Expressing values
Jan. 26th, 2015 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livSo I was chatting to my brother Screwy over Christmas, and he asserted that making ethical consumer choices is just a way to express your values, it doesn't really help to bring about change. Now, Screwy is a philosopher and fond of making provocatively sweeping statements, and he's also way to the left of me politically. But when we were chewing over this one, I realized I couldn't entirely refute it. So I'm bringing it to DW, to see what my thinky interesting readers think.
Since I am a capitalist, ethical consumerism is really quite important to me. It just seems right to me to prefer to give my money to people and enterprises that I approve of. I mean, that's not a moral absolute, there's a trade-off between what I want and what I consider ethical. And what I can afford, both in terms of paying a premium for more ethical purchases, and at this point in my life more importantly, in terms of time spent figuring out exactly where my money should be going. Partly cos a lot of the information I want when making purchasing decisions isn't readily available. But ethical considerations are a pretty big factor in how I choose to spend (and invest) my money.
Equally, as a capitalist, I am biased towards considering individual factors and bad at recognizing structural factors. (Some places on the internet, including the subtitle of this journal, I use the handle
So I suppose emotionally, I want it to be the case that when I buy fair trade food and put my money in a bank with an ethical policy, it matters, I'm doing some actual good. And in that sense, yes, I am expressing my values by making those choices. To an extent it seems a bit like voting; most of the time a single vote doesn't matter at all, and I do agree that if you really care about democracy and improving your society, you have to do more than just vote. But voting is a way of expressing your values; I believe strongly in the principle of a secret ballot, so it's not about "sending a message" as such, but it's still an expression. I am the sort of person who wants low taxes and lots of individual freedom and innovation / I am the sort of person who wants a strong welfare state and a mutually supportive community. So by voting, you're reinforcing to yourself that you are that sort of person, and that makes it more likely that you will make decisions that relate to those values in the future.
I mean, one of the examples that Screwy gave was vegetarianism. He said that an individual person being veggie does very little for animal welfare, so it doesn't really matter how strict you are about making absolutely sure you have no meat-based ingredients in your food, you're generally expressing your values by choosing not to eat meat. It doesn't matter whether you're vegetarian or vegan or somewhere in between, because you're really just being the sort of person who cares about animal welfare, and any expression of that is about as good as any other. (I hope I'm not misrepresenting him here.) That doesn't seem quite right to me, because surely if enough people stop eating meat, the meat industry will shrink and then fewer animals will be killed for food, so change will in fact be effected.
There's been a lot of discussion on Facebook recently about the possibility of voting Green at the upcoming election. And it's a discussion on Facebook, so of course it's very much about expressing values. Am I the sort of person who rejects the Neo-liberal economic consensus? Am I the sort of person who cares about the environment? I think very few people in the discussion really believe that the Green party is going to be substantial force in the next parliament, let alone that they're going to win the election. But maybe they want to be the kind of people who vote Green, perhaps because they want to protest against the entrenched political system without voting for racists. Several people are very vocal about refusing to vote Green because they're seen as an anti-science party; I think the fact that at some point in the party's history they supported homoeopathy is a very minor issue and the mainstream parties have done far worse things in terms of failing to base their healthcare policy on evidence, but for lots of people, being rational and therefore rejecting homoeopathy and other "woo" is a big identity thing.
For myself, I dislike the fact that the Greens are against genetic manipulation, which is kind of what I do for a living, and nuclear energy, which I am generally in favour of, but that's pretty minor compared to individual policies I disagree with proposed by any of the other parties. A higher value priority for me is that I want to be the sort of person who treats all human beings with respect, including people with disabilities and foreigners, so for that reason maybe it's worth my voting Green even though I have very little time for their economic policy, because they're against austerity and pro immigration. Basically they're kind of positioning themselves as economically left and socially liberal, at least to an extent; lots of people who are economically left tend to be somewhat statist and authoritarian, so they don't quite know what to make of this. I have the opposite problem, in that I'm socially liberal but economically right, so I likewise feel like the Green party is an awkward fit for me, just for different reasons. But the Liberal Democrats, er, basically failed to do anything actually liberal at any point in the last five years, so I am reluctant to vote for them even though on paper I agree with more of their policies.
