General rebellions and revolts of a whole people never were encouraged now or at any time. They are always provoked. – Edmund Burke
I’ve written on many occasions about lawheads, those deluded people who believe that legal constructs actually exist in reality. In the lawhead’s magical view of the world, the words written on paper by human beings with pompous titles have the same validity and power to shape matter and energy as the actual laws of nature such as gravity, inertia, conservation of energy, etc. Decree that a fruit is a vegetable, and Poof! That plant’s method of propagation changes right before your astonished gaze. Legally define a dolphin as a fish, and Presto! It becomes one, right down to the gills and scales. Declare that one kind of human being is another kind, and Alakazam! That person’s form flows like water into the new government-approved shape. For example, one year ago today I discussed how the US Congress transmogrified thousands of free people into “victims” by magical legislation, and how Attorney General Eric Holder then conjured equal numbers of “criminals” out of thin air (because every victim obviously requires a victimizer). Of course, those who live in the real world know that none of this is true; King Canute could not hold back the tide by royal command, and politicians cannot turn adults into children by signing a piece of paper that says they are.
But while flora, fauna and environmental forces will stubbornly continue to be what they are despite human hubris, that’s not so with the human mind. People are social animals, and to a large degree believe or do what they’re told no matter how little it conforms to reality; furthermore, those power-mad enough to make unreasonable or even wholly psychotic laws are also morally retarded enough to send groups of armed thugs to ensure that everyone behave as though their fantasies were indeed fact or face being beaten, robbed, tortured, ostracized, locked in a cage or even murdered. Laws of this sort therefore split the population into three major groups: those lawheaded enough to actually believe in the new definition, those willing to pretend that they do out of fear of government-inflicted violence, and those who carry on just as they would if the law did not exist; Vaclav Havel referred to this last strategy as “living in truth”, and recommended it as the best way to exist under a totalitarian regime. But no matter which of the three groups one falls into, the effect of universal criminality is undeniable; yesterday I referenced an article which proposed that the real source of most problems we associate with adolescence is the artificial restrictions society places on teenagers, and today I’ll explain what that means for society as a whole.
The effect of infantilizing laws or rules on the first of the three groups is the most profound, because they actually internalize the lie that they are incompetent. In teenagers, this leads to profound anxiety about issues that their parents were only moderately or slightly stressed by. Every test, every sports game, every project becomes a source of anxiety, and when young people who believe they need the assistance of parents or other older adults to do virtually anything arrive at university, they are so overwhelmed that anxiety, depression and behaviors that are driven by such emotional stress (such as binge drinking and self-mutilation) have steadily increased every year since 1988 – the year the first “Generation Y” kids graduated high school. And when today’s teens (whose lives have been micromanaged by their parents to a degree that makes ‘80s parents look positively neglectful) hit college age, it’s going to get even worse. If you think frivolous lawsuits and declining American technical competence are a problem now, just wait until these kids grow up and join the older adults who are even now internalizing government claims that they’re incompetent to make their own decisions about food, entertainment, sex and a plethora of other aspects of their lives previously considered personal.
The problems of the second group are not dissimilar to those of the first, but while the latter are anxious about their own failings, the second group has been conditioned into a state of continual fear which renders them submissive and pliable to authority figures. Teens who have always been shielded from negative consequences grow into docile, complacent adults who will meekly submit to any indignity inflicted in the name of “safety” or “security”, and adults who grew up normally but whose resistance has been destroyed by government propaganda and threats are no different: both become coddling, overprotective parents who create another generation of helpless kids and roll over for any law which promises to “protect” them, no matter how egregiously it infringes on their liberty. And if such people do have misgivings about such intrusive laws, they’re too frightened to say anything anyhow.
