What did I learn this year, in the context of researching and producing articles for news platform BIG Media?
I learned that principles are crucial in creating good policy, easing societal divides, and making a better world. These are complex problems; we are always in some danger of enacting poor policy that inflames discord, but our chances of such error are vastly reduced with a thoughtful, fundamental approach. Unfortunately, I have noted several instances in the last year where good principles may have been abandoned and poorly considered social policy has been emplaced.
It is important to me that anything I write in non-fiction be well researched and true, and that it be fairly represented. I also try to minimize my own feelings. However, the exceptional nature of this article requires that I elaborate on my personal thoughts. But most importantly, I should write with the intention and reasonable hope that – should my words have any impact at all on the world – that they are helpful.
Psychology, social issues, and policy have dominated my writing this past year. Great care was required to avoid inadvertently doing harm with the presentation of my research and arguments. Not only are social issues fraught with sensitivity, they are topical and complex. As I look back, I feel frustration that some government institutions and organizations may, in fact, be doing harm with their policies. I have little doubt that most of these policies are well-intentioned, but I just as strongly suspect the policymakers have sometimes improperly assessed both the complexity of the issues and the fundamental principles necessary to resolve them.
In their various ways, I believe that my fellow authors at Big Media have grappled with relating the same relationships between complexity and principle in their articles. Whether Brad Hayes is speaking about the energy transition, Edward Ostrowski about piping infrastructure in North American cities, Grant Wilde about a proposed emissions cap, Chris DeArmitt about plastic recycling, Brian Russell about math or thermodynamics, Joseph Fournier about climate and the carbon cycle, Rick Warters about energy systems, or Laurie Weston about artificial intelligence or excess deaths, each of these authors has embraced and explained the complexity of each of the issues in their writing. Not one of these topics has proven to be simple or even easily reduceable. Writing these articles has required real effort and expertise, due largely to the intricacy of the issues being discussed.
For all this complexity, readers and writers can take heart in the tendency for even intricate issues to be assessed and reduced by simpler, underlying principles. Fellow BIG Media editorial contributors will produce their own year-end analyses, and we can return to our discussion of social policy and certain principles that may help us reduce and better understand those articles and policies. Figure 1 summarizes three principles that we will consider. The list is far from exhaustive, serving only the purposes of this review article.
The first principle is that of equality under the law, taken straight from the United Nations (UN) Declaration of Human Rights.[1]
The second is a principle in law and economics that we are all owners of our individual lives, property, and self-interests. Adam Smith promoted these ideas in his seminal Wealth of Nations, and they stand just as important in modern, free society.[2] [3]The UN Declaration of Human Rights supports this concept of individual agency, and under Article 17, property rights.[4]
The third principle is Kant’s Categorical Imperative, which we spoke about in the article Selfishness, hypocrisy, the golden rule, and hope. The categorical imperative is a more rigorous version of the golden rule, requiring that action and law should be universalizable regardless of circumstances.[5]The imperative exceeds the golden rule because it asks us not only to do as we would have done to us, but as anyone would want done to them.[6]This ties it to the other principles.
Let us apply these principles to our articles, starting with the last one.
1) Equality under the law. We are born free and equal in dignity and rights.[7]
2) We are each the owners of our own individual lives, property and self-interests.[8] [9]
3) The categorical imperative. You should act as you want everyone else to act. Your actions must be universalizable; that everyone should act this way, regardless of the situation.[10]
Figure 1 – Three fundamental principles that may help us navigate social policy complexity.
The impossible imperative
Kant’s categorical imperative is arguably impossible to apply perfectly in all circumstances, but it nevertheless has great value. The challenge is in determining and applying universality to all goals, in effect showing that an action is an objective necessity.[11]An example that Kant discusses is whether it is permissible to lie to a murderer. Since lying is not universalizable, this is a problem.[12]This author is confident that many people would indeed lie to a murderer under certain circumstances, though Kant has suggested that not answering at all would be a more correct response.
As challenging as the imperative is to apply everywhere, it is useful in that it rings a loud, clear bell to our hypocrisy. We showed in Selfishness, hypocrisy, the golden rule, and hope that fundamental attribution error, or a tendency to favour ourselves, or our in-group, in judgment is a kind of tendency toward hypocrisy in humanity. We give the tie to ourselves; make excuses for ourselves we would not apply to others. We want to be treated equally – our first principle – but we may only grudgingly grant others equal treatment. Like other cognitive biases, this error is not guaranteed; it is a tendency, and we can overcome it. Even taking a moment to consider Kant’s categorical imperative is usually enough to sound a warning to our hypocrisy.
The failure of critical race theory (or antiracism) on principle
We spoke about critical race theory (CRT) and the arguably synonymous term antiracism in Social justice gone awry – morbid ideas that destroy us and outlined several of its key principles, including that society is fundamentally, systemically racist, and that the problem is so bad that non-neutral (that is unequal or unfair) means are justified in solving the problem.
