Why do we have the axes that we have and why do some people adopt one axis over another? Is it nature, nurture, free will or something else? Is it is more than just group identity and signalling?

I think that the oppressor-oppressed axis must have very deep roots in human nature. I look at the Passover story of Pharoah and the Jews as a story that is readily told in terms of that axis. I know, I know, it can be read in terms of freedom and coercion also, but it’s not as if the “happy ending” frees everyone.

I also think that the civilization-barbarism axis has roots that go deep, because it ties in with xenophobia. It is common to view “the other” as barbaric, and therefore to view the prospect of defeat by the other in cataclysmic terms.

Perhaps it is the freedom-coercion axis that is most unnatural. Most people think that government has existed and always will exist. They are not necessarily wrong. And my guess is that most Americans feel that, on balance, state power is exercised for them rather than against them. Again, they are not necessarily wrong. I would guess that while libertarians raised objections to the way the police in Boston handled the aftermath of the Marathon bombing, if you were to take a poll, the support for the authorities among the public at large would be overwhelming.

In answer to the third question, I think that the axes are most useful for group identity and signalling. Framing an issue in terms of the axes is a way to dog-whistle to those with whom you agree. Characterizing those who disagree with you as being at the opposite end of your preferred axis (“they only want to help the rich!” “they just want to tear down America!” “they just want a police state!”) is a way to reinforce your own group identity.

I don’t know how to predict your preferred axis based on some other characteristic. But I will predict that articulate, politically-engaged people in the U.S. will tend to gravitate toward one axis, and to use that axis for group-identity and signaling purposes. I do believe that it is human nature to take mental shortcuts and to pursue status within a tribe. As Brink Lindsey pointed out at lunch at Cato yesterday, the more we learn from experimental cognitive psychology, the more we see that we are prone to biased thought processes. Perhaps as more people become aware of these biases, they will be more willing to detach themselves from any particular axis.

What areas do the axes agree on and why? Do we at least agree on the liberal project (broadly defined) of individual rights, democracy and science, but disagree on the right mix?

I would not think of the axes as philosophical pillars. Again, I think they perform tribal functions, including group identity and signaling. Certainly, there are general areas of agreement among all three groups. But “individual rights” mean different things to different tribes: one tribe believes in a “right to health care” and the other ones don’t; One tribe believes in the “right to life” (vs. abortion) and the other ones don’t; One tribe believes in the “right to ingest whatever substance he or she wants” and the other ones don’t.

Do people change axes or moderate their views over time? What might cause a change or moderation?

I have changed axes over time. In 1970, I was with Noam Chomsky, who explained the Vietnam war in oppressor-oppressed terms, as driven by American corporations seeking to dominate Vietnamese markets. I think that if you are capable of realizing that your tribe’s position is silly (as this one was), you are capable of change or moderation. And I think every tribe has taken a silly position at one point or another (and by the way, I still think that the Vietnam War was a terrible mistake, but the process by which that mistake was made was complex.)

in what circumstances will the rent-seekers triumph over the technocrats in affecting policy? Virtually every time? Or can the technocrats rally enough support from their drummer pals to defeat them, and if so, in what circumstances?

My father, who unlike me was a political scientist, would have taken a hard line on this one. He would have said that the rent-seekers (he would have called them insiders or interest groups) win every time. The tribal drummers serve as “useful idiots,” creating drama that captures the imagination of the public, while in the back rooms the insiders divide up the goodies. I should note also that he did not feel outraged by this. He just thought it was the natural order of things. In fact, if you had asked him, “What should I personally do about this?” his answer probably would have been “Become an insider!”

The technocrats can operate along some margins, particularly in areas where rent-seekers give them some slack. But when the stakes in terms of rents are high, you should always bet on the rent-seekers. So the Fed has a little slack in terms of choosing to pursue slightly higher or lower inflation. It probably had a lot less slack in choosing whether to bail out Citi and Goldman.