The third group are the strong ones, those whose personalities cause them to question authority, to rebel against arbitrary restrictions, and to do what they like regardless of laws to the contrary. They are of course labeled “troublemakers” by authorities, and are subjected to increasingly disproportionate and harsh penalties for the smallest infractions of a criminal code grown so vast, vague and complex that it would be impossible to avoid breaking the law even if one wanted to…which the members of this group don’t. Ever-larger numbers of them are brutalized, robbed and caged for behavior which no moral person would consider wrong, and which in many cases wasn’t even illegal when they were younger. Criminalization has become America’s reflexive response to any problem or nonconformity, and the burgeoning police state treats even the most minor of crimes as an excuse for maltreatment which more closely resembles the behavior of banana-republic goon squads or the secret police of a totalitarian state than anything one might find in an advanced Western nation.
In yesterday’s column I said, “I’ve often wondered how much less rebellious I might’ve been had the restrictions placed upon me by ‘authorities’ been more reasonable and acknowledged my right to autonomy, independent thought and self-determination,” and I think that’s true of many if not most teenagers. The rebelliousness we think of as intrinsic to those years isn’t seen in cultures which treat young adults as adults; it’s a product of treating adults like children. And it’s the same in older adults as in young ones; how many people of any age are driven to break laws simply because they resent being told what to do? When Portugal decriminalized drug possession, drug use actually declined, and while 38% of American teens have smoked marijuana only 20% of Dutch teens have. In other words, there is a large segment of the population who are more likely to do something when it’s prohibited, precisely because it is prohibited. The increase in the number and size of protest movements in recent years should be a warning to the government: if you treat the entire population like incompetent children subject to arbitrary rules, you shouldn’t be surprised when many of them start acting like juvenile delinquents.
Maggie, we both, you and I, seek the same goal, more freedom, we just disagree on where the oppression really comes from.
While there certainly are personalities that derive a great, almost sexual pleasure from dominating others and denying them freedom, and history gives us many examples, there are also others, who see gain or an advantage in doing so.
Yes, I think the government is oppressive. But I also think that the government derives some of the motivation to be this way from those who pull the strings, the 1% of the wealthy and powerful, and vast international corporations. These people want obedient, pliant, gullible consumers and workers. They don’t want to pay for enough cops to control us all, so they seek to put the cop in our heads. And the lawheads are happy to comply. If the government vanished tomorrow, then you’d quickly find revealed behind them a new line of bosses, with no pretense to justice.
Somehow, you and I got lucky. Maybe it was nurture, the way we grew up, or nature, just how our brains work, but we never allowed that cop into our heads. “Because I said so” has never been a good enough reason for us. But a huge number of the population are only comfortable following orders, and highly resent having to think for themselves. Thus, religions thrive.
If you want to be free, first get the cop out of your head.
I don’t think we really even disagree on that, not quite. My main difference with you is that you feel aggregating wealth and power via a corporation is different from collecting it via military plunder, inheriting it via feudal rights or extracting it via religious bureaucracy…and I don’t. The issue is aggregation of power, and in my view the means of aggregation are immaterial. As you say, if a majority could get the cop out of their heads (my group #3 above) governments would be much easier to control because those the sheeple would be in the minority rather than the majority as they are now.
Actually, I think the real problem is not the proportion of sheeple to real people, but that the sheeple have power. Sheeple are not inherently bad for a society, and if someone wants to abdicate freedom, they should be able too, but they should alos have to abdicate any semblance of power in the process. Beggers are fine as long as they acknowlage they don’t get to be choosers and don’t cross the line into muggers.
When kingdom’s consisted of essentially extended families, this was an accepted process, and people enjoyed the ability to choose to follow, strike out alone, or lead as their needs and abilities required. Obviously this wouldn’t work in a society as large and interconnected as ours, but I’m convinced there are ways to structure government that will allow the same kinds of benefits.
I agree. As Alexander Tytler (1747-1813) wrote, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.” And that largess can come in a form other than monetary.
CC,
Government is a “sword”, that’s the way I think of it. It’s a sword and, of course, since it IS a sword – then people and corporations are going to fight to wield it – and with devastating effect.
Now – if government were a … “butter knife” … who would fight over that? Not the international corporations – because they’re interested in SWORDS – not butter knives.
As it is now – stipulating you’re right (and I don’t really agree with you that corporations are 100 percent the cause of the problem) … but stipulating that you are right – then those corporations are going to fight to get that sword and then enforce their power on whomever they please with it. Were it a butter knife – they could only do limited damage to anyone.
Marxists and Socialists (and that includes the Democratic Party these days) – always want to forge a bigger “sword” – saying … “hey, you can trust us guys to wield that sword FOR YOU!” However, that never happens. You can look at Cuba, or China, or Soviet Russia or the nations of the FSU and see those guys wield that sword for their own power – using it against individuals and corporations alike. The only thing the common man can say in favor of this is “Well, at least they’ve smitten those corporations – though my own life sucks.”
Republicans – always SAY they want to make the sword smaller – but NEVER do. They fool legions of conservative “slaves” into voting for them by promising smaller government and frightening them of Marxists and Socialists. They also use powers of diversion to further confuse and disguise their intent – with red meat like “gay marriage boogiemen” and “family values”. It’s amazing to me that so many conservatives continue to be fooled in this manner. Only time the US had a balanced budget in my lifetime was under Clinton, a Democrat. Reagan, who campaigned on smaller government – who said “government IS the problem” – actually made the government bigger yet he’s hailed by conservatives as their model. This is pretty laughable.
Libertarians – are the only ones who are enlightened enough to KNOW – that the only way you control a sword is to throw it in the river for good – where no one can get to it. Who needs the sword anyway when a butter knife will suffice?
You can look at Cuba, or China, or Soviet Russia or the nations of the FSU and see those guys wield that sword for their own power – using it against individuals and corporations alike. The only thing the common man can say in favor of this is “Well, at least they’ve smitten those corporations – though my own life sucks.”
During the Stalin era, the Ford Motor Corporation and General Electric were invited into the Soviet Union and had a profound effect on the industrialization of that country. The same corporatist trend is seen in Cuba and North Korea today. Tyrants only care about power, everything else is just window dressing.
That is probably the best summary of libertarianism I have read. It also illustrates why I don’t think it works, as it is also the the best argument for gun control I’ve read.
I would disagree with your second statement; I have known more than one woman who repelled a male assailant merely by presenting a gun. I’ve also known one who was forced to use one, and would be dead today had she lived in a place where busybodies thought they had the right to tell her she had no right to protect herself.
I don’t believe in gun control.
My point is that trying libertarianism is like trying to end violence by taking away all weapons. Someone always takes a gun into the gun-free zone and someone is going to find the sword and start hurting people.
Yes, the government has gone too far, and we do need to rollback the power but there is no way to weaken it to the point no one will try to abuse it.
When taxation is outlawed, only outlaws will collect taxes!
You really have to wonder if this infantilisation of the populous is a deliberate programme, or if it simply the result of bureaucracy gone wild.
Hollywood and the US mass media portray Americans as the most independent and individualistic people in the world, and yet the US government and its organs (police, army, civil service) increasingly behave in ways that no citizen of a dictatorship would tolerate without fighting back.
As an academic, I’m already seeing this. Students are coming in who are expecting to be coddled. A colleague recently had a student leave his glasses on another campus. And the student’s mother called to ask the professor to bring them back. Many universities are implementing “privacy policies” about student grades which are mainly aimed at allowing professors to refuse to talk to parents about kid’s grades. With recent students, the professors have to go them to get them interested in research; they are incapable of knocking on doors. And friends in business tell me that it is increasingly common for parents to come to job interviews (one had to implement a policy forbidding it — she said it helped weed out useless employees). Of course, these people can vote, have sex, join the military, etc. even if they can’t tie their shoes without help.
