Agreement on matters of moment, religious, political, and philosophical, seems out of reach. But we may be able to reach clarity about our respective positions on the issues that divide us. That's what I used to think. I used to think that clarity is attainable even if agreement is not. But now I think that things are worse than I thought.
For the attaining of clarity requires agreement on what the issues are: we have to agree on the identity of the issues and how they are to be formulated. Do we agree on the issues and questions? Do we agree about what we are asking when we ask whether God exists? Or whether there are rights? Or whether the USA is systemically racist? Or whether there is climate change? The depth of disagreement may be such that we cannot attain clarity. It may be that neither agreement nor clarity are attainable goals. Philosophers often disagree about what they are disagreeing about. I need to adduce further examples.
Thomas Sowell interviewed on the conflict of visions, the conflict between the constrained vision of conservatives and the unconstrained vision of leftists.
The constrained vision "sees the evils of the world as deriving from the limited and unhappy choices available, given the inherent moral and intellectual limitations of human beings."
"When Rousseau said that 'man is born free' but 'is everywhere in chains,' he expressed the essence of the unconstrained vision, in which the fundamental problem is not man or nature, but institutions."
Less than ten minutes, and WELL worth your time.
To paraphrase Sowell, for the leftist, when good things happen, they happen naturally; when bad things happen, however, it is due to institutions and civilization itself.
When this is understood, a lot falls into place. One begins to understand why leftists are out to erase the historical record by toppling statues, destroying monuments, burning books and otherwise suppressing open inquiry and the free flow of ideas. One begins to understand why the Left is at war with the family and religious traditions. One begins to understand the leftist hatred and denial of reality itself below the level of social construction, and what drives their blather about 'systemic racism' and 'gender,' not to mention their celebration of freaks and losers and criminals and 'the other.'
As a philosopher, I am more interested in the nature of disagreement than in the particular things we disagree about. Why should our disagreements be so bitter and protracted? But the particular bones of contention are fascinating too. At the moment, there is wild disagreement over the assessment of Rush Limbaugh's remarkably influential career. Here's a little sample. Andrew Klavan:
I liked Rush Limbaugh. I only turned on his show out of curiosity, so help me. But to my surprise, I did not find him evil in the least. He was just talking sense, really. Freedom. Constitutional limits on government. What was wrong with that?
Plus he was funny too, really funny. How could I not be delighted at the fear and loathing he inspired in the great and good? During my long absence from America, the great and good had become such smug, small-minded, and provincial little people, it was a guilty pleasure to watch them writhe on the flame he lit beneath them. For decades, feminists had called men “pigs.” Now Rush called them “feminazis,” and they threw their aprons over their faces and sobbed about his lack of civility. For decades, race-mongers had blamed an innocent generation of whites for a history that they hadn’t made, and now Rush mocked the mongers with wicked impressions, and declared it was time for black Americans to get on board the freedom train with their white fellow citizens.
It was beautiful. Courageous. The kind of radio magic I’d grown up with. And it changed me, or at least helped me change. Rush gave a joyful voice to the new thoughts I didn’t even know I’d had.
Obituaries for talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, who died on Wednesday at the age of 70, have frequently described him as a “conservative provocateur.” This is technically accurate but euphemistic, akin to calling Bashar al-Assad a “controversial leader.” Limbaugh’s stock in trade was bigotry and offense; his career-long defining trait was a willingness to channel the conservative id in unusually blunt and crude terms.
Rush was not a monster, he wasn’t evil, he did not mean people harm, he wasn’t a bigot, or any of the other smears lobbed against him by my leftist associates. I liked him very much, and while we disagreed on many things (then) he was nothing has he had been painted 4/
In my conversations with him, we talked about the issues and despite the disagreements, he also took time to give me advice about hosting, style, connecting w the audience, etc. He encouraged me and gave me advice that made a huge difference in my career… 5/
He approached me and everyone else as separate individual worthy of respect and with a desire to help and inspire. Regardless of the fact that I stood for everything he stood against. It was a generosity of spirit you would never see on the left 6/
The impact of realizing that I’d been lied to about Rush was significant, but that as a conservative he represented more of what I felt was valuable & important was a revelation. He made it possible to even consider that which is what made him so dangerous to the left 7/
During this time as an activist leftist, it was talk radio, the audience, & meeting Rush Limbaugh that was the undeniable trigger making it possible for me to rethink my alliances & eventually leave the leftist establishment 8/
It wasn’t just Rush, but I’d also been lied to about conservatives in general, realizing that by speaking with callers every day who were conservative & responding fairly & w curiosity to my arguments on the air. Rush made that medium, & experience, possible 9/
My leftist associates begged me not to go into talk radio. I eventually realized they were so opposed because of what I would learn. That leftist effort to deny access to ideas & info continues w even more vitriol & punishment for those who dare to challenge leftist lies 10/
Rush created the potential of the medium, and set the tone for entertainment, analysis & education. Honest conversations open to everyone is anathema to the left which is why they’re obsessed w creating fear & the cancel culture 11/
The ugliness of the left will be seen throughout today & the days to come in response to the death of Rush, an American titan & defender of conservative values. The left is ugly & horrible but it is exactly their nature & should serve to remind you the importance of our fight 12/
The good news is, Rush not only changed our lives by helping us understand the imperative of freedom & generosity, but he now serves as an even more essential example for all of us 13/
Rush may be gone, but now it’s up to all of us to continue his commitment to our great nation. Thank you sir, for the time you took with a arrogant & smug LA leftist feminist, one of the millions of lives you changed for the better.
When there is an excess of agreement, discussions in politics and elsewhere are often tiresome and boring: the parties are as if in competition to see who can express the most outrage. One is preaching to the preachers. But an excess of agreement is better than a paucity thereof. The ideal discussion, however, is one in which broad agreement on fundamentals leaves room for disagreement on details. We are farther from that ideal than we have ever been in these no longer United States.
More and more, I find myself attempting to have difficult conversations with people who hold very different points of view. And I consider our general failure to have these conversations well—so as to produce an actual convergence of opinion and a general increase in goodwill between the participants—to be the most consequential problem that exists. Apart from violence and other forms of coercion, all we have is conversation with which to influence one another. The fact that it is so difficult for people to have civil and productive conversations about things like U.S. foreign policy, or racial inequality, or religious tolerance and free speech, is profoundly disorienting. And it’s also dangerous. If we fail to do this, we will fail to do everything else of value. Conversation is our only tool for collaborating in a truly open-ended way.
[. . .]
. . . conversation is our only hope.
Fascinating and worthy of careful thought. Here are the main points I take Harris to be making.
1. A successful conversation produces a convergence of opinion and an increase in good will between the participants.
2. The failure to have such conversations is the most consequential problem that exists.
3. Apart from violence and other forms of coercion, all we have is conversation with which to influence one another.
4. Our failure to have civil and productive conversations about important matters of controversy is dangerous.
5. If we fail to do this, we will fail to do everything else of value.
Should we agree with any or all of these points?
Ad (1). We shouldn't agree with this. It would not be reasonable to do so. Neither of the two conditions Harris specifies are necessary for a successful conversation. I have had many successful philosophical and other conversations that do not issue in agreement or convergence of opinion. And I am sure you have as well. What these conversations issue in is clarification. The topic becomes clearer, as well as its implications for and relations with other topics, the arguments on both sides get better understood, as well as one's views and one's interlocutor's views. Mutual clarification, even without agreement, even with intractable disagreement, is sufficient for successful conversation. If we come to understand exactly what it is we disagree about, then that is very important progress even if we never come to agree.
In fact, I consider it utopian and indeed foolish to think that one can achieve (uncoerced, rational) agreement on truly fundamental matters. On some matters rational agreement among competent interlocutors is of course possible; but on others just impossible. If this is right, then agreement on all important matters of controversy cannot be an ideal for us, a goal we ought to pursue. Ought implies can. If we ought to pursue a goal, then it must be possible for us to achieve it. If a certain goal is impossible for us to achieve, then we cannot be obliged to achieve it.
A reachable goal is clarity, not agreement; toleration, not consensus.
Consider religion. Is it a value or not? Conservatives, even those who are atheistic and irreligious, tend to view religion as a value, as conducive to human flourishing. Liberals and leftists tend to view it as a disvalue, as something that impedes human flourishing. This is an important, indeed crucially important, question. Does Sam Harris really think that, via patient, civil, mutually respectful conversation, no matter how protracted, he is going to convince those of us who think religion important for human flourishing to abandon our view?
If he thinks this he is naive. I respect Harris, something I cannot say about some other New Atheists. But Harris is out beyond his depth in philosophy and religion. And he has a foolish belief in the power of reason to resolve the issues that are of deepest concern to us. Reason is a magnificent thing, of course, but Harris appears to have no inkling of its infirmity or limits.
