The Denigration of Personal Agency as Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
By: Ben Wilterdink
The promise of the American Dream is that the opportunity for success and prosperity is available to all who are willing to work hard and overcome whatever barriers they face, regardless of their circumstances of birth. The core of this idea is that individuals have the capacity to shape and mold their futures, but success is not guaranteed — it depends on their choices.
These ideas empowered and energized generations of Americans to achieve amazing things. But many of today’s dominant cultural and political leaders have built enormous fan bases and lucrative careers from denying them — even as some demonstrate their truth with their own success. Across the ideological spectrum, belief that an individual has the capacity to improve their conditions (agency) is out and a soft determinism of implacable identity-based group dynamics driving outcomes is in.
Despite some efforts to revive the older spirit of individual agency, the political right’s gradual assent to this rising orthodoxy is found in a variety of popular politicians and pundits laying the problems of their devotees at the feet of the globalists, the deep state, or “the elite” more broadly. Fox News host Tucker Carlson even wrote a book about how much of the economic malaise that Americans experience is due to an out-of-touch ruling class that has rigged the rules of the game against them. Certainly, criticisms of leadership and policy are warranted, but the idea that “they” are more in control of the outcomes experienced by “us” is gaining ground as the central dynamic at work.
As much as this idea is sprouting on the right, it’s a full-grown tree that is now bearing fruit on the left. Discussions about systemic, structural, and institutional racism have transformed from a simple (and true) acknowledgement that the injustices of the past have an effect on some of the outcomes we observe today into an all-encompassing narrative in which success (or lack thereof) is entirely dependent on group identity.
Lest readers think this is an exaggeration, American Enterprise Institute Fellow Ian Rowe catalogues several examples of this sentiment from high-profile individuals in a new report on the importance of recognizing individual agency in narrowing the racial wealth gap. He notes how destructive this idea is to younger students who aspire to success. The report, Incentivize Individual Agency to Achieve Upward Mobility, is well worth a read and includes several ideas on how to empower individuals to succeed, such as improving access to capital and teaching the success sequence.
Rowe is part of a growing number of scholars and researchers who are concerned with the potential effects from this kind of soft determinism — which seems to be gaining a wide cultural acceptance. In a discussion critical of this burgeoning consensus, Brown University economist Glenn Loury criticized the view as it was advanced in a book by the prominent journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates:
And, as I said, existentially, in some deep philosophic and spiritual foundation, we have to be responsible for our own lives. So, teaching our children that there’s nothing they can do, that’s what’s wrong with [Coates’ book] Between the World and Me. That’s what’s so catastrophic about the cultural bearings of this society what they are and what they have done. We can’t be teaching our children that their future is outside of their hands. That the depredations of white supremacy are such that we have no room for maneuver.
It is important to point out the ways in which the typical narrative of identity-based soft determinism is simply untrue (as Rowe does in his recent report) and highlight the many decisions an individual can in fact make to greatly improve his or her chance of achieving success. However, there is a growing danger that simply by convincing people that claims of soft determinism are true now could be the thing that makes them true in the future. In other words, this kind of rhetoric could be the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy.
One of the most interesting parts of Michael Strain’s recent book, The American Dream is Not Dead (But Populism Could Kill It), was his emphasis on cultural messages. Pointing out the success of the cultural message about smoking and the way it was able to change behavior across our culture, Strain laments the way in which the message, “The American Dream is Dead” has permeated our culture, and cites this as a primary reason that he wrote the book. In an interview with Jonah Goldberg on his podcast The Remnant, Jonah describes it this way:
People can get into trouble if they analogize the American people to children, and I’m not doing that, but the point you’re making is really obvious to every parent raising kids. If you tell kids, if you raise your kids from an early age and tell them, ‘There’s no point in trying, you will never get ahead, the game is rigged, you should just grab what you can and not worry about being a good person or not worry about being a hard worker or any of these kinds of things, take the easy path ’cause you’ll never get ahead,’ people would understand that that kind of message can have a deleterious effect on someone’s life path, right? The same principle applies even when you send that message to grown-ups.
The point here is intuitive, but such common-sense observations are often dismissed as mere folk sayings when compared to the rigorous academic research that purportedly guides public policy discussions. In recent years, however, a growing body of academic evidence suggests that cultural and political leaders should take the danger of cultural messages preaching identity-based determinism leading to poorer economic and social outcomes more seriously.
Dr. Clay Routledge, a professor of management at North Dakota State University and a leading expert in existential psychology, has conducted extensive research into the role of meaning and, more recently, has explored the connection between meaning and flourishing. In addition to decreasing the risk of suicide, depression, and substance abuse an individuals’ sense of meaning also has a great deal of motivational power — specifically motivating individuals to engage in pro-social and self-regulatory behavior that helps them thrive. Crucially, an individuals’ capacity to achieve a sense of meaning is connected to their belief in personal agency. In a recent study, Why Meaning Matters for Freedom and Flourishing, Dr. Routledge notes:
This work identifies a strong relationship between meaning and personal agency, and specifically, what I refer to as existential agency (people’s belief that they can find and maintain meaning in life). In other words, people’s beliefs about their ability to live meaningful lives energize the self and motivate goal-directed behavior.
Clearly, motivational power is an essential component affecting an individual’s capacity and willingness to engage in goal-directed or self-regulatory behavior — the kinds of behaviors necessary to achieve success. Moreover, beliefs about personal agency have a direct influence on that motivational power. It’s not easy to measure the effect of cultural messages on individuals’ beliefs, but there is certainly reason to think that some such connection exists — particularly when those messages are coming from the venerated institutions of higher education and elite journalism.
Ultimately, beliefs, how they affect various life choices, and the efficacy of cultural messages in shaping them are topics that don’t lend themselves to being easily or accurately measured. Perhaps for this reason, these dynamics might remain a blind spot for economics and social science. But as we seek to expand our understanding of the key determinants for upward social and economic mobility, it would be a mistake to consider these dynamics irrelevant. Given this uncertainty, it might be worthwhile to consider more carefully which cultural messages we choose to amplify and take care to ensure that we don’t create the negative outcomes about which we warn.
Ben Wilterdink is the Director of Programs at the Archbridge Institute.
