Troubled Times

In response to my books post, commenter robert said: "Yes, it would be nice for politicians to realize that social problems are not so easily soluble, and that many are based in human nature and not changing political arrangements."

I think of that as the traditional conservative point of view, and while I'd probably prefer it to the nihilistic bloodlust and weird busybodyism of John McCain, that's not quite what I meant. What I was trying to say about literature is that I think it's a reminder that even if we halt nuclear proliferation, prevent catastrophic climate change, vastly improve public health, and maintain strong economic growth people will still frequently feel sad (or angry or frustrated or jealous or bored or nervous or whatever else) about this or that. Not because social problems are irredeemable but because social problems have a limited relevance to people's actual lives. I feel like that's the kind of thing -- the bounded importance of the entire politics 'n policy game -- that one can lose sight of the closer one gets to the corridors of power. It's not that I think we can't solve our social problems, it's that even if we did life would still go on, just as it will still go on if we make our problems worse.

Comments

Re Matthew's "it's that even if we did life would still go on, just as it will still go on if we make our problems worse. "
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Er..how about 30,000 Megatons worst?
http://www.parowanprophet.com/Nuclear_War_Comes/fallout_map.htm

Posted by Don Williams | June 2, 2008 5:39 PM

but because social problems have a limited relevance to people's actual lives

Maybe I'm totally missing your point but

Guess no one in your family has faced bankruptcy over catastropic health costs after losing their insurance because they got laid off when their job got outsourced. And if and when you do get the chance to get married to the person that you love and want to spend the rest of your life with, be thankful that that particular "social problem" has only a limited relevance to your life. And if your sister gets pregnant I guess the whole idea of having to deal with a coat hanger in an alley is only of limited relevance

Aren't social issues ALL ABOUT people's lives?

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | June 2, 2008 5:49 PM

Re Matthew's "it's that even if we did life would still go on, just as it will still go on if we make our problems worse. "
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Hmmm. What if our geese summer over with their Eurasian brethern in the Arctic and come back down in the fall with the sniffles??
See http://www.pandemicflu.gov/images/flywayNorthAmerica.jpg

Do we want Hillary in charge of healthcare for THAT?

If so, I envision a "You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie" moment for Obama.

Posted by Don Williams | June 2, 2008 5:59 PM

Ethel-to-Tilly, I think MY meant people have purely personal problems as well as socially-oriented problems; the meaning of people’s lives cannot be ascertained simply by evaluating the social conditions within which they live.

Matt, I think unconditional is a better adjective than nihilistic for McCain’s militarism.

Posted by jason | June 2, 2008 6:05 PM

Guess no one in your family has faced bankruptcy over catastropic health costs after losing their insurance because they got laid off when their job got outsourced.

Actually, that's a good illustration of the point that political arrangements just aren't particularly important. The vast majority of Americans do not suffer bankruptcy over catastrophic health costs. The problem is very limited. And the political reform you presumably seek as a supposed solution to this limited problem ("universal health care") wouldn't really solve it anyway. At most, it would reduce the risk somewhat.

Posted by Mixner | June 2, 2008 6:20 PM

To second Matt's point here, I think that the evidence for this is to be found over the last century of Democratic successes. Essentially, using government to address social problems largely was successful. In particular, the wars on poverty dramatically changed our society for the better. (Senior citizens, who were our largest impoverished group prior to Social Security, are now our richest. Poverty as a whole dropped significantly with the passage of the Great Society.) Our society is far less violent than it has been for most of its history. We are a people more a peace with each other, racially and otherwise.

But what happened afterward? Is everyone pleased? No. Contentment has led to focusing on new problems. I don't think it's incorrect to say that the Democratic party's biggest downfall in the 80s was that it had basically won its battles (except healthcare). It is only seeing a resurgence now that people start feeling those old discontents rising again.

There will be no flowers and roses for the victors should Democrats finally pass universal heathcare, even (and perhaps especially) if people like it. These things may even matter to them personally in their lives, but if Democrats manage to solve these problems, they will just then seem irrelevant.

