35 thoughts on “Philosophy, disposition, honor culture, group identity”

1. I don’t think this is crazy, overall, but I do see a gap in the conservative part.

   For myself, I used to work for left wing organizations, for about a decade. I did the work well but I never fit in culturally, and I actually used to say this was because I was philosophically generally left but I wasn’t culturally. A long time ago I observed a very strong inclination toward group think on the left and when it was worst I often didn’t agree.

   Anyway, so just so you know with this question, I am from the opposition and I admit it.

   I guess the hard time I have with this framing is: Why don’t conservatives care more about the way the United States is becoming a sort of banana republic for giant companies?

   Conservatives completely flip out at the idea that one poor person might hustle an extra ten thousand out of the government somewhere and it would rather shut down a whole social program because maybe, maybe, maybe anyone might con it.

   But then you’ve got companies like Exxon that are both wildly profitable and enormously destructive to the planet, and they get tax breaks and even subsidies from the state and that’s no problem. No one cares!

   We just did a giant giveaway to a bunch of garbage companies that should have died in this shock and (from a capitalist perspective) we would have ultimately all been better for it. Conservatives aren’t mad about this and yet this is very bad behavior. This is CEOs taking advantage of their nation in a bad situation.

   The more capitalist approach would have been to take all that money and just give it to people and let them spend it in the places that they actually liked. Let the money find its way to the companies that were really essential. But only center-left people were talking about that (from where I sit).

   Conservatives aren’t howling about the fact that we just entered a kleptocracy phase. At least not that I’m hearing it. And it feels like under your framework they should.

   I generally think your broad political/language framing is good. I only know you from your most recent Russ Roberts appearance but I thought it was good and listened intently to the descriptions of your framework.

   But I feel like there is this gap. The framework just doesn’t seem to account for the fact that Conservative America seems totally okay with the creeping, grossly destructive oligopoly that we have in this country, dramatized by both of the last two economic crises.

   • While many conservatives ignore crony capitalism, many don’t. Conservatives who see themselves as “classical liberals” are less likely to overlook corporate welfare. My biggest complaint with conservatives is their inconsistency regarding government intervention. They understand that central planners don’t have, and cannot obtain, the information necessary to micromanage a nation’s economy, but they don’t apply this same understanding to foreign intervention.

     • This is certainly true but it just doesn’t seem like there are enough conservatives who are bothered by crony capitalism to do anything about it, or bothered enough to act. They might grumble out a few tweets but I don’t think any GOP members are writing letters to their congressman about it.

       But they will *all* get mad about a dubious story about supposed “welfare queens” or whatever, in that vein, even if at the end of the day the cost of whatever such behavior (if there is any at all) is a rounding error.

       • I think the Republican party would, in Kling’s terms, be dominated by the populist (“God, guns, and country”) sentiment rather than what he identifies as conservatism. Bernie Sanders may be a purer expression of conservatism; the policies he advocates are actually weakened forms of the policies that governed America in Sanders’ youth (he grew up during the immediate postwar era when top tax rates exceeded 90%).

         • you mean the top tax rates of 90% that virtually no one paid !

   • Welcome, Brady – hope you hear stuff that keeps you interested enough to comment. Lots of L-Libertarians, and l-libber conservatives here, so few of us fit your critique:
     Why don’t conservatives care more about the way the United States is becoming a sort of banana republic for giant companies?

     But I have this bad feeling that you feel the only way to oppose the crony capitalism is thru Dem Party policies and politics. The conservatives want less gov’t, less corp welfare, and less personal gov’t entitlement welfare. Many such folk, like Thomas Sowell, get very little publicity.

     He’s a black conservative and has written many books. Why isn’t he better known? Because Dem media want to present conservatives and Reps who do seem to support crony capitalism.

     But the free market response to much reduced crony capitalism is uncertain – it’s based on what entrepreneurs try, and how the customers, the “market”, responds. The alternative “certainty” of gov’t planning and gov’t regulations seems more attractive to many voters. And conservatives are constantly fighting these gov’t expansions, so fighting crony capitalism isn’t so high.

     Did you ever go to a Tea Party protest by Reps against the corp. bailouts? Probably around 60-80% of conservatives were against most of the bailouts — but not the elite, media approved and media promoted “conservative intellectuals”.

