This essay is written from a very USA-centric perspective. Though I hope the more general conclusions are more widely applicable, I admit that the examples used are provincial in the extreme.
There are dozens of ways to explain philosophically the key divides of modern politics: left- vs. right-wingers, libertarians vs. authoritarians, rich vs. poor, old vs. young, and so on. I'm sure a half-dozen more such classifications sprang to mind when you began to read that list. However, I've become convinced that there is another key philosophical difference about the role of law that underlies much of modern political debate, and is nevertheless poorly understood. For the purposes of this essay, I will describe this debate as that of "proclamation vs. policy." The "proclamation" perspective holds that the purpose of the law is to announce or express the moral views of society, while the "policy" perspective holds that law should be used to change the material conditions of society, including through indirect means. The unacknowledged difference between these two perspectives leads to proposed laws being justified in terms that their opponents find literally incomprehensible, causing confused political discourse. Likewise, the under-examination of this distinction leads to thoughtless, unjustified radicalism on this question. Even a cursory exploration of these two sides of the law can help clarify numerous legislative debates, past and contemporary, while allowing citizens to more clearly understand their own views and values.
Before exploring how the tension between proclamation and policy underlies contemporary USian political debates that express themselves in quite different terms, I'm going to explore the two perspectives at greater length, using a handful of unequivocal examples.
The "proclamation" model holds that the law represents an expression of moral values. Among the most lauded examples of the "proclamation" model of law [1] was the USA's Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation marked an official declaration of the Union's position on slavery: unequivocally against. It was able to fulfill this goal without, in fact, freeing many slaves. Though it ultimately took several more years of military action and a Constitutional Amendment to end slavery in the USA as an institution, the Emancipation Proclamation is still understood as the key moment in the process of emancipation, because it articulated the Union's moral stance against slavery so incontestably. The most extreme form of proclamation-type law can be found in legislative proclamations without enforceable terms; for example, those designating a particular day a "National Day of Prayer" or a day to commemorate some particular cause.
Conversely, the "policy" model holds that the aim of the law is to change conditions as they actually apply; to address problems and improve the state.[2] It is hard to find an independent, ideal example of legislative work of this form—as policy cannot be considered in isolation, and it does not tend to attract much notice. Thus, we can consider the example of a field rather than a particular law. Traffic law is a useful example for an initial approach. It involves a great number of small decisions which must be made, by the legislature or regulatory bodies. Few, if any, such decisions can be resolved by appeal to prior moral principle. There is no known way to derive, a priori, which side of the road cars should drive on. Decisions cannot be made in isolation. Policymakers must consider whether the impact of their rules improves or worsens conditions on the road, rather than assuming their rulings work toward the desired effect, because policy rulings often work indirectly toward their aims. Policy is inevitably a technical field, often boring those who do not have a personal interest in the matter under consideration. It can be accused of social engineering; in the case of traffic rules it does often reduce down to actual civil engineering, managing the timing of stoplights and the number of lanes a highway can support. However, it is clear that policy decisions make a real difference in the lives of citizens.
When put this way, each perspective on law seems to have its place. It would be foolish for legislators to declaim on the moral principle of a speed limit of only 55 miles per hour without reference to its consequences, or try to cite the great principles of democracy in service of alternate-side-of-the-street parking exemptions. It would have been inhumane for Lincoln to have sought to address slavery with, say, an "emancipation tax credit," or other such policy incentive. There are realms where there is a broad consensus that the legislature should be acting in the interest of policy,[3] and others where it is clear that a moral proclamation is called for.
Furthermore, there are places where laws can serve both sorts of purpose simultaneously. Consider, for example, laws against perjury. At first glance, they might seem to be a proclamation. Certainly they oppose lying, and lying to a judge, both considered moral offenses. Laws against perjury could be justified on purely moral grounds: our society opposes such dishonesty. However, when considered in context of the other laws and rules of criminal procedure, laws against perjury clearly have a policy justification as well. By punishing dishonesty in court, they encourage honesty and promote the efficient operation of the justice system. Even if there was no moral reason not to lie to a judge, perjury laws could still be justified entirely on policy grounds. So laws need not adhere just to one perspective or another. Indeed, some of the most widely supported laws fit both: they are independent moral claims, and simultaneously promote the efficient functioning of society.
Conflict on this matter arises, however, in areas where there is debate over what role the law should play, and different perspectives—proclamation or policy—would yield different pieces of legislation. These areas encompass many of the most heated debates of modern politics. Furthermore, they entail a meaningful "dialogue gap:" a hidden difference in premises that undermines substantive dialogue about the matter under debate. Given that the democratic process seeks not only to produce majoritarian laws, but to allow for thoughtful reflection on legislative decisions, such failures to communicate are a real problem for our democracy.
Take, for example, the question of the War on Drugs. Proponents of decriminalization are liable to cite an array of studies suggesting that decriminalization of drugs has no significant effect on rates of usage.[4] Those who favor criminalization certainly have their own studies to retort with. However, fascinatingly, they often don't. Instead, pro-Drug War rhetoric often parallels Steven Levitt's depiction of "the daughter test."[5] In describing the rationale for some of his political positions, Levitt writes "[if ] I wouldn’t want my daughter to do it, then I don’t mind the government passing a law against it. I wouldn’t want my daughter to be a cocaine addict . . . [so] I don’t mind those activities being illegal." From a policy perspective, there is a crucial gap in this logic. If criminalization of drugs does not affect their rate of use, then cocaine's illegality does nothing to prevent Mr. Levitt's daughter from becoming an addict. However, from a proclamation perspective, Levitt's logic makes perfect sense. Levitt opposes the prospect of his daughter using cocaine. He would like the government to endorse this moral perspective, regardless of its impact on outcomes. Levitt believes that "it would probably be more economically efficient to legalize drugs and prostitution subject to heavy regulation/taxation," but his opposition remains.
Similar debates can be found on a range of other issues. I personally encountered one such question when talking with a pro-life friend. (I myself am pro-choice.) I made the argument that legal abortion keeps the procedure safe while not actually increasing its frequency, and that, on the other hand, the pro-life movement fails to endorse policies that would actually decrease the incidence of abortion. He granted this claim, more or less, but held that it was still important to outlaw abortion as a statement of what is right and wrong. Policy-relevant information will not affect the legislative preferences of someone thinking in proclamation terms.
This contention between proclamation and policy does not simply apply to the range of "social issues" that Levitt identifies—abortion, drugs, gambling—but is spreading to realms once firmly in the policy camp. The most notable examples are tax policy and healthcare. Taxes have been unpopular in America for a long time. Few people like to simply turn over their money, and in America, Justice Holmes's awareness that by "paying taxes [one is] buy[ing] civilization" is not a common one. There have been anti-tax protests for much of American history. However, these have mostly complained about an onerous tax burden. Such protests can be self-centered, and infused with moralizing rhetoric. However, the position that tax laws should represent the moral views on tax in general, or express a moral opposition to them, is a comparatively recent one.[6] For example, President Bush said in his 2000 acceptance speech that "On principle, no one in America should have to pay more than a third of their income to the federal government." The notion of an a priori, "in principle" maximum marginal tax rate represents the encroachment of proclamation perspective upon the realm of tax policy. So does the Tea Party rhetoric. The Tea Party relied strongly on equating the problem of taxation without representation with taxation more generally, painting a categorical opposition to taxation as a moral stance.
Likewise, a similar shift occurred on healthcare. Liberal commentators noted throughout the 2009 and 2010, Republican elected officials decried reforms that they had supported in the early 90s. Mitt Romney spoke out against, and continues to oppose, a federal policy more rightist than the one he instituted as governor of Massachusetts. Jonathan Chait has argued that this shift represents more than a change in the Overton window.[7] Instead, Chait says, the ferocity and character of the Republican attacks on health care reform demonstrate that the Republican party is not interested in improving health care outcomes. Rather, they are ideologically committed to smaller government, regardless of the outcome.[8] Proclamation has overtaken policy.
