Abbe Boulah’s Weblog

Improving the political discourse:  Clarifying the meaning of ‘weighing the pros and cons’:  an innovative tool for the political discourse.

How often have we heard the sanctimonious assurances from ‘people in charge’ to ‘carefully weigh the pros and cons’ of controversial proposals and decisions?  But has anybody ever explained just what that means, and how it is or should be done?  Done in some, well perhaps somewhat systematic but above all transparent manner?

The closest helpful advice I know of is still Ben Franklin’s suggestion to write the pros and cons in separate columns on a sheet of paper;  and then to inspect then carefully.  There are some that add to this the idea of assigning numbers — ‘weights’  to each item, and then to add up the numbers. Even the ones among us less guilt-ridden by our failure to apply proper rational reasoning  to this task can see that this  is a rather crude, not very convincing methodology.

There are some plausible reasons why there are no  better explanations  and tools.  One reason is that the pros and cons  used in such planning and policy and political discussions — which are, of course,  arguments — are not very solid arguments, from the point of view of logic.  In fact, logic, the discipline ‘in charge’ of rational reasoning and critical examination of arguments, has all but ignored these arguments and neglected to offer useful tools to evaluate them.  This is because they are ‘inconclusive’ at best, not like syllogisms which guarantee a true conclusion if all their premises are true.  And ‘true or false’  does not really apply to the ‘ought-statements involved, either.  This neglect  seems rather strange, since arguably, humanity argues at least as much about what we ought to do, or more, than about the questions of ‘true insight’ in the way the world IS, that Aristotle claimed as people’s main knowledge quest.

This could be part of the explanation for the strange and confusing state of the political discourse we witness today:  in part reduced to extremely simplified  brief ‘sound-bites’ and slogans of sometimes reassuring but more often inflammatory nature, and in part ornate rhetoric, at best inspiring but mostly equally inflammatory, and not because of its superior reasoning but often merely due to its choice of loaded words.

The promise of help I am proposing comes, strangely enough, not from the discipline of logic or its newer relatives, nor from political science, but from architecture and planning. First developed in my obscure dissertation about  the assessment of design arguments, and only later applied to general planning and policy-making and political issues, an approach to the analysis of the ‘standard planning argument’ and its premises and suggestions for their evaluation is now described in my little book “The Fog Island Argument”. It presents the ideas in the form of a tavern conversation among several strange customers, explores what the planning and political discourse and planning process might be like with this approach as its core element, and proposes a course of studies of the resulting planning problems as part of a general studies education.

The main suggestions involve the following:  A discourse with broad participation  by all people affected by a proposed plan or measure, invited to contribute pros and cons. A concise abbreviated version of these arguments in something like the form  “Plan x should be adopted, because implementing it will result in consequence y, and y is desirable”, perhaps a qualified versions such as “X ought to be  done because under conditions c it will produce y;  these conditions c are present, and y is desirable”. The listing of these condensed arguments is displayed in an appropriate format for overview of the entire spectrum of pros and cons, supported by visual issue and argument maps. The participants then assign a plausibility judgment,  on a scale of +1 to -1, and a weight of relative importance to the ‘ought statements y . For each argument, an argument plausibility measure is derived from all premise plausibilities, and an argument weight by combining this plausibility score with the weight of the respective goal or objective. The value of this approach is seen less in the possibility of obtaining some overall plausibility score. In fact, I warn against using such a measure as a decision criterion not only because all these judgments are, of course, subjective assessments, but because the discourse is also inherently incomplete — there is no guarantee that all pertinent concerns are actually articulated and brought into the discussion. Rather, the analysis of the plausibility and weight scores can give useful indications about where the crucial disagreements are located, where more information and debate is needed to settle issues.

Far from claiming the approach to be a panacea for the improvement of the political discourse, the proposed ideas are offered for discussion and more research — the book concludes with a tentative research agenda. The questions posed for discussion include, for example: what are the basic mutual agreements the participants must enter for constructive, cooperative planning? (An important issue merely raised but not discussed in detail is that of appropriate sanctions for violations of those agreements). To what extent must the design of the planning process be considered an integral part of the planning task, and as such equally subject to design?

More detail and pdf  files of the book (which can of course be obtained from  my web site, fromXlibris, or the usual distributors) are available upon request. My question and hope is to find others interested in and working on these problems, and engage in discussions that can further the development of better solutions.

