I started this blog pretty soon after I left grad school...and I've written in it and engaged policy conversations since leaving grad school out of commitment to both share myself openly...personally...my more serious policy work...a chance for me to vent...everything...
One of my commitments...was that I wanted to -- very much like Stephen King's comments on this subject -- to dispel the snottiness of too many intellectual discussions about the capacity for everyone to be smart and brilliant and for genuine equity in education/intelligence to be a reality...and a potential reality -- since equality just isn't possible...I'll never be a surgeon...no matter how much potential I might have to be a surgeon...my expertises' are education, policy, and psychology...I'm not a surgeon...and never will be...I may have the potential...but I will never have a knowledge base comparable to a surgeon...
But everyone should have and feel like they have that shot, I think...and many people in scholarly circles -- including very equity-oriented scholars like Nobel-prize winning poverty economist Amartya Sen -- have many serious doubts about the possibility of that...
I believe in it...and much of that is because I don't just identify as an intellectual (though it gets put in my face just about every day of my life that that is how most people think of me)...
I identify as an average person...I identify as white trash...I identify as an actor and a singer and an avid theater lover...I identify as a passing sports fan...as a major connoisseur of music of all kinds (I have some of broadest music interests I've ever encountered, really:):):)...
And while I share the commitments of my grad program...that expertise shouldn't be lorded over people...and ESPECIALLY in policy contexts...
I also identify as a policy expert...
And I get really frustrated in conversations with people who don't study policy more formally...and don't think of policy and political science in this way...
That they have such a hard time understanding that...
To me...
Politics is not just about having opinions...
Policy and politics is about studying and understanding important issues and accounting, as much as possible, for the totality of the realities associated with them...
That policy is serious work...not just having an opinion...
Just as medicine is serious work...that people can choose to listen to or ignore...but I'm for damned sure going to listen to a doctor about their thinking on my health...because it's what he does for a living...
We had this conversation a million times in grad school...
It's the old John Dewey/Walter Lippman debate...
Does expertise matter?...
And I came out of that discussion with a pretty integrated view...that Dewey was right that democratic and equitable discussions of important matters is necessary...and Lippman's thesis (that I'm not convinced, at all, really, that Dewey seriously disagreed with) that expertise was still important, independent of the need for more casual observers to be involved in such discussions...
As I argued in grad school...
I want a surgeon to operate on me...and not a witch doctor...because a surgeon knows what the fuck he's doing...and a witch doctor doesn't...no matter how much a less developed culture might rationalize the expertise of the latter...
And similarly...
While I have no interest in lording policy expertise over others...
There is an objective reality that policy thinkers, generally, hold themselves accountable to, better, than do average folks...
Because they study it for a living...
They're just better at it...
Lots of people have opinions about this war...
But I take most seriously the opinions of folks like Joseph Nye and Benjamin Barber and Robert Kagan and Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright and James Rubin and James Baker and Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and Warren Christopher and Cyrus Vance and Paul Wolfowitz and Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell and others with international policy backgrounds or who have proven themselves to be competent international policy thinkers...and anyone else who has relevant and important things to say about international policy, really...because they know better what they're talking about, frankly:):):)...as well as better military historians like James McPherson, David McCullough, John Keegan, and the work of the late, great Stephen Ambrose...because these military historians understand, better, the role of policy as guiding better military decisions...rather than the romantic fantasies of Victor Davis Hanson, for instance, who lets the tail wag the dog in his histories of warfare, to often, I believe...Hanson is an excellent tactical military historian, exploring the details of battle very thoroughly...but his understanding of the policy realities that surround warfare is pretty lacking in his writing, in my experience with Victor...which is why, though a brilliant writer, he is not one of the great military historians of our time, I don't think...
And anyone else, really, who has interesting and relevant things to say about any policy, for that matter...
But I'm kind of frustrated, right now...that in conversations with people who don't have that kind of background...
That they don't take it seriously...
I know...
Lots of people don't take medicine very seriously either...
But...personally...I would go to a doctor if I had what I knew was a medical problem...many mental health problems are misdiagnosed as medical problems, I think...in which case, I would go to a social worker or a psychologist or a psychiatrist or someone else with a mental health background that might help out...
But I would definitely go to someone with credible expertise in the area...rather than just any random person...
I guess there's just a part of me that just wants to go hang out with other policy people...and, often, just more educated people, generally...because you get a much more intelligent discussion, frankly...where that level of intelligence is taken more seriously...it's not that Ph.D.'s are always smarter...too many times, they're not...but they do tend to appreciate a more intelligent conversation, more...and take more seriously the idea that intelligence and expertise matters...even if it's always and perpetually not the last say on the matter...
But I don't want to do that because my commitment as a person is that I don't want to be exclusive about the people I hang out with...I have friends from a million different backgrounds...and I like it that way...
