Say Something Often Enough...

The longer I live, the worse things get (I swear there’s no cause-and-effect relationship here).

It’s not politics. Co-opting a quip from Oklahoma’s favorite son, Will Rogers, “If you don’t like the political climate today, just wait a while.” The pendulum swings back and forth, and bitter partisanship has always been a part of politics; although, only in recent years has the bitterness and animosity come out of the proverbial “smoke filled rooms”.

And it’s not that the bitter partisanism is out of the closet and infecting the general population through social media (although it is). Nor is it even those who hide behind the anonymity of social media, sniping away at anyone who dares disagree (although many do that, too).

My concern is that so many people (and in my biased view it seems to be coming more--but not totally--from the right than from the left) redefine things to match their personal biases, and then proceed as if those redefinitions are universal and absolute. In that contrived absolutism, truth is measured, not by any objective or verifiable standard, but by their redefined reality. In other words, if I disagree with it, it’s not true.

That contrived absolutism not even denied!!! In fact, it’s flaunted! Early in the current administration’s tenure a spokesman for the President said—on live TV—there are “alternative facts.” 

If I disagree with it—or if I simply don’t like it—it’s “fake news.”

If you say anything often enough, people start to believe it.

For me, the most problematic redefinition is of the word, “socialism.” What so many call “socialism” is not really related to socialism. For example, conservatives generally imply that anything involving government is, ipso facto, socialism.

In researching the word, I discovered that “socialism” describes a wide range of social and economic systems, with a correspondingly wide range of governmental involvement and non-involvement. The concept of socialism evolves, constantly adding sub sets. Some economists say pure socialism has never been practiced.

Bottom line: invoking the label “socialist” or “socialism”, without layers of qualifiers, is virtually a worthless exercise in meaninglessness.

The issue was clouded even further during the 2016 political campaign, when Senator Bernie Sanders self-identified as a “Democratic Socialist.” Millennialists (born between 1980 and 2000) quickly identified with his model.

A Forbes article says Bernie’s approach isn’t socialism at all.[1] Millennials’ attraction to it emerged out of what they perceive as the failure of capitalism on all but the top financial levels. The article notes that even the Nordic countries Sanders touts as models of “Democratic Socialism” are more free market than the US.

Capitalism has not failed. Systems don’t succeed nor fail. People succeed or fail. As one of many economic systems, capitalism[2] is merely a tool with no intrinsic moral or ethical value. On paper, it appears to many (including me) to be a superior system, when applied with integrity. But, while “any system will work, if you’ll work the system,” it also is true that every system is vulnerable to corruption. Glenn Reynolds, an opponent of socialism, says, “Under capitalism, rich people become powerful. Under socialism, powerful people become rich.”[3]

While millennials like to toss around the idea of socialism, they also like to consume; they like profit and entrepreneurialism, and many dream of owning their own business. Those preferences fit no known definition of socialism.

In the minds of millennials and others (including me), the current application of capitalism, given its absence of integrity, has not provided the equitable opportunities its proponents peddle.

Capitalism is said to reward hard work; and yet, a new economic stratum called the “working poor” demonstrates that, in capitalism, hard work is not always rewarded equitably. It becomes increasingly difficult, even when working 40 hours—or more—each week, to provide safe housing, utilities, healthy food, basic transportation and health care. Many elderly, whose generation set the standard for hard work and productivity, now must choose between food or medicine. But capitalism has not failed. The failure is on those who abuse and manipulate the system for their own profit, without regard for how their manipulation hurts others!

Similarly, socialism is a system—a tool. Nothing more. Its value is a measure of how it is applied. Again, I believe it is inferior to capitalism. But too frequently what is being called socialism today—by both its opponents and its advocates—simply is not socialism. 

Here are a few things socialism is not:

1.      Governmental involvement is not de facto socialism. In socialism, the government may or may not own and control the means of production and distribution. There’s a world of difference between the government owning the means of production and distribution versus the government regulating those same means.

2.      In practice, socialism has not been about sharing. It’s been about coercion.

3.      Taxation is not socialism. Every governmental system, good, bad or indifferent, requires taxation.

4.      Social Security and Medicare are not socialism. They are managed and administered, but not owned (that’s the key), by governmental agencies. They are funded in exactly the same way as my private pension and insurance plan. The difference is that the funding is through enforced taxation. Either way, the consumer pays.

The following definition of socialism is consistent with every definition I find, and is more comprehensive than most: “Socialism is a political (or economic, your choice) system in opposition to capitalism. The difference is who owns the productive assets. Under capitalism it is the capitalists: investors discrete from both the labor and the organization being labored in. Under socialism, some form of the people or labor own those same productive assets. Ownership could be direct, or through some system of government—but that's the difference. Socialism means some collective method of the ownership of productive assets. ... A Credit Union is a socialist organization because it is collectively owned.” [4] It has nothing necessarily to do with government.

Government involvement may be good, bad, or indifferent; but it is not ipso facto socialism. The misuse of the word is driving an ideological wedge deeper and deeper into the festering wound of disunity that increasingly describes the heart of America. 

Let’s at least have a common vocabulary before we slap each other in the face with our labels.

That’s the way I see it through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] Tim Worstall, “Bernie's Democratic Socialism Isn't Socialism, It's Social Democracy,” Forbes, May 17, 2016. Worstall is a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London.

[2] Actually, I prefer the term, “free enterprise,” which is different from capitalism, although derived from the same roots.

