I would say Arnold should add one point here: mobilizing for effective political action involves costs. The “ambivalent tribe” is…well…ambivalent across the whole range of issues and people. So politics is in the typical case dominated by fanatics. Hence finding a way to constrain power is important.
Constraining power is work that must be put in by the ambivalent (or, in Twitter parlance, 'grillers') on their own time, taking it from their private pursuits and leisure ('grilling') and moving their own bodies (as the Japanese say) to do it. There is simply no substitute, no way around it. To post my all-time favorite Thucydides quote:
---
Of all the causes of defection [from the Athenian confederacy], that connected with arrears of tribute and vessels, and with failure of service, was the chief; for the Athenians were very severe and exacting, and made themselves offensive by applying the screw of necessity to men who were not used to and in fact not disposed for any continuous labour. In some other respects the Athenians were not the old popular rulers they had been at first; and if they had more than their fair share of service, it was correspondingly easy for them to reduce any that tried to leave the confederacy. **For this the allies had themselves to blame; the wish to get off service making most of them arrange to pay their share of the expense in money instead of in ships, and so to avoid having to leave their homes. Thus while Athens was increasing her navy with the funds which they contributed, a revolt always found them without resources or experience for war.**
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A later author quipped that peoples who don't want to feed their own army will feed an invader's, but there are plenty of military dictatorships. What it really comes down to, peoples who don't want to *be* their own army will feed and be someone else's. It cannot be more obvious where I live. On the surface both this and Thucydides' point are about war, but war is merely the most basic mode of application of political power.
"Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of the blood on authority - because the scientists say so. Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics. We believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings that tell us about them: in fact, on authority." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
When I was in my 30s as a young Christian evangelist in the Bible Belt, my tribe of disciple-making disciples had this slogan to win over and ultimately manipulate vulnerable teens into submission, “You can belong before you believe.”
Now in my 50s, it’s become harder for me to personally subscribe firmly to any one tribe. As I’ve worked my way in various tribes from outer layer to inner layer (recruit→member→leader) it’s like Dorothy discovering what’s behind the curtains in Oz.
But yet Oz actually did have real power. We could argue about whether he had the power to give heart, brain, and nerve but he was able to send Dorothy home.
Regarding "socially influenced" beliefs, I am reminded of the Xhosa cattle killing episode in the 1850s. Based on a prophecy from a young girl, the tribe believed that if they killed all their cattle, destroyed their grain supplies, and didn't plant, that spirits would sweep away the British invaders and see to the tribe's needs. The resulting mass starvation wiped out about 3/4 of the population. I have always had a high level of skepticism and even cynicism about common belief, which probably goes back to my discovery as a child that trusted adults, including parents, would lie to me for their amusement (Santa Claus). Though I sometimes wondered whether I had become too cynical, events of recent years have made it clear that my cynicism wasn't keeping up with reality.
As David Foster Wallace said, “Everybody worships.” I especially appreciated the trade part. I think I have tendencies to affiliate with the China shock tribe although I agree that the sunbelt shock was part of it too. It’s really important for me to check myself on things like that.
This does not ring true at all for me. Maybe when you are a daughter as unlike her mother as it is possible to be given DNA, all this goes differently from the start.
I felt from a young age that I was fundamentally different from my family, that I had little in common with them. I even occasionally frightened myself with this fact, in the way that other children frighten themselves by thinking there's something scary in the closet. I don't mean this in an *entirely* judgmental way. More: nice things are nicer than nasty ones, for all of us - but what we appreciate is mostly so very different. I baffle them in turn.
I groped through books, with their many bad ideas and some good ones, for my values and my people, and then I found them in real life.
Perhaps coming from a Protestant background makes this process easier. Beyond materialism, there is *so little* in Protestantism, to accept or reject or obey - it is so easily shed, that this tribal process you describe doesn't operate, for good or for ill.
I’m going to print out these three paragraphs, frame them, and hang on my office wall. Thanks Arnold.
“Beliefs that are commonly understood to be true are not very tribal. A true belief that is shared by many tribes cannot be used as a distinctive marker to indicate membership in a particular tribe. If every tribe wears red paint on their forehead, then putting red paint on your forehead does not signify your tribe.
False beliefs, on the other hand, are very distinctive. They are strongly tribal. Your tribe's false beliefs can act like being the only tribe wearing red paint.
The problem with false beliefs is that they are fragile. You are likely to encounter a lot of cognitive dissonance, as your false beliefs run into contrary evidence. Think of the cognitive dissonance caused by Copernicus or Darwin.”
