KOOL AID, MAN

"But in today's Washington, loyalty to the team
displaces loyalty to the truth."

One of the complaints some athletes will suffer from is that they aren't "team players," that they are too self-focused, too interested in personal glory and statistical gain rather than working with everyone on the team for a win. This kind of athlete tends to have good numbers, but their team doesn't do as well. They hit home runs, but they are solo home runs. They don't hit sacrifice flies, bunts, or hit and runs, because while those all help the team and move the team toward wins, they hurt individual stats. Such a player is bad for the team, because they aren't assisting the rest of the players in their game, and aren't helping the team win.

In business, this concept can be true as well, when a team works together well, they produce faster, work for the same goals, increase morale and productivity, and tend to result in a better work environment. Businesses regularly have "team building" seminars, speeches, and even weekend camps where some motivational speaker or consultant has the workers play games, do skits and engage in various other activities intended to build team spirit and help people work together. This is intended to keep the people working together instead of competing, slacking off while one or a few do all the work, or simply fighting amongst each other.

In this kind of context, the team player is helpful, it is someone who works well with others, sacrifices their own ambitions and gain for a shared goal, and is willing to work with the rest for common ideas. As a result, more gets done, and everyone benefits. In politics however, this concept comes up too, the team player, the guy who works with the political party to advance the shared cause.

G. Gordon Liddy always struck me has that kind of guy, the kind of man that's useful to a leader: someone who will do what he's told, without hesitation, no matter what it was. In the movie Lethal Weapon, Gary Bussey plays that kind of character. He's the lieutenant of the main bad guy, a tough guy named Mr Joshua who proves his loyalty and character by holding a lighter under his arm until the flesh begins to cook, simply because he's been ordered to by his general. He doesn't question, he doesn't hesitate, he doesn't complain. The demonstration is meant to show that these are men of their word: if they say they'll do something, you can rely on it to happen, no matter how awful.

TEAM PLAYERS
And there's the rub: no matter how awful. in 2005 columnist David Brooks wrote an article about Tom DeLay's resignation from the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the United States congress. In it he contrasts the leadership style of two different consecutive Republican leaders in congress: Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay. Gingrich he points out was an idealist, he was interested in furthering goals and getting policy change implemented. DeLay was a pragmatist, he was interested in getting more Republicans elected. One was trying to get things done he believed were right, the other was trying to increase power for his team. Tom DeLay was a team player:

DeLay was never the ruthless tyrant news media reports made him out to be. He's actually a modest, decent and considerate man. But he is willing to sacrifice all else for the team.

Social conservatism helped the team, so DeLay exploited it. Money from lobbyists could help the team, so DeLay merged K Street and his operations. If federal spending could help the team buy votes, DeLay was willing. Over the past four years, according to a Heritage Foundation study, spending on veterans' benefits has gone up 51 percent; spending on the Housing and Urban Development and Commerce Departments is up 86 percent; spending on community and regional development is up 71 percent.

Small-government beliefs were fine for the campaign trail, but when it came to actual governing, the spending just splurged out in a shapeless ooze, guided by no sensible set of priorities other than the idea that voters who get money may vote for incumbents.

It is this desire for power, this push for the team's success that is a virtue in some settings like baseball that is a vice in politics. The political sphere is not about power, it is not about dominance, and it is not about winning. Politics is about service, and that takes a different sort of attitude.

It's not that being part of a team is bad in politics, it's that focusing on that team's success is the problem. In Baseball, a team player is a guy that advances the team's chances of winning. In politics, if your goal is winning, the people you allegedly serve lose. For the Republican Party, cementing their hold on Washington while gaining new seats in congress became the goal, abandoning the things they were elected to do, the things they campaigned on.

Today, the Democratic Party is doing the same thing, the leadership is so focused on power and gaining more seats, in crushing the opposition and retaining control that they have abandoned what the new congressmen who took over for the Republicans campaigned on. The goals of reducing corruption, greater ethics, lower spending, deficit control, and more transparent government were abandoned almost immediately for the true goals of Democratic leadership: power, and more of it.

