Another Example of Narratives: Unwinnable Arguments and Normative Sociology by Arnold Kling

This post by Arnold Kling on the different explanations of crime.

Progressives: racism in the criminal justice system
Conservatives: high propensity of young African-American males to commit crimes
Libertarians; the war on drugs

Progressives prefer the oppressor-oppressed axis, which makes racism the desired cause. Conservatives are most comfortable with the civilization-barbarism axis, which makes criminal behavior the preferred cause. Libertarians prefer the freedom-coercion axis, which makes the war on drugs the preferred cause.

He then makes this point: "Each of these causal forces has an element of truth, or at least plausibility. The chances are slim of coming up with an empirical analysis that decisively rules in favor of one cause and rules out all other causes." I come to a similar conclusion in an earlier post: that each language has some element of truth. This is one reason why it's hard to win an argument (if that ever actually happens).

Narratives in action: An Example

I’ve written about Arnold Kling’s three languages of politics in which he claims liberal use language about the oppressed and the oppressors, conservatives talk about civilization versus barbarism and libertarians explain things in terms of freedom versus coercion. At dinner with friends who are very liberal we talked about the Mideast and Africa. He claimed that there never will be peace in the Middle East because of the perpetual fight over oil and that the people in Africa haven’t prospered because outsiders take Africa’s natural resources. (He was referring to businesses but conveniently ignored the role of Russia and China.) Both of his “explanations” echo the oppressor-oppressed theme.

A conservative probably would counter with saying that these cases show the lack of civilized values while the libertarian might point to the lack of understanding of individual rights. Someone who is influenced by Ayn Rand’s Objectivism might also go a bit deeper and say these are examples of wrong philosophical premises.

The problem, as I see it, is that all of these answers have some merit to them. Naturally I lean toward the Objectivist explanation. Nonetheless I think being able to understand the framework of these other views can help in trying to communicate and influencing the other person. I’d say you can acknowledge their concerns then gently steer the other person into considering that their conclusion doesn’t dig deeply enough, that the actions and their consequences are rooted in more fundamental ideas about the nature of rights and civilization which can determine whether there is oppression.