Many Levels of Niemoller's Poem

 

Martin Niemoller

 First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for the Catholics
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Catholic*
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.


I learned about Niemoller's poem at an early age, knowing nothing about the author, only that is described the rise of the Nazis.  At the time, my interpretation was the simplest one -- freedom is indivisible.  None can be free unless all are free.

But over time, I began to understand more about the significance of the progression, and to see other layers of meaning.

One was when Jonah Goldberg came out with his ridiculous book, Liberal Fascism, claiming that Hitler was really a left-winger.  Niemoller's poem can come as a shorthand refutation as Hitler's victims parade from left to right -- Communists, then Socialist, then trade unionists, then Jews (broadly liberal), then (possibly) Catholics (generally conservative).  

Another is as a rejection of the morality that JD Vance called ordo amoris or Jonathan Haidt (at his worst) calls well-balanced values with a proper sense of group loyalty, i.e., the idea that everyone should be divided into an in-group of people who morally matter and an out-group of un-people who don't morally matter.  Admittedly, both Vance and Haidt appear to draw the boundary nationality -- since Hitler's early victims were fellow German citizens, Niemoller should have cared.  But really, neither Vance nor Haidt offer any really good reason why one should draw the line at citizenship.  If Niemoller originally drew the line more narrowly, neither man's reasoning offer a good reason why he should have drawn it more broadly.  Niemoller practiced ordo amoris.  He had well-balanced values, including a proper sense of group loyalty.  When people outside his in-group were targeted, he showed a commendable indifference.  When he was targeted other people stuck to their in-groups just as much as he did.  Too late, he learned the error of his ways.

Another insight came, of all places, from the Roman historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus.  He described a thwarted rebellion against Rome and Cicero (then serving as consul) proposed to execute the conspirators without trials.  Caesar warned against such an action:

These thirty began their administration by putting to death, even without a trial, all who were notoriously wicked, or publicly detestable; acts at which the people rejoiced, and extolled their justice. But afterward, when their lawless power gradually increased, they proceeded, at their pleasure, to kill the good and the bad indiscriminately, and to strike terror into all; and thus the state, overpowered and enslaved, paid a heavy penalty for its imprudent exultation.

Within our own memory, too, when the victorious Sylla ordered Damasippus,14 and others of similar character, who had risen by distressing their country, to be put to death, who did not commend the proceeding? All exclaimed that wicked and factious men, who had troubled the state with their seditious practices, had justly forfeited their lives. Yet this proceeding was the commencement of great bloodshed. For whenever any one coveted the mansion or villa, or even the plate or apparel of another, he exerted his influence to have him numbered among the proscribed. Thus they, to whom the death of Damasippus had been a subject of joy, were soon after dragged to death themselves; nor was there any cessation of slaughter, until Sylla had glutted all his partisans with riches.

Such excesses, indeed, I do not fear from Marcus Tullius [Cicero], or in these times. But in a large state there arise many men of various dispositions. At some other period, and under another consul, who, like the present, may have an army at his command, some false accusation may be credited as true; and when, with our example for a precedent, the consul shall have drawn the sword on the authority of the senate, who shall stay its progress, or moderate its fury?**

"First they came for the Communists. . ."  Those haunting words echoed with new meaning.   The early victims of the Nazis were not sympathetic people, especially to a conservative like Niemoller.***

Another point of significance here is that the Nazis targeted the organized opposition first.  Communists, Socialists, and unions are all organized structures with institutional power.  Jews and Catholics, by contrast, are much more diffuse groups.  And in that sense, "There was no one left to speak out for me," is not purely hyperbolic.  There were people, of course, who could have spoken out for him, but there were no organized institutions left to oppose the Nazis.  

In general, I would say, do not be too quick to quote Niemoller.  Stick to the face-eating leopards. But I am beginning to find that poem apt in the case of ICE.  More to come.

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*The inclusion of Catholics is debated. Certainly many Catholics continued to practice their faith openly in Nazi Germany, but the transnational nature of Catholicism made it the natural enemy of Nazi hypernationalism.
**Classical historians generally sided against Caesar and suspected that is solicitude for the conspirators may have been because of complicity. Modern readers would applaud him more if he had advocated for due process. Instead of calling for trial, Caesar was actually calling for non-capital punishment, still without trial. It should be noted that when Caesar became dictator, he practiced what he preached. He did not execute any of his political rivals.
***Indeed, Niemoller's own comments appear to confirm this interpretation, "We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians—should I be my brother's keeper?"

JD Vance's Odious Philosophy/Theology

 

The late, great Kevin Drum, in assessing Donald Trump's eight potential candidate for Vice President, rated them as follows:

Greatest willingness to kowtow: Tim Scott

Overall pure shittiness: Elise Stefanik

Nonentity award: Doug Burgum

Willingness to pretend to be an idiot: J.D. Vance

Actual idiot: Ben Carson

Most pathetically ambitious: Marco Rubio

Strong right arm of retribution: Tom Cotton

Freedom Caucus true believer: Byron Donalds

 This somewhat resembles my assessment, but also differs in other aspects, especially its evaluation of Vance.  Drum appeared to believe that Scott, Burgum, Vance, Rubio, and possibly Stefanik were pure opportunists, Carson was completely unqualified, and Cotton and Donalds were the true authoritarians.  Willingness to kowtow, willingness to pretend to be an idiot, and spineless ambition all sound very much like pure opportunism, almost to the extent that they can be hard to tell apart.  Presumably Scott was showing his opportunist through flattery, Vance through insincere agreement, and Rubio by abandoning his former principles.  Add Burgum's obscurity which spares him having any identity apart from Trump and interpret Stefanik's "overall pure shittiness" as shameless opportunism, and you have five different shades of opportunism.  Dismiss Carson as too clueless to be worth taking seriously.  That leaves Cotton and Donalds as the really dangerous ones -- Donalds as a true believer and Cotton taking Trump's desire for revenge seriously.

I shared the assessment that Burgum, Scott, Rubio, and Stefanik were opportunists telling politically expedient lies, that Carson was too clueless to matter, and that Donalds was a dangerous authoritarian.  My main difference was on Cotton and Vance.  I was ambivalent about Cotton.  On the one hand, he seemed like a real authoritarian rather than a pure opportunist.  On the other hand, he appeared to have real principles (particularly as a Russia hawk) that sometimes differed from Trump.  He was definitely the only one of the eight who I could imagine ever standing up to Trump.  As for Vance, he struck me as having all the worst traits of an opportunist and a true believer, with all the zeal of a convert.

When Trump picked Vance, Drum said, "So I guess that's what Trump values the most. He wants someone who shows his loyalty by a willingness to say anything, no matter how dumb or obviously untrue he knows it to be."  Well, I disagree.  I do not think Vance's distinguishing trait is his willingness to pretend to be an idiot.  I think his distinguishing trait is his ability to offer an intellectual defense of the most indefensible actions on Trump's part.  To the extent Vance is a pure opportunist, this is an uglier and more dangerous form of opportunism than mere flattery or abandonment of principle.  It shows a deeper level of commitment to Trump's worst actions that makes Vance unlikely to change course if Trump is ever gotten out of the way.

Did Trump lie and say the election was stolen.  Vance acknowledges it was exactly stolen, but also says, “What verifiably I know happened is that in 2020, large technology companies censored Americans from talking about things like the Hunter Biden laptop,” and that therefore “I think that Big Tech rigged the election in 2020," and that what is really important is not the election outcome, but that "censorship is bad."  Needless to say, this would allow the loser of any election to find some sort of unfair story to blame it on and demand that the outcome be overturned.

Were stories about Haitians eating people's pets false?  Vance was prepared to defend the lies, by saying, "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do."

But above all that is Vance's defense of DOGE's destruction of USAID -- programs that ended the ravages of AIDS in Africa, feed starving children, fight Ebola, etc.

As an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens. That doesn’t mean you hate people from outside of your own borders, but there’s this old-school [concept]—and I think it’s a very Christian concept, by the way—that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.

