Two Quotes: Hamilton and Holmes

Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 70:

Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike. But if they have been consulted, and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their sentiments.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Ideals and Doubts, in Collected Legal Papers 303, 305 (1920), quoted in Michael Boudin's review of a volume of Louis Brandeis's letters, 85 Yale L. J. 591, 596 (1976):

[T]he mode in which the inevitable comes to pass is through effort. . . . And although with Spinoza we may regard criticism of the past as futile, there is every reason for doing all that we can to make the future such as we desire.

Comments

[Bwaaah]

"there is every reason for doing all that we can to make the future such as we desire."

[Randal]

I find Hamilton’s quote to be untrue, at least as applied to most people. Generally, if people aren’t consulted on a decision at all, they find the decision to be illegitimate. How can it have been a good decision if it was made without all the information? But if they’re consulted and then the decision goes the other way, they’re usually happy just to have been listened to, and often feel like they contributed to the final result in some way, and so are much more likely to support it, or at least accept it.

[Jaypd]

I think you're right. At least today. Perhaps people felt differently when communication was much more difficult.

[JasonT20]

I don't know if BrotherMovesOn meant to reply to your post, Randal, but it seems like he is addressing your comment, and I tend to agree with him. On an individual or small group level, say, within a workplace or small community, people would be more inclined to be content to have been consulted and informed about decisions that they end up disagreeing with. But with larger groups, especially with partisan politics, it can be a no-win situation for those trying to make a decision contrary to what some want.

Don't include them in the decision making process because you don't need to, and they could be angered by that and vocally oppose the decision reflexively. But if you include them in the process knowing that they are likely to disagree with the eventual decision then they could be angered by your unwillingness to give them most of what they want as a compromise. Or, they could just be angered by the fact that they don't get to make the decision on their own.

It's a very cynical view, but I can see it playing out that way in partisan politics quite often. (See the recent efforts to pass the legislation for border security and funding for Ukraine and Israel.)

[Brett Bellmore]

"Or, they could just be angered by the fact that they don’t get to make the decision on their own."

And often that's fair, because many times things that could, with a little effort, or even none at all, be individual choices, are forced to be group choices. There's a lot of that going on, thanks to maniacs who think democracy is a good thing, rather than the least bad way of making collective choices.

Say the hypothetical "Only one flavor of ice cream is legal" bill passes; The fact that you're actually consulted about what flavor it will be doesn't ease the sting any when you subsequently can't legally buy butter pecan.

[Commenter_XY]

Agree, I think this part is key for the individual = ...if they’re consulted and then the decision goes the other way, they’re usually happy just to have been listened to, and often feel like they contributed to the final result in some way... - the emotional identification and affiliation is there. This is a very human reaction (psychology, as BMO notes below).

One additional note: If that very same person thinks the listening was insincere or inauthentic, affiliation and emotional identification goes strongly the other way. That is one way the illegitimate part you mention comes into play (to me).

My sense is Hamilton was talking about groups. We see what Hamilton wrote about today, in American society.

Kudos to Professor Bray for finding the Hamilton quote. How apt for the times.

[theobromophile]

Same.

In political circles, there is some evidence that a hotly contested primary is actually good for the party. People feel like they were heard and that their objections were noted. Maybe they feel less inclined to register those internal (to their party) objections at the ballot box.

[BrotherMovesOn]

I think you are reducing the sentiment expressed to a micro level (I am no Hamilton expert but - great respect), like inter-office decisions, maybe interpersonal level reactions. That's psychology.
Macro-level reactions hew closer to what he's saying.
Again, if I understand him, and you, correctly.

[Dan Schiavetta]

"But if they have been consulted, and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their sentiments."

Today's Republican Party, where if you compromise, you're ostracized.

[Rossami]

Yeah, like that doesn't happen just as often and just as badly in the Democratic Party. Take off your partisan blinders.

[David Nieporent]

Just look at the senate: Democrats range from Bernie Sanders (not formally a Democrat, but caucuses with them) to Joe Manchin. The GOP caucus ranges from Attila the Hun to a louder, dumber Attila the Hun.

[Brett Bellmore]

Remember Bernie Sanders literally complaining that there were too many choices in a free market?

‘You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers’

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, too many deodorant choices is basically a line from Das Kapital.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, that's my point: Democrats have a wide spectrum of people in their caucus, including socialists. The GOP only has crazy and crazier.

[Rossami]

Captcrisis says something stupidly partisan and DN responds with the rhetorical equivalent of "hold my beer".

Then after arguing with a parody of your political opponents that only exists in your own fevered imaginations, you wonder why no one changes their mind. You're both blinded by the planks in your own eyes.

[Nige]

Trump just promised to invade blue states with the national guard.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

So you're saying Trump is like Lincoln?

