If you pay a lot of attention to politics, but doing so makes you miserable, this might be one you want to listen to. I talk with Christopher Freiman (Twitter @cafreiman), political philosopher and author of the book Why It’s OK to Ignore Politics. For many people, voting and paying attention to politics is a moral duty, a responsibility you have as a citizen of a democracy. But Freiman makes a strong case for why paying attention to politics is not a good use of our time, if our goal is to maximize the good we do in the world. And we talk about how our collective anger about politics makes us miserable and also drives us-versus-them polarization, which may be the root cause of our societal and governmental dysfunction.
Chris sometimes writes at 200proofliberals.blogspot.com and he teaches at William and Mary College.
A transcript and key-takeaway summary is farther down below.Â
Topics discussed:
- Addressing common objects to political abstention, such as: it’s a privileged, entitled stance to ignore politics; that it’s dangerous to encourage people to not vote, and more.
- How the act of voting, due to how unlikely your vote is to matter, may be perceived as a lost opportunity compared to doing other charitable acts.
- How us-versus-them in-group-versus-out-group dynamics tend to give us distorted views of political issues and of our political opponents.
- How effective altruism concepts encourage people to think more about maximizing their effect for the time or money they donate.
Key takeaways and points Freiman focuses on this in this talk to make his point that paying attention to politics is overrated as a moral good:
- Voting is unlikely to make a difference. The odds of a single vote determining an election are extraordinarily small, meaning the time and energy spent voting could often be better used elsewhere.
- Voting isn’t inherently a moral duty. Just because society benefits from people voting doesn’t mean every individual has a moral obligation to vote. Society needs farmers and dentists, too, but that doesn’t mean everyone has a duty to become one.
- There are more effective ways to improve the world. Volunteering, donating to effective charities, and directly helping people can produce tangible benefits, unlike political participation, where an individual’s impact is usually negligible.
- Being politically engaged doesn’t automatically make you a good person. We often treat voting, following politics, and expressing political opinions as moral virtues, without asking whether these activities actually accomplish anything beneficial.
- Paying attention to politics often makes people miserable. Constantly consuming political news, arguing online, and worrying about national issues can increase anxiety, anger, and unhappiness, often without producing any meaningful positive change.
- Political engagement can reinforce tribalism and irrational beliefs. People often adopt their party’s positions because of group loyalty rather than independent reasoning. They also tend to exaggerate how extreme, dangerous, or unreasonable the other side is.
- Political outrage can actually make problems worse. Social media rewards inflammatory, us-versus-them rhetoric, encouraging hostility and polarization. People who believe they’re helping by angrily attacking opponents may actually be making political conflict worse.
- People overestimate how much political participation they need to do to be responsible citizens. It’s easy to believe that following the news or posting political opinions is accomplishing something important, when these activities may be little more than emotionally satisfying habits.
- Caring about important issues doesn’t require caring about politics. Freiman isn’t arguing that people should ignore suffering or injustice. He’s arguing that we should distinguish between caring about a problem and choosing political engagement as the way to address it. The most moral choice may be to spend less time on politics and more time taking actions that directly help others.
TRANSCRIPT
(transcripts are generated automatically and will contain errors)
Zach Elwood: Welcome to the People Who Read People podcast. I’m Zach Elwood. This is a podcast about behavior and psychology. You can learn more about it at behavior-podcast.com. In this episode, recorded September third, two thousand twenty-one, I interview Christopher Freiman. Last name F-R-E-I-M-A-N. Chris is the author of a book called Why It’s Okay to Ignore Politics.
Now, that idea might cause some irritation. When I shared on social media about this book, I saw some of that irritation firsthand. The idea of ignoring politics when the political conflict in the US seems more important and more high-stakes than ever can seem to some people unthinkable and out of touch, even downright offensive.
But I’ll say that I found the ideas in Chris’s book very important. I think they’re more important at this very polarized moment than ever, actually. So if your instinct is to think this sounds stupid, ignoring politics is an entitled, privileged, immoral view that nobody should be promoting, I hope if you think that, that you stick around for the talk, because to be clear, Chris is not saying you shouldn’t care about the world or the people around us, but he’s suggesting we think more about the most effective ways to spend our time and the most effective ways to manifest our passions and concerns.
The ideas in Chris’s book ultimately are about making the world a better place and even about making us happier people. So I very much hope if you had those initial reactions to this, that you’ll listen to this talk or buy Chris’s book. I think you’ll find thinking about these ideas practically valuable in your life, not in an abstract way, but in a very real way, whether you agree with all of the ideas or not A little more about Chris Freiman.
He’s an associate professor of philosophy at William & Mary College. His research interests include democratic theory, distributive justice, and immigration. His books include Unequivocal Justice and Why It’s Okay to Ignore Politics, as well as numerous articles and book chapters in philosophy publications.
You can follow him on Twitter at CAFreiman, F-R-E-I-M-A-N. A quick couple notes about the interview before we start. First, we talk about voting for a while, but I think the voting topic is much less important than what we talk about afterwards, which is the time we spend paying attention to politics. For many people, that can be a quite significant amount of time, whether that’s scrolling social media or reading news or watching TV news.
And for many people, this makes them miserable, but there can be the idea that paying attention to politics on its own is somehow accomplishing something, that it’s a duty we have. So I think that’s the much more important part of the talk, and hopefully you’ll stick around for that after the voting part.
Also, I wanted to point out what I think is a common objection to Chris’s ideas that we didn’t really directly address in the talk, but I think many people listening will have. There can be an objection of, “But I’m really passionate about X, and one way I can work on that issue is through political action.
And you’re telling me it’s not important to work on politics or pay attention to politics, and that just seems backwards and stupid to me.” So to clarify the points I think Chris is making, he’s not telling you it’s always wrong to pay attention to politics or work on political stuff. He’s saying that there’s nothing inherently moral about paying attention to politics or working on politics.
His book title puts the concept pretty well, Why It’s Okay to Ignore Politics. It’s not saying it’s wrong to pay attention to politics, as obviously we all have passions and interests and things we think are very important and issues we think aren’t getting the attention they deserve relative to other issues So I think that’s an important distinction.
He’s trying to get you to ask questions about the role of politics in your life, and ask whether it’s possible your behaviors around politics are actually accomplishing much. Okay, here’s the interview with Chris Freiman. Hi, Chris. Thanks for coming on.
Chris Freiman: Hi, thanks for having me.
Zach Elwood: Yes. We’ll, uh, start out talking about, uh…
I think we’ll break it into two sections. We’ll, we’ll talk about voting itself and the time spent on that, and then, uh, the second part will be more about what we pay attention to and the things we spend our time on, whether that’s activities we’re doing, political activities, or just paying attention to politics or posting online, things like that.
So, uh, maybe it’d be good to first define politics, because one could say, well, everything is politics. You sometimes see quotes like that, especially it seems in an increasingly polarized society where more and more things seem political. So maybe you could define what you or what most people mean when they talk about the word politics.
Chris Freiman: Sure. And, and this is something I wish I had said more about explicitly in the book, but when I talk about politics in the book and I make the argument that you’re not obligated to participate in politics, really what I have in mind is participation in the formal political process. Voting is the clearest example of this, but it would also include things like, uh, phone banking, going do-door to door for candidates, those sorts of activities.
But, but I also hear th-this idea that everything is politics or maybe any kind of community engagement you have is political. So, I don’t know, planting, uh, tomatoes in a community garden or something like that would count as p- as politics on that definition. I’m thinking of it more, uh, in, in narrow terms, things like voting, phone banking, canvassing, that sort of thing.
Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. So your book is complex with a lot of points, but I’m curious if you can try to give a few of the The main points, kind of the elevator pitch that, that you’d give for why it’s okay to ignore politics.
Chris Freiman: Right. So i- it’s interesting, most people think that it’s not okay to ignore politics, and this is something I didn’t quite realize how strong this belief was until I published the book, and people seemed to be scandalized just, just by the title alone.
But 90% of people, uh, 90% of American citizens think that they have a, a moral duty to vote. And what I try to do in the book is just show why that, that view’s not correct, that you don’t have a moral duty to do things like, uh, voting or phone banking or something like that or, or argue about politics on social media.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t do things to make the world a better place. I think you should. Uh, but my argument is just that politics is not a very effective way of making the world a better place. And so what you ought to do, uh, is instead of, say, preparing and casting a vote, uh, you should spend that time on activities that would count as, as effective altruism.
So you could, for example, work a few hours of overtime at your job, make some extra money, uh, and then send that to an effective charity that might help children avoid something like malaria or blindness And this is just a much more effective way of helping people than political engagement. And part of the reason for this is just most political engagement doesn’t make a difference.
The, the clearest example of this would be a vote. So depending on what state you live in, your odds of casting a, a deciding vote in the presidential election, it might be as good as, as one in eight million, which is actually not terrible. Uh, but they could be as bad as, you know, one in t-200 trillion, and that, that’s pretty terrible.
The odds are pretty terrible there. So if you wanna make the world a better place, casting a vote isn’t, is not the way to do that. You would do better by volunteering at a local soup kitchen that needs volunteers, raising funds for charities that help people, those sorts of things. And so my argument is, it’s perfectly morally good for you to ignore politics, but what you should do is spend the time that you would have allocated to politics on private forms of altruism that actually do more good for the world.
Zach Elwood: There are many common objections that, you know, people listening to this would, would, uh, bring up, and I think your book handles pretty much all of them I could think of. So I will say that if you’re listening to this thinking, “Well, this is idiotic,” I, I would suggest you read the book because I think it is a really helpful book in, in the sense of questioning some things that we tend to believe without thinking through the, the logic of it.
So… And also I’d say there’s a benefit there to happiness and, and the things that make us miserable, uh, by focusing on them and things like that. So, uh, yeah, I just wanted to get that, uh, promotion in there.
Chris Freiman: Well, I, I appreciate that. A-and, and you know, speaking of some of the objections, I, I’ve definitely gotten the response that you have where people, they see the title and they think, “Well, this is dumb.
I’m gonna reject it.” Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, I, I can understand that. I can… I’ve got thick skin. Uh, but, but right, so there are lots of, of common objections that I, I try to address in the book. So the one that I always hear right off the bat is, is what if everybody did that? So wouldn’t it be really bad if everyone stayed home on Election Day?
And my thought is, yeah, that would, that would be pretty bad if no one voted. Uh, but it’s not clear that that means that you as a single individual ought to vote. So one way you could interpret this objection is just that if, if you as an individual don’t vote, you will have such a large impact on the behavior of other people that you will kind of single-handedly unravel American democracy.
And I think that’s, that’s implausible, and that might be an exaggeration, but, you know, they might say, “Well, but maybe you would influence 10 or 20 or 30 people, uh, not to vote. And, you know, who knows? This could be bad.” Uh, one response that I offer to that is like, “I’m just not that influential.” It’s a flattering objection that I might have that much of an impact on how people behave, but I just don’t think that’s true.
And I, I mention that I know it’s not true because when people register this objection against me, I respond by asking them if, if I’ve persuaded them not to vote. I say, “Well, okay, you’re really worried I’m gonna stop all these people from going to the polls. Are you not going to vote?” And they go, “No, no, I’m, I’m still gonna vote.
I’m definitely gonna vote.” So I know I’m not influential, and so you don’t have to worry that this, this book will unravel American democracy. Uh, I think there’s another version of that objection which is not focusing on the possibility that, uh, your individual behavior will have this large impact on other people, but rather it, it fails a certain sort of universalization test where if it would be wrong for everybody to do something or not do something Uh, it’s wrong for you, uh, not to do it as an individual.
But I think that argument is implausible. It just has too many counter examples. So it would be, it would be very bad for society if no one was a farmer or no one was a dentist. We would have problems with food. We, uh, everybody would have cavities. This would be really bad. Uh, but that doesn’t mean that you as a single individual are obligated to be a farmer or a dentist.
If you’re looking at the world and you think, “All right, well, we have plenty of people farming and plenty of people engaged in dentistry, uh, I can do something else, uh, that will, uh, do more good than being a dentist or a farmer.” And I think that makes perfect moral sense. And in the same way, you can look at the world and say, “Hey, we’ve got plenty of voters.
I can’t have much of an impact on the margin there, so let me do something else with my time and labor that, that might do more good for people.”
Zach Elwood: Yeah, getting back to the idea that, um, you know, the objection, well, what if nobody voted or very few people voted? And you– I think the im- important, uh, very good point you bring up in the book is, well, if that happens, it actually makes each vote worth more.
So it’s kind of a simple supply-demand economics point of, you know, if a lot of people stop voting, each vote becomes more valuable, and therefore more people would wanna vote if that was the case. And so with less voting, you’d actually just have the people who care the most about the issues having more say.
So I thought that was a really good point.
Chris Freiman: Right. And, and there’s something strange too about the objection because if, if I, if I drop out and don’t vote, that means that the person who makes the objection has slightly more power, uh, in affecting the, the outcome, uh, because there’s a slightly higher probability that their vote will be decisive.
And, and I could also… The sort of a glib response to the objection, uh, what if everybody did that? What if everybody stayed home? Uh, is, well, in that event, then I would vote. So if everybody stayed home, it would become quite rational to vote because then, of course, your single vote would determine the outcome of the election, and it would be a very effective way of helping people.
Uh, and so, y- you know, in that extremely remote possibility, uh, yeah, then I, then I would vote for sure.
Zach Elwood: It becomes more, yeah, more, more tempting for sure. Right. Uh, and, and you make a really good case too about the example of, say you’re going out to vote, you’re driving out to vote, and you see someone who needs help on the side of the road
Chris Freiman: Right.
So when you make the, the opportunity cost of voting really clear, I think, I think my argument becomes a little more palatable. So, so right, you could imagine the scenario where, uh, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re driving, uh, to cast a vote or something like that, and the polls are about to close, so you don’t have a whole lot of a buffer there.
And then say… Th- and this is kind of a, just a classic, uh, ph- philosophical thought experiment. I, I kinda got… So Peter Singer, uh, is one of the philosophers who’s really famous for thought experiments like this, and, and he’s influenced me. But so the idea is you’re, you’re driving and maybe you, you stop at a stop sign, and by the side of the road, uh, there’s a, maybe a child in need of help.
And we could even, we could even fill in the details a little bit more to suppose they have some sort of ailment and they need to get to the hospital, uh, very quickly or else they’re at risk of going blind, let’s say. Uh, it seems pretty obvious in a case like that you, uh, should take the child to the hospital even though it means that you can’t vote.
And you might say, “Well, why would that be?” You say, “Well, because the, the, the help that you can give to that child is just so much more important than casting a vote which has no realistic chance of, of changing the outcome of the election and helping anyone.” But it turns out that something like that trade-off exists in ordinary circumstances.
So the time that’s spent researching and, and casting a vote. So it’s not just, uh, casting the vote, it’s what you need to do to make sure that your vote’s a good one. The time that you spend doing that is time that you could be, uh, raising funds for charities that, that actually, uh, help alleviate, uh, blindness.
And so if it’s the case that, uh, the, the amount of time and effort that you put into your vote would’ve been enough to ensure that one child doesn’t go blind, uh, if you donate to an effective charity, it seems like, uh, you should forego voting and opt for the, the charitable endeavor that, that prevents v- blindness, just as you would when it’s really stark when you imagine that child in front of you at the stop sign.
Zach Elwood: When it comes to, uh, you know, spending time thinking about the vote, I think a common objection for, from people would be, “Well, I don’t need to spend time researching that. I know what’s right or what’s wrong in this situation.” And I think that, uh, y- your book, uh, makes a lot of sense and would speak more to people in a less polarized environment where there was l- less emotion, uh, where people, you know, feel a lot less strongly about what is the correct, what is the, the right vote.
Because obviously right now, let’s face it, people who have a lot of emotion are going to vote probably, and that can be a good thing because obviously no matter which side you’re on, you want that to happen. But, so I’m curious, have you seen the i- the increase in polarization shift some of your thoughts in this area, or at least shift how you frame them when talking about it?
Chris Freiman: So, so I’ve gotten that, that same, uh, s- sort of response from people too, where they say, “Look, you’re, you’re overestimating the amount of time that you actually need to cast a good vote. It’s just, it’s obvious the right way to vote.” Uh, a-and I agree. I think that one thing that plays a role in that confidence is, is something like partisan bias, where, uh, we’re, we’re very confident that we know who the right candidate is.
But I think part of that is just because we, we sort of selectively affirm information that tells us that our party is good, and we selectively dismiss information that tells us that our party is bad. And so then it’s kind of not a, a big mystery why it looks like it’s obvious, because your party does all the good stuff and the out party does all the bad stuff, so it’s a no-brainer.
