Kyu-hyun Jo Cause, Causation, and Multiplicity: A Critique of E. H. Carr’s “Causation in History” Kyu-hyun Jo Abstract This paper will assess three central components of Edward Carr’s lecture ‘’Causation in History’’ in What is History? First, Carr does not show causation’s real function of distinguishing between various types of history; the kinds of causes a historian employs describes the nature of their historical inquiry. Second, Carr’s notion of “accidental causes” is oxymoronic because accidents are unpredictable for any historical actor. There is no logic to explain why unexpected accidents had to happen for historical actors from their viewpoint. Therefore, its contrast with ‘’rational causes’’ is misleading. Finally, however important causes are in formulating historical interpretations, causes do not determine a historian’s interpretation. 1. An Outline of the Main Arguments The explanation of causes in historical phenomena—explaining how historical events occurred by examining and describing the reasons behind their occurrence—is perhaps the signature hallmark of History as a Social Science. Yet, how does a historian know what a cause is and how should he or she explain the cause? This paper will provide a critique of Edward Carr’s methodology in his lecture “Causation in History,’’ collected in his seminal book, What is History? I will first assess Carr’s discussion of determinism, then discuss his distinction between accidental and rational causes, and finally, analyze how examples function throughout the lecture to highlight his arguments. From such examination, I will emphasize the function of historical causality within Carr’s framing of History as a scientific process. After examining Carr’s logic on historical causality, I will conclude with three main arguments. First, while Carr shows the necessity of causal explanations in historical analyses, he does not crucially show that the real importance of causes in historical explanation lies in their power to determine subdivisions in fields of historical research. Second, Carr’s distinction between “accidental causes’’ and “rational causes’’ is misleading because “accidental causes’’ is an oxymoronic concept. Accidents occur unpredictably and unexpectedly from a historical actor’s perspective, and it is impossible to accurately judge why an accident had to occur, unless a historical actor involved in an accident should miraculously resuscitate to directly inform the historian of the accident’s details. Moreover, if the fundamental purpose of a historical cause is to provide a logical explanation to the occurrence of historical phenomena, Carr, in conceiving “accidental’’ as an opposing concept to “rational,’’ is basically comparing illogical and logical causation in history. However, if “illogical’’ means “that which cannot be explained logically,’’ then it is questionable how an “illogical cause’’ is actually an explanatory cause. It is possible to explain that an accident became an accident, even if it is much harder to determine why an accident exactly occurred. Insofar as there is an explanation, however unsatisfactory the quality of the explanation may be, explaining how an accident came to be called as such, still qualifies as being logical, or having the capability to be explained with reasonable statements. In other words, the contrast between accidental and rational causes in historical explanation is misconstrued because “accidental causes’’ is an oxymoronic concept. Finally, while Carr may be correct in emphasizing the importance of causes in historical interpretation, he is mistaken in assuming that causes alone dictate the structure and content of historical analysis. The search for historical causes is only necessary for the sake of providing diverse angles of historical analyses; historical causes are not so important to exclusively determine and decide the entire content of a historian’s interpretation. It is the historian’s liberty to interpret facts about an event and then determine what the important causes of an event may be, but historical causes alone do not possess the great power to determine the direction of the historian’s interpretation. Rather, it is interdisciplinary historical analysis, which provides a rationale, a justification for why certain causes have better explanatory causes for a certain historical event than others, which ultimately in- forms the direction of a historian’s logic. The art of performing meticulous and exact historical interpretations involves adopting interdisciplinary methods, and only after the invocation of interdisciplinary methods to provide a rationale for establishing a hierarchy between causes can a historian perform interpretations. 2. A Brief Literature Review and the Significance of “Causation in History” A close analysis and an examination of Carr’s conception of causality and his ideas is necessary because there has yet to be a systematic study of Carr’s “Causation in History.” The majority of the secondary literature on What is His- tory? are book reviews that concentrates on commenting on the book’s overall structure and its main argument that History is a dialogue between the past and the present. This literature either mentions Carr’s discussion of historical causality solely in relation to his main argument, or ignores it altogether (1). For example, in the most recent comprehensive discussion of philosophies of History and historiography, the author closely analyzes Robin Collingwood’s emphasis on human ac- tions as the subject of historical inquiry is closely analyzed as a conditional theory for historical causation. Though Carr was a major critic of Collingwood’s views of History in general, neither Carr’s “Causation in History” as an independent work nor What is History? is given sufficient attention (2). Critical studies of Carr’s ideas regarding History have concentrated on his pursuit of objectivity and positivism, or his conceptualization of History as a study of causes. Ann Frazier (1976) argues against an absolute positivist view of History. She asserts that insofar as a historical narrative is a “reconstruction from present experience of what might have happened in the past,” it is impossible to absolutely determine what “actually happened in the past” (3). In other words, Carr’s vision for an objective and a pure History devoted to verifying past events with exactitude is untenable and impossible to realize. Geoffrey Partington (1979) criticized Carr’s “moral positivism and moral futurism” in favor of replacing them with relativism to better account for differences in time and place in which a historical event occurred when making a historical judgment (4). Most recently, Ann Talbot (2009), while comparing Carr’s view of chance and necessity with that of Leon Trotsky, concluded, “History is no longer a study of causality but is determined by the propensities of the historian” (5). In short, the secondary literature has engaged with various aspects of Carr’s view of History and concentrated on how historians write about the past and how recent interpretations of History have abandoned Carr’s concern for causality. However, the secondary literature, in particular Talbot, does not explain why Carr’s search for the role of causality in the writing of History is outdated, missing the central value of “Causality in History” as Carr’s most definitive statement on what History is as a science, for it is in this lecture where a truly scientific and methodical answer to the title of Carr’s book actually appears. A critical examination of Carr’s conception of historical causality is necessary to show why it is outdated or, as I noted earlier, there are three major deficiencies in Carr’s logic about historical causality. In “Causation in History” Carr develops the most methodological and structural argument about the nature of historical causality and criticism against historical determinism, which taken collectively, is actually devoted to explaining why History is a science, rather than explaining causality’s place in History for its own sake. Carr’s views about causality in History are essentially concerned with how causality functions in History to give its scientific character, not whether History’s entire academic identity is simply a study of causation. It is in this particular lecture where Carr’s understanding of History as a science in terms of approaches and methodology is most clearly expressed and where a genuinely structural analysis of History as a science—how historical causation reflects the scientific nature and essence of History—is most lucidly given. In short, this particular lecture deserves a close analysis because it explains why and how History functions as a science: by ordering facts through causality to transform historical fact into historical knowledge. How History becomes under- stood as History to a historian is perhaps the best method to know how history be- comes transformed into professional History. This paper intends to highlight the importance of causation within the question, “What is History?,” later evaluating Carr’s ability to frame historical inquiry as a scientific process through causation and causality. 3. Carr’s Main Ideas on Historical Causality Carr opens his discussion about historical causation with the observation that the historian “commonly assigns several causes to the same event’’ (6). However, the historian is bound by “a professional impulse to reduce it to order, to establish some hierarchy of causes which would fix their relation to one another’’ to decide which cause should be “the ultimate cause, the cause of all causes’’ (7). In other words, Carr believes that a multiplicity of causes serves a secondary function of letting the historian rationally prioritize a single cause that produced an event. From this discussion of the historian’s need to identify an order to historical causes, Carr argues that “historical determinism’’ and “chance in history’’ are “red herrings’’ which obstruct the logical flow of historical causation and proceeds to show how they are not part of a proper historical logic. “Historical determinism’’ is “the belief that everything has a cause or causes, and could not have happened differently unless something in the cause or causes had also been different’’ (8). In other words, “historical determinism’’ assumes that the occurrence of every phenomenon in life is dependent on a single cause unique to that particular phenomenon such that even the slightest alteration in the cause would necessarily produce a different phenomenon. However, Carr sees “historical determinism” as both unsatisfactory and un- realistic because it does not recognize the unpredictable vicissitudes of human behavior and actions According to Carr, the choices people make defy strict classification as either a matter of free will or logical determinism. He believes that various forms of human behavior and actions can arise from both free will and determined causes, arguing that historians are flexible in understanding human actions to arise from both sources (9). From this reasoning, Carr does not entertain the view that historical events occur “inevitably,’’ unless “inevitably’’ is qualified to mean that antecedent causes would have to be different for an event’s outcome to be radically different from what was expected (10). Since Carr is uncomfortable with the notion that historical events occur in a vacuum, it is unsurprising that he also finds explanations relying on “chance’’ or “accidents’’ unsatisfactory. Not only are accidents unexplainable through “historical determinism,’’ but accidents are also causal interruptions to a string of events which a historian wishes to investigate. In other words, the occurrence of an accident is not a license with which a historian can argue that there was no clear cause for an event to occur; an accident is merely an obstacle preventing the historian from focusing on a chain of causality which clearly awaited the historian’s discovery. Of course, Carr is aware that it might be possible for accidents and chance events to happen in history, for such occurrences are not only minor, but are continually compensated by other accidents or chance events, and “chance” might be a “character of individuals’’ (11). In other words, the randomness of accidents is possible because an accident is by nature an unexpected event and the forms in which it may occur are varied and diverse, and may be influenced by the unpredictable variety of personalities of every individual. Yet, Carr finds these apologetic defenses of accidents and chance events unsatisfying because accidents and chance events are often “seriously exaggerated,’’ or perceived to “accelerate or retard’’ historical progress, a sentiment which Carr dismisses as mere “juggling with words’’ (12). Moreover, he thinks that “chance events’’ are “natural occurrences’’ which complement each other is merely an euphemism to claim that there are events in life we cannot comprehend. Carr believes that those who use accidents in their theories have granted themselves the undeserved liberty to excuse themselves from the tedious business of rigorously investigating causes of an event. Such a person, in Carr’s view, is “intellectually lazy’’ or possesses “low intellectual vitality’’ (13). In other words, because accidents are also induced via human activity and actions, Carr does not believe that accidents truly occur unexpectedly or without any causation. Insofar as accidents can be caused by some faults in human personality or will, these faults, however inherently various, deserve to be studied as causes behind the accidents they create. The historian must observe and analyze accidents just as he or she would investigate any other “normal’’ political, social, or cultural event and ponder on why the accident occurred or whether it could have been avoided or prevented at all. So how does a historian pay proper attention to historical causes and formulate a causal relationship between historical facts? For Carr, it begins with the realization that there is little to distinguish between “historical’’ and “unhistorical’’ facts such that it is always possible for the latter to become the former (14). For example, someone living in 1066 and directly witnessing the Battle of Hastings might record that the battle “is taking place,” but once a historian agrees with the witness who claims that it was important that the battle occurred, the historian preserves the fact that the battle occurred in the past and has historical importance by simply stating the same fact in the past tense: “The Battle of Hastings clearly occurred in 1066.” Yet, the murkiness of the distinction does not mean that all causes are to be treated equally, for Carr believes that there are “rational’’ and “accidental’’ causes. The former can be applied to diverse countries, eras, and conditions, which warrants generalizations. By contrast, “accidental’’ causes, which have to be specifically devoted to explaining how an accident as a particular event in a specific time, location, and circumstances, cannot be generalized. An accident occurs under particular conditions and is fundamentally a result derived only from the particular conditions and therefore “teach us no lessons and lead to no conclusions’’ (15). In other words, rationality for Carr is synonymous with generality, while “accidental’’ causes are limited in their generality because they can only be comprehended only within the specific contexts they had occurred. The more important point is that “rational causes’’ have purposes borne from human motivations, whereas “accidental causes’’ do not have an objective. With that said, such a distinction does not mean “accidental causes’’ can be dismissed. Regardless of the type of cause, Carr believes that insofar as historians are expected to make interpretations about them, they are issuing value judgments, and causality is “bound up with interpretation,’’ for the act of assigning causes is itself a judgment. Moreover, because history is a purveyor of tradition, history is obligated to be a record of “past habits and lessons of the past’’ for future generations (16). Due to the arbitrary and selective nature of historical time, Carr concludes by arguing that historians must habitually ask “whither’’ along with “why?’’ (17). The audience for whom the historian writes is as important as personal and private reasons for which the historian writes history. Carr believes that the historian’s search for causation necessarily implies a search for an ultimate cause which can clearly answer why a phenomenon occurred, and insofar as a historian is searching for the ultimate cause, “historical determinism’’ is unsatisfactory because it disregards the importance of multiple causality in ac- counting for the unexpected and unpredictable nature of historical events. Carr also finds the treatment of “chance’’ or “accidental causes’’ as synonymous with “no causation’’ as unsatisfactory, because they are just masking a historian’s laziness or unwillingness to scrutinize historical events very closely to find a logical causation between them. Finally, regardless of whether a cause is “rational”—has the ability to be generalized—or is “accidental’’—happens by pure chance or as an outcome of unexpected events—distinctions between them are not very important because causality in general must inform a historian’s interpretation, which, in turn, is a form of value judgment. The possibility of a “subjective’’ causality is not an excuse to not treat “accidental causes’’ or “rational causes’’ unequally, for the division of time, which is the basic element of a historian’s thinking, is a subjective category which is bound to change depending on the nature of a “future’’ a historian is interested in addressing. As long as the future is subject to change, so will the perception of “past’’ and “present,’’ which is why a historian must be well aware of the purpose for which he or she desires to write history and the audience for whom the historian wishes a work to have a lasting influence. Logic is important to maximize the delivery of rhetorical clarity, for it is the essence of an argument’s organization. Yet, because logic is a general description of a reasoning’s supposed trajectory, logic needs to be supplemented with proper examples to illustrate and convince others that the trajectory is an accurate and rational one. This section has shown how Carr’s logic about historical causation could probably be considered rational; the next section will examine and analyze Carr’s use of examples to determine whether there is sufficient rhetorical strength in the logic to convince the reader that the logic is traveling on its proper and designated route. 4. Carr’s Use of Examples and Their Logical Compatibility with His Main Points This section evaluates Carr’s usage of historical examples in illustrating his main themes and arguments, offering a critique about the propriety of the examples in relation to the points they are making. In particular, it will concentrate on Carr’s examples drawn from the Russian Revolution and the accident of Robinson. This section will conclude that while his use of these examples is sound because he effectively illustrates the importance of unpredictability in historical causation to a historian’s thought process, the Revolution and the accident of Robinson do not greatly support Carr’s main theoretical argument because they do not show how and why a particular hierarchy of causes is necessary for one example but not the other. Carr uses episodes from the Russian Revolution to illustrate his opposition to historical determinism. There are several problems with Carr’s use of the Russian Revolution as an example to counter the assumptions of historical determinism. Fundamentally, the example does not show how Carr would be able to choose his “ultimate’’ cause behind the Revolution’s origins. While it is clear that multiple causes must be considered to establish the complexity of the event and there- by highlight its importance, Carr does not show how a hierarchy of causes can be derived from a consideration of multiple causes. What he actually wishes to show by discussing the Russian Revolution is that “historical determinism” is not a proper historical logic because it essentially engages in counterfactual reasoning, which is not germane to the historian’s critical aim of determining the past as it is. Against historical determinism’s charge that a historian may not consider other alternatives while focusing too much on one cause, Carr argues that supposing that Stolypin had completed the agrarian reform or that the Bolsheviks did not win the Russian Revolution are not relevant to historical determinism, for the determinist would simply look for causes other than ones which actually occurred to argue that different causes would have different outcomes. Hence, Carr suggests that the suppositions have “nothing to do with history,’’ because counterfactual assertions cannot be proven with any certainty with documented evidence and are non-historical (18). The problem is that Carr never really identifies the precise kind of historical interpretation for which his example from the Russian Revolution is meant to offer support. If the suppositions he made are not “historical,’’ then the real question is, which suppositions should be deemed “historical?’’ Refutation by negation does not necessarily lead to clarity; it only serves as a proof of what an opposing argument cannot be, rather than proving the essence of the opposing argument. More- over, because the basic theoretical argument against “historical determinism’’ is that historical events have multiple causes and do not occur in a vacuum, Carr’s example should have shown how a genuine historical argument can be fruitful by considering multiple causes. After all, the real problem Carr has with “historical determinism’’ is that it assumes that historical events were bound to happen with- out any particular value ascribed to the events’ circumstantial causes. Since Carr is uncomfortable with the unscientific and unhistorical nature of the philosophy, it would have logically made more sense for him to show how historical logic operates in a coherent and powerful manner such that it could not be easily dismissed by proponents of historical determinism. Hence, it would have sufficed to show how causation and causes operate in a historical analysis rather than a proving how “historical determinism’’ has a faulty logic, since the fact that there is a deficiency in an opposing logic does not necessarily imply that an alternative logic must be better simply because it does not have that deficiency. The other problem with Carr’s use of the Russian Revolution is his assumption that the supposed currency of the Russian Revolution as a “modern historical’’ problem has greater importance than “older’’ events such as the Norman Con- quest or the American Revolution. Carr believes that there is a greater desire to remember “options’’ still available for a more recently concluded historical event than much older ones. Carr claims that the expression of diverse passions from non-historians makes it hard for them to accept conclusions of a historian who merely recounts an event as it happened (19). Carr does seem to show why “historical determinism’’ is popular, but his analogy does not necessarily prove why “historical determinism’’ is an unhistorical logic. All events eventually get forgotten to certain degrees in which some facts are going to be better known than others, but it is primarily a historian’s scholarly curiosity which determines the importance of a historical event. Since every historian must have different reasons for believing that a historical event is important, the only impediment with regard to time would be the availability or lack of primary sources rather than a poverty of a historian’s imagination or will to realize innovation. “Older’’ events were once “modern’’ and therefore, importance is inherently a subjective standard which arises from the question of how well individuals remember events. People do remember events which are closer to their immediate memories better than older ones in terms of general details, but squabbling over how alternative causes behind an event might have changed the actual outcome is not necessarily the only reason for which a “modern event’’ must be remembered better than an older event. Christopher Columbus died believing that he had discovered “India” instead of the Caribbean, but the fact that the person might engage in a “historically deterministic’’ debate about how the course of history might have been different had Columbus really landed in North America does not necessarily mean that the person would not engage in historical determinism about other historical events, especially if the person has a passionate interest about them. Chronological distance has no definite correlation with interest because the latter is not necessarily dependent on time but rather on this person’s intellectual curiosity regardless of the event’s currency to the immediate present. Furthermore, thinking historically is a capability, not a matter of predilection. Even if that person remembers the IMF Crisis better than Columbus’s discovery of the Caribbean, it does not follow that “unhistorical’’ suppositions such as “if Columbus had set sail for Africa instead, he would have never discovered the Caribbean” are not relevant to historical thinking. A “cause’’ is not some given concept or model; one has to think through a selection of reasons behind an event to determine which reasons were essential and which ones were merely auxiliary or unimportant in precipitating the occurrence of a phenomenon. Counterfactual reasoning can help a historian think through a rationale for why a supposed cause is actually a noteworthy one; the only caution is to only think through counter- factual claims, not write them down as part of the actual historical reasoning. In other words, the clarity of memory does not necessarily lead to more “historically deterministic debates’’ because logical clarity is independent from the question of whether that logic is “historically deterministic.’’ It is perfectly logical to assume that if Columbus had not been adept at sailing when he was young, then he would have not made the voyage to the Caribbean, for one is only thinking about the causal logic of actions in a given situation and time period without describing the historical consequences of those actions. Thinking about historical events does not always have to imply that one is only thinking about history in terms of chronology, for situational logicality is also important to fathom causality in action, which is what gives contextual meaning and significance to time. Moreover, “historical determinism’’ is an attitude about a particular event or a specific set of events for which a different outcome would have been likely had causes been also different from ones which were originally suggested. Why assume that a desire to adopt such an attitude is stronger with a modern event than a more chronologically distant one? The expression of a particular attitude is not necessarily dependent on how new or old an event is, and chronic difference between a historical event and the individual who is remembering the event may vary ac- cording to the individual who decides to remember it. Yet, emotional attachment to a particular event need not inversely relate with chronological distance because reasons for recollection are far too varied to summarize merely as a function of time. As long as “modern’’ is a relative term expressed from the viewpoint of certain individuals and groups, there will be no rigid standard to determine which memories constitute “modern history.” Moreover, if the historian’s task is to select an “ultimate cause’’ of a particular event, how can a historian be so sure that there is an “ultimate cause’’ without ranking a supposedly “historically deterministic’’ cause? The danger of falling into “historical determinism’’ is not a good reason to avoid considering hypothetical claims, because a historian can always change hypotheses into positive statements by searching for relevant primary and secondary sources to test whether or not there is sufficient evidence to prove its validity. The suitability of a historical cause’s use as part of a historical argument is first and foremost dependent on how reliable that cause is. Carr’s other main concern about historical causality is the disturbing use of the concept of “accidents’’ in history as synonymous with the idea of “no causation.’’ The primary example that he uses to illustrate his critique is “Robinson’s accident.’’ Carr gives a hypothetical example of Robinson, who was crossing the street to buy cigarettes but was unexpectedly struck and killed by an oncoming car. However, if the driver was intoxicated, was driving a car with defective brakes, and hit Robinson in a dark alley where barely anything was visible, what was the actual cause of the accident—Robinson, the defective brakes, the dark alley, or the drunk driver? Instead of answering his own inquiry, Carr states that if two passers-by were to give the opinion that Robinson was killed because he was a heavy smoker, and that had he not gone out to buy the cigarettes, there would have been no accident, they would be employing a “kind of remorseless logic found in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass .’’ Carr concludes by remarking that such hypothetical reasoning is not a mode of thought appropriate for history (20). The main deficiency he finds in the concept of “accidents’’ is that an “accident’’ is also an historical event. It is therefore subject to a historian’s analysis of preceding causes leading to the occurrence of the accident. In other words, “accidents’’ cannot escape a historian’s scrutiny just because they seemingly occur without any single clear cause. However complex an accident may be, Carr believes that there is still a hierarchy amongst causes behind an accident which allows the historian to discern between primary causes and auxiliary or negligible ones. The historian’s ability to discern “relevant facts’’ from “irrelevant facts’’ until there is a “rational quilt of knowledge,’’ represents an approximation of a historian’s working mind (21). Unfortunately, Carr does not give a clear answer to the critical question, how does this discernment actually work in practice? There are two ironic errors that Carr commits in telling this narrative. First, despite Carr’s attempt to show why “accidents’’ are still valid elements to consider in historical thinking, he chose the wrong type of example; his example is purely unhistorical. We are only present- ed with a sequence of actions within one ‘historical’ moment rather than several different yet interconnected events across a wide span of time. When historians consider an accident and its causes, they always consider the accident’s relative importance to other events, figures, or conditions. To declare that an event is “historical’’ is to designate a relational quality which suggests that an event has a “historical significance’’ which can describe the event’s relationship or value by connecting with other events, figures, or conditions. If one is ever inclined to declare that a single event alone is historically significant, it can only happen because one presupposes that the event is already well-known because of its relationship with preceding or simultaneous events. For example, from Archduke Ferdinand’s viewpoint, his assassination by Gavrilo Princip was an accident. However, before investigating the causes of the assassination, the historian must establish a rationale to explain why studying the assassination is important. In the case of Archduke Ferdinand, the historian, using a bit of hindsight, can argue that the assassination began a massive wave of violence which rattled across the European continent and ignited the sparks of World War I. By contrast, in Carr’s example, we are not given a reason to believe that studying Robinson’s accident is historically worthwhile. In other words, because Carr did not explain the “historicity’’ of Robinson’s accident, we are not presented with a credible reason to believe that this is a historical event. Carr’s second error is that if we consider Carr’s reason for invoking Robinson’s accident as an example, the example does not illustrate a necessity or method to find multiple causes in historical analysis. If a historian’s prime objective in search- ing for multiple causes is to search for an ultimate cause for a historical phenomenon, then Carr ought to have shown how a historian might approach Robinson’s case as a historical phenomenon. His conclusion that a historian engages selectively with causes is not actually a literal answer to any of his two-part question: 1) How does a historian choose multiple causes? and 2) How does a historian actually select an “ultimate cause’’ from those multiple causes? This is because there is no reason to assume that there must be a single cause for Robinson’s accident at all unless Robinson himself or the driver told the police that there was actually one cause to the accident. Even if the driver had told the police that there was only one cause, it is purely the driver’s own opinion which may or may not be corroborated by other witnesses or circumstantial evidence. From an unassuming observer’s point of view, there is no exact means to verify a sequence of events and pinpoint a singular cause because the observer did not encounter Robinson’s accident in real time along with Robinson. Insofar as this difference between an observer and Robinson exists, there will always be a gulf between speculations and the actual truth. Indeed, because of this gulf, the real moral of Robinson’s accident ought to have been that searching for multiple causes is necessary for a historian to account for every possible explanation of a phenomenon, since the point of finding possible causes of an accident is to establish that an accident can be explained to convince people that the accident can be perceived as an accident. Carr’s argument that one should establish a “hierarchy of causes” implies that there is a particular cause which outranks others in terms of importance. However, there is no such thing as an absolute verification of a truth’s minute details for the historian, unless, very rarely, absolute verification is a necessary condition to prove the soundness of his or her main arguments. A historian is obliged to consider as many aspects of a past event, but no one can know every single detail to get a complete and impeccable picture of an event. The historian has the right to exercise a liberty of imagination based on primary sources and eye-witness accounts, but the historian must also understand that his or her tools to unearth historical facts also delineate the parameters of epistemological certainty. Moreover, Robinson’s example also poses the question of how a historian deter- mines a cause of an accident as an accident, a process that is limited by the quantity and quality of evidence one can find. Since the parameter of what constitutes historical knowledge is bound to change depending on which sources this historian can find, Carr is actually unable to answer the first part of his question. Further- more, because the parameters of knowledge are at the mercy of the availability of historical sources, an attachment to the belief that there must be an ultimate cause is both unrealistic and false, which is why Carr is never able to give a clear answer to the second part of his question. Historical causes are not tangible and therefore cannot be visually compared with each other. Of course, if a historian is writing an autobiography and writes a history of his or her life from what he or she remembers, then, there might be some liberty for the historian to rank causes and choose the ultimate one. In such a case, there is no basis from which another historian can ask why the causes were ranked in one way but not another, because every mind has but one master. The absence of a hierarchy among causes does not imply an absence of certain- ty or that historians ought to be skeptical about everything they encounter. To the contrary, there are undeniable truths in history such as the Holocaust or Russian pogroms of the 19th century. Rather, acknowledging a multiplicity of causes al- lows for a holistic consideration of multiple dimensions of a historical event from which causal explanations can be drawn, which actually prevents a historian from engaging in “historical determinism.” If the objective of studying a historical event is, as Carr claims, to search for one cause with absolute explanatory power, then the historian is actually engaging in ‘historical determinism’ because such an objective reflects the idea’s actual essence. Hence, Carr’s opposition to “historical determinism,’’ which was precisely because he believed in the multiplicity of causes, does not logically follow from invoking Robinson’s example. Furthermore, the witnesses in Robinson’s accident were actually reflecting Carr’s faith in the multiplicity of causes, so the next task was for Carr to show how he could select his ‘ultimate cause’ for explaining why Robinson died. Instead, Carr vaguely suggests that the historian has to be selective about his causes without explaining the end to which this selectivity has value. Hence, Robinson’s example is actually a Straw Man argument because the original purpose for which the example was mentioned does not become clear until Carr supplies a rationale for justifying a hierarchy of causes. As for how and why the hierarchy fundamentally exists, Carr never gives a clear answer. Therefore, Robinson’s death merely illustrates an argument about an element which is not extant in any of Carr’s arguments prior to his discussion of Robinson’s death. 