Out of the things that distinguish neoreactionaries from conservatives, perhaps the most striking is the following: both are interested in what's wrong with the modern world, but the neoreactionaries are more interested in how exactly we got here. Conservatives, by contrast, seems to just assume that the answer is to fight harder against the things you don't like. Moreover, fighting is assumed instinctively to just involve the standard methods of protesting, voting, writing letters to the editor, buying the right bumper stickers etc. Conservatives do not seem to notice that they've been trying those things for quite a long time now, and that's how we got to the present world.
It is this, perhaps more than anything else, that turned me away from mainstream conservatism. They keep losing, they don't know why they keep losing, and they're not devoting much thought to trying to figure out the answer.
So in the spirit of understanding losses, here's something I've been pondering:
Cultural Marxism has proven far more effective at taking over the west than Economic Marxism ever was.
Put simply, it is very hard to think of a slur that the left had at its disposal with anything like the power of 'racist'.
It is a widely mocked term by the right, of course, and justly so.
But that's not really the point, is it? The point rather is that any borderline credible accusation of racism (or most of the other -isms and -phobias) is likely to be career-ending, and everyone knows it. The people doing the mocking tend not to use their real names, or not to have careers in corporate America. By contrast, in 1950 it was being a communist that was liable to get you fired. Being a Nazi probably would have been dicey too, but it seems unlikely that just casually throwing around accusations of nazism in 1950 would have had anything like the same effect as accusations of racism today. Being accused of being 'bourgeois' or 'a capitalist' would have just been laughed at.
It's not just jobs either. The desire to show that one isn't racist seems to have captured the zeitgeist almost completely. Europe is in the process of allowing a flash mob invasion by millions of hostile third world young men just to prove how non-racist they are. There is resistance, of course, which gets beaten down with water cannon and prison cell. But popular resistance is not the puzzling bit. The non-resisters are almost sui generis in human history - wanting to give away their own country to prove how generous they are.
As an organising principle, racism seems to be considered these days to be the worst, if not the only sin. Rather striking for a term that was only coined in the mid 1930's.
And so the neoreactionary question poses itself - why did Cultural Marxism win where Economic Marxism failed?
I don't know for sure, but I can think of a few possible contributing causes.
Firstly, Economic Marxism was always liable to generate reasonably firm opposition from big business, because it directly threatened their existence. Old school Marxists were openly hostile to capitalism, and that meant that corporate America knew which side of the fight they would prosper more under. So they were willing to go along with things like the Hollywood blacklists of communists. Economic Marxism was an existential threat to a publicly listed company, so they were more willing to fight it.
By contrast, the costs that seem to be imposed by cultural Marxism are just a few diversity seminars, some wasted money on sinecures for bogus jobs like 'director of outreach' or 'diversity officer' and the like, and the occasional donation to shakedown artists like Al Sharpton. This is a pain, but is just viewed as the costs of doing business. Corporate America probably doesn't like those costs, but it's less important than staying on the right side of those in power, so they do it.
Secondly, cultural Marxism picked a set of traits that better aligned with tribal identity. All Marxism was about inciting group conflict in order to produce a big enough coalition to overthrow the existing order. But economic Marxism wanted people to unite based on their level of wealth. A poor factory worker in Detroit was meant to truly feel a bond of struggle with a peasant in Bolivia. And this simply isn't how people think of identity. Cultural Marxism appealed most strongly to things that people always identified with, namely race, nationality and religion. It was much easier to get blacks to unite their opposition, or Muslims, or Hispanics, than the world's peasants.
But this leaves a puzzle - wouldn't this evoke a strong response by the antagonised classes, such as middle class whites?
I think this leads to the third reason - the carving up of multiple overlapping identity groups, most notably gender and sexuality. This is a way of letting white women or white gay men get in on the winning grievance team, all the better to increase the alliance against the hated white straight Christian males. Intersectionality was always a ridiculous premise, designed purely to paper over the fact that lots of the groups in the diversity coalition don't actually like each other very much. But this only becomes a problem after the existing order is overthrown.
Even with all this, it's still an unsatisfying explanation. It's an obviously incomplete list, and I think it's important to understand it better.
"Cthulu always swims left" may be a good starting observation, but eventually you want to figure out how, if not why.
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Saturday, April 30, 2016
The perils of reading the fake government org chart
Out of the many oddities of the democratic process in the west, two points stand out.
First, the average citizen has very little idea about how his government works.
Second, the average citizen has very little idea that he has very little idea about how his government works.
If pushed, I think the second point is the more remarkable one. It is quite an amazing feat of propaganda. The evidence that government doesn't work the way most people assume it does is all around them. But they somehow manage to never notice.
I think it comes back to the distinction between the real and the nominal organisational chart of government.
In the case of China, your average American understands that he has no idea how its government functionally operates. Furthermore, he also assumes, rightly, not to trust the notional description coming from China of how its government works. America has a Congress. China, as it turns out, also has a Congress. The average American, however, is likely to be correctly skeptical about whether this body is actually exercising any substantial decision-making authority. He suspects that finding out how China's government actually works is likely to be a difficult task, and one that will require some considerable research.
