Al Gore, Sounding Habermasian Themes

A few days ago I posted excerpts of an essay by Juergen Habermas in which he stressed the importance of reasoned, informed public discourse. Now comes Al Gore with a similar message. In an excerpt from a new book of his called The Assault on Reason, he argues that the "strangeness" of America's public sphere helps explain some of the mistakes my home country has made lately.

I think these two contributions make nice bookends. Pay attention to the quality of your discourse, says Habermas. It's critical to democracy, and it is subject to breakdowns. You must provide the people with the oatmeal of informed discussion before they get the dessert of celebrity gossip. Make sure you provide them with enough background information to allow reasonably informed decision-making. When the market won't do this on its own -- and there's little reason to think it will -- the state will need to step in and bring it about some other way.

Otherwise, you'll end up making terrible mistakes. After cataloging some of the self-inflicted wounds America now finds itself trying to bandage, Al Gore continues:

It is too easy—and too partisan—to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes. We have a Congress. We have an independent judiciary. We have checks and balances. We are a nation of laws. We have free speech. We have a free press. Have they all failed us? Why has America's public discourse become less focused and clear, less reasoned? Faith in the power of reason—the belief that free citizens can govern themselves wisely and fairly by resorting to logical debate on the basis of the best evidence available, instead of raw power—remains the central premise of American democracy. This premise is now under assault.

American democracy is now in danger—not from any one set of ideas, but from unprecedented changes in the environment within which ideas either live and spread, or wither and die. I do not mean the physical environment; I mean what is called the public sphere, or the marketplace of ideas.

It is simply no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. I know I am not alone in feeling that something has gone fundamentally wrong....

At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial was just an unfortunate excess—an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time: the Michael Jackson trial and the Robert Blake trial, the Laci Peterson tragedy and the Chandra Levy tragedy, Britney and KFed, Lindsay and Paris and Nicole.

While American television watchers were collectively devoting 100 million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories, our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness. For example, hardly anyone now disagrees that the choice to invade Iraq was a grievous mistake. Yet, incredibly, all of the evidence and arguments necessary to have made the right decision were available at the time and in hindsight are glaringly obvious.

Comments

[Don]

I think Mr. Gore is correct about the quality of public discourse, not only in the US but internationally.

Unfortunately Mr. Gore in his role of spokesman for the good and the true overlooks 'An Inconvenient Fact' in both of his spokesman roles. As a spokesman for 'Habermasian Themes' Mr. Gore ignores his own role as purveyor of the strangeness. He finds the effusions of the likes of Dick Cheney and Jerry Falwell strange - but overlooks the equal strangeness of his own effusions.

Similarly Mr. Gore apparently finds nothing incongruous in his role as chief spokesman for Gaia, despite the apparent fact that his own family consumes more than 10X the energy consumption of the average American family. Some have pointed out that criticizing Mr. Gore for his energy consumption expended in his role as roving ambassador for the planet unfair. I mostly accept this unfairness - except for his reported fondness for travel by private jet. Surely first class travel would be enough even for so distinguished an ambassador?

But the large Gore personal consumption (and excessive growth rate) in emissions? I think I could swallow someone like Ralph Nader with his famously ascetic lifestyle as a spokesman. The Gores are a different story. If 12 American families reduced energy consuption 10% each last year that would just about offset the increased consumption of the Gore family. The symbolism is very bad, Al.

[Don]

I doubt most people have thought about evolution or the 30 Years war or Ptolmey vs Copernicus in any detail for many years.

As it turns out I have thought about evolution and done a bit of research. I'm also an amateur historian and art historian and misspend my limited holidays on feckless pursuits such as visiting the German National Museum at Nurnberg, the Louvre, etc. I highly recommend the Nurnberg museum if you haven't been there. I've visited twice and would go again if I was visiting anywhere nearby. Marvelous place.

The first thing about evolution is that it's not a competition between evolution and creationism. The untruth of creationism (at least the most narrow interpretations of creationism) do not make evolution any more true.

Biology is not my field but my best understanding of what I've read about the field is that the theory of evolution plausibly explains between 35% and 60% of what we see - both in living organisms and in the fossil record.

The remainder is a mystery to one degree or another. There seem to be leaps in development - places in development where five or six things had to happen to make the change work. None of the six individual changes make sense on an individual basis - they would not help the organism survive better. So evolution doesn't explain that kind of thing. I think the Mind of God - God the Designer may do. I might alternately call it undiscovered theory.

One more thing: If I were to take that poll I would answer that "God created humans in present form." rather than "Humans evolved, God guided the process". It is a truer formulation of my true beliefs. I don't think God 'guided' the process - I think God designed a system.

I'm obviously in-between the two but believe that 'guided' formulation to be mealy-mouthed. I'd rather join the Great Unwashed than be mealy-mouthed. Call me a C.S. Lewis Christian - that's about as close as you'll get.

[Sebastian Koppehel]

Oh, lest this veers off too far in the direction of religious beliefs, here's another gem from the article I linked previously: Only 48 percent of Germans could say for sure that Martin Luther lived before the Thirty Years' War, which is astounding insofar as − I mention this only for the sake of completeness, of course ;-) − this major conflagration was to no small degree caused and fuelled by the conflict between Catholic and Protestant powers. This poll was conducted in 1994. The same question was asked in 1957, with 54 % knowing the correct answer. So "we" are stupid, but at least our parents weren't much wiser than us ...

