how do we understand the political rhetoric and division regarding the migrant caravan? I think Kling’s framework provides a very useful way to understand.
Indeed. The applications of oppressor/oppressed, civilization/barbarism, and liberty/coercion are obvious.
Another application of the three-axes model is that news stories that get “excess play” are ones that produce the sharpest divisions along the axes. I mean, considering the short-attention-span news cycle and the caravan story’s intrinsic (lack of) importance, its prominence and staying power is hard to explain, except that it provides outrage fodder for everybody’s axis.
2. When you have two hours, listen to Ezra Klein and Jonathan Haidt. Terrific throughout. They fight, but instead of a rude street brawl you get a gentleman’s boxing match. Some of Klein’s jabs are repetitious, but overall I would give them both a lot of points.
I also would note that at one hour, forty-six minutes or so Haidt insists he is not on the right, but then immediately he proceeds to say that human nature is tribal and violent and it’s amazing that we have escaped that thanks to institutions like the rule of law. Spoken like a true civilization-vs.-barbarism conservative. It contrasts so clearly with Klein’s repeated insistence that there is a lot more social injustice in society than we are willing to admit.
I usually try to be modest about the three-axes model and say that it describes rhetorical tools, not fundamental beliefs. But I am tempted in this case to make a stronger claim, which is that Haidt is really deeply attuned to civilization-barbarism and Klein is deeply attuned to oppressor-oppressed.
After living with it for a while now, pretty much since you first began to blog about it, I believe that your 3 axis model is one of the best social science observations around. It has explanatory power that I don’t see very often, and it easily gives you a way to be able to understand the debates around us and the views that most people have.
Having said that, I think you need to include one more axis – a single valued one: “I don’t care and I don’t know”. I run into so many otherwise educated people who haven’t spent any time at all thinking about these issues. With everything that has happened here and abroad, nothing seems capable of making these people pay attention, but many of them vote.
That Haidt is not attuned to the oppressor-oppressed axis is definitely something that leaps out from his discussions in Righteous Mind; where he starts by discussing how he traveled widely and noticed that people who were ‘supposed to be’ (as in, I suppose something) oppressed didn’t seem to think of themselves as oppressed or treated unfairly, but actually appeared to be fairly happy most of the time, at least as happy as the perceived oppressors. From there, he skips the logical connection (that people compare themselves to expectations drawn from competitors/peers) and straight to the observation that in orderly societies, most people are similarly happy/unhappy despite structural differences in the different societies, which don’t make sense to people who think about some societies as structurally superior. He also doesn’t necessarily make the point that structural upsets (‘raised consciousness’ among them) will make people unhappier on the whole, at least until a new equilibrium is reached -at which point they will probably be just as well of as before – and that perpetual revolution is the absolute worst situation, except for the few people who particularly benefit (‘profiteer’ if you will) from the general state of disturbance.
Which brings us squarely around to the ‘civilization’/’barbarism’ axis.
“the caravan story’s intrinsic (lack of) importance”
hehehe. Can Dr. Kling troll? Yes, Dr. Kling can troll with the best of them.
It seems fairly obvious that an objective person in good faith could reasonably disagree and say that the migrant caravan is roughly of the same significance as the Mariel boatlift and receiving roughly comparable media attention.
On the other hand, Trump’s policy with respect to the caravan is roughly similar in import to Obama’s policy decision to reverse the Cuban refugee policy and leave thousands stranded in Central America. Yet the former is getting multiple times more attention than the latter.
I suppose since the US is already taking in over a million immigrants a year, another 10,000 is not such a big thing numerically, but the caravans do present a precedent. It appears to represent a choice between going down the Merkel path and opening the borders to millions of poor migrants, or recognizing that unlike Germany, the USA is already deep in deficit spending and hopelessly mired in debt and unable to afford such policy luxuries.
Cosmopolitan Australia and cosmopolitan Singapore offer a fine contrast with the US and German immigration policy. Australia intercepts boats at see and returns. It is a punishable crime to enter, or assist someone to enter Australia, without a proper visa obtained in advance. Singapore has a mandatory caning and imprisonment penalty for illegals.