But I think if we take a step back and we say, “Well, we know that we’re vulnerable to this kind of bias, to politically motivated reasoning.” So this is reasoning that’s not aimed at the truth, but aimed at kind of expressing and protecting our partisan identity. If we know that we’re vulnerable to that, that should at least make us pause, take a step back, and realize that at, at a, at a minimum, we shouldn’t be so confident.
Uh, unless we have some sort of special reason to think that we’re less subject to these biases than other people are, uh, I think this is a good reason to be at least somewhat self-skeptical, which would mean that we should do things like, uh, try to do a little bit more research on the issues or try to figure out effective ways of de-biasing ourself so we could have more justification, uh, in our belief about who to vote for.
Zach Elwood: I, I totally relate to the, how m- how much it can take, uh, how much effort and research it can take to vote well and being very uncertain on that.
For ballots in the past, I’ve left a lot of things blank, and my wife would criticize me and say, “Why don’t you fill that out?” And I, I would say, “Well, for these, a lot of these races, I j- I just, I would have to do so much research to, to feel like I know what I’m, uh, actually voting about,” whether that’s l- local things or whether that’s measures or whatever.
So yeah, I definitely relate to that. I think people underestimate or are too certain about a lot of things. But if, if I had to channel common objections here, one thing I would say about Trump is that disliking him or disliking similar candidates, to me and to a lot of people, i- isn’t even a political stance.
It’s just a stance against ignorance or a stance against almost polarization, in the sense that I don’t think Trump would be a leader if it weren’t for our extreme polarization. Now, obviously, I can say that fully believing I’m right, as can other people, but Trump supporters, of course, wouldn’t find those points valid, and they could just as easily say similar things from the opposite side.
So we’re kind of back to that subjective, uh, place. But, and, and obviously, what you’re saying doesn’t… You’re, you’re, what you’re arguing is not gonna prevent people from feeling like this is an easy vote. You know, there’s no, there’s nothing you could say to prevent people from feeling, uh, this is an easy vote.
I don’t have to spend any time on it.
Chris Freiman: Right. A- and sometimes I would say, you know, th- there are cases where the, the difference between candidates, I think, is, is pretty clear, uh, a- and we can be confident about that. But I think we have this tendency to, to think that every time it- it’s obvious who the right person to vote for is.
And of course, you know, coincidentally, it’s always the candidate from our, our party. And you might say, “Well, no, but that’s, that’s not so bad. Like, you know, it makes sense that you would always think that the candidate from your party is the best candidate because, you know, they stand for the things that you stand for, and you stand for those things because you know that y- you think, you think they’re the best, you think they’re right.”
Um, but it, it’s actually not clear to me that this is the case, that, uh… So I certainly think people, uh, vote for a particular candidate just because that’s the representative of their party. But when you look at the, the kind of bundle of policies that different, uh, parties stand for, it’s really kinda hard to, to find a unifying thread.
And so it would just be quite the coincidence if one party got it all right and the other party got it all wrong, such that it was always an easy call who to vote for. So I talk about this a little bit in the book, where you think, okay, attitudes about things like Uh, the death penalty, uh, school choice, and nuclear power ten- tend to go together.
So people on the right tend to be, uh, pro-nuclear power, pro-school choice, uh, and pro-death penalty. People on the left tend to be the opposite. But then you think to yourself, “Well, what, what do those things ha- have to do with each other?” Morally, they don’t really seem to have a whole lot to do with, with each other.
Empirically, they don’t seem to have a whole lot to do with each other. So, so why do these beliefs always seem to, you know, rise and fall together? And the explanation that I think is, uh, pretty persuasive here is that, well, this is just y- you know, sort of contingently which, what each party has come to stand for.
Uh, and you adopt those beliefs because that’s what, uh, shows that you’re a good member of your party, in the same way that, you know, I don’t know, I’m a, I’m a Philadelphia, uh, sports fan. You know, rooting for players on Philadelphia sports teams, uh, signals that I’m a good, uh, native Philadelphian. But because that’s what’s really motivating our allegiance, uh, we should be self-skeptical that, you know, our party gets it all right on nuclear power, school choice, the death penalty, abortion, immigration, and so on.
It’s possible, uh, but it just seems, it just seems unlikely.
Zach Elwood: Yeah, for sure. As polarization progresses, it, it, it’s the feeling, this us versus them feeling, that this aggregation of stances is right and this aggregation of stances is wrong. And as you say, there is a lot of randomness and arbitrariness to that, those groupings of stances, right?
There’s… And I talked to, actually, uh, a great interview I had was, uh, with Michael Macy, who researched what he called opinion cascades, which was research into kind of the arbitrary nature of how, uh, some stances, uh, political platform stances get formed. For example, abortion. Uh, I was corresponding with Dan Williams, who’s written books about the abortion issue history and religious right history, and he talked about how in the ’60s and ’70s, it was a bit of a toss-up about which, uh, party would become pro-choice or pro-life because, uh, pro-life was mainly a Catholic, uh, stance.
It was more associated with Democrats. And in other countries, the conservative, uh, conservative movements are much more about being pro-choice because they’re anti-government influence in your life. And then that’s just one example, but these, uh, aggregations of stances that we come to feel really define good or bad, you know, is, is that’s part of the, the problem, that illusion that, uh, you know, for example, I mean, 30% or so of people from Democrats and Republican Party, uh, disagree with, uh, their party’s stance on abortion.
And you can find those kinds of variations. So it’s not so much the disagreement on stances, it’s, it’s our feeling like this group of stances is, is so important. Just a quick note here. You might be thinking, “No, I myself have very logical and ethical reasons for my stance on abortion.” So to be more clear here, what we’re saying is not that nobody has principled and thought-out stances.
I myself have opinions on abortion that I think are things I’ve worked through logically and that aren’t based on political party affiliation. What we’re saying is that for many people, the grouping of stances that a political party has comes to be perceived as very important and significant, when in actuality, for many people, it’s likely that if their party had a few different stances, they’d likely support those stances for group solidarity reasons or for reasons of disdain for the other group, and not so much because they’d worked through all the implications on all of those issues
Chris Freiman: And a- another interesting example of this, and I, I think you could probably even find this video on YouTube, I believe it was, um…
I’m, I’m sure I’m getting the dates wrong. Uh, but I, I wanna say it was maybe a 1980, uh, Republican primary debate or something like that. Uh, and I, I think it was, uh, Reagan and Bush. And, and what’s fascinating about this debate was how pro-immigration they both were. And of course, the Republican Party has shifted on that.
And so you’re like, is it really due to, like, principled philosophical arguments, or is it just due to sort of contingent factors as to, to how things shook out politically? And another, uh, another study that I, I find kind of, uh, e- endlessly fascinating but also depressing took partisans and asked them whether th- they would support, uh, or reject particular policies, and these policies were all very sort of, uh, stereotypically left or right.
So it would be, one would be sort of more distribution versus, uh, more redistribution versus less redistribution or something like that. And it turns out that you could get partisans to support the out-party policy, uh, as long as you told them that an in-party, uh, member proposed it. So you could get the, you could get the Republican to support big government if you told them that it was a Republican senator who proposed it, and the same thing with the Democrats, which really goes to show it’s not…
And, and, and the other, the other interesting twist on this study is that the subjects were asked, “Well, well, do you think party affiliation had anything to do with your answers?” And they would say, “No, it was just my belief about what the appropriate role of government- Mm-hmm … is.” So it- They weren’t aware, yeah.
E- exactly. Uh, and, and so this really shows that it, it’s, it’s very much party over principle. And there are also… I mean, speaking of YouTube videos, there are similar sorts of things that, you know, they’re, they’re not rigorous, but you’ll see, you know, interviewers on the street and do the same sort of thing during election season where they’ll say, you know, uh, “Bernie Sanders proposed this,” and it was, it’s really a Trump policy or whatever.
Uh, and, uh, Bernie supporters will be in favor of it, as long as they’re told that Bernie supported it. Same thing, you know, vice versa with Trump supporters and so on. Uh, and so again, that’s just kind of a, a, a semi-humorous example of the same phenomenon.
Zach Elwood: Oh, and, and for example, like, you know, the fact that Romney created the first model for Obamacare, like if Romney had become president and had pitched that as a, as a Republican thing, I think you would’ve seen Republicans support it.
Chris Freiman: Absolutely. I agree.
