Noise, interests & democracy

Tim Fenton writes here about Tracy Ann Oberman’s “faux victimhood”. I don’t want to get into this particular case, but the concept of faux victimhood is surely a useful one. And it highlights a problem with actually-existing liberal democracy.

The problem is that what gets heard is not necessarily a guide to what really matters.

People with a sense of faux victimhood make a lot of noise. The old saying is true: “when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression." This is why some white people feel victimized by Black Lives Matter, or why some men feel victimized by feminists. And it’s what gives us complaints about people being “cancelled” when in fact their only fate is to be reduced to writing for the Telegraph. It’s the stone in the show that gets noticed. And gets complained about. Faux victimhood leads to noisy but unwarranted demands*.

Such noise pushes trivial complaints up the agenda, such as about “wokeness” or “cancel culture” or how the British Empire is taught. Brexit is perhaps the best example of this: before around 2015 only a tiny minority cared (pdf) much about the EU. But it was a noisy minority. 

The flipside of some people making more noise than their grievances justify is that others are too quiet. Amartya Sen has expressed this beautifully:

A person who has had a life of misfortune, with very little opportunity, and rather little hope, may be more easily reconciled to deprivations than others reared in more fortunate and affluent circumstances…The hopeless beggar, the precarious landless labourer, the dominated housewife, the hardened unemployed  or the over-exhausted coolie may all take pleasure in small mercies, and manage to suppress intense suffering for the necessity of continuing survival. (On Ethics and Economics, p45).

This juxtaposition means that democratic politics is a poor way of addressing real needs. It attaches too much weight to noisy but trivial complaints and insufficient weight to quiet but genuine suffering. It means that politics becomes not a matter of improving people’s lives but a mere game.

My point here is actually about that basic idea in statistics, sampling bias: what we hear is a biased sample of what there really is, and of what matters. As Edmund Burke said:

Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.

Anybody who has tried to chair a meeting should know this. Any decent chairman should ensure that all voices are heard. Just because somebody is quiet does not mean they’ve nothing worth saying. And just because they talk a lot does not mean their voice should carry weight.

And yet our political-media institutions do the exact opposite of this. The media amplifies noisy vacuous complaints whilst underplaying genuine ones: columnists are disproportionately higher-rate tax-payers rather than users of foodbanks. And of course there are countless ways in which the noisy rich exercise undue influence over politics – for example through funding political parties and lobbying; implicitly threatening to withdraw market confidence; or just plain deference. As Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page (pdf) and Pablo Torija Jimenez have documented, capitalist “democracy” serves the interests of elites.

But this is the precise opposite of what we need. A proper democracy – in the sense of giving equal weight to each individual – would act like a good chairman, ensuring that quiet people’s views and interests were heard as much as noisy ones’. Such a democracy requires institutions that lean against the human tendency to reconcile ourselves to great suffering whilst complaining about trivial slights. Actually-existing democracy, however, does the precise opposite. Which poses the question of whether egalitarian democracy and capitalism are compatible.

* Unwarranted not by my standards but sometimes by their own. For example, the ERG - which had voted for the Brexit deal - now wants to abolish a key part of it. Their demands are incoherent - and yet they are given disproportionate weight. 

Comments

[Guano]

Presumably you mean "stone in the shoe".

Your last point about the ERG is an example of something else: the ERG are presenting a false grievance, not a trivial grievance. The ERG is a group of tricksters who should be treated as such.

[Dipper]

'A proper democracy – in the sense of giving equal weight to each individual'

How very 1970s

The current political climate is built round identity-based victimhood. Individual abilities are being ignored in favour of quotas and special identity based rights. Every single political claim now has to be under-written by victim status. This is entirely the result of the Labour Party abandoning class and pushing race.

And the ERG are spot on. We have an agreement with the EU, but we can break it if we so wish, as can the EU. We can continue to discuss it. Being an independent nation is a process not a destination . The Good Friday Agreement specifically states that NI is part of the UK. The EU has adopted the GFA and the UK is entitled to push that part of the agreement.