Australia and Singapore are both in the top 10 on the UN’s human development index, as is Germany. The US is not.
People can reasonably disagree on which model is better. Although to think that the US can easily emulate Germany is a stretch. Besides competent financial management, Germany has numberous other advantages over the US in the ability to assimilate migrants, in particular a superior education system and highly-empowered local governance. A reasonable person might think that a backwards and declining nation like the US already has enough problems without adding more people to strain the already stretched and failing social safety nets in order.
Of course there are numerous high income zip codes with property values sufficiently high to keep recent immigrants out of the local public schools who are utterly indifferent to the impact immigrants have in working class communities. Many of the rich are government employees or otherwise employed in tax exempt industries that are immune to the economic realities faced by others. And that is probably why most people will see the world on an elites versus normals axis and further why the elites versus normals axis has equal or bettter explanatory power than the TLP.
If you actually take a few minutes to unpack immigration policy, its hard to take Trump’s policies seriously.
Breaking things down, if we accept Trump’s notion that immigration policy should work to the benefit of our existing citizens, real policies must decide:
1. How many immigrants in total to accept per year?
2. What is the desired composition of the incoming immigrants and why?
3. What weight should be given to international disaster and asylum relief vs normal immigration concerns?
4. Given the natural factors of the nation’s border and its exposure to migration, what legal and operational burdens must be dealt with to meet the policy goals?
Caravans do not represent any precedent. Decisions can legally be modified at any time. Each country has a different set of burdens, shaped by accidents of geography and neighboring populations. Our burdens are difficult to compare to other counties.
Whether a marginal immigrant is good or bad for America is situational. A certain quantity and mix of qualities of immigrants is economically important to the well being of the existing population of our country. Too few is bad, and too many is bad. An imbalanced mix is bad. It would be nice if economists spent some time giving us a decision making framework to support intelligent planning for such concerns.
Anyone who makes an assertion of any “immigration crisis” should be prepared to argue why the target rate or composition of incoming immigrants is out of balance with the interests of the existing population. We never really hear about quantifying of such targets or why. We never really hear about what justified those decisions.
We also should expect that it is an important government responsibility to hit those targets and execute the operational necessities of doing so. Blaming the migrants for shaping these operational challenges is a cop out. Setting policies you can’t execute is a cop out.
Trump never actually shows the slightest hint of any actual concern about dealing with any of these realities. For him, immigration is a strictly a political lever.
In Singapore the penalty for illegal immigration is caning. The penalty for employing illegal immigrants is caning. They don’t have much of an illegal immigration problem.
You might think that caning is excessive. Perhaps (I’d be fine with it), but it also serves as a precedent and cultural anchor around which immigration policy (official and unofficial) hangs.
Most of Asia, even where they don’t have caning, takes enforcement of immigration seriously. They don’t have immigration problems.
Fifty million Latinos entered this country over the past few decades. Fifty million! It has fundamentally changed America for the worse (due to their low human genetic capitol and inability to assimilate). Pick a metric, they are bad for America. Fifty million people is certainly a BIG DEAL!
Let’s consider the ways in which they got here.
1) Crossed illegally and later got amnesty.
2) Children of parents who crossed illegally that took advantage of birthright citizenship.
3) Took advantage of an absurd colonial era loophole (Puerto Rico).
So they were mostly lawbreakers or the descendants of law breakers. Amnesty clearly set a precedent that encouraged more lawbreaking. In the Puerto Rico case we can blame an old law nobody would have passed if it had been put in front of them. Birthright citizenship isn’t something most first world countries have.
Trump is against amnesty.
Trump is against birthright citizenship.
Trump is in favor of points based immigration reform.
In other words Trump has outlined fixes to decades long problems with our immigration system and has proposed changes that align us with other OECD countries and American interests. This is in response to fifty million hostile people invading the country illegal and fundamentally changing its character forever.
I think you done a pretty good job of expressing Trump’s strategy.
1. Make absurd, aggressive enforcement gestures to produce outrage.
2. Make absurd, hysterical, racist claims about immigrant classes that ignore the facts.
3. Never take responsibility for any existing situation, ever.
4. Demand catch phrase level changes, many of which are politically impossible. Make no actual political effort to craft any real changes.
