Moral Identity

The leading edge of moral progress, both for the individual, and for society as a whole, is the process of overcoming prejudice. The battle against prejudice has taken on discrimination based upon clan, tribe, race, nationality, religious belief, gender, and sexual preferences. But at the heart of all prejudice lays the fact of moral identity.

Moral identity is the belief that one's claim to moral character is based upon membership in a group, and that others who are not of this group are morally suspect. It is a heuristic, or rule of thumb, a grossly oversimplified way of making snap judgements about the trustworthiness of others without taking the time to judge each person as an individual. This results in two kinds of blindness: first, others of the same in-group are given a pass even when they are caught doing unethical things, and people of other groups are judged to be unworthy of trust despite their best efforts. A good example of the first kind of error was the tendency amongst Western Communists to excuse the excesses of Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. The second type of error is even more common, as evidenced by the attitude of whites towards blacks a century ago, and the recurring blight of anti-semitism.

The culture wars in the politics of many Western nations, particularly in American politics but now spilling over into other countries, are deeply rooted in the moral identities of Conservative and Liberal. In fact, the labels have so often been skewed and misappropriated that they no longer mean much of anything, and yet extraordinary amounts and ink and bandwidth have been spent defending or attacking one or the other. Strip them of their labels, though, and you often cannot tell these pundits apart, and even as they distort the position of their opponents in strawman arguments, they warp their own ideology through sheer vitriol. We also have the often outrageous and sometimes comical attempts to appropriate great historical figures for the cause, often by grossly misrepresenting their views, or by inventing opinions that they never held. If our side is good, then good people must belong to our side. Likewise, vilified figures are given membership in the other side. The other side is evil, so anyone evil must be one of theirs. This distorts history, weakens our understanding of human nature, and warps our view of the world into simple binary opposites. This blindness is far more debilitating than the ideologies themselves; indeed, partisans threatens to devour the very ideologies they claim to support and turn the debate into a simple battle of red vs. blue, with neither colour signifying anything more than itself. Problems are created, or left unsolved, by the simple fact of partisan animosity, which diverts attention, energy, and resources from useful work.

Those who share a moral identity are inclined to let others in their group get off lightly, a tendency which impairs corrective efforts. Furthermore, moral identities not only excuse the actions of others who hold the same identity, but our own actions as well. If my own moral identity is a guarantee of righteousness, I am far less inclined towards self criticism, and more optimistic about my own moral character. A recent study found that religious adherents "considered themselves, on average, almost twice as likely as their peers to adhere to such biblical commandments as 'Love your neighbour as yourself.'" Fundamentalists ranked highest on this scale. This may be the reason why religious people are found to be happier than those without faith--they have higher self-esteem. But high self-esteem is no predictor of moral character, nor has any correlation been found between religious identity and ethical competence. Moral identities contribute strongly to perceptions of ethical character, but not to the creation of them.

With the fall of Adolf Hitler, the very idea of moral identity was cast into doubt, because the Nazi regime was itself based upon a moral identities; German citizenship and the Aryan race. This threw both nationalism and racism into disgrace, particularly in Europe, and this constitutes genuine ethical progress. But this resulted in a general malaise as many learned the wrong lesson; from discovering that no race, nation, or ideology established moral credentials, many people went on to the mistaken and unfounded belief that not only was no group better than any other, but that nothing was better than anything else.

This is an immediately contradictory idea, because it is itself based upon an ethical claim. The validity of moral judgement does not derive from a special claim of moral authority, but upon argument and evidence in open debate, and has many similarities to the scientific method. Social experiments are attempted, some of which fail, and some of which succeed. Attempts at radical experiments, based purely on ideology, can prove disastrous. Real progress is gradual and incremental, sometimes frustratingly slow as old traditions based upon incorrect assumptions are slowly uprooted or corrected. Pushing too hard can cause traditionalists to become reactionaries, but not pushing hard enough will leave entrenched prejudices in place. Any challenge to cherished beliefs will be considered rude by some, but the best approach may be outright ridicule, which exposes the weaknesses of an ethical position in the highest contrast possible. Since moral identities are held sacred by their members, it is often necessary to deflate them with humour, and make them a point of embarrassment, rather than an object of pride. The danger that must be avoided is that in ridiculing a position, the satirist may resort to a strawman caricature. When this happens, only the converted are convinced; the opposition sees nothing of themselves in the caricature, and considers the one who draws it a fool.

The real lesson of the Third Reich was the invalidity of moral identity, but moral identities have made a comeback through identity politics, particularly amongst minorities. Although moral identity is not tolerated in anyone viewed to be the majority, or to be in a position of power, the moral identities of those who are regarded as being oppressed are encouraged--and the mere fact that they are a minority, or not in power, is now regarded as enough to establish a claim to oppression. This is entirely the wrong approach, because it splinters society into warring factions, each judging itself to be morally superior, while anyone in a position of power is, by default, judged to be ethically suspect. The result is perpetual deadlock. All are stuck in place, and even a change in the power structure becomes pointless because the new boss is always believed to be the same as the old boss, simply because he or she is the boss. Politics becomes a fight between special interests, and calls to non-partisan cooperation are regarded as an affront to other factions, a call to surrender the grievances and pride they hold most dear. Nothing is good in itself, only good from some group--and if they can have something, everyone else wants something too. Again, nothing can be accomplished, and every bill that is passed becomes a byzantine nightmare of riders and earmarks.