Today at Cato, John Samples hosted a discussion of my e-book on the Three-Axes model. One of the interesting questions came from Matt Yglesias, who asked about the role of columnists who are less tribal, or even anti-tribal, in their orientation. My thinking is that their views receive less amplification (as measured, say, by blog citations) than the tribalists. However, as Matt points out, the tribal drummers may have less influence on policy setting, where technocrats and centrists hold more sway. This leads me to posit the following matrix, which captures my views of the relative significance of different types of players in the mediasphere, partisan election results, and policy setting.

The Tribal Drummers are folks who can clearly be identified using the three-axis model as progressives, conservatives, or libertarians. I call them tribal drummers because they whip up enthusiasm among those who agree. If you want to have a lot of significance in the mediasphere, it is best to be a tribal drummer. Also, you may have some influence on partisan elections. By partisan elections, I mean the contests between Democrats and Republicans. It is probably easier to argue that the tribal drummers have influence on primaries than on partisan elections.

*Libertarian tribal drummers have a lower influence on partisan elections than progressive or conservative tribal drummers, because libertarians do not have a party.

Technocrats are pundits and policy wonks who tend to be centrist in orientation. I claim that they are not amplified much in the mediasphere. They do get involved in the policy game. I think of Ezra Klein as someone who wants to be both a technocrat and a tribal drummer, and in my opinion he would do better to close off the latter option.

Finally, rent-seekers are folks who know what they want from policy and focus on getting it. Thus, their influence on policy is high. Because they buy influence on both sides, their significance in partisan elections is low. The one exception that comes to mind would be teachers’ unions, who are both rent-seeking and strongly partisan. I also claim that rent-seekers have a lot of influence in the mediasphere, because I think that they are very good at shaping the battle space. What I have in mind is the housing lobby, which is amazing at shaping how housing issues are presented in the media.

This matrix might still leave out the sorts of columnists that Matt Yglesias mentioned, e.g., Thomas Friedman. Friedman is not a technocrat, tribal drummer, or policy wonk. In fact, the category I would put him in is suck-up (and, no, I am not being charitable). I think there is a niche for journalists who write to make important people feel even more important. These journalists go to places like Davos and admire the leaders with whom they rub elbows. The CEOs and politicians write warm blurbs for their books, and so they sell well, even while the tribal drummers and others in the mediasphere dismiss them as insipid.

I can see all three axes in recent commentary.

1. From The Washington Post:

With their baseball hats and sauntering gaits, they appeared to friends and neighbors like ordinary American boys. But the Boston bombing suspects were refugees from another world — the blood, rubble and dirty wars of the Russian Caucasus.

This allows us to view the bombings in terms of the oppressor-oppressed axis, with the suspects as victims of an upbringing in an oppressive environment.

2. From The Washington Times:

The Bill of Rights was already on life support before this tragedy.

…Not only did the militarized domestic law enforcement complex put the City of Boston under martial law, but nobody seems to have found it out of the ordinary, much less outrageous. Yes, a few journalists like libertarian Anthony Gregory raised a finger. But, for the most part, nobody seemed to mind that the entire city was under military siege, complete with paramilitary units in full battle gear, battlefield ordinance and tanks. Tanks!

This allows us to frame the bombing in libertarian terms, along the freedom-coercion axis.

3. From The Weekly Standard:

The bombs on Patriots’ Day in Boston brought a fresh reminder, if any were needed, that there are still those who would send us into a new dark age. And the trial of the murderer-abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia reminds us that other barbarous things are being done in our midst. So there are still, in the enlightened and progressive 21st century, barbarians at the gates—and, sadly, within the gates.

The lead editorial is entitled “Civilization and Barbarism.” What more needs to be said?