Well, yes, I don't think the basic concept is very controversial.  Who would dispute that people who neglect their children to aid people halfway across the world are being irresponsible?  And who would dispute that our primary duties are to the people closest at hand.  

The flaw here is obvious.  From the completely uncontroversial proposition that we should care more about the people closest at hand,  Vance leaps to the wholly different proposition that we must value anyone who is not a fellow citizen at zero, and that the tiniest act on behalf of a non-citizen (seriously, PEPFAR is a miniscule portion of the federal budget and has saved millions) is a betrayal of one's fellow-countrymen.

I will add, just to be clear, that it was something similar that made me lose all respect for Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations theory.  Some people were calling to close to lawless terrorist prison in Guantanamo and Haidt dismissed that as "liberal moral myopia."  Liberals were so obsessed with harm avoidance, and with justice concerns that some of the prisoners did not appear to be actual terrorists that they totally ignored the larger picture -- the Guantanamo prisoners were not part of our in-group and any concern for their well-being, or even whether they were guilty or innocent, is a betrayal of our in-group.  Apparently having normal, healthy, well-balanced values means dividing everyone into an in-group of people who morally matter and an out-group of unpeople who do not morally matter.  

Certainly that appears to be Vance's philosophy as well.  Granted, Vance sees no need to hate people outside your borders.  But indifference is an absolute moral imperative. 

Generic Republicans in Power: Climate Regulations

For many on my side of the aisle, the ultimate, most important issue is global warming.  Stripping millions of their health insurance will be carry so high a political price that some sort of accommodation will have to be reached.  Repealing financial regulations -- well, our finance system is strong now, and even if it has a crisis we will survive.  And the earth will survive millions losing their health insurance, or a financial crisis.  Hell, the earth will even survive Donald Trump hitting ISIS with a nuclear weapon.

But global warming could mean the future of the planet.  Jonathan Chait give global warming along as reason to vote for Hillary.  Now Trump is President, and gutting environmental legislation is one of the Republicans' top priorities.  Republicans eagerly seek to repeal as many environmental regulations as possible and Trump wants out of the Paris Agreement.  Repealing anti-global warming measures is a major Republican priority.*

The need for environmental regulations is a well-established part of classical economic theory. Pollution is considered to be an "externalized cost," i.e., one imposed by the polluter on unconsenting third parties, and therefore a legitimate object of regulation so as to internalize the costs.  But despite having a definite libertarian theory to justify environmental regulation, conservatives are intensely opposed to all environmental regulation in general and global warming in particular.

Republicans see the whole concept of global warming as profoundly morally repugnant -- something against their deepest principles.  The most obvious reasons are practical ones.  Republicans don't want to make the lifestyle changes associated with fighting global warming.  The changes called for (drive cars less, use public transportation more, consider greater population density and mixed use neighborhoods) all sound suspiciously like an attempt to impose what is liberals' favored lifestyle anyhow.  The fossil fuels industry are major Republican economic interests.  And so forth.

And certainly one can argue that any arguments Republicans offer against global warming are mere rationalizations.  But there really do hew to Haidt's moral foundations in a way that has deep resonance to conservatives.  To religious conservatives, God made the world for humans' benefit and wouldn't allow such a thing to happen.  For libertarian conservatives, the free market works out the ideal solutions to all problems and wouldn't allow such a thing to happen.  To justice-as-karma types, it seems grossly unfair to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant when every breath you take so long as you live puts out carbon dioxide.  Why should people be punished for doing what they cannot help doing, what we would die if we did not do, and for producing a perfectly natural substance, one that gives food to plants.**  And to people who are fierce in their protection of national sovereignty, the fact that fighting global warming calls for international cooperation is itself reason to condemn such attempts as evil.***

So, most conservatives see global warming as profoundly against their principles.  Unfortunately, scientific fact is under no obligation to respect anyone's principles.  Sometimes debates over global warming seem almost like something from a Monty Python skit:

DENIER:   I don't believe in global warming.  It's against my principles.

SCIENTIST:  But there's no principle involved,  It's scientific fact.

DENIER:   Your scientific facts are against my principles.

Chait's hope was that four more years with a Democrat to veto Republican attempts at sabotage would be enough to lock in green technologies and make them beyond the power of Republicans to uproot.  But now Republican hold the triple crown and are eager to roll back any attempt to fight global warming.  And there is even less of a groundswell of public opinion to resist than with financial regulation.

So what can we do?

A number of things.  Environmental groups can hold up attempts to reverse environmental regulations, sue and drag things out until (they hope) cleaner technologies become irreversible.  Democratic Senators can filibuster legislation to weaken environmental rules (for instance, a statute forbidding the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide), or to abolish the EPA altogether (an idea that some Republicans are tossing around).  Although whether Senate Republicans will rescind the filibuster is anyone's guess.  States and localities can continue to pass stringent regulation against pollution.  Other countries can develop clean technologies.  We can build a constituency for clean energy.

But ultimately thing look bleak. While I am inclined to think that any attempt to abolish the EPA altogether will meet with too much resistance to pass, attempts to weaken, limit, and underfund it will undoubtedly succeed.

Another thing I think we need to do is find another vocabulary to talk to conservatives about global warming.  One thing I noticed in a comments section was that a whole lot of them were dismissive of any concerns over global warming and said that the only real environmental issue in this country was halting illegal immigration because more people (in the form of immigrants) were increasing the burden on the environment.  That is certainly a frustrating opinion for anyone who sees environmental problems in global terms.  But there is the tiny glimmer of something useful there. Quite simply, global warming is affecting the global South more than the global North.  Rising sea levels are threatening to flood coastlines.  Bangladesh could become completely uninhabitable.

So my plea to conservatives would be, listen guys, if Bangladesh becomes uninhabitable, the people of Bangladesh aren't going to just sit there and drown and save you from having to worry about them. They will respond by leaving the country.  Bangladesh has an estimated population of nearly 170,000,000, about 88% Muslim.  Many of them will be heading our way.  Telling them to go back home will not be a viable option when "home" no longer exists.  Many believe that global warming related droughts were what led to the civil war in Syria that has been flooding Europe with refugees. In short, if we don't stop global warming there will be immigration on a scale hitherto unimagined.  A whole lot of bleeding hearts just won't be able to turn people back to uninhabitable countries.  Is this what you want to happen?  All right, then, let's start taking strenuous action to stop it!  Besides, flooding in coastal areas of the US will mean more of those snooty coastal elitists heading into your community to look down on you.  So let's stop that from happening, shall we?

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*Sometimes I truly believe that a lot of conservatives who do believe in global warming have convinced themselves that it is benign and actively want to set it on an irreversible trajectory so that we can say it is impossible to stop, so we can all pollute to our heart's content now.
**Of course, by the same standard, we wouldn't need a sewage system either.  After all, you are talking about a perfectly natural substance, one that all living animals produce and can't help producing, one that gives food to plants.  But most people still don't want it in their drinking water.  Go figure.
***And I will once again give my boss's viewpoint.  Although not a Trump fan, he is a Republican and very much a supporter of Republican plans to cut taxes and gut regulations, and apparently willing to grit his teeth and endure Trump to get that done.  He was rejoicing about all the economic growth that will be spurred by repealing environmental regulations.  I said that I supposed that depended on whether you believed in global warming.  He answered, "The question is, do I care about global warming."  I said that if it is true, it can have catastrophic consequences.  He dismissed them as things he wouldn't be around to see.  I said that his son (who just graduated from high school earlier this year) will be around to see them.  He gave a dismissive answer.  But I know that he loves his son dearly and cares a great deal about his future, so I can only assume that he doesn't really at the gut level believe in global warming, even if he is not going to take the trouble to argue against scientific consensus.

So, What Are We to Make of All This

So, if one is willing to accept my taxonomy that liberals are people who value social breadth over social depth and conservatives are people who value social depth over social breadth, what are we to make of it?  Where to we go from here?  (And by we, I specifically mean we liberals, valuing breadth over depth).

A few suggestions here.

