Humility as an Antidote to Despair
A Bayesian approach to not being a doomer
It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
Here in San Francisco despair is in the air. It’s not like 2016, where there was shock and a kind of righteous anger. The mood is, by and large, resigned. It’s over.
I have, at moments, fallen into it too. I’m optimistic to a fault, but the siren song of endless scrolling has more than once pulled my head beneath the waves.
I did not vote for Donald Trump and I did not want him to win this election, and yet here we are.
But despair is not useful. Positive action is incompatible with despair, it requires hope. Not only does despair aid your enemies, it harms your self. Talk about a raw deal.
Despair is a form of certainty. The people who are despairing are certain that Trump will bring this country to gruesome ends, and that those who voted him into power are idiots, villains, or lunatics.
I saw something this evening that surprised me, and that gave me hope, because I was wrong about something. Any certainty I might have had was shaken.
According to exit polls, the racial group with the strongest support for Trump was Native Americans. It is a major understatement to say that I did not expect this. Did you?
There are things I believe as opinions and things I believe as facts. One thing I believe as a fact: if you think something, and it turns out you were wrong, the only rational response is to change the mental model that lead you to think that thing, even if only a little bit.
I would never have guessed that Native Americans would support Trump at rates significantly higher than any other race, even whites. I was wrong, and by a lot! Clearly there’s something I don’t know.
I have done some (admittedly cursory) research, and I have found an explanation (one of many, no group of voters is a monolith) that seems plausible. Before I go into it, I urge you to pause. If you have a world model where Trump supporters are overwhelmingly bad people, take a moment to try to come up with an explanation of your own as to why this might be. Then, you can keep reading and see how it compares to reality.
I kept coming back to this man.
Neil Gorsuch, a.k.a. Trump’s third most memorable supreme court nominee. The Lakota Times has an article titled “Neil Gorsuch: best friend tribes ever had”, which says:
Despite his staunch legal support for every Indian case that has ever been considered by a court where he sat, Gorsuch is not highly acclaimed or honored by any of the 574 federally recognized tribes. The stigma of being a Trump nominee continues to cast doubt on his intent, despite his never ruling unfavorably in tribal cases. So far Gorsuch not only has a perfect record in defense of tribes, but he has also written some of the most impressive majority and dissenting opinion on behalf of tribes in Supreme Court history.
Davies, James, Lakota Times
Davies, who clearly does not like Trump (and I assumed did not vote for him in this election), nevertheless acknowledges that Gorsuch is perhaps the staunchest defender of Native American rights in the history of the Court.
In 2019 Gorsuch joined the four liberal justices to strike down a Washington state tax and uphold a 1855 treaty with the Yakama. In his concurrence, formally supported by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, he wrote:
This case just tells an old and familiar story. The State of Washington includes millions of acres that the Yakamas ceded to the United States under significant pressure. In return, the government supplied a handful of modest promises. The State is now dissatisfied with the consequences of one of those promises. It is a new day, and now it wants more. But today and to its credit, the Court holds the parties to the terms of their deal. It is the least we can do.
In 2022, Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, he wrote in his dissenting opinion:
Tribes are not private organizations within state boundaries. Their reservations are not glorified private campgrounds. Tribes are sovereigns.
Unfailingly, Gorsuch defended Native Americans’ rights to water, healthcare, land, and sovereignty, often breaking with his own party. In Haaland v. Brackeen he ruled to prevent the US Government from removing Native American children from their families. The more I read, the more I respected, admired, and agreed with the things he wrote and the stances he took.
I can understand why Native American voters would vote overwhelmingly for Trump. Regardless of his intentions, his decision to nominate Gorsuch has made a meaningful, material impact on their rights in this country, and by all signs he will continue to do so for many years to come.
Of course, this is a simple story, and if there’s a point I’m trying to make here it’s that simple stories are often missing a lot of details. The “Native Americans” category on the exit poll includes many diverse groups of people, and each individual voter will weigh many issues at the polls.
And, Gorsuch has made lots of rulings not related to Native American rights, many of which I disagree with. But that was already priced in.
When all is said and done, the fact remains, that I was surprised. There was a silver lining I could not see.
We live in perilous times. Maybe we always have. Even before the election was on my mind I found things to worry about. There are lots of ways the world could fall apart in the coming years.
There have been times in the past when I looked forward and despaired, and so far I have always been wrong. Unexpected good has come hand in hand with unexpected bad.
The only rational response is to admit that there are many things I don’t know, and my worst predictions have not come true. They might! I will always hold onto that, they might! But I aspire to hold it a little less tightly.
There may yet come a day when we see the end beyond all doubt.
But it has not come yet. So I will take my hope where I can find it.