by Christopher Cook
|
They call you a racist while treating blacks as though they were nothing but incapable wards and electoral vassals.They talk about compassion but say the most vicious things.
They feign skepticism about power, but proclaim themselves fit to rule over you.
Their ideological forebears in America were eugenicists, segregationists, and racial supremacists.
Their ideological cohorts in other lands, once they achieved enough power, oppressed millions and killed millions more.
Today, as in the past, they claim to mean well, but their policies result, at best, in failure, and oftentimes in abject misery.
What makes the liberal tick?
First, we have to clarify our use of the term “liberal.” Today, liberal refers to someone on the political left—someone who favors state solutions, centralization of power, collectivism, and equality of outcome. It used to refer to the ideology of limited government, free markets, and individual rights that is today described as conservative or libertarian, but in the early 20th century, the Progressives—desperately needing a new label after having sickened the American people during the Wilson years—essentially stole the term. Amazingly, they pulled it off, and the American left have been misleadingly referred to as liberals ever since. Only in the last few years have we started to see cracks in this terminology, as modern liberals—having once again sullied their own brand by being exactly who they are—have started calling themselvesprogressives again. For our purposes here, we will hereinafter call them what they truly are:statists.
So what makes the statist tick? What are his motivations? After years of observation, study, and intense reflection, I have come to believe we can identify three motivations at the heart of nearly everything that the average liberal—er, I mean statist—says and does.
#1 Utopianism
It is tempting to hear the term utopianism and assume it simply means “wanting to make the world a better place”—a wonderful motivation that we see manifested in people of all political stripes. Giving to private charity, being kind to one’s fellow man, and working to improve one’s community are all actions that add genuine good to the world. It will take us too far into the weeds to discuss the research that shows that people on the political right, even adjusting for religion and income level, give more to charity than people on the left. For now, suffice it to say that there are plenty of people on the left, right, and everywhere in between who are motivated to make the world a better place.
Utopianism is different. Utopianism is the belief that with the right amount of tinkering, and with sufficient application of power, the world can be essentially forced to become a better place. Utopianism sees a messy world and wants to clean it up. Utopianism sees messy human nature and wants to reform it. Utopianism sees natural inequality in the world and wants to eliminate it. Utopianism may start from a place of compassion, but it metastasizes into something else.
Something darker.
Clean-slate utopianism
The more extreme version of utopianism is what we will label “clean-slate” utopianism.
For years, you’ve swept the floor and kept things in relative order, but your garage still looks kind of messy. So then one sunny day, you feel that sudden motivation to gut the whole thing. You pull everything out and pile it in the driveway. Then you paint the floor, hang drywall, put up snazzy new shelves, and put everything back neatly. Every so often, you just need to do that—to empty something out and start with a clean slate.
What works well from time to time on a personal level, however, is a terrible idea when it is attempted in society. And yet recent human history is peppered with examples of just such attempts. It’s sometimes called the “totalitarian temptation”—the belief that if only the right people can exercise enough power in the right ways, “we can remake the world.” It is sold to the masses with soaring rhetoric, but the results have inevitably been tragic and disastrous. The push to sweep away opposition and institutions and restart society at Year Zero never produces a genuine clean slate, but it does manage to produce years of misery and rivers of blood in the attempt.
Smiley-face utopianism
Not every utopian is this extreme, however. Most people aren’t psychotic butchers willing to doanything in their attempt to fix everything. But the totalitarian temptation is still there. The world is still a messy, disorganized place. Human nature remains unreformed. Inequality still exists. A compassionate person wants to help. But compassion, untempered by wisdom, humility, and certain essential knowledge, sometimes fuels a dangerous belief that with enough force, we can eliminate tradeoffs and hard choices, and bring all good things to all people.
The utopian fails to recognize that tradeoffs and hard choices are a part of life—that utopia is simply not possible here on earth.
He forgets that good things come at a cost. The fact that someone must pay that cost becomes a trifling notion to him—a mere detail in the grand mural of his compassion. Eventually, reminders that all goods come with a cost are not simply ignored, they are derided as signs of inferior compassion or outright cruelty—the basic facts of reality be damned.
