Despite the hard work done by community volunteers to improve their neighborhoods, they tend to come under fire for allegedly impeding economic growth. On Tuesday, Slate contributor Matthew Yglesias wrote an article about a frustrating experience with neighborhood activists in his community. It centered around a group advocating for a liquor license moratorium in their neighborhood. After reading his article, I thought it was only fair to give a perspective of the other side of this conflict.
I work as a community organizer in Omaha, Nebraska. One of the most successful and high-profile community action groups I have seen form in Omaha is the Alcohol Impact Coalition (AIC), a group of twelve prominent neighborhood associations working to increase neighborhood input on the issuance of liquor licenses in urban Omaha.
In 2010, a local Walgreens was applying for a liquor license. The local residents deemed this an establishment and location unfit for liquor sales. The city government agreed and rejected the application. Despite the consensus between the neighborhood and the city government, the Nebraska Liquor Commission overruled the city's decision and granted the liquor license. Thus, the neighborhoods organized and began the AIC and the Let Omaha Control its Alcohol Landscape (LOCAL) campaign. They have been pushing for legislation to allow for neighborhoods to decide when an establishment poses a threat to community values and have made some preliminary progress on this front.
According to Yglesias, these citizens are exhibiting "NIMBY stupidity." This characterization is demeaning and incredibly disrespectful to people who are advocating for a better community and neighborhood for everyone to enjoy. While his experience seems to deal with license issuance moratoriums, he has not seen the other side of the conflict where citizens who are not interested in the drastic path of moratorium but just want some control over who can sell alcohol in their neighborhood are being pushed around by state officials and corporate interests.
I think we can all agree that moratorium is a radical and excessive step, but there are communities across the country who don't mind a quiet bar that is involved in community affairs but find worrisome a bar that doesn't respect the community it resides in. Yglesias's analysis smacks of classic narrow-minded gentrification rhetoric. Redevelopment in our country's urban cores is going to be a key aspect of economic and cultural change over the next few decades, but we cannot push economic growth forward at the sole expense of the current residents. Residents need to be a part of the redevelopment conversation, and the citizens who band together in reasonable, moderate groups like Omaha's AIC should not be belittled on account of the beliefs of radical moratorium advocates.
If there is anyone who should be front and center in redevelopment talks in a community, it is the current residents of the community. Too often, government, business interests, and yes, pundit economists say they know what is best for the community without consulting with the members of the community themselves. As long as we continue to say we know what's best for a community we are not a part of, it doesn't matter if the redevelopers are public, private, or non-profit, they are missing the perspective for their redevelopment plan that is needed the most.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
Capabilities and Ethical Choice
“I believe that for all of our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.”
-President Barack Obama, January 12, 2011
In his recent essay, my friend Peter Hurford put forth an argument that continued his previous claim that there is no "rationally binding" code of ethics for human beings. His argument hinges on one major claim: that the differences that occur between individuals are too great to result in any clear standard of morality for all individuals. Since we have some aspects of our identities and personalities that are idiosyncratic, we can thus not establish any objective standard for rational moral behavior. This claim is not a new one, but it is one that deserves attention for the sake of showing its flaws.
The claim that people have too much variance to establish a rational morality fails in two main ways: by resting on oversimplification and ignoring the strong empirical evidence available.
To begin with the problem of oversimplification, Hurford himself admits that there are many "shared goals" between human beings, examples of which are "eating and sleeping."1 Martha Nussbaum puts forth a longer list than this in her book Frontiers of Justice. In her innovative "capabilities approach," Nussbaum puts forth a list: life, bodily health, bodily integrity, sense, imagination, thought, emotions, practical reason, affiliation, other species, play, and control over one's environment.
One can argue about what should make list (even Nussbaum does), but to say that there is no such fundamental list of capabilities that every human being needs to flourish denies people of their fundamental humanity. Without such qualities, it is not a stretch to say that we "cease to be human."
This leads nicely into Hurford's claim that knavery and sociopathy provide a challenge to morality derived from man qua man. Knavery, the word I am using here to refer to supposedly "immoral" acts that bring a satisfaction to the actor for their carrying out, seems to fit very well into Nussbaum's capability theory. What is fun about playing the ruthless baron in a game of Monopoly? It carries out man's need for "play," "practical reason," "imagination," "control over one's environment." This can be extended to a certain extent into "troublemaking" of a more serious sort, such as fraternity prank-pulling or April Fools jokes.
A counter to this claim could be that any human action can be drawn back to some capability. But the capabilities cannot be handled in isolation. While a night out for drinks for friends could provide for the human need for affiliation, night after night of drinking can threaten the capability of bodily integrity. It can be generally acknowledged that April Fool's pranks can be had in all good fun while still holding that some pranks would not be appropriate for one reason or another, possibly relating to the damaging of emotional or affiliation ties. This also brings us to the example of the sociopath. The sociopath's crippled emotional capacity and inability to affiliate with others cuts him off from basic human needs, thus holding him back from a moral life and a flourishing existence.
Further, Hurford claims that the diversity of human beings leaves mankind helpless to determine an objective morality. For instance,
The similarities uncovered by the capabilities approach has some strong empirical footing, as well. An important essay by psychologists Ed Diener and Martin Seligman finds strong empirical data that sociability correlates very highly with happiness. The long-held tabula rasa view of development is unraveling with new studies detecting onset of moral thinking at earlier and earlier ages. On the macro level, control over the political process has provided example after example of better outcomes for democracies, such as the fact that no democracy in human history has ever experienced a famine.
As I have said in previous posts, one does not need to believe morality is a non-natural property to understand that morality is objective and rational. One needs simply to acknowledge that man can only understand the world and thus understand himself qua man. And yes, part of our humanity is our individuality, but our individuality does not eclipse our humanity. That which divides us is certainly not as strong as that which unites us.
1 It should be noted that there is some ambiguity with the use of the phrase "shared goals." For the sake of this conversation, we are not referring to goals that individuals wish to achieve together, but rather goals that separate individuals happen to have.
-President Barack Obama, January 12, 2011
In his recent essay, my friend Peter Hurford put forth an argument that continued his previous claim that there is no "rationally binding" code of ethics for human beings. His argument hinges on one major claim: that the differences that occur between individuals are too great to result in any clear standard of morality for all individuals. Since we have some aspects of our identities and personalities that are idiosyncratic, we can thus not establish any objective standard for rational moral behavior. This claim is not a new one, but it is one that deserves attention for the sake of showing its flaws.
The claim that people have too much variance to establish a rational morality fails in two main ways: by resting on oversimplification and ignoring the strong empirical evidence available.
To begin with the problem of oversimplification, Hurford himself admits that there are many "shared goals" between human beings, examples of which are "eating and sleeping."1 Martha Nussbaum puts forth a longer list than this in her book Frontiers of Justice. In her innovative "capabilities approach," Nussbaum puts forth a list: life, bodily health, bodily integrity, sense, imagination, thought, emotions, practical reason, affiliation, other species, play, and control over one's environment.
One can argue about what should make list (even Nussbaum does), but to say that there is no such fundamental list of capabilities that every human being needs to flourish denies people of their fundamental humanity. Without such qualities, it is not a stretch to say that we "cease to be human."
This leads nicely into Hurford's claim that knavery and sociopathy provide a challenge to morality derived from man qua man. Knavery, the word I am using here to refer to supposedly "immoral" acts that bring a satisfaction to the actor for their carrying out, seems to fit very well into Nussbaum's capability theory. What is fun about playing the ruthless baron in a game of Monopoly? It carries out man's need for "play," "practical reason," "imagination," "control over one's environment." This can be extended to a certain extent into "troublemaking" of a more serious sort, such as fraternity prank-pulling or April Fools jokes.
A counter to this claim could be that any human action can be drawn back to some capability. But the capabilities cannot be handled in isolation. While a night out for drinks for friends could provide for the human need for affiliation, night after night of drinking can threaten the capability of bodily integrity. It can be generally acknowledged that April Fool's pranks can be had in all good fun while still holding that some pranks would not be appropriate for one reason or another, possibly relating to the damaging of emotional or affiliation ties. This also brings us to the example of the sociopath. The sociopath's crippled emotional capacity and inability to affiliate with others cuts him off from basic human needs, thus holding him back from a moral life and a flourishing existence.
Further, Hurford claims that the diversity of human beings leaves mankind helpless to determine an objective morality. For instance,
Going to the nightclub might be great for one person’s needs and what they ought to do, but definitely not right for another person. One person might accomplish their goal to flourish and self-actualize through community service, whereas it might be a rather miserable experience for another person.A diversity in the manner by which men exercise their capabilities does not refute the existence of capabilities in the first place. People can be rightly more social or less social, more playful or more serious, but the man who is always alone or always serious shows a distinct lack of humanity and fails to have the opportunity to flourish qua man. This does not mean that every man needs to like baseball rather than hockey or reading rather than gardening in order to flourish. A world in which every man must act exactly the same would not be a world where people were responding to their natures. We must be aware of the differences between people, but not let that obscure the significance of our similarities.
The similarities uncovered by the capabilities approach has some strong empirical footing, as well. An important essay by psychologists Ed Diener and Martin Seligman finds strong empirical data that sociability correlates very highly with happiness. The long-held tabula rasa view of development is unraveling with new studies detecting onset of moral thinking at earlier and earlier ages. On the macro level, control over the political process has provided example after example of better outcomes for democracies, such as the fact that no democracy in human history has ever experienced a famine.
As I have said in previous posts, one does not need to believe morality is a non-natural property to understand that morality is objective and rational. One needs simply to acknowledge that man can only understand the world and thus understand himself qua man. And yes, part of our humanity is our individuality, but our individuality does not eclipse our humanity. That which divides us is certainly not as strong as that which unites us.
1 It should be noted that there is some ambiguity with the use of the phrase "shared goals." For the sake of this conversation, we are not referring to goals that individuals wish to achieve together, but rather goals that separate individuals happen to have.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
The Origin of Ethics
On Wednesday, my good friend Peter Hurford wrote a short post on his excellent blog titled "Questions for Moral Realists." In this post, Hurford asserts that there are three categories of moral realism, with each category assuming the last. The first category, "success theory," holds that moral statements point towards a real moral standard. Success theorists who believe that there is only one "true" moral standard fall into the second category: "unitary theory." And the unitary theorist who argues that the one true moral standard is the only path for a rational human being partakes in the third category, "absolutism theory."
As someone who sympathizes with claims of moral realism, I decided it would be valuable to shed my perspective on this discussion. In particular, I will try to answer Hurford's three questions from his post:
(1) Why is there only one particular morality?
(2) Where does morality come from?
(3) Why should we care about morality?
I will begin with (3). Ethics is the science of choice. The fundamental question of ethics is "what should one do?" This is what grounds ethics as both the most practical and also the most fundamental philosophical field. While Descartes saw "do I exist?" as the fundamental philosophical question, the question that precedes his epistemological foundation is "should I concern myself with existence?"
The skeptic could take a step backwards and say "do I not need to know if I exist in order to ask myself what I should do in the first place?" One can see how the reasoning can get circular at this point. So the question that presents itself after this is "which is a more important question for me to consider, 'what should I do?' or 'do I exist?'" I tend to think that the pragmatic method needs to be turned to here. I can go on for years worrying about my own existence, but if I do in fact exist then that is time wasted and if I don't exist then there was not much to gain from discovering such a fact in the first place.
In short, my answer to (3) is that morality is something that we have to concern ourselves with first if we are to take part in our lives as human beings.
I will now backtrack to hit (1) and (2). Since I am now asking the question "what should I do?" The question of who "I" am becomes essential. Ruling out metaphysically interesting but practically irrelevant "brain in the vat" theories, I am fairly certain to say that I am a man, but that I am also different from other men. So the question arises: what do I owe to that of myself that is like others and what do I owe to that of myself that is unlike others?
When I think of how I am like other men, a lot of things come to mind. I share 99.9% of the genetic code of all other men. I need to eat, drink water, stay healthy, and I have a desire to flourish. This last piece is probably the most important of them all.
While I may like different sports and spend my free time differently than others, I share that desire to make my life worthwhile. While I was strongly resistant to this strand of moral philosophy until less than a year ago, I find it hard to deny that morality has an evolutionary basis.
If there is anything that has given human beings the ability to persist as a species, it is our complex system of collaboration. The ability of language and our capacity to develop society and hierarchy has given us a leg up on evolutionary competition that expanded the species from 2,000 individuals in western Africa to over 7 billion people across the world. This has occurred because human beings have rules that allow them to collaborate with one another and to respect one another within cultural systems. The ability to work together through problem solving to hunt, to specialize between architects, engineers, managers, and electricians to build a house, to replicate a system of agriculture from Europe in America, these are the social tools that have fueled our survival, and they are built on an evolved sense of duty, respect, and collaboration. Thus, this is my answer to (2): morality is an evolved concept that occurs within a species.
The reason I think this does not qualify as a case of the Is-Ought Fallacy will also provide an answer to (1). The question "What should I do?" has a specifically transcendental nature to it. This is because no one can ask the question "what should I do?" besides a human being, so who we are has a necessary bearing on what we should do. This is why Nussbaum's capabilities approach makes so much sense. As a human being, I have certain human needs. Those provide a constraint on my menu of actions that can allow me to flourish.
As for the categories of realism listed above, I would have to say that the above take on the origins and nature of morality take part in all three: success, unitary, and absolutism. Morality is a real concept that applies to all human beings and are a rational end to human flourishing. Is it a real concept outside of human existence? No. Does that fact have any bearing on that fundamental question "what should I do?" The answer to this is also "no." Morality is not "absolute" in a way that transcends humanity, but man cannot transcend humanity, and therefore morality is practically absolute. And in the realm of practice, that is the only thing that matters.
As someone who sympathizes with claims of moral realism, I decided it would be valuable to shed my perspective on this discussion. In particular, I will try to answer Hurford's three questions from his post:
(1) Why is there only one particular morality?
(2) Where does morality come from?
(3) Why should we care about morality?
I will begin with (3). Ethics is the science of choice. The fundamental question of ethics is "what should one do?" This is what grounds ethics as both the most practical and also the most fundamental philosophical field. While Descartes saw "do I exist?" as the fundamental philosophical question, the question that precedes his epistemological foundation is "should I concern myself with existence?"
The skeptic could take a step backwards and say "do I not need to know if I exist in order to ask myself what I should do in the first place?" One can see how the reasoning can get circular at this point. So the question that presents itself after this is "which is a more important question for me to consider, 'what should I do?' or 'do I exist?'" I tend to think that the pragmatic method needs to be turned to here. I can go on for years worrying about my own existence, but if I do in fact exist then that is time wasted and if I don't exist then there was not much to gain from discovering such a fact in the first place.
In short, my answer to (3) is that morality is something that we have to concern ourselves with first if we are to take part in our lives as human beings.
I will now backtrack to hit (1) and (2). Since I am now asking the question "what should I do?" The question of who "I" am becomes essential. Ruling out metaphysically interesting but practically irrelevant "brain in the vat" theories, I am fairly certain to say that I am a man, but that I am also different from other men. So the question arises: what do I owe to that of myself that is like others and what do I owe to that of myself that is unlike others?
When I think of how I am like other men, a lot of things come to mind. I share 99.9% of the genetic code of all other men. I need to eat, drink water, stay healthy, and I have a desire to flourish. This last piece is probably the most important of them all.
While I may like different sports and spend my free time differently than others, I share that desire to make my life worthwhile. While I was strongly resistant to this strand of moral philosophy until less than a year ago, I find it hard to deny that morality has an evolutionary basis.
If there is anything that has given human beings the ability to persist as a species, it is our complex system of collaboration. The ability of language and our capacity to develop society and hierarchy has given us a leg up on evolutionary competition that expanded the species from 2,000 individuals in western Africa to over 7 billion people across the world. This has occurred because human beings have rules that allow them to collaborate with one another and to respect one another within cultural systems. The ability to work together through problem solving to hunt, to specialize between architects, engineers, managers, and electricians to build a house, to replicate a system of agriculture from Europe in America, these are the social tools that have fueled our survival, and they are built on an evolved sense of duty, respect, and collaboration. Thus, this is my answer to (2): morality is an evolved concept that occurs within a species.
The reason I think this does not qualify as a case of the Is-Ought Fallacy will also provide an answer to (1). The question "What should I do?" has a specifically transcendental nature to it. This is because no one can ask the question "what should I do?" besides a human being, so who we are has a necessary bearing on what we should do. This is why Nussbaum's capabilities approach makes so much sense. As a human being, I have certain human needs. Those provide a constraint on my menu of actions that can allow me to flourish.
As for the categories of realism listed above, I would have to say that the above take on the origins and nature of morality take part in all three: success, unitary, and absolutism. Morality is a real concept that applies to all human beings and are a rational end to human flourishing. Is it a real concept outside of human existence? No. Does that fact have any bearing on that fundamental question "what should I do?" The answer to this is also "no." Morality is not "absolute" in a way that transcends humanity, but man cannot transcend humanity, and therefore morality is practically absolute. And in the realm of practice, that is the only thing that matters.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
What kind of people do you want to buy from?
Think of your favorite restaurant. Now think of what you like about it. Maybe it's the food. Maybe it's the "ambience." If you're a particular cheapskate, it may even be the price. But something that is important for almost any dining experience is that the hosts treat you well. Of course, there are exceptions, but a rude server can be the make-or-break component for a good evening and even a customer's permanent personal opinion of the locale.
This attitude doesn't only apply to restaurants, though. The appeal of good barber shops, bakeries, car shops, insurance salesmen (I could go on) is that they provide a good service coupled with a good attitude. In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins says that successful companies require people who are passionate for their work and believe they are providing a valuable service. This is more true than ever at the point of interaction between seller and buyer.
This analysis, though, clashes sharply with one of the most famous lines in classical economic literature. In Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Smith says "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
While some have argued that this statement comes a bit out of context, it is nonetheless a building block of our understanding of market economics. People create not as a way to help others, but as a way to get what they want from others. One incisive critique of this viewpoint, however, comes from Alasdair MacIntyre in his book Dependent Rational Animals. He imagines an experience in which we walk into a butcher shop and observe the butcher suffering from a heart attack. He says that our first inclination would not be to move on and find another butcher who is in more of a position to sell us meat, but we would rather feel compelled to find help.
While this is a good point, I would argue that it does not take so dire a situation to find mutual interest in a routine economic exchange. All in all, we are best benefitted when we are sold meat by someone who A) wants to be a butcher and B) we want to support. There is a certain value that we gain from supporting the community butcher instead of buying at Wal-Mart, something that goes beyond the quality of the good. The best economic exchanges are ones in which we not only are happy to get what we want, but ones in which we are also happy to give.
Economics is often presented as a zero-sum game, but the best economic transactions are not ones in which people rationally balance gains and losses, it is the ones where people collapse the benefits bestowed with the benefits accrued. This means that an economic transaction must be viewed as more than just a means to an end, but as an end in itself. Think back to your favorite restaurant. When they are at their best, they aren't serving you food because they see you as an instrument, but they are undergoing the essential Kantian moral obligation by treating you as an end yourself.
This takes us back to Collins. In Good to Great, Collins says that the most successful companies are focused on on quality in particular: excellence. While the classical economist says that profit is about Xs and Os, companies like Apple, Chic-fil-a, and Chipotle continue to defy this logic by putting excellence first and letting the profits follow from that. And they've done pretty well for themselves.
This attitude doesn't only apply to restaurants, though. The appeal of good barber shops, bakeries, car shops, insurance salesmen (I could go on) is that they provide a good service coupled with a good attitude. In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins says that successful companies require people who are passionate for their work and believe they are providing a valuable service. This is more true than ever at the point of interaction between seller and buyer.
This analysis, though, clashes sharply with one of the most famous lines in classical economic literature. In Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Smith says "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
While some have argued that this statement comes a bit out of context, it is nonetheless a building block of our understanding of market economics. People create not as a way to help others, but as a way to get what they want from others. One incisive critique of this viewpoint, however, comes from Alasdair MacIntyre in his book Dependent Rational Animals. He imagines an experience in which we walk into a butcher shop and observe the butcher suffering from a heart attack. He says that our first inclination would not be to move on and find another butcher who is in more of a position to sell us meat, but we would rather feel compelled to find help.
While this is a good point, I would argue that it does not take so dire a situation to find mutual interest in a routine economic exchange. All in all, we are best benefitted when we are sold meat by someone who A) wants to be a butcher and B) we want to support. There is a certain value that we gain from supporting the community butcher instead of buying at Wal-Mart, something that goes beyond the quality of the good. The best economic exchanges are ones in which we not only are happy to get what we want, but ones in which we are also happy to give.
Economics is often presented as a zero-sum game, but the best economic transactions are not ones in which people rationally balance gains and losses, it is the ones where people collapse the benefits bestowed with the benefits accrued. This means that an economic transaction must be viewed as more than just a means to an end, but as an end in itself. Think back to your favorite restaurant. When they are at their best, they aren't serving you food because they see you as an instrument, but they are undergoing the essential Kantian moral obligation by treating you as an end yourself.
This takes us back to Collins. In Good to Great, Collins says that the most successful companies are focused on on quality in particular: excellence. While the classical economist says that profit is about Xs and Os, companies like Apple, Chic-fil-a, and Chipotle continue to defy this logic by putting excellence first and letting the profits follow from that. And they've done pretty well for themselves.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Two Modest Recommendations for Gun Safety in America
After last week's horrific tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, the discussion around gun violence in America has once again been reinvigorated. While I have shared some thoughts on gun violence in a previous post, I focus this post on a more results-oriented approach as we find ourselves in the wake of yet another national tragedy. While President Obama rightly leaves the door open for a broad-based approach that includes more than traditional gun control and this tragedy again highlights the necessity of better mental health care in America, I will comment here only on the topic of gun safety.
First, a federal assault weapons ban must be re-implemented. The previous ban was put in place in the wake of the 1980s spate of gun violence, but expired in 2004, a year that had seen a decade of declining homocide rates. With the NRA on the rise and Republicans in charge of the Presidency and Congress, renewal did not have a chance. This coupled with the Supreme Court's controversial rewriting of the second amendment in 2008's District of Columbia v. Heller was a huge victory for gun-rights advocates and criminals alike.
The main argument of gun enthusiasts and the NRA for the preservation of assault weapons in private possession is that assault weapons are necessary for self-defense. Their defense of this claim, however, is rather weak. The only advantages an assault weapon provides over a handgun is more ammunition, faster firing, and more range, all advantages that are traded for a dearth of portability and ability to conceal. No, assault weapons are not tools for defense, but are, as their name suggests, designed for assault. The case has been made for restrictions on assault weapons and high-capacity clips and congress should act on that case.
The second proposal I put forth has to do with local control. The constitution was devised at a time when the word "state" meant something more than "province." Each separate state saw themselves as a substantial political entity; the nation-state of "America" had not yet become established. Thus, the 10th Amendment was born: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
While we still live in a federal system in which states have a strong role, we also live in a country where local divisions are even more relevant culturally than state divisions. The Manhattanite likely has more in common with someone who lives in downtown Los Angeles than someone who lives on a farm in upstate New York, and that farmworker in upstate New York likely has more in common with a farmer in rural Wyoming than a Buffalo suburbanite.
While America was born as a country with fairly even population distribution, it has evolved into a country of densely populated metropolitan areas and sparsely populated rural areas, all with their own needs. These divisions, however, are not mirrored in our federal system. In City of Cleveland v. State of Ohio, for example, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the City of Cleveland could not restrict gun ownership past the dictates provided by the state.
Rural areas often need softer gun laws to accomodate for hunters (who have an important role of controlling animal populations) to own guns. Urban areas often need stricter gun laws as a way to curb gang-related violence. The current system of state control often leads to a state consolidating its power by picking a loser between the two.
So here is my second recommendation: leave non-assault weapon laws to local governments and regulate the transportation of weapons at higher levels of government. After all, that is the role of the commerce clause. Democracy works best when rights are guaranteed through federal and international means and all else is left to be locally decided upon, through a fair and democratic process. This may mean more power to municipalities to the detriment of state governments, but state governments have a vital regulatory role that cannot be dispensed of. But overall, the role of health, safety, and morals is best dealt with on a more intimate level than the state can provide.
First, a federal assault weapons ban must be re-implemented. The previous ban was put in place in the wake of the 1980s spate of gun violence, but expired in 2004, a year that had seen a decade of declining homocide rates. With the NRA on the rise and Republicans in charge of the Presidency and Congress, renewal did not have a chance. This coupled with the Supreme Court's controversial rewriting of the second amendment in 2008's District of Columbia v. Heller was a huge victory for gun-rights advocates and criminals alike.
The main argument of gun enthusiasts and the NRA for the preservation of assault weapons in private possession is that assault weapons are necessary for self-defense. Their defense of this claim, however, is rather weak. The only advantages an assault weapon provides over a handgun is more ammunition, faster firing, and more range, all advantages that are traded for a dearth of portability and ability to conceal. No, assault weapons are not tools for defense, but are, as their name suggests, designed for assault. The case has been made for restrictions on assault weapons and high-capacity clips and congress should act on that case.
The second proposal I put forth has to do with local control. The constitution was devised at a time when the word "state" meant something more than "province." Each separate state saw themselves as a substantial political entity; the nation-state of "America" had not yet become established. Thus, the 10th Amendment was born: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
While we still live in a federal system in which states have a strong role, we also live in a country where local divisions are even more relevant culturally than state divisions. The Manhattanite likely has more in common with someone who lives in downtown Los Angeles than someone who lives on a farm in upstate New York, and that farmworker in upstate New York likely has more in common with a farmer in rural Wyoming than a Buffalo suburbanite.
While America was born as a country with fairly even population distribution, it has evolved into a country of densely populated metropolitan areas and sparsely populated rural areas, all with their own needs. These divisions, however, are not mirrored in our federal system. In City of Cleveland v. State of Ohio, for example, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the City of Cleveland could not restrict gun ownership past the dictates provided by the state.
Rural areas often need softer gun laws to accomodate for hunters (who have an important role of controlling animal populations) to own guns. Urban areas often need stricter gun laws as a way to curb gang-related violence. The current system of state control often leads to a state consolidating its power by picking a loser between the two.
So here is my second recommendation: leave non-assault weapon laws to local governments and regulate the transportation of weapons at higher levels of government. After all, that is the role of the commerce clause. Democracy works best when rights are guaranteed through federal and international means and all else is left to be locally decided upon, through a fair and democratic process. This may mean more power to municipalities to the detriment of state governments, but state governments have a vital regulatory role that cannot be dispensed of. But overall, the role of health, safety, and morals is best dealt with on a more intimate level than the state can provide.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
My Personal Experience in "Poverty"
For today's reflections, I'm going to go in a slightly more personal direction.
A week ago, I made a move from central Ohio, my home of the past twelve years, to Omaha, Nebraska, a city and state I had never laid my eyes on before and which is the home to my assignment for the next year as an Americorps VISTA. Partly from my change in locale but mostly owing to my lack of a social life here, I have had a lot of time to reflect on my new situation and what I am learning here in Omaha.
The main motivation for my interest in the VISTA program and this assignment in particular was an opportunity to deal with the problems of everyday people on the ground level and to gain an experience of empathy that I would not have had the opportunity to have from a week-long service trip or irregular volunteer visits to soup kitchens. VISTA is a federal program that places year-long volunteers in assignments that are geared specifically toward the goal of poverty alleviation. My assignment in particular is working with an organization called the Neighborhood Center, a nonprofit that helps build capacity for neighborhood associations throughout the greater Omaha area. Little did I anticipate that my experience with poverty would be experiential as well as observational.
As Americorps VISTAs, we commit to a year of service, but are paid a living stipend to cover housing, food, transportation, etc. That living stipend is set at the poverty level for the area we are living in. Thus, my stipend is $928/month before taxes. While this is low, I calculated rent costs for my new apartment in Omaha along with transportation (bus passes are provided through the program for free) and food costs and saw that I would be living on more than I did in college or in the time between graduation and the beginning of my tenure as a VISTA. It didn't seem like it would be a problem at all.
While in college, I spent half of my time on Pell Grant, a program that only the bottom 11% of students at Denison qualified for. Despite being in the bottom 11% of students when it came to wealth, I never felt like I didn't fit in or was limited by that status. For all that students make of class inequality, there is something inherently egalitarian about college life, especially at my school. Everyone lived on campus, so transportation was not much of an inequality issue. Even without a car, I did not feel terribly limited compared to those who owned one. We all ate in the same dining halls for three years. Housing was paid for at the start of the year, so rent payments are not an issue. I was able to get along fairly well with people with "rich" families and those whose families were not so well off.
Though I am only a week into my experience here in Omaha, I am already starting to see that "poverty" has a much bigger impact on your life post-graduation. The biggest place that I am seeing an impact is in transportation. While I could always hitch a ride with someone or use my parents' car in high school and I had three roommates with cars in college, I am now living on my own, a mile from the most frequent-running bus stop, during a winter that is just beginning.
What I am also running into is a lack of people to spend time with. While my landlord and the program have introduced me to a number of people who are friendly and willing to help me out when I need it, I still do not have a circle of friends here to have fun with and to depend on when I need help.
This experience is something that was touched on in our VISTA training a week before our assignments began. I recall our group facilitator leading a session on poverty, explaining that poverty was something that was experienced in a number of different ways. While we tend to emphasize income, poverty manifests not only financially, but also mentally, socially, physically, etc.
This message fits well with one that is put forth by Nobel-Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in his book Development as Freedom. In chapter 4, "Poverty as Capability Deprivation," Sen argues that poverty is often narrowly construed as a lack of income. This definition, however, fails to encapsulate the fact that someone can be impoverished even with financial resources. One example he uses to explain this is that of unemployment. Even if someone is able to be recouped the financial loss caused by unemployment, not being able to sustain one's self through employment shows a certain poverty of dignity that most would not want to subject themselves to. This is evidenced by the uneasiness we have when unemployed and being stuck with the question "well, what do you do?" in social situations. Poverty is not only a lack of financial resources, but is more broadly a lack of capabilities to fulfill basic human needs.
Another takeaway from this message for me, though, is that my poverty will never really reach the level of those who find themselves stuck in a multidimensional cycle of poverty. While I may find myself without a sizable income, without adequate transportation, and without a readily available group of friends, I still have a college education and social resources that come from growing up in a wealthy suburban enclave and attending a top-50 liberal arts college. Thus, I have opportunities and possibilities that most in abject poverty are without.
While I will never be able to fully understand what it feels like to be truly trapped in poverty, I can still do what I can to sympathize and empathize with those around me who are. And at least I'm trying.
A week ago, I made a move from central Ohio, my home of the past twelve years, to Omaha, Nebraska, a city and state I had never laid my eyes on before and which is the home to my assignment for the next year as an Americorps VISTA. Partly from my change in locale but mostly owing to my lack of a social life here, I have had a lot of time to reflect on my new situation and what I am learning here in Omaha.
The main motivation for my interest in the VISTA program and this assignment in particular was an opportunity to deal with the problems of everyday people on the ground level and to gain an experience of empathy that I would not have had the opportunity to have from a week-long service trip or irregular volunteer visits to soup kitchens. VISTA is a federal program that places year-long volunteers in assignments that are geared specifically toward the goal of poverty alleviation. My assignment in particular is working with an organization called the Neighborhood Center, a nonprofit that helps build capacity for neighborhood associations throughout the greater Omaha area. Little did I anticipate that my experience with poverty would be experiential as well as observational.
As Americorps VISTAs, we commit to a year of service, but are paid a living stipend to cover housing, food, transportation, etc. That living stipend is set at the poverty level for the area we are living in. Thus, my stipend is $928/month before taxes. While this is low, I calculated rent costs for my new apartment in Omaha along with transportation (bus passes are provided through the program for free) and food costs and saw that I would be living on more than I did in college or in the time between graduation and the beginning of my tenure as a VISTA. It didn't seem like it would be a problem at all.
While in college, I spent half of my time on Pell Grant, a program that only the bottom 11% of students at Denison qualified for. Despite being in the bottom 11% of students when it came to wealth, I never felt like I didn't fit in or was limited by that status. For all that students make of class inequality, there is something inherently egalitarian about college life, especially at my school. Everyone lived on campus, so transportation was not much of an inequality issue. Even without a car, I did not feel terribly limited compared to those who owned one. We all ate in the same dining halls for three years. Housing was paid for at the start of the year, so rent payments are not an issue. I was able to get along fairly well with people with "rich" families and those whose families were not so well off.
Though I am only a week into my experience here in Omaha, I am already starting to see that "poverty" has a much bigger impact on your life post-graduation. The biggest place that I am seeing an impact is in transportation. While I could always hitch a ride with someone or use my parents' car in high school and I had three roommates with cars in college, I am now living on my own, a mile from the most frequent-running bus stop, during a winter that is just beginning.
What I am also running into is a lack of people to spend time with. While my landlord and the program have introduced me to a number of people who are friendly and willing to help me out when I need it, I still do not have a circle of friends here to have fun with and to depend on when I need help.
This experience is something that was touched on in our VISTA training a week before our assignments began. I recall our group facilitator leading a session on poverty, explaining that poverty was something that was experienced in a number of different ways. While we tend to emphasize income, poverty manifests not only financially, but also mentally, socially, physically, etc.
This message fits well with one that is put forth by Nobel-Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in his book Development as Freedom. In chapter 4, "Poverty as Capability Deprivation," Sen argues that poverty is often narrowly construed as a lack of income. This definition, however, fails to encapsulate the fact that someone can be impoverished even with financial resources. One example he uses to explain this is that of unemployment. Even if someone is able to be recouped the financial loss caused by unemployment, not being able to sustain one's self through employment shows a certain poverty of dignity that most would not want to subject themselves to. This is evidenced by the uneasiness we have when unemployed and being stuck with the question "well, what do you do?" in social situations. Poverty is not only a lack of financial resources, but is more broadly a lack of capabilities to fulfill basic human needs.
Another takeaway from this message for me, though, is that my poverty will never really reach the level of those who find themselves stuck in a multidimensional cycle of poverty. While I may find myself without a sizable income, without adequate transportation, and without a readily available group of friends, I still have a college education and social resources that come from growing up in a wealthy suburban enclave and attending a top-50 liberal arts college. Thus, I have opportunities and possibilities that most in abject poverty are without.
