Sunday, February 10, 2019

Part 4: Policy Fable Tests

The last few posts I've been trying to explore how the re-intertwinement of government and quasi-religion is operationalized via meta-narrative vignettes which compete in a memetic and gene-culture co-evolutionary space*.

   Part 1: Divine Victimhood Fight Clubs

   Part 2: Competing Fabilized Meta-narrative Vignettes

   Part 3: Labelling Polytheistic Culturegen Vignettes

For now I think I'll try out the term "policy fables".  I'll use the term "governing mythtoricity" to discuss the meta-narrative "policy fable" aggregates produce.  (There's probably a much better term already in circulation, but if so, I can't think of it)



BOUNDARIES
So now I need to test what does and doesn't fit this proposed categorization.

Here's the summary so you don't have to read the details..






DETAILS

Green New Deal
The idea itself is simply a policy amalgamation. The ideas, however, are tied together with an underlying social progressive morality. And while I haven't followed the memes on this topic much, it hasn't yet latched onto any Moral Big Brother (group agent appeal) for its exposition. This certainly could happen. People could present the Green New Deal in moral imperatives. But, I think you need a physically real anecdote or two in order to really operationalize it as a "policy fable".  Thus, it misses out on a couple of key levels. It does, however, have the right level of quasi-factuality. I don't think anyone expects many of the Green New Deal tenets to be actually implementable. Rather it is "pushing things in the right direction".


New Deal
The 30's New Deal certainly had a moral imperative to it. The move to worker's rights and a social safety net was a major turn in governance. It brought moral responsibility into the realm of American governance. It also had lots of very real personal interest stories for its face. Many of these stories, like The Grapes of Wrath, persist. But, again, they didn't persist in terms of a moral group agent. You only get a rough sense that "the people" grew concerned about the poor among them and chose to move in the direction of a social safety net. Whether or not this fits, depends upon how "embodied" one feels the idea of a social safety net is (in terms of a moral big brother / group agent). I don't feel it is overly embodied. The idea is too generalized. It doesn't have the right level of pagan quasi-factuality to it.

It may certainly have been more embodied during its initial role out. Roosevelt was certainly the prime figure associated with this idea's embodiment. But today, for whatever reason, New Deal mythology is weak. There is a minimal sense of any List & Pettit "group agency".  Among the laity, it seems to be largely viewed as something nice but inevitable. For instance, how many people remember how close the US was to another civil war during the immigration crises & robber baron era of the late 1800's which preceded the New Deal shift? Not many.


Slavery Abolition
On the other hand, slavery is largely seen as a noticeable, delineable, purposeful choice against the grain of human selfishness. Abraham Lincoln's mythologized narrative is currently fairly ingrained and stable. To me, the juxtaposition between this and the New Deal is a little bit ironic. Slavery's demise trajectory was probably at least as inevitable as New Deal socialism. The environment which set the New Deal's stage was based upon some not necessarily certain sacrifices within the elite class. In some ways the New Deal would have been similar to plantation owners giving large humanistic concessions to slaves. But, for whatever reason, slavery is seen as much more of a moral fork than the New Deal. I would suspect this has to do with its moral weight and much starker on / off transition.

So, to me, slavery fits a "policy fable" categorization. It has a significant, somewhat embodied meta-narrative associated with it that has significant governance and moral-religious aspects to it. It is a fundamental part of America's meta-narrative. It is also used, fairly quasi-factually, as a single-cause silver-bullet explanation for the Civil War.


Gay Rights
The major inflection point here was California's 2008 proposition 8 battle. There is certainly a sense that a committed group of activists rallied a cold public by way of progressive allies (media, hollywood, etc). This turn is seen as a highly moral issue. It is framed in terms of Civil Right era wrongs. It is tied to slavery, Jim Crow, and ERA (equal right acts) history. It is minimally quasi-factual at this moment. However, the rate of change has often been presented as astonishing. However, it isn't presented in terms of mild unbelievability (in the technical sense). It's likely that in the future you'll get a Rosa Park moment or two. Right now you mainly have the Harvey Milk framing for its fabilization. So, from my point of view, this meme has lots of potential for Policy Fabilization. But right now it's missing quasi-factuality and a more clear cut Big Brother embodiment.  But, once it is seen in historic terms, I suspect it will be a fairly strong Policy Fable.


