Category: Politics

The concept of tribalism is often used to explain American politics but is also wielded as a weapon. An expert might claim that tribalism is causing unwillingness to compromise, while a partisan might deride the tribalism of the other tribe. While this essay is not intended to explore the complexities of a rigorous definition of the concept, I will endeavor to discuss the matter in a neutral and rational way.

Tribalism is characterized by loyalty to the tribe. This differs from loyalty to principles or values. After all, a person who is loyal to a tribe because it is their tribe will remain loyal even when the values of the tribe change. In contrast, a person dedicated to values that a tribe just also happens to have at a certain time will leave that tribe if these values are abandoned. American tribalism involves value fluidity: as the tribe changes values, tribalists shift their values. For example, Republicans once endorsed free trade and opposed tariffs. They also professed to dislike deficits and spending. Trump, however, shifted these values and now the Republican tribe embraces tariffs, deficits and big government spending. Such is the power of tribalism that it trumps professed values.

It might be contended that tribes need values and principles to define them, hence this claim of fluidity is an exaggeration. However, the ease with which tribes shift values shows that it is real. People even develop myths that the values they profess now have always been the values of their tribe.

Tribalism has its origin in biology as humans are social animals and tribalism is the human equivalent of pack loyalty. Animals generally lack abstract principles or values, and this is one reason why tribalism trumps values—it is grounded in unthinking instinct. Tribalism is also fueled by cognitive biases. The most important is in-group bias, which is the tendency of people to see members of their own group as better than the members of other groups. This bias makes it easy for people to attribute positive qualities to members of their own tribe while easily assigning negative traits to those of other tribes. This probably also helps support value fluidity: whatever changes occur in the values professed by the tribe will still be seen as better than the values of other tribes. As might be expected, fallacious reasoning also plays a role in tribalism.

There is a fallacy, often called the “group think fallacy”, in which it is inferred that a claim is true (or something is good) because members of one’s group believe the claim (or hold to the values). This is obviously fallacious but has considerable psychological appeal. This also helps fuel value fluidity, since beliefs and values are not based on objective assessment, but by reference to the group. As would be expected, tribalism creates numerous problems.

One problem is that tribalism makes the professed values of the tribe meaningless. This is because loyalty is to the tribe rather than to the professed values. This does raise some interesting philosophical questions about the basis of tribal identity. It also creates a ship of Theseus style problem about whether there is a point at which a tribe has changed its professed values so much that it is no longer the same tribe. There are also some other interesting metaphysical problems about identity here as well in terms of what makes a tribe the same tribe across time and value changes.

A second problem is that tribalism encourages irrational behavior. They can often act contrary to what seem to be their own interests and against the general welfare because of the dictates of their tribal leaders. On the positive side, tribal leaders could issue commands that do coincide with the interests of the tribal members and the general welfare. However, this would be a matter of luck.

A third problem is that tribalism makes it easy for authoritarians to gain ready-made followers who happily serve them, no matter how terrible they are. Because of these problems, it would seem best to find ways to counter tribalism.

One obvious solution is improving critical thinking, so that people can recognize the defects behind and of tribalism. However, mere logic is obviously enough—people also need training in goodness and commitment to virtue, as per Aristotle. But tribalism provides its members with a defense against critical thinking and training in the virtues.

The Declaration of Independence asserts a variation of Locke’s political philosophy, claiming that all men are created equal and have  the natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Locke said there is a right to property rather than a right to the pursuit of happiness.  As one of my political science professors noted, the founders had most of the property and did not want other people to get ideas.

If this document is taken seriously as a statement of American political philosophy and values, it commits all Americans to the equality of people and to these three basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. While the notion of equality and the specifics of these rights are subject to debate and disagreement, their interpretation cannot stray too far, or they become meaningless or absurd. For example, when South Carolina seceded from the Union the authors appealed to the principle of liberty as a justification for maintaining slavery. Asserting that the natural right of liberty justifies rebellion to maintain the violation of the natural right of liberty is clearly an absurd position, but no more absurd than positions taken on rights today.

While slavery is currently illegal (with a few exceptions) there are still violations of the principle of equality and these natural rights. As might be suspected, minorities are often the targets of such violations.  Skeptics often say they see no evidence of systematic violations in their own experiences and then claim is no such thing. If examples are offered, the response is usually that these examples are anecdotal evidence or that the alleged violations are not real violations, but consequences brought about by the individuals in question. That is, that they must have done something wrong that justified what was done to them.

These replies do have some appeal. After all, an appeal to anecdotal evidence to establish a general claim would be a fallacy.  There can also be cases in which apparent violations are instead self-inflicted harm. Responding to the charge of anecdotal evidence requires the presenting of statistical data in support of the claim that such violations exist. Responding to the assertion that the apparent violations are the fault of the alleged victims requires showing that the harms are inflicted rather than self-inflicted.

The statistical evidence for inequality is overwhelming, with blacks and Hispanics in the United States consistently being worse off than white Americans. The disparity begins at birth,  as infant mortality for blacks is more than double that of whites. It ends, one assumes, at death. While the life expectancy of Americans has been declining, black Americans have a lower average life expectancy than white Americans. It should be noted that “deaths of despair” have increased among middle-aged whites as they have been facing conditions routinely endured by blacks and Hispanics (notably a shortage of steady, well-paying jobs). While this might be seen as evidence against the existence of racism (that social ills are increasingly killing whites, too) it serves more to highlight the impact of economic disparity that has always been present. That class disparity is “equalizing” the harms of racism is obviously not a good thing.

