Screeds
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Anatomy Of A Mindset
January 29, 2004
By way of Steven Den Beste, we have the following:
In her new book, Danish Liberal EU spokesperson Charlotte Antonsen questions the use of referenda as a useful way to build up European democracy.
The book - "Towards the European Constitution" warns that the EU could fall apart if the Danish practise of consulting the people in referenda over important EU treaties is copied by other member states.
"Referenda have a very conservative effect on development. If the other countries copy us, the EU will fall apart", she writes.
Mrs Antonsen, a member of the Danish Parliament for the ruling Liberal party, argues that representative democracy is just as democratic as referenda.
"Referenda are in fact pure gambling. There is no guarantee of a positive outcome, unfortunately".
"This takes my breath away," quoth Den Beste. If you're a regular Palace reader, it should have the same effect on you.
Nor is it an isolated emission by an irrelevant Eurocrat. It's a peek into what might be the least discussed yet most significant divide of our time: the gulf that separates the mindset of the ruling class from that of the common man.
Not that long ago, presidential candidate Howard Dean said that, regarding racism in America, the paramount need was to educate whites about race. Charlotte Antonsen's attitude toward us groundlings gleams unsubtly around the edges of that statement. It got some play on the Internet, but almost none in the Old Media, who preferred not to embarrass their preferred candidate. (Note particularly the approval expressed in the linked column by author Derrick Z. Jackson, a rabid left-liberal and an unblushing black racist.)
Your Curmudgeon, as grateful as he is for the fact-checking exertions of today's legion of Internet commentators, would be overjoyed if they'd put a comparable effort into the investigation of the attitudes of public figures, especially when they speak as Antonsen and Dean have done.
Note the most salient points about the ruling-class mindset:
- It's strongest among left-liberal politicos, but also affects conservatives.
- It assumes a degree of intellectual penetration of the issues that's not reachable by the common man.
- It assumes a degree of moral rectitude superior to that of the common man, as well.
- It is unembarrassed by itself.
- Its holders are in no way reluctant to use coercive power to compel the rest of us to accept their dicta.
- Its holders' habit is to explain away their failures without reference to the usual criterion for evaluating a claim of knowledge: the ability to predict the consequences of their actions.
- It responds to any hint of criticism by attacking the motives of the critic.
If this isn't a description of sociopathic megalomania, your Curmudgeon would like to see a better one.
The evidence is strong that the mindset is dominant among the wielders and seekers of power. What remains is to determine how it gets established, and how it might be countered -- or expunged.
Flattery, it's often said, will get you nowhere. Among aphorisms about human relations, this one is probably the most doubtful. Flattery is one of the likeliest routes toward advancement, if the person you flatter is receptive, and is in a position to give you a boost.
Candidates for office make use of this fact by flattering the voter. After pandering to special interests, electioneering is about evenly divided between slandering one's opponents and "energizing the base": that is, providing those who are most likely to support the candidate with emotional fuel for activism. A significant part of that fuel comes from the sense that one is engaged with a Cause.
Cause People are united by their Cause, but we must be careful to understand the sort of glue this provides. The Cause itself might be quite significant, but beneath it are also the engines provided by the sense of intellectual and moral superiority: In embracing the Cause, I demonstrate that I understand the issues, and that I care deeply about them. One might call this a "quest mentality," though the quests of medieval knights seldom included the intellectual arrogance that infects so many contemporary activists.
On the other end of the political ladder, one reaches the mechanisms of major-party support, in large measure, by ingratiating oneself with the existing leadership. Political leaders have outsized egos and sub-par capacities for self-criticism; flattering them is hardly difficult. For the man of average ability, there's no more reliable path to influence or public recognition.
Is it not obvious how this tendency will perpetuate and strengthen itself over time?
Thomas Sowell has further buttressed the case by noting that it's atypical for a man of real ability to pursue a political career. He's much more likely to gravitate toward enterprise or science, where the accomplishments are more objective and the rewards are less tainted. More, a genuinely superior man is uninterested in flattery, and would feel soiled by the company of the obsequious.
If all this be true, there's a systemic problem in the political system: it tends to elevate men of no particular ability, according to their skills as flatterers. More, since they want to believe the best of themselves, they're disposed to accept the flattery of others in preference to contrary evidence or logic. The resulting chain of mediocrities believe themselves superior to us hoi polloi for no good reason. This chain is only occasionally broken by truly capable men whose detractors cannot pull them down or becloud their evident substance -- and if history is a guide, such men seldom manage to select equally able successors.
From this process will naturally emerge swelled-head politicos like Charlotte Antonsen and Howard Dean.
Here we are again at the Last Graf, and your Curmudgeon is once again without a cure to recommend. Since the problem is pervasive, "voting the rascals out" will usually vote other rascals in who will be almost as bad.
In his book The B.S. Factor, Arthur Herzog suggested that, when confronted with political bloviation, the electorate should administer the crushing blow of the "mass yawn." Perhaps we can apply this tactic, or something like it. But while this might temporarily disillusion a speaker about the acceptability of his effusions, it cannot provide him with an enduring disincentive as long as he continues to get the thing he most wants: power. Once he has power, the flatterers will seek him out to continue the chain.
It's a problem for ongoing reflection. Part of that reflection should be this: among the most able men to reach high office in recent memory are Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Both these men were actors, and both were bitterly opposed by both the political elite and their occupational kindred. If we were to go by occupational stereotypes, they had no business departing from the pattern of their kind.
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