A VSP for VP

Paul Ryan is not a serious person. He takes himself very seriously, and many in the fundamentalist cadre of uber-fiscal conservatives in the Republican Party take him seriously, but aside from that, Ryan has the potential to be a serious liability to the Romney campaign. I would put this up there, in fact, with the ill-conceived choice of the McCain campaign four years ago to enlist Palin as their running mate. You see, many worried that this campaign, like countless before it, would be all about smoke and mirrors. Politicians are adept at delivering targeted narratives to divergent voting blocs. Moderate independents are told and hear one outline, the party base is told and hears another, and the actual platform is obscured in the cacophonous rhetoric. This will not happen in 2012. In choosing Ryan, Romney has guaranteed that the 2012 presidential campaign will be singularly about one thing: how and for whom the economy works. There will be no hiding, and the choices could not be more stark. Moreover, the arguments are not new. We've been hearing both Pres. Obama and Rep. Ryan talking about their different views of the political economy for more than two years. The positions cannot be confused.

Ironically, while we Americans often see ourselves as exceptional and for all of our open loathing of those silly Europeans, we are going to have the same type of election that many European nations have been holding in recent years. Do we want pain and discipline or will we recognize a role for government in easing and even curtailing the capriciousness of the economy? Neither campaign will be able to hedge its bets. This election will be a real choice.

Setting and Resetting Boundaries

The New York Times tried to summarize the changes to the way that the federal government is counting the poor. These changes, however, are still based--as far as I can tell--on an anachronistic threshold that does not accurately reflect how people spend their income. (For a good explanation, see this post over at Sociological Images.) Yes, controlling for things like cost of living and government benefits is a good thing, and we should absolutely continue to include these things in the measure, but the poverty line itself should be set much higher to reflect the lived reality of people today. Since most of the people whom these improved measures move out of poverty are moved not into affluence or even comfort but only into "near poverty," we can assume that a revised poverty threshold would return these people correctly back into the ranks of the impoverished.

I really can't let this go either:
According to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, poverty should evidently be defined by whether one owns an Xbox. This is absurd. People have made the same argument about cell phone ownership, forgetting that cell phones and their calling plans today can often be less expensive than landline service. Moreover, it's pretty extreme to argue that the poor are less deserving of recreation than those who are better off. Think tanks like the Heritage Foundation should not be trusted--and the New York Times should know better than to quote them uncritically. They freely admit to exist not to pursue truth per se but to pursue the truths that fit with their conservative, free market views.

Time for America's Favorite Sitcom: *Oh Newt!*

From the Religious News Service Blog:

Newt Gingrich doesn't want his grandkids growing up in a "secular atheist" America dominated by "radical Islamists" (something tells me those radical Islamists aren't fans of secularism, either, Mr. Speaker).

When the Fox Drives the Hunt

Interesting finding:

Trust in Fox News was the strongest single independent predictor of views on this issue [i.e. upcoming hearings on alleged extremism in American Muslim communities and American Muslims in general]--stronger than party affiliation, religious affiliation, education, or a range of other demographic factors.

I've been relatively easy on Fox News, at least more so than some of my contemporaries. In fact, I remember being asked by a student in class last year whether Fox News had a conservative bias. She wasn't happy with my answer. Basically, I said that it depends. I was trying to paint the issue in the complex terms that seem appropriate for my students to comprehend, but in light of the above, I'm not so sure it's as nuanced as I had initially thought.

Manufacturing Controversy

Many have wondered about the unquestionable correlation between the academe and left-leaning politics. "Why are all of my professors so liberal?" In an article in the NYTimes yesterday, John Tierney give us an interesting take.

In his speech and in an interview, Dr. Haidt argued that social psychologists are a “tribal-moral community” united by “sacred values” that hinder research and damage their credibility — and blind them to the hostile climate they’ve created for non-liberals.
…

The fields of psychology, sociology and anthropology have long attracted liberals, but they became more exclusive after the 1960s, according to Dr. Haidt.…

I would argue that Dr. Haidt has the causality reversed, that is, it is actually the scientific approach and its conclusions that influence who remains in the field and what they believe. Conservatives have largely self-selected out of the social sciences because the science contradicts much of their belief system, and science, unlike a political philosophy, is not an unchallengeable worldview. It is by definition malleable and shifting.