But for some reason, these thoughts never seem to occur to him about his own government, even though every single one would be just as appropriate.
In the case of America, he has been inculcated with the official organisational chart since birth. There are three branches - legislative, judicial and executive. They exist in a separation of powers, and all are ultimately answerable to the voters, who elect Congress and the President, and thus can eventually appoint all the Supreme Court nominees.
Granted, this is not an absurd description. All these bodies really do exist. At some point, perhaps, this was how governmental decisions in America were actually made.
On the other hand, our hypothetical reader would need to only click on a news website on almost any given day to find events that seem wholly inconsistent with this being the set of people who in practice make decisions as to how government runs.
To take but one example, it was recently announced that Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.
This, of course, raises a number of questions that the average person almost certainly never gets around to asking, but probably should.
Let's start with the basics.
Who, exactly, decided that this would happen?
As a beginning, he has absolutely no idea. Without googling, he couldn't even name the office behind this decision.
Reading through the article, we're told that this was announced by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. Hands up, nice and high, if you've ever heard that name before.
More to the point, being announced by Jack Lew is not the same as being decided by Jack Lew. If it were just decided by Jack Lew, then we can somehow finagle all this akwardly into the notional chart. Obama appointed Lew, he could fire him (perhaps - who knows) and get someone else in who would put Jackson back on.
But how do you know who else was involved in this decision? Are you sure it was just Lew? There are 86,000 people working at the Treasury. You're certain it was just the top guy, on his own, who came up with the plan? Let's be honest, that seems pretty damn unlikely. If every decision is made singlehandedly from the top, what on earth are those 86,000 people doing each day?
If you fire Lew, it's possible the plan gets reversed. It's also possible that you've just fired the guy who's the spokesman, or the frontman for the operation. He'll just be replaced by someone else, and the show will merrily go on.
But even the 'treasury employees make the decision' model seems a little too neat. Indeed, the Washington Post article lists a number of groups and people that seem wholly alien to how this process is meant to work, including:
-Kari Winter, a professor who studies slavery at the University of Buffalo
-A viral campaign by a group "Women on $20s"
-Ben Bernanke
-A musical about Alexander Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who apparently was personally contacted by Lew in the leadup to this decision (when it was decided that Hamilton wasn't getting ditched from the $10)
-Liz Maatz, vice president of government relations for the American Association of University Women
One of two things seems true. Either these people are part of the actual decision-making process. Or the Washington Post is just asking random nobodies to give their opinion
Which do you suppose is more likely? Who do you suppose knows more about how government operates, you or the Washington Post?
Because, dear average interlocutor, let us get to the heart of the matter.
You still believe the notional org chart, because this is all you know. This decision must come from the Secretary of Treasury, which comes from the President, which comes from us, the voters. Ergo, we can reverse this by voting for Trump in November, who certainly wouldn't put up with this nonsense.
Perhaps.
But didn't they tell you this when you voted for George W. Bush twice? Looking back, what exactly did that get you?
You would do better to start by admitting some basic truths.
You have no idea who made this decision.
You have no idea how, or if, it could be reversed.
You have no idea who is actually governing you.
And if you've gotten that far, why are you so sure that voting will fix it?
First, the average citizen has very little idea about how his government works.
Second, the average citizen has very little idea that he has very little idea about how his government works.
If pushed, I think the second point is the more remarkable one. It is quite an amazing feat of propaganda. The evidence that government doesn't work the way most people assume it does is all around them. But they somehow manage to never notice.
I think it comes back to the distinction between the real and the nominal organisational chart of government.
In the case of China, your average American understands that he has no idea how its government functionally operates. Furthermore, he also assumes, rightly, not to trust the notional description coming from China of how its government works. America has a Congress. China, as it turns out, also has a Congress. The average American, however, is likely to be correctly skeptical about whether this body is actually exercising any substantial decision-making authority. He suspects that finding out how China's government actually works is likely to be a difficult task, and one that will require some considerable research.
But for some reason, these thoughts never seem to occur to him about his own government, even though every single one would be just as appropriate.
In the case of America, he has been inculcated with the official organisational chart since birth. There are three branches - legislative, judicial and executive. They exist in a separation of powers, and all are ultimately answerable to the voters, who elect Congress and the President, and thus can eventually appoint all the Supreme Court nominees.
Granted, this is not an absurd description. All these bodies really do exist. At some point, perhaps, this was how governmental decisions in America were actually made.
On the other hand, our hypothetical reader would need to only click on a news website on almost any given day to find events that seem wholly inconsistent with this being the set of people who in practice make decisions as to how government runs.
To take but one example, it was recently announced that Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.
This, of course, raises a number of questions that the average person almost certainly never gets around to asking, but probably should.
Let's start with the basics.
Who, exactly, decided that this would happen?
As a beginning, he has absolutely no idea. Without googling, he couldn't even name the office behind this decision.
Reading through the article, we're told that this was announced by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. Hands up, nice and high, if you've ever heard that name before.
More to the point, being announced by Jack Lew is not the same as being decided by Jack Lew. If it were just decided by Jack Lew, then we can somehow finagle all this akwardly into the notional chart. Obama appointed Lew, he could fire him (perhaps - who knows) and get someone else in who would put Jackson back on.
But how do you know who else was involved in this decision? Are you sure it was just Lew? There are 86,000 people working at the Treasury. You're certain it was just the top guy, on his own, who came up with the plan? Let's be honest, that seems pretty damn unlikely. If every decision is made singlehandedly from the top, what on earth are those 86,000 people doing each day?
If you fire Lew, it's possible the plan gets reversed. It's also possible that you've just fired the guy who's the spokesman, or the frontman for the operation. He'll just be replaced by someone else, and the show will merrily go on.
But even the 'treasury employees make the decision' model seems a little too neat. Indeed, the Washington Post article lists a number of groups and people that seem wholly alien to how this process is meant to work, including:
-Kari Winter, a professor who studies slavery at the University of Buffalo
-A viral campaign by a group "Women on $20s"
-Ben Bernanke
-A musical about Alexander Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who apparently was personally contacted by Lew in the leadup to this decision (when it was decided that Hamilton wasn't getting ditched from the $10)
-Liz Maatz, vice president of government relations for the American Association of University Women
One of two things seems true. Either these people are part of the actual decision-making process. Or the Washington Post is just asking random nobodies to give their opinion
Which do you suppose is more likely? Who do you suppose knows more about how government operates, you or the Washington Post?
Because, dear average interlocutor, let us get to the heart of the matter.
You still believe the notional org chart, because this is all you know. This decision must come from the Secretary of Treasury, which comes from the President, which comes from us, the voters. Ergo, we can reverse this by voting for Trump in November, who certainly wouldn't put up with this nonsense.
Perhaps.
But didn't they tell you this when you voted for George W. Bush twice? Looking back, what exactly did that get you?
You would do better to start by admitting some basic truths.
You have no idea who made this decision.
You have no idea how, or if, it could be reversed.
You have no idea who is actually governing you.
And if you've gotten that far, why are you so sure that voting will fix it?
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Subtle Hallmarks of Narcissism
I once had a friend who was at least at the sub-clinical level of narcissism (by my amateur reckoning of the matter). He was very clever, and got easily annoyed with people who thought were stupider than him, or who were wasting his time.
One of the things that manifested itself very strongly was that he was enormously sure of his own opinions. People who disagreed were nearly always morons, and were strongly mocked. This wasn't just on objective beliefs either - matters of taste, however arbitrary, were treated with similar absolutism. The gap between his taste and objective quality, in his mind, was zero. This would even occur when extreme positions were taken on otherwise similar issues. Because he was brilliant, his opinion on these matters must be right. He was also very funny, gregarious when he wanted to be, and and a keen reader of other people. I still count him as a friend, so don't get the wrong idea here.
So how do you tell that someone is narcissistic, rather than just stubborn and opinionated? There is, after all, substantial overlap. Do you fail to change your mind just because you believe things very strongly, or do you fail to change your mind because your belief in your own brilliance means that you simply can't contemplate the possibility of you being wrong?
One trait I observed was that when he did change his mind, he rarely acknowledged it for very long (if at all), and then proceeded to proselytize the new view with all the fervor previously given to the old. The self-image must be preserved at all costs. What you believe isn't strictly important. What's more important is that you're a clever, insightful person who makes good choices.
But that, to my mind, wasn't the key giveaway about narcissism.
The guy was a perfectionist in his job, and thus slow to actually complete projects. At some point, he didn't get promoted, and so was leaving the industry to work elsewhere.
Based on a hunch, I asked him at some point what things he had changed his mind on during his time in the job. I had suspected that it would be nothing at all, but that turned out not to be true.
He told me instead that when he started he had thought that good work would get rewarded, and the competent would rise to the top of the profession. But over time he saw that the senior ranks were just filled by rent-seeking people who had got themselves into positions of authority and expropriated smart, hard-working junior people.
Sensing that I might be on to something, I asked him to clarify something else. Had he learned or changed his mind on anything in a way that had caused him to update negatively about himself?
He paused, and considered the question for a few seconds, quite obviously for the first time. 'No', was his answer, which was the truthful one. He thought he was good, and didn't need to BS with false humility.
And I realised this was the crux of the issue. What he had learned, in other words, was that he was too good for the job he was in.
A narcissist can learn, and a narcissist can change their mind. But they can never change their mind in a way that causes them to update negatively about themselves.
If he had failed in the job, the problem must be the job.
And this also helped explain something else that I suspect is common to narcissists, and possibly to low empathy types who lean towards sociopathic behavior (I truthfully can't always distinguish these two cases cleanly, which shows that I'm not a psychiatrist, just an interested amateur - my friend I put mostly just in the narcissist category). Sophisticated narcissists who are low on empathy can be very good at reading other people, and using this to manipulate them. But every now and again, they'll also make spectacular own-goals in social situations that leave everyone else scratching their heads.
When I tallied up what caused these in the case of my friend, the one thing that he wasn't able to see clearly was what other people thought of him. He thought that everyone loved him, whereas a lot of people didn't. He could read people in general, and he could read what other people thought of themselves, but because his own image of himself was so dominant, it prevented him seeing what others thought of him.
I hereby volunteer as a job interview question 'what is something that you changed your mind on in a way that caused you to update negatively about yourself'. It's one that people won't have a canned answer for, and will tell you whether they're actually able to see their own weaknesses, or whether they lean towards narcissistic self-adulation.
One of the things that manifested itself very strongly was that he was enormously sure of his own opinions. People who disagreed were nearly always morons, and were strongly mocked. This wasn't just on objective beliefs either - matters of taste, however arbitrary, were treated with similar absolutism. The gap between his taste and objective quality, in his mind, was zero. This would even occur when extreme positions were taken on otherwise similar issues. Because he was brilliant, his opinion on these matters must be right. He was also very funny, gregarious when he wanted to be, and and a keen reader of other people. I still count him as a friend, so don't get the wrong idea here.
So how do you tell that someone is narcissistic, rather than just stubborn and opinionated? There is, after all, substantial overlap. Do you fail to change your mind just because you believe things very strongly, or do you fail to change your mind because your belief in your own brilliance means that you simply can't contemplate the possibility of you being wrong?
One trait I observed was that when he did change his mind, he rarely acknowledged it for very long (if at all), and then proceeded to proselytize the new view with all the fervor previously given to the old. The self-image must be preserved at all costs. What you believe isn't strictly important. What's more important is that you're a clever, insightful person who makes good choices.
But that, to my mind, wasn't the key giveaway about narcissism.
The guy was a perfectionist in his job, and thus slow to actually complete projects. At some point, he didn't get promoted, and so was leaving the industry to work elsewhere.
Based on a hunch, I asked him at some point what things he had changed his mind on during his time in the job. I had suspected that it would be nothing at all, but that turned out not to be true.
He told me instead that when he started he had thought that good work would get rewarded, and the competent would rise to the top of the profession. But over time he saw that the senior ranks were just filled by rent-seeking people who had got themselves into positions of authority and expropriated smart, hard-working junior people.
Sensing that I might be on to something, I asked him to clarify something else. Had he learned or changed his mind on anything in a way that had caused him to update negatively about himself?
He paused, and considered the question for a few seconds, quite obviously for the first time. 'No', was his answer, which was the truthful one. He thought he was good, and didn't need to BS with false humility.
And I realised this was the crux of the issue. What he had learned, in other words, was that he was too good for the job he was in.
A narcissist can learn, and a narcissist can change their mind. But they can never change their mind in a way that causes them to update negatively about themselves.
If he had failed in the job, the problem must be the job.
And this also helped explain something else that I suspect is common to narcissists, and possibly to low empathy types who lean towards sociopathic behavior (I truthfully can't always distinguish these two cases cleanly, which shows that I'm not a psychiatrist, just an interested amateur - my friend I put mostly just in the narcissist category). Sophisticated narcissists who are low on empathy can be very good at reading other people, and using this to manipulate them. But every now and again, they'll also make spectacular own-goals in social situations that leave everyone else scratching their heads.
When I tallied up what caused these in the case of my friend, the one thing that he wasn't able to see clearly was what other people thought of him. He thought that everyone loved him, whereas a lot of people didn't. He could read people in general, and he could read what other people thought of themselves, but because his own image of himself was so dominant, it prevented him seeing what others thought of him.
I hereby volunteer as a job interview question 'what is something that you changed your mind on in a way that caused you to update negatively about yourself'. It's one that people won't have a canned answer for, and will tell you whether they're actually able to see their own weaknesses, or whether they lean towards narcissistic self-adulation.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
The Other Great Geographic Discontinuity
Discontinuities are interesting things. When small differences in inputs result in large differences in outputs, it can sometimes give hints as to what exactly is causing what.
For instance, Douglas Almond's great paper on the in-utero effects of the Spanish Flu gets you mostly convinced just by a single picture
The ideal case observes a sharp discontinuity in a single input variable and examines the effect on the output. Economists search for these perfectly clean cases like financial traders search for arbitrage. They find them about as often, too.
But sometimes you get a second best instance - a case where a good fraction of the inputs stay smooth and continuous, and yet you observe a discontinuous shift in the output. This suggests that one of the remaining variables is having a large effect.
This is especially true in the case of development. The classic problem, concisely stated, is that goods go together and bads go together. In other words, countries tend to have good governance, good rule of law, a free press, low corruption, etc. or they have none of these things.
Boosters of the polite consensus wisdom occasionally enjoy pointing out the difference in light patterns between North and South Korea.
It is indeed a striking one. Scott Alexander cited it in his Anti-Reactionary FAQ as supporting the proposition that the quasi-monarchy of North Korea seems to result in much worse outcomes than the capitalist social democracy of South Korea.
Fair enough. So it does. Though of course what we're really seeing is the sum of all the differences between the North and South since the Korean War. The main quibble is the extent to which Kim Jong-Un is a good representation of monarchy as a system of government, but I take Alexander's point.
