As you all know from reading this blog, I eschew ideologically based politics as much as possible. I believe that facts, data, numbers, history and evidence should be the deciding factors in policy decisions, and that conservatism and liberalasim, and to some extent even centricism, are just excuses to ignore facts, data, numbers, history and evidence. To my friends on the left, I am frustratingly centrist, while my friends on the right see me as a raging liberal, though, in my defense, for some of these people the word "liberal" can be defined as "disagrees with FOX." But I see myself as a person who is shaped by evidencial information and little else. That self image has been recently challenged.
A lot of my information comes from the blogs that I read. I follow Mark Thoma, Ezra Klein, Paul Krugman, Brad deLong, and Jared Bernstein, who are all economists. For politics I have David Frum et al, and Nicholas D. Kristof focuses on international humanitarian concerns. Each of those, in turn has links to many many other sources. Last week Mark Thoma wrote a response to another blog from Heather Parton, who writes under the pen name Digby, who in turn was writing about an article by Chris Mooney, adapted from his new book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality, due out in April from Wiley. (Did you follow all that?) In this article, Mr. Mooney argues that the thing that I believe separates me from the liberals is in fact the very thing that makes me a liberal.
"I can still remember when I first realized how naïve I was in thinking—hoping—that laying out the “facts” would suffice to change politicized minds... It was a typically wonkish, liberal revelation: One based on statistics and data... Liberals, to quote George Lakoff, subscribe to a view that might be dubbed “Old Enlightenment reason.” They really do seem to like facts; it seems to be part of who they are."
Digby says: "Ultimately, this is about tribalism, feeling part of a group, being validated by it and thinking and behaving in ways that preserve your place in it. We all do it to some extent; we're social animals and we usually have a strong need to belong to a larger group. But how we process information is important and something that good political strategists understand instinctively.
The simple rule is this: if you want to persuade liberals of something, bring out the charts and spreadsheets. If you want to persuade conservatives of something, make them identify emotionally with what you want them to believe. And by the way, there's no such thing as "independents" who can be persuaded of anything. 90% of them are conservatives or liberals who either don't know it or won't wear the label and the rest are too clueless and capricious to be persuaded of anything."
This is the part where I start whining like Jerry Seinfeld, "But I don't wanna be a liberal." But then Mark Thoma comes to my rescue a little bit:
"So, for Republicans it appears to be more about signaling by taking extreme positions than truth telling. What I'm less sure about is the claim that the way to convince liberals is to 'bring out the charts and spreadsheets.' Perhaps, but I think emotional appeal is important here as well. What do you think?"
What I think is that one of my dearest friends in the world is also probably the most liberal person I've ever known. His Facebook is full of rather extreme posts -- opinions to which he is emotionally dedicated. Sometimes he hits the mark, frequently not. But I have been forbiden to comment on his posts because of my pedanticism. If I'm going to disagree, he just doesn't want to discuss it.
Paul Krugman is a self-described liberal, but, like Brad deLong, he has a very low opinion of people -- especially policy makers -- who let their ideologies trump the evidence (and the math). In his post This Tribal Nation he quotes Christy Romer from her speech laying out what we know about the effects of fiscal policy.:
"The one thing that has disillusioned me is the discussion of fiscal policy. Policymakers and far too many economists seem to be arguing from ideology rather than evidence. As I have described this evening, the evidence is stronger than it has ever been that fiscal policy matters—that fiscal stimulus helps the economy add jobs, and that reducing the budget deficit lowers growth at least in the near term. And yet, this evidence does not seem to be getting through to the legislative process.
That is unacceptable. We are never going to solve our problems if we can’t agree at least on the facts. Evidence-based policymaking is essential if we are ever going to triumph over this recession and deal with our long-run budget problems."
So am I a liberal? Compared to some, yes; to others, not so much. I guess it's really going to depend on how others see me. The thing I don't like about labels is that once you have one, people think they know what you think. But if Mr. Mooney and Ms. Parton are correct, then, well, I guess I can live with it.
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