Tyranny of the Weak
“There is no progress in human history. Democracy is a fraud. Human
nature is primitive, emotional, unyielding. The smarter, abler, stronger, and
shrewder take the lion's share. The weak starve, lest society become degenerate:
One can compare the social body to the human body, which will promptly perish
if prevented from eliminating toxins” Vilfredo Pareto
“Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.”
Matthew 5:5
The debate between
Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke is widely regarded as the basis between the left
and the right. Thomas Paine regarded politics as similar to any other
intellectual endeavor that requires the capacity for deep thought, critical
analysis and creative synthesis. Resembling Plato’s Philosopher King, the
politician regards the problems of society as that of “applied metaphysics”
where solutions to all social ailments can be obtained through the exercise of
reason alone. In line with Aristotle’s distinction between episteme and techne, Burke regarded politics as a practical rather
than an intellectual endeavor. He rejected the doctrine of Socratic
intellectualism that underpinned the Philosopher King thesis, asserting that
people who know what constitutes the good are capable of acting in an evil
manner.
On an even more fundamental level, Burke
categorically dismissed the premise that one can obtain knowledge about any
political problem through the exercise of the intellect alone. For Burke, one becomes
a competent political decision-maker by learning history of his nation and
getting a sense of his people. Just as is the case with any other craft, one
becomes an effective political decision-maker through deliberate practice. In
stark contrast, Thomas Paine believed that when a person becomes sufficiently
intelligent, he becomes capable of making effective political decisions. On
this basis, he supported greater access to education and his views are cited in
defense of those who rallied behind Horace Mann’s endeavor to create
publication education in America.
Throughout
much of the history of Western civilization, education was only available to
the social elites. Yet, the prosperity generated by the Industrial Revolution
created the possibility of public education. At the turn of the 20th
century, the left clamored for the “democratization of knowledge” and their
endeavor finally came to fruition in the aftermath of World War II. FDR’s GI
bill flooded universities with students of rather limited intellectual
potential. Slowly but surely, academic institutions began lowering their
standards to accommodate the shifting demographics of the student-body.
In line with Raymond Cattel’s forecast about
dysgenics, the curriculum increasingly emphasized less abstract subjects by
shifting focus away from purely theoretical disciplines and toward the
political. As the Great Depression tilted American politics to the left and the
new wave of European immigration fostered support for Marxist thought, the
Frankfurt school of thought took root in American college campuses. The new
generation of leftist pedagogues led their students to believe that class
warfare was not only economic in character, but also contained racial and
gender components. In stark contrast to the traditional American progressives
who followed in the foot-steps of Thomas Paine, the new left viewed social
problems from a collectivist rather than an individualist perspective. For
these activists, the main purpose of political action was no longer to remove
the restrictions to the individual’s flourishing, but to eliminate barriers to
the advancement of marginalized groups.
To their
minds, white man was the architect of such barriers and Hitler embodied the
proof for this assertion. As Malcolm X was to later articulate, the white man
was the ultimate enslaver, exploiter and the oppressor. In keeping with Marx’s
premise that economic circumstances shape public opinion rather than
vice-versa, the academic left maintained that white men created a complicated
social structure of oppression. Therein, they exploited not only the poor, but
also women and minorities. In their efforts to refute the claim that there were
biological differences between genders and ethnic groups, the Ivory Tower
activists became skeptical of the existence of human nature.
The more
outspoken leftists such as Jean Paul Sartre, categorically maintained that
human nature was an illusion and his chorus of aficionados across the Atlantic
spawned theories that human nature was merely a social construct. Along with
it, gender, race, ethnicity and culture were reduced to invidious social
constructs that served white men at the expense of all other groups. In keeping
with the Marxist narrative, they interpreted Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”
not as an economic treatise on how countries become prosperous but as another
white man’s rhetoric for preservation of an oppressive social order.
