Just published in Quillette

Is Moral Expertise Possible?

Moral expertise refers to the ability to understand the morality of human beings. In this article, four writers, including myself, examine the subject. Can anyone really be an expert in morality or is it too complex and based on individual differences?

Click above to read the article.

 

ELECTRUM MAGAZINE

 

 

REVIEWS

Michael Anderson’s The Conservative Gene: A Review

September 30, 2021 9:19 PMViews: 26

Alexander Janet, 1858, Signing of the Declaration of Independence, copy of Trumbull painting (image in public domain)

By P. F. Sommerfeldt –

Admittedly, I’m a tough nut to crack in terms of political theory – my castle has a hard and high wall and I’m difficult to impress – but Michael Anderson has done it yet again. His newest book THE CONSERVATIVE GENE: How Genetics Shape the Complex Morality of Conservatives (Simms Publishing 2021) is another bellwether, deftly assimilating new genetic theory around a potentially complex morality that may somehow be connected if pronounced tendencies can be inherited like genetic behavior. Anderson’s application of an overarching thesis appears to be becoming more accepted, especially in epigenetic parlance although nurture apparently still supersedes nature in training. My lament is that Anderson’s newest study may not receive sufficient attention as it’s from a small press without obvious marketing or wider distribution. To understand from where this raised eyebrow encomium is coming, I’m a Jewish liberal and very progressive, but am hyper curious nonetheless to process and understand political history. 

I begin my personal political history in the Classical World somewhere close to Aristotle and, if a confessional is at all useful for treating modern political theory, I still have a limited guarded fondness for Marx only because his thunderbolt about modern Christianity is still relevant: Marx suggested Christianity’s greatest failure was to not follow the social imperative of Jesus to take care of people at the most basic level and to offset base instincts like greed. Had Jesus’ exhortations truly been heeded, what we perceive as ‘Communism’ to combat economic inequality would have possibly never existed in the post-Roman world and what became Communism as an antithesis to greed would have been superfluous in the perception of “capital” as one dynamic to shape policy. There are many institutions now embedded in American society that would have puzzled our founding fathers. The Electoral College was partly originally created to integrate the rural and often racist southern states – what would sadly become the traitorous Confederacy – with the more populous northern states. As Pulitzer-prize winning historian J. J. Ellis has said, “I’m virtually certain the Founders would nod their approval if we dispensed with electoral votes and chose our presidents in a popular election.” [1] True conservatives believe in the power of democracy without tinkering. A more justice-oriented higher morality in a post-Marxist yet more and more relativistic modern world should also lament the undermining of trust in elections and the undermining of the press, the latter of which has always been needed to stem the tide and balance and expose Executive excesses. These should be high moral priorities of the true conservatives Anderson so capably explicates. Seeing the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia should fill every conservative with pride in maintaining the vision of the highest moral liberty from elitism and entitlement. When I first saw it years ago with its inscription exhorting to “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof”, I was also filled with humility that true freedom also calls for responsibility to maintain liberty unselfishly. This does not mean liberty from vaccinations or liberty from wearing masks, clearly needed to protect ourselves and others. But this liberty has to be inclusive to all regardless of color, creed or identity.

Conservatism is much more than the old familiarity of “if it’s not broken, why fix it” mentation. Reduced to the most common denominators that Anderson has already posited in prior books, where compassion is one of the basic instincts undergirding progressive thinking, Anderson elucidates loyalty as the larger trait of conservatives. Yet loyalty and a concomitant resistance to change – the old comfort of familiarity – is only part of what makes conservatism tick, as Anderson brilliantly develops.

