Bottom-up or top-down? (Column 49)

In this column I will continue the discussion I began in the previous column. There I presented the claim that in many cases a formal-theoretical solution that seems very sensible will not solve real-life problems, and sometimes it will even do harm. In light of several comments that came up in the comments section, in this column I will clarify and complete the picture, and then show some of its implications. In the next column I will continue with several additional general and Torah-related aspects.

Completing the picture: the double message regarding the relation between theory and logic and reality

As I already wrote in the previous column, sometimes a law does help and does achieve its goal. In other cases it is indeed helpful, but it also carries harms along with it, and further improvement will bring us to the desired result (or at least bring us closer to it). But there are cases in which it is harmful, or at least not helpful and does not solve the problem. My claim there dealt mainly with the principled level: logic and theory, even when correct, do not always work in life.

I explained there that there are easy problems in which a theoretical and logical approach does work, and sometimes those problems are not "easy" but pure; that is, they may be difficult problems, but their difficulty is theoretical and not a difficulty connected to the recalcitrant and complex character of practical life, that is, of reality. Pure difficulties can perhaps be solved by theoretical tools. But difficulties that stem from the complexity of reality display noteworthy resistance to theoretical solutions imposed on them from above (top-down). In such problems one generally needs to proceed from below (bottom-up). Theory can provide insights and directions for examination and experiment, but I argued that one must be very wary of theoretical messianism, which places all its faith in theory and logic.

One more necessary introduction, precisely from someone who is a devotee of logical thinking. Logic in itself is always correct. It is a condition (necessary, though not sufficient) for the correctness of claims and arguments, including claims about life. I do not mean to advance bizarre claims that there are several logics or that there are things above logic. There is only one logic, and there is nothing above logic. The problem I am talking about is that logical models (like scientific models) are usually simplistic. They describe an abstract and ideal reality, and when we come to apply them to reality we encounter difficulties because of additional components we did not take into account.[1] Clearly, in principle, if we inserted all the components into our theory, the logical solution would be correct, but that is a theoretical statement. Usually we cannot include all the parameters, because we do not know what they are. Beyond that, even if we did take into account all the relevant parameters, the problem generally still would not have a logical solution.

A logical solution generally requires abstraction from us (in the sense of making the matter simple, that is, ignoring components that complicate the problem). Such abstraction is very important, because without it we cannot understand anything, but that is also its limitation. It is a partial model of reality, not a faithful representation of it. My claim is that one should beware of messianism, that is, of seeing the abstract theoretical model as a realistic model. It is a model that gives us partial understanding and certain insights, and in applying it to a real-life problem one can and should take them into account, but it is no less important to do so with great caution and to preserve the distinction between the model and the reality to which it refers.

Reflection

I will now apply the description offered here to my own claims. My claim that logic and theory do not solve real-life problems is itself a theory, and therefore one should not expect from it, either, a full and accurate description of reality. In light of the previous section, it is clear that the purpose of this theory, like any other theory, is to give us insights and directions of thought, not to describe reality itself in full. Therefore the examples presented in the previous column were chosen selectively in order to illustrate the point and give us insights, not to represent all of reality. Obviously there are examples in which law and logic do work, and therefore the counterexamples raised in the comments (and that will be raised below) do not really bother me (I have a theory; don’t confuse me with facts).

Indeed, sometimes there are laws and theoretical solutions that work in reality, or at least are useful on the way to a practical solution. These are counterexamples to my theory, and therefore I did not present them, because they would not help the thesis I put forward (don’t confuse me with facts). That is how every process of scientific thought works. We generalize on the basis of selectively chosen examples, build a theory that explains them and gives us insights, and now we return and examine the examples in which it does not work. That is what I shall do here with respect to my own claim.

An interim summary: respect it, but suspect it

One of the advantages of theory and theoretical thinking is that once they have been formulated they enable critique and further thought. When we have a sensible theory, every deviation of reality from it allows us to think and examine why such a deviation arises, and to try to refine the theory and through it also our understanding of reality. After all, logic is correct, so it ought to work. If it does not work, that means that our model has probably neglected a relevant component of reality, and now we can look for it and improve the theory. Without a theoretical logical model, it is impossible to think about a real problem, and impossible to advance toward its solution.[2]

The message that emerges from this column together with the previous one regarding the relation between logic and life is twofold: respect it, but suspect it. On the one hand, it enables us to think and make progress, and on the other hand, it is important to retain healthy skepticism and not pin messianic hopes on theory. Progress itself is also made by means of theoretical thinking. In light of the deviations from the theory, we can refine it, and thus try to understand reality better as well. So I am not against theory and logical thinking; I am pointing to the proper caution in using them. If in the previous column I pointed to the problematic side of top-down thinking, here I add that such thinking is necessary in order to understand reality. But one must add bottom-up thinking as well, that is, test the theory in light of reality and move forward.

