Adam Smith and Prudent Man

Last week on December 8 the Wall Street Journal had two articles on page A15. In their Notable & Quotable column is a quote from Adam Smith from his “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759). The second article is titled “Dissensus, the Spirit of our Age” by Joseph Epstein.

So today I am taking a departure from my usual Macro-paranoia to discuss the ways we speak to each other. My spell-checker does not like the word Dissensus but we all know what that means. It means we don’t agree. And when we disagree we are often emotional if not violent. I suspect that dissensus has always been around but to me it seems a lot worse today.

Perhaps our problems are more severe now – but I doubt that is the case. I recall too well being at Coral Gables High School and wondering before his horrible assassination if President Kennedy was going to start a war over missiles in Cuba. I remember the draft and Vietnam. I remember that blacks drank from separate drinking fountains and were required to sit in the back section of city buses. None of that was fun or good. We had plenty to argue about.

Yet despite the extreme and seeming intransigent problems we faced, many of us were able to find less strident ways to disagree. The Epstein and Smith articles ask us to think about this issue. Epstein emphasizes that people – even people with strongly held views – thought it more prudent to look at both sides of a question before leaping to vote for a candidate. Today many of us seem to have reflexively made-up our minds. Epstein thinks that we used to cogitate more and only decided after much weighing of facts.

Smith is copied below. His wording seems a little archaic and his descriptions of prudent man might be considered by some old-fashioned. But the father of the free market and the “invisible hand” says things we probably should not forget. Among the gems below are that the prudent man:

            studies seriously and earnestly

  may not be brilliant but they are always perfectly genuine

            is not ostentatious

            is simple and modest

            does not always think of cultivating the favor of those little clubs and cabals

 neither endeavors to impose upon you by the cunning devices of an artful imposter, nor by the arrogant airs of an assuming pedant nor by the confident assertions of a superficial and imprudent pretender.

More of Smith is at the bottom below.

Should we not passionately disagree? Of course we should. That is not my point today. My point is that we seem to rush judgment. We share with some others a complete and well-outlined ideology that has its own dos and don’ts. Am I saying you should not have an ideology? No. But what I am saying is that perhaps there are some important things that fall between the cracks.

One example is abortion. That topic has some of you already taking deep breaths. But in a democratic nation with divided views it is hard to  imagine moving to an extreme state in which we had either no abortion or totally free choice for abortion.  Today we have laws that allow it but regulate it. Realistically the laws will bounce around over time. Sometimes we will make it harder to get abortions for good reasons. Other times we will do the opposite – for good reasons. This is where the thinking comes in. If we are never going to move to either ideological extreme then it seems that knowledge and analysis ought to be used by both sides to decide on the best current solution. That hardly ever seems to be the case today. 

The same goes for income distribution or poverty programs. Extreme ideology supports widely divergent policies – virtually no social programs or greatly expanded state public assistance. Reality finds us between those ends. We can shout ugly epithets at each other – or we can be more like Smith’s prudent man. Would not a left-winger be willing to discuss waste in current programs? Might not the conservative believe that society could gain by assisting some families? The idea that knowledge and common sense can be brought together for our mutual gain seems valuable. The more important the policy topic the more important that we arrive at good decisions.

If we continue to go down the path of dissensus we will live by reality TV. Instead of prudent man we will live by the dictates of finger-pointing. It is hard for me to believe that we would continue to choose the latter.

Adam Smith, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759):

The prudent man always studies seriously and earnestly to understand whatever he professes to understand, and not merely to persuade other people that he understands it; and though his talents may not always be very brilliant, they are always perfectly genuine. He neither endeavours to impose upon you by the cunning devices of an artful impostor, nor by the arrogant airs of an assuming pedant, nor by the confident assertions of a superficial and impudent pretender. He is not ostentatious even of the abilities which he really possesses. His conversation is simple and modest, and he is averse to all the quackish arts by which other people so frequently thrust themselves into public notice and reputation. For reputation in his profession he is naturally disposed to rely a good deal upon the solidity of his knowledge and abilities; and he does not always think of cultivating the favour of those little clubs and cabals, who, in the superior arts and sciences, so often erect themselves into the supreme judges of merit; and who make it their business to celebrate the talents and virtues of one another, and to decry whatever can come into competition with them. If he ever connects himself with any society of this kind, it is merely in self-defence, not with a view to impose upon the public, but to hinder the public from being imposed upon, to his disadvantage, by the clamours, the whispers, or the intrigues, either of that particular society, or of some others of the same kind.