Another area of relevance is the prevalence of accusations of the "nanny state." (For those unfamiliar with the term, it is used to convey the contemptuous belief that the government is meddling over-protectively in the affairs of its citizens.) Such accusations often confused me, but they follow simply if one realizes the accusers understand policy laws in proclamation terms. Consider laws against trans fats in restaurants. A policy thinker would argue that these laws simply represent a way to improve the life of individuals, like any industry or trade standard. Furthermore, they are decided upon by the government, and thus, indirectly, by society at large—quite a different process than the quasi-parental authority of a nanny. However, when one imagines laws against trans fats as proclamation, immediately the image of the government as a nagging parent begins to make sense. To a policy thinker, laws against trans fats need not entail any judgement of individual food choices. They simply work to reshape the environment so that individuals are more likely to make better choices. To a proclamation thinker, a law against trans fats necessarily implies that individuals were bad or wrong for choosing them in the past. The law cannot be written without scolding the citizenry.
The examples used thus far have aligned leftists with policy and rightists with proclamation. This connection, however, is not a necessary one. It is, instead, a consequence of the different sorts of rhetoric and philosophy espoused by the modern USA left and right—Democrats and Republicans might be an even better description. Of course it would have been possible to have a health care debate where one side insisted on universal care as a moral right, and the other wanted a more complex system of incentives because they had concluded it would have superior outcomes. However, such was not the debate that took place.
It is also important to note that over the course of this essay, the modern promoters of proclamation have lauded a model where women are the appropriate objects of implicitly male state protection and even paternalism (the "daughter test," administered by fathers), and now derided a model where a female-identified state acts protectively toward its citizenry (the "nanny state"). Something undoubtedly sexist is afoot here. Unfortunately, I confess that I can't explain it quickly, and I'm sure this subpoint could grow to exceed the full essay, so I'm forced to simply give three possible explanations. Hopefully we'll hash them out in the comments.
First, it's possible that the modern (USA) identification of proclamation with the rightist/conservative/anti-feminist axis had lead to a situation where proclamation-style thinkers are likely to be sexist, and thus articulate their philosophical commitments with sexist vocabulary. That would account for the fact that feminist and anti-oppression movements have also been able to use the language of proclamation, though its primary contemporary representatives are rightist. Second, it's possible that the sweeping moral and emotional claims of proclamation are susceptible to being expressed with sexist language in a way that policy claims are not susceptible. It's hard to imagine a sexist way of articulating the introduction of an extra tax bracket, for example. One would probably be forced to recast it as a simple moral action first, i.e., rewrite it as proclamation. Third, it's possible that I, as a feminist, am particularly struck by rhetoric that offends my egalitarian sensibilities, and so when I sat down to write an essay to explicate rhetoric I found disconcerting, I was drawn toward the sexist examples. I'm not sure which, if any, of those explanations are accurate.
All of examples laid out above show that the tension between proclamation and policy is a key one in the political debates of the modern USA. However, it is not explicitly argued. Political debates presume to be about the good at which laws are aimed, not what it means for a law to serve a particular end. Thus, the first step to resolving the tension is recognizing this gap. When one side of a political debate is making a policy case, and the other is making a proclamation case, neither can hope to persuade the other. We have to first establish why the matter under discussion is appropriately the target of one or the other (or some fusion of the two), and then much of the rest of the policy case falls into place.
Another important takeaway is to resist the unjustified expansion of one field into another. Politicians may desire to recast a policy issue as ripe for proclamation—as in the case of Bush's quote above, this move reduces complexity and allows a disinterested member of the public to take a strong stand on the issue. However, it leads to poorly constructed laws, with bad outcomes, and radicalizes a debate in which nuance is key. Policy in place of proclamation is a quieter evil, but still risky. For example, those who want to encroach upon worker protections or social security argue that they should be considered solely as instruments of economic policy. This attempts to change the terms of the debate from moral to practical. In each case, such transformations of the terms of debate can go unnoticed, but they can undermine sensible government work, and the meaningful but complex rights of the citizens of the welfare state.
Finally, in the case of the USA, it is important for each political party to regain a more complete voice on the matter. The two primary political parties are horribly unbalanced. The Democrats have renounced strong, leftist moral arguments. This deprives the American moral landscape of real advocacy for the poor, for equality, and for communal action. The Republicans have renounced policy thinking, leading to the recent failure to, for example, offer any real alternative to the Obama health care reform. The pre-midterm mantra of "repeal and replace" was entirely vacuous. There was no replacement in the offing, because Republicans were unable to formulate a complex policy response to a difficult practical problem.
I'm a strong leftist, and I've no doubt that this has colored my interpretation of the current political situation. But I'm willing to acknowledge that I'm probably wrong about at least some of the important decisions my nation faces. When one major current of politics has stepped out of morality, and the other has stepped out of careful policy thought, our decisions are impoverished. That has to change, and the first step is recognizing the real significance of the distinction between proclamation and policy.
--Erl
Notes and links:
[1] and, in fact, the one that inspired its name.
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[2] for the purposes of this article, the policy model is agnostic about both the set of persons and things which constitute the target of the state's assistance, or even what constitutes improvement. Similarly, the proclamation model is agnostic about which moral principles to espouse. This indifference to the actual content of policy or proclamation is deliberate. It serves to isolate the matter under discussion. Still, when this model is applied to contemporary political debate, there are differences in the visions of the good, which sometimes correspond clearly to the question of proclamation vs. policy. This complicates the conclusions of this essay, but, I hope, does not eliminate them.
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[3] aside from anarchists or strong libertarians. When one's political philosophy is opposed to state action in general, every single item of policy constitutes a proclamation of state power, to be opposed. That said, I personally find it hard to maintain the image of a philosophically consistent anarchist legislator, so it is reasonable to disregard this perspective for the purposes of this essay.
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[4] Were this an academic paper, I would like to a number of studies which are behind paywalls. For the purposes of this piece Wikipedia provides a good summary of the literature, Arguments for and against drug prohibition.
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[5] This essay will address the considerable sexism implicit in the formulation and popularization of this test further on.
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[6] I believe. I'd be fascinated to be proved wrong. However, given that American history seems to be a tale of the broadening of the tax base, sometimes with substantial popular approval (e.g. the 16th Amendment), I don't think I will be.
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[7] The "Overton Window" describes the set of policies that are considered reasonable, live options within a particular context, primarily political discourse. The Overton Window shifts when the range of policies considered moves in one direction or another. For example, in the USA the current debate over the marginal income tax rate considers rates of 36% or 39%, and though a generation ago the rate of 90% was in force, no serious politician proposes it now. ↩
[8] Romney, Empiricism, And Conservative Dogma
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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing this! I'm currently slogging through Moral Politics by George Lakoff, and he seems to be trying to grasp at what you're describing here but gets caught in the gender roles (which, admittedly, are really important) and can't quite describe the bigger picture the way you have here, so I found this really helpful.
*heads back to Moral Politics, hoping it'll be clearer what he means in places*
Posted by: aravind | Jul 25, 2011 at 02:36 PM
Seems to me that answering a "proclamation" position with a "policy" answer frequently makes you look like a weasel -- and this is why the public keeps on distrusting Democrats: they give policy reasons why tax increases are necessary, and they just look like what they're really doing is saying (proclamation) that HIGH TAXES ARE GOOD, but that they don't have the courage to admit it.
Similar with abortion: when you give a policy answer, it just looks like you're trying to use that pesky "logic" stuff to avoid saying that you like killing TEH BAYBEEZ.
I wish more democrats would stand up, grow a pair of whichever gonads they prefer, and proclaim something. Like "The rich people are stealing all your money" or "Forced childbirth is bad".
Posted by: Ross | Jul 25, 2011 at 03:31 PM
I don't believe I've ever posted anything here, but I am an avid reader of all things Slacktivitian (?).
For this writeup I can't resist paying my compliments. For a very long time I've been trying to articulate why it seems that there are two entirely different languages being used to discuss legal/social issues. I think you've done a beautiful job of describing why that is. Congratulations.
On a side note: I'm Canadian and this transfers easily to my experience as well. Immediately after I read this I happened past a blog posting about the gun laws up here, and I now have a whole new, clearer perspective on the arguments both for and against. Thanks!
Posted by: David Beach | Jul 25, 2011 at 04:10 PM
Oh my, this has caused some brain fireworks for me. (It seems to be that sort of a day. Fun, those, but exhausting.)
Thanks - I will go mull on this some more.
Posted by: Sixwing | Jul 25, 2011 at 05:26 PM
Welcome, David!
Echidne of the Snakes had a fun take on the daughter test, with her imaginary daughter named Psychotica.
And n+1 to the compliments. You've helped me understand why what I say about the principles I believe in is different from the rhetoric currently used by what passes for the left in the US.
Posted by: Literata | Jul 25, 2011 at 05:48 PM
This is one of those articles that explains in detail something I'd half noticed but never gave much mind to. Thank you.
And yeah, the daughter test/nanny state rhetoric is creepy sexist.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Jul 25, 2011 at 06:57 PM
I have not heard of the "daughter test" before. It sounds like a sexist, inadequate fumbling in the general direction of the Veil of Ignorance. Which is a very, very powerful tool for proclamation-style lawmaking, and alas in the U.S. at least appears to be one that only the left (and only some of the left at that) ever employs.
And now my ten-minute break is over... back to the salt mines...
Posted by: Froborr | Jul 25, 2011 at 07:19 PM
I don't have a problem with proclamation laws that are essentially free, like National MS Day. But when there is any expectation of implementation and, especially, enforcement, there is always some cost, and I have a BIG moral problem with approaches to lawmaking that fail to consider the pragmatic costs. For example, when you make drug X illegal in order to send a message that you think it's wrong, and you enforce, this has a lot of very tangible effects in terms of jailed people, movement of business from the legal to the black economy, interference with drug treatment and response to drug emergencies, and so forth. (If you don't enforce, that has its own costs: it sets a precedent that laws can be ignored, and also facilitates selective enforcement where a crime not usually prosecuted can be if the government dislikes the perpetrator.)
I see many attempts to make enforced or implemented Proclamation laws as a version of "intent is magic"--proponents often see their good intent as somehow absolving them of the pragmatic harm they are causing.
Franklin Adams wrote a wonderful poem summarizing the Wickersham Commission report on Prohibition (of alcohol in the US in the 1920's-1930's):
And that in a nutshell is why I seldom support Proclamation laws. Thank you for making the distinction so wonderfully clear!
Posted by: Mary Kaye | Jul 25, 2011 at 07:54 PM
Oh dear, boldface. Sorry!
Posted by: Mary Kaye | Jul 25, 2011 at 07:55 PM
My first reaction is to immediately push the envelope (or the Overton Window) by advocating for policy alternatives to the Emancipation Proclamation.
No, really. Before the Civil War there was, IIRC, a proposal to have the federal government *buy* all the slaves, at their then market value, and set them free. If enough of the slaveholders and other Southerners had been placated enough by this to not start a war over it, millions of lives would have been saved and the slaves freed anyway (all of them, not just the ones in the Confederacy -- it also would have been faster at freeing the slaves because you wouldn't have to win a war first). And once there were no actual slaveowners anymore, there'd probably be little vested opposition to passing something like the Thirteenth Amendment.
But the proposal was never taken seriously because abolitionists were too caught up in wanting to make a moral statement and avoiding the appearance of "rewarding" slaveowners.
Now, I'm not a professional historian, and maybe it never could have passed in the first place. But there's a powerful argument, in my opinion, that the clear moral statement of the Emancipation Proclamation isn't worth the blood spent for it, if there were a realistic alternative that would have abolished slavery without war. Freeing the slaves mattered a hell of a lot -- but almost all of its value was in the policy outcome, averting the human misery of slavery. If the proclamation has any value, it can't outweigh the loss of human life that resulted from the war, Reconstruction, the "South will rise again" mythos, and the Klan.
So I guess you can chalk me up as a policyist so extreme, I object to the mandatory-equal-time treatment of "There are realms where there is a broad consensus that the legislature should be acting in the interest of policy, and others where it is clear that a moral proclamation is called for." -- a sentence that seems like it could just as well have been written by David Broder, if he were smart enough to grasp your central point.
P.S. As I write this, a talking head on my TV is informing me that President Obama intends to address the nation on the subject of the debt ceiling, a subject that has always been an unremarkable policy matter. ISTM that the current crisis over it is the result of treating it as a matter of proclamation -- raising the debt ceiling "means" you're in favor of big government and debt, so determination not to be seen in favor of those things takes priority (in some people's minds) over the actual consequences of default.
Posted by: Chris | Jul 25, 2011 at 08:12 PM
I generally do not support Proclamation laws that actually do something, first because I think if you based the law on what the majority of Americans (or worse, the majority of voters) think is moral/immoral you'd end up with an even more sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic set of laws than we already have, and second because there's not really any difference between "We should ban X because it's immoral" and "We should ban X because I don't like [people who] X."
Posted by: Froborr | Jul 25, 2011 at 08:13 PM
Chris: abolitionists were too caught up in wanting to make a moral statement and avoiding the appearance of "rewarding" slaveowners
Considering that such policies would recognize basic human rights of enslaved people by first dealing with them as property, it really seems even from my modern viewpoint that it does cede ground to pro-slavery arguments. I think a more policy-oriented solution would realize that granting former slaves legal rights would break down the foundation of the Southern economy and therefore accompany an emancipation-proclamation-type declaration with some sort of communal investment or restructuring guidelines (rather than price-per-head payments which would have made certain the the plantation-owning elites would have remained a pseudo-aristocracy). Early experiments with that sort of thing at the beginning of Reconstruction (and later TVA-type programs) were basically the only hope the South had of avoiding being crippled by continual economic dysfunction which is still only partially resolved today. Why not reduce Southern class inequalities (that still cut across racial lines) and dismantle the barbaric racial hierarchy at the same time?
Also, since the firing on Fort Sumter and subsequent secessionist declarations were sparked by paranoia that some sort of "free the slaves" plan would be enacted, I think the proposal of buying slaves and then setting them free wouldn't have been more convincing to Southerners. It would have just triggered the Civil War at a different point in history.
Posted by: aravind | Jul 25, 2011 at 08:45 PM
Help. I'm being subjected to Fox News. I'm a guest at my aunt's and she loves it. I'm really... really annoyed.
Posted by: Asha | Jul 25, 2011 at 08:49 PM
Similar compensated emancipation programs were used elsewhere, actually--I believe Brazil did much the same. Britain paid £20 million to slave owners (according to Wikipedia) during its abolition process. And, apparently, slaves in Washington D.C. were emancipated in precisely this way during the Civil War. However, in the US as a whole there was a gradual radicalization of rhetoric on both sides that prevented such a settlement; the Southern plantation owners didn't want to end slavery for obvious reasons, and of course the abolitionists were equally set in their views for perfectly sound moral reasons. By the 1860s slavery was becoming unviable (as shown after the war, there were plenty of ways in which black and poor white labor could have been exploited, probably many years or decades earlier, without *slavery* being involved, though obviously sharecropping isn't much better), but by then everyone was rather heated.
Probably the worst thing that happened for US slavery was the invention of the cotton gin, which gave slavery a significant new lease on life by introducing another valuable staple crop that could effectively be produced by slaves. Alas, though, it was probably inevitable.
Well, political realities. Most abolitionists were terribly racist (except, obviously, the blacks involved). The only administration that really did a damn in regards to reconstruction (Grant's--I've changed my views on him from being a mediocre President to being a flawed-but-great one, like, say, Lyndon Johnson since finding this out) mostly failed. There's a reason Grant was usually viewed as mediocre, and it isn't really the corruption and scandals. The Republicans were also terribly big-business even then, so proto-Socialism wasn't on the cards, and of course the Democrats were licking their wounds and mostly built out of Southern support, so *they* weren't going to do it.
Ideally, of course, there would have been some type of reparations to former slaves, enough to get started anyways, and a continued Freedman's Bureau for a few decades. But that just wasn't going to happen in the 1860s without essentially divine intervention.
Posted by: truth is life | Jul 25, 2011 at 09:32 PM
Would other words for the dichotomy be authoritarianism versus consequentialism/utilitarianism?
I must be in the policy camp, because I encountered a pro-lifer who made the exact same argument, and my response is, "That's not what government is for."
I just had a wicked thought - what if that mindset is a sublimated conflict with the mother figure? Am I channeling Freud?
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 25, 2011 at 09:47 PM
I don't think so, because you can make anti-authoritarian proclamationist arguments: "Requiring X has good policy effects, but it is immoral for the government to force people to X, so I'm against it.")
Posted by: Froborr | Jul 25, 2011 at 09:51 PM
The reason that the proclamation mindset sounded authoritarian to me is that it presumes that government and society are moral authorities, where right and wrong are whatever these authorities say they are.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 25, 2011 at 09:55 PM
Like most things, I doubt anyone is fully in one "camp" or the other. There are almost certainly proclamation-type things you would agree with (for example, there should be recognitions of extreme acts of bravery, which is unlikely to have any significant policy impact), and policy arguments you would disagree with (while these are often backed up with data, said data is often ambiguous).
