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in praise of John Florio

I find myself nearly finished writing a book whose hero is Michel de Montaigne. In the manuscript, I quote him many times. I have read large swaths of his Essays in M.A. Screech’s translation, which is learned and reliable (and good English prose). I translate the passages that concern me most. But sometimes I also turn to John Florio’s 1603 translation, which was hugely influential. Shakespeare had the same publisher as Florio and drew heavily on Montaigne, probably using Florio’s translation.

Florio is not always as literal as I need for my purpose (closely reading Montaigne), but he is an excellent writer.

Consider, for example, a passage from “De Mesnager sa Volonté” (or “How one ought to governe his will” in Florio’s translation). I will first offer a summary, interpolating my own translations, and then show what Florio does with with the text.

The passage begins with Montaigne saying that he no longer wants to improve himself. “It’s almost better never to become an honest man than to do so so late, and certainly better to learn how to live when you no longer have a life to live. I, who am about to depart, would gladly pass on to someone who comes after me the lessons of prudence I’ve learned in dealing with the world. Mustard after dinner.”

He mentions the recent change to the Gregorian Calendar, a reform that has “eclipsed” ten days. He says that it depresses him, and he finds himself clinging to the old ways even though it makes him feel a bit like a heretic. He convinces himself that the reform is not for him but for those who will follow after he has died. He may keep “counting” the days as he has. He explains, “In short, here I am, finishing this man, not remaking another. Through long use, this form has passed into substance for me, and fortune into nature.”

I think Montaigne means both that the old calendar, which was a flawed human invention, has become a natural truth for him—and also that all the experiences that have accidentally turned him into Michel de Montaigne have become his substance and nature. “I say, therefore, that each of us, in our weakness, should be excused for considering as our own what is comprised within this measure. But also, beyond these limits, there is nothing but confusion.”

Now consider Florio’s version:

I will say this by way of example; that the eclipsing or abridging of tenne dayes, which the Pope hath lately caused, hath taken me so lowe, that I can hardly recover my selfe. I followe the yeares, wherein we were wont to compt otherwise. So long and ancient a custome doth chalenge and recall me to it againe. I am thereby enforced to be somewhat an heretike: Incapable of innovation, though corrective. My imagination maugre my teeth runnes still tenne dayes before, or tenne behinde; and whispers in mine eares: This rule toucheth those, which are to come. If health it selfe so sweetely-pleasing, comes to me but by fittes, it is rather to give mee cause of griefe, than possession of it selfe. I have no where left me to retire it. Time forsakes me; without which nothing is enjoyed. How small accompt should I make of these great elective dignities I see in the worlde, and which are onely given to men, ready to leave the world! wherein they regarde not so much how duelie they shall discharge them, as how little they shall exercise them: from the beginning they looke to the end. To conclude, I am ready to finish this man, not to make another. By long custome, this forme is changed into substance, and Fortune into Nature. I say therefore, that amongst us feeble creatures, each one is excusable to compt that his owne, which is comprehended under this measure. And yet all beyond these limites, is nothing but confusion.

Florio sees a theme here about “counting” and uses that verb (“compt” or “accompt”) three times. There is no similar echo in Montaigne’s French text, but this is a lovely way to convey the author’s argument.

Likewise, Florio’s “hath taken me so lowe, that I can hardly recover my selfe” allows him to foreshadow the discussion of Montaigne’s “self” that is coming soon, although the word is not in the original (“m’ont prins si bas que je ne m’en puis bonnement accoustrer.”)

Screech ably translates a sentence as “I grit my teeth [a modern idiom], but my mind is always ten days ahead or ten days behind; it keeps muttering in my ears” (p. 1143). However, Florio’s language is more pungent: “My imagination maugre my teeth runnes still tenne dayes before, or tenne behinde; and whispers in mine eares.”

why policy debates continue

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I’m at Stanford today to discuss a paper, Policy Models as Networks of Beliefs. After circulating my draft, I realized that the following is really my argument. …

We use mental models to think about and discuss contested questions of policy. Worthy models typically have these features:

They have many components, not just a few. A model might include a causal inference, such as “spending more on x produces better outcomes.” But those two components (the spending and the outcomes) must be part of a much larger model that also explains why certain outcomes are valuable, where the money would come from, what else effects the system, and so on.
The components should be connected, and the resulting structure matters. Structures can take various forms (e.g., root-cause analysis, vicious cycles). There is no single best structure.
Pieces of models may prove regular. For instance, maybe spending more on x regularly produces better outcomes, all else considered. But such regularities only apply to small aspects of good models. The science-like effort to find regularities can only get us so far.
Some components of any worthy model should be values or normative claims. Some normative components have regular significance in all models. However, many value components change their significance depending on the context. Equality, for example, does not consistently mean the same thing and may not always be desirable.
If a model proves influential, it can change the world, which can require a new model. For example, arguing that more money should be spent on X could cause more funds to be allocated to X, at which point it would no longer be wise to increase the funding. Models are dynamic in this sense.

I believe this account supports a pluralistic, polycentric, pragmatist, and deliberative approach to policymaking, as opposed to a positivistic one.

trusting experts or ordinary people

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The 2020 American National Election Survey asked, “Do you trust ordinary people or experts for public policy?’ Respondents could answer either or both. Overall, 42% chose both experts and ordinary people, 40% said experts, and 17% said ordinary people.

(By the way, I suppose I would answer “both,” although I have some concerns about trusting either experts or majority opinion.)

There was a partisan difference. A narrow majority (51%) of Democrats chose experts, and just 12% of Democrats said ordinary people. The largest group of Republicans (47%) said both, followed by ordinary people at 28%. Only 25% of Republicans chose experts.

When I controlled for education and age, partisanship was a significant predictor, meaning that Democrats were more likely than Republicans to trust experts, regardless of their own education and age. This is a meaningful difference between the parties.

The ANES also asked people to name their most important issue, using an open-ended question. The survey researchers assigned responses to many categories, most of which represented less than one percent of the sample. (For example, 0.2% of respondents named illegal drugs as their top issue.)

Among the more popular categories, there were some interesting differences in trust.

Seven percent of the sample chose the environment as their top issue, and of those people, 64% trusted experts while only 4% trusted ordinary people more. Apparently, environmentalists like expertise.

On the other hand, of the 1.8% who chose employment as their top issue, only 27% trusted experts more, and almost as many (23%) trusted ordinary people more. There are experts on employment (economists) but they do not seem to be trusted by the people who care most about this issue.

And for the 2% who chose the media as their top issue, experts came in last, behind ordinary people and “both.” This is a small group, but it seems that there are some critics of expertise who view the media as our main problem, perhaps because they distrust the experts whom they see in the news.

when every step is a competition

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The numbers of jobs and college slots per capita have remained relatively stable over time, but the number of people who compete for each position has dramatically increased because markets for admissions and employment have grown (from local to national or global) and have become far more efficient. Nowadays, you can search online for jobs anywhere and click to apply.

Thus, for example:

As shown in the graph above (from Birinci, See & Wee for the St. Louis Fed), an unemployed person submitted a mode of 0 or 1 job applications per month in 1979-1980 (during a severe recession). In the 2010s, even though the unemployment rate was lower, the modal number of applications per job-seeker was more than 10 per month. Nowadays, about 2% of job applications result in an interview.
In 1995, 10% of college freshmen had applied for admission to seven or more institutions. By 2017, 36% had done so (source).
From the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s, the percentage of college graduates who had completed an internship rose from 10% to over 80%, probably because an internship now seems necessary to get a job (Scott Alexander, citing NACE.)

Alexander offers this pair of fictional portraits to illustrate this trend:

Brenda Boomer applied to a local business she liked at age 18. She got hired, worked her way up from the bottom, and by age 35 she was a regional manager making $50,000 per year.