But if you're going to play that game, you have to take the comparisons that are not flattering to your world view, as well as the ones that are.
One such equally stark comparison is between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
No, they didn't draw the border at some magically discontinuous shift in micro-climate. This is all one island of Hispaniola, split into two parts. It's just that the Haitians deforested their part of the island, leaving the land looking like it was denuded by a plague of locusts. The Dominicans, however, didn't.
And this is the start of a series of differences that are not quite as stark as North and South Korea, but they're pretty darn stark nonetheless. Haiti is supremely screwed, as bad as anywhere in the Third World. We're talking GDP per capita of $661 and life expectancy of 63 screwed. The Dominican Republic, by contrast is at $5442 and 74. Not exactly first world standards, but functional enough that westerners want to go there on holidays. To slightly modify the Hilltop Hoods - like a free trip to Port-Au-Prince, you don't want it.
And there basically is no polite explanation for why this is. The standard banalities about the causes of poverty don't get you very far. If Haiti's problem is that it was colonialized, so was the Dominican Republic. Admittedly the Haitian part was run by the French for more of its history, versus the Dominican Republic being run by the Spanish. But people don't usually clamor to attribute strong economic success to Spanish colonialism. In fact, the Dominican Republic was run as a colony for considerably longer, as recently as 1865 (compared with Haiti, which kicked out the French for the last time in 1804). Indeed, Haiti actually invaded and ran the Dominican Republic from 1821-1844, and got to implement some of its disastrous policies then.
The other sob stories don't get you much further either. Both areas had a lot of slaves. Both were administered by the US during the 20th century. And while the Dominican Republic produced a lot more sugar during the 20th century, this seems better understood as effect rather than just cause, as Haiti produced lots of sugar during the 18th century, and climate-wise could have done so again.
So since the countries were united for most of their history, one must expect that the causes might seem to be differences that were more pronounced after 1844.
First off, Haiti had killed most of its white population in a genocide, and added to its constitution in 1804 a clause that whites could not own property. Another country imposed this recently in the wake of similar genocidal behavior. You might almost conclude that this is a disastrous policy. It was imposed in the Dominican Republic too in 1821 when Haiti took over, but they hadn't gone for the full genocidal answer of killing all the whites. So even though lots of the Spanish left after their stuff was confiscated, enough of them stuck around, and eventually managed to successfully gain independence from Haiti in 1844. The Dominican Republic tended to be mostly governed by its richer and better-educated Spanish elite for much of its history, whereas Haiti mostly was governed by the descendants of slaves (either black or mulatto). Just look at the pictures of some of the presidents of the Dominican Republic. No matter how you cut it or interpret it, the difference is striking.
etc.
Now look at some of the corresponding presidents of Haiti
Of course, a closer examination makes all this a bit murkier. Even after most of the leaders above, both countries were sufficiently dysfunctional that the US chose to invade, in 1915 and 1916. Equally dysfunctional? It's hard to say, since this was the era before great GDP figures. In terms of long-serving leaders during the 20th century, they had different paths. Rafael Trujillo seems to have looked somewhat like Pinochet, brutal but effective. Papa Doc Duvalier seems like a cross between Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe, repulsive in every possible way. It turns out that being a black nationalist intent on driving out the mulatto elite tends to just produce a mass emigration of the educated parts of the populace. We've heard about that one before too. It's not for nothing that I compared him to Mugabe. Maybe this is the main difference, these two men. It's hard to say.
So we get to the end and don't get the neat schadenfreude of Scott Alexander's simple narrative. In the end, we observe a discontinuous outcome, not a discontinuous input, and identification still eludes us. I am not nearly enough of an expert to compile anything like an exhaustive list of the differences between the countries to say for sure what is driving it. And yet, the aerial photographs remain. Something is producing enormously discontinuous outcomes across small geographical differences. And if you dislike the things I've raised, does that not just deepen the puzzle? Admit it, my progressive friend - you don't have a satisfactory explanation for the difference, do you?
By any measure, Haiti has been profoundly misgoverned. The Dominican Republic serves as Banquo's Ghost, reminding us awkwardly that it didn't have to end up this way. It is not a happy tale, and the lessons, if there are any, don't seem to support the standard leftist narratives of why the third world is poor. No wonder you never hear about it.
Actually, that's not quite right.
You do occasionally hear about it, in the form of editorials in lefty western newspapers excoriating the Dominican Republic for its racism in deporting Haitian illegal immigrants, notwithstanding the fact that, by US definitions of race, the Dominican Republic itself is 80% black.
Yep, racism. That's the key to understanding all this, according to our intellectually bankrupt intellectuals. The overwhelmingly black Dominican Republic must be cast in the role of racist oppressor, because that's the only way by which the left can understand Haitian poverty, or indeed any poverty at all.
With such brilliant insights among our elites, I have no doubt that Haiti will soon be returned to the days when it produced leaders like Thomas-Alexandre Dumas and Alexandre Dumas.
I wouldn't hold your breath. Haiti has been collectively holding its breath for 200 years.
