debitage

14.10.06

Partisan Blinders

Here's an little case study in how getting attached to a group (in this case, the Democratic Party) leads to highly skewed perceptions of the behavior of other group members versus outsiders. Kevin Drum says that in their recent PA Senate debate, Bob Casey made a "garden variety debating point" and Rick Santorum responded with a "finger-jabbing rant" with "spittle flying into the camera," clear evidence that he has "lost it." Not being one to pass up schadenfreude at Santorum's expense, I took Drum's advice to check out the video.

What I saw bore little resemblance to Drum's description. Casey accuses Santorum of not spending very much time working. Santorum gives an off-point rebuttal, then turns the question back around by accusing Casey of not spending very much time working, either. Casey refuses to answer, but Santorum insists -- with some finger-jabbing, but no spittle or ranting. The "debate" soon degenerates into both men repeating the same point over top of each other. Neither man comes out of it looking very good -- rather than productive elucidation of the choice voters face, they end up involved in a childish penis-size contest, both insisting on looking like the tough guy who's overtly in control of the framing of the discussion. And Santorum was making a legitimate point (I assume from Casey's refusal to give even a pseudo-answer that he is in fact guilty of goofing off on the taxpayers' time).

Stentor Danielson, 17:09, |

Which Oppression Is Greater?

From the department of "Alon Levy posts I meant to link to a while ago," I liked his analysis of why "this oppression is more socially acceptable than that one" arguments are so common yet come to such different conclusions:

The reason both gender-trumps-race and race-trumps-gender arguments can come off as reasonable is that racism and sexism don�t work exactly the same way. In some areas, gender dominates - for example, there�s more awareness of racially motivated hate crimes than of gender-based ones. In others, race dominates - for example, the irrational fear of The Other is much stronger with race than with gender.

... To see why, look at the criteria people use to establish trumping hierarchies. It�s natural for feminists to be aware mostly of gender-specific forms of inequality: sexual puritanism, ignorance of hate crimes, traditional values; job discrimination against mothers and pregnant women, devaluing female labor, anti-working mother sentiments. These are as far as I can tell much more acute on gender than on race, so someone who�s acquainted with these can easily be misled to believe that gender trumps race.

Contrariwise, antiracists, who are more aware of race-specific inequality (overhyped fear of BOW crime, police racism, intolerance of mixed-race relationships; high unemployment among most minorities, employment discrimination among people with ethnic-sounding names, low spending on majority-minority schools), will similarly tend to evaluate other forms of inequality based on the criteria familiar to them, again reaching the conclusion that their situation is worse.

Stentor Danielson, 16:46, |

12.10.06

It Doesn't Matter Why You Want To Do It

The feminist blogosphere is once again discussing the perennial question "can you be feminine and feminist?" The central question is framed as whether certain preferences, such as shaving, are endogenous or imposed by the patriarchy -- with the assumed corrollary that the former are acceptable and the latter should be rejected, even if the behavior they cultivate is the same.

But I think the origins question is not the most important thing (which is not to say it's not useful to examine). On the one hand, the dichotomy between "real" endogneous preferences and external imposed ones is false -- all of our preferences are the result of an interaction between internal states and our environment. More importantly, the advisability of satisfying, thwarting, or changing a preference is not a function of the preference's origin. More important than their origins are your preferences' structure and consequences.

Structure-wise, we can divide preferences into base-level and instrumental. Base-level preferences are those that we want for their own sake. Mostly this will be general things, like security or recognition or happiness or leisure. Instrumental preferences are things we want because they contribute to base-level satisfaction (or to another instrumental preference which contributes to a base-level one, etc.) -- so, for example, I want lots of people to read and link to this post because that contributes to my desire for recognition. Base-level preferences are not necessarily endogenous -- a socially-constructed preference can easily become lodged so deep in our minds that it's felt just as strongly, and as genuinely, as any other preference. And it therefore has the same moral status. Note also that (presumably due to a psychological mechanism for reducing the brain's workload) instrumental preferences masquerade, in day-to-day life, as base-level preferences.

When we ask "why do I want X," the most useful answer is in terms of the logical structure of our preferences. In this way we can clarify whether the things we want on the surface are really the most efficient way of satisfying our base-level desires. One key mechanism used by patriarchy (or any other social system) is to convince us that certain things contribute to base-level preferences even when they don't. Such mistaken preferences -- whether imposed by patriarchy or our own innocent ignorance -- can then be thwarted or unlearned.