With compelling historical insight Anderson succinctly describes how “morality’ is not only a generic part of our inherent cultural baggage but is in some (still vague for now) way also possibly generated from a tenuous place of deeper instinctive personhood. Of course, some will find it simplistic or even frightening that genetics might shape our political inclinations, but Anderson documents millennia of human identification with just such deeper impulses. As mentioned, one of the impulses he identifies and elucidates as a primary conservative hallmark is loyalty, a fondness for reciprocity and fairness in a tendency to embrace what makes us feel comfortable about our past in a mostly undocumented experience. This conservative propensity to loyalty can be in balance with the progressive trait of compassion. Both of these “instincts” are generally good in themselves with both emotional and intellectual commitments to impact social causality in the right ways and yet each has inherent weakness as Anderson understands. For example, in this study Anderson is all too aware that blind loyalty can look the other way when it is directed to unworthy persons. This last insight leads directly to Gingrich and Trump: Anderson’s criticism of both includes perceptions that polarization, rude tactics and other blunt negative instruments like bullying contribute to extreme partisanship that plagues the Republican Party (e.g., pp.148, 166, 167), which now seems to have lost its way in upholding Conservative virtues and future prospects unless it practices what it preaches about morality with tempered responses to beleaguered value systems and hot button issues like abortion and sexual identity that are not necessarily part of the traditional Conservatism practiced for centuries but have been steamrolled by religious extremism in the past century. Anderson makes valid conclusions about how “21st century elections have damaged Conservative ideology”, and “how Trump’s election threatens the future prospects for the Republican party,” (both 166-7). A true conservative could never support Trump’s authoritarian fascism and disregard for law.

In all, Anderson’s thoughtful book is a must read for anyone who wishes to see the evolution of the American political system as well as its devolution into factionalism and tribalism, partly driven by petty differences as well as major contrasts in being motivated by either loyalty for conservatives or compassion for progressives. If Anderson can make me – a dyed in the wool liberal – think in different ways, this is both refreshing and impressive. 

Notes:

[1] Joseph J. Ellis, “What would founding fathers think of Donald J. Trump”, CNN Opinion, May 6, 2016

 

The True Ideology of the Radical Right

The True Ideology of the Radical Right

The Radical Right has been all over the news recently because of its involvement in the attack on the US Capitol January 6th 2021. These groups were provoked by Trump and his manic refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election. They took action to disrupt the electoral vote count and possibly do harm to our elected officials. The most radical elements believed that is what Trump wanted them to do.

Who are these groups and what was their relationship with Trump? The answer begins with ideology. There is a common belief that these are conservative groups, based on the public’s assumption that politics and ideology are the same thing. But they are not the same. Political and ideological spectrums feature different groups, which means that Neo-Nazis and the Alt-Right are Socialists, not Conservatives.

If you think about the spectrum of American political parties, you can visualize Progressives on the far left, Liberals left of center, Independents in the middle, Moderates right of center, and Conservatives on the far right. The Left favors equality and a large role for government in people’s lives. The Right prefers smaller government and letting the capitalist economy lift the tide for the disadvantaged. The Left wants change; the Right favors the status quo.

The spectrum of political ideology is plainly different. Here, Economic Socialism is on the left, Authoritarian Socialism is on the Right, and Classical Liberalism is in the middle. By classic Liberalism we mean, free market capitalism with a focus on the individual freedom required to succeed in life.

A diagram showing these differences follows.





As shown by the arrows, Left-wing socialism makes its home on the extreme Left as a faction of the Progressive Movement. It is the most extreme element of Left-wing ideology because it includes those who would like to replace the American Government with a Communist or Socialist state. Its members believe that achieving equality requires tearing down the American political system.

Conservatives connect to the Classic Liberal ideology. This is not the Liberalism of FDR or the Great Society, it’s the Liberalism born during the Enlightenment. Conservatives believe that they can achieve success in life if they are given the freedom as individuals to pursue it.

Socialism

Socialism developed out of Collectivist thinking during the Enlightenment. The most important early Socialist was John Jacques Rousseau, the French writer and philosopher. Rousseau believed civilization developed at the expense of morality, and the root of moral degradation was reason, as defined by the Enlightenment. Human beings lived simple lives before they were able to reason, but as time went on, man’s behavior led to a surplus of wealth and claims of property rights, which motivated men to accumulate wealth at the expense of the less fortunate. Having succeeded in the competition of life, the rich fought to protect their positions and possessions, which expanded the inequality between themselves and the poor.

Rousseau sought the creation of a new society that would stand in the middle ground between the idle rich and a primitive state. This new state would be governed by religion which would act as a stabilizing force. Reason was destructive to society, so natural passions must replace it. By joining together into civil society through a social contract and abandoning claims of natural right, individuals could preserve themselves and remain free.

After Rousseau, Socialist thinking took two separate paths. Outside of Germany, the Left built competing ideologies. They tried Utopianism in the early 19th Century, by forming new communities of volunteers to live together in Egalitarian communities. All failed because equality could not be maintained. Anarchism also emerged as a radical ideology that sought the complete elimination of government in favor of rule by the masses. The anarchists were eventually marginalized by the growing power of Communism. Observing the exploitation of workers, during the Industrial Revolution, led Marx to propose his Communist theory to explain the outcome of tension between workers and management. He believed the working class would eventually become dissatisfied, start a revolution, and take power for themselves.

