The Rich need money; the Poor need Poverty

Capitalism, Green New Deal, Social democracy, Sociology of Knowledge

 

Although John Kenneth Galbraith pointed out how  the socialist and capitalist countries are similar, but in the west the

“controlling contentment and resulting belief is now that of the many, not just of the few.  It operates under the compelling cover of democracy, albeit a democracy not of all citizens but of those who, in defense of their social and economic  advantage, actually go to the polls.  The result is government that is accommodated not to reality or common need but to the beliefs of the contented, who are now the majority of those who vote.”

 

Galbraith points out this discrepancy of governmental treatment of the poor compared to the wealthy in amusing terms, though the consequences are far from amusing:

“The substantial role of the government in subsidizing this well-being deserves more than passing notice.  Where the impoverished are concerned — a point to which I return — government support and subsidy are seriously suspect as to need and effectiveness of administration and because of their adverse effect on morals and working morale.  This, however, is not true of government support to comparative well-being.  By Social Security pensions or their prospect no one is thought damaged, nor, as a depositor, by being rescued from a failed bank.  The comparatively affluent can withstand the adverse moral effect of being subsidized and supported by the government, not so the poor.”

 

 

Subsidies to the poor are always on a very different level than subsidies for the wealthy. The poor are always underserving, the rich always in need. Not only that but subsidies to the rich or well-off are always for the benefit of society as a whole. Subsidies to the poor are given out of the largesse of the well-off. The rich are to be complemented for permitting their money to be used on the poor. As well, the rich are to be complemented for accepting subsidies not really for themselves but in order to benefit society as a whole. The poor should be looked down on for accepting charity. It shows they are not of strong character. That is just how it works when you control the political process. As a result of such attitudes, when the Green New Deal proposes to spend money to ease inequality of incomes, we must treat the howls of protest from the affluent with careful skepticism. They might have a point, but we should not assume they have a point.

Although Galbraith was describing the United States the same things happen in Canada too.  In Canada the contented accept government subsidies through CMHC, CDIC, RRSP’s, farm supports, DREE, and numerous grants to businesses.  Particularly the oil and gas sector which has done so much to create the problem of climate change enjoys subsidies in the billions. Subsidizing clean energy or green projects is seen instead with alarm by the contented.

 

Business sees no problem in going to the public trough for itself, but not so for the poor. They are also extreme in their defence of their own privilege. Witness the recent puny attempt by the Liberal government led by Justin Trudeau in making fairly modest tax reform proposals in Canada principally around reducing the benefits of well-off Canadians in earning money through a corporation rather than personally. Those benefits of course go largely to the rich. In my practice of law it was not common to see homeless people come in to incorporate their scrounging ‘businesses.’

Even though he was a privileged Harvard economist, former Ambassador, and confidant of the rich and famous, Galbraith had similar scepticism:

 “While self-interest, as we shall see, does frequently operate under a formal cover of social concern, much social concern is genuinely and generously motivated.

Nonetheless, self-regard is, and predictably, the dominant, indeed the controlling, mood of the contented majority.  This becomes wholly evident when public action on behalf of those outside this electoral majority is the issue.  If it is to be effective, such action is invariably at public cost.  Accordingly, it is regularly resisted as a matter of high, if sometimes rather visibly contrived, principle…”

Given the power of the affluent to influence public opinion, it would be surprising if the Green New Deal were easily proven to be a rational plan to reduce climate change.

Socialism for the Rich

Green New Deal, Social democracy, Sociology of Knowledge

 

As my favorite political philosopher Hannah Arendt made clear more than 50 years ago, notions of left versus right are hopelessly out of date. For example, no one believes in free enterprise anymore.  Least of all business people, who are the first to lobby the government for grants, subsidies, and protections.  Witness the farmers, often thought to be the last bastions of individualism.  They are now among the quickest and loudest in their demands for government intervention.  What we see now is what others have called “socialism for the rich.”  Or what David Lewis, years ago, referred to as “corporate welfare bums“.

At the same time, the ideas of the left have also been discredited.  The welfare state is seen as a prison, governed by mediocrity.  But the voices of dominance and privilege are heard loud and clear, and are usually accepted at face value, while no credence is given to the voices of the dominated.  Their voices are considered cranky, silly, and immature.