Between birth and death, blacks and Hispanics are far more likely to grow up in poverty, less likely to graduate from high school, less likely to be enrolled in college, more likely to earn less money, more likely to lack insurance, and far less likely to own rather than rent. This is not to deny that there are whites who are in dire straits nor is it to ignore anecdotes about the misfortunes of whites. However, this is a matter of statistics and in general blacks and Hispanics are worse-off than whites. While this establishes the statistical evidence, there remains the question of causation.

The racist explanation is that whites are generally superior to blacks and Hispanics and hence do better at life. This view of racial superiority and inferiority is, by definition, racist. However, being morally repugnant does not make something false. Being untrue makes it false.

If there were different races with different abilities, this would show up in genetic testing. However, the scientific evidence is that there is no biological foundation to the categories of race. It could be argued that the differences are undetectable by current science or, perhaps, that they are metaphysical in nature. The obvious problem with such claims is that they are based on a fallacious  appeal to ignorance and the burden of proof rests on those who claim they know there is a difference. As such, the biological superiority argument fails.

Another stock explanation is cultural: white culture is superior to black and Hispanic culture, so whites do better. This avoids the appeal to biological race and instead attributes negative traits (like laziness or criminality) to the cultures. One point of concern with this approach is defining cultures. After all, Americans share a broad culture and those who embrace the allegedly successful culture should tend to succeed at the same rate as whites. After all, anyone can adopt a culture (or appropriate it) and thus succeed. If it were that simple, presumably inequality would have ended long ago. Even if the cultural hypothesis is accepted, there arises the question as to why such cultures exist and have the alleged traits.

Given the historical facts of slavery and racism, the most plausible explanation is that blacks and Hispanics inherit many of the residual the harms of the past centuries while the white population, in general, inherits the benefits. While there are some remarkable rags-to-riches stories,  the United States has low economic mobility and even this has been on the decline. As such, it is no wonder that people whose ancestors were slaves in the United States would still be doing worse than those who owned slaves. After all, wealth provides an enduring advantage, and poverty provides an enduring disadvantage.

Some make the argument that since slavery ended over a century ago, its effects cannot possibly be felt. While this is an absurd claim (think of the old money families who owe their wealth to things that happened long ago), one need not rely on an appeal to the impact of the past. One can simply run through examples of and data about contemporary racism.

Those that disagree with this claim will, of course, endeavor to claim that the examples are isolated incidents and that the statistics are either in error or lies. The challenge is, of course, to respond to the data with opposing data of equal or greater credibility. The other main alternative, as noted above, is to persist in arguing that while the harms are real, they are self-inflicted. While people are sometimes their own worst enemy, the evidence is solid that many of the harms of inequality are inflicted. These, in turn, impact the liberty and life of those affected—which runs against the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. But these sorts of fact-based arguments are generally ineffective as such beliefs are based on values rather than logic. That is, it is not that racists are racists because they have false factual beliefs about statistical data. They are racists because of their values.

 

Plato argued philosophers should be kings, based on the idea that ruling was best done by those with knowledge. While having a philosophy professor running the show might not be the best idea, it makes sense to think intelligence is an important trait for good leaders. After all, good leadership requires making good decisions and intelligence can help here.

As might be expected, there is evidence for this view: there is a strong correlation between perceived leadership effectiveness and intelligence. Interestingly, there is positive correlation up until the leader’s IQ is 120. Above that and the leader is perceived as less effective. There are, of course, questions about IQ as a measure of intelligence, but let us set that aside for this discussion.

It is tempting to embrace the stereotype of the bumbling and ineffective intellectual and think that these higher IQ leaders are bad at leading because of their intelligence. To use a fictional example, consider the Star Trek episode “The Galileo 7.” In this episode, Spock and several crewmembers from the Enterprise crash on a planet and are beset by hostile natives. In the course of the episode, Spock uses his logic and intelligence to make decisions—but fails as a leader until he takes a desperate gamble to save everyone. The same, one might argue, can happen in the real world: a leader whose intelligence leads them astray when they try to lead. To use a real-world example, Jimmy Carter was often characterized in this manner. He was an intelligent (and compassionate) person, but many claimed he was a poor leader because he overthought things.

While this explanation has some appeal, especially in a political and social climate that is savagely anti-intellectual and anti-expert, it does not hold up to scrutiny. While there are intelligent leaders who are bad at leading, high IQ leaders are generally perceived as performing worse than their actual performance. As such, the problem is more one of perception of leadership than leadership.

It could be objected that this perception problem is a problem of leadership because a good leader would ensure that their leadership was properly perceived. On the one hand, this objection does have appeal because a key part of leadership is getting people to follow and shaping perceptions is important. On the other hand, it could be argued that the fault lies in the followers and the responsibility of learning how to perceive reality accurately lies with them.