What’s really happened is that “adolescence” has been moved into people’s 20’s. We treat them like children until they are 18, allow them to rebel a little until they are 25 and then expect them to be the adults. Unless they commit a crime, of course. Then we try them like adults no matter what age they are.
I’m not convinced that this downward spiral in human liberty and mass criminalization of non criminal acts is the first of its kind, even in recent US history. I’ve always been under the impression that the 50s and 60s were much more oppressive than the decades before and after (and there was a similar period marked by the abserdity of the prohibition interval in the 20s, and the nasty Victorian mentality of the late 1800s)
Each of these periods is juxtaposed with one of comparative freedom, and that in the last century these periods of freedom have lasted longer with greater degrees of freedom than before. (Not necessarily only related to laws, but also to more societal freedoms of acceptance and tolerance) I think the real problem lies in the way people have felt the need to replace the moral ridgidy of the church with a government inflicted moral code.
Sheeple have always wanted to be lead, and they’ve always been in denial about their inferior state to individual thinkers. They’ve just changed the medium with which they try to inflict their broken morality on the rest of society.
Oh, and one more thing: I deny that there is a decline in American technical competance. As an engineer, I have not seen this decline, and I do not expect to, and it always makes me shake my head when people blithely claim that americans are stagnating in their technical advances by pointing out that the field is increasingly populated by international students. There is a reason they came HERE, after all. The movement of manufacture to other countries is not only a slowing trend, but it is also an economic problem more than a technological one. R&D is still our specialty.
As a non-technician I’ll have to accept your word on that; I was thinking along the lines that we used to be an industrial giant and now the vast majority of US jobs are in the service sector.
Yeah, and that’s sad. To be sure, Americans seem to be becomeing more and more disjointed from reality, and that results in fear. Most people in technological fields (and anyone who takes the time to educate themselves using the wide variety of resources available to them) aren’t the least bit intimidated by “magic technology” because they know its not magic. The same thing applies to responcibility. If people aren’t exposed to the concept of responcibility until they have it thrust upon them, the responce is fear and ineptidude.
All the fears of the decline of industry in the US are just mindless panic over a nonexistant problem. Just compare it to agriculture. For the first century of its existance, most Americans worked on farms, but this percentage shrank as industry came to dominate. Today, as you already know, only a couple of percent of the population works in agriculture.
This probably frightened a lot of people in the early days of the change. Farming had always been seen as the backbone of any economy. After all, without farms we’d all starve. But, as should be obvious to anyone now, there is a difference between something being essential to society and being the dominant part of the economy. The food supply hasn’t decreased as fewer people became farmers, it’s increased– drastically. In fact, it was that increase in production that led to farming becoming an uncommon occupation in the first place.
The same thing applies to industry. If you look at the value produced, even adjusting for inflation, there has only been a small decline in industrial production in the US over the last few decades. The big change is that it takes far fewer workers to produce that value.
The huge increase in imports is no big deal, either. Much of that is due to the fact that we all buy far more stuff now. As for the rest of the change–
Remember that in the early years of the industrial revolution, most manufactured goods were sold locally. Only a few products were normally shipped long distances. Then as steamboats and railroads came in, it became cheaper and easier to distribute things across the country.
In modern times, that ease of shipping has expanded to cover the entire world.
Having manufacturing in China and services in the US is no different from having factories in Detroit and offices in New York. The idea that a country needs to be completely self-sufficient is just as silly as the Mediaeval idea that a town and it’s surrounding area should supply everything it needs.
Spreading the economy around the world enriches everybody.
Sorry to itnerrupt your normal discussion like this, but so few people seem to understand basic economics, that I always feel the need to jump in and try to inform them.
I completely agree. I was in attendance when GHW Bush signed the initial NAFTA agreement in San Antonio in 1992. I’ve also read Pat Buchanan’s book “The Great Betrayal”. I didn’t buy into PB’s arguments in favor of tariffs and against free trade.
And – if you’ll remember … Ross Perot ran as a 3rd party candidate in 1992 and part of his platform was anti-NAFTA. He said you’d hear a “giant sucking sound” of jobs moving south of the border.
