A rambling conversation
28/01/15 05:15
If you read my blog, you will have noted that while I have political opinions, I rarely write on political topics in my blog. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that at my heart, I am more of a philosopher than a politician. I don’t think, talk or write in sound bytes. I am rarely swayed by slogans and “zingers.” I have more interest in complex arguments than in quick solutions. I suspect that many true politicians would find what I have to say to be boring. I find many politicians to be rash and shallow. Both judgments are possibly unfair, but they characterize a basic difference.
I believe that we are a part of something that is much bigger than ourselves. The flow of history, including political history, has antecedents that were set in motion long before we arrived on the scene and our actions are a part of a process that extends long beyond our lives - or even our “legacy” whatever that may be. As such, I believe that many of our human mistakes come from short-sightedness. And short-sightedness is something that is frequent in the cycles of politics. Representatives serve for two years, which means that as soon as they are elected, they are campaigning for the next election. It also means that they must be engaged in constant fundraising. It also means that they are looking for short-term fixes and flashy appearances and spend virtually no energy investing in projects and programs whose results are decades in the future.
I believe that centuries from now, the Supreme Court Case “Citizens v United” will be used as an illustration of one of the poorest decisions to come out of a deliberative body in the story of modern democracies. To explain my position, however, would take longer than several blogs. So, instead, lets take a short look at a bit of the history of philosophy. (Caution, politicians, I’m about to get boring.)
Back in 1840 or ’41 Alexis de Tocqueville published a book called Democracy in America. He concluded that one of the problems of modern democracies is their tendency to encourage individualism and corrode the citizen’s sense of true community. In America, he argued, people lose the sense that their fellow citizens have interests and concerns that are the same as their own. You would think that it might work the other way around, but the results, de Tocqueville are consistent.
The problem with Citizens v United is not what it says about corporations, though what it says is a bit bizarre, it is what it says about individuals. (Note that a true philosopher would disagrees at this point and point out the logical fallacy of using the 14th amendment - a part of Reconstruction that was intended to give full citizenship to freed slaves - to argue that corporations have rights and responsibilities as citizens.)
In contemporary America a corporation is a kind of circle where no one assumes responsibility. They are a system that allows for reward without obligation. The workers state they cannot be responsible for ethical action of the corporation, saying that they have to answer to their executives. The executives claim that they have to answer to the CEO and the Board. The CEO and the Board state they have to answer to the shareholders. The shareholders are often the customers, who are being taken advantage of by the products produced by the workers. It is a huge circle in which no one understands their obligation to assume responsibility.
Stating that corporations are citizens lets individuals off of the hook in terms of civic responsibility. In a corporation, no one sees him or herself as the ethical center of the organization. Corporations expect the government and its regulations to be their conscience. They feel free to do anything that is legal, thus handing off moral responsibility to the government.
Unfortunately too many citizens do the same thing. In conversation after conversation, I hear citizens of the United States speak of the government as if it were some outside entity - as if government by the people and for the people was about some other people - as if the government was something other than us acting together.
If we see the nation as something in which we are all in this together, we might restrain our own behavior because we care about others. We might refrain from seizing the maximum amount for ourselves, because we are motivated to care about fellow citizens. If we see the government at the enforcer of rules, we take every tax break we can find, we seek to maximize personal gain and don’t spend much energy deliberating the effects on others.
This isn’t a liberal v conservative argument. It isn’t an argument about the size of government or any specific government program. It is an argument about individual responsibility.
What I am saying is that we can’t defer our responsibility, our obligations, our duty to corporations or to government. We are responsible for one another. What happens to those on the margins of society affects the whole of society. Our corporations are not somebody else - they are us. The government is not some amorphous independent agency - it is us.
de Tocqueville, however, observed that there is something in modern democracies and in the way that the United States was behaving in the period of time leading up to the Civil War that encourages individuals to fail to recognize their role in the community. Instead of taking responsibility for community, they walk away from others in a form of rank individualism that ignores the plight of the other - even when it is obviously in one’s own self interests to care for the other.
Note that I have fashioned this entire blog without once mentioning Jean-Jacques Rosseau. That’s the problem. I’m a philosopher at heart. The argument is way more complex than can be pursued in a thousand words.
