The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Ace, Hayek, Hoffer, Sowell

Posted on | July 1, 2014 | 81 Comments

A few months ago, Ace of Spades pissed me off — entirely by accident, I’m sure — when he recommended Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, a book that I have been recommending for years. (In 2003, I actually wrote Neil Postman’s obituary in a freelance article for the Guardian.) Of course, there was no logical reason for me to be pissed at Ace, and my sense of proprietorship over Postman — his leading advocate in the conservative blogosphere — was utterly irrational. In a situation like that, however, you feel as if you have been cheated out of a hat-tip; alternately, if your frequent writing on a particular subject has been so overlooked that your friends didn’t even notice it, you feel a sense of futile insignificance.

One must be proactive and future-oriented to maintain the crucial sense of psychological agency necessary to good mental health. Therefore deeming it necessary to preempt any further erosion of my self-esteem, I took notice when Ace wrote this yesterday:

It occurs to me that the Left is attempting to create a system wherein there are two different classes of citizenship, one fully possessed of its right to speak and act politically, the other whose rights in this regard are sharply curtailed. . . .
The Left, were it to have its way, would forbid anyone who is not primarily in the business of politics (or working for the government or university) from exercising their full political rights.
If you work in any other industry, your rights are substantially reduced. . . .
The only people who would be permitted to speak on political issues, or at in accordance with their social/cultural/religious/political principles, would be the Political Class Itself, which is of course largely “progressive.”

Read the whole thing. The truth of Ace’s observations is indisputable and, of course, nobody has a copyright on truth. But this idea, that the Left desires to constitute itself as an elite with special privileges, is not new. Nor is Ace the first one to observe that the Left is different from the Right in terms of both its motives and purposes. Therefore, let me get ahead of the game with some recommended reading:

  • Friedrich Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism” — Everybody knows Hayek for The Road to Serfdom, but this 1949 essay — a mere 14 pages long, packed with brilliant insights — answers rather definitively the enduring question of why intellectuals almost invariably ally themselves with the Left. The short version: There is simply more work for scholars and writers to do in the imagining of a new scheme of things than there is in conservatism. Explaining and defending an existing traditional way of life against its critics can be an extraordinary intellectual feat at times, but  is inherently less “creative” than the business of the Left, i.e., dreaming up untried social, economic and political experiments. The claim that conservatives are “anti-intellectual” can be understood as arising from this factor; because intellectuals are so naturally inclined toward idealistic experimental Progress, their predominant leftist orientation makes it appear that all the Smart People are in agreement, despite the fact that other equally intelligent people — though less numerous, and less celebrated within the academia/media axis — make strong arguments against them.
  • Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements — Anyone who is interested in understanding the psychology of politics simply must read this 1951 classic. Written at a time when memories of the Third Reich were very fresh, and when the menace of Communist aggression was the greatest threat facing the world, Hoffer analyzed the personal and emotional facts that attract misfits and malcontents to what he called “mass movements.” Hoffer’s insights in this matter have universal application. There are certain types of personalities who, dissatisfied with Ordinary Life, seek psychological satisfaction in the pursuit of an Ideal World. Do yourself a favor: Buy a copy of The True Believer and put it on your nightstand for bedtime reading (or, perhaps, in your bathroom) so that you can just pick it up and re-read it from time to time. It will help you remember that progressives are suffering from a kind of mental disorder, and do not deserve to be answered as if they were entirely sane.
  • Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy — This is the book that I most often recommend as the best one-volume analysis of liberalism ever published. What Sowell demonstrates is that liberals pursue certain “crusades” in order to prove to themselves their own moral superiority — the Politics of Narcissism, essentially. The fact that the policies resulting from these liberal crusades actually harm the people they were supposedly undertaken to help? Oh, never mind that, and also never mind any data which prove the harmfulness or futility of liberal policies. Sowell has an entire chapter called “The Irrelevance of Evidence,” wherein he demonstrates how no liberal can ever accept factual proof of liberalism’s errors.

So there’s three very valuable recommendations, and if Ace starts quoting or name-checking these works in the near future when discussing the progressive Political Class, the lack of a hat-tip won’t inflict such a wound on my fragile psyche. This is not to say that the whole point of exercising influence is to obtain recognition for that influence. However, the feeling that one’s influence is being wrongly ignored — however irrational that feeling may be — can become a wound that festers unless it is recognized for what it is. Having seen what untreated cases of butt-hurt can do to vulnerable minds, concern for my own mental health requires this confession.

Blogger Mood Disorder is a persistent problem in this business. Readers can help treat this disorder: Hit the freaking tip jar.





 

Category: Ace of Spades, Intellectuals

Comments

81 Responses to “Ace, Hayek, Hoffer, Sowell”

  1. cmdr358
    July 1st, 2014 @ 8:13 pm

    And it’ll create jobs!
    Heck with all the denunciations that are needed the new agency is practically shovel ready!

  2. cmdr358
    July 1st, 2014 @ 8:19 pm

    I’m thinking of making a T-shirt!

    (for personal use and not with any commercial intent)

    ((hopefully that little statement will dissuade any evil white conservative billionaires from coming after me- you know how “those people are”))

  3. cmdr358
    July 1st, 2014 @ 8:20 pm

    I do!

  4. Quartermaster
    July 1st, 2014 @ 8:21 pm

    When I was 12, I thought my parents ran a forced labor camp with me as of 3 inmates.

  5. Quartermaster
    July 1st, 2014 @ 8:23 pm

    It didn’t make into the mainstream of the business world without the Philistines using their pornified “art” to shock so they could show just how much they were on the cutting edge.

    Now days, it’s the libtard bidness men that use degraded culture to make money. You at least got that right.

