When I'm feeling optimistic, I think the lack of trust comes down to a mis-alignment (or mis-understanding) of priorities. (For example: which is more important - religious gatherings or protesting against police violence? Safe roads for children or unhindered travel for commuters? Childcare cheaply available to all or restrictions that make all childcare "high-quality" and very safe but expensive?)
I wonder if most leaders used to be better about understanding "both sides" or if it's always been this way.
Society always has and always will have elites. To be effective and well respected, though, they must at minimum really like the populace, and care about what they value. That’s been increasingly untrue in western societies now for a few decades. There’s in fact a real, tangible hostility toward anyone outside elite circles. And since elites make the policies that rule people’s lives, that will inevitably lead to bad policy, over reach, and a fierce reaction against them. Beyond that, the smart class will never, ever admit that the “dumb” people were right about something, and there’s rarely consequences for elite failure anymore. I think you have to understand that whole context to understand why people react the way they are now. If a regular person does a crappy job at whatever they do, there are consequences. If a public health person keeps your kid out of school for a year beyond what many other places did, no one gets fired, and there’s not even any “whoops, sorry, that was wrong and we won’t do that again.”
Beyond all that, I think there’s a lot more to explore about what a less technocratic approach to urbanism could look like. I agree we’ve a) completely forgotten the historic legacy of how and what we built and b) society might not accept that today because we are too wealthy.
We're a center right country only because so many of us are, metaphorically speaking, flat earthers unwilling to credit Copernicus - a guy who actually knew something about near space. He was an expert. Did we respect that? Noooo. We knew better because, you know, God.
Before you throw the rotten tomato, know that I'm a religious person. But I don't see that as an impediment to respecting science and scholarship. On the contrary. Each discovery is a revelation, right?
When Obama was running for the presidency, one of the knocks on him from the right was that he was "too smart." My sister's comment was, "Um, don't we want the leader of the free world to be smart?"
Our ruling class (and the rest of us) would probably benefit from learning more humility.
It's also harder to trust when power is severed from responsibility. One of the most frustrating features of current year is trying to out who is responsible for a decision that needs changing. The people and organizations charged with enforcing the indefensible are only following someone else's guidelines or procedures, and it's turtles all the way down.
I'd push back a bit on being a center right country. The electoral college and senate skew things towards the right but the populace by and large feels more center left
I think the death of expertise has always been there but that things have intensified in the era of trump taking over the gop and the prevalence of misinformation on social media. The 4th estate has adjusted poorly to the modern era in the ways they demand to show "both sides" of a debate even if they pair an expert with a conspiracy theorist on the stage yet treat them as if their stances have equal merit.
I'm sure its the same for many countries, but we Americans famously do not like being told what to do.
I'm also not sure how much of the push back against closing religious facilities during the pandemic was purely performative. How many "religious" people didn't plan to go to church but were just angry they were told they couldn't go?
America has always had a rabid strain of anti-intellectualism. The repeal of the fairness doctrine and the removal of the prohibition of a single owner of multiple media formats in the same market, led to the rise of Fox News and caused this strain to fester unfettered.
I think revisiting the Righteous Mind by Haidt might help in terms of persuasion. If he’s correct, then the moral foundations theory might help us understand which of the 6 moral foundations (tastebuds) speak to the center/right. His work is trying to get the left to be able to see eye to eye on issues of common concern. New Urbanism is actually quite conservative, focused on tradition. There are conservatives who aspire to more than easy motoring and strip malls.
One reason we did a lot more things when we were young nation is that the things we did were much simpler. The log cabin was brought to the 13 colonies by the Swedes, and it supplanted all other housing forms because it was just so much simpler, and anyone could do it. Now, the built environment requires many forms of expertise from the storm sewers to the satellite dishes.
BTW, there is still an 18th century log structure on the main street of York PA. I guess it was well built and no one got motivated to tear it down. It illustrates the fact that log structures were built from roughly squared timber, and not round timber like Lincoln Logs.
I think the distrust of experts basically comes from the fact that so much of life is now removed from our control. Along with acquiring expertise, do they get any training in PR? Off the top of my head, I would recommend that when they present a new project to the public, they present two designs, and the public could express their preference or perhaps ask for bits and pieces of both. This would restore to some degree a sense of customer control.
I’m always confused by anyone who still argues for churches not closing during Covid. Many in our deeply religious southern county held services in their parking lots to protect their congregations just like Jesus preached to his. While those churches who refused to alter their indoor services or require at least the wearing of masks suffered terrible losses. One church of evangelical Baptists lost 40 of the members to Covid.
I even heard the argument that Christians should be willing to risk their lives for God (both from people I know and the First Things pseudo-intellectual crowd) - that getting COVID at church was like martyrdom. Personally I think that's nuts, but even so, the problem is this was a communicable disease, so each case in some sense put everyone at risk, not just the person catching it.
When I'm feeling optimistic, I think the lack of trust comes down to a mis-alignment (or mis-understanding) of priorities. (For example: which is more important - religious gatherings or protesting against police violence? Safe roads for children or unhindered travel for commuters? Childcare cheaply available to all or restrictions that make all childcare "high-quality" and very safe but expensive?)
I wonder if most leaders used to be better about understanding "both sides" or if it's always been this way.
Society always has and always will have elites. To be effective and well respected, though, they must at minimum really like the populace, and care about what they value. That’s been increasingly untrue in western societies now for a few decades. There’s in fact a real, tangible hostility toward anyone outside elite circles. And since elites make the policies that rule people’s lives, that will inevitably lead to bad policy, over reach, and a fierce reaction against them. Beyond that, the smart class will never, ever admit that the “dumb” people were right about something, and there’s rarely consequences for elite failure anymore. I think you have to understand that whole context to understand why people react the way they are now. If a regular person does a crappy job at whatever they do, there are consequences. If a public health person keeps your kid out of school for a year beyond what many other places did, no one gets fired, and there’s not even any “whoops, sorry, that was wrong and we won’t do that again.”
Beyond all that, I think there’s a lot more to explore about what a less technocratic approach to urbanism could look like. I agree we’ve a) completely forgotten the historic legacy of how and what we built and b) society might not accept that today because we are too wealthy.
We're a center right country only because so many of us are, metaphorically speaking, flat earthers unwilling to credit Copernicus - a guy who actually knew something about near space. He was an expert. Did we respect that? Noooo. We knew better because, you know, God.
Before you throw the rotten tomato, know that I'm a religious person. But I don't see that as an impediment to respecting science and scholarship. On the contrary. Each discovery is a revelation, right?
When Obama was running for the presidency, one of the knocks on him from the right was that he was "too smart." My sister's comment was, "Um, don't we want the leader of the free world to be smart?"
Signed, elite and unapologetic.
Our ruling class (and the rest of us) would probably benefit from learning more humility.
It's also harder to trust when power is severed from responsibility. One of the most frustrating features of current year is trying to out who is responsible for a decision that needs changing. The people and organizations charged with enforcing the indefensible are only following someone else's guidelines or procedures, and it's turtles all the way down.
I'd push back a bit on being a center right country. The electoral college and senate skew things towards the right but the populace by and large feels more center left
I think the death of expertise has always been there but that things have intensified in the era of trump taking over the gop and the prevalence of misinformation on social media. The 4th estate has adjusted poorly to the modern era in the ways they demand to show "both sides" of a debate even if they pair an expert with a conspiracy theorist on the stage yet treat them as if their stances have equal merit.
I'm sure its the same for many countries, but we Americans famously do not like being told what to do.
I'm also not sure how much of the push back against closing religious facilities during the pandemic was purely performative. How many "religious" people didn't plan to go to church but were just angry they were told they couldn't go?
America has always had a rabid strain of anti-intellectualism. The repeal of the fairness doctrine and the removal of the prohibition of a single owner of multiple media formats in the same market, led to the rise of Fox News and caused this strain to fester unfettered.
I think revisiting the Righteous Mind by Haidt might help in terms of persuasion. If he’s correct, then the moral foundations theory might help us understand which of the 6 moral foundations (tastebuds) speak to the center/right. His work is trying to get the left to be able to see eye to eye on issues of common concern. New Urbanism is actually quite conservative, focused on tradition. There are conservatives who aspire to more than easy motoring and strip malls.
One reason we did a lot more things when we were young nation is that the things we did were much simpler. The log cabin was brought to the 13 colonies by the Swedes, and it supplanted all other housing forms because it was just so much simpler, and anyone could do it. Now, the built environment requires many forms of expertise from the storm sewers to the satellite dishes.
BTW, there is still an 18th century log structure on the main street of York PA. I guess it was well built and no one got motivated to tear it down. It illustrates the fact that log structures were built from roughly squared timber, and not round timber like Lincoln Logs.
I think the distrust of experts basically comes from the fact that so much of life is now removed from our control. Along with acquiring expertise, do they get any training in PR? Off the top of my head, I would recommend that when they present a new project to the public, they present two designs, and the public could express their preference or perhaps ask for bits and pieces of both. This would restore to some degree a sense of customer control.
I’m always confused by anyone who still argues for churches not closing during Covid. Many in our deeply religious southern county held services in their parking lots to protect their congregations just like Jesus preached to his. While those churches who refused to alter their indoor services or require at least the wearing of masks suffered terrible losses. One church of evangelical Baptists lost 40 of the members to Covid.
Their faith in divinity was sadly misplaced.
I even heard the argument that Christians should be willing to risk their lives for God (both from people I know and the First Things pseudo-intellectual crowd) - that getting COVID at church was like martyrdom. Personally I think that's nuts, but even so, the problem is this was a communicable disease, so each case in some sense put everyone at risk, not just the person catching it.