The philosophy of privilege, namely, conservatism, or its newest version, neo-conservatism, particularly in the US, but also in Canada, has been very effective in imposing its agenda and its very vocabulary on government.  The public sector is regularly pictured as a burden on individuals, as sapping their strength and vigour.  The free market is lauded as the engine of real growth and the savior for all of our woes.  For example, in Canada, the Fraser Institute, a right-wing think tank, is given a wide press each year when it announces “tax freedom day“.

It is implied by such comments that public institutions merely consume, while not providing anything of value.  But is it really true that video games are more valuable than public libraries? Is it really true that toys are more important than public swimming pools?  Public services are often more important than private services.  Through them we have clean water, clean air, accessible hospitals, standards for safe food, housing for seniors, safe roads, and mind-expanding education.  Public services are not a drain on our initiative.  They are what frees the creative juices in each of us.  Without them civilization is a dream.

 

My  favorite economists, John Kenneth Galbraith understood this process and explained it with his customary verve. As he said,

“…individuals and communities that are favored in their economic, social, and political condition attribute social virtue and political durability to that which they themselves enjoy.  That attribution, in turn, is made to apply even in the face of commanding evidence to the contrary.  The beliefs of the fortunate are brought to serve the cause of continuing contentment, and the economic and political ideas of the time are similarly accommodating.  There is an eager political market for that which pleases and reassures.  Those who would serve this market and reap the resulting reward in money and applause are reliably available…

…there were few doubts among the happily privileged, strongly  self-approving, if hygienically deprived, throng that surrounded and sustained Louis XV… a forceful set of economic ideas, those of the Physiocrats, affirmed the principle by which those so favoured were rewarded .  These ideas supported and celebrated an economic system that returned all wealth, superficial deductions for trade and manufacturing apart, to the owners of the land, the aristocrats who inhabited and served the court.

The case continues.  The great entrepreneurs and their acolytes who were dominant in British, German, French and then American political and economic life in the nineteenth century and into the early decades of the twentieth were not in doubt as to their economic and social destiny, and this, again, was duly affirmed by the companion views of the classical economists. ”

 

And of course, this process continues to this day. Those who speak to power with news that power wants to hear are quickly given an audience.  Such people  find themselves much less welcomed. The privileged see their privilege as natural, right, and good. That happened then, it happens now, and will happen forever.

Galbraith even pointed out that this process was common in the Soviet Union, which we all know bore no resemblance to its reputed realm of justice and equality. As he said about socialist countries inside the Soviet circle, “They were protected in their fortunate position by the presumed power of socialist principles…Thus, to repeat, was belief accommodated to the need and comfort of the favored.”

 

What does this have to do with the green new deal? Everything. Proposals for reform of our energy system are made, and immediately rejected by the contented in power.  Radical proposals are seen as absurdly expensive clap trap. Radical proposals are often wrong, but what about the status quo?  There are clearly people who benefit from it and they will do everything in their power to prolong what they find comfortable and delay or dismiss which is not in their narrow interests. The rich would have us believe that the only socialism we can afford is socialism for them. The rest of us should be content with rapacious capitalism.

Perhaps the green new deal is not as ludicrous as the contented would have us believe.

 

A Conservative  Wet Nightmare

Capitalism, Green New Deal, Sociology of Knowledge

 

I was hearing a lot about the New Green Deal.  Until I wasn’t hearing anything anymore. The Green New Deal drives Republicans in the US and Conservatives in Canada, apoplectic. That is why Samantha Bee has called the Green New Deal the “Republicans wet nightmare.”

 

Why  don’t we hear about it anymore. Were the criticisms of it from conservatives so radically convincing? Or did interest groups get their away (again)?

Dominant groups invariably react to anything that undermines their dominance with scorn, mockery, and howls of opposition. They think the upstart must be irrational, if not absolutely insane. Listen to their howls. They scream it; they mean it. It makes no sense. None.

This is what the dominant groups in the US did when Roosevelt introduced the original New Deal. It was completely absurd they claimed. We can’t afford it. It will bankrupt the nation. How could anyone say in a time of 25% unemployment that the country must put those people to work? It made absolutely no sense they assured us. Well–they were wrong. Entirely absolutely wrong. Roosevelt has been credited with saving capitalism from its greatest foes–the capitalists! Now they complain similarly about the Green New Deal.