However, that's not patriarchy's only mechanism. Patriarchy can set up our environment -- the structure of the options available to us -- so that certain behaviors truly do contribute most efficiently to our base-level preferences. The key question then becomes what the effects of satisfying, thwarting, or unlearning that preference are on all concerned. Say (to jump into another domain) I have a preference for having veal parmesan for lunch. What matters is not whether I prefer veal because my tastebud genes are such that veal is very tasty, or because given our culture it makes me feel sophisticated to eat the fanciest dish on the menu*. What matters is the consequences of my actions -- my own pleasure, the suffering of the calves and slaughterhouse workers, etc. Depending on how those consequences stack up**, it may be that I ought to order eggplant parmesan instead.

So can a feminist be feminine (or a male (pro)feminist be masculine)? I can't issue a blanket statement. But the answer in specific cases is to be found by asking whether the behavior in question advances your base-level goals, and feminism's goals, more than thwarting your desire to do it.

* Assume for the sake of argument that my actions in either case are identical, though of course in practice it's quite plausible that they would differ in detail. What's important is the actual, rather than the intended, content of the actions.

** I'm presenting the issue in simple utilitarian terms, but the point holds if the consequences at issue include rights violations, and if certain consequences are a priori ruled morally insignificant.

Stentor Danielson, 12:44, |

"Immigrants Are OK, Because We Can Exploit Them"

It bothers me the way "immigrants will work for low wages" gets turned around and used by ostensibly pro-immigrant people. They tell their opponents that we shouldn't worry about the brown horde swamping our McDonaldses with Spanish, because we citizens benefit from having our vegetables picked and our children cared for by people working for a few dollars a day.

From a pragmatic perspective, it's a step in the right direction insofar as it stymies attempts to restrict immigration. After all, immigrants' own behavior is a pretty clear indication that if given the choice between crappy working conditions in the US and returning home, they'll take the former. But immigrants' acceptance of those poor working conditions shouldn't become the justification for allowing them to enter and stay in the country. It says "Immigrants are OK, because we can exploit them."

Indeed, it seems that any viewpoint that would claim to be pro-immigrant (rather than just pro-immigration) has to oppose those poor working conditions. At a bare minimum, it has to oppose the way that fear of deportation undercuts immigrants' ability to access the basic protections provided to citizens. Freedom from sexual harassment and poison fumes (for example) are human rights, not special privileges of citizenship.

Stentor Danielson, 00:27, |

Animal Rights Once More

(I wrote this post a while ago but left it saved as a txt file on my desktop and forgot about it.)

Alon Levy responds to my earlier post in which I claimed that liberals reject the ecological fallacy in the case of same-sex marriage and gender discrimination in jobs, but not in the case of animal rights. His first line of attack -- denying the second premise of the first argument -- is a bit beside the point, since my post was about the internal logic of the arguments. And in any event, I would deny the second premise of the animal rights argument (only things which have "reason" have rights).

Levy's second line of attack is pragmatic. He says that one the one hand it's possible to directly measure fertility or upper-body strength, but that "reason" is too vague to measure directly, so we need to use the crude proxy of defining reason as a property of humans. On the other hand, he says that despite our inability to clearly define it, the overlap in "reason" between humans and animals is small enough that we can be categorical about it. While I disagree with Levy's assessment of how small the overlap is, it's true that the ecological fallacy is less of a fallacy the more significant the difference between the groups is -- or in other words, a strong first premise can rescue an otherwise fallacious argument, since an argument beginning "all and only" rather than "most" would be sound. (I would note as well that the first premise of the marriage argument is also quite strong.)

However, just showing that there's a difference in the degree of "reason" between humans and animals isn't enough to make the first premise strong. One also has to show that that gap occurs at the morally relevant point. After all, the degree of harm done by speeding is far less than that done by murder, but that doesn't mean that speeding isn't still a crime. (I would base rights on interests rather than ability to reason, in which case it's clearer that, while humans generally have much more complex and important interests, animal interests are not therefore non-entities.)

