Elites are all too prone to over-estimate the importance of the fact that they average more knowledge per person than the rest of the population -- and under-estimate the fact that their total knowledge is so much less than that of the rest of the population.
They over-estimate what can be known in advance in elite circles and under-estimate what is discovered in the process of mutual accommodations among millions of ordinary people.
Central planning, judicial activism, and the nanny state [note: all characteristics of the political left — ed.] all presume vastly more knowledge than any elite have ever possessed.
The ignorance of people with Ph.D.s is still ignorance, the prejudices of educated elites are still prejudices, and for those with one percent of a society's knowledge to be dictating to those with the other 99 percent is still an absurdity.
I should add that the particular strain of the political left here is the one that believes that the State (i.e., the federal government) ought manage, oversee, and direct the affairs of this country, outside of those "public goods" that effect all citizens, equally. It is perfectly tenable to be a progressive who doesn't believe in a bloated State; though this is seemingly a small percentage of today's progressives, they do exist. And, quite frankly, many of my views on American politics would reasonably find home here. Another name for this: classical liberalism.
I read everything he writes (or try to!). His regular NRO feature, "Impromptus", often feels like a cozy chat amongst friends after Saturday night dinner; or reading a (hand-written) letter from a friend on a Sunday morning over a cup of rich coffee. Or simple, funny tours through the thought of a non-confrontational conservative.
Or something.
Anyway, his newest column contains something about the word "fascism" that I think is required reading by anyone intelligent. Find the original column here. Below is the relevant excerpt:
A word about the French: After Sarkozy's election, hundreds of university students in Paris "went on strike." What does it mean to go on strike, if you're a student? To refuse to attend class? Isn't that called hooky? And who cares, really, if these students go on "strike"? Whom are they injuring, other than themselves? (Actually, the less Parisian education they have, the better off they may be.)
But this is not so amusing: Student and other demonstrators shouted, "Sarko, fascist! The people will have your hide!" (A Reuters story is here.) That, I submit, is the authentic voice of Leninism. Note the reference to "the people," the presumption of speaking for "the people" - and this was after a free and fair election, in which "the people" really and truly spoke! It was the kind of election that these demonstrators would never permit, in their ideal society.
And "The people will have your hide." Yes, behind these shouters is Leninism, or Jacobinism, or whatever we choose to call it. We are reminded that it never dies; that civilization must be always on guard against it.
And then there is "fascist": "Sarko, fascist!" All of us who are conservative, or classically liberal, have had to be called fascist. It goes with the territory. And yet it's no fun. I have been called fascist since I was in college. And those who do it are either malicious or ignorant - sometimes, I guess, they are both (and what a brutal combination: malice and ignorance).
Ordinarily, it does no good to try to reason with people: Fascists are centralizers of power; we are decentralizers. Fascists are nationalizers of industry; we are free-marketeers. Fascists are collectivists; we are anti-collectivists. It is no use to say any of this: "Fascist" is an epithet used by mean or stupid people against those they dislike who are perceived to be "on the right." One result is that, when a real fascist comes along, there is no word left for him.
How odd that we who want to fight tirelessly against jihadists, or Islamofascists, are called "fascists"! How perverse that we liberal democrats, who wave the flag of universal human values, are called "fascists"! If you follow Jefferson and Locke and Lincoln and Churchill and Reagan - why, you are a fascist, at least according to some (to many).
But one must not whine. The other day, I brought up the "fascist" business with Roger Kimball, the conservative writer and editor. I said, "Are you ever called a fascist?" Brightly - for he is a bright kind of guy - he said, "Early and often!" In the past, I knew of Reagan-supporting Jews who had tattoos on their arms who were denounced as "fascists." (And when I say tattoos, I'm not talking about the biker kind.)
Anyway . . . an old, old story. But annoying all the same.
Every word is spot on. And the deeper implication unmistakable. It is found in this statement: "We are reminded that it never dies; that civilization must be always on guard against it." I'm reminded of one of my favorite definitions of creativity: finding new solutions to old problems. And that French student's views are a very old problem, even as dressed in seemingly evolved, progressive garb. But those clothes mask the truth.