I will open this column with two examples in which passing a law did in fact work. Every such case is a deviation from my theory (the theory that top-down logic does not work), and therefore one should try to think about why this happened, and thus try to refine the theory and better understand reality.

Two examples

It seems to me that one of the clearest examples of a law that worked in reality is the law protecting wildflowers, enacted in 1963 (for a description of this fascinating process, see for example here). Wildflowers were in danger of extinction because people going out into nature used to pick flowers and bring them home. The law, accompanied by an intensive campaign with the help of nature lovers (almost without a budget), changed reality dramatically. People completely refrained from picking protected wildflowers. Not for nothing is this considered one of the most successful campaigns in the history of the State of Israel carried out in combination with legislation.

Several years later, in the 1970s, Naomi Shemer wrote her famous song Waltz for the Protection of Plants ("It is forbidden to pick wildflowers"), which was written in the wake of that campaign. Not many people know that the song is not really about wildflowers, but quite the opposite. It was written against the background of the sexual harassment that was widespread in the army in the 1970s, and Naomi Shemer writes that our girls deserve protection no less than wildflowers ("Only over me does the law not watch, only over me does no one keep guard. If I had petals, then my situation would be different"). Inspired by the success of the campaign to protect wildflowers, Naomi Shemer calls on us to launch a similar campaign to protect our female soldiers. Just see how successful that earlier campaign was.

Another example is from these very days, as the "bag law" has come into force, prohibiting the distribution of plastic bags in supermarkets. This law is still quite new in Israel, but I understand that in other countries it has been quite successful in reducing the use of plastic bags. The bag law apparently works.

Analysis: what distinguishes these examples?

First, it seems to me that in both these cases we are dealing with a relatively simple situation. As I wrote in the previous column, pure situations (such as achieving an equal result in dividing a cake between two children) can indeed be solved by the top-down method as well. A law can improve the situation because it does not have many side effects and unforeseen consequences, since the factual situation does not involve any special complexity. Therefore these examples do not especially challenge my theory (thank God). And yet, this does not seem to be the full explanation.

Many have wondered, and still wonder, about the logic of the bag law. After all, a cost of 10 agorot per bag cannot really prevent their use. A discount of one shekel on some product can offset the cost of ten bags, and that is the number needed for a fairly large shopping trip. So how and why does this law actually work? What is the secret of its success? In fact, I could think of several ideas for circumventing the law protecting wildflowers (in the spirit of the heatbulb from the previous column). One could challenge the definition of the term "wild," or the definition of the species in question, or the definition of the concept "to pick." For example, I could take the soil beneath the flower (claiming I need a little sand at home) and leave it in the area, and then simply gather it up in an unusual manner, since now no picking is involved. (Does this remind anyone of legalistic artifices in Jewish law? See, for example, Shabbat 117b and elsewhere.) Although the situation in these two cases seems simple, reality is never simple, and it will not let us defend ourselves against a sufficiently creative mind. Therefore it seems to me that at the root of the success of these laws there is something more than the simplicity of the situation. Or, in my terminology here, the very sensible arguments for why this law should not work also do not work. Despite its shortcomings, the law does work.

It seems to me that in both these cases (the bags and the wildflowers) we are dealing with an idea that rested on public identification. In fact, it was probably there even before the law was passed, and the law merely advanced it and helped us implement what we had already understood on our own was proper to do. The bag law works because in its wake people refrain from buying bags. But it seems to me that the reason for this is not the astonishingly low cost of the bags (for that is truly negligible. The stinginess of people over a few dozen agorot strikes me as an exceedingly far-fetched explanation). As I understand it, what helps this law is the fact that we all understand that in this way we make our world better. The symbolic cost of the bag is only a reminder that helps us implement something we all believe in. It forces us to confront head-on the fact that we are asking the cashier for plastic bags, and does not allow us to take them absentmindedly as we had done until now. It seems to me that this is the real reason this law succeeds. I think the same was true of the wildflowers.

Moreover, despite the amusing creativity of the heatbulb (see the previous column), the law on incandescent bulbs is also highly successful. The overwhelming majority of people do not buy incandescent bulbs, not even as efficient and effective heaters (as proven by the fact that most of you had not heard of the heatbulb until now). The reason for this is not only the marketing difficulties of the heatbulb, but the basic identification people have with the law and its goals. Here too, the law merely helps us do what we ourselves believe in.

