Part 3 in a five part series: Sleeping Through the TPP Coup: Why a Trans-National Corporate Power Grab That Hurts Almost Everyone Is Arousing So Little Outcry

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(Article changed on January 25, 2014 at 11:19)

This is the third part of a five-part series: Sleeping Through the TPP Coup: Why a Trans-National Corporate Power Grab That Hurts Almost Everyone Is Arousing So Little Outcry

Part 1: What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, And Why Don't I Care?

Part 2: Obstacles to Anti-TPP Coordination: A Social Psychological Account

Part 3: The Puzzle of "Liberal" Obama's Support for the TPP

Part 4: Pitting Fear of Our Complicity Against the Fear to Resist the TPP

Part 5: Battling the TPP with Enlightenment, Love and a Thirst For Meaning in the Face of Death

The first part of this series introduced the Trans Pacific Partnership "trade deal" scam, identified its potential dangers, as well as the dangers of allowing it to be "fast-tracked" through Congress. It also posed the question: why have activists had so much difficulty raising the mass awareness and mass outrage that the TPP threat warrants?

The second part drew on social psychology concepts like ingroup favoritism, cognitive miserliness, the halo effect and cognitive dissonance to explore some potential answers to that question.

This third part continues to draw on relevant social psychology concepts, but focuses on the mystery of why President Obama--who seemed pretty rhetorically committed to egalitarian reform, financial regulation and opposing bad trade deals when he was a candidate in 2008--is seeking "fast-track" authority for the TPP.

Obama's determination to obtain fast-tracking "Trade Promotion Authority" for the TPP is something that ought to befuddle his supporters, even his supporters who make excuses for his "national security"-related outrages and atrocities. Pragmatic anti-Republican Obama-boosters often excuse him for doing things like escalating the Afghanistan war and expanding it into Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and 70-odd other countries because "that's what he needs to do to cozy up to the powerful military-industrial-intelligence complex." With the political capital he gains from all that pointless torturing, killing and earth-scorching, perhaps he can push through a domestic economic agenda less inhumane than what the Republicans would have forced on us.

But his support for the TPP doesn't fit well with this story. The TPP looks like a gigantic smorgasbord of grievous harms that far outweighs the little harm-minimization Obama has managed to achieve on other economic and egalitarian fronts. The TPP is a huge political give-away to the powers that thrill to crushing equality and humanity for fun and profit. Its passage under fast-tracked authority would pretty much guarantee that these powers would swallow up the few crumbs of achievement the Obama administration has managed to scrape from the loaf of governance. Obama's support for fast-tracking the TPP is especially galling since he campaigned on being opposed to NAFTA-like trade agreements (as he once campaigned on closing Guantanamo and numerous other things).

It's disappointing to admit that Obama really is a politician, and not the Messiah, but it might also be helpful to understand that while progressive movements can make good changes, progressive presidents are much less reliable for emotional investment. In fact often progressive presidents (and prime ministers and other politicians worldwide) are regularly tempted to make horrible decisions that either maintain the plutocratic status quo or make it worse.

National leaders these days--even leaders of a global empire like the U.S.--are probably more puppets of power than they are puppeteers. I imagine there's too much at stake for existing powers to allow presidents--or any world leaders really--to be independent movers of social change. Right-of-center politicians are naturally aligned with the interests of the ruling powers, but these days rightist politicians are not as talented as they once were at hiding their amoral venality behind a veil of charisma . About half the population of any normal country, then, is inclined to resist the worst initiatives of rightist politicians--as we saw during the Bush years. This means that the "powers that be" must sometimes use progressive or left-of-center winners of democratic elections to either implement or consolidate corporation-friendly policies. In a plutocratic sham democracy, left-of-center politicians, though elected as the "lesser evil," often end up serving instead as "the  more effective evil ."