In many ways, this challenge is like that faced by educators. A very intelligent teacher presenting difficult material to students who do not understand might be perceived as a bad teacher because of the students’ own ignorance. In contrast, a less intelligent teacher presenting simple material might be seen as a very good teacher (especially if the students get good grades). In the education scenario, one could blame the students as they should put in more effort to understand and in doing so would realize that the teacher knows their stuff. Of course, one could also blame the teacher: their job is not to show off their intelligence before uncaring students, but to teach them. As such, a good teacher must develop the skills needed to win the attention of students and the ability to guide them from ignorance to knowledge. In the history of education, the pendulum of perceived responsibility tends to swing between these two points depending on the dominant educational theory (and politics) of the day.

One approach is to take the middle-ground and argue that both intelligent leaders and their followers need to improve. That is, the followers should learn to assess leadership better and the high IQ leaders need to develop ways to connect to their followers and present themselves in a way that is not perceived as ineffective. This might, perhaps, involve dumbing things down. Or, more charitably, improving their explanations.

Another approach is to put more of a burden on leaders or on the followers, which harkens back to the education analogy—the tendency is towards the extremes rather than the middle ground. This leads to interesting questions about the responsibilities of leaders and followers. Since the leader is in the position of authority and more should be expected of them, the leader is responsible for ensuring that the followers perceive their leadership effectiveness accurately. But, going back to the teaching analogy, it is unfair to put all the burden on a teacher for making students learn and likewise for leaders. As such, the middle-ground approach is perhaps the fairest: high IQ leaders, like high IQ teachers, need to ensure that they are understood. But, followers, like students, must also assume responsibility to try to understand.

 

The received wisdom is that when Americans buy vehicles, they consider gas mileage when gas prices are high and mostly ignore it when gas prices are low. As this is being written, gas prices are relatively low and gas mileage concerns are probably low on the list for most buyers. As such, it is not surprising that the Trump administration has decided to lower the fuel efficiency standards of the Biden administration. This is consistent with the Trump administration’s approach of trying to undo what Biden did, primarily because it was done by Biden. He had a similar approach to the Obama administration.

When the Trump administration did the same thing in his first term, they said the standards were “wrong” and were set as a matter of politics. One plausible economic reason to oppose fuel efficiency in cars and light trucks is that more efficient vehicles also cost more. This economic argument can be retooled into a moral argument: saving consumers money is the right thing to do. But there is also an economic argument in favor of greater fuel efficiency.

While gas prices can vary greatly, increased fuel efficiency will offset increased vehicle costs and result in the consumer saving money. As such, the long-term economic argument favors fuel efficiency. As before, this can be retooled into a moral argument that saving Americans money is a good thing. But consumers saving money would seem to mean lower profits for the fossil fuel industry.

If, for example, an efficient vehicle saves me $4,000 in fuel costs over its life, then that is $4,000 less for the fossil fuel industry. While few would shed tears over lost profits for the industry executives, the broader impact must also be considered. While the executives reap the most benefits, the fossil fuel industry also includes the people working at gas stations and in the production and distribution of the fuel. If the harm done to these people outweighs the good done for the consumers, then increased fuel efficiency would, on utilitarian grounds, seem to be wrong. But it seems unlikely that the savings to consumers would cause more harm than good. After all, if we compare the benefit of the average American saving money to the  harm of a microscopic loss of profit for fossil fuel CEOs, then efficiency seems to be the right choice. In addition to the economic concerns and the associated ethical worries, there are also concerns about health.

While the Trump administration does not seem to care about the harms of pollution, about 50,000 deaths each year result from the air pollution caused by traffic. There are also many non-lethal health impacts of this pollution, such as asthma.  Increased fuel efficiency means vehicles burn less fuel, thus reducing the air pollution they produce per mile. Because of this, increasing fuel efficiency will reduce deaths and illnesses caused by air pollution. This health argument can be retooled easily into a moral argument: increasing fuel efficiency reduces pollution deaths and illness, and, on utilitarian grounds, this would be morally good. But this argument only works with those who care about the lives and health of others. That is, it should work with people who profess to be pro-life. But it will not, for the usual and obvious reasons.

It is reasonable to ask about how significant the reduction in deaths and illness might be. Arguments can also be made to try to show that the reduction in pollution would not be significant enough to justify increasing fuel efficiency on these grounds. It also should be noted that we, as a people, tolerate roughly 40,000 vehicle deaths per year. As such, continuing to tolerate deaths from air pollution is also an option. Tolerating deaths and illness for convenience and economic reasons is as American as apple pie.

For those not swayed by health concerns, there are national security and economic arguments that have been advanced for increasing fuel efficiency and they can still be applied today. One argument is that increased fuel efficiency will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make us safer. This security argument can also be presented as a moral argument based on the good consequences of increased security.

Another argument is based on the claim that buying foreign oil increases our trade deficit and this is economically harmful to the United States. Because of the negative consequences, this argument can also be refit as a moral argument in favor of increasing fuel efficiency. Given the Trump administration’s professed obsession with national security and trade deficits, these arguments should be appealing to them. But it is not.

Given the above arguments, there are excellent reasons to maintain the goal of increasing the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks. While there are some reasons not to do so, such as helping the fuel industry increase profits, this would be the wrong choice.

 

Supporters of prohibition argued that it would solve the ills caused by alcohol. Ironically, prohibition ushered in more evils, such as creating a financial foundation for organized crime. While they were right about the ills of alcohol, their solution was mistaken.

Studies of alcohol use back up the intuitive view that it contributes to the frequency and severity of violence, especially domestic violence. It is also linked to child abuse, suicide and (obviously) drunk driving. While there is neither a necessary nor sufficient link between alcohol and violence, there is a causal connection. As such, reducing alcohol consumption would reduce these harms, providing a basis for a solid utilitarian moral argument for doing so. Since a return to prohibition is not an option and individual efforts are limited to individuals, something with broad reach is needed to have a significant impact on the problem.

While few would argue for a return to prohibition, there is support for raising taxes on alcohol. Intuitively, increasing the cost of a product will reduce its consumption, but intuitions can be wrong. However, numerous studies  establish a link between raising alcohol taxes and reducing consumption. This, in turn, helped reduce violence. It also had other unexpected positive effects, such as reducing the number of gonorrhea cases. Raising taxes (and thus prices) is also supposed to reduce teen drinking, lowering the chances they will grow up to become heavy drinkers. These are all significant benefits which can be used in a utilitarian argument in favor of raising alcohol taxes. Naturally, the possible negative consequences must also be considered.

One concern is that if alcohol taxes are raised, people will turn to more dangerous alternatives such as other drugs and “boot leg” alcohol. The worry is that this “solution” will make things worse. But even if some people did turn to more dangerous alternatives, there could still be an overall positive outcome. This is an empirical matter that will require evidence to resolve, and the challenge is raising the tax enough to reduce alcohol consumption but not so much that people start switching to worse drugs or drinking Sterno.

As with any tax on a popular product, it is likely to disproportionally impact people with lower income. This concern has two main moral components. The first is that such a tax would be unfair because of this disproportionality. In this it does not differ from other sales taxes. While everyone pays the same rate, it is a higher percentage of the income of the less well off, which is why progressive taxes are fairer than sales taxes.

The second is that the higher cost would hurt poor people more than the wealthy (which is always true of any such tax). If they keep buying alcohol, they will suffer a greater financial burden, and this could cause additional problems. But if they decide to spend the same as before and thus drink less, then the overall impact would be positive (assuming there are benefits to less alcohol consumption).

There is also ideological opposition to increasing taxes, even (or especially) for the public good. In this case, it could be contended that increasing taxes is simply wrong, even to create good results. While there are some whose opposition to increasing taxes is absolute, it is difficult to argue that it is worse to not raise taxes and tolerate the serious harms, than to raise taxes to create significant benefits. This is why those who oppose tax increases aimed at the public good endeavor to shift the debate from the public good to well-worn ideological sayings about taxes being bad.

One last concern is opposition to the “nanny state.” The idea is people should be responsible for their own choices and the state should not be a “nanny” regulating behavior (except behavior one wants to regulate, of course). An obvious response is that while raising taxes can influence people’s choices, it neither compels nor forbids them in that they are still free to decide about drinking; it will simply cost them more to drink.

It could be objected that the state is still trying to influence behavior in a desired direction. This cannot be denied. But this is what states, by their very nature, do. For example, states impose penalties for things like theft in the hope of changing behavior. Influencing behavior through penalties and imposed costs is what states do. As such, the state trying to reduce alcohol related deaths by raising taxes is as justified as the state trying to reduce murders or illegal border crossing by imposing penalties on those behaviors. As such, increasing alcohol taxes would appear to be the right thing to do.

In a tragic aircraft accident, sixty-seven people died. In response to past tragedies, presidents ranging from Reagan to Obama have endeavored to unite and comfort the American people. Trump intentionally decided to take a different approach and used the tragedy as an opportunity to advance his anti-DEI agenda.

While Trump acknowledged that the cause of the crash was unknown, he quickly blamed DEI. When a reporter asked him how he knew this, he asserted it was because he has common sense. He also claimed that the crash was the fault of Biden and Obama and that it might have been caused by hiring people with disabilities.

In one sense, Trump is right to blame past administrations. The federal government has allowed the quality of air traffic safety to decline, and one might trace this back to at least Reagan who famously fired the striking air traffic controllers. As with many areas concerned with the safety of the American people, there is a shortage of staff, chronic underfunding and a problem with obsolete technology. Past administrations (including Trump’s) and congress bear responsibility for this. So, I agree with Trump that past leaders bear some of the blame for the tragedy. But I disagree with his false DEI claim.

As is always the case, rational people spend time and energy trying to debunk and refute Trump’s false claims. While this should be done, there is the question of whether this has any practical effect in terms of changing minds. At this point, it seems certain that America is firmly divided between those who reject Trump’s lies and those who accept them or do not care that he is lying. But I’m all about the desperate fight against impossible odds, so here we go.

Trump’s claim that the crash was caused by diversity hires of people with disabilities is easy to debunk. The FAA has strict requirements for air traffic controllers and someone who was incapable of doing the job would not be hired. After all, being an air traffic controller is not like being a member of Trump’s cabinet. As others will point out, this baseless attack on people with disabilities echoes the Nazis.  Trump supporters will presumably respond to this criticism by saying that “liberals” always compare Trump to the Nazis. While some comparisons are overblown, there is a reason why this occurs so often. And that is because Trump and his henchmen are often at least Nazi adjacent. Proud American Nazis know this is true and wish that their fellows had more courage. So, the questions “why do the libs always compare Trump and his henchmen to Nazis?” and “why do Nazis like Trump and his henchmen?” have the same answer. Meanwhile, the “normies” are baffled and the mainstream media generates think pieces debating the obvious. But what about Trump’s DEI claims?