     Trump doesn’t care so much about the crony capitalism, which is one reason many conservatives weren’t so enthusiastic about him — but there are lots of identity problems in America and the culture war is taking precedence over the crony cap battles.

   • I think many of whom you call, and even who call themselves, “Conservative America” are actually populists. Once one divides the Right into libertarians and populists, I’m not sure who would be left over to be called a conservative. Perhaps, David Brooks and Ross Douthat types? Right-wing populists often indeed support crony capitalism. I don’t think that charge applies very well to libertarians. Not sure about Brooks and Douthat.

     • Since 2016, pod people have invaded the U.S. and have stolen the bodies and replaced the brains of conservatives. There are a few remnants left, but they’re in hiding.

   • Brady writes,

     “The more capitalist approach would have been to take all that money and just give it to people and let them spend it in the places that they actually liked. Let the money find its way to the companies that were really essential. But only center-left people were talking about that (from where I sit).

     Conservatives aren’t howling about the fact that we just entered a kleptocracy phase. At least not that I’m hearing it. And it feels like under your framework they should.”

     I try to avoid as much day to day politicians and media politics as possible. So it’s quite possible that you are correct. But there’s so many loud voices it’s really hard to know what “a movement” thinks, and also very easy to get the wrong idea about “a movement” from these loud voices.

     For myself, once on the left, now an economic conservative (social liberal but no fan of identity politics) I’m dead against crony capitalism. Most critiques I’ve read of capitalism are really critiques against crony capitalism.

     Perhaps it’s helpful to think about what the more intellectual proponents of different points of view write, rather than what politicians do and say (and ignore the incessant gibberish from the media).

     That’s what I’ve found anyway. Reading a few economic textbooks on taxation and public policy (big yawn of course) taught me more than years of reading media articles on the same. In fact the media is like negative knowledge for complex topics.

     Reading a book by – just an example – Thomas Sowell (Wealth, Poverty & Politics), say 8 hours of reading, taught me more than spending 100x that reading articles in NYT or WSJ.

2. I disagree with your characterization of conservatism. Conservatism is a philosophy, or rather a learned culture; insofar as it is a disposition, it is a learned disposition designed to overcome and replace innate disposition. Its thesis is that natural human inclinations, unshaped by a high culture, lead to bad outcomes in a social setting. This is “original sin”/”evil yetzer” in the Judeo-Christian tradition or from an evolutionary perspective, our cognitive adaptation to small-scale hunter-gatherer bands, thus a desire for a social environment more primitive than modern complex society, such that trying to build a desirable social environment (“utopianism”) leads to communal catastrophe. The Anglo-American Christian tradition that made England and America into great nations was a learned high culture that overcame these innate dispositions toward destructive social behaviors, replacing them with traditional institutions/behaviors/cultures that have to be learned because they are unnatural, but are socially good.

   If by disposition you mean something innate and biological, then it is probably true that innate dispositions may incline one toward or away from conservatism — we see that whites are more likely to be conservative than blacks, or Gentiles than Jews — nevertheless there is nothing preventing any human being from learning to be conservative, since it is learned culture that isn’t natural or innate for anyone. If it is not taught and passed along to rising generations, American conservatism will disappear from the world, along with Christianity and Judaism.

   From this perspective, leftism is simply loyalty to innate dispositions, unmodified by high culture. Progressivism is tribal because humans have an innate tendency toward tribalism, which leftists indulge. Thus the patterns of group identity and group solidarity on the left which you rightly note.

   I don’t think populism maps neatly onto the cultural topography you are outlining. Populism is an appeal to the people, whatever they may be. If the people share a high culture such as Christianity or Judaism, then a high culture can be populist. If the people are guilt cultured (WEIRD or northwest European), then populism would be guilt culture. If the people are honor cultured (shame cultured, or non-WEIRD, i.e. non-northwest European or if among northwest European from the less commercial parts i.e. Scots-Irish rather than English-Dutch-German-Swiss), then populism will be honor cultured.

3. OK, but how do “philosophies”, “dispositions”, “honor cultures”, and “group identities” interact?

   One can imagine being, variously, in all of these groups. The most difficult is “group identity” because it is the one that demands the allegiance or subversion of the others.

   And yet, it need not be that way. Plenty of people identify with plenty of groups that don’t take on this dynamic. So the operative question is what factors drive some “group identities” to evolve into this tyrannical and obviously unhealthy direction?