The economic policies promoted by plutocracy notably include (1) deregulation of business practices and financial markets, (2) privatization of public goods, and (3) cuts to government provision for public welfare. This triumvirate of awfulness is known as " neoliberalism " and most trade deals since NAFTA have been conducive to neoliberal power consolidation . I'll talk about why the word "neoliberal" is probably confusing you later on ("Huh? It sounds like conservatism. Does 'neo'+'liberal' equal conservative?"). For now, just know that neoliberalism is the word academics use to label this trio of policy blessings upon oligarchy. And to some extent the label is appropriate, since "left-liberals" who rise to the top of the political class are often easily manipulated into becoming enthusiastic facilitators of neoliberalism.

I myself was a pre-teen living in New Zealand when Roger Douglas from the traditionally left-liberal Labor Party began dismantling New Zealand's welfare state and instituting other social fabric-ripping neoliberal reforms. So I got dosed with the unreliability of left-of-center parties at a pretty early age. I would even say that left-of-center parties and leaders are the most effective tools of neoliberalization you can get when a charismatic right winger like Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher is not available--and when circumstances do not allow big business to install a murdering torturing dictator like Augusto Pinochet.

I'm inclined to blame ingroup favoritism and the halo effect for this left-liberal talent at getting away with betraying their base (s ee Part 2 ). Also, when the left-liberal base sits on their hands in disgust with their own party, they are often punished with the rapid political rise of sociopaths and nutjobs, like Newt Gingrich's  Contract on America  in 1994 and the Tea Party in 2010 (though Tea Party has actually turned out to be a valuable ally of sanity on some issues).

If all attempts to hold the less-despicable major party accountable result in the catastrophic ascension of the most despicable wing of the more-despicable party, this is essentially a kind of plutocratic blackmail. The political lesson this blackmail teaches is: let the less despicable party do whatever it wants to you, no matter how vile. It can and will get worse otherwise.

In any case, plutocrats know that outrages against democracy, equality and public health by left-of-center leaders will arouse less opposition than when "right-wing conservatives" execute the same outrages. Thus it serves the interests of plutocrats when we expect too much from left-liberal politicians, or when we have too much fear of right-conservative politicians. The latter can do terrible things, but at least we notice when they do.

Liberal-Conservative Is Not The Same Dimension as Left-Right

So now it's time for an interlude to help you relieve your confusion (i.e. adopt my point of view) regarding the words "liberal" "conservative", "left" and "right." People often take "liberal" as a synonym for "left", perhaps because liberals and leftists often get together politically to take on conservatives and rightists (and vice versa). If you want conceptual clarity, though, it is best to think of "liberals" as hedonistic, open-minded, stimulation-seeking, self-directed types of people and conservatives as devout, obedient, traditionalist, security-concerned people. Liberals like sexual exploration, tweaking their consciousness, watching foreign films, and having scintillating conversations with diverse views expressed. Conservatives like going to church/mosque/synagogue/temple, doing wholesome things with their families, and building up a simple and satisfying existential routine in a stable place they can call home.

On the downside, liberals are somewhat more likely to be psychopaths , drug addicts and sex addicts than conservatives and conservatives are a lot more likely to be homophobes and opponents of abortion rights than liberals. Though it is possible to be liberal and conservative at the same time (and aiming for the best of liberalism and conservatism is a worthy goal), in practice one lifestyle, taken out far enough, tends to become competitive with the other lifestyle for most individuals.  A large chunk of people tend to describe themselves as "moderate" or "neutral" with regard to liberalism vs. conservatism, and politicians often pose as being at the center of these poles for that reason.  But it there is a wide range of meaningful variation at this "center"--variation along another dimension that is very morally-relevant.

Both liberals and conservatives can be attracted to what I call "the left" or "the right", since this is a potentially independent dimension both conceptually and empirically. What I am going to call "Lefties"--and forgive me for a very idiosyncratic definition of this term--tend to be concerned with benevolent treatment of others around them and a benevolent universalistic system of practices and power relations for all. That means lefties tend to support egalitarian social arrangements, peaceful means of persuasion, impartial procedural justice, care for the environment, restorative over punitive justice, etc. The "right" on the other hand, is tremendously concerned about power and achievement, getting things done, accomplishing goals, and making "greatness" happen--generally their own.