Posted by: truth is life | Jul 25, 2011 at 10:11 PM
Maybe that's because the absolutism of "proclamation" is easier and offers the illusion of comfort, and the "policy" answers that rely on pesky logic are uncomfortable reminders that life offers no absolutes except its finiteness. "Proclamation" assumes that problems can be reduced to simple slogans or binary choices.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 25, 2011 at 10:14 PM
Over at Patheos I described the conflicting definitions of good and moral as espoused by people like LaHaye versus people like our founder Fred. The former treats these concepts as matters of allegiance while the latter treats them as matters of consequences. Thinking of one's self as moral versus actually acting morally. Is this simply a restatement of proclamation versus policy or a subset of that dichotomy?
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 25, 2011 at 10:31 PM
Erl, thank you for a fascinating and insightful discussion. I haven't read everything on that very strange "daughter test," but I can't help but notice that it's all about
preventing the fictional daughter frompunishing the fictional daughter for doing things, not about offering protection to the daughter. I haven't seen any of these guys suggest that the daughter test makes him want to insure that there are laws against sexual harassment because he doesn't want his daughter having to suffer without recourse.It is just ... strange to hear these guys saying that they want laws to prevent their daughters doing things that they normally view as the responsibility of (other) parents, not the government, to teach children.
The hypocrisy is astonishing. (Not that I shouldn't be used to it by now.)
Posted by: Dash | Jul 25, 2011 at 10:48 PM
"I don't believe I've ever posted anything here, but I am an avid reader of all things Slacktivitian (?)."
I believe the adjective you're looking for is "Slacktiversal".
Posted by: konrad_arflane | Jul 26, 2011 at 04:52 AM
Excellent post, Erl! I'd argue that it's dangerous to assume automatically that right-wingers favour proclamation laws or 'taking the easy option'. You're not necessarily doing that, but I can see hints of it in some places.
Tonio, I'm not sure you can see LaHaye's view on morality as analogous to proclamation laws. Proclamation laws ideally ought to be accompanied by good policy that follows them up. Although in practice they all too often serve as a substitute, there are cases in which they're okay. However, I'm not sure it's ever acceptable to trumpet yourself as a good person, no matter how many good actions you perform.
Posted by: Philboyd | Jul 26, 2011 at 06:20 AM
Valid point. Obviously LaHaye is a somewhat extreme example. My argument is not so much about the laws themselves but the reasoning and mindset of the people who push them, how they view the role of laws. The policy stance more closely matches my own view, which is that laws are about balancing the individual's needs with society's. My central concern with the proclamation stance is that it's disconnected from the effects of laws. George Will once slammed the Democratic philosophy as being "results-oriented." I see the two concepts that Erl outlined as one being predominant in the reasons why a person would favor or oppose specific laws, with exceptions where the person favors the other concept.
I read recently that Lincoln tried numerous compromises to try to persuade the Southern states from seceding, each time making more concessions, but they were having none of it.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 26, 2011 at 06:53 AM
It's interesting how childish the 'nanny state!' cry often makes someone sound. Much of the time when I hear it, it's someone throwing a tantrum over being stopped from doing something they really shouldn't do, like speeding in residential areas or making other people inhale their smoke - ie having fun at other people's expense. If people see a parental figure in an attempt to get them to live like adults, that really says more about them than about the state.
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But the proposal was never taken seriously because abolitionists were too caught up in wanting to make a moral statement and avoiding the appearance of "rewarding" slaveowners.
I suspect there would have been practical problems as well. To begin with, a slave economy needs slaves; if someone buys your slaves, you're still in financial trouble. So it doesn't seem practical.
Also, who exactly would pay for this purchase? Because it wouldn't come from nowhere. It smacks of paying a ransom.
But most importantly, it's not just a moral statement for the sake of feeling self-righteous. If you buy a slave and then free them, you're conceding that they're property rather than human beings. Freedom becomes, as they say in Citizen Kane, your gift rather than their right. That's the kind of thing that has consequences.
Which isn't to say it was all roses and pie for African Americans once they had been freed from slavery, but still, emancipation because emancipation is right has its virtues.
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | Jul 26, 2011 at 07:14 AM
In June 1996, two reporters from the Baltimore Sun went to Sudan to prove that slavery existed there, and they bought the freedom of two boys. One can make a valid argument that their money helped in a small way to perpetuate the slavery there. But I see this as a case where there is indeed a greater good - the boys got their freedom and the world learned about the situation in Sudan. (I couldn't find the series online, which is disappointing, because it was great journalistic work.)
If had been possible to buy the freedom of all the African slaves in the US as an alternative to war, is the concession that the slaves are property less important than the fact that they would have their freedom and more than half a million lives would be spared? I would say yes only because I think the outcome is sufficiently beneficial. I don't say the same with civil unions for gays as an alternative to same-sex marriage.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 26, 2011 at 07:39 AM
If had been possible to buy the freedom of all the African slaves in the US as an alternative to war, is the concession that the slaves are property less important than the fact that they would have their freedom and more than half a million lives would be spared?
If their status as free people lasted, then yes. If it undermined their ability to stay free, then no. It depends on the outcome. If it had resulted in less post-war oppression of the African Americans, it might even have been a good idea. I'm just uncomfortable with the suggestion that proclaiming people free by right is a bad thing.
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | Jul 26, 2011 at 07:44 AM
Perhaps you usually want policy-based laws because It’s More Complicated Than That, but just occasionally need proclamatory laws becase This Time, It Really Isn’t?
E.g. the extremely non-complicated statement ‘slavery is wrong’ requires proclamation, but policy thinking is appropriate for the more-complicated-than-that question of how a nation best goes about dismantling a slave-based economy.
Proclamation is all about principles, so it’s always going to be pretty crude politics – you’re always going to have to follow it up with policy, and it’s likely to naturally form wedge issues – but there's no getting rid of it as long as people still have underlying principles.
I suppose another example of proclamation is when a government formally apologises for its past actions.
Another thing that occurs is that pretty much everything done by any government is ultimately derived from one principle or another - even traffic regulations are based on principles about preserving social order and protecting citizens. It's one of those hierachical branching-tree structures, isn't it? So proclamatory politics is always going to appeal to demagogues because it takes you back to the roots, allowing maximum dramatic impact for minimum flailing. Disruption at a base level gives someone the power to affect the whole political structure.
So perhaps ideally we would minimise the number of principles enshrined in law to those absolutely considered necessary, and have a system flexible enough to adjust to changing underlying principles in the wider population without (as far as possible) leaving openings for interest groups that represent only part of the population to bolt their extra principles in on the side.
Posted by: Ruth (otherwise known as alfgifu) (popping in for a drive by in response to Erl's fascinating post) | Jul 26, 2011 at 07:46 AM
But no one is making that suggestion, at least directly. The assumption in the hypothetical situation is that the slaveowners wouldn't have willingly recognized the right of their slaves to be free, so freeing the slaves would have likely required either enticement or force. It's a situation where no choice is morally optimal.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 26, 2011 at 08:03 AM
I totally get the distaste for proclamation-type lawmaking, but I think Policy can just as much be a tool of oppression -- isn't that basically what you do when you say something like "We're not being bigoted, it's just a matter of number crunching that says that, entirely independent of any moral dimension, it's wise fiscal policy to not give loans to the group where our mathematical formula says it's a bad risk, ant it's totes a coincidence that the formula is one-to-one and onto with melanin levels"
Posted by: Ross | Jul 26, 2011 at 08:58 AM
Ross, I see your example as simply a type of proclamation, specifically rules for rules' sake. Policy seems to be about the effects of the laws, what Erl described as changing the material conditions of society. This type of proclamation wrongly assumes that the world is already just, with everyone having the same advantages.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 26, 2011 at 09:09 AM
@Tonio: How is it "rules for rule's sake"? Actuarial science is all about saying "If I exclude this group, I have a measurable effect." It's not a proclamation about how the world ought to be, about the moral rightness, it's about the *results*; it's about saying "Right or wrong be damned, if we do this, it has a measurable positive effect." It's about policy, about making rules based on the *effect* they have.
Contrariwise, antidiscrimination laws are almost always proclamations: they say "Look, we don't care if it's cheaper to own your employees, or if it improves the job market* to let possession of a uterus disqualify you from jobs, doing that is WRONG"
(* Fun fact: Unemployment on the whole is indeed very high, but you may be surprised to find that male unemployment is the highest it has ever been since at least WWII. http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2011/06/we_are_experiencing_the_lowest.php)
Posted by: Ross | Jul 26, 2011 at 09:30 AM
And that thing I just said gets me thinking...
