In the name of the best within us

Reflecting the Light of Truth, Part 2: The Future of the Republican Party

2008-11-12T18:10:00.000-05:00

A certain individual recently pointed out to me that my blog needs attention, and that is certainly true. I have started work on several different entries, not knowing exactly in what direction I wanted to take the subject, so hopefully I'll have a chance to complete and post some of these soon. Until then, however, I think I will continue to rely on other people's brilliance as a means of creating the appearance that I am actually writing something of my own.

The big news is, of course, the election. I could write volumes on various aspects of the presidential campaign and its outcomes, but frankly, I just do not have the energy to do so. There is only so much effort I can put into discussing a political establishment so at odds with my principles, beliefs, and priorities without depressing myself. It will suffice to say that I was sad. I was sad, not because I felt that I had lost, but because I felt I had never been in the game.

My one real hope is that this sweeping victory for Democrats will finally drive a stake into the heart of the current Republican Party, a political organization that has morphed from the limited government principles of Goldwater and Reagan into a nightmare machine that seems to exist today for the sake of winning elections. I may say more about this myself in a future post, but for now, I think that Ron Paul's recent CNN editorial is the best expression of my sentiments. I can only hope that the Republican Party chooses to follow this advice and rebuild itself in the image of true individual liberty, rather than limp on as the bastard child of statism, social conservatism, and some dim memory of the speeches of Ronald Reagan.

Reflecting the Light of Truth, Part 1: Gold and Economic Freedom

2008-09-30T22:47:00.003-04:00

I've decided that, in addition to posting thoughts and essays of my own, it might be useful to direct people to particularly eloquent and substantive writing that has influenced me. There are some topics that I feel have already been written about with such clarity and insight that it would feel almost redundant to restate the same argument in different words. From time to time I will post links to such articles or essays. These will usually be short, concise, and spectacularly brilliant, so I encourage you to read them.

Following up on my previous post, I've decided to provide a link to Alan Greenspan's 1966 essay entitled Gold and Economic Freedom. This is a particularly instructive and logical examination of why commodity-backed currencies are central to a free society and why fiat money is sought by governments that wish to expand their power and range of authority. I know that monetary policy can seem kind of wonkish, but that does not stop it from having a critical effect on a society's freedom, and Greenspan's explanation of the relevant concepts should be intelligible, even for those without a background in economics.

As you might know, Greenspan was once an active member of the Objectivist movement and a close associate of Rand herself. Of course, everything he has done with the Federal Reserve since then is largely a negation of the ideas that he presents in this article, but that should not detract from an appreciation of his original argument. Enjoy.

$700 Billion of Denial

2008-09-29T21:06:00.001-04:00

After many years of disappointment, the House of Representatives has finally delivered on the promise of representative democracy. Today, in an act of shocking political honesty, the House rejected President Bush’s $700 billion Wall Street bailout, a plan designed to protect and promote the idea that men, companies, and nations are free to act without regard to the consequences of their actions. I would like to think that Ron Paul cast the deciding vote. I may be overly optimistic about the reasons for the House’s decision, and it may turn out that a slightly different political compromise will be sufficient to push the bill through. Nevertheless, one thing is clear: the politicians depending on the illusory prosperity of the bailout for their electoral bids this November had a wrench of truth thrown into their machines, and I can’t help but smile at that.

The story that we have been told about the cause of our recent “financial crisis” is the same story that proponents of centralized government planning have been telling us at every successive problem for over a century: unregulated capitalism is out of control. We have heard that unregulated financial markets have encouraged wildly irresponsible speculation. We have been told that the only solution is to have the government (that is, the taxpayers) foot the bill and usher in a whole new set of regulations to ensure that banks remain accountable to the “public good” (or at least to those that claim to speak on its behalf). This is the exact same story that New Deal regulators told us at the height of the Great Depression, and it is based on the exact same lies.

Whatever may be open to disagreement, the following is not: neither the stock market of 1929 nor the financial institutions of today exist in a free market. Democrats in particular have been quick to point out the financial regulations that were lifted in the 1990s. But no major politician from either party has even bothered to mention the single most powerful regulatory institution in our government – the Federal Reserve. It is astounding that our nation, despite having thoroughly discredited wage and price controls, can still take government regulation of the price of money for granted. This is, of course, exactly what the Fed does and has been doing since 1913.

Through open-market operations (the buying and selling of bonds), the Fed artificially adjusts the nation’s money supply and provides indirect control over interest rates. The belief underlying this system was that if the government could control interest rates it could “fix” the business cycle and ensure continuous economic growth, regardless of actual market conditions. The truth, of course, is that temporary recessions are not harmful but beneficial. They represent the market correcting its errors and returning to a healthy state. Interest rates go up when lenders become concerned that their money is being used in overly-risky investments, which leads them to demand a higher return before financing future ventures. Bad assets get liquidated, firms that were engaged in unprofitable ventures go out of business, and the market returns to a productive level of output.