As with "liberal" and "conservative", it is possible to be "left" and "right" at the same time--sometimes a deft mixture of the two will facilitate serious political accomplishment, though the mix can also turn into something ugly fast. " Actually-existing communism " might be thought of as something that began as a powerful combination of left-wing ideology with right wing methodologies and then quickly became a hollow shell of leftism filled with a particularly putrid and vile form of rightism.  It is even plausible that a leftist orientation that gets overtaken by methodological rightism leaves a bigger crater in all things just and fair than simple old rightism by itself.   Giving leftists God-like totalitarian powers over the lives and deaths of millions of people has a particularly bad record in world history.  

In the long run, then, these leftist and rightist inclinations tend to be in tension for most people, since an excessive focus on your own power and achievement might make you lose touch with how that power and achievement could negatively affect others. Conversely, living with intent to do right by others all the time may run so much against the grain of self-interest that it can distract leftist do-gooders from taking practical steps towards power and achievement.

Thus the down side of right wingers by my definition is that they are much more likely to be rights-abusing psychopaths (or tools thereof) than left-wingers and also more likely to support destructive and oppressive political policies, while left-wingers are somewhat more likely to be disorganized, motivationally anemic, and ineffectual.

The left-right dimension and the liberal-conservative dimension should be thought of as independent from each other, like north-south and east-west on a map of the world. The names left and right translate easily into west and east, and liberals and conservatives can argue over who gets to be north. The empirical evidence for conceptualizing ideology this way comes from cross-cultural work on values by psychologist Shalom Schwartz and to some extent from Moral Foundations Theory work by psychologists Jesse Graham and Jonathan Haidt. The way I have described "conservative" (vs. liberal) derives from the Schwartz dimension of "conservation" vs. "openness to change." That dimension correlates with what Graham and Haidt call "binding morality"--a morality concerned with "ingroup", "authority" and "purity". The way I have described "left" (vs. "right") derives from the Schwartz dimension of "self-transcendence" vs. "self-enhancement." That dimension correlates with what Graham and Haidt call "individualizing morality"--a morality concerned with "care" and "fairness" for others.

Schwartz explicitly treats these two dimensions as independent from one another, like an elevator that goes up and down and a moving walkway that runs from one side of each floor to the other. Two dimensional models allow for using 2-dimensional shapes--like circles--to frame one's thinking about things. Indeed, in the Schwartz model, ideological positions are not presented as points along a line, but rather as wedges in a circle , where steady movement from the outer edge of one wedge to the next will eventually lead you all the way around the circle.

Graham and Haidt's research provides as much evidence as Schwartz's does for a two-dimensional understanding of values/ideology because "individualizing" and "binding" are also independent, perpendicular dimensions. But Graham and Haidt collapse the interpretation of their findings into one dimensional discourse: i.e. left-liberal vs. right-conservative . They define left-wing liberals as being lower-than-average on binding morality--Ingroup, Authority, Purity; and higher-than-average on individualizing morality--Care and Fairness. Right-wing conservatives, of course, they define by the opposite pattern.

Though these definitions are empirically-rooted in left-liberal vs. right-conservative self-labeling, they unfortunately confound the two crisp clear independent dimensions discovered by Moral Foundations research (specifically confounding high binding with low individualizing) and thus keep a lot of the ambiguity in political discourse that their research could have cleared away.

One (hopefully unintended) consequence of one-dimensionally dichotomizing left-liberals and right-conservatives is that when Graham and Haidt say an attitude, policy or person is "conservative" it is unclear if they mean "lower-than-average individualizing" (i.e. unconcerned for care and fairness towards others) or "higher-than-average binding" (i.e. concerned for ingroup, authority and purity).

The distinction between "high binding" conservatism and "low individualizing" right wing atrociousness matters, because if a supposedly "conservative" policy is really about defecating all over care and fairness, then it is perhaps more accurately labeled a "right wing" or even "fascist" policy, with all the negative connotations that term deserves. If you dress up a right wing policy--which most people who aren't Wall Street CEOs or defense contractors would oppose--as a "conservative" policy--which about half of humanity would support--then you have done a disservice to the truth, and to that large part of humanity who are not Wall Street CEOs or defense contractors.