5. Exploit the resulting anger.
The facts are that non-citizen households use welfare programs at higher rates than natives. 63% of non-citizen households, 4,684,784 million of them are receiving welfare. Non-citizen households are more likely than native households to use food programs (45 percent vs. 21 percent for natives) and Medicaid (50 percent vs. 23 percent for natives). Including the EITC, 31 percent of non-citizen-headed households receive cash welfare, compared to 19 percent of native households.
If you want open borders that is all well and good and you are my moral better. Just pass a bill, score it, and don’t pretend that there are no trade-offs and that those trade-offs will not disproportionately burden the native working class.
edgar
I am not in favor of open borders. I agree that immigration policy should be designed to benefit the existing population. I agree there is widespread abuse of the existing rules. I want reform.
I just want a rational process, not an emotional one that demonizes people.
Not everything Trump wants to do is wrong. However, the manner in which he goes about it is almost always wrong.
Someone is always demonized. If you’re against immigration, you’re a bigot and a deplorable.
There is a myth of the immigrant hero. And if that myth is true, only a total asshole could want to oppress him by keeping him out. That myth must be shattered. If they means pointing out the crime, welfare parasitism, and lack of economic productivity that are factually true about immigrants, so be it. If only to bring things back to reality, and explain rationally why people would be against immigration.
Also because what to do with left bell curve people is a serious question. Import more of them and use them up before importing more (Moldbugs Helot to Dalit cycle) is just nonsense. And yet it’s the best that people can come up with, and when challenged all they can do is to retort the myth of the immigrant hero.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWJSKhEwjy8
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/castes-of-united-states/
I don’t know if Arnold was trolling or not with that line, though I doubt it, and I hope he clarifies. I would have expected more humility and hedging about an issue that has a lot of details I’m guessing he doesn’t know about. I have some insight into the situation, and “lack of importance” making reasonable and legitimate concerns (on both sides) “hard to explain” as anything other than political tribal framing is not an accurate – or at the very least uncontroversial – characterization of the state of affairs.
That was supposed to be in reply to edgar.
well said
1. Agreed. Scott Alexander wrote a good post about this: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/
I also agree that the migrant caravan’s significance is very overrated. That’s obviously a quality that’s hard to pin down, and I myself haven’t been following it closely. But one way to put it: I think if Edgar/Handle others who believe the caravan is a big deal were to make a series of mutually agreed upon bets with someone like Bryan Caplan about some empirical aspect of future of society in re: to immigration, I’d bet with Caplan easily.
2. “I usually try to be modest about the three-axes model and say that it describes rhetorical tools, not fundamental beliefs.” I think you’re underestimating TLP — for most people I think it’s very close to fundamental beliefs. After all, what are beliefs but rhetorical framing in ones own mind? I think the exception might be more professional politicians or activists or media figures, who have more of an interest in maintaining power or building an organization, but for the rank and file or the average voter I think TLP absolutely describes fundamental beliefs.
Hi nate. I’m happy to back up my empirical assertions with friendly wagers, to the extent allowed by law. State your terms and we can work something out.
Note, however, that I wasn’t expressing a view on illegal immigration per se, but questioning what I view as unargued dismissal about a particular aspect of the current situation.
If one reads enough commentary, one sees this kind of thing a lot, and starts to view such claims with suspicion, as making bald assertions on what deserves concern and what one should ignore. Media exercises power in deciding what to cover and what to omit, and that power can be used or abused. As usual, the cover story for all abuses is a pretense of implicit, objective and wise rules, and what one sees follows naturally from them instead of illustrating a double-standard or deviation from ordinary practice.
Ezra Klein pulls this “unwarranted dismissiveness” trick a lot, as he did recently with Haidt and previously with Harris, with the subtext being that if he doesn’t “care”, or think something is “important”, and that this is the reasonable position, then anyone who disagrees is kind of an obsessed kook who is making a mountain out of a molehill, usually in an unscrupulous effort to manipulate for political ends. It is a kind of sneaky way to insert one’s own opinion and shape the narrative, and a kind of intellectual short cut around having to argue the issue, because any move to challenge it could be met with bogging it down in some irreconcilable difference of judgment.
