Anecdote as Policy

Back in 2005 I attended the Native American Journalists Association Annual Conference in Lincoln, Nebraska. NAJA’s theme that year was “A Free Press, A Free People”, which is ironic given our meeting last Wednesday regarding how we could develop some neo-censorship policies about the Tilixam Wawa, a discussion I thought was going to die, or at least would kill me.
But more on that later.
At this conference I was lucky enough to sit in on the filming of a program for Nebraska Public Television, and the show was really a debate featuring a wide range of guests, from a professor, to a priest, to a Tribal leader, to most importantly, what appeared to be some sort of specialist in Tribal economic development. The purpose of the debate was to argue the merits, or lack thereof, of Indian gaming.
Given the audience was mostly people attending the NAJA Conference, in other words, Indians, I can’t really say the debate ended up being very fair for the priest, who appeared to be the only one that opposed tribal gaming, mostly on his own moral grounds. To be completely fair though, he didn’t do himself any favors by denouncing Indian gaming due also in part to his own experiences counseling people who came to him with problems. The professor and economic development specialist in particular had a lot of fun at his expense. At one point I remember very clearly the E.D. fellow, an Indian from the Dakotas, calling the priest out and telling the audience “He likes anecdotes. I like facts myself.”
I am very well aware that Indian gaming arrives with new problems. But watching that show, it would have been hard to walk away feeling convinced that the problems of Indian gaming outweigh the benefits. The Economic guy and the professor were able to point at very concrete examples of poor Tribes digging themselves out of poverty, of a least one scenario of how unemployment dropped once a certain reservation built a casino, and a number of other occasions that demonstrated the merits of Indian gaming. The poor priest got flustered because his own arguments were often really anecdotes, like “well one guy at my church developed a serious problem” or “one family really had problems”. At the end they all shook hands of course, and the priest disappeared from the set instantly, a little embarrassed, while the other guests stayed and mingled with us.
Ironically, the whole point of my anecdote here is that I had never spent much time considering how misleading anecdotes can be when used as a tool or guide in policy making. Anecdotes are experiences. Experiences affect our worldview, our beliefs, and for many if not most are the foundations of our opinions. All of us like to believe that the opinions we hold are right. And when considering some of the graver issues facing us in our lives and politics, Tribal or mainstream, nobody likes to be told that their opinion is wrong, especially when the person telling us has had completely different experiences from us. If they had seen what I saw, or been through what I’ve been through, we think, they would certainly see that I am right.
The problem is, even then, we can be off the mark, or worse yet, dead wrong. Our experience could have been part of some freak occurrence, rare event, or infrequent slice of a larger context. I could go to New York City twice, for one day each time, get mugged, and from then on nobody would convince me that NYC isn’t amongst the world’s dangerous places, right on par with the Gaza Strip or the barrios of Rio de Janeiro maybe places I’ve also been. Every time I go to the Bronx, I would tell people truthfully, I get mugged.
This seems like something problematic that all of us must grapple with in our own individual ways. I think it becomes a greater problem when people in positions of power or authority use misleading and sometimes over-exaggerated anecdotes as a means to convince others that the decisions being made are what is in the best interests of whichever constituency they govern. For reasons that are probably a lot simpler than I would like to admit, the anecdotes of others in positions of power tend to be taken as fact, probably because the deliverer of the anecdote has carefully crafted or worded his anecdote in a way everybody can understand and agree with. Plus, I think that the authority which accompanies a position of power often times gets mistaken with expertise, which in turn enhances the anecdote and confers greater credibility than if some person off the street said the same thing. You will be seeing this a lot in the upcoming presidential elections, as candidates will each share their anecdote about whatever issue is pertinent, in the hopes that voters should think “Yeah, you know he’s right! Why I’ve experienced a similar situation myself.”
Anyhow, I am not ranting, but getting to my ultimate point, which is that anecdotes, while entertaining and insightful, can be misleading, not only to the person who experienced it but to those who listen to the story. And my ultimate point is I think that sometimes the teller knows it is misleading.
Our meeting about the Tilixam Wawa on Wednesday was a classic example of using anecdotes as justification for making a decision that is clearly not right, and I am not buying it for one instant. In what seemed like a rehearsed discussion, I was informed by numerous Council members how they had been “hearing from the membership” that “the members” are tired of the “us vs. them” mentality, of seeing nine different Council members express nine different opinions. In the interest of unity, we need to be united, and not be having articles expressing different opinions. If a Council member wants to express their opinion, the Council member who appears to be driving the issue told me, then they should spend their own money and mail out a letter to the membership. I didn’t ask if that meant Council would supply me with a mailing list to do so, my hunch is no.
Now to be fair, I must consider whether what they say is true. I find myself being incredibly skeptical. I’ve generally got a good memory of what comments are made during Council meetings. Furthermore, I doubt anybody on Council spends more time actually reading the comments of the few Tribal internet sites than I do. I really can’t think of any threads or comments from people making the kinds of complaints that are supposedly being made to my fellow Council members. If anything, I think the membership would love to have all nine Council members every issue explaining some of their opinions. I think this because the only time we did such a thing, the August 2007 SMGI issue, more than 1200 Tribal members voted! Furthermore, I am not sure if there was a single comment about the Wawa and opinions at our Strategic Futures Conference, which was all about member input. Lastly, my own personal anecdote-esque experiences usually are people indicating how much they appreciate what I’ve written. Not everyone agrees, but it’s nice to have a Council member explain something.
Now unless my fellow Council members can provide me with a survey or some sort of written log of member comments that mirror what they told me last Wednesday, and really it would take a lot of comments to convince me, then I can only assume that this is all politics. Vague and maybe even unsubstantiated comments are being used as grounds for a decision, partisan government censorship, that historically has never been popular, nor the sign of good intentions. It would take a whole heck of a lot of anecdotes to convince me of anything else.