The Cuckoo and the Con-Man: All-American Schizoid Hypocrisy

Adapt or perish. It's the story of the genetic war called "life" which has been waged since the first replicators self-assembled. That doesn't sound very poetic, but "since time immemorial" simply does no justice to the true enormity of life's history. As far as this categorical imperative is concerned, it well and truly doesn't matter how life on Earth originated, whether by a magical sky-wizard, or extant life on another planet, or in our very own oceans. The fact of the matter is that there is a scarcity of resources, and a variety of living beings to compete for those resources; some of those beings will be more successful than others, and this success varies by generation depending on random mutations and environmental pressures, giving rise to the universal maxim that summarizes the struggle of life in three little words: adapt or perish.

Today I want to take a look at one particular ideology, that of the "All-American Republican." I use scare quotes because, in the first place, I just made up this term. In the second place, there is no globally accepted term for what I'm talking about: Christian, capitalist, conservative, and anti-intellectual are some of the chief characteristics of this mentality. "Red America," or throwbacks to the Deep South, or Arch-Conservatives, or whatever you want to call them. Behaviorally, this kind of person votes Jesus, supports industry, wants government to be big on business but small on restrictions and helping the little guy, takes science for granted while eschewing its "unfavorable" discoveries and implications, and thinks that unbridled and uncritical patriotism is a good thing. Rush Limbaugh, Michele Bachmann, George W. Bush the Lionhearted, these people are examples of who I'm talking about.

As for scope, I will not be talking about specific facts or events, but rather about a deep-running hypocrisy that I have not seen discussed before. Namely, the schism involved in enshrining the invisible hand of laissez-faire capitalism while at the same time decrying evolutionary theory. This schism is not only a source of inborn hypocrisy for all who buy into the two opposed tenets, but is also standing directly in the way of scientific, educational, social, economic, and political progress (basically every area of relevance to civilization in general). This is an argument from philosophical principle, not an attack on any particular person, organization, or belief system (at least, not any belief system that doesn't endorse these two specific values).

With that said, let's jump right in. The All-American Republican, as I shall refer to this schizoid pair of beliefs from here on in, believes that evolutionary thinking - the belief that life on Earth as we see it today has evolved by natural selection from previous forms - is inherently evil and drags humanity down. Ironically, this is correct in an important way, though not in the way that the All-American Republican thinks. The All-American Republican also believes that businesses must run free from government interference to form a solid backbone for our economy. While it is true that excessive interference can be the death of any business, what constitutes "excessive" (or even "interference") is a matter for vigorous debate. Laissez-faire capitalism coupled with some manner of morally-charged creationism: this is the essence of the All-American Republican.

As for their bioethics, the proposition that "evolutionary theory is morally deleterious" is intellectually bankrupt. Other writers have elaborated upon this idea at great length and with greater elegance than I can muster, and anyone likely to read this will probably agree with the point anyway, so I shall skip some of the formalities and simply summarize. First of all, ethics is what it is, and any serious philosopher can tell you this: ethics applies to us as ethics, no matter what our origin or ancestry may be, because we are human. The definition of "human" refers to us as we are today: we are the referent, and nothing will change that. Discovering facts about our history will not change that, whether or not a deity exists will not change that, and analyzing our ethics as evolved organisms in an objectively amoral universe will not change that. Second, no one and nothing may impart moral worth where none exists, nor can moral worth be eliminated on such say-so where it does exist. Whether ethics is real or not, objective or subjective, anthropologically universal or culturally relative, biologically necessary or merely contingent, that is the fact of the matter. No god, no king, no book or brain may change this - the status of ethics, whatever that may be, is an objective fact which may be discovered but not dictated. If atheistic worldviews are morally bankrupt, then so are theistic ones. Morality simply does not depend on a god's say-so. Say what you will about the factual support for evolution (it's solid), or its allegedly controversial status in the scientific community (there is none), or the lack of all-encompassing undeniable proof (that's impossible). Evolutionary biology and evolutionary thinking are simply not inimical to morality, no matter what the All-American Republicans would like to say about it.

On to economics! What the All-American Republicans don't seem to understand is that, without interference from outside institutions, businesses evolve and compete in an evolutionary way. As new businesses arise, old ones must adapt or perish if their source of revenue is in any way threatened. The "invisible hand" is nothing more than natural selection in the marketplace. Corporations change over time, either by changing their internal power structure, changing their employees, or merging with each other and splitting from each other. Looking at a corporation and all the various aspects of it that are subject to change, it's trivially easy to demonstrate by way of sorites paradoxes that, like the Ship of Theseus, corporations are fluid and evolve in ways very similar to the gene pool of a species (so similar, in fact, I can't readily think of a coherent and non-arbitrary way to distinguish the two types of change). Businesses vary and compete for a scarcity of money; they have differential economic success, and this drives them to follow exactly the same maxim as living organisms: adapt or perish.

