Why ask questions?

Ruins of the forecourt of the temple of Apollo at Delphi where  “Know Thyself” was inscribed.

When I started blogging, about a decade ago, I decided that the title of each article would be a question. That seemed like a good way to explore the relationship between freedom and flourishing. As I saw it, the response to each question would lead to further questions. Looking back, the scope of the blog has been broader, and the exploration process less orderly, than I had originally envisaged, but I am still asking questions.

Asking questions makes me it easier for me to stay on topic when I am writing. It also prompts me to reconsider whether I am answering the right question. I have found it is not easy to ask questions that get to the heart of an issue if you don’t know much about it. I have often revised questions in the middle of writing an article as I have learned more about the subject matter.

Not long after I started blogging one of my friends asked me if I was aware of Betteridge’s law that any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no. At the time my response was that Betteridge’s law didn’t apply to my blog because a yes or no answer was not applicable to most of the questions I asked myself. That is still the case. Of the 19 questions considered in the blog over the last year, there were only 4 that could be answered yes or no and there was an even split between positive and negative answers.

Another friend made the comment that the approach I had adopted on my blog was somewhat Socratic. I doubted whether that was so, but I knew little about Socrates. A few weeks ago I decided that it was time I learned more about Socrates.

Socrates didn’t leave behind any books for us to read but it is possible to obtain a reasonably clear picture of his views from what others have written. The most important source is Plato, who was a follower of Socrates, but Plato seems to have used Socrates as a spokesman for his own views in some of the dialogues. I am relying here on Luis Navia’s book, Socrates: A life examined, which uses some other sources – including Xenophon and Aristotle - to distinguish the views of Socrates from those of Plato.

Socrates seems to have been a gregarious man who went around Athens talking to all sorts of people and asking them philosophical questions. He was loved and admired by a small group of devoted friends. It seems likely that most Athenians viewed him as an eccentric figure and were indifferent to his philosophical preoccupations. However, a few influential citizens viewed him as “a dangerous man who would question and challenge the beliefs and practices of the state religion” and “pour contempt on long-established political practices and customs”. That led an Athenian jury to find him guilty of irreligiosity and to sentence him to death in 399 BC, when he was 71 years of age.

Are the views of Socrates relevant to us today? One view that seems highly relevant is the idea that it is possible to obtain wisdom on ethical questions. Socrates rejected the relativism of the Sophists - teachers of rhetoric and public relations - who believed that ethical values were meaningless. The Sophists apparently believed that it is impossible to determine what is good or bad, right or wrong. I guess that Socrates would encourage us to view the core values of organisations – which often include integrity and similar concepts – as meaningful. He would discourage us from following the post-modern view that promises to adhere to such core values should be viewed as merely public relations exercises.

Socratic dialogue is also relevant to us today. For Socrates, the search for wisdom was based on the dictum “Know Thyself”. The point of departure of the dialogue was Socrates’ confession of ignorance about the correct definition of a moral state or mode of behaviour and his request to a companion to explain the concept. The explanation led to further questions, which uncovered inconsistencies in the view originally expressed. It was common for the discussion to end inconclusively, leaving the companion confused, but perhaps stimulated to think more deeply.

Luis Navia suggests that for Socrates the rigorously methodic and painfully honest examination of the things we say brings to light the thoughts that ultimately structure who we are. He suggests that Socrates’ goal was the unveiling of the human soul:

“Nothing is more important, nothing more urgent, than understanding who we are. This is the meaning of that memorable statement … : ‘An unexamined life is not worth living’."

I have also consulted a book by Richard Paul and Linda Elder entitled The Art of Socratic Questioning, to obtain a contemporary view of this topic. The book is full of questions that might be useful to teachers and other leaders of group discussions. The authors suggest that as well as serving the purpose of helping students to distinguish what they know and understand from what they don’t know and understand Socratic questioning can “ help students acquire the powerful tools of Socratic dialogue, so that they can use these tools in everyday life (in questioning themselves and others)”.

The authors identify four directions in which we can pursue questions about a belief:

·         How did you come to believe that?

·         What reasons, evidence or assumptions underly that belief?

·         What are the implications of that belief?

·         What opposing thoughts or objections would others raise, and how would you respond to them?

If we practice disciplined, self-directed questioning we have potential to be able to cultivate the “inner voice of reason”. This has potential to help us in many aspects of life, including blogging.

So, has the approach I have adopted on my blog been “somewhat Socratic”? The main Socratic element has been the initial question, which is the title of each article. It might be a good idea to make the blog somewhat more Socratic by making some future post specifically about question/problem definition.  For example: What are the underlying questions that need to be considered to come to grips with issue X, Y or Z?

Perhaps this post has raised more questions than it has answered. What important questions have I left unanswered?

What is to be gained by listening to opposing viewpoints?

It is comforting to listen to people espouse views like our own. Perhaps it makes us feel that our views are being validated.

Listening to an opposing viewpoint can feel challenging. There are several reasons for that. There may be times when we are not in the mood for the intellectual stimulation involved in considering the merits and demerits of an opposing viewpoint.

A more deep-seated reason for feeling challenged arises when we identify strongly with views that are being attacked. We may even feel offended. That has traditionally been seen to be likely when views on politics, religion and sex are being criticized. Ethnicity and culture should be added to that list. People also tend to be highly offended if anyone casts aspersions on the sporting teams they support.

However, taking offence is optional. Many Collingwood supporters, and many people of Irish and Scottish descent even seem to be able to see the humour in some of the jokes made at their expense.

From my childhood memories, in the farming community in which our family lived in the 1950s, there seemed to be greater willingness to listen to opposing political viewpoints than exists anywhere today. There seemed to be widespread acceptance that you need to listen to opposing political viewpoints if you want to argue against them effectively. People steered clear of discussion of religious differences and if anyone had views about sex and marriage that were at variance with conventional morality they didn’t discuss them openly.

The civility of the participants is obviously an important determinant of the amount of heat generated when contentious political issues are discussed. From my own experience, and limited discussions with others, I have the impression that in the 1950s people were generally more intent than they are now on maintaining civility when participating in political discussions. It seemed common for discussions to end in a meeting of minds on some points and respectful disagreement on others. Occasionally, when one of the main participants was intent on giving offence, discussions would end in an exchange of insults, or worse.

