in this case, means it works. Many political acts whose goals were morally atrocious were pretty well thought out, and fairly effective in execution. And I don't think any of us are naive enough to fall for the idea that our side is always right.
But nevertheless, in terms of abstract world view as well as moral values, we share most of them with people on the left.
Which brings me back to my question, why are we leftist? What personal experience or intellectual inspiration drove us to adopt our worldviews? And why, in the end, did we rely on those views instead of other, possibly more "objective" (or at least more clinical and less blindly emotional), means of making opinions?
I'll actually confess that I'm not sure I'm a leftist at all. While I believe in things like the greater good and well-being of a society potentially at the cost of some individual liberty, I'm also not prone to believing in egalitarianism. I actually DO belive some people are morally superior to others, and it is the value and works of these people I wish to see perpetuated by society. I also do not believe happiness should be considered an intrinsic good in a society. Surely we can come up with a better reason for existing than to make ourselves feel good? (No, to make others feel good is not a good answer - it just leads to the same question.) Perhaps that makes me a fascist. That's a scary thought.
I'm more comfortable with why I'm not a libertarian - I don't trust myself. I know I have failings, and I know I can be selfish, and short-sighted, and bigoted and discriminatory, and I know I fantasize about myself being right all the time despite the fact I most certainly am not. At the same time I have a good sense of what I am responsible for in society. This, I think, makes social democracy a good government for me. I get to vote on things I believe are good, but then others take me to task for doing the right thing. In a libertarian system, on the other hand, I'd be responsible for controlling myself, which I might not be able to do. Extrapolating this to other people in society (and I imagine people like me are not rare) suggests libertarianism in general is bad for society. How I see it, anyway.
Discuss.
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11 comments:
I prefer not to think of myself as any kind of [insert group here]ist, but just of course, I often fall in line with people from those groups on several issues. In high school humanities class we took a quiz to place us politically, and I was found to be the farthest left in the class.
So, yeah, where does it come from?
I think libertarianism is a wonderful ideal. And there's as many different types and views of libertarianism as there are of communism (another wonderful ideal), and sometimes the two even overlap. Given how wide the spectrum of libertarianism is, I'm sure that I can be comfortably placed somewhere within it. I know what kind of libertarianism you're talking about though; being the small-government neoconservative kind.
One thing that's shaped my political views strongly is the recognition that complete equality is not compatible with complete freedom, and even equality-of-opportunity is not compatible with complete economic freedom. One reason is that even if everyone starts equal on day one, by day two some people have fallen ill, some people have made bad choices, some people have gotten lucky, and pretty soon their children are bearing the burden.
I do think that people should bear at least most of the responsibility for their bad choices, but that their children should not be burdened with the sins of their parents. This automatically puts me in at least the centre/centre-left of the spectrum, because there is no way without strong government intervention that the children of poor people can have a similar level of opportunity as children of rich people.
Some right-wing libertarians might argue that their parents grew up with nothing in the depression and lived to see their children become Harvard graduates and powerful CEOs, but there's far more parents in the world with nothing who end up selling their children into child labour camps to manage their crushing debt. Statistically speaking, that's the more likely outcome for a poor child, which indicates to me a strong inequality of opportunity.
So that is perhaps the root, or foundation, of my left-leaning views; that children deserve a clean slate. I'm clearly not a puritan in this regard though, because reductio-ad-absurdum would require Communist levels of social reorganization; either taking children away from their parents and raising them in collectives to ensure absolute equality, or ensuring that parents are sufficiently identical that it doesn't matter which kids the children belong to. I couldn't say for sure why I don't take that stance, but I love my parents and thinking about that kind of society leaves a bad taste in my mouth. So I suppose I simply have to endure the fact that I hold a non-self-consistent philosophy.
Aside from that I do embrace the basic libertarian philosophy that people should be permitted as much freedom as possible, as long as they don't hurt anyone else. And from a practical point of view, I view freedom of speech and freedom of assembly as absolutely essential for creating a good society, because the solution to problems is not to pretend they don't exist, but to make them as widely known as possible. Silencing opposition and protest will only cause corruption and inequality to proliferate, and make people feel powerless to solve problems instead of actively engaged in resolving them.
