Science and Politics

Toward the end of our previous thread, Lev took me to task for “lumping together” examples from three disparate fields, history, global warming and evolution, to show the propensity of certain present day conservatives to advocate positions that are fundamentally at odds with reality. Regarding history, Lev writes: “Interpretation of history, the way I see it, (please correct me if I am completely off the mark here) is unavoidably ideological. I remember our discussions of Orientalism, and how you pointed out the great role of ideology in interpretations of the relationship between West and East.”  But while history cannot, in Lev’s view, be separated from ideology, global warming and evolution, “belong to domain of empirical science, which is much less prone to ideological influences.”  Still, Lev notes a significant difference between these two fields: Darwinian evolution has been around for 150 years and is a well established element of modern biology. On the other hand, the science behind the model of global warming particularly as it relates to human causality is much less developed and remains a matter of legitimate scientific debate.  Unfortunately, Lev writes, “both sides of the debate have vested economical interest in its outcome, and, therefore, something that should be a purely scientific matter has turned into a political circus.”  Lev puts most of the blame for this on the “alarmist” side which has prematurely advanced preliminary and not fully confirmed results.  Lev considers it naïve to attribute humanitarian motives to the “alarmists” and feels that they have “set a very bad precedent from the point of view of the integrity of scientific discourse.  While I am not a climatologist,” he writes, “I have enough training to understand the complexity of the problem they try to model and the unreliability of any results in this area."

I would like to respond both to the general point about lumping things together and also to Lev's suggestion that history is always intertwined with ideology.  

What's wrong with Tea Party history?

 Note--Our previous thread was getting a little tangled with different topics, so I thought it would be helpful to separate the discussion of history as a separate posting.   Here's what I wrote:

Lev's previous post raised two questions, one concerning the nature of historical objectivity and the other concerning the specific interpretation of early American history put forth by the Tea Party. The first is of course one of the great issues in the philosophy of history. I'm happy to chime in with my two cents worth, but I think I'll save this for another time.

I do want to say a few words about the second question. First, some additional reading. I'm not a specialist on Early American history, so I don't want to go too deep in arguing the specifics. But Jill Lepore at Harvard has just come out with a book that addresses precisely this issue: The Whites of Their Eyes:
The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History. I haven't read Lepore's book, but I have read an article she wrote in the New Yorker, which I assume touches on many of the ideas in the book.

To tell you the truth, I actually found Lepore's article a little annoying mainly because she tries to do too many things at once. She is constantly shifting between the American Revolution, the present-day Tea Party, and the bicentennial events in Boston in the 1970s. (Incidentally, I remember these events very well. I was one of the 30,000 protesters at the "People's Bicentennial" at Concord in April 1975 that Lepore mentions briefly). In the midst of all this shifting around, her point gets rather muddled. But she certainly makes her views clear on the Tea Party version of the American Revolution, and these points apply to the link that Lev provided.

So what's wrong with the Tea Party view of history? First, it is simplistic. The Tea Partiers take a period that was rife with discussion, debate and dissent and homogenize it all into a uniform image of the "Founding Fathers" -- as if they agreed on everything and spoke with one voice. The tenth amendment is a good example of this. It's clear that there was intense disagreement in the 1780s and 1790s about the powers of the federal government. Yet the tea party enshrines one set of voices in these debates as dogma--this despite the fact that it was the anti-federalists calling for a weak and circumscribed government who essentially lost the argument.

My second point is that the Tea Party's view of history is tendentious. A conscientious historian, even when arguing a controversial thesis, will present the full range of evidence and craft an argument that accounts for all its elements. What the Tea Partiers do, in contrast, is to pick out of a very rich and diverse base of evidence the pieces that seem to support their interpretation. The link Lev provided is a good example of this. The author traces the debates leading to the inclusion of the tenth amendments and the adoption of the constitution. He cites several petitions from states calling for an explicit listing of the powers of the Federal government in the constitution. He does not, however, acknowledge the numerous arguments put forward in favor of a strong central government whose powers were implied but not enumerated in the constitution. Nor does he acknowledge the more nuanced position of some of the key figures. For example, he might have noted that Madison himself insisted that the word "expressly" be deleted from the phrase "powers expressly delegated" that appeared in the original draft of the 10th amendment. Clearly Madison believed that powers in the constitution could be implied and not explicitly listed. The positions of Alexander Hamilton and George Washington on these questions are barely noted at all.

My final point is that the Tea Party's history is "presentist" enterprise stemming from a need to create a usable past rather than understand history in its own terms. This is most apparent in the tone of the tea party arguments--the over the top polemics, name calling, empty rhetoric masquerading as argument. The author rails against "statist zombies" who are all wrong because "they don't know what they're talking about." Obviously this guy has a pretty serious political agenda and is drawing on history for support. This is understandable, but it doesn't make for good history. 