The most recent offshoot of this ethical relativism is multiculturalism. Believing that moral judgments concerning the practices of other cultures were the product of claims to higher authority, many in Europe abandoned the capacity for moral judgment altogether when it came to people of other cultures. Europeans refused to share the lesson they learned in the war, employing a double standard when dealing with other cultures, celebrating the very hubris in others that had been so disastrous to themselves. We are not better because of who we are, but you are better because of who you are. This has already begun to bear fruit in an atavistic trend amongst cloistered communities, and a return to violence based upon moral identities rooted, primarily, in religious and cultural identities amongst minorities.

In Canada, where multiculturalism was first embraced, the idea was a different one. Canada accepted and encouraged different races, religions, and cultural expressions, but never renounced its right to make ethical judgements about cultural practices which violated Canadian standards. Far less traumatized by the war, and escaping much of the taint of collaboration which touched many Europeans under occupation, Canadians and Americans remained confident in their ability to make sound ethical judgements. In a very real sense, the Canadian identity is the lack of identity, specifically, the lack of moral identity. Forced to this position by a split between English and French Canadians, Canada was already well on its way towards this even before the war. It's main failure in this regard has been the treatment of natives, who are maintained as a separate entity, and have a moral identity thrust upon them, much as European minorities retain their own moral identities whether they like it or not. As with Europeans, this blunder was motivated by a sense of guilt. This is a road to hell paved with good intentions.

The moral identities of minorities make them oil in the water of their societies, greatly limiting economic opportunities with all but their own people. Encouraged to keep their own traditions, they may lack much of the knowledge they need to succeed in the general economy. Thrust back into their own neighbourhoods, they form ghettos of the disenfranchised, with all the problems that poverty is heir to. They are caught in the perfect trap. To escape, they must relinquish the one claim upon which their self-worth is based; the claim to moral and spiritual superiority. Yet, all the while, they are forced to work in menial jobs, or accept welfare. Their demands for respect are futile; pity undermines respect, both the respect of others and the respect of self. We are often astounded at stories told of people who stand at the brink of destitution, but who nevertheless refuse charity. Foolish pride, we call it, but in many circumstances, the recipient of pity suffers an immediate and irreversible decline in status, and this status is the equivalent of a social credit rating. Good enough they may be for a trickle of charity to keep them alive, but they are no longer worth the risk of investment. For those in such circumstances, charity may come at too high a price. It is one thing to be lost, but it is quite another to be branded a loser.

The walls that surround the ghettos are reinforced on both sides, by resentment and by the conviction of superiority. The general populace celebrates their own goodness in the welfare and tolerance of the minority, who are kept like pets in a menagerie, quaint and colourful, but economically and politically neutered. Their own moral identity has crept back in unannounced and unacknowledged, white man's burden with a liberal mask. The members of the minority supplement their claims of spiritual superiority with claims of martial might. They stick it to the man, and the man, who is all too ready for this, strikes back. The minority gang member trades the prison of the ghetto for a real prison, if not a coffin, and his transition to the status of slave is complete.

The route out of this is the renunciation of all moral identities, including that of the minority--but not the right to make ethical judgments. Laws and expectations must be applied to all equally, and considerations of race, religion, or culture should play no part in their application. There is no advantage in preserving these cultural enclaves, and the worst of the disadvantages are borne by the minorities themselves. We are doing them no favours. The walls must come down. But to do this, both sides must surrender their claims to moral superiority and see the situation as it is, with all its horrors and disgraces. But they do not both have to do it at once. Either side may choose to initiate the change, making it only a matter of time before the other side recognizes the problem.

Religious moral identities are a special problem. Unlike those of race, nation, gender, or sexual preference, religion is voluntary, and indeed, its stated purpose is to create a moral identity, which it is hoped will improve the character of believers. Sometimes it does, but a moral identity which can be assumed at will can be feigned. And a good reputation confers an advantage that will draw the worst, who will desire that reputation for their own ends. The Franciscan order, which began as a collection of men and women of genuine intent, attracted so much wealth and respect that it quickly went rotten. There is no way to prevent this short of the most draconian strictures upon adherents of the sect. This is the meaning of religious sacrifice; It is not the peacock's tail, meant to prove your fitness, but a handicap intended to be severe enough to discourage the purely self-interested from joining. Yet any system severe enough to prevent this will also, in all likelihood, cripple the community and prevent it from thriving to be more than a short lived minor sect. Any practical system of religious observance can be gamed.