Socialism took a different path in Germany. Germans hated the Enlightenment, because they saw it as an attack on traditions and the Catholic Church. Separately, they wanted to build a path toward unity as a nation and throw off the obsolete Holy Roman Empire. The intellectual underpinnings of German nationalism were created by three men: Johann Herder, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel.

Herder was a philosopher and literary critic, who pressed the German people to speak their own language rather than use the languages of other nations. In his Outline of a Philosophical History of Humanity, Herder pushed for cultural affinity to bring all the German people together into a single culture with a single language. He asserted that every nation belonged to its own people, independent of all others. The German people were a tribe by nature, and they needed to use that characteristic to turn Germany into a nation-tribe, rather than a nation of tribes.

Fichte is known as the father of German Idealism. His contribution was based on a collectivist view of German nationalism and the need for an approach to education that would unite the German people. Fichte saw the future of Germany as dependent on a mandatory educational system that was uniform across the country. Students must be indoctrinated in the way Germans must think of themselves; a united nation that must be protected from outsiders.

Hegel is perhaps the most famous German Philosopher, after Kant. Like Rousseau, Hegel agreed that the Enlightenment notion of freedom was a fraud. The truth was that all human possessions came through the state, and that human history consisted of working out what was absolute, whether it was God, universal reason, or the divine idea. The carrying out of God’s plan was human history. The state as the instrument of God’s plan, was more important than the individual.

Throughout the 19th Century, the German people worked toward unification. Political progress was accomplished through the work of Otto von Bismarck, who served as Minister President of Prussia, starting in 1862. Bismarck had his hands full initially because the German trade unions were under the influence of Left-wing Socialists, who were agitating for the creation of a German Socialist state. In order to frustrate these efforts, he developed a political model called “Revolutionary Conservatism.” This was a Conservative state-building strategy designed to make ordinary Germans more loyal to state and emperor, through the creation of a modern welfare system.

His strategy, to grant social rights to enhance the integration of a hierarchical society, would forge a bond between the public and the state. That bond would strengthen workers, maintain traditional relations of authority between status groups, and provide a check against the forces of Liberalism and Socialism. Bismarck’s balancing act of political interests was successful, allowing traditional conservative elements to retain control of the country while accommodating liberal interests through welfare programs.

After Bismarck left the scene, German Conservatism became even more nationalistic. Between 1890 and the end of the First World War, shared nationalist ideas led to the merging of the German Liberal Party with the Conservatives. A few years later, the Catholic Party also joined the coalition. When the First World War ended, Conservatives adopted a “pre-Fascist” stance, positioning themselves against the working class, which was represented by Left-wing Socialists. That development replaced the old-style nationalists with a more modern version. The new party, called the German National People’s Party (DNVP), advanced the Conservative banner and replaced the obsolete Fatherland party. The DNVP was eventually replaced by the Nazi Party, which became the sole political party in Germany after Hitler came to power. When the German people voted the Right-wing Socialists (Nazis) into power, they were choosing them over the Left-wing Socialists.

Right-wing radicals have not had a home since World War II ended. Their Fascist ideology was utterly discredited by the horror of the Nazis. The West would never again give serious credence to a superior-race ideology that might lead to an authoritarian political system dedicated to world domination and genocide.

Back to Trump

Twenty-first Century Right-wing radicals were attracted to Trump for two fundamental reasons: they like strong leaders and they operate with an “us versus them” mentality. Trump’s political strategy was to play the part of an outsider, focus on his enemies, and use political leverage to take them out. This was the famous “drain the swamp” initiative. Trump’s approach found compatibility with the Right-wingers because they could imagine Trump as the one who would lead them in the battle against evil.

Trump and many Republicans suspected foul play during the election and it first appeared they might be right. The Democrats made no declaration regarding their commitment to fair elections and they didn’t provide any evidence to support the idea that the Biden election was fair. Silence in this case was suspicious. In addition, there were activities on election night that seemed questionable; these activities were never satisfactorily explained. The expelling of Republican poll watchers and their isolation from locations that would allow them to accurately examine the vote counts provided additional ammunition for those who suspected cheating.