"A philosopher of art, in contrast to the philologist and to the maker of dictionaries, discovers that the identification of "creativity" with freedom is not hypothetical and that it is with widely received interpretations of freedom that he must deal. He finds, moreover, that the conception of freedom underlying speculation on art in all its phases — the artist's creativity, the autonomous judgment of works of fine art, and the productive imagination at work in the experience of profoundly moving works of art — is the theme of God's power and freedom to make or to originate the universe." — from the entry "Creativity in Art" in the Dictionary of the History of Ideas
I love "identification of creativity with freedom is not hypothetical", because it is a short road from "freedom" to "liberty"; and thus, to the ideals of America. I love, too, the connection here made between artist and God. On the latter point, it is crucial to understand "God" as a literary character that represents an idea that signifies a barely understood character of the human soul. In other words, through both outward expression and inward residence — as a unified Logos — our understanding of "what is the idea of God?" unfolds as genuine artistic freedom bound only by authentic representation of inward environs held in common.
I figure I haven't had enough disagreement with my ideas lately, so I'll wade into the controversy about what Don Imus said. As an artist in America, I believe the right to offend is near absolute, and a right held by all citizens. Especially through speech. The proper response to offensive words are strong, well-worded retorts. If Imus feels he should apologize (I certainly would), it should be to the Rutgers basketball team, and no one outside that circle. Because his words referred to no one else. Not all women, black people, or anyone.
The attempt to make this a bigger deal than that is typical, yet fundamentally spurious. The offending words, "nappy" and "hos" are everywhere in our culture, and obviously part of black American culture. Thus I agree with John Derbyshire's view:
"Nappy-headed"? "Nappy" is a term aggressively promoted by black-identity activists themselves. A book search on Amazon.com with key phrase "nappy hair" returned 767 results: Nappy Hair by Carolivia Herron, Going-Natural: How to Fall in Love With Nappy Hair by Mireille Liong-a-Kong, Sculptured Nails and Nappy Hair by Lincoln Park, Nappy Hair 101 by Ayana Hardin, Happy to be Nappy by Bell Hooks, etc., etc., etc., etc.
As for "hos"—well, again, this is a term lifted from the heart of black American culture. Michelle Malkin has done the legwork here, uncovering some of the lyrics in the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks chart. "When it come down to these hos / I don't love em," and so on.
So Don Imus did what? Used a couple of commonplace black-cultural terms. If you don't want people to use these words, guys, stop promoting them.
That leaves the question of whether it is acceptable for those not black to use those terms. I've never understood this "it's only okay for the in-group" argument, no matter the particular demographic in question. Whether it's sexual orientation, ethnic background, sex, skin color, or whatever — the argument that "it's ok for us to say certain things, but no one else" is not logical. It is dogma, a form of hardened opinion that reasonable people ought be able to disagree upon, without threat of assault. I think more people than generally thought disagree with the "it's only ok for the in group" opinion; but keep quiet, viewing dissent as a waste of time.
People can say whatever they want, about whomever they want. It is one of the consequences of a society that upholds the importance of the idea of liberty. Whether people should say whatever they want is a whole other question that involves the golden rule of treat others as you would have yourself treated, as well as the responsibility that ensues from one's words. Of course Imus is responsible for his words, and their consequences. The question is to whom do those consequences apply. To the Rutgers women, yes; to their immediate families, sure; to anyone else, no.
This episode dramatizes clearly that political correctness has far from died in our America culture. This is sad, but we must keep up the fight against it. Because people who well-meaningly advocate political correctness, in whatever form, fundamentally practice nothing but the soft bigotry of low expectations — low expectations, that is, of the "offended" people's capacity (and responsibility) to stand up for themselves, as self-respecting individuals. That they expect that those offended can't is the bigotry.
Thank you, Don Imus. You've given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.
You've given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.
You've given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.
Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it's 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.
The bigots win again.
While we're fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I'm sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent's or Snoop Dogg's or Young Jeezy's latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.
I ain't saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don't have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.
It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.
Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.
It's embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.
I'm no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.