The problem is when the Fed follows an “easy credit” policy in an effort to ensure everlasting growth. Instead of letting interest rates rise to correct for bad investments, the Fed prints money and buys bonds, thus providing a downward pressure on interest rates and encouraging more risky investments. In the short run, this can create the appearance of prosperity because the immediate effect is to expand investments rather than curtail them. (The “wild speculation” of the 1920s was due precisely to this kind of regulation, not any natural flaw in free capital markets.)

However, reality eventually catches up with all systems, and the question is only how devastating the results will be when it does. The Great Depression is a testament to how bad this can be, but it is also a testament to what happens when we refuse to identify the actual causes of such problems. No honest economist can deny that the wage and price regulations of the New Deal only made the Depression longer and more severe, yet our society persists in the absurd notion that capitalism somehow “caused” the Great Depression and that socialism “fixed” it.

We are seeing the exact same pattern repeat today. Capitalism is being blamed for encouraging bad investments when in fact the incentives for these investments came from the Federal Reserve and other regulations effectively promising that the government (again, the taxpayers) would make good on bad debt. Instead of recognizing the true cause of the problem, politicians are mumbling about the need for more regulations and proposing a bailout plan specifically designed to keep the bad assets from being liquidated and to keep prices from dropping to their market levels.

The political incentive for this plan is quite clear, of course. The appearance of prosperity right before an election is a goldmine to anyone seeking office, and most citizens lack sufficient knowledge of the Fed to question their representatives. If the political motivations for this plan were not clear enough, observe the frenzy with which both major parties and their candidates blamed each other for the failed vote in the House rather than address substantive concerns with the bill. It is certainly true that there will be costs regardless of what ends up happening. Without the bailout, we should expect a mild recession for perhaps a year. But the doomsday scenario that all of our major politicians are threatening us with if we do not pass their bill is exactly what we can expect if we do continue to go along with their plan. I cannot say what led the House to put the brakes on this scheme, but I can only hope it lasts. Otherwise, the only thing we have to look forward to is a giant “I told you so”.

Was Moses A Republican?

2008-09-27T17:14:00.001-04:00

Whoever has seen The Ten Commandments would be hard pressed to forget the scene where Charlton Heston’s Moses spurns the seductions of Pharaoh’s court and famously retorts back: “Man shall be ruled by law – not by the will of other men.” Whose mind doesn’t proudly nod in support of this brave stand against injustice? Whose heart doesn’t swell when Moses frees the Hebrews and unleashes the wrath of God upon the tyranny of Egypt? More importantly, however, who, upon hearing the story of Exodus, thinks to himself, “Well, Moses must have been a Republican”? The correct answer to this last question is, of course, no one. Yet that is not the answer that modern political discourse would suggest.

Liberal democracies uphold the rule of law as a basic principle of free government because it prohibits the state from exercising power in conflict with the free deliberation of its citizens. There is, of course, honest disagreement about exactly what constitutes respect for the law, especially from the judiciary. Some contend that the rule of law and the Constitution demand faithful and objective adherence by judges to the text of laws. Others claim that law will always be ambiguous and that judges show respect for the law by interpreting it in light of its history, purposes, and policy consequences. But whichever side of the issue one falls on, the question itself will never be meaningfully addressed as long as it arises in the mindless squables of Red vs. Blue politics.

American political labels are tricky enough to begin with – after all, those who adhere with firm consistency to the principles of limited government may be unsure whether to call themselves liberals, conservatives, or neither. However, even taking Republican “conservatism” and Democratic “liberalism” for what they are, we need to acknowledge that the current debate over the judiciary became part of this conflict by sheer dumb luck. It just so happens that, in the outcomes of several high profile cases in the past fifty years, the philosophy of judicial objectivity coincided with the desired “conservative” outcomes. Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut, and District of Columbia v. Heller spring to mind as examples (cases respectively dealing with abortion, privacy, and gun ownership). These cases have probably generated conservative support for judicial objectivity, and the judges who issued the “conservative-friendly” rulings were often conservatives themselves. But this does not justify the belief that there is any necessary connection between textualism and the American right, except on purely political grounds.

Both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for propagating misconceptions about this question. How often have we heard those on the left decry “conservative judges” for opposing “social progress” or for wanting to “impose conservative ideology” on the populace? Is it really so hard to imagine someone who believes that the law should say one thing but actually says another? By non-political standards, it should not be strange to find individuals who support abortion rights just as firmly as they disagree with the constitutional reasoning in Roe v. Wade. In politics, however, such a position is almost unthinkable. It may be the case that many textualist judges lean conservative, and there are likely many who fail to practice the consistency they preach. But this is no indictment of the judicial philosophy itself and certainly not an indication that the philosophy is “conservative” by nature. Remember that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, an early textualist, was a fierce critic of Lochner v. New York, which produced what was considered a conservative result. It is just as possible for liberals to uphold conservative laws as it is for conservatives to uphold liberal laws (and liberals and conservatives are equally capable of abusing the law for their own purposes).

