Rational Philosophy

John McCain on The Daily Show with John Stewart

Last night, as I watched a TiVo’d John Stewart skewering delegates on the last day of the Republican convention, I wondered what it is about small town values that the Republicans love (but can’t define) and that seems to keep America stuck in the mire of bad politics.

If you didn’t see it, Stewart’s convention crew walked around with microphones asking Republican delegates what ’small town values’ meant to them. With big smiles on their faces and earnest willingness to answer the delegates came up with such laughable answers as “real people, real values,” “traditional marriage,” “fishing,” “church.” (The video is posted on the Daily Show website - highly recommended.)

But even those of us who distrust and disagree with the sentiment with which republicans freight the term, we all seem to understand that the essence of ’small town values’ might mean something genuinely appealing and good. So what is this essence, and how has it become distorted and misused.

Block Island, Rhode Island

I spent the bulk of the summer on Block Island with my family. Block Island is essentially a small town with a lot of tourists. (And these are mostly east-coast tourists from New York and Connecticut.) It’s easy to distinguish the tourists from the islanders. The tourists are in a hurry. They’re often nervous and rude. They lock their cars. They expect to get screwed over. They complain about stuff. The islanders understand that there aren’t that many places to go on the island, and everywhere is pretty close. You can trust people because for the most part, there’s nowhere for them to escape to. You couldn’t steal a car and get it off the island (which is car-accessible only by ferry.)

Block Island is a great lens through which to observe that the essence of small town values means enforced responsibility through enforced community.

It’s a lot easier to be rude or unfair to someone if you don’t know them and if you’ll never see them again and don’t have to rely upon their personal contribution to the community you live in. In a small town, people do know one another and rely upon one another and society functions very much as it has done for millions of years. The inherent rules of small social groups therefore tend to operate without the need for too much overt oversight and enforcement. What’s not to like about that?

But this is the problem: The rest of the country is made up of places where that kind of reinforcement can’t be relied upon. And this is the other part of the problem: Conservative Republicans wrap a whole lot of crap into the concept of small town values that has nothing to do with the core function of a mutually-reliant community (such as traditional marriage, fishing and church.)

And this is why ’small town values’ have become the political ruin of America. So much hog-swill passes for the reasonable subject of informed debate under the auspices of what small town folk care about. Every Republican candidate dives in or gets sucked in to the vortex of endless political distraction of the conservative agenda. And this means the every Democratic candidate gets sucked in, too, for fear of committing political suicide.

Other advanced Western nations don’t waste political time endlessly rehashing abortion statutes, gun control, separation of church and state, the teaching of creationism. ‘Small town values’ are the concrete boots of American politics, and until we lose them we won’t have an effective political process that will allow the nation to move forward and solve the very real problems of war, alternative fuel sources, and climate change.

Related Posts from Around the Web:

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I buy coffee and a carrot muffin every day for breakfast from a “Pret” cafe in midtown Manhattan. As I do wherever I go, I strive to be pleasant when I get my breakfast. I see people being unpleasant sometimes and it makes me cringe. (Isn’t it less stressful to be polite and helpful and sympathetic to those with whom we come into contact? And, I should point out, Pret does a great job of attracting and training its staff to be polite and courteous, too.) In any case, this morning there were no carrot muffins out on the rack so I took a blueberry muffin instead. When I stepped up to pay, the person serving me recognized me, remembered what I typically purchase, and rang up a carrot muffin. When she realized that I’d settled for blueberry she went out of her way to hunt down a carrot muffin for me. (It was delicious.)

Republican Representative Deborah Pryce in announcing her retirement today had this to say about America’s increasingly media-driven campaigns of dirty politics: “I don’t think anything will change until Americans revolt and get it into their heads that they need to be informed voters instead of just listening to the paid political ads.” But she also freely admitted that she’d resorted to attack ads in order to hold onto her seat in last election, to the tune of $4.5 million. Which makes one wonder whether politicians don’t also need to do a little revolting of their own. The message though is that being nice, in politics at least, doesn’t pay off. That’s the prevailing wisdom. I’m not sure whether any politician has yet dared to be nice in the face of his or her rival’s nastiness.

