Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical

Money, Power, and Equality: An Egalitarian Paradox

 J. R. Lucas, "Against Equality," in Justice and Equality, ed.  Hugo Bedau (Prentice-Hall, 1971), pp. 148-149:

Since men value power and prestige as much as the possession of wealth---indeed, these three `goods' cannot be completely separated---it is foolish to seek to establish an equality of wealth on egalitarian grounds. It is foolish first because it will not result in what egalitarians really want. It is foolish also because if we do not let men compete for money, they will compete all the more for power; and whereas the possession of wealth by another man does not hurt me, unless I am made vulnerable by envy, the possession of power by another is inherently dangerous; and furthermore if we are to maintain a strict equality of wealth we need a much greater apparatus of state to secure it and therefore a much greater inequality of power. Better have bloated plutocrats than omnipotent bureaucrats.

This is a penetrating passage from a penetrating essay. Lucas is in effect pointing out a paradox at the heart of the egalitarian  position. If the egalitarian wants to equalize wealth, perhaps via a scheme of income redistribution, then he will need to make use of state power to do it: the wealthy will not voluntarily disembarrass themselves of their wealth. But state power is of necessity concentrated in the hands of a few, those who run the government,  whose power is vastly greater than, and hence unequal to, the power of  the governed.

The paradox, then, is that the enforcing of equality of wealth requires inequality of power. But, as Lucas points out, the powerful are much more dangerous to us than the wealthy. Your being wealthy takes away nothing from me, and indeed stimulates the economy from which I profit, whereas your being powerful poses a threat  to my liberty.

But I hear an objection coming: "Wealth is convertible into power since the wealthy can buy their way to political influence, whether legally or illegally." True, but the seriousness of this problem is a function of how intrusive and overreaching the government is. A government stripped down to essential functions offers fewer opportunities for the power-hungry. Note also that the wealthy may  feel it necessary to buy influence just to protect themselves from  regulatory zeal. 

Is There a Right to Health Care?

(Written November 2013)

Food, shelter, and clothing are more important than health care in that one can get along for substantial periods of time without health care services, but one cannot survive for long without food, shelter, and clothing. Given this plain fact, why don’t the proponents of ‘free’ universal health care demand ‘free’ food, shelter, and clothing? In other words, if a citizen, just in virtue of being a citizen, has a right to health care, why doesn’t the same citizen have the right to what is more fundamental, namely, food, shelter, and clothing?

I mean this as a reductio ad absurdum.  I fear that liberals, being liberals, may just bite the bullet and embrace rights to food, shelter, and clothing.  But then the next move down the slippery slope would be for these liberals to insist that these rights are unconditional and not dependent on anything the recipient does or does not do, such as work.

Why isn't health care a commodity in the way that automotive care is? If I want my car to run well, I must service it periodically. I can either do this myself or hire someone to do it for me. But surely I have no right to the free services of an auto mechanic. Of course, once I contract with a mechanic to do a specified job for a specified sum of money, then I have a right to his services and to his services being performed correctly. But that right is contingent upon our contract. Call it a contractually acquired right. But I have no right to free automotive services just in virtue of the fact that I own a car. So why is it any different with my body? Do I have a right to a colonoscopy just in virtue of my possession of a gastrointestinal tract?

Negative and Positive Rights

Of course, I have a right to life, and I cannot live without health care most of which, by the way, I provide for myself via proper diet, exercise, and all the rest.  But the negative right to life does not entail the positive right to be given the services of doctors and dentists.

If you insist that people do have a right to medical and dental services, then you owe us an explanation of why they do not also have a right to food, shelter, and clothing, as well as to a vast array of other things that they 'need' such as cars and cell phones.

I've heard Hillary Clinton say that health care is not a privilege but a right.  First of all, who ever said it was a privilege?  Second, it needs arguing that it is a right.  And good luck with that.  Besides, it is the fallacy of false alternative to say or imply that health care is either a right or a privilege.  It might be some third thing.

My view is that health care is a commodity. You either provide it for yourself or you hire someone to provide it for you. In the latter case, you must pay for it. It is no different in principle from housing. Just as there is a 'housing market' there is a 'health care market.' If there were a right to health care, then there would also be a right to housing. But there is no right to housing. Therefore, there is no right to health care.  Do Obama and his supporters have a reasoned response to this argument? 

