Parallel Realignments

Interesting thoughts from a friend:

I think we are seeing two simultaneous realignments around class and inequality. One is the have-somes and the have-a-littles against the have-a-lots; the other is the have-less-than-they’d-expecteds against the have-nots. The former is fueling the rise of economic populism on the left; the latter involves people trying to hold on to the government benefits they “earned” against people making “unearned” claims on government. [ . . . ]

One of these two realignments is reshaping presidential politics. The other is reshaping congressional and state-level politics. This disjuncture is partly a question of institutions—gerrymandering and the like. But it’s also a question of political engagement. Fifty-eight percent of eligible voters voted in the 2012 presidential election; 36% voted in the 2014 congressional elections, leading to an overrepresentation of conservative-leaning constituencies.

So I think that, while the public as a whole might be moving to the left, American politics is moving in two directions simultaneously. The system as a whole will move left only if a lot more people—millennials, new Americans—get involved in non-presidential politics and build new institutions capable of sustaining more robust political engagement.

Who Turned My Blue State Red?

Why poor areas vote for politicians who want to slash the safety net.

NYTIMES.COM|BY ALEC MACGILLIS

Some thoughts about reasoning, induction and the limits of facts

When people think of reasoning they often think of deductive reasoning: the old example is "All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therfore Socrates is mortal." Assuming the premises are true, deductive reasoning gives us a truth.

Inductive reasoning is reasoning from what happened in the past to predict the future. Whenever the X we've seen Y. All men before Socrates eventually died, so he probably will too. 

Deduction yields a purer type of knowledge than induction. Deduction from true premises yields truths. Induction can only yield probabilities: likelihoods or odds.  

The problem with deduction and it's privileged position in teaching reasoning is that true, readily agreed upon premises are rare. I think that we should think more about induction. 

Thinking about induction in law and science

What has happened to facts?

Last night there was a Republican debate. Few would dispute that the audience appeals were strictly visceral. Candidates did not bother trying to say things that made sense, let alone that were true. Ted Cruz, for instance, spoke of precision carpet bombing, which is an oxymoron. The current leader in the Republican field, Donald Trump, habitually makes false claims.

How did facts - or lies - lose their power?

One possibility - not that there's likely one answer - is that everyone has a source for whatever they believe now. Anyone can find an authority who reinforces their beliefs and disparages people/authorities/ideas/media that challenge them. Perhaps the presence of creed-specific echo chambers has led to epistemic closure within them

But the idea of an echo chamber seems to suppose semantic beliefs, ones that can be verbalized and that maybe in some way are mutually consistent. And maybe that's a problem with the idea. Statements have become markers for being in a group rather than building blocks for ideas that can be advocated or defended. A crowd cheering the notion of precision carpet bombing may just be full of people too stupid to notice a contradiction, but it's more likely to be full of people cheering the rejection of articulable belief beyond articulation of support/loyalty for a party or candidate. "We have our facts, you have your facts," they might say to the outgroup, "so who needs facts at all?"

An explanation of my apparent fixation on the U.S. Constitution

Some people apparently read this blog. They may have noticed that the Constitution comes up a lot when I start ejecting opinions. I can understand why some might be put off by this. For one, Constitutional fetishization / founder worship is one symptom of today's problematic right-wing politics, which apparently seeks ownership of American symbols like the flag, Constitution and "our troops." But, more generally, it can be annoying to see someone invoking the same thing over and over (monomania?)

So let me be clear about my attitudes towards the Founders and the Constitution.

The Founders were men just like any other men, imperfect and a product of their times. But their times, if a member of their high social stratum, were intellectually fertile and ambitious. Among other things, the behavior and work of the Founders reflected the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment:

Harry Frankfurt's Theory of Bullshit: the basics

Take three people: the "straight shooter," the liar and the bullshitter.

What separates the straight shooter and the liar from the bullshitter? The relevance of what they believe to be true to what they are saying.

The straight shooter tries to communicate a true belief. The liar constructs a lie based on their true belief as well.

The bullshitter communicates without concern for truth or falsehood.

Here is a perfect example of the platonic Frankfurtian bullshit artist, Donald Trump, at work: 

Mr. Trump liked to tell guests that the nursery rhyme-themed tiles in the room were made by a young Walt Disney. 

“You don’t like that, do you?” Mr. Trump would say when he caught Mr. Senecal rolling his eyes. The house historian would protest that it was not true.  

“Who cares?” Mr. Trump would respond with a laugh.

A weaker example (but with higher stakes): 

Ted Cruz can be easily attacked without resorting to bullshit. Yet on the day of the Indiana primary, Trump maintained that Ted Cruz's father was "with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death, before the shooting" of JFK. This is, to put it mildly, an unsubstantiated claim. Trump doesn't know whether it's true or false. And he doesn't care. 

I encourage anyone reading this to check out On Bullshit. It's a short and entertaining read and has helped me understand present-day problems with discourse.

The 1st Amendment Establishment Clause, its violations and its enemies

• Justice Hugo Black: In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect "a wall of separation between church and State."
• Pick a founding father and you'll find a similar expression of views. 
• James Madison: a  practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.
• Based on the above, "In God we Trust" shouldn't be codified by law as a national motto nor should it be on our coins. The history of this practice is recent and rooted in wartime paranoia and it has continued support among the current political party that seems to oppose any "wall of separation."

• I'm going to defend my views against some anticipated objections: