Lately I’ve been thinking about how we are ruled.
A lot of people want to rule us, and many of them use an excuse the notion that ‘we” are not capable of ruling ourselves. While I might be willing to concede that some of us either are not (or at least are doing a piss poor job of it), my problem involves simple logic.
Who are “we”?
Who gets to rule “us”?
The communitarian “we” involves a misused pronoun I have been complaining about since the beginning of this blog, and that ten years of complaining has done little to solve the problem.
We are ruled by those who say we should be ruled because we don’t know what we are doing, but they do. These con artists have somehow managed to convince a lot of people that they too are part of the right “we,” and that by voting for the right “wes,” they will ensure that “we” have all consented to be ruled.
The “we” logic is impenetrable.
A tenured Bowdoin professor (lately in the news for her contention that there is no right to have more than one child) maintains the following:
I argue that autonomy, or the freedom to act in accordance with your own decisions, is overrated — that the common high evaluation of the importance of autonomy is based on a belief that we are much more rational than we actually are. We now have lots of evidence from psychology and behavioural economics that we are often very bad at choosing effective means to our ends. In such cases, we need the help of others — and in particular, of government regulation — to keep us from going wrong.
That is classic communitarianism, and she has a ridiculously overpriced book (honestly titled Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism) devoted to her premise. But let’s assume that “we” make bad choices. Who gets to decide whose choices are bad? And what sort of naive idiot could imagine that the government (which also consists of people) would know better than anyone else what it is that constitutes a “good” choice? Or what it is that constitutes “going wrong”?
The logic of the above is very simple.
We (meaning you!) make mistakes, and if given sufficient power we (meaning us) can ensure that we (meaning you) don’t keep making them.
What never ceases to amaze me is not that there are such naked power-seeking hucksters out there, but that they able to convince so many people to go along with them.
Maybe they have a point about people making bad choices.
Comments
8 responses to ““keep us from going wrong””
The ironic twist is that those people chosen to make all these important decisions are ALSO human beings who, as reason suggests, are unable to make the right choices to run their own lives but are somehow capable of running ours. However, the method in which they are chosen is equally idiotic since they are chosen by the very people who can’t make the right decisions. Boggles the mind. According to this line of reasoning, we would have at least as good of luck picking leaders by divine provenance or strange women lying in ponds distributing
swords.
Thanks!
Want to see how far they’ll go to keep that power? Watch how they play the “sequester”.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-21/sanderson-says-furloughing-inspectors-may-shut-operations.html
So you’re questioning our social, political, moral and intellectual betters?
How gauche.
I read the material at the link provided by Will. It’s inconceivable that the Department of Agriculture cannot make cuts elsewhere and keep poultry and meat inspections operating. My guess is they will find a way, since if they do not, someone will do an investigative report to demonstrate how poorly the whole thing was managed.
This will be fun to watch.
I think sequester WILL hurt; as almost every chief bunny inspector makes very sure the nation hears the cry of bunnies in retaliation for budget “cuts”.
And yep, I got’s no couth.
@ Will, and good for you. Couth never did anyone any good. Give them hell.
With a bow to Harry. And, no, I don’t care that he was a Democrat. He told the truth as he saw it. And there are few politicians today, on either side, who do the same. (note: I say few, not none).
“Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill because they pissed me off…”
Kathy – still bellicose after all these years…
“Oh, Freedom.
What happened? THEY understood. Those who understood that song would have stood with neither the left nor the right. They would have made their stance for freedom. Their descendants evidently want back into slavery? Because that’s what’s going to happen. (And it isn’t going to be dependent on skin color.)
“And before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free.” We need more people like that – no matter what the color.