On the other side of the divide, many social conservatives have been far too willing to embrace judges as allies in some kind of cultural battleground. A pro-life advocate can respect a judge’s opposition to Roe v. Wade, but not because of the particular outcome reached. I suspect that if states started passing laws legalizing abortion in all circumstances, many (not all) pro-life advocates would suddenly find themselves less supportive of neutral judges who respect the decisions of the legislature. This example is not meant to imply any broad criticism of social conservatism. I simply mean to remind conservatives that the philosophical justification for their view toward the judiciary needs to exist independently of any “favorable” results that such a view may have produced. The argument for or against textualism is not and cannot be a question of political results. The role of the judiciary is a question pertaining to the basic functioning of a democratic republic and how the rule of law is best respected in a free society. Those who choose a judicial philosophy because of expected political outcomes are in for a rude awakening when the political actors and objectives change.

The argument about how judges should interpret the law needs to occur, but it must occur outside of Red vs. Blue political conflict if any meaningful answers are to be reached. Democrats and Republicans who include their views on the judiciary in a list of bullet points like any other political position do a disservice to their own beliefs, whatever they are, and they reinforce false conceptions of the law in the minds of citizens. Politicizing the judiciary, whether by politicians, voters, or law professors, will destroy any attempt to have a real debate on these questions. It will only substitute rhetoric for reason and ensure that, in the end, elections matter more than truth. Moses might have been a textualist, but there is no reason to think he was a Republican as well. We need to stop buying into a system that pretends like one implies the other.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

2008-09-27T17:03:00.000-04:00

...don't really have very much to do with why I stopped updating my blog. Clearly, things worked out a little differently than I originally thought, and my grand exercise in political and philosophical writing didn't quite get off the ground this summer (although I did get through nearly all of the reading that I set out for myself).

However, keeping with the spirit of writing entries only when I actually am busy with other things, I've decided to start writing for the Harvard Federalist Society blog Ex Parte. For those that don't know, the Federalist Society is an organization for conservative, moderate, and libertarian lawyers and law students, based on the following three premises:

The state exists to protect freedom.
The separation of government powers is central to our Constitution.
The province and duty of the judiciary is to say what the law is, not what it should be.

Everything I post on the FedSoc blog I'll also post here. There might be a few things I post here that I don't post on the FedSoc blog, but mostly they'll be the same. I probably don't really have any "readers" left given that I haven't written anything in a long time, but if you do see this, know that I plan to start updating again.

From England With Love

2008-06-14T16:58:00.000-04:00

So, I meant to write this a few days ago, but just in case it wasn't clear from previous posts, I'm currently in Europe and will be gone until June 23. I'm in London right now, but I'll probably be out of contact until I return home in about ten days. Obviously I won't be updating anymore until then. I wish everyone the best in their summer adventures, and hopefully I will return to America with my life, my mind, and my property all in one piece.

Au revoir!

Campaign Finance and Civic Virtue

2008-06-07T06:04:00.000-04:00

Note to readers: Having laid out in previous posts the nature of this project and why I believe it is important, I have struggled a bit in deciding where to begin. There are several topics that I have not wished to discuss until laying out a bit of philosophical and even linguistic groundwork to ensure that I am properly understood. This has taken somewhat longer than I first thought, and I want to spend a bit more time editing and rethinking my entries before posting. However, in the spirit of keeping this blog active, I've decided to post a letter I wrote a few months ago concerning campaign finance. To allay any immediate concerns, this letter, despite its length, suggests a very simple and uncomplicated proposal. My point in writing it was to explain my philosophical and historical reasoning, not some elaborate, technical scheme. I hope you enjoy reading it, and I would welcome any suggestions on where my reasoning is the least convincing.

Senator (xxx),

I know how remarkably unlikely it is that you will ever actually read this letter. I have worked in the office of a senator, and I understand full well the practical difficulties of personally reading, much less answering, the bulk of correspondence that comes to your desk. I therefore address this letter as much to the aide reading this, whether he or she is a leading member of your staff or simply an idealistic college student seeking to understand politics a little bit better. I beg your attention for a few mere minutes and ask that you submit my words to your reason and your judgment, not for any personal wish of mine, but for the power of the ideas at hand and the hope that civic participation in the American Republic is not yet dead.

The subject on which I am writing is campaign finance. I want to state any possible bias on my part now by revealing that I think of myself mostly as a libertarian, which leads me to lean Republican more often than not. However, I do not think that the challenge of campaign finance nor the solution I propose can be meaningfully placed with the very limited left-right dichotomy of American politics. This particular area is, after all, not so much a product of politics but one of the means by which politics happens, and I hope that you will be able to consider my words without concern for whatever party identity they might seem to entail. To clarify, though I may use phrases as “my ideas” I do not think of these ideas as truly “mine”, as I am responsible not for their creation but simply for their defense and advancement. Additionally, though this letter may seem lengthy, my proposal itself is very simple. I have written these pages not to explain an elaborate technical scheme but rather to place my ideas in the appropriate political, historical, and philosophical context. Without such consideration, I doubt that good policy can be envisioned or enacted in the first place, so I beg my reader’s patience as I lay out my argument.

