Today, however, conformity is often counter-productive. Trying to enforce the arbitrary conventions of one’s in-group impedes social cooperation on the scale that makes modernity possible. Conformity also slows the development of new ideas and new ways of doing things–the essence of growth and progress. Even though conformity is now counter-productive the desire to conform and to enforce conformity is buried deep
I think it is much more complicated than that. Conformity is not some dysfunctional behavior pattern left over from our hunter-gatherer environment. Conformity is what makes any form of human progress and social cooperation possible. Re-read my piece on cultural intelligence.
The transition to modernity did not mean that people stopped imitating other people or stopped rewarding conformity or stopped punishing non-conformity. What happened was a shift in who was considered worthy of being imitated, rewarded, or punished. I read Deirdre McCloskey as saying that the prestige of some classes (warriors, hereditary aristocrats, dictatorial religious authorities) gradually declined, while the prestige of merchants and entrepreneurs rose dramatically. Along the way, a vast array of behavioral norms developed in the fields of commerce and politics, giving rise to what we call (classical) liberalism.
An issue that is currently very salient to me, and I believe to Alex as well, is how to sustain Enlightenment-era liberalism in the face of what appear to be powerful challenges. On the right, rising xenophobia represents a challenge (some would argue that the challenge comes from the xenos, who are causing the phobia). On the left, hostility toward capitalism and toward freedom of expression appears to be on the rise.
I share what I see as Alex’s worry that people’s ideas and values are regressing to a pre-Enlightment state. But I think that it is more complicated than just saying that the conformity dial has been turned up.
That the human tendency towards social conformity can be useful to sustain a pleasant and highly functional society but also has some truly, catastrophically awful failure modes is pretty obvious. It’s a double-edged sword.
I happen to agree that we are probably edging closer to a conformity failure mode today. We aren’t generating enough growth to bail ourselves out from the social mistakes that are being made, and that’s because too few people understand (or are even willing to consider) that they are mistakes, because those people are strongly incentivized to conform to these wrong mainstream beliefs and narratives.
That being said, it seems to me that over 90% of the time anyone is complaining about ‘conformity’, they are really just complaining about ,”the annoying popularity of fashions I don’t like.” There are lots of insignificant reasons you might not like a popular fashion, e.g. you have minority tastes and preferences.
But when one frames this complaint in terms of ‘conformity’, one is making additional, seemingly objective claims about the fashion’s lack of merit and the majority’s lack of enlightened discernment.
I might make an analogy to my sense that we mostly die of inflammation-related diseases in developed countries.
What is this? Conformity? Insanity? Latest fashion? Tribal dance?
http://portlandtribune.com/sl/307848-185832-portland-school-board-bans-climate-change-denying-materials
“spread doubt about the human causes and urgency of the crisis,”
Has there been any demonstrable harm from CO2?
Even if one thinks the job of public schools is political propaganda, urgency is a bit of an overstatement.
Is xenophobia rising? Centuries ago, Protestants fought Catholics. Today, they don’t.
Japan is the ultimate xenophobia in terms of being a strictly homogeneous ethnic state and generally refusing permanent entry to non-Japanese.
Indeed. Liberal societies can only exist if they are populated by people adapted to liberalism. Fill it with people not adapted and it can’t work. NE Asians figured this out and adopted immigration policies accordingly.
The common sense solution would be to admit some very special evolutionary accidents happened in Europe and NE Asia, that they can’t be replicated in the modern world, and the responsible thing to do if we want to be well functioning societies is to admit this and base public policy accordingly.
The original enlightenment thinkers didn’t imagine that “all men are created equal” meant anything like what it means to libertarians or progressives today. Maybe the reason they built one of the world’s most successful societies and we are tearing it down is that they were smart enough not to interpret that statement too literally.
What are “Enlightenment Values” if the thinkers of the enlightenment didn’t even hold them?
Maybe enlightenment values always had contradictions and failure modes embedded into them, and what really kept the whole thing going was the application of unprincipled exceptions and subjective human judgements that smoothed out those jagged philosophical edges. Our various hypocrisies may have been the only thing holding our idealism together.
Agree with the general post comments about conformity. Like just about everything, it is not good or bad. It’s value is context dependent and difficult to comment on objectively.
How is classical liberalism threatened by opposition to immigration by foreigners who reject classical liberalism? The real threat is from those who have turned these foreigners into sacred cows who must be stuffed into Western society as quickly as possible.
I note Arnold once again demonstrates his charitableness by referring to people who want to limit immigration as suffering from “xenophobia.”
It is a word. Personally, I don’t like “tax expenditures.”
It is a pejorative word, intended to convey that the people being described are irrational, paranoid and racist. Arnold’s use of it suggests that his whole “charitableness” schtick is a load of bull. I interpret the “charitableness” line, not as a statement of principle, but as a desperate plea for dialogue with the Left. Good luck with that.
Claiming that desire to limit immigration is a threat to classical liberalism is laughable, in view of what’s happening in Europe.
Unlike “xenophobe,” the term “tax expenditure” does not describe a person.
That is irrelevant to me.
You can say that white people are genetically superior to other people (as you did above), or you can complain about being branded a xenophobe, but you can’t in good faith do both of those things.