He starts to see some people as providers of goods and others as recipients of them. He begins to divide the world into competing groups—the targets of his compassion vs. those who stand in the way of his noble efforts or object to being placed into economic bondage to another. Eventually, the individual ceases to be the monad of society, and any individual rights inconvenient to the statist’s cause—property, self-ownership, freedom of conscience, etc.—are derided as regressive or nonexistent.
Convinced of his superior compassion, he continues to trample the rights of some in his efforts to show compassion to others. His victims become mere process costs—the eggs that must be broken in order to make the omelet. Eventually, the original desire to show compassion to individuals is replaced by devotion to “the mission,” and with the human equation lost, everyone becomes dispensable.
Finally, he comes to be believe that any force is justified in pursuit of the mission. People will have their liberties constrained for their own good. He believes that there is a collective general will, that he knows what it is, and that nonconforming individuals must be, as Rousseau said, “forced to be free.”
#2 Narcissism
Not realizing what she has become, the statist comforts herself that she is motivated by compassion, and that all her actions are thus justified. A sense of surety about her compassionate motivations leads to a sense of superiority, which leads to a form of narcissism. This narcissism takes two forms.
Mirror-mirror-on-the-wall narcissism
We’ve had more than 200 years to observe, from the French Revolution to the statist horrors of the 20th century to the serial failures of left-wing ideas throughout the western world, and the verdict is in: statism does not work. It does not produce better results for people, nor does it expand their liberty. The statist speaks in the language of rights while taking them away. She claims credit for advances produced by the very forces she derides—individualism and free markets—and she blames statism’s serial failures upon those same forces.
But while statism has failed miserably at actually improving the human condition or expanding human liberty, it has succeeded brilliantly at marketing itself as the only choice for compassionate people. Equally successful have been its efforts to portray its opponent ideologies—conservatism and libertarianism—as being the home for racists, greedy aristocrats, selfish individualists, and “haters” of all kinds.
So powerful is this marketing that it now takes a supreme act of courage, especially in some circles, for people to identify as conservative. To do so is to swim upstream against a heavy social current that, as a matter of dogma, ascribes wicked motivations to anyone who makes such a choice.
By contrast, the statist—the modern liberal, if you will—inherits an automatic presumption of decency and compassion merely by declaring herself to be a liberal. She does not have to do anything. She never has to test her assumptions in the real world. She never has to do a moment of service in her community, and every drop of “compassion” she shows can be with other people’s money.
Nothing she calls for ever has to actually work. She just has to say that she’s a “liberal,” and the dominant culture automatically accords her the presumption of good motives. This has two effects:
By its very nature, such an ideology will attract people who want to feel good about themselves—people who want to look in the mirror and perceive that the visage staring admiringly back at them is a good person with good motives.
Then, as this person moves forward proclaiming her compassionate motives by espousing all the “correct” positions, she becomes even more convinced of her superior compassion, and her self-portrait becomes ever-more glossy. The end result is a sort of preening narcissism.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?Why you are, my dear—you are so compassionate and fair and noble in every way.
She is one of the good people. Oh, and by the way . . . you are not.
We-are-your-overlords narcissism
At the dawn of the 20th century, technological advances were exploding upon the scene at an astounding pace. Humanity was moving into the modern world, and many believed it was time for a new kind of government to match this new era. Engineers were moving mountains. “Experts”—men in lab coats or tweed jackets, with slide rules or surveying equipment—could really help move civilization along . . . especially if their new knowledge were coupled with a more robust and energetic state.
While the population in general might be forgiven for their exuberance at the glittering dawn of modernity, this new era afforded statists a new excuse for an updated version of the age-old belief; namely . . .
That some men should rule over other men.
With precious few exceptions, the history of human governance had been one of various forms of government based on that notion. Ancient despotisms. Royal families sending thousands of men to their death over competing claims to thrones and kingdoms. Millions of serfs and peasants, their names and stories unknown to history, toiling away in a caste system against which there was virtually no intellectual challenge, and from which there was no escape.