The particular facet of campaign finance that makes an easy resolution so difficult is its connection to the American notion of equality. We live in a society that strives to be perfectly equal in a political sense but decidedly unequal in an economic sense. The degree of economic equality may be a separate matter, but a free society recognizes that an individual’s talents and decisions matter in deciding where he or she ends up. Usually this distinction between political and economic equality is not complicated. While the rich may obtain more materially by virtue of their wealth, all citizens are limited to one vote, entitled to the same basic rights, and subject to objective standards of law. Campaign finance, however, raises a tension between these two ideas because in this case, economic inequality may also to political inequality. Resolving this tension without sacrificing economic freedom or political equality is the central challenge of campaign finance reform.

We probably all agree that a good campaign finance reform should eliminate, or at least reduce, corruption. The most obvious incarnation of this would be when one agent provides money to a candidate as part of a direct exchange for some particular political payoff – we call this bribery, and its illegality is hardly controversial. A subtler, and therefore more insidious, kind of corruption, however, is the practice of providing steady donations to politicians, not for any particular payoff, but simply so that the donors will have some leverage whenever a critical issue arises. This too is an undesirable arrangement. The problem is that there is a third situation, one that closely resembles the latter form of corruption in appearance but in substance is actually an expression of civic virtue. This case is the one in which citizens simply support politicians who share their political beliefs and priorities. Indeed, such behavior is the very purpose of campaign finance, if not the purpose of a republic itself. Therefore, a wise set of regulations will leave such donations unrestricted while simultaneously blocking both forms of corruption previously mentioned.

Before describing my actual proposal, I would like to first consider two approaches to campaign finance that are not capable of addressing the above concern. The first of these is the general status quo, which entails massive bureaucratic regulation, both of individual citizens and of parties, increased government spending on publicly funded campaigns, and a sharp curtail in the possibility of personal involvement with the political process. If there is one thing at which corporate executives and corrupt politicians have proven their talent, it is navigating bureaucratic loopholes. Increasingly complicated regulations on exactly who can donate how much and at what times, though perhaps a source of temporary frustration, will simply create a demand for more and more clever action on behalf of those that would cheat the system. The real victim is the citizen, whether rich or not, who feels a compelling connection to a certain politician or party and is willing to commit his or her own resources for their vision of the country. There are, of course, a great many possible arrangements within this general framework, some of which are likely much better than others. However, if history is to be a guide, we should see that the regulatory approach is at best a half-guard against corruption and a half-allowance of freedom.

The second contemporary answer to campaign finance, though better than the status quo, is still insufficient to address the concerns at hand. This proposal is one in which individuals may donate any amount of money (or at least vastly larger sums of money than currently allowed) to a candidate, so long as information about the donation and its size is made available to the public. Such an approach obviously allows for a far greater degree of civic participation but it seems unlikely that such a plan could fully address the problem of political corruption. Public awareness is indeed a useful weapon against crooked dealings, and it might be capable in this case of stopping the most egregious and obvious examples of abuse. However, the problem here is one of correlation and causation. An individual or group giving money to a politician who advocates friendly policies may represent legitimate support for an honest politician or conditional support for a corrupt politician. Even if the public were informed of all donations and had the capability to thoroughly examine every relevant case, situations would arise where reading the minds of the donor and the politicians would be the only way to ascertain the truth of the matter. Under such a system, the public is likely to both excuse corrupt donations and condemn honest ones. Therefore, this kind of approach to campaign finance is also incapable of both protecting freedom and prohibiting corruption.

If both of the categories of solutions described above are inadequate, what then is left to us? If history is to be a guide, we must recognize that the way to fight corruption is not to target its effects but to cut off the demand for it in the first place. This leads to the central feature of my campaign finance proposal: make campaign donations completely secret from the perspective of the recipient.[1] Consider the analogous situation of voting corruption in the Gilded Age of the late 19^th century. No amount of regulation or forced public scrutiny was able to curb the malicious influence of party bosses and political machines. The one reform that did have a tremendous impact, however, was the secret ballot box. The insight of this approach was that it targeted incentives rather than results. The ability to promise a vote one way and actually vote another removed the credibility behind such a promise, which, in turn, removed the incentive to seek such a promise in the first place. The same logic can be applied to campaign finance. To whatever extent donations are part of an actual exchange between parties, the incentive for such deals will be wiped out by secret donations, as anyone could claim to be a large donor and actually give nothing. However, those citizens that give because of their legitimate belief in the virtue of their recipient will still be able to do so just as freely as before.

Of course, there are issues raised by campaign finance reform aside from corruption, probably the most significant of which is the possibility that corporate and upper-class interests will exert a disproportionate influence on politics, even through entirely legitimate campaign contributions. It is on this question that people tend to split most sharply not on practical but on philosophical grounds. There is no simple way to resolve acute differences between those that fundamentally disagree on priorities, but there are nevertheless a few important considerations. First of all, America was founded on a strong tradition not of democracy but of civic republicanism, where those with the means and passions to better their society were allowed and in fact encouraged to take on a leading role in government. Why should the same not apply to campaign donations? Surely our society has greatly changed over the past two hundred years and moved more in the direction of direct democracy, but is the opportunity for what Jefferson called an “aristocracy of talent and virtue” entirely gone? If secret donations can take care of actual corruption, what is the real harm in allowing free participation from those who choose to do so?

