Erratic Errata
Compassionate Coercion
.Which argument is more "liberal"?
"Though I dislike Hardin's term "mutual coercion mutually agreed upon," I think in terms of providing the best information (after all, "perfect information" is a presumption of an effecient economy), the government should be coercing us to listen to the best information available. Insofar as we mutually agree to it (ay, there's the rub.) - Reader J
The vast majority of the millions of people who need drug treatment are in denial about their addiction. Getting people into treatment -- including programs that call upon the power of faith -- will require us to create a new climate of "compassionate coercion," which begins with family, friends, employers, and the community. Compassionate coercion also uses the criminal justice system to get people into treatment. Americans must begin to confront drug use -- and therefore drug users -- honestly and directly. We must encourage those in need to enter and remain in drug treatment. The President's National Drug Control Strategy envisions making drug treatment available to many more Americans who need it. - White House
"Mutual coercion mutually agreed upon." "Compassionate coercion." I know that "slippery slope" is an overused trope... but clearly both these positions are points on a continuum... one I reject wholeheartedly.
When considering the benefits of smoking, one needs to take into account more than the mere impact upon health. Though health is quite important, it is not the sole criteria by which we assess our desires. Specifically, the habitual vice of smoking has a spiritual/mental dimension which is too often overlooked by non-smokers. Smoking will make you a better person. Now, I realize that's a subjective statement and indefensible. But as a man who's been a smoker and a non-smoker (and is currently on the non- side of the coin), I can honestly state that I believe it. If I'm not smoking again by the time I'm fifty, I'll have failed...
The argument against smoking, or gambling for that matter, proceeds by defining the scope by which "benefit" is to be exclusively defined. J writes of gambling, "insofar as those who can't afford it gamble, it poses a public well-being problem." However, "insofar as gambling yields a psychic dividend, it offers a public well-being solution." To the extent that arguments can be made against smoking or gambling on the basis of infringement upon the liberty of others (such as public smoking) or the imposition of unreasonable public costs (necessitating Social Security) then it is a legitimate political argument. But any argument for or against any given vice which is predicated purely upon the personal benefits or consequences of the choice has no basis in public policy discussion. That is the necessary implication of liberalism. Not libertarianism, which rejects the primacy of the political claim to trump the unfettered exercise of liberty. And not socialism, which subsumes the individual's well-being into the self-interest of the state. But of liberalism, properly defined - wherein the subject is the object of nothing save itself. The liberal self is obligated, never coerced.
Gratuitousness - When considering the health costs, it pays to remember that, if anything, the costs of smoking are starkly clearer than those of many other activities... at least most smokers expect to die from it. I can think of no other vice of which you could say the same...
Reading Rawls
I've been reading Rawls lately. There's an assumption leaping out of every page that I'm finding really distracting. The best articulation I've seen of it yet is found on page 119 of my copy (ยง20) - "Now obviously no one can obtain everything he wants; the mere existence of other persons prevents this." In one of those weird moments of intellectual/historical overlap, I've also been re-reading Solzhenitsyn lately in light of the Abu Ghraib scandals, as I've gotten the unsettling feeling that the abuses we witnessed there, though favorably comparable to the atrocities of Saddam, actually don't look too excusable in the light of some of history's other mass prison complexes. Specifically, Robbin Island, South Africa, as described by Nelson Mandela in his autobiography Long Walk To Freedom often seems far more humane than Abu Ghraib. Not, specifically the Soviet gulag. But I'd been re-reading it, and I couldn't help but cross-index Rawls' statement with the following (very sarcastic) passage from Solzhenitsyn :
It is a good thing to think in prison, but it is not bad in camp either. Because, and this is the main thing, there are no meetings. For ten years you are free from all kinds of meetings! Is that not mountain air? While thye openly claim your labor and your body, to the point of exhaustion and even death, the camp keepers do not encroach at all on your thoughts. They do not try to screw down your brains and to fasten them in place. And this results in a sensation of freedom of much greater magnitude than the freedom of one's feet to run along on the level.
