What I've Learned About Politics | TaraElla Report Lab

The ideas matter, the personalities do not. And polarization is not like the media says.

Welcome back to TaraElla Report Lab. Today, I want to look back on what I've learned so far, in the four years I have been regularly and seriously doing social and political commentary. I believe the things that I'm talking about today apply generally to all of my commentary, and is of great relevance to both my past and future work.

I guess the most important lesson I have learned is that what the media is telling us about political polarization is not entirely true. I said 'not entirely true' because, unfortunately, it is not false either. The Western world right now is indeed quite politically polarized, at least on a macro or aggregate level, and this does seem unprecedented in our history. Don't get me wrong, I do think this is unhealthy and it needs to change. However, when people talk about the polarization, there is almost an assumption of a simplified model, where people are reliably split into two camps, and their views on various issues are almost entirely predictable. What I've found is that this is a severe misrepresentation of the truth. Instead, on the individual level, there is quite a lot of variation in terms of how people actually see the issues, as well as the reasoning behind their views, which I think is actually the more important thing.

I think people only appear to congregate into two masses because political parties and news media generally come in two contrasting flavors. People generally support the political party closer to them, and consume the news media they are more comfortable with, which means they end up picking either team red or team blue almost all of the time. However, almost nobody is entirely blue or entirely red! When you're dealing with individuals, you really need to talk to them, and listen with an open mind, to understand where they actually stand. I think this individual variability shows that people are still mostly independent thinkers to some degree, which is a great relief! It also means that there is still plenty of room for big tent movements where we find common ground to resolve controversial issues.

Another important thing I have learned is that we should focus on the ideas, and not the personalities. If you attach your hope to a personality, they will almost definitely disappoint you some time in the future. Even someone who you think you agree with almost 100% today is basically guaranteed to disappoint you on something down the track. Throughout the history of TaraElla Report, I have shown great interest and even expressed support in many personalities, and to be honest the vast majority of them ended up greatly disappointing me on one or more important issues later on. (In some cases, the disappointment was indeed severe, although I generally don't talk about it in public because I don't want the drama.)

Which is why I have learned to say that, for me, the personalities don't matter, it's the ideas that matter. A related thing is, the fact that I have expressed interest in a person's ideas, or even support for a person, doesn't mean endorsement for all their ideas and positions. I have always thought that this was a self-evident thing, but in this age of rampant 'guilt by association', I think I need to spell it out more clearly.

Finally, I want to talk about my views on being positive vs negative. I would say I am very positive towards humanity, the goodness of human beings, even though I have a negative view on a lot of things about the status quo we are in. There's no logical incompatibility between positivity towards humanity, and negativity towards the status quo. I've found that too many people, in their bitterness towards the status quo, also lose their faith in humanity in general. I think Herbert Marcuse's views in Repressive Tolerance is a good example of this, and arguably also Michel Foucault's views on discourse and power. I think that's a dead end we should actively avoid. The antidote would be to have faith in our fellow humans, and our ability to make things better. We might need some time, we might need some more clarity and understanding, but we will get there.

Why We're Actually Living in an Illiberal Dystopia | TaraElla Report Lab

And why anyone OK with the status quo is not a liberal at all.

Welcome to another new series of the TaraElla Report, which I will call TaraElla Report Lab. In this series, we will be reimagining how liberalism can be like, because that is the only way we can keep its spirit relevant to our times.

Today, I want to expand on a point I made in an article two weeks ago: as a liberal, I have absolutely no interest in defending the status quo. I certainly think the negativity towards the status quo from the Left as well as the Right is very justified. We live in a time when corporate interests, wealthy donors, the military industrial complex, and anti-liberal philosophies alike all distort what some people think of as 'liberalism'. It's like how, back in the 19th century, some so-called 'liberal' pseudo-democracy apologists justified withholding the vote from working class people using a selective reading of John Locke. We certainly regard this stance as illiberal nowadays, and rightly so. Hopefully, people from the future will see our status quo as illibeal in the same way.

The truth is, the status quo we are in is far from the liberal ideal. Therefore, establishment 'liberals' who uphold the status quo, who think that things are mostly fine as they are, aren't real liberals, to be blunt. We need to remember that, at the heart of liberalism, there's a fundamental commitment to liberty and equality, and this has to include a free and fair exchange of ideas in what we like to call the marketplace of ideas. If liberalism doesn't mean this, it means nothing at all. Therefore, we need to examine every issue through this lens. Let's face it: it is clear that our status quo really isn't compatible with liberalism, understood this way. Indeed, I believe the fundamental problem with our status quo is that it is in many ways the exact opposite of what is intended by liberalism. There is effectively no free flow of ideas, and no equal opportunity for ideas to demonstrate their merit.

Let me explain. One of the biggest problems we have right now is that many of the commonly held political positions, on both sides of politics, are popular because people with an agenda have been promoting them, in their respective echo chambers. This is, of course backed by money and organization, so there's no way someone without the same kind of money and organization can compete, no matter how sound their ideas are. The situation is further amplified by corporate media, which generally caters to one or the other side of the polarized political landscape, so they can maximize profits. All this means there is effectively nothing like a level playing field for ideas and opinions anymore. The marketplace of ideas, one of the most important parts of a liberal society, is totally dysfunctional right now. I believe a true liberal would have to see this as one of our top problems.

A related problem is that the media, and other opinion influencers, consist of mostly the same kind of people. Almost all of them went to the same prestigious colleges, know the same few circles of people, and have the same kind of experiences in life. There's really not much diversity in the influencer class, which contributes to the conformity and the insularity of the echo chambers. Now, this phenomenon actually applies to everywhere from journalism to academia, to the music industry, and it needs to be fixed across the board. However, in terms of politics, the consequences are particularly serious, because they include things like increased polarization, important issues and viewpoints being excluded from the discussion, and even the manipulation of public opinion. These things can mean the difference between success and failure in resolving important issues, justice and lack thereof, even war and peace. I believe the current situation cannot be acceptable to anyone who is actually committed to liberal values.

This is why I actually welcome all ideas that have the potential to challenge the very problematic status quo we find ourselves in. It's why I even suggested that certain nuanced, academic forms of critical theory might in fact be useful, when taken in moderation, as a mirror holding our liberalism up to scrutiny, to examine if we are indeed staying true to our values. However, the critical theory Left basically has the same problem I just illustrated. The Theory Left's thinkers are made up of people who went through the same kind of training in college and grad school. The career incentives and disincentives, as well as the potential social consequences people might face, keep the echo chamber from being challenged too seriously. This is why I can't trust the Theory Left to come up with anything better than the status quo either. Just like the status quo's opinion influencers, the Theory Left's thinkers aren't operating in anything like a free market of ideas. It's why they have produced so many fundamentally problematic and illiberal ideas. Using an analogy from the Hunger Games, if the status quo is President Snow, the Theory Left is President Coin, and is definitely no better.

That is why we need a 'back to basics' liberalism. True liberalism that is about true liberty, including a commitment to independent thinking and a functional marketplace of ideas. This is the kind of progress we need right now.