September 28, 2005
Enabling The Politicians
How did it get this bad with the Bush Administration? The simple answer to this can be found in what many Republican voters have been doing, or moreover, failing to do.
It’s not so simple as a failure to hold people accountable, though that’s part of it. Some Democrats, Liberals, and independents resort to demonizing Republican voters, but that misses an important and much more universal point.
This society has a bad habit of abstracting purpose-driven behavior to the point of absurdity. Perfectly reasonable motivations become objects of unreasonable worship, idols of ideology, if you will. The notion that's missed is this complex world, is that few ideas are really that healthy when taken so far.
We didn't evolve these marvellous brains to get stuck in a rut like that, but to respond and adapt to our situation. What makes this tricky is that our brains are also evolved to allow a certain level of perseverance, and belief in unseen order, and that often times this is an utterly necessary thing to do.
The brain, one could say, is like a car. It can be functioning perfectly, even as it takes it's owner over the nearest cliff. The Republican party has functioned fairly well as a political organization for the last twenty or thirty years. Unfortunately, it's driving personalities have been heading for the cliff for the last generation.
You see, they cut the brake lines. They discouraged independent inquiry, encouraged a cloistered kind of groupthink, and encouraged their constituents to think that any trouble on the part of their leaders constituted a liberal political play to be resisted by Republican voters.
What happens when charges are true, like those related to recent events?
I think most Republicans have already been primed to disbelieve the truth of the charges. Most don't set out to deny the truth. Even those who do, often weigh their party's fortunes in the equation, convinced by years of propaganda that America's fate and that of the GOP are one and the same: with it's rise and fall, so go the fortunes of The United States.
This all came to a head with Bush 43's election. Here was a president who had no problem with alienating everybody outside the GOP and its natural constituency. He had no problem with resurrecting the monsters of McCarthyism to unleash on Democrats, no problem with running his policies strictly according to the political whims of consultants and special interests, no problem with using the Right-Wing Media Machine to keep America on message.
What he was not prepared to do was get down to business. There's a reason this guy takes long vacations, even when Category 5 storms are set to barrel down on the Gulf Coast. There's a reason it took Bush several minutes to get up and acknowledge what he had been told by his Chief of Staff. There's a reason that Bush doesn't say "I'll get right to it." and does what needs to be done.
That reason is plain: his idea of leadership is itself an abstract sense of vision and expectation, a deterministic view of the world that does not allow for the notion that one could do what's supposed to be the right thing, or just not obviously wrong, and still end up being wrong and needing to correct one's mistakes. If you do the right thing, know what's right, are guided by what's right (or at least realistic in his view), then things should turn out well.
In short, Bush does not plan with Murphy's law in mind. If I were to venture forth an idea of what kept him dazed in a world of his own those seven minutes after Andy Card told him what had happened, one possibility might be that he was trying to reconcile a national security policy he was told was best for America with results that explicitly demonstrated that policy's failure. How could this happen? I think that's been Bush's question every time something bad happens, and he hasn't learned to deal with it by working the problem. Like many CEOs, he doesn't see himself as integrated with his company, but above it, his purpose being to inspire other people to solve the organization's problems for him. Unfortunately, real world decisions, especially those that are rich in conflicts and problems, require a leader whose knowledge of the world is great enough to where his advisers are there to provide choices, not merely a recommended course of action that may go wrong in part or in whole.
His problem echoes the problems of the Republican party as a whole, and from there the rest of society as whole. Purpose taken to excess. The capability to do what one wants and what feels right worshipped and unquestioned, considered apart from any integrated look at the results, or any forethought of possible means and problems. That and submission from those whose best interest is to question.
I would submit that the central cause of our neglectful supervision of our politicians is this: the complexity of our society has outstripped our understanding of the world it exists in. Because of that, delegation or simplification is understandably welcomed. The simplistic notions of the world that once served us well, though, are now deeply problematic. We need to rework the way we learn and the way we understand. What was once obscure knowledge about the way the world works must now be common understanding. What we once judged ourselves too stupid or unsophisticated to understand, we must now grasp with all the intelligence that our gifts allow.
