"Do People Believe Things: The Musical" (Act II)

Last time I wrote about a broad category of ideologically uncommitted voters - people who aren’t really motivated by a consistent political theory or a set of values for their own sake. When people with two very different sets of values try to have a political conversation, it can be frustrating - I’m convinced of the value of liberalism, and it’s really hard for me to see the value system of an illiberal as anything besides evil and repugnant. I don’t quite grasp the desire to repress people who are different from you, whether that’s because they come from a different race or religion or economic class. Peace, stability, and the rich diversity of human life seem like a pretty unvarnished good, to me. But even though I don’t really understand what illiberals find so appealing in illiberalism, at a certain level I know how to have a conversation with them. We’re coming at the problem in similar terms, we just get to very different places.

I can accuse an illiberal of having an inaccurate conception of the human good, and we’ll both grasp the terms of the disagreement pretty easily. Or I can say that illiberalism is a utopian project doomed to awful results in practice, arguing that even if the illiberal want to hold on to his theory there are pragmatic reasons why liberalism is better in practice. These are well-worn paths in political philosophy. The conversation will be frustrating, but more or less navigable.

There’s an entirely different kind of frustration when someone with strong theory or value commitments tries to have a political conversation with someone who just…doesn’t. I can at least navigate a conversation with someone who is on the opposite side of the liberalism/illiberalism question. People who look at liberalism and illiberalism and don’t get what all the fuss is about? I wanna tear my hair out.

The main thing that’s going on here is a difference in what we take to be the central issue at stake. Think about an argument between people who enjoy the taste of very different styles of cooking (say, the French ‘nouvelle cuisine’ style as compared to something with that uses richer, more flavorful sauces, like a curry), as opposed to an argument between someone who thinks that the taste of food is the most important criterion and someone who privileges some other quality, like aesthetic arrangement, nutritional value, or simple ease of preparation. 

The people arguing about flavor agree on the terms of the conversation but disagree on the evaluation. They both want the best-tasting dishes, but they argue about whether the main ingredient (like the meat) or the sauces and spices are what you should focus on. This is analogous to an argument between liberals and illiberals: both are arguing about common goods and the basic theoretical commitments of the state. A conversation between a liberal (or an illiberal) and an ‘uncommitted’ person is more like the argument between flavor and nutrition: different criterion, different concerns, and far greater likelihood of finding the other person’s priorities unconvincing if not entirely baffling. 

The basic political situation in the US (and, I suspect, most democracies) is that relatively small numbers of people with strong ideological commitments are competing to sell their beliefs, policies, and candidates to a large base of voters without those strong ideological commitments. The winner, all other things being equal, is the group that is most successful in finding a way to communicate what they want to those ‘uncommiteds’ in terms they understand and care about. This is an unnatural exercise for most people who start from a position of strong theoretical commitments.

Think again about the issue of immigration (which I wrote about here, if you want a somewhat fuller treatment). Let’s assume that some number (you don’t have to agree with me on what that number is) of people who oppose immigration as a matter of a particular value commitment: white supremacy. Let’s also assume that some number of people who support immigration do so as a matter of a different value commitment: support for a broad understanding of human autonomy and freedom of movement, or anti-racism. Finally, let's assume that there’s a group of median voters who make political decisions on the basis of, let’s say, personal economic incentives. (I think all three of these assumptions are pretty safe and reasonable.)

Now let’s imagine that the pro and anti-immigration people try to message some of those a-theoretical voters on the basis of their respective values. So, the anti-immigration racist says “you should oppose immigration because if you don’t, you’re a race traitor.” while the pro-immigration side responds with “you should support immigration because if you don’t do so, you’re being racist.” Neither of those arguments really impact the voters’ pocketbook, so they aren’t likely to be particularly successful.

But now imagine that one side decides to de-emphasize (one might be tempted to say ‘conceal’) their theoretical and value commitments and tries to persuade those voters on their own terms. Instead of saying “you should do X because of value P” they say “you should do X because doing X will make you better off according to your own terms and priorities.” 

The opposing side now faces a choice. They can continue to emphasize values (“you should not do X because doing X violates value Q”), or they can switch their message to match the other side (“you should not do X because doing X will make you worse off according to your own terms and priorities.) Which strategy is better? In general, I think the latter. I’ll provide three reasons why I think that’s true.

First, I think that being the first mover away from the theory argument provides a really powerful epistemic advantage: you don’t need to be right. In fact, you don’t even need to make a particularly strong argument. You just need to make the claim and keep making the claim. Partly this is because political questions are often complicated and it’s very hard to test the validity of claims without a fair amount of time, experience, and knowledge. It’s just not that hard to simply lie to people about complicated things. But it’s also because you’re making a claim that’s way more salient than the claims of your opponents. Somebody making a poor argument about something I really care about is still likely to be more attractive to me than somebody making a really strong argument about something I don’t care much about at all. At least the first person cares about my concerns!

The second reason, which follows from the first, is that lots of times people really dislike moral scolds. I don’t have empirical evidence for it, but my general experience has been that this dislike increases in direct proportion to how much morally blameworthy stuff you’re doing. Nobody likes to be scolded, but we seem to really hate it when they’re doing something worth being scolded for.

The final reason is that the theory argument requires a willingness to accept personal sacrifice, while the real-world argument doesn’t, and for political purposes we can be content with people doing the right thing for less than ideal (I don’t say wrong here) reasons. Value based arguments usually imply that you should do the right thing even at cost. You should do or not do X even if that choice makes you worse off, just because it’s the right thing to do. Normatively, we want people to make those kinds of moral choices. Realistically we should assume that some people won’t be willing to. More high-minded arguments are really appealing to certain kinds of people (like me), but conceding or appearing to concede the practical argument in order to emphasize the more high-minded argument is usually unproductive.

The practical consequence of my argument isn’t just “we shouldn’t let illiberals lie to people about the supposed good outcomes of illiberal policies.” After all, I don’t think I could find any serious person willing to argue against that idea. Rather, the uncomfortable conclusion of my argument is that we may practically benefit from de-emphasizing certain things in our political messaging to certain people. It’s not just that we should tell someone who is open to endorsing a racist immigration policy that supporting more immigration will make them better off and to stop being racist. It’s that calling them racist, while at least plausibly true, is also plausibly counterproductive if your goal is to persuade them not to endorse a racist policy. Sometimes I think we will have to make a choice between ‘calling a spade a spade’ and having a better chance of persuading someone to do the right thing.

That’s probably a good place to end things for now. Next time I plan to get a little more into the weeds of how some relatively small elements of the broad American conservative movement achieved outsized influence by packaging their value commitments in ways that were far more appealing to voters that didn’t fully share those values. I’ll also talk about groups who, through unappealing messaging, underperform what one might reasonably expect to be their appeal.