Still no judge accepted the evidence provided the Republicans as incriminating, so no charges were brought against the Democrats. That should have ended the corrupt election debate. True to form, Trump did not accept the rulings of the courts and kept pushing his narrative.

Many believed the election was fraudulent only because Trump said so. The most militant individuals used Trump’s words as motivation, were the most aggressive in attacking the Capitol, and did the most damage. They are now subject to prosecution for the crimes they committed, while their actions embarrassed Conservatives and scared the Congress. These groups will never be large, but will always be present in any society where hate can be used to create power.

Trump played a game with the radical Right, subtly supporting them by not saying anything against them. That strategy motivated them to become part of his “army.” Only Trump knows the purpose behind his behavior. He had to understand that he was playing with fire, and his code words might incite the mob to react at some point. Was his ego so big and his rage at the Left so deep, he didn’t care? No matter what the reason, Trump has to accept responsibility for the actions of those he enabled.

The Great COVID Mystery

What is the great COVID mystery, you’re wondering? Is it “Where did the disease come from?” Or “Why is the infection rate so high?” Or perhaps you’re asking “When will the pandemic end?” All good questions but none of them is the great COVID mystery.

The great COVID mystery is “Why is government singularly focused on stopping the disease and ignoring the impact of shutdowns on the American people?” Why not pursue a balance between controlling the disease and keeping our social infrastructure intact?

States across the nation have imposed severe restrictions on human behavior to slow down the spread and preserve hospital capacity. But this isn’t March anymore. We now know who the most vulnerable are and what needs to be done to protect them. For those who are sick, we are better at treating them. We notice the average age at diagnosis dropping, because younger people are the primary cause of the latest surge. But, it’s also true that forty percent of all patients are asymptomatic, meaning that disease will have very little impact on their lives.

Perhaps the second worst thing about this pandemic is it becoming politicized. It was a great chance for the country to come together, but no. The pandemic emerged during an election year and put another target on Trump’s back. He completely flubbed the PR side of managing the disease, but the Federal government still addressed the major problems of the pandemic like they were supposed to. Medical experts became political too, which is a major corruption of a system that should operate based on science and public health guidelines.

In general, blue states are more locked down than red states. I don’t know why exactly. The Left likes to control people more. Maybe that’s it. The Right believes in liberty and resists oppression, so the Republican governors are more in tune with that thinking.

Why has no one been focused on the damage to small businesses because of the restrictions? Is it because they have no advocate?

The big corporations did a great job asking for government money. They called their friends in Washington, who got out their checkbooks. The Los Angeles Lakers basketball team got a check for $ 8 million to help them survive the pandemic. How many private restaurants, bars, gyms, barbers, and salons received nothing? The pandemic’s greatest impact has been on small businesses because they face the public all day every day. Unlike grocery stores, they aren’t lucky enough to receive an essential business designation.

The disease data presentation is a significant factor in all of this. The charts and counts are displayed every day across the media. It’s a conspiracy to scare people. Data, data, and more data. Mass hypnosis. What if in some year prior, like 2015, the government would have publicized flu data in the same format? Wouldn’t that have scared people in the same way? They would have seen cases go up in the fall and not go down until spring. They would have seen the death count increase steadily. And that was a situation where a vaccine was widely available!

There are no charts logging the human cost of the lockdowns being shown. How many new child abuse cases, opioid cases, suicides, marital fights, and bankruptcies are being logged and reported? Kids needs to be in school for the sake of retaining a stable environment, which gives them the best chance to learn. That’s not a high enough priority. Already, test scores for 2020 show a big drop from last year.

A few weeks ago, an organization of well-known scientists proposed a limited herd immunity strategy: protect the vulnerable and open everything else up. The Great Barrington Declaration was authored by Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School. The declaration clearly tries to balance the cost of the pandemic against the cost of the shutdowns. To date 12,000 medical scientists and 37,000 physicians have signed the petition.

The declaration was immediately attacked, discounted, and has disappeared under a mountain of criticism. So much for the small business owners. Their lives don’t count.

This pandemic stands as one of the greatest failures of the American government in our history. Follow the science is the big LIE. You only follow the science if there is no collateral damage. It’s the job of politicians to arbitrate conflicting policies and chose the right course of action for all Americans, not take themselves off the hook by deferring to science.