Of course, when it comes to actual voting, I am aiming to vote for an MP as well as for a party, and I will have to vote tactically to some extent because FPTP forces that. And I doubt that the Green party would enact their somewhat Utopian policies even if they did get into power, which seems pretty unlikely anyway. But in terms of figuring out whether I'm the kind of person who could vote for a party who don't want to invest in science and economic growth, but do plan to roll back draconian laws against "terrorism" and punitive welfare cuts and abusive immigration policies, these considerations are less important.
But precisely because I think of myself as an individual more than a member of an identity group, I feel vaguely uneasy thinking like this. I don't like the idea that my vote is merely a way of being a middle-class over-thinker who likes multiculturalism and dislikes austerity, or who likes science and dislikes wealth taxes if I decide to vote the other way. I don't like the idea that in choosing to be mostly vegetarian, I'm just being the kind of person who cares about animal welfare (and Jewish dietary laws), I'm not actually helping animals or the environment at all. And I don't like the idea that it's not worth making more effort to cut down on the eggs and dairy I eat and prioritize buying produce that comes from decently treated animals. Even though that would make my life easier, I want to feel like I'm actually making a difference, even if it's a small one, even if it's only on balance and the sort of thing that only helps if lots of people do it.
Maybe this is why I tend to put time and effort into community volunteering, and don't feel comfortable with efficient charitable giving. If I do stuff that actually makes people's lives better where I can see it, that is at least satisfying, even if it doesn't have globally significant effects. If I give what I can afford, which is really quite a lot in relative terms, to buying cheap medicines so that children in the poorest parts of the world are more likely to survive treatable diseases, I don't actually change the situation where there's huge global inequality such that a billion people need handouts from rich Westerners to get basic medical care. And isn't picking causes just one more consumer choice, one more way of expressing values without effecting change? The Effective Altruism people are expressing their values, which is that they're rational and care about spending their money where it can do most good and aren't moved by sentiment, and I'm expressing mine by preferring to volunteer and make personal connections with people, because I'm the sort of person who believes in having a strong responsibility to people whose lives I'm directly involved in. Does any of it matter, given that although my friends and I are mostly rich in global terms, we're hardly rich or influential enough to actually have a meaningful effect on international politics?
There's a locked discussion elsejournal to the effect that you have to be either a teenager, or hugely privileged (unattached, high earning 30-something white guy was the sort of example), to be arrogant enough to believe you can change the world. I think I've never been a change the world sort of person, but I do think you can make a positive difference to the people in your life, and if everybody did that, the world would get incrementally better. But I also think there are ways to bring about real change that aren't just consumer choices, or else the kind of activism that you can only engage in if you are really comfortably cushioned and have plenty of spare money, time and energy.
Well, last time I talked about the philosophy behind my politics it went reasonably well, so let's see if this sets off some equally good discussion, even if I am not quite aligned with many of my readers in some ways.
Since I am a capitalist, ethical consumerism is really quite important to me. It just seems right to me to prefer to give my money to people and enterprises that I approve of. I mean, that's not a moral absolute, there's a trade-off between what I want and what I consider ethical. And what I can afford, both in terms of paying a premium for more ethical purchases, and at this point in my life more importantly, in terms of time spent figuring out exactly where my money should be going. Partly cos a lot of the information I want when making purchasing decisions isn't readily available. But ethical considerations are a pretty big factor in how I choose to spend (and invest) my money.
Equally, as a capitalist, I am biased towards considering individual factors and bad at recognizing structural factors. (Some places on the internet, including the subtitle of this journal, I use the handle
individ-ewe-al, which is a bit of a silly pun on my name, but it also reflects my politics and my tendency to think about individual human beings more than collectives like countries or women or the often nebulous "society".) I do try to correct for that bias, and a lot of the time that means listening respectfully to my leftier friends. But to a great extent, I tend to see morality as more about repeatedly making good choices rather than bad choices, based on making better what you can influence, not so much in terms of "changing the world". So I suppose emotionally, I want it to be the case that when I buy fair trade food and put my money in a bank with an ethical policy, it matters, I'm doing some actual good. And in that sense, yes, I am expressing my values by making those choices. To an extent it seems a bit like voting; most of the time a single vote doesn't matter at all, and I do agree that if you really care about democracy and improving your society, you have to do more than just vote. But voting is a way of expressing your values; I believe strongly in the principle of a secret ballot, so it's not about "sending a message" as such, but it's still an expression. I am the sort of person who wants low taxes and lots of individual freedom and innovation / I am the sort of person who wants a strong welfare state and a mutually supportive community. So by voting, you're reinforcing to yourself that you are that sort of person, and that makes it more likely that you will make decisions that relate to those values in the future.
I mean, one of the examples that Screwy gave was vegetarianism. He said that an individual person being veggie does very little for animal welfare, so it doesn't really matter how strict you are about making absolutely sure you have no meat-based ingredients in your food, you're generally expressing your values by choosing not to eat meat. It doesn't matter whether you're vegetarian or vegan or somewhere in between, because you're really just being the sort of person who cares about animal welfare, and any expression of that is about as good as any other. (I hope I'm not misrepresenting him here.) That doesn't seem quite right to me, because surely if enough people stop eating meat, the meat industry will shrink and then fewer animals will be killed for food, so change will in fact be effected.
There's been a lot of discussion on Facebook recently about the possibility of voting Green at the upcoming election. And it's a discussion on Facebook, so of course it's very much about expressing values. Am I the sort of person who rejects the Neo-liberal economic consensus? Am I the sort of person who cares about the environment? I think very few people in the discussion really believe that the Green party is going to be substantial force in the next parliament, let alone that they're going to win the election. But maybe they want to be the kind of people who vote Green, perhaps because they want to protest against the entrenched political system without voting for racists. Several people are very vocal about refusing to vote Green because they're seen as an anti-science party; I think the fact that at some point in the party's history they supported homoeopathy is a very minor issue and the mainstream parties have done far worse things in terms of failing to base their healthcare policy on evidence, but for lots of people, being rational and therefore rejecting homoeopathy and other "woo" is a big identity thing.
For myself, I dislike the fact that the Greens are against genetic manipulation, which is kind of what I do for a living, and nuclear energy, which I am generally in favour of, but that's pretty minor compared to individual policies I disagree with proposed by any of the other parties. A higher value priority for me is that I want to be the sort of person who treats all human beings with respect, including people with disabilities and foreigners, so for that reason maybe it's worth my voting Green even though I have very little time for their economic policy, because they're against austerity and pro immigration. Basically they're kind of positioning themselves as economically left and socially liberal, at least to an extent; lots of people who are economically left tend to be somewhat statist and authoritarian, so they don't quite know what to make of this. I have the opposite problem, in that I'm socially liberal but economically right, so I likewise feel like the Green party is an awkward fit for me, just for different reasons. But the Liberal Democrats, er, basically failed to do anything actually liberal at any point in the last five years, so I am reluctant to vote for them even though on paper I agree with more of their policies.
Of course, when it comes to actual voting, I am aiming to vote for an MP as well as for a party, and I will have to vote tactically to some extent because FPTP forces that. And I doubt that the Green party would enact their somewhat Utopian policies even if they did get into power, which seems pretty unlikely anyway. But in terms of figuring out whether I'm the kind of person who could vote for a party who don't want to invest in science and economic growth, but do plan to roll back draconian laws against "terrorism" and punitive welfare cuts and abusive immigration policies, these considerations are less important.
But precisely because I think of myself as an individual more than a member of an identity group, I feel vaguely uneasy thinking like this. I don't like the idea that my vote is merely a way of being a middle-class over-thinker who likes multiculturalism and dislikes austerity, or who likes science and dislikes wealth taxes if I decide to vote the other way. I don't like the idea that in choosing to be mostly vegetarian, I'm just being the kind of person who cares about animal welfare (and Jewish dietary laws), I'm not actually helping animals or the environment at all. And I don't like the idea that it's not worth making more effort to cut down on the eggs and dairy I eat and prioritize buying produce that comes from decently treated animals. Even though that would make my life easier, I want to feel like I'm actually making a difference, even if it's a small one, even if it's only on balance and the sort of thing that only helps if lots of people do it.