4. When defining progressivism, I think that its inherent need to anthropomorphize collectives and abstract notions such as “History” should be mentioned. If “The People,” “Society,” or “The Community,” don’t have a “will” to which Progressives can give voice or if History doesn’t have an “arc” that farseeing Progressives can discern, then progressivism falls apart.

5. I’m more of the conservative/”classic liberal” disposition, and I largely agree with libertarianism except on one point. To me, it seems like libertarians do not sufficiently consider the risks of defection; they tend to assume that you can pay for security without getting robbed. Conservatives understand that rule of law is only possible if institutions exist to insure that certain classes of people (cops, soldiers, etc.) act in ways that are not narrowly self-interested. Similar ideas are discussed in book length in Jane Jacobs’ Systems of Survival.

   • I agree. China’s government has weaponized trade with the West. Incorporating Chinese components into our weapons systems or infrastructure networks opens them to compromise. But libertarians refuse to even discuss this possibility.

     • Yeah, one of the 36 stratagems of traditional Chinese military thought is “exchange the roles of host and guest”, and the West fell for it big time.

6. [quote]Progressives value group solidarity over intellectual consistency[/quote]

   So the Trumpistas, including all the Mitch Connell and ilk in the US Senate and the republican governors that support Trump come hell or highwater, or, “Progressives” – is that your position?

   • Gee, maybe they both do.

     • Just call that “Groupists” or “Tribals” (though it might be considered pejorative insulting some “tribes”) and not “Progressives” then.

7. In terms of taking the charitable view of rival viewpoints, Kling is uncharitable but correct regarding progressives. Kling is uncharitable but wrong with populists. Kling is charitable and correct about libertarians. Kling is charitable and incorrect about conservatives.

   Kling’s definition of conservatives applies to many progressives, libertarians, and people across the spectrum. Every taxonomy groups many different sub-factions and has simplifications and exceptions, but at some point it stops being useful.

8. Arnold, I’m a fan of this framework. But I think you failed to Steelman the progressive standpoint by overstating their tendency towards hypocrisy as if it’s unique. Even if they are real, one could easily find similar levels of hypocrisy in the conservative camp. Think of how quickly conservatives embraced Donald Trump despite his flouting of traditional institutions like marriage and so on.

   It seems to me that conservatism (or maybe more accurately “the Right”) is continually becoming more of a group identity that–like progressives–is based on fighting evil ad oppression. The evil is the “deep state” or the Clinton Foundation and the “mainstream media” is the oppressor of dissenting conservative points of view. Maybe this is to combat the disadvantages of conservatism and populism that you mention. It’s a sort of quasi-conservative honor culture, Conservatism 2.0, or “Conservitopopulism” if you will.

   • I think that populists – right or left – best fit Arnold’s three-axis description of progressives. Both see the world in terms of oppressor and oppressed. The difference is that populists see themselves, rather than minorities, as the oppressed and they see elites, corporations, Jews, etc., rather than white males, as the oppressors.

     If I’m right, then the fact that populist arguments mirror those of progressives should come as no surprise.

     • Every political movements has some sort of grievance. Any grievance can fit a narrative of oppression.

       • Every political movement has grievances, but only some political movements are centered on them. My observation is that both progressives and populists are grievance-based.

9. I think that conservatives are just as hypocritical as progressives. Look at what conservatives say about deficit spending and the size of the Federal budget when a conservative is president as compared to what they say when a liberal or progressive is president. Clinton was the last president to preside over a budget surplus, but he gets no credit from conservatives.

   • There needs to be a distinction made between Republicans and conservatives.

10. Most conservatives do have an economic philosophy, from a literally enlightened philosopher (Adam Smith):
    Small gov’t, low taxes, and tolerable justice.

11. An excellent post and one worth continuing to develop.

    Three points for your consideration.

    First, regarding “populism,” you are on the right track to understanding populism within the USA by looking to David Hackett Fischer’s analysis of populist Scotch-Irish culture that gave us “ the origins and stability of a social system which for two centuries has remained stubbornly democratic in its politics, capitalist in its economy, libertarian in its laws and individualist in its society and pluralistic in its culture.”

    Populists are the true heirs of Thomas Paine. And it has only been the two centuries of a war of attrition against common sense that has replaced democracy and the rule of law with a lawyer’s guild hierocracy.

