Tocqueville: The Dogma of Popular Sovereignty

My annual Theory Camp began this week. We are reading Tocqueville's Democracy in America.

At the end of the first volume, Tocqueville ties together the great themes of the macro and the micro aspects of democracy in America in this account of the core dogma of the American creed, popular sovereignty.

Providence equipped each individual, whoever he might be, with the degree of reason necessary to guide his conduct in matters of exclusive interest to himself alone. This is the great maxim on which civil and and political society in the United States is based: fathers apply it to their children, masters to their servants, towns to the people the administer, provinces to towns, to Union to the states. Extended to the whole nation, it becomes the dogma of popular sovereignty.

Democracy is deep in the bones, the mores, of Americans, because we believe that individuals have sufficient reason to work for their self interest. Popular sovereignty is the sum of those individual reasons, at whatever level of organization we are working.

Believing that individuals reason sufficiently well to discern their own self interest is a dogma. Believing that society is well served by accepting whatever those individual reasons add up to is an even more daring dogma. These articles of faith cannot be proven. They can also be dangerous, which is why he spends much of the rest of the book talking about the useful restraints on majority tyranny. But no society can exist without dogma. This is ours.

Tocqueville: The Majority Desire the Good of the Country

My annual Theory Camp began this week. We are reading Tocqueville's Democracy in America.

Tocqueville argues that in a democracy, the majority predominates. Moreover,

“That majority consists mainly of peaceful citizens who, whether by taste or interest, sincerely desire what is good for the country. Around them political parties constantly contend for their adherence and support.”

We considered the profound importance of the idea that most citizens sincerely desire what is good for the country. The parties then contend for the support of these good-willed citizens. I believe that party competition tends to hide the fact that the supporters of the other party are just as good-willed as we are.

To be sure, some individuals on the other side are venal and selfish; so are some individuals on our side. Nonetheless, American politics is much more civil when we can remember that our opponents sincerely desire what is good for the country. And even if I can't make American politics better by myself by holding to an even-handed civility about the contending parties, I can make myself happier and more contented if I stick to that view.

Tocqueville: America Was Always a Nation With a National Government

My annual Theory Camp began this week. We are reading Tocqueville's Democracy in America.

We chewed on this line:

“The American government is not a federal government but an incomplete national government.”

I had been used to thinking that the United States really become one united nation as a result of the Civil War, and that the federal government really became the national government as a result of the New Deal and the Second World War.

However, I think Tocqueville is right that the United States, and the US government, really were a nation and a national government from the start - in an incomplete form. Our patriotism, and our extraordinarily complex government, did grow organically from a unity and power that were there in principle from the beginning.

Tocqueville: Democracy Requires "Equality of Conditions"

My annual Theory Camp began this week. We are reading Tocqueville's Democracy in America.

Tocqueville launches his discussion of American democracy from this point:

“I therefore came increasingly to see the equality of conditions as the original fact from which each particular fact seemed to derive. It stood constantly before me as the focal point toward which all my observations converged.”

The students, naturally, asked how Tocqueville could see in America "equality of conditions" when some were rich and some were poor. Tocqueville's answer is that, unlike in aristocratic societies, citizens of a democracy regard themselves as all the same kind of being. The differences, especially of wealth, did not touch the essence of the person.

Now Tocqueville was well aware that slaves were not treat as equal in condition, nor were the Indians. He treats these themes as conflicts inherent in American democracy. But the principle of equality of conditions is the starting point for the new idea of democracy. The fact that this point seems to obvious now is testimony to the overwhelming success of the American experiment.

"Lying for Justice"

Bradley Wright, in Upside: The Surprising Good News About the State of Our World, documents the many ways in which the world is actually doing pretty well. Which naturally leads to the question, why don't most people realize this?

Some of the reasons are psychological tricks we play on ourselves. One of the big reasons is that the media makes a living by telling bad news. But the one that made the normally cheerful Wright mad (and I agree with him here) is that advocates often lie. Even the advocates for good causes have an interest in making us believe that things are bad and not getting better. So when things are not really so bad, and when they do get better - which is the case in nearly every category of social problem that Americans worry about - the advocates "lie - for justice."

This is wrong, no matter what the cause. And if you are dedicated to solving a problem, finding out that things are getting better - or were not so bad to begin with - should be delightful news that you shout from the housetops.

The World is a Better Place Than It Was

Bradley Wright has a nifty new book, Upside: Surprising Good News About the State of our World.

He points out that most Americans think there own lives are good and getting better. We think most things will be better in the future (except morals). We think things were good in the past.

What we can't admit is that things are getting better in the nation and the world now.

This leads me to propose a first step:

The simplest way to make the world a better place than it is now is to see that the world is a better place than it was before.

Do Mothers Suffer More Because They Anticipate Pains More?

At the International Positive Psychology Association congress, Richard Davidson gave a fascinating presentation on the many good effects that becoming an expert at meditation and generating compassionate feeling can have on your life.

One study he shared compared expert meditators - Buddhist monks sent by the Dalai Lama - with a matched control group of novices. Their brains were monitored as they went from a neutral state where they were just trying to be "in the moment," to a warning that they were about to be touched with something hot, to being touched with the hot thing.

The expert meditators had low brain activity in the pain and suffering parts of the brain until they were actually touched with the hot probe. The control group, by contrast, started firing up the pain and suffering parts of the brain when they were given the warning. That is, the novices increased their suffering by anticipating pain.

This made me wonder whether mothers suffer more than other people because they worry more than other people. That is, they are anticipating pain for themselves and those they love (whose pain causes the mother suffering, too). Mothers may even go out of their way to think of things to worry about - that is, to think of unlikely pains to suffer from - as a way of being loving.

A Timely Study About Integrating Immigrants.

John Berry, a Canadian researcher on acculturation of immigrants, gave a report to the World Congress on Positive Psychology that I am attending. He studied the different ways immigrant youth in Canada dealt with the tension between their old and new societies. He identified four ways this tension could be resolved.

The best way, for both the immigrants and the host society, is integration of the two cultures. Some immigrant groups encounter more discrimination, and are more inclined to keep their own culture, leading to separation. A few immigrants favor assimilation to the new society - mostly refugees who fled a bad situation in the old country. Most dangerous for both immigrants and natives is the marginalization of the immigrants, who feel no attachment to either their new or old culture.

The results for his survey of Canadian immigrant youth:
Integration 36%
Separation 23%
Assimilation 18%
Marginalization 23%

This seemed a very timely study to me in the light of the right-wing anti-immigrant terrorism in Norway that happened as the Congress is meeting. Berry reported that settler societies, such as Canada and the United States, promote integration of immigrants, which reduces tensions between the two groups. European nations, by contrast, fall into separation, or worse, which heightens tensions between the two groups - and sometimes leads to nativist terrorism against immigrants and those who welcome them.

Fighting Army Suicides With Positive Psychology

The most interesting thing I learned at the World Congress of Positive Psychology today was reported by the founder of the discipline, Martin Seligman. The Army has been working with several big names in the field, including Seligman, to test and train soldiers to make them more resilient, and to identify people needing help early.

A well-being test developed by Chris Peterson and colleagues was given to all soldiers last year. Two of the crucial measures of well-being ask people whether they think their life has meaning, and whether they think their work has meaning. Those soldiers who scored in the bottom one percent on both measures had the worst subjective well-being in the Army.

They then looked at the test results for the 84 soldiers who committed suicide during the year. Half the suicides were in the lowest one percent on both well-being measures.

The Army is training drill sergeants to teach soldiers to be more resilient. With results like these, the Army can know where to pinpoint its training so it will do the most good.

The Happy Society Needs a Fluid Economy and Stable Families

I am strongly attracted to the view, expressed by Matt Ridley in The Rational Optimist, that a fluid world benefits workers as workers, and benefits everyone as consumers.

At the same time, I know that families benefit from a stable world, especially when they are raising young children.

Families benefit from cheap goods reliably delivered. But families are hurt by unstably employed parents.

I do not know how to balance the exhilaration of the creative destruction of capitalism with the fulfillment of the creative nurture of families. But I think I have identified a central problem of the happy society.

The Rightly Ordered and Disciplined Happy Society

The other day I started what I think will become a major thread of "exploring the happy society," by arguing that

The quest for the happy society begins with the courage to proclaim that the world is better off now than it ever has been, and is getting better.

Regular reader ceemac asked this rich question: "I am curious how your concept of 'happy society' either meshes with or conflicts with the Calvinist quest for a society that is 'rightly ordered and disciplined.'"

My short answer is that a rightly ordered and disciplined society is one in which people are free to pursue what makes them happy.

I will go further to claim that most people, if free to choose, will get sick of the lower pleasures and work their way toward the higher ones.

I believe that there are lower and higher forms of happiness. I think Aristotle is right that contemplation is, or is the form of, the highest happiness. I think that Thomas Aquinas is right that what we contemplate in the highest happiness is the beatific vision.

Few people will reach that highest happiness in this life. But a rightly ordered and disciplined society can help people develop habits that lead toward virtues - and therefore happiness. How, exactly, people reach the contemplation of the divine is, I believe, beyond what any merely social theory can explain.

Millennials are Appealingly Conventional

Penelope Trunk held back from criticizing Gen Y, today's youth and young adults, when she was giving them career advice on Brazen Careerist. Now that she has moved on, she let fly with a few mostly just points.

The main point is that Gen Y like to fit in, be part of the team, do what is normal and conventional. Howe and Strauss, who called this generation Millennials, said they are like the '50s Silent Generation, their structural counterparts in the cycle of generations.

My students now are Millennials. I like them. Their distinctive qualities are about 90% beneficial. They are weak on critical thinking and innovation - but so are most people in most generations. They are nice and want to work together (unlike Gen X at the same age).