ETHIX
David Brooks contrasts this with the desire and love for the truth and points out that while politics is a team sport, the goal is not winning it is service to the people. The reason this is contrasted with the truth is the underlying ethical principle that these men are working under.

There are three basic ethical categories that people live by. No one person consistently and unswervingly chooses one of these, but everyone has a category that they tend to most often and most loyally make ethical decisions by - choose the right and wrong behind why they do things.

Ethical Idealism
Right and wrong govern why you make decisions, your first concern is "is this right." Ethical Idealism is the belief that you must follow a certain code in decision making that governs how and why you make your choices. When faced with a dilemma, the first concern for an Ethical Idealist is what the right thing to do is, what the ethical choice will be. When faced with a situation where there is no clear ethical choice, the idealist then attempts to decide what will lead to the most ethical outcome, what will best advance the cause of right and good.

Ethical Opportunism
Decisions are made based on how well they serve you at the moment. Opportunism is taking advantage of each momentary choice and chance, leaping at opportunities as they present themselves. For this system, there is no right and wrong, there is simply what best pleases or assists you each step of the way. The goals may be long term, or short, lofty or mean, but what decides right and wrong is how well each decision pleases and benefits you.

Ethical Pragmatism
Decisions are made by how well they succeeded in achieving one's goals. For the Ethical Pragmatist, right and wrong are decided by the end result: did it work? Then it must have been the right thing to do. The steps taken along the path toward the fulfillment of the goal are sanctified by the end results, this is where the "end justifies the means" ideal is found. No matter how repugnant or distasteful your actions were, if they succeeded in accomplishing what you set out to do, then they are acceptable, even right.

Ethical Opportunism is the least mature model to follow, Freud would consider it id-based, controlled by momentary urges and selfish, immediate gain. It is the philosophy of the child which has no concerns other than the self and the present. This ideology is what leads young actresses to steal cars and speed while under the influence of drugs: because its fun and who cares what you think, anyway?

Ethical Pragmatism is more mature, but is still juvenile. It concerns its self with long-term goals and is not driven by the immediate, but is still only concerned with the self. When your decisions are made to move toward a future goal with no concern for the present or how it affects people around you, this is not a mature view of life. It might seem mature and lofty, because sacrifice is involved and striving toward a better future, but the sacrifices are rarely done by the individual, and the future goals suffer through the deeds of the present. This is the ideology of realpolitik: you have a goal of defeating an enemy, and in the process are willing to ignore evils and horrors to get to that end. It is the kind of philosophy that lets you undermine and demolish major efforts or institutions because in the end it will somehow all work out, and your goals were noble.

Ethical Idealism of the three is the most mature. This is the life of an adult, deciding not just what benefits me, not just how this advances some goal, but whether it is a good thing to do in and of its self. Is this right, is this what I ought to do in any given situation. The sacrifices paid in this ideology are usually self sacrifice. The prices paid are usually paid by the person doing what they believe is right. Whether this is truly beneficial depends on the basis for right and wrong that the person is following - Wahhabis believe that their insane radical religion is right and terrorism is the correct choice just as Mother Theresa believed that working with the undercaste and lepers in India was the right thing to do. Ethical idealism is following through on the virtue of integrity.

Team players like too many politicians are ethical pragmatists, they are concerned with the goal of winning more power, and whatever you do that advances that end is thereby the right thing to do. The result is often more power, temporarily. Just ask the GOP leadership how well that turned out for them. Or the Democratic Leadership of Wright and Rostenkowski before them.

This way of life does not stop with congressmen, however. The news media follows the same pattern when it skips or buries coverage of an event because it does not advance their end goals. This is where the Drum Principle comes from: abandon your stated principles if adhering to them will help who you consider the enemy (President Bush), because the higher goal is defeating him at all costs. Even if those costs are honor, dignity, and the truth.

And here's where David Brooks' statement about the truth comes in. When you abandon the truth for your final goal, you've abandoned everything worth fighting for. Ethical Pragmatism is what led President Nixon to order men to break into the Democratic Party National Headquarters even though he was certain to win. Because the end goal justified the act. He believed so much was at stake that he had to win, and in that process, it didn't matter what was done, as long as they got to that win. And the truth suffered for it.