[Sebastian Koppehel]

I believe that myself. I believe in God and in evolution. If one believes that evolution created humans in our present form and believes that God created evolution

In that case you don't belong to the 55 percent, but rather to the 27 percent who say "Humans evolved, God guided the process," or even the 13 percent who think "Humans evolved, God did not guide process." The focus here is not on whether these people believe in God, but to what degree they reject, shall we say, secular biology. I find it astounding that apparently 55 percent haven't heard of or don't find plausible the theory of evolution. The poll is also conveniently broken down along party lines, showing that Bush voters are more likely to believe in creationism than Kerry voters, for whatever reason.

Apart from that, while I'm not religious personally, I don't think believers are nuts. I would have to call too many obviously brilliant minds of history and present nuts, as well as several people I know myself as enlightened and wholesome persons. Note that this does not foreclose, in any way, the question of your own nuttiness ;-)

[Don]

@Sebastian

'55 percent of Americans believe that "God created humans in present form."'

I believe that myself. I believe in God and in evolution. If one believes that evolution created humans in our present form and believes that God created evolution... QED.

Nutty? Perhaps. There is no conclusive scientific proof of the existance of God (that I'm aware of anyway) - so I may be deluded. I see the evidence for the existance of God in grounds which are dfficult to quantify - such as the beauty of nature and the intricacy of the mechanisms of life, and find it difficult to believe the utter absence of intelligence in designing there schemes.

God the Designer if you will. If that makes me a nut - so be it....

[Sebastian Koppehel]

@Don:

Yup. There is equivalent unhinged nuttiness on the other end of the American ideological spectrum but it's not nearly as pervasive as that. More like 4-5% as opposed to 35%....

55 percent of Americans believe that "God created humans in present form." Also, 26 percent of Germans believe the sun revolves around the earth or are at least unsure which revolves around which (or rather: believed in 1996, but the tendency was increasing). I think the lesson here is:

a) the general populace is much stupider than is generally feared;

b) whereever you stand politically, if you want to make reasonable politics, you suffer from this and only have to gain from better education.

[Paul]

Gore is right: "It is simply no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse." That is, he is right where "our" includes not only the North American continent but also most parts of the industrialized world. (For the moment, let us not consider "public discourse" in socialist countries like China or theocracies like Iran.)

However, I think it unlikely that Al Gore would go on to make statements like your own:

(Begin quotes)

"...the average American voter is incredibly ignorant."

"...the ignorance of the average American concerning basic facts..."

"...European voters are better-informed than American voters..."

"I find political discourse in Germany much more sophisticated than in the U.S."

"I actually live in Northern Europe, the land of unusually rational voters..."

(End quotes)

In other words:

Average American (voter) = ignorant, irrational, naive

Average German (voter) = well-informed, rational, sophisticated

With all due respect, Andrew, to me this seems an extreme, black-and-white position. It may be that the average American voter is not as well-informed as the European; it may be that the popular press, e.g. local newspapers, is not as sophisticated as the European. But the German newspaper with the largest circulation is "Bild" (enough said) and other widely circulating publications following it, like "Stern" and "Bunte," cannot seriously be called vehicles of sophisticated political discourse. And, while there are relatively many titles on German newsstands, ownership is highly concentrated. Springer, Gruner+Jahr, Bauer, and Burda have a market share totaling nearly 60%. So much for diversity. As for sophistication, even German publications like "Die Zeit" seem to be cloning much of their material from the U.S. press, from publications like "The New York Times," "The New Yorker," "Atlantic Monthly," and others. Popular absurdities among average Germans abound here, too, among others, that Bush is a second Hitler, 9/11 was a CIA plot, and nuclear-armed Mullahs are less dangerous than the U.S. government.

American expatriates in Germany, given the current level of prejudice against America and Americans, as well as, admittedly, real deficits of our current administration, are consciously or unconsciously in a continuing state of inner defence; they have to keep justifying, to themselves and to others, their American identity. Americans abroad can run and hide, adopt protective coloration (identifying themselves as Canadian as the urban legend goes), or just give in to the Stockholm Syndrome and begin dissing their own country to make themselves popular with the locals. In such a state of mind, facts tend to be used the way a drunken man uses lamp posts--for support rather than illumination.

[Don]

Reasonable, informed public discouse? What's that?

Here is a link to an op-ed piece showing a yawning gap on one major issue: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/05/20/one_partys_fringe_is_the_others_mainstream/

A snip from near the end:

"But to a large extent, the Democrats' lack of seriousness about the war we are in can only be explained by Bush Derangement Syndrome. The term was coined by commentator Charles Krauthammer, a former psychiatrist, who defines it as "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency -- nay, the very existence of George W. Bush."

What if not derangement can explain such fever-swamp nuttiness as the findings of a new Rasmussen poll, which asked whether Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance? Among Democrats, 35 percent believe he did know and another 26 percent weren't sure. Only 39 percent said he didn't. In other words, nearly two out of three Democrats are unwilling to say that Bush wasn't tipped off to 9/11 in advance."

Yup. There is equivalent unhinged nuttiness on the other end of the American ideological spectrum but it's not nearly as pervasive as that. More like 4-5% as opposed to 35%....

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Seems that Al Gore isn't familiar with German Joys' new favorite Bryan Caplan, especially his insightful thoughts about "Rational Ignorance vs. Rational Irrationality" or "The Logic of Collective Belief"...