We equate the CRT term racism to a kind of stereotyping based of race, though this author only recognizes one human race. CRT is very outcome oriented and has been reasonably criticized as tending to suggest that all poor outcomes are a result of racism.[13]This is a bias, and while we cannot associate every proponent of CRT to it, such a leaning is congruent with the fundamental tenets of the movement. Ibram X. Kendi is one of the most famous proponents of CRT, and his book How to Be an Antiracist follows this grim prejudice. He further asserts that racism and racist discrimination is a solution to racism:
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”[14]
We acknowledge the frustration due to an appalling history of unequal, discriminatory treatment that has motivated CRT, but we do not agree with CRT’s (or Kendi’s) approach to the problem.
The CRT approach fails all three of our fundamental principles. It abandons equality to create equity, it asks other groups – those who Kendi argues should now and in the future be subjected to prejudice – to go against their own self-interest, and it patently fails the categorical imperative.
The degree to which CRT fails each of these principles is not slight; it is colossal. Moreover, Kendi’s idea of switching who it is permissible to be prejudiced against cannot be progress – we should be seeking to treat everyone equally. Progress on social justice – as in Social justice gone awry – morbid ideas that destroy us – has until now been slow, at times inconsistent and disappointing, but finding someone new to hate is not a step forward.
Besides being absurd, the CRT argument that antiracism uses racism to fight racism, indicates that the ends justify the means. However, there is no reason to expect that the CRT approach will end racism or societal strife. In our recent article Overcoming stereotype threat and self-fulfilling prophecy, we reported evidence showing that stereotyping is best resolved through fair, open, non-confrontational means that maintain standards, and coach toward success and co-operation. We want to reduce stereotyping, but argue through evidence that principled, positive means are more likely to be successful.
One of the curious phenomena in psychological studies associated with stereotyping is the so-called stereotype rebound effect.[15]We discussed this effect in The Robbers Cave experiment’s important lesson for DEI. The rebound is described as an increase in prejudice after stereotype suppression. This effect has been found to occur after aggressive and prescriptive interventions involving shame, and is found not to occur when stereotype suppression is more positive and less prescriptive.[16]It seems likely that the CRT approach of Kendi and others would likely cause this rebound and escalate stereotyping and tensions rather than help them.
Principle of self-interest, stereotype rebound, game theory, and vaccinations
We observed that the stereotype rebound effect could be caused by several factors, but did not cite the principle that people should protect their self-interests. Being abused by overly aggressive DEI or antiracism training is not in most people’s self-interest, but there may be more to it.
Consider our discussion on game theory and vaccination in August of 2021 (Prisoner’s dilemma and vaccination), in which we noted that a rational person chooses to be vaccinated when the perceived value of vaccination is in their favor. The value of vaccination increases when the ratio of the harm from the disease versus the vaccine is high, and when the likelihood of contracting the disease is high.
We also noted that to get very high vaccination rates, societal co-operation is required, since the value of vaccination drops as vaccination rates increase. Curious readers can find the quantitative game theoretic relationship in the article. We warned that heavy-handed approaches to vaccination might backfire – coercion undermining co-operation, just as aggressive anti-stereotype training increases stereotyping. But Canada, the United States, and other jurisdictions did use coercive and aggressive approaches to vaccination, as we noted in January of 2022 in Mounting COVID frustration is no reason to abandon fundamental principles.
This aggression in vaccination violated the bioethical principle of autonomy, which is akin to our second principle, that “We are each the owners of our own individual lives, property, and self-interests.” But when our self-interest – our autonomy – is violated, we resist. Co-operation is reduced, stereotypes rebound, and fewer people may choose to get vaccinated to help society.
Vaccination rates for measles, a serious and highly contagious childhood disease, have been shown to drop from 89.5 to 82.5 per cent in Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and New Brunswick, Canada, between 2019 and 2023.[17]It could be argued that the Canadian government has helped to cause this through its heavy handed, unethical treatment of the unvaccinated during the COVID pandemic.
The Government of Canada has adopted antiracist language
My worry that the Government of Canada may be implementing counterproductive policy extends to its approach to stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination, which it discusses through the CRT associated term antiracism.[18]
These are important subjects, and I am glad that they are being taken seriously. However, I worry that the adoption of elements of CRT language such as antiracism may signal that the government’s approach is aggressive and could violate the three principles we have brought forward in this article.
In effect, I am concerned that the Government of Canada may exacerbate the issues of prejudice in this country through a poorly principled approach. The logical structure of my concern is:
- CRT violates our three principles, is aggressive and prescriptive
- CRT is therefore likely to cause more societal harm than good
- The Canadian government has adopted CRT language in its approach to stereotypes
- Therefore, the social policies of the Canadian government may cause more harm than good
The truth claim has only mild certainty, in line with the level of evidence. Time will tell if this concern is warranted. However, it is interesting to note that the government reports that in 2019 its polls indicated that less than 50% of Canadians felt racism was a problem in their country, and the number rose to about 60% in their 2023 poll.[19]Readers who recall our article Overcoming stereotype threat and self-fulfilling prophecy may reasonably wonder if this change in polling means that Canadians have become more self-aware about stereotypes or if the government’s rhetoric has increased the stereotype threat under which they labour.
We noted in Social justice gone awry – morbid ideas that destroy us that the Toronto Metropolitan University was designating 75% its new medical school student spots to “equity deserving” groups alongside reduced admission requirements. We noted the four ways in which this is harmful to society in Overcoming stereotype threat and self-fulfilling prophecy, and bring it up here as another example of poor, CRT-influenced policy from a Canadian institution.
An impossible gift or an impossible burden
The difficulties of applying the categorical imperative raises challenges, but it has additional value beyond the limitation of our hypocrisy. It can protect us from taking on certain unresolvable problems.
Abandoning equality, our first principle, means the second principle of self-interest will almost certainly be forcibly violated in someone else, and simultaneously it guarantees that the categorical imperative will be failed. When these principles are set aside, the creation of fair law and policy become very difficult, perhaps impossible.
Consider CRT’s criticism of Asian success. Ibram X. Kendi admonishes Asians and calls them white adjacent and privileged.[20]This pejorative is an insult to Asians and white people. First, Kendi does not know all white people to suggest whether they are all privileged. He is using a negative stereotype. Secondly, Asian people have their own history of unequal treatment in Canada, where they were not allowed to vote until 1948.[21 Even worse, the attack against Asians is an attack against a group of people that has overcome their own obstacles. Attacking Asians rather than celebrating their success is morbid, irrational, and unsupportable.
The suggestion here is that some authority (Kendi has apparently chosen himself) should arbitrarily penalize groups it deems privileged, in favor of others it deems unprivileged. Fair laws are unlikely to be produceable under such unprincipled and arbitrary thinking because, lacking principle, the approach is unframed, allowing an unworkable, near infinite regression into identity. The categorical imperative may be difficult to apply, but an unprincipled approach to law creates a new hell: the impossibility of fairness.
A gift of new year’s hope
To make real social progress, we cannot simply switch who to hate. We also cannot apply our aspirations for fairness in some new and unequal way; we need to apply fundamental principles in more practical fashion.
A good portion of this piece has been negative, but this is the nature of criticism. This year has also revealed much that is hopeful and constructive. Our articles on social psychology and social policy have shown an abundance of evidence that stereotyping and prejudice can be reduced through a gentler, principled, and co-operative approach. These issues may be challenging and complex, but a principled approach gifts us with the hope of doing better.
References
[1] United Nations, 1948, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
[2] Smith, A., 1776, The Wealth of Nations, ISBN 978-9358561623
[3] Majaski, C., May 15, 2024, What is the Invisible Hand in Economics? Investopedia, Economics
[4] United Nations, 1948, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
[5] Kant, I., 1785, Groundwork of Metaphysical Morals, ISBN 978-1492204152
[6] Babic, J., 2022, The Golden Rule and the Categorical Imperative, Ethical Thought 22(1), 37-50
[7] United Nations, 1948, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
[8] Smith, A., 1776, The Wealth of Nations, ISBN 978-9358561623
[9] Majaski, C., May 15, 2024, What is the Invisible Hand in Economics? Investopedia, Economics
[10] Kant, I., 1785, Groundwork of Metaphysical Morals, ISBN 978-1492204152
[11] Kant, I., 1785, Groundwork of Metaphysical Morals, ISBN 978-1492204152
[12] Kant, I., 1797, On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from benevolent Motives, France2, 7(1), 123
[13] Adorney, J., April 9, 2022, How to Be an Antiracist: A Review of Ibram X. Kendi’s Best-Selling Book, Foundation for Economic Education
[14] Kendi, I., 2019, How to Be an Antiracist, One World, ISBN: 978-0525509288
[15] Legault, L., J. Gustell, and M. Inzlicht, 2011, Ironic effects of antiprejudice messages: how motivational interventions can reduce (but also increase prejudice), Psychological Science, 22, 12
[16] Legault, L., J. Gustell, and M. Inzlicht, 2011, Ironic effects of antiprejudice messages: how motivational interventions can reduce (but also increase prejudice), Psychological Science, 22, 12
[17] Globe and Mail Editorial Board, November 26, 2024, Canada’s worrying decline in vaccination rates, Globe and Mail
[18] Government of Canada, Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy 2024-2028
[19] Government of Canada, Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy 2024-2028
[20] Xu, K., July 13, 2021, One of Critical Race Theory’s Major Harms: Asian American Discrimination, New Discourses
[21] Elections Canada, 2020, A history of the vote in Canada 3rd edition, Gatineau, Quebec : Elections Canada, [2021] ©2021