The Jains have an interesting tradition for their holy men. A holy man must take a vow of absolute poverty, and holds no office. He has one perk: he may ask for a meal from any follower. And he has one power: he may refuse this meal! This casts the sincerity of the follower into doubt. The holy man's influence may be exercised only at the cost of his one advantage. It may be that there are ways to game this system--almost any system is open to exploitation--but this is about as close as you can get to a sure fire method of discouraging anyone who isn't serious from going for the job. Contrast this to luxury of bishops (created as the equivalent of medieval lords and princes), the power and wealth of megachurch ministers, or the outrageous lifestyles of the televangelists. Muslim clerics wield even greater power; with sharia law, they act as judges, and even claim the right to set the laws of the land. These powers will draw the worst to the clergy. Religions can never guarantee, as they claim, the moral qualifications of their adherents. A peculiar balance exists: the higher the moral standards of its members, the greater the pull for the unethical if the reputation of the sect conveys economic or political advantage. The one will balance the other until the sect is no better or worse than any other.

Yet, the sum total of positives and negatives may be less than zero, when we consider the other pitfalls of moral identity, particularly the tendency to excuse the actions of those who hold that identity. This was obviously at work when the current pope permitted known pedophiles to be shuffled around to escape detection and prosecution; he considered them good Catholics. But he was also protecting the moral identity of other Catholics, by trying to spare them the cognitive dissonance of a catholic who is capable of evil. This points to another problem particular to religion: if God exists, then he should act to prevent his ministers from doing evil. God does intervene, doesn't he? Despite all assertions to the contrary by those who insist that Christianity is predominantly a mystical, non-interventionist religion, the pope knows that this is nonsense. The Vatican has done the research, and they know very well what their product is; magic, healing, fortune! No one will pay for a deist God, a non-interventionist God, a God who pays no attention to events in time. Very few people worship "the ground of all existence," if any. They want a God who does tricks and helps people when they need it, and such a God should not tolerate evil priests. The existence of pedophile priests throws this God into question, or worse, throws the connection of the Church to this God into question. The problem of evil has always been a major stumbling block to religion. The problem of evil within a religion is even worse.

Reasons and Causes

The subject of free will comes up often in discussion of philosophy of mind. Strict determinists hold that since all effects have a cause, there is no free will. Mind-body dualists insist that choices occur out of a magic vacuum, and decisions are not determined by anything.

Both are wrong.

Free will is what happens when our choices are made for reasons. Free will is circumvented when external causes trump our reasons. Reasons are derived from reason itself--that is, we do what we do because there is a chain of reasoning that leads to that outcome. Causes trump that chain of reasoning. We are constrained by circumstance, are driven temporarily mad, or our chain of reasoning is derailed by events beyond our control.

By analogy, when a computer fails due to hardware malfunction, we do not hold the program 'responsible' for the crash. A defective hard drive can cause a crash, in which case we do not blame the logic of the program. The program is sound, it is the hardware that is to blame. But if the system is functioning properly, then the program is defective, and we disdain the shoddy construction of the program. We expect the program to deal with bad data, poor input, and the like. But if the machine is compromised, all bets are off.

So, an individual is responsible for reactions to situations, even extreme ones. But genuine brain malfunctions--schizophrenia, manic-depression, or drugging not deliberately incurred by the individual--are all causes beyond control, and responsibility may be waived. But any bizarre and irrational act will be met with the indignant query, "What were you thinking?" This is why black-box AI is not sufficient for proof of intelligence. The Turing test fails, because as fellow intelligences, we demand access at the debug level. We demand internal access to figure out what went wrong--and the AI had damn well better deliver. If you do something stupid, you had better have a damn good reason.

Reasons operate at the level of abstraction of consciousness, the software level. Causes are physical determinants that override our reasons. Reasons are software logic, while causes are hardware flaws. So long as there are no causes that prevent us from arriving at decisions based upon the level of abstraction at which conscious choice operates, we have chosen freely, and are entirely responsible for our actions. But we are also responsible for those actions which are the consequences of causes we inflict upon ourselves. You cannot beg for pardon for actions taken under the effects of drugs that you took voluntarily--these are causes inflicted for your own reasons.

There is no magic vacuum. If your decisions were not dependant upon reasons, then you would be acting randomly, and would be insane. Sane decisions rely upon cognitive determinants--reasons--which are not at all the same as physical determinants--causes. Indeterminacy has no part in free will. A free rational being can trace his or her decisions to a set of beliefs, a logical chain, and an outcome. Indeterminacy is a red herring. The critical factor is the level of abstraction.

So, as long as your mind is not addled by factors not within your control, you are responsible for your actions. But note that claiming that events drove you to do what you did will, if what you did was morally reprehensible, encourage the judge and jury to find you habitually morally deficient, and therefore justify a long sentence for the protection of society. The nature of the situation will not excuse morally deficient actions. Only temporary insanity, provoked by other (involuntary) causes, will secure clemency. And these are, of course, out of your control.

In short, there is no deliberate excuse for bad behaviour. Determinism makes you even more responsible than traditional doctrines of free will.

The Demonization-Strawman Fallacy

The worst feature of partisan politics is a form of strawman argument encouraged by demonization. Its general form is as follows: our opponents wish to impose their policies upon us for nefarious ends. Their primary motivation is greed, treachery, moral turpitude, sloth, or a simple desire for power. Because of these motivations (which are quite obviously evil) our opponents must be stopped at all costs.