The writers in the first piece may be perfectly correct. However, I do not think anyone other than a progressive would react with sympathy to these guys because they were refugees from blood, rubble and dirty wars. Heck, my grandparents were refugees from blood, rubble, and dirty wars consisting of raids by Cossacks during the Russian Revolution, and when they came here they felt nothing but gratitude. Even today, I think that most refugees feel the same thing.

By the same token, the writer of the second piece may be perfectly correct. But he is not going to win over any converts. Who other than a libertarian would begrudge the authorities for how they reacted in the aftermath of the bombings?

My guess is that most people will find it easier to relate to rhetoric along the civilization-barbarism axis. I would predict that the Administration will tend toward such rhetoric in talking about the bombings going forward.

I have praised Mark Weiner’s The Rule of the Clan as the best book I’ve read this year. In the wake of the bomb attack in Boston on Monday, I was thinking about the possibility that Middle East terrorists were responsible. If so, then after reading Weiner, I wonder if the terrorist mindset might be that of the clan. From our liberal perspective, we think of the victims as innocent individuals, and we think that the conflict will be settled when the individual terrorists are brought to justice.

The clan perspective differs. Weiner reminds us of the theory that clans are “shame cultures” rather than “guilt culture.” From a clan perspective, there is no such thing as individual guilt or innocence. If the clan believes that it has been wronged by another clan, then legitimate revenge does not require singling out the responsible individual. Punishing any member of the other clan will do.

With terrorism, we think we are involved in a struggle for justice and order. The terrorists, if they think in clan terms, think that they are involved in a feud.

If I read Weiner correctly, and if the bombing was the work of terrorists with a clan mindset (and I have zero information saying that it is), then “bringing them to justice” will not produce the closure that we would expect from our modern, liberal perspective. Instead, it will be viewed as just another episode in the feud, which the other side will seek to continue.

How do feuds end? My reading of Weiner is that in a clan society, two clans can agree to end a feud. To solidify this process, they hold an elaborate ceremony in which at least one of the clans offers gifts to compensate the other for past wrongs. In order for us to do this, we would have to abandon our modern liberal values and stoop to clan level.

I think that Weiner would say that the only other way to end a feud is for clan society to be suppressed by a strong state. To me, such a path does not seem promising for liberal values, either, particularly if your idea of getting from here to there involves “nation-building” by the United States.

It seemed to me that an act of terrorism is most easily interpreted along the civilization-barbarism axis, which makes it disfluent for progressives and libertarians. But a reader points me to David Sirota’s piece putting white American males and foreign Muslims along the oppressor-oppressed axis. Sirota says that he hopes that the bomber is a white male, which would produce a less xenophobic response. I, too, hope it is a white male. If so, then when he is caught I think it will bring closure to the incident, without other white males taking up his cause out of clan loyalty.

Adam Alter says,

when you have a thought, any thought, it falls along a continuum from fluent to disfluent. A fluent thought is one that feels subjectively easy to have.

I wish I had been aware of this concept when I wrote my new e-book on the three-axis model. (I also wish that I had proof-read my survey better. I incorrectly classified the answers to question 6.) A good way to describe my thesis is to suggest that it describes the languages in which progressives, conservatives, and libertarians are fluent. Arguments that are presented in the relevant language are easy to process. It takes more work to process thoughts that are not expressed in one’s preferred language.

Later in the talk, Alter says

People get to the point where they’re absolutely sure about one candidate. The candidate represents exactly what they want and what they hoped for, but when you press them, they actually have no idea, and they end up making the decision because the candidate looks more competent—there’s a lot of research showing that—or the candidate looks more intelligent, or he’s just more likeable, but those features don’t predict policy decisions necessarily, and so they end up making decisions based on the wrong sorts of information.

He speaks of “the illusion of explanatory depth,” meaning that people think they understand something better than they do. This sounds like something I am inclined to think is important.

Also, let me include this sentence:

disfluency leads you to think more deeply, as I mentioned earlier, that it forms a cognitive roadblock, and then you think more deeply, and you work through the information more comprehensively.