Entry 2218, on 2022-05-20 at 14:04:37 (Rating 4, Politics)
I recently got involved with a discussion about blame. Who can be blamed for what? Is an individual always to blame for their poor decisions? Can a person be excused for a crime or antisocial activity because of factors beyond their control which might have lead to that event?
I tend to be more on the side advocating for personal responsibility, which might be part of my general move towards a more libertarian political attitude in the past few years, so I tend to be less convinced by arguments excusing people based on their background or their group's history.
It is important to understand that many people do find themselves in difficult situations through no fault of their own. Examples might be: being born into a dysfunctional family where violence is common; being born in a country which is affected by civil war, famine, or extreme poverty; or belonging to an ethnic, religious, or other group which has been historically disadvantaged.
I think these factors should be considered when evaluating a person's behaviour, but they shouldn't be an automatic "get out of jail free" card - in either the figurative or the literal sense!
Let me give a controversial example. In the US, black people suffer from higher levels of poverty, police violence, incarceration, and many other negative social factors. According to the current favourite theory covering this phenomenon, critical race theory, this must be the result of bias against them, usually said to be "systemic racism".
The reason bias is asserted in these cases is that many people today believe everyone is equal in every way, and that if any consistent underperformance exists in a group it cannot be because of a deficiency on that group (everyone is equal) so it must be due to external factors, like oppressive laws, racism in institutions like police, etc.
But is this true? Is it ever true? If it is true sometimes and not others, how do we know where it is true?
Well, of course, it isn't true at all. While the basic abilities of all humans, no matter what race or sex they are, are very similar, there are big differences in cultural practices which explain the problems that group might have far better than systemic bigotry.
When I ask my more left-leaning friends whether they think there is any possibility that the problems they attribute to the "system", or the "patriarchy", or "colonialism" might really be caused - partly or entirely - by poor cultural beliefs, they outright deny the possibility. In other words, they aren't prepared to acknowledge that it is even a reasonable potential explanation which is worth considering. At least I acknowledge the probability that both factors (systemic and personal) exist, but I think the systemic component is a minor one, for very good reasons based on actual facts and stats.
If I am right, and bad outcomes are caused by bad cultural beliefs, then we need to ask why. It seems that in recent years many people have been encouraged into believing they are special and valuable when they really aren't. There is the famous phenomenon of participation prizes: you don't need to win, you just turn up. In some parts of the world, grades for educational achievement are boosted for groups seen as disadvantaged. In some places people can enter university, participate in politics, and gain other privileges based on their ethnicity or other demographic factors.
This is not only unfair to the people who don't get the extra benefits, it is ultimately unfair to those who do as well, because they are likely to be far less successful than the others who succeeded through talent, merit, or hard work. And when these people do fail, they are told it is because the system is working against them. Well, it sort of is, but not in the way they think, because by giving them undeserved benefits, it's making them helpless and removing their self-reliance.
I think that a person's situation in life is rarely the result of a single factor. Everyone has succeeded or failed as a result of systemic biases, simple luck, and personal effort, and I prefer to figure out how much is due to each of those. In our modern society, which is actually very egalitarian, systemic factors are almost never the major reason for a person's poor outcomes.
Many conservatives are criticised for saying that disadvantaged people just need to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps". In fact, when I searched for this phrase, there are many articles ridiculing it. The first one I found criticised it primarily because the literal act of pull yourself up by your bootstraps is impossible. Well, sure, but I think they are missing the point!
I'm sure there are people who have tried to do exactly that, and through bad luck or other factors beyond their control, they have failed. The criticism of the concept is fine in that case, because it doesn't always work. But there are also plenty of cases where people haven't tried to help themselves much, and in that case the phrase is quite appropriate.
Here's a comment made by an extremely woke academic on this concept: "According to some reports, a quarter of all individuals living in poverty are working or seeking work, and in many states, people working full time at minimum wage still live below the poverty line."
So only a quarter of people living in poverty are working or looking for work. Note that "looking for work" means very little, because that claim can be made by someone making little genuine effort. And the claim that in many states, people on minimum wage live below the poverty line isn't very useful, because we don't know how many states or how many people, and why they are working in minimum wage jobs, because those should only be a first step to getting a better job.
Again, I have to emphasise that I know that some of the people mentioned in that statement really are trying to survive on an inadequate income and can't improve their situation through no fault of their own, but (at the risk of making the same vague statements I just criticised) I suspect the vast majority could do a lot better if they just made better choices.
As I said above, people are encouraged to believe everyone is equal and that every individual is special (something which is impossible according to the definition of the words). They are also taught that societal factors might be working against them. In that case how can they believe their own failure is their fault? And if it is, blaming society just makes things worse.
Many groups in society have had serious disadvantages inflicted on them in the past, including slavery, separatism, and legal restrictions. Sure, I get that; I know society was much less fair, less peaceful, and less affluent in the past. But many groups and individuals who did suffer from these have been very successful since. At one time Asian people were restricted in the US, today they are more successful than any other group, except perhaps Jews who also suffered from a lot of bigotry in the past, and still do, yet they are outstandingly successful in many fields.
Clearly it is possible to recover from societal bias in the past and thrive in the present. It is possible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, although some people try that and still fail. Overall, the people who say the poor are lazy and just need to work harder are often wrong, and the same applies to those with the opposite view: that those people are innocent victims of societal bias.
As the genuine cases of sexism, racism, and other forms of bias in society have been eliminated, it has become harder to use those as an explanation for the failure of certain groups. We need to consider the possibility that it is the person themselves who is at fault. You can't fix a problem until you understand its source, and when its source is obvious but not acknowledged, it will never be fixed.
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