Have people become more open to listening to opposing views on other contentious issues since the 1950s?  A few years ago, I would have argued that the shibboleths had diminished as the major religions had become more tolerant of each other and a revolution in attitudes had caused many people to moderate their views of sexual morality.

It now seems that the old shibboleths have been replaced as new issues have become politicised. When issues become politicised it now seems to be much more common for people to parrot the views of the leaders of their political tribe and to refuse to consider opposing viewpoints. The art of listening seems to be disappearing from the public realm.

Steven Pinker has an interesting discussion of the politicization of issues in his recent book, Enlightenment Now: The case for reason, science, humanism and progress. He refers to research by the Dan Kahan, a legal scholar, who argues that bitter public disputes over science are now “the exception rather than the rule”. The exception arises when certain beliefs become symbols of cultural allegiance. To help make this point Kahan refers to recent U.S. history regarding vaccines for Hepatitis B and the HPV virus (a major cause of cervical cancer). Both vaccines prevent sexually transmitted diseases. Hep B vaccination has apparently been accepted without much opposition, but HPV vaccination has become a political firestorm because of fears that it would encourage teenage promiscuity. Kahan suggests that the difference stems from the way the two vaccines were introduced.  Hep B vaccination was treated as a routine public health matter, but the manufacturers of the HPV vaccine lobbied state legislatures to make vaccination of adolescent girls mandatory. Kahan’s view is supported by Australian experience of a voluntary HPV vaccination program being introduced successfully without the issue becoming politicised.

Issues often become politicized when they are taken up by political leaders. For example, it seems likely that by politicising the global warming debate, Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth made it more difficult for conservatives to acknowledge the merits of any proposed policy action on climate change.

The media also plays a role in politicising issues by converting disagreement on public policy into a spectator sport.  In my view Australia’s public broadcaster, the ABC, is a major offender. The ABC’s charter requires it to inform and entertain, but unfortunately does not require it to encourage the reasoned debate and respectful disagreement necessary for liberal democracy to function effectively. In particular, the Q&A program seems to me to be designed to politicize policy debate. It entertains viewers by providing a forum for activist and conservative tribes to clash on totemic issues. Although some panellists and audience participants do their best to engage in reasoned debate, it would be difficult for any viewers to obtain a better understanding of alternative viewpoints from this program.

How can we have a useful exchange of views on issues that have become politicised? In a recent article on this blog I suggested that people who approach issues from different ideological perspectives would be able to have more useful policy discussions if they could turn their attention to what they can learn from the actual experiences of people in different institutional and policy settings. That is rarely straight forward, of course, because interpretation of experience is not immune to ideological bias. But it is still good advice!

It can also be useful to ask people to explain views you disagree with, rather than asserting that they are talking nonsense. Steven Pinker notes that when people are asked to explain an opinion they often realize that they don’t know what they are talking about and become more open to counter-arguments. That is more likely to occur when they are aware that someone is listening intently to the answer they are giving.

This view is consistent with Leah Goldrick’s conclusion in a recent article about the know-it-all syndrome. On her blog, Common Sense Ethics, Leah writes:

“Thinking is fundamentally driven by questions, not answers. This is why doubt, not certainty, is so important. Doubt is the starting place that leads us to question the assumptions that have lead us to a particular conclusion, and doubt is what drives us to learn more if we will humble ourselves enough to consider that we may be wrong. Constant learning, from a place of humble confidence, rather than a place of arrogance, is the antidote to know-it-all syndrome”.

You are more likely to have useful exchanges of view if you “assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t”. That is one of the rules that Jordan Peterson lists in his recent book, 12 Rules for Life (recently reviewed on this blog). Peterson suggests that we remain threatened by disease, self-deception, unhappiness and many other causes of suffering because we are too ignorant to protect ourselves. There is always potential for us to improve our own lives if we respect the personal experience of our conversational partners.

Some of my readers may be wondering whether there is any organisation they could joint to help cultivate a listening culture and improved communication in the community in which they live. A few weeks ago, the realisation dawned on me that for the past 16 years I have been a member of an organisation whose founder believed that “in bringing improvement in the way of better thinking, better listening, better speaking to individuals we are contributing to the improvement of the society which is made up of these individuals”. The quote is from an article by Ralph Smedley, founder of Toastmasters International, which appeared in the February 1958 issue of The Toastmaster. (The article, entitled, ‘The Toastmasters Club … Its Meaning and Values’, has been reproduced in Personally Speaking: Selections from the Writings of Dr Ralph C Smedley.)

The mission of Toastmasters is to develop communication and leadership skills of individual members so that they can achieve greater self-confidence and personal growth. The benefits that can bring to the lives of individual members are obvious but, as Ralph Smedley maintained, members of Toastmasters - now numbering more than 352,00 – also have an opportunity to contribute to “the building of a better society made up of individuals who must act in groups”.

Are nature and biodiversity essential to health and happiness?

There is no prize for guessing the answer given by Susan Prescott and Alan Logan in The Secret Life of your Microbiome: Why nature and biodiversity are essential to health and happiness.

This recently published book is written for a popular audience, but the authors have expert knowledge of the microbiome – the microbes and their genetic material found in the human gut and skin. Susan Prescott is an immunologist and paediatrician. Alan Logan’s background is in research relating to naturopathic medicine. It is obvious that the authors have spent a lot of time sifting through scientific evidence in writing the book.

Some of the evidence suggesting that nature and biodiversity are essential to health and happiness is derived from inspection of the stools of our Paleolithic ancestors. Evidence from archaeological sites suggests that our hunter and gatherer ancestors ate a wide variety of plant food and had a greater diversity of micro-biota than most people living modern lifestyles. The same is true today of people who are still living traditional lifestyles close to nature.

The authors accept that modern medicine and hygiene have brought great benefits, but they point to evidence that a diet with a great deal of sugar, ultra-processed food and drinks – as well as excessive use of antibiotics, stress and physical exhaustion – can lead to gut permeability, an increase in blood endotoxins, and an increase in central nervous system inflammatory chemicals. Intestinal permeability is apparently associated with a range of chronic conditions including autism, asthma, allergies, chronic fatigue, depression, fibromyalgia, heart disease, irritable bowel, obesity, type 2 diabetes, psoriasis and schizophrenia.