Talk of this and that as a right is mostly empty blather.  One ought to reflect on what it could mean to call something a right. 

The Correlativity of Rights and Duties

Rights and duties are correlative. My right to X generates in others the duty to either provide me with X or not interfere with my possession or exercise of X. Thus my right to life induces in others the duty or obligation to refrain from injuring or killing me. So if I have a right to health care, then others have the duty to provide me with it. Think about that.  But who are those others? The government? The government has no money of its own; its revenue comes from taxing the productive members of society. But why are these productive citizens under any obligation to provide 'free' services to anyone?  Taxation is by its very nature coercive.  How does one justify morally the taking by force of money from one person to give it to another? Why should productive citizens who take care of themselves pay for those who abuse their bodies?  There is also the practical question of whether the productive will allow themselves to be fleeced.  Not to mention the fact that the government infantilizes the population by doing for them what they ought to be doing for themselves, and by removing their incentives to taking care of themselves.

Socialized Medicine is Anti-Liberty and Weakens the Citizenry

Government should do no harm. Primum non nocere.  But a government that weakens and unmans its citizens, turning them into dependents on the state, does harm.  This is entirely consistent with people caring about one another and taking care of one another within the free associations of civil society that lie between the  individual and  Leviathan.  It is also consistent with a modicum of regulation, oversight, and mandating from the side of the state to prevent the truly needy from ending up on the skids.

If we meet in the desert and you are out of water and food, I will give you some of mine, ceteris paribus. But I am under no moral obligation to help you; you have no right to my supplies. My helping you will be supererogatory and reflective of my compassion and Christian upbringing.  Similarly, you have no right to insurance or medicine or a pap smear or a sigmoidoscopy, and I have no obligation to contribute via taxation so that you may get these things.

Nor do you have any right to contraceptives or abortifacients or outright abortions to be supplied at taxpayer expense.  Besides, forcing people to pay for what violates their moral sensibility is a moral outrage.  Abortion is a very great evil even if liberals are too morally obtuse and willfully stupid  to understand that fact.

Positive rights, rights to be given this or that,  need arguing, but I hear precious little by way of  argument from liberals.

A government big enough and powerful enough to provide one with ‘free’ health care will be in an excellent position to demand ‘appropriate’ behavior from its citizens – and to enforce its demand. Suppose you enjoy risky sports such as motorcycling, hang gliding, mountain climbing and the like. Or perhaps you just like to drink or smoke or eat red meat. A government that pays for the treatment of your injuries and ailments can easily decide, on economic grounds alone, to forbid such activities under the bogus justification, ‘for your own good.’

But even if the government does not outlaw motorcycling, say, they can put a severe dent in your liberty to enjoy such a sport, say, by demanding that a 30% sales tax be slapped on all motorcycle purchases, or by outlawing bikes whose engines exceed a certain displacement, say 180 cc.  In the same way that governments levy arbitrary taxes on tobacco products, they can do the same for anything they deem risky or unhealthy.

The situation is analogous to living with one’s parents. It is entirely appropriate for parents to say to a child: ‘As long as you live under our roof, eat at our table, and we pay the bills, then you must abide by our rules. When you are on your own, you may do as you please.’ The difference, of course, is that it is relatively easy to move out on one’s own, but difficult to forsake one’s homeland.  

The nub of the issue is liberty. Do you value it or not?  And how much?  Which trumps which: liberty or equality of outcome?  

Then there are the practical considerations. Nationalized health care in the UK and Canada doesn't seem to work very well. Apparently some Brits pull their own teeth with such advanced dental appliances as pliers and vodka. That was the way dentistry was done in the days of Doc Holliday who was, as you know, a dentist besides being a damned good shot.

The Problem of Dirty Hands

I am trying to understand the structure of the problem of dirty hands.

A clear example of a dirty hands situation is one in which a political leader authorizes the intentional slaughter of innocent non-combatants to demoralize the enemy and bring about the end of a war which, if it continues, could be reasonably expected to lead to the destruction of the leader's state.   The leader must act, but he cannot authorize the actions necessary for the state's survival without authorizing immoral actions.  He must act, but he cannot act without dirtying his hands with the blood of innocents.  In its sharpest form, the problem arises if we assume that certain actions are absolutely morally  wrong, wrong in and of themselves, always and everywhere and regardless of circumstances or (good) consequences.  The problem stands out in sharp relief when cast into the mold of an aporetic triad:  

A. Moral reasons for action are dominant: they trump every other reason for action such as 'reasons of state.'

B. Some actions are absolutely morally wrong, morally impermissible always and everywhere, regardless of context, circumstances, or consequences.