5. Three Central Problems with Carr’s Methodology in “Causation in History’’ In this concluding section, I will identify three central problems with Carr’s method which will serve as a summary of this paper’s main arguments. First, Carr’s notion of a hierarchy of causes and its importance in historical explanation is unfortunately quite nebulous because he never specifies the purpose be- hind the existence of the hierarchy, ignoring the true function of historical causes as a form of scientific processing. Second, Carr’s distinction between “rational” and “accidental” causes is not valid because regardless of an event’s nature, multiple causes are necessary to account for inherent complexities in any historical event and such causes ultimately serve as evidence for a historian’s claim, which means that the more causes a historian can find, the more reliable and believable a historian’s account becomes. On the one hand, multiple causes are necessary to describe different facets of a phenomenon; a historian will summarize his or her main arguments to show readers how those facets constitute the “wholeness’’ of a historical fact. On the other hand, there needs to be a multiplicity in the kinds of causal analysis a historian uses to approximately position arguments within a given subfield of History. Finally, Carr is wrong to suggest that causes determine a historian’s interpretation because the former is just a means for which the historian has the freedom to determine an end. Causes are merely building blocks with which a historian constructs an independently designed interpretation. With regard to Carr’s questions about how a historian chooses multiple causes and selects an “ultimate cause” among them, I argue that the only certainty a historian can have comes from ascertaining that the nature of a cause aligns with the field in which it must be accurately used. When a historian asks the question, ‘Why was Archduke Ferdinand assassinated?’ the historian implicitly means that, in general, he or she is looking for political causes specifically related to nationalist motivations behind the assassination and its impact on the outbreak of World War I, rather than cultural or social causes behind the rise of nationalism in a general sense. An argument can be made that such distinctions can be interchangeable, since Gavrilo Princip’s association with the Black Hand was a culturally motivated expression of a desire to express Serbian nationalism. However, “political’’ and “cultural’’ cannot be so liberally applied in an interchangeable manner because they are merely generic labels conceived under the assumption that historians and the general public know that such a distinction can exist. A historian may find out that Gavrilo Princip preferred Serbian circuses to Austrian ones, but one does not use this cultural fact to describe anything with sufficient certainty about Princip’s personal decision to assassinate Ferdinand, even if there is nothing mentioned in primary sources about it. The transformation of a fact into a cause is actually a fixed relationship, in which a fact can become a cause, but a cause alone can never become a fact. The historian’s designation of an occurrence as a cause reflects a personal belief that an element within a historical figure’s character or a historical event has some reasonable degree of explanatory power. History is, in general, filled with facts, but it is the conditional possibility of several facts turning into believable causes of a historical phenomenon which truly excites the historian. Causes are essentially facts whose relationship amongst themselves and the phenomenon which they wish to explain is firmly and convincingly established by a rich array of primary sources. Facts which hardly need any source-based proof are not likely to become causes because they are generic and mundane enough to be independent of any historical situation. In short, what Carr really means by “a hierarchy of causes’’ is that not all causes are created equal. The real problem is that Carr never really demonstrated what a hierarchy of causes is. While it may not be possible to definitively identify which types of causes matter more than others, Carr ought to have at least shown how a hierarchy among causes can be conceived. Yet, the real heart of the matter is that Carr could not actually show his audience that a hierarchy among causes exists because there is no singular standard of a “hierarchy,’’ other than what a scholar perceives through a meticulous reading of the relevant historical literature. That Carr could not provide a concrete hierarchy strongly suggests the impossibility of doing so because different hierarchies of causation matter for different subfields of History. Movement of capital, markets, and industrial structure in the early 18th century matter more as direct causes be- hind the Industrial Revolution than as causes behind the death of the Avant Garde in the late 20th century. The difference in subfields also translates to differences in particular “states of the field,” or the variance in the levels of academic discourse about various historical topics, leading to different developments in varying facets of historical inquiry. The nature of primary or secondary sources a historian must search for necessarily depends on the questions the historian wishes to answer in relation to how certain historical topics have been addressed in the existing scholarly literature. In other words, a search for primary or secondary sources is a dependent variable of “current’’ historical scholarship because the main function of amassing historical information is to facilitate a productive and meaningful scholarly debate. This debate, in turn, will invite future generations of historians to construct new angles and roads along which the debate must continue. Moreover, because proving causality in historical analysis can only be done through a meticulous examination of primary and secondary sources, it follows that the richness in illustrating historical causality is dependent on the availability of sources. In short, ascribing a strict sense of a hierarchical notion of historical causality is impossible because of three main variables: multiple causes and multiplicity in the kinds of causes, a rigid relationship between facts and causes, in which only the former can transform into the latter, and finally, differences in subfields and varying conditions in historiography, which imply that a historian must pragmatically conceive of a hierarchy of causes which reflects the availability of primary and secondary sources and their ability to cogently deliver a progressive view or methodological contribution to the existing scholarship. The second major problem with Carr’s method is his misconstrued distinction between “rational’’ and “accidental’’ causes. An “accidental’’ cause is a misnomer because no cause can arise without a reason. Even the most unexpected events have clear causes because searching for causation is essentially identical to search- ing for reasonable connections previously ignored or overlooked. Furthermore, if Carr himself acknowledged that ‘accidental’ causes need to undergo strict academic scrutiny as much as “rational’’ causes, then what he really means is that a scholar must have the same approach and attitude toward “accidental’’ causes as he or she has toward “rational’’ or normal causes. Yet, Carr does not illustrate how a historian actually investigates “rational’’ causes because he is interested in comparing “accidental’’ causes with “rational’’ ones rather than demonstrating how a historian uses each type of cause to con- struct a historical analysis or make an observation. In practice, Carr did not have to make a distinction between the two causes. A historian can propose rational explanations for supposedly accidental causes, and once this is done, there is no difference between “rational’’ and “accidental’’ causes. I will illustrate my point by comparing Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon as a “rational’’ event, and Pierre Curie’s carriage accident as a literally “accidental’’ event. I will show how these two events deserve equally serious scholarly attention because they all involve the same process of investigation, regardless of an event’s nature. Caesar’s decision to cross the Rubicon would be a rational event because the crossing itself is a “reasonable’’ action in that a man mounted on horseback can cross a river because he has the will and means to do so. Such an action can be expected, for regardless of what the Roman Senate thought, Caesar only had two choices: defy the Senate by crossing the river or obey the Senate and let them limit his actions. Caesar’s decision to cross the Rubicon was not “surprising’’ as an action in itself; neither would the decision not to cross be surprising, unless Caesar somehow died for reasons unrelated to the crossing. By contrast, Pierre Curie’s carriage accident is not a rational event because the exact circumstances are open to much speculation. We do not know so many de- tails about how Marie Curie’s husband died, but it would hardly matter whether the driver of the carriage or Pierre Curie was drunk or whether Curie was jogging when the driver lost control of the carriage and hit Curie at break-neck speed. What remains true independent from causes is that it was an accident because neither Curie nor the driver would have expected to run into each other, for they were no mutual acquaintances. According to Carr, the rationality of a cause does not affect its historical investigation, making both “rational” and “accidental” causes garner the same approach. Although Carr never defines what a “rational’’ event is, since human beings are responsible for creating events, it follows that what is rational is what can be expected within the realm of reasonable human behavior and thought. If the primary function of historical causes is to explain why a phenomenon, regardless of its nature, occurred, then identifying how an accident became an accident is in itself an explanation, no matter how unexpected or unforeseeable the accident must have been to the people involved in it. However, regardless of how much we know or do not know about Caesar or Pierre Curie, the principles of research remain identical. A historian must first amass all records on the crossing of the Rubicon and Pierre Curie’s accident, gather any witness testimonies to corroborate on controversial or obscure aspects of each case, perform a theoretical analysis of causes and speculations, and finally, arrive at reasonable conclusions based on the existing evidence. The rationality of the research process which is common to both events is what makes a study of the two events rational, for the nature of an event does not necessarily reflect or dictate the nature of the means with which one ought to study each event. If accidents, like rational events, also have causes, then Carr ought to have shown how “accidents’’ could be considered the antithesis of rational events. An accident is unexpected, but is not irrational, for every cause of an accident is borne from actions which the individuals involved consider rational. If two speeding cars collide, it could be an accident borne from the drivers’ disregard for the speed limit, or from one driver’s inebriation. Still regardless of whether it is due to mis- handling the car or personal flaws, none of the causes are irrational. Disregarding the speed limit or drinking heavily may have been a mistake, but neither of these activities are incapable of having a logic ascribed to them, for a historian can still argue that committing these mistakes, regardless of their severity, contributed to the occurrence of the accident. Insofar as all actions have causes and motives in their creation, the historian is obliged to study them with an eye towards collecting all relevant facts, an action unrelated to how rational or irrational a historical event may seem. It is because, as I argued through the example of Caesar crossing the Rubicon and Pierre Curie’s accident, no elements are beyond the reasonably expected scope of human behavior. Regardless of whether an event was planned or turned out to be an accident, what remains constant in both cases is that there are various actions a person can take at a particular time, and every action will have a distinct set of reasons. Carr’s distinction between rational and “irrational’’ causes is therefore, a faulty comparison, for there is no clear reason given to believe that accidents are inherently “irrational,’’ and because historians can also surmise about causes behind accidents insofar as accidents are human-induced events. The final point of this paper is that a historian’s personal selection of causes does not dictate a singular direction of interpretation. Establishing causation and providing interpretation are independently creative activities conjoined by the necessity to give coherence to a historian’s general argument. Carr seems to believe that a historian is reflecting private opinions through a selection of causes, but the selection is only the means to the ultimate end-to generate a unique interpretation which does not necessarily reflect what the causes themselves have to say about a topic. Causes in and of themselves reflect no emotions; until the historian judges the causes to be positive or negative in nature in relation to the argument he or she wants to make from the causes, causes are merely guidelines and building blocks to the overall argument which gives the essential structure to the historian’s logic. Causes merely reflect a historian’s judgment about a possibility in believing that a phenomenon happened in one direction. The real essence of the historian’s argument lies in what the historian thinks about the phenomenon, not the causes. The historian’s attention must not be limited to understanding how a car’s assembly line malfunctioned, but be extended to observe how the car as a finished product qualitatively suffers as a result of faults in the assembly line. Carr’s argument about causes might be feasible if a historian is trying to find out the causes behind a historical tragedy, but even in this case, the historian’s real argument is about proving one can see that it was a tragedy. For example, if the sinking of the Titanic was truly due to a crash into an iceberg, and a historian proves that indeed it was so, the moral of the research is not just that “a ship hit an iceberg and sank.” Rather, the moral is that because of this linkage, one can conclude that it was a terrible accident and a tragedy. Even if a historian should conclude with identifying the iceberg as the cause of the tragedy, the identification of the cause does not dictate the interpretation of the phenomenon because interpretation is not about identifying what or why something happened. Instead, interpretation is concerned with what one should observe from the structure of a historical phenomenon that emerges from identifying the cause behind the phenomenon. Identifying causes alone does not make the study of History interesting; one needs to show how causes function to produce original observations about a holistic phenomenon that emerges from showing a causal relationship between or within a series of linked phenomena. Once a general picture of a historical phenomenon emerges, every historian can have a glimpse into how the phenomenon got concluded, no matter how many diverse facts about it are unearthed. Yet, the most interesting question in historical research is not what happened, but how an event unfolded to produce a particular result. In answering “how,’’ every historian is bound to focus on diverse and specific causes to explain the general outcome. Most historians will not focus on what the importance of a particular cause is simply by analyzing the cause in its own terms but on what that cause means in relation to a web of other multiple causes. Furthermore, since a cause is but one element in a historian’s interpretation of relations between phenomena; what are termed “causes’’ were actually phenomena happening in real time for historical actors. Therefore, the originality of historical interpretation does not arise simply from cherry-picking elements from a single phenomenon to serve as “causes’’ but in linking multiple phenomena into one grand narrative. In creating this grand narrative, the historian’s goal is to show how the phenomena relate to each other, and therefore to produce an original view about how to understand the relationship. What Carr’s arguments do show is that a search for causes and causation is worthwhile because every historical cause originally begins from ascertaining historical facts, which in turn, helps a historian discover and rationally explain new discoveries. Moreover, historical causes need to delineate boundaries between various subfields in History to assure that each field employs appropriate causes which best explain a phenomenon under scrutiny. Furthermore, a proper search for historical causation must not engage in a distinction between ‘rational’ and ‘accidental’ causes because all causes are valuable insofar as they serve the primary function of explaining what happened and why an event occurred. Insofar as the historian’s duty to tell the true sequence of actions behind an event remains valid for all rational or accidental incidents, a historian must concentrate on finding causes to fulfill a cause’s fundamental purpose. Finally, causes are building blocks to facilitate an original and interesting interpretation of a historical event, but causes alone do not possess the power to determine the entire direction of an interpretation. An incisive eye for finding accurate explanations must combine with a historian’s unique imagination and vision to recreate a believable “image’’ of a reality that corresponds closely to the truth which the historian found. The combination can only come about smoothly if a discovery of causes and an original analysis of the significance of the discovery are independent and not concurrent activities of an inquisitive scholarly mind. A respect for a cause’s individuality that is distinct from a historical fact, a respect for a cause’s explanatory prowess rather than its rational or accidental nature, and a separation between the discovery and interpretation of causes are essential to the pursuit of History as a rigorous, liberal, and original science. Endnotes 1 Bernard Barber, “Review of What is History? by Edward Hallett Carr,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 68, No. 2 (September, 1962), 260-262; Seymour Itzkoff, “Review of What is History? by Edward Hallett Carr,” History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 2 (June, 1962), 132-134; Jacob Price, “Review of What is History?: The George-Macaulay Trevelyan Lectures Delivered in the University of Cambridge, January-March 1961 by Edward Hallett Carr,” History and Theory, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1963), 136-145; Patrick Gardiner, “Review of What Is History? by E. H. Carr,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. 73, No. 4 (October, 1964), 557-559. 2 Aviezer Tucker, “Causation in Historiography,” in Aviezer Tucker ed., A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography (Chichester, United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 101. 3 Ann Frazier, “The Criterion of Historical Knowledge,” Journal of Thought, Vol. 11, No. 1 (January, 1976), 66-67. 4 Geoffrey Partington, “Relativism, Objectivity, and Moral Judgment,” Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 27, No. 2 (June, 1979), 125-139. 5 Ann Talbot, “Chance and Necessity in History: E. H. Carr and Leon Trotsky Compared,” Historical Social Research, Vol. 34, No. 3 (2009), 95. 6 Edward Hallett Ibid (New York: Pantheon Books, 1961), 116. 7 Carr, What is History?, 117. 8 Ibid, 121-122. 9 Ibid, 122-123. 10 Ibid, 126. 11 Ibid, 133. 12 Ibid, 137. 13 Ibid, 134. 14 Ibid, 135. 15 Ibid, 141. 16 Ibid, 142. 17 Ibid, 143. 18 Ibid, 127. 19 Ibid, 136. 20 Ibid, 138. In the actual passage, he calls it the “Dodgsonian mode” after the author of Through the Looking Glass. 21 Ibid, 136. References Barber, Bernard, “Review of What is History? by Edward Hallett Carr,” American Journal of Sociology , Vol. 68, No. 2 (September, 1962), 260-262. Edward Hallett Ibid (New York: Pantheon Books, 1961). Frazier, Ann, “The Criterion of Historical Knowledge,” Journal of Thought , Vol. 11, No. 1 (January, 1976), 60-67. Gardiner, Patrick, “Review of What Is History? by E. H. Carr,” The Philosophical Review , Vol. 73, No. 4 (October, 1964), 557-559. Itzkoff, Seymour, “Review of What is History? by Edward Hallett Carr,” History of Education Quarterly , Vol. 2, No. 2 (June, 1962), 132-134. Partington, Geoffrey, “Relativism, Objectivity, and Moral Judgment,” British Journal of Educational Studies , Vol. 27, No. 2 (June, 1979), 125-139. Price, Jacob, “Review of What is History?: The George-Macaulay Trevelyan Lectures Delivered in the University of Cambridge, January-March 1961 by Edward Hallett Carr,” History and Theory , Vol. 3, No. 1 (1963), 136-145. Talbot, Ann, “Chance and Necessity in History: E. H. Carr and Leon Trotsky Compared,” Historical Social Research , Vol. 34, No. 3 (2009), 88-96. Tucker, Aviezer, “Causation in Historiography,” in Tucker, Aviezer ed., A Companion to the Philosophy of History (Chichester, United Kingdom: Wiley-Black- well, 2011), 98-108. Previous Next

How Political Instability Unravels Religious Commitment in the Face of Uncertainty: Navigating Uncertainty in Political Instability and Religiosity in Post-Arab Spring Egypt and Tunisia Abanti Ahmed Abstract This paper explores the dynamic relationship between political instability and religiosity in Egypt and Tunisia, with a focus on the period from 2012 to 2018. The central research question examines how individuals navigate uncertainty and address political challenges, influencing the role of religion in their lives. The argument posits that tangible solutions to political challenges diminish religious commitment, while a lack of such solutions fosters an increased reliance on religion. Drawing on a detailed analysis of events, protests, and economic conditions, the paper reveals that the perception of uncertainty can be controlled and the pursuit of tangible solutions demotes religion to a secondary role in individuals' lives. When addressing citizens' concerns during economic challenges, political repression, and societal grievances, policymakers should consider creating platforms for discussion, promoting religious tolerance, and offering practical avenues for positive change, which can be achieved through religious accommodation laws, interfaith dialogue initiatives, and religious endowments. These initiatives ease society’s broader challenge in engaging in open dialogue about the complex human response to political instability that encourages a reevaluation of how uncertainty is navigated. Introduction The periods after pivotal moments in American history, such as the September 11 attacks and the Great Depression, were marked by sharp, brief increases in church attendance as communities sought solace during troubling times. Religious communities are often the first place that people who feel like they have lost control seek refuge. Is this short-lived surge because they have found alternative solutions or because religion slowly loses its allure in the face of prolonged turmoil? Perhaps online communities provide a platform that empowers apostates to be open and therefore increases their visibility. Alternatively, escalating religious persecution and intolerance might contribute to a decline in religiosity, as individuals distance themselves from beliefs facing opposition. Yet, the root causes behind these shifts remain unclear. In this paper, I will explore the conditions under which political instability decreases religiosity. In the currents of geopolitical turmoil, economic upheaval, and rocky political transitions, one might expect religiosity to be a steadfast anchor, providing relief in uncertain times. Yet, as the Arab Spring swept across the landscapes of Egypt and Tunisia, leaving behind a trail of political transformations, the unexpected occurred: religiosity rather than standing resilient, underwent stark fluctuations. The Arab Spring marked a significant period of upheaval and change across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, characterized by widespread protests, demands for political reform, and calls for greater social justice. While Tunisia is often recognized as the birthplace of the Arab Spring, the movement’s mass protests and uprisings transcended national boundaries, influencing countries like Syria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, and Bahrain, each with its unique socio-political context and grievances. In Egypt, if the period from 2012-2018 was marked by political turmoil, while the period from 2018-2021 focused on economic reforms and stability, then why did religiosity decrease during turmoil but increase during more stable times? In Tunisia, the opposite occurred; religiosity increased during periods of relatively more political instability from ongoing democratic transitions between 2018-2021 than between 2012-2018. In these two cases, fluctuations in religiosity trends were very similar over the same periods of time despite having divergent political outcomes. This is not to postulate that the essence of religion is solely a response to political instability or repression, nor does it assert that religion solely arises from a particular type of uncertainty. Rather, it underscores that within the realm of political instability, a condition that inherently diminishes religious commitment is a type of uncertainty that invites competitive resolutions that take precedence over religious avenues. Despite fluctuations in non-religiosity within a specific sub-group of the Egyptian population over the past decade, it has not exceeded 25%. Consequently, religion consistently maintains a primary role in the lives of the majority within this subset, highlighting its enduring significance and resilience amidst societal changes. My central thesis posits that when individuals are confronted with tangible solutions to alleviate the challenges that they attribute to their political instability, this set of solutions will take precedence over religious commitment. Religious commitment increases when individuals do not have access to these solutions and feel disillusioned by the future. Their perception of the future is important here, and I will discuss in these cases how these perceptions emerge and are sustained during political instability. Consequently, religion assumes a secondary role in individuals’ lives as it is outcompeted by alternative solutions that best alleviate their uncertainties. One secondary argument entails that overall trends of secularization, driven by societal shifts toward modernization, play a central role in diminishing religiosity. As societies modernize and prioritize democratic values, religious influence tends to decline. This argument suggests that broader secularization, marked by the declining significance of religion in public and private spheres, has an impact on individual piety. An alternative argument delves into the role of political Islam during periods of political instability. It suggests that individuals may attribute their political and economic grievances to religious frameworks, especially when political actors weaponize religion for political gains. This attribution may lead to a decline in religious commitment as people scrutinize religion's involvement in political decisions and its consequential impact on their daily lives. This paper will be structured as follows: First, I will discern the type of political instability I will examine. I will explore the types of uncertainties that come with political instability, and how uncertainty is tied to religious commitment. Then, I will showcase what happens to the role of religion when individuals perceive particular types of uncertainty to be present. Finally, I will introduce my cases of Egypt and Tunisia following the Arab Spring and explore how my proposed conditions of political instability are present in both despite their divergent transitions and outcomes. Theory Political instability exhibits diverse characteristics in terms of duration and intensity, ranging from brief upheavals to prolonged disruptions. My focus extends beyond a general assessment of political instability, emphasizing instances of uncertainty directly impacting citizens' daily lives and their perception of the world around them. This perception has cascading effects on how the role of religion is viewed, so I seek to analyze the relationship between individuals' perception of uncertainty with their resulting course of action and religious commitment. Religion, despite being an ancient phenomenon, can also be a psychological response to uncertainty and turbulent times. Religiosity is measured by attitudes toward religious practices, frequency of worship, and overall belief in God. When religion is tied to self-identity, changes within the political sphere are least impactful on individuals’ religiosity. In Lebanon, for example, individuals tend to identify with their religious and ethnic identities before an overarching national identity. In countries where people prioritize nationalism, ethnic divisions, and plurality of religion, the secondary nature of religion in everyday life makes it more susceptible to change in response to changes in the political sphere such as regime change, citizen repression, economic hardship, and military and police brutality. For instance, in Turkey, there are reports of decreased religiosity among youth and even self-reported accounts of hijabi women who wear the hijab in the public eye, but have said to have already “left Islam.” The Republic of Turkey—whose founding father, Ataturk, had revolutionized Turkey as a “modern” state, adopted a Latin alphabet in place of Ottoman Turkish, and removed religion in state affairs—has consequently experienced decades of secularization. Now, with President Erodgan, Turkish society reaches a crossroads with religion and secularization; as Erdogan increases the role of Islam in politics, such as reducing interest rates because “Islam demands it” while inflation increases. As a result, Turkish citizens attribute their economic challenges to religion. While religion may not be the direct cause of these difficulties, the deliberate political weaponization of Islam can contribute to this perception among the population. I postulate that there are two types of uncertainty: controlled uncertainty and random uncertainty. Under controlled uncertainty, individuals have an optimistic outlook that they have the power and agency to pursue tangible courses of action to relieve their uncertainties. In contrast, under random uncertainty, individuals have the pessimistic outlook that their uncertainties are beyond their control. This perception is coupled with a sense of disillusionment regarding the future. In Israel, for example, women responded to random uncertainty by participating in palm recitation to better cope with the uncertain conditions of the Second Intifada and the threat of terror. They inhibited both an absence of control over their uncertain circumstances and disillusionment with the future, which increased their reliance on rituals as a coping mechanism. Trauma is particularly powerful in identity formation, as it brings out what attributes and experiences individuals have in common. While existing research suggests that instability can heighten individuals' religious commitment by reminding them of their shared religious beliefs, this study aims to delve deeper by considering not just the presence of instability, but also its nature and activity. The activity of instability (e.g. living in a constant state of poverty vs. experiencing escalating instability) determines the type of uncertainty individuals perceive of their circumstances. When faced with controlled uncertainty, where the level of instability remains relatively stable, individuals may rely more on their religious beliefs as a source of solace and guidance. However, in situations of escalating instability, where uncertainty intensifies over time, individuals may be more inclined to explore alternative solutions beyond religion to address immediate challenges brought about by political instability. "The consequential secondary role of religion is supported by the notion of secular competition—when economic opportunities or social norms conflict with religious obligations—that individuals face when considering alternative solutions. For instance, during the Great Depression, as conditions worsened, many Americans cataloged the failures of capitalism and voluntarism, emphasizing citizens’ basic responsibilities to one another. Even conservative religious leaders began to join social workers and hungry Americans in calling for more vigorous federal intervention as they faced the suffering before them and their own inability to alleviate it. Their efforts took off in the summer of 1932, when tens of thousands of out-of-work World War I veterans and their families marched to Washington, DC to demand early payment of promised service bonuses. Yet as the federal government extended its place in Americans’ daily lives, leaders of some religious institutions feared for their own status. This historical example illustrates how under conditions of political instability, individuals may perceive a sense of control over their uncertain situation and may prioritize tangible courses of action over religious commitment due to the perceived favorability of the outcomes they desire." To determine, then, the conditions under which political instability decreases religiosity, I argue that when individuals face controlled uncertainty, their reliance on religion becomes secondary as alternative solutions with the potential for immediate favorable outcomes take precedence, but random uncertainty results in the increase in religiosity that many might predict. The cases of Tunisia and Egypt offer valuable insights into the dynamics between political instability, tangible actions, and the evolving role of religion under political instability. Case of Tunisia: Controlled Uncertainty In the case of Tunisia, the Arab Spring catalyzed in December 17, 2010 when Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old street vendor in the impoverished city of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, self-immolated. This came after market inspectors confiscated some of Bouazizi’s wares, claiming that he lacked the necessary permit. Bouazizi’s suicide was the result of desperation rather than symbolizing a political cause, though it was publicly interpreted as an act of protest. Several reward systems were activated after Bouazizi's suicide. Bouazizi was considered as a "hero for Tunisians and the Arab world as a whole" by Tunisian film directors, assumed a martyr by the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) of Tunisia, and named TIME magazine’s person of the year in 2011. The publicized suicide of Bouazizi made many people in similar situations believe that suicide was an appropriate action for them as well. Bouazizi was a university graduate distraught with the inability to financially support his mother and siblings, reflecting the vast majority of Tunisians experiencing soaring rates of unemployment. In 2009, the overall unemployment rate in Tunisia was 13.3%, but 30% among Tunisia's youth, who made up almost a third of the total population. The Tunisian government decreased expenditures from 45% to 29% from the 1970s to the 1990s, lowering the quality of public goods and services. Hence, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, president of Tunisia from 1987 to 2011, along with his family and other elites, created and strengthened the inner circle of cronyism—political elites appropriating economic resources and creating privileges by preventing outsiders. Controlling half the country’s wealth, the enterprises they owned produced 3% of total output and employed only 1% of the labor force. In addition, Ben Ali never allowed genuine political opposition to emerge and elections were manipulated: In 1989, he supposedly garnered 99.3% of the vote; in 1994, 99.9% and five years later, 99.4%. Political opponents — in particular Islamists— were persecuted, tortured or forced into exile. Tunisia's press was censored. According to the theory of suicide proposed by French sociologist Emile Durkheim, Bouazizi's self-immolation would be best categorized as anomic suicide. This type of suicide occurs when individuals experience a chronic state of societal disorganization, where traditional sources of regulation, such as religion and government, fail to provide moral constraints in the face of an unregulated capitalist economy. Anomic suicide is often associated with a sense of disillusionment about the future, leading individuals to see self-infliction as a way out. It's important to note that self-immolation directly contravenes Islamic law, as the Quran prohibits harm to oneself. Therefore, Bouazizi’s act can be viewed as a poignant illustration of the prioritization of social circumstances over religious beliefs. Despite the religious prohibition, Bouazizi saw self-immolation as a desperate means to escape his dire socio-economic situation. This conflict between religious doctrine and the perceived urgency of his socio-economic plight highlights how individuals may prioritize immediate material concerns over religious commitments. After years of severe economic hardship, during which most Tunisians were struggling to survive while President Ben Ali’s family, friends, and allies were getting richer, Bouazizi’s self-immolation marked the tipping point. Tunisians began to protest. Tensions heightened on December 22nd when another young man from Sidi Bouzid climbed up an electricity pylon and electrocuted himself on the cables, saying he was fed up with being unemployed. The new wave of strikes first erupted on December 17th in Sidi Bouzid, and came after the labor unions announced that they would organize peaceful marches to urge the government to improve its performance in development and employment. A few days later, a teenager was killed when police in Sidi Bouzid opened fire on protesters. An