Remembering Robert Dahl

Remembering Robert Dahl, a legendary political scientist who passed away at the age of 98.

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On Quantitative Methods in Law and Politics

(In reply to Susan Lawrence, who writes, "Exactly what would a Wittgensteinian analysis of settlement rates; attorneys' fees in class actions; or the effects of defendants' criminal records on case outcomes look like?")

First, let me concede your point. I never meant to say Wittgensteinian method could help for these types of issues. The method is only concerned with dispelling confusions. (One of the ways in which confusions dispel themselves, by the way, is that they turn purely informational: one merely has to look and see).

But let me at least comment on what a philosophic-minded person might worry about with respect to studies you mention. Below are edited passages from a mail

I just wrote to Frank Cross (privately) concerning the statistical analysis of football. They apply equally to the statistical analysis of any human activity (settlement rates, fees, etc).

1. Methods are only helpful for things that humans cannot, themselves, see or experience. (E.g., what effect drug X has on certain kinds of lipids 24 hours after intake). The trouble happens when methods become superimposed on things we CAN experience (e.g., Who was a greater risk taker -- Bradshaw or Favre?). When we impose stats upon things we can, in theory, perceive by watching -- we lose information rather than gain it. The stats mislead. Example: as soon as you talk about a "quarterback rating," you mislead someone who neglected to see Roethlisberger in the AFC championship, and only heard about the low number. The person who watched it always has the advantage.

In fact, what social scientists really do is bend their analysis to suit what they think they are seeing in the first place -- that's how they "check their work." It only gets released if it can act as a good piece of journalism.

2. Stats work best with two companions: (a) things that are naturally commensurable (e.g., the economy and dollars); and (b) things naturally stochastic. Social studies tend to lack these things. You have to construct what you want to show. Same with applying stats to football and settlement analysis. This always compromises the picture.

3. Very frequently, the thing social studies want to show is not something that can easily be scientized. Look at the idea of "inflation" (troubling). Now compare that to "ideology" (much worse). Now compare it to whether a team has to run to win the Super Bowl. Or whether something affects settlement. The settlement question is no different than the Super Bowl. Same exact thing. Your answer yesterday is not the same as tomorrow. You can only provide a kind of journalism on the subject.

You have to ask yourself: what does a regression analysis of settlement rates tell you compared to what (say) a good NPR or 60 Minutes investigation might have? Or what 30 years of experience tells you? Or what a collection of people with major experience might say? What you must understand is that mathematics can only ever be a kind of sculpture when summoned into the service of social studies.

The stats are only good if we think the journalism is accurate. If we think the portrayal fits.

(Also, learning Wittgenstein can help students see this last point)

The Fallacy of Identity Logic in Liberalism

(sent to lawcourts)
 
... I think it would be more incoherent to argue "two wrongs" or to argue from idolatry.

Besides, as long as we are talking coherency in belief,  I think it would be more helpful to ask ourselves a couple of questions: (a) what is ideology; and (b) why doesn't the bottom paragraph qualify as one? It seems to me that groups who argue for a group-access policy fundamentally offer a charged belief system. And that if this issue were ever properly inspected -- you know, like we do all hegemony in the academy (cough, cough) -- that we might find that there are more unitary tasks and attributes present in all of us, and that we should find those tasks by looking inside of people and not at their shells. 

For any attribute you find that "women" have, I'm sure you will find it in various formats in all sorts of men, as is the case in reverse. One of the most ridiculous things about this sort of team logic is what it does to people like me. There are literally hoards of people who get thrown into "power groups" when they have nothing to do with the stereotypes of those groups -- just as people purporting to be for "women" very often have traits and beliefs nothing like those for whom they claim to speak. Just as ecological fallacy is a fallacy about averages in statistics, so too is this group-politics rhetoric. 

We need to teach people that they get selected because of traits, not appearances. And if "experiences" count, they have to be delineated rather than just assumed to accompany a chromosome. And once we delineate them, we are going to find that some Appalachian males have them too, as do gay males, as do Iraq war veterans.

Identity Politics, Ideology, Students and Selfishneess

(sent to law courts in response to a question about whether students get charged up over affirmative action and other kinds of race issues. The original poster said his classes have seen lessened interest) 

I have had an opposite experience.