For instance, Douglas Almond's great paper on the in-utero effects of the Spanish Flu gets you mostly convinced just by a single picture
The ideal case observes a sharp discontinuity in a single input variable and examines the effect on the output. Economists search for these perfectly clean cases like financial traders search for arbitrage. They find them about as often, too.
But sometimes you get a second best instance - a case where a good fraction of the inputs stay smooth and continuous, and yet you observe a discontinuous shift in the output. This suggests that one of the remaining variables is having a large effect.
This is especially true in the case of development. The classic problem, concisely stated, is that goods go together and bads go together. In other words, countries tend to have good governance, good rule of law, a free press, low corruption, etc. or they have none of these things.
Boosters of the polite consensus wisdom occasionally enjoy pointing out the difference in light patterns between North and South Korea.
It is indeed a striking one. Scott Alexander cited it in his Anti-Reactionary FAQ as supporting the proposition that the quasi-monarchy of North Korea seems to result in much worse outcomes than the capitalist social democracy of South Korea.
Fair enough. So it does. Though of course what we're really seeing is the sum of all the differences between the North and South since the Korean War. The main quibble is the extent to which Kim Jong-Un is a good representation of monarchy as a system of government, but I take Alexander's point.
But if you're going to play that game, you have to take the comparisons that are not flattering to your world view, as well as the ones that are.
One such equally stark comparison is between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
No, they didn't draw the border at some magically discontinuous shift in micro-climate. This is all one island of Hispaniola, split into two parts. It's just that the Haitians deforested their part of the island, leaving the land looking like it was denuded by a plague of locusts. The Dominicans, however, didn't.
And this is the start of a series of differences that are not quite as stark as North and South Korea, but they're pretty darn stark nonetheless. Haiti is supremely screwed, as bad as anywhere in the Third World. We're talking GDP per capita of $661 and life expectancy of 63 screwed. The Dominican Republic, by contrast is at $5442 and 74. Not exactly first world standards, but functional enough that westerners want to go there on holidays. To slightly modify the Hilltop Hoods - like a free trip to Port-Au-Prince, you don't want it.
And there basically is no polite explanation for why this is. The standard banalities about the causes of poverty don't get you very far. If Haiti's problem is that it was colonialized, so was the Dominican Republic. Admittedly the Haitian part was run by the French for more of its history, versus the Dominican Republic being run by the Spanish. But people don't usually clamor to attribute strong economic success to Spanish colonialism. In fact, the Dominican Republic was run as a colony for considerably longer, as recently as 1865 (compared with Haiti, which kicked out the French for the last time in 1804). Indeed, Haiti actually invaded and ran the Dominican Republic from 1821-1844, and got to implement some of its disastrous policies then.
The other sob stories don't get you much further either. Both areas had a lot of slaves. Both were administered by the US during the 20th century. And while the Dominican Republic produced a lot more sugar during the 20th century, this seems better understood as effect rather than just cause, as Haiti produced lots of sugar during the 18th century, and climate-wise could have done so again.
So since the countries were united for most of their history, one must expect that the causes might seem to be differences that were more pronounced after 1844.
First off, Haiti had killed most of its white population in a genocide, and added to its constitution in 1804 a clause that whites could not own property. Another country imposed this recently in the wake of similar genocidal behavior. You might almost conclude that this is a disastrous policy. It was imposed in the Dominican Republic too in 1821 when Haiti took over, but they hadn't gone for the full genocidal answer of killing all the whites. So even though lots of the Spanish left after their stuff was confiscated, enough of them stuck around, and eventually managed to successfully gain independence from Haiti in 1844. The Dominican Republic tended to be mostly governed by its richer and better-educated Spanish elite for much of its history, whereas Haiti mostly was governed by the descendants of slaves (either black or mulatto). Just look at the pictures of some of the presidents of the Dominican Republic. No matter how you cut it or interpret it, the difference is striking.
etc.
Now look at some of the corresponding presidents of Haiti
Of course, a closer examination makes all this a bit murkier. Even after most of the leaders above, both countries were sufficiently dysfunctional that the US chose to invade, in 1915 and 1916. Equally dysfunctional? It's hard to say, since this was the era before great GDP figures. In terms of long-serving leaders during the 20th century, they had different paths. Rafael Trujillo seems to have looked somewhat like Pinochet, brutal but effective. Papa Doc Duvalier seems like a cross between Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe, repulsive in every possible way. It turns out that being a black nationalist intent on driving out the mulatto elite tends to just produce a mass emigration of the educated parts of the populace. We've heard about that one before too. It's not for nothing that I compared him to Mugabe. Maybe this is the main difference, these two men. It's hard to say.
So we get to the end and don't get the neat schadenfreude of Scott Alexander's simple narrative. In the end, we observe a discontinuous outcome, not a discontinuous input, and identification still eludes us. I am not nearly enough of an expert to compile anything like an exhaustive list of the differences between the countries to say for sure what is driving it. And yet, the aerial photographs remain. Something is producing enormously discontinuous outcomes across small geographical differences. And if you dislike the things I've raised, does that not just deepen the puzzle? Admit it, my progressive friend - you don't have a satisfactory explanation for the difference, do you?
