Old Squares

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Peter Coghill and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights and this week we're talking about getting more conservative as you get older. Nick, you must be getting pretty conservative by now I'd have thought.

Speaker B: 00:00:30

Yeah I'm getting something. This has been something which has cropped up actually again over and over again the last few years particularly in the UK. I think less so in the US for various reasons but I'm thinking particularly of the recent election which saw the Tories returned with the spanking big majority and the Brexit of course Brexit referendum from a few years ago. One of the key things that people noticed was that there was a big age split so young people were much more likely to vote Remain and much more likely to vote Labour. Old people much more likely to do the opposite vote for Leave and vote Tory. Young people get very resentful about this because they think well you know the old people are going to be here less they're ruining it for us who are still up and coming but actually I mean the issue isn't it actually some one of the arguments I saw was well now we should rerun we should have another referendum because a lot of the older Leave voters would have died so instead of having 52 Leave 48 Remain it's now going to be the other way around when you take off the people who've died. But of course what all of that neglects is the perennial and oft noted through the centuries since the time of Plato oft noted tendency that people have to become more conservative as they get older so we might think that instead of it being a whole bunch of young left-wingers who were going to grow up to be old left-wingers what actually happens is there's some sort of pivot point in the middle and in fact yes some old Leave voters would have died but then some some people who were just on the cusp have had their 40th birthday and now suddenly become raving Leavers you know and so it's an interesting enough question in its own right and not very

Speaker A: 00:02:24

well understood as to why this happens. I mean I just think one thing we need to do is we need to have a quick swing by defining right conservatism and liberalism I suppose but and before we can talk about why one might change from one to the other but Peter is anything you want to jump in on here? Well you can start off with that quote I don't know. Yeah that's the famous quote which we might as well tackle. So I thought it was Churchill you said it's not you

Speaker C: 00:02:49

of the United States between: 1797

Speaker B: 00:03:33

using it in the sense of well this is a well-known adage rather than coining it himself then we're

Speaker C: 00:03:38

looking at a concept that goes back a lot older. Indeed yeah yeah and I think it's sort of it's an age-old observation that people generally settle down in life and stick with certain things and I think there are sort of behavioral drivers that make intuitive sense so I rattled a few down when I was considering this topic that you know as you when you're young everything's new you never done you haven't done anything before so everything's kind of new and exciting and you don't know kind of what works so but as you get older you found you've tried lots of things and you found a few things that you like so you may for the sake of ease just stick with those things that you like also as you will get older you have more responsibility children houses that sort of thing so you haven't you've got less time to try new things you've got less sort of space in your life to try new things you also get old physically older so you're physically less capable of accommodating the sort of discomfort and stress of trying new things so you might you tend you might tend to stick with what's easiest but also in group dynamics young the young you will probably seek acceptance amongst their peers by valuing trying new things and and and and and seeing that as a virtue whereas when you're amongst all other people have got all those same constraints that I just mentioned you're more likely to signal conservatism and stick with towing the line well that's it then we're done