I taught 90 kids a pop at Penn State for 3 years in a class that tackled all of these sorts of issues. In fact, I created the class. One of the pedagogical approaches I used was to be critical of all positions (left or right0. In other words, to challenge all the views on the subject. I found it exceedingly difficult to reach common ground. Not only would barriers exist along the lines of race, gender, sexual orientation and so forth, but also across ideological grounds that existed for the very purpose of roping groups or interests together. In fact, if you set about in the class to go for "the center" -- as in, judge people as individuals, not as groups --  that alone was seen as mischief  by those indulged with what you call "identity politics." The situation here in Dayton is very, very different -- but not at all "better" (and for reasons I don't want to get into).

From my perspective, this IS a generational issue, but not as you suspect. I sense that kids construct ideologies about these things based on whether it suits their interests. If you are heading out of college and into the job market, you will like preferences that help you but not those that hinder. This would be consistent with a youth culture that has everything, right-now, instantaneously -- and that frequently uses the word "bias" to mean "I didn't get what I wanted." It doesn't help professors inculcate students with a world view defined by "politics, selfishness, passions and ideology" rather than things like ethics, character, rule, virtue, justification and so forth. In fact, if the professors don't think these things exist, why on earth would students not be simply bratty and self-centered about how to stand in line for jobs?

If you look at the exchange between Paul and Scott, all that really existed was a battle of world views. One view says there must be discrimination if a pool doesn't look right; another might say "not unless we have it under a microscope." 

Somewhere down the line, people have to lay down their arms (including professors). I don't think "identity politics" helps us do that. We have to see inside of individuals. We have to transcend cultural form. We should be letting students see the age they live in and that they are existing within a constructed cultural existence. If they could get a bird's eye perspective -- be more philosophical and less combative -- the situation could be approached with more of a level head.  We also have to listen to them when they talk of unfairness, no matter what it is. And we have to be more Rortarian in terms of getting others to see what another's life is like.  And I think we also have to make sure that everyone -- from Appalachians to those in south-side Chicago -- get a fair chance to be judged for what they offer.   
 
Regards.
 
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Redesigned Website: http://seanwilson.org/
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
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New Discussion Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wittrs/

Colonial Williamsburg is Biased

I am shocked at how biased Colonial Williamsburg is. It is no more a display of American history than it is a display of parochial anti-federalist political culture -- which is, at best, only a factious component of both American history and the revolution.  I was stunned to find out that Washington's stature was demeaned while Jefferson's was artificially enhanced. I was stunned to have one of the tour guides in uniform tell me that Peyton Randolph would have beaten Washington to become the first president of the United States in spite of Washington stature after the war, had Randolph merely lived. I was also stunned to hear one of the tour guides tell me that Virginia is really the most relevant place to spend the 4th of July in America and not Philadelphia. The rationalization for this nonsense was the fiction that Virginia was ahead of Philadelphia in the push for independence. We all know, of course, that if any American or locality was pushing independence before the others, it was Adams in 1775 (in Philadelphia) and elements in Boston who were the first to face gunpoint.

But aside from telling me lies about American history, perhaps the most egregious myth in Colonial Williamsburg is what is not told. Nowhere is Alexander Hamilton mentioned. Hamilton, of course, was the general in Washington's army who led the battle of Yorktown, which, the last time I looked, was in Virginia. And that means that somewhere near the time of the battle of Yorktown, Hamilton would have slept in the Wythe house in Colonial Williamsburg, along with Washington and the rest of his generals who used the house for a brief stay. Why is it that no monument to Hamilton is present on these grounds? Why do they mention Washington's presence in the home but not Hamilton's? Why is John Marshall not mentioned? He was a Virginian who was at Valley Forge and later created the most important Supreme Court ruling in United States history. Surely, he walked the Williamsburg grounds somewhere.

I'll tell you why they are not mentioned: they are federalist. The same mischief that promotes Jefferson and makes Washington an after-thought also excludes Hamilton and John Marshall. You are lucky to get anything but a pair of funny glasses in the name of Ben Franklin.  It is one thing for Virginia to be so arrogant as to display only its native sons as an advertisement for all that was most important in the birth of America;  it is another thing, however, to construct those sons so that federalists are either demeaned (Washington) or excluded (Marshall).  It is still another thing to take a key American figure who commanded the winning revolutionary battle on Virginia's soil, spent the night in Williamsburg and eventually constructed finance capitalism in America -- and to say absolutely nothing about him in the town where his American adventure passed. If Colonial Williamsburg wants an anti-federalist propaganda show for its vacation spot, so be it. But if it wants more than a parochial view of history -- if it wants what it advertises to non-Virginians who decide to visit -- it should stop peddling historical lies and a one sided view of what the American revolution was all about.