Why liberal arts are so liberal and is there an objective truth in history?

In his last post in the thread devoted to Matusevich's article, Nathan made a statement about the lack of professional historians in the Tea Party movement. I see it as an opening line for a topic that he suggested earlier: Why liberal arts are so liberal?

I would be happy to talk about it. The fact that this issue came up in Nathan's mind is admission of the fact that liberal art academia is indeed significantly tilted to the left (whatever it means). I found only two guys with professional historian credentials looking at history from conservative point of view: Larry Schweikart and Burton Folsom Jr. Thus, it is do not sound as much as a conspiracy theory to me, when conservatives including Tea Partiers complain about history being presented and taught from the left wing perspective. History is a tricky thing, and pursuit of truth in history has often been marred by ideological inclinations. You know how they say: the history is always written by the victors. Is there an objective truth in history, which has to be pursued? Is it a fair question, or I am judging history from withing a wrong framework? This is Nathan's turf, and I feel myself as an intruder. Still, let's talk, and I will try to behave.

Thus, to begin I have a question for Nathan's as a professional historian. Nathan, what will you say, as a professional historian, about this
article ?. What is wrong with it from the point of view of historical truth?

Limits on federal powers and pork

I was walking my dog after responding to the last Comment posted by my friend in our previous thread, and, boy, I was mad at him. I was mad because he fell in that very trap of declarations and expletives that we agreed not to fall into when we started this blog. I admit, I did push him slightly in this direction, but it did not make me fill better. Eventually, however, my thoughts wondered back toward the topic of our last discussion: 10th amendment and limitations of powers of federal government. This is when I realized that most of what I wrote in last several Comments was complete nonsense. No special Congressional Committee would help to protect states' rights. For several minutes I pondered an approach of the Tenthers movement that is bent on giving states the powers to nullify or declare unconstitutional federal laws. I, however, did not see how this idea can produce anything practically positive unless federal government itself is ready not to enforce the law being nullified, how it happened with California marijuana law. And then it occurred to me that I looked at this problem in a completely wrong way. I realized something, which is, of course, an obvious thing for real scholars of American Constitution, and which I also knew about, but somehow did not apply to the issue under discussion. The organization of the federal government with its two chambers was designed in this way precisely in order to prevent the encroachment of federal government on state rights. While the Congress is the instrument of federal legislative process, the Senate is supposed to represent the interests of the states. It is the Senators who are supposed to make sure that federal laws do not violate state rights.

This does not work, however, and the question is why? The answer seems to me quite simple and can be formulated in one word: money. It has happened in the course of history that federal budget has been steadily growing and the power of the federal government grew with it. Eventually, it enabled the government to buy even more power through bribes establishing a self-supporting vicious circle. I am not talking about bribing the senators or state legislators, because mostly it is the people, the voters and taxpayers, who were bribed and corrupted. As a result, instead of ensuring state's sovereignty and ability of its citizens to live freely and take responsibility for themselves, senators started bringing home pork, and were rewarded by the electorate for bringing in more and more federal money in the form of federal funded projects, federal financing of state projects, direct federal payments to states' budgets and such. Unless this situation is changed nothing can restore state's and people's sovereignty. The only way to change these ongoing bribery is to completely eliminate a possibility of pork barrel legislation, which would probably require reforming the structure of taxes. Thus I would suggest that all organizations and groups concerned with unlimited growth of federal power: Tenthers, Nullifiers, and others would direct there efforts in one direction - getting rid of pork. Once senators stop being elected on the basis of who is the best bread winner for the state, their job will be judged on the basis if they ensure that states have enough economic freedom to develop their own economies. Of course, there always will be some federal jobs and projects, but as their number will be severely diminished, they will stop playing such a large role in elections.

I understand that all what I wrote here so far is a declaration, but I suggest treating it as a hypothesis. The next step would be to look at the history of "pork" in American politics and check if there are data demonstrating correlations between electability of senators and their earmark activity.

Детская болезнь правизны

Maxim Matusevich has written an interesting piece about the political inclinations of Russian immigrants.

http://www.sensusnovus.ru/opinion/2010/10/31/1898.html

I can imagine that this strikes close to home and may not make for the most pleasant reading.  But I'm curious what you think.

After we talk about this, I'd be more than happy to have a discussion along the lines of "why are the liberal arts so liberal?"  In other words how to explain the overwhelming leftward tilt of American academia in general, and the humanities in particular.   But first, what about this childhood illness of Russian immigrants?  Is Maxim on to something?