But, in my view, he didn't do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should've been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it's only the beginning. It's an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.
I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.
Somehow, we're supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers' wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.
But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.
In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?
I don't listen or watch Imus' show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it's cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they're suckers for pursuing education and that they're selling out their race if they do?
When Imus does any of that, call me and I'll get upset. Until then, he is what he is - a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you're not looking to be made a victim.
No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There's no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.
Those favoring small government need to show that Americans can deal with social problems without enlarging the state. Secularized right-wingers who sneer at any kind of poverty fighting, or at the word "compassion" itself, unintentionally aid the left.
That's right: Some Americans devoted to free enterprise and lower taxes actually push policies and lead lives that push this country toward big government. Leftists who want a centralization of power bear sizeable responsibility for governmental growth. But conservatives who don't understand the importance of religious and community institutions are also part of the problem.
That's because a majority of Americans want to do something through common action to help those who are needy. That something can be either governmental, in which case tax bills and government bulk up, or it can be through religious and community institutions, in which case government can shrink. We should not complain about the taxes that fuel governmental action if we neglect volunteer work outside of government.
The politics of this are simple: If Americans have a choice between big government and small government, and if Americans think big government helps the poor and small government doesn't, a crucial mass will often vote for big government. If Americans think the only way to work together on social problems is through government, most will prefer government to giving up.
Deeds, not just words, can show that community, non-governmental action will work. We need folks who, when they see a problem, don't run immediately to their representatives in Congress. Some citizens can contribute time, others money, others both.
Progressivism is the unquestioned assumption in today's Americaposted by MD
That is my take-away from this well-written, general audience column by Jonah Goldberg, in this day's USA Today. I'm not saying that the assumption of progressivism isn't questioned by anybody; certainly it is in various intellectual circles. But most people don't seem to question the assumptions of progressivism in public education, health care, economics, and government authority/bureaucracy. These seem either to be accepted or tolerated by the majority of people (this is my guess), or people aren't even aware that progressive assumptions have so taken root.
I write constantly in this blog about classical education, and that approach flies in the face of progressive assumptions about education. Frankly, the evidence is on the side of classical approaches to education, because public education in this country is failing our children. And of course I have written before, with the argument that contemporary liberalism (which is just progressivism with a new name) is dead as a generator of sustainable ideas for this country.
Anyway, here's a good kwote from Goldberg's column:
But the truth is we might be in another progressive moment in American politics, where both parties represent the same basic assumptions about the role of government, leaving conservatives out in the cold.
What is progressivism? For our purposes, let's just say it's the belief that the government "runs" the whole country, imposing its values on the group, the way a teacher runs a class or a drill sergeant runs a platoon (this actually describes the differences between Wilson and T.R. quite nicely).
Bush-haters — you know who you are — seem to think that Bushism is all about war. But they forget that Bush didn't initially become a war president by choice; 9/11 was thrust upon him. He was a "compassionate conservative" who didn't want to leave any children behind. The strategy that he and Karl Rove (a T.R. groupie) concocted was to create a GOP version of "feel your pain" Clintonism.
The 2000 GOP convention's theme was "Prosperity with a Purpose," and in Bush's acceptance speech he insisted that "American government was made for great purposes." In some ways, Bush was ripping off Sen. John McCain of Arizona, whose campaign was a homage to Teddy Roosevelt and the need for Americans to unite in a "cause greater than themselves."
And while the war gets most of the attention, it has hardly escaped notice that the president is a proud "big government conservative" championing everything from government-funded marriage counseling to a new prescription drug entitlement to the federal government's intrusion into education.
In 2003, Bush declared that "when somebody hurts, government has to move."
That last line is a fantastic nutshell of progressivism, and I believe its sentiment is a virus upon the body America.
