Our stories of self-interest help us understand each other and find common ground.

Our stories of self-interest help us understand each other and find common ground.

So where does all this leave us?

I started out wondering why other people make different political choices than I do. I'd like to believe that I'm smarter and nicer than everyone else, but to my great disappointment I have learned otherwise. It's no longer possible for me to explain others' choices by their extraordinary stupidity, insanity, demonic possession, or even by their saintliness. Instead, I've found, we mostly follow our self-interest. But self-interest is not at all easy to figure out, for ourselves or others.

That's because self-interest is not a fixed, single best set of choices that is "out there," separate from our consciousness like the moon or the rock Ben Jonson kicked.

First, our understanding of our best interest is based on our expectations of what's possible in the world. Self-interest is not simply what we desire, but also how to get it, and the trade-offs we have to make to do so. We can only choose in the context of what we think is realistically possible. Really I want a dinosaur in my back yard, maybe a triceratops, a friendly one but fierce to my enemies. I never act on my dream, though, because I don't think I can really achieve it. What are the available options? I might want something, but if I can't possibly get it, or if it costs too much, it's not in my self-interest to try. So our goals depend in good part on our expectations.

Like weather forecasters on TV, we build models of the world and our role in it, and use that to guide our predictions. Unlike meteorologists, however, we can never know for certain, even looking back. Whatever path we choose, we can never be sure that we’ve chosen wisely, because we can't know either the future or the “road not taken”. Many times in our lives we come up against dilemmas where there's too little information to guide us. We have to rely on our experience, comparisons to other situations, and the models we build of how the world usually works. These flag what’s important and how to respond in a given situation-- some people call such responses “values”. Get the kids out of harm's way? Protect other kids? Rebuild the community? We have to figure our self-interest from the very limited information we have, and the spin we put on it-- the stories we make about ourselves and the world, to help us choose.

We can study the probabilities and play them, in a crude sort of way, but they apply to masses of people, and can't nail down any particular outcome for individuals. Smoking tobacco is more likely to kill me than driving a car, but it's still quite possible for me to run into a telephone pole before the cancer gets me; and all that work I did to quit my addiction will have gone to naught. None of us can know the future except very hazily, so it's often hard to judge where to place our bets.

The same is true for political decisions (and as always, I'm not just referring to elections. Probably every time you talk to your boss or your housekeeper there's a political transaction taking place. Whether I cheat on my taxes or pay them, whether I complain to the noisy neighbor or simply call the cops on him, where I shop, what I eat, these are all political choices, among other things.) Most of us can be confident that what helps our community will help us as individuals, but we know as well that there are all sorts of rewards for people who rob and betray their communities. And just how do we help our communities? We operate in a field of many many forces, which have to line up just right for us to achieve justice. Neither Karl Marx nor Karl Rove can guarantee me a payoff if I take this or that political course.

When all the choices are dismal, the preemptive rationalization --the story that sustains us through uncertainty, that will justify us even if we fail (whether it be “Jesus wants me to do this” or “I'm going to do it because I'm no good”)-- becomes very important. If we have the right sustaining story, we can take risks we might not otherwise, and we can explain them to folks who might join us.

Second, normally we do not calculate the maximum benefit from the decisions we make. To do that we'd have to consider scores or hundreds of variables in the light of new information we get every minute. Rather, we use a few rules of thumb to pick the right path in the long run. For questions like, Should I go to work today or stay home?-- we may choose against the immediate self-interest, but in accord with a much broader idea of what our interest is.

For many decisions, we may not be conscious of choosing at all. We do what we've done before, and if nothing hurts, we have no trigger for change. When I pick out which socks to wear in the morning, for instance, I don't really have a search image of the best possible socks. Functionality doesn't require rational choice any more than a bat's wings require Intelligent Design.

Third, we have many interests, and sometimes they are in conflict. There's no mechanical way to pick the right path when we want several different results. I want to be loved but I don’t want to share my stuff. I want a thousand consumer conveniences plus clean air and water. While in the long run they are identical, in the short term, my need for security contradicts my interest in freedom. So self-interest isn't one thing. We still have to choose what's most important, even when we have no guarantees of achieving it.

For all these reasons, the idea of "false consciousness," the notion that there is one clear best path for each of us, which some of us are just too ignorant or deceived to take, is not very helpful. We do often make mistakes, but there is no way to be sure ahead of time; and if our own best interest is hard to figure, we can never know for sure someone else's.

