This entry is a bit of a battle between me and the battery on my laptop...
The weekend was good, but slow. Saturday ended up being pretty much terrible so far as weather goes. My wife wanted to go shopping for jeans, but alas, there would be no denim purchases that day. We came back to Hyde Park, gorged ourselves on Thai food, did some work, and watched Elimidate. Sunday, of course, we had beautiful weather. Naturally, we spent the day cleaning the house and studying.
This quarter, I only have one course, and it's on Roman Republicanism. One thing that is realy interesting about the Roman Republic is that morality and religion were realy important. Religious sacrifices and prophecy were an important part of publc life. In fact, if an attempt at augury or a sacrifce was erred in any way, the whole damn ritual had to start over. Additionally, there were the censors. These were elected magistrates whose job it was to ensure the *moral worth* of senators. They didn't always do this job very well. But it's still interesting that such an institution even existed.
All of this churching actually made me recall Alexis de Tocqueville, the only French guy it's still OK (I think?) for conservatives to like. Tocqueville spends a fair amount of time talking about religion. He pretty explicity states, in fact, that religion is an important part of maintaining the integrity of the American republic.
Now, the Romans (implicity) and Tocqueville (explicity) probably both overstate the actual necessity of morality. Talking with a professor the other day, he argued (and maybe TheFuckOffKid can comment?) that Australia is a free society where "wickedness" reigns. I don't think he meant Australians were bad people. Rather, they are not given over to excessive moralizing, as seen by the legalized gambling and prostitution that exists there. Europe, in general, represents a whole slew of free countries that do not consider religion as foundational an aspect of public life.
But the connection between Rome and the US, both powerful and long-lasting republican regimes, raises persistent, nagging questions. Notably: IS morality important for free society? On some level, the liberal in me (both in the classic and modern permutations of the notion of "liberal") want to scream "Of course not." As a good liberal, I am inclined to argue that private behavior (as long as it respects others liberty) should generally have minimal impact on private life. In fact, focusing too much on such morality not only empowers the state, limint liberty, but it also can be detrimental to the public good. Thus, imaging someone is a brilliant public official, but is kept out of office because of their bedroom activities. That just hurts the common good, and is bad government. So, there is a lot to be said for the public/private split (despite what Pat Robertson and "public is private!" feminists contend). However, going the grain and digging deeper into morality and public life, I might argue there is a certain rationality to including moral components in public life.
Freedom is a pretty scary thing. Think about a liberal democracy - or even the republican assemblies of Rome. People are given some say in government. The state has limits on what kind of actions it can take; much of your behavior as a citizen is protected from any kind of intervention. This is a pretty unsettling thought. I mean, think about the jerk who cut you off this morning or the guy who makes a big mess of the counter at the coffeeshop. Do we want these *assholes* just running around, and making decisions about *government*?!?!?
This unease about the reliability of other citizens leads us to morality. Morality provides at least two "goods." First, it is a signaling mechanism: if someone is moral, or more accurately exhibits moral behavior such as attending church, we feel more secure entrusting them to publc office. Morality serves a *heuristic* function, to tell us about the character of citizens and representatives. Second, morality also lets us shape the public. By brining some moral/religios claims into publc life, we can help reform all the jerks in the world, or at least curb their tendencies. So, morality isn't just about conservatives shoving values down their throat - it might actually act as some kind of an information tool.
It's an odd mechanism. But voters use all SORTS of weird tools to make candidate evaluations - like considering how well they eat ethnic foods. These are not perfectly correlated measures, but it's a fair gues that if a candidate cannot eat a tamale, he's not real in touch with the Mexican-American community. In a complicated environment with imperfect information where each vote counts for very little, heuristics are not only all we have to go on sometimes - they can actually make perfectly (rational) sense.
Of course, it's an imperfect tool. People can *fake* moral behavior, and still embezzle from the treasurey. And morality is a problematic tool, as it can be oppressive when it forces particularistic and non-essential values (say like, covering women from head to toe) on disinterested parties. But, there is a certain attraction to it nonetheless. One thing that is so attractive about religion, in particular, in public like is that it is *visceral.* There are good stories about Heaven, Hell, and a whole group of people to press those values on you. This intensity makes the system work. Kant's "categorical imperative" has a lot of the same effects as morality. But, is anyone really GRABBED by it? People choose religion, and they follow it (much like nationalism). Abstract principles are a bit harder sell to the public at large.
In the end, what we see is that religion and morality in public life remaing popular not just because of some cultural mores from two centuries ago. Rather, they communicate something - they get at some hope for establishing responsible, responsive, and even *representative* government. This makes it hard to just shove aside religion in public life. But, of course, we need to get to that point - b/c religion bleeds into policy once you let it in, and that is illiberal. The goal, then, is to develop some *alternative* mechanism, like the categorical imperative, that is just as useful and powerful. But how that goes, I have NO clue.