C. Among absolutely morally wrong actions, there are some that are (non-morally) permissible, and indeed  (non-morally) necessary: they must be done in a situation in which refusing to act would lead to worse consequences such as the destruction of one's nation or culture.

It is easy to see that this triad is inconsistent.  The limbs cannot all be true.  (B) and (C) could both be true if one allowed moral reasons to be trumped by non-moral reasons.  But that is precisely what (A), quite plausibly, rules out.  

The threesome, then, is logically inconsistent. And yet each limb makes a strong claim on our acceptance. To solve the problem one of the limbs must be rejected.  Which one?

(A)-Rejection.  One might take the line that in some extreme circumstances non-moral considerations take precedence over moral ones. Imagine a ticking-bomb scenario in which the bomb planter must be tortured in order to find the location of the bomb or bombs. (Suppose a number of dirty nukes have been planted in Manhattan, all scheduled to go off at the same time.)  

Imagine a perfectly gruesome form of torture in which the wife and children of Ali the jihadi have their fingers and limbs sawn off in the presence of the jihadi, and then the same is done to him until he talks.  Would the torture not be justified?  Not morally justified of course, but justified non-morally to save Manhattan and its millions of residents and to avert the ensuing disaster for the rest of the country?   One type of  hard liner will say, yes, of course, even while insisting that torture of the sort envisaged is morally wrong, and indeed absolutely morally wrong.  I am in some moods such a hard liner.

But am I not then falling into contradiction? No.  I am not maintaining that in every case it is morally wrong to torture, but in this case it is not.  That would be a contradiction.  I am maintaining that it is always morally impermissible to torture but that in some circumstances moral considerations are trumped by -- what shall I call them? -- survival considerations.  These are external to the moral point of view.  So while morality is absolute in its own domain, its domain does not coincide with the domain of human action in general.  The torture of the jihadi and his wife and children are justified, not morally, but by non-moral reasons.

(B)-Rejection.  A second solution to the triad involves rejecting deontology and embracing consequentialism.  Consider the following act-type:  torturing  a person to extract information from him.  A deontologist such as Kant would maintain that the tokening of such an act-type is morally wrong just in virtue of the act-type's  being the act-type it is.  It would then follow for Kant that every such tokening is morally wrong.  A consequentialist would say that it all depends on the outcome.  Torturing our jihadi above leads or can be reasonably expected to lead to the greatest good of the greatest number in the specific circumstances in question, and those on-balance good consequences morally justify the act of torture.  So, contra Kant, one and the same act-type can be morally acceptable/unacceptable depending on circumstances and consequences.   Torturing Ali the jihadi is morally justified, but torturing Sammy the jeweler to get him to open his safe is not.

On this second solution to the triad, we accept (A), we accept that moral considerations reign supreme over the entire sphere of human action and cannot be trumped by any non-moral considerations.  But we adopt a consequentialist moral doctrine that allows the moral justification of torture and the targeting of non-combatants in certain circumstances.

Now we must ask:  Do the consequentialist torturers of the jihadi and their consequentialist superiors who order the torture have dirty hands?  Suppose the hands of the torturers are literally bloody.  Are they dirty?  I am tempted to say No.  They haven't done anything wrong; they have the done the right thing, and let us assume, at great psychological and emotional cost to themselves. Imagine snapping off the digits of a fellow human being with bolt cutters or high-torque pruning shears.  Could you do that to a child in the presence of his father and do it efficiently and with equanimity?  Could you do your job, your duty, despite your contrary inclination?  (I am turning Kant's phraseology against him here.)  But you must do it because the orders you have been given are morally correct by the consequentialist theory.

