the generalised problem factory
taking opps research seriously
Every now and then I allow this ‘stack to engage in a little bit of Discourse, as a bit of a treat. (I’m going to the Kilkenomics Festival, which is why today’s is a day late and tomorrow’s probably won’t appear. Sorry, but as I always say, these things are an investment in getting a more interesting flow of ideas for the future!). On my mind this week, in the wake of some quite interesting election results across the USA, is a perennial question of political strategy…
That being the general issue of “frightening the normies”, “throwing marginalised groups under the bus”, “maximising evidence based salience”, et cetera et cetera, depending on whether you’re in the mood to be sarcastic, angry or patronising. Basically, the business of tailoring your message to the polling, and specifically of adjusting policy positions to avoid giving ammunition to your opponents.
Instinctively, I recoil from this, because I know that strategic behaviour is usually a negative-sum game which destroys information and makes decisions worse. But even in its own terms, I don’t think it ever works as well as you might hope.
Because, basically, the strategy of minimising the attackable surface doesn’t take into account that the other side also gets a say in deciding what’s attackable. Opposing propaganda is made, not found; “opposition research” is a creative job as much as a fact-finding one. You can shrink the target, but you might just be giving your enemies the pretext to buy a bigger scope. And most importantly, if you drop the extraneous and second-order baggage, then all they have left to focus on are the things that you really wanted to protect.
In other words, I think it’s another case of insufficient respect for the problem. If you try to craft your message in such a way as to not offer material that can be demonised, you’re making an implicit judgement on the ingenuity and creativity of the people whose job it is to demonise you. They’re professionals just like yourself, often very talented at what they do, and they might not be quite so bound by scruples.
Tangentially, but in my mind related, adopting any policy other than simply saying what you believe has a cognitive cost and a marketing one. It’s just a lot easier to come across as natural and sincere if that’s what you’re being. Sounding good while reading someone else’s lines is a really difficult and rare skill, which lots of people are still not all that good at after spending years in drama school. Or to put it another way – the masters of triangulation have been generational talents and charismatic leaders like Clinton, Blair and Obama. If you’re just saying what you believe, it’s possible to build a sizeable personality cult out of even such unpromising raw material as Jeremy Corbyn or Nigel Farage.
"If you're just saying what you believe", well sure, but that gives an advantage in politics to people who have the capacity to adjust their beliefs to what suits their political advantage, which is another way of reducing the gap between belief and what you say. Possibly Jenrick has this ability, or maybe he's just a sociopath.
I'm a lawyer by trade, so I see an even more fundamental problem in reducing one's attack surface. Defense is a mug's game--always attack!!! A well-crafted attack can incidentally reduce one's own attack surface. This is a nice little feature, but it is only incidental.