interior ministry spokesperson said police had been forced to "shoot in self-defense" from protesters who were setting police cars and buildings ablaze. The Tunisian government had been trying to manage the crisis politically before using force and the Tunisian development minister traveled to Sidi Bouzid to announce a new $10m employment program. The Tunisian government’s concessions—often met with skepticism on its sincerity and implementation—were a response to the resilience and violence of the crisis, showing Tunisians that the government was reacting to their demands rather than solely resorting to violence. This instilled hope in Tunisians regarding the positive trajectory of their protests. Despite protests, the rich were getting richer, the poor were not only getting poorer, but also had no job prospects, no ability to express themselves, and no way of criticizing government policy. The protests that erupted in Sidi Bouzid were spontaneous, yet they were marked by a level of organization and sophistication that appeared grounded in the sheer determination of those who participated in them. Tunisians faced a more costly and risky path due to being the first country to protest, unlike Egyptians who benefited from the momentum generated in Tunisia. The cost of cronyism and corruption to Tunisia is much higher because it also hinders job creation and investment and contributes to social exclusion. The presence of cronyism exacerbates the costs of protest by increasing repression, legal and financial consequences, social stigmatization, and psychological toll for protesters. The fear of retaliation from security forces was high, and protesting carried significant risks, including arrest, torture, and disappearance. For Tunisians, the standard method of expressing dissent has been informally within the party framework, but the masses participate in riots and demonstrations. The first president of Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba (1957-1987), carefully appointed members of the political elite and removed them from office in such a way as to prevent anyone from building up a political base to keep factions to a minimum. The Tunisian economy was heavily centralized around the ruling elite and suffered from widespread corruption and cronyism. Economic grievances were a major driver of the Tunisian uprising, and many protesters were motivated by frustrations with unemployment, poverty, and lack of economic opportunities. The economic challenges faced by Tunisians may have increased the perceived costs of protesting, as individuals risked losing their livelihoods or facing economic hardships as a result of participating in protests. In Tunisia, the uprising was driven by a broad-based coalition of activists, students, workers, and ordinary citizens who came together to demand change. Solidarity among protesters helped to mitigate some of the risks associated with protesting by providing emotional support, practical assistance, and collective action. From this, it is clear that Tunisians perceived their uncertainties as resolvable through risky actions, therefore partaking in actions that would immediately relieve their grievances rather than remaining disillusioned with their future, which ultimately decreased their religiosity during this period. On January 13, 2011, Ben Ali appeared on national television and made broad concessions to the opposition, promising not to seek reelection as president when his term would end in 2014. He expressed regret over the deaths of protesters and vowed to order police to stop using live fire except in self-defense. Addressing some of the protesters’ grievances, he said he would reduce food prices and loosen restrictions on Internet use. Ben Ali’s concessions did not satisfy the protesters, who continued to clash with security forces, resulting in several deaths. The next day, a state of emergency was declared, and Tunisian state media reported that the government had been dissolved, Ben Ali fled Tunisia, and that legislative elections would be held in the next six months. Ben Ali’s reign from 1987-2011 had ended and Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi, appointed by Ben Ali in 1999, assumed power. The aftermath of Ben Ali's departure marked a significant moment for Tunisia, as protests persisted despite the regime change. Protesters had gathered in the area to demand that the interim government step down and the current parliament be disbanded. Demonstrators were also asking for suspension of the current constitution and the election of an assembly that can write a new one, as well as organize the transition to democracy. There were daily protests that members of Ben Ali's Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD) party were in the new government and thousands of largely peaceful anti-RCD protests emerged.36 After persistent clashes between protesters and armed forces, Ghannouchi announced his resignation particularly following the death of three people in the country's capital, Tunis: “I am resigning today because I am not willing to be a person that takes decisions that could cause casualties," he told reporters Sunday. He also questioned "why a lot of people considered their main target to keep attacking the government, although a lot of its members agreed to join in this critical time." Ghannouchi’s resignation can be seen as a tangible outcome of the protesters' efforts. It signifies that their voices were heard and that their actions had a direct impact on the political landscape. Ghannouchi's acknowledgment of the need to avoid decisions that could cause casualties reflects a recognition of the legitimacy of the protesters' grievances and a commitment to avoiding further violence. Bouazizi's actions were instrumental in differentiating between controlled uncertainty and random uncertainty, providing Tunisians with a tangible catalyst that transformed disillusionment into proactive engagement with the future. Role of Religion Becomes Secondary As people sought to find concrete control over uncertain circumstances amid political instability, their dedication to religious beliefs weakened. Involvement in organized protests, the confrontation of severe repression, and the navigation of severe economic hardships became the focal points of their attention, demoting religious commitment to a secondary position. In 2012, the Pew Research Center surveyed Tunisians and found that though democratic principles were high priorities, as were the economy and security. 92% said that improving the economy ranked as the most important priority while 79% said that it was very important to maintain law and order. Also, people found democratic freedoms more important than religious divisions. This shows that Tunisians found these economic and democratic principles to take precedence over other grievances they faced. In this time period, a perceived resolution for these priority issues was through civil resistance, demonstrations, general strikes, and self-immolations, that were leading to visible outcomes and relieving uncertainty in a way that religion was not. Outside the party system, Tunisians became politically active, especially Tunisian women, who protested the draft constitution, the economy, and the ruling coalition. Within this political context of newly found political liberalizations, similar to Egypt, various religious groups started coming out of the underground in order to take advantage of the political openings. As these political openings were prioritized, trust in religious leaders went down from 38% to 35% between 2012 and 2018 and those who say they are not religious increased from 18% in 2012 to 30% in 2018. Tunisian Muslims that attend mosques at least some of the time decreased from 52% in 2012 to 30% in 2018. Tunisia’s troubled economy was the biggest challenge in 2017. The national unity government took some measures to stimulate growth, but it struggled to implement key reforms. High unemployment, a rising inflation rate, and tax increases plagued Tunisians. In January 2018, protests erupted in more than a dozen cities over price hikes. This further emphasizes the continued prioritization of addressing economic challenges by the Tunisian people. Secularization In Tunisia, the decades of Ben Ali’s secular regime had excluded religion from the public sphere. Its cascading effects have led Tunisia to have notably lower religiosity than other Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries with the proportion of people who said they were not religious increasing from 15% in 2013 to over 30% in 2018. The ousting of Ben Ali created political opportunities for Islamists, yet the secularizing impact of his two-decade-long regime remains a compelling explanation for the decline in religiosity between 2012-2018. Following the dissolution and drafting of a new constitution in October 2011, Tunisia no longer enforced secularism through repression. Surveillance, restriction, and harassment of Islamist activists that were previously practiced by the government ceased during the year. The new draft gave rise to Islamists to fight for power. In the months that followed the 2010-2011 revolution, several hundred imams were replaced, often by violent Islamists who accused the imams of having collaborated with the former Ben Ali regime. By October 2011, the Ministry of Religious Affairs announced that it had lost control of about 400 mosques.6 The “uncontrolled” classification means that a mosque’s imams were operating without the official authorization of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. In Tunisia’s new political landscape, the content of prayer services was also no longer controlled by government authorities, a step many Tunisians approved of and viewed as part of the new liberties acquired through the revolution. In 2014, secular parties edged out Islamists at the polls. In the October parliamentary elections, Nidaa Tounes, a secularist political party, won 85 seats compared to 69 for Ennahda, an Islamist political party. Veteran politician Mohamed Beji Caid Essebsi, the head of Nidaa Tounes and a former prime minister, was elected president in December. But turnout was lowest among the young, who ignited the Arab uprisings; among cities, the turnout was lowest in Sidi Bouzid, the birthplace of the uprisings that spread across the Middle East and North Africa. In 2016, Nidaa Tounes, the ruling secular party in Parliament, splintered. Ennahda founder Rachid Ghannouchi declared the Islamist party was abandoning political Islam. Amidst competition between Islamist and secular parties, when asked whether Turkey or Saudi Arabia is a better model for the role of religion in Tunisia’s government, 78% of Tunisians prefer the more secular Turkey, seeing it as a model for religion and politics. While the trends toward secularization during this period seemingly impact individual piety levels, the dominant controlled uncertainty factor holds greater significance, given that secularization has not been exclusive to this period and has prevailed since the era of Ben Ali. Despite the freedom of Islamist parties to enter political life, the government’s loss of control over regulating mosques, and new liberties granted toward religious freedom, levels of non-religiosity still prevailed. Political Islam In contrast to secularization efforts during Tunisia’s political transition, the country simultaneously experienced concerted efforts from Islamists to increase the role of religion in politics. During this period, the presence of political Islam coupled with economic and political insecurities might have led individuals to deviate from religious commitments as they witnessed greedy power grabs from both Islamists and secular parties who employed religion as a political instrument. From January to October 2011, an interim government moved toward reform, recognizing new political parties and disbanding Ben Ali’s party. On October 23, Ennahda, a moderate Islamist party, won the national elections and formed a coalition government with two secular parties. Ennahda first emerged as an Islamist movement in response to repression at the hands of a secularist, authoritarian regime that denied citizens religious freedom and the rights of free expression and association. In 2014, the new constitution incorporated mentions of Islam as the religion and culture of the Tunisian people while also establishing a state role for protecting freedom of religious worship and expression. Ennahda, formerly an Islamist movement, transitioned into a party of "Muslim democrats," distancing itself from the label of "Islamism" due to negative associations with radical extremism. This shift reflects a strategic response to counter the misinterpretation and abuse of Islam by radical groups like ISIS, positioning Ennahda as a moderate political force advocating for democratic principles. Ennahda’s re-labelling as “Muslim democrats” reflects frustration with outsiders not understanding its supposedly true democratic nature which may have resulted in individuals associating their challenges with these religious changes in governance and frustration with religion being politicized. Today, Tunisians are less concerned about the role of religion than about building a governance system that is democratic and inclusive and that meets their aspirations for a better life. However, the interplay between political Islam and religiosity is tied to perceptions of uncertainty. The prevalent economic hardships—regardless of the presence of political Islam—left Tunisians uncertain about the future. In 2011, 78% of Tunisians expressed optimism that the economy would improve to some extent within the following 2-3 years. However, by 2018, this hope had significantly dwindled, with only 33% of Tunisians maintaining confidence in a better economic outlook over the same timeframe. Case of Egypt Egypt stands as a prominent example of a country profoundly affected by the events in Tunisia. The success of the Tunisian Revolution in ousting President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali provided a template for dissent, inspiring Egyptians to rise up against the longstanding rule of President Hosni Mubarak. The images and narratives of Tunisian protesters challenging authoritarianism and demanding change resonated with Egyptians, fueling their own aspirations for political reform and social justice. In Egypt, decades of corruption, police brutality, media censorship, unemployment, and inflation led labor and youth activists, feminists, and individual members of the Muslim Brotherhood to protest. From the occupation of downtown Cairo’s Tahrir Square, to labor strikes, acts of civil disobedience, clashes with armed forces, and others, violence between protestors and the police resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries. The wave of organized protests gained momentum following the oustings of Presidents Hosni Mubarak and Mohamed Morsi in 2011 and 2013, respectively. These pivotal events demonstrated to Egyptians that mass mobilization could be an effective means of addressing the longstanding issues they had endured. Despite Mubarak's lengthy rule from 1981 until his departure in 2011, previous protests had proven ineffective in leading to his resignation. However, the timely catalyst provided by Tunisia's Revolution ignited a sense of urgency among Egyptians, inspiring them to seize upon the pan-Arabist phenomenon sweeping the region. This newfound determination empowered Egyptians to confront their decades-long grievances head-on. Egyptians, seeking an immediate end to enduring abuse and corruption, embraced large, organized protests despite harsh governmental crackdown and threats of death. Their perception of the uncertainty faced during this period appeared to be remedied by protests and political changes, thereby diminishing the role of religion to a secondary position. The Egyptian case took advantage of the momentum that the Tunisian revolution brought, making it unique to examine the intricate relationship between their resistance and the decline in religious commitment, challenging the notion that religious avenues are the primary recourse during times of political instability. Controlled Uncertainty Egypt has been an authoritarian government since 1952 with periodic revolts and unrest. The causes of the 2011 protests against Mubarak also existed in 1952, when the Free Officers, who led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, ousted King Farouk. Issues such as inherited power, corruption, under-development, unemployment, and unfair distribution of wealth have persisted as constants in Egyptian life since 1952. Successive Egyptian regimes have systematically used repression to ensure order. The authoritarian barter “bread and security for freedom” has been widely disseminated along with the notion that the country was not yet ready for democracy. Egypt has long grappled with a systemic pattern of human rights abuses and repression embedded in its governance, prompting citizens to attribute their crises directly to the government. While these challenges have persisted since 1952, worsening economic conditions, government corruption, and Mubarak’s rule, coupled with the influence of the Arab Spring ignited by the events in Tunisia, led Egyptians to unite in similar protests in 2011. The momentum from Tunisia became a catalyst, empowering Egyptians to engage in hands-on initiatives challenging Mubarak’s authoritarian government. President Hosni Mubarak's regime was also repressive, but opposition groups had more space for political activism compared to Tunisia, which lacked a traditional history of political dissent. Mubarak’s regime escalated violence against protesters significantly as protests enlarged with the anticipation of Mubarak’s resignation. Pro-Mubarak demonstrators targeted journalists, and, in what became known as the “Battle of the Camel," plainclothes policemen rode into Tahrir Square on camels and horses to attack unarmed protesters. The issuing of laws restricting public assembly allowed security officials to ban protests up to their discretion and were consequently allowed to use indiscriminate force on defying protestors. Egyptians mobilized protests in diverse ways and when they were repressed through laws restricting public assembly or with increasingly violent police responses, organized protests grew larger and more inflamed. Messages were picked out in stones and plastic tea cups, graffiti, newspapers and leaflets, and al-Jazeera's TV cameras which broadcast hours of live footage from the square everyday. When one channel of communication was blocked, people tried another. Mubarak had grown fearful of the protestors’ relentlessness—first pledging to form a new government, then promising not to seek another term in the next elections, and later becoming increasingly defiant about not stepping down—all the while asking protesters to return to normal. Eventually, Mubarak was forced to step down and the Supreme Council of Egyptian Armed Forces (SCAF) assumed leadership of the country on February 11, 2011. Protests still endured; during March and April 2011, SCAF granted a number of concessions to protesters’ demands in an effort to clear the streets of continued demonstrations. Human Rights Abuses Mubarak’s regime initially responded to the protests with brute force and tear gas, beating and arresting protesters. The regime responded to later increases in protest mobilization by shutting down internet service and mobile phone text messages, replacing regular police forces with the military, and imposing a curfew. This exemplifies a cycle of human rights abuses that not only heightened violent responses but also fueled additional protests, as Egyptians became increasingly outraged. Egyptians faced constant repression and abuse for decades under Mubarak’s rule, and used religious commitment as a coping mechanism before Tunisia catalyzed the Arab Spring, bringing newfound hope that Egyptians could better their circumstances. Since 2013, the military and security-led regime has reinstated its control over society and citizens with an iron fist, curtailing freedom of information and banning freedom of expression. Peaceful political participation and civil society activism, which were the pillars of the January uprising, have been de facto outlawed by the adoption of an arsenal of undemocratically spirited and restrictive laws. Protesting was costly and these laws banning public assembly made it much more risky for Egyptians to participate in protests, but the momentum of the revolution had assured individuals that there would be large turnouts, therefore bolstering their confidence in protesting as a means to confront the military and security-led regime. Egyptians, fueled by the momentum of their revolution and triggered by the ousting of Mubarak and Morsi, found empowerment in protesting. The logical nature of their efforts heightened hope for the future, as each overthrow or victory seemed to validate their path to stability. The move against Morsi deepened the political schism. Millions of Egyptians had taken to the streets against Morsi, but large numbers also protested the ousting of Morsi. A crackdown by security forces killed hundreds and Egypt declared a state of emergency. The emergency measures allowed security forces to detain people indefinitely for virtually any reason. They also granted broad powers to restrict public gatherings and media freedom. Gallup classifies respondents as thriving, struggling, or suffering, according to how they rate their current and future lives on a ladder scale numbered from 0 to 10 based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale. Egyptians gave their lives some of the worst ratings they ever have in the weeks leading up to former President Mohamed Morsi's removal from office. The 34% of Egyptians who rated their lives poorly enough to be considered suffering in June was up from 23% in January. Fewer than one in 10 rated their lives positively enough to be considered thriving. Role of Religion Becomes Secondary Fridays frequently became “days of rage” in Egypt and elsewhere because of the convenience of organizing would-be protesters during Friday prayers. Likewise, mosques themselves are often said to have served as organizational hubs for protest. Mosques functioned as a locus of anti-government agitation and logistical centers of preparation for demonstrations. While it may seem that protest activities at mosques contributed to an apparent increase in mosque attendance, thus suggesting elevated overall religious commitment, these places of worship primarily assumed roles as organizational centers during the peak of the protests, prioritizing logistics over prayer and religious services. Although, of course, mosques and Friday services were still attended for customary reasons, the dual functionality of the mosque introduced secular competition as highlighted earlier in the Theory section. Individuals are confronted with the dilemma of choosing between prayer and protest. Protest is a costly behavior that becomes progressively less risky as the number of participants increases. Hence, overall Mosque participation during the height of mass protests between the overthrow of Mubarak in 2011 to the beginning of El-Sisi’s presidency in 2014, declined. Prior to the Arab Spring, strength in religious beliefs were at high levels: the belief that things would be better if there were more people with strong religious beliefs decreased from 89.8% in 2005 to 83.4% in 2013. Additionally, the percentage of individuals with the belief that religious faith is an important quality in children decreased from 47.1% in 2005 to 27.7% in 2013. Muslims who say they attend the mosque at least some of the time decreased from around 85% in 2012-2014 to 75% in 2018-2019. Secularization In Egypt, as the regime experienced waves of regime changes and upheavals, the period between 2012-2016 witnessed efforts toward constitutional reform emphasizing the protection of civil liberties, the separation of powers, and the establishment of a democratic system of government. While Islam remained the state religion, the constitution also guaranteed freedom of religion and prohibited discrimination based on religion. The constitutional assembly was almost entirely composed of Islamists (Muslim Brothers, Salafis, and independent Islamists). Dozens of articles addressed individual rights and liberties of Egyptian citizens, which was more than the number of articles mentioning Islam. By enshrining these goals in the constitution, the government was held accountable, making failure to fulfill its constitutional obligations not just an act of inefficiency but anti-constitutional. Examples include Article 61, which demands to eradicate illiteracy within ten years; Article 66, which requires the state to provide opportunities for sports and physical exercise; and Article 184, which instructs the state to assimilate living standards across the country. While Islamist groups participated in the drafting of the constitution, the outcome reflected a broader commitment to democratic principles and social reforms driven by the demands of the people. In 2013, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ousted Morsi and campaigned for the presidency on an anti-Islamist platform. He deemed the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, imposing restrictions on their operations and political activities. Liberals called the Brotherhood’s vision for Egypt “totally contradictory with the Egyptian national character,” which they argued respected pluralism of religion and the separation of religion and politics. The banning of the Muslim Brotherhood has likely contributed to the loss of faith in Islamist parties. El-Sisi also claimed that ‘the religious discourse in the Islamic World has lost the values of humanity in Islam’ and rejected the idea of an Islamic state. When he won the presidency in 2014, many moderate Muslims supported El-Sisi because he had taken a clear stand against Islamist radicalism and expressed a genuine desire to support a peaceful understanding of Islam. And in 2018, when El-Sisi ran again, he was re-elected with 97 percent of the vote, although the turnout was low and he faced virtually no competition. The crackdown against human rights defenders and independent rights organizations have made effective monitoring of the elections extremely difficult, especially with the number of organizations that were granted permission to monitor the elections being 44 percent fewer than in the last presidential election in 2014. This has resulted in elections facing criticism for not meeting the standards of a free and fair democratic process. This can also suggest that through negative partisanship, or the phenomenon of individuals forming their political opinions based on their opposition to certain individuals or parties, people viewed El-Sisi as either the best among limited options or endorsed his secularization efforts. Political Islam When governments weaponize a religion that the majority of their populations affiliate with, it is reasonable to link political Islam and individual piety to assert that piety levels and overall religiosity may decrease. This is a competitive argument because perceptions of Islam are directly shaped by how their governments implement Islamic laws, often at the expense of neglecting the needs of the people. Individuals are increasingly witnessing religion being wielded as a political tool. On one hand, they are promised welfare services in the name of Islam, while on the other hand, their repression is justified through the manipulation of Islamic texts. While El-Sisi initially presented himself as anti-Islamist, appearing on stage with the Coptic Pope, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar (the country's most esteemed institution of Islamic learning), and Galal al-Murra, a prominent Salafist, following the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi, he privately holds conservative Islamic views. In A 2006 paper that Sisi wrote for the U.S. Army War College, he argued that democracy in the Middle East could only be of an Islamic nature, and that Islam provides the intellectual framework for his political beliefs. In addition, in 2011, when crowds protested against the military for imposing “virginity tests” on female protesters, Sisi declared that it was his responsibility to “decide if [protesters] were honorable.” However, the fluctuating influences of political Islam in Egypt between 2012-2018 indicate that it is not a strong enough condition on its own for political instability to decrease religiosity. Even the most liberal Egyptian party in 2012, the Free Egyptians Party, publicly defended a constitutional clause making the principles of Sharia the source of legislation. Even when the dominant strategy of the incumbent government was to combat political Islam—as has been the case since July 2013—the formal discourse of President El-Sisi included frequent mentions of the Qur'an and Hadith.33 The Muslim Brotherhood witnessed a consistent rise in support from July 2011 to February 2012 at 63%, followed by a sharp decline in April 2012 to 42%. Prior to the Brotherhood’s rise to power, many believed that its political inclusion would lead to its democratization and moderation. Throughout the eighteen days of demonstrations in January and February 2011 that toppled Mubarak, Brotherhood leaders were aware that the protests were not dominated by Islamist ideas but rather oriented toward the broad goals of freedom and social justice. As a result, Brotherhood leaders were deliberate in their strategies to appeal to voters by not expressing their Islamist views too overtly. This deception was caught on by Egyptians. Nevertheless, between 2011 and 2013, the old state chose to cooperate with Islamists, including the Brotherhood, to neutralize the revolutionary mood in the country. After coming to power, the Brotherhood quickly lost support among the main recipients of its social welfare network: the poor. The Brotherhood’s relationship with the poor was entirely clientelist and was concerned exclusively with creating an electoral base as opposed to developing a more substantive ideological or political relationship. It preferred to reproduce poverty as long as it translated into welfare recipients and, by extension, loyal voters. However, the strength of the argument that the presence of political Islam decreases religiosity diminishes when considering the current scenario, where political Islam exerts even more influence, and yet, religiosity has increased. This discrepancy suggests that the dynamics between political Islam and religiosity are subject to evolving perceptions of uncertainty. During the height of the revolution, Egyptians may have perceived their uncertainties about the future differently, driven by a sense of optimism and the belief in activism. In contrast, the present disillusionment with uncertainties about the future may be contributing to an enhanced role of religion in their lives. The increased religiosity could be a response to the perceived inadequacy of political solutions to address current challenges, prompting individuals to turn to religion as a source of guidance in times of persistent uncertainty. Conclusion I have posited that the conditions of political instability that decrease religiosity are controlled uncertainty and the secondary role of religion. When individuals are presented with concrete solutions to address challenges they attribute to their political circumstances, these solutions will assume greater significance than religious commitment. And when individuals lack access to these tangible solutions and experience disillusionment about the future, religious commitment tends to increase. The pivotal factor in this dynamic is individuals' perception of the future, and this analysis delved into how these perceptions manifested and endured during periods of political instability. Consequently, the outcome is a demotion of religion to a secondary role in individuals' lives, outcompeted by favorable solutions that emerge from the uncertainties they face. It's noteworthy that Egypt has faced challenges since the Mubarak regime, raising concerns about the possibility of a new Arab Spring. Despite the ongoing deterioration of human rights conditions, the intensity that characterized the Arab Spring has diminished. Reflecting on the revolution has yielded diverse opinions, with some viewing it as a success while others perceiving it as a failure. Although repression in Egypt may arguably be more severe today, the period between 2011 and 2016 marked a distinct phase. The ongoing debates surrounding the success or failure of the initial Arab Spring make it seem improbable for a similar movement to occur. Despite the immediate changes following the revolution, both Egypt and Tunisia continue to grapple with longstanding grievances. Tunisia, in particular, is confronted with economic challenges, with approximately 6,000 Tunisians joining ISIS, marking the highest per capita rate globally. Tunisians became disillusioned with post-revolution politics, especially well-educated youths, who experienced unemployment at extremely high rates. Despite the gradual political progress seen over the past seven years, economic rewards have yet to emerge, spurring some to radicalize. Some remaining questions that emerge are: Do individuals revert to heightened religious commitment after resolving political instability, or does the influence of tangible solutions have a lasting impact on their religious commitment? 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State-Owned Banks and the Promise of an Equitable Financial Sector Elias van Emmerick Pomona College April 2021 This paper will propose that state-owned banks resolve many of the issues facing commercial banks today. To substantiate this claim, it will investigate specific areas where a state-owned bank would produce more favorable outcomes than a commercial bank, trace the steps required to establish such a bank, and evaluate a contemporary example of a state-owned bank, the Sparkassen 1. Introduction The financial sector increasingly takes up space in our economy. What originated as a means to an end (a middleman to collect and distribute funds) has for many become an end unto itself. Top students from prestigious universities across the globe desperately pursue jobs at investment banks, hedge funds, and private equity firms. For example, more than a third of Harvard’s class of 2017 pursued finance or consulting upon graduating. In fact, the finance, insurance, and real estate industries make up one fifth of domestic GDP, more than any other sector. At the same time, this industry has often brought us close to financial collapse. Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz describes the financial sector’s work as being at least partly “rent-seeking”: an economic activity that redistributes wealth (often from the poor to the rich), but does not actually generate meaningful increases in overall economic growth. As an economist would put it, they do not grow the pie, they simply take a larger slice of it. This paper will aim to investigate to what extent state-owned commercial banks could alleviate some of the major issues related to the financial sector we see today, and how they could do so. Subsequently, the paper will detail how the creation of a public bank could happen, as well as evaluate two existing state-owned banks, the Bank of North Dakota and the German Sparkassen. Finally, it will summarize contemporary efforts to establish government-owned commercial banks in the United States. Throughout this paper, I use a number of terms in a particular way. Specifically, I will make frequent use of the terms “liquidity,” “public,” and “bank.” I will take “liquidity” to mean the M2 money supply: the amount of cash, checkings and savings deposits, and time deposits available in the economy at a given time. “Public” will refer to ownership of an entity by the government, rather than an entity being publicly traded on the stock market. Finally, “bank” will refer to the commercial kind unless otherwise noted. This last distinction is important to draw, as many of the conclusions reached in this paper would not transfer to investment or merchant banks. 