Zach Elwood: To take another example here, just to help make the point, as I think it’s such an important point Bernie Sanders years ago was quite critical of very loose immigration laws. He was of the opinion that immigrants who have low income drive down wages for other Americans. He called open borders-type policies a, quote, “Koch brothers proposal,” implying that lax immigration laws were something that big business Republicans appreciated.
No matter if you believe those stances or not, it’s possible to imagine the Democratic Party being critical of loose immigration policies because of its perceived impact to lower income and blue-collar American workers, and that’s why many Trump supporters are concerned about immigration issues.
That’s just one example I wanted to throw in, as I think so much of our us versus them polarization and animosity can be due to these illusory group psychology feelings we have that our party’s aggregation of stances is extremely meaningful, that those groupings of stances are clear indicators of right and wrong Let’s see.
I, I’m curious, uh, as time has going on, gone on in the last few years and things have become more polarized, have you heard more criticism? Do you get more hate mail, things like that?
Chris Freiman: Uh, you know, I don’t know. I’m not sure if the book has sold well enough yet to get, to get a whole lot of hate mail. Um, I, I do find, yeah, that, that there are a lot of people who think that the, the message is just sort of morally wrong, and I’m not sure if I’ve noticed, uh, much, much of an uptick, but I do think that, that polarization and just this, this phenomenon of politics absorbing more and more of our identities makes people more committed to the idea that political participation is really important.
I mean, you know, politics now pervades so much of our lives, uh, in, in ways that you wouldn’t really expect. So like the, the grocery stores that you shop at, the sports that you watch, all of these sorts of things are now political. And so if politics is this really momentous part of your life, uh, and somebody says, “Ah, you know, it’s, it, it’s actually not such a big deal, like it doesn’t really make the world a better place and it probably makes you miserable,” I can understand why people would see that as a kind of scandalous message.
Zach Elwood: One thing your book highlights, which I think is a, is a crucial point too, you know, there’s sometimes this, uh, framing of, of voting as a noble act, that voting is a responsibility, that we have a duty to vote, that we should all get out and vote. Most people, I think, recognize that that’s kind of bullshit framing.
Like, I think most people recognize that when people say that, they don’t really actually believe that voting is some noble thing or that it’s some great responsibility. I think most people see that when people say that, they’re actually just trying to get people who vote, who are voting like them to get out and vote.
Am I, am I wrong in seeing that? Or do you think there are a large number of people who see it as, as important to just vote as a general concept?
Chris Freiman: You know, that, that’s a really interesting question, and, and I’m not, I’m not sure what to think about that. So I definitely th- I don’t know, this remind… Th-this maybe this dates me, but it reminds me of the very famous South Park voting episode, if, if you’ve seen that Where I, I, now I can’t remember the details, but th- they’re all very upset that, uh, that one of the kids, I forget which one it is, refuses to vote in the school election or something like that.
And then he relents and he says that he’ll vote, but then he votes for the, the mascot or whatever that kid who was trying to persuade him to vote didn’t like. And so it wasn’t really that he wanted him to vote, it was that he wanted him to vote for the, for the candidate that was on his side. And I do think that that plays a role.
I mean, I would be interested to see if, you know, if somebody really thought my pro-voting advocacy would result in the defeat of my, uh, my, my candidate. Like, would I really support it? Right. I, you know, I, I’m inclined to think if, you know, if they really believed that their get out the vote efforts would mean their candidate lost, I do think that, uh, people might relent a little bit.
And, and it’s not even irrational, uh, because I think, you know, if you are … I, I think it makes more sense to think that voting is really important, uh, if you think that it’s really important to get a particular candidate in office. Because then it’s this really, this really impactful, uh, decision. But then I do get people, and I’ll, you know, I’ll take them at their word, where they say, “Look, I, you know, I don’t even really mind who you vote for.
Uh, just, just go out and vote. Just, just do it.” Which always struck me as a little- … strange, uh, because it, it would be weird to say, “Well, just vote, but it doesn’t really matter which candidate you vote for,” ’cause presumably one is better than the other. And so it would be strange to say, “Well, you just gotta, you just gotta pull a lever.
Like, th- that’s your duty. You could, you could be blindfolded-
Zach Elwood: Right …
Chris Freiman: and do it.” That always struck me as a little strange, but I actually, I do think there’s, uh, some support for that view.
Zach Elwood: Yeah, I mean, it’s kinda like saying, you know, “Support the economy. Go out and spend money. We don’t care what you spend it on.”
Like, you know, it’s just kind of similarly vague and, and, uh, yeah, it doesn’t make much sense to me. Um-
Chris Freiman: May- maybe it’s to s- sort of strengthen our commitment to civic life or democracy or something like that. Yeah. Uh, but then again, it’s, you know, I, I alone will not have any meaningful impact on American civic life or democracy.
And the other thing, the other thing too that I’ll, that I’ll tell people sometimes when they make this objection to me is I say, “Well, why not just let me stay home but I’ll lie?” I say, “I’ll just tell people I voted.” Mm-hmm. “I’ll even, I will even go on Amazon and buy, like, a 500-pack of those ‘I voted’ stickers, uh, and I’ll wear one every election day.
Uh, and I, and I’ll fake, uh, you know, I’ll, I’ll fake that I voted. Uh, and so if you’re really worried that I’m gonna have this negative effect on, on American democracy, you should be happy with that.” And to their credit, sometimes people say, “Yeah, okay. That’s fine.” Yeah,
Zach Elwood: yeah. “
Chris Freiman: Stay home, but lie about it.”
Zach Elwood: Well, exactly.
I think that’s- Okay … I mean, that, that, I think this is getting at the gist of it. It’s that it is logical to want other people to vote. I mean, I want other people to vote the way I want them to vote, and that’s, that’s what people are doing, you know? So in that sense, it is logical to say, “Yes, Chris, go put on that sticker and encourage other people to vote,” because, you know, assuming we think, you know, you’re gonna im- you’re gonna influence them the right way, it is a logical stance to, to want other people to vote.
And, a- while, and, and you can simultaneously think, “Well, it doesn’t really matter much if I myself vote.” Yeah. This, this is something I sometimes think about when it, when it comes to feeling like whether it’s good to vote or not. I, I feel like what can motivate people is almost like a magical thinking feeling of if I’m– if I decide to vote while knowing that it probably doesn’t mean much, then in some way other people who are like me, who are facing a similar decision, will also decide to vote.
Uh, it’s almost like a magical thinking sense of, uh, I’m, I’m… By taking this stance, I am increasing the odds that other people will vote. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it’s sometimes– it’s something- Right … I think sometimes when I’m thinking about that.
Chris Freiman: So right. So you’re sitting on your couch and you think, “Hmm, there are people who are li- who are just like me, and if I’m deliberating and I decide not to vote, then like, ah, they might be reaching the same conclusion, and we can’t have
Zach Elwood: that.”
Right. Right. It is. It’s ki- it’s kind of like this group- Yeah … this group thinking sense of like, well, maybe if I do it, then… And I’m so ambiguous about it, then a lot of other people will. I don’t know.
Chris Freiman: Right. Well, this is, uh, so this is interesting too. I mean, this is connected to something that I didn’t really talk about in the book, but I’ve been thinking about more since I’ve written it, which is, uh, it’s, I don’t know, maybe the kind of inconsistency in people’s thinking about voting relative to other things, because I think people have this intuitive sense that they’re, they’re really influential when it comes to, to getting people to vote.
Like that their get out the vote efforts will be r- really impactful, or if they vote and they’re wearing their sticker, this will really motivate other people to do that. And I think, well, maybe. But if, but if we are that influential, then that would mean we’re, we’re doing a lot of things wrong in the rest of our lives that, uh, we should be correcting for.
So like, this is kind of a tongue in cheek case, but I, I don’t know, maybe it works. So like suppose wearing the sticker and standing in line really does motivate other people to vote and, and you have this impact on other people’s behavior. Well, then why not apply that argument to something like charitable donations?
So suppose I am really impactful, then does that mean that, you know, I sh- whenever I make a charitable donation, I should like have a, put a big sticker, uh, on my shirt saying like, “I donated $500 to the Against Malaria Foundation.” I think most people would find that actually kind of like off-putting, and, uh, it’s curious to me that we have this inconsistent way of treating voting and other kinds of altruistic activities.
But if we really thought we were super influential, then we should always be broadcasting all of the really good things we’re doing because that’s gonna motivate other people to do good things. We should be really worried about doing things that might seem trivially harmful on their own because they could motivate other people to do those things, which could be really bad.