By contrast, the law for direct election of the prime minister probably could not have worked. The reason is that it is directed at direct stakeholders (politicians) and not at the general public. It cannot rest on identification, because the parties in the Knesset are self-interested, and there is no reason to think that because of the law they will act in accordance with universal morality (especially when this runs against the direct interest of the groups that elected them). The same is true of bank fees, where one tries to impose on self-interested, powerful, and professional bodies a pattern of conduct that runs contrary to their interest. If we had a clear interest in incandescent bulbs, then despite the law we would all buy heatbulbs, or plastic bags. And what about the book law? That was simply a stupid law. It did not work because there was no reason in the world it should work. An analysis of it does not belong here, because here we are dealing with sensible laws that do not work, not with laws devoid of any sense that do not work. On the contrary, if the book law proves anything, it seems to me that it actually proves the claim that logic does work.

If we return to our subject, my conclusion is that in fact in all the cases where the law succeeds, this is not really pure top-down action. Even in those cases, we do not succeed because of a law imposed from above on reality. The success stems from the fact that this is fundamentally a bottom-up process, because it begins with identification or education of the public, and only then can a law come from above that rests on that identification and helps it be realized. Surprisingly, my conclusion is that these seemingly exceptional examples actually teach that the theory I presented in the previous column does work. Indeed, top-down does not work, and the seemingly exceptional examples actually strengthen the theory. The times this method worked are rooted in the fact that it was not really top-down.

Conclusions

The meaning of all this is that laws do not change reality. Even when laws do work, this happens when they come upon a fertile social and human ground; that is, they assist something with which the public already identifies even before the law is enacted. The path to social change is persuasion and education, not legislation. Perhaps one can say that reason does not operate in the world but at most describes it (if that).

On traditionalism and conservatism

Ironically, the appeal to law and to top-down processes characterizes specifically non-traditional societies. In religious or traditional societies there are rigid and binding customs and social rules. There it is clear what is permitted and what is forbidden, and law is not always so necessary. But in non-traditional societies, and certainly in fractured and divided societies whose members do not agree on what is permitted and forbidden, and especially where there are conflicting interests, that is where law is needed. A state in which people think the law will solve all problems is a non-traditional state. In conservative and monarchical Britain, not only do they preserve the queen and her guards’ uniforms, and their funny and ridiculous ceremonies and titles of nobility. In conservative and traditional Britain, the law is also fairly thin. Custom there is no less important than law, and perhaps more important. People and politicians will not act against custom, even if the law does not forbid it. It seems to me that this is the reason their conception of law is also precedent-based (casuistic). The law is built mainly on precedents and cases decided in the courts, and not on general legislation (in the language of our cousins the jurists: statutory law). By contrast, the State of Israel is a very non-traditional and non-consensual society. We have gathered here from the four corners of the earth, each with his own beliefs. We are a young state that has not formed for itself binding customs and culture. On the contrary, every camp or faction tries to dictate its customs to everyone else, and is surprised when it encounters resistance. No wonder that in Israel people always turn to law and to the court (including members of Knesset who fail to advance their interests. It seems to me that this happens here much more than in other countries).

They say that what distinguishes Britain from the United States is mainly an ocean and a language. But there is something similar about them both: respect for custom and conservatism. The outgoing president of the United States, Barack Obama, made the healthcare law (called Obamacare) the centerpiece of his agenda. I remember being amazed to hear on the news that although he had a small majority in the Senate, he did not bring the law there to a vote, because the American custom is that laws of such fundamental importance should be passed by a majority of 60%. That was not law but custom, and yet he waited with his dearest project until a situation arose in which he had a majority that suited the custom and not only the law. I thought to myself: what would have happened in Israel in such a situation? Presumably they would promise so-and-so a Mitsubishi so that he would be absent from the plenum, and vote with the left hand (in an irregular manner) when one of the Knesset members was ill, in order to scrape together a majority of 50% + epsilon, and let custom go to hell (assuming there is any custom at all). No wonder that in such a place law acquires a super-status and is regarded as the ultimate problem solver. Therefore it is hard to create bottom-up processes here, and we keep lurching again and again in the direction of top-down, which fails again and again. Reality cannot be engineered, even if our theory is marvelous in its truth and efficiency. Until a change occurs in the public, no law will help. The law comes after the spirit of the law; the spirit of the law is not created by the law.

On left and right: centralism and decentralization

One of the responses I received to the previous column was that it was a refreshing liberal breeze. One might perhaps wonder what was liberal about that column. I was not talking about worldviews but about mechanisms for changing reality. But the commenter understood the spirit of the matter very well. Indeed, the conception that blew between the lines was liberal. I will try to explain here why.

The conception of the social and political Left is a distinctly top-down conception. The Left advocates social engineering, and rapid, planned, and directed changes, enforced from above (by the Council of Torah Sages: Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, Channel 2, Miriam Naor, and Zehava Galon). Peace agreements will change recalcitrant reality, even if no one is really ready for them and they have nothing to stand on. After all, peace is good for everyone, so everyone wants it. We only need to engineer matters a bit, for example through diplomatic agreements signed without the government, in the dark and underground (cf. Oslo), and everyone will immediately recognize our ultimate righteousness and join our messianic move. This is messianic trust in logic and theory.