While I will never be able to fully understand what it feels like to be truly trapped in poverty, I can still do what I can to sympathize and empathize with those around me who are. And at least I'm trying.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Election 2012 Shows that Listening Is More Important Than Talking
While there are a lot of takeaways from this past election season, one of the biggest lessons that should be learned by all is the importance of listening. In our era of cable news, soundbytes, and Sports Shouting, it sometimes seems that the most important way to communicate is by getting one's message out as much as possible while paying little regards to the messages being spread by others. The two defining moments of the campaign came to highlight how this strategy of privileging talking over listening came back to bite both candidates.
The first I will address is Governor Romney's infamous "47%" remarks made at a fundraiser in May. Published in a blog post by Mother Jones in September, Romney was filmed saying that
The other key moment of the campaign was President Obama's performance in the first debate. While all due respect should be given to Governor Romney's performance in the debate, the story of the debate was as much about Obama's shortcomings as it was about Romney's success. Over the previous few months, the Obama campaign had worked hard to paint Romney as an out of touch ultraconservative, an image that worked well in light of Romney's primary campaign. In the first debate, however, Romney came out looking much more like the moderate governor of Massachusetts than the conservative presidential candidate who ran in the primaries. Rather than listening to the change and reacting to it, Obama buried himself in his preparation, famously staring at his notes for a much longer amount of time than he spent engaging with Romney in debate.
While the content of the debate had an impact, it was the body language that was much more damaging to the President's campaign. By keeping eye contact and speaking to the President, Romney showed that he was interested in being engaged in a substantive debate. Obama, on the other hand, did not show Romney that he was being listened to, and it hurt his performance greatly.
In the end, Obama's singular blunder proved to be much less damaging than what voters seemed to take as a character flaw of Romney's. Republicans were shocked to find that minorities came out to support the President even more than in 2008, but it should not be such a surprise when one sees which candidate was able to connect and show the he cares more.
This outcome comes naturally as we see the politics of recognition continue to play an important role in contemporary society. This is a phrase I borrow from Charles Taylor's essay "The Politics of Recognition." In his essay, he says that an important part of political and social life, especially for minorities, is recognition: the ability to feel that one is being listened to and that one matters just like everybody else does. This means that politicians need to be people who not only speak their mind for others to hear, but must also listen, not just for content, but for the sake of listening itself. Obama showed in the election that he could do this much better than Romney could as an ABC News election day exit poll showed Obama with a 10 percentage point lead over Romney when respondents were asked who was more "in touch" with regular Americans.
It looks as if Obama may be taking this lesson into his presidency as he has expressed much interest in working with Romney as they move past their election bickering. If there is anything that can be known about the impending "fiscal cliff" debate, it is that more listening will need to be done on both sides of the aisle than has taken place in Obama's first term.
The first I will address is Governor Romney's infamous "47%" remarks made at a fundraiser in May. Published in a blog post by Mother Jones in September, Romney was filmed saying that
There are 47 percent [of Americans] who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it...my job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.While there are troubling implications with Romney's remarks in regards to the role of the president to fulfill the needs of all Americans, what really hurt Romney with these remarks was how he seemed to show no interest nor care for that other 47%. He seemed to say that there was one America, "the 53%," that he had an obligation to and that he wanted to help, and that all the rest were not his responsibility. The fact that this was a damaging remark for his campaign is not surprising.
The other key moment of the campaign was President Obama's performance in the first debate. While all due respect should be given to Governor Romney's performance in the debate, the story of the debate was as much about Obama's shortcomings as it was about Romney's success. Over the previous few months, the Obama campaign had worked hard to paint Romney as an out of touch ultraconservative, an image that worked well in light of Romney's primary campaign. In the first debate, however, Romney came out looking much more like the moderate governor of Massachusetts than the conservative presidential candidate who ran in the primaries. Rather than listening to the change and reacting to it, Obama buried himself in his preparation, famously staring at his notes for a much longer amount of time than he spent engaging with Romney in debate.While the content of the debate had an impact, it was the body language that was much more damaging to the President's campaign. By keeping eye contact and speaking to the President, Romney showed that he was interested in being engaged in a substantive debate. Obama, on the other hand, did not show Romney that he was being listened to, and it hurt his performance greatly.
In the end, Obama's singular blunder proved to be much less damaging than what voters seemed to take as a character flaw of Romney's. Republicans were shocked to find that minorities came out to support the President even more than in 2008, but it should not be such a surprise when one sees which candidate was able to connect and show the he cares more.
This outcome comes naturally as we see the politics of recognition continue to play an important role in contemporary society. This is a phrase I borrow from Charles Taylor's essay "The Politics of Recognition." In his essay, he says that an important part of political and social life, especially for minorities, is recognition: the ability to feel that one is being listened to and that one matters just like everybody else does. This means that politicians need to be people who not only speak their mind for others to hear, but must also listen, not just for content, but for the sake of listening itself. Obama showed in the election that he could do this much better than Romney could as an ABC News election day exit poll showed Obama with a 10 percentage point lead over Romney when respondents were asked who was more "in touch" with regular Americans.
It looks as if Obama may be taking this lesson into his presidency as he has expressed much interest in working with Romney as they move past their election bickering. If there is anything that can be known about the impending "fiscal cliff" debate, it is that more listening will need to be done on both sides of the aisle than has taken place in Obama's first term.
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