Thorbjoern Mann
http://www.aboutdesigntime.com
thormann@nettally.com

What is going on is both so predictable and at the same time too strange for words. Predictable: the finance crisis — whether triggered by the housing mortgage debacle, the oil problem or some other factor. Because one does not really have to be a banking expert to understand the basics of the mechanism: Banks are the kind of infrastructure to lend money for business needs that are expected to result in gains — profits — later with which the loans will be paid back. The loans are paid out of what? a) Of people’s savings deposits: money they have earned and that they don’t need for their own business needs but would like to earn interest on by lending it out to those who do. So now what happens if people don’t have money saved? (The US has one of the lowest savings rates in the world, according to my imperfect knowledge.) Well, the banks will just have to borrow the money the need for their loans. Where? The savings accounts are empty. Other banks? No savings there either. So: b) the government? It prints money. Never mind that unrestrained money printing will lead to inflation. So that will work, up to a point. Or: c) foreign investors? Yeah: they have sold us so much stuff and piled up savings they’ll lend to the US, as long as it invests and uses it wisely, and doesn’t deposit it overseas, outsource its own industries, wastes it on frivolous wars and excessive CEO bonuses. Now for some reason, the foreign investors have gotten the impression that the US is doing just all those unwise things. And some of the biggest ones — do we have to name names? — are getting antsy about it. And what they want the US to do is to fix it, somehow — by the only remaining means, strategy b) above. Hoping, holding their breaths, that the old capitalist remedy of kickstarting the economy to eventually raise tax income to pay off that loans while keeping inflation under control (by producing so much stuff that prices will be kept down through competition) will work one more time.

All of this was predictable. What hadn’t been predicted properly was that it happened so fast; even those foreign lenders were taken by surprise. And they have intervened with the US government to apply the above fix. Subtly at first, then increasingly insistently and openly. The really strange part is that nowhere in the US media is this mentioned, least of all in the campaign rhetoric, on both sides. I don’t scrutinize all of the US media, but I had to find it spelled out in foreign newspapers (Die Zeit, in my case). The public is bickering about whether it is good or bad to ‘bail out Wall Street’ — plausibly enough, and the right talk rants are whipping up sentiment — and fears — against it by calling it ‘socialism’. Missing the point entirely: namely that the Bush administration whom nobody could suspect of socialist leanings, simply does not have any other choice. It is over the barrel by the lenders: they are now pulling the US strings. And both candidates are promising both programs (neglecting to mention the fact that these imply more spending) and at the same time tax cuts — for slightly different constituencies, — just like the good ol’ days of the 20th century, as if nothing had happened. Should we have predicted that too?

How is it, Abbé Boulah,  that in this God-fearing (or so they say) nation that reveres the Good Book in which the  practice of money-lending at interest is denounced in numerous verses –(though the better-sounding advice  “neither a lender nor a borrower be!” is from Shakespeare ) the notion that without a vigorous system of credit  the entire country will go to the dogs — is  so blindly believed by all political parties that its government abandons within one single week its hallowed doctrine of capitalism and adopts a  scheme of  taxpayer bailout of the foolish lenders who ran the largest lending institutions into bankruptcy?

Oh my friend Bog-Hubert:  It is indeed fascinating. A miracle.  But I am not sure anymore that all miracles are good…

yearning to find meaning
in the myriad noises and images
crowding his senses day in day out
without offering answer or solace
abbé boulah turned at last
to ancient traditions
augurs, high priests, i ching
recommended
by well-meaning friends and traitors
intrigued by the image of high priests
standing in solemn silence on marble terraces
of mediterranean holy sites
watching the flight of birds

what were the rules
the key, the connection
between the patterns of geese
making their unerring angled way
across the path of helios’ chariot
or the silent circles
of black-winged vultures
waiting
for the death of some suffering creature below
and his own troubled questions

he did not find in himself
the indifferent strength
of knife-wielding priest
slashing the throat of sacrificial sheep
filling earthen bowl with its blood
summoning shadows from nearby woods
to approach and drink
arranging the innards into signs
predictions, interpretations
revelations of hidden meaning
of deeds of helmeted leaders
gathering warriors for vengeful raids
upon some other sun-drenched island
turning the bowl, reading the signs
into dark pronouncements
that would retain their ambiguity
premonition of death or glory —

sighing, resigned accepting
his lack of oracle secrets
he poured his questions upon still waters
swirling ointments on the surface
the sign of the question mark
vanishing in the spreading oil
moving the swirls with his breath

gathering patterns on parchment
offering to the rays of the morning sun
murmuring, muttering
what others might have called prayers
he returned to the images
dried memories of random flows
tried to read meaning
into swirls and crisp edges of pigment
spaces receding into infinity
galaxies of distant universes
mute signs made up of those infinities:
promises or warnings?

