Responsibility for the Fishes

My colleague and I started having an interesting debate that I want to bring to this forum. The debate was around food policy, but actually has much bigger implications. I was explaining why I don't eat fish - namely because too much if not all of the fish are caught using unsustainable practices. Basically, I don't want to be part of a system that is destroying our oceans - especially now that scuba diving is a big hobby of mine and I have discovered how beautiful and wonderful our oceans are.

My colleague seemed to say that overfishing is government's problem, that he isn't responsible for it, and that even if he stopped eating fish it would make no noticeable difference on overfishing. (If I have misstated his position, I am sure he'll correct me in the comments.)

One of his points is hard to contradict - that when he (or I) stop eating fish it has a negligible effect on the gigantic problem. This is mostly true. Granted, this point depends on your definition of negligible. If we assume he (or I) eats 1/4 pound of fish per week (which I think is 1 serving), that equates to 1 pound per month, 12 pounds per year, and 600 pounds over 50 years. That is a lot of fish, although considering what a trawler likely picks up in one trip, it is mostly negligible.

But it is the other two points that I don't agree with. I might agree that government policy may be the most effective way to deal with it, but I don't agree that without government action, we are absolved of responsibility.

We can think of many similar examples to compare to this one (for example purchasing rare wood from forests that are being legally depleted in a foreign country), but I don't know if we need to go there. The basic question is easy enough to evaluate: are we responsible when our actions contribute to something that has a negative impact and is that responsibility in any way dependent on how much we are contributing to the problem?

I think the answer is obvious - that by contributing, even in a small amount to a very big problem, we are responsible. And I fear that by absolving ourselves of responsibility and leaving it to government to deal with it, it creates an attitude that discourages individual responsibility.

I want to be clear though before I move on that I only expect people to take actions that are practical. Driving cars, using electricity, and throwing out waste have negative effects on the environment. I don't expect people to stop driving cars. But I do expect people to think about when driving the car is unnecessary. Personally, on this issue, I think it is practical, although not as enjoyable, to stop eating fish.

Anyway, this liberal belief that government should do everything for us and can therefore absolve us of responsibility is a terrible mindset. And conservative criticisms of this mindset is one of their most potent points. While I think government can and should enshrine policies like this, mostly because there are people that don't care about the public good and need restrictions, I don't agree at all that if there isn't a government policy against it, we can do it even when we know it has serious negative consequences.

I absolutely do not want to live in a world where people decide they are not responsible for the world around them; where they are so comfortable with government's actions that they feel they don't need to sacrifice in any way to make the world better. Yes, the government has programs to help those in need, but we still should be donating as much as we can to charity and volunteering as often as we can. And yes, the government has good environmental policies, but we still need to be aware of what policies the government hasn't passed yet and what actions of ours are having negative effects on the world.

We cannot wait for government to act. We need to accept responsibility for the ways our individual actions lead to collective problems. And so each individual needs to try to do their part, even if for one individual, it makes small or no noticeable difference.

Rousseau and Hobbes (Nope, No Calvin)

Summary:
An article in the NY Times magazine puts a new spin on religious extremism in the Middle East by comparing it to the West's religious history. The author suggests that our move towards secular liberal democracy might be unique and we cannot expect the Middle East to jump on board. If so, what kind of governments are we willing to tolerate?

I am getting caught up on my back issues of NY Times Sunday Magazine and finally finished this article. It puts religious extremism in the Middle East in the context of the West's own religious history. The author's main point seems to be that our own history is similar to what the Middle East is going through, but our conversion to secular liberal democracy is unique. We therefore can't expect the Middle East to follow that path, especially at so fast a pace.

In showing how similar the current situation in the Middle East is to our own history, the author tries to make us recognize that religious extremism is a natural human impulse. He talks about how we use terms like fascism to describe the extremism we are witnessing, and we blame it on the economic and political systems that lead people to messianic views of religion. This point is compelling, except that it ignores Hobbes' description of why religion took hold in the Middle Ages; life was chaotic (solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short...) and religion gave people comfort. Similarly, people in the Middle East are turning towards a form of religion that is empowering. So I don't think we can discount how overall life conditions affect the strength of religious devotion and the lengths to which believers will go in its name.

The author's conclusion is that we can't expect secular liberal democracy to develop and we will have to accept non-secular governments in the Middle East, even some who base their laws on Sharia. The author sites Muslim writers like Tariq Ramadan (who was prevented from taking a teaching position at Notre Dame by the US government) who are pushing for more modern interpretations of Islam but are not suggesting that Muslims disavow Islamic law. This is a very different position from people like Thomas Friedman who say that liberal democracy is the only hope for the Middle East.

This article seems to illuminate two really difficult issues. One is whether or not other countries / cultures have to follow the West's development path. If so, the next question is whether they have to follow all our steps or can we help them jump ahead to our stage. This is an obvious issue in development, but I see it here too. Can we help the world achieve secular liberal democracy, or do we need to step back and let them figure it out?

The other broad issue is the tension between relativism and universalism. While we think about whether cultures will follow our path, we should also think about whether they have to? We believe secular liberal democracy is the best form of government - but should we impose it on everyone else (even if try methods less violent than Iraq)? If not, what kind of governments are we willing to tolerate? The author of this article suggests we might have to accept governments based on Sharia, but with more modern interpretations of the Koran. I don't believe that you have to be either be a universalist or a relativist. There is a middle ground - no matter what adjunct professors at graduate school say. There are some things we cannot accept, like rules that completely subjugate women.

I think both of these issues lie at the crux of our foreign policy (that is, if we care about having a thoughtful and consistent foreign policy). What do we accept, and what should we do to move governments towards what we find acceptable?