I’m always torn on how to start my entries. A principle of good writing is to state the topic in the first sentence and to stick to the topic. Focus is a virtue. When I help people write I concentrate on that. Cutting out unnecessary ideas, and unnecessary words is the easiest way to improve your writing. Less is more. On the other hand, I find it entertaining when writers go off on tangents. My favorite non-fiction writing was Isaac Asimov’s essays in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, that has been my conscious and unconscious template for Wise Madness. He always started them with personal anecdotes before getting into the science or history or politics. Today I want to write about something that will require the attention of My Gentle Readers (an homage to Asimov) but I want to talk about trivia too. I’ll follow the good doctor’s example and give up focus for personality.
I joined the Official Hadestown Fanclub on Facebook in the hope of finding kindred spirits. What I’m finding for the most part are people I have nothing in common with. There are exceptions, someone related to Rachel Chavkin, I suspect her father, makes informative posts, but for the most part it’s just people going squee over the cast. One person’s other favorite musicals are Cats and Starlight Express they clearly are not experiencing Hadestown the same way I do. Sharing why we love things is more important that sharing a love of the same things.
I planned on writing today about Confederate monuments and honoring confederate heroes. I still want to write about it, but not today. Instead I’ll write what the process of thinking about it led me to, The Veil of Ignorance. It’s a guide to building a just society. The phrased was coined by John Rawls, I have to fight writing “Lew Rawls,” in his book. Theory of Justice. Why have I never read the book? I never even considered reading it but now that I’m writing on the topic I realize I need to. I know about The Veil of Ignorance from the writings of others. Paul Krugman often invokes it. Here’s a summary of it by Spencer J. Macey.
Imagine that you have set for yourself the task of developing a totally new social contract for today’s society. How could you do so fairly? Although you could never actually eliminate all of your personal biases and prejudices, you would need to take steps at least to minimize them. Rawls suggests that you imagine yourself in an original position behind a veil of ignorance. Behind this veil, you know nothing of yourself and your natural abilities, or your position in society. You know nothing of your sex, race, nationality, or individual tastes. Behind such a veil of ignorance all individuals are simply specified as rational, free, and morally equal beings. You do know that in the “real world,” however, there will be a wide variety in the natural distribution of natural assets and abilities, and that there will be differences of sex, race, and culture that will distinguish groups of people from each other.
From this starting point you can’t end up with systematic racism, sexism, or religious discrimination, as you’d have to consider that you might be in the victimized group. There can be no us and them as you won’t know which group you are in.
If only this were as easy to enact as to state. We are the product of our genes and environment, how do we leave these behind in our thinking? We all would like to think that if we lived in the antebellum South we’d be against slavery. We’d see that it was wrong and act on that. That is self-evidently wrong, we know how most white people felt then; They felt that slavery was right, just, and necessary. Therefore, we couldn’t all be abolitionists if we were in the situation. Even if your clone was placed as a baby then it probably wouldn’t. The people weren’t genetically different than people today. They just grew up with different experiences. Most of us would at least go along with slavery. Yet slavery is exactly the kind of thing that the Veil of Ignorance shows is wrong. How many people would choose to have the institution of slavery if they knew there was a good chance that they’d be a slave?
The Veil of Ignorance is much more popular among liberals than conservatives. It argues against inequality unless it benefits most people and isn’t devastating for anyone. A system where the 1% do well and everyone else does not would be unacceptable. It’s no good to say that you’d do well because of your character and abilities, you’d have to consider those that weren’t blessed with them. But Liberals have much to learn from it too. When you scorn those majorities in so many parts of the country, the thought experiment would force you to scorn yourself. It’s just like the antebellum South, you can’t assume that you’d be in the enlightened minority. The proper response is not scorn, but enlightenment.
I need to study this more. My hope is that some of My Gentle Readers are inspired to discover more and to make this way of thinking habitual. We can think of it as the justification for the Golden Rule. When someone upsets us, we can try and put ourselves in their shoes. We can try to understand others, not force our will on them.
Now to take care of my belly and eat breakfast. Is it a bacon & eggs day? I’ll decide when I get into the kitchen. Tonight, there will be more moral philosophy; the last episode of The Good Place is airing. I have to remember to watch it as I’m going to be home. Take the lesson of the show to heart. You won’t be perfect tomorrow, but you can try to make yourself better than you are today.
Wise Madness 