It doesn’t appear that governors are looking at the experience of other states, which are demonstrating what is working and what isn’t. We have 50 states taking 50 different approaches. What a great laboratory. For example, Florida is open. Why not use some of the Florida approach in other states.

I’d rather live there.

The 2020 Election – What will happen?

Its two days before the election and time to look at what may happen and why.

In normal times, Trump would be a shoe-in. He’s an incumbent running for a second term, the economy recovering from the COVID shock, and 56% of Americans are saying they are better off than they were four years ago.

Without taking any other factors into consideration, this one resembles the 1972 election between Nixon and McGovern, when Nixon collected 520 electoral votes. That year McGovern ran as the Anti-Vietnam War candidate, who would cut defense spending. To be fair, Nixon was the incumbent and the economy was doing well, so that gave him an advantage. McGovern was an outsider, perhaps a populist at the wrong time, with a message centered on the war.

The McGovern defeat has cast a long shadow over the Democratic Party. This shadow takes the form of the party elders controlling how far Left the party goes to avoid alienating independent voters. It has been standard operating procedure in recent decades for the Democratic Party to be strongly Left during the primary season, and then move toward the center for the general election.

This year the party has stayed left and used a prop, Joe Biden, to make it look like it is operating from the center. The real story is that Kamala Harris is radically Left, put there to appease the Left wing of the party. In addition, the Democrat platform is essentially socialist: free schools, free healthcare, forgive student debt, and implementation the Green New Deal. The latter would force the phase out of the lowest cost energy resources.

The extreme Left focus of the Democrats would appear to help Trump, but there are three mitigating this scenario: the media’s assault on Trump, the media’s silence about the Democrat agenda, and Trump’s personality. In the time since 2016, the media as lost all credibility. Journalism is dead, or at least objective journalism is dead. The media are now the marketing arm of the Democratic Party.

Since the media are Left-leaning, every idea that is Right-leaning is discounted. Furthermore, any idea that is Left-leaning, no matter how radical, is supported or not criticized. For example, there is no one on the Left reporting on the cost of the Democrat socialist programs. It would be useful to determine whether the Federal budget could stand the strain of a welfare state. The Left, when pushed about this, asserts that the money will be raised by taxing rich people. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough rich people to pay for these programs, so the middle class will be covering the shortfall.

Whenever one of the Democrat candidates misspeaks and says something controversial, a handler comes forward with a reinterpretation of what was said. Look at the fracking issue. The Democratic candidates pretend they won’t ban fracking even though their party platform says so. Denial avoids the exposure of a controversial position. Here is a quote from the 2020 Democratic platform.

“We support banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters, modifying royalties to account for climate costs, and establishing targeted programs to enhance reforestation and develop renewables on federal lands and waters.”

The Trump personality creates more uncertainty about the election. There are at least three positions on him: some hate Trump because of his personality, some overlook Trump’s personality and look at what he’s trying to accomplish, and some like his pushiness as a sign of strength and they respect him for it. Trump’s behavior is an issue he created, and it might cost him the election.

So, what about the election?

The poll numbers look like 2016. They are wrong this time too, but by how much? The Left likes to say that Biden’s lead is bigger than Hillary’s so he’s locked in. The pollsters also say they have corrected their models since 2016, but who knows whether that is true. There is no doubt that some people are providing false information to the pollsters. These are the “shy” conservatives. They hate what the media has become and will not play their game.

Exit polls in early Wisconsin voting showed that 6% of the voters refused to say how they voted. One suspects there are more conservatives in this group than liberals. Wouldn’t liberals be proud to announce who they voted for? Conservatives are so beaten down by the Left: called out, attacked, and ridiculed, it makes sense that they’d want to keep their views to themselves.

There are other factors at work also. The Left’s position is that suburban Moms are moving away from Trump because they don’t like is personality. Is Trump’s personality more important to them then law and order? I doubt it. The rule of law is fundamental to any stable society and there are a lot of Americans who value that principle. Ideas like defunding the police, and taking over parts of cities to rule lawlessly is not something most people like to imagine becoming reality.

There are a lot of Americans who believe in fairness. The idea that riots are acceptable in the time of COVID, and family gatherings are not, is fundamentally absurd.

Many of the riots have including the tearing down of statues – some having nothing to do with the issues being debated. The Left doesn’t understand that tradition is important and should not be discarded. Tradition provides a roadmap to move society forward. Without that roadmap any society would end up like France did during its revolution – in a state of anarchy.

