Motivation

A commonly-stated goal of social protest is, in effect, to afflict the comfortable in the service of having them realize that there are afflicted among them that need comforting. This is something of a controversial tactic. Which makes sense, as it tends to fall into the same trap that Max Abrams recognized when he wrote that terrorism doesn't work. As people come to infer that afflicting them is an ends, not a means or a side effect, they can come to feel that they have to stand up to the protestors. Rather predictable, really.

In the case of the Black community in the United States, and their protests, this dynamic somewhat at work. The recent Republican National Convention could be cited as an example. What would need to change is that the discomfort that "mainstream America" feels needs to be triggered by the police violence and other injustice that is currently driving the protests. Since people are often motivated to alleviate discomfort, if the source of the discomfort is perceived to be a lack of justice and equality, that will be what people work together to change.

How To Social Media

And no matter where you go on the internet, stuff like this will be there with you.

Don't Ask

Given that the United States is primarily Christian, when people speak of a conflict between science and religion, they typically mean between science and Christianity (often Evangelical or otherwise Fundamentalist Christianity). Understanding that other religious traditions may see things differently, the Pew Research Center of Religion and Public Life asked a small group of Moslems, Hindus and Buddhists to speak with them about their understanding of the intersection (or lack thereof) between science than their individual religion.

It's a long-form read, and fairly in-depth. But, of course, it doesn't go into detail about every topic that it raises, and an area in which it left me wanting more was this:

A few interviewees thought one other topic should be off limits to scientific exploration: research aimed at core beliefs such as the existence of God, the heavens or holy scripture.

I admit that I find this curious; it wouldn't have occurred to me that this would be the case, and I wonder why it is. Frustratingly, the article doesn't say which religions the people who noted this belonged to. Personally, I'm guessing that the Moslems were in the group, but guess is all that I can do.

I find this to be something of an interesting divergence from stereotypical Christianity, at least as practiced in the "Western World," where the idea that "Science says" is used as something of a trump card in arguments, and so a scientific case for the truth of religious teaching concerning God, scripture, miracles et cetera is seen as a checkmate to non-believers. (In this sense, the conflict between science and Christianity is perhaps better viewed as a conflict between Christianity and the idea that certain scriptures and/or dogma are not based in objective facts.) The idea that scientific inquiry is off-limits strikes me as something that a lot of people would find odd.

I'd like to have a conversation for myself with someone who understands the world this way, in order to learn their thinking.

Unexpected

So we can now ad Kenosha, Wisconsin to the list of places that is seeing unrest severe enough to call out the National Guard after a shooting of an unarmed Black man. One of the questions that comes up in all of this is "Why does this keep happening?" Although, all things considered, it doesn't happen that often. And maybe that's the problem. These events are rare enough that they always come across as unexpected.

But when the response to two women arguing in the street is to send armed police officers, why are we not expecting that someone is liable to be shot? If there is a general sense among police officers that they're in constant danger and their firearms are their best means of defense, why are we not expecting that they'll shoot at the hint of the threat? If there is an entire group of people who feel that the only way that anyone pays attention to their problems is when violence erupts, why are we not expecting street violence?

Sometimes, I get the feeling that there is an expectation that people will ignore all of the incentives that drive these sorts of events, specifically because they are rare. Because most times, placing people in situations that have the potential to end very badly doesn't blow up in society's face, there is a feeling that the problem is the specific people involved, and not the overall incentive structure. But maybe if there was a greater expectation that things that can end badly will end badly, there would be a greater push to avoid setting things up to fail. And to a certain degree, that means lowering expectations. Yes, the expectation is that when armed officers arrive on a scene that doesn't call for the use of lethal force, they won't use it. But use of lethal force happens often enough that banking on that expectation seems like a bad idea.

It's reasonable to set expectations in line with the most common outcomes. But when there are unacceptable outcomes, perhaps it makes sense to set expectations in line with the worst case, and then start changing the underlying incentives to alter that worst case.

Watering Hole

The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might have.
George Packer "We Are Living in a Failed State"

The subtitle to Mr. Packer's article is: "The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken." This prompted me to ask a couple of questions:

One: When was it not broken?

Two: What do you mean, "revealed?"

I don't think that I've ever considered the United States to have a unified population at any point since I gained a reasonably adult understanding of the concept. I mean, there are people who still want to relitigate the Civil War, and it not as if there hasn't been anything else for large segments of the public to disagree with each other about since then.

Bland counterfactuals such as the idea that a different President may have been able to unify the country to address the SARS-2 coronavirus are easy to dream up. Actually understanding who this mystery person who should be in the White House might be is a completely different matter. Were Hillary Clinton the current President of the United States, one might reasonably expect that she would have handled the situation differently, and more competently. But the idea that she could have brought Red and Blue America together in a shared enterprise free of name-calling and vitriol strikes me as a pipe dream. Or it would, anyway. I'm not sure I can think of anything strong enough to cause hallucinations that severe that would actually fit into a pipe at the dose needed.

I've never been a fan of what strikes me as a Cult of Leadership, mainly because there seems to be an idea that once The Right Leadership is in place, that everyone else no longer matters. The motivations, perceptions and grievances of every other member of whatever organization, institution or jurisdiction being in question simply evaporate. But I've never seen it work that way.

Donald Trump was never going to be a unity President. The very people who put him into office, the sixty-three million (give or take) voters who marked "Donald J Trump" on their ballots in November 2016, for the most part, weren't interested in unity. It's hard to make the case that President Trump ran on a platform of bridging the rift between the partisan camps, only to walk away from that the day after his inauguration.

The idea that the public is composed mainly of followers who will blindly do whatever the right leader tells them to strikes me mainly as a means of shifting the blame. If the population of the United States wanted unity badly enough to work for it, I suspect that we'd be seeing much more active outreach efforts, and candidates for any number of public office who were running on their unity credentials. But overall, unity simply isn't important. There aren't enough people who see their interests advanced by national cohesion to pay the price that it will demand.

And yes, one could make the point that it's the role of a leader to make that case and show people the way. But is that leading the horse to water? Or is it, as I suspect, making it drink?