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May 28, 2005
Disputing Manichaean Thinking & the Piaget Fallacy: Four for Matthew White (Thanks, Joe Lance)
Joe Lance has posted a brief but positive take on Matthew White's 27 May 2005 blog about Thursday's revelations concerning Operation Tennessee Waltz. I'd like to examine some of White's sometimes insightful arguments and assumptions.
1. White says that he is "convinced the only reason the arrests happened yesterday is because Chris Newton began to realize the jig is up and withdrew HB37 from the House Wednesday afternoon. The feds indicted those they had a solid case against and they're hoping to use them to cast a wider net." But this is a post hoc ergo propter hoc. While White has a point here, that these two events (Newton's withdrawal of HB37 and Fed indictments) happened near one another, that they did does not imply automatically a cause-and-effect relationship. The Feds, after all, had their evidence. In fact, if the Feds wanted to cast a wider net, they certainly would not have shown their hand. Showing their hand puts the entire secret operation in jeopardy.
2. White also says, "Bad people will do bad things, regardless of the law. Yesterday, we saw proof that while our system is made up of flawed people, the system worked." And this kind of Manichaean thinking continues throughout the blog: "Bad people did bad things and with any luck they'll pay for it. As the debate about ethics in our legislature looms, blame the bad guys for what they did. . . . it is worth noting that 129 members of the General Assembly were not arrested yesterday and many of those are decent, ethical people that you can be proud of. " This is too simplistic for me, whether we are reducing humans to being fated by nature to be either a good person or a bad person, or creating a false dichotomy between public and private. Let me take up the deterministic argument first, which says that some are bad seeds and others are not. This genetic fallacy rips away free will and choice. From this perspective, "bad" humans will do bad before, when, and after they get caught simply because they are "bad." But life is more complex than that. And it is this way of thinking that informs the false dichotomy between our American views of public and private behavior--by which we feel business is free to do almost anything, and politics is bound closely to the law. In the world of business, what might be called bribery in public office is done all the time. Business people sweeten deals all the time, never worrying about Federal agents around the corner, unless of course the government has deemed their services or products illicit. So why the double standard? We expect more (with an almost secular religiosity) of our public officials. And, in fact, White suggests that legislators with part-time pay and a lack of legislative resources might contribute to "bad" behavior.
3. White offers a solution: "If you want ethical, honest government, return government to a size and scope that doesn't attract hungry barbarians seeking a piece of pie." This is what I call the Piaget fallacy. Psychologist Jean Piaget observed children equating height to qualities of bigness or greatness or potency, even goodness. White's idea is a little different; his is that if you reduce the size of something it will automatically improve that something--or in other words make government less corrupt by diminishing its size. Why? Because "barbarians" are at the gate. Well, they probably are. But that's not because the prize is large. In fact, I'd say given the nature of barbarians, you don't need a big prize. Just some fresh meat. The process of political attainment and legislative procedure requires at least a little more than White is ascribing to political fortunes. In this case, wasn't it the Feds who did the baiting, didn't they dangle the bags of money in front of the defendants? Or do we have PROOF of any other corruption without the Feds being involved? White has already told us that it is "bad" people who do bad things, not big things that attract bad people. At least to White's credit, he recognizes that there is more to corruption than just "bad people."
4. White does offer a more specific solution, using the Piaget fallacy: "Do we maintain our tradition of a part-time legislature that can adequately lead state government with a limited amount of time and resources even if that means doing without some government services we have come to expect? Or do we accept that we need a full-time legislature, where members are paid a full-time wage and given the staff and resources to manage a bloated bureaucracy?" Is it really that simple. The horns of the dilemma bother me here. Especially here, because government, business, family, etc. are institutions that work in strangely complex ways. It would nice to think that government could just be fixed this easily--by choosing one or the other of these solutions. But government will always (by its nature) have a bureaucratic character, and even in states where agents of the people are paid fulltime salaries corruption still happens. The causes for individual corruption are complicated and probably not going to be remedied simply by changing the size (up or down) of an organization. While a smaller group may work more efficiently and be more aware of each other, a larger group may be more effective in dealing with larger challenges. Again, I don't think that size is the single issue here.