Confronted by a confusing, changing world, our first response has been nostalgia, the wish to return to the securely understood past. When we do that, though, we commit ourselves to a system of thought out of sync with the world as it now is. We can no longer idolize the past, idolize the images and illusions of things no longer meant to be. We must figure out what to do now, how to deal with the problems that threaten our peace and freedom now. We cannot wait for ideals to resurrect themselves, nor our ideologies to be made flesh.
We cannot continue to make ourselves slaves to dead systems of logic. The price of our freedom is that we not continue to support and enable leaders to simply do as they please, but hold them accountable. We must make the price of our continued support greater than applause lines, party loyalty and ideological correctness. We must make practical men and women of our elected officials, at least as far as having them match practical benefits to their political dreams. To do that, we have to stop underestimating ourselves, and underestimating what we deserve in terms of leadership.
The premises of this article, Stephen, closely parallel my own for many years now. Complexity of modern times has overwhelmed the ability of any one specialist in one area of knowledge to assimilate and respond appropriately to.
I have written articles on this very subject about the specialization dilemma causing so many of our problems today. Concepts I received in part from a great professor at UTSA back in the 1970’s named Nikhil Bhattacharya.
Inspiration is Bush’s specialty. But that is wholly insufficient to address the complex problems facing our nation. What is required is true cross-specialization concensus amongst leaders in their respective fields to address a great number of the problems facing us. President Bush does not understand this. That is obvious by his appointments to heads of agencies not on the basis of experience, education, and demonstrated knowledge of the problems facing those agencies, but based on loyalty to him and his party.
We have reached that point politically where appointment is sufficient to justify one’s abilities to decide and solve. That is until one’s decisions and answers are tested and found woefully wanting. Then one is left to spin one’s performance or resign or be fired. There has been entirely too much of this, which is why so many problems are becoming intractable.
Alan Greenspan, whether you love him or hate him, was precisely the right kind of person to head the Federal Reserve. He came to the Fed with a clear understanding of the Fed’s purpose, prevent inflation. And he came to the agency with a rich, education, experience, and cutting edge knowledge of the dynamics and consequences of inflation. And most important, he was a leader who consulted with experts in their fields of specialization in economics, government, monetary affairs, sociology and psychology, in making his decisions and proferring his solutions. These were the traits and assets which assured his overall success in his position of responsibility.
Elections based on popularity, name recognition, or ideology are woefully inadequate in selecting decision-makers and problem solvers with the capacity to effect pragmatic solutions to complex problems. Political parties are in reality the structural mechanism in American politics to screen and select candidates capable of position which they campaign for. But, political parties have a whole other two pronged agenda these days. Power and advancement of ideology as you indicated.
That is why I truly believe that the only course for putting America back on track is an anti-incumbency grass roots movement amongst voters. This, and only this, will force political parties back to selecting candidates who are first and foremost, capable of the decisions and problem solving the office to which they are nominated for, requires. Failure by political parties in the peformance of that task, will move voters against that party. Therein lies the motivation that would force political parties to select qualified candidates in the first place.
How did you guys both post at the same time?
Posted by: George at September 28, 2005 10:22 PMIt’s interesting that the left never finds itself ‘discouraging independent inquiry’, or ‘encouraging a cloistered kind of groupthink’, or blaming Republicans and Bush for everything that goes wrong.
Why is that I wonder?
Posted by: esimonson at September 28, 2005 10:44 PMI find it interesting that Eric Simonson would rather attack the “Left” rather than deny or debate the merits of the case. Does the Republicans suffer from groupthink and stifle inquiry? Oh no… the problem is with the Left!!! Its the Left’s fault!!! No problem in the GOP, no sir!!!
Posted by: Aldous at September 28, 2005 11:10 PMEsimonson, don’t you understand?
What the left says is by definition “true.” If someone fails to accept these “truths” (as they are issued daily by Democratic press releases, by Michael Moore, Dan Rather and the Daily KOS) they are deluding themselves. Deep down they know it, are ashamed of themselves and secretly wish to be subjected to reeducation at the hands of their philosophic betters.