[ltr]

Every single political claim now has to be under-written by victim status. This is entirely the result of the Labour Party abandoning class and pushing race....

[ Really important observation. ]

[Paulc156]

@Dipper "Individual abilities are being ignored..." When were we a meritocracy? I must have missed it. As for identity politics being entirely due to Labours abandonment of class politics...are you suggesting the male dominated and racially prejudiced society I thought I grew up in was imaginary?

[ltr]

The point is how much we gained from the Labour on class, regardless whether Labour was in power. Labour now will not moderate economic policy that is elitist in effect.

[Diogenes]

". A proper democracy – in the sense of giving equal weight to each individual – would act like a good chairman, ensuring that quiet people’s views and interests were heard as much as noisy ones"

As long as that doesn't happen by way of referendum

[Diogenes]

Hilarious how Paulc claims to take offense on behalf of groups to which he seems not to belong. How patronising can you get?

[ltr]

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1364914297223188483

Election Maps UK @ElectionMapsUK

Westminster Voting Intention:

CON: 40% (=)
LAB: 33% (-4) 
LDM: 11% (+1) 
GRN: 6% (+1) 
RFM: 3% (+1) 
UKIP: 2% (+1) 

Via @Kantar_UKI, 18-22 Feb. 
Changes w/ 21-25 Jan.

7:25 AM · Feb 25, 2021

[ Keir Starmer ruining Labour, as planned. ]

[Oakchair]

"The current political climate is built round identity-based victimhood."

Yep for example males yelling victims because they can't control women as much. Whites yelling victims because non-whites want equal compensation instead of "we have the gun so its not stealing"

"Individual abilities are being ignored in favour of quotas and special identity based rights."
100% correct. Abilities are ignored so powerful rich family members and friends can get ahead. Another good example is non-white getting 10% of the reply rate for the exact same job resume.

"Every single political claim now has to be under-written by victim status. "

That is because the bullies realized claiming they were victims was an effective strategy. Bullying works because the bully makes the crowd dislike the victims.

"This is entirely the result of the Labour Party abandoning class and pushing race."

Lets not forget that on the right Brexit was about keeping the UK white. The right has spent the last century using its power oppressing women, gays, non-whites, non-Christians and so on. Though of course this was part ploy to transfer wealth to the rich by dividing the poor/middle.

The ERG are the equivalent to someone complaining because they got what they aggressively demanded and took. I'll save my pity for people who didn't subject themselves and everyone else to mindless suffering.

[kartheek]

Although i don't know the exact contextwhen Edmund Burke spoke ,Burke being a Conservative, when he is saying about grass hoppers he must be referring to lower classes

[Big Nose]

'The People' of the UK use Electronic Voting to set policy and jail politicians.

Good enough to clear the londinium money love in. Ass-et prices will crash.

[rsm]

"My point here is actually about that basic idea in statistics, sampling bias: what we hear is a biased sample of what there really is, and of what matters."

This applies to Ben Friedman's oft-cited (in this blog) research associating growth with tolerance. But he cherry-picks ...

"A proper democracy – in the sense of giving equal weight to each individual – would act like a good chairman, ensuring that quiet people’s views and interests were heard as much as noisy ones’."

Basic income gives everyone a floor on expressing views through markets. And if you know you will have an income if you are fired, you are freer to speak up.

[Guano]

Dipper - "And the ERG are spot on. We have an agreement with the EU, but we can break it if we so wish, as can the EU. We can continue to discuss it. Being an independent nation is a process not a destination."

The Customs Border with Ireland can be across the middle of Ireland or it can be in the Irish Sea (or the UK could have decided to stay in the Customs Union to avoid having a Customs Border). The EU asked the UK to solve that problem in the second half of 2017 and at the last minute Theresa May chose the backstop (ie staying in the Customs Union for the time being). The ERG and Johnson didn't like this and chose to have the border in the Irish Sea, said this was an oven-ready deal, won an electon on this basis and signed an agreement on that basis.

