On Experts, Property Values, and Solipsism

Two friends got me thinking a bit, and I thought I would (inevitably) share…

One friend brought up his frustration about being drawn into a debate about a misquote with someone who had a minor in history. I offered my perspectives:

A minor in history makes not for an expert…

A Bachelor’s in history makes not an expert…

Nor does a PhD…

All any of that means is that they successfully got the round peg and the round hole enough times… and usually after spending a lot of money.

There are no experts… just some folks who love it enough to know they aren’t experts and those who claim they are…

That’s sort of the reason I had to walk away from Facebook for a while… The moral posturing and vapid arguments…

History is way more than what folks like that seem to think it is – a handful of spiffy quotes that are applied beyond the context of what they were used in.

Have faith… While some are beyond hope, they serve as a gauge to observe how quickly the winds are changing.

I have a B.A. in History – it is a subject I have always adored and has evolved with age; where I once found the machinery and tangible artifacts enthralling, I have moved on to the more nebulous ideas about motivation, leadership, and ethics of the application of those tools.

However, I will be the first to tell you that I am far from an expert. To this day, my favorite quote from Edward Ellsberg applies:

I was a little concerned over the opinion of all the experts who had rated it impossible. I was, a matter of fact, somewhat irritated by seeing myself denominated an “American expert” in the Admiralty inquiry. For I didn’t consider myself an ‘expert’ in anything and besides I had a low opinion of “experts” anyway. “Experts” are people who know so much about how things have been done in the past that they are usually blind to how things can be done in the future.

I have read a lot over the years, and though my memory is rather clear at times, it is not eidetic by any stretch. To me, an expert is often someone with a solid academic grasp of a topic with – quite often – a limited operational understanding of the relationships inherent and associated with that subject… “blind to how things can be done in the future.”

Perhaps this is what keeps me going – that I know enough to know that I don’t know everything. This bleeds over to my political views as well: much like I cannot function with the questionable ideas of absolutes in the past, I am reluctant to address what I view as certainties in the present. It’s a strange form of solipsism which is my default attitude – that there is no way to prove or disprove anything external of my own thoughts and attitudes. For that, I blame Douglas Adams’ character of “The Ruler of the Universe” in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe:

How can I tell that the past isn’t a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?

You’re very sure of your facts. I couldn’t trust the thinking of a man who takes the Universe – if there is one – for granted.

I only decide about my Universe. My universe is what happens to my eyes and ears. Anything else is surmise and hearsay.

While this may be an extreme, it does shape much of how I approach issues.

Which leads me to another topic and another discussion…

Another friend prompted me to nail down an idea which has vexed me for a few months – the relationship between action and reaction… unintended causality. In this case, it was over the recent push to defund police departments and what that might mean for the major cities if they do:

Where is the line drawn?

Do we punish the many for the sins of one or a few? How do we hold anyone accountable – to what standard?

J, you know I have a hard time with where we are as a nation and society… and you know that I usually have a lot to say on topics like this; yet my relative silence here and elsewhere should indicate how perilous I see our current state.

This is a fascinating time, yet it is also a very sad time. I don’t foresee any return to December… but I still have faith in us…

[…]

Here’s what I have been mulling over (and will eventually write about):

Defund the police…

This is fine and good, but look at the bigger picture…

Doing so will – more than likely – cause an uptick in crime… property and violent…

…Which will start to drop property value (if it already hadn’t start dropping)…

… Leading to less local taxes…

… Forcing some social and city services to roll back due to lack of available funds…

… Causing property and violent crime to creep upwards due to fewer law enforcement or restrictions implemented as a reaction to frustrated or poorly trained officers…

… Further devaluing property…

… And so goes the downward spiral – one I watched firsthand in Detroit and only now understand.

It is never one person’s fault… Even in the case of Chauvin, there were failures aplenty on the individual, organizational, and societal level.

My point is that there is a level of complexity that is often overlooked and ignored.

As I said before, we stopped listening to each other and we became more entrenched in our points of view.

This is no one’s fault but our own…

We can still fix it, if we so cared to…

But watching things go they way they are… I have serious reservations that we actually do.

We’re frustrated… We’re freaked out… And we are getting angrier as we continue to not listen and dig our heels in even more.

I don’t care what anyone’s political affiliation is… I hope they find a safe way to speak and listen to each other soon, because it will become a moot point soon if we don’t; none of what we thought was so important will matter when NONE of it no longer matters.

More importantly, though, while he did not see the issue as I did, the conversation prompted me to spend the little time I have in digging – not to see who was right or wrong, but to explore the issue further.

In the process, I found William Trega’s 2014 book Prisoners on Criminology: Convict Life Stories and Crime Prevention. In it, I found some interesting perspectives:

It was both the weakening of community norms (social disorganization) and the actions of uneven development and political abandonment (social power). (186)

Social organization is maintained by a group’s commitment to social rules; when this commitment breaks down, social control breaks down. (189)

In an era of widening inequality, this is how wealthier Americans are quietly writing off the poor. (Reich 2013) (273)

For example, Pratt and Godsey’s (2003) cross-national analysis of 46 countries found that those that devoted a greater portion of the GDP to health care and education experienced significantly lower rates of violent crime (in particular, homicides)… Thus, increases in levels of social support in these areas are capable of producing concomitant reductions in crime, even in the absence of a social and economic revolution— the impossible task that policy makers have often invoked for ignoring the recommendations of academics. (275)

In a way, Trega answered many of my own questions on what happened to many of these major cities like Detroit, as well as provided a cautionary and potential template for those who choose to ignore the lessons of the past. A balance must be maintained… an apolitical balance… between domestic and foreign policy to prevent a neglect of one aspect (security) adversely influencing another (worth). This is applicable on so many levels, but one of the essays by an inmate captured the one of the most important truths:

I had poor supervision growing up. This does not absolve me of accountability to the choices I made. Kids with the same background and worse chose not to go as far as I did. I chose to commit a violent crime while others chose not to. It’s just that simple. The parole board does not want to hear how wrong the system is. The system is bad, will get worse and I’m not going to see how I’m going to fix it. I need to fix me not the system so that I don’t commit another heinous act and so that I pass on to my children what the system will not— pro-social morals. (249)

There are no true experts… only those who understand the relationship between what is known and what might be known or done; those who see their role in events – past and present – and accept the responsibility for what that means for tomorrow.

Is there a correlation between crime and property value?

Maybe, but is that an absolute – is that a firm and unvarying equation in an ideal world?

Perhaps there is some correlation… but the variables will never be the same today as they will be tomorrow – regardless of how many times it was so yesterday.

There are times when I cringe to consider the most “likely/most dangerous” aspect of where we seem to be heading. However, writing things down consolidates my many thoughts for the benefit of my kids, family, friends, and readers.

…Besides, it’s better than talking to the table for a week to see how it reacts.