Niebuhr- The Relationship Between Virtue and Prosperity

I would like to revisit an idea I entertained while thinking about health care reform:

"There are many myths behind the anger roused by health care reform debates, and one of the myths at the heart of the conservative unconsciousness is that the upper and middle classes deserve more because they work harder while the poorer classes are in an economically and socially inferior position because they are lazy and choose not to work to improve their lot in life. This fallacious idea, heavily influenced by America’s Protestant background, merits a lengthy discussion debunking such a noxious idea. This is not that discussion."

This now is that discussion or, at least, a partial discussion.

Reinhold Niebuhr expounds upon the relationship between virtue and prosperity in American thought in his book The Irony of American History:

"From (the Puritan day) to this it has remained one of the most difficult achievements for our nation to recognize the fortuitous and providential element in our good fortune. If either moral pride or the spirit of rationalism tries to draw every element in a historic situation into rational coherence, and persuades us to establish a direct congruity between our good fortune and our virtue or our skill, we will inevitably claim more for our contribution to our prosperity than the facts warrant. This has remained a source of moral confusion in American life."

This moral confusion was felt in 1952 (when Niebuhr book was published) and is certainly felt today, for instance, in the health care debate. I attributed America's Protestant background as the major influence on this confusion, which, Niebuhr suggests, is partly true. There is, however, another influence, and that is Jeffersonian ideology:

"Our American Puritanism contributed to our prosperity by only slightly different emphasis than Jeffersonianism. According to the Jeffersonians, prosperity and well-being should be sought as the basis of virtue. They believe that if each citizen found contentment in a justly and richly rewarded toil he would not be disposed to take advantage of his neighbor. The Puritans regarded virtue as the basis of prosperity, rather than prosperity as the basis of virtue. But in any case the fusion of these two forces created a preoccupation with the material circumstances of life which a more consistent bourgeois ethos than that of even the most advanced nations of Europe."

Thus, this moral confusion is part of the fabric of American culture. This erroneous belief seems so obvious, yet it permeates our debates and, consequently, greatly influences the American political process. Niebuhr summarized the quoted section more articulately and thoughtfully than I could ever hope to:

"Our difficulty as a nation is that we must now learn that prosperity is not simply coordinated to virtue, that virtue is not simply coordinated to historic destiny and that happiness is no simple possibility of human existence."

I would add more to the discussion, but Niebuhr is a better and more enthralling guide than I, one whom I will be quoting from often.

Obstacles to Smoking and French Perseverance

Despite the enactment of a smoking ban in public places and a sharp increase in the price of cigarettes, the French are actually smoking more.

The story isn't clear on whether the study mentioned took into account population increase or not. If not, a 2.7% increase in the number of smokers is not significant, but it is surprising that, taking into consideration that smoking is becoming more expensive and less convenient, there has not been a decrease in the number of smokers.

I am far from a scholar on French culture, but I feel comfortable arguing that smoking is an important part of the French culture. What I do know is that the French cherish conversation. Their meals are protracted and lighter than American meals partly because conversation is an inherent part of dining. Smoking and conversation also seems to go hand-in-hand thus smoking may be viewed differently in France (much as they view food differently than us Americans).

I looked up some statistics to see how French smoking habits differ from those of Americans. For one, deaths due to lung cancer are lower in France yet, according to UNECE, a larger percentage of the French population smokes. In 2000, 29% of French citizens over the age of 15 smoked compared to 19% of Americans. The percentage difference was even greater amongst citizens between the ages of 15 and 24 (41% of French citizens compared to 21% of Americans).

From this, it can assumed that, while more French citizens smoke, the French smoke fewer cigarettes per person. Another way of stating this is that the French are more moderate in their smoking habits.

There was a recent New Yorker article on the drinking habits in different cultures. The relevant argument was that many cultures are much more moderate in their drinking habits than Americans. At least relative to the French, Americans seem to have more excessive smoking habits as well.

I'm not making an argument that cigarettes aren't bad. I just found this news and the cited statistics interesting and worth sharing.

The Complexity of Dietary Choices

America is experiencing a food crisis. It is, of course, of different nature than those more common throughout human history; food is plentiful. Food can be purchased conveniently and inexpensively. We even do a satisfactory job of providing for the impoverished and mendicant. Rather, our food crisis is less a survival crisis and more a philosophical issue. Most pundits and experts aren’t asking “how do we provide for the majority” but rather “how do we eat ethically,” “how do our eating habits affect the environment,” “and, most interestingly, “what the hell is food exactly?”

