How Silly We Are
How Silly We Are
I was reading an article recently about the US Secretary of State traveling in Palestine when
I was suddenly reminded of how ridiculously silly we really are. There was the motorcade,
the speeches, the meetings and the very solemn pronouncements of this and that. I
remembered I had seen it all before, but the higher the level of the officials the sillier it gets.
If it wasn’t for the potential of people dying or losing homes, businesses, families it would
really be humorous. One cannot keep from thinking of Bernard de Bovier de Fontenelle’s
observation, that “a philosopher sees the earth as a large planet, traveling through the
heavens, covered with fools.” The more things change the more they remain the same.
Unfortunately the closer one gets to the surface of the earth the sillier the fools appear. I
am convinced that anarchy is the natural way of man, and without some sort of government
to provide a semblance of order, think what it would be like. Actually, one doesn’t have to
think very far because we know what it would be like. We would band together in tribes until
one tribe becomes stronger than the others and conquer them. But after a while that tribe
becomes weak and another conquers it, and so forth, until it all devolves into a mess of
anarchy and we start all over again. One would think we would have evolved beyond that
point, and many of us have, but alas too many haven’t.
It is particularly interesting to view this from the perspective of what I consider the most
advanced culture on earth, though I would certainly get disagreement from Muslims and
Chinese, and with a certain amount of justification; both of those cultures are more group
and family oriented than ours, and perhaps even more moral. That gets far more involved
than I wish to handle here, so let’s get back to the perspective of Western Culture, and
particularly its American version. The most salient point is rights. Individual rights to free
speech, free association, free everything. In fact the most used word in the English
language is free, and though its association is mostly in marketing propaganda, that’s not
without some irony because taken to its logical conclusion free becomes anarchic.
On the other hand our culture has done a reasonably good job of balancing rights (freedom)
and order up to now; that’s what governments must do, as governments in one way or
another are an extension of the cultures that spawn them. And it is that with which I am
mostly concerned: the fact that we have done a decent job of balance, to the benefit of all
who partake in it, but we appreciate it so little. Not only do we not appreciate it, but our elites
and their gullible youthful followers would – and do – attempt to destroy it. Why? Ignorance,
actually. They really do think they are trying to make it better – by pretending that human
nature is other than it is.
To do it they always begin with specific examples because they feel we can understand
specific examples better than generalities. I am, of course, referring to Politicians, Mediaists
and Academics (let’s refer to them as POLMACS) who care so much about people, but only
in the immediate sense and from a specific example point of departure. It is always
possible to find an example of a sufferer, from whose example one can extrapolate to a
principle one wishes to emblazon. POLMACS bleed for mass murderers who have
repented and are now nice, peaceful old people, forgetting about brutalized victims who are
long forgotten. Similarly they cry for illegal immigrants who would live “back home” in
destitution, with no regard for what they might cost us to maintain them. The examples are
not invalid; there are many, good, hard working illegal immigrants – but what are the long
term consequences?
That’s what is so often overlooked by the POLMACS. The saddest and most frightening
examples of what POMACS overlook are economic, for let’s face it, good living trumps all the
rest, and without good living the rest starts to wither on the vine. “Democracy” only works
well when things continue on a trajectory of improved living conditions. And here is where
the individual bleeding heart examples begin becoming dangerous. Example: sub prime
loans. People who were strapped, jumped at them, overlooking their downside, their risks.
One can not help but sympathize; how can people live today with skyrocketing home costs?
But the POLMACS, focusing on the examples of hurt, want to help them – even if it disrupts
cultural economics, for help one, and one must help all, to the detriment of economic
strength – and penalizing those who didn’t fall for the good deal. There is a simpler
example: the overcrowded lifeboat.
None of this is new, but it points to yet another example the POLMACS insist on
overlooking: human nature. For each exception action taken to save a deserving victim, how
many loopholes are opened to the opportunists? Open the (legal) door and they run for it.
My favorite example of that is use by criminals and Islamic terrorists (redundancy
acknowledged) of the freedoms of our system to subvert us – to destroy that very system.
The ultimate POLMACS’ argument is the absolute sanctity of a human life – each human life
is invaluable – no matter what it costs (in other human lives?) to protect it. Thus we open the
door to sacrificing many lives to save one – and congratulate ourselves for doing so –
because they refuse to look past the individual example standing by itself – and thus make
us all suffer through the law of unintended circumstances. One dedicated terrorist freed on
a technicality to prey again upon his avowed victims does so, with fearful vengeance.
Yet…balance, balance, balance. The POLMACS would argue that basic principles of
freedom and rights can not be compromised. Terrorists and criminals smile and nod,
taking yet another step toward our destruction. As one hears more and more often these
days: what about the rights of the victims? And what of the future of our culture which they –
the terrorists and criminals – wish only to exploit, or destroy? Very soon we will need to view
the balance of our anarchic but myopic desperation for personal rights with the future of our
culture that makes them possible – else that culture and all of its wonderful benefits will
cease to exist.
At that will point silliness of the posturing POLMACS which will, in retrospect, seem more
lethally short sighted and stupid than silly.