That’s like, a totally different dude, and yes they could anyway. Ideally words should not politically stack the deck and also make sense. I don’t know that anyone is phobic of foreigners.
For example, I work with a bunch of Chinese and Indians and I just find them damned annoying at times, as I’m sure they do me. But I don’t cower in a corner when Indians, for example, refuse to push their chairs, back under the tables in a,conference room. Having to push 20 chairs under the table to get out is one way of doing it, just like having to rewind your own VHS tape would be. It is just damned annoying though.
I did not say that, that was somebody else. Why don’t you reply to him.
Mexico has a wall on its southern border, and deports illegal aliens without compunction. Are Mexicans xenophobes? Was Eisenhower xenophobic because his administration had a policy of deporting illegal aliens?
Facts are facts man. Genetics are what they are. There is nothing irrational in acknowledging their real effects on the world or the likely impacts of third world immigration.
Xenophobia implies an irrational hatred of the other for no good reason. I find concerns about third world immigration quite rational and evidence based.
There are two basic lines of denial on this matter:
1) HBD isn’t true
2) HBD is true, but it doesn’t matter
I believe both of these can be easily countered with the evidence. I think the people who cling to these two points do so out of selfish motives rather then honest appraisals. Either directly benefiting (cheaper wages for employers, more D voters for government cronies) or indirectly though ideological comfort (if the above are true, progressives and libertarians have to ask themselves hard questions that are uncomfortable). And if your a wonk/journalist idealogical comfort and direct benefits are intertwined.
BTW, one of the best allegories I’ve ever seen for this issue:
Everyone’s New Clothes
You know the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. It ends this way:
“But he hasn’t got anything on,” a little child said.
“Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?” said its father. And one person whispered to another what the child had said, “He hasn’t anything on. A child says he hasn’t anything on.”
“But he hasn’t got anything on!” the whole town cried out at last.
The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, “This procession has got to go on.” So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn’t there at all.
Now you will know the rest of the story:
The next day the newspapers published glowing reports of the Emperor’s new clothes. The reporters did not want to acknowledge that they had seen nothing, and the most reknowned reporters and the biggest editors were already in court circles and had already claimed to see the Emperor’s new clothes in the making. The press did report that a few oafs had shouted that the Emperor had no clothes, revealing to all their own lack of capacity.
The Emperor froze to death that winter. Whereas the swindlers had before claimed that not seeing the clothes revealed only stupidity, they now said that those who did not see the clothes harbored malice. A rising young courtier suggested that the disbelief of those malicious persons had actually undermined the quality of the cloth for the Emperor himself. The swindlers agreed that in light of the death of the Emperor, it seemed exceedingly probable.
The child who had shouted that the Emperor had no clothes was expelled from school. His father lost his job. Though he was an honest and skilled workman, his employer simply could not risk being affiliated with a man who had fathered such a boy. Dirty layabouts gathered outside the family’s home to harass them. The police intervened on occasion, but explained that their enforcement priorities unfortunately made it impossible to protect the family entirely. Eventually the family fled to a neighboring country. Was it not likely that the family had been agents of that neighboring country all along? Once it was suggested in the press, the idea was quickly taken up by the people.
Meanwhile, the new Emperor ordered redoubled efforts to root out and punish the stupid and malicious persons who had caused the old Emperor’s death. The ambitious young courtier helmed these efforts, much to his own advantage. The townspeople, meanwhile, loudly and sincerely proclaimed their belief in the Emperor’s clothes, and vied to prove their loyalty. Some townspeople bought suits of New Clothes themselves (of a somewhat lesser quality than the Emperor’s, of course). It was soon noticed that these Newly Clothed persons received some degree of indulgence and even honor from court officials and were well treated by all those who wished to stand well with the court. The Newly Clothed were never a majority, but did comprise most of the up-and-coming strivers and the persons of good background, and many of their imitators. When some of them died of exposure, it caused a panic—the extent of the conspiracy of malice went further than had been believed! More conspirators were hunted down, punished, harassed, and given the fate they richly deserved. Some of them were even New Clothes wearers themselves, though it was a singular how many of these last were discovered to not be wearing New Clothes at all, but only to be naked, preying on the credulity of the population. Eventually, however, perhaps because the main body of conspirators had been finally dealt with, it was discovered that death from exposure was a phenomenon that had existed all along and that there was no need to react with any great panic to it.
The Emperor himself, and his immediate Court, were forced to forgo the pleasure of New Clothes. Given the safety risks from malicious persons, as demonstrated by the death of the old Emperor, it was a sacrifice that security demanded they make.
In later years, both the ambitious young courtier and the swindlers were hanged for other offenses.
When a century had gone by, it was widely understood that the New Clothes were metaphorical. Youth donned New Clothes in a touching ceremony where they put off the malice and ignorance of childhood. They continued to wear old clothes, of course. They were not extremists.
A few decades later a radical holy man arose who insisted on the literal interpretation of New Clothes. He and his followers killed the Emperor and dissolved the Empire before being killed in their turn, weakened by exposure.
3. You need to add mine. HBD exists and it does matter. Putting people in a better system improves net results.