The political power of the irrational rhetor

There are, loosely, two ways to think about what disagreement means in a democracy (or, really, any other group). For some people disagreement is productive because, in fact, we really do disagree, and disagreement means that those different ways of thinking about a problem are being openly discussed. These people view disagreement in a democracy as a necessary condition because no individual can have enough information to know the right solution—in fact, there is no right solution because people really and legitimately disagree. There is no plan that is perfect for anyone, let alone for everyone.

But other people believe that disagreement is unnecessary because, not only is there a plan that is perfect for real Americans (or Germans, Venezuelans, Austinites, Christians), but it’s perfectly obvious to everyone of good will and even moderate intelligence what that plan is. We end up with imperfect plans because there are people involved in the process who are dumb, selfish, misled by evil people. People like this believe that those dumb and selfish people should be ignored, disenfranchised, or expelled—they shouldn’t be able to participate in deliberation.

People who believe in this democracy without disagreement see themselves as supporting democracy, but it’s democracy of the “real” people (Jan-Wenner Muller explains this all beautifully). In what they think of as a “good” democracy, there wouldn’t be disagreement; there would just be quick and efficient enacting of the perfect plans.

It’s well-documented that people faced with a loss (or even uncertainty) tend to demand greater in-group purity (much of this research is summarized here). And, consistently, in the train wrecks in public deliberation that I study, people respond to clear evidence that their plan is bad by deciding that they just need to recommit to that plan with greater will (e.g., how Hitler and his generals spent mid-1943 on).

I am oriented toward solving problems, believing that our political situation is usefully complicated by our being a pluralist society with people who have genuinely different points of view, different short- and long-term interests, and fundamental disagreements about values. I also believe that the right answer to all political questions is not obvious to anyone (the false model of the “universal genius”—a different post). I am a “liberal” in the old sense of the word—a person who believes that we shouldn’t be striving to enact policies that are obviously true to us, but that we should have a world in which we consider a lot of arguments “good enough.” That is, we can say something is a good argument even if we think it’s wrong—it’s good enough.

A “good enough” argument is one that is fair to its opposition(s), is internally consistent logically, and is grounded in sources that are also fair to the opposition(s) and internally consistent. A good enough argument might still be wrong, but it’s good enough to be taken seriously in public deliberation.

My appreciation of “good enough” arguments came from teaching argumentation, in which it was important that students who disagreed with me could get good grades, and that students with whom I agreed might not, but more importantly from my awareness that very smart people often disagreed, and that I was often wrong—being right and agreeing with me (or being a member of my in-group) were not the same.

Our goal in political deliberation shouldn’t be to have a sphere of public discourse that is only people who agree with us, or policies only informed by people who think like we do. Democracy requires good enough arguments.

It also requires that people compromise, listen to one another, and  don’t expect always to get what we want. If we accept the premise that people really disagree, and that people really have different interests, then we have to accept that no policy will be the one we want.[1] Or, as Jan-Werner Muller argues, democracy is about pluralism, and accepting that we are in a pluralistic society means that we accept “a commitment to try to find fair terms of sharing the same political space with others whom we respect as free and equal but also as irreducibly different in their identities and interests” (What is Populism 82).

But, a lot of people don’t think democracy is about people with different interests and legitimately different points of view trying to find ways to live together. In a course on how to teach argumentation—entirely for people getting their PhD at a prestigious institution–, I asked the teachers to identify arguments with which they disagreed but that they thought were good arguments. A non-trivial number of teachers said there was no such thing.

In other words, the irrational insistence that only arguments with which you agree are “good” arguments is not a question of how educated you are.

It’s just a bad way to think about democracy. And a bad way to think about decision-making, but that’s a different post. People who think that only their political ideology merits consideration are all over the political spectrum, all over levels of education, and all over areas of expertise.

I’ve been at Faculty Council meetings where world-famous scholars stood up and argued against a policy because it didn’t fit how they teach, or who argued in favor of it because it would force everyone to teach as they did. (In the first group was a scholar of rhetoric, and in the second a scholar of democracy.) The irony was not lost on me, but I think my snorting on the back row did not win me friends.

Unhappily, far too many Americans have that model of democracy, and it is really not democracy—it’s inevitably authoritarian. That notion of good democracy not requiring compromise, and deliberation not benefitting from agreements means that our public discourse creates a kind of tragedy of the rhetorical commons in which it is in the short-term benefit of far too many political figures and pundits to advocate irrational policies.

Here’s why:

Sarah Binder and Frances Lee, in a chapter called “Making Deals in Congress,” describe the problems faced by members of Congress. One of them is the problem presented by “’intense demanders,’ who are critical to politicians’ fundraising and activism base” (243). These people feel passionately about an issue, but

“often have little understanding of what is and is not possible in Congress. Constituents will not be happy to hear that they must settle for less than what they wanted or that they must make unpalatable concessions to achieve desired goals….Rather than accept disappointment, they may prefer to listen to other voices—such as those of activist group leaders or congressional hardliners—who tell them that a better deal was possible. As a consequence, lawmakers must continually cope with constituencies, activists, and supporters who push them to take a tougher line and refuse compromise.” (243)

Bind and Lee quote Congressional rep Barney Frank, “On both sides, the task is dealing with all the people who believe that insufficient purity is why their party hasn’t won more elections” (qtd. 243-4).

And it isn’t even new.

I read an entire year of Congressional debates (long, complicated story)—if memory serves it was 1835-36, but that might be wrong—and I wish I had kept track of the number of Senators or Reps who stood up and called for war against other countries (I do remember Spain, England, and France, being among them, but I think there were others).

The rhetor who stood up and did an impassioned speech for war with England didn’t really want the US to declare war on England—I think he knew that would be a disaster. He was like the jerk in a bar who threatens to get into a fight, and yells to his friends, “HOLD ME BACK!” because he does, really, want them to do exactly that. The Senate or Rep who called for war on England wanted to look like someone willing to die on that hill, but he really wanted other people to hold him back. He was trying to garner support among the folks back home by looking  irrationally committed to a policy they liked. But, he really knew was a terrible idea and hoped he wouldn’t persuade the House or Senate to adopt his stance.

This particular performance of in-group loyalty requires that other people hold him back. Someone else has to stand up and explain why that’s a bad idea. But we can get into a kind of rhetorical tragedy of the commons, in which rhetors get short-term gains by rabidly advocating policies they don’t really want enacted, and no one will take on the unpopular position of saying that the situation is complicated, the solution isn’t obvious, and the immediately satisfying “Let’s show THEM! We’ll declare war!” position is actually unwise.

The term “tragedy of the commons” comes from the observation that, if you have a common area in which people in the community can pasture their cattle, people will make short-term benefit decisions that hurt everyone—including them—in the long run. Here’s how it works.

Imagine that the common area can support ten cattle easily—if there are ten cows, then each cow gains ten pounds. If there are eleven, then each cow gains nine pounds. If you’re the person to put that additional cow on the commons, then you’ve now got two cows and a gain of eighteen pounds. It sucks for everyone else, though (since they’ve all lost a pound per cow). If there are twelve cows, then each cow gains eight pounds—again, bad for the community as a whole, but good for the person who put on an additional cow on. At this point, any sensible person would put as many cows on as possible, to the point that the commons is destroyed, and no longer providing food for any cows. This is called the “tragedy of the commons.” [2] The short-term best interest of any individual is not in the long-term best interest of any individual. But, because people believe that others in the community will only think in terms of their immediate best interest, then everyone is racing to destroy the commons on which they all depend.

It is tragic because it is always in the short-term best interest of someone to screw over the community as a whole—if everyone behaves that way, then everyone loses. (This is related to what is sometimes called the “free rider problem”).[3]

The economy of attention, a world in which there are always too many things demanding our attention, means that a pundit or political figure who makes hyperbolic and fear-mongering claims will get more attention than one who says the situation is complicated. That is the tragedy of the rhetorical commons—that irresponsible rhetors will benefit, in the short term, even if their short-term benefit means the destruction of the our common rhetorical and political space.

Our rhetorical world is a tragedy of the commons. We have a public that, on the whole, only rewards demagogic media (through viewing, clicks, sharing), and that has far too many voters who, having only paid attention to media that says “This is a battle of good v. evil, and we should only vote for people who refuse to compromise,” only wants politicians or pundits who will die on this hill. And that hill. Every hill in fact. And the politicians are pundits who decide they want the short-term benefits of pandering to that irrationality about politics are the people putting the extra cow on the commons—it gets them the short-term benefit of getting votes, but it trashes our ability to make good decisions.

We are in a world in which there is considerable political power to being openly an irrational rhetor who refuses to compromise, refuses to acknowledge legitimate disagreement, and dies on every hill. This destruction of our common world will only stop when voters and consumers stop voting for political figures and consuming media who say, “It’s all very simple, and we just need to refuse to compromise.”

We need to stop rewarding the irrational rhetor. As long as we reward the irrational rhetor, we can’t complain when the commons can’t sustain any cows, that our rhetorical commons is an argumentative desert, and we have a lot of dead people on hills. We made the short-term choices that got us a long-term outcome we don’t like. We have only ourselves to blame.

[1] I’m not saying that all compromises are good, nor that we should never refuse to compromise, but simply that, as Muller says, “democracy is a system where you know you can lose, but you also know you will not always lose” (79).
[2] Unhappily, some people have this concept to make an internally contradictory argument about immigration. That’s a different post.
[3] 3] That is why there are no magnificent natural features preserved in private ownership in the US—because it’s never in the short-term best interest of someone to preserve the natural features. (This is also why “the market” should not be allowed to determine everything, since it is not actually rational in the long-term.)