Because the right loves its proclamations and thinks the left are a bunch of weasels for their policy rules.
But it seems like -- and I could be wrong here -- that in the past century or so, civil rights always spent years floundering in proclamations ("Women are human beings!" "Gays are human beings!" "African americans are human beings!") and not making much progress, and progress, when it came, tended to come only when there were good policy reasons for it too -- "We've sent all the men off to war, someone needs to get on with the making of stuff", "Good linguists are hard to come by and we've already spent lots of money training this one, maybe we shouldn't kick him out for who he shares a bed with", "Hey, there's a vast untapped market of consumers you can market to if you take down the whites-only sign")
Of course, even then, progress is slow and halting and easily derailed by the jackasses who say "Look, I don't hate gay people, but we still need to enshrine in our laws that they are second-class citizens to Send A Message", so I dunno.
Posted by: Ross | Jul 26, 2011 at 09:40 AM
Ross, the distinction between actuarial science and "policy" is that the former's rules are about benefiting the business, not about changing society as a whole. It's saying that borrowers have to adhere to a code of conduct, which essentially amounts to promoting a certain stance on what society should consider moral behavior for individuals. My reading of Erl's "moral views of society" is about society determining what individual conduct is moral.
And antidiscrimination laws also have a sound basis in the policy concept. Discrimination rewards some people at the expense of others in the short term, and the long-term effects are harmful for everyone in the society. (I seem to remember reading that societies with great hierarchical societies are unworkable in the long term.) The argument that discrimination is wrong rests not just on the proclamation concept of human equality, but also on the policy concept that discrimination causes harm.
I guess I perceive types of proclamation as defining morality as about social codes for individual behavior, where improving the material condition of society is not necessarily the goal, and types of policy as defining morality as collective action to improve the material condition of society.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 26, 2011 at 09:49 AM
Uh, I mean "societies with great hierarchical disparities."
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 26, 2011 at 09:55 AM
@Kit Whitfield:
True! Or even just not having to take into account that other people exist. I am in a completely different context (different country, different set of people discussing politics), and I hear it that way from younger people who are trending libertarian. But from conservatives, middle aged and older, it's often used with the meaning that the "nanny state" takes care of the poor and those who require accommodation. Or rather, those to whom accommodation is not part of the culture. (Society already makes accommodations for those who are healthy, easily ambulatory, the approved height, weight, gender, cisgendered, unaccompanied by children, etc....)
Aravind brought up George Lakoff (Moral Politics and the more accessible Don't Think of an Elephant). Lakoff argues that conservatives take a "strict father" view of the state, in which the state, like a strict father, has the responsibility to help its citizens (like children) grow up to be self-sufficient. The accusation of "nanny-statism" brings in not only a female caretaker, who, I suggest, in this view is properly responsible only for younger children (hence "nanny," not "mother"), so the implied schema is that those who need help aren't standing on their own two feet (so to speak), aren't growing up, aren't being responsible for themselves.
Also, in USAmerican cultural stereotypes, nannies aren't part of US culture and folklore. (It doesn't matter how many people do in fact have nannies; it's not part of our cultural assumptions.) So having a nanny sounds a bit unnatural to USAmerican ears (something brought in from that dangerous place, Elsewhere), and that supports the idea that "those people" shouldn't be relying on that kind of help anyway--what are they, babies?--and that we grown-ups shouldn't be listening to someone whose job it is to take care of children!
Posted by: Dash | Jul 26, 2011 at 09:58 AM
It would have been good if the US government had been able to manage the purchase of enslaved people by calling it a ransom. That would have taken care of the policy aspect of it, while not conceding that enslaved people were property or that they were legally held by those who called themselves their owners. However, I'm guessing that the southern states would have fought the proclamation aspect of it tooth and nail. If you look at their charters of secession, every single one was insistent not just on the idea of slaves being property, but on maintaining slavery as an institution. They weren't going to give that up, quite literally, without a fight.
Posted by: Dash | Jul 26, 2011 at 10:06 AM
I am wondering how much the proclamation/policy dichotomy lines up with the orthodoxy/orthopraxy dichotomy.
While it can be more comfortable to live in a place where the rules are based on outward shows rather than inward standards that can hide a disturbing lack of real support for the rights of those who don't adhere to the standards/beliefs implied by the rules of conduct. One can see this today in the US where it is clear that for many many Freedom of Speech only really extends to those who are fairly close in agreement with the person claiming to believe in Freedom of Speech.
My opinions on the importance of clearly declaring slavery to be always and in all cases wrong is coloured by the fact that while teaching (at a fairly pricey private college) in the United States I came across a disturbing number of people who are still somewhat on the fence about the wrongness of slavery. When someone can argue that the Civil War was "really" about "a way of life" they are equating the ownership of other human beings with whether or not one ices and puts sugar in one's tea.
Anything that undermines the completeness of the statement (anything that allows those "on the other side" the ability to argue with you without clearly and categorically stating "I think it is okay to buy and sell human beings") is allowing them an "out." Note that this "out" is still being used almost a century and a half after the fact.
Posted by: Mmy | Jul 26, 2011 at 10:07 AM
Um... wasn't the Emancipation Proclamation AFTER the war started? How can it be considered part of the cause in that case?
On the other side, my understanding was that it didn't actually free any slaves, because it freed slaves in states that were de facto no longer under federal jurisdiction. Which is another problem with Proclamation law... how often does it actually succeed in establishing the more-moral society its proponents argue for?
From a policy perspective, this has a negative impact on a group of people, and you can argue that the cost is not acceptable. From a proclamation perspective, you argue against something by saying "It causes unacceptable harm to X people" and you get the answer, "So what? Their sacrifice is necessary to accomplish what's *right*!"
Posted by: Froborr | Jul 26, 2011 at 10:12 AM
Franklin Roosevelt used presidential orders (ie: proclamations) to enact some of the New Deal. Truman desegregated the federal government, including the military, by a presidential order as well. The suggestion that proclamation is a right wing tactic seems false on the face of it.
Further, Federal policies to ensure that former slaves got access to education and government and land and such (through the Freedmans' Bureau) post Civil War did not prevent the creation of a second slave economy through the use of State policies. Black Codes allowed the arrest of African-Americans for minor infractions (not having work papers = vagrancy, that sort of thing). African-American prisoners could then be required to "work off" their fines - prisons hired the prisoners out to do mine work, or lumber work, or cotton planting. Having a criminal record made it hard to find work after release, which led to further vagrancy charges, etc etc.
Posted by: Mike Timonin | Jul 26, 2011 at 10:25 AM
How disheartening. That's the logical conclusion of their reasoning and mindset. My theory about people who question the wrongness of slavery is that they feel needlessly defensive, wrongly taking condemnations of slavery personally as if the condemners are saying all white people are bad. It's related to the Southern "culture of honor" but not exclusive to it.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 26, 2011 at 10:36 AM
Ross, someone in the Pagan movement recently said that "the road to equality lies through the fields of visibility," which is a good way of putting it. I think you may be discounting the importance of statements like "Gay people are people!" and "American Pagans are Americans!"
Froborr, I don't know how often proclamations succeed in making things more morally right, but they sure are handy for oppressing people. Not that you were arguing against this, I just think it's an important point that's related to yours.
"National Day of Prayer" doesn't seem like it accomplishes much until you (specific) realize that it's a statement by the national government that implies or outright states that your religion is not okay. Try that glass slipper on the other foot: how would Christians feel about a "National Day of Spellcasting?"
Posted by: Literata | Jul 26, 2011 at 10:55 AM
@Literata: "National Day of Prayer" doesn't seem like it accomplishes much until you (specific) realize that it's a statement by the national government that implies or outright states that your religion is not okay. Try that glass slipper on the other foot: how would Christians feel about a "National Day of Spellcasting?"
Indeed -- or how people would feel about a "National Day of Discussion about our problems which cannot include any mention of a deity." I know that it is hard for some people to "get" (and in fact I had tussles with Fred on this") but a "National Day of Prayer" specifically excludes from body of that nation anyone who doesn't pray. In fact, as Literata is pointing out, it doesn't include anyone who doesn't pray in the prescribed manner.
Posted by: Mmy | Jul 26, 2011 at 11:13 AM
Hmm, this strikes me as an argument that proclamations *can* have the intended moral effect, since from the perspective of the supporters of a National Day of Prayer, oppressing people of other religions is a more moral society.
Posted by: Froborr | Jul 26, 2011 at 11:20 AM
Thanks, mmy, I was trying to figure out how to word an atheist version, but "National Day of Disbelief" didn't seem to cut it, since it accepted theistic framing. (Actually, lately, every day for me has been a day of disbelief at bad goverment, but hey...)
Posted by: Literata | Jul 26, 2011 at 11:21 AM
First of all, thanks to everyone for their kind words! And thanks even more for really digging in to my essay as well. I knew I'd get an engaging reception here, and I am not disappointed.
I'm not sure I can keep up with this discussion, as I've got some work to do as well, but below are some responses to what I've seen thus far. (Hopefully they're not sloppy. Unfortunately, I can't work with editing on every comment!) I hope I'll be able to return again to the thread soon.
@Philboyd: I certainly don't want to assume that right-wingers always take the easy option, or have no appetite for thoughtful policy work. But unfortunately, in modern USA political discourse, that's what I've observed, and I do mean to call them out on it. I hope that situation changes promptly. I hope that I'm thoughtful enough to tell the difference meaningfully, even if I would disagree with rightist approaches in either case.
Also, though proclamation and policy don't map perfectly to radicalism and centrism (it's possible to be a meticulous Gulag planner in the USSR, as well as a fierce advocate of the moral right to a six-day work week, and the former is certainly more extreme than the latter), I think an undiluted reliance on proclamation has a radicalizing effect, partly through the mechanisms Ross described. I'm worried about the rightward trend in my nation's politics over at least the past three decades, and I think the unwillingness of rightist opinion leaders to admit to nuance, while leftist leaders all too often admit to nothing but nuance, has been a major contributing factor to that slide.
@Tonio: Would other words for the dichotomy be authoritarianism versus consequentialism/utilitarianism?
I think consequentialism/utilitarianism as applied to law pretty fairly encompasses policy thinking. But I don't think you have to be an authoritarian to support proclamation. Any deontological (that is, rule- or duty-based) moral system will support a proclamation-style law, including systems which focus on unalienable human rights. Similarly, though proclamations may presume that the state dictates what is or is not moral, I think they're more like to reflect the conviction that there is a preexisting system of morality that the state should recognize. An unambiguous example would be theocracies. A theocracy will claim that it's not the might of the state that makes right, but rather the word of God, and that the state is simply bringing itself into accordance with this outside moral source. Such systems are certainly susceptible to authoritarianism, but that doesn't mean they hold that the state makes right.
@Chris, others: Riffing off of what I said to Tonio, I think there was one perspective I didn't consider while writing the essay: that of the absolute utilitarian. In my justification, if not defense, I suspect I overlooked such thinkers because they tend to be constantly concerned about the minutia of policy and thus fade into the normal flow of political discussion, while anarchists and libertarians tend to consistently refer to their central values, bringing them to the fore and interrupting normal discussion. That said, there clearly are those who believe that any law ought be judged solely by its outcomes, and I overlooked that. Thanks for bringing it up!
Re: emancipation: I was thinking of the Emancipation Proclamation in the moment it was passed; i.e., when war had already broken out. But I appreciate the history lesson about other potential mechanisms for emancipation! I'm still a bit leery of paying for slaves--taxing those not engaged in (arguably) the central sin of American history to bail out those who were, when the immorality of their actions caught up with them. But it's certainly made the issue more complex for me.
When I first conceived the idea for the essay, my archetypal example of proclamation was the legalization of same-sex marriage. That's because, as far as I can tell, it's not merely wrong to legalize SSM with policy means, but downright impossible. SSM is not an aim that can be promoted by policy, but something the government either does or does not recognize. This, of coruse, leads immediately to a proclamation frame for the debate: either SSM is morally good (or acceptable), in which case it should be made law, or it's morally wrong and should be opposed.
Though now that I mention that, I see that someone could insist that they were only interested in the practical outcomes of SSM, and supported legalizing it as an act of policy increasing family stability, or economic activity, or whatever, rather than the right of same sex couples to marry.
Also, playing off of my second paragraph directed to Philboyd, I wonder whether the remarkable leftward/liberal charge on SSM in the USA at the same time as the country has generally moved rightward or vacillated has anything to do with the imbalance between proclamation and policy. Gay marriage seems to sometimes be the only area where leftists are making clear, forceful moral arguments, and the only place where they've been able to really turn the discussion. I recognize Ross's point about civil rights often only really making progress when policy concerns align with proclamation ones. But I suspect that a real commitment to proclamation is necessary if one wants to not merely win laws but shift opinions.
@Froborr: From a policy perspective, this has a negative impact on a group of people, and you can argue that the cost is not acceptable.
I think you've gone a step too far here, though. For the Jim Crow states, the welfare of African Americans would not have been the target of state policy at all. Instead, their oppression was. Or, to Godwin the thread, Eichmann's work managing the trains and timetables of the Holocaust is clearly policy rather than proclamation, though its sole purpose was to negatively impact a group of citizens of the Reich. You might be able to make the case that given some set moral compass, policy is better than proclamation in service of it. But it's certainly the case that policy can be used in the service of bad aims.
@mmy: could you clarify what you mean by orthodoxy and orthopraxy, please? I'm unfamiliar with the terms.
@Mike Timonin: While I think the desegregation of the government is a clear example of proclamation, I don't think all presidential orders are "proclamations." Plenty of executive orders deal with micromanaging federal agencies, not broad moral claims. I recognize the appropriation of the word as jargon, makes it a bit tricky to talk through in the case of things that are literally called proclamations, but it seems to me that executive orders, like nearly all legislative or regulatory acts, can be in service of both proclamation and policy. The New Deal, like a lot of things, seems to have drawn liberally from both wells.
Posted by: Erl | Jul 26, 2011 at 11:23 AM
Great work, Erl, and commenters with your thinky dialogue contributions.
I've been away from the internet and I get to come back to the best of the Slacktiverse!
Posted by: Lonespark | Jul 26, 2011 at 11:45 AM
All this doesn't seem to have bothered most other countries that practiced slavery, which usually had some form of compensated emancipation. And it's not like Brazil (for instance) was much less dependent on the plantation economy than the US. Of course, Brazil's monarchy was overthrown partially for freeing the slaves, but OTOH the Republic didn't reenslave anyone, so presumably this worked out okay-ish at least in their case. Brazil has obviously had some governmental difficulties since then, but aside from the first coup I don't think you can blame it on the compensated emancipation of Brazil's slaves.
Another example, Britain, is (the last time I looked) rather *less* racist than the US, despite compensated emancipation, although perhaps that was simply because very few slaves were held in Great Britain itself.
Yes and yes. However, it did establish a precedent for freeing slaves in areas of the CSA occupied by Union forces and also encouraged Union slave states to start freeing their slaves. So in that regard it seems to have been quite effective in ending slavery as such (obviously neo-serfdom was another matter, but then isn't it always?)
Exactly. The slaveowners weren't going to go to bed and wake up the next morning liberals from the 21st century, plus their financial livelihood depended on owning slaves. There has to be some degree of coercion to get them to free their slaves; in Haiti and the United States that took the form of forcibly freeing slaves, in most other countries that involved the government paying them and setting the slaves free. Anything else would probably not have been successful in actually getting the slaves free, ie. in the policy bit of it.
Posted by: truth is life | Jul 26, 2011 at 12:06 PM
Erl, thanks for expanding on your points. When I talk about authoritarianism, I mean not just the belief that right and wrong are what the state says they are, but also the belief that those are what society or culture say they are. Call these varieties of authoritarianism if you wish. I've dealt with SSM opponents who take the proclamation stance. They insist that if SSM is legalized, straight people will conclude that it's not important whether children are raised by opposite-sex married parents. One even claimed that straights will be so repulsed by gays being included in the institution that they will refuse to marry.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 26, 2011 at 12:14 PM
Could we please use "marriage equality" rather than SSM? Same-sex marriage accepts opposition framing and erases trans people.
Posted by: Literata | Jul 26, 2011 at 12:28 PM
Oh, and I'm not mmy, but "orthodoxy" usually means valuing right beliefs or ideas, where "orthopraxy" values right practices. To vastly oversimplify, Christianity tends towards orthodoxy and Judaism tends towards orthopraxy. (Some people identify as practicing Jewish atheists or practicing Jewish agnostics, for example.)