It might be argued that the rich will advance their interests at the expense of the poor, but this is a limited argument for several reasons. Because you may not share my larger political perspective, I will leave aside arguments of a more political nature, such as the moral and practical benefits to all, even the very poor, if the rich were to support capitalist policies (capitalism referring here to economic freedom, not exploitation of the state by the wealthy). This is not what I wish to discuss here, and I do not believe my proposal depends on it. Even assuming a direct, inevitable class conflict in government policy, free donations would still not pose a threat to the interests of the poor. This is true for two primary reasons.

First, a large portion of the upper class leans heavily toward “leftist” economic policy and would provide a strong enough buffer to keep others from trying to exploit the system through strategic donations. The amount of financial support for the 2008 Democratic presidential candidates across all cross-sections of society is a testament to this fact. However, even assuming that the vast majority of the rich would want to exploit such a system, there would still be a massive collective action problem on their part. For any group or individual to ensure an economically beneficial policy under this proposal, they would have to spend much more than they would ultimately save from such laws. Profit from political corruption is lucrative when politicians know whom to repay; it would not be nearly profitable enough with blind donations. If economic profit is the only goal, the pure return on investing in campaigns is very low compared to legitimate market options.

As one final note in this regard, it is worth mentioning that money, however influential, cannot actually win elections. Only votes can do that. No one would deny the importance of money in spreading ideas, but money cannot buy people’s minds. It cannot buy the way in which people respond to ideas, nor can it transform lies into truth. In an open exchange of ideas, where all participants are freely allowed to compete in the public sphere, the right messages will flourish. The commitment to political equality in the first place rests on the belief that all citizens do have the capacity to think, reason, and ultimately decide for themselves. We do injustice to this concept and patronize the public if we deny them the ability to make decisions in an environment of free communication.

The most significant objection that I see to my proposal is the practical challenge of keeping recipients from knowing the identity of their donors without putting too much power into the hands of bureaucrats. After all, if a small group of people control the movement and knowledge behind huge sums of money, and if the public is decidedly not supposed to see any of this, there is a potential accountability concern. One necessary feature of such a system is for donations to be pooled into a blind trust and delivered to candidates in staggered intervals. This would eliminate the concern of identifying donors by matching the specific size of particular donations to amounts that they promised to pay. However, I admit that I cannot truly address this problem in full, as I have little understanding of the intricate workings of government bureaucracy. What I would say, however, is that the same potential problems seem to exist with votes themselves, yet our system seems capable of preserving both secrecy and integrity. I recognize, of course, that there might be important differences with campaign donations, but these seem like differences of degree, not of kind. I would have to yield to the expertise of those capable of deciding whether or not such a system is practical, but if this concern were adequately addressed, I do not see why this type of solution would not be ideal.

I also recognize that many would wish to temper the general nature of my proposal with other considerations, such as some kind of publicly financed component, additional restrictions on corporate donations, or some upper boundary, albeit a vastly expanded one, on individual donations. While I do not see such a need, I recognize the legitimate reasons to value such restrictions. I do not ask that you accept or reject my proposal as a complete package, despite my belief that it could, in fact, stand alone. My primary concern is only to provide individuals with the free capability to exhibit civic virtue as far as they see fit. If the basics of my plan must be combined with other elements pursuant toward this end, I would vastly prefer such modification to no change at all.

I know, of course, that this letter is likely one of hundreds that you receive concerning some grand policy solution. Many of their writers probably feel that their ideas would surely be enacted immediately, if only grasped by a judicious mind with power sufficient to push it through. I do not maintain such optimism, not for any lack of honor or wisdom on your part, but merely due to political reality. Assuming, however, that this letter is simply one of many like it that will pass in and out of your hands, I nevertheless hope that its message will stay with you. I implore you to commit these ideas to your reasoning mind, accepting or rejecting them not because of their relationship to the status quo, but because of whatever inherent worth you decide they possess. My goal is simply to reach out, bit by bit, to our political system’s last vestiges of reason and civic virtue.

Dramatic change does not usually happen until some crisis reveals the weaknesses of a system for what they are. Whether or not our modern political system is capable of addressing the roots of its own problems is an open question in my mind. However, if ideas like mine are not plausible within our contemporary framework, I have another goal. I want to do my part to see that the right ideas are developed in the minds of those who one day may have the power to reshape our system in line with our national values. As you, my reader, are as likely as anyone to be among these leaders, I ask only that you judge my words according to your own standards and consider the importance of the issue at hand. I could have written about any multitude of topics, but I chose campaign finance because of its fundamental role not as a result of but as a root of politics. This is not an issue that concerns conflict between left and right but rather one that reflects our national commitment to civic participation.

