How neocolonialism really works

If the apartheid regime had really wanted to break Mandela, they should NOT have sent him to Robben Island.  If you spend 30 years breaking rocks you will come to identify with others who break rocks (miners, laborers, farm workers).  No if they had really wanted to break Mandela, they should have sent him to Harvard, on a tennis scholarship. 

The Enlightenment as moral cover for unjust racial hierarchies

Ah yes, this is it exactly.  From The New Yorker, "Books: The Inner Voice: Gandhi's Real Legacy:"

Gandhi’s ideas were rooted in a wide experience of a freshly globalized world. Born in 1869 in a backwater Indian town, he came of age on a continent pathetically subject to the West, intellectually as well as materially. Europeans backed by garrisons and gunboats were free to transport millions of Asian laborers to far-off colonies (Indians to South Africa, Chinese to the Caribbean), to exact raw materials and commodities from Asian economies, and to flood local markets with their manufactured products. Europeans, convinced of their moral superiority, also sought to impose profound social and cultural reforms upon Asia. Even a liberal figure like John Stuart Mill assumed that Indians had to first grow up under British tutelage before they could absorb the good things—democracy, economic freedom, science—that the West had to offer. The result was widespread displacement: many Asians in their immemorial villages and market towns were forced to abandon a life defined by religion, family, and tradition amid rumors of powerful white men fervently reshaping the world, by means of compact and cohesive nation-states, the profit motive, and superior weaponry.
     Dignity, even survival, for many uprooted Asians seemed to lie in careful imitation of their Western conquerors. Gandhi, brought out of his semirural setting and given a Western-style education, initially attempted to become more English than the English. He studied law in London and, on his return to India, in 1891, tried to set up first as a lawyer, then as a schoolteacher. But a series of racial humiliations during the following decade awakened him to his real position in the world. Moving to South Africa in 1893 to work for an Indian trading firm, he was exposed to the dramatic transformation wrought by the tools of Western modernity: printing presses, steamships, railways, and machine guns. In Africa and Asia, a large part of the world’s population was being incorporated into, and made subject to the demands of, the international capitalist economy. Gandhi keenly registered the moral and psychological effects of this worldwide destruction of old ways and life styles and the ascendancy of Western cultural, political, and economic norms.
     He was not alone. By the early twentieth century, modern Chinese and Muslim intellectuals were also turning away from Europe’s universalist ideals of the Enlightenment, which they saw as a moral cover for unjust racial hierarchies..."
--Pankaj Mishra, The New Yorker, May 2, 2011

Mishra is reviewing a new book on Gandhi by Joseph Lelyveld, "Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India." In the book Lelyveld contends that the real Gandhi was much different than the myth created in the Hollywood movie -- and that Gandhi's actual political program was much bigger and more radical than we usually understand.

Gandhi’s indictment of modern civilization went further. According to him, the industrial revolution, by turning human labor into a source of power, profit, and capital, had made economic prosperity the central goal of politics, enthroning machinery over men and relegating religion and ethics to irrelevance. As Gandhi saw it, Western political philosophy obediently validated the world of industrial capitalism. If liberalism vindicated the preoccupation with economic growth at home, liberal imperialism abroad made British rule over India appear beneficial for Indians—a view many Indians themselves subscribed to. Europeans who saw civilization as their unique possession denigrated the traditional virtues of Indians—simplicity, patience, frugality, otherworldliness—as backwardness.

Gandhi never ceased trying to overturn these prejudices of Western modernity. He dressed as an Indian peasant and rejected all outward signs of being a modern intellectual or politician. True civilization, he insisted, was about moral self-knowledge and spiritual strength rather than bodily well-being, material comforts, or great art and architecture. He upheld the self-sufficient rural community over the heavily armed and centralized nation-state, cottage industries over big factories, and manual labor over machines. He also encouraged satyagrahis to feel empathy for their political opponents and to abjure violence against the British. For, whatever their claims to civilization, the British, too, were victims of the immemorial forces of human greed and violence that had received an unprecedented moral sanction in the political, scientific, and economic systems of the modern world. Satyagraha might awaken in them an awareness of the profound evil of industrial civilization.