Posted by Paulk | June 2, 2008 6:24 PM

Life may go on even if we elect Republicans, but it will be less worth living for the vast majority.

Posted by Jack | June 2, 2008 6:49 PM

To second Matt's point here, I think that the evidence for this is to be found over the last century of Democratic successes. Essentially, using government to address social problems largely was successful. In particular, the wars on poverty dramatically changed our society for the better. (Senior citizens, who were our largest impoverished group prior to Social Security, are now our richest. Poverty as a whole dropped significantly with the passage of the Great Society.) Our society is far less violent than it has been for most of its history. We are a people more a peace with each other, racially and otherwise.

I'd say improvements in the standard of living have had far more to do with advances in science and technology than with government welfare programs.

The big improvements in human welfare attributable to politics have come from the basic institutions and innovations like democracy, universal suffrage, and a bill of rights. Compared to those things, policy tussles between Democrats and Republicans over particular programs amount to fiddling at the margins.

Posted by Mixner | June 2, 2008 7:06 PM

I'd say improvements in the standard of living have had far more to do with advances in science and technology than with government welfare programs.

The big improvements in human welfare attributable to politics have come from the basic institutions and innovations like democracy, universal suffrage, and a bill of rights. Compared to those things, policy tussles between Democrats and Republicans over particular programs amount to fiddling at the margins.

There's hardly the space here to have this argument, but I find this kind of rebuttal a non-starter. Advances in standards of living do not happen in a vacuum; nor do they automatically explain why they would disproportionately affect one group over another.

To be fair, though, I haven't exactly put forward an argument to rebut, so we're just debating in the abstract. (I would say, though, that "democracy, universal suffrage, and the Bill of Rights, while certainly useful in the macrocosmic sense, seem utterly inadequate as explanations for rapid advances among particular groups (who just happen to have been targeted by the these programs at this time).

Posted by Paulk | June 2, 2008 7:24 PM

I'd say improvements in the standard of living have had far more to do with advances in science and technology than with government welfare programs.

The big improvements in human welfare attributable to politics have come from the basic institutions and innovations like democracy, universal suffrage, and a bill of rights. Compared to those things, policy tussles between Democrats and Republicans over particular programs amount to fiddling at the margins.

There's hardly the space here to have this argument, but I find this kind of rebuttal a non-starter. Advances in standards of living do not happen in a vacuum; nor do they automatically explain why they would disproportionately affect one group over another.

To be fair, though, I haven't exactly put forward an argument to rebut, so we're just debating in the abstract. (I would say, though, that "democracy, universal suffrage, and the Bill of Rights, while certainly useful in the macrocosmic sense, seem utterly inadequate as explanations for rapid advances among particular groups (who just happen to have been targeted by the these programs at this time).

Posted by Paulk | June 2, 2008 7:25 PM

Advances in standards of living do not happen in a vacuum; nor do they automatically explain why they would disproportionately affect one group over another.

I don't know how you think either of these bizarre statements implies that government welfare programs have contributed more to improvements in standard of living than scientific and technological advances.

I would say, though, that "democracy, universal suffrage, and the Bill of Rights, while certainly useful in the macrocosmic sense, seem utterly inadequate as explanations for rapid advances among particular groups (who just happen to have been targeted by the these programs at this time).

So does Social Security. After all, India has a social security program too, but I doubt you'd be very impressed by the standard of living of the typical Indian retiree.

Posted by Mixner | June 2, 2008 7:46 PM

Mixner, are you aware of the level of government funded tech and bio research in this country?

Posted by Kiril | June 2, 2008 10:00 PM

Damn, I got sucked in. Please disregard.

Posted by Kiril | June 2, 2008 10:05 PM

I think it's important to note that the importance of politics/policy is bounded only in reasonably stable and successful societies. On the other hand, in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s (just to choose the first example that comes to mind), the importance of politics was very much unbounded . In fact, I think there's a strong case to be made that the most basic purpose of politics is to make sure that life stays stable and safe to an extent that politics can remain relatively unimportant to most people's lives.