Then, an amazing thing happened. Building on the intellectual groundwork of the Enlightenment, the 19th century gave us 100 years of comparatively limited government and expanding individual freedom throughout the Western world. And—entirelynot coincidentally—this period saw the greatest march out of poverty of the greatest number of human beings ever; the greatest flowering of technological advancement in human history; and the rise of the individual in a world previously dominated by houses, classes, and clans.
But those who believe that some men are fit to rule over other men would have none of that, and statism returned with a vengeance—a democidal vengeance, as it turned out—in the 20th century.
Of course, modern statism took a different form. Feudalism and monarchy gave way to fascism and Marx. Counter-revolutionary statists sought to reverse the gains of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution. The individual was out; the collective was in. Old and outmoded: representative democracy. New hotness? Getting the trains running on time.
In our modern era, the classical hereditary aristocracy has been replaced with a new ruling class. Just as in earlier times, most of this new elite are rich and have attended the nation’s most prestigious schools. But today, they are “experts,” bureaucrats, opinion-makers, and enlightened Rousseauean legislateurs, interpreting and actuating the general will for the masses . . . for our own good. Without their expertise, we would be lost. Without their rule, we would all descend into a Hobbesian morass of greed and cruelty.
Or so they have convinced themselves. In fact, they are little more than modern versions of what Thomas Paine described in Common Sense:
This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an honorable origin: whereas it is more than probable, that, could we take off the dark covering of antiquity and trace them to their first rise, we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners of pre-eminence in subtilty obtained him the title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing in power and extending his depredations, overawed the quiet and defenseless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions.
The ancient monarchs at least had an excuse—they were raised from childhood to believe that they were literally born to rule, in a world that, by and large, reinforced that view. What excuse do today’s “principal ruffians” have to deem themselves fit to rule over us but a raging narcissism and lust for power? And what of their restless gang—the voters and institutions who support them, who deem it right to empower them to rule over us and to rob us of liberty and autonomy, as if we are children to mind or cattle to corral? What fuel but narcissism could drive such arrogance?
And today, what do we see but these ruffians acting increasingly as if they were above the law—as if the laws apply to us, but not to them? This is Olympian narcissism, and with each passing year, it seems to grow more brazen.
#3 Power
The ideology of statism, whatever forms it may take, is always an ideology of power. From monarchy to modern statism, the ethos ends up the same: the more power accumulated, the more that can be accomplished. The purpose could be for personal gain or political power; to reclaim kingdoms or remake society. Power is an end unto itself, because it creates options for those who wield it.
As I have written elsewhere, there are a thousand ways to oppress people, but only one way to let them be free. Power is seductive, and there is only one ideology in the world that says we should reduce the amount of power that politicians are able to accumulate and wield. One ideology that says we should decentralize power and return more of it to the individual. One ideology that calls for true limitations on power, checking and balancing it through competing institutions at the public level and competing interests at the private level. And that ideology ain’t statism.
Power for government
The ideology of statism, by definition, seeks to expand power for government.
The modern statist seeks greater control over business and commerce, property and health. He seeks to limit the individual’s ability to defend his person and property, and to act as a check against state tyranny. He pays lip service to freedom of expression, defending it in its more trivial manifestations while seeking to limit it when it poses a threat to state power . . . and sometimes brazenly using the power of the state to silence his opponents. He defends freedom of conscience only for his allies, restricting it for those whom he deems enemies of the statist project.
He seeks to centralize power, increasing it at the federal level at the expense of state or local government. He seeks to render public what once was private, reducing the influence and autonomy of the community, the family, and the individual.
He does great violence to equality before the law, extracting wealth from some individuals, entities, and cohorts for the exclusive use of others . . . those others always being his political allies. He creates artificial clashes between groups, always with a view to increasing his power, which in turn gives him ever-more control over society.
There is the rare exception, such as the push to limit government’s ability to punish criminals, but outside of the occasional exception, nearly everything the statist does increases the power of the state. And you can predict ahead of time that, outside of the rare exception, the statist will always act to increase the power of the state, either as the primary purpose or a secondary consequence of his actions.
