Will Wilkinson just gave a really great research seminar about how to persuade people. Basically, the best way to get libertarian friends is to have libertarian friends. Failing that, you should try and match libertarian ideas to the ideas people already have (Will used the example of persuading someone with a strong egalitarian bent that libertarianism is the ultimate egalitarian philosophy). His basic point was that humans think in terms of teams, and tend not to make rational decisions about what they believe, and so therefore it pays to be a little underhanded when you're trying to persuade people to join your team. He's right. There's objective proof that indicates the success of these methods. That aside, it's fucking creepy. This led to a few thoughts on my part:


Will's comments really could've been generalized to just about any cult or cult-like orginization. He specifically mentioned tactics employed by the Moonies and Mormons. The question is: are we a cult?

I raised that question, and another question I raised was about the inherent value of "being right." It was dismissed out-of-hand, because, yes, obviously being right is good. Which is a fair point, I guess. But the thing is that there's really no way of determining who's "right" in a political debate. It's pretty easy to say that Russian Communism was a shitty way to run a country. But there's very little positive proof that your average political philosophy is "right." It is, more or less, the same as religion in this respect (remember in the South Park movie, when the people who've just gotten to hell are told that Mormonism is the true religion?) (Political philosophies are slightly more testable than religion, in the sense that you could just hand a country over to libertarians and see how it works out. That's never gonna happen, however). Therefore, the possibility exists that we, libertarians, are wrong. There's a chance that, were we to get our way, society would fail on a massive scale, millions would go hungry, people would die, etc. If that's the case, then there's a real chance that we're promoting an evil philosophy, and, as such, are evil people. This bothers me. I still think Libertarianism is the way to go, but I'm not sure I'm going to promote it as heavily as I have been.

The other thing I've been thinking about lately is the rationality question. The inherent rationality of the "average" person is a necessary condition for libertarianism to be successful (and, as such, even for it to be a good idea). The problem is, though, that I doubt that people (or, I suppose, The People) are sufficiently rational. Indeed, Will's whole talk was about how people aren't rational. (To be fair, the fact that people aren't rational about situation x does not necessarily mean that they're not "rational enough" for libertarianism.)

The real problem, however, is that, starting from the opposite assumption--that people can't really be counted on to make good decisions in aggregate--you end up in a kind of self-contradictory political morass. Democracy is right out, because if people aren't rational, a)they're not going to choose politicians wisely, and b)it would be ludicrous to assume off-hand that politicians are going to be rational, drawn as they are from the irrational populace. Practically every other political system fails also, largely as a consequence of objection b, above. How can you trust a king? A council? The only apparent way out of this is to remove the irrational component entirely by appealing to a Higher Authority (in the Hebrew National kinda way). But then you're right back where you started, at religion, which is the least empirical and most irrational system ever (indeed, one of the reasons I tend to like religion is because of its inherently irrational component.)

I guess the only guaranteeably good political system is one actively monitored by a super-human (and not in the Marvel sense) entity whose existence, rationality, AND benevolent intent toward humanity (or, if you were feeling generous, the planet) could be empirically proven. This, however, strikes me as a series of very difficult-to-meet conditions.


This realization, however, really only bumps us up to another level of difficulties. If what I'm saying is right (and I think it is, but it very well could be wrong), then the only rational political belief system would, in fact, be political nihilism. The problem with political nihilism is that it's hugely impractical, and also not very cool. People who claim to be without political beliefs really bother me, and I'm just not sure if I'm ready to take that leap yet.



"As long as I know right from wrong
I'll be OK, I'll sing my songs..."


-sam