My fat fingers on my phone at work again. “Hardly anybody approaches any issue with an open mind” is how I’d rephrase. Hence the flavor of the comments that you mention.
You say that but yet it doesn't seem to apply to you. Does it?
I don't think it applies to me either yet on occasion someone (usually a liberal whom I disagree with a lot) points out a flaw in my thinking and I not only agree with them but am perplexed at how I ever saw it how I did before. Was that from bending to fit in? Or maybe just it seemed to fit with my general perspective and has nothing to do with fitting in with others. IDK. Regardless, we don't all try to always fit in.
This may seem like I'm losing the forest for the trees, but I went and checked the link from which you quoted this:
"Whom do you trust when it matters? A surprising number of polls suggest that the answer is not experts, but those closest to us: friends and family"
The example was about financial issues, and it seems obvious that the experts mentioned as alternatives to family and friends have incentives that may not always align with one's own best interests, so I was suspicious that this may not represent a general case. And in fact, it looks like that's exactly the problem here. To quote further from that very same article:
"when Axios/Ipsos asked people how much trust they had in various institutions and individuals about health topics, 85% said they trusted their family doctor a great deal or fair amount followed by friends and family (73%)."
It looks like the problem here isn't about expertise. When seeking medical advice, people trust medical experts more than their social group. (People also prefer experts when shopping for insurance or getting local news, so clearly the financial advice problem is a special case.)
I think this is evidence about a problem with trust in motivations of financial advisors more than it is an indication that expertise is not valued. (The author of that article quotes AEI's Tony Mills, who seems to agree with me: "People perceive that powerful institutions, Mills says, are 'insensitive, unresponsive, or even hostile to their own priorities and concerns.' ")
Expertise is important - in financial advisors, doctors, and pundits - only to the extent that you can be sure of their integrity.
I would say Arnold should add one point here: mobilizing for effective political action involves costs. The “ambivalent tribe” is…well…ambivalent across the whole range of issues and people. So politics is in the typical case dominated by fanatics. Hence finding a way to constrain power is important.
Constraining power is work that must be put in by the ambivalent (or, in Twitter parlance, 'grillers') on their own time, taking it from their private pursuits and leisure ('grilling') and moving their own bodies (as the Japanese say) to do it. There is simply no substitute, no way around it. To post my all-time favorite Thucydides quote:
---
Of all the causes of defection [from the Athenian confederacy], that connected with arrears of tribute and vessels, and with failure of service, was the chief; for the Athenians were very severe and exacting, and made themselves offensive by applying the screw of necessity to men who were not used to and in fact not disposed for any continuous labour. In some other respects the Athenians were not the old popular rulers they had been at first; and if they had more than their fair share of service, it was correspondingly easy for them to reduce any that tried to leave the confederacy. **For this the allies had themselves to blame; the wish to get off service making most of them arrange to pay their share of the expense in money instead of in ships, and so to avoid having to leave their homes. Thus while Athens was increasing her navy with the funds which they contributed, a revolt always found them without resources or experience for war.**
---
A later author quipped that peoples who don't want to feed their own army will feed an invader's, but there are plenty of military dictatorships. What it really comes down to, peoples who don't want to *be* their own army will feed and be someone else's. It cannot be more obvious where I live. On the surface both this and Thucydides' point are about war, but war is merely the most basic mode of application of political power.
"Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of the blood on authority - because the scientists say so. Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics. We believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings that tell us about them: in fact, on authority." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
When I was in my 30s as a young Christian evangelist in the Bible Belt, my tribe of disciple-making disciples had this slogan to win over and ultimately manipulate vulnerable teens into submission, “You can belong before you believe.”
Now in my 50s, it’s become harder for me to personally subscribe firmly to any one tribe. As I’ve worked my way in various tribes from outer layer to inner layer (recruit→member→leader) it’s like Dorothy discovering what’s behind the curtains in Oz.
But yet Oz actually did have real power. We could argue about whether he had the power to give heart, brain, and nerve but he was able to send Dorothy home.
No no no...Everyone knows it was the magic red slippers. It's scientific fact.
Right. It gets more and more like that.
Oops, my mistake. I was thinking she went home in the balloon but it was he who left in the balloon.
Our tribal tendencies are probably a net gain though. If everyone is questioning everything all the time, you can’t take any action.
As long as you don't compare Trump to Hitler, you can say anything you want about Trump and I won't unsuscribe.
Or comparing deportations, even to prisons, to the Holocaust.
I've disagreed with Arnold but have yet to see anything that would make me unsubscribe.
