Wednesday Wisdom

Who?

Joseph Overton was born in South Haven, Michigan in January 1960. He received electrical engineering degree from Michigan Tech and a J.D. from Western Michigan. He worked for Dow Chemicals in various engineering and project management roles after graduation.

His main passion was public policy and education, so he volunteered at the Mackinaw Center for Public policy. He joined the staff full time in 1992 helping Mackinaw become one of the largest research institutes outside Washington DC.

Joseph P. Overton died in a plane crash on June 30, 2003, at the age of 43. His untimely death cut short a career that had already made a substantial impact on political thought and policy analysis.

At his funeral, the President of Mackinaw Lawrence Reed, spoke movingly of Overton’s strong love of liberty. “To him, it meant maximum room for each person to employ his God-given abilities so long as he harms no one else. … He loved the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”

What he produced

Joseph Overton is most famous for his Overton Window, also known as the Window of Discourse, which is a model for policy change. Ideas within the window are politically safe for government officials, while anything outside is deemed too radical. A politician doesn’t move the window but would access where the window lies to enact policy. Ideas outside the window may get enacted as the window shifts through public discourse and logical discussion while waiting for opinions to change. Two glaring examples in a shift of accepted ideas are womans suffrage and marriage equality act.

Overton’s model also is helpful in looking at government policy and opening up the discussion between what is good regulation and that which encumbers personal liberty. An example of this would be prohibition which pushed the window to both extremes and more recently the discussion and legislation on cannabis sales.

2024: Why do we care?

Overton’s Window has gone from a wonky poli-sci analysis to more common use and will certainly be topical going into election season. Unfortunately, this model will be abused as politicians and pundits flood the zone with conspiracies and lies to manipulate Overton’s Window for their own benefit.

Joseph Overton was seemingly a principled man who looked to improve the country through public policy and education. His model for understating centered on an ethical approach to better public policy.

This anonymous letter was sent to the Mackinaw institute shortly after his death and is often attributed to Joseph Overton.

The World Needs More…

The world needs more men who do not have a price at which they can be bought; who do not borrow from integrity to pay for expediency; who have their priorities straight and in proper order; whose handshake is an ironclad contract; who are not afraid of taking risks to advance what is right; and who are honest in small matters as they are in large ones. The world needs more men whose ambitions are big enough to include others; who know how to win with grace and lose with dignity; who do not believe that shrewdness and cunning and ruthlessness are the three keys to success; who still have friends they made twenty years ago; who put principle and consistency above politics or personal advancement; and who are not afraid to go against the grain of popular opinion. The world needs more men who do not forsake what is right just to get consensus because it makes them look good; who know how important it is to lead by example, not by barking orders; who would not have you do something they would not do themselves; who work to turn even the most adverse circumstances into opportunities to learn and improve; and who love even those who have done some injustice or unfairness to them…

The world needs more- ethical and principled men like Overton.

And now you know...

Thank you, Dad, for the gift of curiosity.

Philosophy is the art of thinking, the building block of progress that shapes critical thinking across economics, ethics, religion, and science.

METAPHYSICS: Literally, the term metaphysics means ‘beyond the physical.’ Typically, this is the branch that most people think of when they picture philosophy. In metaphysics, the goal is to answer what and how questions in life. Who are we, and what are time and space?

LOGIC: The study of reasoning. Much like metaphysics, understanding logic helps to understand and appreciate how we perceive the rest of our world. More than that, it provides a foundation for which to build and interpret arguments and analyses.

ETHICS: The study of morality, right and wrong, good and evil. Ethics tackles difficult conversations by adding weight to actions and decisions. Politics takes ethics to a larger scale, applying it to a group (or groups) of people. Political philosophers study political governments, laws, justice, authority, rights, liberty, ethics, and much more.

AESTHETICS: What is beautiful? Philosophers try to understand, qualify, and quantify what makes art what it is. Aesthetics also takes a deeper look at the artwork itself, trying to understand the meaning behind it, both art as a whole and art on an individual level. A question an aesthetics philosopher would seek to address is whether or not beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

EPISTEMOLOGY: This is the study and understanding of knowledge. The main question is how do we know? We can question the limitations of logic, how comprehension works, and the ability (or perception) to be certain.