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.