Speaker B: 00:05:11

no um no because which some of these I mean the key question really is are people are people and this is what we need to find out because look conservatism in as much as these things can be right or wrong is a set of propositions about about how the world ought to be and what kinds of policies we should have and um they're they're they can be correct or incorrect it can be true that a conservative proposal would be more likely to have uh a desired outcome than uh than a left proposal right so we do have a kind of responsibility to work out whether or not people become more conservative as they get older because they get wiser and more likely to be correct about what will work or whether they for example get different desires about the world because they um their circumstances change and those two stories essentially represent the two arms if you're old and conservative like me you're probably going to say you know I've just got more life experience I know what kinds of things have worked I can see the kinds of things that people have tried to implement based on you know youthful idealism and seeing how often they fail um and conservatism just works better it's more likely to succeed at its own aims um whereas if you're young what I would have said you know 20-25 years ago is that well old people have they've acquired loads of money and now they want to pull the ladder up and they're not interested in you know left-wing redistributive policies because they want to keep their money for themselves and they probably believe that they're the author of their success and they're more likely to be individualistic and selfish etc which of those is true has an impact on which policies we should adopt but I think you say when you said what's conservatism I think that's a good question so we probably ought to look at it so I I had a I just jotted down a few things which I think kind of describe how I how I've you know how I've become more more conservative over time okay and they are I think the belief primarily I guess the definition is a belief that radical changes are are probably are more likely to be harmful than small ones so that that a radical proposed radical change is more likely to have more of a cost than than whatever benefits it purports to to bring whatever problems it is trying to solve I've I think also the belief that existing things existing institutions and norms and prevailing sort of cultural tastes for what's good and bad probably serve hidden benefits even if they're not obvious so you know you you might you you might think when you're young you think well what's the why you know what's the point of everyone why does everyone wear a suit why don't we all just wear you know whatever we want but actually maybe those things serve a benefit that you're not aware of you know so there's there's you've got to have a kind of tendency to at least start by saying well maybe this is doing something that we can't see sometimes called Chesterton's fence that having a system of laws and a strong state makes people better off right that individuals is a more meaningful unit of concern than society and I think fundamentally right so this is drilling a bit beneath that underlying definition of conservatism I think it comes it comes down to the belief that actually what's important in terms of the systems we set up is that is means is how is the rules that we that we sort of decide to impose on on ourselves the rules are more important than the ends than what it is that people end up with right so you know it's aside the goodness or badness of a society doesn't reside in who's got what at the end of the day it resides in the rules by which they got what they've got that I think that summarizes the direction that I've gone in I've gone more towards believing those things although in any given case it's not you know I'm not it's not an ideology for me it's still a kind of utilitarian will it work but I think I've come more and more to acquire the evidence that it probably won't work if it's massively radical you know so that there you go that's what I mean yeah well how has it manifested itself in in I mean I know you went out and joined the National Socialist Party that's right a couple of weeks ago how has it manifested itself in your if it has who knows you may well have become a see I think I'm raging Corbynite

Speaker A: 00:10:00

yeah so two things first of all what's interesting is from that sort of some of the things you said out there is that on the surface just one of the analogies we we talked about there was Brexit was if ever there was radical change it's Brexit right but people would probably say I mean I'm not sure I wouldn't want to necessarily speak to people but it might be reverting to something actually so changing back to how it was is how some people but also yeah certainly how it was kind of yeah it's taking back control so I think it looks like change but it's changed to how it

Speaker B: 00:10:34

was I I think people see the biggest agent of change as being the EU yeah in attempting to pursue a project in very much a kind of idealistic way uh in a way that sort of a conservative take would be well it's trying to you know it's trying to impose a vision and that's harmful like whereas it's not just about yeah okay well let's tinker with things and see what works and generally kind of do things that people want rather than do things that we think they ought to do um and and people

Speaker C: 00:11:06

would would have said would have sort of seen the EU as I think it's probably worth trying to um draw a distinction between conservatism versus liberal ideologies so this sort of social and and in in this sort of social sense socialistic sense like um distribution redistribution of wealth etc and conservatism and progressivism so I think you would I think you would agree that you are a progressive in that you you don't you don't believe that things could just should just stay as

Speaker B: 00:11:40

they are because they're better as they are it's very much about policies about how we approach yeah fixing things rather than what we should be doing yeah so you you you agree that there are

Speaker C: 00:11:52

things that could be changed to make things better but you're not an extreme progressive you don't you think we should throw everything out the out you know out of the window and start again and rebuild the state from scratch but you you use you would prefer to use what we have now and build um iteratively on what we have yeah yeah and I think but I think it's an important thing because they often get conflated like the idea of liberalism uh as being a sort of anti uh um utilitarianism and and liberalism being a being about social socialistic ideals versus liberalism in the in the sense of progressivism and wanting to change things yeah and I would say

Speaker B: 00:12:34

I mean like I would I'm definitely a liberal classical liberal when it comes to you know the kind of instinct about what the world should be like you know it's sort of generally that I like freedom I like giving individuals opportunities to do things rather than you know giving people things or preventing people from having things but I mean my political beliefs are a big mess really it is like okay well different problems are different and different solutions are probably going to be different but I think conservatism is part part of it is being comfortable with that and saying yeah the real world is a big mess and not saying oh it's a big mess we should untangle it all and and then impose a you know rational system on it all yeah yeah no I once did a um

Speaker A: 00:13:17

where I was on a on an x and y axis with a political working out where I was the political

Speaker B: 00:13:22

at what they were like in the: 1950

Speaker A: 00:16:02

policies as it were because I can't I think that is probably possibly the same um you know test I took and I was surprised to see where I I came out sort of quite you know very progressive and actually slightly sort of uh left wing uh what were you closest I was Tony Blair I was closest

