Jul 31, 2023·edited Jul 31, 2023Liked by Daniel Golliher
Do you have examples of situations where people noticeably avoided talking or learning about the foundations of their government? I think the apparent anti-meme could instead be overspecialization among people who do work or advocacy related to government and politics (as a special case of increased specialization in many fields), and people responding negatively to criticism or the implication that they don’t know something important.
I think I’ve seen that people doing advocacy work frequently are knowledgeable about laws, bills, and agencies that they think/are told are relevant to their interests, across several levels and types of government. In NYC housing, this might include ULURP, zoning codes, the state FAR cap, NYCHA, and the Faircloth amendment. And when I tell people about the Foundations of New York (I typically talk about the class at a high level and tell them about the map of the city government and Board of Estimate v Morris), I get the sense that they find it intriguing and think civics education is in general important, but think it’s a bit basic or unhelpful for them.
Analogously, as a professional software engineer, I haven’t really learned about the principles of software engineering in an organized way; I think many software engineers take software engineering classes, but it’s not the norm. My assumption is that my computer science education plus experience writing software has given me the majority of the knowledge and skills that study of software engineering specifically would provide, and if there’s something basic I don’t know (I don’t know where the datacenters are that run the code I write, or how they operate), I either don’t really need to know it or when I do need to, I can figure it out. I know that I could benefit from studying software engineering, but it feels like too much of a chore for a payoff that is small or unclear. I wonder if people treat learning the basics of government the same way. Reading the constitution could be seen as similar to reading John Locke – it has some value, it’s something students are told to do, it’s accepted as virtuous, but it’s also a bit boring and probably won’t help you with the thing you’re trying to do this month.
"Do you have examples of situations where people noticeably avoided talking or learning about the foundations of their government?" --> Yes, it happens almost every day. The example I gave in the essay was people running for (federal) office who didn't think to read the Constitution. It's not that they think "I don't need to read that at the moment." It literally doesn't occur to them to do it. That's odd! But it also happens in many casual social interactions too. People make bold claims about what the government should do, and they hold strong convictions about the state of the government (it's bad/good, etc). But they *never actually checked the basics.* They'll say the Supreme Court is broken, but can't name more than a half-remembered case they heard about. They'll say Congress is gridlocked...but don't know how many bills Congress has passed, or on what. There's just no checking by default.
"I think the apparent anti-meme could instead be..." --> I don't think this is an "or" situation; it a "yes and" situation. *Why* people don't know about politics is multi-causal, as I mentioned here: "The answer is multi-causal, but a lot of it lies within memetics." I think what you describe also happens, as do other things, as do anti-memetics. It just depends on who you're talking about.
"I think I’ve seen that people doing advocacy work frequently are knowledgeable about laws, bills, and agencies that they think/are told are relevant to their interests, across several levels and types of government." --> I agree with this, and some people do know the basics and beyond. I don't claim that *no one* knows them ("Far fewer people than you would expect have an elementary understanding of government...), just that many do not. It's very easy to talk to, say, NYC community board members who--despite serving on their boards for a long time--lack elementary governmental knowledge. This is also true of many government employees.
"Analogously, as a professional software engineer, I haven’t really learned about the principles of software engineering in an organized way..." I think you do have a basic command of software engineering (and more), according to the two-pronged test I outlined at the top of the essay.
(1) "A command of basic domain knowledge. In math, this means things like the four arithmetic operators and multiplication tables. In government, this means the basic organs of government, the levels of government, the kinds of law, and how those things fit together." For software engineering, I think the basic context is a lot of the things you'd find in a course like Harvard's CS50 (https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2023/); I think you did get those things, probably. And (2) "An understanding that [your field] is a technically complex and complicated domain, and that there is a lot to learn. This understanding is important for scoping and setting expectations. " Your comment about being able to learn more about data centers if you need shows that you understand that there is more to learn in this way. I wouldn't really call datacenter architecture/info a basic thing, I'd call the things in CS50 basic things.