Posted by gw | June 2, 2008 10:14 PM

I guess my idea of social problems is more extensive than yours. An individual exists in society, and that immediately suggests a tension--between the individual's desire for autonomy and meaning and the society's desire for conformity and functionalism. You could think of this in Freudian terms, as the internalized tension of the id and the ego. This does seem to me insoluble. Similarly, I think it nearly impossible to strike a balance between order--a set of ideals and values that gives life definition and direction and is socially enforced--and liberty, which entails the right to buck the order institutions would impose on dissenting individuals. I think we deceive ourselves to think that America, a country which solves so many problems by imprisoning them, has come anywhere close to resolving this, a problem that does seem rooted in human nature.

Lastly, I would just like to make clear that I think public policy solutions to problems as pressing as global warming, a foreign policy one would think originated at Versailles, and the uninsured are necessary and possible, if still difficult. I did not mean to suggest otherwise. It's just I think these problems are the offspring of a culture I should like to see fundamentally transformed. I have no hope that this will happen. I feel like I'm hoping for band-aids to help a body, that while surely cut up, is also nearly soulless. And that's not hope; if you care enough to give a shit, it might be a placebo.

Posted by Robert | June 2, 2008 10:15 PM

Re Robert's comment "An individual exists in society, and that immediately suggests a tension--between the individual's desire for autonomy and meaning and the society's desire for conformity and functionalism."
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Actually, there is NO tension.

Provided you are an "individual" with a net worth of $1 Billion or more.

Just ask OJ Simpson. Or Ted Kennedy, come to think of it. Marc Rich. etc.

Posted by Don Williams | June 2, 2008 10:25 PM

The interesting thing about Matthew's post is that it seems to posit a sort of firewall separating the spheres of, I guess, one's 'personal/emotional life', from the sphere of 'social problems' and all that implies. Matthew apparently wants to stake out the high-ground rhetorical position of acknowledging that the former sphere may not be soluble through politics (because he is intelligent enough to realize that it cannot), while at the same time holding out the possibility (at least in theory) that the latter sphere is (because he wants to maintain liberal cred, presumably).

The reason this is interesting is that it seems to entail denying that the personal/emotional sphere of peoples' lives can be related to, even a primary cause of, social problems. (After all, if the latter can be resolved without resolving the former, the former cannot be a very crucial cause of the latter...)

Unfortunately, in reality I'm afraid the two spheres cannot be so easily separated. What we call 'social problems' are often highly traceable to these same personal/emotional problems writ large. If we can't 'solve' the latter, then....but now I verge on an unspeakable truth, so I must stop.

Posted by Sonic Charmer | June 2, 2008 10:39 PM

Wait, so you think we CAN solve our social problems?

Really? How? Become Iceland?

Posted by MNPundit | June 3, 2008 10:39 AM

Another surreal MattY post from inside the Beltway. Nothing they can do there will prevent rich people from being neurotics or imagining they are characters in an Allen Drury book. This is so far from the real world I live in it's almost unbelievable.

Matt, try to imagine you would only live to be 50. Would you be diddling around, dangling your participles with Little Miss Maybe, if you toiled ten hours a day for six days of the week, and thought that earthly paradise might end all too soon?

The readers of this blog, and perhaps Matt also in more lucid moments, know better. That is, after all, why we read- because we realize that the big policy items affect us in very concrete terms.

And this is the kind of stuff that brings down governments, renders vast industrial regions into wreckage, causes millions of people to flee deathsquads and conquering 'liberators', and resulted in widespread famines killing millions while the British ruled India, but saw those famines curbed and almost nonexistent since the Indians started ruling themselves.

For someone like Obama, Harvard may serve as a good prep school, but as a finishing school Harvard really sucks.

Posted by serial catowner | June 3, 2008 11:57 AM