Posted on 12/16/2004 8:28:03 AM PST by rogerv
I've been reading Karl Popper's two volume work "Open Society and it Enemies". Here's the amazon.com link:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691019681/103-5859654-8821426?v=glanceThe thread I posted at commongroundcommonsense.org, "In Defense of Open Society" was inspired by that work. I'd like to start a thread with the same name here because I see this as an important problem that crosses partisan lines. In a nutshell, the central question is this: how can we rationally institute changes in our society? Changes take place whether we consciously bring them about or not, and some changes are threatening to some people. Popper charts some of the philosophers who have tried to tame change--Plato, Hegel and Marx--by suggesting laws of history (what he calls 'historicism')--but such ideologies led to totalitarian societies where society was forced, like Procrustes bed, to fit a revolutionary or essentialist mold, attended by great bloodshed and misery. Popper's question, and mine, is how do we bring change under rational control, so that we can improve things and minimize the advserse effects? Popper's claim is that society is best when it considers its beliefs open to revision in the light of evidence, like scientific theories, conjectures subject to refutation. Next, we do best if we introduce change in small increments, and monitor the effects--what he calls 'piecemeal social engineering'. This rules out grand Utopian schemes--but that is just as well, because most of those have been disasters. As a reformist liberal who follows John Dewey, Popper's suggestions make sense to me. But, as for everything else, the important questions lie in the details.
For example, even in science, it sometimes makes sense to stick with a theory that seems in trouble. Most scientists do not consider a theory overthrown by the first bad result. It may be the expriement was performed improperly, or the scientist was careless in observations, or there is something new and interesting happening that the theory could explain if elaborated.
It seems to me good policy should pay attention to good science. But how? Policy involves value judgments as well as factual claims--and sometimes a little crystal ball gazing. We don't always know how a particular policy will play itself out once enacted. But maybe it is best to start at this general level, and work in the details as we go along.
The reason beliefs should be treated as revisable is that we are often guessing the way the world is, and need to update our guesses in the light of new information. Markets can be good for this, but not always. In efficient markets, price reflects available information. But competition can lead to information being witheld (for the sake of competitive advantage) and there are market failures as well. The assumption of rationality in the markets is an idealization. But in the ideal case, for econmies as well as scientifc systems, the end result should reflect all the available information.
So I guess the deep question for me is how does one arrange society so that we can adapt our institutions to changing conditions and improve their performance of important functions (like education, judicial justice, economic welfare, scientific knowledge, etc.)
I think the answer cannot be just: individual initiative and hard work. Both of those are necessary, but they are not sufficient. Case in point: people in the third world work as hard or harder than many of us do in the indistrial world, but have much less to show for it. The difference is the social system in which they do their work. The answer isn't private property either. To be sure, the system needs incentives to energize the work and creativity any economy needs. That you will own things appeals to self-interest, and self interest is an important factor in human motivation. But we need something more, I think, a sense of wanting to help others live better lives. Hume put it this way: in addition to self-interests we have sympathetic interests in the well-being of others. Those sympathies are limited, but they are a significant force in making people care about others in their community. Well, that's enough for a start. I donm't want this to be a monlogue, but a conversation, and am interested in hearing what you think.
What if you have a lot of people that do not want to help others live better? Do you have a way to force them or are they free to do what they want?
Vanity post by a newbie. Content raises my "TrollAlert" but I won't toss down that gauntlet...yet.
That has been done for years. Schools today are constantly teaching kids how to share and treat others. If not in schools then most churches in the country teach the same thing.
I think your mention of deadbeat dads is off the subject. A dad has an obligation to a child he fathered. But if someone that has no such obligation does not want to help others then how do you force him?
"As a reformist liberal who follows John Dewey"
Never mind. Troll-Alert.
yours is a worthwhile project.
i read the first book in college. then i was idealistic.
now, especially since the democrats have corrupted public discourse, beginning with the removal of president nixon, the attacks on president carter for his religion, the attacks on president reagan, and the president bushes, and the cover-ups of president clinton's rapes, i've concluded that the majority of their supporters do not want intelligent discourse.
the goal of the democrats has been anti-democratic at least since the rise of fdr. democrats of the 20th and 21st centuries have supported tyrannies around the world-- lenin, stalin, mao, kim, fidel, and most recently, presidential candidate kerry's support of ho chi minh.
michael moore's films are a realistic statement of the current democrat plantation.
As a social obligation we believe should be enforced, dead-beat fathers are relevant. The more general point is that we think some obligations are so important that we do not let people opt out of them. Raising kids is one. I start there because I think we agree on that one. The question gets trickier when we ask what obligation we have to other peoples kids. And that gets us squarely to the matter of taxing some people for public schools for other people's kids. There are people who object to that. There are people who object to paying taxes for parks they do not go to. So, I think the real question for us is "do we have a clear notion of social obligation that will give us guidance for when we think nonperformance a serious enough matter to enforce performance?" I'm of a view that none of our institutions would last long if we didn't believe some obligations enforceable. Do you disagree?
Yep. You nailed it. Stinking "From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" commie troll.
I need a better understand of what you consider "obligations". So far you have only mentioned parenting. Give me a list of what you feel people should be obligated to do and I will answer.
I agree
not treating other people as simply means to our ends but as people who have ends of their own
Not something that can be enforced.
His list of duties includes helping others when you can (duties of beneficence, Ross calls them), to develop our own talents, and to not commit suicide.
People cannot be forced to do any of these things without losing a lot of freedom. I will agree that if more people did these things (of their own freewill) the world would likely be a better place. But any attempt to force this behavior is frankly wrong.
For those that are unaware of it, Popper is the intellectual who mentored George Soros to his PhD at the London School of Economics. George Soros is the big funder of Move On.
The military.
rogev:
In a nutshell, the central question is this: how can we rationally institute changes in our society?
Character will always matter. Individual morality will always matter. Courage and talent will always matter. The best you will ever be able to do will be to foster character, and morality, and courage and talent. Given a critical mass of people with those qualities, any system can be made to work after a fashion, and in the absense of those qualities no system can work.
I think the answer cannot be just: individual initiative and hard work. Both of those are necessary, but they are not sufficient. Case in point: people in the third world work as hard or harder than many of us do in the indistrial world, but have much less to show for it. The difference is the social system in which they do their work.
Good example. What makes the third world "third world" is precisely a lack of legal clarity. See Hernando De Soto's work. The key to prosperity is a system that permits individual initiative, and protects individuals from one another. That means clear and predictable laws, clear and predictable property law, and most importantly transparent and honest courts.
The source of poverty is the inverse of the above, lawlessness even when disguised as lawful. Again, we are back to character. Any system can be suborned and undermined by dishonesty. We can argue between socialism and capitalism and various gradations in between but in the end the solution isn't in calibrating the precise mix of freedom and government intervention as much as it is a critical mass of moral people.
When did the Iron Curtain fall? It fell the day the East German leadership ordered the troops to open fire on the people, and the individual soldiers didn't fire. When did the Soviet Union fall? It fell when the troops were sent into Moscow and they didn't fire on the people. It fell in Romania when the troops wouldn't fire on the people. Dictatorships rely on people who will commit murder on command and fall when people refuse to do it. Again, character is everything.
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