The ERG now want to renege on an agreement that the UK has just signed. There is nothing to stop the UK doing that, except for the fact that other nations will note that the UK has reneged on an agreement and will be less liekly to trust the UK in future. The UK is a medium-sized power in a globalised world and will find out sooner or later that not being trusted will be a grave disadvantage.

NB To be fully compliant with the GFA the UK should not have left the Customs Union, but Brexiteers were adamant that the UK should leave the Customs Union.

[Ralph Musgrave]

Faux victimhood is a favourite tactic of members of "you know which" religion, which Salman Rushdie summed up nicely: "One of the things that is a classic trope of the religious bigot, is that while they're denying people their rights, they claim that their rights are being denied. While they are persecuting people, they claim to be persecuted. While they are behaving colossally offensively, they claim to be the offended party."

[Dipper]

@ Guano 'NB To be fully compliant with the GFA the UK should not have left the Customs Union, but Brexiteers were adamant that the UK should leave the Customs Union.'

No. This is not the case.

The GFA states that NI is in the UK. And then it describes bodies and processes that allow the various communities to work together. Oh, and it also released hundreds of terrorists from prison.

It doesn't say there can be no border on the island of Ireland.

If you disagree, please don't just say 'I disagree', post the section from the GFA.

I agree with Dan Hannan that we should look to make the NI Protocol work through negotiation.

[Paulc156]

@Diogenes.How ignorant that someone who hasn't much of a clue as to my 'identity' should presume he has sussed my ethnicity?!
In any case did the ignoramus consider all those white anti apartheid campaigners 'patronising'? Isn't lack of empathy a condition to be pitied...

[The Truth]

White feel victimised by BLM because it is based on a lie.

On a per violent arrest and per violent crime basis blacks are less likely to be killed by police in the USA.

It is also extremely dangerous as violent crime has surged since BLM as US police in many cases no longer bother patrolling black areas. The main victims are the extra blacks being shot in the big cities, which does not seem to get in the news.

[Dr Zoltan Jorovic]

@RalphM - "Faux" victimhood is a widely used tactic by many groups and religions. And what Rushdie said could apply to anyone who uses this tactic. There is also the point that the victimhood might be genuine, but exaggerated for political effect. I would suggest that every interest group does that, without exception.

@Diogenes - "As long as that doesn't happen by way of referendum" If you look at what Chris actually said "A proper democracy – in the sense of giving equal weight to each individual – would act like a good chairman, ensuring that quiet people’s views and interests were heard as much as noisy ones" you might notice that he used the phrase "equal weight to each individual". An all-or-nothing result where 48% opinion is completely ignored is almost exactly the opposite of this. As, indeed, is the FPTP voting system. Listening to all "views and interests", and trying to balance outcomes to meet as many as possible within a coherent and practical policy is very different from a winner-takes-all, ya-boo-suck-it-up-losers approach, which is what you seem to be advocating.

[Jan Wiklund]

That's why democracy is impossible without strong trade unions that represent those with genuine needs.

Many years ago Colin Crouch wrote about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-democracy.

A snag, though: Sweden has arguably the strongest trade unions in the world, but suffers most from growing inequality. While France has practically no trade unions at all, but has managed to keep inequality at bay. Why? Because they fight nevertheless! While the Swedish don't.

A strong defense is useless, if you don't want to fight.

[ltr]

Sweden has arguably the strongest trade unions in the world, but suffers most from growing inequality. While France has practically no trade unions at all, but has managed to keep inequality at bay....

[ Very important, and reflected in the awful, immoral approach to the coronavirus in Sweden:

February 26, 2021

Coronavirus

Sweden

Cases   ( 657,309)
Deaths   ( 12,826)

Deaths per million   ( 1,265)

[ltr]

February 26, 2021

Coronavirus

UK

Cases   ( 4,163,085)
Deaths   ( 122,415)

Deaths per million   ( 1,797)

Germany

Cases   ( 2,436,478)
Deaths   ( 70,421)

Deaths per million   ( 839)

[ Where is the concern about victimhood here? ]

[Ralph Musgrave]

Chris Dillow makes the ridiculous claim that “And it’s what gives us complaints about people being “cancelled” when in fact their only fate is to be reduced to writing for the Telegraph.” Er – about 99.9% of people who are censored by social media do not have the option of writing for the Telegraph.

I got a one week ban from Twitter simply for saying that Muslims were responsible for 9/11. If Chris can tell me how I get an article into the Telegraph making the blindingly obvious point that Muslims were actually responsible for 9/11, I’d be eternally grateful.

[rsm]

Better to be a Swede unlocked-down than a locked-down Limey or Jerry ...

[the truth]

@ltr

Let’s do the maths. Being generous covid fatalities have on average 8 years to live

So the UK and Germany locked down 100% of its population to save (at most) 8 years for 0.12% of its population. That 3.5 days per person (when compared to countries that eliminated, like NZ) or an extra 1.5 days when compared to the UK.

Lockdown never made sense. But most people are like you idiots

[ltr]

Fortunately for me, I have stayed well so far. And I am young and decent shape. Still, I cannot stop being bothered that 122,000 people in the UK have died from the infection and even though I am well I will have a hard time forgetting those who have fared poorly and even died.

To me, the point of the government is protecting us and I do not feel I was protected properly and I know others were not.

[ltr]

Better to be a Swede unlocked-down than a locked-down Limey or Jerry ...

Lockdown never made sense. But most people are like you idiots

[ How sad, since had we done this in the beginning we would have been done in about 6 weeks and social distancing and masks would have sufficed from there as China and Australia clearly showed. Britain would have grown last year.

As for Sweden, sadly, lots of illness and death and a severe recession nonetheless. ]

[Dipper]

@ Ralph Musgrave

'Muslims were responsible for 9/11' is not the same as saying 'the people who were responsible for 9/11 were Muslims'

I know quite a few Muslims, and to the best of my knowledge none of them were in any way responsible for 9/11. Or have opinions about it that are any different to mine, and probably yours too.

[ltr]

Dipper:

I know quite a few Muslims, and to the best of my knowledge...

[ Excellent and necessary comment. ]

[ltr]

Let’s do the maths. Being generous covid fatalities have on average 8 years to live.

So the UK and Germany locked down 100% of its population to save (at most) 8 years for 0.12% of its population....

[ I do not understand the maths, but I know that respectfully learning from the Chinese experience would have meant hundreds of thousands fewer cases and tens of thousands fewer deaths and allowed economic growth last year. ]

[ltr]

February 28, 2021

Coronavirus

UK

Cases   ( 4,176,554)
Deaths   ( 122,849)

Germany

Cases   ( 2,450,294)
Deaths   ( 70,687)

China

Cases   ( 89,893)
Deaths   ( 4,636)

Deaths per million

UK   ( 1,803)
Germany   ( 842)
China   ( 3)

[ltr]

Britain which was supposed to be the second best prepared country for an epidemic, second to the US, handled the epidemic poorly and tragically indeed. Britain also experienced a severe loss of growth in 2020.

We really, really need to ask why.

[the truth]

@ltr

you really show yourself to be an innumerate idiot (like most people)

Cases are a useless metric (as the real number of infections is many tines that)

Deaths are real but immaterial when assessed logically against the waste that lockdown has created

Even being generous lockdown increased average lifespan by 5 days (and probably FAR less). To achieve that 100% of the population lost about 1 year of normal life.

That is not a sensible trade off, especially given deaths in countries that did not lockdown are NOT higher.

[Paulc156]

@the truth.
There are good reasons to dismiss your claims as to the lack of merit of lockdown, at least as far as the UK is concerned.
Here we have a health service that has been run with efficiency prioritised over capacity. So less beds per head of pop and less doctors too. Add to that a social care sector which was/is not fit for purpose nor integrated with the health service. Hence higher death rates and greater strain on health system and care homes and vulnerable groups.

Added to that we have a much more open economy than say Sweden. We depend more on travel in and out of UK. So domestic lockdowns have been mitigated by international travel.

Most pertinently we have higher levels of inequality so despite lockdowns many people unable to afford to self isolate even when they should. So death rates and pressure on hospitals greater than it need be.

Again compared to Sweden we have higher typical size family units so in home spread a bigger deal here. Again leading to pressure on hospitals etc.

So really it's useful to compare a lockdown lite Sweden with similar Scandi states rather than the UK. On that measure Sweden's 'experiment' has been an abysmal failure. Even it's economic benefits relatively trivial.

All the above means that without strict lockdown measures our hospitals become rapidly overwhelmed. Letting covid rip either last spring where we were rather slow to react or this winter would have led to carnage. There would have been far more people suffering or dieing at home for want of a hospital admission. The idea that here we could trade off economic damage for lockdown is and always was a myth. The lockdown would most likely have evolved rapidly by countless individual decisions being made in the light of ever worsening infection rates and hospital malaise.

Its all very well to present data but there is a point where overreliance on selected statistics without recourse to particular circumstances, to bash one's detractors over the head, renders the protagonist (you) an idiot savant. Thats where you are.

[rsm]

Lockdowns fail because people break them. Even your government officials broke their own lockdowns. Lockdowns are like drug prohibition: you cause worse problems.

If you want to protect yourself from viruses, stay away from people. Don't force lockdowns on them. It will backfire on you despite your most fervent models, because ppl will disobey your lockdowns unless you kill more people than the virus.

Admit it, lockdowns are more about social control than virus control.

https://padailypost.com/2021/01/18/stanford-study-lockdowns-have-no-clear-benefit/

"A Stanford study comparing Covid responses in different countries found “no clear significant beneficial effect” from stay-at-home orders and business closures."

Follow the science, not your control-freak heart ...

[ltr]

Admit it, lockdowns are more about social control than virus control....

[ This is of course nihilist rubbish, but what I do not understand is why such crazy meanness. The meanness in such writing is startling. ]

[Ralph Musgrave]

Dipper, My statement that 'Muslims were responsible for 9/11' cannot be taken as an attempt to specifically suggest that ALL MUSLIMS or even a majority were responsible. Reason is that that statement is actually ambiguous: i.e. it CAN be taken to suggest all Muslims are responsible, OR THAT the specific people who organised 9/11 were Muslims. Thus I'll admit to not being clear enough, but no more than that.

[Dr Zoltan Jorovic]

@Ralph Musgrave
You could equally say "pilots were responsible for 9/11", or "Men were responsible for 9/11". The problem is two fold. One, it's a general statement that purports to say something significant and specific but actually just tells us about a shared trait which may not have any relevance to the the act. Secondly it implies the causality of the trait without explaining, justifying, or even owning it. While you may excuse it as just lacking clarity, there is a more sinister interpretation possible, of which you may be naively unaware. Dog whistle. It may come as a shock but there are people who like to use the tactic of linking ethnicity, religion or gender to actions or events in a way that is deliberately ambiguous, but which signals and reinforces a certain, usually negative, view of the gender, ethnicity or religion to others who share that view. It's a sort of racist/sexist/bigoted bat signal, if you like. In the interests of avoiding such accidental bat signalling I'd suggest more care in how you word things in future.

[Guano]

To go back to the ERG:-

North-South cooperation on the island of Ireland, and NI as an integral part of the UK, are both general principals of the GFA. Neither is compatible with leaving the European Customs Union. Johnson's government chose to weaken the links between NI and the rest of the UK in order to "get Brexit done" (including leaving the Customs Union) but has been evasive about this (and at times openly lied). Hardliners in NI and the ERG sense that they have a chance to move the hard border from the Irish Sea to the middle of the island of Ireland, so breaking the GFA in a different way, due to the vaccilation of Johnson.

As I said a week ago, the ERG are raising a false greivance, not a trivial greivance. The ERG voted for a border in the Irish Sea at the end of 2020, so they are just being tricksters if they now complain about the effects.