2. The Rationale Behind a Public Bank America has had a tumultuous relationship with private financial institutions, and a number of historical figures struggled with determining the role a finance sector should play. Andrew Jackson wrote that “if Congress has the right under the constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to be used by themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.” Jackson referred to what many contemporary economists consider to be a significant flaw of the private banking system: control over the money supply. Economists traditionally assume that the federal government regulates the money supply. The Federal Reserve (the Fed) can control the money supply by trading Treasury notes with commercial banks, or the Treasury itself can physically print more bills in order to increase the money supply. It is inherently desirable to have a government without a profit motive perform this function—unchecked increases in the money supply would lead to devastating inflation and a loss of faith in our currency. Furthermore, this also means that the government is able to control the amount of money in the economy during times of crisis, and to some extent prevent liquidity from drying up. Control over the money supply is a useful policy tool that is best wielded by the state, with the interest of its constituents in mind. The reality is that, by and large, the money supply is heavily influenced by the decisions of commercial banks. Economists have reached a consensus on what is known as the “fractional reserve theory of money creation.” This theory states that banks must lend out a percentage of each deposit they receive, equal to the total deposit minus the “reserve requirement”⁠—an amount set by the Federal Reserve that banks are required to retain of each deposit— as an insurance against bank runs. After the bank lends out this percentage of a deposit, the person who receives the loan theoretically deposits that money in another account, where a part of it is loaned out, and so on. Every person in this chain now has additional money in their account, and their spending decisions will be made accordingly. The original deposit was multiplied; thus, money was “created.” Conversely, banks may also decide to call back their loans or refuse to issue new ones. In effect, this results in a removal of money from the money supply. The diagram below illustrates how liquidity in the system increases through this process. Image 1: Illustration of the fractional reserve theory of money creation given a 10% reserve requirement The unfortunate truth is that this method of money creation works to exacerbate any swings in the wider economic environment. When the economy is heating up (and thus is experiencing inflationary pressures), banks will be more eager to lend money, which in turn will increase the money supply, thereby further increasing inflation. When the economy is in a rut, fewer loans will be extended, contracting the money supply and further pushing down spending and aggravating potential deflation. When banks follow “rational incentives,” meaning that they become less risk averse during periods of growth and more risk averse during economic slowdowns, the economy does not always benefit. One could argue that the Fed is tasked with preventing these swings. During economic booms they raise interest rates, which curbs lending, and during busts they lower them, which in turn boosts spending. The problem is that the government is now acting as a middleman, when this is a system they are supposed to have complete control over. Commercial banks’ role as distributor of liquidity has other downsides. Since these banks are asked to maximize shareholder value, they are incentivized to extend capital only to those who are likely to repay it. Individuals or businesses that are deemed high-risk are penalized with high interest rates and other unfavorable loan terms. This is not incompatible with prevalent economic theories. The bank is assuming the risk, and for taking on higher risk should be eligible to receive a larger reward. However, a closer examination reveals the perversity behind this idea. Access to capital is essential for a number of activities that can lead to prosperity. Home ownership, starting a business, or going to college all typically require some form of lending. Low-income individuals are thus required to pay a higher price, both in absolute and relative terms, for these opportunities. It is morally bankrupt, as well as socially undesirable, to make loans more expensive for those who already have very little, and there is substantial evidence that this system contributes to the “poverty trap.” Studies have shown that low-income individuals on average do pay more for any kind of loan. The Federal Reserve also found a positive correlation between income and credit score, and a number of other studies have further shown that minorities typically have lower credit scores, even when the data is controlled for disparities in income. There is a strong negative correlation between credit scores and interest rates payable on loans—the lower your score, the more you are asked to pay. It is understandable that banks employ this system, but that does not mean that it is beneficial to society as a whole. In essence, the credit score system is a regressive tax—the poorer you are, the more you pay. The graph below shows the average credit score of each income group on a bar chart and superimposes the median mortgage rate for each credit score. There is a clear positive correlation between credit score and income level, and a negative correlation between credit score and median mortgage rate. This data shows that income is in turn negatively correlated with mortgage rates; that is, the lower one’s income, the higher their mortgage rate is likely to be. Image 2: Median credit score and mortgage rate versus income. A public bank could step in and resolve this issue. It could extend loans not with the intent of making a profit, but rather with the intent of stimulating the economy. This might mean providing loans to low-income communities at break-even interest rates, as they are likely to spend that money in a way that benefits the wider economy. A public bank could further act as a tool for policymakers. If politicians want to stimulate homeownership and reduce emissions, mortgages could become cheaper and car financing more expensive. A public bank would provide a direct way of injecting money into desirable areas of the economy. Banks’ focus on generating returns for their shareholders costs the general public in a number of other ways as well. Most Americans have their checking and saving accounts with one of the major banks—37.6% of all deposits were placed with one of the five largest banks, and 30.82% were placed with one of the three largest. In fact, the five largest American banks control 56.9% of all assets held by U.S. banks. Today’s financial sector can be (and has been) accurately described as an oligopoly—a few key players control such a significant share of the market that they are able to work together and set rates in a way that is favorable to them. In this case, savings rates are artificially held down. As mentioned before, banks make money from each dollar they receive in deposits. Unfortunately, almost none of that money returns to their clients. Savings accounts at most commercial banks generate negligible interest, and checking accounts frequently cost money for those who deposit under a certain amount. Interest rates offered on savings accounts remain low, even as the Fed has increased its discount rate. The below graph shows the federal funds rate as compared to the average interest rate Americans received on savings below $100,000. Both were lowered after the 2008 financial crisis in an effort to discourage saving and encourage spending, but the federal funds rate has since increased significantly. In contrast, the interest rate on savings accounts has remained mostly stagnant. The profits banks make on deposits can be approximated by the difference between these two rates—the less they pay to depositors and the more they charge for loans, the more profitable lending becomes. Image 3: Average interest rate on savings accounts versus the federal funds rate A public bank would primarily aim to further public interest rather than make a profit, and is therefore more likely to offer a savings rate that closely mirrors the discount rate. Not only would this provide customers with a better alternative to the rates offered by commercial banks, it might also force banks to match that rate if they want to retain their clients. In effect, this would constitute a redistribution of wealth from the banks and their shareholders to the general public. Although online banks currently offer higher interest rates on savings accounts, they are rather niche and lack the visibility to threaten larger banks. An accessible, well-known public bank could succeed where these online banks have failed and significantly drive up the average interest rate on savings accounts. A lack of profit incentive would also reduce a public bank’s exposure to risk. In the years leading up to the Great Recession, nearly every bank filled their balance sheet with subprime mortgages and risky derivatives, even though they were aware of the risks associated with these products. Banks simply could not explain to their shareholders that they were going to hold off on products that were generating sizeable returns for their competitors. Commercial banks’ profit incentive has at times generated genuine financial innovation, but more often than not has caused them to cut corners and harm communities. Wells Fargo, for example, was convicted of engaging in predatory lending throughout the US in the years leading up to 2008. The bank knowingly extended credit to those who were unlikely to pay it back, charging high upfront fees and then passing the actual debt on to other firms. Wells Fargo knew the risks involved, but ultimately decided short-term profits were more important. Unlike traditional banks, a public bank would not answer to shareholders, but rather to elected officials who represent the public’s best interest. Research has already shown that banks who answer to a large number of shareholders are more risk-averse than those who answer only to a select group of the corporate elite. These findings could be extrapolated to infer that a bank that answers to the general population would be significantly more risk-averse than current financial institutions. Public banks clearly offer a solution to many of the issues our financial system struggles with today. A wholly different incentive structure would allow these banks to deploy capital where it would stimulate the economy, rather than where it would only generate profits for the bank. The absence of a responsibility to shareholders would lead to higher interest rates on savings accounts and the adoption of a more sustainable risk profile. As a competitor to commercial banks, a public bank would realign the industry to be more concerned with the needs of its customers. Regardless of a public bank’s merits, the US is currently home to just one public bank, whose assets total $7 billion–about 0.004% of total commercial bank assets. The next section will investigate the steps required to create a public bank and discuss potential pitfalls in the process. 3. Creating a Public Bank During the 2008 recession, the government could have created a national public bank simply by taking over an existing commercial bank. The value of most commercial banks’ balance sheets had dropped drastically following the collapse of mortgage-backed securities, making them an easy target for takeovers. Although this solution may have ultimately generated more returns for taxpayers and fewer for wealthy shareholders than bank bail-outs did, it would have created a set of unique and difficult-to-solve challenges. Balance sheets would have to be cleaned of toxic and risky assets, and the bank would have to gradually reduce its exposure to financial products that are not in line with the mission statement of a public bank. Entire divisions that handled these products would have had to be laid off, and many clients might find that services they used would no longer be on offer. Luckily, our current economic outlook is a lot rosier than it was a decade ago, and few banks (perhaps with the exception of the ever-troubled Wells Fargo) seem in danger of failing any time soon. A public bank would thus need to be created from scratch—something that would allow for greater control over the bank’s structure and design. A number of states and cities (Vermont, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc.) have conducted or are in the process of conducting feasibility studies for the creation of regional public banks, and as such, there is a substantial range of literature available with detailed descriptions of the steps required to start such a bank. Although many studies have focused on public banks as providers of capital for infrastructure investment and providers of solutions for state financing needs, the basic principle behind their construction remains the same. The technicalities behind a bank’s creation are simple. The bank needs to have sufficient assets to begin lending, a few employees, and physical branches. Typically, feasibility studies assume the city or state responsible for creating the bank would move its current cash reserves to the new bank, thereby providing capital without the need for loans or other costly financing techniques. The only existing American public bank—the Bank of North Dakota—was initially financed by a $2 million bond offering in 1919, which would amount to about $29 million today. Research suggests that, due to the increased complexity of the contemporary economy, the required capitalization would be closer to $325 million. Since most states hold a multiple of that amount in commercial banks currently, it is unlikely that a bond offering would be necessary today. California, for example, holds nearly $15 billion in its “rainy day” fund alone. A public bank would have the local government as its sole shareholder, and any returns it made would be returned to the state or city in which it is located. As such, public banks would prevent capital drain to out-of-state bondholders and keep profits within the local economy. The creation of a public bank would be relatively uncomplicated, and a variety of feasibility studies have cited high potential upsides. For example, a public bank in New Jersey would generate about $16-21 million in additional state output, and raise state income by about $3.8-5.2 million, for every $10 million lent out. Furthermore, for every $10 million lent out the bank would add roughly 60-93 new jobs. Yet, strong opposition to the idea exists. In Maine, a bill to commission a study on the effects of a public bank failed to pass the state legislature, even though 72% of small businesses and farmers in the state supported the creation of a state-owned bank. Opponents often cite currently adequate availability of credit through commercial channels and increased risk to state assets as arguments against a government-controlled bank. Internationally, the idea has also fallen out of favor with economists, who claim that public banks are often inefficient and influenced by political pressures. The next section of this paper will investigate a current example of a state-owned banking system to determine the merits of these arguments. 4. Public Banks Today a. The Bank of North Dakota The Bank of North Dakota (BND) is the United States’ only existing example of a government-owned bank, and it is often cited as an example of the potential benefits of such an institution. The bank certainly has reported impressive figures since its founding in 1919. As shown in the graph below, it has made a net profit every year since its founding, even during the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Image 4: Yearly profits of the Bank of North Dakota Additionally, the bank has managed to return much of that profit to the state government, keeping North Dakota from running a budget deficit when other revenue sources have fallen short. The historical context surrounding the bank’s founding is oddly reminiscent of our contemporary situation—around the start of the 20th century, a populist movement in North Dakota renounced the high fees farmers were being charged by out-of-state financiers and pushed for a local bank that would be tasked with “promoting agriculture, commerce and industry.” Local commercial banks were concerned that a public bank would drive them out of business and managed to convince the legislature to impose strict limits on what would become the BND. Initially, the bank was “prohibited from opening branches, engaging in retail banking, and providing commercial lending other than farm real estate loans.” A number of these restrictions were later loosened, but the bank still is not a real substitute for a commercial bank. The BND operates conservatively, shows itself to be risk averse, and sees “maintaining a strong and stable balance sheet” as a key priority. In this sense, it has been hard to use the success of the BND as an argument for public banks in the broader United States. The bank does provide affordable loans for small businesses (albeit not for individual consumers), but “roughly 50 percent of the bank’s loan portfolio consists of loan participations and loan purchases from community banks,” rather than regular loans. During financial crises, the bank helps to maintain liquidity in the markets, but it does so by purchasing loans from smaller banks rather than by actively extending loans. The BND is a successful experiment in state-ownership of banks, but the restrictions imposed on it by the legislature prevent it from being a truly transformative force. Its lack of access to consumers and emphasis on cooperation with commercial banks mean that most North Dakotans are still forced to obtain the majority of their financial services from for-profit companies. Furthermore, the legislature’s eagerness to use profits from the BND for state expenditures means that the bank is still required to make a profit—the only difference is that this money goes back into the local community, rather than towards mostly wealthy shareholders. The bank’s conservative approach to investments may also not produce socially optimal outcomes seeing as many investments with significant potential upsides, such as small business loans or mortgages for low-income families, have a fairly high risk profile. Instead of maintaining a low-risk balance sheet, the BND could focus on providing loans that “serve a social purpose but that the private sector would find too risky.” It is also important to note that the BND has operated independently of political forces. Rick Clayburgh, president of the North Dakota Bankers Association and former state tax commissioner and state legislator, has said: “Our legislature... has kept their politics out of the governance of the Bank of North Dakota”. The supposed interdependence between public banks and the legislature is an oft-cited criticism against public banks, and this paper will explore the veracity of this claim further in the following chapters. In the case of the BND, concerns of the legislature influencing the bank’s decisions appear to be unfounded. The Bank of North Dakota is a successful institution, but it has hardly lived up to the disruptive potential of a public bank. More than anything else, the BND shows that merely having a state-owned bank is not enough to achieve the goals set out at the start of this paper—a bank has to provide a viable alternative to the commercial banking sector, as well as have a set goal of promoting investments that serve a social purpose, if it is to meaningfully change the way the finance sector operates today. b. Germany’s Public Banks: The Sparkassen Germany’s commercial financial sector consists of three “pillars”: commercial banks, cooperative banks (owned by their customers), and public banks. Examples of the last include the aforementioned Sparkassen and Landesbanken, which engage in wholesale banking, as well as the LBS Bayerische Landesbausparkasse, a public sector loan and building association. Sparkassen are a unique example of state-owned, easily accessible banks that offer basic commercial banking services to consumers and small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The Sparkassen have been operating since 1778 and were originally founded by merchants hoping to support local communities. Today, the Sparkassen have over fifteen thousand branches and control over €2 trillion in assets. The banks operate in a decentralized manner with strong geographic boundaries, meaning that each city or region has its own Sparkasse that serves local clients and provides loans for local investments. The banks are owned by the cities or regions in which they operate but are also are backed by a national organization that maintains a “rainy day fund” which Sparkassen can tap into, so that a region of Germany experiencing financial distress can obtain support from Sparkassen in prospering regions. Image 5: Representative structure of the Sparkassen system Germany’s Sparkassen are mandated by law to serve the public interest and promote regional development. In fact, their success is measured not by returns generated for shareholders or profit, but by their impact on the communities they serve. Stakeholder value, rather than shareholder value, is the key metric by which these banks are judged. Instead of generating profits for those who invested in the bank, the Sparkassen are required to deliver returns for local stakeholders. Such stakeholders include local residents, small businesses, and municipal governments. The banks are highly popular with their audience, with about 70% of all SMEs obtaining their financing from a Sparkasse. About 60% of all Germans interact with these banks in some way, with low-income families specifically making up the largest part of the Sparkassen’s customers. This broad reach is partly because of their indiscriminate approach to banking—they are mandated to not deny anyone a savings account, and they must provide the same rate of return for each customer. Furthermore, the legislature explicitly states that Sparkassen are supposed to “satisfy the credit demands of local businesses.” Besides serving customers and enterprises, Sparkassen fund socially desirable projects with the express intent of promoting the public interest. The banks together provided €488 million (about $550 million) to social projects in 2018 alone, and a 2015 report estimated that the banks added about €20 billion in value to local communities that year, equal to about 0.66% of Germany’s 2015 GDP. They also provide significant funding for start-ups, infrastructure repairs, and other socially desirable activities. Notwithstanding the several benefits associated with the Sparkassen system, the banks have been regularly criticized by European and American economists alike. Many of these critics primarily take issue with the concept of a state-owned bank rather than with a specific issue present in the system, but others have identified some salient flaws in the way the Sparkassen are run. Political involvement in the day-to-day operations of the banks has been and remains an area of concern. A study by the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel notes that, in the eight states they surveyed, 83% of the Sparkassen’s board chairs were current county heads or municipality heads. In five out of eight states, every single board chair was a current politician. More broadly, 18% of board members were politicians. Moreover, in the only state where politicians publicly declare their income, board chair fees made up an average of 12% of a politician’s income. The mayor of Regensburg, the fourth-largest city of Bavaria, is currently standing trial for accepting significant campaign donations from a real estate developer, allegedly in exchange for a favorable loan from the Sparkasse where the mayor held a board seat. Such cases are rare, but the degree of entwinement between politicians and the public banks is certainly cause for concern. Little research has been done on inefficiencies in the Sparkassen system caused by political entanglement, so the severity of these findings remains unclear. An American public bank could certainly model itself after the Sparkassen, but it might benefit from an explicit separation between currently serving politicians and the bank itself, if only to maintain public trust in the system. 5. Looking Forward: Public Banking Initiatives in the United States The public banking movement has seen a resurgence of sorts in the last decade, and a number of states and cities have introduced legislation to either establish a public bank or to conduct feasibility studies. Most notably, current New Jersey governor Phil Murphy ran his campaign partly on the promise of establishing a public bank, and he sponsored a bill on his first day in office to achieve that goal. Maine, Vermont, and New York have also voted on bills to establish state banks. Image 6: Public banking efforts by state Feasibility studies have generally predicted positive results. For example, a 2011 feasibility study predicted that a public bank would generate 3,500 new jobs in Maine, a 2013 study found that a public bank would create about 2,500 new jobs and $200 million in value added to the economy in Vermont, and a study for the city of Santa Fe found that every $1 million in lending from a public bank would generate an additional ten jobs in the local economy. Exceptions are the feasibility studies for California and DC. Both studies found that establishing a public bank would be legally difficult and capital intensive. The DC study is interesting in that it heavily relied on advice from the Federal Reserve, which stated that the income a city or state can gain by having a public bank is "relatively minor" and that the risk of losses is "real.” It is important to note that the Federal Reserve might have an inherent aversion to public banks, as these are not placed under the Fed’s supervision. Aside from this criticism, the DC study also found that public banks would spur local economic development and infrastructure investment, as well as reduce risk exposure of the financial system. The final version of the DC report is still being edited and is due to be released sometime later this year. Feasibility studies may have produced mixed results, but there has been nothing mixed about the legislative response to the idea of public banks. Maine’s bill was sent back from committee with a majority saying it should not pass. Vermont’s bill to establish a public bank did not pass either (although the legislature did approve $350 million in local investment instead), and New Jersey seems to have put its plans for a public bank on hold. As of today, North Dakota remains the only state with a public bank. The idea is seen as overly socialist by many, and as overly complex and costly by others. The DC feasibility study claimed that direct government spending towards socially beneficial programs would be far less complex and costly than establishing a public bank, which seems to be an argument that many lawmakers have bought into. Legal challenges also cause many legislators to view public banks unfavorably. Specifically, many state constitutions have provisions against “lending the credit of the state.” However, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Craig v. Missouri holds that such provisions “[do] not interfere with the power of a state to authorize banks to issue bank notes in the form of due-bills or of similar character, intended to pass as currency on the faith and credit of the bank itself, and not of the state which authorizes their issuance.” As such, banks (public or commercial) are able to provide credit that passes as currency. In Briscoe v. Bank of Commonwealth of Kentucky (1837), the Court held that Kentucky’s state bank did not violate the Constitution, as its loans contained “no pledge of the faith of the state for the notes issued by the institution.” The issue at hand is whether activities that are at the core of the bank’s operations (lending, investing, etc.) are explicitly backed by a government guarantee. If so, public banks would have an unfair advantage over private banks. So far, no proposal for a state bank has indicated that the bank would rely on such a state-sanctioned “pledge of faith,” and as such, it is unlikely that the constitutionality of a public bank could be challenged on these grounds. Furthermore, the Bank of North Dakota is proof that it is constitutionally permissible to operate a public bank. 6. Conclusion: An Uncertain Future There is a strong case to be made for the establishment of regional public banks throughout the United States. Increased control over the money supply, greater access to affordable loans for low-income families and small businesses, higher returns on savings accounts, and a lower risk profile would all result from having a public bank in place. As it stands, commercial banks largely engage in rent-seeking behavior. Predatory lending practices, low interest on savings accounts, and high credit card rates serve to generate profits for large banks by taking money from the economically vulnerable. The IMF has found that, as the financial sector grows relative to the size of the economy, inequality increases. Recent research by economists at Columbia University confirms this rise in inequality, and further found that this effect is not significantly offset by the easier access to credit financial markets supposedly provide. As it stands, encouraging progress is being made in many places. Feasibility studies are an important first step in moving this idea into the mainstream, and we might soon see a bill to establish a state bank appear in New Jersey. However, the unfortunate truth remains that lawmakers view public banks unfavorably. Beyond the practical hurdles associated with establishing one, there seems to be a general sentiment that a public bank would not fit with the capitalist ideals of the United States. Lenin’s claim that “without [public] banks, socialism would be impossible. The big banks are the ‘state apparatus’ which we need to bring about socialism [...]” has fundamentally linked the idea of a state bank with an overly leftist vision for many. I would argue that a public bank is fundamentally American. It is a state apparatus that enables the government to more efficiently support entrepreneurship, local communities, and infrastructure. A public bank, if given proper direction, could facilitate the achievement of the elusive American Dream. The Founders vocally opposed monopolies, championed a stable currency, and believed all should be able to acquire property and benefit from public infrastructure. Stiglitz wrote that, Rather than justice for all, we are evolving into a system of justice for those who can afford it. We have banks that are not only too big to fail, but too big to be held accountable. [...] The only true and sustainable prosperity is shared prosperity. Commercial banks today are hurdles keeping us from innovation, wealth creation, and achieving equality. A bank should facilitate the dreams of entrepreneurs from all backgrounds, not just those from Silicon Valley. It should not charge the poor more than the rich. In many ways, commercial banks violate some of the core values on which this country was founded. In short, there is nothing un-American about a state bank. 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*Feature* Jorge O. Elorza Jorge O. Elorza Mayor of Providence, RI Spring 2018 The strength of a society is a function of how equally its members share in its growth and progress. In a time when people throughout the country feel as though they are being left behind, Providence has invested in a full cradle-to-career approach to help all of our residents reach middle class by middle age. There is no single intervention that is either necessary or sufficient. Instead, what makes the difference is two fundamental beliefs: first, the understanding that a comprehensive infrastructure of support is required in this work, and second, that the community itself must be involved in designing the system. The City is taking a holistic approach to our economic revitalization process by hosting hundreds of community conversations across the City to help inform decisions around major projects. After hearing from our residents, we’ve prioritized investing in innovative educational programming to address historic inequities; creating dynamic workforce programs more suitable for an inclusive new economy; and leveraging our inherent strengths to produce more sustainable growth. One of our City’s greatest strengths is our diversity – nearly 60 percent of our public-school students come from homes where English is not the primary language spoken. Combined, students and their families speak 31 different languages and hail from 52 countries of origin. As mayor, one of my priorities has been to invest in innovative cradle-to-career programming to give all our students a competitive advantage in their education and eventually, in their future careers. The City has hired school culture coordinators for all middle schools who will serve as role models and provide support to students. To answer calls for better facilities, the Administration also announced a plan to invest up to $400 million in school infrastructure throughout the next 10 years. A yearlong public visioning process for school repairs, in which hundreds have already participated, was launched for a five-year plan that will later be submitted to the State. Here in Providence, only one out of three kindergarten registrants enter the classroom at the appropriate literary benchmark. Through Providence Talks, a nationally recognized program that aims to close the 30 million-word gap that separates children who grow up in less affluent homes from their peers who are raised in middle- and high-income households, we are working to ensure that every child enters kindergarten ready to succeed. By providing free or low-cost innovative programming and initiatives, we are making sure that students will continue to build upon the strides they make all school year long. Our Eat, Play, Learn summer initiative ensures that our youth are spending their summers participating in outdoor, educational and thoughtful programming. Last year, we served over 188,000 free summer meals and distributed 15,000 summer reading passports where students could track their reading progress. Providing students with tools and resources needed to succeed in the 21st century is also among the highest priorities. That’s why we’ve set an ambitious goal of providing every Providence student with access to a tablet, laptop or computer in the classroom by the end of this summer. To close the digital divide, the City launched a partnership with Sprint, which has committed to providing 600 kids from all ten high schools with free 24/7 access to high speed internet throughout their high school careers. We’re also helping adults adapt their skills to the changing demands of our economy. With the launch of the Office of Economic Opportunity in July 2017, the City undertook critical work to provide training, support and resources to residents, particularly those unemployed or underemployed, to connect them to employment or prepare them to launch their own business. The City also supported Amos House’s A Hand Up program, which has offered over 350 people experiencing homelessness daily work opportunities. Through the Providence Business Loan Fund (PBLF), we’re helping existing businesses launch, scale and innovate, promoting economic dynamism and productivity. Under my administration, the PBLF has been restructured and rebranded and now has a board knowledgeable in lending practices with upgraded loan underwriting and record-keeping standards. Over the last three years, the PBLF has issued nearly $2 million in loans to help local businesses expand and create new employment opportunities. As the City is working to couple students, residents and entrepreneurs with better opportunities, we must also improve connectivity between our world-renowned public and private organizations to create new prospects for collaboration. Providence is an educational powerhouse – we are home to eight colleges and universities including Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design and the culinary arts institute Johnson & Wales University. In addition to these assets, we also possess eminent healthcare and cultural institutions. The City of Providence is teaming up with these institutions to expand employment opportunities and reinvent our Downtown. Partnering with Brown University, the University of Rhode Island College of Nursing and Rhode Island College and the state, the City could redevelop a century-old power station – one of its most iconic and beautiful buildings – to produce one of Providence’s greatest historic preservation success stories. This project is a perfect example of what is possible when the private sector joins with ‘Anchor Institutions’ to make something meaningful happen. Preserving and reusing our historic former industrial spaces is creating new energy in our Downtown Jewelry District, catalyzing development in the I-195 land, and promoting the new knowledge and innovation-based economy. When I-195 was relocated and 20 acres of Downtown land was suddenly made available for redevelopment, we were able to capitalize on this momentum to attract the interest of distinguished organizations such as Wexford Science & Technology and Cambridge Innovation Center. Providence is utilizing our inherent strengths and new tools to leverage rapid growth in ‘New Economy’ sectors such as food and biotechnology. In addition to having some of the most critically acclaimed restaurants in the country, Providence is growing as a food hub. As consumers are increasingly focused on healthier, locally-sourced and sustainably-produced foods, Providence is strategically positioned to take advantage of this economic trend. Food production, processing and other commercial industries can provide light manufacturing jobs to Providence residents as locally-sourced foods become more popular. Take, for instance, the case of Farm Fresh RI – Farm Fresh began in 2004 as a student project at Brown University to develop a direct connection between local farmers and residents. The nonprofit now operates 11 farmers markets, coordinates the distribution of more than $2.2 million in locally-grown food to more than 80 vendors and 200 customers annually and operates two Harvest Kitchen programs that have trained more than 300 young people who were directed into the job-training program through the state’s juvenile justice system. This model represents a paradigm shift in the way that we think about – and support businesses. Farm Fresh was recently awarded an $850,000 loan through the PBLF to relocate from Pawtucket to a 60,000-square-foot building it plans to construct on 3.2 acres in our Valley neighborhood. An attractive factor of the national trend is that when investments are made in local food, those dollars are reinvested in creating jobs and spurring the local economy. That’s why it’s particularly a growth area that we want to emphasize. In Providence, we’re preparing our talent and organizing our assets to produce long-term sustainable growth that is both inclusive and equitable. By making long-term investments in our schools and students, we’re inspiring the next generation to learn and empowering them to succeed. Through innovative workforce development programs and public-private partnerships, we’re catalyzing economic growth and attracting significant investments while creating sustainable employment opportunities for all of our residents.

Mark Carney The Road to Glasgow is Paved with Data Mark Carney In a little over a year, the world will converge physically and virtually on Glasgow for COP26 hosted the United Kingdom in partnership with Italy. It will then be six years after the landmark Paris Accord, and the stakes could not be higher. Despite prolonged lockdowns of large swathes of the global economy, the earth’s car- bon budget continues to be rapidly depleted, the physical risks of climate change continue to mount, and the sixth mass extinction continues to progress. Paris was a triumph of commitment and process. Commitment by [193] governments to limit temperature rises to below 2 degrees, with a stretch target of 1.5 degrees. Process in the innovation of Nationally Determined Contributions, whereby countries set their own pledges, and the world transparently added them up to see whether those efforts did the job. That calculation, 2.8 degrees of warm- ing even if all countries fulfilled their pledges, was as sobering as it was disciplined. And it set the tone on the road to Glasgow: climate policy in the public and private spheres would be driven by data and data analytics because slogans won’t solve an existential crisis. In the event, many countries have fallen short of their pledges, and the IPCC estimates that the world is on course for up to 4 degree warming by the end of the century. At current rates of emissions, we have less than a decade left to stay within the carbon budget that keeps temperature rises below 1.5 degrees with 50% probability. Getting back on track will require a redoubling of public efforts and a quantum change in private investment. The IEA estimates that the low-carbon transition could require $3.5trn in energy sector investments every year for decades – twice the rate at present. Under their scenario, in order for carbon to stabilise by 2050, nearly 95% of electricity supply will need to be low carbon, 70% of new cars electric, and the CO2 intensity of the building sector will need to fall by 80%. For private markets to anticipate and smooth the transition to a net zero world, they need the right reporting, risk management, return optimisation. Our objective for Glasgow is to build these frameworks so that there is a new financial system in which every decision takes climate change into account. This requires a fundamental reordering of the financial system so that all aspects of finance— investments, loans, derivatives, insurance products, whole markets—view climate change as much a determinant of value as creditworthiness, interest rates or technology. A world in which the impact of an activity on climate change is a new vector, a new determinant, of value. Doing so requires new data sets and new analytic techniques. The challenges are enormous and the timescales tight, but the prize are protecting the planet while seizing the greatest commercial opportunity of our time. In order to bring climate risks and resilience into the heart of financial decision making, climate disclosure ( reporting ) must become comprehensive; climate risk management must be transformed, and sustainable investing ( returns ) must go mainstream. Reporting Catalysed by the G20 and created by the private sector, the Task Force on Cli- mate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) is a comprehensive, practical and flexible framework for corporate disclosure of climate-related risks and opportunities. Since the TCFD set out its recommendations for climate-related disclosures, there has been a step change in both demand and supply of climate reporting. The demand for TCFD disclosure is now enormous. Current supporters control balance sheets totaling $140 trillion and include the world’s top banks, asset managers, pension funds, insurers, credit rating agencies, accounting firms and shareholder advisory services. The supply of disclosure is responding, with four fifths of the top 1100 G20 companies now disclosing climate-related financial risks in line with some of the TCFD recommendations. Suitable for use by all companies that raise capital, the TCFD recommendations include a mixture of objective, subjective and forward-looking metrics: - Include disclosure of governance , strategy and risk management ; - Establish consistent and comparable metrics applicable across all sectors, as well as specific metrics for the most carbon-intense sectors; and - Encourage use of scenario analysis so as to consider dynamically the potential impact of the risks and opportunities of the transition to a low carbon economy on strategy and financial planning. The TCFD will call on new skills from measuring Scope 3 emissions to assessing strategy, risk and performance under different climate pathways. The next step is to make these disclosures mandatory through initiatives by national authorities, regulators and international standard setters. Understanding and using such forward-looking impact disclosure will become a core skill across the private financial sector. Risk management The providers of capital—banks, insurers, asset managers—and those who supervise them all need to improve their understanding and management of climate-related financial risks. Changes in climate policies, new technologies and growing physical risks will prompt a reassessment of the value of virtually every financial asset. Firms that align their business models to the transition to a net zero world will be rewarded handsomely. Those that fail to adapt will cease to exist. The longer meaningful adjustment is delayed, the greater the disruption will be. Climate risks differ from conventional risks in several critical respects, including: Their unprecedented nature. Past experience and historical data are not good predictors of the probabilities in the future. Indeed, as the insurance industry has learned, yesterday’s tail event is becoming today’s central scenario. Their breadth and magnitude . They will affect every customer, in every sec- tor in every country. Their impact will likely be correlated, non-linear, irreversible, and subject to tipping points. They will therefore occur on a much greater scale than the other risks financial institutions are used to managing. That they are both foreseeable , in the sense that we know some combination of physical and transition risk will occur, and uncertain , in that the timing and scale is path dependent. Although the time horizons for physical risks are long - not the usual 3-5-year business planning horizon, but over decades— addressing major climate risks tomorrow requires action today . Indeed, actions over the next decade—prob- ably in the next three to five years—will be critical to determining the size and balance of future risks (1). It is self-evident that the financial system cannot diversify its way out of this risk. As the pandemic has revealed, the interconnections between the real economy and the financial system run deep. And just like Covid-19, climate change is a far-reaching, system-wide risk that affects the whole economy, from which the financial system is not immune and indeed cannot hide. As the CEO of Morgan Stanley remarked to Congress, “It’s hard to have financial stability if you don’t have a planet.” So if financial risk is to be reduced, then the underlying climate risks in the real economy must be managed. And fixing this collective action problem is a shared responsibility across financial institutions and regulators. The public and private sectors need to work together to solve it, and that means developing the necessary risk management expertise rapidly. That expertise is needed because it is challenging to assess financial risks in the normal way. As emphasised by the TCFD, it means that disclosures need to go beyond the static (what a company’s emissions are today) to the strategic (what their plans are for their emissions tomorrow). That means assessing the resilience of firms’ strategies to transition risks. This will be the principle focus of the new climate stress testing regime of central banks. At present, led by the Banque de France, the Nederlands Bank and the Bank of England, 16 central banks and supervisors will stress test their systems against different climate scenarios for a smooth transition to net zero to business-as-usual hothouse earth. Returns Financial participants increasingly recognise that sustainable investment brings enormous opportunities ranging from transforming energy to reinventing protein. While green investment products, such as green, sustainable and transition bonds are important catalysts to developing a new financial system, they will not be sufficient to finance the transition to a low carbon future. We need to mobilise mainstream finance to help support all companies in the economy to adjust business models to align with net zero pathways. Value will be driven by identifying the leaders and laggards, as well as the most important general-purpose technologies that will overcome choke points in the transition. That means having a more sophisticated understanding of how companies are working to transition from brown to green, not just where they are at a single point in time. Thus far, the approaches to doing so have been inadequate. Scores that combine E, S and G to give a single ESG metric—while worthy—are dominated by the S and the G. Carbon footprints are not forward-looking. And the impact of shareholder engagement is hard to measure. Moreover, a whole economy transition isn’t about funding only deep green activities or blacklisting dark brown ones. We need fifty shades of green to catalyse and support all companies towards net zero and be able to assess collectively whether we’re “Paris aligned.” That means investors must be able to assess the credibility of company transition plans. Transition planning is nascent and of varying quality among companies. Some have a stated net zero objective, but are yet to set out a credible strategy or tactics to achieving it. Others have fully integrated climate strategies, governance and investments. Emerging best practice transition plans include: - Defining net zero objective in terms of Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions; - Outlining clear short term milestones and metrics that senior management uses to monitor progress and gauge success; - Board level governance; and - Embedding metrics in executive compensation. Schemes such as the Science Based Targets Initiative and Transition Pathway Initiative are already supporting companies to develop transition plans and certifying them when they meet appropriate thresholds. An emerging differentiator in the investment community will need to make these critical judgments. Over time, investors will not just judge company transition plans, they too shall be judged. Investors should be obliged to alignment of their portfolios with the transition and disclose their position in a readily understandable and impactful manner. There are several ways to do this. At the most basic end of the spectrum, investors could calculate the percentage of assets that have a net zero target. However, as disclosures improve in the real economy, a more sophisticated option is to calculate the degree warming potential of assets in a portfolio. A “warming potential” calculation – or Implied Temperature Rise – estimates the global temperature rise associated with emissions by the companies in an investment portfolio. For example, one of the world’s largest insurers, AXA, estimates that its assets are currently consistent with a 3.1 degree path, and it has developed an innovative climate Value-at-Risk model to measure the opportunities as well as risks from the climate-related exposures of its investments. Rating the warming potential of assets and portfolios has a number of ancillary benefits, including signaling to governments the transition path of the economy, and therefore the effectiveness of their policies; and empowering consumers to give them more choice in how to invest to support the transition. After all, with our citizens, particularly the young, demanding climate action, it is becoming essential for asset owners to disclose the extent to which their clients’ money is being invest- ed in line with their values. Conclusion A financial market in the transition to a 1.5 degree world is being built, but we need to accelerate the pace on the road to Glasgow. Now is the time for a step change to bring the reporting, risk management and return optimisation of sustainable finance into everyday financial decision making. This will require new data sets from scope 3 emissions to exposures to climate transition risk, and new financial skills from scenario analysis to assessing implied temperature warming. The common theme will be determining who is on the right and wrong side of climate history. In that way, private finance can bend the arc of that history towards climate justice. Endnote 1 UNEP Emissions Gap Report, 2019. Previous Next

The Brown University Journal of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (JPPE) is a peer reviewed academic journal for undergraduate and graduate students that is sponsored by the Political Theory Project and the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society Program at Brown University. The Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Volume III, Issue I scroll to view articles Current Issue Philosophy A Gravity Model of Civic Deviance: Justice, Natural Duties, and Reparative Responsibilities Woojin Lim Can You Rationally Disagree with a Prediction Market? Nick Whitaker The Panacea Problem: Indifference, Servility, and Kantian Beneficence Benjamin Eneman Read More Politics We the Prisoners: Considering the Anti Drug Act of 1986, the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration in the United States Sophia Scaglion Read More Economics Read More State-Owned Banks and the Promise of an Equitable Financial Sector Elias van Emmerick No Place Like Home: Extending the Equity Home Bias Theory to Foreign Portfolio Investment in Emerging Markets Qiyuan Zheng Applications for JPPE Now open! See Available Positions

Cannabis Latent Effects of Cannabis Legalization: Racial Disproportionality and Disparity in Washington State Drug Convictions, 2000-2015 Kaid Ray-Tipton University of Washington Author Danai Benopoulou Matthew Dowling Bastien Ibri Shreya Raghunandan Editors Spring 2018 Understanding if racial disparities in drug convictions decreased post the implementation of cannabis legalization in Washington state. Introduction There has been a great amount of research analyzing racial disparities in drug arrests (Beckett, Nyrop, Pfingst and Bowen, 2005; Kutateladze, Andiloro, Johnson and Spohn, 2014). Findings show that black people have disproportionate arrest rates compared to Whites. In fact, “Blacks are 3.73 times more likely than Whites to be arrested for marijuana possession” (ACLU, 2013). These statistics are surprising given that Blacks and Whites use cannabis at a comparable rate (ACLU, 2013). Hispanic communities are also impacted. Racial disparities in drug crimes in this group are harder to measure quantitatively because some agencies group Hispanic or Latinos with Whites. This causes the White conviction rate to increase, thus deflating the racial disparity present. In New York City where Latino arrest rates are available, “Latinos are arrested at 2.5 times the rates of Whites for marijuana possession” (ACLU, 2013). Richard Nixon’s declaration for the “War on Drugs” that began in the 1970’s has had many negative latent effects on communities of color and has contributed greatly to racial disproportionality in mass incarceration (Sharp, 1994). For example, “arrest for marijuana possession… accounted for nearly 80 percent of the growth in drug arrest in the 1990s” (Alexander, 2010). Images within media have reinforced the link between people of color and their involvement with drugs (Bullock, Wyche and Williams, 2001). These socially constructed depictions have influenced prejudices and stereotypes which in turn create implicit biases. These biases have been shown to have profound effects on police enforcement tactics and decision making (Levinson, 2007). Currently, police across the nation have the discretion to stop and search people under “reasonable suspicion” that an individual may be in possession of illegal drugs (Yankah, 2011). These so called “Terry” stops allow police officers to use the notion of reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk individuals (Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 1968). Such inquiries frequently rely on police officers’ own intuition - an intuition often affected by the aforementioned implicit biases. Scholars have suggested that this policing is not evenly distributed among neighborhoods and across socioeconomic statuses. To be more specific, racially and ethnically diverse areas may be subject to over-policing while predominantly white neighborhoods may be more likely to be under-policed (Beckett, Nyrop and Pfingst, 2006). Therefore, more police enforcement in communities of color leads to more stops and searches among people of color. These outdoor drug busts may lead to a disproportionate increase in convictions for Blacks and Hispanics. Blacks are disproportionately convicted for cannabis related offenses, which disrupts many areas of life including family, employment opportunities, housing, and well-being (Massey, 2007). It is important to note that even stops and searches that yield no results for the police may lead to continued harassment and embarrassment for members of the community due to the “War or Drugs”. Recently, cannabis has been highly debated as a substance that could be legalized for medical and/or recreational purposes (Coulkins, Kilmer, Kleiman, MacCoun, Midgette, Oglesby, Paucula and Reuter, 2015). The federal government has yet to lift the national prohibition of cannabis but many states have begun to revise their laws regarding it. There are currently 23 states and the U.S. territories of Guam and Puerto Rico that have passed laws to legalize medical cannabis. There are only nine states and the District of Columbia that have legalized recreational use as well; these states include Alaska, California, Colorado, Oregon, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Vermont, and Washington (Guttmannova, Lee, Kilmer, Fleming, Rhew, Kosterman and Larimer, 2016). Cannabis being decriminalized in these states may have profuse positive outcomes for people of color. Policing would be reduced for cannabis use and possession within these states. Blacks and Hispanics in these areas may be subject to fewer convictions by police because of the nature of the fledgling laws. In this paper, I will analyze latent outcomes of the legalization of cannabis. More specifically, I will examine racial disproportionality in drug conviction pre and post the legalization of cannabis for recreational use in King County and Washington State. I expect to find reductions in racial disproportionality in drug convictions post cannabis legalization at the county and state level. Background History of Cannabis in the United States and Its Links to Race/Ethnicity Scholars suggest that cannabis was first brought to the United States in the beginning of the 1600s. The Jamestown settlers primarily used this plant in hemp production and cultivation until around 1850 (Anderson, Hansen and Rees, 2013). The uses for hemp ranged from clothing and oil to edible nuts. Subsequently following the end of hemp cultivation was the use of hemp for medicinal purposes. The use of herbal medicine did not last very long. As the alcohol prohibition gained support in the 1850s, so did the movement to outlaw cannabis. The first prohibition of recreational cannabis use was passed in 1913 by California. By 1936, the rest of the 47 states decided to do the same (Anderson, Hansen and I. Rees, 2013). In the years to come, these policies led to immense consequences for the consumer, including the label of felon with a stigma that restricted occupational attainment, and included hefty incarceration time and large monetary sanctions. For instance, possessing one joint (cannabis cigarette) in Arizona could lead to up to 10 years in prison with a fine of $50,000 (Inciardi, 1981). Policies and laws such as these became monolithic because “those who have actively promoted these laws, the moral entrepreneurs of drug legislation, have relied on racial slurs and allusions to bolster their arguments for criminal controls” (Provine, 2007). In 1970, cannabis was classified as a Schedule I substance along with heroin and LSD. For a substance to be listed as a Schedule I drug, it must not be accepted for medical use, have a high potential for abuse, and be considered a dangerous drug that can cause psychological and physical dependence (United States Drug Enforcement Administration, 2015). As time moved on, groups began to consider cannabis for medicinal purposes. The Food and Drug Administration began to allow cannabis for medical use in 1978. The number of medical cannabis patients flourished and California eventually passed the Compassionate Use Act in 1996 to allow for personal use of the plant (N. Yankah, 2011). Two years after, Washington State passed Initiative 692 titled Washington State Medical Use of Marijuana Act (Washington State Medical Association). This allowed for the growing, possession, sale, and use of cannabis for medical patients. It is worth noting that this initial stance against cannabis did not necessarily happen out of fear of the potential negative effects of the drug, such as addictive, psychological, and physiological damage. Instead, the prohibition on cannabis developed as a result of anti-minority feeling (Bonnie and Whitebread, 1970). Inciardi (1981) conducted a social constructionist analysis of newspapers about cannabis published in the late 1800s and early 1900s and showed that headlines negatively linked cannabis with communities of color. For example, the New York Times published an article in 1972 titled “Mexican Family Go Insane”. This particular article detailed how a widow and her four children accidentally ate cannabis as part of their vegetables for dinner. In the neighbor’s account, they described hearing “crazed laughter” and rushed to the house to see the entire family “insane”. The doctors said that there would be no hope for the mother and children and that they would be insane for the rest of their lives. These early depictions linking race and drugs have lasting effects on media consumers. For example, results from a study done in 1995 asked respondents to imagine what a typical drug user looks like. Analysis indicates that 95% of the respondents thought of an African American person (Burston, Jones and Robertson-Saunders, 1995). The acceptability of illegal substance tended to rely on the social position of the consumers (H. Skolnick and Dombrink, 1978). The perceived deviance of cannabis intensified once linked with racial/ethnic minorities. Whites were seen as upper class and angelic. People of color were paired with a lower social class, at times considered non-human in the early 1900s. This helps explain the overstated deviance of cannabis. The deviance also increased when the effects were dramatized and exaggerated. In 1936, the American Journal of Nursing said that a cannabis user may “suddenly turn with murderous violence upon whomever is nearest to him. He will turn amuck with knife, axe, gun, or anything else that is close at hand, and will kill or maim without any reason" (Musto, 1991). Articles such as these from professionals are an example of the control around cannabis use and how it was perceived by the general public. Cannabis Laws in King County and Washington State and Implications for 2012 As Seattle is the most populated city in King County and thus Washington State, I will give emphasis to their policies and the city will have the most influence per this discussion. In 2003, Seattle, Washington voters passed the Marijuana Law Enforcement or “Initiative 75”. This initiative required all cannabis offenses for adult personal use to be the lowest priority for the Seattle Police Department (SPD) (Atherly and Baird, 2014). This change in the Seattle municipal code was a huge step towards decriminalization of cannabis in Washington State (Seattle, Washington Municipal code 12A.20.060). Subsequently, on November 6th 2012, Washington Initiative 502 was approved by a majority vote (Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, 2015). The cannabis reform had many different components that took over a year to be fully established. The passing of I 502 legalized the recreational use of cannabis for individuals 21 and older. A 21 year old may possess up to one ounce of usable cannabis, seven grams of cannabis concentrates/extracts, 16 ounces of cannabis infused in a solid form, up to 72 ounces of cannabis infused in liquid form, and also paraphernalia related to cannabis. Only cannabis producers, processors, and retailers with a license are permitted to distribute cannabis. Seattle’s massive drug market has been analyzed and researched during these years to learn if there are disparities among race and ethnicities in drug convictions. Katherine Beckett demonstrates that Seattle is unique in many ways. During the 2000s, Seattle was estimated to have the fourth largest drug market in the country. The predominantly white city has a white population of about 70% and 8% black population. Despite the low proportion of Blacks, during a 28-month investigation in Seattle, black people represented 51.1% of drug violation arrests (Beckett, Nyrop, Pfingst and Bowen, 2005). Beckett et. al (2005) attribute most of these arrests to the focus on crack cocaine by the SPD. This may be due to the fact that crack cocaine has been represented through media as a “Black” drug (Kutateladze, Andiloro, Johnson and Spohn, 2014). Another reason for the high number of arrests is explained by the location of the drug market. Beckett et. al suggest that the SPD tends to focus on racially diverse outdoor drug markets, such as Downtown Seattle, compared to indoor and/or outdoor White drug markets, such as a neighborhood named Capitol Hill (Beckett, Nyrop and Pfingst, 2006). Previous research on Seattle’s drug market indicates that Blacks and Hispanics do not necessarily use or sell at higher rates than Whites, and yet, the SPD tends to focus on people of color. These results of racial disparity are consistent with other states as well. New York data shows that there are not just disproportionate percentages in possession/delivery arrests, but that Blacks and Hispanics are also more likely than Whites to be arrested for smoking cannabis in public and cannabis misdemeanor sales. They are also likely to spend more time in jail or prison for these cannabis offenses (Golub, D. Johnson and Dunlap, 2007). Thus, it is clear that people of color—primarily Blacks and Hispanics—are being convicted disproportionately for drugs. Given that cannabis is legal in the state of Washington, I want to first investigate if the legalization has had a significant impact on the number of drug convictions for people of color. Second, I will examine how much of an impact a prior conviction has on one’s probability of being convicted of a drug offense for each race and ethnicity. This is done by first illustrating drug conviction rates and then examining drug convictions on the condition that the offender has a prior conviction. I also compare the results from King County to Washington as a whole. Lastly, I have computed multivariate logistic regressions to analyze the likelihood of being convicted of a drug offense in Washington State and King County. There have been reports that show cannabis-related arrests and convictions have decreased 81% between 2011 and 2014 (Drug Policy Alliance, 2015). There may be racial/ethnic differences, which I will attempt to contextualize. Subsequently, I will examine the association between the 2012 legalization of cannabis in Washington State and drug conviction rates between different racial/ethnic groups. Methods In the following analysis, I focus on racial/ethnic disproportionality and disparity in drug convictions in Washington State. Unfortunately, the data does not allow me to break out cannabis-related convictions from other types of drug convictions. I use the term disproportionate in convictions to refer to the overrepresentation of certain groups of defendants compared to their representation in the general population. I use the term disparity in convictions to refer to the portion of overrepresentation in convictions of one subgroup that can be explained by differences in the institutional processing of that specific racial/ethnic group as compared to other racial/ethnic groups. That is, racially motivated differences in processing and treatment explains disproportionate overrepresentation of certain groups in drug convictions. Data I examined all convictions within the state of Washington from January of 2000 to June of 2015 using data from the Database and Sentencing of Washington State Caseload Forecast Council Sentencing Data (Washington State Caseload Forecast Council, 2000-2015). My data includes 409,455 convictions of which 36,521 were drug convictions. Variables The dependent variable for analysis is drug conviction (1) or non-drug conviction (0). The primary independent variable of interest is the race/ethnicity of the convicted defendant. The racial/ethnic categories used are White (reference group), Black, Asian, Native American, and Hispanic. The control variables included in the analysis are year of conviction, 2000 (reference year) to 2015, sex (0=Female, 1=Male), county of conviction (King County is reference county), and whether the defendant had any prior convictions (0=no prior offense, 1=prior offense). Each of the control variables will be needed to test the robustness of the influence that the dependent variable has on the independent variable. The year of conviction is relevant because there are many fluctuations over the years in drug convictions. In 2012, Washington State legalized recreational cannabis usage for individuals over 21 years old. There are also gender differences in risk of arrest and convictions (Rodriguez, Curry and Lee, 2006). The counties of Washington State contain differing police practices and demographics. We predict that if a defendant had prior convictions, that might increase the likelihood of a subsequent conviction. These individuals may be targeted as the “usual suspects” (Kutateladze, Andiloro, Johnson and Spohn, 2014). Analytical Approach I compute several bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models. Model A includes all Washington State conviction cases, and Model B includes only convictions in King County, the largest county in this state. The full-state logistic bivariate regression is: The logistic multivariate regression for Washington will be computed as: The King County logistic bivariate regression is formulated as: The King County formula logistic regression is computed as follows: To test for significance of the data, I have conducted a two-tailed 95% confidence interval. When p-values are below a α level of .05, this will indicate that we reject the null hypothesis. The HO is as follows, there is no difference by race or ethnicity in the number of drug convictions when compared to whites (β=0). The HA can be understood as the number of drug convictions is different for each race or ethnicity when compared to whites (β≠0). Findings I will present the findings under three categories. I first examine the racial and ethnic disproportionality in drug conviction. I then discuss the relationship between prior drug convictions and new drug convictions. Finally, I discuss the racial and ethnic disparity in drug conviction. Table 1 presents the summarized statistics for the racial, ethnic, and gender characteristics of convicted defendants in Washington State and King County, averaged between the years 2000 and 2015. Comparing pie charts 1 and 2, and 3 and 4 above demonstrate clear disproportionate numbers when comparing Whites and Blacks in Washington, King County in particular. As the pie charts show, in the state of Washington, Whites comprise 80.7% of the population and 65.49% of drug convictions. Blacks make up a small percentage of the Washington population (4.1%), but an astonishing 5th of the drug convictions (20.08%) - clearly disproportionate. On the other hand, all the other races, i.e. Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asians all have drug convictions relative to or less than their population size in the state. Table 1: Variables and Summary Statistics for Washington State and King County Drug Convictions, 2000 - 2 Note: The median, mean and standard deviation are each the median value across all years (Washington State Caseload Forecast Council) Racial and Ethnic Disproportionality in Drug Convictions Figure 1 is a line graph showing the number of drug convictions by race and year in the whole state. In terms of aggregate numbers, Whites have a larger number of convictions than non-Whites. For most years, Whites remain above 1,300 drug convictions and display 464 convictions halfway through 2015. Native Americans and Asians are convicted at similar rates in Washington State, staying below 75 drug convictions every year. Native Americans hold 9 drug convictions and Asians have 20 for 2015. Hispanic drug convictions have been on a steady decline since 2000. 