There are two points I want to make about this article and the above quotes:

1. This is the first time in my life that I've ever seen the Enlightenment challenged in print. And the critique feels exactly right. I feel like I've been circling around this idea for a year now and finally someone put their finger right on it -- which is this: many of the enlightenment philosophies that we celebrate in the West: Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Utilitarianism; and classical liberalism  -- are really just elaborate justifications for racial hierarchy, colonialism, neocolonialism, and hegemonic dominance of capital over people. (Neoliberal economic theory as practiced by Milton Friedman and the University of Chicago consists of taking the racist, colonial, hegemonic theories of Bentham (and Hayek) and expressing them through calculus and graphs.) 

2. One of the things that people don't understand about Gandhi is that for him -- satyagraha was about liberating the British from the violence of CAPITALISM. For Gandhi, British rule, capitalism, and violence were all one in the same, and liberation, economic simplicity, and nonviolence were all one in the same.  Modern progressive Americans want to hold up the nonviolence piece but they don't recognize that they are missing the larger context -- that violence is a symptom of capitalism and nonviolence necessarily also requires the rejection of capitalism.  I think that's really quite profound.

What Barack Obama could learn from Lula da Silva

For the last eight years, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil has been an unapologetic champion for the poor and working class.  The result?

By expanding cash-transfer programs for the poor, subsidizing housing loans and raising the minimum wage, his government pulled more than 20 million people out of poverty. The middle class has grown by 29 million people since 2002.

The country, which received a record $30 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund when it was close to economic collapse in 2002, now lends money to the I.M.F.

And what happens when you show leadership by consistently standing up for your base?

Mr. da Silva, the 65-year-old former metalworker with a fourth-grade education, leaves office with an approval rating of more than an 80 percent.

It's sort of obvious to the point of being ridiculous -- if you stand up and represent the interests of 80% of the public, then you'll have 80% approval ratings.  In some ways it demonstrates the insanity of the U.S. political system.  In DC, Democratic elected officials actually believe that they have to regularly piss on their base in order to be taken seriously (and it seems that President Obama has come to believe that he has to be Wall Street's bitch in order to get re-elected).  And then they wonder why they have such low approval ratings. 

Obama could have 80 percent approval ratings right now too if he would stand up for the people who voted for him by:

• bailing out homeowners in the same way that he rescued the banks;
• supporting Medicare for All instead of mandates to purchase private insurance; and
• taxing the rich to pay for (human and physical) infrastructure to grow the economy for everyone.  

It's simple, simple simple -- stand up for your base and they will stand up for you. 

Note: quotes are from NY Times: "Brazil's New Leader Begins in the Shadow of Predecessor" by Alexei Barrionuevo, December 31, 2010.

Their canon, Our canon

Completely brilliant article today in the NY Times on what radical conservatives are reading these days -- and how these writings are showing up in the speeches and plans of Republican candidates and office holders.  I highly encourage you to read the whole article, Movement of the Moment Looks to Long-Ago Texts by Kate Zernike.  So what are crazy Republicans reading these days?

"The Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich Hayek (1944)
"The Law" by Frédéric Bastiat (1850)
"The 5000 Year Leap" by W. Cleon Skousen (1981) 

Like the bible of modern conservatism, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, these books are basically conservative porn made up of fantasies about a return to the 19th century when white men still ruled the planet and everyone else took orders from them.

But the article got me thinking about what a progressive canon might be and what foundational texts should inform our movement.  And it was harder to come up with a list of foundational books than I imagined.  I've come up with a few (none by economists by the way) but I'd welcome any additional suggestions from you in the comments below. 