It really didn’t happen – Mexico did pick up a lot more industry – but Americans kept their jobs – unemployment was around 5 percent or less in this country before Republicans crashed the economy by refusing to take on the Democrats over Freddie and Fannie.
And – if you are a Darwinist – then you have to see the value in allowing industry to migrate to the locations where it is performed best and cheapest. It doesn’t help Detroit to make better cars than the Japanese if you put high tariffs on Japanese cars – it only gives Detroit an excuse to keep making lousy products.
Free Trade is also a political tool to spread freedom throughout the world and it naturally balances rich and poor economies.
Like Maggie though – I do kind of fret the fact that we don’t make so many different things here in the US. I mean – we invented the TV I believe didn’t we? We don’t make TV’s here anymore.
However – that’s the price you pay for sloth.
There are plenty of other legal fictions; that the woman was the chattel of the man, for instance. And there are still echoes of this in the marriage service, where the woman has to be brought (as opposed to being able to come by herself), and the question is asked: “who gives this woman…” since she’s clearly incapable of being an individual who can decide for herself.
There are some useful legal fictions though. Limited liability companies did a lot to expand trade after their invention; before them, the shareholders were personally liable for all the debts of the company if it failed.
And the defendant in the Lady Chatterley obscenity trial was “Penguin Books Ltd”, not a named individual who could potentially have seen sent down if the verdict had gone the other way. As “Penguin Books Ltd” was a fiction, the dock was empty at the trial. However, there has been a trend away from this recently in the UK, where directors of companies are now being held personally accountable for failings in corporate management.
The marriage service …
Well, I was a wedding photographer in high school (great way to meet chicks by the way – nothing seems to get a girl’s juices flowing quite like seeing one of her girlfriends being married off) …
There’s three people you need to worry about at a wedding ceremony. #1 is the Bride (she’s usually paying you, even though the $$ is prolly coming from her parents). #2 is the Bride’s Mom – because, in reality, she’s probably done MOST of the planning – and she’s bound and determined to make it a good day for her little girl – and … because she prolly gave the Bride the money to pay you. #3 is the Priest, Minister, Pastor – whatever he’s called – he’s the “sheriff” that runs the ceremony and it’s his house.
Absent in all that importance – are the men. The Groom? Who cares? The Bride’s Dad? Who Cares? They don’t care. They show up in the proper uniform and line up in formation and smile and say what they’re supposed to. The Groom is thinking about other things later in the evening – so as long as his bride is happy he is. He’s just a leave in a brook – and he floats along with the current wherever it takes his ass.
Point I’m trying to make is – yeah, there are SOME ceremonies that are strictly driven by the church and I’ve seen that. However, WOMEN are pretty much in charge of the wedding culture here in America and men kind of follow along like dogs (which is the way it should be). If women had a problem with a bride being “given” to her groom – they’d change it and, I’ve actually seen that part omitted without objection from the minister (in my own wedding for example – my wife’s dad couldn’t be there). I’ve seen the vows altered – the whole ceremony altered and usually ministers don’t have a problem with it as long as the ceremony still LOOKS like it belongs to whatever religious sect it’s being performed in. Even then – I’ve seen some Jewish customs incorporated into Christian wedding ceremonies.
I don’t think there is anything “demeaning” to women about the marriage ceremony.
Actually – there is only one time I had a problem with a minister – and that guy sought me out before the ceremony to inform me that I wouldn’t be taking pictures as the bride walked down the aisle. Well, the bride and the bride’s mother both specifically requested those shots and waved his hand and said “This is my church!”. Soooo … the bride walks down the aisle – and every Tom, Dick, and Harry jumps out of the pews to get in front of her with their Polaroid camera. Remember those? And all those cameras had dying batteries so when they shot the picture it went … “CLICK! .. BEEEEAWWWWWEEEEEEAAAAAEEEEAAAAAWWWWWWWWW” – as the picture was spat out. FAR MORE disruptive than my equipment would have been – and everyone got a picture except the BRIDE. Bride and Mom were FURIOUS – we had to “restage” the pics after the ceremony but it wasn’t the same thing!