These are contentious questions and finding answers is arduous. An answer to one question has heavy implications and sets limits on how the other questions can be answered. For instance, eating beef is more ethical than eating poultry (because 1 cow can yield much more meat than 1 chicken) yet a cow’s impact on the environment is more noxious. But worst of all, these relatively abstract questions compete with our supreme carnal urge: eating. Before shelter, before clothing, and even before procreating, we must eat and drink. It is our most important element of survival, so certainly there is a lot of inertia experienced by conscious eaters with even the greatest of wills, hence why vegetarians lapsing into a steak dinner speak of it as if they were rehabilitated drug abusers picking up heroin again.

Oh, the conflict! Typically I scold those who ignore difficult questions and maintain the status quo, but in this case, I have more sympathy for the typical, nonquestioning devourer of victual. It must be questioned if it is worth the time untangling this web of dietary considerations. Rather than ruminating on such issues, isn’t one’s time better spent more actively? Perhaps, but the beauty of having a coherent, philosophically-substantiated diet is that food is an essential element of our lifestyle thus after one constructs his/her ideal eating habits, they become just that, habits. No more pondering, just eating, and we are, hopefully, impacting the world in personally-satisfying manner by doing what we would be doing anyways. Stated with more sophistication, the relative cost is minimal. Stated as a cliché, once we have reached the summit, the way down is much easier.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer. In fact, I don’t think anyone does because the question of what is the ideal diet is a very personal question. There is no right diet. There is the ethical diet, the environmentally-conscious diet, the healthy diet, and the orgasmically delicious diet. They, of course, all compete, so searching for the ideal diet strictly in the philosophical realm is probably not the way to go because our diets, pragmatically speaking, need to work for us.

The manner in which I have been developing my personal diet (and this is, of course, only one of a myriad ways to go about doing so) is to start with a vague idea of what I want to accomplish and see how it works. My objective a month ago was to “cut down” on meat. Four meat meals a week is what I set out to accomplish. I thought this was an amount that would be personally satisfying yet be a large enough decrease to make a small ethical and environmental impact. What I have discovered already is that the degree of impact greatly depends on where I cut down. For instance, I bought 1.1 pounds of chicken from Jewel yesterday. It was enough to make chicken salads sandwiches for my girlfriend and me with some left over for dinner. My girlfriend suggested adding the leftover chicken to the macaroni and cheese dish we planned to make that evening, but I contested that I would be “using up” two of my four meat meals in one day. Then I pondered what impact this would have made, and the conclusion was none. The chicken had already been purchased. Whether I ate the entire 1.1 pounds or promptly disposed of the package after purchasing it made no difference to Jewel. Either option, to eat it or not, made no difference.

Thus another variable was added to my dietary considerations: it not only matters how much I cut down but also where and how I choose to use up my meat options. I can choose to use up all of my meat meals when I dine out or I can use then at work (I work for a caterer) when the kitchen puts out the leftover chicken kabobs and meatballs for lunch. The health considerations are about equal, but I will make a greater impact in the ethical and environmental realm if I choose to use my meat options at work because, quite simply, even if I choose not to eat the meat, it will get thrown out because they are just leftovers. That would mean that I would have to choose vegetarian options when I dine out which means, when numbers of people choose to do the same, demand for meat decreases and consequently, restaurants order less meat and provide more vegetarian options or they lose business to other restaurants that do. Thai restaurants benefit while burger havens lose business. Yet, I’m less satisfied because a burger from Paradise Pup (my favorite burger establishment in the Chicagoland area) is more satisfying than the Parmesan meatballs that have been sitting out for an hour at work. This is, perhaps, the point in which vegetarians will exclaim “get over it!” but the less satisfied I and others are with their choices, the less likely they will be to continue making similar choices. Thus, we have the vegetarian that falters and indulges in a 48 ounce porterhouse and trades in the vegetarian diet for the carnivorous diet and eats meat more ravenously than when they began their vegetarian diet, but this time, with the added guilt caused by their perceived failure (so “getting over it” isn’t a prudent solution to such a dilemma). Finding a personally-satisfying balance is crucial because Kant’s categorical imperative doesn’t work in the realm of dietary considerations.

And I’m concluding here because, again, I don’t have the answer to what my or anyone else’s ideal diet is. What is certain is that choosing the ideal diet, if one chooses to do so, is complex and the reformation of one’s diet is very difficult which is why those who have experienced multiple heart attacks still don’t permanently trade in the Big Mac for the grilled chicken sandwich, my grandmother will never heed to her doctor’s pleading to stop adding salt to food, and I won’t order vegetable risotto at a restaurant famous for Kona-crusted, dry-aged, bone-in Delmonico.

Prosperity Through Productivity: A Conservative Myth

Over the last year I lost a great deal of faith in the ability of American citizens to form coherent opinions on important social and political issues. This decline in faith is more distressing because I didn’t initially have much faith in the masses. Perhaps the greatest source of irrational, ill-educated opinion in the past year has been the health care debate. I do not agree with David Brooks and other conservative thinkers that Obama and the Democrats should heed to the opinion of the majority regarding health care. If the majority acquired its news from unbiased, reputable news sources and harbored basic critical thinking and analytical skills, I would find such an opinion more tenable. Rather than foster educated opinions on the moral, social, and economic consequences of health care legislation, many citizens have failed to check their unconscious, irrational fears and biases.