Do the torturers have dirty hands?  It depends on what exactly it is to have dirty hands which, of course, is part of the problem of dirty hands.   On a narrow understanding, a dirty hands situation is one in which the agent acts, and must act,  while both accepting all three limbs of our inconsistent triad and appreciating that they are inconsistent.  A dirty hands situation in the narrow and strict sense is an aporetic bind of the practical and not merely theoretical sort.  You must act and you must act immorally in violation of absolute moral prohibitions, and you cannot justify your actions by any non-moral considerations that trump moral ones.  That's one hell of a bind to be in!  Some will be tempted to say that there cannot ever occur such a bind.  But if so, then there cannot ever occur a dirty hands situation.  So maybe talk of 'dirty hands' is incoherent.

If this is what it is to be in a dirty hands situation, then a consequentialist cannot be in a dirty hands situation.  He is not in an aporetic bind since he rejects (B).  And the same goes for those who reject (A) or (C).

(C)-Rejection. A third solution to the problem involves  holding that there is no necessity to act: one can abstain from acting.  A political leader faced with a terrible choice can simply abdicate, or simply refuse to choose.  He does not order the torture of the jihadi and and hence does not act to save Manhattan; but by not acting he willy-nilly aids and abets the terrorist.

Interim Conclusion

For now I will conclude that if we leave God and the soul out of it, if we think in purely immanent or secular terms, then we are in a genuine aporetic bind, and the problem of dirty hands, narrowly construed, is a genuine one, but also an insoluble one. For rejecting any of the limbs will get us into grave trouble.  That needs to be argued, of course.  One entry leads to another, and another . . . .

Philosophia longa, vita brevis. 

Recommended reading:

C. A. J. Coady, The Problem of Dirty Hands

Michael Walzer, Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands 

Paul Gottfried on Propositionalism

Here:

White nationalists are not really nationalists since they are engaged in a globalist enterprise. They are reaching beyond traditional nation states and seek to unify all peoples of a certain race, partly by demonizing other races. But propositionalists like Buckley and the neoconservative journalists are likewise involved in a global pursuit. They are not content to live in a politically diverse world among different cultures. They seek to win adherents to their political religion supposedly predicated on universal propositions. The validity of what they believe requires that it be put into practice universally, since their propositions are intended for all of humanity. This rights-based globalism is nothing new. It was practiced by the Jacobins during the French Revolution and later, and more devastatingly, by the Bolsheviks. (Emphasis added) 

This passage may help focus the ongoing discussion with my neo-reactionary colleagues. I don't see why  I ought to accept the bolded sentence above.  The sentence encapsulates an argument, which could be put like this:

1) The supposedly universal propositions are intended to hold true for all of humanity.
2) If so, then the supposedly universal propositions must be put into practice universally.
Therefore
3) The supposedly universally propositions must be put into practice universally.
Therefore
4) One can justify nation-building, exporting American/Enlightenment values, toppling dictators using  military force, teaching the benighted Muslim tribalists of the Middle East the values of open inquiry, free speech, equal rights for women, etc.

The argument is unsound because we have no good reason to accept (2).

I reject (2). I say: There are propositions relating to human flourishing that are true for all humans. An example of such a proposition might be: A happy and productive human life is unlikely and perhaps impossible if one never learns to control one's appetites and emotions. (Had Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown been brought up to exercise self-control, they would be alive today. Those two brought about their own deaths by their lack of self control, and 'racism' had nothing to do with it. Harvey Weinstein is a 'white' example: had he been brought up to control his concupiscence he wouldn't be in the deep trouble he is in now. ) 

But such propositions, while true for all humans and in this sense true universally, are not recognized by all humans, and not presently capable of being recognized or put into practice by all humans.  The attempt to impart these propositions to some groups will be futile, especially if it involves force, or can be interpreted by the group in question as a cover for an attempt to dominate or control them for ulterior motives.

So I distinguish two questions.

One is whether the propositions in question are universal. The other is whether they are capable of being recognized and implemented by all humans under present conditions. The answer to the first is Yes; the answer to the second is No. So one cannot infer the requirement that the propositions be put into practice universally from the the fact that they are universal.  (2), then, is false.

The bolded sentence involves a confusion.  Read it again: The validity of what they believe requires that it be put into practice universally, since their propositions are intended for all of humanity.

The sentence embodies a non sequitur. Consider this proposition: A government contributory to human well-being upholds the value of religious liberty and tolerates dissent on religious matters. This proposition is essential to the American founding and is one of the expressions of the hard-won wisdom of the Founders.