There are several components to this fallacy. The root is demonization, the opinion that the opposition is evil. This is a fallacy in and of itself without solid proof of deliberate malfeasance (unambiguous criminal action.) But it also rests upon a broad claim of priveleged insight into the psychology of the enemy; the claimant is in fact asserting a telepathic mastery over the inner life of his opponent. Yet no one may claim such a mastery, so this too is false. So far, we have two fallacies: the claim of evil intent without proof, and the psychologistic claim of telepathic omniscience; in large part the detritus of a hundred years of Freudian nonsense.

The result of these fallacies is a third fallacy of the strawman form; those arguing for a position state the contrary position in its weakest form, which bears little or no resemblance to their opponents' actual arguments. The effect of this fallacy depends on the current beliefs of the viewer. Those already amongst the converted feel vindicated, and now believe that their opponents are not only wrong, but evil, which means that they cannot be bargained with, only crushed. This attitude encourages vitriol and violence. Opponents, on the other hand, will be affronted by the stupidity of the pundit, who appears to be incapable of grasping even the simplest of arguments. They will consider their opponents to be fools at best, bald faced liars at worst--and if they are the latter, then it is they who are evil. Such a split is almost impossible to heal, because both sides now think the worst of the other.

To see this in action, consider two examples, one from the right, and the other from the left. Supporters of the Iraq war on the right argued that those opposed to the war were soft on terrorism, traitors, and collaborators with enemies of the West. A few of these opponents did fit this description, and there was no shortage of Islamicists willing to jump on this bandwagon in order to generate sympathy for their cause. But many regarded Iraq as a distraction from the real problem which would make it worse, and were wary of the very opportunities it presented for Jihadist propaganda. Iraq diverted resources and attention from Afghanistan, where there was no doubt of a terrorist presence, and while there was little question that America could win the war in Iraq, no effort had been paid to winning the peace. Iraq might still end up as an extremist theocracy, the sister state of Iran. Hardly a word of this ever reached the ears of viewers of Fox news.

The other example is Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. The thesis of this book is that free market fundamentalists, followers of Milton Friedman, exploited or even created disasters to impose their own economic doctrine upon helpless peoples. Never does it seem to occur to Klein that Friedman and his associates earnestly believed that these policies were the best chance for these people to recover, and that they believed they were doing them a genuine kindness. Nor was this belief without merit; globalization has indeed enhanced the average standard of living throughout the world, discouraged war, and enriched, overall, even the poorest. It simply never occurred to Friedman and company that their economic ideology might have some serious limitations. Klein does not address these limitations (other economists were left to do that work): Friedman's theories are based upon the mythical Homo Economicus, a human being who is all wise and all knowing. But Homo Economicus does not exist. Homo Sapiens, on the other hand, employ heuristic modes of reasoning which are prone to systematic errors, often leading us to make decisions which are irresponsible and very much against our own best interests, creating bubbles and busts and leading to irrational expenditures and debts and all manner of self-destructive behaviours. We don't even know how to prevent much of this, but neither does the free market. Friedman et al simply did not consider what might happen if their theory was wrong. They really did believe it, and believing it, thought that what they were doing was the right thing. There was no nefarious intent on the part of Friedman and the Chicago school.

Nor did the fiscal libertarians ever equate what they proposed with any form of totalitarian rule. How could they, when the whole point was to provide individuals with "The Freedom to Choose." Never did it occur to them that by sweeping aside large swaths of rules and regulations created over generations by democratically elected governments, they might in fact be imposing an undemocratic order. They were caught in their own frame of language, which emphasized the benefits and concealed the dangers.

The ideas of the Chicago school, of course, did lead to a great deal of ruthless exploitation by people who saw an opportunity to take advantage of a chaotic situation to make a quick buck. It created moral hazards. But Friedman had no such intention, and might now be as stunned and perplexed as former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who was caught like a deer in the headlights by the economic collapse. We now find ourselves in a place which was simply not on their map--and since it is not on their map, they have no idea of how to get anywhere from here.

Yet by demonizing the leaders of the Chicago school, their opponents surrender the chance to debunk their theories in their strongest form, which means that followers of the Chicago school will go unconvinced, and will never be forced to address the real weaknesses of their ideas. This amounts, very nearly, to having no opposition at all; Klein's audience is hermetically sealed, and will grow or shrink with the vicissitude of fashion. In five or ten years her arguments may come to sound horribly dated and naive. By going for the emotional jugular she has missed the heart, and the beast lurches on. This is the real weakness with the demonization-strawman fallacy; it is almost completely ineffectual, even against positions which foster genuine evil.

Conspicuous Exceptionalism

There is a particular rhetorical maneuver which I have encountered on numerous occasions amongst promoters of new age nonsense, pseudo science, conspiracy theories, and religious, political or metaphysical doctrines. This fallacy consist of calling into doubt for the sake of argument a principle which the person accepts constantly in all other considerations and actions. Such a principle is fundamental to their very existence, relied upon not only day to day, but moment to moment, without which their life would not only be unlivable, but incomprehensible. I call this rhetorical dodge conspicuous exceptionalism.