In this way, I should hope that it is obvious that "let the market decide" is nothing if not code for "survival of the fittest." In a strong sense, the All-American Republican wants to see evolutionary values injected into the marketplace. This does not mean "values that evolve," it means "values based on the process and function of evolution." A quick note on the recent bailout debacle: asking for federal support without regulation is nothing more than wanting to have one's cake and eat it, too; my overarching point is unaffected by this doubly-hypocritical insanity. More on this later.

I mentioned earlier that, ironically, the idea that "evolutionary thinking is harmful" is correct in a way. This is it: letting businesses evolve in this way causes them to compete simply on the basis of resource acquisition; as businesses, in other words, and not on any outside criterion such as, I don't know, ethics. Businesses are measured as successful not based on which one does the most good for people, or which one has the most valuable product, or which one is the most environmentally sound (all of which are legitimate concerns), but solely on the basis of which makes the most money. While the creation of wealth is undoubtedly a good thing, as increasing the resources available at any given time certainly does no harm (all other things being equal), the mere acquisition of wealth in and of itself is amoral; to the extent that those resources are denied to "more worthy" enterprises (based on whatever system of ethics you'd care to dream up), this acquisition may be rightly termed "evil." Under an evolutionary laissez-faire capitalism, however, what makes an enterprise "worthy" of wealth is having wealth, no matter how it was acquired. Snagging resources, ipso facto, makes one worthy of possessing those resources. Just as the cuckoo proliferates in nature, so the con-man proliferates in an unregulated economy - and the Corporation, the Man, the all-monetizing consumerist mess of "it all," whatever you want to call it, it's just a con-man writ large. For businesses with questionable practices, corrupt leadership, and enormous profit margins, this is the best of all possible systems; businesses that seek to do well under any other system of ethics are institutionally fucked. And so it comes to pass that businesses make money based on how good they are at making money. While having a good product is certainly of no harm to such an endeavor, it is neither a guarantor of success, nor required for it.

Now we put this view - that driving the economy by evolutionary values is good - right next to the other view - that thinking of life in evolutionary terms is bad - and what do we get? A puzzling question: how can it be that thinking of the one in terms of such principles is bad, while doing the other according to such principles is good? The only defense I can think of is that, in biology, evolutionary thinking devalues humanity by making it no more special than any other form of life, while in economics, evolutionary thinking simply drives businesses to do well as businesses; there is a moral difference between the two (the former is moral, the latter is amoral), and so it's apples and oranges. This breaks down, though, on closer scrutiny. On the one hand, if humanity is imbued with some unfalsifiable deity's magical awesometude, then how we came to be (evolved from other animals, or shaped by hand from dust) is irrelevant to the fact that we have that magical awesometude independent of our origin. And on the other hand, driving businesses to be good as businesses, when divorced from ethical concerns, entails that we don't need to do business ethically (which you would be hard-pressed to get someone to say in public). But once again, the fact that we are human is what makes ethical concerns apply to us, not our status as divine creations or whatever - evolution cannot rob us of that, nor can a god imbue us with it. Ethics is independent of our origin. And while acquiring money is, as I stated before, amoral in and of itself, the effects of resource acquisition absolutely have ethical impact, which makes it a morally-charged matter. Insofar as this potential is actualized, economics is a matter of moral import. This cuts off their distinction at the knees: in short, I say to the All-American Republican, "The apples aren't really apples, the oranges aren't really oranges; they're all pears and you're an idiot."

Evolutionary thinking does nothing to devalue humanity's position in the cosmos, whatever that is. We are what we are, and however we describe the process behind how we came to be, our place is still our place. Describing our origin in terms of evolutionary principles does not affect this - if you think humanity's worth depends on the description of our origins, then you're quite frankly doing it wrong. Our place is a matter of value, and value judgments are ethical matters, while causal origin stories are purely descriptive statements of "is" and do not affect the validity of our "ought" statements (unless those oughts are bankrupt to begin with, as all divine command theories inherently are); these concerns are quite simply independent of one another. And when it comes to doing business, if we wish to be ethical businesspersons, then our economic practices should not be based on evolutionary principles: they should be, dare I say it, intelligently designed so as to be imbued with our own ethical values and insulated from the heartless forces of natural selection. Does this mean socialism? Well, yes, to a degree - and in a way that would make the All-American Republicans cringe.