Doh! Sorry krulac, next post was meant to be a reply to yours.
I don’t know what happens in a religious ceremony in the US. In the UK, there is a “marriage ceremony” and then the parties troop off to the vestry to “sign the register”. As I understand it, it is the actual signing of the book that validates the union, not the religious bits. The vicar/pastor/minister/priest etc is acting as the State’s official at the signing — which is, in essence, no different from a marriage in a register office (though those came later). So, I’m not surprised that there can be variations in the religious bits — they aren’t what formalises and legalises the union — as long as the celebrant is happy to go along with them.
This “legalisation” of marriage was introduced to England and Wales by (Lord Campbell’s) Marriage Act of, I think, 1753. Practices were much more variable beforehand, and the Act established, as I recall, reading of banns, proscribed times for marriage — between 8am and 12 midday, hence the feast after the ceremony is a “wedding breakfast”. There were ways round the Act, as Lydia and Mr Wickham in Pride and Prejudice were able to do. Alternatively, people could and did elope to Scotland where the laws were very different; it was only necessary to proclaim that you were married before witnesses. Gretna Green was the first place in Scotland that couples reached, hence its popularity.
In some European countries you can only be legally married at a civil service in a register office or at a Mairé. You can have a religious blessing of the marriage afterwards, if you wish.
And I wasn’t trying to suggest that women were demeaned, only that there are ancient echos in the traditional ceremony, the significance of which they might not be aware.
I think marriages are pretty much the same in the US and UK – you don’t have to go to a church to be married – you can go to a “Justice of the Peace” – or any fast food joint in Vegas if you wish! 😛
Your description of Lawheads reminds me of the distinction between essentialists and nominalists (with respect to words and concepts) – as explained in minute detail by Karl Popper. The essentialist thinks words (or in this case laws) are things with an independent reality, the nominalist realises that words are human creations used to conveniently label complex processes and relationships. The essentialist in law will see laws as defining reality. The nominalist will see laws in terms of their evolution through legal history, as they have been proposed, used, disposed of, or altered in order to help deal with human problems. Paul Johnson in “Intellectuals” describes the worst type of intellectual as those that put ideas before people – “Lawheads” put the law before the very people the law is supposed to help. Law as an ideology: law-ism if you will.
The double shame of this is that the rule of law is vital for a free society, and making a fetish of the law like this strips it of much of its reason, and hence moral power and authority.
The first pic: if you want to know who caused the riot, note who came dressed for one.
The Psychology Today article: Yawn. Same ol’ same ol’ “the young generation is dooooomed!” bullshit every generation indulges itself in. Not amused.
Other than that, though, I say rock on!
Great piece, Maggie. My only disagreement with you is a mistake that you made, but at one time I was guilty of the same mistake. Like you, I heard the story of King Canute and the waves and assumed that this guy—if he existed—must have been an idiot.
It turns out that we got the story backwards.
In the original story, (which in all due fairness, might be as real as “George Washington cutting down the cherry tree”) King Canute asks his brown-nosing courtiers if they believed he could stop the sea by ordering it. Because they ARE brown-nosing yes-men, they agree. Canute then goes to the sea with the courtiers, but also makes sure that a big crowd comes along. Then comes the demonstration where Canute orders the sea back, but the tide keeps coming in and eventually reaches his throne. Canute stands up and loudly declares that while he is King of England, his power is nothing before that of the Almighty. The crowds love it.
In other words, this was the 11th Century equivalent of when George W. Bush landed a fighter plane on the Abraham Lincoln to declare “Mission Accomplished.”
If modern political leaders were actually as smart as King Canute than the lawheads you describe, we wouldn’t have this problem.