Humility
"Give us a chance so we can discover the most valuable ways to serve one another."
This is a quote from the song "Fight of the Century", articulating F. A. Hayek's general views on economic policy. It is perhaps the most beautiful premise behind libertarian ideals: the idea that each person is best positioned to decide both what they most need from society and what they are best able to provide to it.
I am thinking about Hayek this morning, and about humility, because it is humbling to admit that one does not know enough to make decisions for another person. Another quote from Hayek (translated):
"The curious task of Economics is to demonstrate to men, how little they really know, about what they imagine, they can design."
It is an elegant admission of the limits of human ability, of the tendency of people to think that if we just pick the right leader, we can all do what that person says and everything will be perfect. Of the tendency to think that we could be that leader, or at least that we could give the right advice to that leader.
I am fascinated by the way these ideas are both right and wrong, the way in which humans struggle and most often fail to correctly assess either our limitations OR our capabilities. Humans have done so many great things by organizing ourselves into hierachies and taking direction from those above us. We've also committed all our worst atrocities using that same model. When we say "we shouldn't design these complicated systems because they often screw things up horribly" -- that's just another thing we might be wrong about. We're always getting things wrong.
The proximate causes of my thoughts this morning are COVID-19 and politics.
By some measures, I have been inordinately cautious about COVID-19. I was supposed to see my parents in early March, but I cancelled that trip and took a staycation instead. When my staycation ended, I worked from home to minimize the risk to myself and more importantly, to my immunocompromised partner. I stopped walking at the Plaza or in public parks to avoid crowds even outside. I haven't visited my long-distance boyfriend since last November, and I haven't seen my girlfriend since February.
But I have taken other risks. I pick up takeout food from restaurants and fast food places. I shop at Costco every few weeks for groceries. I could get groceries delivered by Wal-mart but I use their free pick-up service instead. I took my cat to the vet several times while I was trying to save her life. (And I will always regret not taking her sooner and more often.) Lut has been to the dentist three times, and to his primary care physician twice. He goes to the oncology clinic every four weeks for four hours or so, which is the most exposure my household has to other people, going by the CDC's "proximity to a specific person for more than 15 cumulative minutes." The oncology clinic visits are not optional, but the rest arguably is. I've visited the same two friends twice since March, for a few hours, wearing masks and staying six feet apart.
Is that too much risk? Am I being too cautious? I don't know.
I listen to other people burst out angrily over the choices of others. Furious that in-person schools are open, or that they are closed, that someone else is having Thanksgiving with people outside their household, that or that other people are unwilling to visit for Thanksgiving.
And I don't know.
It's not even that I think "you shouldn't yell at strangers because they don't agree with your risk assessment." Maybe you should yell at them. Maybe that will be constructive. I don't know.
It's the same way I feel about American politics now. I revile the Republican party; I regard it as bastion of party over principle, rife with corruption, racism, and proto-fascism. They had the opportunity to reject Trump's populist strongman rhetoric and policies, and they embraced it instead. I will never vote for a Republican again. Their brand is less than worthless to me; throw it on the dumpster fire and start fresh.
But I retain a lot of sympathy for conservative values: liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and small government in particular. I cannot make a better argument for "the federal government should have less money, less power and less influence over American lives" than "the USA elected Donald Trump for president once." I don't believe that the Republican party is aligned in any meaningful way with conservative values, at this juncture in time.
70 million people voted for Donald Trump in 2020. That is a lot of people who disagree with me on my core values regarding democracy, due process, and equal treatment of all people under the law. I don't know how to reach someone who thinks that "keeping kids in cages during a pandemic" is acceptable, even if they only mean that it's an acceptable tradeoff for some other goal. I don't know what you do about that. I literally don't know. Does it work to ostracize them? Does it work to be kind and friendly and open to them in the hopes of persuading them slowly over time? Does it work to yell at them when the subject comes up and otherwise to let them be? I don't know. My own approach is to be quiet and open, but I have no confidence in the utility of it.
The closest I come to an answer is to say that we need all of it. Every possible approach, all at once, in the giant jumble of each individual person discovering the most valuable way to serve one another.
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