I think every good progressive should read:

The Culture of Make Believe by Derrick Jensen
A People's History of the United States by  Howard Zinn
No Logo by Naomi Klein
Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

But what's interesting about each of these books (and this is a self criticism more than anything else) is that they are all long on what is wrong with conservatives but short on what we would do if we were actually in power.  Derrick Jensen has the most brilliant analysis of modern culture that I've ever read but his remedy is for us to return to being hunter gatherers (which is a nonstarter for most people).  Howard Zinn would have us kill fewer people in wars of aggression (always a good idea) but as far as I know, he doesn't necessarily provide a comprehensive political program for how one might achieve a world at peace.  And Naomi Klein (in Shock Doctrine) provides a robust defense of Keynesianism, which is great, but I gotta figure that ultimately progressives should be fighting for more than just a return to Keynes. So anyway, if you have a chance please list what books you think should inform the progressive canon in the comments below (no sign in required -- but haters, as always will be deleted). 

George Lakoff 2.0

Okay so cognitive linguist George Lakoff has shown that there are two core frames when it comes to politics:

The nurturant parent model; and the
Strict father model.

Even though all people have both core frames in their heads, in progressives the nurturant parent model is active and in conservatives the strict father model is active.

It seems to me that Lakoff does perhaps the best job of any living person of explaining political worldviews and why progressives and conservatives think the way they do.

But here's the thing.  Which model is factually correct?  Both models make claims that are empirically provable.  Does the nurturant parent model actually lead to healthier, more creative kids (and later society)?  Does the strict father model lead to better behaved, more moral kids (and later society)?

In almost every case, the evidence from the social sciences shows that the nurturant parent model is more likely to lead to healthier creative people and societies. 

Take for example the recent "multiyear study that shows that spanking kids makes them more aggressive later on." Progressive claim that spanking causes all sorts of psychological problems in kids that later leads to aggressive or criminal behavior.  Conservative claim that spanking leads to more moral citizens.  But it turns out that only progressives are factually correct. 

Or take tax cuts.  Progressives claim that government spending (on infrastructure) is the best way to stimulate the economy.  Conservatives claim that tax cuts (for the rich) are the best way to stimulate the economy.  But you can actually measure the multiplier effective of each approach -- and it turns out that the multiplier effect of government spending (1.59) is much greater than the multiplier effect of tax cuts (0.29).  

But what's weird about Lakoff is that he seems to stop at merely pointing out the differences in worldview -- without going the next step and arguing that the correctness of each worldview can be measured through scientific evidence.

The Prop 8 trial illustrates the point that I'm trying to make.  By going to trial, supporters of marriage equality were able to put all of the evidence on the table.  And it turns out that it is empirically provable that marriages involving couples of the same sex lead to just as healthy and happy relationships, families, and societies as marriages involving opposite sex couples.  By contrast, the opponents of gay marriage had their strict father model of morality but no scientific evidence to back up the validity of their claims. 

See that's the thing.  In almost every case, the conservative worldview is not only different, it is factually incorrect.  So it seems to me that not only should we point out the differences in worldview between progressives and conservatives, but we should always go the next step and explain that usually only the progressive worldview is factually correct in the real world.  

List of non-traditional conference methods (aka unconferences)

I recently queried my Facebook friends to get their counsel on the following question:

Can anyone point me to examples of non-traditional conference methods? The old model of 'expert-in-the-front, everyone-else-just-listen-and-clap,' seems played out. Are there conferences that invert the pyramid to involve and engage everyone in participation, expertness, and action?

And the stuff they came back with is amazing. Check it out:

Appreciative Inquiry
Barcamp
Birds of a Feather
Dotmocracy
Fishbowl (conversation) -- love this idea!
Ignite
Infocamp
Knowledge Cafe
Lightning Talks
Nominal Group Technique
Open Space Technology
Pecha Kucha
Speed Geeking
TeachMeet
Unconference
World Café

So it turns out that there is a whole world of non-traditional conference possibilities.  I'm surprised that many progressive groups continue stick with the old format -- because 'expert-up-front, everyone-else-listen-and-clap'' is not consistent with our democratic philosophy and worldview. If we believe that the people have the best answers (which I think we do), then I believe we need to find ways of tapping into that wisdom.

some reflections from Netroots Nation 2010 -- the progressive blogosphere is a living, growing, learning organism

Here is what conservatives have going for them:

Hierarchy.