I remain, of course, open to any further dialogue in which you or your office wish to engage, but you should feel no need to respond if it is only perfunctory. I do not wish to take any more of the time that you have graciously spent reading my letter. I thank you for your time, your consideration, and your service to the American Republic.

Sincerely,
Jay R. Schweikert

[1] This proposal matches closely to one feature of the ideas put forward by Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres in their book, Voting with Dollars: A New Paradigm for Campaign Finance.

A Philosophy of Life

2008-06-01T05:17:00.000-04:00

In trying to decide where to begin writing, I was faced with many options. Were this page to be a comprehensive, ordered presentation of my personal philosophy, I would have begun with a discussion of my views on metaphysics, or the fundamental nature of reality. Perhaps one day I shall undertake such a task, but I do not feel I could do so competently at this point without merely reciting words which, while perhaps true, are not necessarily my own. However, what I do feel qualified to discuss is why a consistent philosophy matters in the first place. As a partial justification for the very existence of this project of mine, this seems like as good a place to start as any.

Philosophy is not something that belongs in an ivory tower. It does not belong to academics, to students, or even to philosophers themselves. Philosophy belongs to all thinking creatures. It does not require a Ph. D or a college education or even a particularly strong intellect to grasp the fact that ideas matter. It only requires a functioning mind. In fact, philosophy is not only possible to all individuals; it is also inescapable. Any individual can pretend that he does not possess a system of ideas, that he does not have a framework for looking at the world and himself, that he does not possess values, desires, or a means of making decisions, but, as should be clear, the very act of living requires all of these things. Man is free to deny the relevance of ideas, but he is not free to escape the consequences of such a decision. The question is not whether or not an individual should embrace philosophy, but whether he should do so consciously, purposefully, and with an understanding of the significance of the task, or not.

One of the most dangerous assumptions possible, yet one of the most widespread, is the idea that philosophy, because it involves abstract concepts, is somehow "detached" from reality or that it is "impractical" or "nothing but theory". Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. The whole point of philosophy is to act as a guide on that most practical question of all, which is "how should I live my life?" It is possible to ignore this question; it is not possible to evade it. Just try to make a decision without a standard for making decisions or pursue a goal without a standard of value for evaluating goals. You will find that it cannot be done. What can be done is to remain blind, by ignorance or by deliberate evasion, of the principles that govern one's life. No one can be practical without regard to theory, but they can be ignorant of the theory which they practice, and this is the precise source of nearly everything that is wrong with the world.

The importance of philosophy matters at both an individual and social level. For the individual, it is what guides him in his career, his personal relationships, his leisure time, his political beliefs, his aesthetic tastes, and his sex life, just to name a few. There are no obvious or fundamental ways of looking at these questions because they all depend on more basic ideas. It may surprise those who deny the relevance of philosophy to learn that developing an integrated framework of beliefs actually has many practical benefits. Sentiments like "the more I learn, the less I understand", "love is irrational", or "sex is just body chemistry" are only possible to those who refuse to integrate their ideas. The world may be complicated, but it can make sense, and it does to those who grasp the importance of philosophy.

At a social level, the outright dismissal of philosophy is both more obvious and more dangerous. Consider a political candidate who pledges to "avoid ideological extremes" and promises to "get things done". Getting things done has become a political panacea that is as common as it is terrifying because it ignores the all important question of "what things?" The right things, we are told. What are the right things? The things that help people, they respond. And what, exactly, constitutes the task of "helping" people? The answer today usually takes the form of "making their lives better", which means something like material sufficiency. But now this invites a whole host of questions that are rarely answered, if even posed in the first place. These include: for what end? By what means? Through what actor? At what cost? At whose expense? And, most importantly, by what standard?

Whether or not we articulate them, there are answers to these questions. The only way that we can pretend to be practical without regard to ideas is to accept the ideas of others without an awareness that we are doing so. A philosophy of "pure pragmatism" makes no sense unless it tacitly borrows some concept of what result would actually be practical. The central problem with contemporary political discourse in the United States is that practical questions have become all but divorced from their philosophical grounding. At risk of not offending anyone, political rhetoric promises better results in some form or another without discussing what makes those results better or what justifies the role of government toward that end in the first place. The cost of this, however, is that we are led into accepting leaders, policies, and entire organizations of government that we might very well reject if we knew the true premises behind them.

Of course, politicians pay passionate lip service to terms like freedom, equality, justice, and prosperity, but the idea that a political debate could center on the true meaning and justification of these concepts is almost unthinkable. However, these are exactly the sort of debates that must occur if American politics is to emerge from the present quagmire that so many sense yet few seem to understand. As the 2008 Presidential Election makes clear, change is at the front of everyone's mind. But real change will not occur until politicians have the courage to discuss questions of philosophy, and, more importantly, until citizens have the courage to listen.