Prescott and Logan argue that we have a symbiotic relationship with the human microbiome, which co-evolved with our ancestors. The microbiome provides functional benefits such as nutrient extraction, protection against harmful microbes, regulation of metabolism and production of important biochemicals. Researchers don’t yet understand what microbes would comprise an ideal microbiome, but the key seems to be diversity, which is encouraged by dietary diversity. The authors suggest that the human immune system has evolved to expect a kaleidoscope of biodiversity.

The authors view commercially available probiotics and prebiotics as a useful supplement that can help defend against dysbiotic forces in the modern environment, rather than as a substitute for the adoption of a healthy lifestyle. They emphasize the importance of dietary choices, physical activity, sleep and experience of natural environments.

There is substantial evidence, some previously discussed on this blog, that experience of natural environments has a positive impact on health and happiness. Prescott and Logan provide an interesting account of Japanese research relating to shinrin-yoku – the absorption of the forest into the body and mind:

“Remarkable studies have demonstrated that, individually, the sounds of nature, the sights of nature, the invisible chemicals secreted from trees (phytoncides, or phytochemicals), and the touch of natural products like wood (compared to synthetic resin), can positively influence stress physiology and our parasympathetic nervous system, the “rest and digest” branch of the nervous system that cools the jets of over-stimulation. The sum of research shows that our sensory system understands nature like an old friend.”

One of the authors’ aims seems to be to promote nature relatedness – fascination with nature and a desire for contact with it. They note evidence that nature relatedness is associated with high levels of psychological wellbeing, lower anxiety and greater meaning and purpose in life. Experience in nature tends to lift nature relatedness scores. Practicing mindfulness while walking in nature has additional emotional benefits. Moreover, the combination of nature relatedness, mindfulness and meaningfulness of life promotes pro-environmental behaviours.

Prescott and Logan leave readers in no doubt that they view pro-environmental behaviours to be desirable. I agree with them.

However, I strongly disagree with authors about economics and politics. They argue:

“It’s up to governments, insulated against lobbyists, to help curb the wild west that is fueling the dysbiosphere. Time and time again industry has shown it just can’t stop itself from pushing dysbiotic choices on our children.”

They oppose the view that “an individual can assume responsibility for personal health problems by simply adopting what biomedicine has to offer”. They suggest that view is deficient because it “doesn’t consider that a broken socio-ecological system might be the driving force for the need of biomedicine in the first place”.

When I read such views I have to remind myself that in writing about supporters of socialism Friedrich Hayek insisted “that it is neither selfish interests nor evil intentions but mostly honest convictions and good intentions which determine the intellectual's views”. (Quote from ‘The Intellectuals and Socialism’). It is not necessarily a waste of time to try to correct the errors of well-intentioned people.

Some of the errors made by Prescott and Logan are as follows:

1.       The view that government can be insulated against lobbyists is contrary to everything that is known about government and human nature.

2.       The phrase “pushing dysbiotic choices on our children” refers to advertising and selling products that are only harmful to human health when consumed inappropriately. There is nothing in our legal or economic system that requires parents to buy such products for their children or to allow them to over-indulge. Firms already offer foods for sale that are beneficial to health and will have a greater incentive to do so as consumers become more aware of the health implications of the choices they make on behalf of their children.

3.       The widespread human misery (and environmental catastrophes) caused by socialist economic experiments during the 20^th century should make us wary of claims that the socio-ecological system is broken. In what respects is it broken? What precise interventions are proposed to fix it? And, are we sure, beyond reasonable doubt, that those interventions will produce better overall outcomes?

Susan Prescott and Alan Logan were unwise to include ill-informed rants on economics and politics in this book. It seems to me that those rants detract from their efforts to promote a revolution in attitudes toward the micro-biome and the environment.

In my view this book is nevertheless worth reading because of the substantial body of scientific evidence it provides that many aspects of human health and happiness depend on the microbiome.

So, what is the problem with tolerance?

Anyone who claims to be in favour of individual liberty must view tolerance as a virtue. If you favour a political/legal order in which adult humans are responsible for managing their own lives, you must accept that this requires you to tolerate conduct that you don’t approve of, provided those responsible for that conduct do not interfere with the rights of others. Tolerance is a core value of western civilization. John Locke provided a powerful defence of tolerance in A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) which was written in defence of religious freedom in the aftermath of the English Civil War.

Tolerance is strongly related to the Golden Rule, to treat others as you would wish to be treated. Since all the major world religions subscribe to a version of the Golden Rule, it is not difficult for people from many different cultural heritages to understand the virtue of tolerance. Nevertheless, intolerance is still rife in many societies. For example, it is only too obvious that the injunction in the Islamic version that people should desire for their brothers what they desire for themselves, is not always interpreted to require tolerance of unbelievers.

The problem with tolerance, as Linda Raeder has explained in The Transformation of American Society, is that its meaning has tended to stray from the traditional definition: 

"The traditional definition of tolerance, according to Merriam-Webster, is the “capacity to endure pain or hardship; sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own.” In other words, throughout most of Western history, tolerance has implied “putting up” with something that causes one pain, enduring something that one personally dislikes or of which one personally disapproves. A person does not “tolerate” beliefs or behavior that he enjoys or finds praiseworthy but rather those he finds somehow offensive or repugnant. In the social and political sphere, tolerance thus means permitting other people to think and behave in ways that one personally finds objectionable, distasteful, or even morally wrong."

The definition in the Concise Oxford dictionary (1982 edition) is similar, and includes explicit mention of “forbearance”.

The change in meaning that Linda observes in that in the context of contemporary multiculturalism toleration has come to mean accepting without judgment. She suggests that members of contemporary U.S. society have been taught that meaning by both popular culture and formal education at every level, from kindergarten to post-doctoral training. She goes on to observe:

"One consequence is a disturbingly passive generation that seems incapable of making, certainly reluctant to make, moral judgments of any kind. Young people have been taught that to make such judgments is “intolerant” of other “perspectives.” Self-censorship has become habitual among students shaped by Multicultural education, the mind unfamiliar with conceptual and moral discrimination. To exercise the capacity for critical evaluation - to “judge” - is regarded as wrong, intolerant."