[Bob from Ohio]

"crazy and crazier"

Susan Collins? Lisa Murkowski? Mitch? Thune? Romney?

5 examples showing that you are the crazy one.

[Nige]

Trump said Democrats are going to change the name of Pennsylvania.

[Bob from Ohio]

David is talking about the Senate caucuses.

Trump is crazy, you should vote against him.

[Nige]

He's talking about Republicans. Who vote for crazy.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Just look at the senate: ...The GOP caucus "

He is specifically talking about GOP senators.

Learn to read before you comment.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Any Republican who tries to compromise so as to reach agreements with Democrats will get ostracized. We saw that with McCarthy, Lankford, etc., etc. By contrast Democrats are willing to compromise — we saw that in the recent attempted border deal. Democrats are grownups. They realize that to get things done, you have to work with your opponents.

And -- think of all the Democrats who criticize Biden (and who criticized Obama). Think of what would happen to them if they were Republicans criticizing Trump.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, the reason they get ostracized is that they're trying to reach agreements to give up victories already won.

Democrats tend to compromise in the form of, they want a whole loaf, they only get half, and come back for the rest tomorrow.

The Republicans you like, their compromises tend to be, they've already got the whole loaf, they agree to only give away half of it today.

The proposed immigration deal was a good example of this, actually. Republicans got basically nothing from it, because the extra immigration enforcement shut off automatically at a level of illegal immigration higher than we'd ever seen before Biden took over.

That's why it blew up the moment anyone outside the group who negotiated it found out what was in it.

[Commenter_XY]

Team R is utterly incompetent, politically.

[David Nieporent]

Again: the right wing Border Patrol union endorsed it.

[Bob from Ohio]

Because they will get jobs and money from it.

[Sarcastr0]

This is the song of the partisan.

Go to left wing sites and you see 'that GOP is so ruthless they get everything - the Dems need to take off the gloves and stop the endless compromising. Why, I'll bet the Dems are doing it on purpose because they secretly hate true leftist ideals!'

And everything counts as an example, because no actual law is pure enough.
Congrats, Brett, you sound exactly like an Internet leftist. You can both be angry at Hillary Clinton forever.

[Nige]

The impossibility of appeasing a Republican. They hate compromise because compromise means having to give things up or not getting things entirely the way you want or it means something happens that you do actually want to happen but don't want to happen yet.

[Randal]

Stupid Brett. Pretend that the border-shutdown clause weren’t even in the bill if you hate it so much. Which is stupid because it’s still stricter that what we have now but whatever.

The bill also increased detention, asylum processing, and deportation capacity, funded more border barricades, and made asylum harder to apply for and get. Immigration-wise, 100% of the bill was cracking down. The Democrats got nothing, no path to citizenship, no Dreamers, zilch. We just got Ukraine.

Well, we’re going to get Ukraine anyway. It’s like the Republicans were selling us a car, negotiated a price, ended up balking that it was too low so refused to accept payment… but gave us the car anywsy.

Dumbasses! You’re so allergic to compromise you’d rather give up Ukraine for nothing rather than take “yes” for an answer. That’ll backfire with voters.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Inability of right wingers even to notice their own faction's group dynamic stands as confirmation of Hamilton's observation.

[Commenter_XY]

lathrop, your comment was quite economical, and parsimonious. You made good progress your wall of text problem. Good job. 😉

[gVOR08]

The Hamilton quote is a roundabout, and incomplete, statement of Cleek's Law, "Todays conservatism is the opposite of what liberals want today, updated daily." If Joe Biden were to announce he thinks Ukraine is a lost cause and we're stopping aid, within a month Trump would be demanding Biden give Zelensky everything he wants. And y'all would believe you'd always said the same.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

What is liberalism under this law?

[Nige]

Anything conservatives don't like.

[Jarndyce]

The Holmes quote has a small error. It should be "a future," not "the future." I'm looking at a first edition of Holmes' "Collected Legal Papers," not at Michael Boudin's review.

[Commenter_XY]

That is an interesting observation. Where is the line for you? What are examples where you felt your individual decision was trumped by the collective decision of society, otherwise? Is abortion an example you'd cite? Are there others?

[Brett Bellmore]

There's a big fight over which decisions should be collective, and which individual. I'm just saying the notion that democracy is actually a good in and of itself, rather than just the least bad way of making collective decisions, leads to some people preferring collective decisions where individual choice would be perfectly feasible.

[Rossami]

And you'd be missing the entire point - which is the debate over which decisions are actually necessary. Most are not. Your fundamental premise above (where you say "living in a modern industrial society...") is false. As society has modernized and concentration in cities has increased, the individual choices have vastly increased.

Arrogant busybodies trying to impose their own moral choices on others are a bipartisan problem.