Real naïfs
As Douglas Adams observed, the entirety of social science and all its research and analysis could be boiled down to one simple conclusion: People are a problem.
One aspect of this truism is that they tend to oversimplify—as can be observed above. This is all well and good, until it gets to the problem of governance, where the overly simplistic view of society, its problems, and its solutions results in what researcher Jeffrey Friedman called “naïve realism.”
The naïvely realistic view is that social problems are easy to spot, and easy to fix with the application of “common sense.” Held by the average citizen, the view leads to the corollary that any failure of government to fix problems must be due to villainy and corruption. Any opposition to common sense is, after all, unreasonable and probably paid for by interests who stand to gain from the failure to fix the obvious problems.
This tends to deepen the partisan divide, since the mechanism at work is not so much honest disagreement, but instead—as perceived by the adversaries—dishonest bloody-mindedness caused by bad actors acting in bad faith. As Kevin Corcoran says in describing the concept:
Year after year, policymakers announce new initiatives and programs to tackle all kinds of social problems. Wars on drugs, crime, and terrorism, thousands upon thousands of pages of laws and regulations to fix the healthcare system, poverty alleviation, support for the homeless – if you can think of social problem, odds are the government has passed tens of thousands of pages of legislation and spent hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars trying to alleviate it. Still, these problems persist – and many of them are worse than before the initial attempts to fix them. To some, this might suggest that effectively solving such problems is something the government simply doesn’t know how to do. But to the naïve realist, the idea that government isn’t well suited to solve social problems is never considered. It’s not that the government can’t fix some problem – which must mean the government simply won’t fix the problem[.]
Arnold Kling believes the same thinking is at work among intellectuals as well, where the belief in their own inerrancy can be even more intractable.
In a democracy, politicians running for office utilize naïve realist beliefs and reinforce them: Problems are easy to identify; solutions are obvious; failure to implement solutions or the failure of solutions to work perfectly (or at all) must be due to malefactors working their malevolence. That seems easy enough to believe. In fact, it seems downright comforting to believe it. It’s much easier and more comfortable than engaging with issue complexity, than debating opponents after first acknowledging that they may have a point.
Thus we have had erstwhile presidential candidates in the past claiming (as Bernie Sanders did) that healthcare was easy to fix—his understanding was so comprehensive because he’d written the proposed fix-it law several times. And then there’s Donald Trump saying “I alone can fix it” when it came to any problem with government. In either case, millions of voters were willing to go along.
The result would appear to be a system of self-government that is extremely confident in its knowledge, wisdom, and actions. It is an impatient government for an impatient people: often in error, but never in doubt.
Good morning. I'm late because I was busy washing dirt off the root ball from a pear tree and then cutting off the roots to get to something roughly cylindrical. Oh wait, this isn't the woodworking forum. Sorry about that. Well, other than I had to look up "naif", I thought the key passage was this: It’s much easier and more comfortable than engaging with issue complexity, than debating opponents after first acknowledging that they may have a point.
Very few of us (by us, I'm not talking about the CSLF where I think we're good about this) listen to opposing voices and fewer admit the opposition may have a point and even fewer will acknowledge it. Fewer still will begin a conversation by saying, "you may have a point."
On the other hand, it seems a high percentage of public voices make a point to deride the opposition from the start, cutting off any possibility of a meaningful exchange of ideas.
Sigh. This is why we're here.
Morning
Rick got me my box of Cheerio's yesterday and low an behold, a special edition...heart shaped Cheerio's...made me smile
I made the mistake of reading the comments on the mother ship this morning ( I almost always read the piece, but, rarely comment), and gah...even someone I really like and have always thought was a sane conservative is praising DeSantis and saying mean things about liberals, let alone the just mean or trollish ones ( that Truitt guy is a piece of work)...this one person I thought we were friends...and he has just changed, it must be contagious
It's not that I am a snowflake so much as it just isn't entertaining, or fun to keep reading how much so many now think liberals are all evil and need to be destroyed...not to mention name calling...sigh...why put myself though that...and what happened to small government and not using the state's power to punish your real or perceived enemies?
As to your piece Marque...that makes sense, I always wondered where the idea that everyone is corrupt even came from, sure some people are, some organizations are, but, not all.
I probably err on the opposite side, I always assume good faith till proven otherwise, even just with people generally in every day life. Always the benefit of the doubt...