(Canadian) Multiculturalism
You may have to be a Canadian to understand how purposefully this idea was engineering back during the 80's. It came about in response to the Quebec separation issue and Meech Lake (constitution) challenges. The idea was framed in terms of the multiculturalism of Canada's two founding nations (yes, it largely left out the third "founding" nation consisting of indigenous treaty partners).  There was no overt turn to accept or reject this idea. Nor where there any personalities upon whom this idea was hung. Rather it was purposefully designed to infiltrate the public conscious so that it appeared as an omni-present aspect of Canadian identity. Thus, its a great meta-narrative and great fable. But from my categorization, it is missing overt group agency. The Quebec referendum fail is rarely cited as part of Canada's multicultural vignette policy fable. Thus it doesn't meet my standards for a Policy Fable. 

But, it does show I need to add some idea of group agency into which ever term I end up using for the "policy fable" concept.


Open Borders
Both the pro and the anti sides have highly moralized this issue. Both sides have a lot of quasi-factuality associated with them.  For example, "many illegals are violent criminals" is perfectly quasi-factual. As is "all immigrants are a gain to society". The pro side has sacralized this issue. That almost guarantees operation of a moral big brother. That may be as vague as humanism, or as embodied as POC (people of colour) worship.

On the anti side, nationalism is vaguely embodied. You might have a few fundamentalists embodying their position via founding father figures, but that's probably more an appeal to authority rather than any actual group agent at work. The physical grounding is strong on both sides. The meta-narrative value of this vignette is also strong.  In general I see the pro open border side operating via policy fabilization, while the anti open border side probably doesn't. The open border side needs a bit more group agency and perhaps a bit more quasi-supernatural morality associated with the issue.


Speech Censorship
This hate speech side probably has framed this as a policy fable.  You've got the quasi-factuality that an individual's speech offences will cause real violence and real deaths. This idea is sacralized and reflects adherence to a definite moral narrative (agent). Physical grounding is strong but not perfect. You don't have too many stories of where offensive speech led to real crimes. You have a bunch of folk tales in this regard and lots of anecdotes and bad stats. That fits quasi-factuality, but is, at present, minimally physically grounded. If hate speechers win, and the narrative can then show how this benefits the country and POC, you'll probably have a strong policy fable. Right now, it is still nascent.

Free speech absolutists are just on the cusp of a policy fable.  Their belief that speech limits will destroy the foundations of Western society reads as quasi-factual**. There is certainly a moral and almost sacralized value associated with free speech. The meta-narrative value and physical grounding is pretty clear. The level of moral agent embodiment is the major source of weakness. I just don't think free speeches's have a sufficiently flushed out moral agent created in this respect.  There is no mythology to it. You've got the Skokie march vignetter. You've got some sacrificial free speech lambs. But there's no good quasi-religious agent or semi-embodied Big Brother to point to.






CONCLUSION
At this point it's interesting to see how open borders and hate speech parallel each other in their memetic and rhetorical battles. Pro open border'ers would seem to see their narrative in more transcendent terms than their opponents. Trump has made big changes to this among closed border folk. But, closed borders lack a solid moral big brother unifier.  Hate speech suffers from a similar fate, albeit with the left/right political spectrum reversed.

According to my Policy Fable theory, pro-open borders should have an edge in their memetic duels. Free speechers should have an edge in theirs. This seems to fit what is actually happening.

The policy fabe idea seems to work in general, but is certainly not especially strong. I suspect I need to merge "Embodied Big Brother" with "State Meta-narratives".  Based on this post's analysis, what seems important is the extent to which any particular idea fits into a broader directional arrow which resonates with a state's established (but adaptable) meta-narrative.

If I'm correct this implies that alignment to state meta-narratives are probably more important than we might otherwise think. They key for any policy fable is therefore to make itself seem as if it was always a direction the country was headed in, and that said direction was indeed moral and morally meaningful.  In this sense, I think the policy fable idea fits exceptionally well with the evidence we have from Wright's "The Evolution of God" and evidence he presents when describing the gradual transition from polytheism's parthenon competitions into subsuming monotheism.







NOTES

*co-evolutionary not because these ideas change genes, but because they play out in a landscape that selects for genetically influenced behavioural expressions which both smooth and hinder certain types of culture level memes and cognitive (group and individual) processes.

**despite the quasi-factuality of speech censorship leading to societal destruction, I personally see it as a legitimate worry. As UK demonstrates, it won't kill society, but it sets the stage for some worrying precedents and adjacent-possibilities.

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