A politician would read this and say, “but what does he want us to do?” And I remain less concerned with what people do than with how they understand themselves.
There is, after all, a long and complex philosophical explanation of why politicians behave the way they do.
I believe that we are a part of something that is much bigger than ourselves. The flow of history, including political history, has antecedents that were set in motion long before we arrived on the scene and our actions are a part of a process that extends long beyond our lives - or even our “legacy” whatever that may be. As such, I believe that many of our human mistakes come from short-sightedness. And short-sightedness is something that is frequent in the cycles of politics. Representatives serve for two years, which means that as soon as they are elected, they are campaigning for the next election. It also means that they must be engaged in constant fundraising. It also means that they are looking for short-term fixes and flashy appearances and spend virtually no energy investing in projects and programs whose results are decades in the future.
I believe that centuries from now, the Supreme Court Case “Citizens v United” will be used as an illustration of one of the poorest decisions to come out of a deliberative body in the story of modern democracies. To explain my position, however, would take longer than several blogs. So, instead, lets take a short look at a bit of the history of philosophy. (Caution, politicians, I’m about to get boring.)
Back in 1840 or ’41 Alexis de Tocqueville published a book called Democracy in America. He concluded that one of the problems of modern democracies is their tendency to encourage individualism and corrode the citizen’s sense of true community. In America, he argued, people lose the sense that their fellow citizens have interests and concerns that are the same as their own. You would think that it might work the other way around, but the results, de Tocqueville are consistent.
The problem with Citizens v United is not what it says about corporations, though what it says is a bit bizarre, it is what it says about individuals. (Note that a true philosopher would disagrees at this point and point out the logical fallacy of using the 14th amendment - a part of Reconstruction that was intended to give full citizenship to freed slaves - to argue that corporations have rights and responsibilities as citizens.)
In contemporary America a corporation is a kind of circle where no one assumes responsibility. They are a system that allows for reward without obligation. The workers state they cannot be responsible for ethical action of the corporation, saying that they have to answer to their executives. The executives claim that they have to answer to the CEO and the Board. The CEO and the Board state they have to answer to the shareholders. The shareholders are often the customers, who are being taken advantage of by the products produced by the workers. It is a huge circle in which no one understands their obligation to assume responsibility.
Stating that corporations are citizens lets individuals off of the hook in terms of civic responsibility. In a corporation, no one sees him or herself as the ethical center of the organization. Corporations expect the government and its regulations to be their conscience. They feel free to do anything that is legal, thus handing off moral responsibility to the government.
Unfortunately too many citizens do the same thing. In conversation after conversation, I hear citizens of the United States speak of the government as if it were some outside entity - as if government by the people and for the people was about some other people - as if the government was something other than us acting together.
If we see the nation as something in which we are all in this together, we might restrain our own behavior because we care about others. We might refrain from seizing the maximum amount for ourselves, because we are motivated to care about fellow citizens. If we see the government at the enforcer of rules, we take every tax break we can find, we seek to maximize personal gain and don’t spend much energy deliberating the effects on others.
This isn’t a liberal v conservative argument. It isn’t an argument about the size of government or any specific government program. It is an argument about individual responsibility.
What I am saying is that we can’t defer our responsibility, our obligations, our duty to corporations or to government. We are responsible for one another. What happens to those on the margins of society affects the whole of society. Our corporations are not somebody else - they are us. The government is not some amorphous independent agency - it is us.
de Tocqueville, however, observed that there is something in modern democracies and in the way that the United States was behaving in the period of time leading up to the Civil War that encourages individuals to fail to recognize their role in the community. Instead of taking responsibility for community, they walk away from others in a form of rank individualism that ignores the plight of the other - even when it is obviously in one’s own self interests to care for the other.
Note that I have fashioned this entire blog without once mentioning Jean-Jacques Rosseau. That’s the problem. I’m a philosopher at heart. The argument is way more complex than can be pursued in a thousand words.
A politician would read this and say, “but what does he want us to do?” And I remain less concerned with what people do than with how they understand themselves.
There is, after all, a long and complex philosophical explanation of why politicians behave the way they do.