    Populists don’t, as frequently alleged, claim to speak for the people, rather, populists believe that a democratic system should allow the people to express their concerns and find solutions to problems. Democracy should not be subservient to ideologues, remote and unaccountable institutions, priests, judges, or intellectuals.

    Ralf Schuler is perhaps the best writer today to look to understand the populist devotion to democracy. Here is the blurb for his most recent book, unfortunately not available in English, on the topic:

    “Populism is a political dirty word. Its use makes the factual discussion with the other person unnecessary. Populism in the original sense of the word should be a democratic primal virtue. What the people want (“populus”) expects, says, naturally belongs to the political discussion in a democracy. It is another matter whether the populists actually represent the opinion of the people. But whoever does not want to be a populist in principle is not a good democrat. For Ralf Schuler, one thing is clear: if right-wing and conservative positions are dismissed as populism or even extremism, blockades of thought remain that give the anti-democratic political margins a boost. In ten theses he brings populism back into the center of society.”

    When asked if Switzerland, the country universally acknowledged as the best country in the world, and one with certain features of direct democracy, is populist Schuler stated:

    “If I had to, I would call Switzerland a populist country in the best sense of the word. The tradition of allowing the people to vote on current and sensitive issues ensures a solid connection between politics and citizens.”

    See: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/directdemocracy/direct-democracy-and-populism_-switzerland-is-a-populist-country-in-the-best-sense-of-the-word-/45099388

    The roots of Switzerland’s greatness, however, run exceptionally deep. Lord Kames wrote “In Switzerland, it is true, boys are, from the age of twelve, exercised in running, wrestling, and shooting. Every male who c an bear arms is regimented, and subjected to military discipline. Here is a militia in perfection upon Harrington’s plan, a militia neither forced nor mercenary; invincible when fighting for their country.” Perhaps it is only such a thorough and abiding egalitarianism that overcomes the anthropophobia inherent in conservatism, progressivism, and libertarian ideologies. Proportional representation flourishes in Europe because the people there did not become acclimated to a colonial/plantation culture in which top-down rule was the norm. Feudalism was more of a give and take than the colonial model of take and be given. And Europeans were always more close to the tradition of the thing and the democracy of the Germanic tribes and civil disobedience of the plebes in Rome, than the USA colonists who would never have revolted without the inspiration of the great Thomas Paine. But once he died, people became more concerned with improving their wellbeing via capitalism, an occupation that kept them busy for over a century, with a brief break for the civil wary, than in worrying about perfecting the institutions of government. Given this cultural backdrop, it is no surprise that the elite classes use conservatism, progressivism, and libertarianism to perpetually deem the average people as insufficiently servile.

    Secondly, “The most basic rule of group survival is to reward people who obey the group’s norms and punish people who defect from the group’s norms. This rule is embedded in group identity and in honor culture” misses the boat entirely. There is no reward or punishment in pluralism. Pluralism acknowledges the imperfection of the democratic process but pushes on attempting to incrementally perfect the political process to the needs of the times, any way, Unlike libertarianism, conservatism, and progressivism, populism is pluralist and tolerant, and therefore at a disadvantage. What punishment do independent voters mete out against each other? Yet independent voters are the core of populism. Conservatives and progressives have to absolve themselves themselves of the sins of their two political parties in the USA, by claiming ideological purity and have no skin in the game – others bear the punishment for their mistakes. Populists discover truth through experience and bear the brunt of the punishment from their own mistakes. Thus it is populists who are the real disadvantage.

    Finally, one can easily play musical chairs with the use of “philosophy,” “disposition,” “culture” and “group identity.” One can easily ascribe each descriptor to each of the four political labels. Imagine a spreadsheet with the descriptors on one axis and the political labels on the other.

    • And for those who deny that any good can come from it, populism is paying big dividends in Mexico, One can tell by the shrieks ling about “austerity”: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/mexico-amlo-severe-cuts-amid-coronavirus
      Mall has also made the rational and courageous move to stand up to the “green” energy rent-seekers and is no longer allowing wind and solar projects to connect to the grid, thereby protecting the grid itself as well as ensuring access to reliable and inexpensive energy for the future.

      And with only 25 deaths per million, the populist Amlo has also proven to be among the best world leaders in addressing the pandemic.