So you say, I don’t know, it doesn’t really matter if you as a single person recycles. It’s, you know, n-no big deal. But of course, other people might see you not recycle, and then this would be a horrible thing for the planet. But we don’t seem to think that way about anything other than voting. It’s like with voting somehow we’re super impactful.
But with these other sorts of activities, it doesn’t really make a difference what we do ’cause nobody’s paying attention to us.
Zach Elwood: You know, the other part of your book besides the, the voting and, and researching voting was about, uh, you know, how we spend our time in, in terms of paying attention to news, you know, kind of hate reading news, hate watching news, uh, arguing online, things like this.
And I find that th- that’s the much more, uh, I think practical part of the, the book, I think, because I think this is what makes people miserable and also just increases divides, you know. It, it increases the polarization problem, which I see as the main problem we’re facing really. Like, we talk about the issues being the problem, but to me it’s, it’s so much more about the us versus them polarization and animosity that’s going on under the surface, and the issues are just kind of the manifestation of that.
Our anger about the issues is the manifestation of that. So yeah, I’m curious if you have a, like a summary of, uh, of how you feel about the watching news, paying attention, or paying attention to the politics, the, the, the issues, uh, posting on social media. What are, what are your stances on that?
Chris Freiman: Right. I, I quote my son in the book, who I thought sort of captured my view pretty, pretty aptly.
I think he was five years old at the time. But so he would, uh, you know, he, he goes over to my, to my parents’ house and they’ll watch him. And, uh, occasionally my dad will have on the news. This was a couple of years ago when I wrote the book, and my son, uh, said, “I don’t understand this. Uh, why does Grandpa always watch the news even though he hates the news?”
Because he would always get, like, really upset about, about the politics. And I thought you know, that’s, that’s a, that’s a really good question. That’s a really good point. It would be like if you say, “I really don’t like the taste of mushroom pizza,” but you ordered it every day for lunch. That would be really bizarre behavior.
And yet somehow that’s, that is what we do with politics. I mean, it, it… Th- there’s just a lot of evidence that paying attention to politics, it makes us more, uh, stressed. It can make us depressed. People have reported l- literally losing sleep over it. Uh, I believe after the 20, uh, what was it? The 2016 election, uh, Democrats reported a drop in subjective well-being that was about as large as the drop that people experience when they, they lose a job.
I mean, these are significant impacts on our well-being. And you might think, well, okay, that, that could be, that could be a tolerable cost if it were s- for some really important good. So, you know, if, if, if you’re I, I don’t know, working on a cure for cancer or something, and that’s, that’s really stressing you out.
You might say, “Yeah, but that’s for a really noble end,” and so you should do it. But of course, politics is not like that. We’re just spending hours making ourselves miserable for a one in, you know, a 80 million chance of actually making a difference. So I think there’s just sort of a practical argument for ignoring politics, which is it, it makes it makes you less miserable.
Don’t e- if you don’t like mushroom pizza, you don’t have to eat mushroom pizza.
Zach Elwood: Right. I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s the, it’s the emotional, uh- The emotional element and just, you know, getting back to your main argument, it’s like think of all the, the things that you could be doing, uh, with that energy that you’re spending time on, like things in your community.
You know, I, I think that gets down to it too. It’s like people are so focused on these things at the national level that they’re so unlikely to change. It’s like, but think of all the things in your community that are happening that you could be devoting that same Passion to, and, and I think that’s, that’s a big part of the problem, I think, is, you know, when I say that I believe, and I’m not the only one obviously, when I say that I think the polarization and animosity are what’s driving all this, it’s like, you know, there’s so many issues where people’s feelings of, uh, you know, this is right, this is wrong, this is good versus evil, this immense, uh, feeling that they have is, is, is largely based not so much on the issue because there is such a much more variety and much more common ground on a lot of issues than people think.
So it comes down to this feeling of like there’s this good versus evil battle going on, and, uh, it’s life or death who wins it, you know? And that, that has a way of impacting how the issues play out, right? So when you perceive that, then the issues do actually ramp up in intensity as, as far as the impacts of them because the, the issues have a way of growing from that animosity.
But, and that’s why I think your, um, your book is so important, these ideas are so important because I think we actually have the problem of caring too much about things that are out of our control or things that aren’t as important as we perceive them to be pretty much. Yeah, basically.
Chris Freiman: And, and on the p- the polarization point, I, I agree.
I think a lot of it is just kind of us versus them, and, and one reason to, to think that is, and I discuss some of this evidence in the book, is just really interesting evidence that suggests that people have false beliefs about what members of the other party are like. So part of it is in terms of like things like their socioeconomic status and things like that, but also, uh, what the other party believes about particular issues.
And so if it were really kind of a policy or issue-driven difference, then you would expect people to have accurate beliefs about what the ar- uh, other party believes about those issues. But it turns out that they really don’t. Uh, they, they dislike the other party because it’s the other team. And, and one of the most intriguing, uh, things that I came across when, when, uh, writing that chapter was this view that a part of what is ramping up animosity towards the out party is this desire to justify our continued allegiance to the in party even though we know it’s bad.
Members of both parties recognize that their own party has problems. So maybe they think, “Yeah, you know, my, uh, my, my leaders are… They’re, they’re too, uh, you know, wishy-washy, and they’re spineless, and they sell out, and, you know, these sorts of things. I know they have all these problems. So why do I stick with them?
Well, ’cause the other side’s evil, and I’d rather have spineless leaders than evil leaders.” And so, you know, th-this kind of rational- rationalization of our continued allegiance to our party has this effect of, uh, making us a lot more hostile, uh, to out party members for, for no good reason. And, and one thing that I mention in the book, this kinda goes back to something I was saying earlier, which is, like, I’m not a skeptic about, uh, right and wrong.
So I think that there are correct answers about things like who to vote for or what the right thing to believe about, say, immigration policy is. I think there are right answers. Uh, but I think that’s compatible with a kind of humility where we say, “Look, just because somebody has a different view than I do about, you know, some issue, that in and of itself, uh, doesn’t mean that they’re a terrible person that I sh- should disassociate from.”
Zach Elwood: Well, and just to give a specific example, a very topical example, there’s this depolarization group, Braver Angels, and last night I attended a meeting they had where it was just regular citizens talking about, uh, issues, and this specific one, they were talking about critical race theory. So people on the right and the left spoke up about the issue of that being…
those kind of things being taught in school. One thing that’s very obvious about this is it’s just the lack of clarity of what they’re defining, what they’re even talking about. It seems like both sides are talking about, like, their own version of their own boogeyman, essentially. Like, the right is afraid of divisive and extreme framings about race and racism, and they’re not the…
You know, it’s not only conservatives who have voiced those concerns. There’s some liberals who criticize things in that area for the same reason. And then the left is afraid of, seems to be afraid of race-related problems, uh, a- and that h- part of the history of the US, US history not being taught at all.
So it’s almost like they both have their extreme sides of, of framing the, the problem and, and they’re not even clarifying what the, what they’re even defining and, and, like, what exactly are the things they’re talking about being taught in school. And that’s one thing that pops out to me for that subject, and I just see that on so many subjects where it’s like, what exactly are we talking about?
And, and, and, and not just because both sides can have people that frame it in these ways that they’re just… They have in their minds, but they’re not agreeing on what the, the issue even is. So that’s, that’s one example of what I mean when I say that it’s the animosity that is, that is much more driving this, th- these conflicts and the, the issues.
Yeah.
Chris Freiman: So the, the economist, uh, Bryan Caplan has this great idea of, he calls it, uh, an ideological Turing test. You know, the Turing test is, uh, you know, y- you, you have a conversation with a computer or something like that, and if it can trick you into thinking that it’s a human- You know, it’s passed the, passed the Turing test, and I don’t know, this means it, it, it can think or something.
I’m not sure exactly what it’s supposed to prove, but something like that. Uh, and the ideological Turing test is something that you can pass when you can have a conversation with someone and defend the, the other side’s beliefs, the beliefs that you don’t actually hold, so well that that person thinks that you genuinely believe them.
So maybe you’re a Republican, and to pass a Turing test, this means convincing an outside observer that you’re a Democrat- Mm … because you know their arguments so well and, and you can defend them. And I, and I, I kinda think that’s gotta be the first step to productive debate. Mm-hmm. Like, if, like, we need to be able to pass ideological Turing tests before we can make any progress.