Once upon a time, having discovered the evils of politicians and plutocrats, I liked to assume their victims would my automatic allies. How silly of me! The fact is, most everyone (almost every survivor) benefits at least a little from Halliburton's rule: scraps for the dog, pats on the head, bread and bloody circuses. Some pledge ecstatic allegiance. Many more switch loyalties depending on the issue (or the latest news from the latest war). Some resist and some do not, at some times. Or we throw up our hands and beg the boss to tell us what to do. Whether we kneel or murder or slit our own wrists, clearly we do it because it seems the best option, given the information we have. We each have our own way to measure the risks and rewards.

That is not to say one choice is as good as another. There is a real world that exists outside our fears and druthers. It's just that we can never completely see it. If we were dealing with simple binary questions, yes or no, it would be much easier to make the right choice. Should I take that promotion or not? If money is my only concern, I can answer easily. But I have to consider many conditions.

I try to keep that in mind when I'm puzzled by my neighbors. I have trouble imagining how a low-income person can oppose a progressive income tax, which requires rich people to pay more, but then colleagues remind me of the difference between coughing up the extra % at the grocery store (yes, the State of Tennesee taxes food!!) and laying out your entrails for the IRS every April.

I can point to many of my own actions (but won't!) that may shorten my life or make it more miserable. But none of these behaviors take place in isolation. Consciously and otherwise, I'm making trade-offs all the time. I can also say that riding a bike is healthier than driving a car, but there are a dozen other considerations that keep me behind the wheel. No one is in a position to make a better judgment about my life than I can.

That’s especially true because I don't always tell the truth about my motives. I may be doing something for one reason and give you a completely different explanation. A lot of times I'll deny any awareness of my own self-interest. "I just felt sorry for her." "It's best for the kids." "It will teach him a lesson." Or I may simply not know myself why I chose a particular path. Then I make up a story about myself as if I were observing the actions of a complete stranger, guessing at motive from outward behavior.

But there’s another set of Stories that tell us about the world and what we should want and can get. These explanation stories precede and determine how we understand our self-interest. When you get right down to it, self-interest is the courses of action we choose --our strategies-- based on our goals and expectations, as encoded in our stories. These are the Stories I want to uncover and poke and push us to engage with. Because they reflect our awareness, such explanations are much better predictors of behavior than some theory of objective self-interest. (They also help us recognize the criminals whose reckless violence seems at first glance totally at odds with any notion of rational self-interest. Read Mein Kampf! or proposals of the Project for the New American Century.)

Given all that, identifying self-interest can still help us understand each other. We do almost always act in what we perceive, consciously or otherwise, to be our self-interest. Whether we admit it or not, we do seek benefits from all our actions, and to understand each other we can track back from what we get to what we want. So I'm going to settle for the minimal version of the self-interest theory: we gravitate towards what rewards us or controls pain, now or in the long term. Even when we frame our choices in terms of the long-run self-interest (getting the kids through college; consummating the Revolution; getting into heaven), we also need rewards along the way (Employee of the Month, the latest game box, the prize for Best Tulip).

I have never seen anyone persist in a behavior that does not produce some benefit for him, that is not rewarded in some fashion. If we see no rewards, at least minor ones, we'll change course. Even folks who choose a terrible path (when we have a choice at all) are getting something out of it. The fact that often we help our families, rescue injured birdies or donate to PBS doesn’t contradict self-interest; there are all sorts of things we value, material and emotional. Even freaks like Halliburton don’t reckon their self-interest solely in terms of the taxpayer money they can steal.

This wide range of desired outcomes makes it hard to predict which ones our neighbors will aim for at any given time; still leaves a wide field for interpreters, soothsayers and bloggers. Why, for example, did so many people who were not oil millionaires cheer the invasion of Iraq? With care, we can unravel each other's public and hidden aims. As I try to figure out what motivates my neighbors, the ancient advice still holds: follow the money; except we have to expand that to include the whole range of material and emotional rewards available. We may not choose the single best path, but there's always something we want for ourselves.


¡Que pena! On the one hand, we may not start with the same story --the same understanding of self-interest. This means we lose the religious element of radicalism, the predestined victory, the inevitable, triumphant Workers of the World Unite!

On the other, through self-interest we can find out how our neighbors see the world and what they want from it. The very act of sharing ideas makes the political environment more predictable, and our choices more realistic. We don't have to stay mired in false expectations.

Above all, being clear about self-interest means focussing on results instead of cherished beliefs. We can change our minds when we hear better stories and strategies. Understanding self-interest as a product of multiple goals and changeable expectations gives us room to recalculate, reprioritize, and negotiate common ground. We can tell new stories that help us fight and build together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"In other words democratic politics is not simply a channel through which we can assert our interests . . . but a forum or mode of activity in which we can arrive at a conception of what our interests are " (“Dewey's Political Philosophy“).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~