Learn to see things in terms of depth versus breadth.  Recognize that both are good, but that there is a trade-off between them.  And stop defining social good solely in terms of breadth.  This is not to say stop promoting breadth.  Breadth is good and valuable.  But so is depth.  So start looking for ways to cultivate depth as well as breadth and start learning to appreciate its value.

Don't mock.  Read and re-read this column explaining to people who prefer breadth why depth is a valuable thing.  It features John Wayne reading a poem celebrating the virtues of social depth.  The author apologizes for it being so "kitschy," but invites the listener to admire its "lack of irony or cynicism."  And ask yourself, seriously, what is wrong with the social vision it sets forth.  A lack of breadth, most liberals will presumably respond.  The charming, close-knit society being celebrated had an ugly sign out that said, "For Whites Only."  And no doubt it could be uncomfortable for a lot of non-conformists.  But in spite of all that, the sort of social depth it celebrates is a good thing, one that liberals tend to overlook in seeking ever greater breadth, and one we should learn better to appreciate.  So, really, is there any harm in learning to respect what other people cherish and hold sacred, and in giving up the condescension over its "kitschiness," and the insistence on "irony and cynicism."  Then turn to this column, which says many of the same things in much harsher tones, though no harsher than many of its readers deserve.

Understand the mockery that comes the other way.  I am not saying accept the real hatred spewed on talk radio; that is simply authoritarian.  But try to understand why someone who places a high value on social depth might be repulsed by an obsessive focus on breadth.  If you are inclined to snort at John Wayne celebrating social depth and respond with cynicism, give some thought to why conservatives might snort (as they so often do) at liberal kitsch, why they might use "kumbaya" as  sneer word and be so cynically contemptuous of liberal visions of universal peace and brotherhood.  What is wrong with the liberal vision?  Well, what is wrong with the conservative vision?  And if your answer is that is an illusion, or that it lacks breadth, consider the possibility that conservatives consider liberal "kumbaya" brotherhood as no less of an illusion, and lacking in depth.

And accept that for people who prefer depth to breadth, a lot of the usual conservative jeers about liberals -- vapid, superficial, faddish, frivolous, inauthentic, hypocritical -- have some truth to them. They reflect the inevitable loss of depth that accompanies a growth in breadth.  Liberals sometimes share these criticisms.  But what we may not appreciate is just how repugnant that lack of depth can be in people who really value it.

And keep in mind that there is a good deal of truth to another frequent conservative jibe -- that liberals' tolerance extends to everyone -- except white American Christian conservatives.  This is all too often true.  And yes, it is a failing.  That being said, it is by no means a failing unique to American liberals.  The world over, we find ethnic (or religious or ideological) groups whose greatest enemy is whatever other group is closest by.  American liberals are not exception.  But then again, most groups of bigots don't claim to be champions of tolerance and breadth.  We do, and properly so. Openness to opposing opinions and ideologies is a part of social breadth.  We are going to have to learn to broaden our breadth enough to include American conservatives.

And recognize liberal political coalitions for what they are.  People who value social breadth want to expand the circle of social commitment and let more people in.  Naturally this leads to an alliance with the people who would benefit from such an expansion.  Today that may be gays or immigrants; other times it might be ethnic minorities; in the nineteenth century it was the propertyless working class.  But this is an alliance of convenience, not conviction.  Accept that the people you want to work to include may value depth over breadth in their own lives and seek breadth in the greater society only to the extent that it means including them.  Indeed, excluded groups often have the greatest focus on depth of all, and necessarily so since they are faced with a hostile society and have only their own community to draw on for support.  And face it, the sneer at liberals as elitists has a good deal of truth -- the focus on breadth over depth does appear to be a mostly elite trait.

And I am not saying that we should give up social breadth.  Social breadth is good.  Just consider how cruel tight-knit societies with an exclusive focus on depth can be and we can see the value of breadth, even if purchased at the price of a certain shallowness.  But stop thinking of it as the only good.  Recognize how good people could prefer depth.  And that society needs people who value both.

So, What Does a Good Balance Between Depth and Breadth Look Like?

So, if one accepts my proposal that there is a trade-off between social breadth and social depth, that the trade-off is unfortunate because both are good, but that it is real nonetheless, where does that leave us?  Can a reasonable balance be found between depth and breadth?  And, if so, what does it look like and how can it be achieved?

Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is Albion's Seed and its account of the Quakers and the remarkable degree of both depth and breadth they managed to achieve at the same time.  I am not suggesting that this achievement is limited to the Quakers.  Jains (I believe) have done something similar in India.  Jews have sometimes managed something like it in parts of Europe.  Early Christian communities were spectacular in both regards.  But the account of Quakers in Albion's Seed is the most detailed description I know of any of these societies, and most revealing.

The Quakers made a very deep social commitment to one-another.  Quaker communities in England pooled resources to allow members to move to America.  Quakers who could not afford passage came over in indenturement (about half did so), confident that their fellow Quakers would would help them rise above their condition and start a new life.  (This was in contrast to Virginia, where indentured servants, even if they outlasted their bondage, could expect little on the other end besides poverty and degradation).  Quakers formed extended commercial networks. doing business especially with each other and allowing each other special breaks. Throughout Pennsylvania they build "loving neighborhoods" of clustered farms, living in mutual support.  Quakers joined together for Sunday meetings, for church business meetings, and for gatherings like barn raisings and house raisings. Quakers were forbidden to take their differences among each other to court, but instead brought them to the meeting to be arbitrated.

This social depth was not without its problems, some of which are inherent to close-knit societies.  For a religion focusing so strongly on individual conscience, the Quakers were remarkable conformist.  The meeting regulated the minutest details of its members' lives, setting forth exacting standards of clothing and everything else, and requiring members who did not follow the rules to stand before the meeting and "take shame upon themselves."  Marriage required approval of the men's and women's meetings (and of separate meetings if the spouses belonged to different congregations), the opportunity of all members to comment on the marriage and voice objections, and the signing of certificates by numerous members.

But if this social depth could sometimes be stifling, it was not purchased by a loss of breadth.  Quite the contrary, Quakers showed a degree of breadth in their commitments almost unheard of in their day.  Pennsylvania had no established church and admitted all monotheists, even Catholics and Jews. Only Rhode Island granted broader religious freedom.  The Quakers admitted not only other religions, but other nationalities, particularly German Mennonites and other pietists.  They made a sincere effort to maintain good relations with the Indians and respect their rights.  (If they were not always successful, they did better in this regard than anyone else).  They were also the first people to challenge race slavery on moral grounds and to turn it back, not as economically unfeasible, but as morally unacceptable.  Significantly, David Hackett Fischer notes, they extended to everyone else the same rights they demanded for themselves.  While other people, from New England Puritans, French Jacobins, and Israeli Jews, were eloquent in proclaiming their own liberty, when given power they often did not respect the same freedom in others.  The Quakers did.  They rejected the long-standing assumption that freedom was a zero-sum game, that one person's (or group's) gain in liberty was necessarily someone else's loss and instead proclaimed universal "reciprocal liberty" for all -- a freedom rooted in the Golden Rule, that if you would not have other people infringe on your rights, you should not infringe on the rights of others.

How did they do it?  Fischer does not address this issue directly, but one can see some hints about what made such a combination possible, including some factors that may not be easy to duplicate.

Geography may have contributed.
Pennsylvania was a land of rolling hills and valleys "like waves of the sea."  (p. 580).  Each valley could form its own tight-knit community and be geographically separated from other communities to experience little infringement.

Quakers favored limited government.
Quakers were also unusual in distinguishing between state and society.  To many contemporaries, these were not distinct categories.  It was the state's responsibility to ensure a proper social order, including religious conformity, an all-encompassing social hierarchy, and the like.  The Quakers developed the radical concept that some things were simply not the government's business.  It need not enforce uniformity in society.  Rather, the separate communities regulated a wide range of behavior outside the state's purview.  The state's role was to ensure that these communities did not infringe on each other's peace.