We’ve gotta know what the other side actually believes, their reasons for believing them, and I think that also has the effect of humanizing- Right … the other side too, where you think, “Okay, now I can understand why somebody who is not a monster-
Zach Elwood: Right,
Chris Freiman: exactly … would, would believe this.” Uh, but, but I agree.
It’s… I don’t know. Maybe I, I hang out on social media too much, because I do feel like many of us are, are not passing ideological Turing tests these days.
Zach Elwood: Yeah, and that’s the… And that is, in a nutshell, that’s the polarization problem. It’s like we don’t even have an interest in, in pass- in trying to, uh, do that exercise, right?
It’s just, it’s u- it’s unthinkable for many people to even attempt to, uh, think about the other, uh, side’s point of view. And actually, that, that was in a, a previous interview with, um, Elisabetta Fresam, who I interviewed about, uh, her book and talking about seeing others’ points of view and, and how there can be a, a feeling of like we- we’ve lost an argument by saying that you can, you can actually form a, a logical argument on the other side.
Uh, but yeah, I, I hadn’t heard that. That’s a, that is a great point. I mean, just, just trying to do that exercise by itself increases understanding and lowers animosity, and I think that… I mean, they, they use that in, uh, conflict resolution exercises, I think, is, is trying to making people write the other side’s point of view.
So one objection that I’m sure, and y- and you write about this in your book, and I’m sure a lot of people would have it, is, well, that’s… This is all easy for you to say, to not care about politics because it doesn’t affect you. It’s s- it’s sort of a, uh, a privilege thing, uh, that you’re, you’re lucky you don’t have to think about these things.
And, uh, and what do you say in your book about, uh, that objection?
Chris Freiman: Yeah, that, that objection i- i- is well taken. Uh, I think there’s, there’s a really good point there. But I would draw a distinction between t- two different claims. So one claim is, which, which I think is right, is that, you know, I am a, a person who, who has the privilege of, uh, not having to worry that, uh, politics is, is gonna ruin my life.
Like, that’s just dumb luck. It’s a privilege of mine, and I think that’s, that’s right. And not everybody has that privilege, obviously. Uh, and for a lot of people, bad policies are a matter of life and death. I think that’s right. Uh, but then we could say, okay, that being true, what does that imply for what we ought to do to make the world better and make particular people better?
Just because, uh, politics is really impactful for people doesn’t mean that political activism is actually itself the most impactful way Of helping people. So for example, uh, it could be the case that you can do more good for the world or for people who aren’t in the same sort of privileged position as you are by volunteering for organizations that provide direct help or again, raising funds for those organizations.
An example that I give in the book actually is this idea that I’m privileged not to have to worry about malaria, which is true. But then from there we might say, well, okay, there, you know, there are people out there who aren’t so privileged. They do have to worry about malaria. That leaves open the question of whether the right way to help alleviate that issue is via political action.
So maybe one lesson we could draw from that is to say, you, you know, I should, I should really do a lot of research and vote for the candidate who’s the best on effective foreign aid or something like that. But of course, that’s not really gonna do any good. That’s not actually gonna help anybody who needs help, who’s at risk of, uh, malaria.
So what you should do in that case is, again, you know, raise funds for the Against Malaria Foundation or something like that, uh, because it would actually help people who need the help. So to, to make a long story short, uh, I agree that I am in a privileged position where I don’t really have to worry that politics is gonna be life or death.
Uh, but that in and of itself doesn’t imply that the right way to help people who are at risk-
Zach Elwood: Right …
Chris Freiman: uh, from politics is via political activity itself.
Zach Elwood: And, and, and there’s just so many issues. I, I think the thing that gets me about a lot of the anger these days is people acting like their anger should be your anger when there are just literally hundreds of things, probably thousands we could be angry about.
Like for example, car fatalities. Like, you can imagine getting… You can imagine being super passionate and angry about the fact that we have so many, you know, what is it, 35,000, 40,000 car fatalities in the US each year. I mean, you can imagine being someone that is outraged watching TV and seeing commercials and media where we depict driving a car as a fun, carefree thing, you know?
And you can imagine being outraged that we don’t have stricter laws and lower speed limits and such. And I’m just saying, uh, this as a, as an example, one example of many of things that anyone could be angry about that are directly hurting people out there. And I think, uh, that’s what gets me about this, uh This kind of– And I think social media and, and our, you know, increasingly wired together, uh, modern society plays a big role in this, is making people feel like there’s just a few things at this moment to be angry about.
And I think that loses sight of the fact that, of just how complex the, the world is, of how many things that are going on right now there are theoretically to be angry about.
Chris Freiman: And this, m- uh, I think goes, goes back somewhat to this ideological Turing test idea where, you know, we could say it, it’s probably worthwhile if we can turn down the temperature a little bit and put ourselves in other people’s shoes.
And even if we still disagree with them, even if we think that they’re wrong in how they prioritize things, we might still say, “Well, but it’s– I, I understand why.” And so this is not grounds for thinking they’re a terrible person or disassociating from them. It can be an honest intellectual disagreement.
Zach Elwood: To get back to, uh, your, your main argument about that is it’s just not an effective way, even if you believe those things are, are, uh, you know, the most important things. It’s just there are more, uh, effective, like, groups or, or donations you can make if, uh, for whatever your particular, uh, passionate subject is.
Yeah.
Chris Freiman: So, right. So a case that, that I discuss a little bit in the book is something like food insecurity. So that, that might be something that, uh, you think should be one of the top priorities politically is making sure that we address that. But, you know, you, you vote for the candidate who’s better on food security, whoever that might be.
It’s not gonna, it’s not gonna make a difference. It’s not gonna result in anybody getting fed who otherwise would go hungry. But again, you t- you, you take the time that you would’ve spent preparing and casting a vote, volunteering at a soup kitchen who’s, who’s short-staffed, that actually could result in people getting fed.
And so, you know, even if you think that certain sorts of… E-even if you agree with someone that certain sorts of problems ought to be the top priority, that still doesn’t sort of clinch the case for politics as the right way to address them.
Zach Elwood: In getting to the, uh, immense anger, uh, we could talk about the, the social media angle, because I see, you know, there’s, there’s just so many people who spend a significant amount of time posting angrily on social media about, about politics.
And to me, I see that as kind of just a sad use of, of energy and emotion. I mean, considering all the things we’ve talked about. Uh, you know, and, and also just from a personal level You know, as we, as we talked about too, making yourself miserable for maybe not much payoff and wearing yourself out in these ways.
And I, I know some very influential people on social media, people who I used to respect, and now they just spend most of their days drumming up hate- hatred against the other side in ways that I just think are missing context and very us versus them, not focusing on like the actual issues or the actual people at fault.
Uh, and some of these people are quite eloquent and smart people, but I don’t think they’re doing anything useful. I think they’re actually hurting the country, hurting the world, because as I’ve said, I think a lot of our problem is in this us versus them mindset. So in that sense, I think these people, you know, if many of them stopped doing this tomorrow, I think we’d be in a much better place.
And so in that sense, I think if a large percentage of people stopped caring about politics starting tomorrow, I think the world would be a better place
Chris Freiman: Uh, yeah. And, a-and on the social media point, uh, you know, I’ve noticed that, that social media creates perverse incentives- Mm-hmm … where the, the, the way that you get likes and, and retweets and, and all those things is not by, uh, offering subtle, nuanced, moderate takes.
It’s by offering the, the hot takes that dunk on the other side. And, you know, I, like, I, I fall prey to this too myself. Like, I’m, I’m not above the fray here. Uh, but, but I think there, yeah, the… it doesn’t, it doesn’t reward level-headedness. Mm-hmm. It rewards being a really strong team player. And like you said, that, that really is only going to add to the polarization and the divisiveness, and I, I do think it would be better.
So the other thing too is I think if we focus less on politics, this would have the effect of kind of cooling the temperature of our politics a little bit, which I think would, uh, would almost sort of paradoxically make our politics better.
Zach Elwood: Right.
Chris Freiman: Uh, i-if we were to, like, look, y-you know, this, this is not something that n-needs to be a holy war.
That’s not to say it’s not important, but it’s something that maybe we can analyze slightly more clinically and, uh, dispassionately.
Zach Elwood: Right. There’s something to the, the argument that the very animosity that people are putting out there, the, the very us versus them, good versus evil animosity and, and takes, is directly causing, uh, fueling the, the most extreme leaders.
Like, so for example, I think, you know, I think Trump could be, could represent the downfall of the US. Like I, I fully believe that. And I think, uh, the animosity that people are putting out there have a direct influence on that because you don’t get leaders like Trump without a lot of animosity and, and, and, and to keep, and to keep building that fire of, of, uh, us versus them.
