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OPINION
East Oregonian
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
A plurality
primary
Glove award despite being a terrible
Americans are nervously
¿elder. But James made it clear the
contemplating the rise of a vicious
fundamental problem transferred to
racist to the top of the GOP, not
politics.
to mention the popularity of a
“A voting structure like this is
74-year-old Socialist who isn’t even
an open invitation to an eccentric
a member of the Democratic Party.
outcome. If the United States were
It’s a strange time for American
to use a system like this to elect the
politics, and worth remarking about
President, the absolutely certain
how we got here. Yet before we
result would be that, within a few
stress too much, maybe we can
elections, someone like David
all take a deep breath and see that
Duke, Donald Trump, or Warren
things aren’t so strange in America
— and that the country is not pulling Beatty would be elected President.
apart in a mad dash to the extremes. If you can win an election with 15
percent of the vote,
Think for a
sooner or later
moment about
A plurality
somebody will.
how scienti¿cally
unsound the primary primary is a bad An unconstrained
plurality vote
system is. It’s a bad
way to choose a
way to choose a gives an opening
someone or
party nominee —
party nominee to something
who has
it’s a bad way to
a strong appeal to a
choose anything,
—it’s a bad
number of
really.
way to choose limited
people.”
The winner of
Yes, 15 years ago
each state contest
anything, really. James
predicted
is declared by
plurality. That
Donald Trump as a
means a candidate only needs to
viable presidential hopeful.
receive a greater number of votes
And such crazy candidates have
than any opponent in order to win.
won primaries before, including
Donald Trump has won more states
avowed segregationist George
than all his opponents combined, but Wallace on the Democratic side,
he won more than 40 percent of the
or Strom Thurmond for the
votes only once — in Alabama.
Republicans.
Then think about how poor
The only thing that separates
turnout is in the primary system,
Trump from those two is celebrity.
where outdated remnants of a
Wallace and Thurmond won over
bygone day, like a caucus, are
voters in their home state and region,
still used to choose a candidate.
but could not gain traction on a
Republicans are in the midst of a
national stage. Trump — with his
year of record turnout, yet in states
billions and his television persona —
that have already voted only 17
can and has.
percent of all registered Republicans
Maybe one way to look at 2016
cast a ballot. For Democrats, only
is that it is just a down year. The
about 13 percent have done the
supposedly stacked Republican
same.
stable of candidates has whittled
That means a minority of a
down and few seem happy with
minority is having an outsized
the current choices. The Democrats
inÀuence, choosing candidates
now seem locked into a long battle
that may very well be outside the
of their own. Division is currently
mainstream and would never appeal beating unity — which creates
to a majority of voters.
the kind of environment where
The great statistician Bill James
pluralism can really wreck havoc.
summed up the problem with
Right now, a majority of
plurality voting way back in 2001.
Americans have an unfavorable
He said that in a voting system
opinion of the candidate in each
with lots of choices, unique and
party who has garnered the
extreme candidates will do better
most delegates. And when the
than candidates with overlap and
environment is that abnormal,
similarities. But to James, there was competitions can have abnormal
an existential problem with that type results.
of system declaring a winner.
Perhaps this is year is when
“The larger point, it seems to
James’ prediction comes true — “a
me, is that a badly designed voting
badly designed voting system will
system will fail sometimes, no
fail sometimes.”
matter who votes,” said James.
So perhaps it is time to worry
He was talking about baseball
— not that a majority of Americans
then, the game he helped
wants to vote for a lunatic — but
revolutionize with mathematics, and that a lunatic might win despite the
speci¿cally about how designated
fact that a majority of Americans
hitter Rafael Palmeiro won the Gold oppose them.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher
Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
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or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
OTHER VIEWS
The shame culture
I
Third, people are extremely anxious
n 1987, Allan Bloom wrote
a book called “The Closing
that their group might be condemned
of the American Mind.” The
or denigrated. They demand instant
core argument was that American
respect and recognition for their group.
campuses were awash in moral
They feel some moral wrong has been
relativism. Subjective personal
perpetrated when their group has been
values had replaced universal moral
disrespected, and react with the most
principles. Nothing was either right
violent intensity.
or wrong. Amid a wave of rampant
Crouch describes how video
David
nonjudgmentalism, life was Àatter and
Brooks gamers viciously went after journalists,
emptier.
mostly women, who had criticized
Comment
Bloom’s thesis was accurate at the
the misogyny of their games. Campus
time, but it’s not accurate anymore.
controversies get so hot so fast because
College campuses are today awash in moral
even a minor slight to a group is perceived as
judgment.
a basic identity threat.
Many people carefully guard their words,
The ultimate sin, Crouch argues, is to
afraid they might transgress one of the norms
criticize a group, especially on moral grounds.
that have come into
Talk of good and bad
existence. Those accused
has to defer to talk about
of incorrect thought face
respect and recognition.
ruinous consequences.
Crouch writes, “Talk
When a moral crusade
of right and wrong is
spreads across campus,
troubling when it is
many students feel
accompanied by seeming
compelled to post in
indifference to the
support of it on Facebook
experience of shame that
within minutes. If they
accompanies judgments
do not post, they will be
of ‘immorality.’”
noticed and condemned.
He notes that this
Some sort of moral
shame culture is different
system is coming into
from the traditional
place. Some new criteria
shame cultures, the ones
now exist, which people
in Asia, for example. In
use to de¿ne correct and
traditional shame cultures
incorrect action. The big
the opposite of shame was
question is: What is the
honor or “face” — being
nature of this new moral
known as a digni¿ed and
system?
upstanding citizen. In
Last year, Andy
the new shame culture,
Crouch published an essay in Christianity
the opposite of shame is celebrity — to be
Today that takes us toward an answer.
attention-grabbing and aggressively unique on
Crouch starts with the distinction the
some media platform.
anthropologist Ruth Benedict popularized,
On the positive side, this new shame
between a guilt culture and a shame culture.
culture might rebind the social and
In a guilt culture you know you are good or
communal fabric. It might reverse, a bit, the
bad by what your conscience feels. In a shame individualistic, atomizing thrust of the past 50
culture you know you are good or bad by what years.
your community says about you, by whether
On the other hand, everybody is perpetually
it honors or excludes you. In a guilt culture
insecure in a moral system based on inclusion
people sometimes feel they do bad things; in a and exclusion. There are no permanent
shame culture social exclusion makes people
standards, just the shifting judgment of the
feel they are bad.
crowd. It is a culture of oversensitivity,
Crouch argues that the omnipresence of
overreaction and frequent moral panics, during
social media has created a new sort of shame
which everybody feels compelled to go along.
culture. The world of Facebook, Instagram
If we’re going to avoid a constant state of
and the rest is a world of constant display and
anxiety, people’s identities have to be based
observation. The desire to be embraced and
on standards of justice and virtue that are
praised by the community is intense. People
deeper and more permanent than the shifting
dread being exiled and condemned. Moral
fancy of the crowd. In an era of omnipresent
life is not built on the continuum of right and
social media, it’s probably doubly important
wrong; it’s built on the continuum of inclusion to discover and name your own personal
and exclusion.
True North, vision of an ultimate good,
This creates a set of common behavior
which is worth defending even at the cost of
patterns. First, members of a group lavish one
unpopularity and exclusion.
another with praise so that they themselves
The guilt culture could be harsh, but at least
might be accepted and praised in turn.
you could hate the sin and still love the sinner.
Second, there are nonetheless enforcers
The modern shame culture allegedly values
within the group who build their personal
inclusion and tolerance, but it can be strangely
power and reputation by policing the group
unmerciful to those who disagree and to those
and condemning those who break the group
who don’t ¿t in.
code. Social media can be vicious to those
Ŷ
who don’t ¿t in. Twitter can erupt in instant
David Brooks became a New York Times
ridicule for anyone who stumbles.
Op-Ed columnist in September 2003.
To avoid a
constant state of
anxiety, people’s
identities have
to be based on
standards of justice
and virtue that are
deeper and more
permanent than
the shifting fancy
of the crowd.
YOUR VIEWS
Give thanks to America’s
farmers on National Ag Day
Kasich has the experience,
temperament to be nominee
Most Americans are disconnected from
the hard work on the farm. March was
National Agriculture Day, so there’s no
better day to thank America’s hard-working
farmers and ranchers for a fridge full of
food.
Although farmers make up only 2 percent
of the U.S. population, they still manage to
raise about 262 percent more food than they
did back in 1950 — that means each farmer
feeds about 155 people.
And farmers are not only producing, but
more and more are taking the time to do so
humanely. Every year, increasing numbers
of farmers are turning to independent
certi¿cation programs such as the American
+umane &erti¿ed program, which ensures
the welfare of farm animals with more
than 200 scienti¿cally based standards —
covering everything from adequate space
to air quality, food and water, and warmth
— letting animals be animals.
On National Agriculture Day, let’s
give thanks to America’s farmers who not
only give us the most abundant, safe, and
affordable food supply in the world, but who
do so humanely, too.
I would like to recommend presidential
candidate Governor John Kasich of Ohio,
who is moderate, ¿scally responsible,
knowledgeable about the Defense Department,
and compassionate.
As a member of the U.S. House of
Representatives before he was elected
governor, Kasich served as chairperson of the
House Budget Committee and succeeded in
balancing the federal budget. He has vowed
that, as president, balancing the federal budget
will be his priority. As governor in Ohio he
has reduced taxes by $5 billion and erased the
state’s de¿cit. A resident of Ohio describes him
as a “doer” more than a talker.
When he was in the nation’s Congress,
Kasich was a member of the House Armed
Services Committee, so he is knowledgeable
about the working of the Pentagon.
Perhaps most importantly, in temperament,
Kasich seems sensible, balanced,and patient.
He is also compassionate. I was very moved
by his passion in describing the reduction in
the recidivism rate in his state’s prisons, so that
the persons affected may embark on productive
lives.
Finally, Kasich is pro-life, vital to
generations of children.
Robin Ganzert, Ph.D., president and CEO
American Humane Association
Washington, D.C.
Gregory Voss
Belleville, Ill.