As for the other condition, an increase in good will, surely it is not necessary for a successful conversation. The quantity of good will may stay the same in a discussion without prejudice to the discussion's being productive. It may even decrease. Admittedly, without a certain amount of initial good will, no fruitful conversation can take place. But it is false to say that a successful conversation increases good will.
Ad (2). If (1) is false or unreasonable, then so is (2). Suppose I have a conversation with an atheist such as Harris and fail to budge him from his position while he fails to budge me from mine. Such a conversation can be very productive, useful, successful, not to mention transcendently enjoyable. The life of the mind is of all lives the highest and best, and its being these things is not predicated on achieving agreement about the lofty topics that engage our interest while quite possibly transcending our ability to resolve them to our mutual satisfaction. The failure to meet Harris's conditions need be no problem at all, let alone the most consequential problem that exists.
Ad (3). Harris tells us that it is either coercion or conversation when it comes to influencing people. This is plainly a false alternative. One way to non-violently and non-coercively influence people is by setting a good example. If I treat other people with kindness, respect, forbearance, etc., this 'sets a good example' and reliably induces many people in the vicinity to do otherwise. In fact I needn't say a word, let alone enter into a conversation. For example, with a friendly gesture I can invite a motorist to enter my lane of traffic. In doing so, I ever-so-slightly increase the good will and fellow feeling in the world, profiting myself in the process. In this connection, a marvellous aphorism from Søren Kierkegaard, Journals, #1056 comes to mind:
The essential sermon is one's own existence.
But more importantly, there is teaching which in most cases is a non-violent but also a non-conversational mode of influencing people. For example, teaching someone how to change a tire, play chess, use a computer. If I have a skill, I don't discuss it with you, I teach it to you. Much of elementary education is non-violent but also non-conversational. Teaching the alphabet, the moves of the chess men, the multiplication tables, and so on. There is nothing to discuss, nothing to have a conversation about. The elements have simply to be learned. Controversial topics open to debate will arise late on. But there is no point in discussing the Peano axioms if one does not know that 1 + 1 = 2.
What about ethical instruction? Only a liberal fool would advocate conversations with young children about theft and murder and lying as if the rightness or wrongness of these acts is subject to reasonable debate or is a matter of mere opinion. They must be taught that these things are wrong for their own good and for the good of others. Discussion of ethical niceties and theories comes later, if at all, and presupposes ethical indoctrination: a child who has not internalized and appropriated ethical prescriptions and proscriptions cannot profit from ethical conversations or courses in ethics. You cannot make a twenty-year-old ethical by requiring him to take a course in ethics. He must already be ethical by upbringing.
Harris's thesis #3 is plainly false. But this is not to deny that respectful conversation is much to be preferred over coercive methods of securing agreement and should be pursued whenever possible.
Ad (4). Harris tells us that it is "dangerous" to not have civil and productive conversations about important and controversial matters. But why dangerous? Harris must know that even among competent and sincere interlocutors here in the West who share may assumptions and values we are not going to come to any agreement about God, guns, abortion, capital punishment, same-sex 'marriage,' the cluster of questions surrounding 'global warming' and plenty of other economic, political, and social questions. How can it be dangerous to not have interminable, inconclusive conversations? Conversations that go nowhere? That are more productive of dissensus than consensus? That contribute to polarization? Well, I suppose you could say that if we are talking we are not shooting.
Ad (5). Harris is really over the top on this one. Exercise for the reader: supply the refutation.
Conclusion: Conversation is overrated. If it is our only hope we are in very bad shape. We need fewer 'conversations,' not more. And we need more tolerance of opposing points of view. More tolerance and more voluntary separation. We don't need to talk to get along. We need to talk less while respecting boundaries and differences. We need less engagement and more dis-engagement. Everybody needs to back off. Trouble is, totalitarians won't back off. They want a total clamp-down on belief and behavior. And it doesn't matter whether they are 'liberal' totalitarians or Islamist totalitarians.
So there looks to be no way to avoid a fight. Unfortunately, it is reason herself who teaches that it is often the hard fist of unreason that prevails and settles the issue when the appeal to reason is unavailing.
Should one break off contact with those whose social and political views one finds abhorrent?
Let me mention one bad reason for not breaking off contact. The bad reason is that by not breaking off contact one can have 'conversations' that will lead to amicable agreements and mutual understanding. This bad reason is based on the false assumption that there is still common ground on which to hold these 'conversations.' I say we need fewer 'conversations' and more voluntary separation. In marriage as in politics, the bitter tensions born of irreconcilable differences are relieved by divorce, not by attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable.
Let's consider some examples. In each of these cases it is difficult to see what common ground the parties to the dispute occupy. Lack of common ground makes interaction pointless, time-wasting, and disruptive of peace of mind. The less common ground, the stronger the reasons for the political equivalent of divorce, or at least mitigation of contact.
1. Suppose you hold the utterly abhorrent view that it is a justifiable use of state power to force a florist or a caterer to violate his conscience by providing services at, say, a same-sex 'marriage' ceremony.
2. Or you hold the appalling and ridiculous view that demanding photo ID at polling places disenfranchises those would-be voters who lack such ID.
3. Or you refuse to admit a distinction between legal and illegal immigration.
4. Or you maintain the absurd thesis that global warming is the greatest threat to humanity at the present time. (Obama)
5. Or you advance the crack-brained notion that the cases of Trayvon Martin and Emmet Till are comparable in all relevant respects.
6. Or, showing utter contempt for facts, you insist that Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri was an 'unarmed black teenager' shot down like a dog in cold blood without justification of any sort by the racist cop, Darren Wilson.
7. Or you compare Ferguson and Baltimore as if they are relevantly similar. (Hillary Clinton)
8. Or you mendaciously elide distinctions crucial in the gun debate such as that between semi-auto and full-auto. (Dianne Feinstein)
9. Or you systematically deploy double standards. President Obama, for example, refuses to use 'Islamic' in connection with the Islamic State or 'Muslim' in connection with Muslim terrorists. But he has no problem with pinning the deeds of crusaders and inquisitors on Christians.
10. Or you mendaciously engage in self-serving anachronism, for example, comparing current Muslim atrocities with Christian ones long in the past.
11. Or you routinely slander your opponents with such epithets as 'racist,' 'sexist,' 'xenophobic,' etc.
12. Or you make up words whose sole purpose is to serve as semantic bludgeons and cast doubt on the sanity of your opponents. You know full well that a phobia is an irrational fear, but you insist on labeling those who oppose homosexual practices as 'phobic' when you know that their opposition is in most cases rationally grounded and not based in fear, let alone irrational fear.
13. Or you bandy the neologism 'Islamophobia' as a semantic bludgeon when it is plain that fear of radical Islam is entirely rational. In general, you engage in linguistic mischief whenever it serves your agenda thereby showing contempt for the languages you mutilate.
14. Or you take the side of underdogs qua underdogs without giving any thought as to whether or not these underdogs are in any measure responsible for their status or their misery by their crimes. You apparently think that weakness justifies.
15. Or you label abortion a 'reproductive right' or a 'women's health issue' thus begging the question of its moral acceptability.
16. Or you think biological males should be allowed to compete against biological females in sporting events.
And on, and on, though the entire litany of leftist lunacies.
One reason is that we differ over values. That's bad. Worse still is that we differ over what is true and what is false. Disagreements about values and norms are troubling but not surprising, but nowadays we can't even agree on what the facts are. Worst of all is that we differ over what truth is and whether there are any truths. The point about values is obvious. I won't say more about it on this occasion. Here are some examples of how we differ over what is true and what is false:
The left believes the president colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. The reality is that there was no collusion. This is the conclusion of the Mueller report, but still, the left doesn’t accept it.
The left is certain President Trump said the neo-Nazis are “very fine people” when referring to the protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. The right is certain the president didn’t say there are good neo-Nazis any more than he said there are good “antifa” members. When he said there were “very fine people on both sides,” he was referring to those demonstrating on behalf of keeping Confederate statues and those opposed. See “The Charlottesville Lie” by CNN analyst Steve Cortes.
The left believes socialism is economically superior to capitalism. But the reality is that only capitalism has lifted billions of people out of poverty.
These examples are from Dennis Prager. I will now go Prager one better: we don't just disagree about what is true and false; we disagree about whether there is truth is the first place.
The Left is culturally Marxist, and part of that line is that there is no objective truth. What there are are perspectives and power relations. 'True' is whatever perspective enhances the power of some tribe. Thus the abominations 'our truth' and 'my truth.'
We are obviously in deep trouble and it is not clear how to avoid disaster. Hot civil war would be a disaster. But we conservatives are not about to accept dhimmitude. Secession is unworkable. We need to find the political equivalent of divorce. But how to work this out in detail is above my pay grade. And yours too.
The consolations of philosophy, and of old age, are many.
A drizzly day yesterday, but memorable. A strong speech by the man. I was moved by it. Ah, but the depth of disagreement!
One acquaintance of mine is in mourning, wearing a black arm band, while another speaks of Inauguration Day as the happiest day of his life. Both men are decent and intelligent. And both are philosophers.
I see Trump as a needed corrective. So I am not much bothered that he is blunt, rude, and unconcerned about the usual pieties and protocols and the niceties of language. What he lacks in gravitas he makes up for in guts. The man displays civil courage.
A corrective to what? To many things. Defeatism for one. "A wall won't keep 'em out; they'll tunnel under it."
Our national life is becoming like philosophy: a scene of endless disagreement about almost everything. The difference, of course, is that philosophical controversy is typically conducted in a gentlemanly fashion without bloodshed or property damage. Some say that philosophy is a blood sport, but no blood is ever shed, and though philosophers are ever shooting down one another's arguments, gunfire at philosophical meetings is so far nonexistent. A bit of poker brandishing is about as far as it goes.
Some say we need more 'conversations' with our political opponents about the hot-button issues that divide us. The older I get the more pessimistic I become about the prospects of such 'conversations.' I believe we need fewer conversations, less interaction, and the political equivalent of divorce. Here is an extremely pessimistic view that I mention not to endorse but to mark one end of a spectrum:
I believe the time for measured debate on national topics has passed. There are many erudite books now decorating the tweed-jacket pipe-rooms of avuncular conservative theorists. And none as effective at convincing our opponents as a shovel to the face. But setting that means aside, there is no utility in good-faith debate with a side whose core principle is your destruction. The “middle ground” is a chasm. It is instead our duty to scathe, to ridicule, to scorn, and encourage the same in others. But perhaps foremost it is our duty to hate what is being done. A healthy virile hate. For those of you not yet so animated, I can assure its effects are invigorating.
Unfortunately, Stephens says things that are quite stupid. He says, for example, that disagreement is "the most vital ingredient of any decent society." That is as foolish as to say, as we repeatedly hear from so-called liberals, that our strength lies in diversity. That is an absurdity bordering on such Orwellianisms as "War is peace" and 'Slavery is freedom." Our strength lies not in our diversity, but in our unity. Likewise, the most vital ingredient in any decent society is agreement on values and principles and purposes. Only on the basis of broad agreement can disagreement be fruitful.
This is not to say that diversity is not a value at all; it is a value in competition with the value of unity, a value which must remain subordinated to the value of unity. Diversity within limits enriches a society; but what makes it viable is common ground. "United we stand, divided we fall." "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
Stephens goes on to create a problem for himself. Having gushed about how wonderful disagreement is, he then wonders why contemporary disagreement is so bitter, so unproductive, and so polarizing. If disagreement is the lifeblood of successful societies, why is blood being shed?
Stephens naively thinks that if we just listen to one another with open minds and mutual respect and the willingness to alter our views that our conversations will converge on agreement. He speaks of the "disagreements we need to have" that are "banished from the public square before they are settled." Settled? What hot button issue ever gets settled? What does Stephens mean by 'settled'? Does he mean: get the other side to shut up and acquiesce in what you are saying? Or does he mean: resolve the dispute in a manner acceptable to all parties to it? The latter is what he has to mean. But then no hot-button issue is going to get settled.
Stephens fails to see that the disagreements are now so deep that there can be no reasonable talk of settling any dispute. Does anyone in his right mind think that liberals will one day 'come around' and grasp that abortion is the deliberate killing of innocent human beings and that it ought be illegal in most cases? And that is just one of many hot-button issues.
We don't agree on things that a few years ago all would have agreed on, e.g., that the national borders need to be secured.
According to Stephens, "Intelligent disagreement is the lifeblood of any thriving society." Again, this is just foolish. To see this, consider the opposite:
Agreement as to fundamental values, principles and purposes is the lifeblood of any thriving society.
Now ask yourself: which of these statements is closer to the truth? Obviously mine, not Stephens'. He will disagree with me about the role of disagreement. How likely do you think it is that we will settle this meta-disagreement? It is blindingly evident to me that I am right and that he is wrong. Will he come to see the light? Don't count on it.
It is naive to suppose that conversations will converge upon agreement, especially when the parties to the conversations are such a diverse bunch made even more diverse by destructive immigration policies. For example, you cannot allow Sharia-supporting Muslims to immigrate into Western societies and then expect to have mutually respectful conversations with them that converge upon agreement.
I am not saying that there is no place for intelligent disagreement. There is, and it ought to be conducted with mutual respect, open-mindedness and all the rest. The crucial point Stephens misses is that fruitful disagreement can take place only under the umbrella of shared principles, values, and purposes. To invert the metaphor: fruitful disagreement presupposes common ground.
And here is the problem: lack of common ground. I have nothing in common with the Black Lives Matters activists whose movement is based on lies about Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and the police. I have nothing in common with Antifa thugs who have no respect for the classical traditions and values of the university. I could go on: people who see nothing wrong with sanctuary jurisdictions, with open borders, with using the power to the state to force florists and caterers to violate their consciences; the gun grabbers; the fools who speak of 'systemic racism'; the appeasers of rogue regimes . . . .
There is no comity without commonality, and the latter is on the wane. A bad moon is rising, and trouble's on the way. Let's hope we can avoid civil war.
Brian Kennedy, A Passion to Oppose: John Anderson, Philosopher, Melbourne University Press, 1995, p. 141:
Melbourne intellectuals came to regard [John] Anderson 'as the man who had betrayed the Left, a man who had gone over to the other side. Melburnians wanted Anderson to answer a simple question: was he or was he not interested in the fact that some were very rich and some were very poor?' To this question Anderson replied that 'we are all bothered by different things. That finished him with the Melburnians'. [Kennedy quotes Manning Clark, The Quest for Grace, Melbourne, 1991, p. 193]
"We are all bothered by different things." And even when we are bothered by the same things, we prioritize the objects of botherment differently. Now suppose you and I are bothered by exactly the same things in exactly the same order. There is still room for disagreement and possibly even bitter contention: we are bothered to different degrees by the things that bother us.
"It angers me that that doesn't anger you!" "It angers me that you are insufficiently angered by what angers both of us."
Here then is one root of political disagreement. It is a deep root, perhaps ineradicable. And it is a root of other sorts of disagreement as well. We are bothered by different things.
Are conservatives bothered by gun violence? Yes, of course. But the Americans among them are bothered more by the violation of the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. Liberals, even if they are slightly bothered by the violation of these rights, assuming they admit them in the first place, are much more bothered by gun violence. Now there are factual questions here concerning which agreement is in principle possible, though exceedingly unlikely. For example there is the question whether more guns in the hands of citizens leads to less crime. That is a factual question, but one that is not going to be resolved to the satisfaction of all. Conservatives and liberals disagree about the facts. Each side sees the other as having its own 'facts.'
But deeper than facts lie values. Here the problem becomes truly intractable. We are bothered by different things because we differ about values and their ordering. American conservatives and presumably most liberals value self-reliance but conservatives locate it much higher up in the axiological hierarchy. This probably explains why liberals are more inclined to rely on professional law enforcement for protection against the criminal element even while they bash cops as a bunch of racists eager to hunt down and murder "unarmed black teenagers" such as Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri fame. (Brown was unarmed, but tried to arm himself with the cop's gun. This is an important detail conveniently left out of the biased mainstream media accounts.)
As for what finished Anderson with the Melburnians, he was apparently not sufficiently exercised by (material) inequality for the tastes of the latter despite his being a man of the Left, though not reliably so due to his iconoclasm.
Does it bother conservatives that there is wealth inequality? To some extent. But for a(n American) conservative, liberty trumps equality in the scale of values. With liberals it is the other way around. Liberals of course cherish their brand of rights and liberties and will go to absurd extremes in defending them even when the right to free expression, a big deal with them, spills over into incitement to violence and includes the pollution of the culture with pornography. Of course, this extremism in defense of free expression bangs up against the liberals' own self-imposed limit of political correctness. The trashers of Christianity suddenly become cowards when it comes to the trashing of Islam. That takes more courage than they command. And they are easily cowed by events such as the 7 January 2015 terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Liberals are also absurdly eager to spread the right to vote even at the expense of making the polling places safe for voter fraud. How else do you explain their mindless opposition to photo ID? But not a peep from liberals about 'real' liberties and rights such as gun rights, the right to private property, and the right to freedom from excessive and punitive taxation.
Is material inequality a problem? Not as such. Why should it be?
As I recall John Rawls' Difference Principle, the gist of it is this: Social and economic inequality is justified ONLY IF the inequality makes the worse off better than they would have been without the inequality. Why exactly? If I'm smarter than you, work harder, practice the ancient virtues, avoid the vices, while you are a slacker and a screw-up who nevertheless has what he needs, why is my having more justified ONLY IF it makes you better off than you would have been without the inequality? (Yes, I know all about the Original Position and the Veil of Ignorance, but I don't consider that an argument.)
At the root of our differences are value differences and those, at bottom, are irreconcilable.
On that cheery note, I punch the clock. Have a pleasant weekend.
Talk of philosophy being a blood sport is usually and rightly metaphorical. But on occasion, actual weapons are brandished even if not deployed. You will recall Wittgenstein's poker. But perhaps you haven't yet heard of Thomas Kuhn's ashtray. Curiously, pokers and ashtrays have something to do with fire and smoke, devilish elements. A philosopher's devil, say I, is his own ego.
Almost half a century ago, as a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin fascinated by the history of science, the young Morris was rejected by some of the most prestigious graduate departments. Thanks to the efforts of one of the field’s major stars, Thomas Kuhn, he did eventually find his way to Princeton’s program in the history and philosophy of science. But his time there did not go smoothly. Matters came to a head in a one-on-one discussion of a paper he had written for Kuhn’s seminar. The emotional temperature rose. And then rose some more, until the tête-à-tête was ultimately punctuated by an overflowing ashtray. Launched from Kuhn’s hand, the ashtray hurtled across the room.
“People are making up stories about ‘the other’ — Muslims, Trump voters, whoever ‘the other’ is,” she said. “‘They don’t have the values that we have. They don’t behave like we do. They are not nice. They are evil.’”
She added: “That’s dehumanization. And when it spreads, it can be very hard to correct.”
Dr. Green is now among a growing group of conflict resolution experts who are turning their focus on the United States, a country that some have never worked on. They are gathering groups in schools and community centers to apply their skills to help a country — this time their own — where they see troubling trends.
They point to dehumanizing political rhetoric — for example President Trump referring to the media as “enemies of the people,” or to a caravan of migrants in Mexico as riddled with criminals and “unknown Middle Easterners.”
I beg to differ. When we conservatives point out that Muslims do not share our values, we are not making up stories about them. We are telling the truth. Our classically liberal, American, Enlightenment values are incompatible with Sharia. That is a fact. It is not an expression of racism, xenophobia, or any sort of bigotry. It is not even a judgment as to the quality of their values.
And because Muslims have different values, they behave differently. This is perfectly obvious, and to point it out should offend no one.
Does every Muslim uphold Sharia? No. The great American Zuhdi Jasser does not. But he is an outlier.
To describe Muslims and their values and patterns of behavior is not to 'dehumanize' them. They are human all right; it is just that their values and views make living with them them difficult if not impossible. There can be no comity without commonality.
'Liberals' make the mistake of thinking that 'deep down' we are really all the same and want the same things. That is plainly false.
Trump exaggerates and is careless in his use of language. He is a builder and a promoter, not a wordsmith. He speaks with the vulgar, but the learned who are not hopelessly biased against him know how to 'read' and 'translate' him. I will give one example, and you can work out the others for yourself if you have the intelligence and moral decency to do so.
"The media are enemies of the people." Translation: the mainstream media outlets with the exception of Fox News are dominated by 'progressives' and coastal elitists whose attitudes and values are at odds with the "deplorable" (Hillary's term of abuse) denizens of fly-over country who "cling to their guns and religion" (Obama's abusive phrase).
The values that patriotic Americans cherish are routinely ridiculed and rejected by left-wing media poo-bahs. In this sense, they are enemies of the people.
Contrary to what 'liberals' maintain, Trump is not launching an attack on the Fourth Estate as such. He is attacking the blatant and pervasive left-wing bias of most of their members, bias which is evident to everyone except those members and the consumers of what cannot be called reportage but must be called leftist propaganda.
The inability to follow an argument and respond reasonably and civilly to what an author actually maintains is a mark of the present miserable state of public discourse. Even prominent conservative commentators display this inability. A recent example is the Never-Trumper and NRO contributor David French's febrile flailing at Tully Borland. Professor Borland ignited a firestorm of controversy when he presented an argument why Alabamans ought to vote for Roy Moore. Chad McIntosh, in a fine defense of Borland, accurately restates Borland's main argument:
Comparing Moore to opponent Doug Jones, Borland argues that a Moore victory would be the lesser of the two evils in a binary election in which these are the only two viable options. Why? Well, even if Moore is guilty of sexual assault and seeking sexual relationships with girls as young as 14 some 40 years ago, as accused, that is very unlikely to have policy ramifications today, whereas Jones supports a policy of unrestricted abortion today.
Don’t be misled here: Jones supports killing a fetus up to the moment of crowning, the moment a baby exits his mother during birth. That isn’t your typical pro-choice position. That’s almost as extreme as they come. So, as Borland sees it, “either Jones knows exactly what he’s doing in supporting killing babies in utero but doesn’t care, in which case he’s a moral monster, or his moral compass is in such need of calibration that one should never trust his judgment in moral matters.” Borland therefore concludes that one is morally justified in voting for Moore, whose win would result in lesser evil.
This is a very strong argument. You will not appreciate its strength, however, unless you appreciate the grave moral evil of unrestricted abortion, abortion at any stage of fetal development, for any reason. Unless you are morally obtuse you will understand that the intentional killing of innocent human beings is morally wrong and that the pre- and almost-natal human beings in question are human individuals in their own right, not globs of tissue or parts of their mothers.
McIntosh again:
The closest French comes to a substantive response to Borland is in the following:
"Of course we’re always choosing between imperfect men, but there are profound differences between conventional politicians and a man who tried to rape a teenager when he was a D.A. Believe it or not, the American political ranks are chock-full of politicians who possess better character than Moore, whose pasts are far less checkered. I don’t even have to get to the difficult process of line-drawing to have confidence in declaring that Christians should not vote to put a credibly-accused child abuser in the Senate."
But this is misdirection. That the American political ranks are chock-full of politicians who possess better character than Moore is beside the point, since they aren’t running against Moore. It’s Jones running against Moore, so that is the only comparison that matters.
That's right. It's Jones against Moore, and exactly one of these two will be elected. Not both and not neither.
It is also important to note that while character matters, policies, programs, and ideas matter even more. People of the 'Never X' mentality seem not to understand this. French apparently thinks two terms of Hillary and all her damage to conservatism would be a fair price to pay for keeping Trump out of the White House with all the good he has already done in less than one year in office.
But suppose you are not convinced by the Borland-McIntosh argument. Then you should at least have the decency to admit that it is a reasonable argument. But that is not what French does. He heaps abuse on Borland. See McIntosh piece for documentation.
This transcends left and right, progressive and conservative. This is a movement to shed labels and engage in politics as free thinkers.
I sympathize with the sweet sentiment while remaining deeply skeptical. Indeed, I am more than skeptical: I consider the aims of this project incoherent.
First of all, no clear meaning is or can be attached to the notion of 'transcending' the progressive and conservative worldviews. You want to get beyond both? And end up where? Or perhaps you want to stand on the ground common to both. But what ground is that?
There are just too many deep, non-negotiable differences. I sometimes call them 'planetary' differences. If you tell me that a border wall is hateful or racist, I reply that you live on a different planet: what you say is so crazy as to be beneath refutation. And so on through dozens of issues. The posting of the Ten Commandments in a public place establishes Christianity as the state religion in violation of the First Amendment? Are you out of your mind? For one thing, the provenience of the Decalogue is the Old Testament, not the New. For another, the Decalogue is common to the three Abrahamic religions. I could go on.
Second, it is silliness of a high order to suppose that we can "shed labels." Label we can and label we must if are to understand anything. For example, 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life' label a real difference in approach to the question of abortion. To eschew labels is to eschew thought.
Third, social harmony is better served by walls, not bridges. Conflict results when people with radically different beliefs and values are forced to live together. There is much talk of secession these days. That would be a mistake. But a return to federalism may help.
Finally, to those pollyannas who think we can just transcend our differences, drop the labels, and form one big happy family, I say read the following from Salon, 11/24/2017:
Are you sick of Republicans? Or just right-wingers in general? Do you want to send a message to Washington that you aren't going to buy into their racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic and classist nonsense for one second longer?
They left out 'fascist' and 'Islamophobic." The punks don't even know their own litany of abuse. And you think we have common ground with these scumbags?
As I read Andrew Sullivan's recent tribalism essay, he is bravely attempting to maintain an equivalency thesis: roughly, the two tribes, the Left tribe and the Right tribe, are equally tribal and equally in the wrong. But in some places in his long essay he does a pretty lame job of it. Here is one:
As for indifference to reality, today’s Republicans cannot accept that human-produced carbon is destroying the planet, and today’s Democrats must believe that different outcomes for men and women in society are entirely a function of sexism. Even now, Democrats cannot say the words illegal immigrants or concede that affirmative action means discriminating against people because of their race. Republicans cannot own the fact that big tax cuts have not trickled down, or that President Bush authorized the brutal torture of prisoners, thereby unequivocally committing war crimes. Orwell again: “There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when ‘our’ side commits it. Even if one does not deny that the crime has happened, even if one knows that it is exactly the same crime as one has condemned in some other case … still one cannot feel that it is wrong.” That is as good a summary of tribalism as you can get, that it substitutes a feeling — a really satisfying one — for an argument.
Let's start with the first sentence. That different outcomes for men and women are entirely a function of sexism is a preposterous claim that anyone with common sense and knowledge of the world should immediately see to be false. It implies that biological differences between the sexes have no bearing whatsoever on behavioral outcomes. But there is good reason to be skeptical of the claim that human-produced carbon is destroying the planet.
Suppose we grant that there is global warming, and suppose we grant that human activity plays a role in its etiology. There still remain questions as to the extent to which global warming is anthropogenic and what exactly the various causal factors are. The claim that human-produced carbon is destroying the planet is an extremely strong claim. Compare that to the trivially obvious claim that there is more to the explanation of differential outcomes for the sexes than sexism.
Similarly with the other examples. One cannot, unless one is insane or else a truth-disregarding leftist ideologue, deny the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. But that Bush authorized torture presupposes that waterboarding is torture which is far from obvious and is a reasonably contested assertion. See Is Waterboarding Torture?
So while I respect Sully's attempt at being "fair and balanced," I reject his equivalency thesis. The Left is far more mindlessly and destructively tribal than the Right.
David Harsanyi's refutation of Bret Stephens' call to repeal the Second Amendment begins like this:
The idea that gun-control advocates don’t want to confiscate your weapons is, of course, laughable. They can’t confiscate your weapons, so they support whatever feasible incremental steps inch further towards that goal. Some folks are more considerate and get right to the point.
Exactly right. Never underestimate the mendacity of a leftist.
You will have noticed that the Left is now opposing free speech. Time then to repeat: It is the Second Amendment that provides the concrete back-up to the First.
A few days before the Las Vegas massacre I penned an entry that refutes Stephens' optimism about disagreement. He naively thinks that mutually respectful conversations on hot-button issues will converge on agreement. Well, events have borne me out.
Can anyone in his right mind think that 'conversations' about the Second Amendment will converge on agreement?
You see, when a leftist speaks of 'conversations,' what he means is that the right-minded need to shut up and acquiesce in what the loons say.
To which the only rational and appropriate response is of the middle-fingered sort.
Our national life is becoming like philosophy: a scene of endless disagreement about almost everything. The difference, of course, is that philosophical controversy is typically conducted in a gentlemanly fashion without bloodshed or property damage. Some say that philosophy is a blood sport, but no blood is ever shed, and though philosophers are ever shooting down one anothers' arguments, gunfire at philosophical meetings is so far nonexistent. A bit of poker brandishing is about as far as it gets.
Some say we need more 'conversations' with our political opponents about the hot-button issues that divide us. The older I get the more pessimistic I become about the prospects of such 'conversations.' I believe we need fewer conversations, less interaction, and the political equivalent of divorce. Here is an extremely pessimistic view:
I believe the time for measured debate on national topics has passed. There are many erudite books now decorating the tweed-jacket pipe-rooms of avuncular conservative theorists. And none as effective at convincing our opponents as a shovel to the face. But setting that means aside, there is no utility in good-faith debate with a side whose core principle is your destruction. The “middle ground” is a chasm. It is instead our duty to scathe, to ridicule, to scorn, and encourage the same in others. But perhaps foremost it is our duty to hate what is being done. A healthy virile hate. For those of you not yet so animated, I can assure its effects are invigorating.
Unfortunately, Stephens says things that are quite stupid. He says, for example, that disagreement is "the most vital ingredient of any decent society." That is as foolish as to say, as we repeatedly hear from liberals, that our strength lies in diversity. That is an absurdity bordering on such Orwellianisms as "War is peace" and 'Slavery is freedom." Our strength lies not in our diversity, but in our unity. Likewise, the most vital ingredient in any decent society is agreement on values and principles and purposes. Only on the basis of broad agreement can disagreement be fruitful.
This is not to say that diversity is not a value at all; it is a value in competition with the value of unity, a value which must remain subordinated to the value of unity. Diversity within limits enriches a society; but what makes it viable is common ground. "United we stand,' divided we fall." "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
Stephens goes on to create a problem for himself. Having gushed about how wonderful disagreement is, he then wonders why contemporary disagreement is so bitter, so unproductive, and so polarizing. If disagreement is the lifeblood of successful societies, why is blood being shed?
Stephens naively thinks that if we just listen to one another with open minds and mutual respect and the willingness to alter our views that our conversations will converge on agreement. He speaks of the "disagreements we need to have" that are "banished from the public square before they are settled." Settled? What hot button issue ever gets settled? What does Stephens mean by 'settled'? Does he mean: get the other side to shut up and acquiesce in what you are saying? Or does he mean: resolve the dispute in a manner acceptable to all parties to it? The latter is what he has to mean. But then no hot-button issue is going to get settled.
Stephens fails to see that the disagreements are now so deep that there can be no reasonable talk of settling any dispute. Does anyone in his right mind think that liberals will one day 'come around' and grasp that abortion is the deliberate killing of innocent human beings and that it ought be illegal in most cases? And that is just one of many hot-button issues.
We don't agree on things that a few years ago all would have agreed on, e.g., that the national borders need to be secured.
According to Stephens, "Intelligent disagreement is the lifeblood of any thriving society." Again, this is just foolish. To see this, consider the opposite:
Agreement as to fundamental values, principles and purposes is the lifeblood of any thriving society.
Now ask yourself: which of these statements is closer to the truth? Obviously mine, not Stephens'. He will disagree with me about the role of disagreement. How likely do you think it is that we will settle this meta-disagreement? It is blindingly evident to me that I am right and that he is wrong. Will he come to see the light? Don't count on it.
It is naive to suppose that conversations will converge upon agreement, especially when the parties to the conversations are such a diverse bunch made even more diverse by destrutive immigration policies. For example, you cannot allow Sharia-supporting Muslims to immigrate into Western societies and then expect to have mutually respectful conversations with them that converge upon agreement.
I am not saying that there is no place for intelligent disagreement. There is, and it ought to be conducted with mutual respect, open-mindedness and all the rest. The crucial point Stephens misses is that fruitful disagreement can take place only under the umbrella of shared principles, values, and purposes. To invert the metaphor: fruitful disagreement presupposes common ground.
And here is the problem: lack of common ground. I have nothing in common with the Black Lives Matters activists whose movement is based on lies about Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and the police. I have nothing in common with Antifa thugs who have no respect for the classical traditions and values of the university. I could go on: people who see nothing wrong with sanctuary jurisdictions, with open borders, with using the power to the state to force florists and caterers to violate their consciences; the gun grabbers; the fools who speak of 'systemic racism'; the appeasers of rogue regimes . . . .
There is no comity without commonality, and the latter is on the wane. A bad moon is rising, and trouble's on the way. Let's hope we can avoid civil war.
That philosophers disagree is a fact about which there is little disagreement, even among philosophers. But what this widespread and deep disagreement signifies is a topic of major disagreement. One issue is whether or not the fact of disagreement supplies a good reason to doubt the possibility of philosophical knowledge.
The contemporary Czech philosopher Jiří Fuchs begins his book Illusions of Sceptics(2016) by considering this question. He grants that the "cognitive potential of philosophy" is called into question by the "embarrassing fact that there is not a single thing that philosophers would agree on." (13) Nevertheless, Fuchs insists that we have no good reason to be skeptical about the possibility of philosophical knowledge. His view is that "Discord among philosophers can . . . be sufficiently explained by the frequent prejudices of philosophers . . . Consequently, the existence of discord among philosophers does not imply that their work is of fundamentally unscientific character." (16)
Besides the prejudices of philosophers, the lack of consensus among philosophers may also be attributed to philosophy's difficulty: "the discord may just be a consequence of the specific challenging character of philosophy."(19)
Fuchs maintains that "consensus has no relation to the core of scientific quality. . . ." (24). The core of scientific quality is constituted by "proof or demonstration." (24) His claim is that interminable and widespread disagreement or lack of consensus has no tendency to show that philosophy is incapable of achieving genuine knowledge, where such knowledge involves apodictic insight into the truth of some philosophical propositions.
There are two main issues we need to discuss. One concerns the relation of consensus and truth; the other the relation of consensus and knowledge. My impression is that Fuchs conflates the two issues. I will argue, contra Fuchs, that while it is obvious that consensus and truth are logically independent, logical independence is not obvious, and is arguably absent, in the case of consensus and knowledge. My view, tentatively held, is that the lack of consensus in philosophy does tend to undermine philosophy's claim to be knowledge.
Consensus and Truth
I maintain, and Fuchs will agree, that the following propositions are true if not platitudinous.
1) Truth does not entail consensus. If a proposition is true, it is true whether or not there is consensus with respect to its truth.
2) Consensus does not entail truth. If most or all experts agree that p, it does not follow that p is true.
3) Consensus and truth are logically independent. This follows from (1) in conjunction with (2). One can have truth without consensus and consensus without truth.
Lack of consensus, therefore, does not demonstrate lack of truth. Even if no philosophical proposition wins the agreement of a majority of competent practitioners, it is possible that some such propositions are true. But it doesn't follow that some philosophical propositions have 'scientific quality.' To have this quality they have to be true, but they also have to be knowable by us. But what is knowability and how does it relate to consensus? To answer this question we must first clarify some other notions.
Truth, Knowledge, Knowability, Cognitivity, Justification, and Certainty
I add to our growing list the following propositions, perhaps not all platitudinous and not all agreeable to Fuchs:
4) Knowledge entails truth. If S knows that p, it follows that p is true. There is no false knowledge. There are false beliefs, and indeed false justified beliefs; but there is no false knowledge. You could think of this as an analytic/conceptual truth, or as a truth about the essence of knowledge.
5) Truth does not entail knowledge. If p is true, it does not follow that someone (some finite mind or ectypal intellect) knows that p.
6) Truth does not entail knowability by us. If, for any proposition p, p is true, it does not follow that there is any finite subject S such that S has the power to know p. There may be truths which, though knowable 'in principle,' or knowable by the archetypal intellect, are not knowable by us.
7) Cognitivity does not entail knowability. Let us say that a proposition is cognitive just in case it has a truth value. Assuming bivalence, a proposition is cognitive if and only if it is either true, or if not true, then false. Clearly, cognitivity is insufficient for knowability. For if a proposition is false, then it is cognitive but cannot be known because it is false. And if a proposition is true, then it is cognitive but may not be knowable because beyond our ken.
8) Knowledge entails justification. If S believes that p, and p is true, it does not follow that S knows that p. For knowledge, justification is also required. This is a bit of epistemological boilerplate that dates back to Plato's Theaetetus.
9) Knowledge entails objective certainty. Knowledge implies the sure possession of the object of knowledge; if the subject is uncertain, then the subject does not have knowledge strictly speaking.
Consensus and Knowledge
Fuchs and I will agree that consensus is not necessary for truth: a true proposition need not be one that enjoys the consensus of experts. But consensus may well be necessary for knowledge. Fuchs, however, seems to conflate truth and certainty, and thus truth with knowledge. A truth can be true without being known by us; indeed, without even being knowable by us. But, necessarily, whatever is known is true. On p. 30 we read:
By denying that the thought processes of philosophers can exhibit a scientific quality simply because of the existence of discord among philosophers, we make consensus a necessary condition for the general validity and potential certainty of scientific knowledge, which is the attribute of science. (Emphasis added.)
On the following page we find the same thought but with a replacement of 'potential certainty' by 'certainty':
. . . the necessary question of whether the consensus of experts is really such an essential and indispensable condition for the certainty and general validity of scientific knowledge. (31, emphasis added.)
When one speaks of the validity of a proposition, one means its truth. ('Valid' as a terminus technicus in formal logic is not in play here.) So it seems clear that Fuchs is maintaining that consensus is necessary neither for the truth of propositions nor for their certainty. He seems to be maintaining that one can have certain knowledge of a proposition even if the consensus of experts goes against one. This is not obvious. Why not?
Knowledge requires justification. Now suppose I accept the proposition that God exists and that my justification takes the form of various arguments for the existence of God. Those arguments will be faulted by an army of competent practitioners, not all of them atheists, on a variety of grounds. What's more, the members of the atheist divisions will marshal their own positive arguments, in first place arguments from evil. Now if just one of my theistic arguments is sound, then God exists. But I do not, by giving a sound argument for God, know that God exists unless I know that the argument I have given is sound. (A sound argument is a valid deductive argument all of the premises of which are true.) But how do I know that even one of my theistic arguments is sound? How can I legitimately claim to know that when a chorus of my epistemic peers rises up against me?
If what I maintain is true, then it is true no matter how many epistemic peers oppose me: they are just wrong! Truth is absolute: it is not sensitive to the vagaries of agreement and disagreement. Justification, however, is sensitive to agreement and disagreement. Or so it seems to me. My justification for considering a certain argument sound is undermined by your disagreement assuming that we are both competent in the subject matter of the argument and we are epistemic peers. You may disagree with what I just wrote, and thus disagree with me about the implications of disagreement, but you ought to grant that I am raising a very serious question here. (If you don't grant that, then you get the boot!)
In a situation in which my justification for believing that p is undermined by the disagreement of competent peers, there is no certainty that p. If knowledge logically requires certainty, and certainty is destroyed by the disagreement of competent peers, then I can no longer legitimately claim to know that p. So, while truth has nothing to fear from lack of agreement, knowledge does. For knowledge requires justification, and justification can be augmented or diminished by agreement or disagreement, respectively.
Interim Conclusion
Fuchs makes things too easy for himself by conflating truth and knowledge. We can agree that consensus is logically irrelevant to truth. Protracted disagreement by the best and the brightest over the truth value of p has no tendency to show either deductively or inductively that p is not either true or false. Truth is absolute and thus insulated from the vagaries of opinion. But truths (true propositions) do not do us any good unless we can know them. It is not enough to know that some truths are known; what we need is to know of a given truth that it is true. But disagreement inserts a skeptical blade between the truth and our knowledge of it.
Disagreement in philosophy undermines her claims to knowledge. As I see it, Fuchs has done nothing to undermine this undermining.
In general, no. For you may be foolish or ignorant or otherwise incompetent with respect to the subject matter under discussion. Or you may be morally defective: a bully, a blowhard, a bullshitter, a quibbler, a sophist. But suppose none of these predicates attach to you. Suppose you are my moral and intellectual peer, and what's more, a competent practitioner in the discipline or subdiscipline which is home to the thesis we are disputing. Thus we are both competent, and we are equally competent. And suppose I believe you to be as intellectually honest and as competent as I am.
Suppose further that I have given careful thought to my thesis and have advanced it in respectable, peer-reviewed journals.
If you disagree with me, does this fact supply a good reason for me to question my thesis? Ought I question it? Or would I be justified in ignoring your disagreement?
We note that this is a meta-question that sires a meta-disagreement. This meta-disagreement is between the Conciliationist and the Steadfaster.
I am a Conciliationist. Thus I tend to think that your disagreement with me (given the stipulations above) ought to give me pause. It ought to cause me to re-examine my view and be open to the possibility of either rejecting it or withholding assent from it. It ought to undermine my epistemic self-confidence. I tend to think I would be intellectually amiss, less than intellectually honest, were I simply to dismiss your disagreement. I tend to think I would be unjustifiably privileging my own point of view, preferring it over yours simply because is is mine. This seems wrong to me given that we are trying to arrive at the objective and impersonal truth. Truth cannot be mine or yours.
The Steadfaster stands fast in the face of disagreement. Whereas the Conciliationist allows the fact of disagreement to undermine his epistemic self-confidence, the Steadfaster takes the fact of disagreement to undermine his prior conviction that his interlocutor is as morally and intellectually capable as he initially thought he was. So when you disagree with me, I question whether I am right. But when I disagree with you, you question my competence, rationality, probity, etc.
But now a puzzle arises. If I am a Conciliationist, then my position would seem to require that I question my Conciliationism due to the fact that the Steadfaster disagrees with me. (Assume that the Steadfaster is as morally and intellectually well-endowed as I am and that I believe him to be such.)
It seems that the consistent Conciliationist cannot be steadfast in his Conciliationism given that there are Steadfasters out there who are, and whom he believes to be, his moral and intellectual equals. So what should our Conciliationist do? Should he:
Suspend judgment and neither affirm nor deny Conciliationism?
Make an exception for the Conciliationst thesis itself by steadfastly adhering to it ar the meta-level while remaining otherwise a Conciliationist?
. . . then I think there are two conclusions to be drawn. The first is that we ought not allow into our midst individuals and groups with radically different values and commitments. The second is that we ought to be as tolerant as we can of the differences among those we do admit into our midst.
Our beliefs, political and religious beliefs in particular, divide us and ignite sometimes murderous passions. A radical cure would be to find a way to abstain from belief, to live without beliefs, adoxastōs. Is this possible, and if possible, desirable?
No on both counts. Such is the interim conclusion of my ongoing series on Pyrrhonian skepticism, the infirmity of reason, and cognate topics. But I continue to inquire . . . . That's what a philosopher does. That's how he lives.
Clearly friendship can survive deep disagreement if it is over some abstruse topic in the philosophy of language, say. The question I intend, however, is whether friendship can continue among those who find themselves in profound disagreement over matters that touch us 'existentially.' Politics and religion supply plenty of examples. Here too friendship can survive and even thrive. It may be worth reminding ourselves of this in these dark times.
In an optimistic piece entitled "The Value of Unexpected Friends," K. E. Colombini cites examples of prominent ideological opponents who were on friendly terms. The case that surprised me was the friendship of Ruth Baader Ginsburg with the late Antonin Scalia.
When Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia passed away unexpectedly in February 2016, perhaps the colleague who mourned the most was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. While they differed greatly in their day jobs, they formed a surprisingly deep friendship based on mutual respect and interests. [. . .]
“From our years together at the D.C. Circuit, we were best buddies,” Justice Ginsburg’s statement reads, in part. “We disagreed now and then, but when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation. He was a jurist of captivating brilliance and wit, with a rare talent to make even the most sober judge laugh. It was my great good fortune to have known him as working colleague and treasured friend.”
[. . .]
One of Scalia’s more famous quotes, shared often in social media these days, was given in a 2008 interview on 60 Minutes: “I attack ideas, I don’t attack people—and some very good people have some very bad ideas.”
[. . .]
Separating ideas from people, like hating the sin but not the sinner, is a challenging act, but it is one that is ultimately valuable. Taking the time to get to know someone—even the person we battle with—opens doors that help us understand not only the debated issue, but also ourselves, better.
While there are cases of ideological opponents who remain on good terms, there are even more cases in which they don't.
Why do we disagree so fundamentally about so many things? And can anything be done about it? Jonathan Haidt offers a solution in terms of more proximity and interaction and less separation; if people in opposing camps just got to know each other they would find common ground. Really? Consider the following opposing views of Trump's election triumph. The first passage is the opening paragraph of An American Tragedy by David Remnick writing in The New Yorker:
The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. Trump’s shocking victory, his ascension to the Presidency, is a sickening event in the history of the United States and liberal democracy. On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President—a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit—and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety.
Remnick continues in this vein, his stridency increasing as he proceeds, in a piece that is representative of the Left's reaction to Hillary's defeat. My second passage is from Goodnight, Mrs. Clinton (A Partial-Birth Campaign is Laid to Rest) by Michael Matt writing in The Remnant:
Had she been elected it would have said much more about us than about her. We would have shown ourselves a soulless and heartless people, beyond hope, beneath contempt.
There was so much at stake. Much of our work here at The Remnant, for example, would have been criminalized over the next four years. Our home schools would have become illegal enterprises in the village Mrs. Clinton had in mind. Even our ability to move about freely would have been exponentially undermined. (As the “leader of a hate group”, according to the infamous Southern Poverty Law Center, it isn’t difficult for this writer to imagine how enthusiastically President Hillary would have enforced hate crime legislation against Christian America.)
So, yes, like everyone else, we’re still trying to process the news of this truly awesome political and moral and even spiritual upset (if Trump repeals the Johnson Amendment, even the Catholic Church in this country might become relevant again). There’s much to learn from what we saw last night, not the least of which is that the mainstream media, far from omniscient, are in fact clueless ideologues never to be trusted again.
No matter what happens with a Trump presidency, we now know that a substantial percentage of the American people are not beyond hope—that they still have enough Christian sense to recognize and reject the demonic when they see it. And what’s the takeaway from that? Demons are not invincible. In fact, last night they had their tails handed to them by a “buffoon” they’d mercilessly mocked for 18 months, and who decided he’d be the first politician in decades to give God-fearing Americans a voice again—a comparative small concession that nevertheless silenced the left-half of this country for the first times in decades. Donald Trump let pro-life, pro-God, pro-family America loose from their shackles—and the demons scattered before them like roaches.
My thesis is that the differences exemplified above run so deep as to be irreconcilable. No amount of conversation, however well-intentioned and amicably conducted, could possibly lead to agreement on fundamentals.
What then is to be done?
I suggest that what we need to mitigate tribal hostility is not more proximity and interaction, pace Haidt, but less, fewer 'conversations' not more, a government restricted to essential functions, more toleration, voluntary segregation, a return to federalism, a total stoppage of illegal immigration, and a reform of current immigration law to favor people who share our values. (Sharia-supporting Muslims are an example of a group that does not share our values.)
At the moment the MavPhil commentariat includes a couple of sharp young philosophers whose views are to the Right of mine. My brand of conservatism takes on board what I consider to be good in the old liberal tradition. Their brand looks askance at paleo-liberalism and sees it as leading inevitably to the hard leftism of the present day. So a fruitful intramural debate is in progress, and I thank these gents for their commentary. Who knows? Perhaps they will shift me a bit in their direction.
I am re-posting the following 2010 entry so that the young guys can tell me what they think, especially with regard to the Horowitz quotation below. I have bolded the sentence that I expect will be the cynosure of their disapprobation.
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The qualifier 'conservative' in my title borders on pleonasm: there is is scarcely any talk radio in the U.S. worth mentioning that is not conservative. This is part of the reason the Left hates the conservative variety so much. They hate it because of its content, and they hate it because they are incapable of competing with it: their own attempts such as Air America have failed miserably. And so, projecting their own hatred, they label conservative talk 'hate radio.'
In a 22 March op-ed piece in the NYT, Bob Herbert, commenting on the G.O.P., writes, "This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry."
I find Herbert's vile outburst fascinating. There is no insanity, hatred, or bigotry in any of the conservative talk jocks to whom I listen: Laura Ingraham, Dr. Bill Bennett, Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager or Michael Medved. There is instead common sense, humanity, excellent advice, warnings against extremism, deep life wisdom, facts, arguments, and a reasonably high level of discourse. Of the six I have mentioned, Prager and Medved are the best, a fact reflected in their large audiences. Don't you liberals fancy yourselves open-minded? Then open your ears!
So what is it about Herbert and people of his ilk that causes them to react routinely in such delusional fashion?
It is a long story, of course, but part of it is that lefties confuse dissent with hate. They don't seem to realize that if I dissent from your view, it doesn't follow that I hate you. It's actually a double confusion. There is first the confusion of dissent with hate, and then the confusion of persons and propositions. If I dissent from your proposition, it does not follow that I hate your proposition; and a fortiori it doesn't follow that I hate the person who advances the proposition. This double confusion goes hand in hand with the strange notion that the Left owns dissent, which I duly refute in a substantial post.
I leave you with a quotation from David Horowitz, Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey (Spence, 2003), p. 273, emphasis added:
The image of the right that the left has concocted -- authoritarian, reactionary, bigoted, mean-spirited -- is an absurd caricature that has no relation to modern conservatism or to the reality of the people I have come to know in my decade-long movement along the political spectrum -- or to the way I see myself. Except for a lunatic fringe, American conservatism is not about "blood and soil" nostalgia or conspiracy paranoia, which figure so largely in imaginations that call themselves "liberal," but are anything but. Modern American conservatism is a reform movement that seeks to reinvent free markets and limited government and to restore somewhat traditional values. Philosophically, conservatism is more accurately seen as a species of liberalism itself -- and would be more often described in this way were it not for the hegemony the left exerts in the political culture and its appropriation of the term "liberal" to obscure its radical agenda.
One more thing. You can see from Herbert's picture that he is black. So now I will be called a racist for exposing his outburst. That is right out of the Left's playbook: if a conservative disagrees with you on any issue, or proffers any sort of criticism, then you heap abuse on him. He's a racist, a sexist, a xenophobe, a 'homophobe,' a bigot, a religious zealot . . . .
Arthur C. Brooks deplores the lack of ideological diversity and the prevalence of 'groupthink' in academia in an October 30th NYT editorial entitled "Academia's Rejection of Diversity." He is of course right to do so. But this is nothing new as any conservative will tell you. And we don't need studies to know about it, which is not to say that studies are not of some slight use in persuading doubters.
What I would take issue with, though, is Brooks' apparently unqualified belief that "being around people [ideologically] unlike ourselves makes us [intellectually] better people . . . ." I have added, charitably I should think, a couple of qualifiers in brackets.
Interaction with ideological opponents can be fruitful, and sometimes is. That goes without saying.
But I think it is very easy to overestimate the value of interactions with people with fundamentally different views. It is a mistake to think that more and more 'conversations' will lead to amicable agreements and mutual understanding. This mistake is based on the false assumption that there is still common ground on which to hold these 'conversations.'
I say we need fewer 'conversations' and more voluntary separation. In many situations we need the political equivalent of divorce. In marriage as in politics the bitter tensions born of irreconcilable differences are relieved by divorce, not by attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable. Let's consider some examples. In each of these cases it is difficult to see what common ground the parties to the dispute occupy.
1. Suppose you hold the utterly abhorrent view that it is a justifiable use of state power to force a florist or a caterer to violate his conscience by providing services at, say, a same-sex 'marriage' ceremony.
2. Or you hold the appalling and ridiculous view that demanding photo ID at polling places disenfranchises those would-be voters who lack such ID.
3. Or you refuse to admit a distinction between legal and illegal immigration.
4. Or you maintain the absurd thesis that global warming is the greatest threat to humanity at the present time. (Obama)
5. Or you advance the crack-brained notion that the cases of Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till are comparable in all relevant respects. Trayvon Martin Was No Emmett Till!
6. Or, showing utter contempt for facts, you insist that Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri was an 'unarmed black teenager' shot down like a dog in cold blood without justification of any sort by the racist cop, Darren Wilson.
7. Or you compare Ferguson and Baltimore as if they are relevantly similar. (Hillary Clinton)
8. Or you mendaciously elide distinctions crucial in the gun debate such as that between semi-auto and full-auto. (Dianne Feinstein)
9. Or you systematically deploy double standards. President Obama, for example, refuses to use 'Islamic' in connection with the Islamic State or 'Muslim' in connection with Muslim terrorists. But he has no problem with pinning the deeds of crusaders and inquisitors on Christians.
10. Or you mendaciously engage in self-serving anachronism, for example, comparing current Muslim atrocities with Christian ones long in the past.
11. Or you routinely slander your opponents with such epithets as 'racist,' 'sexist,' etc.
12. Or you make up words whose sole purpose is to serve as semantic bludgeons and cast doubt on the sanity of your opponents. You know full well that a phobia is an irrational fear, but you insist on labeling those who oppose homosexual practices as 'phobic' when you know that their opposition is in most cases rationally grounded and not based in fear, let alone irrational fear.
13. Or you bandy the neologism 'Islamophobia' as a semantic bludgeon when it is plain that fear of radical Islam is entirely rational. In general, you engage in linguistic mischief whenever it serves your agenda thereby showing contempt for the languages you mutilate.
14. Or you take the side of underdogs qua underdogs without giving any thought as to whether or not these underdogs are in any measure responsible for their status or their misery by their crimes. You apparently think that weakness justifies.
15. Or you label abortion a 'reproductive right' or a 'women's health issue' thus begging the question of its moral acceptability.
On each of these points and many others I could write a book demolishing the hard Left position that underlies the points and that dominates the universities, the mainstream media, the courts, and our current government. So what's to discuss? What conceivable motive could a conservative have to enter into debates with people who, from a conservative point of view, are willfully wrongheaded and demonstrably mistaken? There are open questions that need discussing, but the above aren't among them.
More and more, I find myself attempting to have difficult conversations with people who hold very different points of view. And I consider our general failure to have these conversations well—so as to produce an actual convergence of opinion and a general increase in goodwill between the participants—to be the most consequential problem that exists. Apart from violence and other forms of coercion, all we have is conversation with which to influence one another. The fact that it is so difficult for people to have civil and productive conversations about things like U.S. foreign policy, or racial inequality, or religious tolerance and free speech, is profoundly disorienting. And it’s also dangerous. If we fail to do this, we will fail to do everything else of value. Conversation is our only tool for collaborating in a truly open-ended way.
[. . .]
. . . conversation is our only hope.
Fascinating and worthy of careful thought. Here are the main points I take Harris to be making.
1. A successful conversation produces a convergence of opinion and an increase in good will between the participants.
2. The failure to have such conversations is the most consequential problem that exists.
3. Apart from violence and other forms of coercion, all we have is conversation with which to influence one another.
4. Our failure to have civil and productive conversations about important matters of controversy is dangerous.
5. If we fail to do this, we will fail to do everything else of value.
Should we agree with any or all of these points?
Ad (1). We shouldn't agree with this. It would not be reasonable to do so. Neither of the two conditions Harris specifies are necessary for a successful conversation. I have had many successful philosophical and other conversations that do not issue in agreement or convergence of opinion. And I am sure you have as well. What these conversations issue in is clarification. The topic becomes clearer, as well as its implications for and relations with other topics, the arguments on both sides get better understood, as well as one's views and one's interlocutor's views. Mutual clarification, even without agreement, even with intractable disagreement, is sufficient for successful conversation. If we come to understand exactly what it is we disagree about, then that is very important progress even if we never come to agree.
In fact, I consider it utopian and indeed foolish to think that one can achieve (uncoerced, rational) agreement on truly fundamental matters. On some matters rational agreement among competent interlocutors is of course possible; but on others just impossible. If this is right, then agreement on all important matters of controversy cannot be an ideal for us, a goal we ought to pursue. Ought implies can. If we ought to pursue a goal, then it must be possible for us to achieve it. If a certain goal is impossible for us to achieve, then we cannot be obliged to achieve it.
A reachable goal is clarity, not agreement; toleration, not consensus.
Consider religion. Is it a value or not? Conservatives, even those who are atheistic and irreligious, tend to view religion as a value, as conducive to human flourishing. Liberals and leftists tend to view it as a disvalue, as something that impedes human flourishing. This is an important, indeed crucially important, question. Does Sam Harris really think that, via patient, civil, mutually respectful conversation, no matter how protracted, he is going to convince those of us who think religion important for human flourishing to abandon our view?
If he thinks this he is naive. I respect Harris, something I cannot say about some other New Atheists. But Harris is out beyond his depth in philosophy and religion. And he has a foolish belief in the power of reason to resolve the issues that are of deepest concern to us. Reason is a magnificent thing, of course, but Harris appears to have no inkling of its infirmity.
As for the other condition, an increase in good will, surely it is not necessary for a successful conversation. The quantity of good will may stay the same in a discussion without prejudice to the discussion's being productive. It may even decrease. Admittedly, without a certain amount of initial good will, no fruitful conversation can take place. But it is false to say that a successful conversation increases good will.
Ad (2). If (1) is false or unreasonable, then so is (2). Suppose I have a conversation with an atheist such as Harris and fail to budge him from his position while he fails to budge me from mine. Such a conversation can be very productive, useful, successful, not to mention transcendently enjoyable. The life of the mind is of all lives the highest and best, and its being these things is not predicated on achieving agreement about the lofty topics that engage our interest while quite possibly transcending our ability to resolve them to our mutual satisfaction. The failure to meet Harris's conditions need be no problem at all, let alone the most consequential problem that exists.
Ad (3). Harris tells us that it is either coercion or conversation when it comes to influencing people. This is plainly a false alternative. One way to non-violently and non-coercively influence people is by setting a good example. If I treat other people with kindness, respect, forbearance, etc., this 'sets a good example' and reliably induces many people in the vicinity to do otherwise. In fact I needn't say a word, let alone enter into a conversation. For example, with a friendly gesture I can invite a motorist to enter my lane of traffic. In doing so, I ever-so-slightly increase the good will and fellow feeling in the world, profiting myself in the process. In this connection, a marvellous aphorism from Søren Kierkegaard, Journals, #1056:
The essential sermon is one's own existence.
But more importantly, there is teaching which in most cases is a non-violent but also a non-conversational mode of influencing people. For example, teaching someone how to change a tire, play chess, use a computer. If I have a skill, I don't discuss it with you, I teach it to you. Much of elementary education is non-violent but also non-conversational. Teaching the alphabet, the moves of the chess men, the multiplication tables, and so on. There is nothing to discuss, nothing to have a conversation about. The elements have simply to be learned. Controversial topics open to debate will arise late on. But there is no point in discussing the Peano axioms if one does not know that 1 + 1 = 2.
What about ethical instruction? Only a liberal fool would advocate conversations with young children about theft and murder and lying as if the rightness or wrongness of these acts is subject to reasonable debate or is a matter of mere opinion. They must be taught that these things are wrong for their own good and for the good of others. Discussion of ethical niceties and theories comes later, if at all, and presupposes ethical indoctrination: a child who has not internalized and appropriated ethical prescriptions and proscriptions cannot profit from ethical conversations or courses in ethics. You cannot make a twenty-year-old ethical by requiring him to ake a course in ethics. He must already be ethical by upbringing.
Harris's thesis #3 is plainly false. But this is not to deny that respectful conversation is much to be preferred over coercive methods of securing agreement and should be pursued whenever possible.
Ad (4). Harris tells us that it is "dangerous" to not have civil and productive conversations about important and controversial matters. But why dangerous? Harris must know that even among competent and sincere interlocutors here in the West who share may assumptions and values we are not going to come to any agreement about God, guns, abortion, capital punishment, same-sex 'marriage,' the cluster of questions surrounding 'global warming' and plenty of other economic, political, and social questions. How can it be dangerous to not have interminable, inconclusive conversations? Conversations that go nowhere? That are more productive of dissensus than consensus? That contribute to polarization? Well, I suppose you could say that if we are talking we are not shooting.
Ad (5). Harris is really over the top on this one. Exercise for the reader: supply the refutation.
Conclusion: Conversation is overrated. If it is our only hope we are in very bad shape. We need fewer 'conversations,' not more. And we need more tolerance of opposing points of view. More tolerance and more voluntary separation. We don't need to talk to get along. We need to talk less while respecting boundaries and differences. We need less engagement and more dis-engagement. Everybody needs to back off. Trouble is, totalitarians won't back off. They want a total clamp-down on belief and behavior. And it doesn't matter whether they are 'liberal' totalitarians or Islamist totalitarians.
So there looks to be no way to avoid a fight. Unfortunately, it is reason herself who teaches that it is often the hard fist of unreason that prevails and settles the issue when the appeal to reason is unavailing.
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