Posted by: Literata | Jul 26, 2011 at 12:30 PM
@Erl: My whole point is that, on a policy question, you can make substantive arguments for and against. On a proclamation, you can only make assertions. So I *can* make a policy argument in favor of SSM and you can make a policy argument against it, we can marshall facts and evidence, and have a reasoned debate with a possibility of incremental progress even if the opposition is strong. But if I make a proclamation argument for it and you make one against it, that's it, end of argument, and we're forced to take an all-or-nothing approach.
Posted by: Froborr | Jul 26, 2011 at 12:32 PM
@Literata: Apologies, I'll make an effort to use "marriage equality" in future.
Posted by: Froborr | Jul 26, 2011 at 12:36 PM
Touche, Literata. I used SSM as a conscious step away from "gay marriage," as that pigeonholes those couples excluded by "opposite sex only" marriage laws. But I see your point about the limitations of SSM as well, and I'll use "marriage equality" in the future.
Tonio, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you mean the belief that morality is established by the community? That certainly has authoritarian potential (particularly when "the community" is defined as "community leaders" or some other overpowered group), but I wouldn't use the word "authoritarian" to describe it. I'd define authoritarianism more narrowly as a belief in a hierarchical structure to moral values or society. Thus, grass-roots oppression need not be authoritarian at all to be wicked as all get-out. The issue is confused because those grass-roots oppressors are often "authoritarian followers" who support authoritarian leaders and authoritarian structure to society, but I don't think that's necessary in your description. There seems to be some room for a committed, radically democratic polity to nevertheless assume that its word is moral law. I'm not quite sure what language I'd use to describe such a situation, though. Perhaps some variation on "positivist"? But of course that's been terribly confused by the two contradictory meanings of positivism.
If, on the other hand, you mean the belief that the community can accurately report on what right and wrong are--geeze, I hope so! And I don't find it that threatening. A lot of the enlightenment thought I draw from seems to support on the idea that right and wrong are something that can be discovered by the enlightened thinker. If the society is sufficiently thoughtful and informed, and given the freedom to work through their ideas, then they could discover solid principles of right and wrong, bringing social norms into line with reality, and then lawmaking in accordance with these principles.
Granted, I'm dubious about several of the steps in that argument. But I don't see what would be oppressive about the idea that right and wrong could correspond to common beliefs of right and wrong. Perhaps you mean the idea that community comfort levels or aesthetic sensibilities determine right and wrong? (E.g., the horrific beliefs that people of other races smell bad, or that being gay is simply gross.) I'd certainly agree that those are a recipe for wrongness, though not authoritarianism, by what I wrote above.
Posted by: Erl | Jul 26, 2011 at 12:42 PM
Thanks, Froborr. :) I've tentatively identified a trend in some rights debates where the first stage is questioning the proclamatory claims (or even recognizing that they exist - women voting? what a radical idea!) and the last stage is when defenders of the previous claims pretend to be fighting the change based on policy issues. At that last stage, it seems like the more they get shown up as still being all about the proclamation, the faster support rallies behind the proposed change. Sen. Franken did a great job of that by demonstrating that a NOM person had significantly misrepresented a study's report to portray it as supporting NOM's anti-marriage equality position. Have others found this elsewhere?
Posted by: Literata | Jul 26, 2011 at 12:51 PM
@re "orthopraxy" -- Literata defined it well. Some belief systems are oriented more towards what one does/how one acts and others are oriented more towards what one believes.
To a certain extent that split can be seen even within Christianity if you consider it an aspect of the "faith versus works" argument.
In one sense it can be easier to be an "other" in an orthoprax system as long as the outward signs of correctness involve things that do not impinge on one's own inward beliefs. Orthoprax societies are (in general) less likely to see hunts to find out if members of society are closet (QUILTBAGS, Jews, Catholics, Communists, etc.)
In another sense those who value orthopraxy may be even more intolerant if
a) what they consider to be right-living (denying women the right to drive, denying women the right to vote, denying women and POC the right to an education) involves taking away the rights/freedoms of others
b) if they believe that the consequences of some in the community acting in a wrong manner will bring calamities upon the nation as a whole. For example, the argument that feminists were in the ultimate cause of 9/11 or gay activists are the real God allowed Hurricane Katrina to happen.
Posted by: Mmy | Jul 26, 2011 at 12:54 PM
Ah, I thought I caught a whiff of implied moral absolutism in the original post. I think this largely explains my disagreement on the value of proclamations, since I'm a relativist (or, rather, postmodernist, at least when it comes to ethics).
My belief is that all morality is rooted in preference ("killing is wrong" comes from preferring life over death, for example; in cases where death is preferred to life, killing ceases to be wrong, as in assisted suicide), and since preferences vary, morals must also vary. One cannot bring individual or social norms "in line with reality" anymore than one can say "Where there's life, there's hope, so keep on living no matter what" is more realistic than "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees."
Posted by: Froborr | Jul 26, 2011 at 01:04 PM
@Erl: Touche, Literata. I used SSM as a conscious step away from "gay marriage," as that pigeonholes those couples excluded by "opposite sex only" marriage laws. But I see your point about the limitations of SSM as well, and I'll use "marriage equality" in the future.
The use of the SSM terminology reminds me of the problem I had (as a Canadian living in the US) with the discussion of the Canadian/British/French/.... healthcare systems as "socialized medicine."
One day when I stepped into a discussion and said "don't call it socialized medicine -- that isn't what we call it.
"Well, what do you call it?" a student demanded.
"Medicine." I responded.
The point is that he was committing a category error -- by classing "how to pay for a service" in the same category as "the service." My sister did not recently have "socialized surgery" she had surgery which was paid for through the single-payer system of the province in which she lives.
Similarly, speaking of "gay" or "same sex" marriage is a category error. Every system of government/religion I know of has some regulations as to who can get married (degree of kinship, age of consent, current and/or prior marital status.) In some countries in the world a man who is already married to one woman can legally marry another woman. In some countries in the world 1st cousin can marry and in other they cannot.
We all know of cases where the rules and regulations as to what was a legitimate marriage vary greatly from those now accepted in the United States. In 1857 British Parliament passed a law that marriage was only allowed after a divorce for the innocent party. The question as to whether Henry the Eighth's marriage to Catherine of Aragon was valid was a question that shook Europe. In 1966 in a number of states in the US an African-American could not get married to a "white" person. In some of the states before the Civil War an African-American could not get married at all.
So, to bring this back to Literata's original point -- when two men get married in Canada we refer to it as "getting married" and when two women get married we refer to it as "getting married" and when a man and a woman get married we refer to it as "getting married." In all cases the two people involved must not already be married, must be not be coerced and so forth. We just don't consider gender to be of importance. Just as we don't consider country of origin or religion to be important.
Posted by: Mmy | Jul 26, 2011 at 01:25 PM
*applauds*
Posted by: Froborr | Jul 26, 2011 at 01:36 PM
Good point. My apologies.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 26, 2011 at 01:39 PM
I don't have the terms for what I'm trying to describe. Over and over in the debate over marriage equality, I hear that homosexuality is "abnormal" and "deviant," as if those things were themselves moral positions. I'm trying to articulate a distinction between moral positions and social norms, acknowledging that there is some overlap. I'm arguing against assuming that a position is moral simply because it's a social norm. I suspect the Jim Crow South may be an example of a society where many of the social norms had no moral basis. While all this might sound like the proclamation concept, I see morality itself as a policy concept, where right and wrong are about whether an action helps or harms others.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 26, 2011 at 01:56 PM
Thanks for expanding on that, mmy. I didn't mean to scold anyone; thanks to everybody for working to change their usage. It's an ongoing process, for all of us, in a lot of areas. I know it is for me!
"Socialized surgery" - This made me laugh. I imagined that the doctors and nurses and anesthesiologists and techs all got together beforehand and affirmed the unity of all workers and the importance of state-owned means of production and...until the patient told them to shut up and get on with it, or at least make her unconscious already.
Posted by: Literata | Jul 26, 2011 at 01:57 PM
I have this idea in my head now for a piece of civil protest in which a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman, who are in love with each other get "gay married" to each other.
Because if, as the opponents of marriage equality hold, "gay marriage" is a thing which is not the same as "marriage", then "clearly"* it is discriminatory that straight people can't get "gay married".
It would be just like getting "married", only they would have to call themselves "gay married" and would have different rights depending on which state they were in.