But what, exactly, do I mean by "progressivism"? Certainly not — or not merely — the tinfoil-hattery that gets called "progressive" on the web and elsewhere. Progressivism has overlapping meanings. It refers both to the generic leftism we associate with the word "progressive" and to the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But both of these senses rely on a more metaphysical meaning. Progressivism was perhaps best summarized by Condorcet's declaration that there is "a science that can foresee the progress of humankind, direct it, and accelerate it." Progressivism takes it as a given that mankind, not God, is the pilot of Spaceship Earth. The good is measured in material terms — greater health, greater prosperity, greater comfort — and the social sciences are the disciplines that allow us to engineer society in ways that will maximize the good. Recall that the phrase "social engineering" didn't start out as an epithet; people once bragged that they were social engineers. Even if the term has fallen into disrepute, the practice is alive and well.
This is the country where most of my ancestors come from. My great-great-great grandfather, on the paternal side, came with his family to America; particularly, to northern Wisconsin. And to read a story like this, I can say with assurance that I'm glad they did. Key graphs from Germany's Spiegel Online:
Anti-Americanism [in Germany] is hypocrisy at its finest. You can spend your evening catching the latest episode of "24" and then complain about Guantanamo the next morning. You can claim that the Americans have themselves to blame for terrorism, while at the same time calling for tougher restrictions on Muslim immigration to Germany. You can call the American president a mass murderer and book a flight to New York the next day. You can lament the average American's supposed lack of culture and savvy and meanwhile send off for the documents for the Green Card lottery.
Not a day passes in Germany when someone isn't making the wildest claims, hurling the vilest insults or spreading the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the United States. But there's no risk involved and it all serves mainly to boost the German feeling of self-righteousness.
I am thrilled that this (apparent) candidate for the U.S. Presidency made Hirsi Ali the subject of his most recent radio spot. Click here for the transcript as well as the MP3. Among Guiliani, Romney, McCain, Gingrich, Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, and the rest, I believe Thompson is the only candidate to have talked about her. I have a new level of respect for him. Kosmic Kwote:
There were many Germans and other Europeans who came to America and warned of the Nazi threat in the 1930s, including writers and filmmakers. Can you imagine that any of them would have ever needed bodyguards?
Hirsi Ali does — right here in America. Yet too many people still don’t understand what our country is up against. They might if they read her book.
Besides reading the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution regularly, one ought add to that The Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. For one explanation why, read what Matthew Franck has to say, including the fact that these essays are "the most frequently cited source in Supreme Court opinions, after the Court’s own precedents themselves."
I like this. In line with what he sought — namely, speaking out when necessary. I like how the most internal silhouette is calm, the most external shouting. That's about right, isn't it? Here's the AP story.
A very good interview, by Guernica magazine. She talks at length about her views on the Iraq war, amongst other things. And then, astonishingly, she ends with this preview of her next book:
I'm working on another book, called Shortcut to Enlightenment, Part 1. I'm waking the prophet Muhammed up in the New York Public Library. When he got his revelation, he got it in a cave, and he was illiterate. In my story, he's literate and he wakes up in a library. And he gets to see New York and he gets to think that this empire was built by his people, his followers; and he discovers a few inconsistencies, such as what he sees as uninhibited capitalism ... So then he thinks, "No, this is not my philosophy, the people who built this are not my followers."
So he goes and finds out what his followers have been up to since his death — and he's very, very surprised. Because they're killing each other, they're targeting everyone else, they're weak. And so then he's very, very sad; and in that saddened state he encounters John Stuart Mill. And so they have a dialogue on the position of women in society and the relationship between men and women.
And in another chapter he has a conversation on the relationship of the individual and the community. And in another chapter he has a dialogue with Karl Popper on the open society and its enemies. And Karl Popper asserts that Islam is an enemy of the open society. And the last chapter is about what happens to the prophet after these dialogues. Does he convert to the ideas of these liberals or does he stick to his own?
Sounds like a work of literature. Born of immersion in the Great Conversation that is Western civilization. I'm most excited.
An affirmative to that question is my take-away from this well-written brief history of the movement in America, by Brian Doherty. A moment, among many, that caught my attention is this (a mission statement of sorts):
... to explain, in culture, politics, economics, or the courts, why solutions that rely on free markets and free choice are apt to have better results, and be more morally correct, than solutions that rely on central control or government action.