The mission of Gen X is to rebuild basic institutions after the Boomers' cultural revolution. The task of the Millennials will be to consolidate an appealing normal life within those renewed basic institutions.

The World Is Just Awesome

We Can Only See the Happy Society If We Accept That the World Is Better Off Now Than It Has Ever Been

My main project for this sabbatical and for the years to follow is to explore the idea of the happy society. I changed the subtitle of this blog to reflect that new quest.

I am reading Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist. He argues that life for the vast majority of people is better now than it has ever been, due to specialization and exchange.

The idea that this reading, and many others like it, has led me to is this:

The quest for the happy society begins with the courage to proclaim that the world is better off now than it ever has been, and is getting better.

I believe this is true no matter how materialist or spiritual your standard of happiness is.

Tiger Mom vs. Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids

Our Centre College alumni study group considered Amy Chua's The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Bryan Caplan's Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. They are, in effect, arguing with each other.

I have given my overall assessment of each book here and here.

Chua is right that her children would not have been great child musicians if she had not pushed them to an extreme degree.

Caplan is right that upper-middle class children with competent, loving homes will not turn out very much differently as adults if they are pushed to achieve early, or not.

On the whole, I think Caplan has the better argument. I am all for helping your children to pursue their passion to get good at it. And everyone, at every age, needs to be held to high standards. But I don't think that pushing children to either be prodigies by sheer effort, or to spend their youth on something that the parents have the passion for, is worth it.

Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids

Bryan Caplan's Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids is a wonderfully gruntled book.

Based on twin and adoption studies, Caplan concludes that middle-class parents really don't need to overwhelm themselves and their children with a scheduled and directed childhood. In the long run, if you give your kids a vaguely normal childhood, they will turn out like you. The intense interventions have an effect in the short run, but tend to wash out in the long run.

Therefore, raising kids is easier than you probably thought. And kids are great fun for most parents. ERGO: have more than you were originally planning on.

The best advice he gives is that you should think long-term about your own parenthood. Sure, kids have lots of up-front costs in money, time, effort, and sleep, but the payoff later is huge. In fact, Caplan argues, you should pick the number of children you have based on the number of grandchildren you want to end up with.

Unnatural Selection 5: The Worst News, and the Best

This week I will be blogging Mara Hvistendahl's Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.

The biggest danger of masses of men who will never marry is that they will be violent and commit crimes. It is possible they will be used for war, but that is not so predictable from the sheer demographic facts.

The best news is that Hvistendahl thinks the massive sex imbalance is a temporary stage in a country's economic development. As evidence she cites the fact that in 2007, South Korea had a natural sex ratio for the first time in twenty years. It is the first country to start to come back from a massive sex imbalance. They still have super low fertility - 1.22 children per woman - but South Korea seems to have turned a corner in both its sex ratio and its overall fertility. This gives hope that the other massively imbalanced countries can begin to walk back from the precipice.

Unnatural Selection 4: The Silver Lining

This week I will be blogging Mara Hvistendahl's Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.

The shortage of women in many Asian and Eastern European countries does have some silver linings.

In India, the need for brides is leading to some cross-caste marriages that would have been unthinkable a generation or so ago.

In East Asia, "foreign brides" make up so large a percentage of new marriages that old national prejudices are being modified or even given up.

The poor women who marry out of poor countries, such as Vietnam, into developing countries can make a better life for their children than they could have at home.

Unnatural Selection 3: Why Republicans Promoted Abortion

This week I will be blogging Mara Hvistendahl's Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.

Gen. William Draper was a friend of Eisenhower and a staunch conservative Republican. When he oversaw the occupation of Japan just after the war he became a big proponent of abortion – for Asians. He saw it as a way to prevent poverty, and therefore communism. First in Japan, and then in South Korea, he pushed abortion and supported eugenics.

The ruling classes in those countries also supported abortion, thinking only the poor would use it. However, it was the educated women of the urban middle class who were especially drawn to abortion as a part of their planned parenthood. Though abortion was contrary to Confucian and Buddhist ethics, the developing Asian economies, under pressure from the Western aid agencies to aggressively control their population growth in exchange for aid, normalized abortion.

The ruling class in this country, as in other countries, supported abortion in the '50s and '60s . They did so not as a feminist movement for women's control of themselves. They supported abortion as a eugenic movement to control the poor.

Unnatural Selection 2: Both Sexism and Feminism Support Sex-Selection Abortion

This week I will be blogging Mara Hvistendahl's Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.

In the '60s, when men were in charge of population planning and sexism was the norm, Western public health agencies thought sex-selection abortions in developing countries were an uncontroversial and rational way to help families get the boy they wanted without producing unnecessary girls on the way. This seemed like a more ethical path to population control than the more coercive measures they considered because the families were doing the choosing.

By the '80s, when women were in charge of population planning and feminism was the norm, Western public health agencies thought sex-selection abortions in developing countries were an uncontroversial and rational way to help women control their bodies. Sex-selection was a small price to pay for securing the right to abortion.