@blatham,
blatham wrote:
Quote: That some rules are desirable and even necessary is not proof that more rules and top down prescriptions are therefore better or justified.
Sure. But that doesn't help us very much. I understand your principle - personal or local autonomy ought to be maximized. But pretty much everything of importance to our decision making as members of a community for ourselves and our way forward is left unaddressed by a principle that abstract and generalized.
I agree with that. The preference for personal autonomy and local governance doesn’t itself provide the solutions to many of the problems we face. Despite that it is a useful guide, and fundamental to our Constitution. Moreover it is demonstrably effective in many areas.
blatham wrote:
Of course, there are other principles in play as well. Suffering ought to be minimized, for example. My autonomy or my community's autonomy might suffer at the hands of powers other than governmental - a local bully, an enterprise that pollutes my water or my air, a commercial endeavor that produces and sells a product that harms members of the community and even knowing that their product has this consequence they hide or misrepresent such facts, etc.
I agree here as well. Here you illustrate very well a fundamental principle in mathematics and logic. The first step in resolving a problem or solving an equation is determining whether a solution, satisfying the boundary or initial conditions, even exists. In most cases (or equations) there is no such solution. We can look for approximations or relax some of the constraints or boundary conditions to see if that permits solutions. For example we protect ourselves from bullies, thieves, and murderers through criminal law and the police, which do indeed involve the surrender of individual autonomy and in some areas local control. Even there we find adverse side effects and downstream problems – the reliable determination of guilt or innocence; the potential corruption or misbehavior of police or the administrators of justice; etc. There are always such tradeoffs, and therein lies the problem.
I believe that progressives too often fail to acknowledge the degree to which autonomy and local rule must be sacrificed to apply their “solutions” , and fail as well to foresee or deal with the side effects they bring with the human nature they cannot change.
blatham wrote:
I just don't see any way to profitably talk about this stuff except in specifics.
There are a lot of specifics out there and we haven’t the time to deal with them all – either in our conversation here, or in the decisions we must make in our own governance and affairs. However some guiding and simplifying principles can be found through reason and an examination of history and events.
Many people were persuaded by the logic of Marx and Lenin that an enlightened “vanguard” could lead the victims of exploitation to a better life with an equal distribution of more plentiful goods and wealth through the popular surrender of individual autonomy and local control to the self-governing vanguard, which would oversee both the greater production and distribution of goods for all. It didn’t work out as promised, and I believe the fault was in the human natures of those both in the vanguard and in the proletariat. Lenin quickly adapted to tyranny and extermination in the advancement of his “noble” goals, and his governance quickly descended into the thuggery of Stalin and his successors. The authoritarian management of production briefly appeared to accelerate the development of basic industries, but quickly descended to mediocrity, and economic chaos. In retrospect the Soviets failed even to equal the economic growth achieved by their predecessors in the decades preceding the revolution. This system, imposed on the relatively advanced economies of Eastern Europe, set them back well below previous norms. For all there was the crushing loss of freedom and widespread abuse of both people and the environment. The only virtue one could assign was a relatively uniform distribution of misery and oppression, and even that exempted the political elite in the self-appointed vanguard.
Not a surprising result. Even Plato acknowledged his philosopher Kings didn't exist.
I believe there are lessons there that can guide and speed our examinations of the specifics.
blatham wrote:
Quote:Systems based on control of human behavior break down, requiring ever more control to achieve ever declining results.
I don't know how to make sense of this, george. The fact or aim of controlling human behavior sits at the core of every business contract, every marriage vow, every constitution, every policing or court activity, every military or intel activity, the Judeo-Christian faith tradition (God doesn't advise, he orders), every formulation of sacred and profane, etc. Is the arc of your church one of increasing control because such an arc is inevitable? Or the arc of the constitution? I'm afraid I don't see the world accurately reflected in your idea.
The quote above is just a proposition I put forward, based on my experiences in directing many organizations, and observing others, during my life so far. It’s just an observation and an opinion, but it is based on a lot of relevant experience. The subject, of course, is human behavior, and none of us has any final answers on that. My point is that one can never remove all the elements of even irrational human autonomy from any system, and any system based on control alone will eventually be thoroughly undermined by that autonomy and the lack of consent (or merely whimsical evasion) by those subject to it. I have found this to be a very useful insight, and have been repeatedly rewarded by applying it in a wide variety of concrete situations.
Many (not all) religions recognize these elementary traits of human nature – they’re about influencing human behavior, not controlling it (sin and forgiveness are always at hand). It was/is Lenin and that poor, disadvantaged blonde Cherokee, Elizabeth Warren (plus some Islamic fanatics) who want to control it. I believe this is a critical element of the differences in our respective views.