Quakers cultivated rigid self-restraint.
Quakers were famous for their asceticism.  Even the Puritans seemed like hedonists by comparison. Quaker meetings had strict dress codes, amounting to a uniform.  Puritans favored recreation insofar as it was necessary to maintain physical and emotional health, opposing it only when people went overboard and indulged in recreation just for fun.  Quakers distrusted any recreation that did not also serve some useful purpose.  Their concept of the limited state did not keep them from outlawing "all prizes, stage plays, cards, dice, may games, masques, revels, bull-baitings, cock-fightings, bear-baitings and the like." (p. 552).  While Puritans were strict in forbidding sex outside of marriage and "unnatural" sex (i.e., anything that interfered with conception), they encouraged it within marriage.  Quakers distrusted sex even within marriage and were so prudish that women would not admit to having anything below the waist except for "ankles."  Puritans were supporters of education at all levels from elementary to university; Quakers distrusted education that did not serve a useful purpose and frowned on "needless" learning.  Even visiting and socializing were looked upon with distrust unless they served a useful purpose such as a barn raising.

Quakers were a commercial people.
I have come to the conclusion that capitalism really is "liberal" in the sense of encouraging social breadth because it encourages non-hostile interaction between groups and broadening of horizons in search of trade.  Quakers were merchants and traders, who did frequent business with each other, but also built expanded and far-flung networks.

Quaker immigration policy was religiously, ethnically, linguistically and (sort of) racially expansive, but culturally restrictive.
As previously mentioned, Quakers admitted all monotheists to their society.  The Quakers themselves were both English and Welsh.  They admitted a large German population and had German-speaking communities and a German language press.  They did not admit immigrants who were not white, but they went farther than anyone else in seeking (however imperfectly) to respect the rights of the black and Indian residents in their midst and include them in their society.  But they did expect non-Quakers admitted to their society to play by Quaker rules.  This did not mean becoming Quakers, or behaving exactly like Quakers, but it did mean behaving in ways acceptable and non-scandalous to Quakers and following something like their rules of self-restraint.  This meant not infringing on other people's peace, but also behaving with proper decorum, dressing in a plain style, and so forth.

While Quakers got along just fine with German pietists and made at least the attempt to find room for blacks and Indians, they could not abide the rowdy British borderers who became the back countrymen.  The borderers were a rowdy, hard-drinking, violent bunch, prone to taking the law into their own hands, and their young women wore scandalously revealing outfits.  The problem was not just that they did not play by Quaker rules, but that their numbers were overwhelming.  (Fischer estimates the total Quaker migration at around 25,000 and the back country migration as closer to 250,000).  The Quakers' first response to the borderers was to send them off the the frontier to serve as a buffer against hostile Indians.  But in the end the back countrymen's overwhelming numbers made them dominant.  (To this day, my law professor said that Pennsylvania is known as "Two fine cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh -- surrounding Alabama.")

So, what lessons can we take from that in this day and age?  Well, Pennsylvania geography is not readily duplicated, and becomes less relevant in the modern world.

Limited government is an interesting matter.  On the one hand, government is bigger now than ever before.  On the other hand, the Quakers' revolutionary ideas about the proper relationship between the individual and the state, and that many things are simply not the state's business, have by now become mainstream and are widely taken for granted.  I should also note here another shortcoming of very tight-knit societies. Just because a community enforces its mores informally without the intervention of the state does not mean that abuses of power can be excluded.  Quite the contrary, abuses of power can be rampant in close-knit societies, and be universally concealed and protected without recourse.  See, for instance, sexual abuse by the clergy.  The Quakers had the admitted advantage of not having a clergy and of being generally anti-hierarchical.  But cultivating separate, close-knit communities, each tending to its own with a minimal state merely keeping order between them.

As for self-restraint, certainly we don't exercise the same kind of self-restraint that the Quakers did, but I have gone on record saying that we exercise a lot more of it than we may give ourselves credit for.  Look at two lanes of traffic merging and how well everyone has developed an unwritten rule the each car shall let exactly one car merge ahead of it, no more and no less.  To fail to allow a car to merge ahead of you is to be unfair to the other stream of traffic.  To let more than more ahead is to be unfair to the other drivers behind you.  Or when traffic lights go out, the two streets do the same, with each allowing one set of car go through in turn.  (It is slow and inefficient, but peaceable).  Or look for a parking space in a crowded parking lot and notice how well respected handicapped parking spaces are, no matter how frustrating the lack of open spaces may be.  Foreigners visiting the US marvel that restaurants can leave condiments on the table without their being swiped, and that stores put displays of pumpkins and firewood in front, and the vast majority of customers carry them in and pay for them.  All fine and good, a social conservative may say.  It is certainly good that Americans are courteous drivers and respect private property, but that is not enough.  What about our shocking degree of sexual indulgence?  I suppose I would say that it is much exaggerated.  Americans fully condone sex outside of marriage, but not so much out of a committed relationship.  And in many ways our society demands an unparalleled degree of sexual restraint.  Throughout most of history, interaction between men and women has been closely restricted on the assumption that if men and women are allowed to mingle freely, nature will inevitably take its course.  Our own society allows free mingling but demands that people (read: men) put their libidos on hold except in appropriate contexts.  And it turns out that men are capable of doing just that.

As for the commercial nature of Quakers, well, our society is the most commercial that has ever existed and it has, indeed, done much to advance the cause of social breadth, though at the cost of social depth.  And, interestingly enough, this is something that many liberals freely acknowledge and deplore, while conservatives lament the result while remaining willfully blind to the cause.

As for immigration policy -- well, that is especially relevant nowadays, isn't it?  And I would take it to mean that racial, ethnic, religious and even linguistic diversity do not have to undermine a healthy society, and that differences in culture can be tolerated -- but with limits.  A society can open its doors to immigrants and maintain its social health, but it must make its rules clear, and it must make clear to immigrants that if you want to move to our society, you will have to play by our rules.  And finally, the Quakers' experience with back countrymen goes to show that a society not strong enough to enforce its rules will see them come to an end.

Liberals, Conservatives, and Authoritarians

All right, so back to authoritarianism, what is it?  I have suggested in my own taxonomy that liberals prefer social breadth to social depth, conservative prefer depth to breadth, and authoritarians take a hostile or punitive attitude toward outsiders.  We have to be careful here, as Jonathan Haidt often warns, to avoid definitions that simply conflate conservative with authoritarian, definitions like, "People who score high on the authoritarian scale value conformity and order, protect social norms, and are wary of outsiders."

But Haidt does endorse the work of researcher Karen Stenner on the subject.  This overview of her work is interesting.  Critical to the theory of authoritarianism is the theory of activation:

In an influential 2005 book called The Authoritarian Dynamic, Stenner argued that many authoritarians might be latent — that they might not necessarily support authoritarian leaders or policies until their authoritarianism had been "activated." 

This activation could come from feeling threatened by social changes such as evolving social norms or increasing diversity, or any other change that they believe will profoundly alter the social order they want to protect. In response, previously more moderate individuals would come to support leaders and policies we might now call Trump-esque. 

Other researchers, like Hetherington, take a slightly different view. They believe that authoritarians aren't "activated" — they've always held their authoritarian preferences — but that they only come to express those preferences once they feel threatened by social change or some kind of threat from outsiders. 

But both schools of thought agree on the basic causality of authoritarianism. People do not support extreme policies and strongman leaders just out of an affirmative desire for authoritarianism, but rather as a response to experiencing certain kinds of threats.
The third insight came from Hetherington and American University professor Elizabeth Suhay, who found that when non-authoritarians feel sufficiently scared, they also start to behave, politically, like authoritarians. 

But Hetherington and Suhay found a distinction between physical threats such as terrorism, which could lead non-authoritarians to behave like authoritarians, and more abstract social threats, such as eroding social norms or demographic changes, which do not have that effect. 

 Okay, so let's give credit for an important insight here.  People do not desire authoritarianism as such, they turn to authoritarian leaders for protection from threats, i.e., what really underlies authoritarianism is fear.  But people are divided into two either/or categories, ones who are activated only by an actual physical threat, and ones who are activated by any sort of change.