One problem with engaging with these DEI claims is that the engagement provides them with a degree of legitimacy they do not deserve. Doing so can create the impression that there is a meaningful debate with two equally plausible sides. As many others have pointed out, when Trump and his ilk talk about DEI, this is just a dog whistle to the racists and sexists. These bigots know exactly what he means as do the anti-racists; but they disagree about whether bigotry is good. As to why Trump and his ilk bother with dog whistles, there seem to be two reasons.

One is that being openly racist or sexist is seen as crude and impolite. Polite bigots use dog whistles in public, reserving their open racism and sexism for private conversations. People can also convince themselves that they are good because they are not openly using racist or sexist terms.

The other is that there are non-bigots who cannot hear the dog whistle and believe, in good faith ignorance, that DEI might be the cause of these problems. If pressed, they will deny being racist or sexist and will claim that DEI might arise from good intentions but is bad because it puts incompetent people into jobs that are not qualified for. And hence things go wrong. If they are asked about why these people are assumed to be incompetent and whether women, minorities, old people, and people with disabilities can be competent, they will usually grow uncomfortable and want to change to topic. These people are still in play. While the bigots want to recruit them using dog whistles to onboard them into bigotry, they will settle for them remaining cooperatively neutral. If a “normie” expresses doubt about charges of racism or sexism or defends attacks on DEI, this provides cover and support for the bigots, and they are happy to exploit this cover. But “normies” are potential recruits to the side of good, since they have a mild dislike of racism and sexism that can be appealed to. One challenge is convincing them to hear the dog whistles for what they are. This is difficult, since it requires acknowledging their own past complicity in racism and sexism while also facing uncomfortable truths about politicians and pundits they might like and support.

The danger in trying to win over the “normies” is that one must engage with the DEI claims made by Trump and his fellows, which (as mentioned above) runs the risk of lending them legitimacy by creating the appearance that there is something to debate. But it seems that the only way to reveal the truth is to engage with the lies, as risky as that might be.

As a philosopher, my preference is to use good logic and plausible claims when arguing. After all, the goal is truth, and this is the correct approach. However, logic is awful as a means of persuasion and engaging people with facts is challenging because for every fact there seems to be a thousand appealing lies. But there might be some people who can be persuaded by the fact that DEI is not to blame for the crash nor is it to blame for the other things, such as wildfires, that the right likes to blame on it. That said, the core of the fight is one of values.

For someone to believe that DEI results in the hiring of incompetent people, they must believe that white, straight men have a monopoly on competence and that everyone else is inferior to a degree that they are unsuitable for many jobs. So, one way to engage with a possible “normie” about DEI is to ask them what they have in their hearts: do they feel that only straight, white men are truly competent and that everyone else is inferior and suitable only for race and gender “appropriate” roles? If they do not find this bigotry in their hearts, there is hope for them.

 

The tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons has long been a part of America’s culture war. During the early days of the Satanic Panic, it was claimed that D&D was a tool to lead people to Satanism. The playbook for demonizing games and media was also developed in this time, when it was claimed that James Egbert III’s suicide was caused by D&D. Egbert’s death led to an early acting role for Tom Hanks in Mazes & Monsters.  Lee Pulling’s suicide was also blamed on D&D, leading his mother to start a media campaign against the game. After the Satanic Panic ended, it was briefly all quiet on the D&D front. But in recent years the war has gotten hot.

As would be expected, D&D has been dragged into the “woke” and DEI culture war. Most of the attacks have been directed against changes made by the owners of D&D, Wizards of the Coast. The company has attempted to address some concerns about racism in the game, doing such things as revising some content. For example, some people expressed outrage at the idea that orcs and drow were not inherently evil in the official game lore. Some people have also claimed to be very angry about third party content, claiming that it is too “woke.” For example, when some players created wheelchair rules for the game, a few people expressed outrage at this “wokeness.” Most recently, Elon Musk helped manufacture outrage over the false claim that Gary Gygax, the co-creator of D&D, was being attacked and erased. A quick look at the 2024 Player’s Handbook exposes this lie. My goal here is not to refight these culture war battles but to, as a gamer and a philosophy professor, offer my fellow gamers a useful shield against efforts to manipulate them.

It must be noted that not all criticisms of D&D are part of the culture war; gamers can obviously disagree about rule and lore changes and do so in good faith. A good faith criticism of the game is one that is made honestly because the person sincerely believes there is a problem with the game. But good faith criticisms can obviously be in error or even evil. A person can be sincerely wrong or even sincerely evil. But we are most likely to encounter bad faith attacks e. These bad faith attacks can be divided into three types, although this list is not exhaustive.

The first form of bad faith attack is trolling. What defines a troll is their intent: they want to make people upset and angry. As always, one should not feed the trolls. Trolls can, intentionally or not, serve as allies or stooges for the other bad faith actors.

There are also people who are engaged in fighting the culture war and for them D&D is just a tiny battlefield in their  broader political game. Their goal is not to make D&D better; their aim is to gain political advantages for their side. One goal is to divide gamers against each other in the hopes of destroying any broad sense of community. This is part of the broader and ancient tactic of ruling by dividing: if the ruled and exploited are wasting their energy fighting each other in manufactured fights, they are not expending that energy to address real oppression and exploitation. This approach is also a method of onboarding people to radicalize them. For example, someone might be drawn in because they are mad about the artwork portraying orcs in the new Player’s Handbook and find themselves on a path that ends in white nationalism.