But not every ethnic or racial group on the face of the earth is ready for this universally valid truth, and perhaps some of these groups will never be ready for it. To impose it on them would be folly and elicit only blind reaction. On this point the neo-cons had it wrong. The benighted must be left to their fates.  But it doesn't follow that the proposition in question is true only for those of European ancestry. It is true for all. Analogy: the truths of mathematics are true for all, even for those who cannot understand them and put them to work. First-graders cannot understand Rolle's Theorem, but it is true for them too. Those who know no physics are just as subject to its laws as those who do.

If one rejects even a moderate propositionalism, what will one put in its place? A racially purified state along National Socialist lines?

There is a reason why a lot of people get the heebie-jeebies when they hear alt-right and neo-reactionary talk. And this despite the fact that most of what one hears about the alt-right in the mainstream media is mindless, psychologically-projective, leftist nonsense. Leftists use 'white supremacist' and 'alt-right' as semantic bludgeons and they should be condemned for their scurrilousness. Nevertheless, most of us become justifiably concerned when we hear talk of Blut und Boden.

As for heebie-jeebies, that puts me in mind of 'hebe,' a slur word for a Jew.  The anti-semitism of alt-righties -- not all of them of course -- should also make a morally decent person nervous.  If nothing else, the Alt-Right has a PR problem. They won't get anywhere politically if their rhetoric includes 'blood and soil.' I guarantee it.

Some words and phrases are not candidates for semantic rehabilitation. 

What is Political Correctness?

(Written 7 May 2016. Corrigendum below)

One often reads the following definition of political correctness.  "Someone who is politically correct believes that language and actions that could be offensive to others, especially those relating to sex and race, should be avoided." Here.  Merriam-Webster, Wikipedia, and other sources offer similar definitions.

This is not at all what 'political correctness' means when used by people in the know.  The above definition conflates being politically correct with being polite, civil, and respectful of others and it conflates being politically incorrect with being rude, offensive, and disrespectful of others.   For example, Donald Trump was not being politically incorrect when he made his vile comments about Megan Kelly and Carly Fiorina.  He was being rude and offensive in a politically foolish display of misogyny.

It is worth noting that in some cases rude and offensive speech is justified as a response to same.  Justified or not, the politically incorrect and the rude/offensive/disrespectful are separate categories.  A Venn diagram may help where the A region below contains politically incorrect statements and behaviors, the B region contains rude/offensive/disrespectful statements and behaviors, and the intersection of the two classes contains statements and behaviors that are both.  

For example, suppose someone says, 'Broads do not belong in the Navy SEALs or the Army Rangers.'  This statement is both rude/offensive/disrespectful and politically incorrect while 'Women do not belong in Navy SEALs or the Army Rangers' is politically incorrect but not (objectively) offensive.  Of course, one might take inappropriate offense at the second statement, but that is his or her problem. People, cry bullies and liberals especially, take offense at the damndest things!

One way to define a term is extensionally by giving a list of the items to which it applies.  These are the items that fall within the extension of the term.  I will now provide  a list of some politically incorrect statements and then ask what they have in common.  This will allow us to pin down the intension of the term 'politically incorrect,' and from there the intension of 'politically correct.' Here then are some politically incorrect statements:

• Blacks are incarcerated in proportionally greater numbers than whites because they commit proportionally more crimes.
• Not only do black lives matter; all lives matter including the lives of law enforcement agents and the lives of the unborn.
• While Muslims qua Muslims ought not be barred from political office, Sharia-supporting Muslims ought to be.
• The killing of innocent human beings is a grave moral evil, and this includes the killing of pre-natal human beings.
• At the present time, the majority of terrorists in the world derive their ideological support from one religion, Islam.
• The Crusades were defensive wars.
• The purpose of taxation is to raise monies to cover the costs of governance, not to redistribute wealth.
• Free market economies under the rule of law are more likely to lead to human flourishing than socialist economies.
• There was no moral equivalence  between the USA and the USSR.
• Women are 'underrepresented' in philosophy, not because of 'sexism' or a male conspiracy to exclude them, but because of the following factors: women as a group are not as interested in philosophy as men are; the feminine nature is averse to the argumentative and occasionally 'blood sport' aspect of philosophy; women as a group are just not as good at philosophy as men, where exceptions such as Elizabeth Anscombe prove the rule.
• Apart from the STEM disciplines, the universities of the land have become leftist seminaries, hotbeds of leftist indoctrination. They have lost touch with their noble ideals and traditions.
• Equality of opportunity is no guarantee of equality of outcome, and it is fallacious to argue from inequality of outcome to sexism or racism as the cause.
• Political correctness is a major threat to the values of the West including the West's commitment to open debate, toleration, and free inquiry. 

