Quotation of the day:
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it.
H.L. Mencken
Of course, anyone claiming to be saving humanity would claim that they’re the exception.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
It is pretty medieval strong-leaderism to imagine that a person will save humanity at all. If there is a threat then what we want is the right policies.
If somebody suggests policies that will save humanity, we should judge them on their merits and not by some platitude.
January 24th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I think the point is that those who come up with policies tend to come up with policies which involve them (or their favoured group) taking control.
Most solutions to environmental problems involve this sort of thing for example.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Only in the sense that you should vote for the party whose policies you support, rather than one whose policies you oppose. Actually most environmentalists would be happy to see their ideas implemented by anybody.
The lesson here is that putting somebody in control is to be avoided, not that trying to save the world is to be avoided.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Most ’save the world’ schemes seek to put someone in charge. That is especially so with much of the environmental movement today (unfortunately).
In the same way, socialists agreed with fascists that there should be a strong state with strong leaders, they just differed on what those leaders should do.
This isn’t anything to do with democracy, its to do with the very nature of people seeking to save the world.
I think its linked with Paterson’s idea that those who wish to help often use means which create the need for help (for example creating welfare dependency rather than entrepreneurial spirit - the former is seen as helping, the latter actually helps by providing jobs).
January 25th, 2008 at 11:25 am
No. Actually it is hard to think of any environmentalist ’save the world’ schemes. Environmentalism seems to be suffering a lack of imagination. And bleating about things like plastic bags that will make next to no difference. So who and what are you talking about specifically?
However what you describe is clearly recognisable in ’saving the world’ from terrorism.
Help often backfires, as you say, yes. The conclusion to draw is that actions should be judged by their consequences not their intentions, right? Not to scoff at good intentions, but to close the information gap between good intentions and good consequences.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Environmentalists would have us believe that all their schemes would save the world.
A majority of them mean forcing us to act in the way they think is best. That is, they are wishing to rule over us.
We should draw our conclusions from outcome, yes. Unfortunately we rarely do so and good intentions win the day.
We must be sceptical of all good intentions, not give them an easy ride because they mean well. Most good intentions cause damage or at least don’t help the problem. Pointing that out isn’t scoffing at them.
January 25th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Tristan, I did ask you for an example or two.
There is a big difference between what you describe and being ‘ruled over’. You are almost suggesting that any kind of rule of law is being ‘ruled over’. Yet it is the rule of law that protects us from rule by the nearest warlord.
If I propose a ban or a supertax on some noxious process (or propose to unban some banned process), I am not asking to be put in charge, I am simply using the democratic process, in the manner intended, legitimately, to modify the parameters of the rule of law. In this example, in order to protect life, liberty and property that is threatened by environmental degredation.
Of course I may have made a bad proposal - one that would not work, or one that is disproportionate to the problem. If so, you should oppose me. But on the basis of the consequences of the proposal. My intentions are not relevant.
There is nothing inherently autocratic about engaging in the democratic process with good intentions. In fact I suggest that for all the faults good intentions may have, bad intentions are even worse.
You say that most good intentions cause damage. How can you possibly know that? How are you measuring intentions? Where are your statistics? No, you are trading in anecdotes.
Good intentions lead to tyranny when rulers believe they know what is best for everybody else, rather than letting people make their own decisions. Those rulers are wrong, and this is an example of the information gap I mentioned in my previous comment. (OTOH bad intentions lead to tyranny more reliably because rulers don’t care what is best for everybody else.)
The challenge is to convince people to abandon this belief that they know what is best for other people. Not to convince them to abandon their good intentions.