You know? It’s, uh… And, and so I, I fully believe that about Trump being a, you know, representing a very, uh, us versus them, divisive, uh, you know, culmination of that. And so, yeah, if we could cool the fires, I think you basically take the wind out of the sails of the, uh… And that doesn’t mean you don’t work towards things you care about.
It just means speaking more carefully and not in us versus them, you know, high anger ways. Another note here. This maybe makes it sound like I’m blaming liberals for getting Trump elected, but to be clear, I’m not saying that. I was just saying that clearly there was a lot of animosity on the conservative side that led to Trump getting elected, whether you believe that animosity was justified or unjustified.
And I don’t think we avoid worst case scenarios by adding more animosity to the fire More us versus them animosity just makes it more likely that things will continue to devolve.
Chris Freiman: Right. And, you know, so, so I’m a, I’m a political philosopher and, and not a political scientist, but I, I do share your impression where…
So I, you know, despite the, the title of my book, I do, I occasionally pay attention to politics, and that, that was also my, my impression of Trump, is that, you know, he more so than any other candidate that I can remember was, and I mean, first of all, using social media in the way that he did, but also being just very explicit.
Y- you’ve got your friends and you’ve got your enemies. And, you know, to my base, uh, I’m your friend, and if, uh, you’re, you’re in the out party, you’re an enemy and you’re out to destroy America. And, uh, yeah, I think that was really unhealthy for, uh, the public political discourse.
Zach Elwood: When I talk about these topics, you know, I talk about speaking carefully and avoiding this us versus them language, and I g- I regularly get called, like, a, a fascist or a fascist apologist.
But I think people are missing the point that I actually think this is how you defeat extreme people. Like, it is by… It, it’s not, like, catering to them, it’s actually how you defeat them. All these things that we think don’t matter, like posting angrily online, i- is the fuel for the fire, you know? Like Fox News, for example, could take, take the most extreme us versus them framings from liberals and use that, and, and vice versa.
There’s just a, there’s just a, a fanning of, of the flames and, and that’s how things get ramped up. And it’s not unique to us. It’s happened in, you know, it’s happened throughout history. It’s happened to other groups, many other groups, many other countries, yeah.
Chris Freiman: A- and it’s interesting too, you know, how, how this has had an impact not just on politics, but on people’s social lives, so people who no longer will be friends with somebody who votes for the other party- Or sort of-
and they don’t wanna marry someone from the other par- right, they don’t wanna live near people from the other party. And that’s just, that, that, that’s not a healthy outcome. Like, so I, I, I don’t know. I always feel like I come across as, like, the caricature of the, um, enlightened centrist, but may- maybe that’s just j- just what I am.
But my, my view is, look, um, we will always have really serious political differences, but we, we g- we have to live together. Uh, we have to be, you know, we have to associate with one another, and work with each other, and spend time with each other. And so if we’re looking at half the country as our enemy and the other half as our allies, that’s gonna lead to some really, really terrible results.
Zach Elwood: Yeah, as it has in many other countries, and we won’t, will not be the, uh, first and won’t, won’t be the last, yeah. Do you mind if I ask you some general questions about effective altruism, things I was
Chris Freiman: curious
Zach Elwood: about? Sure.
Chris Freiman: Yeah, that sounds good.
Zach Elwood: Okay. I, I am far from a scholar of, uh, effective altruism. I just have seen it talked about occasionally, but, uh, a thing that’s always struck me about that is it’s always struck me as kind of strange, the idea that you could logically figure out what is the most effective, best way to be charitable, in the sense that it seems to presuppose that it’s possible to agree on what- ethical values are, what right or wrong is, which just doesn’t seem logically possible to me.
But am I misunderstanding effective altru- a- altruism? Am I off base on that?
Chris Freiman: Well, I think that, uh, a lot of effective altruists would say, you know, we can have justification, uh, for thinking that some ways of helping are better than others. Although, I also think, uh, a lot of effective altruists are, are willing to concede that this idea of effective altruism i- is an art as well as a bit of a science.
Hmm. Right. So the way that a lot of people conceive of… So effective altruism is just roughly this idea that, uh, insofar as you’re being charitable or philanthropic, you should allocate your time and resources to, to the most effective ways of helping people. But then you could say, you know, “Well, what does that mean?
Like, how, how do we determine what the most effective ways are?” A lot of effective altruists use a standard of quality-adjusted life years. So this would be, you know, just to take a simple case, if $100 can buy, uh, one drug or it can buy the same amount of another drug, but the first drug enables a, a person to live an extra 10 years as opposed to the second drug which enables them to live just an extra one year, and all else is the same, an effective altruist would say, “Well, spend that $100 on the first drug ’cause you get more bang for your buck.”
You, you save them 10 years of life rather than, than one. Uh, but you know, that, that makes it an artificially, uh, precise case. In the real world it’s not always so neat. But I think, uh, an effective altruist would say, “We don’t have to have incredibly precise ways of determining the most effective ways of helping people.
We know enough to be able to differentiate between approaches that are, that are, uh, good and ones that are not so good.” So one that might not be so good is, you know, if you donate $100 million to, uh, add another wing to, uh, an art museum or something like that. Uh, so that’s not to say that that isn’t valuable, but what that means is that, uh, you know, people who are in the global 1% have marginally better experiences when they’re visiting Paris or something like that, whatever the case may be.
But you say, you know, that $100 million means that, uh, i- if it had been spelt- spent elsewhere, you know, a, 1,000 lives could’ve been saved or whatever the case may be, or 10,000 lives, whatever, whatever the numbers are. And so intuitively, uh, even without really doing any sort of serious philosophical argument, it seems like it’s just more valuable to save 10,000 lives than to ensure that, uh, you know, wealthy tourists can see, uh, marginally nicer art or something like that.
Zach Elwood: Right. So it’s about, it’s basically about thinking through, you know, for considering your own values, thinking about the most effective way to implement those values. It’s not about saying, “This is right and this is wrong.” It’s more like, you’ve got your values, how do you most effectively, uh, implement them?
Chris Freiman: So I think that effective altruists w- would say that people’s fundamental values could still be mistaken. So it could be the case that there’s someone, th- there’s, you know, uh, some billionaire out there who just really loves art. Uh, eh, eh, but it turns out the most effective way to expose people to art is to donate a new wing to some particular m- museum.
That might be a really effective way of promoting that person’s values, the value being, you know, art or whatever. But I think, uh, an effective altruist would say, even though that’s an effective way of producing, uh, of promoting your values, there is something wrong with the value because what you’re doing is effectively prioritizing, uh, art over saving lives.
Zach Elwood: Hmm. Oh.
Chris Freiman: And that, that, that’s a moral mistake.
Zach Elwood: Yeah, I guess that’s where I am confused because it seems like, it seems like you can always imagine an, an argument that, uh, weakens whatever’s in anyone’s value is. For example, like you can imagine if we want to extend life and prevent, uh, death then, you know, a, a breakthrough where a, a pill suddenly extended everyone’s life, you know, 100 years would be kind of a nightmare in taxing our systems and causing overpopulation.
So my point is only that you can imagine, uh, scenarios where maybe that isn’t someone’s, uh, value. Like, maybe they don’t see value in just extending life for life’s sake. So I guess that- Am I, am I way off base on that or am I, uh-
Chris Freiman: No. No, you’re not, you’re not off base at all. Right. So, so I think, uh, a typical effective altruist would agree that it can’t just be sort of life for, for life’s sake.
Uh, it, it’s gotta be life, y- uh, a life that’s worth living. Uh, to, to, uh… Like, that’s what ought to be prioritized, is not, is not the mere maximization of, of quantity of life. Uh, but quality of life matters as well. Um, a- and it’s interesting th- there is disagreement, I think, among, uh, effective altruists about what exactly to prioritize.
So I, I talk a lot about the Against Malaria Foundation, but there, there are effective altruists who think, look, there might be, uh, s- sort of higher payoff altruistic projects out there. So t- to your example, uh, maybe something that, that slows down aging radically, uh, is, is actually going to have a higher altruistic payoff over the, the long term, uh, than donations to the Against Malaria Foundation or something like that.
And so I think even if you buy into the basic framework of effective altruism, there’s plenty of room for reasonable disagreement about what to prioritize. And, and I also, I should say, I mean, uh, I, I even think some effective altruists would say, uh, you know, at, at some margin, um, you know, art might be worth, uh, funding.