So there you have a baker's dozen of politically incorrect statements.  There are plenty more where those came from.  I would say that each is true, though I will grant that some are rationally debatable.  But whether true or false, rationally defensible or indefensible, they are all clear examples of politically incorrect statements.

Now what do they have in common in virtue of which they are all instances of political incorrectness?  The most important  common feature is that each opposes the contemporary liberal or leftist or 'progressive' worldview.  To be politically correct, then, is to support the leftist worldview and the leftist agenda.  It follows that a conservative cannot be politically correct.  

P.C. comes from the C.P.  The P. C. mentality is a successor form of the Communist mentality.  To be politically correct is to toe the party line.  It is to support leftist positions and tactics, including the suppression of the free speech rights of opponents. Essential to leftism is the double standard.  So while  the politically correct insist on their own free speech rights, they deny them to their opponents, which is why they routinely shout them down.

Corrigendum: 

While many leftists employ double standards, the characteristically hard-Left tactic is Alinskyite in nature as explained here.

America First

Contrary to what Kristol seems to think, America First is a notion sound and defensible and in no way depressing although it is vulgar in the root sense of the word as I will explain at the end of this entry. Herewith, some notes on what America First means, or rather, what I think it ought to mean.  I fancy that I am not far from the meaning Trump would articulate if he were an articulate man.

It does not mean that that the USA ought to be first over other countries, dominating them.  It means that every country has the right to prefer itself and its own interests over the interests of other countries. We say 'America first' because we are Americans; the Czechs say or ought to say 'Czech Republic first.'  The general principle is that every country has a right to grant preference to itself and its interests over the interests of other countries while respecting their interests and right to self-determination. America First is but an instance of the general principle. The principle, then, is Country First.  If I revert to America First, that is to be understand as an instance of Country First.

So America First has nothing to do with chauvinism which could be characterized as a blind and intemperate patriotism, a belligerent and unjustified belief in the superiority of one's own country. America First expresses an enlightened nationalism which is obviously compatible with a sober recognition of national failings. Germany has a rather sordid history; but Germany First is compatible with a recognition of the wrong turn that great nation took during  a well-known twelve-year period (1933-1945) in her history.

An enlightened nationalism is distinct from nativism inasmuch as the former does not rule out immigration. By definition, an immigrant is not a native; but an enlightened American nationalism accepts immigrants who accept American values, which of course are not the values of the Left or of political Islam.

An enlightened nationalism is not isolationist. What it eschews is a fruitless meddling and over-eager interventionism. It does not rule out certain necessary interventions when they are in our interests and in the interests of our allies.

So America First is not to be confused with chauvinism or nativism or isolationism.

America First is as sound an idea as that each family has the right to prefer its interests over the interests of other families.  If my wife becomes ill, then my obligation is to care for her and expend such financial resources as are necessary to see to her welfare.  If this means reducing my charitable contributions to the local food bank, then so be it. Whatever obligations I have to help others 'ripple out' from myself as center, losing claim to my attention the farther out they go, much like the amplitude of waves caused by a rock's falling into a pond diminishes the farther from the point of impact. Spouse and/or children first, then other family members, then old friends, then new friends, then neighbors, and so on.

The details are disputable, but not the general principle.  The general principle is that we are justified in looking to our own first. 

The main obligation of a government is to protect and serve the citizens of the country of which it is the government. It is a further question whether it has obligations to protect and benefit the citizens of other countries.  That is debatable. But if it does, those obligations are trumped by the main obligation just mentioned.  I should think that a great nation such as the USA does well to engage in purely humanitarian efforts such as famine relief. Such efforts are arguably supererogatory.

One implication of Country First is  that an immigration policy must be to the benefit of the host country.  The interests of the members of the host country trump the interests of the immigrants.  Obviously, there is no blanket right to immigrate. Obviously, potential immigrants must be vetted and must meet certain standards. Obviously, no country is under any obligation to accept subversive elements or elements who would work to undermine the nation's culture. 