As one final note, I want to add the clarification that caring about philosophy does not require one to become a philosopher. The recognition that ideas matter does not mean that one should spend all their days pondering "the being of being" or "how they know that they know they know something". Developing a philosophy of life is meant to enable one to live one's life, not to stop one from doing so. Furthermore, those that claim the title of philosopher are often the least aware of the relevance that ideas have in the lives of nations and men. Academic philosophers are as responsible as anyone for the growing sense that philosophy is something that belongs in an ivory tower, far away from the practical concern of day-to-day life. Leonard Peikoff, in The Ominous Parallels, offers one particularly chilling example:

In October 1976, three hundred philosophers met in New York City to participate in a Bicentennial symposium on the topic: "Philosophy in the Life of a Nation." According to The New York Times, their consensus was that philosophy is a technical subject of no practical significance. "Wasn't it extraordinary, [one professor] suggested, for philosophers to convene and solemnly discuss 'Philosophy in the Life of a Nation' when 'they have nothing to do with that life...'

The profession most responsible for today's collapse knows nothing about any part of it, including its cause.

The reassertion of philosophy will be a monumental task, but I am hopeful because I believe that just a little bit of success in this regard will be too practical to ignore. I have seen tremendous improvement in my life the more that I have sought to integrate my ideas, and I have witnessed happiness and misery in the lives of others to the degree that they do or do not do the same. The same will hold true on a national scale, as it has throughout human history. Of course, embracing philosophy raises the obvious question of what philosophy to embrace. The first step, however, is recognizing why such a decision matters in the first place, and if my efforts achieve nothing else, I hope they will be a step toward this end.

Summer Reading List

2008-05-29T15:21:00.000-04:00

Before I begin writing the kind of posts that I expect to become my standard on this page, I thought it would be helpful to provide a list of the books I plan to read this summer. For the first time since before high school, I do not have any real plans aside from a two week trip to Europe and a road trip to California. I should have a large amount of free time until I start law school in the fall, and I am planning on putting a lot of it toward the reading that I have wanted to do for a while but have not had the chance. I am open to whatever suggestions any of you might have. Here is what I have so far. I've divided the books up by category so as to clarify the topics that I am interested in learning more about.

1. Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Robert Nozick
2. Two Treatises of Government by John Locke
3. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand
4. The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul
5. The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek

As a libertarian, or classical liberal, or limited government conservative, or whatever you want to call me, I think it is important for me to be familiar with some of the seminal works on the subject. Obviously not all of these authors are saying the same thing (some vehemently disagree), but in some form or another, all of these works are positing a view of society based on individual rights, voluntary association, and strictly limited government. I doubt that many of these works will "change" my beliefs, but I want to have a good sense of the historical and philosophical grounding of my political philosophy.

5. The New Testament
6. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
7. Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas

One of the central tensions within my personal philosophy over the past couple of years has been the role of faith in human understanding. Objectivism, the philosophy to which I most closely adhere, holds reason as its absolute, and as such, rejects faith, religion, superstition, or mysticism of any form. Though raised Christian, I have dramatically moved away from the tenets of Christianity in the past few years, largely due to my exposure to Objectivism. However, there is still part of me that thinks a certain kind of faith (leaning perhaps more toward a Jeffersonian or Deist view of God), is reconcilable within a rational framework. Aquinas, who Ayn Rand actually respected a great deal, is the theologian most responsible for introducing reason and humanism into Christian thought, and Lewis is a Christian who spent much of his adult life as an atheist struggling with the same kind of questions that I face, so they seemed like good places to start. Additionally, while I have read most of the Bible at some point or another already, I want to read through the entirety of the New Testament with the perspective I have now.

8. The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff
9. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

These are two history books that I have wanted to read for quite some time. The first is an analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of Weimar Germany and their similarity to the political and philosophical culture of contemporary America. The second is a look at Lincoln's style of political leadership during the Civil War with an emphasis on how he managed the competing political interests of his day.

9. A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
10. The Political Brain by Drew Westen

This is what I might call the "know my enemy" section of my summer reading. Rawls' book is one of the seminal articulations of modern left-liberalism, famous for its discussion of the "original position" and its implication that the state should redistribute resources in a society to maximize the welfare of those that are worst-off. Westen's book is a study of the role of emotion in politics and offers advice to Democrats on how to appeal to voters.

9. Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
10. The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker
11. Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges by Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner
12. The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How To Get It Back by Andrew Sullivan

These last few are kind of a grab bag of different topics. I have wanted to read Aristotle for a while now, as he is effectively the founder of the broad philosophical tradition to which I belong. Pinker's book is something like "pop linguistics" and discuss the relationship between words and thoughts, which I have come to believe is key to true philosophical understanding. The book by Scalia and Garner is exactly what it sounds like, and I think it should be a fun and useful read. Finally, Sullivan is an English libertarian-conservative who, like me, has grown quite frustrated with today's alleged advocates of "limited government".

Anyway, this is what I have on my plate at the moment. This list is fairly prolific, even for a relatively open summer, but I want to go into next year with a solid understanding of this material before I get swamped by law school. (Additionally, it couldn't hurt to get into the habit of doing large amounts of reading in a fairly short time.) If any of you have strong suggestions that would fit into what I am studying, I will try to make room for them as well.