Moreover, Conservatives—if and when they reach minority status—are wholly different from "the exclusive, sacred list of 'underrepresented groups'" (i.e. racial/ethnic minorities, LGBTQ, etc.) in that they do not experience the harmful outcomes that those in the so-call sacred list have. Quite the contrary. Conservatives are more likely to be white educated men of upward mobility and high status. As social scientists, we are not concerned with underrepresented groups simply because they are underrepresented. We are concerned because underrepresentedness creates, reinforces, and exacerbates the disadvantage inherent for so many underrepresented groups. Being underrepresented may go against our cultural concern over "fairness," but there is an essential difference between social justice and social fairness. This is the fundamental misunderstanding of those who are right-leaning regarding the progressive position: it is not about political correctness; it is about social equity.

Much as was done by the media with the "controversy" in science over the Creationism-vs.-Evolution debate, this Times article describes an imagined crisis in the social sciences. It is not a liberal agenda running amok; it is scientists doing science.

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UPDATE: Here is Krugman's take on this article.

Evangelicals and Conservatives: The Shared Narrative

A seminal part of the Evangelical mindset is a feeling of persecution. Subcultural Identity Theory tells us that what makes Evangelicalism so successful is that it simultaneously defines itself as embattled against and forced to engage with mainstream culture. Evangelicals feel as if they and their values are under attack, but as much as they would love to retreat to seclusion (à la the Fundamentalists), the Great Commission demands that they intermingle with their wouldbe enemies. (Weber had a related concept he titled worldly-asceticism: be cautious of the world around you, but whatever you do, don't cloister yourselves! )

I think that one reason Evangelicalism and Conservativism seem like such easy bedfellows is that the Conservative narrative is remarkably similar to the Evangelical. Conservatives see themselves and their values as being under attack, and in a very real and measurable sense, they are. (I'm not convinced that Evangelicals, though, are threatened in any real sense.) The march of history--of the modern project--has been progressivizing. The overall trajectory of the human story has been one of forward change. And, for those who had it pretty good with the status quo, this relative change in status can be terrifying. (Look out, rich white Protestant men! We're coming for you!)

I'm not arguing that the beliefs, philosophies, and values of Evangelicalism and Conservativism have always been the same. There are, in fact, several places that they are at odds. However, they share a definitionally defensive stance, and sometimes posture without message is enough.

I came to this conclusion reading a comparison between the tones of the speeches on the Tucson atrocity from Pres. Obama and Sarah Palin. "Where she stressed the importance of fighting for our different beliefs, he emphasized our need for unity...." Calls for unity are easy for those who are not embattled; calls-to-arms are more natural for the entrenched.

See here and here for related posts.

Why Outcomes Should Match Opportunities

So, I promised to follow up on this, and here it is.

All else being equal, we would expect that a person with a will to succeed who is given an opportunity to succeed will do just that. The problem is that the world is messy, that is, that all else is not in fact equal, and here is where we can draw a line between conservative and progressive thinkers (and I use that term loosely).

Conservatives will first point out that not all people have a will to succeed, and indeed, personal and cultural definitions of success vary--but not as much as we might think. Virtually all people desire to live happily and in financial "comfort." This does not, however, mean lounging around the house all day. To the contrary, productivity seems to be a prerequisite to happiness. (Read more on that here.)

Progressives will point out that the all-important all-else-not-being-equal is not just about starting points but also about structural constraints that inhibit initiative along the way. For example, white men with virtually identical resumes to black counterparts are far more likely to get job offers--even if the white men are convicts!

And here is what the social scientific method has to offer: we can systematically control for both starting position and the all-else-not-being-equal's. Moreover, we have been doing this for over a hundred years, amassing quite a bit of evidence which tends to support the progressive worldview over the conservative (though not always perfectly). The conservative viewpoint tends to trust "common sense" over scientific inquiry, and problematically for conservatives, the two match-up infrequently.

We Don't Need No Water; Let the M!@#$%f^&*er Burn!

It seems that conservatives were actually listening to those arguments by progressives during the healthcare debate that we're already providing "socialist" services here in the good ol' U.S.A. (e.g. libraries, policing, firefighting) that are amazingly popular. Surprisingly, they're taking it to heart:

"Tennessee County’s Subscription-Based Firefighters Watch As Family Home Burns Down"

"National Review Writers Defend County Whose Subscription-Only Firefighters Watched Home Burn Down"

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Via Paul Krugman (as further evidence that he is actually a sociologist in economist clothing)

Conservative Political Correctness at Ground Zero

The calls for sensitivity to the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks smack of this same kind of political correctness of which conservative commentators have been so critical in the past. Why the shift?