But my frustration is that while I take THEIR expertises' seriously...they never seem to reciprocate that respect...and it pisses me off quite a bit, really...
And it makes me want to just go hang out with people I can count on to respect that level of conversation...
Namely...policy thinkers...
But that's the problem, as is...
That too much of politics is run on peoples' random opinions...rather than consulting with people who have a diversity of views, to be sure...
But who also share common commitments...
Like being accountable to objective realities independent of those opinions...
Like thinking deeply about policy matters and not just getting lost in the current political moment...
Like considering the culture and the international environment, generally...and not just localized cultures, like Washington, D.C...
Like taking freedom and democracy seriously...or at least their study...given how remarkably free and democratic countries outperform their counterparts in improving the quality of the lives of their peoples...
Like a lot of stuff that I can just expect, better, in conversation with someone who's studied these things...even just a little bit...
I ran into a friend from college forensics competition, the other day...a public speaker from Kansas State University named Chris (I'm forgetting your last name, Chris...I'm so sorry...we competed with one another for 2-3 years, at least, together, almost every weekend...and I forgot Chris...I sincerely apologize)...Chris isn't a policy person, per se...but he extemped and was a pretty smart guy, overall...
And in just about 5 minutes of that conversation, I remembered what it was like to discuss political matters with someone who thinks about them seriously...and not just as a random opinion...
It really doesn't take that much, frankly, to impress me on these matters...just enough to know that someone has thought about these things seriously...and that they hold themselves to a higher standard than their egos, on the matter:):):)...
Because ego is a pretty common standard for almost any subject...and policy and politics, especially:):):)...
But with all the ego going around this political season...
I am definitely learning why a policy education is so important...
To separate what really matters...from all the bullshit...
Because there is DEFINITELY A LOT OF BULLSHIT out there...propaganda out the whazoo...especially in a heated political time...
And political wisdom, as the conventional political wisdom goes, generates more light than heat...
And this is definitely a political moment when we need more light than heat...
Because it is too goddamned hot in American and international politics, these days...and not only does the room need to cool down...but we need a lot more thought and a lot less bullshit to get us closer to important solutions to difficult problems...
We need more light...and less heat...
And policy thinkers are the people with the most light to offer...
I am not giving up on this experiment...
But I am getting kind of exhausted having political conversations full of heat...
And lacking nearly enough light...
And what is at stake...just so everyone without policy backgrounds know...
Is whether decisions that are politically popular in one moment keep getting made...no matter how bad of decisions they turn out to be down the line...
And whether policy people -- who spend their lives trying to help political representatives make better decisions based on objective observations of reality -- keep having largely cloistered discussions...because they often feel...as I do now...that people without policy backgrounds just don't get just how in the dark they are about policy matters...
And too often feel that their random opinions on important political matters...should be taken more seriously than they should...
I'm not giving up...
But I am frustrated...
And I can understand, now, better, why policy people give up on this course...this path of trying to include non-policy folks in serious policy discussions...
Because too many average folks just don't get it, frankly...
And just as many people want to give up on that obnoxious sister-in-law or father-in-law who just doesn't seem to get it...
Policy people...and people with all kinds of expertises, really...get kind of frustrated, as I do now, with how too many people just don't get it...
And that kind of frustration leads to arrogance, long term, I think...which is what I want to avoid both for myself...and which I want to make a change in the policy community, and intellectual communities, generally, around...
But I can't do that if people keep pretending that intelligence and education and expertise just don't matter...
Because they do...whether people want to admit that to themselves or not...
And because people with those kinds of education know that better than people who don't have those kinds of education...
It's a no-win argument for people without that level and kind of education...
Because it's just a fact...like it or not...
And it is a fact that I'm getting weary of arguing about any more...
If it has to be resolved with...fine...policy folks go their way...and everyone else goes there's...
Then so be it...because it's pretty clear to me who knows what they're talking about better:):):)...
But I just don't think that's a really good course for all of us to take...including policy thinkers...because the stakes are just too serious to not take equity in those conversations seriously, I think...
So...
I'm really frustrated, right now...
But I'm not giving up...
I'm just trying to figure out how best to navigate this little obstacle...
With integrity to what I do...
I don't know...
I just know I'm really frustrated with this, right now...
And sometimes I want to give up...because it just seems like a bridge that's not bridgeable...
Because it requires more humility that people are willing or able to offer...
For my friends who are being really hard-headed about this one...and there are two, in particular, that I can think of with whom I know their stubborness on this issue has seriously affected our relationship...
If you make me choose between my own self-respect and respect for my professional expertise...and our friendship...
I will choose my self-respect...and respect for my professional expertise...and choose to give up the friendship...
And I would expect you to do the same if I demeaned your livelihood, knowledge and expertise...nevertheless you passion in life...
I'll just sleep on it, I suppose...and see what I think when I wake up:):):)...
Have a good day, everyone:):):)...
Love,
Ben