Suppose you disagree with the enlightened nationalism I am sketching. What will you put in its place? If you are not a nationalist, what are you? Some sort of internationalist or cosmopolitan.  But the notion of being a citizen of the world is empty since there is no world government and never will be. What could hold it together except the hegemony of one of the nations or a coalition of nations ganging up on the others?

The neocons tried to press America and it values and ways upon the world or upon the Middle Eastern portion thereof. The neocon mistake was to imagine that our superior system of government could be imposed on benighted and backward peoples riven by tribal hatreds and depressed by an inferior religion. The folly of that should now be evident. One cannot bomb the benighted into Enlightenment. 

Leftist internationalists want to bring the world to America thereby diluting and ultimately destroying our values. The mistake of the multi-culti cultural Marxists is to imagine that comity is possible without commonality, that wildly diverse sorts of people can live together in peace and harmony. Or at least that is one mistake of the politically correct multi-cultis.

So the way forward is enlightened nationalism. Trump understands this in his intuitive and inarticulate way.

As for Bill Kristol, his use of 'vulgar' betrays him. His brand of yap-and-scribble, inside-the-Beltway, bow-tied, pseudo-conservatism puts a premium on courtly behavior and gentlemanly debate that is an end in itself and rarely  issues in ameliorative action.  The people, however, demand action. Kristol is not a man of the people. Trump the billionaire is, paradoxical as that sounds. He is 'vulgar' in a way that Kristol can never be.

Is it Rational to be Politically Ignorant?

(Written March 2016)

There are those who love to expose and mock the astonishing political ignorance of Americans.  According to a 2006 survey, only 42% of Americans could name the three branches of government.  But here is an interesting question worth exploring: 

Is it not entirely rational to ignore events over which one has no control and withdraw into one's private life where one does exercise control and can do some good?

I can vote, but my thoughtful vote counts for next-to-nothing in most elections, especially when it is cancelled out by the vote of some thoughtless and uninformed idiot.  I can blog, but on a good day I will reach only a couple thousand readers worldwide and none of them are policy makers.  (I did have some influence once on a Delta airline pilot who made a run for a seat in the House of Representatives.)  I can attend meetings, make monetary contributions, write letters to senators and representatives, but is this a good use of precious time and resources?  It may be that Ilya Somin has it right:

. . . political ignorance is actually rational for most of the public, including most smart people. If your only reason to follow politics is to be a better voter, that turns out not be much of a reason at all. That is because there is very little chance that your vote will actually make a difference to the outcome of an election (about 1 in 60 million in a presidential race, for example). For most of us, it is rational to devote very little time to learning about politics, and instead focus on other activities that are more interesting or more likely to be useful.

Is it rational for me to stay informed?  Yes, because of my intellectual eros, my strong desire to understand the world and what goes on in it. The philosopher is out to understand the world; if he is smart he will have no illusions about changing it, pace Marx's 11th Thesis on Feuerbach.

Another reason for people like me to stay informed is to be able to anticipate what is coming down the pike and prepare so as to protect myself and my stoa, my citadel, and the tools of my trade.  For example, my awareness of Obama's fiscal irresponsibility is necessary if I am to make wise decisions as to how much of my money I should invest in precious metals and other hard assets.  Being able to anticipate Obaminations re: 'gun control' will allow me to buy what I need while it is still to be had.   'Lead' can prove to be useful for the protection of gold, not to mention the defense of such sentient beings as oneself and one's family.

In brief, a reason to stay apprised of current events is not so that I can influence or change them, but to be in a position so that they don't influence or change me.

A third reason to keep an eye on the passing scene, and one mentioned by Somin, is that one might follow politics the way some follow sports. Getting hot and bothered over the minutiae of baseball and the performance of your favorite team won't affect the outcome of any games, but it is a source of great pleasure to the sports enthusiast.  I myself don't give a damn about spectator sports.  Politics are my sports.  So that is a third reason for me to stay on top of what's happening.  It's intellectually stimulating and a source of conversational matter and blog fodder.  

All this having been said and properly appreciated, one must nevertheless keep things in perspective by bearing  in mind  Henry David Thoreau's beautiful admonition:

Read not The Times; read the eternities!

For this world is a vanishing quantity whose pomps, inanities, Obaminations and what-not will soon pass into the bosom of non-being.

And you with it.