More and Less (essay)

***

1

At any time in a person's life, he might consider what things or qualities he needs more of and what he needs less of.  For instance, a middle-aged professional man might think he needs to be more "spontaneous," not so often thinking and rethinking even relatively unimportant choices like whether to go out for dinner (and where) or whether to "eat in."  More such spontaneity, he thinks, might bring a missing element of freshness and creativity into what threatens to become a rather hum-drum and uninteresting life style.

Change is facilitated by emphasizing either the need for more X or instead the need for less Y, depending on the quality involved.  For instance, in the case of the man described above, if he identified his goal as "being less careful, cautious, or thoughtful," then when next faced with a rather unimportant choice, he is apt to wonder just what lack of caution would look like?  What would I do in order to be less careful in this instance? he would have to ask himself. 

On the other hand, if he identified his goal as "being more spontaneous," then when faced with that minor question, he could more easily visualize the kind of happy-go-lucky man who would think, "Oh, what the hell, I'll choose X" in a casual and cheerful manner.  In the case of spontaneity as opposed to caution, in other words, it is better to accentuate the "more side" of the issue.

On the other hand, if an individual were to realize that her health will be endangered if she doesn't begin to eat less in general, and to eat less fatty or sugary food in particular, then there is no need for such an act of imagination.  "That donut is fatty and sugary; I'm not going to eat it" is all the person needs to say to herself (which doesn't mean resisting the temptation is easy; it's only knowing what should be done that's easy). 

If she thought of her goal as "eating more healthy food," on the other hand, then the required action would be somewhat vaguer and more difficult to visualize concretely.  It would be at least a little more difficult to know, at the point of decision-making, just what to do.  In other words, in the case of eating more or less fatty foods as opposed to healthy foods, emphasis on the "less side" of the matter would be more effective.

*

With those perceptions in mind, then, let us consider our nation, the USA, or our American culture today.  Of what elements and qualities do we now need MORE, and of what do we need LESS?   Here are my lists:

2  MORE

In our America of today, I would say we need more:

• More respect for others' values, customs, and opinions
• More sense of responsibility for society, not only for oneself
• More honesty with oneself about weaknesses or failings
• More media attention to issues, rather than to individuals or to election prospects
• More commitment to tell others the truth
• More support of the poor
• More emphasis on serving current economic and social needs (while respecting a long-term need for avoiding too much public debt for too long)
• More tax revenue from the wealthy
• More emphasis on long-term benefits or happiness instead of on instant reward or gratification
• More economic and political power among mid- and low-income owners
• More investment in infrastructure
• More competition in such areas as: health insurance, banks and financial institutions, media outlets, et al.
• More public support of small business
• More reliance for economic success on production of goods as well as services
• More separation of financial speculation from banking (i.e. borrowing and lending)
• More good public schools
• More law enforcement officers, conservationists, teachers, fire fighters, preservationists...
• More support of independent research
• More support of labor unions who champion quality of work over job security
• More accessibility to good and affordable health care
• More consumer protection
• More commitment to public decency in language, entertainment, and personal appearance
• More protection of public safety

3  Less

In our America today, on the other hand, we need less:

• Less inclination to intervene abroad
• Less attempt to control others' morality and spirituality
• Less inequality of opportunity
• Less greed (or, as Jefferson called it, "heedless self-interest")
• Less overlooking the effects of national initiatives (including wars) on the long-term need for balanced national budgets, while not jeopardizing the nation's duty to serve immediate social and economic needs
• Less dogmatism, whether in politics, religion, public discourse, or personal affairs
• Less tax breaks for the wealthy
• Less government support of big corporations
• Less control of the mass media by big business
• Less dominance of big money in elections
• Less attention to possible defects of the individuals with whom one disagrees than to the fallacies in his or her arguments
• Less emphasis in business on short-term profit ("the fast buck")
• Less corporate control of prescription drugs
• Less emphasis on sex in public discourse and entertainment and in private language and behavior

4

The next question is whether one should think of each of these issues on the more side or the less side in the way I have done it above, i.e More X or Less Y where Y is the opposite of X (or does it matter?).

For instance, I said we as a nation and as a culture need more of a "sense of responsibility for society."  Couldn't we equally well say, instead, we need less "selfishness"?  Isn't it the same thing to act less selfishly as to act more responsibly for others as well as for oneself?

Well, no.  Whether or not to feel and act selfishly is an issue simply of an individual's morality (not to say that is unimportant, just different).  Showing more of a sense of responsibility for others is, instead, both an issue of individual morality and an issue of the nation's and our culture's characteristic attitude and policy toward all people, rather than only toward a certain group (such as the rich and powerful, for example, or those from a Judaeo-Christian background, or some other group).  

And what about the "attempt to control others' morality"?  Isn't that the exact opposite of "respect for others' freedom of choice"?  If it were, then we could say the need today is for more respect for freedom, instead of less attempt to control others' moral choices, and we might just as well seek the one as the other.