The weekend was good, but slow. Saturday ended up being pretty much terrible so far as weather goes. My wife wanted to go shopping for jeans, but alas, there would be no denim purchases that day. We came back to Hyde Park, gorged ourselves on Thai food, did some work, and watched Elimidate. Sunday, of course, we had beautiful weather. Naturally, we spent the day cleaning the house and studying.
This quarter, I only have one course, and it's on Roman Republicanism. One thing that is realy interesting about the Roman Republic is that morality and religion were realy important. Religious sacrifices and prophecy were an important part of publc life. In fact, if an attempt at augury or a sacrifce was erred in any way, the whole damn ritual had to start over. Additionally, there were the censors. These were elected magistrates whose job it was to ensure the *moral worth* of senators. They didn't always do this job very well. But it's still interesting that such an institution even existed.
All of this churching actually made me recall Alexis de Tocqueville, the only French guy it's still OK (I think?) for conservatives to like. Tocqueville spends a fair amount of time talking about religion. He pretty explicity states, in fact, that religion is an important part of maintaining the integrity of the American republic.
Now, the Romans (implicity) and Tocqueville (explicity) probably both overstate the actual necessity of morality. Talking with a professor the other day, he argued (and maybe TheFuckOffKid can comment?) that Australia is a free society where "wickedness" reigns. I don't think he meant Australians were bad people. Rather, they are not given over to excessive moralizing, as seen by the legalized gambling and prostitution that exists there. Europe, in general, represents a whole slew of free countries that do not consider religion as foundational an aspect of public life.
But the connection between Rome and the US, both powerful and long-lasting republican regimes, raises persistent, nagging questions. Notably: IS morality important for free society? On some level, the liberal in me (both in the classic and modern permutations of the notion of "liberal") want to scream "Of course not." As a good liberal, I am inclined to argue that private behavior (as long as it respects others liberty) should generally have minimal impact on private life. In fact, focusing too much on such morality not only empowers the state, limint liberty, but it also can be detrimental to the public good. Thus, imaging someone is a brilliant public official, but is kept out of office because of their bedroom activities. That just hurts the common good, and is bad government. So, there is a lot to be said for the public/private split (despite what Pat Robertson and "public is private!" feminists contend). However, going the grain and digging deeper into morality and public life, I might argue there is a certain rationality to including moral components in public life.
Freedom is a pretty scary thing. Think about a liberal democracy - or even the republican assemblies of Rome. People are given some say in government. The state has limits on what kind of actions it can take; much of your behavior as a citizen is protected from any kind of intervention. This is a pretty unsettling thought. I mean, think about the jerk who cut you off this morning or the guy who makes a big mess of the counter at the coffeeshop. Do we want these *assholes* just running around, and making decisions about *government*?!?!?
This unease about the reliability of other citizens leads us to morality. Morality provides at least two "goods." First, it is a signaling mechanism: if someone is moral, or more accurately exhibits moral behavior such as attending church, we feel more secure entrusting them to publc office. Morality serves a *heuristic* function, to tell us about the character of citizens and representatives. Second, morality also lets us shape the public. By brining some moral/religios claims into publc life, we can help reform all the jerks in the world, or at least curb their tendencies. So, morality isn't just about conservatives shoving values down their throat - it might actually act as some kind of an information tool.
It's an odd mechanism. But voters use all SORTS of weird tools to make candidate evaluations - like considering how well they eat ethnic foods. These are not perfectly correlated measures, but it's a fair gues that if a candidate cannot eat a tamale, he's not real in touch with the Mexican-American community. In a complicated environment with imperfect information where each vote counts for very little, heuristics are not only all we have to go on sometimes - they can actually make perfectly (rational) sense.
Of course, it's an imperfect tool. People can *fake* moral behavior, and still embezzle from the treasurey. And morality is a problematic tool, as it can be oppressive when it forces particularistic and non-essential values (say like, covering women from head to toe) on disinterested parties. But, there is a certain attraction to it nonetheless. One thing that is so attractive about religion, in particular, in public like is that it is *visceral.* There are good stories about Heaven, Hell, and a whole group of people to press those values on you. This intensity makes the system work. Kant's "categorical imperative" has a lot of the same effects as morality. But, is anyone really GRABBED by it? People choose religion, and they follow it (much like nationalism). Abstract principles are a bit harder sell to the public at large.
In the end, what we see is that religion and morality in public life remaing popular not just because of some cultural mores from two centuries ago. Rather, they communicate something - they get at some hope for establishing responsible, responsive, and even *representative* government. This makes it hard to just shove aside religion in public life. But, of course, we need to get to that point - b/c religion bleeds into policy once you let it in, and that is illiberal. The goal, then, is to develop some *alternative* mechanism, like the categorical imperative, that is just as useful and powerful. But how that goes, I have NO clue.