So for example, if you have a great piece of art, uh, that brings a non-trivial amount of enjoyment to a million people, that’s pretty high impact. Even though you might think, like, ar- art as such is not as impactful as, like, saving a life, if it brings enjoyment to a million people, uh, that, that’s something that’s, that’s worth funding.
And so this kind of goes to the, to the point I was making earlier about how, uh, it’s not, it’s not pure science. There’s art and science.
Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm Right. And I guess, you know, in a similar way, y- you know, you, you might wanna do something locally, and it’s hard for me to imagine someone being like, “Well, you shouldn’t do that because you should be donating to this larger cause, you know, globally.”
Like, I, I guess it comes down to the, the values of like, well, I’m doing something locally because, A, it affects people I know. You know, think questions like that. It’s, it seems really hard to, uh, to quantify, which I guess is what you’re saying, yeah, it’s more of a, it’s more of things y- you think about, th- things that you should think about when you’re, uh, when you’re, when you, when you’re getting in the realm of, uh, thinking about charitable stuff.
Yeah.
Chris Freiman: What I, what I would say is, is though, uh, so to go back to the Peter Singer style case that we talked about earlier, uh, to, to maybe make the case for, for traditional effective altruism, I would say it’s, it’s always good to make the trade-off really clear. So in the example we discussed earlier, we say, “You know, you have to drive this kid to the hospital immediately or they’ll go blind, or you can vote.”
And you say, “Oh, if it’s right in front of me, if I see the kid at the stop sign, I gotta take the kid to the hospital.” And so I think the question to always ask yourself when you’re thinking about how to allocate your philanthropic resources is, what would I do in a case where the, the trade-off is really stark?
So, you know, I don’t know, maybe you can spend an hour, like I said, planting tomatoes in the community garden or something like that. Or you could spend that hour raising funds that, you know, prevent blindness or something like that. Uh, you could, you could kind of run a similar thought experiment there where you’re like, “All right, I’m, I’m driving.
I’m, I’m on my way to the community garden, and then I see this kid, um, you know, who needs to get to the hospital or, or else he’ll go blind. What would I do in that case?” Uh, you might say, “Well, you know, even though I don’t know the kid, I don’t really have a connection to him, the cost to him is, is just so great if he doesn’t get to the hospital, I’ve, I’ve gotta do it.”
And that strikes me as pretty intuitive. And then you might say, “Okay, well then that’s a reason to not do the community garden in the first place, but rather to spend that time, you know, raising funds for effective charities overseas.”
Zach Elwood: Yeah, I guess that it gets to like a slippery slope kind of thing, ’cause y- I mean, if you started thinking like that, I mean- You could imagine starting to question everything you’re doing in life and being like-
“What am I doing? What am I doing with myself? I could be, I could be, you know, spending, uh, 20 hours a day, uh, working on the,” whatever it is, you know? Uh, a- and I feel like, you know, at, at some level you have to devote some time to your, your own life, right? And I guess that’s where that, it’s that art versus science thing of like, well, it’s, it’s philosophical questions of how much responsibility do we have for other people versus ourselves, you know?
It gets to those core existential questions, I guess. Yeah.
Chris Freiman: I, I, I agree. And yeah, this is, this is my, my plight as the philosopher is that I do see that- … you know, my beliefs start to crumble before my eyes. I’ll, I’ll say briefly that I think I can assuage your worry a little bit. So one thing you might wanna distinguish between is the, the quantity of help that you’re obligated to give versus the quality.
So there are people, and, and I’m frankly s- sympathetic to this view myself, is that we should be providing just a lot… We should be devoting more time to helping others. Uh, and so Peter Singer very famously at one point in his life said, uh, “You should give so much, uh, that you, you basically are no richer than the, the poorest person in the world.”
And that’s, of course, extraordinarily demanding. But you don’t have to go that far. And a view that I like says, “Look, take whatever amount of time or money you think ought to be devoted to altruistic projects.” Uh, so maybe it’s only 10% of your life, maybe it’s 20, maybe it’s 5, whatever. Just t- just take your number.
And then you say, “Okay, within that 5% or 10%, 10% of my time or 10% of my income, what should I do with that? What should the quality of my help be?” And so my view is regardless of what percentage of time or money you think ought to go to others, insofar as you are allocating that to philanthropic projects, you should allocate them to the highest impact.
So maybe the 10% of your time you were gonna spend at the soup kitchen, let’s say, is less effective than the, you know, spending that time raising funds for the Agai- Against Malaria Foundation, whatever the case may be. Then spend that time raising funds for the Against Malaria Foundation. So you don’t have to spend more time than you otherwise would.
Just make sure that it’s the highest impact.
Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. Do you want to tell people how they can, uh, keep in touch with what you’re working on?
Chris Freiman: Uh, sure. So you can follow me on Twitter, cafreiman, C-A-F-R-E-I-M-A-N. I have it… My, my last name is tricky. It’s E before I. And then, uh, I also blog, uh, not as often as I should, but I blog occasionally at, uh, 200 Proof Liberals.
Uh, and that’s a group blog with, with some other political philosophers. And so that’s, uh, something fun to check out. And you can also, uh, buy my books on, uh, amazon.com, including “Why It’s Okay to Ignore Politics.”
Zach Elwood: Which was a great book. Uh, and I think many people would benefit from reading it. Uh, thanks a lot for coming on, Chris.
It was a great talk, and I learned a lot.
Chris Freiman: Thanks for having me. It was my pleasure.
Zach Elwood: That was Chris Freiman. I think that the ideas in Chris’ book are valuable, even if you end up not agreeing with them all For example, even though I agree with a lot of Chris’s ideas, I’m still going to be voting for and against things I see as rather obvious and easy to determine.
And obviously, you’ll have your own things in the political realm you think are worthwhile to engage in. But I think that delving into these questions is valuable. For one thing, I think it helps you think through and justify your decisions better and helps you think about how you can do the most good.
I’d say the other practical value I see in delving into such philosophical questions is that it can open you up to the logical and ethical uncertainty about so much of our existence. Many of us tend to go through life thinking this is right or this is worthwhile without devoting the time to examining, is it really right?
Is that thing I’ve been doing so much of really worthwhile? What does worthwhile even mean, really? And thinking more about the lack of logical certainty in these areas, I think can actually relieve pressure. It can relieve the existential angst we can feel when faced with the seeming enormity of what we should be doing with our limited time on this earth.
It’s possible to be kind of frozen, Hamlet-like, with thoughts of what’s the right thing to do, what’s the best thing to do, what are the implications of my decisions? And in a similar way, it’s easy for us to beat ourselves up for various things after the fact. Why didn’t you do this? Why didn’t you do that?
You made a decision, and it happened to turn out badly, even though you tried to make the best decision you could at the time. You made a decision that you thought was decent, and later it was perceived as a stupid or greedy or immoral decision, and now you feel bad about it. There are all sorts of ways for us to second-guess our moral decisions and beat ourselves up after the fact.
And I think the ideas Chris brings up can be valuable for showing us how, in our daily lives, it can often be unclear what is right or what is wrong. Sometimes the things that seem clearly right to us turn out to be wrong, and vice versa. Sometimes good intentions backfire and cause horrible tragedies Our views about the world are very fallible.
We’re very capable of missing all sorts of things. Life is complicated, and there are no easy answers. When it comes to ethics, all I’m really fairly sure of myself is that suffering exists and that it’s good to reduce suffering when we can, especially when it’s easily in our capability to do so. I can’t confidently say that much more about ethics or how much responsibility I have for other people.
Trying to prove much else seems nearly impossible to me. So I think recognizing the uncertainty we have about ethics can be beneficial for us. By understanding how much we don’t know, it relieves some of that pressure or guilt we have to make the so-called best or most moral decisions. All we can try to do is make the best decisions we can at the current point in time with our current knowledge and our current values.
So much is unknowable and mysterious. We’re all just humans trying to make our way in a confusing and sometimes scary world. And for that reason, it’s good to not be too hard on ourselves. Acknowledging the tough spot we’re all in as humans can help us alleviate our suffering and our anxiety. This has been The People Who Read People Podcast with me, Zach Elwood.
You can learn more about this podcast at behavior-podcast.com. I make no money on this podcast and devote a good amount of time to it. If you like it, please consider sharing it on social media, and I also appreciate any ratings on iTunes. Thanks for listening. Music by Small Skies.