The third type of bad faith actor is the grifter. Like the political agents, they also aim to divide the community with manufactured conflicts. This is because such divisions lead to controversy, controversy generates attention, and attention generates money. Somewhat ironically, the grifters can also benefit their “opponents” by giving them content to, for example, criticize in their own YouTube videos.

The grifters also know that their approach is a good sorting method for other grifts; they are finding the vulnerabilities of their targets and can use these to, for example, lead people into broader political grifts and onboard them to radicalize them, thus enabling even more grifting. So, what can you do if you encounter what might be a bad faith actor on, for example, social media?

The easiest approach is to just ignore them. Even if they are acting in good faith, ignoring them almost certainly will not be a loss. If they are acting in bad faith and are good at being bad, they will break out fallacies (such as making a straw person of your response) and rhetoric to exploit any response you make to feed the controversy. As a practical matter, your time is probably better spent creating D&D stuff or playing the game instead of feeding the trolls, political agents, and grifters. But if you are unsure and do want to engage, I suggest the following approach.

You can try rational engagement and ask these questions: Is the person offering good reasons rather than engaging in fallacies and rhetoric? Are they willing to adjust their views in the face of good reasons? Are they willing to listen to what you are saying? Are they being reciprocal in terms of respect? If the answer to these questions is “no”, then the rational response is to not engage further. Do not feed the troll, do not help the recruiter, do not aid the grifter.

What if you have a friend who is being drawn into the culture war by trolls, political agents, or grifters? What can you do? This can be a tough situation, and groups have lost once good players to the culture war. Attempting to directly engage or criticize people about such views usually causes them to double down. In attempting to change their minds you will push them away and reinforce their views. This will serve to isolate them even more, making them better victims for the political agents and grifters.

A more effective tactic is to approach “at an angle” with kind, rather than critical, engagement. For example, if someone at your table seems to be getting mad about the new species rules but they love character customization, then present the new rules as allowing even more customization. Getting into a fight about whether it is “woke” to have flexible stats will be counterproductive. But there can be cases where it is best to cut them loose; the point of D&D is to have fun and if someone is making the game awful by turning the table into a culture war battlefield, everyone might be happier if they find a more suitable table.

In closing, I want to point out an obvious way to respond to efforts to escalate the culture war. When I run into people who are mad about some change to orcs or enraged about wheelchairs in the game, I politely point out what I call Rule Alpha and Rule Omega. Rule Alpha is that as a DM you are free to run your game as you wish and as a player you are free to play as you wish. This is because no one, including Wizards of the Coast can force you to do otherwise. But choices have consequences, and no one is required to play in your game or allow you at the table.  So, if something in the game makes you angry or you do not like it, then do not have it in your game. Rule Omega is that everyone else has the right to run their games and play as they wish; you do not have the right to force them to play your way. You have the right to express your views, but this can also have consequences.

I don’t think we have anything positive to gain from these manufactured culture war fights. As noted earlier, they just divide the gaming community, cause needless conflict, feed into the broader culture war and enable grifting. If you do not like something about the game but other people do, the rational approach is to not have it in your game and not get mad if other people have it in their games.

There is a minimum income needed to survive, to pay for necessities such as food, shelter, clothing and health care. To address this need, the United States created a minimum wage. However, this wage has not kept up with the cost of living and many Americans do not earn enough to support themselves. These people are known, appropriately enough, as the working poor. This raises an obvious moral and practical question: who should bear the cost of making up the difference between the minimum wage and a living wage? The two main options seem to either employers can pay employees enough to live on, or taxpayers will need to pick up the tab. Another alternative is to simply not make up for the difference and allow people to try to survive in desperate poverty. In regards to who currently makes up the difference, at least in Oregon, the answer was given in the University of Oregon’s report on “The High Cost of Low Wages in Oregon.”

According to the report, roughly a quarter of the workers in Oregon made no more than $12 per hour. Because of this, many workers qualify for public assistance, such as SNAP (better known as food stamps). Not surprisingly, many low-paid workers are employed by large, highly profitable corporations.

According to Raahi Reddy, a faculty member at the University of Oregon, “Basically state and taxpayers are helping these families subsidize their incomes because they get low wages working for the companies that they do.” As such, the answer is that the taxpayers are making up the difference between wages and living wages. Interestingly, Oregon is a leader in two categories: one is the percentage of workers on public support and the other is having among the lowest corporate tax rates. This suggests that the burden falls heavily on the workers who are not on public support (both in and outside of Oregon).

The authors of the report recommended shifting some burden from the taxpayers to the employers in the form of an increased minimum wage and paid sick leave for workers. Not surprisingly, increasing worker compensation is unpopular with corporations. After all, more for the workers means less for the executives and shareholders.

Assuming that workers should receive enough resources to survive, the moral concern is whether this cost should be shifted from the taxpayers to the employers or remain on the taxpayers.

One argument in favor of leaving the burden on the taxpayers is that it is not the moral responsibility of the corporations to pay a living wage. Their moral obligation is not to the workers but to the shareholders and this obligation is to maximize profits (presumably within the limits of the law).