I'd do it myself, but I'm already straight-married, and afaik, no one is, despite trolls over at Our Former Host's Place, calling for "gay polygamy".
I mean, unless that's just silly because "gay marriage" isn't really some kind of magical Other Thing That Isn't Real Marriage, and opposition to it is just about bigotry. But that's unpossible, surely!</sarcasm>
* Audible Air Quotes!
Posted by: Ross | Jul 26, 2011 at 02:23 PM
@Froborr
Ah, I thought I caught a whiff of implied moral absolutism in the original post.
Just to make myself perfectly clear, my moral views are, well, fuzzy, and I certainly don't adhere to the simplistic model of a moral truth out there like a physical truth. But it's safe to say that yes, I'm more morally absolutist than thou, and that it is moral absolutism, of some strain or another, that informs the desire for proclamation. Proclamation does seem to require the conviction that it's possible to describe a certain thing as in and of itself "good" or "bad."
But if I make a proclamation argument for it and you make one against it, that's it, end of argument, and we're forced to take an all-or-nothing approach.
Haha, guess what the next article I'll be submitting to the Slacktiverse is about . . .
But I'm not sure what the real distinction you're arguing for is. If we make opposing proclamation arguments, then we have different moral claims (or preferences, if you'd prefer) and we're clashing, yes. However, if we make opposing policy arguments, the arguments can be in opposition for two reasons. The first is that we disagree about the material facts, or about how best to improve conditions. That can be resolved. But it's also quite possible that policy arguments are opposing because they aim at different goods, or consider different people worthy of aid. You couldn't have persuaded the Jim Crow state legislatures to overturn segregationist policies, because their purpose was to support segregation. Demonstrating that they materially harmed African Americans would have simply shown that it was working.
What you're really looking at, it seems to me, is a sort of Punnett square, where one side is "Policy" and "Proclamation" and the other is "Agree" and "Disagree" on moral principles/preferences. Now, proclamation arguments that agree on moral principles will very strongly tend to agree in general, so we can shut the lights on that quadrant. And there are certainly some differing policy arguments that will fall in the Agree quadrant, where the only differences are about tactics and statistics, which data-based arguments can resolve.
But there are plenty of policy arguments that disagree on underlying moral preferences, where working through statistics won't help you reach common ground. Consider the micro-restrictions on abortion. It seems pretty clear to me that a lot of those are "policy," working toward the underlying aim of making legal abortion difficult to receive. (Granted, they're normally justified as proclamation. The example is imperfect.) Simply demonstrating that, e.g., mandatory ultrasounds harm pregnant women by forcing them to wait for an abortion won't resolve the underlying conflict about what policy should promote.
Similarly, speaking of "gay" or "same sex" marriage is a category error.
I agree with your point here, but I don't think it quite enables me to describe what I'd like to talk about. When NYC couples empowered by the new law got married on Sunday, they didn't get "gay married" or "same-sex married" or what have you. Of course nto. They got married.
However, we still need language to talk about the change in the law that permitted that. I liked same-sex marriage because it seemed to describe the category of relationships being opened up for legal recognition, and to do so precisely. But I grant that, just as the discriminatory laws recognizing only "opposite-sex marriage" were unable to coherently define "opposite-sex," the new laws are not actually just about "same-sex" couples, depending on one's definition.
That said, I'm a bit unsatisfied with the "marriage equality" for the same reason, frankly, that I'm a bit unsatisfied with the term "civil rights." Both capture strongly the moral issues under consideration (that's my absolutist side peeking out again), but they don't actually specify the particular oppressive laws and structures in question. In other words, there are plenty of movements for "marriage equality," such as this one or the overturning of coverture, but only one in favor of the legalization of marriage between partners not currently recognized under the flawed "opposite-sex" paradigm.
All that aside, I think that Literata's point about trans inclusiveness supercedes mine about precision, particularly in this context, so I'll change my language. I just wish there were something more precise I could change it to.
Posted by: Erl | Jul 26, 2011 at 02:35 PM
Ross, actually there are people calling for legal recognition of polyamory. But your Audible Air Quotes are priceless!
Posted by: Literata | Jul 26, 2011 at 03:41 PM
One thing that frustrates me immensely is that it's *so* tempting, when trying to defend your right to do or be X, to say "Well, it's not as if we are/do Y." Generally this is true, and it's often a useful argument, and it's so tempting to say...but if there are any civil rights issues with regard to Y you have just bought your success at the cost of making the Y's task more difficult.
So Pagans protect themselves by pointing out (generally quite truthfully) that they are not Satanists, but this plays straight in to the framing that says religious freedom is only for those who practice an "OK" religion and not for those who practice a "not OK" one. And QUILTBAG activists do the same to polyamorous people. A generation ago feminists were doing it to lesbians. (Maybe they still are, I don't know.) Each time, it's accepting the oppressor's framing and trying to use it, which I think is guaranteed to fail as a long-term strategy.
Posted by: MaryKaye | Jul 26, 2011 at 07:13 PM
That was a really eye-opening post, Erl! Thanks for the food for thought. The discussion is really interesting too, but I don't have time to say more tonight; just wanted to note my +1 to the essay.
Posted by: J. Random Scribbler | Jul 27, 2011 at 01:00 AM
MaryKaye, so your suggestion would be to adopt a "what if we were?" stance? "What if we were polyamory/muslim/witches/satanists?". Cause if so, yup. I sometimes wonder what the response to the whole "Obama is seeekrit Muslim" would have been if he'd clearly asserted that it shouldn't have mattered if he was.
Posted by: Mime Paradox | Jul 27, 2011 at 07:00 AM
An enormous outpouring of "AHA HE ADMITS IT" would be my guess. I had a better high school experience than most, but I still know that being a sympathiser makes you just as open to attacks as being a secret member.
Posted by: Will Wildman | Jul 27, 2011 at 09:36 AM
Granting that it is true that some members of any group will play the "at least we're not doing X" card, I'd want the claim to be a bit more nuanced than the flat statement. I can't speak to Paganism in general, although the relatively little I know* suggests that this isn't by any means the generality. Certainly, historically some feminists may have been doing the "at least we're not lesbians" nonsense, but as I recall the feminist movement has always been fairly diverse, as it is now, and included lesbians and allies, even though the term "ally" wasn't used.
*Over on Patheos Slacktivist there was a discussion of just how little attention anyone deserves who starts by saying "the little I know about X." Pleading guilty, but eagerly awaiting the upcoming Paganism 101.
Posted by: Dash | Jul 27, 2011 at 09:55 AM
Oops! Shouldn't have said "may" in "some feminist may have been doing." Some definitely were. Some still are.
Posted by: Dash | Jul 27, 2011 at 10:20 AM
I am sorry; I should have said "some feminists" and not the blanket "feminists." Also "some Pagans." But I've certainly heard it from both camps, and I am frustrated by the fact that public statements about "what Paganism is" often go to extreme and somewhat inaccurate lengths to distance Paganism from Satanism. (Every Pagan who reads Tarot with the standard deck is doing *something* with Devil imagery. It's up to them what that is, but saying "No, we NEVER" seems a bit dishonest.)
I agree that the response to "What if I am?" is likely to be the assumption that, in fact, I am a Y/engaging in Y. On the other hand, if Y's civil rights really matter then sometimes we have to accept that cost. I have to admit I'm not fully consistent on this; I will let people assume that my support for QUILTBAG rights means I'm a lesbian, but I correct people who assume my support for religous freedom means I'm a Satanist. This may mainly be cowardice on my part; I've experienced more religious discrimination than orientation discrimination and I'm more afraid of it.
The following story has no specific point to make, it just seems somehow related:
I was contact person for a public Pagan group and would occasionally get calls from members of the general public. One Halloween I got a call from someone who said in a nervous voice, "Do you do...animal sacrifice?"
I gave the standard "No, certainly not, never" spiel used to reassure people.
He took a deep breath and said, "Okay, do you know anyone who does?"
(I didn't at the time, so I wasn't any help to him. But it did remind me about not making assumptions.)
Posted by: MaryKaye | Jul 27, 2011 at 02:18 PM
What about something like, "I can't speak for people who X, but why would it matter if I were one?" Makes it clear you're not X, makes it clear that hating on X is not acceptable, and is less defensive than "I'm not an X, but..."
Posted by: Froborr | Jul 27, 2011 at 02:32 PM
Spambot above.
Posted by: Steve Morrison | Dec 27, 2011 at 12:58 AM