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Written by: Eugene Steuerle
In the Washington Post on January 5, 2024, Catherine Rampell outlined the ways that so many people today define themselves as losers and among those aggrieved and oppressed. She states, Whatever a group’s actual level of “privilege” (or lack thereof), everyone sees themselves as underprivileged, put-upon, low on the totem pole. It’s a grievance culture, even for groups that once shunned this view of the world. She provides data that roughly half or more of every race or religion believes that society discriminates against their kind and that Democrats and Republicans alike feel like they have been losing out to the other side.
My purpose here is to encourage you to read her January 5 column and then reflect with me on ways to limit this contagion. I start at the personal level and then apply these reflections to policymaking processes.
How do we put boundaries around grievance fights yet still try to address the legitimate concerns of those who might be aggrieved? I suggest that it largely centers on how we gather and share information, recognize the importance of each person’s story, reject arguments ad hominem, withhold judgment, and always be careful about generalizations, especially about other groups.
(1) Gather the best information possible. This should be the obvious first step in addressing almost any situation. Logic plays an important role and cannot be made subservient to emotion. We also must turn to trustworthy sources. The anarchists in our midst would have us believe that all sources are untrustworthy, thus leading us to rely upon those that tell us what we want to hear rather than those with some standards on what is factual. Should anyone trust TV or social media advertisers more than Consumer Reports? Fox News or MSNBC more than the Economist? Politicians seeking office more than scientists? When balance is needed, since all sources are subject to error, seek out other trustworthy sources. Jonathan Rauch, whom I find myself quoting often, argues for the Constitution of Knowledge, reinforced by networks that adhere to principles and standards that allow us to hone in on what we understand. He vigorously and logically attacks disinformation campaigns and cancel cultures as dangerous attacks on efforts to understand reality and truth.
(2) Recognize each person’s story. It’s hard to have a conversation if most participants' stories or backgrounds are ignored. Those aggrieved should not assume they are the only ones feeling oppressed or that the needs of other groups or classes are unworthy of attention. Even if they are the most aggrieved in a situation that calls for immediate attention—for instance, when a group to which they belong is being attacked—silencing or canceling whole groups of people trying to make sense of what is happening seldom brings about resolution or reconciliation. As David Brooks states, “When people believe that their identity is unrecognized, it feels like injustice—because it is.” They move toward defense, not fruitful engagement.
(3) Reject arguments ad hominem. Reject or, better yet, ignore arguments based simply on the person or personal aspect of the person giving it. From at least the time of the Greek philosophers, this was identified as a logical fallacy and a way to dodge real issues. I don’t need to decide to accept or reject some policy simply because Nancy Pelosi or Donald Trump espoused it. That’s a pretty lazy way to make decisions, though I get thousands of email solicitations each year encouraging such choices—and, oh, asking for money.
(4) Withhold judgment. Our media encourage us to come to immediate judgment on almost every controversy. There’s no need and often harm in deciding to judge someone or take sides in a debate as soon as some controversy gets attention. Maybe that can make me feel superior and in a specially aggrieved class, but it doesn’t make me very interesting. If my judgment does nothing to solve some problem, maybe I should decide I don’t need to judge at all or at least until much more information is gathered.
(5) Be careful when generalizing about people. Every statement defining a group is fraught with problems. Any time any of us says, “Republicans are…, Democrats are…Men are…Women are…Black people are…white people are…liberals are…conservatives are…Jews are…Palestinians are…and so on, we are generalizing. We are likely to define some group members inaccurately and all incompletely. Remember the old saw: all generalizations are wrong, including this one. It hints at a broader semantic issue: all words generalize at some level, yet we must use them. Some of my writing, for instance, might make claims about Republicans and Democrats, but I cringe a bit every time I can’t find any better way to summarize what is, at best, some average characteristic.
Imagine if these five boundaries were also applied to more of the policy processes engaged by our elected officials.
Intense policy fights cannot be avoided, but they can be contained better within the rings set aside for them. In many ways, the U.S. Constitution broadly provides a set of formal legal rings within which political debates must be resolved. Because grievances can be genuine, and some problems have no easy solutions, framers set up explicit and implicit rules for resolving them without excessive physical or other violence.
Suppose we started to think like the framers about how to refine processes not set out in the Constitution. Congressional hearings, for instance, used to begin with the first panels—sometimes, most panels—composed of people, including those from nonpartisan Congressional and Administration offices, providing background information helpful for decision-making. A hearing offers a time to learn, not judge. At one time, whole Congressional committees would go on retreats to examine major issues outside the limelight of attention.
Replacing partisan staff with more nonpartisan staff in federal and state executive and legislative branches could also add to the share of information from trustworthy sources and reduce the share of taxpayer money devoted to staff whose job is to score points for their political bosses and find ways to attack their opponents.
I’m sure you can think of other ways to limit the power of the grievance culture and its dominance of too many private and political discussions. Legitimate grievances seldom will be addressed fairly when we all attend only to our own.
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