As someone part of the classical liberal wing of the Libertarian movement, I say right on. Because both central control or government action are, in most cases, forms of watered-down tyranny.
A good primer for the film, written by Hanson, a respected Greek classicist. Kosmic moment:
Ultimately the film takes a moral stance, Herodotean in nature: there is a difference, an unapologetic difference between free citizens who fight for eleutheria and imperial subjects who give obeisance. We are not left with the usual postmodern quandary 'who are the good guys' in a battle in which the lust for violence plagues both sides. In the end, the defending Spartans are better, not perfect, just better than the invading Persians, and that proves good enough in the end. And to suggest that ambiguously these days has perhaps become a revolutionary thing in itself.
This lengthy piece in the Claremont Review of Books has an intriguing perspective on the Bard. Kosmic kwote:
...[W]e should always remember that the wholeness of a culture can become a prison for those living within it — that is the fundamental insight of Plato's parable of the cave.
The parable acknowledges ... that most people in a community are the captives of its authoritative opinions. But Plato sees beyond this fact to something more important: in any community there are some people who long to escape from the confines of the cave, to question authoritative opinion and search for genuine knowledge. These are the people Plato calls philosophers, and Socrates was his chief example. Plato criticizes the poets in the Republic for being, in effect, the prime builders of the cave. In their eagerness to please their audience, they give eloquent expression to its presuppositions and prejudices, hoping to win its applause by flattering its communal pride. But Plato subtly raises the possibility of a truly philosophical poet, who, like Socrates, would not rejoice in what would today be called his native culture but would instead question its assumptions to the core. Shakespeare turned out to be that kind of philosophical poet — not the first, and not the last — but certainly the greatest.
Ever since, Shakespeare has served as a beacon for those around the world trying to find their way out of the cave.
Not all that much depth to the interview. But still, worth a read. For nuggets like this:
You’re at a conservative think tank — perhaps an odd place for a harsh critic of religion in political life. I consider myself nonpartisan, but I’m a liberal — not in the American sense, because Americans seem to refer to communists as liberals. What we see in Europe, because of the welfare state, is government pretending to provide all sorts of services they shouldn’t be providing.
But what do you make of Christian conservatives in your ranks? No one in the American Enterprise imposes their beliefs. We clash, and I think that’s what the West is all about.
Perfect on both counts. In other words, spoken like a true classical liberal.
That's the name of a good article by Walter Williams. It is crucial, I think, for Americans to understand the differences between these terms. And, frankly, to see that "democracy" is actually a form of tyranny.
Earlier this month, a German teen-ager was forcibly taken from her parents and imprisoned in a psychiatric ward. Her crime? She is being home-schooled.
Here's the nut of the matter:
Six decades after Hitler, German politicians and church leaders still do not understand true freedom: that raising children is a prerogative of their fathers and mothers and not of the state, which is never a benevolent parent and often an enemy.
People really need to realize just how pernicious it is to have the State control education. How unAmerican this is. How against liberty this is. Probably the best reading on all this is John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education. And then to realize that the first U.S. president to be educated in a public school (a euphemism for "government- or State-controlled school") was, ironically, Lyndon B Johnson. Mr. Great Society, which has worked so well.
Author Robert Godwin, from his first blog post, in 2005, talking about America:
I don't think it's healthy to orient your life around politics 24/7, as does the secular left, for which politics is their substitute religion. Politics must aim at something that isn't politics, otherwise, what's the point? Politics just becomes a cognitive system to articulate your existential unhappiness. Again, this is what leftists do--everything for them is politicized.
... Liberty--understood in its spiritual sense--was the key idea of the founders. This cannot be overemphasized. According to Michael Novak, liberty was understood as the "axis of the universe," and history as "the drama of human liberty." Thomas Jefferson wrote that "the God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time." It was for this reason that Jefferson chose for the design of the seal of the United States Moses leading the children of Israel out of the death-cult of Egypt, out of the horizontal wasteland of spiritual bondage, into the open circle of a higher life. America was quite consciously conceived as an opportunity to "re-launch" mankind after such an initial 100,000 years or so of disappointment, underachievement, and spiritual stagnation.
RSS
