Civility, Values, and Respect

Andrew Sullivan quotes someone who says that liberal hubris consists in thinking (our)selves smarter than everyone else, and conservative hubris consists in thinking (them)selves more moral/noble/patriotic than others, and that these hubrises both entail a delegitimizing of the other's opinions. I wish to disagree. I don't find either compelling, as I tend not to find things like this which suggest that "both sides have a problem." I don't think it's exactly about thinking that "liberals are smarter" or "conservatives are more patriotic" (at least, I know I disagree about liberals, and tonight at least I'm willing to extend conservatives the benefit of this doubt). Here's what I think it is: we disagree. Fundamentally. On the liberal side, we see Republicans advocating positions which are based on flagrantly false "facts" or just plain bad logic. I personally don't believe in "intelligence" as a fixed, inherent quality of a person, but the act of arguing for a bullshit, flagrantly wrong idea, a probably, objectively wrong idea, is an act of stupidity. Obviously, I do not think that I often commit that specific act, since if I thought something was wrong I wouldn't advocate for it. And I tend to think this act occurs more on the right than on the left; that's a large part of why I disagree with people on the right. I don't think that amounts to a hubristic assumption that liberals are more intelligent than conservatives. Likewise, I think most conservatives simply think that criticizing the military in any way/shape/form is unpatriotic, and they see more liberals doing that than conservatives. I don't think it's a hubristic assumption that conservatives are inherently more patriotic. Now, I think both of these are probably the general rule, and I imagine that some members of both sides do fall into the "hubris" that Sullivan mentions, though I don't think it's a major deal.

But as to this idea that these hubrises lead us to treating the other as illegitimate, and therefore "not worth talking to, respecting, listening to, understanding, or even debating reasonably. Certainly not worthy of compromising with to solve the huge problems facing our nation." As I see it, there are three kinds of political debate that are potentially productive, in descending order of theoretical likelihood of productivity: 1) discussions about policy specifics among those who share relevant fundamental values; 2) debates about fundamental values among those who do not share relevant fundamental values; 3) discussions between those who disagree as to fundamental values to attempt to find, by what I believe to be dumb luck, policies that happen to satisfy both/all sides' goals. But I should stress that I believe that Type III discussions are only possible at the margins, and occasionally, by dumb luck. Usually, I think, if two people who don't share relevant fundamental values try to discuss policy specifics, they end up shouting at each other and getting nowhere. They should debate the fundamental values themselves, but I also think it's a rare occasion when you convince someone to change their fundamental values. And so if I think that, say, Sarah Palin is someone whose ideas as to policy I have no interest in, it isn't because I think she's illegitimate, or that her opinion is worthless or whatever. It's because I disagree with her, passionately, intensely, fundamentally. Given how much I do not share her fundamental values, at least within the broad scope of things people in America ever disagree about, it would be essentially impossible for her views on policy to be of any value to me. Her arguments are not in the same logical framework as mine; she and I define good and bad differently in the field of public policy, so why on earth would I think that her opinions as to the merits of Policy X ought have any weight at all in my worldview? Again, debating worldviews is fine, though in my opinion unlikely to often yield results, but trying to have a policy debate when you're not really speaking the same values language is just pointless.

See this post for more on that argument.