I suspect that debasement of the meaning of tolerance has gone just as far in Australia as in the United States. In his CIS report, No Ordinary Garment? The Burqa and the Pursuit of Tolerance, Peter Kurti suggests that the contemporary exercise of tolerance often “avoids engaging in judgements about relative values” and “amounts to little more than a position of indifference to views and opinions”. He refers to the muting of criticism to the point where all behaviour is considered beyond judgment as ‘reverse zero- tolerance’.  He notes that reverse zero-tolerance admits no discretion as to the moral value of the position in question, including the acceptability of religious or cultural practices such as wearing a burqa.

How should we react to the debasement of the meaning of tolerance? Should we allow the advocates of cultural permissiveness to hijack the term in the way that advocates of collectivism hijacked ‘progressive’?  I am a person who advocates the progress of societies to provide greater opportunities for individual human flourishing, but I would rather not be labelled as a progressive. I wonder whether a time will come when I object to being described as tolerant.

In my view, it is important to preserve the traditional meaning of tolerance in order to be able to distinguish between behaviour that we judge to be unwise, immoral or likely be inimical to the flourishing of the individuals who indulge in it, and behaviour that we cannot tolerate and seek to prevent. There are more appropriate labels to describe the cultural relativists and ethical agnostics who argue that we should refrain from making judgements about the cultural practices and behaviour of other people.

As noted earlier, for anyone who claims to be in favour of individual liberty the dividing line between tolerance and intolerance is set at the point where behaviour infringes the rights of others.

It seems reasonably clear that a woman who wears a burqa is not infringing the rights of others. Unfortunately, I have to admit to being among those who feel uncomfortable when I see women wearing the burqa on the streets of Australia. It is possible that some of the women who wear the burqa do so as an act of religious piety, but I suspect that most are making a political statement to the effect that they are opposed to the cultural norms of this country. It might be their intention to make people like me feel discomforted by their apparel. But no-one has a right to be protected from feeling discomforted by the behaviour of others. Feeling discomforted is a lot different to feeling threatened. We can tolerate the burqa, in the same way we tolerate people with green hair and those who use profanities with the intention of offending us.

Some religious and cultural practices cannot be tolerated because they infringe the rights of other people. The list obviously includes acts of violence, including terrorism, honour killing and violence against children e.g. genital mutilation. It also includes threats of violence.

Of course, Australian legislators have not confined their activities to protection of individual rights. There is a vast amount of government intervention that seeks to influence the way people live their lives. Some of this can be justified on the grounds that it provides people with better opportunities than would otherwise be available to them e.g. public funding of education to help children to acquire useful skills. We should not tolerate children being prevented from accessing such opportunities as a consequence of the cultural traditions of their parents.

The Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, recently announced plans to strengthen the citizenship test to ensure that people granted citizenship share Australian values. Interestingly, a discussion paper that has been released by immigration department to promote public discussion of the issues doesn’t actually mention tolerance. I don’t see that as a problem. It is fairly clear that the main aim of the exercise is to avoid giving citizenship to people who can’t tolerate us -  those who seek to undermine our society.

There is not much that is peculiarly Australian about the “Australian values” listed in the discussion paper. The paper notes:

“Ours is a society founded on a liberal-democratic tradition in which the fundamental rights of every individual are inviolable”.

I can’t quote that without observing that it is aspirational rather than a description of current legislative practice in Australia. The important point is that those aspirations reflect the values of western civilization. Some might feel bemused that when attempts are made to identify Australian values what we end up with is a statement of the values of western civilization. But that is highly appropriate.  That is our cultural heritage!

Even when we attempt to use common Australian colloquialisms to describe our values we end up talking about the values of western civilization. Some people equate the “fair go” ethos with egalitarianism. I suspect many Australians would be suspicious of such terminology, but if you ask them whether giving people a fair go means recognizing that all people have equal rights, they would be likely to agree. That is what egalitarianism actually means, according to my old Concise Oxford as well as the Macquarie dictionary. Most Australians like to think that they take fairly seriously the idea that people deserve to be treated as equals in terms of their fundamental worth. Giving individuals a “fair go” entails, among other things, being tolerant of their conduct provided they don’t interfere with the rights of others.

What reasons do we have to look forward to the future?

In his book, Progress: ten reasons to look forward to the future, Johan Norberg spends a lot of time looking back on progress that has been made. 

In brief, his ten reasons for optimism are:

1. The incidence of famine has declined. Only a few hundred years ago famine was a fairly regular phenomenon, occurring more than twice a century even in countries like France. In recent years the death toll from famine has been only about 2% what it was a century ago, even though the world population has increased fourfold.
2. Sanitation improvements since the “Great Stink” in London in 1858 have helped improve longevity and reduce infant mortality over much of the world. About two-thirds of the world’s population now has access to proper sanitation facilities.
3. Average life expectancy in the world is now 71 years, having risen from 31 years in 1900.
4. Poverty has declined because of economic growth. In the early part of the 19^th century the standard of living of the average world citizen was equivalent to that of the average citizen in the poorest countries today (e.g. Haiti, Liberia and Zimbabwe).
5. Violence has declined. For example, the annual European homicide rate declined from 30 to 40 per 100,000 people in the 14^th century to around 1 per 100,000 in recent years.
6. Although environmental damage tends to increase initially with economic growth it subsequently tends to decrease as people become wealthier. Technological advances seem likely to enable future generations to reduce climate change risks and still enjoy higher living standards.
7. Literacy levels have risen with economic development. The global literacy rate rose from around 21% in 1900 to 86% in 2015.
8. Freedom has increased. Slavery is now banned just about everywhere. Democracy now limits the abuse of government power in many parts of the world. Economic freedom has risen: the global average rose from 5.3 to 6.9 on the Fraser Institute’s ten-point scale between 1980 and 2013.
9. There has been growing recognition of equality of rights, irrespective of ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation.
10. Children are now seen as worthy of being given the best conditions for a long and happy life, rather than as resources for the household economy to exploit.

Many readers of this blog will probably be thinking at this point that they already knew most of that. However, readers of this blog tend to be exceptionally well informed. In the epilogue of his book Johan Norberg provides evidence that in the broader population most people consistently underestimate the progress that has been made. For example, in the U.S. apparently 66% of the population think that world poverty has almost doubled in the last 20 years, and only about 5% are aware that it has almost halved over that period.

This book provides a vast amount of useful ammunition for those of us trying to get the message across that “the good old days” were not so great.

However, I doubt whether the ten reasons provided will actually encourage many pessimists to look forward to the future. It is too easy to acknowledge the progress that has been made and yet to hold to pessimistic views of the future. The author acknowledges that being worried about the future may be in our genes:

“The hunters and gatherers who survived sudden storms and predators were the ones who had a tendency to scan the horizon for new threats rather than those who were relaxed and satisfied”.

The author also acknowledges threats to progress such as large scale war, more extensive terrorism with advanced technology, climate change and more large scale financial crises. He is most concerned that “people led by fear might curtail the freedom and the openness that progress depends upon”.

On a more optimistic note, he observes that in our era of globalization many countries now have access to the sum of humanity’s knowledge and are open to the best innovations from other places. “In such a world, progress no longer depends on the whim of one emperor”.

Johan Norberg’s message is not one of complacency. He claims that the book was written as a warning not to take progress for granted and that is the message of his final sentence:

“If progress is to continue, you and I will have to carry the torch”.

That means, in my view, that we will need to encourage people to contemplate optimistic visions of how the future might evolve.

What is the "bourgeois deal" and why should you care?

The ‘bourgeois deal’ is a term used frequently by Deirdre McCloskey in Bourgeois Equality, the third book of her trilogy which aims to show that it is ethical and rhetorical change that has enabled most humans today to be much better off than their forebears. The bourgeois deal refers to societal acceptance of innovations that compete with and displace old ways of doing things in exchange for widespread improvements in living standards.

Big deal? This has been a huge deal. Deirdre argues persuasively that trade-tested betterment associated with the bourgeois deal was responsible for the massive improvement in living standards enjoyed by vast numbers of people that began over 200 years ago and has now spread to most parts of the world (as shown in the accompanying chart prepared by Max Rosser using Angus Maddison’s data).

There are two aspects to the rhetorical-ethical revaluation discussed in Bourgeois Equality:

• A change in prevailing attitudes gave greater respect to people engaged in commercial activities.
• The development of rhetorically open societies – involving freedom of conscience and greater freedom of speech – propelled the French and Scottish Enlightenments, science, experimentation and invention, journalism, the spread of technical knowledge, and the economic and political dignity of ordinary people.

In emphasizing the importance of trade-tested betterment to economic growth, Deirdre McCloskey’s views are consistent with the mainstream view of economists, who, for the last half century at least, have acknowledged the important role of technological progress (and technological catch-up) in the economic growth process. Anyone who persists in espousing alternative explanations such as imperialism, or capital accumulation by itself, might benefit from reading Deirdre’s demolition of such theories.

The author seeks to differentiate her views from those of neo-institutionalists, such as Douglass North, who have sought to explain economic growth as stemming from institutional change i.e. changes in economic incentives associated with changes in the rules of the game in society (social norms as well as constitutions, laws and regulations). She succeeds in dismissing some factors, including property rights, previously emphasized by the neo-institutionalists. Property rights were reasonably secure in England for centuries prior to the industrial revolution. 

Nevertheless, institutional change was necessary to enable intellectual innovation to be protected from the violent responses that had previously been meted out to heretics and innovators who were perceived to constitute a threat to long-established patterns of production, distribution and exchange.

Some components of relevant rhetorical and ethical changes do not fit under the heading institutional change. For example, changes in perceptions of personal identity that enabled some individuals to take on entrepreneurial roles seem to have been closely related to rhetorical change, but probably had little to do with changes in rules or incentives. Similarly, changes in the rules can have an independent economic impact that does not fit easily under the heading of rhetorical and ethical change. For example, political leaders sometimes get ahead of public opinion e.g. in promoting free trade or privatisation of government owned enterprises.

Perhaps we should be lumping rhetorical, ethical and institutional change together. The author cites an example which seems to involve all three elements. The reduced willingness of courts in England to support the restrictiveness of the craft guilds, from the early 17^th century onwards, has been described by Eric Jones as attributable to “the national shift in elite opinion, which the courts partly shared”. In many instances, however, relevant rhetoric has been directed specifically toward changing the rules of the game. Adam Smith’s influential discussion of the appropriate role of government in Wealth of Nations comes to mind.

Hopefully, some of you - those who are still reading - will be wondering why the bourgeois deal is relevant to you. (I wonder whether any of those who stopped reading before this point will read the 650 pages of text in Bourgeois Equality. It seems to be a big ask to get anyone to read even 600 words these days.)

We should all care about the bourgeois deal because we are confronted with choices among a menu of different deals. Deirdre points out that, after 1848, the Bourgeois deal was challenged by the utopian Bolshevik deal and the Bismarckian (or Beveridge) deal.

The Bolshevik deal promised that all the problems associated with nasty concentrations of power in property owned by the bourgeoisie would be resolved by government ownership of the means of production and that the nature of man would change with the arrival of socialism. That deal was taken off the menu in 1989 (everywhere except North Korea) after it became too obvious that it was an extraordinarily bad deal for everyone except Communist party officials.

The Bismarckian deal stemmed from Bismarck’s scheme to steal the thunder from his socialist enemies by introducing a welfare state. Deirdre describes it thus:

“The deal is that the welfare state will substitute for your own and your family’s voluntary provision for old age or unemployment or medical care, and you will come to view the present state as your noble and benevolent lord” (p 604).

The Bismarckian deal lives on, coexisting uneasily with the Bourgeois deal because the high taxes required to support it act as a disincentive to trade-tested betterment. That is my judgement; I imagine Deirdre would agree, but I can’t see where at the moment. Like all good libertarians (the bleeding heart variety) she supports the provision of a welfare safety net directed specifically toward assisting those in need.