A New Beginning

2008-05-29T00:07:00.000-04:00

This page represents the first step in a project I have wanted to set in motion for many years. My goal here is to put into words the ideas and convictions that make up the core of my set of beliefs and to give these ideas some kind of structure. Much of the substance of these entries I have either written in part already or have spent the past few years developing in my mind and in verbal argument. However, I wish to formalize them here, both to have a clear and concise formulation of my thoughts and to see how they fit with one another. This project is as much, if not more, for myself as it is for any possible readers I might gather, but I welcome any and all to read, comment upon, and challenge my ideas. Indeed, I hope I will be lucky enough to stir up argument amongst my readers, however few they may be.

Most of the posts on this page will take the form of mini-essays on a wide array of topics, although a limited number will probably focus more upon my personal experiences, mostly to give context to the rest of my writing. Given that this is my first post, perhaps I should begin with some information about myself.

My name is Jay Schweikert, and I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. I just recently received my undergraduate degree from Yale University, where I majored in political science and economics. Outside of my classes, the majority of my energy at Yale was spent with the Independent Party (IP), one of the parties of the Yale Political Union (YPU), a student debating society. While I learned a great deal from my classes, it is the time I have spent arguing with other members of the IP and the YPU that has molded my thoughts and ideas into beliefs. My experience with these organizations has given me a passion for argument and led me to believe that true understanding emerges best from purposeful, deliberative conflict (which is why I hope my readers will challenges the ideas I put forth here). In the spirit of argument, this fall I will be starting at Harvard Law School, which I will attend for the next three years. While I certainly plan on practicing law for several years (in what particular field I am not yet sure), I do eventually want to be involved in politics. It is not clear to me whether this will mean working at a think-tank, as a writer, as a political consultant, or as an actual elected official, but I know that political advocacy is where I want my career to go. Of course, this raises the all-important question that goes to the very purpose of this blog, which is what I wish to advocate for.

It is no simple task to describe one's personal philosophy with both clarity and brevity. Indeed, the whole purpose of these entries is to expound upon that subject. However, I will attempt here to sketch out for my readers an executive summary of my beliefs to provide some context for the rest of what I have to say. While political or philosophical labels can often do more harm than good, it probably useful to describe myself as having been most heavily influenced by Objectivism. This is the philosophy developed in the 20th century by Ayn Rand, a Russian-born American novelist and philosopher, best known for writing The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand described Objectivism as "a philosophy for living on earth", and as such it covers all the basic branches of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and esthetics. For those unfamiliar with this philosophy, its basic principles are as follows:

There is an objective reality that exists independent of human consciousness. The fundamental task of consciousness is therefore to perceive reality, not to create it. Put simply, wishing won't make it so.

The means by which man acquires knowledge is through the exercise of reason, the conceptual faculty that identifies and integrates material provided by the senses. Man is a rational animal and capable of using reason to understand truth, but the exercise of reason is not automatic and therefore requires a conscious choice. Any means of acquiring knowledge outside of reason is flawed because it represents an attempt to fake the true nature of reality.

Every man is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others. He must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. He must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life. This does not entitle him to do whatever he wishes just because he desires it. Working for one's rational self-interest demands commitment to a rational set of values. The three main values Ayn Rand identified are reason, purpose, and self-esteem. The seven virtues she identified as necessary to achieving these values are rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, and pride.

Objectivism rejects the use of force in human interaction, demanding that men deal with each other as traders, giving value for value, by free, mutual consent to mutual benefit. Politically, this means an absolute commitment to the individual rights of life, liberty, and property. The purpose of government is to protect these rights and to use force only against those who initiate the use of force against others. Laissez-faire capitalism is therefore the only justifiable social system because it is the only one that fully honors a system of individual rights.

I first became exposed to Objectivism when I read Atlas Shrugged in the summer before my junior year of college, and it has profoundly shaped me since then. In homage to the effect that Ayn Rand's philosophy has had on me, I have named this blog after the final chapter of her magnum opus. However, this blog is not intended to be a treatise on Objectivism. Others have already written on this subject more clearly and eloquently than I could here. (If you are interested in learning directly about this subject, I would recommend Atlas Shrugged or Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff.) My purpose here is not to recite what I have learned but rather to explore the applications and nuances of my beliefs, particularly the areas I find most challenging. The influence of Objectivist philosophy will surely be clear in my discussion of nearly all topics -- my beliefs would be inconsistent were this not the case. However, my goal is to articulate my set of beliefs, not anyone else's. This task entails a combination of identifying where I agree with others, where I disagree, and, perhaps most importantly, how I think abstract ideas should be applied to more concrete issues.

I cannot promise that the structure of my posts will be entirely coherent or orderly. My plan is both to lay out a set of beliefs but also to capture the essence of ideas that come to me along the way. Hopefully these posts will make sense together as time goes on. I welcome comments, suggestions, and criticisms of whatever I write, and I am glad that you, whoever may be reading this, are here for the beginning.