Is that how it will be with the Green New Deal? We have already heard the screams and howls of laughter, mockery and pain.

Karl Mannheim, in his landmark book, Ideology and Utopia, building on an insight of Marx, first pointed out that ruling groups can in their thinking become so intensively interest-bound to a situation that they are no longer able to see certain facts which might tend to undermine their sense of domination.  The ideology of ruling groups often obscures the real condition of society from itself, and often even to those groups that dominate.  The ideology of ruling groups is self-serving.  As a consequence, such groups often do not recognize the unpleasant facts which might detract from their domination.  This is usually accomplished naturally, without conspiracy.  To them, all dissent, as Herbert Marcuse noticed, is irrational, if not insane.

No one likes to lose privileges. That is the long and short of it. In fact, groups with resources, will use those resources to protect their privileges. That does not mean that all their arguments are bogus. It just means we ought to be wary of them. We should, as John Stuart Mill made clear, always look at the other side. Are we getting the whole truth from the privileged groups or are they using their influence to influence those in power to do their bidding?

Over that past 3 decades industries in the oil and gas sector, including some of the richest corporations in the world have spent enormous sums of money to convince political leaders, and even us the mere peons, that what is good for ExxonMobil is good for us too.  Is it?  Is the Green New Deal really that radically subversive? Or are we being sold another bill of goods? As the Sergeant on the television series, Hill Street Blues used to warn the police before they went out on their beat each morning: ‘Be careful out there.”

That was wise advice to the beat cops. That would be wise advice to us peons.

Green New Deal

Green New Deal, Sociology of Knowledge

 

Not many people are talking about the Green New Deal anymore. Is that because its ideas have been destroyed? I think not.

So what is the green new deal?  As Lisa Friedman of the New York times said, “

It has been trumpeted by its supporters as the way to avoid planetary destruction, and vilified by opponents as a socialist plot to take away your ice cream.”

The Green New Deal is a plan championed by some Democrats in the US that lays out a grand plan for tackling climate change. That is of course why it is so controversial. It was introduced in the US by a radical Democrat Representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, also a Democrat.

Their proposal called on the US government to wean the US off of fossil fuels and curb greenhouse gas emissions across the country while guaranteeing new high paying jobs in clean or green energy industries. At the same time, it called on the government to maintain justice by helping people who would lose their jobs as a result to get new jobs in the green economy.  The resolution also tried to cure societal problems like economic inequality and racial injustice. The resolution wants to ensure that clean air, clean water, and healthy foods are recognized as basic human rights. Sounds great, but is this Pollyanna pie in the sky?

The plan also provides that after a 10 year mobilization to reduce or even eliminated carbon emissions. 100% of American electricity should be delivered by renewable zero emission sources. Every building in the country should be upgraded to be more energy efficient and the country’s transportation system overhauled by investing in electric vehicles and high-speed rail. The American government must invest in job training and new green development, particularly in communities that rely on jobs in fossil fuel industries.

Their resolution was not binding on Congress.

Of course, Republican political leaders mocked the plan as being bone-headed and wildly unrealistic.  Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has said the deal would force Americans to have to “ride around on high-speed light rail, supposedly powered by unicorn tears.” President Trump said it would take away your “airplane rights.”  Some Republicans said eating meat would be banned and that Democrats wanted to take away your hamburgers!  Horrors! According to Lisa Friedman, “Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming and chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, warned that ice cream, cheeseburgers, and milkshakes would be a thing of the past because under the Green New Deal, “livestock will be banned.” It did not matter that the resolution said none of those things. But such wild claims tamped down the enthusiasm of Democrats who had supported the plan for a Green New Deal.

The Green New Deal is based on  the original New Deal launched by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help the US recover from the Great Depression in the 1930s. That plan included a series of public works programs to put people who were out of work to work in manual jobs like planting trees, building facilities in National Parks and various public works such as bridges, schools, and other public projects for the common good. Like the Green New Deal that followed, this deal was strongly criticized by the rich as being over the top expensive and would drive the country into bankruptcy. It did no such thing. Many credit it with saving capitalism and helping to pull the country out of the recession.

As an example of criticism from the right, Donald Trump has said the Green  New Deal would cost 100 trillion dollars. Of course, the conservative critics, like Trump ignore the cost of doing nothing to fight climate change as he proposed. Supporters of the Green New Deal say the doing nothing to fight climate change will cost more than the Green New Deal. Here is what Friedman reported in her New York Times article: “Modernizing the electrical grid across the United States could cost as much as $476 billion, yet reap $2 trillion in benefits, according to a 2011 study issued by the Electric Power Research Institute.”

In Vermont they estimated that their plan to convert 100 percent to clean energy would cost $33 billion but now they are finding the state is seeing substantial job growth in clean energy sectors and has said the transition should save the their taxpayers money.

Who is right? Who knows? Not me.

What I do know is that a lot of opposition comes from people who stand to gain a lot money from maintaining the status quo. Sociology of knowledge warns us to be suspicious of such criticism. The reasons for their opposition are obvious. And many of them have spent a lot of money convincing political leaders to do nothing significant about climate change. And they were very successful in doing that, while the rest of us are paying an enormous price for exactly that.

Trump Calls for Insurrection (Again)

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Extremism, Polarization, Trump, Trumpism, Tyranny and Fascism

 

Did you hear what Trump said? Just a couple of days ago, on September 15, 2022 Donald Trump was interviewed by a Mr. Hewitt on the radio and was asked what would happen if he was indicted. This is what Trump said said,

“I think if it happened, I think you’d have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before. I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it.“

 

Then he was asked by Mr. Hewitt what kind of troubles, Mr. President? Trump responded this way:

“I think they’d have big problems, I just don’t think they’d stand for it.”

It was chilling. I thought of January 6th 2021. Don Lemon asked Phillip Mudd, a CNN analyst and former counterterrorism analyst if that was a threat.  Mr. Mudd’s answer was about as direct as you can get.  This was his answer:

“Yes! I don’t know if that is a subtle enough answer Don. That’s a yes, Don. Let me be clear about what this is.  In the world of extremism which I followed for decades, that is what I would refer to as validation. So we saw on January 6th there were a lot of people who watch leadership. Whether it’s Lindsay Graham or other members of the White House, or the president of lawyers, who watch leadership and determine whether that leadership is validating the citizen’s belief that they were robbed. You don’t have to tell someone to go out there and commit an act of violence for them to say, ‘Well if we were robbed then it is my constitutional right and responsibility to go to the Congress and storm it.’ That is the president of the United States having witnessed January 6th saying, ‘Well let me have a redo of that. That redo will happen if I ever get indicted.’  To me as an extremist follower that is not a political statement, that is a statement that anybody who follows extremists can understand. That is validation…”

 

Juliette Kayyem, a CNN National Security Analyst agreed completely. She said,

“It is not even hinting anymore. We used to use the word “dog whistle” when we talk about Trump. This is now directing. Don’t just listen to Trump’s words. Imagine what his supporters are hearing. They are hearing the call to action…We need to call it what it is that we have a former president who is inciting violence as an extension of his political defeat. That’s what it is now.”

 

I know Trump’s supporters don’t believe anything CNN says, but I think they got this right from Trump’s own words. I listened to his words and I agree with the CNN interpretation. This was the only logical interpretation of what Trump said. This was a call to violent action if he was charge with a criminal offence  without mentioning the word. The message was absolutely clear, just as his words were absolutely clear to his supporters on January 6th. They knew what to do. And Trump was threatening to do it all over again if he was charged! This was doing what Donald Trump always does when he is cornered. He does not back down. He doubles down.

Americans must realize what Trump is doing. He is doing the same thing Hitler did after the German Reichstag burned down. The German people knew what to do and they did it.

Now the question is what will the American people do? Will they acquiesce with this dangerous slide into fascism?  I know many of his supporters will do that. They will accept that with the enthusiasm they showed on January 6, 2021.

I am not sure of what the majority of Americans will do, but I am uneasy.

Summing Up John Stuart Mill’s advocacy for Free Speech

Free Speech, Freedom, Liberalism, Truth Seeking

 

Mill says there are 4 reasons for this all of which he has really commented on already.

 

  1. We must remember that it is because we are fallible that we should consider contrary opinions. This would not be necessary if we were infallible. We must always remember, what Mill says: “if an opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.”

 

  1. Even though the silenced opinion is wrong it often contains a portion of the truth (no matter how small) we should consider and weigh it in the balance. This can only help our conception of the truth. As Mill says, “though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of the truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.” That is why we must always respect and even encourage dissent and must never constrain it. Only with dissent can we supplement a partial truth.

