I've been more than a bit flummoxed by the GOP lately. With our markets in freefall, homes and jobs in jeopardy, our health care system a mess, our infrastructure crumbling, two military quagmires, and our world esteem at a near all-time low, it would seem obvious that conservatism doesn't work.
Yet along comes Sarah Palin - with not a single fresh idea to her name - and suddenly the Republican base is "energized." And from that energy many conservatives conclude that the disasters of the Bush years were not caused by conservatism, but because Bush wasn't conservative enough. When Time interviewed John Boehner about his party's plight, the newly-reelected House Minority Leader said the GOP needed "new ideas." His example? Tax cuts.
The "Party of Big Ideas" became the "Know Nothing Party."
How?
Certainty.
More below the fold....
Certainty.
"Often in error, never in doubt" should be the Republicans' mantra. That phrase captures the essence of modern conservatism. It also answers a question I'd long pondered: What binds together the GOP's three-legged stool of militarism, laissez fair capitalism, and religious fundamentalism?
At first glance, they don't seem like natural allies. Militarism is grotesquely expensive. Raking a big chunk of our resources - either through taxation or borrowing - into an enormous military seems to violate the principles of laissez fair capitalism: that government should tax and spend as little as possible, leaving individuals free to spend their own money as they see fit. And militarism is hardly a Christian principle. Then again, laissez fair capitalism - let the rich get richer while the rest get the leftovers - isn't a Christian principle either. What binds or has bound these three seemingly disparate groups?
Certainty.
We all value certainty over uncertainty to some degree. Human beings inherently prefer stability and control over chaos and helplessness. We are hardwired for pattern recognition, enabling us to find constancy in the chaotic sensory input from our world. Any developmental psychologist will tell you that children need structure - stable relationships with rules and boundaries - so they can feel safe to explore and learn. One of the hallmarks of an abusive relationship is the absence of those rules and boundaries: the abuse victim can never know what the "right" action or answer is, because the "right" action or answer is whatever makes the abuser feel more powerful in a given moment.
And the world can seem like a very abusive place at times. We try to do good things and bad things happen anyway. We watch other people do bad things and get good outcomes. Problems exist and our best attempts to fix them fall short or sometimes even make them worse. A lot of the time, it seems as though there are no "right answers," if by a "right answer" you mean one that guarantees a good outcome.
So we flee to the opposite extreme. If no "right answer" will guarantee a good outcome, then ignore outcomes completely and just focus on doing the "right thing." Let the outcomes take care of themselves, or not, at the whim of a chaotic universe or an inscrutable God. So long as you did the "right thing," you can rest easy at night.
That opposite extreme - do the "right thing" and ignore the outcomes - is the emotional home base of modern conservatism. Conservatism sets out a list of dogmas, a package of "Right things," and doing them is always the "right thing." Conservatism is counter-empirical, in that the rightness of an idea is judged not by its results in the real world, but by its conformity to conservative ideology. (This goes a long way toward explaining conservatives' antipathy to science.) In the conservative mindset, the object is not to get good outcomes - the outcomes are beyond anyone's control anyway - but simply to practice conservatism.
The Right thing is always the right thing.
Certainty.
Militarism in foreign policy is the Right thing because its alternative - negotiation - is seen as too risky. Are the other side negotiating in good faith? Will they keep their side of a bargain, even if a bargain is reached? And what happens if they say "No?" Why not just skip over all that uncertainty and be so powerful they dare not object? Admittedly, if you act like a bully other countries will treat you as an enemy, but they were probably going to do that anyway. And we did the Right thing. Certainty.
Laissez fair capitalism is the Right thing because Adam Smith and Ayn Rand proved it in theory. A mass of free individuals, each acting in self-interest, will yield the best overall expression of society's needs. Isn't that what democracy itself is all about? Conversely, taxation is economic slavery. If you're paying 40% of your income in taxes, then you're working for the government two days a week, whether you want to or not, whether you find another job or not. That's slavery. So cutting taxes and government spending is always the Right thing. Admittedly, the rich may get richer and the poor may get poorer, or the system may temporarily crash for everyone, but that was going to happen anyway. And we did the Right thing. Certainty.
Religious fundamentalism is the Right thing because the Bible says so, and the Bible is God's eternal truth revealed to mankind, and we know that because the Bible says that too. Will reversing Roe v. Wade and banning gay marriage reduce the number of abortions and the percentage of LGBTs in our society? No, but the sinners were going to sin anyway. And we did the Right thing. Certainty.
This "the Right thing is always the right thing" motif appears in almost all conservative discourse. We progressives are naive, because we talk about better outcomes. You can't guarantee better outcomes, the conservative says. They happen, or they don't, and usually they don't. Forget outcomes. Just do the Right thing.
Is the economy doing well? Cut taxes.
Is the economy doing poorly? Cut taxes.
Is the economy teetering and you can't tell where it's headed? Cut taxes.
You don't cut taxes because of economic conditions, nor do you cut taxes in the hope of better economic outcomes. You cut taxes because cutting taxes is the Right thing and "the Right thing is always the right thing."
Certainty.
If things are going well - if your principal world rival is imploding because of inherent flaws in its economic and political structure, and your economy is booming on the ready availability of cheap oil - you're the Party of Big Ideas.
If things are going badly - if you're mired in two wars without end, and your economy is choking on lost jobs, a mountain of debt, and naked greed in your financial markets - you're the Know Nothing Party. You can be "energized" by a woman who can stand there, without a hint of doubt, and say your problems are Someone Else's fault, that you stand for the Right things and that's always the right thing.
Certainty.
It may not make your life better, but it helps you sleep at night. Because you did the Right thing, and that's always the right thing, no matter what the outcomes.
Certainty.
Note: In Part II, I'll discuss how cognitive science is coming to show that certainty is usually a mistake, and why we progressives must not fall into the same ideological trap.