Maybe this is why I tend to put time and effort into community volunteering, and don't feel comfortable with efficient charitable giving. If I do stuff that actually makes people's lives better where I can see it, that is at least satisfying, even if it doesn't have globally significant effects. If I give what I can afford, which is really quite a lot in relative terms, to buying cheap medicines so that children in the poorest parts of the world are more likely to survive treatable diseases, I don't actually change the situation where there's huge global inequality such that a billion people need handouts from rich Westerners to get basic medical care. And isn't picking causes just one more consumer choice, one more way of expressing values without effecting change? The Effective Altruism people are expressing their values, which is that they're rational and care about spending their money where it can do most good and aren't moved by sentiment, and I'm expressing mine by preferring to volunteer and make personal connections with people, because I'm the sort of person who believes in having a strong responsibility to people whose lives I'm directly involved in. Does any of it matter, given that although my friends and I are mostly rich in global terms, we're hardly rich or influential enough to actually have a meaningful effect on international politics?
There's a locked discussion elsejournal to the effect that you have to be either a teenager, or hugely privileged (unattached, high earning 30-something white guy was the sort of example), to be arrogant enough to believe you can change the world. I think I've never been a change the world sort of person, but I do think you can make a positive difference to the people in your life, and if everybody did that, the world would get incrementally better. But I also think there are ways to bring about real change that aren't just consumer choices, or else the kind of activism that you can only engage in if you are really comfortably cushioned and have plenty of spare money, time and energy.
Well, last time I talked about the philosophy behind my politics it went reasonably well, so let's see if this sets off some equally good discussion, even if I am not quite aligned with many of my readers in some ways.
ETA: My brother turned up to explain what he meant a bit more clearly than my summary: his clarification
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-27 02:31 pm (UTC)Just to clarify my situation, I'm dual registered in Cambridge and a constituency which currently has one Green councillor, and is being heavily targeted by the Greens, though the sitting MP is Labour. Which means that if I can regain my faith in the Liberal Democrats I can very reasonably vote for
To look at your examples: I think the income tax threshold is basically a good thing but it's not a particularly liberal policy, it doesn't help to increase freedom. Likewise free school meals and extended nursery hours. Good anti-poverty initiatives, not particularly liberal.
Same sex marriage is lovely, but it has cross-party support at this point, Labour are claiming credit because they introduced civil partnerships, the Conservatives are claiming credit because the marriage Act came into law on their watch, and to be fair to them Cameron did put a lot of personal investment into getting it passed. And the Liberal Democrats are claiming credit because they were heavily involved in actually drafting the bill, (including AIUI the horrible anti-trans bits like the spousal veto). So with everybody except UKIP supporting SSM, that isn't going to be a major deciding factor in how I'll vote.
The child imprisonment issue was one of my major political priorities and a big reason for wanting to vote Lib Dem. (The others were opposing NHS marketization and opposing university tuition fees, and, well, I'm sorry, but the party have really let me down on those in spite of their literal promises.) And I do agree that a small improvement in the situation of children awaiting deportation is a lot better than not having such an improvement. Another thing that my brother, who does quite a lot of volunteering and activism with refugees and asylum seekers, has told me, is that now that children are being held in "secure houses", which are not officially Detention Centres, they are no longer compelled to allow either official prison inspectors or informal prison visitors in, so many people have complained that conditions have worsened because there's that much less oversight. And I have heard that there has been an increase in children being deported the day they turn 16 (and morally, a 16-year-old who has spent most of their childhood in foster care at best, in a prison by another name at worst, is a child, even if legally an adult), as a direct response to improved laws limiting child imprisonment. I don't think that those things are the Lib Dems' fault, but as a liberal policy on an issue that I really care about, it's... equivocal.
