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23 October 2016
21 October 2015
the phony economy crowds out reality
● Thousands of people regularly read our blogs. Yet 99% of them do absolutely nothing to help us.
It seems likely the welfare state has dulled rather than enhanced any innate willingness to help others. I mean “others” in the sense of people one knows about — rather than the supposedly needy as marketed by governments and NGOs.
Similarly, the existence of a bloated ‘university’ sector — producing oceans of verbiage, most of it valueless — has apparently generated a false identification between “academic” and “cushy”. Both these phenomena can be regarded as examples of crowding out.
I have observed that people tend to (like to?) underestimate the work involved in running an organisation that is operating without the approval of the collective. Even if the organisation is too underfinanced to do much more than survive.
One can sympathise with a person’s tendency to glamorise storybook roles (baker, accountant, doctor, etc.), especially if he or she happens to be playing one of them. People like to be identified with what they do; this no doubt generates a desire to believe in an ideology that will reinforce the identification.
In a mediocracy, the bias in favour of socially accredited occupations becomes exaggerated to the point of absurdity, given that many of them have little connection to what people actually want. Doctors deliver the sort of service they, in consultation with the state, see fit to provide; teachers teach what is prescribed by the dominant ideology; executives spend a large proportion of their time attending self-referential meetings and conferences.
Only those who have to run their own business seem to have any appreciation of the realities of genuine individual demand, undistorted by the coercive collectivist economy.
It seems likely the welfare state has dulled rather than enhanced any innate willingness to help others. I mean “others” in the sense of people one knows about — rather than the supposedly needy as marketed by governments and NGOs.
Similarly, the existence of a bloated ‘university’ sector — producing oceans of verbiage, most of it valueless — has apparently generated a false identification between “academic” and “cushy”. Both these phenomena can be regarded as examples of crowding out.
I have observed that people tend to (like to?) underestimate the work involved in running an organisation that is operating without the approval of the collective. Even if the organisation is too underfinanced to do much more than survive.
One can sympathise with a person’s tendency to glamorise storybook roles (baker, accountant, doctor, etc.), especially if he or she happens to be playing one of them. People like to be identified with what they do; this no doubt generates a desire to believe in an ideology that will reinforce the identification.
In a mediocracy, the bias in favour of socially accredited occupations becomes exaggerated to the point of absurdity, given that many of them have little connection to what people actually want. Doctors deliver the sort of service they, in consultation with the state, see fit to provide; teachers teach what is prescribed by the dominant ideology; executives spend a large proportion of their time attending self-referential meetings and conferences.
Only those who have to run their own business seem to have any appreciation of the realities of genuine individual demand, undistorted by the coercive collectivist economy.
23 September 2015
aetiology of socialism
● What causes a person to become a socialist? One possible reason seems to be anger about being excluded – from the elite, from one’s social class, from having one’s abilities recognised, from social approval.
Sometimes the anger is justified, in the sense that the person is inappropriately excluded. Many intellectuals and artists feel they are not sufficiently recognised. Even if they are successful, they remain outsiders.
Sometimes the anger is simply resentment about the fact that other people have advantages.
The anger about oneself is then expressed in terms of concern for some supposedly unfairly treated social group: indignation about their exclusion.
Curiously, it is often assumed that socialism — an ideology that ostensibly puts the everyman first — will have a special sympathy for the talented outsider. It seems more reasonable, particularly now there is historical data on the issue, to suppose that it will in practice side with the collective against unusual individuals.
Once a formerly excluded person gets involved with socialist ideology, we typically observe the appearance of secondary symptoms. Most notably there is identification with, or even creation of, theories which have the effect of denigrating the individual. Anything which suggests that the source of meaning and significance is the group, or that an individual’s views about himself are deluded, is popular in this regard.
By the time a formerly excluded person has become a career socialist (which may involve a position in a profession other than politics, such as academia or medicine) his original identification with outsiders is likely to have disappeared, and he may be primarily interested in the rewards of power, including that of being able to impose a collectivist philosophy on others. This can appear paradoxical, if (as often seems to be the case) the source of his original alienation was the collective, in one of its manifestations.