When Stephen so sagely points out that “the complexity of our society has outstripped our understanding of the world it exists in” what he really means is “the complexity of our society has outstripped YOUR understanding of the world it exists in, but MY understanding is perfectly intact, unclouded by partisan aims, and you should bow down MY version of reality for your own good.”
It’s pure sophistry couched in amateur psychology. It’s partisan spin dressed up in tattered philosophical garb.
To Stephen: Physician, heal thyself.
Posted by: sanger at September 28, 2005 11:31 PMStephen, you’ve certainly got them on the defensive with this one. Good job!
Posted by: David R. Remer at September 29, 2005 12:14 AMSanger-
Look, we all feel compelled to express our point of view, and bit perplexed when people don’t agree with us. We have our preferred sources, and a degree of loyalty to them.
Honestly, we Democrats are no better at this, innately speaking than Republicans. Same human species, same human problems. It’s a matter of degrees, though.
You? You put words in my mouth, and conveniently, they’re the ones you want to hear, the ones that confirm your view of who we are.
This is projection garbed in reverse-engineered rhetoric. Fact of the matter is, Daily Kos is a rare visit for me. I prefer stuff that is more fact than feeling. In fact, my typical M.O. is to follow their links to the article they’re linking to and read that. Then I decide what’s substantive enough to post. Dan Rather? I never heard or read him give many political opinions, and I never cared to ask him. Michael Moore is a talented propagandist, but I often know about things before he puts them in his movies, rather than after.
But of course, that would mean that you didn’t have me peg. Oh horrors. Ain’t that a kick in the seat.
We’re all vulnerable. Do we deal with it, or deny it? Do we allow for our human natures, or fight it fruitelessly?
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at September 29, 2005 12:23 AMWho is on the defensive, David?
Stephen has constructed an argument along the lines of that old debating parlor trick of “When did you stop beating your wife?” He claims to know the truth, and claims to wonder why Republicans don’t agree with the truth he claims to know.
Will you now praise me as well if I ask the following questions, the same ones Stephen has asked albeit cast from a left wing perspective:
Why are liberals so brainwashed? Can’t they think for themselves? Why do they so willingly do the bidding of their poltical masters without understanding the world or humanity’s place in it?
Why do they so quickly disregard the truth out of their sentimental belief in an eventual socialist utopia? Why oh why can’t they see the light?
Do I get an A, David? Any liberal daring to answer THOSE questions would be doing so from a defensive posture since they are—shall we say—aggressive questions. Just like Stephen’s.
I await my pat on the head.
Posted by: sanger at September 29, 2005 12:32 AMGeorge, that’s a good question? Might be the conversion from 8:10 to 10:10 in the software being off somewhere. Or, possibly, I logged in to WB just as Stephen completed posting. I saw his article upon logging in and opened the comment window knowing this was one I wanted to respond to. If the software time stamps at the moment the comment window opens, that would explain it.
Posted by: David R. Remer at September 29, 2005 12:34 AMStephen, I readily apologize if I put words in your mouth.
You, however, have in effect diagnosed an entire mental condition on the part of Republicans—what you consider a patholigical and even knowing aversion to the truth rather than a tendency to see truth differently than YOU see it.
The standard upon which you base this claim is your own understanding of the truth, and the irony here is inescapable when you’re also talking about the limits of human understanding (which you seemingly consider yourself immune from).
You allege that political bias on the part of your adversaries without for a second entertaining the possibility that your own prejudices are constructed out of the same limitations.
If you want to say that we all see things differently and we should agree to disagree, that’s one thing. That is NOT, however, what you’ve done here in your frankly very condescending and poorly reasoned article.
Posted by: sanger at September 29, 2005 12:43 AMStephen:
I think your last point is pretty correct. We do see through our own filters. I was listening to the guy on Air America that is mid day. (Can’t remember his name). He was in Crawford Texas and couldn’t figure out why this poor white small town people were all Bush supporters.
I remember him saying “You just know they don’t have medical insurance”.