"I wonder if people treat learning the basics of government the same way. Reading the constitution could be seen as similar to reading John Locke – it has some value, it’s something students are told to do, it’s accepted as virtuous, but it’s also a bit boring and probably won’t help you with the thing you’re trying to do this month." --> I think people *do* treat learning the basics of government (levels, kinds of law, basic organs) this way. Some of them are right that it won't help them that month. Some of them are *wrong.* And some of them are affected by the anti-meme, and it didn't even occur to them to try to learn the basics.
Jul 31, 2023·edited Jul 31, 2023Liked by Daniel Golliher
Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. I agree that a lack of knowledge could have multiple causes, so my alternative explanation doesn’t exclude the possibility of an anti-meme around learning the basics of politics. I think I was conflating a taboo and an anti-meme, and after rereading your post it’s clearer to me how the basic details of politics is an area where there isn’t necessarily a taboo but there is a conspicuous lack of knowledge.
I might amend the essay and give some other examples of anti-memes besides taboos. Anti-memetic properties are caused by all kinds of things, and I expanded (somewhat floridly) on boredom as an anti-memetic here: https://www.maximumnewyork.com/p/infernal-metaphors-for-government
Yes! I agree boredom is probably a factor at play here. I think topics that have anti memes often have an associated emotion that causes people to avoid them – for taboos, it’s typically fear or disgust, but another category that includes fine-grained details about government might be associated with boredom.
This reminds me a bit of a situation I read about in How Propaganda Works by Jason Stanley, where tobacco companies funded research to muddy the waters about whether smoking was harmful to people’s health. There were times when they affirmatively claimed that smoking was good for you, but even when they couldn’t do that, they could ensure enough mixed evidence was published about smoking’s effect on health to ensure that people didn’t inquire further. With the situation of laws and government rules being dry and confusing, I’m guessing there isn’t generally one particular “bad guy”, but the reaction of “it’s not worth looking into” that you mentioned in your other post is frequent in both situations.
Thanks so much for sharing, Daniel! I think the concept of the Overton Window is very interesting and especially makes me think about how the presence of anti-memes influences the boundaries of acceptable discourse within the context of government and politics.
Are there particular domains or aspects of government that seem to be more susceptible to anti-memes?
Can you also share any stories where individuals successfully overcame anti-memes related to government, leading to positive changes in their actions?
Do you have examples of situations where people noticeably avoided talking or learning about the foundations of their government? I think the apparent anti-meme could instead be overspecialization among people who do work or advocacy related to government and politics (as a special case of increased specialization in many fields), and people responding negatively to criticism or the implication that they don’t know something important.
I think I’ve seen that people doing advocacy work frequently are knowledgeable about laws, bills, and agencies that they think/are told are relevant to their interests, across several levels and types of government. In NYC housing, this might include ULURP, zoning codes, the state FAR cap, NYCHA, and the Faircloth amendment. And when I tell people about the Foundations of New York (I typically talk about the class at a high level and tell them about the map of the city government and Board of Estimate v Morris), I get the sense that they find it intriguing and think civics education is in general important, but think it’s a bit basic or unhelpful for them.
Analogously, as a professional software engineer, I haven’t really learned about the principles of software engineering in an organized way; I think many software engineers take software engineering classes, but it’s not the norm. My assumption is that my computer science education plus experience writing software has given me the majority of the knowledge and skills that study of software engineering specifically would provide, and if there’s something basic I don’t know (I don’t know where the datacenters are that run the code I write, or how they operate), I either don’t really need to know it or when I do need to, I can figure it out. I know that I could benefit from studying software engineering, but it feels like too much of a chore for a payoff that is small or unclear. I wonder if people treat learning the basics of government the same way. Reading the constitution could be seen as similar to reading John Locke – it has some value, it’s something students are told to do, it’s accepted as virtuous, but it’s also a bit boring and probably won’t help you with the thing you’re trying to do this month.
"Do you have examples of situations where people noticeably avoided talking or learning about the foundations of their government?" --> Yes, it happens almost every day. The example I gave in the essay was people running for (federal) office who didn't think to read the Constitution. It's not that they think "I don't need to read that at the moment." It literally doesn't occur to them to do it. That's odd! But it also happens in many casual social interactions too. People make bold claims about what the government should do, and they hold strong convictions about the state of the government (it's bad/good, etc). But they *never actually checked the basics.* They'll say the Supreme Court is broken, but can't name more than a half-remembered case they heard about. They'll say Congress is gridlocked...but don't know how many bills Congress has passed, or on what. There's just no checking by default.