But there is another way of seeing things, treating "activation" not as an either/or, but as a spectrum.  Anyone feeling threatened enough will respond in an authoritarian sort of way.  But different people have different threat thresholds.  And here is where I think the liberal/conservative distinction and the belief that conservatives are more prone to authoritarianism than liberals can be valid.  People who prefer depth to breadth have a lower threat threshold from outsiders than people who prefer breadth to depth.  In other words, people who value depth over breadth (conservatives) take less of a threat to "activate" into hostility toward outsiders (authoritarianism) than people who value breadth over depth (liberals).

Or, put differently, people who complain about conflating authoritarianism with conservatism are right.  There is nothing "anti-other" about conservatism, although it is indifferent and incurious toward outsiders.  But people who equate conservatism with authoritarianism have half a point there too.  The more conservative people are (i.e., the more they value depth over breadth), the less it takes for them to feel threatened by outsiders and be "activated" into authoritarianism.

Recall Robert Altemeyer's iteration of the Global Change Game (pp. 181-182) with a group of players who valued depth over breadth -- conservatives Haidt would say, authoritarian followers according to Altemeyer.  They worked well together in their arbitrarily assigned groups, never showing the slightest aggressiveness or belligerency toward outsiders, but also not showing any interest in cooperation or interaction with anyone but their own sub-group.  "There were no wars on this night, not even a hint of a threat. The basic high RWA attitude seemed to be, 'You don’t bother us, we won’t bother you.'"  In other words, people who value depth over breadth have no desire to infringe on others.  All is well (or at least peaceful) so long as they are surrounding by other people equally unwilling to infringe.  But all it takes is a few belligerent types who want to infringe on others, and suddenly the others have little choice but to become hostile toward outsiders as a matter of self-defense.  (See Altemeyer's book, pages 32-34 and 183-186.  Especially interesting now is 183-186, describing how authoritarian leaders were good at making deals, but never learned to cooperate for the greater good.  Hm. . . ).

I should also add that an excessive emphasis on breadth over depth can lead to a pathologically low threshold of activation.  People who responded to terrorists flying planes into the World Trade Center by talking about loving one's enemies are enough to make anyone roll their eyes.  People who prefer breadth to depth are often uncommonly naive in not realizing that not everyone shares their priorities, that many if not most people in the world out there prefer depth to breadth and would rather just be left alone, and that a significant number are authoritarians and actively hostile to all outsiders.

And some people (not many, but some) are just inherently authoritarian, naturally hostile rather than indifferent to outsiders and eager to offend and intrude for the sake of offending and intruding.  (Or for personal gain).

Next, I will indulge in a bit of whimsy on how science fiction may be said to engage this issue.

What Does it Mean to Call Trump Supporters Authoritarian?

So, having defined liberals as people who prefer social breadth to social depth and conservatives as people who prefer social depth to social breadth, what are authoritarians?

As seen before, Haidt defines authoritarians as people who place a high value on social cohesion and obedience to authority, and a low value on compassion.  He has expanded on this definition  elsewhere, apparently starting to recognize what I saw as a concern with moral foundations theory -- that the combination of group loyalty and purity/sanctity can turn into something very ugly -- a view of certain people outside one's in-group as impure and defiling.  He sounds almost like Robert Altemeyer when he says:

[W]hen they [authoritarians] perceive that the moral order is falling apart, the country is losing its coherence and cohesiveness, diversity is rising, and our leadership seems (to them) to be suspect or not up to the needs of the hour, its as though a button is pushed on their forehead that says “in case of moral threat, lock down the borders, kick out those who are different, and punish those who are morally deviant.” So its not just rising immigration and diversity that has activated American authoritarians — it may be our rising political polarization itself, which has activated and energized a subset of the electorate that is now lionizing Trump as the first major candidate in a long time who has spoken to their fears and desires. In short, Trump is not a conservative, and is not appealing to classical conservative ideas. He is an authoritarian.

He begins to see an exaggerated disgust reflex as dangerous or at least worth investigating as possibly dangerous:

I actually don’t know whether disgust is really characteristic of “status quo conservatives.” It’s possible that it is the authoritarians who drive the general correlation of disgust and self-declared conservatism. Given Hitler’s obsessive focus on disgust and vermin in Mein Kampf, and the general absence of such talk in classical conservative writings, I would guess that it is most characteristic of authoritarian psychology.

He cites favorable to a column that says of Trump:

More than any other Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump has been appealing to a particular combination of in-group loyalty and moral purity concerns. On the purity side, he often expresses disgust, often toward women and women’s bodies (e.g., Clinton’s bathroom break during a Democratic debate). But his purity appeals are most commonly in the context of group boundaries, like building walls on our national borders to prevent contamination by outsiders, who are cast as murderers and rapists, both morally and physically dirty.

And to the New Republic:

The disgust response feeds into an “in-group” response: What is disgusting is exterior, and the group must be protected from it, which in turn provides comfort and reinforces a shared sense of identity.

In short, what Haidt and the people he cites appear to see as authoritarianism is not so much placing a high value on social cohesion and a low value on compassion as a strong sense of disgust and punitive attitude toward people seen as a threat to social cohesion.

So, in the taxonomy I am forming, liberals are people who prefer breadth to depth in social commitment.  Conservatives are people who prefer depth to breadth in social commitment.  And authoritarians are people who are hostile and punitive toward people outside their circle of social commitment.  In responding to the outsider, the liberal response is to attempt to form ties, albeit in a superficial and often patronizing manner, the conservative response is indifference and incuriosity, and the authoritarian response is hostility and disgust.

Next: Authoritarian triggers.

Conservative Emphasis on Depth, Its Limits, and Its Failings

Just because I have criticized liberals for focusing excessively on social breadth and ignored the importance of depth does not mean that I am siding with conservatives, or that I think depth is superior.  If liberals tend to dismiss conservative preference for depth as mere bigotry, conservatives tend to see the liberal preference for breadth as outright treason.  They are right that liberals tend to be highly self-critical of our own society and its failings, while less so of the failings of other societies.  I can only ask them to understand:

The love of one’s own – one’s own culture, one’s own country and also one’s own person – manifests itself in self-criticism. The love of the other – of another person, another culture and even another religion – can be far more effusive; it can be unreserved. It is true that the prerequisite for love of the other is love of oneself. . . . Self-love must be a struggling, doubting, constantly questioning love if it is to avoid falling prey to narcissism, self-praise, self-satisfaction.

Exactly so.

Social depth is certainly valuable.  It makes for a tight-knit society, a more personal and more human  society than one that emphasized breadth over depth.  It answers the paradox of why conservatives, despite valuing compassion less than liberals, donation more to charity, do more volunteer work, etc. Charitable donation, volunteer work, civic engagement, and so forth are part of social depth.  A preference for breadth is going to sacrifice these things.  But depth has its problems as well.  Tight-knit societies can seem intrusive as well as caring.  They can be harsh in their treatment of non-conformists.  They are often cliquish and gossipy.  Their informal means of enforcing norms are not necessarily any more pleasant than the formal means used by broader but shallower societies.

But above all, people who prefer depth to breadth still have to figure out how to deal with the outside world.  At best, they tend to be incurious and indifferent to it, to ignore the outside world and hope that it won't bother them.  What if the outside world fails to cooperate?  I have discussed Robert Altemeyer's work The Authoritarians before and why it is the perfect example of pathologizing conservatism, i.e., the preference for depth over breadth.  Certainly, Altemeyer makes the case in favor of social breadth (which I do not dispute), but nowhere does he acknowledge the value of social depth at all, much less explain why breadth is worth any concomitant loss of depth -- or does he?

The closest if really comes to making the argument that breadth is better than depth is in his description of how differing groups played The Global Change Game, a complex, multi-player game intended to promote environmental awareness.  (Since environmentalism was not yet a culture war issue, there was no resistance to such a game among conservatives).  The liberal group (i.e., people who preferred breadth to depth) did not really see their assignment into different nationalities as meaningful and therefore were able to work together as one group to deal with the environmental problems the game threw at them (pp. 31-32).