In Graham and Haidt's defense, ideological confusion over the difference between liberals and the left (and conservatives and the right) has plagued discourse in social, personality and political psychology for quite some time. One of the more influential measures of "right wing" attitudes in political psychology is Bob Altemeyer's " Right Wing Authoritarianism " and it's not actually a very good measure of right wing attitudes as I have defined them here. RWA correlates better with conservation and high binding than it correlates with self-enhancement and low individualizing . A truer measure of right wing attitudes is probably Jim Sidanius and colleagues' Social Dominance Orientation --which correlates more with self-enhancement and low individualizing than with conservation and high binding.

If I were to rename these two commonly-used scales, I'd call them "Conservative Authoritarianism" and "Right Wing Dominance Orientation" respectively. And while I was at it I'd rename Graham and Haidt's "individualizing" dimension. It's confusing to use a word that sounds like the opposite of "binding" for what's actually an independent dimension. A better name, perhaps, would be "other respecting"--i.e. having enough respect for others to be caring and fair towards them.

Taking it back to Obama

Anyway, in contrast to a linear, dimension-confounding left-liberal vs. right-conservative view of values and ideology, Schwartz's " circumplex " view is much more conceptually helpful for making sense of why a supposed left-liberal like Obama would be trying to fast-track the TPP. Obama is liberal and even "left-wing" to some extent (at least in his rhetoric), but since he's president of the most powerful country in the world and his legacy is determined by his power-wielding achievements, the constraints of his office are likely to shift his focus from benevolence, universalism, care and fairness to achievement and power.

Obama can try to embrace both ends of this dimension at once, but it is hard to sustain that balancing act over the long term, especially now that he is chronically violating human rights, the Constitution, the environment, and the idea that all people's welfare matters. Those kinds of betrayals of universalism and benevolence tend to stir up cognitive dissonance, and reducing that dissonance usually means effectively moving your psyche (if not your explicit political orientation) to the right.

What Obama can do more easily, though, even as he signs off on murder, torture, oppression and destruction, is stay "liberal." That is, he can continue to be cool and laid back, intellectually curious, appreciative of eating in foreign restaurants, and pluralistic on issues of sexual-relational mores. That's because liberalism-conservatism is on an independent dimension from left-right. Some of his liberal positions obviously affect human rights matters that should concern leftists too--like equal marriage--but taking a pro-human rights stand on this issue by no means guarantees a generally pro-human rights commitment.

Conformity and Obedience

Obama's right wing policy positions might also be explained situationally, rather than in terms of his free choices causing value-shifting dissonance. Obama is surrounded by advisors from the culture of violent imperial power who are likely telling him (effectively) that he has to scorch the earth, set terrible legal precedents, as well as mass murder, torture and impoverish people if he is going to achieve even a fragment of his legislative agenda.

Solomon Asch's social psychological studies on conformity are relevant to judging how these social pressures are likely to influence Obama. Asch's studies examined individuals who were subjected to repeated pressure to conform. He exposed participants to 12 experimental trials in which the apparent consensus of the crowd was out of step with what was obviously right. His studies--which have been replicated in recent years--showed that even in an individualistic culture like the United States, 75% of participants gave in at least once to the apparent consensus against their better judgment.

And insofar as any individual figure close to Obama can assume the role of an authority over him (yes, this is possible even with presidents--especially young, inexperienced presidents), we should also consider the relevant research on people's obedience to authority. 65% of research participants in Stanley Milgram's most well-known obedience study (Milgram did several variations) delivered what they believed were escalatingly intense and painful electric shocks to an aging veteran with a heart condition. Over the course of the experiment, the veteran demanded to be released, screamed repeatedly in pain and then fell silent as if dead.

For the most part, though, participants only delivered the most painful shocks if prodded to do so by an authority. When left to their own devices--even with an authority's moral blessing to do be as shock-happy as they wanted--the vast majority of participants stuck to the lower shock levels . Milgram concluded that people aren't as intrinsically thirsty for violence as many human nature-haters would believe, but most are still pretty pathetic at recognizing and resisting the violent commands of malevolent authorities who perch themselves above them.

Another feature of Milgram's experiments to keep in mind is that when an authority was present, the shocker had to verbally resist the authority four times in a row in order to be counted as "disobedient" and released from the experiment. I imagine that anything Obama has said "no" to has left him subjected to way more than just four, or even twelve, prods to fall into line. And the stated or implied negative consequences for Obama of non-compliance have likely been more extreme than "looking weird in front of people" or "shame at being rude to an authority."

For both Asch's conformity experiments and Milgram's obedience experiments, participants showed evidence of not wanting to go along with what they did under these social pressures. That is, a large number of externally conforming or obedient participants did not realign their internal understanding--they kept their own counsel about what was right, even as they betrayed it with their actions. It is possible Obama is doing the same.

The left hopes and the right fears that Obama is like Quentin Tarantino's Django --he pretends to be okay with watching racists sic dogs on a human being and tear him apart, but secretly he still harbors an intention to burn the whole disgusting edifice of oppression and violence to the ground. Outwardly, Django-Obama complies with the system of oppression, but inwardly, he has a plan. The trouble is, the more Obama mixes his labor with ripping human beings apart, the more likely he is to become like Calvin Candie (the nemesis of Django Unchained--a sadistic slave owner fond of torture, blood sports and phrenology). As much as we might hope that good people can be undercover forces of conscience from within the belly of the beast, the beast tempts them to do things that can potentially cause dramatic inward changes; compliance can become character.

Ultimately, we cannot know whether this TPP-fast-tracking outrage is a product of Obama's deeply-held and longstanding dreams for the country and the world, or something he's pushing on us because his own back is to the wall. The TPP may be part of an extensive ransom that existing corporate and financial powers are demanding of him for whatever crumbs of reasonableness they are letting him get away with. Perhaps the TPP is an extra cost imposed for allowing Obama the privilege of providing quasi-affordable health insurance to the working poor and middle class (the most obvious cost, of course, being the structural giveaway to health insurance companies and Big Pharma, and the freezing out of the public option).

By the same reasoning, perhaps Obama's most salient crimes--the drone assassination program, secret dirty JSOC-CIA wars all over the world, the persecution of whistleblowers , the expanded NSA security state, and no charge-trial-or-conviction targeted assassinations of Americans and others outside a declared battlefield--are also costs imposed for granting him certain privileges of presidential legacy. Obama has, to his credit, continued to leave waterboarding off the list of legally-approved torture methods , drawn down troops in Iraq, and avoided war with Iran (and, more recently, Syria). These actions may have all been motivated by grass roots pressure on him, but we may remember from the Bush era how unyielding certain leaders can be to grass roots pressure.  We should perhaps be ready to offer sympathetic condolences to Obama then for whatever blackmail-related anxieties he might be suffering as he attempts to execute with minimum perfidy and carnage the de facto duties of his office.

So Obama-boosters take note.  If hidden powers are regularly forcing Obama to act against his own moral preferences, then it is not "anti-Obama" to resist the perfidy and carnage that he claims to support. What Obama "really wants" is essentially unknowable, so we can feel free to just do the right thing and hope that Obama is on board in the deepest recesses of his heart, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. By this principle, we are not obliged to roll over for the TPP (or drone assassination, indefinite detention, etc.) just because halo-wearing, we-voted-for-him Obama is mixing his labor with it.

People who have done some good things may often do some bad things too, for all kinds of reasons, including situational pressures. It isn't necessary to support, soft-pedal or excuse those bad things in order to appreciate and honor the good things they've done. Again, this is something that we who have politically supported Obama in one way or another might want to say to ourselves ten times a day in order to harmlessly reduce our dissonance and stay in touch with reality.

Go on to Part 4: Pitting Fear of Our Complicity Against the Fear to Resist the TPP.

Authors Bio:

Ian Hansen is an Associate Professor of psychology and the 2017 president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility.