Opinion: 'Culture,' Prosperity, and Political IQ

I am sympathetic to the idea that "culture" has a legitimate part in explaining national or regional success. In the late 1980s, after living in Japan, I wrote a book examining cultural differences between the United States and Japan -- and arguing that America would do best if it made the most of the cultural and structural traits that were distinctively our own. (Openness to immigration, toleration for failure and opportunity for the second chance, attempts to level the playing field, etc.) Also in the late 1980s, I infuriated many residents of the Philippines with an article suggesting a "damaged culture" explanation of that country's ongoing woes.

I also understand that "culture" is the beginning rather than the end of such explanatory efforts. It is hard to top the standard quote attributed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself."

How does this apply to Mitt Romney's already-much-discussed comments that "culture" explains Israel's success in business, the comparative failure of the Palestinians, and the cross-border differences between Mexico and the United States? (Original comments here; follow-up column by Romney here.) My points:

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1) Culture as last, not first, explanation. In my experience, culture is the explanation you should look for after you have tried and exhausted others. I argued that culture was important in assessing the Philippines' problems because in other ways -- structure of government, letter-of-the-law freedoms -- it resembled countries that had fared much better. But when you are comparing the performance of self-governing, always-threatened-but-militarily-dominant Israel with that of Palestinians in governmental limbo and under occupation, it is ax-grinding rather than enlightening to start with "cultural" differences. Or, as in Romney's case, to not even get around to mentioning the structural, legal, and financial-system differences that might contribute to Palestinian poverty.

This is like saying that the main difference between East Germany and West Germany in the old days, or between China when it was starving in the 1950s and when it is prospering now, was the variation in German or Chinese "culture." Unt-uh. Behavior and incentives in these cases differed wildly -- a visit to the old divided Berlin made that dramatic -- but that was mainly because of contrasts in political systems and rules. Chinese "culture" did not suddenly become more ambitious and entrepreneurial in 1979. The rules changed to encourage and allow people to behave in different ways.

2) Culture as meaningless grab bag. If you define "culture" to include everything from family structure to Constitutional liberties to representative government to copyright protection and rule of law, as Romney essentially does in his followup essay, you've removed all meaning from the term. Now we're talking about the entire network of formal and informal rules that constitute civil society. And to go back to the beginning, this broadened assessment of the Palestinians' situation is exactly what Mitt Romney did not apply when speaking of them.

Like, I suspect, many Atlantic readers, I am well familiar with the two books that Romney said gave him his "culture explains everything" outlook: Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, and David Landes's The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. Neither writer would ever put things as baldly as he did.

3) Culture as time-waster, from the campaign's point of view. The proper message for the Romney campaign, 24/7 every day until the election, is the one I heard him give in stump speeches last month:

- The economy is broken;

- Barack Obama can't fix it;

- I can.

Instead, the candidate is writing essays and engaging news coverage about the right way to understand "culture's" role, especially in the Middle East and Latin America. If I were the Obama campaign team, I would encourage Romney to keep writing such essays. That way he is not talking about people who have lost their homes and jobs in the United States.

4) Cultural references as symptoms of tin ear. Political talent includes the ability to tell your immediate audience things it wants to hear -- without offending people beyond that audience, who in today's panopticon age will inevitably hear anything troublesome you say. At its crass extreme, this is the "dog whistle" -- sending a coded signal that the general public will miss but only a select group of listeners will hear. Less crassly, it is a skill both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton demonstrated in managing to appeal to some groups without alienating too many others. Barack Obama took such heat for his "people get bitter" comments four years ago because they violated this rule. For him, it was a rare exception.

Romney violated this rule at just about every stop on his foreign trip. He told an American TV interviewer that the Brits might not be ready for the Olympics -- and, of course, the Brits heard and took offense. He told the audience at an Israeli fundraiser that the Palestinians had cultural barriers to success, but, of course, many people outside that room heard what he said. He extended the comparison to cross-border differences between the U.S. and Mexico, which are real. But resting the explanation for that difference on culture -- rather than on rule of law, accountability, land-ownership patterns, and so on -- can be tricky when it is heard by the many U.S. citizens who are proud of the American system but also of their Latino cultural identity.

Here is the point I am building to: Three months before the election, it is fair to wonder about Mitt Romney's basic skill level as a politician. I am not talking policy and substance, which I will do later. I'm talking about the counterpart to what coaches call "overall athleticism," "court vision," "ball sense," even "football IQ." In politics, this includes an ability to read audiences, to self-edit and self-correct in real time, and to sense effortlessly how your words will sound to people on the other end. Right after Sarah Palin's pick four years ago I guessed that she was going to have trouble with the surprisingly onerous demands of a national campaign. Now I am struck that we're still seeing indications of limits on Romney's "political IQ."