In other, non-moral issues ("which one should we implement: sales tax, property tax, income tax, carbon tax"), I tend to go with the side that I think has the more logical reasoning. At least in Canadian politics, that often puts me on the left, because our particular right wing seems to embrace emotional arguments ("a carbon tax will screw everybody!" and "forget what the economists say, a GST cut is savings you can feel!"). I imagine that's specific to our place and time though.
- Jacob
DISCLAIMER: This reply may not make sense.
I would say that I also do not believe that everyone is "equal", since I think that is obviously not true.
For example, I would consider a scientist contributing to society more valuable than a beggar slowing down traffic on the street. (The beggar may have the potential to be an accomplished scientist, but the beggar has merely potential, whereas the scientist is already contributing to society.
Having said that, I do have a feeling for "how" equal people are. I think I believe that people are more equal than a lot of rightists. I think ideally, people should be treated as well as the amount they are "worth".
Of course, how much each person is worth is hard to quantify. Even if we could quantify that, and even if it makes sense to treat people that way, I probably cannot make the entire society treat people that way. To me, the society is not something in which I can exert much control. I prefer just consider the society as the unchangeable environment that I live in, and do my best in it.
By the way, you are welcome to try to convince me to think differently.
Momo:
That is only if humans are *only* valued as much as they are worth to society. What happened to valuing humans as worthy on their own? And as for the beggar, if s/he were to have a voice and people would listen, s/he would probably be able to tell you a side of society the scientist would never have experienced. Just what kind of look do people in a car give to beggars? How do different people treat beggars? What can we learn from that as a society?
And also, we should try to know how that beggar became a beggar in the first place. Maybe it was drug addiction, or dysfunctional families, or a multitude of reasons. If we were willing to help and listen to that beggar, society could also learn how to prevent more drug addictions and dysfunctional families...
And now I'll probably be labelled eternally as a leftist.
Tiff:
"That is only if humans are *only* valued as much as they are worth to society"
To play momo's advocate, he didn't actually say beggars were worthless, just that scientists were worth more. And he did also say he's not sure how to determine worth in general. I'd say a good indication of how far left you are is to ask how much of a person's worth is determined by the fact that they're human, and not by their contribution to society. Or rather, in the case of more modern egalitarians, their capacity to feel (so that one can include other species one happens to like). It's not obvious to me how anyone could convince others of just how to set the balance between the inherent worth and "earned" worth of a human being.
I find the argument that beggars have value because they give us a unique perspective on society a bit strange. Isn't the primary insight into studying homelessness to determine how to end homelessness? If there were no beggars, would we purposely ask for volunteers to sleep on the streets and ask for change (and I mean for a LONG time, or else it's just a fun street experiment), to see what we could learn from it? (Sure, maverick artists and social science students might still try it, but they wouldn't be taken seriously if homelessness wasn't a natural consequence of the way our society is structured.) My point is that I don't think there's a good argument for beggars being beneficial to society, at least nothing that's worth having people become beggars.
Actually the lot of street people is an interesting topic. Might I suggest it as a topic for our next blog discussion?
BTW, why are YOU a leftist? :)
-Charles
I think it’s strange to say that scientists are “worth” more when how to determine worth isn’t clear. It’s like saying this orange weighs more than this apply, but we don’t have a weighing unit.
“I'd say a good indication of how far left you are is to ask how much of a person's worth is determined by the fact that they're human, and not by their contribution to society.”
Why is that an indicator of how far left someone is? Or maybe why is it in general that people on the left think people have more value as humans, rather than as a means to contribute to society? Or maybe that’s the deciding factor whether someone is left or not? Maybe all the other ideologies associated with the left stem from this basic premise? E.g. we need a more powerful government for more equal distribution of resources because people all have value, regardless of the amount they contribute to society. E.g. the environment needs to be protected more because ultimately it impacts those with least resources. …?
“It's not obvious to me how anyone could convince others of just how to set the balance between the inherent worth and "earned" worth of a human being.”
No, you’re right. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to bridge this perceived gap between the left and the right. Fundamentally, it’s a matter of values.