A statue of Robert E. Lee should remind us that he lived in another time; a time when people believed slavery was acceptable. But that concept was ultimately rejected as immoral and American society moved forward toward a freer and fairer place for all our people. The true lesson is the rejection of immorality.

Is there an enthusiasm factor?

Polls show 48% of Biden’s supporters are enthusiastic about him; Trump’s support is at 77%. One can observe that by looking at the size of the Trump rallies. Why do the Democrats have so few at their rallies? It can’t be COVID because supporters could practice social distancing and still attend these events. Small crowds more likely demonstrate less enthusiasm for Biden.

What will the results be?

Trump has a similar path to victory this time. It starts with four battleground states he must win: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio. He must also win two of the following states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona. That would give him enough electoral votes to win the election.

The early states will prove out the extent of polling error, and provide a guide for what will happen later.

Time for a Media Vacation?

Time for a Media Vacation?

I’ve been on a media vacation recently and it’s a pleasant experience. You should try it. Good for your mental health.

No matter what your political stripe, you have to be tired of the hourly drumbeat of depressing information. It’s not healthy!

Every day we hear about how bad Trump is. Whatever support he has is drowned out by the sheer volume of the attacks from the Left.

Every day we hear about COVID. One side is optimistic and the other side is pessimistic. Its hard to find the truth since both sides manipulate the data to their advantage. To my knowledge this is the first time in American history that a force bringing our people together was negated by a counter force; the tribalism we are experiencing now. We were tribal before Trump, but his personality has made the situation worse. Add the fact that this is an election year and everything gets exaggerated.

The end result of our failure to unite is the truth has gone by the wayside. Who knows what to believe? Governors are partisan, majors are partisan, and the federal government is split along partisan lines. Is Dr. Fauci a Democrat who exaggerates his warnings about reopening?

I guess we’re left watching the dashboards. Are cases per day going down? Are deaths per day going down? That only works if the counts are not being manipulated, which some have admitted is happening.

No media outlet provides a context to frame the data. That keeps their depressing message intact. Here is an example of perspective. Ohio has 11.7 million people and 3,618 deaths. That’s 3 hundredths of 1% of the state population who have died. The death to case ratio is 3.7%. Ninety seven percent of the deaths are people older than 50. Fifty seven percent of those who died were nursing home patients.

If you’re under 50, without underlying conditions that make COVID worse, you’re going to be fine.

Every day we hear about riots. Portland stays in the news because riots have been going on there for 70 days. The mayor is using those riots as a political prop. When rioters attempted to set fire to a police precinct yesterday, the mayor accused them of attempted murder but also said. "Don’t think for a moment that you are if you are participating in this activity, you are not being a prop for the reelection campaign of Donald Trump — because you absolutely are." The implication is that the rioters are breaking the law, and since Trump wants to uphold the law, they are giving him power. Why doesn’t Portland’s mayor want the law upheld?

Is the world turned upside down? We now have riots as appropriate behavior and police as evil actors. Its ok to riot without social distancing, but you can’t attend a funeral with more than 10 people.

No laws = no society. Only anarchy.

That’s why media vacations are good. Too much exposure to the media will make you think reality is what you see on the small screen. It isn’t. If the media will not accurately represent reality, you have to find it for yourself in your own life.

Review of Tribalism

ELECTRUM MAGAZINE

Why The Ancient World Matters Today

Top of Form

REVIEWS

Michael Anderson’s 2nd Excellent Book: Tribalism will Divide and Conquer Us

June 29, 2020 8:50 PMViews: 7

Lionel Royer, Vercingetorix Throws Down His Arms at the feet of Julius Caesar, 1899

P. F. Sommerfeldt –

Julius Caesar knew that to destroy the fractured Gauls, his overarching task was to accentuate their tribalism, not their national unity, in order to divide and conquer. History repeats this time and again as Michael Anderson cogently writes on tribalism, the bane of 21st century America. Anderson has done it again with a great sequel book to his Progressive Gene, which identifies deep emotional and even genetic tendencies and responses in behavioral psychology that drives and divides humans into compassionate (progressive) or loyal (conservative) camps, albeit along a broad spectrum. Tribalism is a long-held tenacity to cling to limited regional “us versus them” clannishness or limited nationalism over, for example, multiculturalism, global identity and seeing humanity at large. Racism, for example, is a political construct of the most superficial xenophobic tribalism.

