Welcome to a small d democrat – a blog exploring how we might advance genuine democracy, equality, and peace in an age of concentrated power and institutional decay.
Topics
Resisting Technological Oligarchy: I’m working on intellectual frameworks for recognizing and resisting the threat to democratic society from the concentration of power created by new technologies, especially AI.
Beyond Trumpism: How do we respond morally and strategically to the norm-shattering and authoritarian-adjacent phenomenon of Trumpism? I’m exploring approaches based on reconciliation, renewal of democratic institutions, and steadfast resistance to oligarchy.
Rethinking Secular Liberal Attitudes Toward Public Education: The standard secular liberal attitude toward public education is that it exists to instill reason (as opposed to faith) and to provide “equal opportunity.” A better appreciation of the central role of religion in the historical development of schooling, and the problems of filling the void with the imperative of status competition, might just help liberals find their way toward a cease fire with conservatives on a main front of the culture wars.
War and Genocide: Because the potential consequences of the failure of liberal democratic institutions are severe.
Background and Influences
I’ve been a public school math and physics teacher, a student of the history and philosophy of education, and a professional software developer.
Some of the important influences on my thinking:
John Rawls observes that we don’t “deserve” rewards for our virtues for their own sake, but so those virtues can serve others – especially those who end up at the bottom of whatever hierarchies our reward systems create.
Mancur Olson illuminates how scale matters in politics: small groups are positioned to prey on the larger groups they belong to, and this burden accumulates over time until mechanisms clear these encrustations – or the system collapses under their weight.
Danielle Allen, in her book Talking to Strangers, articulates the habits of reciprocity and turn-taking in sacrifice that make democratic life possible across difference.
Robert H. Frank reveals the social and economic waste of positional arms races and winner-take-all contests, and how robust conceptions of ‘liberty’ must not rob societies of the ability to make and enforce positive-sum agreements to temper runaway competition.
Nassim Nicolas Taleb is eclectic and full of chutzpah. Some highlights:
- The analytical importance of proven commitment, aka “skin in the game”, over cheap signaling, aka “just tawk”.
- The limits of averages and predictions in a world shaped by committed minorities and full of unlikely but momentous occurrences (“black swans”).
- Antifragility: systems and institutions that are improved by stressors and resilient to black swan events.