“Isn't the primary insight into studying homelessness to determine how to end homelessness?”
I was trying to point out that we can learn things about society and ourselves from everybody in society, regardless of their “worth” to society. I meant that the beggar can teach us the darker side of society; the side that no one would show others who are “worthy.” I forgot who said it, but something along the lines of “we can see how a society really thinks about those beneath them by seeing how they treat their animals.” The fact that we show a difference face to those we consider our equal and those we consider beneath us is a good suggestion of our real humanity.
“My point is that I don't think there's a good argument for beggars being beneficial to society, at least nothing that's worth having people become beggars.”
I didn’t say that it was good for people to become beggars. I just said that this has been a problem in our society for probably as long as society has existed. There will always be people weaker or need more help than the norm. I’m saying that we can’t discount the perspectives that beggars can bring to society, especially when there is still a significant portion of society which is marginalized.
“BTW, why are YOU a leftist? :)”
Because I’m labelled as one :P Seriously, I actually think some economic policies on the right would work. But in terms of fundamental values, of human life, of the earth that supports our life, of the welfare of animals, I can just say I was born a leftist…?
Tiff:
"I think it’s strange to say that scientists are “worth” more when how to determine worth isn’t clear."
I suppose it's important to make a distinction here. Suppose Adam, a social worker, is trying to produce a study, or even just a first-hand "case study" account of the homeless, and interviews and tries to understand the life of Brenda, who is homeless. I would argue that both Adam and Brenda have "worth" in the sense that both were instrumental in creating a better understanding of the "darker side of society". However, in this endeavour Adam is the more the actor, while Brenda is more passive. If Clara is a poet and Mt. Baker is her muse, I would consider the mountain an important part of the process of writing poetry, but under no circumstances would I consider Mt. Baker as "earning" any of the worth from the poetry that results. To take another example, if Brenda is homeless due to her cocaine addiction, and travels to high schools to give speeches on her life and how to avoid her fate, she'd be earning the worth that results from her actions. To say that the homeless give a window into the darker side of society is not the same as saying scientists give a window into the natural world.
"Why is that an indicator of how far left someone is? "
I'm referring to the egalitarian/heirarchy spectrum, rather than the libertarian/authoritarian spectrum (in accordance with Fig. 2 of this page on Wikipedia). People who conciously maintain heirarchical ideals must believe that certain people are morally superior to others (or else their ideals would fundamentally be unjust). Therefore someone who believe that the inherent worth of individuals is the primary attribute by which society should treat them should end up on the left side of the spectrum. Such an individual would also be more likely to extend this treatment to animals, etc (since how animals contribute to society doesn't fit in the traditional metric describing earned worth, but if one believes they have inherent worth then it makes giving animals rights much more reasonable).
Those people who believe in egalitarianism but practically think Capitalism is the only system that maximizes the egalitarian good don't fit neatly into the left-right axis, so I suppose my question about why we're leftists should be narrowed to asking why we tend to be socialist in our ideas.
"I forgot who said it..."
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
-Attributed (unconfirmed) to Mohandas Gandhi
And not something I necessarily agree with.
"I actually think some economic policies on the right would work."
So far as having a balanced budget is inexplicably considered a right-wing idea, I'm all for that. Since the right-wingers tend to overspend the left-wingers (since they cut taxes but cutting social spending will kill them in the elections), it's not at all obvious to me why this classification exists outside of politicized media spin.
"I can just say I was born a leftist…?"
I don't think people are born socialist. While you may naturally have more empathy toward others than, say, me, you could easily have a distrust of social institutions, or genuinely believe in the trickle-down effect.
-Charles
That's why they're called "tax-and-spend" liberals. Conservatives don't tax, but they still spend. ;)
The worth of an individual is a concept I prefer to avoid, because it's so difficult to even treat qualitatively, let alone quantitatively. It's certainly possible to create an arbitrary system that can rank people by their worth to the society they live in, but that doesn't actually get you very far. First, people will question the methodology behind the ranking system, and after that, they'll question the notion that the worth of an individual even depends at all on their usefulness to other people.
It's not hard to come up with ranking systems. "The worth of an individual is their contribution to the GDP! No, wait, their contribution to the tax base! No, wait, their contribution to science! No, it's how many children they have! No, it's..."
But I think that every single one that could ever be imagined - no matter how simple or how complicated - will be challenged in the same way, and there is no way to respond to that challenge. There's no way to argue that my system is better than yours. So in the end I have to accept that there is actually NO fair measure of the worth of a person's life.
And I think that if you have a gut feeling that you can rank two people, you have already got some idea of such a system in mind. It might not be a fully developed or self-consistent ranking system, and you might find it easy to compare a scientist with a beggar but not a scientist with a doctor, but there's some kind of system in mind. And if you were to use that gut feeling to rank enough people, you might be able to come up with some kind of general rules that work to make that ranking. But once you do, a friend will look at that model and say "interesting, but I disagree", and so in the end it's just arbitrary.
And it's my opinion that when ranking the inherent worth of people, an arbitrary system is implicitly unjust.
- Jacob
Jacob:
Equal weights for the worth of individuals is also a weighting system, which arbitrarily takes all differences between people to be of no consequence morally.
Though perhaps this hasn't anything to do with the subject matter, since it's not like we give higher-paying salaries to people we think are more worthy of it. Rather, we give reward to actions we desire (such as paying for a service or good), or to encourage further action (such as awards for volunteering).
I've known a few people personally, and read the opinions of a few others, that spend time caring about whether or not society rewards those who deserve it. Certainly Ayn Rand ranks among them. But I don't think a huge population of rightists support their side because they believe Capitalism properly ranks individual worth. And I don't think "the poor deserve to be poor" has been a part of anyone's political rhetoric since World War II, though "the poor don't deserve to be poor" is one that's often touted by BOTH the left and the right. Such is the prevalence of liberalism that no one argues in favour of aristocracy anymore (save for Fascists).
It probably is the case, at least in Canada, that people on the right and on the left have very similar fundamental values. I'll take back what I said earlier about egalitarianism being an effective measure of whether you're on th left or right (unless you're on the extreme right). They differ only in what policies they think are the most effective in achieving those social goods (such as employment, the creation of wealth, etc.). I personally believe policies on the left make more sense, mostly because I have a deep suspicion that the market (alone) can ever solve social problems.
I think everyone here agrees that it is nearly impossible (or impossible) to determine the worth of an individual. At the very least it requires that society adopt a set of values it considers worthy of reward, and even then it's still extremely difficult to ask who embodies those virtues more (how do you measure compassion?).
Charles
More thinking on this - there's probably a point of confusion between worth as in utility and worth as in moral worth. I'm referring to moral worth, and I believe momo's referring to the same. Tiffany's referring to utility.
My thesis, and my belief still, is that moral worth requires agency. There has to be intention and mental effort behind the creation of utility to warrant being credited with creating this utility. A person who saves the world by accidentally pushing a button has not earned saving the world (I would be grateful that s/he did it, but would not think more highly of him/her than I did before). Of course, scientifically nothing distinguishes agents from non-agents in terms of cause - electrical impulses in the brain are guided by the same physical laws, and the arrow of time, as rocks and water. (Likewise there's a number of religions that consider the concept of individual agency illusory, at least to some degree.) My belief predicates on the metaphysical assertion that there's something different between the actions of people and the actions of rocks called "agency" (intention, essentially) that makes humans and other entities with agency able to earn moral worth. This is not easy (if even possible) to prove, of course - I simply FEEL I have agency, and I suspect most of you also feel that.
That being said, it's also important to note that whether or not someone has earned worth isn't the only (and often isn't even the dominant) driver of my treatment of others. For example, I don't think criminals should be jailed because they have earned jailtime, or that people who excel in academia should be given awards because they earned them; rather, in both cases I consider the actions a method of individual and societal control. I believe we should jail criminals to protect society and change the behavioural tendencies of the criminal. I believe we should give people awards for good work because it encourages them to do more good work, and because it encourages others by giving them a bar to exceed. These systems of doling out reward and punishment should be fair and transparent to minimize resentment and feelings of injustice, and should consider agency because it's a natural feeling among many.
-Charles
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