Anderson’s new book is Tribalism: The Curse of 21st Century America and it couldn’t be timelier as 2020 rages on. “Left versus Right” has become increasingly polarized, especially when the current Trump divisiveness becomes ever more entrenched against “libtard” Democrats like myself, such that honest Conservatives despair along with honest liberals – each side with patriots who know national unity is becoming ever more elusive across the abyss. Who could have imagined that Republicans and Democrats could represent such horrible polarized “enemies” as Americans have somehow seemed to become? Weren’t we told only a generation ago that Soviet Communism was the enemy, not our own country’s political parties? Is the dichotomy between Republicans and Democrats as “enemies” true or merely propaganda? I believe the latter. Of course, the fault is on both sides, as Anderson documents.

Nativism and anti-immigration prejudices – nationalist xenophobias – are other aspects of the worst kind of tribalism that can be exploited by internal and external forces. Media preferences can all too easily reinforce tribalism, where charges of “fake news” add fuel to the already irrational flames. Too few know that the meme of “fake news” (part of dezinformatsiya) was a favorite device of Stalin’s NKVD (becoming the KGB) to discredit and destroy opposition and neutralize international media by sowing distrust, undermining what would be perceived as “true’ in postmodernist relativist understanding; in this country “fake news” didn’t really enter the common vocabulary until the political campaign of 2015. The more lies anyone can tell and get away with, the more bewildering the search for knowable truth becomes in the insidious aim to deceive public opinion. To international intelligence analysts, it is clear that certainly within the last decade or so Putin’s authoritarian apparatus exploits the possibilities for disinformation to the max, using the wiliest propaganda experts in pursuing much of this deliberate policy, knowing how to use tribalism in the worst possible ways to divide and destroy other sovereign nations. We should examine exactly how the media has become in Trump’s words, “the enemy of the people” because this rhetoric sounds exactly like what you would have heard and still hear coming out of Russia state-owned organs.

On the simplest level, most people who follow sports have favorite teams – usually their local ones – and this is a deeply-ingrained tribalism where individuals vicariously identify with a sports team that likely doesn’t even know that individual’s existence. I knew rabid fans who became so angry “their” team lost that they literally threw out the television from an upper apartment window in blind rage. Absurd, for sure, but an example of simple tribalism run awry.

Some of my favorite text sections in the book have to do with extended analyses of how we got to this current impasse through Enlightenment rationalism, to post-Enlightenment, Collectivism, Socialism and Liberalism to Postmodernism. Anderson also says (p. 206) about Trump: “He’s not even a Conservative. He’s a Populist and Populists are politicians who don’t embrace a particular ideology but build a platform around what they think the people want.” Great graphs like on p. 207 show how educated people have gradually moved toward the Left – partly because of academic bias – and many credible political surveys right now confirm educated people moving toward Independent and Democrat affiliations and away from the Republican party as it has polarized so far away from the center and embraced authoritarianism in executive branch power. Elsewhere Anderson’s keen observations and possible solutions include building bridges between divided ways of thought that are exacerbated by inculcated academic and media philosophies to break down animosities to find common ground (p. 282): “If Americans could see their government functioning the way they believe it should, working for the benefit of all of us, the tension level would abate within the tribes. Unfortunately, this will not happen before the end of the Trump presidency. Successful or not, Trump is too divisive to get the Left talking to the Right.” Anderson doesn’t say it, but in my opinion, Trump is the ultimate Tribalist.

This book offers insightful commentary and documentation, and is very clearly written with historic depth. Anderson shows that he can reach me, a Jewish liberal, right between the eyes and in the heart, not with deadly aim so to speak, but with genuine passion and warnings for the immediate future. Anderson may be a prophet in this regard. His glossary at the end is superb, and while he doesn’t mince words, it’s almost impossible to see him taking sides in partisanship. I simply cannot recommend this book enough for readers of modern political thought. Anderson’s warnings are on the mark. The alternatives are frightening, and civil war and dissolution of the U.S. could too easily ensue if we don’t quickly fix the problems of tribalism. When I last stood in the old Athenian Agora in 2016 and saw the ruins of the Bouleuterion, the Greek political voting chambers where democracy began, tears came to my eyes as I pondered how fragile democracy remains. This was even before Trump…