Government and Empowerment
I want to single out the latest from David Brooks for three reasons. One, after reading a Brooks column, I always have something that feels worth the trouble of saying. (That's just not true enough of enough newspaper columnists.) Two, in this column, Brooks holds forth on something that sounds a lot like my call for a return to maturity -- he uses the word 'responsibility.' Three, despite hitting home time and again with remarks like these --
the decay expands well beyond Washington. Teachers don’t really control their classrooms. They have to obey a steady stream of mandates that govern everything from how they treat an unruly child to the way they teach. Doctors don’t really control their practices but must be wary of a capricious malpractice system that could strike at any moment. Local government officials don’t really govern their towns. Their room for maneuver is sharply constrained by federal mandates and by the steady stream of lawsuits that push them in ways defying common sense.
-- he caps it all off with this:
It’s about giving teachers, doctors and officials the power to actually make decisions and then holding them accountable.
God help me, who is it who can give these important folks "the power to actually make decisions" -- ? Isn't the whole point that this power can't be given -- it can only be taken away? Sure, even our reigning pop psychologists have a point when they tell us that well-meaning experts can 'empower' us by hooking us up with convenient clues about how to be more effective at this or that task. But the analogy from the helping professions breaks down when applied to the very institutions that are actively undermining the authority of mature people to take charge of the world around them, and overcompensating for the shortcomings of the immature in apparent pursuit of the perfection of the precautionary principle.
These institutions, pretty much across the board, are regulatory, whether public or private. It's no wonder that big business and big government oftentimes have powerful interests in working hand-in-glove to make regulatory legal regimes airtight, ubiquitous, and intimate. When newspaper columnists and others on the left freak out over the right's ostensible obsession with 'deregulation,' what they're missing is that our whole concept of legal regulation has been shifting for decades -- away from the kinds of regulations that presume maturity, and toward the kinds that presume immaturity.
One of the basic elements of maturity is the competence to exercise effective but circumscribed power in accordance with sound judgment. Viewing our problems through the lens of 'empowerment' and 'disempowerment' might not always presume immaturity, but it sure seems to endorse the basic frame of reference of those who do.
- Comment (4)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments :
May '10
Re: Government and Empowerment
Hyper-detailed building codes are a great example of this assumption of immature, unsound judgment.
One example (of many):I once built a dormer on a kid's bedroom and installed a 3x4 double-hung window. By code it was deemed insufficiently large as a fire exit, even though I, at 6' 5", had climbed out of it dozens of times carrying 75 lb bundles of shingles onto a steep roof. I was forced to replace it with a taller window such that now, with the lower sash raised, a small boy could easily fall through the screen to his death.
If we had been free to stray, just in that one instance, from the utopian, inflexible, unintended-consequence-laden code, and instead been able to use our own common sense, this child's bedroom would be substantially safer.
May '10
Re: Government and Empowerment
Local government officials don’t really govern their towns. Their room for maneuver is sharply constrained by federal mandates and by the steady stream of lawsuits that push them in ways defying common sense.
A Big Government conservative scratches his noggin and wonders where responsibility and self-government went.
Jul '10
Re: Government and Empowerment
James Poulos, Ed.:
God help me, who is it who can give these important folks "the power to actually make decisions" -- ? Isn't the whole point that this power can't be given -- it can only be taken away? Sure, even our reigning pop psychologists have a point when they tell us that well-meaning experts can 'empower' us by hooking us up with convenient clues about how to be more effective at this or that task. But the analogy from the helping professions breaks down when applied to the very institutions that are actively undermining the authority of mature people to take charge of the world around them, and overcompensating for the shortcomings of the immature in apparent pursuit of the perfection of the precautionary principle.
These institutions, pretty much across the board, are regulatory, whether public or private.
Who else? People with the "credibility of a Nigerian bank transfer and the conscience of a vampire bat." It is incumbent upon the Cuomos of the world to allow us, the cattle, to make good decisions vis a vis our grazing patterns.
Perhaps gratitude is in order. David has more respect for us than Tommy Friedman or Cass Sunstein.
May '10
Re: Government and Empowerment
Well, most large financial institutions are reluctant to subject themselves to market discipline, leaving a large hole through which regulators gladly drive.
However, the issue with teachers, doctors, and local officials is that the power to act has been slowly taken away; the issue is restoring it.
But they are all guilty to some degree as well. Doctors are not interested in competition- remember the bloody wars between the AMA and the osteopaths? How many teachers do you know who want to be judged by their students' accomplishments? And local mayors- is it easier to take on the local unions or raise taxes?
No one has clean hands in this mudfight.