only to find his dreams

doubts and memories mirrored
in the textures and surfaces
of those infinite questions
no answers to hold on to

he sold the pictures
to aimless passersby
who were actually
looking for picture-trophies
of ducks

Overheard in the Fog Island Tavern:
What in all of Pedro Domecq’s cellars are you chuckling about, Abbé Boulah? Are you still reading the funnies?

Ah, no, Bog-Hubert my friend. The funnies aren’t really much fun anymore. No, it’s the election. What a spectacle!

You lost me. I am getting so tired of all that bickering I can’t even listen to it anymore. What in three twister’s name are you still getting out of hearing the same old points being hashed over and over?

I agree, there’s a lot of boring repetition. But there are patterns — oh brother — that make you marvel at humanity’s ability to be duped!

You’ll have to explain that to an old dupe, your Boulahighness.

Why, haven’t you seen the emergence of this marvelous new pattern in the exchange of inanities between the two campaigns? Ah well, I guess it’s not all that new, the Democrats have been using it for quite a while, but now the Republicans are turning it back on them with a vengeance?

What are you talking about, by all the papermaché cliff hangers in Hollywood action flicks?

Well, my friend, you may have perceived this persistent phenomenon: anytime the Republican launched an attack on the Democratic nominee, it was effectively reflected by the argument that it was really revealing a racist attitude, and therefore not only beneath consideration, but also exposing the entire Republican campaign as a crypto-racist enterprise.

Well, isn’t it?

Who knows, perhaps you are right. but they could never openly admit to it, and therefore their defense was, well, somewhat lamely defensive, and therefore not very convincing.

I couldn’t argue with that. But I’ve noticed that they have countered that with the strange argument that the Democrats were somehow playing ‘the race card’ in doing that?

That’s the strange part: both sides are accusing the other of playing that card! What do you make of that?

I dunno. It somehow looks like it’s a red herring…

Not entirely. Because there are still people out there who are eminently susceptible to having race as a justification to vote this way or the other. But the interesting part is that now the Republicans have countered that whole strategy with their own version of it, selecting a woman for the Vice president spot. And any criticism of that person can now be easily deflected as ‘playing the gender card’ and in the same motion painting the opposition as male-chauvinistic and antifeminist — and therefore not to be taken seriously — whether or not there are legitimate issues at stake. Brilliant, if you ask me.  Just like the other devious tactic they are using.

What’s that?

Oh,  don’t tell me you haven’t noticed what’s going on: the increasing tendency to just accuse the opposing side of engaging in unsavory campaign tactics — like attacking the VP nominee on the grounds that her daughter is pregnant with an out-of-wedlock child.  Doesn’t matter that the opposite candidate has declared that family and children are off-limit topics — perhaps they have planted some scurrilous blog attacks themselves as pretend-Democrats — and now they can denounce all the Democrats as engaging in this kind of dirty and unconscionable campaigning.

Can they really do that?

Why not?  Just look at the devious ‘Operation Chaos’ scheme of a certain ‘Doctor of Democracy’  talk show host,  who persuaded a bunch of Republicans to register — temporarily, of course, — as democrats and vote for Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

Why the hell did he do that?

I guess he thought that Hillary would be easier to beat in the main election.

But what about those Republican voters: did they get to vote for their Republican candidate in the primaries?

Good point. They didn’t. So it seems that he didn’t quite think that one through — at the time, he sounded like he didn’t really like the way the Republican primaries turned out either — but perhaps the point is that he knew no matter which Republican would be elected President, the policies and laws he’d pass would be pretty much the same?

You’re really scaring me now. You are saying that something or somebody else is pulling the strings?