Things were quite different (pp. 181-182, 186) when he played the game among people who he called right-wing authoritarians, and others might call authoritarian followers (no leaders), Haidt might call social conservatives (people who put a high value on social cohesion, but are not lacking in compassion), some might simply call conservatives, and I will call people who prefer depth to breadth (conservatives for short).  Assigned to separate groups, each group was close-knit and worked well together.  Leaders stayed home and sincerely addressed themselves to their groups' problems.  The various groups were not in any way hostile toward each other, but neither did they cooperate across boundaries.  They simply wanted to be left alone and were perfectly prepared to leave others alone in turn.  Wealthy countries made some charitable donations to poorer ones, but showed no interest in working with them on a serious level.  But the environmental problems thrown at them were bigger than any country could handle on its own, and no one knew how to reach beyond their groups to address them.  Indeed, Altemeyer comments, their preference for depth over breadth reached absurd lengths here.  They were, after all, among people just like themselves, people they could normally for real social depth with.  The assignment into different countries was perfectly arbitrary.  Yet once assigned, they limited their commitments to the people arbitrarily assigned to their group and showed no interest in anyone else.

I can see conservatives crying liberal bias here.  It is not as obvious as in Altemeyer's research, but the bias may subconsciously be there.  If you want people to start addressing global environmental problems, you are apt to favor people who can cooperate on a global scale to deal with them, i.e., people who value social breadth more than depth.  Doubtless other games could be devised that would show the advantages of depth over breadth.  But this game does ultimately illustrate a reality. There really are problems (environmental and otherwise) that are global in scale and that can only be addressed on a trans-national basis.  People who are absolutely dead-set against any sort of international cooperation as an intolerable threat to national sovereignty are going to be very poorly equipped to deal with such problems and can only respond by denying that they exist altogether.

Nor does this problem come up only in the context of global problems.  So far as I can make out from blog comment sections, the ideal of people who prefer depth to breadth is a society of nations all of perfect ethnic uniformity, with no migration and minimal interaction of any kind, avoiding conflict by having as little to do with each other as possible.  Even within a nation, the preference tends to be for small, tight-knit communities, as uniform as possible, with migration and interaction existent, but decidedly low.  I do not consider this approach to be a realistic one.  A country as large and as commercial as the United States cannot hold together without a significant amount of breadth in our social commitments.

Conservatives often argue against a preference for breadth over depth on the grounds that it is simply not human nature to broaden our social commitments, that the preference for depth over breadth is innate, and that liberals are trying to achieve the impossible.  To this I would respond that if there has been one long-run trend throughout the arc of history, it has been toward greater breadth.  Yes, granted, this has been paid for with a loss of depth.  And it has not always been pretty.  But it has happened.  This is not an argument for inevitable progress or being on the right side of history, or proof that breadth is preferable to depth because it has grown over time.  It is simply an argument that expansion is breadth is obviously possible, given that it has happened.

And I would make another response on the subject of preferring depth to breadth.  If the ideal of people who prefer depth to breadth is a world of self-contained units avoiding conflict by interacting as little as possible, I would ask when such a thing has ever happened.  If any social vision is impossible, it is that.

Liberal Emphasis on Breadth, Its Limits, and Its Failings

All right, I have posted on Donald Trump followers as authoritarians.  And I have relied heavily on Jonathan Haidt, who warns against simply identifying authoritarianism with conservatism, i.e., a high value on social cohesion. Instead, he defines authoritarians as people who place a high value on social cohesion and a low value on compassion.  I would like to give some thought to the meaning of what it is to be liberal, conservative, or authoritarian, even apart from Donald Trump and his followers.  And I would like to give some thought to how conservatism differs from authoritarianism -- and the ways in which they are alike.

So let me try my own ideas here once again.  There is a trade-off between depth and breadth of social commitment.  And I would roughly define liberals as people who prefer breadth and conservatives as people who favor depth.  And, it should be noted, social depth and social breadth are both good  things.  Unfortunately there is a trade-off between them. And I am inclined to think that conservatives understand this trade-off better than liberals do.  That is (presumably) why conservatives are so inclined to resist any broadening of social commitments, because they see it as a threat to depth.

Liberals, by contrast, are either blind to the importance of depth, or vaguely regret the lost of depth in today's society, without recognizing that it is tied to the increase in breadth.  This blindness to depth is a serious failing among liberals.  It is, in large part, what Haidt is talking about when he talks about the "binding foundations."  These foundations, of group loyalty, respect for authority, and reverence for the sacred can more broadly be described as social cohesion, and more broadly still as social depth.  And really, if you don't understand the value of social depth, you are missing something very important.  Consider this Vox article, in which the author wearily tries to explain to liberals why, really, social depth is important and valuable:

Everyone knows their purpose, knows their neighbors, and has a common understanding of what America means. Consequently there is an ease and harmony to life. Because people know where they stand and feel secure, small acts of generosity and social solidarity are common. 

Someone offers to help when your car breaks down on the side of the road. You buy a kid a soda. Police help people across the street. Everyone knows each other, knows that we are an Us, so there's a background level of trust and support.

Another example is from Sara Robinson at Orcinus, on why people may be attracted to fundamentalist churches and how to encourage them to leave.  Obviously many people are brought up in such churches.  Leaving can often mean a painful loss of social depth:

Former fundamentalists often mourn the hothouse intensity of their family and church ties -- even when they're simultaneously grateful not to be under the constant watchful eyes of all those intrusively "caring" people, and free of the manipulations used to keep them in line. On our side of the wall, that level of intimacy is harder to come by. What feels like an appropriate respect for other people's boundaries to us may feel fairly cold and uncaring to them, and it may take a while before they become accustomed to the more temperate social climate that prevails on our side of the wall. . . . They may respond to our misfortunes with a generosity that we find a bit unsettling; or, conversely, they may expect us to become involved with theirs to an extent that's frustrating to us and disappointing to them. It's best to remember that what's really happening here is a bit of cross-cultural miscommunication, and deal with it in that same multiculti spirit. It's something we're supposed to be good at.

She also comments that people are most attracted to such churches in times of stress or crisis because of the support they offer.  It does not seem to occur to her that the failure of broader-committed liberal society to offer similar support is a serious failing.

Or consider liberal Episcopalian Bruce Bawer in his book Stealing Jesus (page 229), who can barely restrain his contempt for Evangelical mega-church Willow Creek:

[T]he culture of a place like Willow Creek suggests that the name of Jesus Christ has been attached to something that is less about the gospel than it is about people's desire to achieve for their families a safe, controlled environment -- the ecclesiastic equivalent of a gated community.  Observers have noted that Willow Creek members can spend a whole weekend at the church's campus, eating at the food court and enjoying various other services and diversions; members who need, say, emergency car repair or tooth extraction can call day or night on fellow members who do those things for a living.

Well, it shouldn't have to be said, but it is good to belong to a close-knit community and know you can call on members for emergency car repairs or tooth extraction whenever needed.  It is also a fine example of Christian charity to offer those services on a personal rather than commercial basis.  On page 224 he recounts an exchange with a conservative Episcopalian who said that Christianity is about looking after one's own, while he said that it is about the opposite.

This is an ongoing dispute I see in blog comments sections that really allow opposing viewpoints and are not mere echo chambers or shouting matches.  Conservative Christians say that Christianity is about social depth.  Liberal Christians say that it is about social breadth.  In fact, it is about both. Christianity makes unrealistic, impossible demands on its adherents.  As a church it is free to do so. In setting social policy, however, we have to take human nature as it is, not as it should be.  And the simple fact is that there is a trade-off between social breadth and social depth that must be taken into account in setting public policy.  To focus exclusively on breadth and ignore the value of depth is to build a remarkably cold, impersonal society, an ultimate fraying of the social bond.  And to dismiss the desire for depth and mere bigotry is to invite a backlash from the likes of Donald Trump or Marine LePen.