2015 shows that Hispanics have 69 drug convictions. Blacks peak with 758 drug convictions in 2000, slowly decrease over time hovering around the 500 line until 2010, and then are convicted of a drug offense 87 times in 2015. When first looking at Figure 1, there does not seem to be a significant disparity in drug convictions for Blacks. However, examination of the proportions of convictions suggest racial disproportionality in conviction rates. I will do this by analyzing the proportions of drug convictions regardless if there has been any prior conviction in Figure 2. Throughout all sixteen years, Whites in Washington are convicted well under their 2014 population size. In 2012, the year of legalization, and beyond, Blacks experience their all-time lows in conviction rates for drugs. However, despite their smallest percentage at 13% of the drug conviction rate in 2014 and 2015, it is still about double their population size of 6.7%. On the other hand, Asians, Native Americans, and Hispanics are convicted of a drug offense relative or under their population size. The story changes dramatically when we analyze King County. Figure 3 represents drug convictions in King County. Although Blacks only make up 6.7% of the population in King County, they still have up to about half of the drug convictions for most years. This shows immense disproportionality in conviction rates. On the other hand, other ethnic and racial groups are convicted at rates under or comparable to their population. Relationship Between Prior Drug Convictions and a New Drug Conviction Looking at the Washington drug convictions show that an individual with prior convictions has significantly higher chances of future conviction. Figure 5 illustrates that every year excluding 2015, Blacks with a prior conviction comprise 50% or more of drug convictions. Again, Blacks are 6.7% of the population in King County. Yet among drug convictions annually, Blacks with a prior conviction comprise up to 65% of those convicted of subsequent drug crimes. This data indicates that Blacks are being re-convicted at much higher rates if they have a prior offense than are Whites, who comprise a majority (70%) of the population. Figure 5 shows that the two lowest fractions for Blacks are in years after legalization. The data set shows an increase in 2013 (60%) but then lows in 2014 (50%) and 2015 (45%). Figures 4 and 5 suggest that convictions may have been influenced by the passing of Initiative 75 in King County. Both graphs show that in 2002, there were high proportions of Black people who were convicted of drug-related offenses, and the percentage decreases by a few percentage points in 2003. This could be the result of the de-emphasis of cannabis arrests in King County. This percentage drastically reduced after the passing of I-75, from 29% to 13% in Washington, and from 62% to 45% in King County. Racial and Ethnic Disparity in Drug Conviction Figures 6 and 7 present the odds ratios computed from the multivariate logistic regression. The model compares each racial and ethnic groups probability of being convicted of a drug offense in King County or Washington to Whites’ probability of being convicted. For example, a value of 1.00 means that a person of that race has the same probability of a White individual being convicted. This would mean that in the year 2000, the odds ratio of 2.68 means that Hispanics in Washington State had a 168% higher probability of being convicted of a drug offense than Whites. The Washington and King County multivariate logistic regressions are surprisingly different. Figure 6 presents findings for the likelihood of a drug conviction in Washington State. It shows that Hispanics hover above the odds ratio of 1.50 for every year except for 2006. These numbers show that Hispanics are consistently convicted at higher rates than Whites. Blacks also have higher conviction rates in Washington State. Post cannabis legalization, the likelihood of conviction for a drug offense has decreased for Blacks, bringing the rate to almost that of Whites. In recent years, Blacks’ likelihood of conviction has decreased to about 56% of their White counterparts’ likelihood of being convicted. Asians are convicted around the same rate as Whites, never showing disparity. Figure 7 presents findings for the likelihood of a drug conviction in King County. Asians are convicted at the lowest rates next to Native Americans. For the first ten of the sixteen years of data, Hispanic individuals have over 200% higher likelihood than their White counterparts of being convicted of drug offenses. In 2007, however, the higher likelihood was 673%. Similarly, for most years, Black individuals are 100% more likely to be convicted of a drug offense. However, comparable to the other racial and ethnic categories, post 2012 we see a decrease in the rates of disparity. The logistic regression shows that the probability of getting a drug conviction in King County if you are Black still ranges between 70% and 108% higher likelihood than Whites. Washington State data shows otherwise. Three of the lowest probability ratings come in 2012 and beyond. This data could potentially mean that legalization is having a continuing positive effect on Black communities in Washington. Fewer individuals may be subject to harassment and patrolling because of the nature of the new laws. I have also the statistical significance for each race indicator variable using the multivariate logistic regressions. I have conducted a two-tailed hypothesis test with a 95% confidence interval. Figure 8 shows the distribution of how many years each coefficient on race/ethnicity were statistically significant in Washington and King County. In Washington State, the race indicator for Blacks is statistically significant for 13 years out of 16. This means that the p-value of the observations is below the e α level of .05. Thus, one would not expect these observations to occur by chance more than 1 in 20 times. We fail to reject the null hypothesis for the years 2012, 2014 and 2015. It is noteworthy that these are all years during or post the legalization of cannabis. For every year in King County, the coefficient on a Black race indicator variable is statistically significant. In Washington, the race indicator variable for Hispanics is statistically significant every year. On the other hand, in King County, the race indicator variable is statistically significant for only five years. The variables associated with Asians and Native Americans have a lower frequency of statistical significance. For Native Americans, eleven out of the sixteen years in Washington State are statistically significant. Disparities seem to vanish for Blacks at the state level in 2012 and during the post-legalization period. Hispanics experience this same alleviation of inequality in King County post-legalization. The data shows that Asians are convicted of drug offenses significantly less than Whites. Conclusion The United States is currently facing a problem of mass incarceration. Jails and prisons are disproportionately populated with people of color. Prior research has shown that Blacks and Hispanics are convicted at higher rates for drug offenses. Some scholars have attributed this to the negative media portrayals of these communities. These biases may have been internalized by police departments and have created unequal enforcement regarding drugs. For example, crack cocaine is seen as more deviant and penalized much heavier than cocaine. The difference is that crack cocaine is associated with poor urban Blacks (Beckett, Nyrop, Pfingst and Bowen, 2005). In this paper, I conduct a longitudinal study of drug convictions in Washington State and King County. My findings suggest that drug convictions in Washington and King County have decreased over time. Further research should be conducted to understand if this decrease in drug convictions may be attributed to a decrease in cannabis convictions specifically. A major limitation of my data is that all drug convictions are grouped together. Different drugs are not penalized the same way by criminal justice systems. Racial and ethnic groups may also be convicted at different rates depending on the substance. Overall, the data shows that in Washington and especially in King County, there is a great deal of racial and ethnic disproportionality in drug conviction rates, and racial disparity in drug convictions. Whites have an extremely low probability of being convicted than Blacks and Hispanics. Figure 4 and 5 shows that there is a significant impact of having a prior conviction on the probability of being convicted for a drug offense. In King County every year, Blacks have the highest proportion of drug convictions with the condition of having a prior conviction. This supports prior research in New York City that indicates the likelihood of a conviction increases substantially with the number of prior arrests (Golub, D. Johnson and Dunlap, 2007). Further investigation is necessary to explore why Blacks with a prior offense are being convicted at such higher rates within King County than Whites. Despite the unequal conviction rates, post-legalization in King County does seem to alleviate the racial disparity in drug convictions. The high proportions of non-White individuals convicted for drug offenses in King County may indicate that the policing practices are much different than other counties in Washington. Individuals of color have historically been under heavy surveillance by law enforcement that have institutionalized racial inequality and is perpetuated in conviction after conviction. The effects of the legalization of cannabis may benefit communities of color. The legalization of cannabis may lead to a decrease in racial and ethnic disproportionality and disparities in criminal justice contact for communities of color. References American Civil Liberties Union. “The War on Marijuana in Black and White: Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests.” ACLU, 2013. (https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdf ) Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The New Press, 2010. Anderson, D. Mark, Benjamin Hansen and Daniel I. Rees. “Medical Marijuana Laws, Traffic Fatalities, and Alcohol Consumption.” Journal of Law and Economics Vol. 56(2): 333-369, 2013. Athlerley, Loren T., Mark Baird. “Public Possession of Legal Marijuana.” Seattle Police Publications, 2014. Bullock, H. E., Fraser Wyche, K., & Williams, W. R. “Media images of the poor.” Journal of Social Issues, 57(2), 229-246, 2001. Beckett, Katherine, Kris Nyrop, Lori Pfingst and Melissa Bowen. “Drug Use, Drug Possession Arrests, and the Question of Race: Lessons from Seattle.” Social Problems, Vol. 52(3), 2005: 419-441. Beckett, Katherine, Kris Nyrop and Lori Pfingst. “Race, Drugs and Policing: Understanding Disparities in Drug Delivery Arrests.” Criminology, Vol. 44(1), 2006: 105-137. Bonnie, R. J., & Whitebread, C. H. “The forbidden fruit and the tree of knowledge: an inquiry into the legal history of American marijuana prohibition.” Virginia Law Review, 1970: 971-1203. Burston, Betty Watson, Dionne Jones, and Pat Roberson-Saunders. “Drug Use and African Americans: Myth versus Reality.” Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, 40, 1995:19-39. Caulkins, J. P., Kilmer, B., Kleiman, M. A., MacCoun, R. J., Midgette, G., Oglesby, P., & Reuter, P. H. “Considering marijuana legalization: insights for Vermont and other jurisdictions.” Rand Corporation, 2015. Census. “QuickFacts: King County, Washington.” 2015. Retrieved December. 7, 2015. (http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/POP060210/53033 ) Drug Policy Alliance. Marijuana Legalization in Washington After 1 Year of Retail Sales and 2.5 Years of Legal Possession. New York. 2015. Retrieved May. 14, 2016. (https://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/Drug_Policy_Alliance_Status_Report_Marijuana_Legalization_in_Washington_July2015.pdf ) Golub, Andrew, Bruce D. Johnson and Eloise Dunlap. “The Race/Ethnicity Disparity in Misdemeanor Marijuana Arrests in New York City.” National Development and Research Institutes, Vol. 6(1), 2007: 131-164. Guttmannova, K., Lee, C. M., Kilmer, J. R., Fleming, C. B., Rhew, I. C., Kosterman, R., & Larimer, M. E. “Impacts of Changing Marijuana Policies on Alcohol Use in the United States.” Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 40(1), 2016: 33-46. H. Skolnick, Jerome and John Dombrink. “The Legalization of Deviance.” Criminology, Vol. 16(2), 1978: 193-207. Inciardi, James A. “Marijuana Decriminalization Research.” Criminology, Vol. 19(1), 1981: 145- 158. King County. Statistical Profile on 2000 Census. 2000. Retrieved on May. 13, 2016. (https://www.kingcounty.gov/exec/PSB/PerformMgmt/~/media/exec/PSB/documents/AGR/09AGR/KC_all/KC_prof09.ashx ) L. Kutateladze, Besiki, Nancy R. Andiloro, Briana D. Johnson and Cassia C. Spohn. “Cumulative Disadvantage: Examining Racial and Ethnic Disparity in Prosecution and Sentencing.” Criminology, Vol. 52(3), 2014, : 514-551. Levinson, J. D. “Forgotten Racial Equality: Implicit Bias, Decision making, and Misremembering.” Duke Law Journal, 57(2), 2007: 345–424. Massey, Douglas S. Categorically Unequal. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Musto, D. F. (1991). Opium, cocaine and marijuana in American history. Scientific American, 265(1), 2007: 40-47. N. Yankah, Ekow . ( “A Paradox in Overcriminalization.” New Criminal Law Review, Vol. 14(1), 2011: 1-34. Rodriguez, S. F., Curry, T. R., & Lee, G. “Gender Differences in Criminal Sentencing: Do Effects Vary Across Violent, Property, and Drug Offenses?” Social Science Quarterly, 87(2), 2006: 318–339. Provine, D. M. Unequal under law: Race in the war on drugs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. S. Crawford, Seth. “Estimating the Quasi- Underground: Oregon’s Informal Marijuana Economy.” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, Vol. 36, 2014: 118-137. Seattle, Washington Municipal code 12A.20.060 Sharp, Elaine B. The Dilemma of Drug Policy in the United States. New York, NY: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1994. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1. U.S. Supreme Court, 1968. United States Drug Enforcement Administration. Drug Scheduling. 2015. Retrieved Dec. 5, 2015 (http://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml ) Washington State Caseload Forecast Council. 2016. Sentencing Data. Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board. Frequently Asked Questions on I-502. 2015. Retrieved Dec. 7, 2015 (http://www.liq.wa.gov/mj2015/faqs_i-502 ) Washington State Medical Association. (n.d). Medical and Recreational Marijuana. 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Transcendental Self Reconceptualizing the Idea of the Self within Western Philosophy: The Existence-Reason Binary and the Nonrational Transcendental Self Jennifer Kim Pomona College Author Ebba Brunnstrom Grace Engelman Alan Garcia-Ramos Fengyi Wan Editors Spring 2018 In order to overcome the existence-reason binary present in philosophy, I propose the notion of nonrational transcendental self. In philosophy, the ontological question asks, “How might a self understand its own being?” Views on the self were initially dominated by the rationalists, who argue that reason, rather than sense experience, reveals the true nature of things. In response, a subsequent movement called existentialism critiques rationalism for mistaking the human being as a stagnant thinker. Existentialists argue that human beings are not merely rational beings, but also dynamic subjects who experience and change. From the existentialist viewpoint, reason by itself is wholly incapable of capturing the subject’s lived experience. In my observation, the rationalist-existentialist debate gave rise to a conceptual binary, where existence and reason are mutually exclusive. It is my view that this binary hinders the revolutionary potential of existentialist philosophy. The binary is problematic because it disallows an alternative understanding of the self outside of reason and existence. There are complexities in our nature that occur outside the binary, such as our nonrational selves. If we continue to approach ontology without breaking the binary, we can never accurately or sufficiently answer the basic question of how to understand our own being. My answer to resolving the binary is to propose a rethinking of the self as nonrational and transcendental. First, I will induct nonrationality as an alternative to the binary that neither rejects nor is wholly subsumed under reason or its counterpart, existence. I begin by exploring examples of the transcendental self as exemplified in the Kantian subjects of moral and aesthetic judgments. I then introduce the notion of a nonrational transcendental self, which is the self that experiences and knows, but does not judge. Finally, I show that the nonrational transcendental self truly exists within us and reveals itself most clearly when we experience life alongside the question of suicide and when we experience a moment of beauty. The need to convey the nonrational transcendental self transpires from the restrictions of the binary. Therefore, I shall first identify the emergence of the reason-existence binary by tracing the use of reason and existence in historical ontological debates. The rationalist view of the self begins with Descartes, who articulates that rational self-reflection reveals the true nature of the human being as the thinking self, the eternal mind (Descartes – Translation: Haldane, 1991). Hegel, likewise, perceives reason as the proper lenses through which to discover the human being’s true nature and place in the world. In Hegelian philosophy, history is the linear unfolding of reason and all of our individual subjectivities are merely subsumed under this hyper-rational unfolding (Hegel – Translation: Hartman, 1953). Such extreme rationalism is challenged by the Kantian philosophy of transcendental idealism, which curtails the overreach of pure reason by designating it to a regulatory rule (Kant – Translation: Guyer and Wood, 1998). According to transcendental idealism, we are limited to knowing and perceiving phenomena (i.e. things as they appear in time and space). We do not have access to noumena (“things-as-they-are-in-themselves”) (Kant – Translation: Guyer and Wood, 1998). Reason, as our structural framework, can help us decide upon the truth of phenomena, but it cannot conclude anything substantial about noumena. As we are incapable of perceiving our noumenal selves, it is an illegitimate use of reason to attempt to rationally discover our true selves (Kant – Translation: Guyer and Wood, 1998). Consequently, Kant reintroduces the question of the self-understanding its own being, allowing existentialists to arrive on the scene and offer a viewpoint opposing the rationalists. Existentialism emerges with Kierkegaard’s publication of Either/Or in 1843. Kierkegaard points out that our singular viewpoint to life is our existing and subjective self. Objective truth only has meaning in relation to a knower, who is subjective and dynamic. Thus, Kierkegaard criticizes Descartes for mistakenly substituting the human being as an “infinitely indifferent” knower and explicitly rejects Cartesian rationalism as “a mirage [where] everything is and nothing becomes” (Kierkegaard – Translation: Hong and Hong, 1978). For Kierkegaard, reason, either as some ultimate methodology towards truth or as a priori structures of cognition and understanding, fails to account for our fundamental nature as those who experience. After Kierkegaard, existentialist thinker Heidegger published Being and Time in 1927. Being and Time reorients the ontological approach by introducing the concept dasein, which translates to being-in-the-world (Heidegger – Translation: Macquarrie and Robinson, 1962). In contrast to the rationalists who believe that true human nature can only be understood when abstracted away from experience, Heidegger argues that human beings are dasein and can know themselves only as they exist in the world. All philosophical inquiry on human nature must acknowledge our essential condition as dasein if it is to be accurate and effective. By contrast, ontology, which claims to understand human nature independent of its being-in-the-world, is illegitimate. Then, in 1943, another existentialist named Sartre published Being and Nothingness. Echoing Kantian thought, Sartre argues that we cannot ask what the nature of the human being in itself is. When we try to answer ontologically about our noumenal selves, we immediately establish a duality (between “I” as the subject and “I” as the referred-to object) that is essentially at odds with the oneness of self that we associate with the ‘true self’ (Sartre – Translation: Barnes, 1956). Instead of asking what being is, Sartre recommends that we ask how being is. In other words, what are our modes of being? Sartre states that the human being is a factical self, which refers to our physical being grounded in concrete circumstances (Sartre – Translation: Barnes, 1956). The human being is also a transcendent self, which means that we are not only our factical self, but also all of our negations and possibilities. For example, the seemingly insignificant waiter at a restaurant is not merely a waiter. That is, as a human being, the waiter’s existence does not depend on his or her being waiter. The waiter may be countless other things apart from a waiter and is still yet to be many things in the future. Sartre’s point is that our existence as human beings cannot be fully captured by the roles our factical selves play. For Sartre, the human being is essentially fluid and full of possibility (Sartre – Translation: Barnes, 1956). Therefore, Sartre considers that reason as logical form, which accepts negation and exclusion as definitive, cannot sufficiently account for the human being. My purpose in explicating the ontological debate between rationalists and existentialists is to show that within the philosophical tradition, there is a shift from understanding the human being as a stagnant thinker to an experiencing subject. I argue that the debate which motivated this shift in thinking also unintentionally produced a conceptual binary between reason and existence. Existentialism presents itself as a purposeful critique of rationalism. The language of the existentialists is intentionally contrasted to the language of the rationalists. The existentialists describe the true nature of the human being as subjective, dynamic, temporal, fluid, and grounded; rationalists, as objective, unchanging, eternal, and abstract. In reading existentialists’ work, the reader would think that the human being is essentially a dynamic subject in place of a stagnant thinker, but never both. Similarly, truth for the human being is seen as either subjective or objective, but not both. With such emphasized contrast, ‘existence’ becomes a concept that stands as a symbolic counterpoint to reason. This is the reason-existence binary. The reason-existence binary is undesirable and stunts the progress existentialism might make in answering the basic ontological question. The existentialists intended to reclaim the dynamic aspect of the human being in an effort to balance out the extreme rationalism preceding them. However, by presenting existence in contrast to, rather than alongside, reason, existentialism merely designated the human being to another extreme. The existentialists’ failure of a balancing act reveals itself as an issue within their own systems of thought. Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre all grapple with tensions resulting from the binary within their own philosophies. Part I: Limitations of the Binary Manifested as Existentialist Tensions Kierkegaard’s Unintended Inverse Hegelianism When Kierkegaard states that “subjectivity is truth”, he effectively turns Hegel (who saw objectivity as the one legitimate truth) on his head (Kierkegaard – Translation: Hong and Hong 1978). Kierkegaard rejects the hyper-objective, linear, rational, and systematic nature of Hegelianism and purposefully aims to be anti-systematic and anti-rationalist. However, Kierkegaard himself proposes that an individual must go through three stages (the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious) in order to encounter a true self (Kierkegaard – Translation: Hong and Hong, 1978). These are the stages that an individual encounters when turning inward in his or her own subjectivity. The final stage climaxes in paradox and culminates in a person of faith. So then, it seems that Kierkegaard’s philosophy does entail a system that we must acknowledge in order to understand our own being. The irony is that by protesting objectivity with subjectivity, Kierkegaard unwittingly creates his own dialectical system and becomes the mirror image of the systematic and idealistic Hegelianism that he intended to counter. Theodor W. Adorno calls Kierkegaard’s philosophy “inverse Hegelianism” since the historical dialectic of objective ‘Reason’ in Hegelian philosophy is parallel to Kierkegaard’s inward dialectic of the subject’s subjectivity. Whereas the Hegelian subject must look further and further outwards to discover truth and the authentic self, the Kierkegaardian subject must turn deeper and deeper inwards to discover truth and the faithful self (Adorno – Translation: Hullot-Kentor, 1989). Thus, whereas Hegel’s setting and subject is all of history, Kierkegaard’s “objective inwardness strictly excludes objective history”, so that “history vanishes” in Kierkegaard (Adorno – Translation: Hullot-Kentor, 1989). However, without any sense of history, what is left in Kierkegaard’s philosophy is the abstract self posed against the abstract universal, interacting in a subject-object dialectic that Adorno calls “Hegel [inverted and interiorized]” (Adorno – Translation: Hullot-Kentor, 1989). That is, Kierkegaard neither avoids systematizing the process of the self understanding its own being nor refrains from abstracting (i.e. a self without a concrete history is an abstract self). In short, Kierkegaard fails to fully account for the existing subject and only manages to postulate it against the thinking subject. Heidegger’s Absurd Waiting Heidegger’s dasein is both being-in-the-world and being-not-of-this-world. That is, we cannot seek to understand our being as existing separate from the world we exist in and yet, there is the curious truth that we are born into and pass away from the world. We “come from” and “go away to” someplace not of this world. From this, Heidegger concludes that the significance and uniqueness of our time in this world are due to our temporality. As finite beings, every moment in time is unique. Our specific time also defines each of us as a unique being traveling different paths and encountering different ontological possibilities which become available to us by virtue of our specific past and present (Heidegger – Translation: Macquarrie and Robinson, 1962). Time is therefore responsible for determining the significance of all the opportunities we might have in this world. But since the importance of time itself is that it represents our sudden arrival and departure from this world from who knows where, then meaning itself also comes from who knows where. Heidegger wrote Being and Time in the 1920s and 1930s, directly after the First World War. Like the famous Lost Generation, Heidegger also addresses an era when the traditional ideologies and frameworks that gave us social identities and gave our actions meaning were quickly fading out. (Preceding Heidegger, Nietzsche defines that era as an era in which “God is dead” in contrast to previous generations which offered “God” and by extension, Christian morals, tradition, etc (Nietzsche – Translation: Nauckhoff, 2001). God and the institution of religion and tradition provided frameworks of significance which dasein could attach itself to find significance.) The era bore a sense of decay. The hollowness of a hollow man was no longer an individual problem, but an indicator of a lack of possibilities in the world of that generation. If the world shines through an authentic dasein (being-in-the-world), but the world itself is decaying, then an authentic dasein would decay instead of thrive. Heidegger recognizes this issue and offers the solution of reorienting dasein in order to increase its receptivity of meaning. Essentially, Heidegger states that if there is less meaning in the world, then we should be more receptive to it so that we can get more of it. If dasein is taken solely as a being in time, an increase in receptivity simply means a more anxious waiting for meaning to come. This is because meaning only comes from that “other world” where we came from to be born and where we go once we die. But Heidegger does not give any deadline for how long dasein must wait for meaning to appear. Indeed, he cannot even guarantee that meaning will ever come back. But if we are headed towards a meaningless world, we would be waiting forever. In Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”, two individuals “actively” wait in a wasteland for “Godot”, an unknown figure who promises meaning, but cannot promise when, where, or how. This uncertain, but hopeful waiting depicts the issue that Heidegger’s solution runs into. In terms of time, Heidegger’s solution becomes a rather paradoxical (and apparently, parody-able) form of “active” waiting. Heidegger tries to reclaim our being from abstraction by positing dasein, but his philosophy is affected by the binary which separates existing from knowing. Ultimately, he ends up in a strange position of hopeful absurdism. In this position, he relies on a vague abstraction that renders even the being-in-the-world altogether hazy and opaque. Thus, despite Heidegger’s intent to have dasein reconquer itself as a grounded being, we arrive at a point where the absence of a metaphysical quality of dasein results, once again, in abstraction Sartre’s Difficulty with Dualism When Sartre introduces the factical self and the transcendent self to the reader, he explicitly states that this division exists only because they are necessary to parse out the modes of being. Sartre does not intend to propose a metaphysical dualism, where the factical and transcendent self are truly two different selves or beings. Although Sartre posits a disclaimer of his dualism, there is still ultimately a tension in saying that being-in-itself and being-for-itself are mutually exclusive and yet every human being is somehow both. Sartre’s preoccupation with being as always more than it appears in a given situation sits in direct contrast to reason, which only applies to appearances. This contrast motivates Sartre to depict human beings as half factual knowers and half fluid, illogical beings. This is an uncomfortable division both because our rational and existing selves do not exist unequivocally separate from each other and because we also have a nonrational self. Sartre himself identifies this issue as the “identity nihilation” or “internal negation” issue, stating that his view renders the self in a perpetually unstable equability where identity as absolute cohesion rejects diversity and unity can only be a synthesis of multiplicity (Sartre – Translation: Barnes, 1956). The self, as both whole and diverse, is never quite captured due to the oppositional nature between existence and reason that Sartre assumes. *** The binary itself is not easily grasped, but its effects are discernible. The tensions that emerge from the binary reveal that if the assumptions which underlie the argument are extreme and unfounded, the content itself is affected and distorted. To understand this in a more general sense, it is often what we consider possible, rather than the reality of the situation, which dictates the outcome. If we never venture down certain pathways because we never consider their existence, then those avenues of thought will never open to us, not because they cannot exist, but because we consider them unable to exist. The philosopher Derrida speaks to the violence of writing, of naming things, and of defining spectrums and hierarchies through names (Derrida, 1976). Writing separates, and it is within those separations that battles are fought. Writers always write in the context of previous thought, and so even though their intentions are to break cycles of thought, the methodology of writing itself binds them to reiterate the same structural violence that previous writers have also engaged in. In short, modern philosophers often end up writing within the dialogue set up by previous philosophers and find it difficult, if not impossible, to break out of that dialogue and introduce new possibilities. If the possibilities of the conversation are predetermined by restrictions on expression, the historical limitations will stunt the conversation and block the creation of new pathways of thought. While Kierkegaard provides an illuminating analysis of how Hegelianism neglected essential considerations for how the existing subject should come to understand itself, at the same time, Kierkegaard’s reactionary philosophy proves detrimental to the originality of his own philosophy. The content is simply turned on its head, but the ultimate goal of understanding remains out of reach. Heidegger’s concept of dasein reorients ontology into a humbler form, reminding us that we do not experience Being except as being-in-the-world and as being-towards-death. He criticizes the philosophical tradition of forgetting that our existence is wholly about being present-in-the-world. However, Heidegger falls prey to his own criticism when he separates human existence from whatever truth or meaning there was to be found in our existence. To Sartre’s credit, Sartre identifies and denounces the binary from the very beginning. Yet, despite this awareness, his own philosophy ends up depending on conceptual divisions born from the binary. What all of these philosophers point out but struggle to prove within their own philosophies is that the human being is always the meeting ground for both reason and existence. By imposing this binary, we become stuck with a mentality that cannot imagine outside of you are either this or that. There is no space for a new beginning because violence has already been done unto the space of possibility. While one side can point out the defects of the other, unfortunately, the inverse of a structure does not overturn the system nor introduce anything new, and so it cannot successfully escape the faults or solve the problems of the original structure. Inversion and rejection are still confined to the original sphere of thought and that influence is impossible to hide, even though the rest of the content may be revolutionary and inspiring. That is why the existence-reason binary limits existentialists’ answer to the ontological question of the self knowing its own being. Part II: Rethinking the Transcendental Self In light of the existence-reason binary, I offer an interpretation of a self that is transcendental and nonrational. The nonrational transcendental self is a transcendental self because it allows for a shift in perspective without loss of identity. It is nonrational because the shift is unconcerned with justifications. There is no categorizing or narrating the experience for a greater purpose. There is no expectation of ‘what ought to happen’. There is no need to prioritize anything within the experience. The nonrational transcendental self is the self that experiences its own being without having to focus or impose on it. It is the self that exists alongside the constant question of suicide and it is the self that arises when we experience moments of beauty. *** Section A: The Question of Suicide Camus famously said, “There is only one really serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy” (Camus – Translation: O’Brien, 1991). Camus’ infamous line was already preceded by a long line of thinkers grappling with the morality and rationality of suicide. St. Augustine, inspired by Plato and followed by Aquinas, states the Christian prohibition on suicide. When intolerable evils descend upon us, the truly pious withstand the onslaught and prove their virtue, whereas those who escape by suicide have sullied God’s gift of life to us (Saint Augustine – Translation: Paolucci, 1962). Suicide was seen as the ultimate unrepentable sin. St. Augustine also considers suicide irrational, pointing out that if suicide is meant to preserve happiness or escape unhappiness by avoiding pain, then that is foolishness for there is no happiness to be found in either giving up in the midst of fighting evil or in knowing that you can commit suicide (Saint Augustine – Translation: Paolucci, 1962). Then, David Hume famously wrote a defense of suicide as a rational act, stating, “suicide is no transgression of our duty to God” (Hume, 1783). God granted all beings and things with their proper functions and powers (Hume, 1783). A river has the power to stop man because God willed it. Yet, if man is able to create machinery that utilizes energy from a river or can divert a river from its course, this interaction causes no discord in the creation and would not be a crime in the eyes of God (Hume, 1783). God has given us the ability to judge and enact such behavior. Likewise, Hume asserts that there is no crime of “turning a few ounces of blood from their natural channels” (Hume, 1783). In this case, God has given us the ability to judge and enact suicide. Furthermore, just as the river turns according to the laws of matter and motion, so does the human body react according to the laws of nature as set by God (Hume, 1783). Hume offers several situations in which suicide might be consistent with our self-interest (e.g. age, sickness, and misfortune), but is also quick to state, “no man ever threw away life, while it was worth keeping… for such is our natural horror of death” (Hume, 1783). Thus, if someone ultimately judges that he or she is in a situation so haunted by suffering that it cannot be relieved except through death, then not only is committing suicide not a moral transgression, but it is also a perfectly rational act. Richard Brandt furthers Hume’s argument that suicide can be rational by way of a utilitarian argument. Brandt argues that a rational agent can make a sufficiently informed comparison about the likely utility between the two possible futures of survival and suicide and make an intelligible and rational choice from there. However, in response to Brandt, Christopher Cowley suggests that the concept of rationality does not apply to suicide. Judgements about suicide, such as those espoused by Brandt, are certainly intelligible (Cowley, 2006). However, these judgments are “third-person descriptions… implicitly assuming rationality” and “[maintaining] a clinical detachment” so that we end up “talking about the victim rather than to or with the victim” (Cowley, 2006). Cowley thus points out that asking the rational question of “what would anyone do in this situation” is more an abstract hypothesis and less about the agent and the agent’s act of suicide (Cowley, 2006). Furthermore, debating the rationality of suicide misses a major point, that rationality is essentially future-oriented. We call an act rational or irrational by presupposing a future in which we will have to face the consequences of that act (Cowley, 2006). Therefore, while we might consider someone’s reason for suicide rational or irrational, suicide itself cannot be properly judged by rationality because it is the erasure of the future that is a precondition of judging an act as rational or irrational. Thus, Cowley “rejects the exhaustive dichotomy between rational and irrational” because both concepts “run out” and fail to provide a language that sufficiently accounts for a discussion on suicide (Cowley, 2006). Rationality presumes justification, which not only assumes a future but also abstracts from the subject’s experience. However, if Cowley’s point stands, then how are we to approach the question of suicide? Who is the agent in question, if not a rational agent? Insofar as suicide is a human question, the answer relies heavily on how we understand the human being. Here, I hope that my notion of the nonrational transcendental self will help articulate our experience with the issue of suicide. Notice this: Although Camus and others have posed the question of suicide intellectually, we actually experience this question at every moment of our conscious lives. We do not necessarily confront the question (in that we do not feel compelled to justify our existences to ourselves every passing second), but simply by virtue of living, we exist alongside it. The rational self often resists; justifications often mean “this despite that.” But the nonrational self simply exists, without justification, and therefore, without resistance. It does not strive to endure because it is not about life, it is simply living. When a wind passes through the grass, we do not think the grass “resists.” Instead, it simply exists in its swaying along with the wind. Afterwards, we reason that the wind made the grass sway, and while this is very much true, this is a justification after the initial experience, where reason serves as a convenient framework with which to understand and recognize our experiences. Thus, the nonrational transcendental self settles the anxiety of needing a reason to live in an arbitrary world by accepting that it simply is, outside of want and reason. As the question of suicide is reborn every moment, so this self co-exists alongside that question. Returning to Camus’ question, I realize that suicide is not simply a grand philosophical issue, but an ever-present question. Of course, as Cowley admits, suicide can be discussed in terms of rationality. I think that this makes sense. After all, suicide has a widespread effect, and it is only natural that we abstract from the agent and act itself in an attempt to more deeply understand why such tragic events happen. However, the question of suicide also exists separate from our reasons to live or die. We know this because we have all witnessed that the reality of suicide exists beyond rationality. Sadly, many people who have every reason to live also die. We, as survivors, turn to religion and philosophy and literature, searching for reasons that might explain why they had to go when clearly, they had so much to live for. But regardless of the many arguments we might construct to justify a longer life, the insurmountable fact is that they have passed out of this shared world. As such, suicide is neither rational nor irrational. It is nonrational, which means that although existence can be rationalized, existence is or is not despite the rationalization. Suicide, not as an act to be judged, but as a constant question hand-in-hand with living, illuminates this aspect of the self. The nonrational self is also transcendental. The common understanding of transcendental is “a noumenal realm above”, but the nonrational transcendental self in this situation is a “settling.” The self that transcends life-or-death is not a self that rises above existence, but a self that is simply situated in one’s own being. Even facing the question of suicide, the nonrational transcendental self does not reach towards immorality nor does it turn within itself. There is no extortion and no resistance. It simply exists as it is. It is the mind before the mind is filled with thoughts. It is the state of existence that occupies the middle ground between wanting to live and wanting to die. This middle ground is what often allows people to survive depression, which sometimes manifests as an indifference to life and inability to hope. Think about the reverse situation. Many people who feel they have no reason to live continue to live. Whether it is because we are depressed or uncertain or have simply never seriously entertained the question, we can exist without a reason to live. While Hume and Brandt rightfully argue that we can make value judgments about what sort of life is worth living, the rational argument does not account for the actual state of our existence. Why not? This is because for human beings, the absence of reason to live is not a reason to die. Therefore, to discuss suicide as though it aligns with a linear spectrum of rationality is to collapse this inequality and equate the absence of reason to live with a reason to die. This discounts the struggle that many depressed and/or suicidal people struggle through. But intuitively, we all understand this inequality and we recognize the significance of the inequality. It is why we feel that there is no reason sufficient enough to justify suicide. However, for this intuitive truth to be true, we must grant that the human being exists and sees itself capable of existing outside the reason-existence binary and occupying the middle ground of the nonrational transcendental self. Section B: The Moral and Aesthetic Judgment Before I further explain the notion of a nonrational transcendental self, I wish to reference other types of judgments that are nonrational. Since the kinds of judgments we make portray the kind of being we are, I think this will help us to imagine concepts of the self outside the existence-reason binary. *** After his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant pursued other capacities of self-representation and self-understanding in the Second and Third Critiques, respectively. The Critique of Practical Reason contains Kant’s moral philosophy, which is premised on the principle that we must understand ourselves as we appear to ourselves. In other words, even if reason postulates a phenomenal determinism in the physical world, since we appear to ourselves as moral beings and morality implies agency, we must also take ourselves to be agents capable of affect. The reasoning here is practical: Given how we appear to ourselves, we must believe the necessary condition which allows for this appearance. Specifically, given that we appear to ourselves as moral agents, we must necessarily take ourselves to be free agents (Kant – Translation: Beck, 1956). This differs from the pure reason of Kant’s First Critique, which was discussed as a cognitive capacity functioning largely to structure our experience through concepts and categories. However, the Kantian self that engages in practical reason and which makes the moral judgment is inequivalent to a nonrational transcendental self. The nonrational transcendental self is not concerned with its own appearance or with self-justifications. Kant’s moral judgment is nonetheless a rational judgment, only it has to do with practical reasoning, which is bottom-top because it reasons from appearance whereas pure reasoning, which structures based on a priori conditions of cognition and pure categories of laws and structures, works top-down. To translate this back into our discussion of suicide, saying that the nonrational transcendental self exists alongside the ever-present question of suicide is inequivalent to saying that a person has a moral incentive to live. The moral incentive often appears as a justification, supplying a ‘despite’ in an intellectual, but not necessarily existential problem. Kant’s Third Critique, the Critique of Judgment conveys the aesthetic judgment (i.e. a judgment of beauty). The aesthetic judgment employs the individual’s capacities of imagination and understanding to enter into the mental state of freeplay (Kant – Translation: Walkter, 1963). While both imagination and understanding draw inspiration from the manifold of intuition, they are pure faculties or free faculties. Imagination is the synthesis of a manifold of intuition, and the synthesis is not totally predetermined by the content of the manifold. For example, in imagination, the intuitions of a horse and a horn can be freely synthesized into a unicorn. Understanding is the realm of pure categories (in contrast to concepts which require and apply to specific objects). In understanding, there are unifying laws (e.g. causation) that shape our experience of phenomena without discriminating between empirical details. Then, for freeplay to be the interaction of two pure mental capacities means that the aesthetic judgment is “merely subjective” (Kant – Translation: Walkter, 1963). That is, freeplay occurs only when the subject has removed him/herself from the world (i.e. become a disinterested subject) and re-presented an object that is no longer in front of him/her to him/herself. The aesthetic judgment deals only with this re-presentation. So, an aesthetic judgment does not apply to the object itself the way concepts do. The aesthetic judgment is thus another judgment different from a purely rational judgment. However, there is a quirk in the aesthetic judgment: Despite being completely subjective, our aesthetic judgment necessitates an ought; that is, everyone else ought to agree with our judgment of what is beautiful. Although an aesthetic judgment cannot claim logical universal validity (since it does not refer to a concept), we present our judgments of beauty with a universal voice (Kant – Translation: Walkter, 1963). Thus, the aesthetic judgment “must involve a claim to subjective universality” (Kant – Translation: Walkter, 1963). For Kant, the aesthetic judgment, in bringing together subjectivity and universality, allows us to re-imagine or re-present the human as a being whose sociability and individuality are seamless. In this way, the aesthetic judgment offers an alternative to the existence-reason binary because freeplay, the pure categories of reason, is communicable. However, it is worth noting that there is something a bit sinister about the ‘ought.’ Imagine that in your encounter with the question of suicide, someone comes up to you and tells you that you ought to live. It is a patronizing remark on behalf of the speaker. Hence, this ‘ought’ which is essential in rendering a statement into a judgment and initially seems to prove the human capacity for freeplay and sociability, actually betrays that the aesthetic judgment is not only about subjective appreciation and value, but also assumes an objective universal validity. While the Kantian subject of the aesthetic judgment offers an alternative to the self shuttling back and forth within the reason-existence binary, it is also not quite equivalent to the nonrational transcendental self. The nonrational transcendental self has no reason to prescribe an “ought” to anyone else. Since it is free from reason or desire, it has no need to prove itself or to display its faculties by way of judgments. As we shall see, the nonrational transcendental self appears less in a judgment of beauty and more in a moment of beauty. Section C: From a Judgment of Beauty to a Moment of Beauty The meeting ground of reason and existence and the full-fledged appearance of the nonrational transcendental self occur in a moment of beauty. The novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog illustrates the reveal of the nonrational transcendental self in a moment of beauty. In the story, we meet a young girl named Paloma who very rationally comes to the conclusion that life is not worth staying for and that suicide is the best option (Barbery, 2006). At the end of the novel, Paloma rescinds this decision of suicide, not because she finds some rational reason that justifies her life or tells her that things are bound to get better, but because Paloma discovers for herself that what makes life worthwhile is the inexplicable and nonrational moments of beauty that one encounters amidst, alongside, and even within the suffering that seems to be most of life. Paloma’s life seems to take a turn for the better when she meets Madame Michel, the concierge, and Kakuro Ozu, a new occupant of one of the luxury apartments. But then, without any particular cause and certainly without a satisfying rational justification (i.e. a mad man’s dance is no reason for someone to die), Madame Michel is hit by an automobile and dies. Paloma feels then what it might mean to die, what it really means to face a “never again” (Barbery, 2006). In essence, she suddenly acquires a newfound awareness of her own experiencing. Then, Paloma experiences a moment of beauty. As she and Kakuro Ozu pass through a courtyard, both of them solemn with grief at Madame Michel’s passing, they hear music drifting down from above. Paloma “stopped short… took a deep breath and let the sun warm [her face while she] listened to the music drifting down from above” and she felt that: “There’s a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty… It’s as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never… Beauty, in this world.” (Barbery, 2006) To explain why Paloma’s moment of beauty was transcendent, first we must consider how human beings are frequently obsessed with playing the heroes and heroines of our own lives, sometimes to the point of playing our own villains. We impose ourselves onto events and other people to try to fit them into our narratives, which we use to self-justify and to explain ourselves to other people. Recognition is important to us. We often have this deep-rooted fear that we will not exist unless we define ourselves, but these definitions do not seem to be authentic unless others acknowledge them. So, we attempt to paste certain labels onto ourselves to garner attention from others. In this way, rationalism (as justification of narratives and labels) is our long-valued method of proving to ourselves and others that we exist at all. Reason has suddenly gained the illusive quality of being necessary to exist. But whether it is the rationalists attaching existence to what is considered “objective” and “immortal” or the existentialists equating the self with subjectivity, the one thing that remains when all else is stripped away from us is a response to the same fear. The question of how the self might understand its being has long been motivated by the anxiety that our existence may not truly be an opportunity for narrative or significance. Thus, philosophy has a natural habit of referring the human being to things they consider visible and indispensable in the hopes that we, too, must be so. However, when Paloma experiences the beauty of music, residing in one ephemeral but suspended moment, her newfound awareness allows for a shift in perspective. With her mind settled from a deeper understanding of life, the beauty of the music enters and shifts her perspective so that in that moment, she is no longer concerned with proving, justifying, or defining her own existence. In that moment, she is no longer obsessed with playing the hero. Paloma assumes the role of passerby, allowing and enjoying the music that is taking center stage in her experience. Thus, our encounter with a moment of beauty allows us to relinquish our need to prove our own existences without threatening our identities and we re-situate ourselves into the existence of a passerby or watcher without considering it a degradation or loss of self, but as the self taking a deep breath and for a moment, just settling into itself. To step away from the need to justify ourselves and re-affirm ourselves is to experience our own being as transcendent and our energy as nonrational (i.e. directionless and not aiming to be applied to anything). In more casual terms, you just are and you are enough to appreciate the moment for what it is. This is why Kant’s moral self is not the nonrational transcendental self. Kant’s moral self arises from a need to understand ourselves given how we appear to ourselves, but the nonrational transcendental self, which is what we are when we encounter moments of beauty or when we live alongside suicide, is not concerned with how we appear to ourselves. Paloma describes the moment of beauty as a moment of “time suspension.” It is the “always within never.” This is interesting because time is one of the Kantian transcendental conditions. So, if we are in a realm of suspended time when we encounter a moment of beauty, then experiencing beauty is not a type of ‘knowing.’ Time and space are simultaneously extended and absorbed and the vanity of the self connected with these determinations fades away. To describe Paloma as “standing where the music is” is normally a confusion of terms that fails to define her, but it is the realm of the nonrational and transcendental, which is the same realm as the middle ground between the absence of a reason to live and a reason to die. Pure experience, which involves both existence and reason but is not confined by either, is an open realm where all things that ground us may shift with no threat to our existence. Furthermore, if Paloma’s experience happens in time suspension, then we cannot expect it to happen or try to prolong it. With time suspension, possibility and actuality exist only insofar as they exist in each other. But without expectation, there can be no prescription. Thus, the nonrational transcendental self which appears in a moment of beauty differs from the Kantian subject making an aesthetic judgment in that the former is not considered with universal recommendations. The nonrational transcendental self is the middle ground devoid of the three cornerstones that inevitably create binaries: expectation, justification, and definition. Another character in The Elegance of the Hedgehog is Jean Arthens, who is the son of the previous resident of Monsieur Ozu’s apartment. When we first encounter Jean Arthens, Renee describes him as “a drug addict, a sad wreck, … no more than a tortured body staggering through life on a razor’s edge” (Barbery, 2006). Through her encounter with him, Renee sadly recognizes that as human beings “we all must fall” at some point and that even before the fall, nobody quite knows “what [this war is that] we are waging, when defeat is so certain… Step by step we clear the path toward our mournful doom” (Barbery, 2006). But then, weeks later, Jean reappears as a far healthier person, somebody who, “once so very close to the abyss, has visibly opted for rebirth” (Barbery, 2006). Renee wonders at his transformation, asking herself, “How is one reborn after a fall?” (Barbery, 2006). Jean tells Renee that what “practically saved his life” was none other than the “pretty little red and white flowers” that Renee had planted (Barbery, 2006). He explains that although “[he did not] know why”, he “used to think about those flowers all the time… and it did [him] good” (Barbery, 2006). Renee is amazed that a “camellia can change fate” (Barbery, 2006). Renee could not have reasonably known that Jean would have viewed her flowers in such a miraculous manner. Jean himself could not have reasonably anticipated his reaction. But the why was unimportant. The flowers were beautiful to him and in that moment of beauty, the nonrational transcendental self came forth. After her encounter with Jean, Renee asks herself those unanswerable questions of life: “Did he see [the pathways of hell]? How is one reborn after a fall? What new pupils restore sight to scorched eyes? Where does war begin, where does combat end?” Her answer is: “Thus, a camellia” (Barbery, 2006). Renee’s answer does not make any rational sense. It is nonrational, and in a beautiful way, it is transcendental. Paloma’s music in the sunlight despite Madame Michel’s death and Jean Arthens’ camellias after a close shave with the abyss… For both Paloma and Jean, it was a moment of beauty that allowed them, not to somehow overcome their grief once and for all or even to be inspired to grit their teeth and endure, but to let go and excuse themselves from always having to save somebody else or save themselves. They no longer had to grapple with “why.” When the self sees its own transcendental non-rational being, it realizes that it is all things already. Conclusion I do not think that my reimagining of the self would escape Derrida’s wrath. As he rightly predicts, my attempt at explaining a nonrational transcendental self also succumbs to the same binary of worldly existence and reason that I critique in the first part of this thesis. In explaining why things are not some way, I find myself relying on the traits of that one way to explain my counterpoint. As Derrida points out, each new term we create in response to previous binaries is yet another appeasement for our constant need to commit violence against ourselves in the form of new justifications and differentiations, in service of so-called systematic thought. However, I believe that there are still important takeaways from my proposition of a nonrational transcendental self. First, while the nonrational transcendental self can express the binary, it is not merely the binary. It is whatever was before the binary existed. The importance of this first point is that we can open our minds to the fact that the binary did not always exist and is therefore not a necessary or restraining metaphysical truth of philosophy. In fact, I think we can come to see that up until the very point prior to the existence-reason binary, either existence or reason could have theoretically functioned like nonrationality. This binary was an arbitrary creation, which took its meaning from the circumstances it arose from (in this case, the existentialist push-back against rationalism). It is a useful binary in that it gives us a language in which to express our thoughts about two important aspects of the human being, but the danger of its arbitrariness is that we may slip into confusing its applicability into a metaphysical and necessary truth. So long as we can understand things existing beyond the binary, we shift ever closer to creating a theory which speaks true to both our experience and knowledge and are better able to step away from the temptation of fitting experience into theory. Likewise, the nonrational transcendental self, as revealed in its experience of a moment of beauty, challenges the strict distinction between the abstract and actual. Return for a moment to Kantian aesthetics. The Kantian subject of the aesthetic judgment is not identical with the nonrational transcendental self that experiences a moment of beauty for the former is defined by its capacities while the latter is unconcerned with its capacities and more engaged with the experience of beauty in that very moment. However, the Kantian notion of aesthetics is highly relevant because it illustrates the subject as able to merge abstraction and experience in the process of “freeplay.” This is significant because it illustrates that we do not have to sacrifice abstraction and conceptualization in order to experience actuality. In their efforts to reject rationalism, the existentialists try to do away with abstraction and conceptualization. However, anti-conceptualization only reinvents, rather than resolves, fundamental tensions. We see this clearly in Kierkegaard’s inverse Hegelianism. Even on the everyday level, it is plain that abandoning the abstract does not lead to freedom. Taking away all methods of conceptualizing and imagining possibilities forces a person to submit to his circumstances. His existence, in becoming only ‘actual’, is no longer connected to what is possible. In contrast, the experience of the nonrational transcendental self embraces abstraction so that a person’s subjectivity can extend beyond actuality into a more moving experience, where unrealized possibilities support the actuality of the present moment. The nonrational transcendental self is the grounds upon which object and subject experience each other as existentially inseparable (e.g. Paloma stands where the music is) as possibility and actuality shift into one another. When we experience the question of life and death (at every moment) or a moment of beauty, all conditions of an existing self are fulfilled without having to give a strict definition of its existence and capabilities. The nonrational transcendent self shows that the human being does not depend on rejecting rationality or proving its own subjectivity in order to exist as it is. Without asking for definition, the nonrational transcendental self appears to us in moments of life and beauty, demanding nothing of us except to pass through with an open mind. This is the aspect of the self that I believe became lost amidst the tensions of the existence-rationalism binary and is now reclaimed through the reimagining of the self. Footnotes 19 The "hollowness of a hollow man" is in reference to T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men. (London: Oxford University Press, 1951). 20 This summary of Richard Brandt’s argument was quoted from: Christopher Cowley, “Suicide is Neither Rational nor Irrational” in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. Vol. 9, No.5 (2006): p. 495. 21 I realize that transcendence is a highly loaded term. However, I specifically chose a term with a lot of baggage from the existence-reason binary in order to show that the word can be used outside of the binary. The more obvious term that I might use is “reorientational” or “resituational”. But I used transcendence to show that transcendence and reaching that freedom of shifting a position do not arise only from turning deeper within yourself or by abstracting further and further away, but simply by settling into yourself, as you are. 22 Self-justification in this context is reminiscent of the Kantian subject of the moral judgment and explaining ourselves to others is similar to the ‘ought’ that the Kantian subject of the aesthetic judgment imposes onto others. References Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy (Translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane). Reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Reason in History (Translated by Robert S. Hartman). Reprint, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1953. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason (Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Kierkegaard, Søren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript in The Essential Kierkegaard (Edited by Howard Hong and Edna Hong). Reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time (Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson). Reprint, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1962. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (Translated by Hazel Barnes). Reprint, New York: Philosophical Library, Inc., 1956. Kierkegaard, Søren. Stages on Life’s Way in The Essential Kierkegaard (Edited by Howard Hong and Edna Hong). Reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. Adorno, Theodor. Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic (Translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor). Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science (Translated by Josefine Nauckhoff). Reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Reprint, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976. Camus, Albert. The Myth Of Sisyphus, And Other Essays (Translated By Justin O'brien). Reprint, New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Augustine, Saint. The Political Writings Of Saint Augustine (Edited By Henry Paolucci). Reprint, Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing Inc., 1962. David, Hume. Two Essays: Of Suicide And Of The Immorality Of The Soul. Reprint, Ann Arbor: Michigan University Library, 2008. Cowley, Christopher. "Suicide Is Neither Rational Nor Irrational". Ethical Theory And Moral Practice 9, no. 5 (2006): 495-504. doi:10.1007/s10677-006-9031-9. Kant, Immanuel. Critique Of Practical Reason (Translated By Lewis White Beck). Reprint, Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merill Company, Inc., 1956. Kant, Immanuel. The Analytic Of The Beautiful In Critique Of Judgment (Translated By Walkter Cerf). Reprint, New York: The Bobbs-Merill Company, Inc., 1963. Barbery, Muriel. The Elegance Of The Hedgehog. Reprint, New York: Europa Editions, 2006. 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*Feature* John R. Allen John R. Allen is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general, and former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces - Afghanistan (USFOR-A). He was appointed by President Barack Obama as the special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). He is currently the President of the Brookings Institution, and his most recent research addresses the effects of artificial intelligence in a variety of sectors. Allen’s piece in JPPE’s second issue explores the effects of artificial intelligence on the future of education. Fall 2018 Artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies (ET) are poised to transform modern society in profound ways. As with electricity in the last century, AI is an enabling technology that will animate everyday products and communications, endowing everything from cars to cameras with the ability to interact with the world around them, and with each other. These developments are just the beginning, and as AI/ET matures, it will have sweeping impacts on our work, security, politics, and very lives. These technologies are already impacting the world around us, as Darrell West and I wrote in our April 2018 piece “How artificial intelligence is transforming the world ,” and I highly recommend that anyone just discovering the topic of AI policy read it thoroughly. There, Darrell and I describe several important implications related to AI/ET, but chief among them is that these technology developments are on the cusp of ushering in a true revolution in human affairs at an increasingly fast pace. As AI continues to influence and shape existing industries and allows new ones to take root, its macro-level impact, particularly in the realm of economics, will become more and more apparent. Control over the research and development of AI will become increasingly vital, and the winners of this upcoming AI-defined era in human history will be the countries and companies that can create the most powerful algorithms, assemble the most talent, collect the most data, and marshal the most computing power. This is the next great technology race of our generation and the stakes are high, particularly for the United States. If American society is to embrace the full range of the social and political changes that these technologies will introduce, then it is the education and training we provide our youth and workers that will fuel the engines of future AI, and therefore geopolitical success. I've studied and written extensively about the effects of AI/ET on the evolving character of war toward a concept I’ve called hyperwar – or, a new era of warfare in which, through AI, the speed of decision making is faster than anything that has come before. At a superficial level, this topic often devolves into a discussion of “killer robots,” or at the very least the impending use of AI in lethal autonomous weaponry. While those discussions are relevant and inextricably linked, they represent a narrow understanding of the greater issues at hand. The concern over AI’s potential or theoretical military applications must not distract us from how far-reaching the impact of AI will be in nearly all other policy domains. Health care, education, agriculture, energy, finance, and yes, national security, will all be reshaped in some way by AI – with education being the pivot point around which the future of the United States revolves. This is not solely a matter of social redress – which is by itself is extremely important – but in fact is a larger national security issue. The way we use education to prepare our next-generation of leaders will directly determine whether the US retains its leadership in critical fields of relevance in the emerging digital environment. Without a sufficiently educated population and workforce, the US likely will slip behind other states for whom AI/ET is not only means for improved social organization, but for strategic superiority, and potentially for digital and physical conquest. A future in which the United States is second in the race for AI technology would create a situation of national technological and digital/cyber inferiority, which could in turn result in national strategic subservience – something simply unimaginable in a world of growing strategic competition with systems of government very different from ours. Many Americans grew up with the understanding that the US’ capacity to fight and win a nuclear war was defined by its superiority in the Strategic Triad, the three legs of our strategic deterrence: our missile squadrons, our bomber fleet, and our ballistic missile submarines. Behind that dizzying array of hardware was the undisputed power of US intellectual and technical capabilities, and behind that was a near unlimited supply of talented engineers, each trained by a system of education undisputed in its excellence. That system was built from the ground up to produce crucial STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) protégés in the quantities needed to ensure American strategic superiority, which contributed directly to the US and its allies prevailing in the Cold War. For the health of our American way of life, our competitive advantage, and the strategic security of our nation, the basis for tomorrow’s system of education must reflect a deliberately tuned and calibrated system that proactively emphasizes AI/ET, big data analytics, and super-computing. Unfortunately, in both relative and absolute terms, the US is falling behind in the race for superiority in these key technologies and AI. Where the US strategic advantage of the 20th Century was secured by American nuclear superiority, US superiority in the 21st Century will likely be preserved, safeguarded, and sustained through a system of education that envisages the changes necessary and is sufficient to embrace and apply relevant technologies. It will also be underwritten by educators who grasp the profound shifts in the pedagogical skills essential to the educational needs of the 21st Century. The need to adapt is great – and for this system to be fully embraced it must come in the form of a comprehensive and national US strategy for education in the digital age, to include the resources necessary to bring education into the digital classroom, and to educate and train entire generations of educators to be relevant in the 21st Century and beyond. The United States must at all costs preserve its position of primacy in AI, big data, and super-computing through leaders who understand these issues on a fundamental level and have the political will to develop and resource a comprehensive plan for reimagining our national education efforts. In thinking about the essence of a US national education strategy adapted to the digital age, several important questions arise pertaining to the way we think about education and develop the next generation of leaders: What will be the implications for how we educate, train, and develop teachers? A discussion on the impact of AI on education will point dramatically to those who facilitate the process in our schools. The very term “teacher” may be insufficient to adequately capture the role of this key individual in the educational experience. Teaching and learning requirements may be substantially re-ordered and the dynamic of learning versus teaching in an AI-based system of education will be very different. And while teachers today are in many ways the unsung and underappreciated heroes of the American workforce, the teachers of the digital age may define the future of America. This will raise important questions about requirements for teaching degrees and related certificates in this new environment, and the necessary adaptation of the science of pedagogy to these changes. Ultimately, the key question will be “are the teachers of today ready to develop the leaders we will need tomorrow?” A difficult question, to be sure, and the answer today is no. The national education strategy must focus on their development as it focuses on the students as well. What will the AI-based classroom look like? With AI, every aspect of the traditional learning environment is up for reimagining. Will classrooms continue to be physical spaces? Or instead, will it be a virtual "space" using networked augmented or virtual reality technologies? The answer is yes to both, and the student in tomorrow’s AI based educational experience will be exposed to an immersive, digital education heretofore unimaginable. The distributed, networked, virtual reality classroom is both enormously exciting, and at the same time frightening for the enormity of its potential. There are major challenges to measuring success in an AI-based educational process. For instance, if our students can become more deeply involved in the pathways of their own learning through AI, measurement will occur moment to moment, as well as the success of remediation. In the best-case scenario, we will know at the end of each student’s day if s/he is meeting academic requirements and quickly correct deficiencies as necessary to stay on track. In any case, there are profound moral questions to consider with a system such as this, and policymakers must understand the underlying dynamics of the technologies at play if they are to fully support society. What will this kind of system of education do to reduce inequalities in our society? One of the most profound aspects of education in the AI environment is that these technologies could unleash the potential and productivity of a huge sector of American and global society hitherto constrained by their educational experience and resulting lack of opportunity. Local governments, schools, and especially the private sector will need to routinely intersect to create synergy and symbiosis to enhance our educational processes. Through the AI-powered digital space, “opportunity for all” may become a reality for those who previously had little means of achieving their own piece of the American Dream. The profoundly limiting feature of these opportunities lies in internet and 4G and 5G penetration within the United States, and the sometimes appallingly scarce educational resources committed in some areas in America. There are large segments of the US where our education systems, and our youth, have limited-to-no access to the internet and to Wi-Fi. If we hope to achieve our digital potential, and to continue to maintain our lead in AI and other emerging technologies, a national program to bring Wi-Fi and the internet to all our citizens is absolutely essential, and will in any case help to close the sometimes yawning gaps created by racial and income inequality in the US. AI/ET promise to usher in a bold new era of human history, one where the machines we create will oftentimes be smarter, faster, and more powerful than those who created them. This reality has profound implications for the field of education and introduces complex ethical, legal, and societal implications that academics, policymakers, and average citizens alike will need to contend with as every aspect of society reshapes around them. Further, the United States risks strategic inferiority if it does not embrace a full reconsideration of education in the digital environment, to include a comprehensive strategy for reimagining our education system at the national level. Today, we are not training our young leaders with the tools required to be successful in the digital age, and that has deeply troubling implications for the future of American society. Nevertheless, just as the United States persevered through the Cold War through technological superiority, I am hopeful that the 21st Century will yet again be one defined by American leadership – with our best and brightest from across the entire society leading the charge in digital era.

*Feature* JPPE INTERVIEWS, YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Inequality, Financialization, and Populism Yanis Varoufakis is the co-founder of DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement) as well as the former Minister of Finance for the Greek government. Additionally, Varoufakis has written several books including his most recent work Adults in The Room: My Battle With Europe’s Deep Establishment, which is a first-hand account of Europe’s hidden agenda and a call to arms to renew European democracy. As a self identified “libertarian Marxist,” Varoufakis calls for a radical new way of thinking about concepts like the economy, finance and capitalism. Fall 2019 JPPE : Many economists have their explanations about where inequality comes from, such as financialization, credit, globalization, technology, and bad policy. When thinking about the causes of inequality in the last thirty years, are there specific areas you think we ought to devote our attention to? Yanis Varoufakis : Well, there’s one word that answers your question: financialization. Financialization came on the back of the post-Bretton-Woods drive for completing a surplus society loop, where the United States operated like the world vacuum cleaner, sucking into its territory the net exports of the world on the basis of pushing down wages, lowering inflation, and, of course, Wall Street and the exorbitant power of the dollar. But the tsunami of capital that was going into Wall Street every day to close this loop and to pay for the increasing trade of the US was what shifted the center of gravity of power from industry to finance. JPPE : Private credit played a big role in that? Varoufakis : Of course. It’s all private credit. You know, financialization is 99.9 percent private money lending. Consider the financialization of blue-collar workers, in which their homes became the only way of catching up and competing with the Jones’, and since their average earnings were stuck at 1973 levels in real terms, it was only the appreciation of house prices that allowed them to continue the American Dream of rising standards and consumption. And in 2008 that came crashing down, and ever since then, you have a process leading to Trump. So today’s extreme inequality is due to a very significant class war against the American working class that started at the end of Bretton Woods. And Paul Volker, who recently passed, was central to this. All of this created a new phase in global history: financialized globalization. It pushed inequality back to 1920s levels, financialization collapsed, and then central banks and governments like that of President Obama’s refloated finance, creating socialism for the very few and permanent austerity for everybody else. That’s the answer in a nutshell. That’s my narrative. But, I have to tell you, since your focus is on inequality, I’m one of the very few left-wingers that doesn't much care about inequality or so much about equality. I don’t consider equality to be such a well-defined term. Equality of what? How do you define it? JPPE : What about income inequality? Varoufakis : Inequality is a terrible thing, but it’s a symptom. For me, it’s not the issue. The issue is exploitation. If we have huge levels of exploitation it is because we live in an extractionary economy in which the very few extract value from humans and from nature. Deep down, I’m a liberal, who thinks that liberalism has not served the cause of liberty. JPPE : You’re a liberal who thinks that liberalism has not fulfilled its promises. Varoufakis : No, it’s gone completely against its mission, like the Marxism of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union led to a regime that violated every principle of Karl Marx. Similarly, what passes as liberalism has created remarkable illiberties and spread them globally. So what matters to me is freedom from the extractive power of others over you and over nature. Capitalism, through its ever-expanding power, destroys the planet and the air that we need to breathe. JPPE : People like Harry Frankfurt argue that what we should care about is not the gap between the rich and the poor, but rather how well off the worst off are doing. Varoufakis : That’s rubbish. This willfully and purposefully neglects the source of the riches of the rich. It is as if it’s a random distribution based on DNA, on ability, and on god-given talents. In the standard debate between John Rawls and Robert Nozick, I was always far more impressed by Nozick than by Rawls because the Rawlsian veil of ignorance is lovely, but the critique of it by Nozick is devastating. He says ‘ok, let’s say we agree with Rawls and we work out what the uniquely just and therefore rational income distribution is. Let’s say we agree, so everybody gets slotted into the income distribution we agreed is uniquely just.’ And then suddenly he’s got this example from basketball, in which one of us becomes very famous for a particular kind of basketballing technique, and people are prepared to pay a lot of money to watch us. Do we ban ourselves from doing this and receiving the money that people are willing to give? Illiberal. Or do we allow ourselves to receive that higher income, in which case we have just proven that the income distribution we decided is uniquely just is not uniquely just? So in the end, what really matters is not what you have, it’s what you do in order to have it. That is perfectly Marxist to me. And, as a leftist Marxist, the point where I disagree entirely with Nozick is on his definition of entitlement. In his entitlement theory of justice, he says anything people agree to give you under any circumstances means you have it justly and that you are entitled to it. I say this is nonsense. So if you’re starving and I have some food to give you and your kids, and then I make you become my slave voluntarily, that is as coercive as it would be to point a gun at you. So, the distribution of basic goods according to Rawls is important because, without the minimum basic goods, you volunteer to give me things that I’m extracting from you coercively. That’s the Marxist critique. I’m neither Rawlsian or Nozickian, but the process that Nozick brings into the conversation, as well as Hayek, is crucial. But where we disagree with the right-wing is on what qualifies as, firstly, sustainable process and, secondly, just process. JPPE : Would it be fair to say the distinction also comes down to the difference between positive liberty—the capacity to act—and negative liberty— the right to act? Varoufakis : Here I think the theories of the Canadian philosopher CB Macpherson are helpful. He criticized the Isaiah Berlin distinction between positive and negative liberty by asking, very correctly, that if negative liberty is freedom from interference, how do you define interference? If you and I meet in the desert and you are dying of thirst and I have a glass of water and say ‘if you want this, you have to sign a contract saying you pass along all your belongs—your house, your car, and everything’. If you say yes because you are dying of thirst, is this interference? Is this a voluntary transaction? Am I impeding your negative liberty? According to Berlin, I’m not because I’m not forcing you to do anything. You are choosing to give me things for a thing. In my view, the inequality of access to basic goods like water allows me to exercise extractive exploitation over you and therefore to impede your basic freedom. If you accept the distinction between positive liberty and negative liberty, you end up saying, in the end, ‘we’re only going to accept negative liberty because who gives a damn about positive liberty—it’s too dangerous because it legitimizes all sorts of violations of negative liberty. My model is the following: if instead of negative liberty, you have freedom from extractive power, and instead of positive liberty, you replace it with the notion of developmental freedom—the freedom to develop as a character. JPPE : Would you say part of the reason it’s so important to object to high levels of inequality comes down to the fact that, in highly unequal societies, you have very different abilities to participate (e.g. unequal baskets of basic goods)? Varoufakis : When so much of one side doesn’t have enough to live on, then you have exploitative power and extractive power that functions to deny every liberty to the party that doesn’t have access to that basket of basic goods. This is, of course, the original argument by Karl Marx. JPPE : Do you think a big component of that comes down to education and access to education? Varoufakis : No, it comes to ownership. As long as we have shareholders, we’re going to live in an illiberal society. What do I mean by shareholders? As long as you have tradable shares and anyone can buy a share in a company in which they don’t work, then you create this situation where the majority of the shares of any company are going to be owned by people who have nothing to do with the company. And once you enter that process, you create an alliance with finance because finance creates the capacity to buy shares and fictitious capital minted out of thin air that allows the oligarchy the right to extract the value of others. Yet imagine a situation in which we have shares, but it’s one share and one vote for one person. So anybody working in our business has one vote. I think of it as similar to a library card. When you’re enrolled in a university you get a library. Everyone gets one. You can’t trade it. It would be similar, in this model I am proposing. As long as you work, you have your share. And then you have one vote. Imagine if corporations operated along those lines. There would be inequality because we would all vote on bonuses, and not everybody would get the same bonuses because we would collectively decide that a certain person is of high value to us and so this person deserves more of a bonus. But the differences would be much smaller. And that has to do with the way in which property rights are distributed. JPPE : Doesn’t this create an incentive for companies to hire fewer people because it would require cutting the company up into thinner slices? Varoufakis : I don’t think that holds water because if you and I create a startup and we add a third person to expand, and the growth rate is higher than the basic wage in our company, then we would do it because it’s in our interests to do it. And the fact that companies would be small and not have more than 300 or 400 people —because you can’t scale this up—is a fantastic thing. We need small companies. The whole point about competition is that you have many small companies competing. Now, we have no competitive markets. So one of my criticisms of capitalism is that it is completely anti-competitive. It’s monopolistic. JPPE : So on some level, it’s almost this Polanyi Esque argument about liberalism undermining itself and actually requiring government state intervention in order for it to even continue as liberalism. Varoufakis : Yeah, the Polanyi argument and also the Marx argument. Any attempt to set the state against the market or the market against the state is historically pathetic because the market was created by states. Even the enclosures in Britain that created the circumstances for capital to emerge in Britain would not have happened without the king’s army. To pit the state against the market is historical nonsense. The only reason capitalism happened in Britain and not in France is that there was a powerful central government in the former but not the latter. And the central government dispatched the army in support of the lords that pushed the peasants off the land and replaced them with sheep. The sheep had the capacity to produce wool which was internationally traded, and suddenly the land had value. Without the king’s army, it wouldn’t have happened. JPPE : Your focus is on financialization when explaining inequality since the 1970s, but do you think that technological innovations played a role in that as well? In the Industrial Revolution, you saw rising inequality because of increased productivity but stagnant wages. Today, researchers talk about how modern inequality seems at least partially a consequence of the hollowing out of middle-skill/middle-wage work because innovations automated work in that middle sector. Varoufakis : I don’t think we have seen this yet. I think we probably will see it. The hollowing out of the middle class is evident, but I don't think it’s because of automation. I think it’s simply a situation whereby two things coalesced. On the one hand, it was the introduction of two billion workers in capitalistic markets after 1991 through the Soviet Union satellite states and the rise of China. Two billion workers came from those countries. There were huge shifts of factories to those countries, whether it was Poland or China. But the proletarianization of former peasants is a standard process that has nothing to do with technology per se. That’s the first dimension. The second dimension is the increasing role and capacity of the financial sector in turbocharging private money minting. Through all the financial derivatives and fast trading, without having to press a button, I can transfer billions at lightning speeds. That technological innovation made a huge difference in shifting and increasing power from the industrial scene into the sphere of finance. JPPE : How did that work? I would imagine a lot of the competition would be between investing firms and companies with better algorithms and better technology. Varoufakis : Yes, but between 1980 and 2008, in 1980 dollars there was an average inflow of money into Wall Street every day of between five and six billion, on average. Now, if you give a banker five billion every day, even for ten minutes, they will find ways of multiplying it. It’s called derivatives, options, financialization. Computers helped them create really complicated instruments that totally blew up the multiplier. So from that five billion, they could create a hundred or two hundred trillion in securities, which very soon started to operate like money to the extent that they were mediums of exchange and a source of value. So effectively they created as much value as they wanted. And immediately, political power shifts to Goldman Sachs, and General Motors becomes a hedge fund that produces a few cars that nobody cares about. So that’s what I mean by financialization. And that creates huge inequality because just think of all the bonuses. JPPE : And very few people have a stake in the stock market. Varoufakis : Most of this was not in the stock market. The derivatives were traded under the table. And so you have a huge new body of the proletariat coming, factories shifting to china. The Chinese people were coming up very slowly in terms of per capita income, but of course, they lose a lot of the old values—community values, environmental values, cultural identity. And fifteen boys living in one room today might make 15 dollars a day, which in the world bank statistics is a fantastic improvement for them. But maybe their life is far worse than it was when they were in their village milking a cow. JPPE : Yuval Noah Harari makes the point that, for many people, even the shift to agriculture from hunter-gatherers resulted in a dramatic decline in standards of living. And the same was certainly true of people in the Industrial Revolution. So how do you reconcile that argument with the notion that all of those innovations resulted in improvements in the standard of living that were eventually felt by everyone? Varoufakis : I simply reject it as uninteresting nonsense. When people say to me, ‘look at the last 200 hundred years and the massive decrease in poverty’, I ask ‘how do you measure poverty?’ Take the Australian Aborigines. When Captain Cook arrived in what is now New South Wales. These people had zero income, but they lived very full and fulfilling lives. Today, an Aborigines person gets a hundred Australian dollars a week from some kind of social security fund, and they are obese, they have diabetes, and they are dying from a number of diseases, if not from police brutality. So you consider that to be an improvement because they went from zero to a hundred dollars? But going back to what you were saying—the hollowing out of the middle class—we should come to that. Given that financialization was based on this exponential growth in fictitious capital that made the very rich exceptionally rich, and at the same time, to have this money coming into Wall Street, you had to have American wages kept very low and below American standards. And this means prices must rise against the home so that people can afford to buy stuff and fill up their garage with rubbish. And then, of course, in 2008 this house of cards comes crashing down. With jobs moving to China and, at the same time, financialization collapsing under the weight of its own hubris, that’s what explains the hollowing out of the middle class. These people initially turned to Barack Obama. He betrayed them. And now they turn to Donald Trump. But AI and automation are going to hit us when we’re down already. I don’t think the hollowing out has to do with automation, but now that the hollowing out has taken place for reasons that don’t have to do with automation, automation will be the second part of the double whammy. JPPE : A lot of people are very happy about automation because they believe in its potential to improve productivity. However, if you believe technological change results in significant short-run damages to certain people’s livelihoods, is it worth trying to stop automation? Varoufakis : Automation would be catastrophic. But why would it be catastrophic? It’s a question of nationalizing it and of socializing it. It’s a question of who owns it. Because if the machines are owned by the very few like they are, then those who own them will look at them as a source of personal enrichment, which means there will be a serious crisis by which those machines will be replacing workers who have no access to the returns of that capital. And so they will not be able to buy stuff. So we’re going to have a collapse. But if we all benefit and we all own the robots collectively, we would not have that problem. This is why I keep coming back to questions of ownership. And this is where I find some commonality with the extreme libertarians, because they also put a great deal of emphasis, not so much on income distributions, but on property rights, and I do too. They want to defend the property rights of oligarchy. I want to socialize property so that everybody has equal access to it. JPPE : When you think about the recent UK elections and the failure of Jeremy Corbyn and the British left to challenge more traditional and conservative leadership, what do you think about the prospects for a US presidential candidate like Bernie Sanders? Varoufakis : Privilege has a remarkable capacity to reproduce itself and kill any challenge to its reproduction. If the challenger is Bernie, Jeremy, you or me, they will crush us. There’s no doubt about that. When I was elected, I never expected for a moment that I would not be vilified. If I wasn’t, then I would be worried, ‘why are they not vilifying me? Am I doing something wrong? Have I sold out already?’ What I find astonishing is that, in 2016, Bernie Sanders came so close. And he would have won it had he not been robbed by Hilary Clinton. This is what happened yesterday with the Labour Party, which was effectively defeated from within by the extreme center—the Blairites and the hard “remainers” that did everything they could for two years to undermine their own party and to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. Why? Because they were in concert with the privileged classes. JPPE : Tactically, what do you make of the primacy of emphasizing cultural issues over economic ones? Do you think the left makes a mistake when it focuses on the culture wars instead of socio-economic challenges? Varoufakis : Yes, the left has been catastrophic. Look, I’m an old Marxist. The economics is always at the base of it. It’s at the base of Brexit. Why did Brexit happen? Because you had a financial sector collapse and you had the rubbish assets of the banks put on the shoulders of taxpayers. But at the same time, the European Central Bank was contracting the money supply and the Bank of England was expanding. And that meant three million continental Europeans went to Britain. And for the country, this was substantial and some people felt they were being pushed out of their own country. So their grievances are economic, even if they don’t consider it clearly as an issue of economics. Whenever we have this kind of economic recession, it’s easy for a fascist to jump on the soapbox and say, ‘I’ll make you proud again by getting rid of foreigners.’ You see this with Salvini or Farage. Why did Trump get elected? He didn’t get elected because of the culture wars. He got elected because half of Americans, for the first time since 1923, could not afford the cheapest car on the market. These people felt betrayed, and here comes a guy who says ‘I’m not the worst person on earth, but there’s a good reason to vote for me: it will annoy the shit out of everybody you hate.’ Of course, the fascists take advantage of these economic grievances and build a narrative by saying that they will make you proud and look after you.

The Brown University Journal of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (JPPE) is a peer reviewed academic journal for undergraduate and graduate students that is sponsored by the Political Theory Project and the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society Program at Brown University. The Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics & Economics Volume IV, Issue II scroll to view articles current issue Philosophy From Sex to Science: The Challenges and Complexity of Consent Matthew Grady Shoring Against Our Ruin An Investigation of Profound Boredom in our Return to Normal Life Virginia Moscetti Unwitting Wrongdoing The Case of Moral Ignorance Madeline Monge Read More Politics Refuting the myth of progressive secularism An Analysis of the Legal Frameworks Surrounding Religious Practice in France and Bahrain Bridget McDonald Ronald Reagan and the role of humor in American movement conservatism Abie Rohrig Read More Economics The relationship between education and welfare dependency Aiden Cliff Against the Mainstream How Modern Monetary Theory and the Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight Challenge Conventional Wisdom Justin Lee Read More Applications for JPPE will resume in the fall! See Available Positions