Take, for example, the principle of empiricism; the idea that knowledge arises from experience. There is no commonplace action or consideration which does not take into account facts about the world. Simply to walk across the room requires that you observe and avoid the furniture in it, the shape and size of the room, and the location that you wish to go to. All of these are empirical facts. You cannot even form an argument without reference to the world, and this too is based upon the assumption of the principle of empiricism. Another is the validity of reason, our ability to draw conclusions by logical inference from facts already known. Again, you cannot even begin to make an argument without employing reason, and the very attempt implies an acceptance of the principle. To these I would add the existence of the world, the existence of other people, the assumption that others are conscious, and so on.

Any argument can be summarily dismissed which relies upon calling into question a principle which the arguer must, and does, employ on a constant basis; the person advancing the argument has already given full recognition of and consent to these principles simply by being present in the discussion.

Conspicuous exceptionalism is often used in the epistemological maneuver of radical skepticism, sometimes called the nuclear option because it attempts to destroy the very foundations of knowledge and therefore the basis of all debate. Radical skepticism is an act of wild desperation on the part of the person advancing it, who knows that their case is lost unless the debate is brought to a halt. Radical skepticism is used as means of stopping the opposing argument, after which it is relaxed to slip in the arguers case. As with any form of conspicuous exceptionalism, radical skepticism is never a serious position, merely a temporary refuge from opposing points of view.

Who Shall Rule vs. How Shall We Rule

In discussions with my friend Pat, one item of distinction between conservatives vs liberals is that conservatives tend to think that the most important question in government is who shall rule, while liberals ask how those in power should be allowed to rule. This especially applies to the American system: republicans believe that the appointed government should have the power to do what is needed, while liberals address the mechanisms of government, so that the systems in place will prevent even the worst people from doing much damage. The republicans believe in laissez faire, while the democrats are in favour of regulation.

If the question is who shall rule, then if the right people are in power, all restraints should be loosened and they should be given the power to do what must be done. This runs both for and against libertarianism, because sometimes those in power are private interests, and sometimes they are in government. The epitome of this ethic is the Bush administration, where the government claimed extraordinary powers, while at the same time providing carte blanche to financial leaders to do as they pleased.

The results are catastrophic.

Social, political, and economic systems are artificial intelligences. They are not human, have no human concerns, and have no qualms about maiming, killing, or debasing their human participants. They have no ethical intelligence. They follow the dictates of their own internal logic. A man who takes money from investors, collects through force or guile a cadre of young girls to be sold as sex slaves, and thereby returns to his investors a great profit, is a good capitalist. He is not a good man, but the market does not concern itself with this. This is not to say that capitalists are evil, or that the capitalist system is evil. Rather, the capitalist system does not, in and of itself, have any regard for ethical concerns. It is merely an instrument, a machine that can be used for good or ill, and so too are religions, political organizations, corporations, media, or other systems of mass persuasion. These are all artificial intelligences, with human participants but with no soul of their own. These are tools, not ends in themselves, and they will act according to their own internal logic regardless of the effects of that logic upon actual human beings. We must not expect such blind processes to deliver, in and of themselves, ethical goods. A conscious and scrupulous human hand in needed to bring their effects to good ends.

Furthermore, these systems have the power to shape human beings to their own goals, if their human participants come to see the system itself as having some moral imperative. This belief is a product of the naturalistic fallacy; these processes appear to predate contemporary efforts at regulation and so seem to be the natural order of things. This appearance is in part due to inborn tendencies in human beings, but is also due to the existence of long tradition, and any tradition can seem long if its participants have not bothered to learn any history. Any direct intervention to change these practices is therefore seen as unnatural. The naturalistic fallacy, simply phrased, is that what is natural is good and right. But it is human nature, practice, and history, that we challenge the natural and change it to suit us; nor is the natural good. It is natural that we should die before we reach the age of 40--because that is what happens in a state of nature. Are we content with this? Of course not--we thwart nature at every turn, when natural processes threaten our dearest hopes. It is natural that in primitive societies the people murder each other at astonishing rates. Is this good?

In the case of religion, God becomes the author of the natural, and tradition seals the validity of the status quo. Amongst those ignorant of history and the history of theology, the latest whims of the local pastor become eternal tradition. Yesterday's heresies becomes today's orthodoxies, and the line between cult and religion is erased. So too with economics; free market advocates might be stunned to discover that the system that they champion has only existed in its current form for a decade or two, and that the defenders of the free market that they cite from bygone centuries intended nothing like the current situation. Political ideologues reinvent their ideologies on an almost daily basis, and partisan pundits change their views with the rapidity of the Orwell's rabid mobs in Nineteen Eighty-Four, forgetting the past with the blink of an eye. The enemy is Eurasia. The enemy has always been Eurasia.

Returning to system as moral imperative, this assumption paves the way to serving the machine. Too many of the left see deliberate malevolence when all they are really dealing with is unquestioning accommodation. This too will create true evil in the long run; consider Eichmann. But the mischief is hidden till the bubble bursts, the plane crashes, the bridge collapses, the levee breaks. Layers of abstraction hide the true costs. We have brokers selling financial products that no one understands, and so they cannot see the consequences of their own actions. Adult supervision is required. One should not assume that the people in power know what they are doing; someone must have the job of figuring out what they are doing, and deciding whether it shall be allowed or not. That is what a government is for.

Americans and Canadians hold an estimated wealth of three quarters of a million dollars of intangible wealth per capita--even the poorest of us. Nearly all of this is in the form of trust, and this trust is directed towards or maintained by our governments. We have regulations that safeguard our food, clothing, housing, transport, industry, environment, banks (though, apparently, not in the U.S.), and in Canada, health care. We have trustworthy courts and police, extensive systems of roads, water, electricity, fire departments, welfare, and the popular welfare alternative, prison, which costs four times as much--and yet, a lot of people who rather pay for that than welfare. On any given day I would guess that the average person makes a thousand unconscious decisions which assume the competent action of government, and yet, like a fish who is always wet and thinks that it does not need water, many now believe that government is largely unnecessary. If you really think that the government that governs best governs the least, move to Somalia. The lesson will be short, brutal, fatal--and unequivocal.

But democratic government is not a system of unilateral imposition. In the early years of the Bush administration, and today in the Harper government, those in power hold the misguided opinion that gaining political office is the end of all debates, and that no further compromise is required. This has led Bush to ignore all detractors and to act in a purely partisan manner with his power for veto. Harper, having lost the confidence of the house twice in three months, calls this a coup, grossly misrepresenting the parliamentary system of government. The fallout for Bush was the decimation of the Republican Party; Harper now faces not only the possibility of an opposition coalition, but a knife in the back from his own party. The central principle of democracy is peer review, bringing into play a partial gridlock of various government branches and of opposing parties. Just as in scientific research and in the math tests we all took in school, you have to show your work so that other people can check it. Politicians who can't do this will get a failing grade. This is the real meaning of governing the least. No government can do everything it wants, but hopefully, after the checks and balances have been done, it will do what needs to be done.

Without an insertion of human values through government regulations, no system will produce the results we want. In the early 20th Century, the most successful and prolific serial killers in history thrived in the patent medicine business, poisoning customers and discouraging legitimate medical consultation amongst a vast clientele, with the result that tens of thousands died. The free market system did nothing to prevent this; dissatisfied customers may discourage others from buying your product, but dead men tell no tales. Without regulations to prevent certain kinds of ruthless profit seeking behaviour, the free market system poses moral hazards which will draw people into them, and these people will not just be ruthless sociopaths, but the Eichmanns among us, those of weak character who lack the capacity for ethical reflection needed to avoid such traps. The wild and unrestrained methods of financial institutions permitted financial managers to compete in a race to the bottom. It would be just deserts to visit a plague on all their houses and let all the banks crash and burn, but the money they have been gambling with is ours, and it will be our money that will be lost. The greatest irony is that the final product of all this freewheeling speculation will be that the government will hold the reins of these institutions, and that the very people let loose to do as they pleased will now have the government as their boss. I'm not certain that this is the solution either. Rather, this is the dog breaking its neck after being allowed to run on too long a leash.

That Kind of Person: The Genetic Fallacy

I have observed a recurrent pattern in partisan politics; the trope that "that kind of person" holds a certain opinion, and therefore that opinion is without merit. This is called the Genetic Fallacy. As an example, Adolf Hitler believed that smoking was bad for you. Does this mean that smoking is good for you?

Of course not. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. But beyond the obvious fallacy, there is something even more insidious going on here: stereotyping and demonization. For an example of the first, lets take Stuff White People Like. It should be just a joke, but some take it seriously as a list of things that "that kind of person" like. I have news for them. At least half of these things are liked by people who are not at all the people you might expect them to be. If you assume they are bleeding heart liberals, some of them might surprise you by getting offended if you call them that. I know a few people who are "to the right of God" who like more than half the things on that list--but the list is supposed to be a litany of liberal values. This is another kind of fallacy: the Strawman fallacy. Never mind who people are, let's create a fantasy and attack that.

Guess what: people don't come in brands. They aren't stamped out on a cookie press with labels on them. Everyone is a mixed bag. Some of the people I really like and spend a lot of time with hold opinions that I abhor, and I still like them. Mostly, what I find is that they haven't really considered them that much, because these are issues that don't really concern them, and for the most part, I don't challenge them on it unless they invite the challenge. They take the most common opinion on the matter offered to them, whether it be their parents or their parish or their friends, and that's that. And its all wildly divergent, like the company they keep. I do, however, have an issue with those who presume to inform them without any qualifications. I'm really not big on demagogues, cult leaders, con-artists, pseudo-scientists, and pseudo-intellectuals. Those people are just begging to be challenged, and I'm happy to oblige. Fortunately, they do come with labels attached; usually, towering neon signs, with newspaper ads weeks in advance.