No one tries to persuade you to apply for Party membership. No one comes around to squeeze membership dues out of you in voluntary societies. There is no trade union - the same kind of protector of your interests as an official lawyer befor a tribunal. And there are no "production meetings." You cannot be elected to any position. You cannot be appointed some kind of delegate. And the really important thing is ... that they cannot compel you to be a propagandist. Nor - to listen to propaganda. Nor - when someone jerks the string, to shout: "We demand! ... We will not permit! ..." Nor - will they ever drag you off to the electoral precinct to vote freely and secretly for a single candidate. No one requires any "socialist undertakings" of you. Nor - self-criticism of your mistakes. Nor - articles in the wall newspaper. Nor - an interview with a provincial correspondent.
A free head - now is that not an advantage of life in the Archipelago?
In light of the Solzhenitsyn quote, the Rawls quote seems partially insustainable... rather than being obstacles of desire is it not possible that social interaction is the medium of desire? There is, after all, nothing in Rawls' "index of primary goods" that hasn't been willingly, even gleefully forsaken. Anyhow, I need to learn more about the theory of demand... but it seems to me that the Pareto efficiency curve, from a utilitarian perspective as Rawls discusses it, presupposes that a finite limit on the capacity of two persons in community to experience desire is not a factual absurdity. I'm not sure how secure that presupposition is. I would be surprised if there isn't a body of literature on the topic...
1 Comments:
It's quite clear you and I differ on the personal/policy divide. But by coercion, I simply mean "providing, perhaps insistently, the best information available." I think it's inarguable most people don't actually understand the degree to which gambling is set up against them (new slot machines are actually based on a psychology of small payoffs and small payoffs ad nauseum, to keep a player hoping, but to erode their money to nothing). I think also that many people, however much they know smoking is incredibly damaging to health, are barraged with advertisements saying its fun.
Now I'm quite aware you're passionately in favor of smoking as not only a vice, but a richly rewarding vice, but I assume you're also aware a great many people are not, including many smokers. Additionally, long-term risks are something people are very, very bad at assessing on a day-to-day basis. As you point out, your passion for smoking and assertion it makes you a better person is indefensible (I would further surmise that you don't have a whole lot of supporters proportionately -- among the many smokers I've known, few feel as ardently as you do.)
The point of "coercion" is simply that to assume we live in a null space is silly -- and to me, that's what your presumption requires. If one of "public goods" the government provides is knowledge (i.e. through the NIH, perhaps), then it behooves it to spread that knowledge. Insofar as something is harmful to the populace, I personally believe it's the government's duty to disseminate the knowledge of the full weight of this harm as much as possible. And I find the argument for a drug more addictive than many illegal drugs being a freely-decided vice tenuous at best.
Coercion is all around us, and I hardly think it a poor slippery slope for anyone to voice the best knowledge possible as much as possible to counter coercion that is inarguably taking place by those who inarguably have no interest in the public good. I do not mean "compassionate coercion" as the White House put it -- family and friends should butt in as much as they want, but not at the urging of the government, thank you. But they, and the "buttees" should be coerced by a public dissemination campaign with the full weight, money, and backing as the dissemination done by the private sector looking to fully externalize the costs of its centuries of profits.
Our President coerces us every time he gives a speech about anything, simply by his position. As do all experts. Coercion in the sense of "to compel to an act or choice", not through a call to force, but through a call to sense. If you fully believe some years of your life is worth the relaxation you get from the *extra* nicotine they add to cigarettes, that's fine -- but you should've heard just as much about the costs as you've heard about it's coolness.
I leave you with this:
"Mr. Chairman, the cigarette industry has attempted to frame the debate on smoking as the right of each American to choose. The question we must ask is whether smokers really have that choice.
Consider these facts:
Two-thirds of adults who smoke say they wish they could quit.
Seventeen million try to quit each year, but fewer than one out of ten succeed. For every smoker who quits, nine try and fail.
Three out of four adult smokers say that they are addicted. By some estimates, as many as 74 to 90 percent are addicted.
Eight out of ten smokers say they wish they had never started smoking. " (FDA House Subcommittee Statements)
Persuasion, coercion, what have you -- the argument should be made in full voice that something is rotten in the state of Winston.
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