Useless Arguments

I have long had a hypothesis that there are two steps involved in a person's reaching a policy position. The first step involves the broad, fundamental goal, value, or priority involved. The second involves translating that goal, value, or priority into a specific, discrete policy. I came up with this framework during arguments with a conservative friend of mine in which, again and again, our arguments collapsed onto the same basic disagreement, namely whether or not it was good to tax the rich to provide services for societal gain. I said yes, he said no, neither of us ever convinced the other, so every time that question needed to be settled before you could decide something, we would disagree.

The lesson I took from these debates is that, while it is definitely fruitful to argue with people you share fundamentals with about specific policies, and while it can often be fruitful to argue with people about fundamentals when you disagree over them, it is essentially pointless to try to argue policy specifics with someone you do not share the relevant fundamental goals, values, or priorities with. You cannot come up with an agreement except by sheer dumb luck, if there happens to be a policy that satisfies both of your goals. Now, when such a policy exists, you're in luck, but there is no particular reason it should exist.

This relates, I think, to Obama's reaction to the midterm elections as a referendum on policy. (See this article by Jonathan Chait, which gave me this idea.) Obama likes to say that no party has a monopoly on wisdom, and he wants to hear good ideas wherever they come from. I think his point there is that he's willing to cooperate with Republicans, within the framework of his own fundamental goals, values, and priorities. But he isn't going to abandon his own fundamentals. He is not going to accept policies that promote Republican fundamentals but are antithetical to Democratic/progressive/center-left/Obama fundamentals. Yet another reason why that press conference was awesome, and made me feel much better about short-term future prospects.

O-BA-MA!