Christianity was seen not as the collective consciousness of the Western
civilization as Jung described it, but as an elaborate construct for oppressing
women and people of color. Above all, the new left vociferously objected to the
“white man canon” which they regarded as the basis of an oppressive society.
Building
on the premise that human nature was a social construct, the thought leaders of
the new left’s establishment reasoned that education can resolve all of
societal ills. By their lights, the most accomplished of philosophers, artists
and scientists were white men because this demographic group enjoyed the most
access to education. Therefore, the “democratization” of knowledge should
swiftly solve the problem by providing all marginalize groups with requisite
resources for achievement of a more equitable society. At the heyday of the
civil rights movement, the Marxists progressed from a fringe movement on
campuses to a potent force that would emerge as the prevailing academic current
in polite society for decades to come.
Similarly
to the Jacobin radicals who subscribed to the doctrine of Rousseau’s General
Will, the American Marxists promoted the interests of society over that of the
individual. If one’s right to free expression had to be sacrificed to achieve
that goal. Building on Thomas Paine’s conception of politics as applied
metaphysics and Plato’s Philosopher King Thesis, the new left had little regard
for de-centralization of power. The academic establishment was entrusted with
the responsibility to determine which doctrines were conducive to the public
good and which opposed it.
With the
abominations of the Third Reich fresh in the memory of the European
intellectuals who gained influence across college campuses, the relativist
philosophical orientation became more pronounced. It was then politically
incorrect to criticize any group other than white males. Borrowing from the
Christian doctrine that sin originates in thought rather than action, the new
left endeavored to purge the collective consciousness of racist, sexist,
homophobic and ableist thoughts. Any step toward tolerance of free expression
on behalf of those suspected of harboring such notions was seen as a slippery
slope toward another genocide. Over decades, this ideological trajectory
evolved into a modern conception of a micro-aggression where a person who
engages in acts that could be construed as offensive to minorities commits
genocide in his heart just as a Christian husband is deemed to commit adultery
by entertaining erotic thoughts about another woman.
The culture
of political correctness gave rise to the victim culture that directly
incentivizes people to portray themselves as members of an oppressed group (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-rise-of-victimhood-culture/404794/).
As the political correctness movement further gained momentum, the federal government
expanded to accommodate the needs of marginalized groups. In so doing, it
acquired the requisite political capital to reward businesses that complied
with their agenda and punished their rivals who failed to do so. Nonetheless,
government aid can only go so far in shaping the economic behavior of market
entities. They may pay lip service to the government agenda, yet to maintain a
certain level of productivity, they would be forced to recruit reasonably
competent workers rather than beneficiaries of affirmative action. Regardless
of how much lip-service businesses pay to the government’s unicorn dreams
agenda, the fools will not inherit the earth.
Academic
credentials putatively represent intellectual competence, yet grade inflation
has been on the rise since the GI bill and this created a rift between what
academic achievement enables one to achieve in the work-place and what it
actually does. The wealth disparities between white males and the traditionally
underprivileged minorities have widened not despite the increased access to
education, but largely because of it. As academic standards continue to
decline, university curricula become less abstract and more ideologically
charged, students become less capable of making meaningful contributions to the
economy. Their employers could not care less what they know about LGBT history,
sexual harassment, corporate social responsibility or going green. A modicum of
common-sense is more than sufficient to allow one to behave appropriately in a
business environment and a dozen of classes on these topics will not make
students more productive in the real world.
As the
new left becomes even more entrenched in the polite society, these trends are
likely to persist. Real wages will continue to stagnate, wealth disparities
will widen further, the middle class will shrink and Pareto’s words will become
prophetic. The self-proclaimed Philosopher Kings will wield a heavier influence
over government policy, further stratifying class divisions under the banner of
social justice. In response, the plebeians will compete for their status as
members of an oppressed group, calling for the government to ameliorate their
plights. In the words of Leon Trotsky, the traditional American values of
entrepreneurship, self-reliance and individual achievement will be consigned to
the garbage heap of history.