There are many myths behind the anger roused by health care reform debates, and one of the myths at the heart of the conservative unconsciousness is that the upper and middle classes deserve more because they work harder while the poorer classes are in an economically and socially inferior position because they are lazy and choose not to work to improve their lot in life. This fallacious idea, heavily influenced by America’s Protestant background, merits a lengthy discussion debunking such a noxious idea. This is not that discussion. Rather I would like to focus on how this myth perpetuated itself in the health care debate and support my belief that expanding health care to most Americans is just.

First of all, it is important to point out the critical flaw in the current (yet soon to be reformed) system. For an individual adult under 65, chances are the only opportunity to purchase affordable health insurance is through his/her employer. The basic concept is you work, you get insurance. Fair enough in theory, but in reality, the system doesn’t work for the simple reason that there are not enough jobs for every American citizen. Were there a plethora of jobs (and all these jobs offered health insurance), the system would be more just and the “you work, you get insurance” concept would pan out. But currently, there are six job seekers for every one job opening, so not only are the odds of finding work daunting, the opportunities for acquiring health insurance are greatly limited. Yet, the situation is even worse because, as implied above, not all jobs offer health insurance, so those who are fortunate enough to find part-time work may still not be able to acquire health insurance. Simply put, the “you work, you get health insurance” concept does not pan out because unemployment can never be 0%. Certainly a portion of the unemployed can be accurately labeled as “lazy,” but factors other than work ethic and motivation (the factors behind “laziness”) lead to unemployment including economic, political, and social forces in the environment and the age, race, gender, skill set, and education of the individual. It would not, of course, be prudent to suggest that the school teachers, factory workers, and construction workers who lost their jobs during the recession and consequently lost their health insurance don’t deserve health insurance because they cannot find work. In 2008, 46.5 million people living in America did not have health insurance. I consider it hasty to suggest that more than 15% of the population is too lazy to deserve health insurance.

To use a personal example, I was dropped from my mother’s health insurance plan less than a month after graduating. I was to be covered under her health plan for 3 or 6 months (I forget the number) after graduating, but she had to find a new job because she could not live off the amount of money she making after being demoted (though her company made it seem like a simple change in job position). She switched jobs after I had taken finals, so her new company’s health plan would not pick me up. Neither would my stepmother’s company’s health plan (at least in Illinois—in other states I may have been able to get on her plan). My father isn’t offered health insurance because he is a contractor. I am fortunate in that I continued to work for the company I worked for throughout college, and that I could get on their health plan, but I couldn’t help but look around at my commencement ceremony and wonder how many in my graduating class would not be as fortunate as me. In fact, young adults between 19 and 24 are the age group with the highest rate of uninsured individuals. In 2007, 30% of young adults did not have health insurance (this number has most likely increased since the recession). A great New York Times story detailing some of the consequences of this is linked here.

I believe the above suggests that the health care reform bill which will cover 30 million more Americans is just. Not only will the health reform bill protect the unemployed and underemployed, it will also allow young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until they are 26 and give would-be entrepreneurs the opportunity to pursue their dreams. America is best represented by the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans, and the health care reform bill will protect the liberty and aid the pursuit of happiness of young adults and entrepreneurs. Soon prospective software developers, restaurant owners, writers, musicians, and artists will be able to pursue their goals without the looming threat of a personal health crisis bankrupting them.

While I obviously support the idea that the health care bill is just, I (and even many economists) do not feel comfortable supporting the idea that this health care reform bill will control rising health care costs and bring down the budget deficit. These economic considerations are vital to our country’s prosperity and the liberty of all American citizens. The conservative arguments against the health care bill because it may fail to address these economic issues will still be important to consider even after health care reform has passed. The argument that the unemployed and underemployed don’t deserve health insurance because they are “lazy,” however, should be dismissed.

My last note is on the display of hateful, violent, racist, homophobic, and xenophobic outbursts directed towards politicians such as Barney Frank and John Lewis after the health care bill was passed (see here and here). These acts were despicable, and the Republican politicians that encouraged such violent fervor seriously hurt the credibility of the Republican party (read Bob Herbert’s brave denunciation of these protestors and politicians here). I do, however, feel that this was the inevitable end to the signing of the health care bill, and it is a great example of the dangerous conservative myths behind the anger towards health care legislation. This article merely argued against one of the less dangerous myths, and that was the myth of less bigoted conservatives. The lunatic fringe (as the group is popularly named) that feels comfortable expressing violent speech and wielding offensive signage most likely became larger during the health care debate. I just hope they still constitute a small minority of American citizens.