This is not to suggest that conservatives are right and liberals are wrong, or that we should always resolve the trade-off between depth and breadth in favor of depth.  But that trade-off does exist, social depth is a thing of value, and the trade-off needs to be openly acknowledged and debated, not simply and automatically resolved in favor of breadth.

NOTE:  Updated to link and quote the Vox article that I was not able to find before.

Trump and Authoritarianism: An Attempt at a Rigorous Definition

There has been a lot of talk about Donald Trump's followers being "authoritarians."  Well before you start throwing words around too loosely, you had better start defining what authoritarianism means. And a lot of these definitions are not very satisfactory.  This one, for instance, defines authoritarians as people who "value conformity and order, protect social norms, and are wary of outsiders."  But that simply means people who value Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations of group loyalty, authority, and purity/sanctity.  In other words, conservatives.  And I am one who believes that it shows a serious tunnel vision to pathologize conservatism.

Yet Haidt himself is also calling Trump followers authoritarians.  And if Haidt, who has led the charge against equating conservatism with authoritarianism, is calling Trump's followers authoritarian maybe we should be listening.  And maybe he can offer some useful insight into a better working definition of authoritarian than simply a synonym for conservative.

Haidt wrote an interesting column on the primaries on February 5 -- an eternity ago the world of primary politics.  Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio were still running, though not doing very well.  He applies the moral foundations test (naturally) to the followers of the candidates, rather than to the candidates themselves.  Supporters of each candidate were ranked by how their emphasis on each value compared with the views of the general American public.  A positive score meant that followers of that candidate valued that particular foundation more than the general public; a negative score did not mean that followers of a candidate opposed that foundation, but simply that they valued it less than did the general public.

For the sake of the article, he lumps the conservative values, or as he also calls them, the binding values, of group loyalty, authority, and purity/sanctity into one cluster -- call it social cohesion.  That left the values of harm/care, justice, and liberty.  Furthermore, it is pointless asking people how much they value justice.  Everyone sets a high value on justice.  The difference is not that some people value it more and some value it less, but that people with different political values define it differently.  Liberals define justice in egalitarian or at least utilitarian terms -- harm avoidance and the greatest good for the greatest number.  Conservatives are more likely to define it a proportionality, or just deserts -- letting the undeserving fail.  In simple English, conservatives are more likely than liberals to define justice in punitive terms, although Haidt does not refer to it that way.  His results were interesting and sometimes surprising.

Unsurprisingly, there was a marked negative correlation between care/empathy and the tendency to view justice as proportionality, or in punitive terms.  Wanting people to suffer the consequences of their bad decisions and lack of empathy are traits one would expect to go together, and they do.  One might call the combination the very definition of economic conservatism.  It should also not be surprising that there was a negative correlation between the value place on individual liberty versus social cohesion, since there is, indeed, a tradeoff between these things.  Preferring social cohesion to individual liberty could be called the very definition of social conservatism. If anything is surprising, it is that the negative correlation was not stronger.

But while one would expect a tradeoff between empathy and proportionality (economic liberalism/ conservatism) and between individual liberty and social cohesion (social conservatism/liberalism) there is no reason whatever for there to be any correlation between where people stand on the economic spectrum and where they stand on the social spectrum.  And, indeed, there was not.  While supporters of both Democratic candidates scored high on empathy and low on proportionality, only Sanders supporters scored high on individual liberty and (very) low on social cohesion.  Hilary Clinton supporters scored a bit low on both.  In other words, both Democrats draw economic liberals, but Sanders supporters are the more socially liberal.  On the Republican side, followers of Christian candidates Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson scored average to above average on empathy and fairly close to the mean on proportionality.  In other words, Carson followers were only slightly economically conservative and Huckabee followers were slightly economically liberal.  But both placed a markedly low value on individual liberty and a high value on social cohesion.  In other words, they were socially conservative.  Rand Paul followers, by contrast, had the exact opposite profile.  They scored lower than any others on empathy and high on proportionality.  By contrast, they scored higher than anyone else on individual liberty and lower than anyone but Sanders supporters on social cohesion.  Rubio and Cruz supporters stand out as low on empathy (Cruz supporters were second lowest after Rand, and Rubio's were third), and much, much higher on proportionality, i.e., punitive justice than anyone else, with Cruz supporters especially high.  Haidt adds that this marks them as the Tea Party candidates -- proportional/punitive justice is the Tea Party's leading issue. Followers of both men rate somewhat above average on social cohesion, with Cruz followers more so, while Cruz followers are slightly above average on individual freedom and Rubio followers neutral.

And now for the most surprising findings.  The candidates whose followers hewed closest to the mean were Jeb Bush -- and Donald Trump.  Bush followers were either at the mean or minimally above or below it on all categories.  So why couldn't the candidate who attracts supporters closest to ordinary American values gain more traction?  Haidt suggests that he is just too vanilla bland to generate much passion.  As for Trump supporters -- well, they are somewhat below average on empathy, but not spectacularly so.  They are also somewhat above average on proportionality and social cohesion, but nothing impressive.  And they are very minimally above average on individual freedom.  In short, they seem pretty vanilla bland, too.  On a left-to-right spectrum, Haidt places them smack-dab in the middle, as number five out of nine candidates.

Haidt then goes on to compare the candidates in other ways.  For instance, he compares each primary candidate with only members of their own party.  Here are the results for comparing Clinton and Sanders to your average Democrat:

They are both at the Democratic average on care/ empathy.  From a Democratic perspective, Clinton looks pretty bland, valuing liberty a little below average and authority a little above, but nothing remarkable.  Sanders, by contrast, ranks below average on proportionality and all measures of social cohesion, and above average on individual liberty.  Which is to say, he is a social liberal.  But you knew that.

Among Republicans, what stand out most is (1) Carson followers are high on care and low on proportionality (i.e., they are not economically conservative) and low on liberty.  The really outstanding supporters are Rubio and Cruz on proportionality.  They are exceptionally punitive, even among Republicans.  (Rubio supporters also seem to disvalue loyalty and sanctity, while Cruz and Carson supporters value it).  And here Trump supporters seem the most vanilla bland of all the Republican candidates -- their values differ only minimally from the average Republican.  Comments Haidt:

One of the biggest surprises in our dataset was that Donald Trump’s supporters did not appear particularly unusual. Part of this is due to the fact that his higher vote share means his supporters are closer to average.

But Haidt has one last trick up his sleeve.  He compares each candidate's supporters to other members of the same demographic.   In other words, they took the "age, sex, education level, income, race, and self-reported ideology" makeup of supporters of each candidate and compared their moral foundations to general members of the same "age, sex, education level, income, race, and self-reported ideology."  For instance, if Bernie Sanders followers were younger, whiter and more liberal than Clinton followers, he took a cross-section of the population of that was equally young, white and liberal and compared their moral foundations to specific foundations of Sanders supporters.*  His results were as follows:

  Thus Sanders followers did not score any higher on individual liberty than others of their demographic, but did score lower on proportionality and social cohesion.  Rand Paul followers, by contrast, scored overwhelmingly high on liberty (and low on social cohesion).  Cruz and Rubio followers scored high on proportionality, but while Cruz followers scored highest in absolute terms, Rubio followers scored even higher relative to their demographic.  Bush followers, though very close to the national average on proportionality, were much below it compared to their demographic.

And what of Trump followers?  The predictive effect is weaker than any of the other candidates, but compared to others of their demographic, Trump supporters tend to score higher on social cohesion and lower on empathy. Says Haidt, "These are the true authoritarians — they value obedience while scoring low on compassion."

It is significant what Haidt does not define as authoritarianism.  He does not define placing a high value on authority as authoritarianism.  He does not define it as value placing a low value on personal liberty.  Nor does he define it as the combination of putting a high value on authority (and social cohesion in general) and a low value on personal liberty.  These things do, indeed, tend to correlate and might seem an intuitively obvious definition of authoritarianism.  Haidt disagrees.  He sees these things together as simply a definition of social conservatism and equating the combination with authoritarianism is simply an attempt to pathologize social conservatism.