"I think the apparent anti-meme could instead be..." --> I don't think this is an "or" situation; it a "yes and" situation. *Why* people don't know about politics is multi-causal, as I mentioned here: "The answer is multi-causal, but a lot of it lies within memetics." I think what you describe also happens, as do other things, as do anti-memetics. It just depends on who you're talking about.
"I think I’ve seen that people doing advocacy work frequently are knowledgeable about laws, bills, and agencies that they think/are told are relevant to their interests, across several levels and types of government." --> I agree with this, and some people do know the basics and beyond. I don't claim that *no one* knows them ("Far fewer people than you would expect have an elementary understanding of government...), just that many do not. It's very easy to talk to, say, NYC community board members who--despite serving on their boards for a long time--lack elementary governmental knowledge. This is also true of many government employees.
"Analogously, as a professional software engineer, I haven’t really learned about the principles of software engineering in an organized way..." I think you do have a basic command of software engineering (and more), according to the two-pronged test I outlined at the top of the essay.
(1) "A command of basic domain knowledge. In math, this means things like the four arithmetic operators and multiplication tables. In government, this means the basic organs of government, the levels of government, the kinds of law, and how those things fit together." For software engineering, I think the basic context is a lot of the things you'd find in a course like Harvard's CS50 (https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2023/); I think you did get those things, probably. And (2) "An understanding that [your field] is a technically complex and complicated domain, and that there is a lot to learn. This understanding is important for scoping and setting expectations. " Your comment about being able to learn more about data centers if you need shows that you understand that there is more to learn in this way. I wouldn't really call datacenter architecture/info a basic thing, I'd call the things in CS50 basic things.
"I wonder if people treat learning the basics of government the same way. Reading the constitution could be seen as similar to reading John Locke – it has some value, it’s something students are told to do, it’s accepted as virtuous, but it’s also a bit boring and probably won’t help you with the thing you’re trying to do this month." --> I think people *do* treat learning the basics of government (levels, kinds of law, basic organs) this way. Some of them are right that it won't help them that month. Some of them are *wrong.* And some of them are affected by the anti-meme, and it didn't even occur to them to try to learn the basics.
Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. I agree that a lack of knowledge could have multiple causes, so my alternative explanation doesn’t exclude the possibility of an anti-meme around learning the basics of politics. I think I was conflating a taboo and an anti-meme, and after rereading your post it’s clearer to me how the basic details of politics is an area where there isn’t necessarily a taboo but there is a conspicuous lack of knowledge.
I might amend the essay and give some other examples of anti-memes besides taboos. Anti-memetic properties are caused by all kinds of things, and I expanded (somewhat floridly) on boredom as an anti-memetic here: https://www.maximumnewyork.com/p/infernal-metaphors-for-government
Yes! I agree boredom is probably a factor at play here. I think topics that have anti memes often have an associated emotion that causes people to avoid them – for taboos, it’s typically fear or disgust, but another category that includes fine-grained details about government might be associated with boredom.
This reminds me a bit of a situation I read about in How Propaganda Works by Jason Stanley, where tobacco companies funded research to muddy the waters about whether smoking was harmful to people’s health. There were times when they affirmatively claimed that smoking was good for you, but even when they couldn’t do that, they could ensure enough mixed evidence was published about smoking’s effect on health to ensure that people didn’t inquire further. With the situation of laws and government rules being dry and confusing, I’m guessing there isn’t generally one particular “bad guy”, but the reaction of “it’s not worth looking into” that you mentioned in your other post is frequent in both situations.
Thanks for writing this piece. I find the Crichton Effect to be an absolutely fascinating one! :) Keep up the incredible work
Thanks so much for sharing, Daniel! I think the concept of the Overton Window is very interesting and especially makes me think about how the presence of anti-memes influences the boundaries of acceptable discourse within the context of government and politics.
Are there particular domains or aspects of government that seem to be more susceptible to anti-memes?
Can you also share any stories where individuals successfully overcame anti-memes related to government, leading to positive changes in their actions?