I was reading an article recently about the US Secretary of State traveling in Palestine when
I was suddenly reminded of how ridiculously silly we really are. There was the motorcade,
the speeches, the meetings and the very solemn pronouncements of this and that. I
remembered I had seen it all before, but the higher the level of the officials the sillier it gets.
If it wasn’t for the potential of people dying or losing homes, businesses, families it would
really be humorous. One cannot keep from thinking of Bernard de Bovier de Fontenelle’s
observation, that “a philosopher sees the earth as a large planet, traveling through the
heavens, covered with fools.” The more things change the more they remain the same.
Unfortunately the closer one gets to the surface of the earth the sillier the fools appear. I
am convinced that anarchy is the natural way of man, and without some sort of government
to provide a semblance of order, think what it would be like. Actually, one doesn’t have to
think very far because we know what it would be like. We would band together in tribes until
one tribe becomes stronger than the others and conquer them. But after a while that tribe
becomes weak and another conquers it, and so forth, until it all devolves into a mess of
anarchy and we start all over again. One would think we would have evolved beyond that
point, and many of us have, but alas too many haven’t.
It is particularly interesting to view this from the perspective of what I consider the most
advanced culture on earth, though I would certainly get disagreement from Muslims and
Chinese, and with a certain amount of justification; both of those cultures are more group
and family oriented than ours, and perhaps even more moral. That gets far more involved
than I wish to handle here, so let’s get back to the perspective of Western Culture, and
particularly its American version. The most salient point is rights. Individual rights to free
speech, free association, free everything. In fact the most used word in the English
language is free, and though its association is mostly in marketing propaganda, that’s not
without some irony because taken to its logical conclusion free becomes anarchic.
On the other hand our culture has done a reasonably good job of balancing rights (freedom)
and order up to now; that’s what governments must do, as governments in one way or
another are an extension of the cultures that spawn them. And it is that with which I am
mostly concerned: the fact that we have done a decent job of balance, to the benefit of all
who partake in it, but we appreciate it so little. Not only do we not appreciate it, but our elites
and their gullible youthful followers would – and do – attempt to destroy it. Why? Ignorance,
actually. They really do think they are trying to make it better – by pretending that human
nature is other than it is.
To do it they always begin with specific examples because they feel we can understand
specific examples better than generalities. I am, of course, referring to Politicians, Mediaists
and Academics (let’s refer to them as POLMACS) who care so much about people, but only
in the immediate sense and from a specific example point of departure. It is always
possible to find an example of a sufferer, from whose example one can extrapolate to a
principle one wishes to emblazon. POLMACS bleed for mass murderers who have
repented and are now nice, peaceful old people, forgetting about brutalized victims who are
long forgotten. Similarly they cry for illegal immigrants who would live “back home” in
destitution, with no regard for what they might cost us to maintain them. The examples are
not invalid; there are many, good, hard working illegal immigrants – but what are the long
term consequences?
That’s what is so often overlooked by the POLMACS. The saddest and most frightening
examples of what POMACS overlook are economic, for let’s face it, good living trumps all the
rest, and without good living the rest starts to wither on the vine. “Democracy” only works
well when things continue on a trajectory of improved living conditions. And here is where
the individual bleeding heart examples begin becoming dangerous. Example: sub prime
loans. People who were strapped, jumped at them, overlooking their downside, their risks.
One can not help but sympathize; how can people live today with skyrocketing home costs?
But the POLMACS, focusing on the examples of hurt, want to help them – even if it disrupts
cultural economics, for help one, and one must help all, to the detriment of economic
strength – and penalizing those who didn’t fall for the good deal. There is a simpler
example: the overcrowded lifeboat.
None of this is new, but it points to yet another example the POLMACS insist on
overlooking: human nature. For each exception action taken to save a deserving victim, how
many loopholes are opened to the opportunists? Open the (legal) door and they run for it.
My favorite example of that is use by criminals and Islamic terrorists (redundancy
acknowledged) of the freedoms of our system to subvert us – to destroy that very system.
The ultimate POLMACS’ argument is the absolute sanctity of a human life – each human life
is invaluable – no matter what it costs (in other human lives?) to protect it. Thus we open the
door to sacrificing many lives to save one – and congratulate ourselves for doing so –
because they refuse to look past the individual example standing by itself – and thus make
us all suffer through the law of unintended circumstances. One dedicated terrorist freed on
a technicality to prey again upon his avowed victims does so, with fearful vengeance.
Yet…balance, balance, balance. The POLMACS would argue that basic principles of
freedom and rights can not be compromised. Terrorists and criminals smile and nod,
taking yet another step toward our destruction. As one hears more and more often these
days: what about the rights of the victims? And what of the future of our culture which they –
the terrorists and criminals – wish only to exploit, or destroy? Very soon we will need to view
the balance of our anarchic but myopic desperation for personal rights with the future of our
culture that makes them possible – else that culture and all of its wonderful benefits will
cease to exist.
At that will point silliness of the posturing POLMACS which will, in retrospect, seem more
lethally short sighted and stupid than silly.