In the spirit of the concluding post of 2020, a very fitting liberal-minded article has come to my attention – I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People. This can serve as an illustration for the second point – understanding people and reasons for their behavior. Furthermore, this article will let us see why both behaviorist and leftist thought is needed to understand the world.
Misunderstanding of behavior
The political situation described is obviously aversive to the author and no behavior is available to fix it – there we have this so-called “politics fatigue”. Without any better explanation, the text is loaded with labels such as fundamentally different person, good person, callousness, selfish, cruel, etc. Whatever we call another person – we call him that because of some behavior – let Marvin Harris help us once again:
For each such case, cultural materialist explanations reverse the causal arrow and raise additional questions which open the way to nomothetic solutions. Males are aggressive because they make war. They make war because of population pressure and resource depletion. Whites are prejudiced against blacks because blacks are discriminated against. The reason why they are discriminated against has to do with the economic role of unemployed blacks as buffers against white unemployment.
Marvin Harris (1986) – Cultural Materialism and Behavior Analysis:
Common Problems and Radical Solutions (p. 45)
The author lacking a proper theory of behavior unsurprisingly does not know where to look for reasons of any persons behavior – therefore it is misunderstood, misattributed and there isn’t a large probability of future investigation. We can point out the irony of empathy – while it is said “I don’t know how to convince someone how to experience the basic human emotion of empathy.”, in a way shown in this post, the author himself lacks understanding.
Misunderstanding of finances
A label often attributed to the likes of the author is a “liberal”. What this often means is calling for more “personal responsibility”, “individual choice and actions”. This is evident in the text:
“Personally, I’m happy to pay an extra 4.3 percent for my fast food burger if it means the person making it for me can afford to feed their own family. If you aren’t willing to fork over an extra 17 cents for a Big Mac, you’re a fundamentally different person than I am.”
“I’m perfectly content to pay taxes that go toward public schools”; “If I have to pay a little more with each paycheck to ensure my fellow Americans can access health care? SIGN ME UP.”
This sentiment surrounding taxes and money is misplaced. While the author would state that everyone must pay their fair share, the word “fair” is crucial. With increasing income and wealth inequality health care and education funding should not be provided by those who don’t have that much themselves. In other words – without progressive taxation there will be no adequate and fair funding. Just like charities – average citizens are encouraged to share the crumbs while the majority of the proverbial cake is safe elsewhere (probably in an offshore). Charities/foundations used for tax write-offs by rich donors is yet another absurdity.
Some good old radical behaviorist leftist clarity
We can say the author’s mind is in the right place – universal health care, proper wages, adequate funding of the education system is advocated. What the author lacks is a proper theory of behavior – the problems discussed in the piece cannot be solved merely by dialogue or discussions. The political situation, the divided society arise because of material conditions, because of still deeping inequality and only in addresing these is where the solutions lie.
Radical behaviorist leftist 