So that is the essence of the hypocrisy of the All-American Republican: a resistance to an uncomfortable truth, and an enshrinement of an unjustifiable business ethic. The former is the evolution of humanity, the latter is laissez faire (or evolution-driven) capitalism. I mentioned earlier that there was a "doubly-hypocritical insanity" to the recent bailout debacle, and my meaning should be clearer here: their business models, as practiced in a wild environment (a series of naturally occurring - that is, undesigned - economic situations), got them to the point of needing outside (read: "unnatural") funding to avoid bankruptcy (read: "death/extinction"). Rather than accept the prognosis of cold natural selection, they asked for an intelligently designed solution to avoid an undesirable foreseen outcome. In other words, they were asking the government to think ahead and make an ethical decision, two things which natural selection never does by definition. What. The. Fuck. (Side note: be advised that this applies strictly to those corporations/individuals who both asked for federal bailout money and balked at oversights on what would be done with that money. I'm defining my way to victory here, not generalizing hastily.)

I also mentioned that I would show how these values are anti-progressive: by eschewing a descriptive account of natural history based on evidence and rational inference (namely, evolution), the All-American Republican's values are holding back education and science, with all that that entails. And by enshrining a naturally evolving economy rather than taking steps towards an intelligently designed one (that is, by insisting on laissez-faire capitalism), business is effectively prohibited from becoming ethical because they won't allow an artifical and ethical system to take root, forcing us to accept the ebb and flow of natural economic tides rather than work on designing our own for long-term stability and ethical soundness. (An ethical economy must be artificial, because nature has no inherent ethics aside from "adapt or perish" - and even that only applies if you don't want to perish.) Put simply, in order to run our country better, we need to drop creationist fairy tales and become more scientifically-minded, while also dropping our faith in the invisible hand of the free market to become more economically ethical.

All-American Republicanism, as I have labeled and described it, is by no means the only (nor even the first) source of these evils, but it is a stunning case in point. For endorsing evolutionary economics while decrying evolutionary thinking, this particular mode of thought cannot die out soon enough. Fortunately, All-American Republicanism is a memetic construct and, in the marketplace of ideas, is subject to exactly the same selective pressures as any other idea: adapt or perish. This meme is now in the midst of violent and embarrassing death throes, as any adaptation is seen as a compromise of moral principle (rather than compliance with one, as it ought to be seen). Whether by deliberate refusal or helpless inability to adapt, All-American Republicanism appears doomed to take a backseat to more flexible and survivable memes better suited to cosmopolitan life.

The Cuckoo and the Con-Man: a meditation on marketplaces

I had a constructive conversation with my boss at work a while back in the wake of the Wafergate scandal.  We got to talking about free speech, ultimately, and a parallel jumped into my mind.  Up until now, I've been unequivocally in favor of free speech, and unapologetically so.  I was thinking about the marketplace of ideas and how it needs to be open and free, and then I made a cognitive leap to the marketplace of actual money and our current economic disaster.  As it's important to question even cherished beliefs from time to time, I'll be exploring that today.

It would be great if we could just let the marketplace, ideological or economical, operate freely with zero interference, and everything would work out perfectly as a result.  However, that's just not realistic.  The dog-eat-dog, state-of-nature sort of unrestricted natural selection that Mother Nature oversees is precisely the thing from which Civilization has been trying to protect us, because Mother Nature is a heartless bitch (see the is-ought problem).  A splendid, multifaceted, wondrous and downright hot heartless bitch, but a heartless bitch nonetheless.  For all that reciprocal altruism and mutually-beneficial cooperation are naturally encouraged, there is still room for the cuckoo - not every cuckoo gets away with it, but enough do.  Similarly, con-men are often exposed as the frauds they are, but not always, and many get away with it.

There is no straightforward demand for con-men in the economy, nor is there a need for cuckoos in the biosphere.  They do not satisfy any needs or desires.  They survive not by contributing, but by exploiting available opportunities at the expense of others in the community (the pocketbooks of the gullible and the genuine progeny of other birds, respectively).  Con-men do not create wealth, cuckoos do not fill a niche; both survive by skimming off the top of a system that would, on any analysis, be better off without them.

Con-men are outlawed from existence, cuckoo eggs are killed when discovered.  Similarly, in the marketplace of ideas, there are harmful ones that do not contribute to humanity, but instead drag the system down, surviving only by the grace of their betters which got us, as a species, this far in the first place.  Slander and libel are the obvious ones:  these kinds of ideas so egregiously detract from discourse that they are banned from the process entirely, and prosecuted when discovered.  Threats, too, are not allowed into the marketplace, because they accomplish nothing aside from indicating that a certain crime is likely to occur.

But is it enough?

As with the economy, excessive regulation breeds tyranny and oppression, suffocating legitimate contributions and generally doing more harm than good.  But how much constitutes "excessive," and who gets to draw that line?  When speaking of liberties, I think a good principle is that people should be left as free as possible, with regulations only applied when someone else is harmed - as Jefferson said, "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others."  So let's look at the consequences, shall we?