[3] Glenn Reynolds, “Don’t Be a Sucker for Socialism,” https://www.wltx.com/article/news/nation-now/glenn-reynolds-dont-be-a-sucker-for-socialism/101-197592708

[4] Worstall, op. cit.

When Winning Is Losing

A growing number of people are having exceptional difficulty accepting any information that does not match what they choose to believe. “Fake news” and “alternative facts” have become throwaway terms used by people even at the highest levels of public service.

It’s not a new thing. In the 90s we talked about people living in information cocoons. The newer terminology is information bubble. Same thing, as far as I can tell.

Along with the cry, “Fake News!” is a refusal to accept any fact-checker that disagrees. Evidence is irrelevant; just another part of the fake news conspiracy. “My mind is made up; don’t confuse me with facts!”

The phenomenon is an expression of a reality I’ve discussed in several previous blogs, viz., the “I’m right!” syndrome. I’d rather risk my grandchildren’s safety and health than be proven wrong. It really is not about ideology or philosophy or creed. It’s all about me.

Several recent conferences held in major universities and research institutions in the USA and Europe have examined the current glut of fake news and propaganda. They report that, even though all citizens are sometimes vulnerable to fake news, misinformation is predominantly “a pathology of the right.” Due to vicious attacks on mainstream media, conservatives are even suspicious of fact-checking sites.[1]

The reports conclude that fake news and hateful propaganda appear at both extremes of the political continuum but is significantly more heavily concentrated toward the right. The uncritical re-posting of such misinformation on social media is of particular concern. The consensus is that, regardless of the intention of persons who re-post it on social media, “it operates to harden ‘us-vs-them’ stances, to normalize prejudices, to create scapegoats, and to mock and discredit truth-seeking endeavors of universities, religious institutions and faith leaders, non-partisan policy research centers, journalists, and other concerned citizens.”

A colleague shared that an acquaintance refused to accept data even from Pew Research Center, a world-renowned and respected, trustworthy source of social scientific research.

My colleague followed up by scrolling through several months of Facebook postings by her acquaintance, and used Media Bias/Fact Check[2] to see how the acquaintance’s preferred media sources are rated in terms of factual reporting and bias. Of 43 posts, 16 were unrated, 26 were rated from “far right” to “extreme questionable”, one was listed as “right center”. None were listed as “Least Biased” or to the Left.

Obviously, the acquaintance got all her information from sources, I’m guessing, that reinforced her already existing biases. In my observation, that is the norm.

What may not be as obvious is my colleague’s evaluation that Media Bias/Fact Check is “the most comprehensive media bias resource on the internet.” While my own bias leans toward agreeing with her evaluation, the question comes to mind: who set up the categories of media bias in the first place? Conservatives will cry, “Foul!” and automatically assume the study is biased and invalid. The problem boils down to an unwillingness on both sides of the aisle to accept the standards of evaluation favored by those on the other side.

Conservatives deny sources that refute their beliefs, and liberals reject sources that support conservative biases.

We’re all biased.

We’re all biased.

Until all of us—ALL OF US—accept and deal with our own biases and prejudices—until all of us accept and deal the reality that we are fallible creatures and we know nothing—we will continue to be a divided, adversarial culture sliding out-of-control toward self-destruction.

We know nothing. The most universally accepted scientific principles are but conclusions based upon the preponderance of evidence. We can, and do, believe in these principles and accept both the evidence and the conclusions. We live our lives in the faith that these principles are valid. We even take them for granted. But, we don’t know. Anything. Even the preponderance of evidence fails us occasionally, as in the virtual guarantees by the poll-takers that Hillary Clinton would be elected President in 2016.

My statement is not new. It’s straight from Plato’s allegory of the cave. It’s reflected in St. Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth (13:12): “Now I know in part.”

The danger is that when we assume or presume that our partial knowledge is absolute, or even when we accept our knowledge as incomplete but judge it superior to others’ partial knowledge, we do two things: (1) we erect divisive barriers and create antagonistic factions, and (2) we deny ourselves and our culture the natural growth and advancement that comes from exploring the unknown and examining unfamiliar ideas and principles.

Humanity always has advanced on the shoulders of those who have been willing to venture into the unknown, from sailing beyond the “falling-off” place in a flat world to walking on the moon, from testing and trying new combinations to create light bulbs to virtually eliminating smallpox and polio from the planet.

Political experimentation has seen humanity ebb and flow from tribalism to monarchy, from Pax Romana to feudalism to the Magna Carta to Democracy. There have been spin-offs and rebellions and aberrations, and always there have been those whose obsession with power and wealth have led societies down destructive paths, from Hitler to Jim Jones and David Koresh.

But, with all the advancement in human technology and ideology, no one can say our species has yet produced a political system that effectively actualizes “liberty and justice for all.” And our species will not produce such an ideal as long as belligerent factions choose to hurl insulting names and epithets at each other, rather than to enter with integrity into open, honest dialogue. Remember: dialogue is, by definition, two-way. It involves at least as much listening as speaking.

I believe in the human ability to resolve conflicts, to discover common ground and to build upon that common ground to make life better and better for everyone. I believe in that ability; but I see very little human willingness to exercise that ability.

What I see is, “I just want to win the fight.”

That’s the way it looks through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] https://shorensteincenter.org/combating-fake-news-agenda-for-research/

[2] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/