Extreme Views: The Middle Way May Be Lost Forever
By Arthur Kohn, Skytop Contributor / July 4th, 2022
Arthur Kohn has practiced law since 1986, focusing on compensation and benefits matters, including executive compensation, pension compliance and investment, employment law, corporate governance and related matters. In 2021, he was appointed as a fellow to the American College of Governance Counselors.
Arthur is an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law and a regular guest lecturer at Columbia Law School. He frequently speaks and writes about executive compensation, taxation and corporate governance matters. He repeatedly has been recognized for his work by the business and legal press, including Best Lawyers, Chambers USA, The Legal 500, Super Lawyers of New York and others.
Arthur received a B.A. from Columbia University and a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was admitted into the Accelerated Interdisciplinary Legal Education program, was appointed a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and received Phi Beta Kappa honors.
“People of good will should be able to take different and nuanced views on immigration — and change their minds about it — without being tagged as morally deficient.”
Brett Stephens, French Lessons for the Biden Administration, New York Times, April 26, 2022
People of Good Will
People of good will should be able to take different and nuanced views on the separation of church and state without being tagged as morally deficient.
People of good will should be able to take different and nuanced views on free speech without being tagged as morally deficient.
People of good will should be able to take different and nuanced views on gun rights without being tagged as morally deficient.
Abortion rights . . . capital punishment . . . LGBTQ rights . . . voting rights . . . prisoner rights . . . education policy . . . tax policy . . . even the rights of corporations to take a view on public policy issues.
Out of Fashion
Dispassionate disagreement over public policy is out of fashion. There is no reason we find ourselves in this situation. Extremists don’t think through their views rationally and take positions based on reasons. That’s not how it works. It is a matter of what’s in fashion, and moderation and nuance are out of fashion.
How did we get to this place? Why now, us and here? There is no natural law that says that there have to be reasoned answers to those questions. We can say with certainty that human nature has not changed. And there is no fluoride in the water impurifying our precious bodily fluids and causing us to be extreme and divisive.
Coincidence and Bad Luck
We got here mostly by a coincidence of events and bad luck. Then charismatic imbeciles, grifters, and celebrities used the opportunities that arose to shape the fashion of the day.
Of course, people make their own luck, to an extent. We made a few bad domestic policy choices that were proximate causes of our sad state of affairs. If we could make small changes, we could improve our chances of moderating views and narrowing differences. But the divisiveness of the day makes incremental common sense change all but impossible to achieve. Pleading for more reasonableness will not make an impact.
What to Look For
The quote from Stephens above has an important caveat – “people of good will”. How do we know whether an advocate is a person of good will? First, look for lies. Then look for unwillingness to compromise. Does the advocate resort to violent language and violence? Are the arguments based on reason, or purely on emotion? Does the advocate lay out arguments in a deep, transparent and detailed way? What does the advocate’s history show?
Political and Corporate Reactions
Amid all of the signs of increasing division, I found one recent episode interesting. Compare the contemporaneous stories around political reactions to Disney Corporation’s views on the “don’t say gay” law and corporate reactions to Russia sanctions laws arising from the invasion of Ukraine.
The Disney situation is unremarkable in the current environment. It is a virtual prototype of bad will. Why would politicians act like that? Truly, the question answers itself.
By contrast, it is notable that U.S. public companies are “self-sanctioning” themselves, pulling out of business in Russia in notable numbers beyond what is required by law. Where is the righteous indignation?
On one side, it is nearly impossible to find criticism of corporations who have acted. As Fortune Magazine’s CEO Daily reported (at here):
“What I find most encouraging is the speed with which companies have acted, and how united EU and U.S. companies have been,” Just Capital CEO Martin Whittaker told me. “Have there been any serious dissenting voices about whether corporations should respond to what has happened? I’m not aware of any. That universality of cause is rare these days, and it’s good to see.”
On the other side, it is just as difficult to find public criticism of corporations who have not gone further than what the law requires. The Yale School of Management website following global corporate reactions to Russia’s invasion (see here) lists 30 U.S. companies that get an “F” rating, but there seems to be no reported serious adverse reaction for those companies. Some of them are healthcare companies that take the view that punishing Russian citizens by withholding their products is not justified even in the current environment. Others have a concentration of business in Russia that presumably impacted their decision based on economic considerations. Governments have acted forcefully in support of their policy positions.
Little Divisiveness and Acrimony
Remarkably, the result has been little divisiveness and acrimony. That’s surprising because it is rare and because it is not obvious that this episode would generate such cohesiveness. Is there a principled difference between expectations of responsible corporate reactions to the Ukraine invasion and to other ESG concerns? I don’t see one. In fact, I see no indication that corporations generally made their decisions about Russia based solely on a profit maximization motive (“shareholder primacy”).
Instead, it seems that most companies acted out of a reasonable combination of concern for stockholder value and social and moral policy considerations, following sensible, quick and effective government action. It is hard to say that about other issues under the ESG umbrella. Thinking about why Ukraine is different might result in less divisive conduct in other areas.
Moderation
What else can be done? I think it would help if individuals of good will took moderate positions, and acted in support of the most moderate side, in every context on principle, regardless of what they think about the specific issue or other considerations. Moderation would dictate the response to every issue.
Isn’t it true, however, that “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Umm, no. That’s wrong.
Those lines were part of Barry Goldwater’s speech at the Republican convention in which he was nominated for President in 1964. As Will Wilkinson of the Niskanen Center, a think tank that broke away from the libertarian Cato Institute, argues convincingly and at length (at here), Goldwater’s aphorism is “completely wrongheaded. It’s one mistake after another.”
More practically, the result of the 1964 election tells the story of a more enlightened time, as Lyndon Johnson defeated Goldwater with 61.1% of the popular vote, the largest share to date of the popular vote of any candidate since the uncontested 1820 election.
Good luck in 2024.