Posted by wjbailes at May 28, 2005 04:20 AM
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Comments
First, you're welcome.
Although it might be simplest to write this post off, saying, "Bailes has jumped onto the Stuart James-John Wilder BandWagon," I'm going to engage it, at least a little.
And I should say at first that I can definitely argue from a determinist's point of view (though I think you were incorrectly projecting more than a little of that onto Mr. White). As much as I constantly fret about Individual Freedom this and Free Will that, I secretly recognize the futility displayed by doing so.
Look at a key figure in the first round (yes, there will be more: $100K is far below the "raw meat" on your booty scale), Senator John Ford. Can you honestly cry "no fair, he was baited by unscrupulous agents!"?
Look also at Ward Crutchfield, and no farther back than the recent Hamilton County Election Commission office turnover (specifically, his law office's close relationship with several involved individuals), although I am sure there are plenty of other power-leveraging stories to add to it.
Pointing out that these people are "bad" is no simplistic, deterministic folly. There is no double standard; they broke laws. (There's no law against business-to-business symbiosis or "back-scratching;" there are, however, laws against introducing legislation to the commonwealth as a response to receipts of goods from individuals.) I'm apt to believe that they broke many more laws than just the ones they got caught breaking. And, yes, we citizens must exert some measure of faith in those to whom we temporarily entrust the care of our system; else the very fabric of representational democracy is unraveled. Even though you have a point that, typically, labeling someone a "bad person" belongs in absolutism's wasteland, our definition of "bad" in this context -- i.e., "bad material for being a representative of the People" -- is much more a sober net outcome of grain-by-grain weighing of facts.
Finally, John, your comment "But government will always (by its nature) have a bureaucratic character" -- isn't that just the slightest bit determinist? Notwithstanding my earlier admission, I'll rail against that one, too, and state that the People have the ability to make it not so.
The fact is that life is good here, and there's little of importance to complain about. Maybe the real point here is that "we are all destined to complain; that is a constant, and the complaints' subjects are the variables."
Posted by: joe at May 28, 2005 08:56 AM
Joe, I've been away but wanted to respond from a laptop in Augusta, GA. I'll be brief. You have made some palpable points, but you have missed (I think) my main points. Namely, humans cannot be held responsible if they are by NATURE either good or bad, for obvious reasons. Honestly, if you cannot understand this point, my blogger friend, we must talk over coffee. Second, government may actually have certain characteristics without falling under some deterministic scheme. That government is typically bureaucratic (most of the time) is a historical fact, whether you like that or not. Bless you for trying to change it.
Posted by: B ailes at May 29, 2005 04:56 PM
Heh Heh John...alright, fine, I'll rise:
you say: "Namely, humans cannot be held responsible if they are by NATURE either good or bad, for obvious reasons."
That all depends on your definition of responsibility, its certainly neither formally invalid or an informally a fallacy. Heck, we choose the lesser of two evils all the time. I'd hate to live in a world where there wasn't some grey area, or some degrees of good n' bad, as opposed to either white or black with everything undetermined.
Anyways, its an interesting discussion. I think we both simply have different definitions of "responsibility" neither of which is logically incoherent, but I do think mine is a bit more "experientially" true, while yours is a bit more intuitively comfortable.
And since we've already had the discussion, I'll just make the passing reference to the Christian tradition AND the Bible.
But yes, coffee sometime, if I'm welcome to come with you and Joe.
Posted by: JosiahQ at May 29, 2005 08:09 PM
Coffee sounds good. I do indeed believe that responsibility is a cruel(?) addition to the burden that already exists from being torturously(?) destined, but it (responsibility) cannot be escaped nonetheless (despite the quack defense attorneys who sometimes help get away with it). I came across this perspective (I was its solitary proponent and, to my mind, though I don't believe in originality, its originator) during a very good Ethics course in undergrad, and I've seen nothing since that would persuade me to say otherwise. That's not to say I have the notion sealed off or anything; it's just the best thing that's come along, still and yet.