The internet snooping thing, I think I really need to look up voting records properly before the next election. Because it is fair to point out that the Lib Dems have opposed some of the worst proposals, including the recent snoopers' charter amendments. But the general impression I've picked up, mainly from reading digital liberties focused Twitter and occasionally blogs, has been that the Lib Dems have voted with the government on surveillance more often than not. If that's not true, it's a good reason why I should in fact go back to supporting the party.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-27 05:34 pm (UTC)I have numerous issues with the LibDems, but one of my biggies has been the treatment of women, especially with the Lord Rennard stuff and a former editor of LibDem Voice leaping onto "separate but equal" as the right model for female participation in public life.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-27 09:58 pm (UTC)Shudders!!! That was so deeply creepy, and yet so many people's instincts were clearly to close ranks to 'protect' the party, which put them on the same level wrt protecting women as the Socialist Workers Party*.
*i.e. the there are not enough *headdesks* in the world level.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-27 11:09 pm (UTC)At this point I don't think I can afford to be purist about sexual harassment, which is a horrible thing to be saying, but nobody has clean hands and there's so much at stake. However much it galls me I think I have to vote for a party that protects creepers over one that starves disabled people to death and asset strips the NHS (and also protects creepers, probably, though it's perhaps not quite as bad as Lord Rennard.)
The other area where I'm disappointed in the Lib Dems is legal "reforms" and access to justice, Legal Aid, judicial review, all of that. And again, I mostly blame the Cons, but any party that wanted to attract my vote as a liberal would have opposed some of the worst of that.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-28 08:35 am (UTC)No, no-one has clean hands on sexual harassment, but Rennard + Thorpe + Smith suggests a sort of -- diabolic succession? -- on the issue.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-28 05:31 pm (UTC)For that matter Cameron swore blind he was going to 'protect the most vulnerable' all the way into power, and immediately turned around and closed the ILF.
Not to forget the possibly even creepier Mike Hancock MP and his relationship with a vulnerable mentally ill constituent who went to him for help. They did eventually take action in that case last year, which he resigned ahead of, but years too late (and after Portsmouth Lib Dems had suppressed their own report into the case).
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-29 10:05 pm (UTC)Trying to take your points in order, and bearing in mind I was pulling things off the top of my head:
- I think poverty is a limiting factor on freedom, therefore antipoverty measures are liberal measures (also it is in the preamble to the constitution that we work towards a society where "none shall be enslaved by ignorance, poverty or conformity"
- same sex marriage has all party backing now because it has turned out to be popular; what I know is that it was passed into LibDem party policy at conference in autumn 2010, before either of the other two big parties made commitments, and that while David Cameron threw his weight behind it, he was able to be so because he knew he had (almost all) of the LibDem votes in favour. I was just digging out some of Julian's contributions to that particular debate and found a Conservative pointing out that while the government had a majority in favour, there was not a majority of Conservatives in favour; and Labour did introduce civil partnerships and that was a good step forward, but they could have done marriage back then and didn't; even at the time of the debates people were saying "surely there are more important things for the country than this". I think that without LibDems in the Coalition, and specifically Lynne Featherstone in Equalities, it could easily have been a "not that important" thing that got pushed back again and again.
- also please decide if the libdems have "done nothing" because it was all-party support or "are responsible for it being horribly transphobic" i.e. 90% rather than 100% (despite a lot of personal lobbying by friends of mine in LibDem LGBT+ of the committee trying to fix the spousal veto stuff)
- child imprisonment: I was under the impression we had gone from imprisoning children for months and years in detention centres to holding them for a few days at most in secure houses - I thought it was a 90% case again. I bow to your brother's greater expertise if he thinks it is more like 10% with the reduction in oversight, and I'm sorry to hear that because I know how hard Sarah Teather worked to get just as far as we have got
- given your political priorites: Julian voted against the government on tuition fees. Julian voted against the government on NHS marketisation. Julian was instrumental in getting Nick Clegg to resist the "snoopers charter" bills that keep coming back (and back and back). Julian is also (last poll I saw) running slightly behind his Labour opponent in Cambridge and needs every vote he can get
On Rennard: yes, it was fucking awful, and the party has lost some fantastic women (Susan Gaszack is a personal friend and I was gutted to see people close ranks against her and make her feel unwelcome) - what really struck me was how much I live in a bubble most of the time where people take harassment seriously etc, and how many terribly well-meaning people said "well I know a woman who never had a problem with Rennard so it must all be lies", or demanded extra details and then decided they weren't good enough (even within my own family I had to do harassment 101 explanations)
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-30 10:12 am (UTC)I think it's fair that anti-poverty measures are liberal measures, and I do approve of the Lib Dems for enacting them. The party's commitment to addressing poverty (and yes, ignorance) is a really good reason why I feel like I'm a natural LibDem voter in many ways. It just feels like, what's the point of raising the income tax threshold if you're also going to make huge cuts in housing benefit in the form of the bedroom tax? I can't really see that as a policy compromise, it's more like giving with one hand and taking away with the other.