One response is that businesses are part of civil society and this imposes certain moral obligations on all members of that society. These obligations include providing at least a living wage to full-time employees. It could argued that it is fairer that the employer pay a living wage than to expect the taxpayer to make up the difference. After all, the taxpayers are not profiting from the labor of the workers, so they would be subsidizing the profits of the employers by allowing them to pay workers less. Forcing the taxpayers to make up the difference is unjust and is robbing them to increase corporate profits.

It could be countered that requiring a living wage could destroy a company, thus putting the workers into a worse situation, that of being unemployed rather than underpaid. This is a legitimate concern, at least for businesses that would be unable to survive if they paid a living wage. However, this argument would not work for business, such as Walmart, that have robust profit margins. It might be claimed that there must be one standard for all businesses, be they a tiny bookstore that is barely staying open or a megacorporation that hands out millions in bonuses to top management. The obvious reply is that there are already different standards that apply to different businesses based on the differences between them and some of these are even reasonable and morally acceptable.

Another line of argumentation is to show that there is, in fact, no obligation to ensure citizens have a living income. In this case, employers would would have no obligation. The taxpayers would also not have any obligation, but they could elect lawmakers to pass laws authorizing that tax dollars be spent supporting the poor. That is, the taxpayers could chose to provide charity to the poor. This is not obligatory, but merely a nice thing to do. Some business could, of course, also choose to be nice, they could pay full-time workers at least a living wage. But this should, one might argue, be entirely a matter of choice.

Some folks would, of course, want to take this even further: if assisting other citizens to have a living income is a matter of choice and not an obligation, then tax dollars should not be used to assist those who make less than a living wage. Rather, this should be a matter of voluntary charity, and everyone should be free to decide where their money goes. Naturally, consistency would require that this principle of free choice be extended beyond just assisting the poor.  After all, free choice entails that people should decide as individuals whether to contribute to the salaries of members of the legislatures, to the cost of wars, to subsidies to corporations, to the CIA, to the FBI and so on. This does, obviously enough, have some appeal as the state would operate like a collection of charity recipients, getting whatever money people wished to contribute. The only major downside is that it would probably result in the collapse of civil society.

 

Some states have passed or are considering laws that would restrict what government aid can be used to purchase. One apparently pro-active approach, taken by my adopted state of Florida, has been to weed out drug users by requiring recipients of aid to pass a drug test. In Missouri, there has been an effort to prevent food stamp recipients from using their aid to buy steak or seafood. In Kansas a proposed law forbids people receiving government assistance from using those funds to visit swimming pools, buy movie tickets, gamble or get tattoos.

While these proposals and policies are fueled by unwarranted stereotypes of the poor, it is possible to argue in their favor and two such arguments will be considered. Both arguments share a common principle, namely that the state needs to protect certain citizens from harm (which is a reasonable principle). The first argument centers on the need for the state to protect the poor from their poor decision making. The second focuses on the need to protect the taxpayers from being exploited by the poor.

The first argument is essentially an appeal to paternalism: the poor are incapable of making their own good decisions and thus the wisdom of the lawmakers must guide them. If left unguided, the poor will waste their limited government support on things like drugs, gambling, tattoos, steak and lobsters. This approach has a philosophical pedigree. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, argued that the compulsive power of the state should be used to compel the citizens to be virtuous. Other thinkers, usually those who favor totalitarianism, also find the idea of this paternalism appealing.

Despite the pedigree of this approach, it is always reasonable to inquire as to whether a law is needed or not. In the case of a law that forbids, the obvious line of inquiry is to investigate the extent to which people engage in the behavior that is supposed to be forbidden by the law.

Despite the anecdotal evidence of Fox News’ infamous welfare surfer, there seems to be little evidence that people who receive state aid are blowing their state aid on strip clubs, drugs, steak or lobster. Rather, the poor (like almost everyone else) spend most of their money on things like housing and non-luxury food. In regard to drugs, people on support are no more likely than anyone else to be using them. As such, unless it can be clearly shown that a significant percentage of aid recipients are engaged in such “poor choices”, these laws would seem to be, at best,  solutions in search of a problem.

It is also reasonable to consider whether a law is morally consistent in regard to how all citizens are treated. If the principle at work is that recipients of state money must be guided by the state because they cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, then this must be extended to all recipients of such money. This would include farmers getting subsidies, companies getting government contracts, government employees, recipients of tax cuts and so on. This is all government aid.

This is a matter of moral consistency. If some citizens must be subject to strict restrictions on how the state money can be spent and perhaps pass a drug test before getting it, then the same must apply to all citizens. Unless, of course, a relevant difference can be shown.

It could be argued that the poor, despite the lack of evidence, are simply more wasteful and worse at spending decisions than the rest of the population. While this does match the stereotypical narrative that some like to push, it does not match reality. One does not need to spend much time on Google to find multitudes of examples of how non-poor recipients of state money wasted it or blew it on luxuries. Also, surviving in poverty requires using very limited resources well.

It could be argued that extending this principle to everyone would be a good idea. After all, people who are not poor make bad decisions with state money and this shows that they need the guiding wisdom of the state and strict control. Of course, this would result in a paternalistic (or “nanny” as some prefer) state that so many self-proclaimed small government freedom lovers profess to dislike.