 

  1. However, even if an opinion is true, or even in some rare cases the whole truth, we must still respect dissent. Without dissent and opposition truths wither on the vine and become pale imitations of their former selves. Even truth needs opposition; not just error. Again, as Mill points out, “even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth, unless it is suffered to be, and actually is vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of the those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.”

 

  1. Finally, Mill says, unless truths are challenged from time to time, their very meaning is forgotten. As he says, “the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.”

 

After that summary of his position Mill also considers a possible qualification on the unencumbered right to free thought and discussion for which he has so eloquently argued. He considers whether freedom of thought and discussion can be constrained if it is not temperate or in good taste. The problem that Mill sees with this position is that it is exactly those whose opinions  being attacked that are most likely to be offended by the debate. They are the ones who are most likely to see an opponent as intemperate. In fact, the more effective the counter argument the more likely it is that the dissent will be experienced as intemperate or offensive.  As Mill said, “experience testifies that this offense is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent.”

All of this goes to show that offense is a poor grounds for restraining the freedom to think and discuss. In a free and democratic society we must be willing to permit freedom of expression and discussion and this sometimes means that we will be offended by what others say.

 

The problem with complaints about intemperate comments, says Mill, is that invariably this complaint is only levied against those who challenge the prevailing opinion. “Against the unprevailing view they may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be likely to obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from their use is greatest when they are employed against the comparatively defenceless; and whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any opinion from this mode of asserting it, accrues almost exclusively to received opinions… In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of prevailing opinion does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them.”

 

This does not mean that one has the right to give offense. It just means that those who try to give offense are invariably on the side of the establishment.  Dissenters cannot afford to give offense. This of course is the vituperation that should most often be challenged. It is when the powerful and influential are offensive that the most harm is engaged. That is why one need not worry about offensive attacks on religion. They will only rarely happen. As Mill said, “there would be much more need to discourage attacks on infidelity than on religion.” You can only be a jerk if you are in the minority, and then of course, you can’t afford to be one as it will help to defeat your own cause.  Therefore, Mill does not advocate restraining either.

There are many good reasons to permit free speech and few good reasons to curtail it. Later I will talk about some restraints.

In essence: if you are looking for truth you had better respect free speech.

 

Christian Ethics

Ethics, Free Speech, Freedom, Human rights, Truth Seeking

Yet even after all this, John Stuart Mill has one more dragon to slay—Christian ethics. Even that, he holds, cannot be accepted as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He makes a powerful argument that it too must submit to allowing the contrary voice to be heard.

Mill knows that many in the 19th century believed ardently that Christian ethics were the supreme good and nothing could be added or detracted from them and that here was at least one bastion that was immune from needing to pay heed to Mill’s cries for hearing the other side. Mill knew that he had a major opponent to defeat, but that did not stop him. He even challenged Christian morality. He also pointed out that if his theory could  successfully show that even Christian morality could benefit from listening to another truth he would have produced a momentous  achievement.

He says right at the outset that from his point of view the proponents of the all-inclusiveness of Christian morality had missed the mark. He said, “I wonder that any one who derives his knowledge of this from the book itself, can suppose that it was announced, or intended as a complete doctrine of morals.” In other words he suggests that nowhere in the Bible does it actually say that it offers a complete moral code. Even if you believe it is Holy Scripture, nowhere does it say that you are unable to add to its truths.

To begin with he suggests that Christian morality is defined as the teachings of Jesus Christ as evidenced by the New Testament. He believes that this is the essential Christian morality.

He points out at the outset that more was always needed. He said, “To extract from it a body of ethical doctrine, has never been possible without eking it out from the Old Testament, that is from a system elaborate indeed, but in many respects barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people.”  I disagree with Mill on this point.  The Old Testament prophets, for example, produced a magnificent ethic as I have commented on earlier. Much of it has stood the test of time.

He also pointed out that Christian morality is in many respects a reaction against pagan morality and cannot be fully appreciated without understanding parts of pagan morality. It is as a result of that reaction, says Mill,

“It’s ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than active; Innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil rather than energetic Pursuit of Good; in its precepts (as has been well said) “thou shalt not” predominates unduly over “thou shalt.”  In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism, which has gradually compromised away into one of legality.  It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as against the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life; in this falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to human morality an essentially selfish character, by disconnecting each man’s feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow-creatures, except so far as a self-interested inducement  is offered to him for consulting them. It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all authorities found established.

In other words, Mill sees Christian morality as ultimately selfish.  We do what it advocates to gain eternal life. and avoid the pain of hell. We don’t do it to help others.

Mill is really saying we can do better. Not that we must throw out all of Christian morality. He admits that much of it is good and has benefited society.  His point is merely that it is not complete.

Mill suggests that other sources could provide improvement for Christian morality that would benefit it. For example, he says that what little recognition of the idea of duty to the public actually comes from Greek and Roman sources not Christian.  They have already supplemented Christian morality in the broader sense. He adds that these sources have much to offer as well in their notions of magnanimity, high-mindedness, personal dignity, and the importance of honour. Nietzsche for example, also argued for the importance of these concepts from classical philosophy and felt that to the extent Christian morality was not compatible with them it must be changed. I think Mill is merely suggesting that such notions can supplement Christian morality.  These concepts do not arise from our religious education.

Mill I think actually mocks Christian morality when he suggests that Christian morality has “grown out of a standard of ethics in which the only worth, professedly, is that of obedience.” We do the right thing because we are commanded to do, when we should do it because it is the right thing to do.

While Mill does not criticize the maxims of Jesus Christ he does say that obviously they are not intended to be a complete code of moral conduct. He says instead,

“they contain, only a part of the truth; that many essential elements of the highest morality are among the things which are not provided for nor intended to be provided for, in the recorded deliverances of the Founder of Christianity, and which have been entirely thrown aside in the system of ethics erected on the basis of those deliverances by the Christian Church. And this being so, I think it a great error to persist in attempting to find in the Christian doctrine that complete rule for our guidance which its author intended it to sanction and enforce, but only partially to provide.”

 

Mill does not complain about this incompleteness. He merely complains about those who treat the maxims as a complete code and therefore that “the Christian system is no exception to the rule, that in an imperfect state of the human mind the interests of truth require a diversity of opinions.”

This is precisely Mills the point that he keeps making over and over again in different ways.  Seekers of truth and justice need a diversity of opinions for all the reasons he has elucidated. We should never allow ourselves to be robbed of the benefit of the diverse opinion. All great political leaders for example understand this. President Barack Obama understood it well and frequently called for vigorous debate of proposed policies. I fear his successor is not so inclined, and prefers instead to hear his own views constantly applauded by Fox News or Breitbart. That, as Mills clearly demonstrates, is a big mistake.

We always have to be wary of those who argue against seeing a set of proposals as anything less than a partial view of the truth. “The exclusive pretention made by a part of the truth to be the whole, must and ought to be protested against.”

For example, anyone who looks fairly at moral issues will quickly see that much has been learned from secular thinkers. A wide variety of sources is immediately seen as richly beneficial to the understanding of any issues. As Mill said, “It can do no service to blink the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teaching was the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected the Christian faith.”

That does not mean Christian morality is wrong. It is just that it does not tell the entire truth. We need other views to supplement it. We need diversity! We do not need pretentions to absolute and complete truth. Once again Mill puts it well,

I do not pretend that the most unlimited use of the freedom of enunciating all possible opinions would put an end to the evils of religious or philosophical sectarianism.  Every truth which men of narrow capacity are in earnest about, is sure to be asserted, inculcated,  and in many ways even acted on, as if no other truth existed in the world, or at all events none that could limit or qualify the first. I acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not cured by the freest discussion, but is often heightened and exacerbated thereby; the truth which ought to have been, but was not, seen, being rejected all the more violently because proclaimed by persons regarded as opponents.  But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect.  Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil; there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood. And since there are few mental attributes more rare than that judicial faculty which can sit in intelligent judgment between two sides of a question, of which only one is represented by an advocate, before it, every opinion which embodies any fraction of the truth, not only finds advocates, but is so advocated as to be listened to.”

This is Mill’s magnificent conclusion. This is why he argues so strenuously for diversity of opinions. This is why he argues so strenuously that we do not gain by suppressing free debate and discussion. This is why freedom of thought, discussion and ultimately, expression is so vitally important. We have everything to gain from freedom of thought and discussion and everything to lose from its suppression! The “impassioned partisans” might not benefit, for they will be cemented in their opinions, but the “calmer and disinterested bystander.” And we who have decisions to make, should be these ideal calm and disinterested bystanders! We should always try—and try hard—to be the ideal impartial observer if we truly desire to find the truth.