According to that same leftist conception, government intervention only makes the economy more efficient, for logic says that if the central government allocates tasks intelligently among the citizens and the various bodies, there will be no duplications and all tasks will be carried out in the best possible way. If every farmer grows whatever he wants, it could happen that there will be many tomato growers and no cucumbers. What sense is there in that? That is what government is for: to intervene and manage everything. The law and the government will manage everything for the benefit of us all, and everyone will profit. After all, this is very sensible and logical, so it must work. The communists and the kibbutzniks also thought it terribly sensible and moral to divide the means of production equally among people according to need and not as compensation for talent or effort. The coordinated collective will reach much better and more efficient results for all its members, much more than a collection of self-interested individualists, each of whom acts alone as he sees fit and according to his selfish interests. Everything is very logical and should bring us to a perfect situation. There is only one drawback: it does not work.

Right-wing liberalism (economic-social, and political as well) repeatedly accuses the Left of being detached from reality. The Left clings to perfect theories that do not work, and again and again is amazed to discover how recalcitrant and illogical reality is. Think for a moment: who is it that keeps repeating the statements (so very correct), "The people are stupid," or "The people must be replaced"? It always comes from the Left. Such statements always come after the Left fails in elections, when its bubble once again bursts against recalcitrant reality. It was sure that everyone was with it and that it would storm into power and lead us directly to the Promised Land, and suddenly it finds itself once again facing cruel and recalcitrant reality. The perceptive reader can now easily understand why most intellectuals and academics are on the Left. Their theories are logical and perfect on the logical level. But those theories fail again and again because reality is stronger than they are.

For this reason, the liberalism of Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, and others believes in the "invisible hand." If you do not intervene and do not impose your perfect theories on reality, things will work better. It is frustrating. It is not logical. But it works. The Left always comes in the name of what is right, whereas the Right comes in the name of what works. The Left indeed has a vision, and contrary to what is commonly thought, it is specifically the Right that is pragmatic. But vision is a dangerous thing (as Yehoshafat Harkabi already wrote: vision, not fantasy). "We shall destroy the old world to its foundations" is an anti-traditional slogan whose goal is rapid and planned repair of the world in light of our all-embracing theory. The destructive consequences of this approach are well known today.

The public always accuses the Left of arrogance and of not accepting the democratic rules. That is a mistake. Their arrogance is entirely justified. The people really are stupid, and maybe it really would be worth replacing them. But as long as they cannot be replaced, it is better to stick to reality and not to theoretical messianism. The Left would do well to internalize that the only theory that really works is my theory: that theories do not work.

When people on the Left reach a situation in which the theories do not work, and after all it is obvious that they are very sensible, then beyond the expected frustration there emerges the conclusion that if only we applied a bit more force and gave less expression to other voices, it would work. Communism was a blunt expression of this conception. This is modernist messianism in its purest embodiment. Communism was a messianism that believed blindly in its perfect theory. Marxism explains everything, and therefore it must work. And if that does not happen, then one acts as they say in the Armored Corps: what does not work by force works with more force. This trust in logic and in an all-embracing theory, like any good messianism, tramples everything before it. It is unwilling to give expression to anything other than its own absolute truth. Conservative liberalism, by contrast, advocates modesty before the facts and before reality. Our theory may be perfect on the logical level, it keeps saying, but it is worth testing it against reality. Reality has a dynamic of its own, and we would do well to respect it.

A surprise ending

These sentences remind me of things I often say to religious people. There too one finds fundamentalism, that is, full trust in an all-knowing theory that is absolutely correct. This messianic trust leads to an unwillingness to test the theory and confront it with reality. In this sense religiosity is a kind of modernist Left. In my book Shtei Agalot (Two Wagons) I already pointed out that there is much in common between modernism and religion. But that is only a point for thought, and I will not enter into it here.

Well, I see I have gone on at length, so I will stop here. It seems to me there will be another column on this topic.

[1] For a description of this matter in the scientific and Talmudic context, see my article on ukimtot (Talmudic harmonizing constructions).

[2] It seems to me that Freud’s psychoanalytic terminology has little connection to reality. It is a collection of baseless speculations, and the connection between them and science does not deserve even the label "tenuous." And yet the invention of psychoanalytic terminology was an enormous and brilliant contribution to psychology. Without a system of concepts there is no way to conduct discussion and advance research. Even in order to discover that some claim is flawed, we must formulate it within some conceptual framework.

The same is true, of course, of the exact sciences. Before Galileo and Newton, mathematical and empirical research in mechanics was impossible. As long as no one had decided that the subject matter of that science is position, time, velocity, acceleration, force, and mass, it was impossible to formulate claims, and certainly impossible to test them empirically and mathematically.