Obviously, it is also important to consider whether a law will be more harmful or more beneficial. While it could be argued that the poor would be better off if compelled by the state to spend their aid money on what the state decides they can spend it on, there is still the fact that these policies and proposals are solutions in search of a problem. That is, these laws would not benefit people because they are typically not engaged in wasteful spending to begin with.

There is also the moral concern about the harm done to the autonomy and dignity of the recipients of the aid. It is, after all, an assault on a person’s dignity to assume that she is wasteful and bad at making decisions. It is an attack on a person’s autonomy to try to control him, even for his own good.

It might be countered that if the poor accept the state’s money, then they must accept the restrictions imposed by the state. While this does have some appeal, consistency would (as noted above) require this to be applied to everyone getting state money. Which includes the rich. A tax cut is still a handout. And the people passing such laws, since they are paid by the state. Presumably they would not like to be treated this way and consistency would seem to require that they treat others as they would wish to be treated.

The second main argument for such restrictions is based on the claim that they are needed to protect the taxpayers from being exploited by the poor. While some do contend that any amount of state aid is too much and is theft from the taxpayers (the takers stealing from the makers), such restrictions at least accept that the poor should receive some aid. But this aid must be for essentials and not wasted, otherwise the taxpayers’ money is being (obviously enough) wasted.

As was discussed above, an obvious point of concern is whether such waste is occurring at a level that justifies the compulsive power of the state being employed. As noted above, these proposals and policies seem to be solutions in search of a problem. As a general rule, laws and restrictions should not be imposed without adequate justification and this seems lacking in this case.

This is not to say that people should not be concerned that taxpayer money is being wasted or spent unwisely. It, in fact, is. However, this is not a case of the clever poor milking the middle-class and the rich. Rather, it is a case of the haves milking the have-less. One prime example of this is wealthfare, much of which involves taxpayer money going to subsidize and aid those who are already quite well off, such as corporations. So, I do agree that the taxpayer needs to be protected from exploitation. But the exploiters are not the poor. This should be obvious: if the poor were draining significant resources from the rest of the citizens, they would no longer be poor.

But some might still insist, the poor really are spending their money on steak, lobsters, strip clubs and gambling. One not unreasonable reply is that “man does not live by bread alone” and it does not seem wrong that the poor would also have a chance to enjoy the few luxuries or fun that their small amount of aid can buy.  Assuming, of course, that they are not spending everything on food and shelter. I would certainly not begrudge a person an occasional steak or beer. Or a swim in a pool. I do, of course, think that people should spend wisely, but that is another matter.  

 

 

When the survivors of the Parkland school shooting started speaking against gun violence, conspiracy theorists launched the theory that they were crisis actors. In this context, a crisis actor is someone who pretends to be a victim and does so in service to some secret power. The crisis actor is, by their appeals to pity, supposed to help advance the secret agenda of their secret masters, such as destroying the Second Amendment and taking away peoples’ guns.

As with the false flags discussed in the previous essay, the claim that there are crisis actors presents an epistemic problem: how does one know if the person is a real survivor or an actor serving a secret force? There is also the possibility that a person is a real survivor yet has been recruited to serve the agenda of the secret force.

When sorting out the matter of crisis actors, the same methodology used to address false flags should be applied: when writing about miracles, Hume contends that the certainty one places on the truth of any matter of fact should be proportional to the strength of the evidence. As such, the key question is where the weight of the evidence lies: for or against crisis actors. Naturally, each case needs to be considered on its own, but a general assessment is possible.

When it is alleged that someone is a crisis actor, the usual evidence offered is photographic: the alleged crisis actor has allegedly appeared at the scene of multiple crises. As a method, this is certainly credible: if it can be shown that the same people keep appearing at different events, then it would be reasonable to be suspicious.

However, the first step is to establish that the people are, in fact, the same people. Conspiracy theorists will usually find images that seem to support their claim: what appear to be photos of the same person at different events. However, the photos tend to be low-quality pictures of people with faces distorted by emotion and who have similar hairstyles. Obviously, people in the images can look alike without being the same person. There is also the fact that resemblances between people are not uncommon, especially when the images are of people in the same age range. Snopes has done an analysis of one such case, nicely debunking the claim that the same woman is in all the photos.

In the case of the Parkland students, it was claimed that David Hogg was a crisis actor because he appeared on the news in California. The conspiracy theory is that Hogg was pretending to be a high school student in California and is now pretending to be a Florida high school student. The problem with this narrative is that a person can, obviously enough, travel and be filmed or photographed in different places. Hogg really was in California, but not pretending to be a student. Photos can be found of many people that were taken in far apart locations, but this does not prove they are pretenders,

While investigating individual claims is important, it is also possible to make a general assessment of the likelihood of crisis actors existing. To use the example of David Hogg, he would have needed to establish a fake identity at Parkland. This would require that the other students, the teachers, the people in the community who allegedly knew him, and so on would all need to be active participants in the conspiracy. After all, if he was an actor, his cover would easily be pierced by simply asking people in Parkland about him unless they were also in on the conspiracy. Applying Hume’s principle, the issue is whether it is more likely that Hogg is a real student who survived a real shooting or that he is an actor, and the town is in on the conspiracy. The simpler and more plausible explanation is, obviously enough, that David Hogg was a real student. The same sort of reasoning can be applied to other cases involving alleged crisis actors.