For men like Kevin Drum who believe that you should keep quiet about the evils of radial Islam, ignore the noble deeds and progress in Iraq, ignore the horrors of terrorism, downplay the pernicious deeds of the Iranian government, and oppose any initiative by President Bush, the truth is something that gets in the way. Sure, its true that terrorism is something we have a duty to fight. Sure, its true that radical Islam stands for everything Drum opposes. Sure, Iran is violating Iraqi sovereignty, feeding terrorism, killing American soldiers, and working on nuclear weapons to use on its neighbors. But the goal is to defeat President Bush, so it doesn't matter how true any of that is.

This kind of decision making infects all strata of life. Moviemakers refuse to consider any movies that promote the ideals of patriotism, fighting terrorism, and showing the honor and glory of the young men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq. To do so would not serve their end goal: the defeat of President Bush, the return to power of Democrats, and the repudiation of their enemies on the right. So we get Syriana and the bad guys are almost never, ever Islamic terrorists. Even books where they are end up with movies with someone else as the bad guy.

Arguments today are based more on the team than the truth. All too often, people make decisions not out of a careful examination of the facts, not from an understanding of both sides or what is true. They decide based on who is for and against it, what the team says.

Take stem cell research. Not only do you have people who otherwise are well-informed and intelligent insisting that opposition to embryonic stem cell research translates into opposition not only to all stem cell research of any kind, but science in general. What's worse, is that often when you pin them down as to why they hold a position you get an answer that goes something like this:

"Well, James Dobson is against it, so I know it must be good."

I'm not making this up, I've seen it more than once. This kind of argument by opposition is rampant. For gun registration? Well Michael Moore is for it so I must be against it. How about abortion? Well, the Pope is opposed to it, so I must be for it. This is mindless team playing, who cares what the facts are, my team is on this side, so I must be.

This isn't new, of course. People have done this for thousands of years, it's part of human nature. Choosing something based upon a leader or in opposition to someone hated is easier, it doesn't require you to think or understand. It saves you time and energy, and besides it's scary to go against the team. Those who stand alone based on principle and careful examination of the facts are often castigated, attacked, even hated. You must be arrogant to think you're better than all of us! Who are you to say what's right and wrong? You are hurting the team by doing that!

A truly thoughtful leftist will find some good in Ann Coulter's work, just as a truly thoughtful conservative will find fault in it. No one person holds the entirety of truth and right, and no person is entirely wrong and mistaken, either. But then, to know and act on that, it all comes down, once more, to your basic understanding of truth and ethics.

If you believe that truth is relative, that it shifts and changes based on the mood of the society, or your personal beliefs, or the "metanarrative" you grew up under (your culture, your experiences, your gender, your ethnic background, etc), then you have no basis to stand on to make any such ethical decisions. There isn't any truth, ultimately. There is only opinion, and you're better off as an Ethical Opportunist, grabbing what best pleases and benefits you at any given moment.

PLAYING FOR THE TEAM
Playing for the team when there's no objective, absolute truth only makes sense: join a gang and their power will protect and help you. Because when there's no truth, there's only the power to enforce your opinions on everyone else. And to do that, you're better off with the team that has the power to do so.

In Jonestown Guyana, a cult of religious fanatics drank cyanide-laced kool aid because their charismatic leader told them to. It was the team play: everyone was doing it, because it advanced the shared goal. In Germany in 1940, the team play was to attend the rallies, burn the books, and burn the Jewish businesses. In Russia 1920 and France 1800, the team play was to turn in anyone who didn't go along with the revolution, to shout the party slogans, and to wear the patriotic colors.

The problem with statism and patriotism isn't the love of country, the flying of flags, and the support of the government. It's why you do it and what you're trying to accomplish. If all you want is for the home team to win, that's where the horrors start. It's not playing for the team that's the problem. It's doing so without a higher cause, a greater truth.

*Hat tip to Tim Worstall for his reprint of the David Brooks column I quoted.

Essays