  6. cmdr358
    July 1st, 2014 @ 8:24 pm

    Your family must be reeducated!

  7. Quartermaster
    July 1st, 2014 @ 8:25 pm

    Translation for libtards: You don’t know jack.

  8. Quartermaster
    July 1st, 2014 @ 8:26 pm

    You know better! Gunny does!

  9. Quartermaster
    July 1st, 2014 @ 8:29 pm

    Not permitted. You must stand in front of the crowd while we denounce you. You may not rob us of our self-righteousness.

    Mainly, we just want to get our own back off some one else.

  10. Quartermaster
    July 1st, 2014 @ 8:30 pm

    Mebbe a Cistroll.

  11. cmdr358
    July 1st, 2014 @ 8:34 pm

    You got me. But he says I’ve got the duty nights and weekends.

  12. ConsAre
    July 1st, 2014 @ 11:18 pm

    You’ll get no argument from me that attempts at substituting the state for the tribe, or family have been horrific failures, and some reasons for that you state. My point was that it’s not mental illness, it’s simply intrinsic, and people derive a sense of safety, or at least they believe they will from that form of social organization. it is human nature to seek some form of collective arrangement so conservatives should get used to the fact they will never defeat this idea since it is hardwired to the system. Best we can do is moderate it.

  13. ConsAre
    July 1st, 2014 @ 11:21 pm

    No argument that communism is a failure, and their attempt at substituting the state for the tribe, or family unleashed hell on earth. My point was that collective social organization is intrinsic to humans, and they’ll always seek some form of it. Just look around: we’re far past the failures of the communist state and even against that evidence we still think we can make something like that work, and try to. It’s not crazy though. People simply derive a sense of safety from it, and it’s that desire they want satiated.

  14. RKae
    July 1st, 2014 @ 11:39 pm

    It’s like being taken over but without soldiers marching through the streets.

    …Unless that’s what the naked men waving rainbow flags are all about.

  15. RKae
    July 1st, 2014 @ 11:40 pm

    “Everything You Know Is Wrong” is a work of genius!

    Was that just a coincidence, or are you a Firesign Theatre fan?

  16. RKae
    July 1st, 2014 @ 11:45 pm

    “Hardwired.” The modern, secular, scientific version of “God told me to do this.”

    What a lame cop-out that word is.

  17. Adjoran
    July 2nd, 2014 @ 12:57 am

    I liked also SCOUTSBlog’s reply to one of the ditzes who thought they were the Court’s own Twitter account, and tweeted to them, “Get your cloaks off of my vagina!”

    Their RT: “We usually just hang them in the closet”

  18. Adjoran
    July 2nd, 2014 @ 12:59 am

    From the moment I first heard Ralph Spoilsport’s ad around 1968 or so, I was hooked.

  19. K-Bob
    July 2nd, 2014 @ 1:02 am

    One used to be able to answer that question accurately by saying, “yes.” That was before 57 Varieties became the rule.

  20. K-Bob
    July 2nd, 2014 @ 1:05 am

    I thought it was more that he was resistant to the fact that there’s bad faith among progressive Republicans. He’s always seemed to recognize the tendency of the left to cling to falsehood.

  21. K-Bob
    July 2nd, 2014 @ 1:08 am

    My favorite was the translucent, pink, plastic notes they had in Britain. It was difficult to take seriously.

  22. robertstacymccain
    July 2nd, 2014 @ 1:12 am

    Hey, this post was not intended to unleash the “Everybody Gripe About Ace” comments.

  23. DeadMessenger
    July 2nd, 2014 @ 2:34 am

    Comrade ConsAreDeath could be the Commandant of Denunciation.

  24. DeadMessenger
    July 2nd, 2014 @ 2:42 am

    We have collective arrangements. They’re called “families”, and even
    “extended families.” Funny then that Marx’s spiritual decendents do everything they can to break them up.

  25. Quartermaster
    July 2nd, 2014 @ 6:29 am

    So, obviously, it’s fair.

  26. Hermit the Crab
    July 2nd, 2014 @ 9:02 am

    Look…all social organization is not collective. Families are not collective organizations, they are by nature affinitive. Collective groups are generally non-affinitive or have (artificial) affinity defined by someone like the Komisariat. “Collective” and “social” are not synonyms.
    Now…git off’n my lawn and back away from my hovel lest I lest i throw an Anthropology 101 text at yer noggin.

  27. ConsAreBad
    July 2nd, 2014 @ 11:58 am

    No, it’s just basic DNA programming. Sure it can be changed with enough new data, and conditioning, but barely, hence why we’re always reverting to it. And I’m not an atheist, or a secularist, and believe there is a reason, and meaning to life. It’s just not to be found in Judeo/Christian teachings.

  28. ConsAreBad
    July 2nd, 2014 @ 11:59 am

    That is ironic. But he wanted the state to replace the family, or something, and that’s not do-able.

  29. Maggie's Farm
    July 3rd, 2014 @ 5:53 am

    Thursday morning links

    Building a Better Pig Life at 60 – How does the former alcoholic drug addict AA Gill feel about reaching this milestone? Surprised, mostly, but happy to ruminate on sex, travel and friendship Americans Have Almost Totally Lost Faith In Government

  30. xpatYankeeCurmudgeon
    July 4th, 2014 @ 3:52 am

    Roger Scruton’s The Uses of Pessimism (2010) might be the best recent book that could be added to the list above.

  31. FMJRA 2.0: Hey, Baby, It’s The 4th Of July : The Other McCain
    July 6th, 2014 @ 5:42 pm

    […] Ace, Hayek, Hoffer, Sowell […]