Wherein I Pile on that Wanker George Will

bk marcus reports that George Will had a cup of coffee with libertarianism before he went to England and became an authoritarian twit: http://bkmarcus.com/blog/2007/02/george-will-libertarian

I wonder if Will likens himself to an old style aristocrat or if he just acknowledges his inferiority and the necessity for the world to be ruled by his betters. Perhaps Will fears that he will run wild if he is afforded too much freedom. I read Will’s “Statecraft as Soulcraft”, and I resent that I will never get back the hours I spent doing so. The basic premise is that most folks are evil and stupid and must be ruled over strictly by the small minority of worthy elites. These elites should, as part of statecraft, cultivate in their subjects desirable ways of thinking and moral values, the “soulcraft” part. This requires a pretty substantial apparatus for propagandizing and surveillance of the riff raff.

I confess that, in some misanthropic moments, I have flirted with this notion from time to time, but I always come back to the realization that I am the riff raff the elitist authoritarians are talking about. To adopt their position would be to embrace my moral inferiority and accept that I should be made to pay for regulation and surveillance by my betters. Liberty should be defined as the right to do and think as my betters decree, not as the right to do and think as I wish. The latter is the dreaded “license”, the giving in to which would see the ruling elite cast aside.

Of course, if I could delude myself into identifying with the ruling elite and thinking that I am one of them, I might be able to adopt the authoritarian elitist mindset. I know some folks who have managed to convince themselves that they are more like the robber barons than their working class neighbors, and they manage to hold on to this delusion despite their complete lack of influence in the world and their sharing much more in common with working folks in the way of concerns and lifestyle and what have you.

The worthy elite that Will and his ilk lionize do not exist, and there is no way to manufacture an appropriately public spirited aristocracy. Jet setters can’t be bothered with surveilling and regulating the hoi polloi, and no true gentleman would want any part of politics. The ideal of the aristocrat with his sense of noblesse oblige has never been found in nature except in isolated cases. It is nothing more than a part of the legitimizing discourse by which would be elites claim authority.

The authoritarian elitist position has at its core a paradox. If humans are naturally evil and stupid, then their human rulers will probably be evil and stupid as well. Accordingly, any government constructed by humans will inevitably be the fruit of evildoing and stupidity and not a check thereon.