The official maternal mortality rate in the US has risen quite a bit since 2000. But – and the CDC makes this perfectly plain on their web site – this is because of a new, more accurate way of counting the deaths of pregnant women. But Kevin Drum finds people arguing that pointing this out is bad because it will make people stop worrying about maternal mortality. We need to deny reality to create an air of crisis that will lead to something being done. Even some scientists, he finds, are manipulating their data to make the maternal mortality problem look worse.
And everybody is doing this, manufacturing crises to focus attention on the things they care about:
Why do so many people think that things in the US are far worse than they really are? A big part of the reason is that it's not just individual scientists who are manipulating data to protect their own fiefdoms. On the left, practically the entire think tank industry is dedicated to doomsaying in order to keep the public focused generally on the need for stronger social programs.
We need an eviction crisis to maintain focus on the homeless. We need a safety net crisis to maintain focus on the poor. We need an incarceration crisis to maintain focus on racism. We need a wage crisis to maintain focus on the working class. We need an education crisis to maintain focus on the children. We need a police shooting crisis to maintain focus on social justice. We need a jobs crisis among the young to maintain focus on Gen Z. We need a democracy crisis to maintain focus on Donald Trump. We need a tuition crisis to maintain focus on higher education. We need a lead crisis in Flint to maintain focus on Black people. We need a pandemic education crisis to maintain focus on in-person learning. We need a cyberbullying crisis to maintain focus on the ills of social media.
Never mind that there is no eviction crisis. Never mind that social spending has skyrocketed over the past few decades. Never mind that incarceration rates among all races have been falling for over a decade. . . .
This is a particularly bad strategy for progressives. When people are frightened and scared, they tend to vote conservatives. That's why scaring people is a core part of movement conservatism. Conversely, people tend to be more generous and open-minded when they feel good. In the long run, an endless cascade of crises isn't good for the progressive cause, and that's especially true when the crises aren't even real.
I agree completely. But the political angle isn't even the important one; constant doom-mongering is bad regardless of the politics because it makes people miserable. The disconnect between how things are really going in America and the way people feel is, I think, much more of a problem than any of the crises you are likely to see in the news.
5 comments:
This post is deeply confusing.
You start by noting that more accurate counting of deaths of pregnant women means the numbers for maternal mortality have gone up. Alright, that's interesting.
Now, if you want to use that to argue that "things aren't actually getting worse", that's technically true - but things ARE worse than we thought they were, which is effectively the same thing. We really DO need to be doing more to bring down maternal mortality, because it turns out there's much more of if than we thought there was.
If you think a pipe has a tiny leak you can live with and ignore, but then you discover the leak is a lot worse than you thought, you can't just keeping ignoring it because "it didn't actually get worse" - it was already worse, and you're overdue to call the plumber.
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Then you tell us about how Kevin Drum came across a handful of wrongheaded people on the internet with dumb ideas - and that he even found "some scientists" with wrongheaded ideas.
But then what "some" people are doing gets immediately transmogrified into what "everbody is doing", somehow?
And then you quote Drum, for whom "everybody" apparently means just "the left" and "progressives". And he makes some truly disgusting false equivalences AND simultaneously dismisses a whole slew of very real social ills with the implication that they were cynical fabrications.
And he makes absolutely zero mention of the very REAL fabrications of "the right" - you know, the group that is infamous for always pushing some new imagined moral panic involving religious or ethnic minorities; or pushing some new unhinged conspiracy theory; or labeling their political opponents as pedophiles; or insisting that Obama was an illegal Kenyan immigrant; or claiming wholly non-existent voter fraud, which they hold up as justification for a literal coup attempt and violent armed assault on the Capitol...
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Drum then tries to stitch together the notion that people "tend" to vote more conservative when they are "scared", with the idea that progressives are "scaring" people by focusing too strongly on societal ills, and so they should stop...
...which is a WILD when you realize this could be interpreted as Drum effectively "denying reality to create an air of crisis that will lead to something being done".
He denies a whole slew of issues as fake or overblown, and in so doing is trying to create a sense of crisis about people potentially voting conservative, because he hopes that fear of losing votes will lead to something being done - or in this case, something being NOT done; id est, people NOT talking so much about issues he doesn't want to hear about.
The irony is STAGGERING.
Nevermind the fact that people don't just magically vote conservative when they are generically "scared" - they vote for whatever party they thinks cared about and will try to fix the issues they care about.
If you're an African American person in Flint Michigan, people harping on about the literal mass lead poisoning incident that occurred there isn't going to make you want to vote Republican - it's going to remind you that the poisoning was the direct result of Republican appointed officials and administrators cutting corners to save money and being negligent...
...and how the Republicans who were supposed to be monitoring the quality of the water somehow did not detect the elevated lead levels in their testing at first; and then when they DID detect the problem, they did not inform the public about it, but merely issued brief boil water notice periods without any explanation...
...and how once the citizens themselves discovered the problem and brought it to the attention of the authorities (who secretly already knew about it), the Republicans repeatedly dismissed their concerns and lied about the issue, claiming the water was perfectly fine...
...and how after MORE THAN A YEAR of actively denying and covering up an ongoing mass poisoning that they directly caused, the Republicans finally were forced to admit the water was tainted, at which point they passed the buck to the Federal government, and relied on President Obama to declare a state of emergency and authorize millions of dollars in aid...
...and how once Congressional hearings began, the Republicans insisted on denying guilt and wrongdoing in an attempt to weasel out of the problem they created...
...and how even ten years later, despite all the hundreds of millions of dollars spent to remediate the worst of the problems, and despite years of construction and replacement of pipes throughout the city, there are STILL areas in Flint where the water mains remain permanently contaminated and the citizens continue to wait for them to be replaced.
Is the water quality in Flint, Michigan still dangerous? In most of the city, no - that problem has been fixed.
But you can't fix broken trust as easily. People will remember this crisis for the rest of their lives. And they will not trust the tap water for a long, long time - evidence be damned. And they will remember who was responsible for all of this, and who lied and tried to cover it up.
And if some "progressive" who wants to manufacture outrage (despite the problem being resolved) turns to them and says "Hey, remember how the Republicans poisoned hundreds of thousands of people and then lied to your faces about it?"...
...they're NOT going to say "Oh, yes! That was horrible and thinking about it makes me scared and miserable! That's why I'm going to vote Republican this upcoming election!
Damn, someone call a burns unit.
Seriously, G. Verloren, that was an incredible critique. You're 100% spot on.
There's a bit of the science vs humanities education going on here. Humanities sees everything as opinion-based, and the prize goes to the person who can articulate things in the most convincing way. Science has a system that works towards accurate, precise measurements of reality rather than opinions.
For sure, some scientists mess up. Some let their personal biases get in the way. Some cherry-pick data to support their preconceptions. But overall, the system detects that (or rather, reveals that when others cannot replicate their findings) and inches forward towards a better, clearer understanding.
David -- personally, I think you're right in saying that people are more motivated when they see hope. 'Doom-mongering' in the sense of telling people there is *no* hope probably won't motivate people to make different (and often difficult) choices about things like the environment or healthcare.
But that's not the same thing as ignoring alarming evidence. If there are data that indicate things are worse than expected, or changing in unanticipated ways, then ignoring those data just because they're unwelcome isn't going to be helpful. That's where real leadership comes in.
Often, politicians seem to use crises to stir up crowds and then stand in front of those crowds so they can call themselves leaders. Real leadership is seeing a crowd making a mistake, telling them they're going in the wrong direction, explaining why, and then marching them off in the right direction. We don't see enough of that.
@Neale Monks
Do you mean me? I'm always happy to be addressed, but I haven't said anything on this thread (well. yet). Some other David? There ARE many of us, and we're everywhere. But perhaps you mean John, our Esteemed Blogger.
FWIW, I think people's motivations are too complex to say something like "people are more motivated when they see hope." I don't mean that hope isn't a potential motivator, but anger and fear--including doomsday-type fears--are powerful too. I imagine circumstances, delivery style, and other factors complicate the matter too much to say that one of these is prima facie more powerful than the others.
Most important, I think we need to ask: is John going to start showing us the good in declining birthrates, or brutalist architecture? :-)
Sorry @David, yes, I meant @John. Not sure what happened there!
For sure, fear is important -- as a Lovecraft fan, I very much subscribe to the idea of fear being the oldest and most powerful of all emotions! But so far as politics go, fear will only take you so far. People want to build a better life, which means they have to believe their actions are useful and constructive.
The problem with focusing on fear alone is that people become defensive. I think we see this with populist parties in Europe and elsewhere. While very effective at winning elections, they're often much worse at delivering beneficial outcomes. It's easy to point at immigrants (for example) and say that they're taking away all your jobs. It's much harder to actually create an economy that grows new jobs.
There is some good in brutalism! Nobody can visit the Barbican in London and not be impressed.
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