It sounds to me like I should be giving the Lib Dems more credit for same-sex marriage; thanks for filling in some of the background there.
Regarding child imprisonment, I need to get more actual facts and not just listening to my brother's rants. This is an issue that is inclining me towards a Green vote, because they want open borders and . If immigration ceased being a crime at all, there would be no need to imprison anyone for being the wrong nationality, children or adults, in good conditions or poor, and no need for deporting anyone to countries where they are likely to be tortured or killed. Honestly, beyond party politics I'm seriously considering getting activist on this issue. This is not a question of, I hate the Lib Dems, they haven't done enough to address this huge glaring moral problem; they have done something rather than nothing, and that counts for a lot.
I think there's a lot to be said for voting specifically for Julian. I happen to like him personally, but more importantly he's exactly the kind of MP I want representing me, and as you say, his voting record is pretty much exactly what I'd want. And I'm aware that Cambridge is pretty marginal, partly for the reason that the Lib Dem parliamentary party has alienated a lot of its voters, whether that's fairly or unfairly. Where I'm at is figuring out whether I am going to support a party whose values I generally agree with, but who don't have a good track record of upholding those values in parliament. (At the party conference, they're great, but that doesn't really help me because it doesn't translate to actual policy and law.)
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-30 11:11 am (UTC)The trouble with "and it doesn't translate into upholding those values in parliament" is the problem of coalitions generally, made worse by the tradition of "collective responsibility" where one is not meant to criticise any government decision if one is in the government.
I have heard ministers speak at party meetings about the horrendous internal arguments and negotiations and the concessions demanded to get even a sliver of LibDem policy through - and then if it is popular, the Conservatives will say they were in favour all along. (You will also hear Conservatives complain about how the LibDems are always trying to claim credit for popular things, and being far too pushy given their tiny number of MPs - sometimes I take a bitter satisfaction when the more unpleasant type of Conservative MP complains about what the LibDems have stopped their party doing, but being a perpetual brake isn't exactly a message of hope.)
The LibDem ministers who have achieved the most in their areas are those who have never, ever, said anything publicly to criticise their Conservative fellow ministers. It's kind of hard to tell from the outside if they secretly agree with things or are personally gutted about it, and if you are one of the people who is being hurt, you probably don't care if the well-paid minister feels bad about hurting you.
For example, we are a lot further towards having a sustainable basis for a state pension that people can actually live on, and a lot more people in work paying into a pension: because Steve Webb has been working really really hard on that for his entire time as pensions minister. And he has never criticised anything else done in the Department of Work and Pensions, including those things that
Another example would be Norman Lamb and trying to get mental health to be given equal priority with physical health - and never ever criticising the changes to the NHS.
Sarah Teather was more openly critical, and she lost her Cabinet seat. Tessa Munt just resigned her government post to vote against the government on fracking.
I mean obviously I have come down on the side of "I mostly think these people are doing their best with a poisoned chalice" and "having fewer liberals in Parliament isn't going to improve things" and "I'd rather try to stay and work within the party to make things better than leave" or I'd have left. That's the decision I've come to now; it might change in future (though I really hope not).
Right now, I specifically do very much want Julian Huppert to be re-elected, both as a voice within parliament, and a voice within our party (because sure we're all equal members, but the parliamentarians are more high-profile and influential, who'd have thought), and I am putting money and volunteer effort towards that.