Now to my second point: stereotyping invites demonization. If you have a bunch of boxes prepared for the rest of humanity, with a mindlessly facile means of categorizing them, then you will go through life dropping people in boxes. He's one of those (hate them.) She's one of these (hate them.) Not really a good way to approach the world, is it? Hatred closes the door to understanding. You will never know whether you might like these people. More to the point, you will never really understand what it is they really think, or why they think it; strawman arguments prevent you from meeting the real argument, which means that you will never have any hope of convincing someone from the other side, because you are arguing with a fictional character of your own creation. And frankly, it's a good idea if you approach people as someone you might like if you had the time, even if you don't have the time. It makes simple human courtesy a lot easier than just hating them on the basis of their choice of cheese, just because some brainless drooling pundit said that that kind of person likes that cheese.

Worst of all, thinking of people as "that kind of person" makes you "that kind of person."

The Defector Problem

Pursuant upon my last post, I return the problem of defectors. Jonathan Haidt has once again returned to his theme of the moral criteria of tribe/purity/respect. Again, it does not occur to Haidt that these impulses should not be labeled moral motivations at all, but prejudices, and that academics do not reject them because academics are liberals, but because they have such a scandalous history. Consider this formulation of these same values: Ein Reich (tribe); Ein Volk (purity); Ein Fuhrer (respect). These do not deserve to be placed upon the same footing as justice and caring, and do not command the same respect simply because they have done nothing to earn it.

The responses are varied, many of which seem to miss the point entirely. Sam Harris's response was the closest to the mark. Michael Shermer's is very interesting, in that Shermer does not seem to realize that he has repudiated Haidt's main thesis, that conservative values are communitarian rather than individualistic values. Shermer is an extreme Libertarian (big L), which is a profoundly individualistic political position, and yet he defends the Republicans with this in mind. This illustrates one of the deepest divides in the republican party--they embrace both the religious right (which supposedly embraces communitarian values, though this may not actually be the case) and the libertarians, who are almost diametrically opposed to them.

Haidt seems unaware of this. Furthermore, he seems oblivious to these values on the left. In the vaccination scare, certain elements of the environmentalist movement, in the organic foods movement, and in the entire ideology of political correctness, there is an overwhelming emphasis on purity, so much so that when I first encountered the politically correct at university I called them The New Puritans. I won't go into depth about the ingroup/outgroup dynamic between the old and new left, or upon the reliance upon authority rather than evidence typified by the post-modernists--this would take more time than I have. When these emotional motivations do raise their head, pundits on the right attack them mercilessly, to which criticism I must, reluctantly, concede. Not only do I find these values on the left, I often find that they predominate to the point of embarrassment, and so I find Haidt's claims rather startling--how could he have missed something so blatantly obvious, and why didn't Shermer realize that he was refuting Haidt's central thesis?

Scott Atran's response was more to the point, but misses something alarming about religion. Yes, religion does encourage social solidarity, but at a cost. At a grassroots level, religion encourages cooperation and action as an interest group. And it does, at a grassroots level, discourage defection. But pay attention to what happens at the level of leadership. Consider the founders of three modern religions: Mormonism, Scientology, and the Unification Church.

They were all con men.

Joseph Smith had been imprisoned on charges of fraud before hitting upon the scheme of the golden tablets which purportedly contained the Book of Mormon. His earliest converts left him in disgust, having been swindled of most of their funds, and finally, Smith was lynched by a Christian mob who had had enough of his efforts to twist their religion to his own benefit. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard started his religion on a bet and lived a life of vindictive paranoia, culminating in the "Sea Org", a floating ministry made necessary by criminal investigations in several countries. The Unification Church, founded by Sun Myung Moon, was primarily built around Chinese brainwashing techniques he encountered during the Korean War. Employing these techniques upon first world baby boomers, Moon built a large financial empire upon slave labour. The theology (as with Mormonism and Scientology) is a hallucinagenic montage of various elements which places Moon as Jesus' Superior.

The story of Mohammad had many parallels to that of Smith; his revelations seemed to conveniently coincide with his own desires, allowing him to marry any woman he had a hankering for, to wage war against anyone who disagreed with him, and to keep the lion's share of the spoils of those wars. When I first came across his story, decades ago while I was still a religious believer, he struck me as an obvious fraud. Nothing I have encountered since has changed my mind, and much has confirmed that opinion.

Let's leave aside the hordes of cult leaders (although it is an open question as to what distinguishes a cult from a religion, beyond the fact that religions outlive their founders), but let us pay attention to what is happening at the top of the religions, amongst the leaders. We have pedophile priests, terrorist demagogues, crooked televangelists, and closeted homosexuals campaigning against gay rights (what, was there no one in Haggard's congregation with gaydar?) All are defectors--and these defectors are at the top of the hierarchy. But for defectors, you must stand in awe of Karl Rove, a man who in public said that he was not fortunate enough to believe, and in private called the religious right "the crazies'. And yet this man commanded the position of at least a bishop, if not a pope, invoking God through targeted campaigns to motivate people en masse to political action. The Religious Right in America--that 15 to 30 percent who support Sarah Palin--is still called "Karl Rove's base".