Personal power
Many things may motivate a person to seek power. Ego. Narcissism. The desire to make the world a better place. Unchecked control-freakery. Utopianism and the totalitarian temptation. Whether the initial motivations are noble or base, once a person has power, he discovers that he has not only gained the ability to control society, he has almost certainly gained the ability to find ways to aggrandize himself personally. This, unfortunately, is a temptation awaiting people of all political stripes, and people of every ideology have given in to the temptation.
But there is an important difference to note. The statist goes into power looking at that power as a good thing—as an end unto itself. The more power I have, the more good I can do, he tells himself. The libertarian, and the true core conservative, approach power with great skepticism. Their approach is to prefer, wherever possible, private solutions to government coercion. They too can fall victim to the temptation to use the power they accumulate for personal gain, but at least they start out with that skepticism.
The quintessential example was set by Barry Goldwater, Republican candidate for president in 1964:
I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution … or have failed their purpose … or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty, and in that cause I am doing the very best I can.
Whether he would have fallen victim to temptation is something we will never know, because he lost that election fairly dramatically. Indeed, if he had been less candid about his libertarian tendencies and promised more goodies to more groups, he might have done better. But had he won, it is clear he would have been going to Washington with a great skepticism about power, rather than a belief that the more he could accumulate—for himself or for government—the more “good” he could do.
In fact, Goldwater’s approach suggests something of a solution, for the less that government is able to do, the fewer avenues for corruption. If, for example, government is structurally prevented from redistributing money from taxpayers to any special interest, there remains little reason for those interests to lobby for goodies at the public trough (in exchange for support in the next election, naturally). Such an interest would find the well dry, and a senator saying, “I’m sorry, Bob, but we’re only the government. We don’t do much.” If you want to limit the personal power that politicians and bureacrats can accumulate, the first thing to do is to reduce the power of government.
But as long as the statist looks at government power in a positive light—as a way to better control and order society—and more power for himself as a further means to that end, we are not likely to get away from politicians using power for personal gain. And we’re very likely to see the desire for more power continue as a principle motivation.
No doubt some statists—excuse me, some liberals—who read this will find it tendentious. I am motivated by compassion and compassion alone, they will claim.
You’ll forgive me, but that argument would have worked a lot better a century ago, before we had mountains of data that freedom works better than control. Before we had mountains of corpses piled in monuments to the 20th century’s serial attempts to exert that control. Before we got to watch your ideological comrades and forebears try the same failed solutions over and over, with the same sickening results and unintended consequences.
Let me guess: they had the right idea but did it in the wrong way, right? Sorry, we’ve heard that excuse one too many times.
Here are a few tips:
Just because the dominant culture tells you that you are compassionate doesn’t make it so. Your ideas actually have to work.
Person A (you) conspiring with Politician B to decide what Person C is going to do for Recipient D is not compassion, it’s theft. Being “charitable” with other people’s money does not make you a good person. Eroding the rights of some in order to give goods to others—and accumulating ever-greater power for your ideological cohorts to do it again and bigger each time—does not make you a good person. It violates the social contract and puts you in the role of an abuser of your fellow man.
Believing you are fit to decide what liberties your fellow human beings must give up in order to bring about your vision for the perfect society—a society you could build if only we would get out of your way and give you the power you need to do so—does not make you a good person. It makes you a utopian narcissist control freak.
Does this all sound divisive? Could I be more irenic in my approach? Sure. Perhaps I am losing perspective and growing angry as I watch our rights and the rule of law erode.
But one thing is for sure: Every one of my political actions is dedicated to making you more free—to subjecting you to fewer burdens and expanding your enjoyment of your rights. By contrast, your political positions, actions, and votes primarily serve to make me less free—constricting my choices; subjecting me to greater force; reducing my enjoyment of my rights; and yoking me to the economic wants of your political allies.
Maybe I have become a bit more angry. Politically, however, I have nothing to atone for.
But you do.
Source: The Top Three Motivations of Every Liberal
No comments:
Post a Comment