Martha Millennial lost her adolescence to endless lessons in Mandarin, water polo, and competitive debate, all intended to pad her college resume; her only break was the three months she spent building houses in Rwanda to establish her social justice credentials. She eventually got accepted to Penn and earned a 4.2 in her college classes, despite having to complete several of them remotely from the Google campus where she was doing a simultaneous internship. After graduation, she applied to twenty-eight grad schools but was rejected from all of them, so she instead got two half-time jobs, one as a waitress and one at a startup that pitched itself as “Uber for humidifiers”. The humidifier startup failed, reducing her equity to $0, but she had only been in it for networking anyway, and by attending industry conferences every weekend she had collected the right contacts to get a warm introduction to the vice-president of their biggest competitor, “Uber for dehumidifiers”. She joined the dehumidifier startup, rose to associate manager, bumped up against a local ceiling (“we don’t promote from inside”), and successfully got herself poached by an air purifier startup, where at age 35 she was a regional manager making $50,001 per year.

With her “service” experience in Rwanda and her Penn degree, Martha sounds upper-middle-class. But I think we could envision a pair of working-class examples that illustrated the same trend. A low-SES Martha would apply for admission to a charter school, a slot in a summer jobs program, and an apprenticeship, not to an Ivy League university.

One might think that everything is fine for Martha. The actual odds of landing in any given social position have remained similar. With the unemployment rate at 4.4%, most people are still finding jobs. And US workers recently reported the highest mean levels of job satisfaction since they were first asked this survey question in 1987 (Conference Board 2023).

But I think the stress is very real. As a teacher and advisor of college students, I observe constant angst. Each application now generates many rejections, often with little or no feedback. Each position seems to require a different strategy, and each failure suggests that the student’s strategy must have been flawed.

Searching for educational opportunities and jobs is a substantial time commitment, a cost that may not be captured in standard economic indicators.

Finally, I think people reasonably draw negative inferences about the economy and the society from their experiences as applicants. Brenda Boomer and Martha Millennial ended up in similar jobs. But Martha competed unsuccessfully for many more opportunities than Brenda did. Almost inevitably, Martha will perceive a world of scarcity, in which desirable opportunities are out of her reach.

I wouldn’t try to persuade Martha that everything has worked out OK. She’s bound to ask, “Compared to what?” She has experienced constant comparisons to other people, some of whom have beaten her out for almost everything she has wanted to do. It’s reasonable for her to perceive a worse world than Brenda did, even if we hold all the other changes constant.

Sean Duffy’s flip-flop and the essence of constitutional government

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ProPublica’s Jake Pearson has uncovered a contradiction involving Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Duffy has “been one of the most vociferous defenders of President Donald Trump’s expansive use of executive authority, withholding billions of dollars in federal funding to states.” However, “in an assertive, thoroughly researched 2015 legal brief, Duffy, then a Republican representative from Wisconsin,” argued that the power of the purse belonged exclusively to Congress, which may not even choose to delegate its power to the Executive.

I am deeply critical of the actual policy choices of the Trump Administration, in transportation and in other areas. Also, Duffy’s 180-degree turn on the Constitution makes me suspicious. Pearson quotes me:

Peter Levine, a civics expert at Tufts University, said that while it could be that Duffy’s views on presidential power have evolved over time, his apparent flip-flopping on something as fundamental as the meaning of the Constitution raises the prospect that Duffy may “just be playing a game for power.”

“The Constitution is a promise to continue to apply the same rules and norms over time to everybody,” he added. “When political actors completely ignore that, and just go after their own thing, I don’t think the Constitution can actually function.”

On one hand, we should tolerate changes in opinion. When a political leader adopts a new position, I don’t generally complain about “flip-flopping.” We want leaders to listen, deliberate, and learn. One of many ways in which our culture works against deliberation is by denouncing individuals for being inconsistent over time. Stubborn consistency is the hobgoblin of closed minds.

In fact, it can be an ad hominem fallacy to say, “You must be wrong because you previously held the opposite view.” In general, we should debate a position and the reasons for it, not the consistency of the speaker over time.

On the other hand, a constitution–in the broadest sense–is a pact to apply the same rules to everyone. Although constitutions vary, constitutionalism itself is the principle of limiting everyone’s power in the same way. To make a constitutional argument (as Duffy did explicitly in his 2015 amicus brief) is to say, “This rule should apply to me as well as my opponents.” When a person who wields power suddenly changes his mind about constitutional principles in ways that benefit himself, it certainly looks like a betrayal of constitutionalism. And any constitution is just a piece of paper unless most of the key players respect the principle of consistency–and unless voters demand that of them.