Perhaps, as Josiah suggests, we're operating on semantically diverse platforms as well. Regardless, I obviously missed the obvious, for I can't see the reasons to which you allude why humans who are, through a combination of DNA and bad timing (being born under the wrong set of mores), deemed "bad," cannot be held responsible for their "badness." I say they can, since it depends solely on whether their society wills it. The society (government, church, family) define the "bad," the individual who is "bad" doesn't; and I don't think there is any more Free Will than there is Free Lunch.
Posted by: joe at May 29, 2005 09:32 PM
Coffee's smelling better all the time, my friend. However, I can agree that we both are attempting to define "responsibility," a task that may be Olympian.
As far as "bad" and "good" are concerned as ethical definitions, it is obviously hard to extract these words from our common tongue and decide what exactly they mean in each context, as they are so heavy with connotative baggage. But let me state what i THINK is obvious.
This is obvious. One cannot be responsible for doing good if in fact he cannot EVER do good because he is by nature bad. Based on your system of ethical motivation, to challenge this "bad" person then to do good when there is a bad choice is, well, a way of proving that the person is in fact and absolutely bad. Pretty cruel, but I guess you may solace that it grants you satisfaction to know that you are not one of the bad. Of course, in this absolutist scheme, there is no talking about how to remedy this situation. People are, after all, good or bad.
By contrast, I am not arguing that senators who took bribes were good or bad; I am arguing that they did bad. The difference is important. For if I suppose that a person can choose to do a good or bad act, I can then hold that person responsible for his acts.
ON the other hand, self-responsibility and social responsibility are problematic under what I think I understand to be your theory, for in this worldview we are led of course to something more inane - Antinominalism. This was my major problem with conservative theology in my twenties, even in my teens. God did good; I did bad. Simplistic but effective if you're going to control people.
Well, not too effective. Eventually ones like myself figured this one out and rebelled. My sense of good and bad actions is as rooted in experience as, say, yours is. I understand good and bad to be prescribed most of the time by groups (whether churches or communities, to name a few). In fact, to appeal to good or bad actions is to direct our attention to social interaction. Society is a construct--to say the least--and here I refer you to the writings of St. Augustine to Camille Paglia.
Where are we going to do coffee? Bad Ass, perhaps? (I could not resist the pun on that name!)
Posted by: Bailes at May 30, 2005 12:19 PM
Sorry that I ran accross this so long ago (1970's), but there was some reputable research done that showed that the chance of corruption in government and business goes UP as the size goes down. Small town corruption was a fixture here in N. FL as late as the early 70's when a county to the E. of Tallahassee ran a form of slavery similar to the company store method used in the coal mines of KY years ago. It stopped dead when a national corp. bought into the turpentine business/forests and stopped it with the statement
"We would be destroyed if the national press got hold of this and tied it to us."
What is true is that the corruption of big business/government involves a LOT more money per instance.
Posted by: John McDevitt at May 31, 2005 09:22 AM
Bad Ass might be the place, as I am a diehard Stone Cup fan, and, if Josiah joins us, I'd predict his affinity for Greyfriar's; thus Bad Ass is a neutral ground of sorts?
Posted by: joe at May 31, 2005 11:07 AM
a diehard stone cup fan?!? I didn't know those kindof people existed!
Posted by: JosiahQ at May 31, 2005 11:19 AM
In addition to neutrality, we (Josiah, Joe, Bailes) should sup together at Bad Ass just because of the name, a brand name which can be counted on to elicit the kind of ethical debate (okay, chat) we need to have. How about next Wednesday? I take it that eve is preferred.
Posted by: Bad Ass Man at May 31, 2005 11:41 AM
My great friend is the roaster for Stone Cup. He and I have worked and talked and cupped coffee for so many years I'm losing count. He knows how to select good quality green beans and is edging ever closer to perfection on the roast quality.
I'm not saying I _hang out_ in Stone Cup; there's really not a coffee shop in which I feel comfortable. I just go to Stone Cup for to replenish my stash.
Wednesday should work. Bad Ass.
Posted by: joe at June 5, 2005 09:48 AM