Now to his great credit Kling doesn’t do that, so in this instance I think he is just using a different understanding of “important”, but one I think is mistaken in this context.
Now, as to the matter of importance, significance, “big deal”-ness, I’d ask you (or Arnold since he’s the one who said it first) to try and put some meat on the concept and make the matter sufficiently well-defined to allow for a productive debate or assessment. Without some standard, one can always wiggle one way or the other by adjusting an arbitrary threshold for “importance”.
In this discussion, we have the problem of the argument of the beard fallacy. It’s always possible to say that any one illegal act is not “important in the grand scheme of things”, and then by induction to erroneously claim that therefore no extreme case can be important either. But numbers are of the essence and different quantities eventually create create qualities.
If you are saying that there is no amount of illegal activity that “matters”, then that is one thing. If you are saying “it only starts to ‘matter’ at level X” then that is another. If your space station has sprung a leak and the air is slowly escaping, then each molecule of oxygen doesn’t “matter”, but the fact of the leak is definitely “important” and newsworthy. If the air is leaking out slowly maybe I’m not screaming at you every minute “We have a leak!”. If on the other hand one suddenly lost 10% pressure in the context of a leak, that warrants special attention, i.e., it’s “newsworthy”.
The question is one of proper framing. It’s only appropriate to consider the imporance of “the caravan” (actually there are multiple, separate huge groups in motion, and numerous smaller groups) as an insolated incident if one can show it is extraordinary and likely to remain rare. On the other hand, if it is just a particularly photogenic (thus media converage-attracting) discrete instance of a major and substantial continuing trend (which is a fact) then one should consider the bigger picture.
Is the failure of an individual big financial firm “important”? What if it happens in the context of major global market turmoil?
Is some giant bit of ice shelf falling off of Antarctica into the sea “imporant”? What if it happens in the context of climate change?
Another way of looking at what makes some particular event “important”, even if it in reality part of an ongoing giant trend, is if it will lead to binding legal consequences that affect most future responses, or if it illustrates previously little-known aspects of the big picture, and causes people to update their priors about the real state of affairs.
There is also the problem of amplification by means of a conspicuous failure of deterrence mechanisms, establishing a new “common knowledge” about the expected consequences of a violation, and the potential hugely-magnified response to signals and rumors of an overwhelmed and legally constrained system which has exploitable loopholes and which thus cannot stop people from coming in and disappearing into the general population without consequences. (This is kind of a Martin Gurri-esque point given that most of these rumors spread virally via social media). This is precisely what happened in the Obama administration in the immigration crisis with regards to unexpectedly huge waves of unaccompied minors being sent to the border after tales of easy treatment went viral. Similar mechanisms were behind the scale of Merkel’s Migration Mistake around the same time.
It’s a very serious error to fail to include the possibility of “magnified mass reaction driven by viral social media messages” in current analysis of anything. “People response to incentives” is a fundamental law, but really they respond to their perceptions of current incentives, and those perceptions can adjust for millions of people all at once given the current features of the contemporary information environment, combined with herd mentality, Girardian mimicry, signals of support by prestigious individuals and institution, and the feeling of strength in numbers.
Thus my view, informed by some insight into the matter, is that “the caravan” definitely satisfies these criteria and meets the threshold of “very important” / “worth of special attention and media coverage.”
No one is saying immigration isn’t important. When viewed as an example of what is happening in the context of 300,000+ illegals per year, the caravan is a perfectly reasonable place to start an important conversation. That isn’t the issue.
The caravan is a stupid, unimportant story because Trump made it stupid. He could have made it a smart story, but he didn’t.
And let’s agree why you think its important. It isn’t because the air is leaking out of the space station. Its because some of the other astronauts are playing music you don’t like, and behaving in ways you find inappropriate.
That last paragraph is really quite patronising.
It would be if I was projecting views onto Handle’s comments that were not fully expressed. But he has written in great detail of his views of an existential threat from long term demographic trends on conservative Christian culture.