On The Radar | The Bars of the Cage
Valerie Stivers | Progressive Realism | Macron and France | FEMA is Taking the Long View
The digital age is flattening, alienating, and overwhelming, and a strategy of resistance is often to return to our core humanity. But that strategy can also be the bars of the cage, setting up an opposition between what’s contemporary and what’s human.
| Valerie Stivers, Unguarded Angel
Progressive Realism
In A foreign policy that sees the world, Robert Wright makes the case for progressive realism by correcting its appropriation by David Lammy, the new UK foreign minister:
In a sense, it has already demonstrated that. Lammy depicts his foreign policy vision as new, but it’s pretty much the same vision that has long guided his party and comparable Western parties — including the Democratic Party in the United States. And this vision is, in critical respects, not very different from the neoconservatism that has dominated Republican foreign policy for most of the past few decades. Lammy’s progressive realism is one of the several variants of Blobthink that have together played such a big role in creating the mess we’re in.
‘Blobthink’ is the groupthink practiced among the political class.
Progressive realism is, according to Wright, 'taking countries as they are', meaning that foreign policy should not be directed toward getting countries to adopt ideologies for managing their internal policies: for example, we shouldn't coerce China to become more democratic and less autocratic. Instead, we should work to have all nations -- including our own -- stay within a rules-based order. For example, countries should not invade others (as the US did in Iraq, and as Russia is doing now in Ukraine). Sanctions should not be leveled at countries for internal policies, but only for infringing on the rules-based order, and maybe not even then.
It's crucial that we steer clear of the divisive 'democratic' versus 'autocratic' axes of the world, he argues. This polarization only serves to hinder our collective efforts to tackle global issues, such as climate change and the Kessler Effect. We must unite in our resolve to address these challenges.
Wright’s vision of a non-zero-sum world, a world where one's gain is not necessarily another's loss, is not just a theoretical concept. It's a necessity. This vision requires a system of global governance, and we need to act now. Wright believes that only a paradigm shift towards progressive realism can get us there.
Macron and France
In Macron versus vibes, Tej Parikh lays out the reality: Macron's policies are strongly oriented toward business interests, and Macron’s reforms are deeply unpopular except in the business community. It seems he favors the rich and the bourgeoisie over everybody else. Witness the victory of the new left coalition.
Unemployment is down, which in principle is good for ordinary people, but those same people deeply dislike Macron. Despite broad economic advances, French vibes have turned against him, just as for Biden.
As behavioural scientist Daniel Kahneman, who passed away earlier this year, noted: the “remembering self” evaluates the past based on the “peak intensity” and “the end”. The difference is between the very low lows of the cost of living crisis in 2022 and the rising but still low confidence of today.
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Arguably, considering the economic shocks, business confidence has kept relatively buoyant. That may partly be down to the ex-investment banker’s business-friendly reforms and approach, noted above (which also included abolishing a wealth tax and easing corporation tax).
And what's his justification for those tax cuts? Make the rich richer? Did it lead to more investment? His policies did lead to lower unemployment, but did workers see wages higher than the increased cost of food and other necessities?
The business outlook bounced back quickly after the pandemic and even now remains close to its long-term average.
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Overall, French households’ outlook for their living standards is worse than when Macron’s first term started.'
It is not entirely clear that even in the absence of these shocks, the president has had enough of a grasp on economic vibes to retain the political capital he has needed to maintain his long-term project.
I'd say it's clear that he will not.
FEMA is Taking the Long View
Christopher Flavelle, in FEMA Imposes Building Rules to Reduce Flood Damage, reports on changes in FEMA’s thinking about flooding:
The agency said Wednesday that projects constructed with FEMA money must be built in a way that prevents flood damage, whether by elevating them above the expected height of a flood or, if that’s not feasible, by building in a safer location. The rule also makes it clear that building decisions must reflect risks now and also in the future, as climate change makes flooding more frequent and severe.
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Flood damage is likely to reach $40 billion in average annual losses this decade, according to Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers.
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We are spending a lot of money to build stuff that’s washing away,” Mr. Moore said. “We have to build for the world we’re going to live in 50 or 60 years from tomorrow.
So, no rebuilding the same flooded buildings six times? Good.