Well, again I don't think so.  The reason it is better to say our culture today needs less will to control others' morality rather than more respect for freedom is that it seems that many of those today who are most ready to claim that they highly value freedom are the very people most likely to devalue the freedom of others different from themselves.  If they were fully honest with themselves, these people would say, "We want to be free to do as we think best, and we want you to do what we know you ought to do." This is not only logically inconsistent: it is wrong.

It seems natural to some of us today, in other words, to want to outlaw behavior that we think it would be wrong for us to engage in ourselves, whether it be birth control or same-gender sexual partnership or something else we find morally abhorrent to think of doing ourselves.  It is not right for a person to say, for instance,  he should be free to own any kind of weapon he might want, while at the same time he attempts to deny someone else's freedom to engage in any behavior she or he might want. (Note: in all these examples, the assumption is that no real threat to public safety is involved.)

Saying that we need less temptation to control others' morality makes it easier to see what to do in practice in regard to others' behavior (or rather in this case, what not to do).  When I am tempted to support public prohibition of any particular behavior, it's easier to stop myself from attempting to control someone else's moral behavior, than it would be in general to imagine what I could do in order to show my respect for others' freedom to choose their own actions.

5

Aren't there cases where saying we need "More of X" and saying we need "Less of Y" (opposite of X) would be equally effective?

I have also said we need "More commitment to tell others the truth." It does seem much the same thing to say instead that we need "Less lying." But all of us know that conventionally in our culture, it is considered immoral to lie, and it is considered moral (as well as "best policy") to tell the truth. So it would be hard for any of us to acknowledge that in practice we might obscure the truth, or exaggerate the truth so much as to give an outright false impression, or state as  true something that supports our opinion but that we don't actually know, or - in order to achieve a sufficiently significant objective - flatly and knowingly state an untruth. So, it is more likely to be effective in this case to emphasize the positive goal: telling the truth, reminding us all of this basic home truth in the hope that, so reminded, we are more likely to avoid lying or anything approaching it.

A similar point might be made about my saying above that we need "More economic and political power among mid- and low-income owners." Couldn't we just as well say that what we need in fact is "Less economic and political power among the very wealthy"?  The meaning might indeed be much the same, but it seems more likely to change our public morality today to ask ourselves when considering any policy or proposal, "Will our doing this undermine the strength of mid- and/or low-income earners?" than it would be to determine ourselves to avoid doing anything that might add to the increasing power of the high-income earners.  It would be better in this matter for all of us to agree to avoid a harm than to pursue a benefit, albeit a benefit for only a relatively few.

Also, wouldn't it be just as effective to say we need "More generosity" than to say, as I do above, that we need "Less greed"?  This is like the example cited above of the ease with which one can know that eating a donut will hinder weight loss, while it is harder to know what exactly it might be to "eat healthy."  In this case, it is easier to know what it would be to act greedily, and thus avoid doing so, than it might be to know what it might be to behave generously.


And, in one final example, why wouldn't it be just as good to say that, in public discourse and in belief, we need more of a positive virtue than to say we need "Less dogmatism"?  

Maybe again the root meaning of both the more and the less statements would be the same; but I for one understand what dogmatism is (and I see it at work in the partisan debates in the media and in Congress).  Instead of providing evidence to support one's position on X or Y, all too often an abstract general principle is cited as though that proves the point.  A current dogma among many today, for example, is that it is an urgent need for the USA to cut government spending, when many of the facts we see all around us show that the even more urgent need is to invest in the economy so that people can go back to work and financial institutions can go back to lending to responsible borrowers.

So what dogmatism is, is clear.  But what words would we use to describe its opposite?  "Flexibility"? "Pragmatism"? "Thinking for oneself"?  Those are at least close to what we need more of in our nation today, but no one positive word or phrase identifies what we must always avoid doing: applying to any related new development an abstract principle, fervently believed, without thinking through whether doing so will produce a good result in the particular case.

6

It should be acknowledged that my list above of those qualities of which we Americans need more and less, as indicated, is not complete.  Perhaps anyone could add other ideas to the one or the other category.  Let us acknowledge too that, even though I have thought carefully about whether we should say we need more of this or that rather than less of its opposite, there may be a few issues that could just as effectively be moved from the one list to the other.

For instance, I say here that we need "More protection of public safety." Maybe it would be equally effective to say that what we need is instead "Less acceptance of policies and actions jeopardizing public safety."  One phrasing in this case may indeed be as effective as the other.

And what about saying that what we need is "Less inequality of opportunity" (as I do) instead of saying we need "More equality of opportunity"?  The point here is that our nation is supposed by all to be the land of equal opportunity, for those from one race or from another, from one culture or another, one religion or another, one family background or another, one economic status or another... while in fact today our country sternly limits opportunity for freedom of choice and opportunity for prosperity to the rich and the lucky, excluding the poor and the unlucky. 

And matters are getting worse.

***