      Trump could learn a few lessons from this guy’s book.

12. “which puts those adherents at a disadvantage”

    Agree with most of what Kling wrote except for this last phrase. While it’s tempting to believe that enforcing conformity/compliance provides an “advantage” in terms of stopping defectors, creating unity, etc., it can also be a disadvantage in terms of *attracting* outsiders to join or in building coalitions with other groups. Note, for example, that conservatives and libertarians can often get along with each other and sometimes even with populists and progressives in a way that (right-wing) populists and progressives cannot. Arguably, the Republican “fusion” of conservatives, libertarians, and right-wing populists, which was a highly successful coalition for many decades, was made possible mainly because of conservatives’ and libertarians’ sensibilities.

    Think of policies that make it difficult to fire workers. It’s tempting to think such policies put workers at an “advantage”. In reality, however, such policies tend to increase structural unemployment. The same policies that make it harder for workers to lose their jobs also make it harder for workers to find jobs. Similarly, the same tribal tendencies that punish defectors also make it harder to attract new adherents or “grow one’s base”.

13. There’s no bigger exazmple of group identity today than the MAGA crowd. So I guess they are progressive? Interesting.

    I thought the “three languages” stuff was interesting and really did manage to reasonably fairly portray all sides fairly.

    Not so here, this just comes across as dunking on populists and progressives.

    • Why is it so hard to believe that both progressives and “Trumpistas” can be big examples of group identity?

      Cf. Richard W Fulmer May 8, 2020 at 12:42 pm.

      • It’s not but that begs the question of group identity itself. Why does it dominate in some cases and recede in others.

14. Arnold writes:

    “In January, they knew that they were morally superior to anyone who feared the virus, because such fears were racist. Now, they know that they are morally superior to anyone who opposes the lockdowns.”

    This assumed moral superiority is an enigma to me. When Obama won the 2008 election, how big were the protest marches? I tried to find out recently via google but couldn’t find anything. I assume there weren’t any of significance, or any at all. When Trump won in 2016, big protest marches.

    Here in Australia when the conservatives (confusingly, for US people, named “Liberals”) won a recent election (the one where they replaced the Labour Party) my wife asked me if I wanted to join the protest marches the next day. Maybe she was joking.. I asked her “the anti-democracy marches?” She’s a Labour Party girl. But I don’t think she joined the protest marches. When the Labour Party won on previous occasions I’m sure there weren’t any protest marches. Reading the commentary on the last conservative victory (about a year ago) there were comments like “what’s wrong with Australia?” and all “good people” agreed.

    Bemused by this I asked my uncle, an excellent observer of UK politics, about this. His reply, “when the Conservatives lose, we go down the pub”. He echoed the points about the strong belief in moral superiority on the left. If the right are voted in, “how could people be voting for selfishness, etc”. If I can find an equivalent from the right when the left are voted in, it’s more a presumed intellectual superiority, “they have no idea what they are doing to the economy”.

    Interested in people’s comments.

    • I think that it’s easier for people on the right to understand that leftists mean well than it is for leftists to understand that people on the right also mean well. In his book, “Economics in One Lesson,” Henry Hazlitt wrote:
      “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”

      In Thomas Sowell’s phrase, a good economist must go beyond “stage one” thinking.

      Unfortunately, people on the left tend to get stuck at stage one. They see that a high minimum wage will make minimum-wage workers better off. Additional thought is needed to understand that increasing the cost of low-skilled labor will reduce the demand for that labor. Even more thought is required to see that the people helped by the increase – those who keep their jobs or can still find jobs after the increase – are likely to be the most employable. That is, they have the most knowledge and experience and they are the least discriminated against. Those hurt by the laws will be the least employable – the least educated, least skilled and the most discriminated against.

      In other words, minimum wages help those who need help the least and hurt those who need help the most.

      To someone who can’t, or won’t, go beyond stage one thinking, it’s so blindingly obvious that an increased minimum wage will help the poor, they believe that anyone who disagrees must hate poor people – must be evil. Someone who can see to stage two or three also understands stage one thinking and is unlikely to believe that someone who can’t get beyond stage one is evil.

      People who truly believe that an election brought evil people into power might well take to the streets. Those who believe that an election brought stage one thinkers into power are unlikely to grab a pitchfork.

      • Good explanation, thanks.

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