To understand how this can be, consider this; what kind of person could claim, against all opposition, that they are the chosen of the Creator of the Universe, effectively the most important person in all that creation, and that they know with absolute certainty the infinite mind of that Creator? The arrogance of this claim, the sheer cock sureness, beggars imagination. Even the most manic episode will eventually come to an end, and then the claimant will slink off to the shadows. The only type of personality that could sustain such an imposture is that of a thoroughly unrepentant sociopath--the ultimate defector. The founder of a religion might possibly be a man or woman of great faith, but it is far more likely that they will be a consummate confidence trickster. And the historical record suggests that this is exactly the case. Indeed, the Bible is littered with warnings about false prophets. The problem has apparently been so ubiquitous, and so long present, that it was recognized even in ancient times.

This is what Atran and Haidt miss. Religion is a political tool, morally neutral in and of itself. It can be used for good or ill. At the grassroots level it is a community of mutual support; but thanks to the credulity it encourages amongst its adherents, religion is the ideal tool of the professional defector, permitting him to turn his followers into a political bloc, a cheap labour force, or an army. It is simply too easy to hack. The aura of righteousness that surrounds the leader blinds followers to the possibility of deceit.

The motive and mechanic is easy to understand--critical thinking is expensive, in both an economic and evolutionary sense. Consider lawyers; lawyers are hired skeptics. A good lawyer will scrutinize in exacting detail the terms of an agreement, looking for loopholes through which the other party could defraud the lawyer's client. But lawyers are expensive, and so too is the entire enterprise of skepticism. Imagine how much more efficient every transaction would be if both parties could be certain that trust was justified. And that is precisely what religion attempts; mere membership in the sect is supposed to be enough to certify good faith. Yet such an arrangement draws predators like flies to manure. A group of people who will not question my motives? Where do I sign on! The desire to arrange things so that trust is a given is not foolish; it is a rational arrangement worthy of that great fictional construct, homo economicus, the purely rational, self-interested actor, so popular amongst economists. If such an arrangement could truly be made, the benefits would be staggering. But any such arrangement will be sought out and exploited by the the most ruthless of predators. The price of freedom remains, forever, eternal vigilance.

Where such arrangements persist, they will begin to take on the characteristics specified by those predators. On occasions where I find myself reading Catholic apologists (as in First Things) I am repeatedly appalled by their hatred of the world and everything--and everyone--in it. There is an unmistakeably ripe smell of decay. Joy, beauty, friendship, comfort, and peace are all to be despised. These Catholic writers create a prison with walls of despair, a world of brambles and darkness, whose only light is the dim light of the Church. It is an orgy of nihilism that would make even Nietzsche blanch. There is nothing in life, and no escape, for suicide too is a mortal sin. All that is left is the afterlife. And what could be more useful to their clerical masters, for it is the church who claims the keys to heaven, the only good worth having. In pursuit of this good all other values are surfeit, to be surrendered up to the Church and its masters for their enjoyment. Thus, Opus Dei, the cult within a sect within a church, an organization which taps potentially wealthy professionals and turns them into cash cows. And so, we are told, by a Pope who arranged the clemency of child molesters and their protectors, that we need to trust the Church and obey its dictates. I left the Catholic Church amiably, thinking it the best of bad lot. But I find it too sullied by the hands of the worst of humanity to think this anymore.

The use of religion as a morally neutral political tool goes a long way to explaining how Christianity has been derailed from being a faith primarily about charity and mercy to being a religous movement almost exclusively focused upon sex, referenced by the code phrase "family values". The preoccupation with sex is expressed in the obsession with homosexuality, reproduction and reproductive rights, sex education, prurient obsessions with nudity, and women's rights (or the denial thereof.) There is remarkably little in the four gospels related to sex, but you wouldn't know it from the speeches of the evangelists. Add to this the resistance to evolution, and you have a religion obsessed with distracting trivialities, whose hollow core can now be filled with whatever its masters claim to be Christian values. The greatest threat to the world's religions is not the new atheists, but this gradual erosion of the spiritual and social aspect in favour of pure power politics; they stand to win the world but lose their souls, Nor does this side show or trivialities do anything to actually affect behavior; the most religious areas of America still have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, divorce, and children born of single mothers. A supernatural moral arbiter and conductor of mortal affairs can be petitioned and bribed; it doesn't matter what you do on Saturday night as long as you can pray for forgiveness on Sunday morning. For the secular there is no escape clause. Reality offers no such buffer between action and consequence. Whatever their stated intentions, the methods of religious leaders do not work.

The best analogy I can think of is the One Ring of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Each community bound by blind faith offers a means that can rule them all, that can be used to draw them all together and bind them to the darkness of ignorance. Religion is, of course, not alone in creating such a trap; political ideologies have proven their ability to do the same thing. The trick seems consist of promising a simple explanation for everything, a Utopian vision whereby, once we have dispensed with the evil of X, we shall all benefit from the ascendance of Y, leading us to the promised land. It is always a lie. It is never that simple. Religious believers and political ideologues alike must be made aware of the power they are handing over to the worst people possible. The Ring must be destroyed.