By any measure, Haiti has been profoundly misgoverned. The Dominican Republic serves as Banquo's Ghost, reminding us awkwardly that it didn't have to end up this way. It is not a happy tale, and the lessons, if there are any, don't seem to support the standard leftist narratives of why the third world is poor. No wonder you never hear about it.
Actually, that's not quite right.
You do occasionally hear about it, in the form of editorials in lefty western newspapers excoriating the Dominican Republic for its racism in deporting Haitian illegal immigrants, notwithstanding the fact that, by US definitions of race, the Dominican Republic itself is 80% black.
Yep, racism. That's the key to understanding all this, according to our intellectually bankrupt intellectuals. The overwhelmingly black Dominican Republic must be cast in the role of racist oppressor, because that's the only way by which the left can understand Haitian poverty, or indeed any poverty at all.
With such brilliant insights among our elites, I have no doubt that Haiti will soon be returned to the days when it produced leaders like Thomas-Alexandre Dumas and Alexandre Dumas.
I wouldn't hold your breath. Haiti has been collectively holding its breath for 200 years.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
"Hamilton" as American Propaganda
I recently saw the musical 'Hamilton', which was an enjoyable depiction of American nostalgia for its own myths. That much isn't new. What's new is that this is being successfully marketed to the current generation of narcissistic millennials. Getting them to take any interest in history beyond their own short life span, let alone past the 20th century, is quite a feat, even if what they end up learning ends up having a healthy dose of nonsense.
As both a foreigner and a reactionary, it's interesting to see the American founding myths in all their peculiar detail. Identifying the nonsense stories other people accept uncritically about their own history is much easier than identifying one's own. The US ones are particularly interesting to me - I have a strong fondness for this country, but I still view it as as an outsider, as a) I came across this stuff much later in life, and b) my summary of the American Revolution in one sentence is "the bad guys won". Incidentally, this would make a great tagline for a future reactionary version of the play, 'Hutchinson: The Musical".
Of course, if you want to get the record set straight, Moldbug is of course the best source. And with a little of the alternative perspective on the matter, the most interesting thing about the play is what gets left out.
The second most neglected perspective in the history of American Revolution is the Loyalists. For the most part, they simply don't exist. "America" was fighting King George. The fact that there were substantial numbers of native-born Americans who were philosophically and practically opposed to the War of Independence gets mostly elided. How many, exactly? Hard to say. I've seen numbers floated around as being 20%, but this doesn't mean that 80% were Patriots, as a large number were on the fence. I'd take all these numbers with a grain of salt.
The musical actually does better than I expected - there's one scene where a Loyalist is giving a speech in opposition to the Congress (unpersuasively, of course) , and he then gets mocked by Hamilton. That they don't present a good case for the opposition is not surprising - that they acknowledge the opposition existed, and was American, was frankly a pleasant surprise.
So the Loyalists, uncharacteristically, weren't the Elephant in the Room being ignored here. What was, then? What is the faction you almost never hear about in the re-telling of the American Revolution?
The answer is simple: British Parliament.
Britain in the musical, like in nearly all popular retellings, is represented by King George III. He is depicted as being in charge of the whole affair, pulling all the strings from across the sea. It's like the whole musical, like the country itself, lives in a bizarre alternative universe where the Cavaliers somehow won the English Civil War. In reality, the issue had been decided twice, first with King Charles being separated from his head, and then in case the message hadn't been received, again with the Glorious Revolution chasing King James II out of England, all the way to France in fact. By the time of the American Revolution, the verdict had been in for over a century - when push came to shove, Parliament was in charge.
But you can see clearly why this very quickly becomes awkward for the standard narrative. The American revolution was about establishing democracy (praise be upon it) for the first time ever! Except that the government being overthrown was in fact democratic, in various different forms, from at least 1215 onwards. Quite a pickle, no?
Aha, the apologists respond, but there was no democratic representation among the Americans. No taxation without representation, and all that. What an injustice! I'll let Mr Hutchinson field this one:
Massachusetts: No Taxation without Representation!
Britain: Hmm. Would you like some representation then?
Massachusetts: No, absolutely not, it would never work!
Comedy gold.
So if the big injustice that Alexander Hamilton was fighting against wasn't really a lack of democratic representation, what exactly was it?
Beats me. Beats Hutchinson too.
And this is the odd sense that comes after all the great songs are over. It's the same feeling I had years ago watching Michael Moore documentaries. In the moment, the strange web of narrative seems oddly compelling, until you leave the theatre and try to distill it into a sentence. And lo and behold, the main thesis is that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris shot up a school because Lockheed Martin had a factory somewhere nearby making parts for satellites. Phrased thus, you realise that this is an insane argument, and you can't believe you fell for it in the first place.
That's where I get to on Hamilton. Once you leave the theatre, odd reactionary thoughts come back in. You mean he was a hardworking immigrant who loved his newfound country so much that he... immediately worked to overthrow its government? Hmm, that doesn't sound so good. Wait, no, he was a poor penniless orphan who wanted to rise up the ranks, and so he realised that helping foment a war and rising up the command would be a great way to do this? Wait, that even worse. Much worse, actually.