Regarding "socially influenced" beliefs, I am reminded of the Xhosa cattle killing episode in the 1850s. Based on a prophecy from a young girl, the tribe believed that if they killed all their cattle, destroyed their grain supplies, and didn't plant, that spirits would sweep away the British invaders and see to the tribe's needs. The resulting mass starvation wiped out about 3/4 of the population. I have always had a high level of skepticism and even cynicism about common belief, which probably goes back to my discovery as a child that trusted adults, including parents, would lie to me for their amusement (Santa Claus). Though I sometimes wondered whether I had become too cynical, events of recent years have made it clear that my cynicism wasn't keeping up with reality.
As David Foster Wallace said, “Everybody worships.” I especially appreciated the trade part. I think I have tendencies to affiliate with the China shock tribe although I agree that the sunbelt shock was part of it too. It’s really important for me to check myself on things like that.
This does not ring true at all for me. Maybe when you are a daughter as unlike her mother as it is possible to be given DNA, all this goes differently from the start.
I felt from a young age that I was fundamentally different from my family, that I had little in common with them. I even occasionally frightened myself with this fact, in the way that other children frighten themselves by thinking there's something scary in the closet. I don't mean this in an *entirely* judgmental way. More: nice things are nicer than nasty ones, for all of us - but what we appreciate is mostly so very different. I baffle them in turn.
I groped through books, with their many bad ideas and some good ones, for my values and my people, and then I found them in real life.
Perhaps coming from a Protestant background makes this process easier. Beyond materialism, there is *so little* in Protestantism, to accept or reject or obey - it is so easily shed, that this tribal process you describe doesn't operate, for good or for ill.
I’m going to print out these three paragraphs, frame them, and hang on my office wall. Thanks Arnold.
“Beliefs that are commonly understood to be true are not very tribal. A true belief that is shared by many tribes cannot be used as a distinctive marker to indicate membership in a particular tribe. If every tribe wears red paint on their forehead, then putting red paint on your forehead does not signify your tribe.
False beliefs, on the other hand, are very distinctive. They are strongly tribal. Your tribe's false beliefs can act like being the only tribe wearing red paint.
The problem with false beliefs is that they are fragile. You are likely to encounter a lot of cognitive dissonance, as your false beliefs run into contrary evidence. Think of the cognitive dissonance caused by Copernicus or Darwin.”
Even online, your tribe is larger than you realize, if perhaps not as vocal as some others.
“Hardly anybody approaches the issue with an open mind.
My fat fingers on my phone at work again. “Hardly anybody approaches any issue with an open mind” is how I’d rephrase. Hence the flavor of the comments that you mention.
"we decide what to believe by deciding who to believe" ~ yes.
You say that but yet it doesn't seem to apply to you. Does it?
I don't think it applies to me either yet on occasion someone (usually a liberal whom I disagree with a lot) points out a flaw in my thinking and I not only agree with them but am perplexed at how I ever saw it how I did before. Was that from bending to fit in? Or maybe just it seemed to fit with my general perspective and has nothing to do with fitting in with others. IDK. Regardless, we don't all try to always fit in.
I don't hate "him"; I admit to exerting effort to ignore "him". I am really starting to hate on what he's precipitating.
How are "systemic racism" and "your pet conspiracy theory" any different?
This may seem like I'm losing the forest for the trees, but I went and checked the link from which you quoted this:
"Whom do you trust when it matters? A surprising number of polls suggest that the answer is not experts, but those closest to us: friends and family"
The example was about financial issues, and it seems obvious that the experts mentioned as alternatives to family and friends have incentives that may not always align with one's own best interests, so I was suspicious that this may not represent a general case. And in fact, it looks like that's exactly the problem here. To quote further from that very same article:
"when Axios/Ipsos asked people how much trust they had in various institutions and individuals about health topics, 85% said they trusted their family doctor a great deal or fair amount followed by friends and family (73%)."
It looks like the problem here isn't about expertise. When seeking medical advice, people trust medical experts more than their social group. (People also prefer experts when shopping for insurance or getting local news, so clearly the financial advice problem is a special case.)
I think this is evidence about a problem with trust in motivations of financial advisors more than it is an indication that expertise is not valued. (The author of that article quotes AEI's Tony Mills, who seems to agree with me: "People perceive that powerful institutions, Mills says, are 'insensitive, unresponsive, or even hostile to their own priorities and concerns.' ")
Expertise is important - in financial advisors, doctors, and pundits - only to the extent that you can be sure of their integrity.