Yet, even with that dramatic conclusion, Mill is not quite complete. He reminds that this freedom to think and discuss which he has argued for so powerfully is not only important in its own right. It is the basis of “the mental well-being of mankind (on which all other well being depends).

No monopoly on Truth

Extremism, Free Speech, Freedom, Liberalism, Moral Humility, Truth Seeking

 

 

It is strongly implied from the analysis of John Stuart Mill, that whenever we are involved in a dispute we should remember it is very likely, though not certain, that there is some truth to the position of our opponent.  Most disputes between competing doctrines and opinions work exactly like that, but too often we tend to forget that. I know I have too often forgotten that. I need to see the other side of a question. I may reject most of it, but if I reject all of it, I am likely making a serious mistake. The truth is usually shared as Mill said. Looking for all of the truth on one side of a serious debate is short-circuiting the search for truth. That is why we must welcome diversity of opinion and listen to all sides. Only then will we find the whole truth and not just a partial truth. That is why free speech is so important for society. Free speech is a human right, but it is more than that. It is also a social good.

 

Mill gave one more example, which I also liked. He talked about liberals and conservatives. There is often truth on both sides, though perhaps not equally balanced. Mill said,

 

“In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life; until the one or the other shall have so enlarged its mental grasp as to be a party equally of order and of progress, knowing and distinguishing what is fit to be preserved from what ought to be swept away.  Each of these modes of thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it is in a great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within the limits of reasons and sanity. Unless opinion favorable to democracy and aristocracy, to property and to equality, to co-operation and competition, to luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and individuality, to liberty and to discipline, and all the other standing antagonisms of practical life, are expressed with equal freedom, and enforced and defended with equal talent and energy, there is not a chance of both elements getting their due; one scale is sure to go up and the other down. Truth in the great practical concerns of life, is so much a question of reconciling and combining opposites, that very few have minds sufficiently capacious and impartial to make the adjustment with an approach to correctness, and it has to be made by the rough process of a struggle between combatants fighting under hostile banners. On any of the great open questions just enumerated, if either of the two opinions has a better claim than the other, not merely to be tolerated, but to be encouraged and countenanced, it is the one which happens at the particular time and place to be in a minority. That is the opinion which, for the time being, represents the neglected interests, the side of human well-being which is in danger of obtaining less than its share. I am aware that there is not, in this country, any intolerance of differences of opinion on most topics. They are adduced to show, by admitted and multiplied examples, the universality of the fact, that only through diversity of opinion is there, in the existing state of human intellect, a chance of fair play to all sides of the truth.  When there are persons to be found who form an exception to the apparent unanimity of the world on any subject, even if the world is in the right, it is always probable that dissentients have something worth hearing to say for themselves, and that truth would lose something by their silence.”

 

 

Even if there are few contrary voices (as in the case of Rousseau versus the Enlightenment above) we ought always to pay attention and respect to the voice of the dissenter. Otherwise there is, as Mill said, “not a chance of both elements getting their due.”  The rebel is critically important, even when we least expect it. It is virtually impossible for one side to capture 100% of the truth. Let the rebel help us to find what is missing for the winning side will always benefit.

 

This approach of always making room for the rebel opinion has a lot of worth. It is only if one side is infallible that we can escape this approach. Infallibility is unlikely ever to be found. I wish it were otherwise.  But one side rarely holds the entire truth. It can always benefit from some overlooked truth from the other side.

 

In today’s market place of ideas, acknowledging that the other side might have some truth is deeply unpopular. This is particularly true in the United States where to merely acknowledge the other side might have a point is considered traitorous. Members of the group are quick to jump on anyone who even hints at compromise with the wicked other.  In many places in Canada this is also all too common.

 

Mill also wants us to understand that this approach applies to all important issues, not just religious issues, because no side ever has a monopoly on truth. II really think Mill has found a key here in these 3 important propositions that all call for permitting—no encouraging—diversity of opinion. It is the closest we can come to a royal road to the truth.

I must admit that I find this amazingly well argued. How about you?