I’m not saying anything of the kind. Make up your own mind. But I’ll just remind you that the Republican nominee had to go make peace with those folks who, in the 2000 election when he ran against Dubja, called him the embodiment of evil. And that he surprised everybody by suddenly embracing the drill baby drill battle cry he had previously stayed away from.

So you are saying this chaos-monger shot himself in the foot with that Chaos thing? That he screwed up the primaries and ended up with the wrong nominee?

Hard to tell, especially now that the nominee has kowtowed to all the Right proper powers that be, and picked a VP candidate that allows him to play that argument game we talked about.

Well if both sides are playing it, as you said, what’s wrong with it?

Did I say that? I guess I did, as far as both sides playing it is concerned. But the problem is that while playing those entertaining games, non of the really important issues are being discussed. It’s a diversion.

And you think that’s funny, entertaining?

It’s hilarious. Yes. It makes me laugh so hard it makes me cry. Because, aren’t both sides are still claiming — seriously? — that this kind of democracy is what America should spread all around the world?

So what are the important issues?

You know, Hubertissime, with all this entertainment, I just plumb forgot.

The paradox of freedom and power:
While freedom for everybody is a universally accepted goal — at least by lip service —  it is less often pointed out that freedom requires empowerment:  the power to exercise that freedom.  When this is discussed, it tends to be in terms of  the good, wholesome, creative activities in which free people aspire to engage — or so goes the implicit assumption.  It is curious that the encouragement  to such creative endeavors often comes with the battle cries of “breaking the rules”,  or “thinking outside the box”  or  “pushing the envelope” — in unspoken but — to the perceptive listener — quite obvious contrast to the pious admonition that freedom of course must be restrained at the point where it  infringes upon others’ freedoms. As if this  were not a rule, a box, an envelope. Do we not know from childhood on that it is precisely against such rules and boundaries that freedom will be tempted to test itself?  Indeed:  is it really freedom if it is constrained by such rules, however plausible and reasonable?  What power does empowerment  confer that is limited to such limits — that have been drummed into the child and the reasonable citizen by parents and authorities?  And  that all too often have been show to be not only “reasonable”, “respectful of others’ freedoms” but also indisputably to the advantage of those in power to impose such exhortations?

So, Abbé Boulah  suggests:  must  we not accept the truth that there is a paradox here? Freedom requires power. And power manifests itself most clearly, some would say only, in the power to break precisely those rules that reasonably would limit it, for the sake of others’ freedom. It is precisely this rule that makes breaking  it the most tempting of all the temptations of power. Power will be tempted to break even the rules of reason;  to break precisely, most definitely, the rules of reason.  This is the temptation that has beset all human institutions, that has driven powerful men and women to push the envelope of their power into madness.

Is it not enough to encourage freedom and power to direct itself to beneficial and wholesome activities?  Surely there are enough problems and shortcomings in the world that could occupy seekers of power to the end of their days in the pursuit and invention of remedies and solutions?

Sure, if it were not for the fact that implementation of such solutions, no matter how well-intentioned,  more often than not impede others in their freedom to implement their own solutions to the same problems. They thereby become each others’ restrictions of their power and freedom, and as such inevitably  will be perceived to be the very rules that must be broken, the boundaries that must be overcome.

Humanity has always known this, even when it was not openly acknowledged, and usually kept under careful wraps by established powers. Human institutions such as hierarchical organization (which allocate power to be exercised ‘downward’ while being constrained by the power of people higher up in the hierarchy in very controlled ways)  or the ‘checks and balances’ in governmental arrangements, all demonstrate this implicitly.

The problem becomes the more acute, the higher up in such hierarchies and government it occurs.  The ultimate problem is therefore this:  how to effectively constrain the power of the highest officials, the highest courts, the highest enforcer of the rules that supposedly bestow liberty on all?

Abbé Boulah suggests that just as the most effective parental manipulations of children’s willfulness are those employing what is called ‘reverse psychology’, so the most effective means for keeping the various branches of government focused on beneficial and rational and wholesome endeavors might be precisely the advancement of various weird and irrational proposals, which the other powers then must prevent from being implemented.  He sees no problem regarding the supply of such irrational ideas, they are in apparent abundance in all bureaucracies, though often sorely lacking in creativity, interest and style.  The problem, rather, becomes that of orchestrating the balancing activities of each of the three, say, branches of government in alternatingly producing wild and crazy ideas for the other two to contain, while simultaneously preventing the irrational proposals of the other two from being implemented.

