320 Years of History
Gold Member
In the following essay, Gary Gutting offers an intriguing proposal for using pubic discussion among political candidates and thinkers so as to provide the electorate with much better insights into what kinds of people ask for their votes. I agree wholeheartedly with his suggested approach.
Our nation has tons of intellectual resources that a political leader can use to aid good decision making. I want to know how effective they'll be at availing themselves of those resources. Will they just "go with their gut," or will they take the advice of experts and either apply it or synthesize the input from multiple experts into a new idea that none of them originally foresaw?
I can live just fine with the reality that a policy for which I don't care may be the best one for the short and long term, for example. What I want to know is whether the policy's makers are comprehensive enough in their analysis to consider both the short and long term impacts, benefits and negatives, and not just for their friends and allies but for the rest of the folks on whose behalf they must nonetheless govern.
It is for this reason that I really detest political debates as we have them today. They do little to give me confidence regarding much of anything that I want to know about the candidates. The fact is that I want elected leaders who will make well informed choices, even if they are not the choices that their party advocates. To do that, however, one has to be willing to be well informed, and doing that requires being able to interact with the folks who are well informed.
In his “Republic,” Plato put forward the ideal of a state ruled by intellectuals who combined comprehensive theoretical knowledge with the practical capacity for applying it to concrete problems. In reality, no one has theoretical expertise in more than a few specialized subjects, and there is no strong correlation between having such knowledge and being able to use it to resolve complex social and political problems. Even more important, our theoretical knowledge is often highly limited, so that even the best available expert advice may be of little practical value. An experienced and informed non-expert may well have a better sense of these limits than experts strongly invested in their disciplines. This analysis supports the traditional American distrust of intellectuals: they are not in general highly suited for political office.
It’s often said that what our leaders need is common sense, not fancy theories. But common-sense ideas that work in individuals’ everyday lives are often useless for dealing with complex problems of society as a whole. For example, it’s common sense that government payments to the unemployed will lead to more jobs because those receiving the payments will spend the money, thereby increasing demand, which will lead businesses to hire more workers. But it’s also common sense that if people are paid for not working, they will have less incentive to work, which will increase unemployment. The trick is to find the amount of unemployment benefits that will strike the most effective balance between stimulating demand and discouraging employment. This is where our leaders need to talk to economists.
Knowing how to talk to economists and other experts is an essential skill of good political leaders. This in turn requires a basic understanding of how experts in various fields think and what they might have to offer for resolving a given problem. Leaders need to be intelligent “consumers” of expert opinions.
Our current electoral campaigns are not very good at determining candidates’ understanding of relevant intellectual issues. “Pop quizzes” from interviewers on historical or geographical facts don’t tell us much: those who know the answers may still have little grasp of fundamental policy questions, whereas a good grasp can be consistent with a lack of quick factual recall. Nor does reading sophisticated policy speeches that others have written or reciting pre-programmed talking points in interviews or news conferences tell us much about a candidate’s knowledge. Even quick-thinking responses in debates may indicate glibness rather than understanding.
The best evidence of how capable candidates are of fruitfully interacting with intellectuals would be to see them doing just this. Concretely, I make the following suggestion for the coming presidential election: Gather small but diverse panels of eminent, politically uncommitted experts on, say, unemployment, the history of the Middle East, and climate science, and have each candidate lead an hour-long televised discussion with each panel. The candidates would not be mere moderators but would be expected to ask questions, probe disagreements, express their own ideas or concerns, and periodically summarize the state of discussion. Such engagements would provide some of the best information possible for judging candidates, while also enormously improving the quality of our political discourse.
Why do I agree with Mr. Gutting's idea? Well, because I have less need to know what a politician thinks than I do about how s/he things and how well s/he thinks. The need to know that is driven by my awareness that even if a candidate is a pro on one or two topics, they cannot be an expert on all the topics that will cross their desk. I know that because I'm no expert on everything that comes my way, yet I have to make decisions about those things all the same. It’s often said that what our leaders need is common sense, not fancy theories. But common-sense ideas that work in individuals’ everyday lives are often useless for dealing with complex problems of society as a whole. For example, it’s common sense that government payments to the unemployed will lead to more jobs because those receiving the payments will spend the money, thereby increasing demand, which will lead businesses to hire more workers. But it’s also common sense that if people are paid for not working, they will have less incentive to work, which will increase unemployment. The trick is to find the amount of unemployment benefits that will strike the most effective balance between stimulating demand and discouraging employment. This is where our leaders need to talk to economists.
Knowing how to talk to economists and other experts is an essential skill of good political leaders. This in turn requires a basic understanding of how experts in various fields think and what they might have to offer for resolving a given problem. Leaders need to be intelligent “consumers” of expert opinions.
Our current electoral campaigns are not very good at determining candidates’ understanding of relevant intellectual issues. “Pop quizzes” from interviewers on historical or geographical facts don’t tell us much: those who know the answers may still have little grasp of fundamental policy questions, whereas a good grasp can be consistent with a lack of quick factual recall. Nor does reading sophisticated policy speeches that others have written or reciting pre-programmed talking points in interviews or news conferences tell us much about a candidate’s knowledge. Even quick-thinking responses in debates may indicate glibness rather than understanding.
The best evidence of how capable candidates are of fruitfully interacting with intellectuals would be to see them doing just this. Concretely, I make the following suggestion for the coming presidential election: Gather small but diverse panels of eminent, politically uncommitted experts on, say, unemployment, the history of the Middle East, and climate science, and have each candidate lead an hour-long televised discussion with each panel. The candidates would not be mere moderators but would be expected to ask questions, probe disagreements, express their own ideas or concerns, and periodically summarize the state of discussion. Such engagements would provide some of the best information possible for judging candidates, while also enormously improving the quality of our political discourse.
Our nation has tons of intellectual resources that a political leader can use to aid good decision making. I want to know how effective they'll be at availing themselves of those resources. Will they just "go with their gut," or will they take the advice of experts and either apply it or synthesize the input from multiple experts into a new idea that none of them originally foresaw?
I can live just fine with the reality that a policy for which I don't care may be the best one for the short and long term, for example. What I want to know is whether the policy's makers are comprehensive enough in their analysis to consider both the short and long term impacts, benefits and negatives, and not just for their friends and allies but for the rest of the folks on whose behalf they must nonetheless govern.
It is for this reason that I really detest political debates as we have them today. They do little to give me confidence regarding much of anything that I want to know about the candidates. The fact is that I want elected leaders who will make well informed choices, even if they are not the choices that their party advocates. To do that, however, one has to be willing to be well informed, and doing that requires being able to interact with the folks who are well informed.