Speaker B: 00:16:19

to Barack Obama I remember quite pleased Barack Obama's a bit of uh he's not he wouldn't be

Speaker A: 00:16:24

that far from Tony Blair yeah there we go sort of yeah so um you know I should have said Genghis

Speaker B: 00:16:29

Khan shouldn't I I'm sorry but but yeah um but no Genghis Khan is right wing you know people would say that to the right of Genghis Khan right it seems pretty left wing to me massive collective

Speaker A: 00:16:39

well he he tried to introduce uh child care subsidies for for mothers so you know he's

Speaker B: 00:16:45

got a bad rap um but I don't even know if I'm sort of wondering if that's true he did turn a lot of

Speaker A: 00:16:50

women into mothers yeah widows I think you and widows yeah um but yeah you're probably right about that yeah um but look my point is this when I did that I was quite surprised because you know I'm getting on in years I'm not you know I know you you don't think this but I'm no longer in my 20s um I'm no longer in my 30s and I know it's astonishing and I was quite surprised and and and then I thought well the bad news is well I must have no no brain then because you know because certainly when I was younger when I was I was I'm not I wasn't exactly a young conservative but I did you know I was much more right wing in my views when I was younger and so I've become more liberal less conservative so I'm going against you know so I'm yeah

Speaker B: 00:17:32

no brain I think that just bears out the adage yeah exactly no brain yeah plenty of heart you're going the wrong way yeah yeah yeah no I suspect well okay if the information let's try and think about what this tells us about the hypotheses so you know we've essentially got the more information more wisdom hypothesis and the more sort of selfishness more to lose kind of hypothesis um I'd suggest that that that what you've just described is is evidence in favor of the more wisdom hypothesis which ought to be right because and I know you might say I would say this but it ought to be the case that you are going to move away from extremism because extremism doesn't work you know any kind of big idealistic approach to fixing problems doesn't work it just empirically doesn't work uh you know so so you would think that whatever wherever you start you ought to drift towards you know being a bit of a kind of moderate as you get older um uh yeah and certainly that's that's that's been my you know journey as well but but yeah no I mean so so I think I think that's that's one in favor of the of the wisdom hypothesis yeah um I've not heard from Peter for

Speaker C: 00:18:42

r perhaps in the last sort of: 1500

Speaker A: 00:20:25

europe let's say that just a never-ending sort of march of of liberalism no I mean yeah I think

Speaker B: 00:20:33

I think if you look at the way that um kind of what's considered to be well I think the way that people normally describe it is as a widening of the circle of concern right of kind of of being from a sort of um prehistoric uh approach which is it's me and my family and my tribe to gradually widening that to you know your nation uh including more and more people who aren't like you um and and uh and almost like all all policies really have have kind of pushed us towards um a view that as individuals everyone broadly deserves equal treatment which you know was not nor is not normal at all it's something we all take for granted but you know that that diet that has been very much one way you know uh getting rid of slavery having equal rights for women having equal rights for you know for um ethnic minorities and so on has all gone in the same direction of of basically making things more and more equal from a sort of legal standpoint um I and and um so in a way and so I sort of the way I think about this is that in a way the left has won the battle of ends but the right has won the battle of means in the sense that the the left has uh has broadly the the view the world that we have is one that conservatives have probably over the last two or three hundred years done their best to try and stop which is you know having extending rights to people and and um and making things uh equal and enforcing these things legally but at the same time you know I don't think you know well as they say this but people don't generally try and impose left-wing policies uh people certainly don't vote for them by evidence of the left of the last election but people recognize that you know at least policies that 60 or 70 years ago people might have looked at the soviet union and said well those guys are doing pretty well that's a that's a good way of running society isn't it and a lot and a lot of respectable intellectuals would have thought the same nowadays nobody nobody would do that so I think I think the the the right is has won the battle of how you how you're supposed what economic policies we should have and how we should generally govern ourselves and the left has won the battle of what society ought to look like which is you know they're all getting what they want really aren't they yeah call it a draw I think that's a nice uh note on which to wrap up on I don't well we haven't

Speaker A: 00:23:00

answered the question but that's pretty standard yeah yeah okay we'll stop there thank you as always for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast I'm Fraser McGruer I've been here with Peter Coghill and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights until next time goodbye