In my view we are now confronted with a third deal, which could be described as the doomsday deal, or if you want to personalise it, the Paul Ehrlich deal (after the biologist Paul Ehrlich who, like many other sect leaders who prophesy imminent doom, seems to have managed to maintain the loyalty of many of his followers even though the doom he predicted did not happen). Deidre describes such prophesies as the “eighth pessimism of our times”, rather than a deal. I see the doomsday deal as offering us the hope of being saved from an imaginary environmental doom if only we are prepared to forgo further economic betterment. Those who accept the doomsday deal deny that the bourgeois deal can be compatible with sensible measures to avert environmental disasters.

We should care about the bourgeois deal because it is constantly under threat. As Deidre McCloskey puts it in the table of contents for her book:

“Rhetoric made us, but can readily unmake us”.


Postscript:

Deirdre McCloskey has provided the following comment:

What an intelligent and penetrating discussion!  You clarify for me what I dislike most about neo-institutionalism, namely, that is always, every time, about incentives.  Humans respond to incentives.  I admit it (I am after all an economist).  But other matters than cost and benefit move people, too.  The Anzac men going over the top at Gallipoli cannot be summarized as responding to incentives alone.

I like your supplement to the Bismarckian Deal--Beveridgean!  

How long will the "Clash of Civilizations" last?

My main reason for re-visiting Samuel Huntington’s article, “The Clash of Civilizations?” published in 1993, was to see how Huntington’s thesis is faring these days, in the light of the increasing threat of Islamic terrorism and the rise of Islamic state.

Is such violence attributable to an ongoing clash of values that will always make followers of Islam hostile to Western culture, or is a temporary phenomenon that is likely to gradually diminish as economic opportunities expand in Islamic countries?

In his Foreign Affairs, Huntington “set forth the hypotheses that”:

• “differences  between civilizations are real and important”;
• “civilization-consciousness is increasing”;
• “conflict between civilizations will supplant ideological and other forms of conflict as the dominant global form of conflict”;
• “international relations … will increasingly … become a game in which non-Western civilizations are actors and not simply objects”;
• “successful political, security and economic international institutions are more likely to develop within civilizations than across civilizations”;
• “conflicts between groups in different civilizations will become more frequent, more sustained, and more violent than conflicts between groups in the same civilization”;
• “violent conflicts between groups in different civilizations are the most likely and most dangerous source of escalation that could lead to global wars;
• “the paramount axis of world politics will be the relations between ‘the West and the Rest’;
• “the elites in some torn non-Western countries will try to make their countries part of the West, but in most cases face major obstacles to accomplishing this; and
• “a central focus of conflict for the immediate future will be between the West and several Islamic-Confucian states”.

As far as I can remember I was not particularly impressed by Huntington’s thesis at the time it was published. I am still not over-impressed. His labelling of cultures as “civilizations” seems to exaggerate the differences between cultures. I disagree with his view that the “notion that there could be a ‘universal civilization’ is a Western idea, directly at odds with the particularism of most Asian societies”. As I have explained on this blog, it seems to me that there would be widespread agreement among people from different cultural backgrounds about the characteristics of a good society.

However, I have to admit that many of Huntington’s hypotheses look as though they are standing up fairly well in terms of the experience of the last couple of decades. He was spot-on target in pointing out that Western intervention in particular Islamic countries, such as Iraq, would unite other Islamic countries in opposition to the West, even though he did under-estimate the importance of conflict between nations/groups within broad cultural groupings. It is now obvious that he was correct in claiming: “The Velvet Curtain of culture has replaced the Iron Curtain of ideology as the most significant dividing line in Europe”.

Huntington’s also made some accurate predictions about developments in Russia. His prediction that conditions did not exist for Russia to join the West was accurate. The people in Russia were divided on the issue and the West was wary of embracing Russia. Similarly, he was correct in predicting that relations between Russia and the West “could again become distant and conflictual”, if Russians rejected liberal democracy and began behaving like authoritarian traditionalists.

Huntington was wrong in his prediction that the cultural similarities between Russia and Ukraine would enable those countries to avoid violent conflict over territory, but that error could be attributed to a faulty application of his theory.  His discussion of how Russia was torn between the West and traditional Russian cultural influences can also be applied to Ukraine. The difference is that favourable conditions exist for Ukraine to join the West, even though it is being badly torn in the process.

The main problem I have with Huntington’s thesis is that it pays too little attention to the processes of social change. It seems to imply that countries like Turkey will always be torn between Western influences and traditional cultural influences. It largely overlooks the cultural changes (discussed here) that have occurred in the West, and increasingly in other parts of the world, as economic development has led to the growth of emancipative values such as those supporting freedom of speech.

Most people in the West seem to be able to manage to support emancipative values these days, despite the fact that only a few generations ago many of their religious leaders were violently opposed to such values. It seems reasonable to expect that a similar transition toward adoption of emancipative values will occur in Islamic countries during this century. It is difficult to predict exactly how this might happen, except that it is unlikely to be assisted by Western intervention. 

Do people with strong emancipative values give lower priority to economic growth?

This question is worth considering because previous posts in this series (links here) have discussed how economic development has been associated with the strengthening of emancipative values and more widespread opportunities. This means that the ongoing generation of more widespread opportunities for individual human flourishing depends on a substantial proportion of the population maintaining a fairly positive attitude towards economic growth.

The measure of priority given to economic growth that I have been using comes from World Values Surveys (WVS) which asks people to choose from four options what they consider to be the most important aim for the country they live in over the next ten years.  The options are: a high level of economic growth; strong defence forces; people have more say about how things are done at their jobs and in their communities; and trying to make our cities and countryside more beautiful. I have used the percentage for whom economic growth is first choice as an indicator of priority given to economic growth.

The perception that non-economists have of economic growth may be a much more defensible concept than growth in per capita GDP as conventionally measured. I don’t have concrete evidence, but I suspect that when non-economists favour economic growth what they have in mind is expansion of economic opportunity, rather than a particular income concept.

Before looking at the evidence I thought that people who have strong emancipative values would tend to give relatively low priority to economic growth because “people have more say” is one of the items which Christian Welzel used in constructing his emancipative values index for his book, Freedom Rising. By definition, people who give highest priority to 'more say', give lower priority to economic growth.

My main focus is on the extent to which the priority given to economic growth by people who hold emancipative values differs from that of the population as a whole in wealthy countries. Except where indicated, I have selected indicators from the latest WVS round which correspond to components of Welzel’s index. Countries included in the analysis are those with relatively high incomes for which data is available in the latest round of surveys i.e. 2010-14. (New Zealand is excluded from the analysis because of a high non-response rate on the question relating to priority given to economic growth.)

As a preliminary exercise, Chart 1 compares the overall average priority given to economic growth in each country with that given by members of different demographic groups. There does not seem to be any consistent pattern of difference between various groups within countries, except perhaps a tendency for young people to give lower priority to economic growth.

Chart 2 compares the overall average with priority given to economic growth by people with different views on desirable attributes for children to learn at home. Independence and imagination reflect positive emancipative values, whereas obedience is considered as negative. Perhaps those who see imagination as a desirable quality may be slightly less enthusiastic about economic growth, but otherwise there does not appear to be a consistent pattern.

Chart 3 compares the overall average with those of groups expressing strong views on whether divorce, abortion and homosexuality are justifiable. Again, there does not seem to be any consistent pattern.

Chart 4 compares the overall average with the priority given to economic growth of people favouring gender equality. The chart shows some interesting facts e.g. people in Australia who strongly disagree that men make better political leaders than women are much less likely to view economic growth as having high priority than are other people in Australia. However, no consistent pattern of difference between the different groups in different countries is obvious.

Chart 5 compares the overall average with the priority given to economic growth of people who see protecting freedom of speech and giving people more say in government decisions as particularly important. In this instance a fairly clear pattern is evident – a lower percentage of those holding emancipative views give high priority to economic growth.

This chart also shows the growth priority of those who consider protecting the environment should be given priority, even if it causes slower economic growth and some loss of jobs. This item is not a component of Welzel’s emancipative values index, but it also worth considering the priorities of those who see environmental protection as having high priority. As would be expected given the wording of the question those who consider protecting the environment should have high priority are less likely to give high priority to economic growth. However, the difference is not as large as I thought it might be.

The general conclusion that I draw from this exercise is that there is not a consistent tendency for people with strong emancipative values to give lower priority to economic growth than is given by other members of the populations of wealthy countries. People who attach great importance to having “more say” seem to be less inclined than the rest of the community to see economic growth as having high priority, but that observation does not apply consistently to people who attach importance to individual autonomy, respect choices that individuals make in their personal lives and favour gender equality. As a general rule, the differences in economic growth priorities of people in different countries are more marked than the differences between different groups within countries.

Is the history of freedom of speech relevant to the current debate in Australia?

Free speech is certainly in the news in Australia. Early in the week we had the reaction to Tim Mathieson's suggestion that the best way to have your prostrate digitally examined would be to 'perhaps look for a small, Asian, female doctor'. I thought George Brandis, shadow attorney-general, struck the right note when he responded:

'I don't think we want to have in this country a culture of finger-wagging and confected outrage every time someone says something that might be better left unsaid'.

A day or so later, Nicola Roxon, the attorney-general (A-G), backed away from the 'offensive behaviour' provisions of her draft anti-discrimination bill, saying that the main purpose of the bill was to simplify and consolidate discrimination laws and that it 'has never been the government's intention to restrict free speech'. That seems to imply that inclusion of the offensive behaviour provision was due to the Minister's incompetence. I suspect, however, that the A-G knew exactly what she was doing and that she still intends to reinforce the restrictions on free speech in existing discrimination laws.

In an opinion piece in 'The Australian' on Jan. 10, the A-G suggested: 'telling a female staff member "shorter skirts would be better for all girls in the office" might well breach discrimination laws'. I am prepared to accept her word for that, but the example seems to me to raise questions about the desirability of discrimination laws that restrict speech to that extent.

Should anti-discrimination law be applied whenever men refer to their adult female work colleagues as girls (or women refer to their male work colleagues as boys, or even 'old boys') and make mildly sexist remarks about their clothing. I imagine that most males who might use words such as those quoted by the A-G would be intending to engage in good-humoured banter with female colleagues - whom they consider as equals, in the sense of being capable of 'giving as good as they get'. (Foreign readers should understand that friendly exchanges of mildly offensive remarks are a characteristic of Australian culture.) Of course, those who make sexist comments, even in jest, run the risk that work colleagues will consider their behaviour unacceptable and ask for an apology.

That is my point. In modern Australia, when people working in offices find themselves subjected to objectionable speech, they do not need to threaten legal action to ensure that perpetrators suffer humiliating consequences. The A-G apparently thinks threats of legal action are the most appropriate response to bad manners.

In the same article, the A-G suggested her aim is to 'get a tricky balance right' by ensuring that freedoms are subject to 'appropriate limits that provide protection in certain circumstances'. She gives the impression that she accepts free speech as the rule, with restrictions only to be imposed in certain circumstances. Yet, her proposed bill reverses the normal burden of proof. Those accused of discrimination bear the onus of proving that their speech has not been for alleged purposes that are contrary to the discrimination legislation.
 

Politicians might be less keen to use the coercive powers of the state to enforce their notions of political correctness if they read In Defence of Freedom of Speech, by Chris Berg. The main point to emerge from the book is that freedom of speech is at one with freedom of thought. When governments restrict freedom of speech they interfere with the rights of individuals to express themselves. The heroes of Berg's story, Benedict Spinoza and Benjamin Constant, did not confine themselves to support for politically correct speech.

Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) argued that the presumption should be on protecting freedom of expression rather than limiting it, even though espousal of some doctrines could have negative consequences for society. He blended two arguments for freedom of expression: the natural rights argument that the state cannot control thoughts; and the pragmatic argument that attempts to do so creates more problems than it solves. In relation to the latter point he noted that states which limit freedom find their regulations abused by interest groups seeking to benefit at the expense of others.

Benjamin Constant (1767-1830) also admitted the possibility that free speech 'may corrupt manners or shake the principles of morality', but he argued that people 'should be taught to preserve themselves from these dangers by their own efforts and reason'. Constant suggests that governments that try to enforce uniform belief encourage hypocrisy and resistance:

'To prop up an opinion with threats invites the courageous to contest it'.

Berg acknowledges the contribution to development of free speech by a range of other people. He points out, however, that many of those who have been widely quoted as supporters of free speech were only prepared to advocate freedom of speech under certain circumstances or for certain groups of people.

My only qualification about this book is that I would like to have seen greater recognition of defamation as a legitimate reason for restriction of freedom of speech. At one point, Berg suggests:

'The analogy between property and reputation is widely used but deeply incoherent'.

I disagree. Damage to the reputation of a person or business is equivalent to loss of property. This is most obvious when damage to the reputation of a public company results in a decline in its share price. In many other instances there is a loss of future earnings and/or additional costs incurred that have an assessable monetary value. It seems to me that the relevant issue in relation to defamation is whether individuals or firms have a right to expect the state to defend their reputations. Those who have unwarranted reputations for good conduct, should not have those reputations defended by the state.  

Overall, however, this book seems to me to provide an excellent account of the evolution of free speech in western civilization. 

Postscript:

Soon after this post was written, Nicola Roxon resigned from the position of Attorney-General. We will have to wait and see what that means for the future of free speech in Australia. As James Patterson has noted, the new Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus is on the record as saying that he considers 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act - the section apparently contravened by Andrew Bolt - is a good law.

I haven't studied the Bolt case, but the judgement does seem to have muffled public discussion of the question of how aboriginality should be defined for public policy purposes. I suspect that potential commentators are now concerned that if they openly express their genuine beliefs on such matters of public interest, they might be required to prove that their remarks constitute fair comment.

Does the value of free speech depend solely on its contribution to democracy?

Several rationales for free speech were discussed in the Finkelstein report on media regulation, which was released in March last year. Incidentally, the report states that it 'must be attributed' as the 'Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Media and Media Regulation'.

Since the report discusses rationales for free speech in a chapter headed 'The democratic indispensability of a free press', it is obvious from the table of contents that Ray Finkelstein sees the rationale for free speech mainly in terms of its contribution to democracy.

I agree that free speech is the life blood of democracy but, as discussed in Free to Flourish, my prior conviction is that the rationale for freedom and democracy rests on their contribution to human flourishing. As I see it, a balanced account of the contribution of free speech to human flourishing would recognize that free speech – freedom of expression - expands the opportunities available to individuals in ways that are not necessarily associated with democratic institutions. It would note that democracy emerged as an outcome of a process intended to protect the rights of citizens (including their right to free speech). It would also acknowledge that the merits of democracy still depend on the potential of democratic processes to defend free speech and the other freedoms that provide the basis for human flourishing.

Defenders of Finkelstein could suggest that 'self-fulfilment and autonomy' and libertarian rationales for free speech are discussed in his report. However, the discussion of self-fulfilment focuses on the views of Katherine Gelber – a follower of Martha Nussbaum– who seems only prepared to defend speech 'that is constitutive of the formation and planning of one's life in ways commensurate with one's informed conception of the good'. Elitist nonsense! Who is to decide what constitutes 'an informed conception of the good'? Are adults who do not have 'an informed conception of the good' to be denied the right to speak their minds?  

Finkelstein's discussion of libertarian theories of the press is under the heading, 'Social responsibility: a theory of the press', so it is not surprising that libertarianism is given short shrift. From what I had previously read about the report, I was expecting that the idea of a free press would be assaulted on the grounds of monopoly, potential abuse or power etc. yawn, yawn. But, after going through all that, Finkelstein asserts that libertarian theory did not provide a workable solution to the challenge provided by broadcasting and that governments 'found it necessary to intervene …'. He adds: 'This amounted to a rejection of libertarian theory'.

Gulp!  So, why doesn't Finkelstein tell us what he thinks, rather than pretending that there was no workable solution other than regulating to control the activities of broadcasters? The workable market solution, as Ray and just about everyone must know, is allocation of the broadcast spectrum, like other scarce resources, to the highest bidder. Does the author have good reasons to believe that would not enable scarce resources go to their highest value use? If the Honourable Ray Finkelstein, QC, former judge of the Federal Court and former president of the Australian Competition Tribunal, thinks that the way government currently allocates the broadcast spectrum is better than the market solution, why doesn't he make the case?

Finkelstein's discussion of the 'search for truth' as a rationale for free speech raises discussion of the 'marketplace of ideas'. He seems somewhat pessimistic about the ability of people to discover truth, but nevertheless remains optimistic about the benefits of democratic discourse – subject to government regulation to ensure social responsibility. He ends up seeing a need to obtain a balance between demands that the media be accountable for exercise of its power and the need for the media to be free to hold governments to account.

I found that discussion to be peculiar. Once the concept of a market for ideas was introduced, it would be logical to expect some exploration of the nature of this market. There is mention of monopoly and competition in the rejection of libertarianism, but no discussion of contestability. Elsewhere in the report, the idea of the conventional media being increasingly exposed to competition from on-line sources is mentioned, as is public scepticism about the veracity of media reports, but the discussion of the rationale for free speech proceeds as though every media outlet has exclusive access to the minds of its customers.

Contestability seems to me to be at the crux of the issue of whether media proprietors and editors have power to exert undue influence on public opinion. The report provides some evidence of media outlets presenting false or misleading reports, but doesn't provide any evidence that these have gone uncorrected elsewhere in the media.

Overall, in my view, the Finkelstein report on media regulation provides an unbalanced account of the rationale for free speech. This part of the report seems to me to display an amazingly brazen degree of bias from an author who favours greater regulation to ensure balance in private media reporting. Some readers might be thinking that comment just reflects the fact that different people have different views of what reporting and analysis is balanced and unbalanced. That is a valid point to make whenever issues of balance arise. In this instance, however, I doubt whether many people who have some knowledge of the topic would view this report as providing a balanced account of the rationale for free speech.

In my last post, I promised to review In Defence of Freedom of Speech, by Chris Berg. Unfortunately, that will have to wait. I thought it would be a good idea to take a quick look at the Finkelstein report before writing my review – and got myself side-tracked!