Similarly, Haidt does not define low compassion as authoritarianism.  He does not define a punitive (proportional) definition of justice as authoritarianism.**  Nor does he define the combination of low compassion, high punitive justice as authoritarianism.  These things, too, tend to correlated, but Haidt would presumably say that they are just economic conservatism and equating them with authoritarianism is simply an attempt to pathologize economic conservatism.

Instead, Haidt equates authoritarianism with two traits that do not normally correlate -- a high value on social cohesion and a low value on compassion.  Haidt has elsewhere said that he has nothing against libertarians who place a low value on compassion but a high value on personal liberty.  Here he indicates that he has nothing against social conservatives who place a high value on social cohesion but also on care.  Indeed, it is probably true that many social conservatives like Mike Huckabee value social cohesion in part as promoting care.  It is the high cohesion/low care outliers who Haidt sees as dangerous.

I intend to play with the subject (not necessarily in the context of Donald Trump) in my next few posts.

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*I am rather skeptical of this approach myself.  It seems to me that if a certain demographic gravitates toward a certain ideology and a certain candidate, that is itself more useful than trying to see how supporters of that particular candidate differ from their general demographic.  But still, to the extent that it distinguishes Trump supporters from the general population, it is interesting.
**Although he has warned against the danger of assuming that karmic justice is not just an ideal, but an actual reality.

Anti-State versus Anti-Other

Republicans are doing what they so often do -- denouncing intrusive Big Government while calling for bigger and more intrusive government to crack down on immigrants, beating the drums of war, and calling for everyone to rally around the police and exempt them from any criticism.  Is this hypocritical?  I would say it is less hypocrisy than an error in terminology.  Or as this wise observer put it, it is the difference between being anti-state and "anti-other."  And here is the thing -- anti-other can easily masquerade as anti-state.  Ron Paul and his followers are classic examples.

I got a useful insight from Jonathan Haidt's discussion of the moral foundations -- particularly the foundation of in-group loyalty.  If maximizing your in-group's autonomy and sovereignty are important goals, it went a long way toward explaining to me why right-wingers are so strongly opposed to international cooperation, from the United Nations to trade agreements.  They are threats to national autonomy and sovereignty.  And it explained why conservatives are strong advocates of states' rights -- the importance of local autonomy and sovereignty.  And, incidentally, I am more sympathetic to that viewpoint than I have been in the past.  It is clear that on the matter of the euro the ignorant masses were right and purportedly enlightened elites were wrong.  Introducing a trans-national currency really was a dangerous infringement on national sovereignty that undermined countries' ability to manage their own economies and left them at the mercy of their creditors.*  In the Iraq war, the very worst insurgents were the international jihadis with no local ties and therefore no stake in the country's long-term survival.  So such concerns are legitimate, and confronted with them I (we) should give the matter greater thought before rejecting them as simple bigotry.

But too strong a focus on preserving one's in-group autonomy and sovereignty and protecting it from outside contamination can lead in a very ugly direction.  It is an obvious case of us-and-them thinking.  And it sees the state's proper role as throwing a protective circle around Us to shield Us from Them.  Superficially, this sort of outlook can seem anti-state because we don't want the state meddling in matters between Us, since the state is never truly one of Us.  Thus preserving the autonomy and sovereignty of one's in-group means minimizing the power of the state over it.  Thus the anti-other outlook can seem extremely libertarian and anti-state to the extent that it wants to deny or at least minimize state authority in dealings among Us.  But if the role of the state is to draw a protective shield between Us and Them, then there no need for any limits on its power in dealing with Them.

Note, too, that although fine distinctions among Them** are unimportant and parsing them is simply proof that the speaker is not one of Us, there are degrees of other-ness.  Us-and-Them is best seen, not as a sharp dichotomy, but as a series of concentric circles.  The outermost circle are hostile foreign powers and anyone who resembles them.  For instance, in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, a whole lot of people were unconcerned with the fine distinction between Afghanistan and Iraq, or between Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, and the Taliban.  They were all Muslim, Mideastern, and enemies, so why bother distinguishing between them.  Likewise, I assume that when Mike Huckabeee responds to the ISIS attack in Paris by calling on us to scrap our nuclear deal with Iran, it is because neither he nor his supporters are interested in such fine details as that the Iranian government is fighting ISIS!  Yet at the same time, when North Korea began ramping up its nuclear program around the time we prepared for war with Iraq, there was no appetite for war with North Korea -- partly, no doubt, because such a war promised to be bloody, but also because it was obvious to even the more pig-headed that North Korea had nothing to do with 9-11 and was therefore not an obvious target for revenge.

Foreign countries in general occupy the next circle.  Here there is a tendency to see foreign countries in two categories, friend and foe.  With a foe (including countries like North Korea that we are not actually at war with, but are clearly hostile), the only options are war and complete disengagement. Friendly countries are the enemy of an enemy.  We expect them to support us in all our wars and will, in turn, support them in all their wars.  Failure to support a friendly country in its wars (either by that country or by us) is counted as a betrayal.  But the anti-other outlook distrusts any sort of international cooperation (except for fighting the same enemies) as a threat to national sovereignty. Thus they distrust not only diplomacy, but even lower level engagement, such as trade.  Here clearly the anti-state viewpoint (free trade!  No protectionism!) comes into conflict with the anti-other outlook (protect Us from Them).  That is why Ron Paul's opposition to NAFTA, or the Republican rank-and-file opposition to the Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement are so important.  They are signs that a purported anti-state outlook is really anti-other.

Next come foreign nationals trying to enter the US.  And here all pretext of being anti-state vanishes. Militarization of the border, immigration raids, maximally intrusive surveillance of anyone entering on a legal visa, any number of annoying business regulations and red tape to prevent hiring anyone without a Green Card -- all these are clearly state action in its most intrusive and coercive.  They are also clear examples of what happens when the state tries to fight the will of the free market, in this case, in labor.  A true anti-state libertarian would emphasize this point.  An anti-other viewpoint may regret the regulatory burden on businessmen (many of whom are Us), but simply does not see state coercion against Them as an issue.  Likewise, we can imagine that in the war on terror, an anti-other would oppose any state dragnet over domestic telephone and e-mail record on the grounds that the state should keep its hands off me, but might have no objection to extremely intrusive surveillance over international communications on the grounds that anyone communicating with a foreign country is probably up to no good.

States' rights libertarians also look very much more anti-other than anti-state.  The underlying assumption in states' rights libertarianism is that only the federal government can oppress and that the actions of states, even if they are identical to federal actions, are inherently less oppressive.  But, although an assumption that the states can do no wrong is clearly contradicted by empirical evidence and contrary to libertarian opposition to all government, but it does fit well with the value maximizing in-group autonomy and sovereignty.  It should not be surprising that Ron Paul and a lot of neo-Confederate psuedo-libertarians belong to this tendency.

Finally, although not so Them as foreigners, fellow citizens are not necessarily Us.  I was particularly struck by this with a poster to Rod Dreher (which he wrote a separate column about, but which I am not going to go to the trouble of finding) in response to white support for black protests against the police.  The post made quite clear that the author saw the role of big city police as protecting the  SWPL (pronounced swipple.  Look it up) from the ravening black hoards and that the only authentic way any white person can respond to a police shooting of a black person is to line up behind the cops as one's own.  Questions of investigating individual crimes, making arrests, and justice to individuals did not seem to register in his view.  He did not seem to regard crimes by one black person against another as any concern of the authorities.  Indeed, it is far from clear that he even thought the urban police should investigate a crime by one white person against another.  Also unaddressed -- growing rates of interracial marriage and whether a white person may "authentically" care about a black spouse or their multi-racial children.

In short, the basic view of less government for Us and more for Them is not really incoherent if looked at from the right angle.  But from any angle, it is still ugly.

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*Although, just for the record, the gold standard has exactly the same failing, and it seems strange to see Ron Paul sorts of libertarians, so prescient on the euro, fail to see the similarity to gold.
**Such as the difference between Communist, socialist and fascist; between Muslim and atheist; between Sunni and Shiite; and between any factions and distinctions of people who look vaguely Mideastern.