The reason is values. They want to feel like they know their leaders. And that their leaders can identify with them and their way of life. A great deal of this divide in our country is Urban verses the rest of the country.
Remember when Kerry was campaigning in Ohio and he went hunting? He looked like a total idiot out West. It was laughable. That is what Democrats look like from small towns.
On to your point. When Repubicans look at making choices, Hollywood slick, metrosex, intellectual, ways of presenting of ones self just falls flat.
Democrats look like “girlie men”. There is a huge cultural divide in our country that is getting wider.
Craig
sanger, pat, pat! You do indeed get an A! The parties have their own agenda, power and spreading the ideology that will protect that power. That is why I am an independent.
That said, it is the Republicans turn at bat to demonstrate whether they can and are more efficient, honest, and responsible than the Democrats were. And so far, they have failed pretty much across the board on all the big issues desired by Americans, peace, prosperity, and security. Failed, failed the next generation, and failed twice, respectively.
Posted by: David R. Remer at September 29, 2005 12:59 AMOne small quibble, Craig.
“Hollywood slick, metrosex, intellectual.”
Q: One of these things is not like the others.
Give up? Okay, intellectual.
Craig, there is much truth to your comment about the cultural divides. But those cultural divides are prominent only because the basic goals of Government are not being met, Peace, Prosperity, and Security. If government were successful in creating a period of years in two of these three areas, the cultural divide would seem like small potatoes.
Instead they loom almost as large as the issues preceding the Civil War inasmuch as the economics divide of the time was directly linked to cultural differences between the vocal northern and southern constituents and leaders. That cultural difference of course being divergent views on African Americans and their enslavement.
Posted by: David R. Remer at September 29, 2005 01:08 AMthe complexity of our society has outstripped our understanding of the world it exists in
This is something about which I have been wondering and fearing. Is the world just too much for our politicians; any politicians, to understand? It’s analagous to the newest jet fighters used by the military. A human cannot complete the too numerous calculations in time to react and fly the plane. So all flight controls are handled by a computer.
Of course, we don’t want a computer to run the country for us. The doomsday machine of Dr. Strangelove springs to mind as the result.
But can humans actually complete all of the calculations necessary, in time to react and operate the government properly? Have the actions and reactions of the human race become too complex for humans to comprehend?
Or are we really still in the same stick-and-rock scenario as our caveman ancestors, just with better sticks and rocks?
Eric:
“It’s interesting that the left never finds itself ‘discouraging independent inquiry’, or ‘encouraging a cloistered kind of groupthink’
Why is that I wonder?”
This is a no-brainer.
Because the left is chock-full Progressive Thinkers, Dearie!
We’ve always been built that way — and indeed, without us, American society would becomes hopelessly fossilized and oppressively regressive.
And to give you guys your due, the conservative mindset can often keep us from moving that progress at too fast a clip for the stodgy and/or our elder folk.
So you see, it’s really a match made in heaven — yet lately all you guys seem to want is a Divorce — one where you take everything and leave us impoverished and homeless at the end.
“or blaming Republicans and Bush for everything that goes wrong.”
Clearly we’ve seen enough to discern the glaringly obvious truth surrounding problems that you all obviously wish to avoid discussing — which in turn, keeps you from truthfully and effectively addressing your leaders failings, which has only lead to more problems THAT AFFECT THE WHOLE COUNTRY, AS WELL AS OUR STANDING AND REPUTATION IN THE EYES OF THE ENTIRE WORLD.
Stephen,
Awesome piece of writing! Needless to say, I think you are spot-on here.
David, several excellent points.
Sanger,
“Why are liberals so brainwashed? Can’t they think for themselves? Why do they so willingly do the bidding of their poltical masters without understanding the world or humanity’s place in it?
Why do they so quickly disregard the truth out of their sentimental belief in an eventual socialist utopia? Why oh why can’t they see the light?”
Could you give one instance that Democrats as a whole or en mass blindly followed a Democratic leader?
I can give instances where Republican voters do.
In 2004 more than half of those who voted for G.W. believed we had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Even though at the time it was widely understood and admitted to by Cheney and Bush that they had not.
It seems to me, by the posts I’ve read, that those posting as Democrats and third party spend alot of energy exploring problems with our government as a whole, while the Republican posts are defending this administration or bashing the left.
Posted by: Andre M. Hernandez at September 29, 2005 08:27 AMStephen:
Good piece.
i think when you mix arrogance with ignorance with a dash of blind faith, you get what we have.
I think it’s all a matter of where you are getting your facts from… I was listening to Bill O’Reilly last week spew out dozens of statistics on tax revenue, unemployment, if the election were held in November would you now vote Democrat or Republican, etc.
I thought; Wow the unemployment rate under Clinton was so high and under GW Bush it had significantly improved. Its amazing that so many people would still vote in Republicans no matter how many times they screw up. I than listened to Al Franken on Air America 1190 AM and he countered every statistic Bill O’Reilly had quoted. It seems the figure Bill O’Reilly was using for Clinton was the first year Clinton was in office after George HW Bush at something like 15.4% and the figure he was quoting for GW Bush was his first year in office after Bill Clinton’s presidency at something like 11.4%; it also turned out that the statistics Bill O’Reilly was quoting about how people would vote if the election was held this November was from a poll taken in 1997.
Facts can be used to make anyone look good or bad or to make any argument, in this case Bill O’Reilly wasn’t lying he was merely using whatever facts he needed to that would make the Republicans look like they have improved the economy, lowered unemployment, raised tax revenue and had the majority of people on their side unfortunately none of it was true (since they haven’t done any of that).
But after a while Bill O’Reilly started throwing in lie after lie like there was never a federal tax until the Democrats created it in the 20th century… I guess Bill forgot about the federal tax created to pay for the Civil War by a republican in the previous century… so I changed the channel and watched Democracy Now.
Posted by: Pat at September 29, 2005 08:58 AMBut, political parties have a whole other two pronged agenda these days. Power and advancement of ideology as you indicated.That is why I truly believe that the only course for putting America back on track is an anti-incumbency grass roots movement amongst voters.
David, Absolutly correct. It is the agenda of party power and ideology that has further pushed me toward an independent voter status. Both major parties are equally committed to this “hidden” agenda (becoming less and less hidden), however the Republicans have been more exposed due to their complete mis-use of the power they have been given. In many ways they have done the exact opposite of what many conservatives expected.
Being a fiscal conservative and a social independent myself, I can tell you this much… Being a fiscal conservative and being a Republican should no longer be unquestioned as being one in the same. If there are true fiscal conservatives in Washington they sure have not figured out how to speak up for the last several years.
I’ll say it again… I can no longer vote for what IMO is a lesser of 2 evils… I will be part of that grass roots effort to vote out the incumbents in the coming elections. I hope that the millions of people who I believe are in similar shoes as me will begin to do the same. Otherwise we can all continue to watch as the “Parties” tear this country apart for their own gains.
Posted by: BradM at September 29, 2005 11:01 AMSanger-
The question “When did you stopped beating your wife?” stops being a trick question when she shows up at the police station with bruises and files charges.
I don’t think many Republicans would have ever allowed a Democrat to spend let the budget, the disaster response, and the war get so out of control, and justifiably so. While we can debate what the Democrats would do with a Democrat in the White House, it is clear what the right thing for America is, and Republicans will earn praise or scorn according to how much they are willing to shape their party towards serving America’s needs, and not merely itself.
I don’t think our cultures are equivalent. When we talk of the conservative media, we can actually demonstrate that these people are outright conservatives, and that their agenda shows up in their work. we can compare Republican talking points to what gets said on the talk radio shows, and what ends up on FOXNews, a network, I might add, that actually has a former Bush 41 political strategist at its head. Now, you hear of Democrats getting reporting jobs, along the lines of politics, but actually running the damn news outlets? That’s rare. Point is, while you scream and carry on about the vast left-wing conspiracy in the media which you can never adequately prove, we can easily point to your well-funded, out in the open media outlets. We can point to reporters who were paid to push Bush 43 policies, commercials produced by the administration to promote Bush’s agenda, and a persistent effort to cut out those who don’t report positive facts about the administration.
You call yourself daring. Yet you and your people cover for all kinds of misdeeds, saying it’s just the jealous liberals trying to get back into power. You hide behind our politics to justify corruption and incompetence, and volumes worth of facts get disregarded because they don’t paint a pretty or ideologically correct picture. If you doubt me, go back through all the major scandals, and find me the places where you said, “If it’s true, then to hell with them!”
Maybe the reason why the Democrats aren’t winning the elections is they won’t so automatically get behind their candidates, because they’ve been burned so often. We can admit that our party has a history, that our people are just human, and not deserving of unconditional support. I think that’s the difference between the Republicans and Democrats right now.
Craig Holmes-
Even in Roman times, with their famed debauchery and savagery, there was a such thing as values voting. Didn’t get them anywhere either. Values do not begin in Washington, though hopefully they end up there somehow. Values must start in the home, among the grassroots. Asking government to make society moral is like asking a painter to make a house of rotten timber look new. Even if they succeed in their efforts, their work will not change what’s underneath, and what’s underneath will undermine the cosmetic changes.
Stephen, you have posted a terrific article. Excellent points presented in a very concise fashion.
Posted by: steve smith at September 29, 2005 04:51 PMSanger,
When Stephen so sagely points out that “the complexity of our society has outstripped our understanding of the world it exists in” what he really means is “the complexity of our society has outstripped YOUR understanding of the world it exists in, but MY understanding is perfectly intact, unclouded by partisan aims, and you should bow down MY version of reality for your own good.”
Damn you’re good, that’s exactly what I meant to say.
Posted by: esimonson at September 29, 2005 09:04 PMAdrienne,
So you see, it’s really a match made in heaven — yet lately all you guys seem to want is a Divorce — one where you take everything and leave us impoverished and homeless at the end.
Maybe it’s because Conservatives are from Mars and Liberals are from Venus?
Because we don’t seem to be seeing the same things in the same way. From my perspective it is the left who has been wanting the divorce… and wanting to take it all.
I don’t want a divorce for America but I’m not sure we can ever resolve these kinds of differences as long as we want to go in completely opposite directions.
Posted by: esimonson at September 29, 2005 09:32 PMEric-
That bit about the complexity of our society outstripping our understanding of the world? Universal?
Follow my link to my new blog, and you’ll find a post already up on Chaos Theory. It’s a hobby of sorts of mine to look into theories about the way our minds, information, and the natural world are organized. When I say, “it’s beyond us”, I’m not excluding myself. I know the matters at hand too well to make such a dishonest claim.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at September 29, 2005 11:35 PMEric:
“Maybe it’s because Conservatives are from Mars and Liberals are from Venus?”
Well, no doubt you like to think of yourselves as God’s of War but you sure don’t seem too omnipotent when it comes to waging it.
“From my perspective it is the left who has been wanting the divorce…
Yeah right. Meanwhile, you hired Karl Rove to be your divorce attorney. And whether you want to acknowledge this or not, the sad truth is, your people hired him solely because they knew he doesn’t know the meaning of the words Respect, Fairness, or Decency.
“and wanting to take it all.”
Don’t make me laugh. Do you see your party making any kind of effort at all to include the Left in any policy decisions whatsoever? Or to even bother to listen to our concerns in any way? No, I didn’t think you did.
“I don’t want a divorce for America but I’m not sure we can ever resolve these kinds of differences as long as we want to go in completely opposite directions.”
Well one way never to resolve anything is to let people like Mr. Rove, or your talking TV and Radio heads continue to demonize everyone standing on the Left — because frankly sir, we’ve had quite enough of that BS.
However, when you’re interested in showing us a modicum of respect, and start treating us with a little decency and fairness, no doubt we’d still be perfectly willing to meet you halfway.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed following this posting,
and I’ve also enjoyed tuning in to Rush Limbo’s
frantic and laughable attempts to portray the
bug man’s predicament as a Democratic plot.
Oh, they got Limbo’s medical records and found
that his skull was full of sawdust.
