I am a “Blue” – liberal, progressive – yet I am about to wander into areas that may make me seem “Red”. In our current state of polarization that feels dangerous. It seems to be required that we be on one side or the other; questioning one’s own tribe is often seen as treasonous, giving comfort to the enemy. Nevertheless, I believe that this tribal view, by making it impossible to work together, profoundly threatens our democracy and our future. I also believe that the core of the liberal / progressive view is the openness to other perspectives, the desire to reach out and to broaden the scope of inclusion.
So here I go. Reds make some important points that have made me think and learn. If there is anything good about the politics of the past few years, it is that we Blues have been forced to listen to those points a bit. Our bubbles have been pierced. Many on the Left have reacted by rebuilding their bubbles into walls (as it were), painting opponents with stereotypes of ignorance and racism. But others have begun listen more closely. There are human beings behind the right-wing ideologies. They are responding to some form of experience. They don’t find the Blue view convincing. And much of the time, they point to things that Blues have not properly taken into account or understood.
Here’s a first one: Experts and scientists don’t know all the answers We Blues tend to accuse Reds of ignoring facts and the knowledge of experts. But when we think about it, we’re not so high on experts either, when they run against what we believe.
In fact, we started the skeptical turn. A set of philosophers popular on the Left, such as Michel Foucault, started arguing a half century ago that knowledge was never merely objective, was always intertwined with and tainted by the values of those in power. In my college years, our protests of the Vietnam War included a large dose of virulent criticism of the experts who kept assuring us that the war was going well, that we had a good strategy, that it would soon be over. Robert McNamara, with his brushed-back hair and wire-rimmed glasses, was viewed as the epitome of this technical proficiency that led us into a moral and practical abyss. And that feeling is not far from that of the Tea Party supporters I talk to now who feel like the educated classes are taking us down a similarly disastrous path.
We Blues, like the Reds, trust the experts only when we want to. For instance: The dominant economic theory of the past half-century has been the neoclassical, neoliberal embrace of free markets as the road to universal prosperity. Most of us Blues think this is nonsense, a triumph of conservative ideology. We are quick to point out any evidence which supports our more interventionist views, and to trumpet the views of those economists, like Krugman, who are on our side; but we ignore all the others, as well as obvious difficulties. Remember the 1970s? - the era of stagflation, which Keynesians could not account for. It was a depressing era, economically and culturally – “a kidney stone of a decade,” in Doonesbury’s phrase – despite a Democratic President with and a long-running dose of Keynesian policies.
Why do we resist those experts? Because their views don’t fit with our perspective. We put our judgment about economics, in other words, ahead of most experts in the field.
Then there are experts in bioengineering, artificial intelligence, and other whiz-bang scientific fields. They promise fantastic benefits for humanity from continued innovation. But most of us, I wager, are doubtful, worrying about the dangers and concerned that we are moving too fast.
The feeling that experts are steering the ship badly is actually shared by most liberals as well as most populists. There’s a general sense that we, the people, need to take control again from experts who are blinkered by their narrow specializations. So when we Blues accuse the Reds of ignoring science, we need to think more deeply about our own views.
For most of the past few centuries, it was an article of faith that unfettered scientific would bring benefits to everyone. The invention of the atom bomb sowed the first serious doubts, even among many of the scientists who developed it. Today we have a similar process in the genetic genetic field: scientists pleading with the political sphere to stop development of knowledge until we can explore ways to manage it.
Fundamentally, we all believe that science should serve the people. So we need to develop ways for democracy to control science. If we pay attention to the populist Right, that’s that they’re telling us.
So here I go. Reds make some important points that have made me think and learn. If there is anything good about the politics of the past few years, it is that we Blues have been forced to listen to those points a bit. Our bubbles have been pierced. Many on the Left have reacted by rebuilding their bubbles into walls (as it were), painting opponents with stereotypes of ignorance and racism. But others have begun listen more closely. There are human beings behind the right-wing ideologies. They are responding to some form of experience. They don’t find the Blue view convincing. And much of the time, they point to things that Blues have not properly taken into account or understood.
Here’s a first one: Experts and scientists don’t know all the answers We Blues tend to accuse Reds of ignoring facts and the knowledge of experts. But when we think about it, we’re not so high on experts either, when they run against what we believe.
In fact, we started the skeptical turn. A set of philosophers popular on the Left, such as Michel Foucault, started arguing a half century ago that knowledge was never merely objective, was always intertwined with and tainted by the values of those in power. In my college years, our protests of the Vietnam War included a large dose of virulent criticism of the experts who kept assuring us that the war was going well, that we had a good strategy, that it would soon be over. Robert McNamara, with his brushed-back hair and wire-rimmed glasses, was viewed as the epitome of this technical proficiency that led us into a moral and practical abyss. And that feeling is not far from that of the Tea Party supporters I talk to now who feel like the educated classes are taking us down a similarly disastrous path.
We Blues, like the Reds, trust the experts only when we want to. For instance: The dominant economic theory of the past half-century has been the neoclassical, neoliberal embrace of free markets as the road to universal prosperity. Most of us Blues think this is nonsense, a triumph of conservative ideology. We are quick to point out any evidence which supports our more interventionist views, and to trumpet the views of those economists, like Krugman, who are on our side; but we ignore all the others, as well as obvious difficulties. Remember the 1970s? - the era of stagflation, which Keynesians could not account for. It was a depressing era, economically and culturally – “a kidney stone of a decade,” in Doonesbury’s phrase – despite a Democratic President with and a long-running dose of Keynesian policies.
Why do we resist those experts? Because their views don’t fit with our perspective. We put our judgment about economics, in other words, ahead of most experts in the field.
Then there are experts in bioengineering, artificial intelligence, and other whiz-bang scientific fields. They promise fantastic benefits for humanity from continued innovation. But most of us, I wager, are doubtful, worrying about the dangers and concerned that we are moving too fast.
The feeling that experts are steering the ship badly is actually shared by most liberals as well as most populists. There’s a general sense that we, the people, need to take control again from experts who are blinkered by their narrow specializations. So when we Blues accuse the Reds of ignoring science, we need to think more deeply about our own views.
For most of the past few centuries, it was an article of faith that unfettered scientific would bring benefits to everyone. The invention of the atom bomb sowed the first serious doubts, even among many of the scientists who developed it. Today we have a similar process in the genetic genetic field: scientists pleading with the political sphere to stop development of knowledge until we can explore ways to manage it.
Fundamentally, we all believe that science should serve the people. So we need to develop ways for democracy to control science. If we pay attention to the populist Right, that’s that they’re telling us.