Economic collapse can ensue, as history shows, from either too much or too little regulation.  Too much, and there is no incentive to tease the motivations that drive us into action; too little, and short-sighted greed will win out over long-term stability.  Even in nature, animals can eat themselves into extinction if the blind watchmaker crafts too prolific a form.  We have not yet seen what total ecological collapse looks like from the inside (yes, we are inside the ecosphere, and just as much a part of nature as everything else), we have only been able to look back upon past catastrophes foisted upon our tiny blue bubble.  What is good in the long run, what is often called "the right thing to do," can often be a thin line walked carefully between two extremes.

What would a collapse of the marketplace of ideas look like?  What would the proper analogue be, exactly?  Cultural stagnation, even regression, could follow from over-regulation, as only the blandest and most insipid fare could pass the test of too many timid cooks objecting to flavors they dislike, instead of sucking it up and just eating a different meal.  There is no single thing that will fail to offend absolutely everyone - I, for one, find the bland to be offensive for precisely the reason that it cowers behind political correctness at the expense of thought-provoking content.  It drains ideas of their power in the name of coddling people like children who can't be trusted to think for themselves.  It is an insult of enormous magnitude:  you can't be trusted with this thought, but we can administer your thoughts by filtering what we decide is or is not appropriate.  I'll take a pass on that, and to hell with you for offering!

But what would excessive deregulation cause?  Not in advertising, mind you - that falls under the purview of the economy.  Hmm... now that I think about it, perhaps not.  All media, after all, has economic roots.  Maybe that's not a fair distinction to make.  But that's a topic for another day, the matter at hand is whether our current system permits too-free speech, and how the marketplace of ideas could conceivably thereby collapse.  Leaving aside slander, libel, and false advertising claims, what are the dangers of unregulated discourse?  How bad could it possibly get?  I've been staring at my screen, trying to imagine something - anything - but the only thing I can come up with is:  feelings get hurt.

Cry more, why don't you?

Ideas are not a resource like money or food is a resource:  they are not consumed or spent, but can only spread or stagnate.  False advertising claims, slander, libel; these have all been outlawed from our marketplace of ideas¹, and I think that's enough.  There are particularly nasty and infectious ideas that will no doubt spread regardless of any other merits, but the way to combat them is not to censor them like the child on the playground who thinks words are magic and says, "Ooh, you can't say that!"  Rather than censoring them, we should let them fend for themselves just like any other idea, because the idea that they're precious and oh-so-special is itself just another idea, and for that matter, so's the idea that free speech is good.  Feelings will get hurt, to be sure - but you know what?  Offense is very different from actual harm.  A little alienation is good, every now and then².  Having your beliefs called into question is good for you.  Examining your thought processes is good for you.  Learning to deal with ridicule is good for you.  Being able to take a joke is good for you.

And, perhaps most importantly of all, learning to get along with those who disagree with you, sharing your ideas and staying civil with each other, is good for you.

Too much of anything is bad for you, of course, and the same applies to all of the above.  We should not perpetually question our beliefs, or we would be paralyzed by doubt.  Constantly examining our thought processes leaves us locked in the ivory tower, never acting in the world outside.  Too much ridicule can break the human spirit.  Too much jocularity leaves no room for Serious Business.  Having a ready defense of every single opinion is impossible.

And getting along with those who harm others, instead of helping their victims and working to abolish the tyranny du jour, is morally bad.  Just so this is perfectly clear, I'm looking at you, Saudia Arabia, Zimbabwe, Darfur, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, South Africa, Russia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Britain, and especially you, America - the way you grew up, knowing what you've been through, and now seeing what you're putting others through - what would your founders think?

Whoah, kinda got sidetracked there.  To the OnTopicMobile!

Actually, my diatribe gland is starting to feel a little dry.  I've looked it over, and I am again sure that free speech is not negotiable.  Freedom is simply too important to be held in check by the whims of others' feelings.  I think I can say with confidence that if anyone doesn't like that, they've got some serious growing up to do.

Notes:

1.  False advertising claims, slander, libel; these have all been outlawed from our marketplace of ideas.  Not entirely, actually.  This seems a little too easy, to be honest, but I'm going for it anyway.  Religion makes claims that it can't support; several make libellous claims about unbelievers.  I do not advocate book-burning under any circumstances, I'm just saying that in a religious context, we as a society still have trouble recognizing these otherwise criminal statements for what they are (or, perhaps more appropriately, classifying them more accurately as "fiction").

2.  A little alienation is good, every now and then.  Thanks to Peter Railton for this bit.  For more on this, or just to read a good paper, check out Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality.