An interesting essay. In the context of Canadian multiculturalism - basically a rigorous application of the principle of liberal neutrality to culture as well as religion - it's important for institutions to support cultural pluralism. Each institution has a set of norms that people are expected to adhere to regardless of their culture (e.g. whether they're Protestant, Catholic, Sikh, Muslim, or non-religious). Thus in Canada we would say that institutions rely on *norms*, not that they rely on a shared *culture*. Joseph Heath, "The myth of shared values in Canada": https://web.archive.org/web/20051031060708/http://www.myschool-monecole.gc.ca/Research/publications/pdfs/manion2003_e.pdf
Thus it's not enough to have an institution that's well-designed on paper - the norms of the institution in practice (i.e. the extent to which people actually follow the explicit and implicit rules) will determine how well it operates.
New Internet-based institutions like Twitter have their own norms, which are quite weak. (A norm is only effective if there's an associated sanction for violating it, and on the Internet, sanctions are difficult to enforce. So you get a lot of bad behavior.) It's quite possible that this is weakening norms in other institutions, like American politics.
This is a great post, but you left it short of its logical conclusion, which is: what are citizens to do when faced with questions that can only be answered by science, even when the science is unsettled and sometimes even wrong? I am thinking specifically about the climate change question, where the science is so complex, or the Covid public health mandates, where (especially at the beginning) the data was so thin. In these circumstances, what are deliberative citizens, interested in doing the right thing, to do? What is the alternative to 'deferring to the experts'? Is it not 'true' (as far as the science goes), whether citizens believe it or not, that the climate is warming? And is it not 'true' (as far as the limited data tells us), whether citizens believe it or not, that wearing a mask helps mitigate the spread of the virus?
An interesting essay. In the context of Canadian multiculturalism - basically a rigorous application of the principle of liberal neutrality to culture as well as religion - it's important for institutions to support cultural pluralism. Each institution has a set of norms that people are expected to adhere to regardless of their culture (e.g. whether they're Protestant, Catholic, Sikh, Muslim, or non-religious). Thus in Canada we would say that institutions rely on *norms*, not that they rely on a shared *culture*. Joseph Heath, "The myth of shared values in Canada": https://web.archive.org/web/20051031060708/http://www.myschool-monecole.gc.ca/Research/publications/pdfs/manion2003_e.pdf
Thus it's not enough to have an institution that's well-designed on paper - the norms of the institution in practice (i.e. the extent to which people actually follow the explicit and implicit rules) will determine how well it operates.
New Internet-based institutions like Twitter have their own norms, which are quite weak. (A norm is only effective if there's an associated sanction for violating it, and on the Internet, sanctions are difficult to enforce. So you get a lot of bad behavior.) It's quite possible that this is weakening norms in other institutions, like American politics.
Nice essay.. reminded me of Scott Alexander's metaphor of 'Elua', the "god" of pro-social coordination, in his essay Meditations On Moloch about collective action problems https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
This is a great post, but you left it short of its logical conclusion, which is: what are citizens to do when faced with questions that can only be answered by science, even when the science is unsettled and sometimes even wrong? I am thinking specifically about the climate change question, where the science is so complex, or the Covid public health mandates, where (especially at the beginning) the data was so thin. In these circumstances, what are deliberative citizens, interested in doing the right thing, to do? What is the alternative to 'deferring to the experts'? Is it not 'true' (as far as the science goes), whether citizens believe it or not, that the climate is warming? And is it not 'true' (as far as the limited data tells us), whether citizens believe it or not, that wearing a mask helps mitigate the spread of the virus?