Various religions have long taught the virtues of being nice, of not retaliating. The texts of Christianity (the religion with which I’m most familiar) stress the importance of being kind and peaceful even in the face of unkindness. Although, if I remember rightly from my attendance at church, long ago, as a boy, the religion seemed to attract a high proportion of petty, judgmental and holier-than-thou people. But I guess you can’t necessarily blame the teachings for the people they attract!

The 2001 movie Evolution, in amongst slapstick humor and great special-effects, teases up an interesting philosophical question. The movie’s premise: A meteor carrying the necessary genetic material for a very different form of life crashes into the earth. The new form of life has two characteristics that set it apart from the kinds of life forms with which we’re typically familiar: 1. Life evolves exponentially faster. 2. The species are uncompromisingly unpleasant and aggressive. I was fascinated by this second characteristic (made easier to observe by the first).

In the context of the movie, life can evolve even if the members of its various species behave with uncompromising aggression. But could this be true out in the universe? Does any principle indicate that we will get further by being nice?

Here’s a theory (one that I explore in greater detail in my book): Being nasty can help an individual survive in certain situations. It can help us get our coffee ahead of the next guy, or it can even make a difference between life and death — the killer instinct. But when we think about survival more broadly, in a family or social group, being nice starts to pay off. Being nice creates social bonds and payback. It leads to cooperation and sacrifice. I would argue that being nice is a much more enlightened practice than being nasty and one that pays great dividends over time.

If only politics could evolve to be more enlightened, too.

A “Teen Magazine” quote from Vanessa Hudgens before her nude photo scandal:

“I’m a good kid,” Hudgens said. “I’ve been brought up with very good morals, and I’m not going to go out and do something I don’t want other kids to do.”

“I love being a role model because, in Hollywood, there aren’t a lot of role models to look up to. The fact that there’s a whole bunch of good kids coming out who are now stepping into the limelight, I’m very proud of that.”

On the face of it, reading this, one could criticize Vanessa Hudgens for being deceitful. But one could also argue that her comments were intended “in character” that she was maintaining a public image as a projection of her clean cut character on a clean cut show. The point here is that her intent makes a difference, philosophically, because intent and perspective shape our moral perspective.

To take a more important example, the current administration, it seems clear, deceived the public about the imminent threat posed by Iraq. The aim of this deception was to follow through on a plan to attack Iraq and displace Saddam Hussein. Further discussion of motive becomes a little more murky. Did the administration believe that Saddam, WMD’s aside, posed the kind of threat that demanded invasion? Did the administration have a “gut” desire to invade Iraq and use various justifications to themselves or others in order to support this “gut” desire?

An accurate moral judgment of duplicity requires a sense of the intent. Does this mean that no act or action is inherently immoral?

If we were to accept this perspective we would throw the moral compass of most people into a frenzy of confusion. Most religions, for instance, identify prohibited or immoral acts or practices.

And if morality requires subtle assessment of intent or perspective, how are we to find a new compass? A rational compass?

But, if we are pragmatic and rational, we cannot hold onto the concept of “immoral acts.” Nothing is inherently immoral. Morality flexes and adapts, it bends to the tide.

We can find a pragmatic and rational basis for morality, a basis that adheres to Plato’s strict indictment:

“Unless someone can distinguish in an account the form of the good from everything else, can survive all refutation, as if in a battle, striving to judge all things not in accordance with opinion but in accordance with being, and can come through all this with his account still intact, you’ll say he doesn’t know the good itself or any other good.” – Plato’s Republic VII

And concurs with his incisive statement:

“The bad is what destroys and corrupts, and the good is what preserves and benefits.” – Republic X

(More on this to come in future postings and in my book…)