This, so various followers of the good Abbé contend gleefully, would keep these governing bodies busy enough to let other folks pursue their own freedoms and projects without too much government interference. And thus become a major boon to humanity.  Other friends are, however, becoming increasingly worried that the very  power of this idea is driving its originator himself insane.

Good intentions lead to incomprehensible consequences.
This is about some strange developments concerning the efforts to redevelop and revitalize the Gaines Street corridor in Tallahassee.  Plenty of good intentions accompany the desire to improve this  currently  somewhat  derelict area, that serves as the entryway for almost everybody coming to Tallahassee from the airport:  Not only to get some more attractive buildings there, but  a pedestrian-friendly environment.  To achieve this, is is proposed to narrow the current four-lane Gaines street down to two lanes to slow traffic, introduce  on-street parking, wider sidewalks,  and  pleasant street furniture.  All in hopes that this will attract developments to replace the current industrial buildings with appealing commercial and residential  projects.

The efforts have had some result:  the Marriott Residence Hotel at the corner of Gaines and Railroad Ave.  But this cannot be seen as a real improvement:  the architecturally well-intentioned facade (small-grain, multi-colored, while not otherwise inspiring) does not offer any reason for any pedestrian (who is not a resident) to stroll along it — there’s nothing to see, nothing to buy, look at, hear, smell. The basic rule of attracting pedestrians: give them a good reason, even excuse, to go there, not only once a year or month, but every day — has not been understood.  Since owners of the  developments the city would like to attract — even ‘arti’ communities, such as the proposed  artist  studio/residence project — cannot be expected to honor this rule over the necessity to worry about getting a suitable ROI on every square foot  of their property, it would seem that it must be encouraged by the city.  Perhaps by an ordnance suggesting that sidewalk level floor are should  be used by activities that would attract a minimum visitor frequency. In return for incentives such as higher density or tax credits.  Which in turn suggests small-grain establishments. This is difficult ti achieve in new projects, but it can be done with such ideas as a ‘CartMart’ of mobile vendoirs selling daytime-specific wares for part of the day, then move away to make room  for other vendors.

In the absence of any decisive moves on the part of the city in this direction, there is reason to fear that future developments will do no any better than the Marriott place.

But it gets worse.  The traffic planners now rightly worry about the obvious question: where will the traffic go that the narrowing / slowing of Gaines will inevitably displace?  Ahh — it will require a new road — say, the extension  of  FAMU  Way across Railroad Avenue – Wahnish Way to eventually reconnect with Lake Bradford Road.  So they have laboriously prepared three variants of routing this new road,  each of which will cost considerable money.  Never mind whether this new road now will become the new entrance artery for traffic from the airport, and be the attractive entranceway that Gaines was supposed to be.  What: build a fancy entryway to the city but then divert traffic away from it ?  So we must keep the airport traffic on Gaines?  And hope that the aggravation resulting from the slowdown will be balanced with the view of fancy new buildings and wide (but empty) sidewalks? Or what will have to be done to make the new road the appealing entry to Tallahassee?

Here is a different suggestion.

Keep the traffic on Gaines, forget the new road.  Instead, use the money to build one or a few pedestrian bridges  — using the slope on both sides of the roads there — across Gaines and the railroad.  This will possibly make for an appealing  arched gate  on Gaines as the entrance to the city. Encourage the development of pedestrian zones perpendicularly across Gaines —  activating pathways from FSU, the Civic Center,  the All Saints neighborhood, to  FAMU, Railroad Square, the neighborhood to the South, and the planned Park east of Lake Bradford road. Doing so can help  kickstart the development of a second level of  pedestrian / commercial use — that will be  entered at the higher ground levels on both sides, to  safely cross the traffic below .

Any pedestrian areas on Gaines itself, connecting to those North-South  pedestrian corridors , should be done  as covered arcades on the  ground floor of the buildings, not as wide exposed sidewalks. Access to parking from Gaines should be done with appropriate slow-down lanes at a few entries to organized parking  between these pedestrian paths.

While I obviously have not done any calculations of costs  and revenue figures for this, I suggest that  the money saved by not building the new road  would be put to much more productive use with a solution such as this strategy.