The entire conservative worldview and the structure of their political machine (messages, think tanks, and organizational structure) is built on hierarchy.  The benefits that come from hierarchy are unity, message discipline, and focus. 

Here is what progressive have going for us:

Diversity.

As James Surowiecki shows in The Wisdom of Crowds, the benefits of diversity are extraordinary.  The more diverse, decentralized, and independent the group is, the more likely it is to come to the correct answer.  Hierarchical groups all move in the same direction (which is nice) but they tend to repeat the same mistakes over and over.  All of the diversity within the progressive movement leads to conflict within the group -- but over time, by engaging in the constant battle of ideas, progressives tend to arrive at the correct answer to the various challenges facing society.  So for example, in the last two hundred years, progressives have figured out abolitionism, universal suffrage, and how to win two world wars, while conservatives have figured out some greeting card platitudes about personal responsibility. 

The internet in general, and blogging is particular, is really built for a progressive way of thinking.  It's diverse, decentralized, and wildly independent.  Progressive blogs -- most notably sites like DailyKos, Pam's House Blend, Calitics -- have figured out how to create smart groups that harness the wisdom of the crowd.  These sites solicit diversity by allowing diaries so that anyone can participate.  But then these site harvest the wisdom of the crowd by moving the best diaries (based on the reaction of the crowd in the comments) up to the recommended list or onto the front page.  As a result, the progressive blogosphere has become an ideas factory that is consistently spitting out the best answers on the major issues of the day.  Through intense debate over the course of many months, the progressive blogosphere came up with the best answer for health care (Medicare for all), process (end the filibuster), and financial regulatory reform (consumer financial protection agency, regulate derivatives, relief for homeowners instead of Wall Street). 

What really impressed me about Netroots Nation 2010 (that I just returned from) is that the progressive blogosphere continues to grow and learn and change in pretty profound ways. It seems to me that the progressive blogosphere is like a single living organism (with a million little individuals cells) that is developing increasing complexity and sophistication. So for example, lots of progressive bloggers are now making connections between race and class and economics and labor and the environment -- really starting to see their single issues within the large systemic frameworks that create oppression. Martin Luther King, Jr., late in his career, started making the connections between race and class and the Vietnam war. So too, progressive bloggers are starting to get that racism, laissez-faire capitalism, militarism, homophobia, and sexism, all stem from the same system of domination.

To see what I'm talking about, check out the following videos from the conference:

Van Jones' keynote

Tim Wise on the links between racism and economic crisis -- starts at the 26:30 mark (you can just move the video slider to cue it up to that spot)

Rev. Lennox Yearwood (starts at 36:50)

Majora Carter (starts at 41:45)

As people start to connect the dots, it also creates the possibilities for lasting systemic change.  In spite of the daily challenges, it seems to me that this is a really exciting time to be a progressive.

Update #1:  Ian Welsh has a great post up on his site about the tensions in the room at Netroots Nation 2010. I think this is the best summary I've seen of the mood of, and divisions in, the audience at the event.  Where I differ with Welsh's analysis is that I think that the programming at NN was kinda genius.  Van Jones, Tim Wise, Lennox Yearwood, and Majora Carter all connected the dots in really profound ways that I think set the stage for a much deeper systemic shift in the movement in the years to come.  At least that's my hope.

Casinos make the case for high levels of taxation

I spent the last four days in the air conditioned wonderland of a casino (the Rio) in Las Vegas at the annual Netroots Nation convention. Many people love casinos, myself included.  But I never gamble (as they guy in the elevator said to me yesterday, "The only way to win is not to play.")  I love casinos because they are freaking nice -- gorgeous innovative architecture, air conditioned, pretty lights, good music, and extra oxygen pumped in to make everyone feel better.