Oxford Forum should be given funding.
Sometimes the anger is justified, in the sense that the person is inappropriately excluded. Many intellectuals and artists feel they are not sufficiently recognised. Even if they are successful, they remain outsiders.
Sometimes the anger is simply resentment about the fact that other people have advantages.
The anger about oneself is then expressed in terms of concern for some supposedly unfairly treated social group: indignation about their exclusion.
Curiously, it is often assumed that socialism — an ideology that ostensibly puts the everyman first — will have a special sympathy for the talented outsider. It seems more reasonable, particularly now there is historical data on the issue, to suppose that it will in practice side with the collective against unusual individuals.
Once a formerly excluded person gets involved with socialist ideology, we typically observe the appearance of secondary symptoms. Most notably there is identification with, or even creation of, theories which have the effect of denigrating the individual. Anything which suggests that the source of meaning and significance is the group, or that an individual’s views about himself are deluded, is popular in this regard.
By the time a formerly excluded person has become a career socialist (which may involve a position in a profession other than politics, such as academia or medicine) his original identification with outsiders is likely to have disappeared, and he may be primarily interested in the rewards of power, including that of being able to impose a collectivist philosophy on others. This can appear paradoxical, if (as often seems to be the case) the source of his original alienation was the collective, in one of its manifestations.
Oxford Forum should be given funding.
12 August 2015
mediocrazia e degradazione
● A propos recent reports about the degradation of Rome.
Mediocracy is a condition that primarily affects mature civilisations, particularly those which have at one stage emphasised the individual. It represents both an outgrowth of, and a reaction against, individualism.
One doesn’t get much more mature than Greece and Italy, and we were recently reminded about some of the problems that Greece – a nation somewhat advanced in years, and perhaps a little tired – has to deal with. Also, how these problems can be exacerbated by ‘well-meaning’ interference.
In the case of Italy, it has been clear for decades that the administrative and political structure of the country is best understood as a kind of walking corpse, continually surprising one with its ability to go on operating while essentially broken beyond repair.
Other Western countries are likely to demonstrate, over the next hundred years, how remarkably long civilisations can go on apparently functioning, while being in a condition of irreversible decline.
Although the Italian civilisation centred on Rome is supposed to have ended in 476AD, there is perhaps a sense in which it never really died. True, there was an intervening period of city states, and of foreign domination, before re-integration in the nineteenth century. But an underlying thread of continuity can be said to have survived across the centuries.
The USA, by contrast, is a truly new nation, unencumbered by a long history, and its own period of decay (provided America manages to maintain a clear sense of independence and distinctiveness) is likely to be some centuries off.
Oxford Forum should be given funding.
Mediocracy is a condition that primarily affects mature civilisations, particularly those which have at one stage emphasised the individual. It represents both an outgrowth of, and a reaction against, individualism.
One doesn’t get much more mature than Greece and Italy, and we were recently reminded about some of the problems that Greece – a nation somewhat advanced in years, and perhaps a little tired – has to deal with. Also, how these problems can be exacerbated by ‘well-meaning’ interference.
In the case of Italy, it has been clear for decades that the administrative and political structure of the country is best understood as a kind of walking corpse, continually surprising one with its ability to go on operating while essentially broken beyond repair.
Other Western countries are likely to demonstrate, over the next hundred years, how remarkably long civilisations can go on apparently functioning, while being in a condition of irreversible decline.
Although the Italian civilisation centred on Rome is supposed to have ended in 476AD, there is perhaps a sense in which it never really died. True, there was an intervening period of city states, and of foreign domination, before re-integration in the nineteenth century. But an underlying thread of continuity can be said to have survived across the centuries.
The USA, by contrast, is a truly new nation, unencumbered by a long history, and its own period of decay (provided America manages to maintain a clear sense of independence and distinctiveness) is likely to be some centuries off.
Oxford Forum should be given funding.
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