The final thought, however, that the honest foreigner must admit to himself, is this: I wonder what equivalent stupidity I've believed about my own history?
Truthfully, I don't quite know. But if I figure it out, I'll let you know.
As both a foreigner and a reactionary, it's interesting to see the American founding myths in all their peculiar detail. Identifying the nonsense stories other people accept uncritically about their own history is much easier than identifying one's own. The US ones are particularly interesting to me - I have a strong fondness for this country, but I still view it as as an outsider, as a) I came across this stuff much later in life, and b) my summary of the American Revolution in one sentence is "the bad guys won". Incidentally, this would make a great tagline for a future reactionary version of the play, 'Hutchinson: The Musical".
Of course, if you want to get the record set straight, Moldbug is of course the best source. And with a little of the alternative perspective on the matter, the most interesting thing about the play is what gets left out.
The second most neglected perspective in the history of American Revolution is the Loyalists. For the most part, they simply don't exist. "America" was fighting King George. The fact that there were substantial numbers of native-born Americans who were philosophically and practically opposed to the War of Independence gets mostly elided. How many, exactly? Hard to say. I've seen numbers floated around as being 20%, but this doesn't mean that 80% were Patriots, as a large number were on the fence. I'd take all these numbers with a grain of salt.
The musical actually does better than I expected - there's one scene where a Loyalist is giving a speech in opposition to the Congress (unpersuasively, of course) , and he then gets mocked by Hamilton. That they don't present a good case for the opposition is not surprising - that they acknowledge the opposition existed, and was American, was frankly a pleasant surprise.
So the Loyalists, uncharacteristically, weren't the Elephant in the Room being ignored here. What was, then? What is the faction you almost never hear about in the re-telling of the American Revolution?
The answer is simple: British Parliament.
Britain in the musical, like in nearly all popular retellings, is represented by King George III. He is depicted as being in charge of the whole affair, pulling all the strings from across the sea. It's like the whole musical, like the country itself, lives in a bizarre alternative universe where the Cavaliers somehow won the English Civil War. In reality, the issue had been decided twice, first with King Charles being separated from his head, and then in case the message hadn't been received, again with the Glorious Revolution chasing King James II out of England, all the way to France in fact. By the time of the American Revolution, the verdict had been in for over a century - when push came to shove, Parliament was in charge.
But you can see clearly why this very quickly becomes awkward for the standard narrative. The American revolution was about establishing democracy (praise be upon it) for the first time ever! Except that the government being overthrown was in fact democratic, in various different forms, from at least 1215 onwards. Quite a pickle, no?
Aha, the apologists respond, but there was no democratic representation among the Americans. No taxation without representation, and all that. What an injustice! I'll let Mr Hutchinson field this one:
The Assembly of Massachusetts Bay, therefore, was the first that took any publick of the Act, and the first which ever took exception to the right of Parliament to impose Duties or Taxes on the Colonies, whilst they had no representatives in the House of Commons. This they did in a letter to their Agent in the summer of 1764, which they took care to print and publish before it was possible for him to receive it. And in this letter they recommend to him a pamphlet, wrote by one of their [6] members, in which there are proposals for admitting representatives from the Colonies to fit in the House of Commons.
I have this special reason, my Lord, for taking notice of this Act of the Massachusetts Assembly; that though an American representation is thrown out as an expedient which might obviate the objections to Taxes upon the Colonies, yet it was only intended to amuse the authority in England; and as soon as it was known to have its advocates here, it was renounced by the colonies, and even by the Assembly of the Colony which first proposed it, as utterly impracticable.In other words:
Massachusetts: No Taxation without Representation!
Britain: Hmm. Would you like some representation then?
Massachusetts: No, absolutely not, it would never work!
Comedy gold.
So if the big injustice that Alexander Hamilton was fighting against wasn't really a lack of democratic representation, what exactly was it?
Beats me. Beats Hutchinson too.
And this is the odd sense that comes after all the great songs are over. It's the same feeling I had years ago watching Michael Moore documentaries. In the moment, the strange web of narrative seems oddly compelling, until you leave the theatre and try to distill it into a sentence. And lo and behold, the main thesis is that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris shot up a school because Lockheed Martin had a factory somewhere nearby making parts for satellites. Phrased thus, you realise that this is an insane argument, and you can't believe you fell for it in the first place.
That's where I get to on Hamilton. Once you leave the theatre, odd reactionary thoughts come back in. You mean he was a hardworking immigrant who loved his newfound country so much that he... immediately worked to overthrow its government? Hmm, that doesn't sound so good. Wait, no, he was a poor penniless orphan who wanted to rise up the ranks, and so he realised that helping foment a war and rising up the command would be a great way to do this? Wait, that even worse. Much worse, actually.
The final thought, however, that the honest foreigner must admit to himself, is this: I wonder what equivalent stupidity I've believed about my own history?
Truthfully, I don't quite know. But if I figure it out, I'll let you know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)