Levy wraps up his post with a version of the argument I criticized in my follow-up post -- according a vaguely-defined lesser moral status to animals. He says that human interests should always trump those of animals, but that ceteris paribus we should protect the well-being of animals. Taken strictly, this claim effectively does nothing for animals, since anything we do to protect their well-being will decrease human well-being in some amount. Just administering anaesthetic to a lab monkey, for example, costs money and researchers' time (as well as the time and patience of those who have to listen to them moan about how PETA makes their lives so hard). To avoid triviality, animals' interests would have to be able to trump humans' -- either by establishing a certain level of human interest that can be overruled, or an exchange rate favorable to humans. (This could be perhaps done within a pluralist system in which some interests are protected by absolute rights. In this case human rights would trump human non-right-interests and the rights (if they exist) and non-right-interests of animals, animal rights (if they exist) would trump the non-right-interests of both humans and animals, and when only non-rights-interests are at issue we use an exchange rate favorable, but not overwhelmingly so, to humans.)

Stentor Danielson, 00:24, |

8.10.06

In Defense Of Lieberman Again

I'm no fan of Joe Lieberman. He tends to do the right thing when the cameras are off (his environmental record, for example, is quite good, and he recently introduced a bill to provide domestic partner benefits), but his desire to present himself as a centrist through allying with the GOP gets prioritized on anything high-profile. I'm glad Ned Lamont got in the race, since Lieberman's support for . But I remain baffled by the people who seem to feel that Lieberman's worst crime is to stay in the race after the Democratic Party turned him down.

For example, olvlzl proposes making candidates sign a pledge to drop out of the race if they lose the primary. He explains the underlying premises as follows:

We have to reclaim the Democratic nomination as the property of enrolled Democrats, we have to reclaim all political offices as the property of the voters at large. We might lend them to people but that doesn�t make them their property. Joe Lieberman doesn�t have ownership rights over the Senate seat he�s been borrowing, no matter how much he might think so.

I agree with those premises. But I don't see how they're addressed by limiting candidacy to people endorsed by the Democratic Party*. Despite Lieberman's whining, he is in fact abiding by them. Since he is running as an independent, and not using any of the Party's resources, I don't see how he's violating the principle that the Democratic nomination belongs to the Democratic Party. And since he can only win the seat by getting the people of Connecticut to vote for him, the principle that offices belong to the voters seems pretty secure.

I have two hypotheses as to what the real principle at issue is. First, it may be whether ballot access is the property of the two major parties. I don't think it is. The ballot should be the property of the voters (expressed through petitions), not of the parties, or the NRA, or the AFL-CIO, or any other interest group that picks a candidate it likes and devotes resources to helping them win.

Or perhaps what's at issue is whether the votes of everyone left-of-center, or at least of registered Democrats, belong to the Democratic Party. They're free to support whoever they like in the primary, but once the Party's candidate is chosen, you're bound to support him or her. The funny thing is, this kind of entitlement to your own wing's votes is a highway straight to median-voter politics of just the kind that Lieberman is excoriated for practicing. After all, if you already own your side's votes, why not swing to the center to pick up independents? I'm no fan of Lieberman, but were I a CT Democrat I'd be tempted to vote for him to show that my vote belongs to me, not to olvlzl or Howard Dean.

Then again, my befuddlement at the demand to toe the party line is why I never have been, and never will be, a registered Democrat.

* olvlzl's post technically leaves open the idea that it would be legitimate for someone to run as an independent if they never tried to get the Party's nomination. But the same sort of "how dare you run against the Party's candidate" anger is directed at such candidates -- witness the concerted efforts to keep Green Party candidates and Ralph Nader off the ballot. Such efforts are fine as nakedly partisan tactics, since Green candidates do marginally hurt Democrats, but don't dress it up in the language of principle.

Stentor Danielson, 15:44, |

Racial Stereotypes

In the little message board attached to a story in the Arizona Republic, the discussion turned to immigration*. Anti-immigration posters brought up the usual litany of evils brought to this country by illegal aliens or Latinos** -- stealing jobs, crime, poor sanitation, putting up signs in Spanish, etc. One person's big complaint, though, was that his illegal neighbors would spend 20 minutes revving their truck engines in the driveway every morning***.

As it happens, I had the pleasure of being woken up a few days ago by 20 minutes of truck-engine revving. I live in a racially mixed apartment complex, but my assumption was not that it was a Latino. The image in my head was of a redneck-type white guy.

* I don't recall which one, because every discussion on the Republic's site turns into a debate about immigration.

** They have quite a time telling these two groups apart, depite their constant lecturing on the difference between good legal immigrants (like their own families) and bad illegal immigrants.

*** Apparently when you get your green card, they give you a coupon for a hybrid.

Stentor Danielson, 13:59, |