Washing my hands one afternoon in the casino's restroom -- complete with high ceilings, granite countertops and a dedicated employee to keep it clean, I got to thinking... it seems to me that casinos make the case for much higher levels of taxation in society. 

Because the REASON that casinos are so nice is that they tax the hell out of people. Going to Vegas is like putting your money into a mutual fund that is guaranteed to lose at least .2% of your money (blackjack) and may cost you as much as 29% of your money (Keno).  But people LOVE Las Vegas -- in part because all of our losing then leads to great works of architecture (replicas of Paris, New York, and Egypt for example) and cheap breakfast buffets (as one side note -- the Rio now offers an ALL YOU CAN EAT ALL DAY buffet at 7 different casinos for the one low price of $39.99). 

In fact that's the reason that palaces in France are so nice and the reason why so many people want to visit France as a tourist destination -- because a former French government taxed its people at a high rate and built great public works that have lasted for centuries.

Interestingly, Vegas casinos also tax the rich at a very high rate.  The whales (like Tiger Woods or Jerry Buss) with their private jets, limos, and secret entrances to the casinos end up leaving much more cash behind than the average gambler.  

The strangest thing about Las Vegas is that people actually seem to enjoy losing.  It's like the purifying ritual of risk and loss taps into some deep limbic desire of Thanatos, for loss and rebirth. 

So I guess all the IRS needs to do in order to become more popular is to making paying taxes more fun and exciting!  Perhaps they could add scantily clad go-go girls dancing on the customer service desks at the various IRS offices while pumping in extra oxygen and 1990s dance hits?  Also, the IRS could merge with various state lotteries (which after all are just voluntary tax systems structured as games) -- such that once a year someone's name is pulled out of a hat and his/her entire tax bill is forgiven!

But all kidding aside, the fact is, casinos show that under some conditions, people voluntarily embrace high levels of taxation.  Las Vegas involves something of a trade -- casinos give inexpensive food, inexpensive accommodations, and lovely public works in return for high levels of taxation (gambling).  I think the same is true for the public sector in a way -- if people feel that they are getting a high level of service -- health care (not just health insurance), education, and well-designed public works projects, they will be much more willing to pay taxes at a higher rate.

Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality in 4 sentences or less

For those put off by the prodigious length (851 pages) of Ken Wilber's seminal work, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, here's the whole book in 4 sentences:

Why is there something rather than nothing?
(Um, we really don't know.)
But there is something and that is pretty cool.
And evolution seems to involve increasing layers of complexity so maybe evolution points us toward God.

There, I just saved you $23 and 200 hours of reading time.

Ya gotta read this

Errol Morris' recent 5-part series on the Anosognosic’s Dilemma (published in the NY Times) is one of the most mind-blowing things I've read in a long time.  From the article:

Wheeler had walked into two Pittsburgh banks and attempted to rob them in broad daylight.  What made the case peculiar is that he made no visible attempt at disguise.  The surveillance tapes were key to his arrest.  There he is with a gun, standing in front of a teller demanding money.  Yet, when arrested, Wheeler was completely disbelieving.  “But I wore the juice,” he said.  Apparently, he was under the deeply misguided impression that rubbing one’s face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to video cameras.

What Morris does so brilliantly in the series is to explore the ways in which we ALL engage in acts of self deception -- in effect convincing ourselves that we are 'wearing the juice' -- even when no one else is buying our acts of self deception.  Turns out there is an entire name for this phenomenon: The Dunning-Kruger Effect.

As Dunning read through the article, a thought washed over him, an epiphany.  If Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.

Dunning wondered whether it was possible to measure one’s self-assessed level of competence against something a little more objective — say, actual competence.  Within weeks, he and his graduate student, Justin Kruger, had organized a program of research.  Their paper, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments,” was published in 1999.[3]

Dunning and Kruger argued in their paper, “When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.  Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.”

It became known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect — our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence. 

I highly recommend reading the whole series.  I think it has the potential to change how we look at the world, ourselves, and each other.