Chris Dillow wrote an interesting piece the
other day arguing that political beliefs and preferences are often transient affairs. We tend to dramatically
overstate the extent to which our own opinions are consistent over time, and
the search for consistency might well turn out to be counterproductive and
delusional. I would be tempted to go even further than this: a lot of the time,
what we call beliefs, preferences and opinions do not even exist as things
subject to change, their existence does not go beyond their contextual
expression. We do not consciously hold a
belief, we are merely so disposed that certain situations will illicit a
belief, perhaps momentary, perhaps of lasting effect. The set of questions we
will at any point have consciously reflected upon is finite and not coextensive
with the set questions that will become contextually relevant in the course of
our lives. This is true of any of us. How we respond may be contextually
determined. Sometimes this is perfectly appropriate. A teacher’s attitude
towards a good teaching style will be a response to educational institutions as
they actually exist, in the social context they exist. But they will tend to be
believed as if they represented universal truths, rather than contextually
specific ones. Sometimes, on the other
hand, what we see is not situational propriety but contradictions. It is, for
example, a well known result in experimental economics that people will respond
differently to an equivalent trade off depending on whether it is interpreted
as an exercise in minimizing loss or maximizing gain, even when the outcomes are logically equivalent. It is equally well known
fact about opinion polling that contradictory results can be achieved by how a
question is framed.
Theories of political legitimacy almost
certainly fall into that category of things most of us do not have fully
fleshed out opinions on. Only a fairly odd bunch of people have spent too much
time examining or attempting to develop theoretical justifications for a political
system, and it is questionable how useful a thing such an exercise really is. It
is not surprising that in the aftermath of the 2016 referendum, the dominant
response was to accept the fundamental legitimacy of the process. Brexit was
what most people voted for, and the majority wins.
It’s tempting to see this as an absolutist
position, but in reality it almost certainly isn’t held as such. There are
plenty of situations in which very few people would evaluate the legitimacy of
a course of action in this way. They might be more inclined to see a certain
course of action as immoral. Or, in the event that they are personally adversely
affected by a decision taken by a majority, they might see it as a violation of
rights. In other circumstances the requirement of consent might be key.
And sometimes, the dominant way of thinking
about a situation changes as circumstances change. In the case of Brexit, at
the point where public opinion on the topic is relatively static, the view that
a majority decision must be implemented is natural enough, and it may well be
expressed as an absolutist position. But if public opinion changes
significantly, other questions seem more natural. We might instead ask if
previous decisions should be binding and whether democracy must allow for
changes in mind. The point is not that it is impossible to try and reconcile
these two views, or base a constitutional order on whatever synthesis emerges.
The point is that most people simply do not ever do so. That is not a slight on
them. My own experience of political philosophy has led me to the conclusion
that it is largely a waste of time, but that may well be another kind of self
delusion – I was never personally particularly good at it.
For remain campaigners this last point is quite
significant. Since the 2016 referendum, actually convincing people that
remaining is in fact a good idea has been a second order question. Before that
could be effective, they have had to try and convince people that this is now a
legitimate question to ask, given that the referendum happened. The problem is,
the question only becomes one which is likely to be seen as legitimate after a change in public opinion. From
the perspective of remainers, this is a kind of bad equilibrium. Public opinion
can’t shift until the question is taken as a legitimate one, and the question
won’t be seen as legitimate until there has been a shift in public opinion.
Like many bad equilibria, random exogenous changes can sometimes, eventually,
kick things in the right direction anyway. Eventually the storm might pass, and
the ocean will be flat again. Public opinion does indeed seem to have started
to shift, and new transient notions of legitimacy are springing up. This might
well have happened too late in the day, though.
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