If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. – James Madison
No scientifically-literate person would deny that human beings are animals, and no sane person would deny that we are not only imperfect, but unperfectible; it is literally impossible to remove all the flaws from any human being. No accident of birth, no social pressure, no education, no surgery, no psychoactive drug, no holy book, no set of rules or procedures, no machine and no god can remove that flawed nature; we are born flawed, develop new flaws even while trying to correct old ones, and eventually die still flawed (and often because of those flaws). The Christian myth of original sin may be based in this realization, but there is no baptism or consecration which will wash it away; we are stuck with it, and the best we can do is to recognize the truth and ask for others’ help in controlling the damage our flaws may cause.
Unfortunately, one of the most profound and dangerous of human flaws is our love for authority; the average human craves being told what to do by someone he perceives as superior to him, and the majority of exceptions to this are those who crave the power to tell others what to do. And though a wisely-organized system would recognize this by limiting both the ability of all humans to exercise power over others, and the opportunity for individuals to surrender power to self-proclaimed leaders, we do not have a wisely-organized system for the simple reason that humans on the whole are not yet wise enough to design such a system. Theoretically, democracy is supposed to do this, but humans’ love for titles, badges, costumes and Great Men has undermined every attempt since Classical Greece; whatever system is designed to put “the people” in power will eventually allow thugs and strongmen to arise, and no matter how carefully individual rights are protected the hoi-polloi will eventually rush to give up those rights for some perceived advantage (usually “safety”). And when they do, the rights of the individualists are destroyed right along with those of the mob by the flawed and fallacious mechanism that all democracies to date have depended upon, majority rule.
Any human given power will eventually abuse that power if given the opportunity to do so. Any human. Let that sink in, because every argument for the “necessity” of government invariably ignores it. Every single official, every single cop, every single judge, every single representative. Every tax collector, inspector, legislator, minister, noble and king. All of them, to a man, will abuse his authority if given the opportunity to do so; obviously, the solution is to limit and check the power of every single government actor and every group of actors so as to remove that opportunity. But that is not what we do; in fact, the tendency is to do the opposite, increasing the power and decreasing the accountability of officials until we arrive at the situation illustrated every week in my TW3 and Links columns. Nor are we satisfied with giving this kind of power to “official” authorities; oh no. The human desire to be controlled by people who know absolutely nothing about them as individuals is unsatisfied with having the boots of elected officials, appointed officials, bureaucrats, hirelings and henchmen on their faces and bodies; they must also invite a host of ministers, gurus, celebrities, bosses, academics and other Pillars of the Community to stomp on their genitalia as well.
That last metaphor was not merely chosen for shock value; humans, as I said at the beginning, are animals, so although most do use their power for rational (if wrongful) purposes like enriching themselves or destroying their enemies, they also tend to use it for feeding their appetites:
…a minister…is facing 59 counts of first-degree sexual assault in cases against girls…as young as 13…Victor Barnard [led]…a cult-like faith community in central Minnesota…[and told girls he] chose [to rape that they were] to be “sacrificed to God”…
The writers of stories like this always pretend to be shocked, as though this were an aberration rather than the norm; for example, people point fingers at Catholic priests who molest boys as if the clergy of their religions were any different. Atheists in turn point fingers at clergy, ignoring the fact the same kinds of abuses are committed at the same rate by secular authority figures. If such incidents are rarer in some situations than others it’s merely due to lack of opportunity, not lack of desire. Do you realize how many different headings on this blog cover variations on the theme of “authorities” abusing their power to get sex in one way or another? “Above the Law” is the most obvious one, but there’s also “License To Rape”, “Droit du Seigneur” and “Follow Your Bliss”. Furthermore, “Reaction Formation” and “Buried Truth” deal with “authorities” who work to punish others for sexual kinks they hide in themselves. Spend some time perusing the stories filed under those tags, then tell me again how power-mad “authorities” are just a few isolated cases, and that it’s sane and sensible to keep giving them more power, more money and more control over every aspect of our lives.
>And though a wisely-organized system would recognize this by limiting both the ability of all humans to exercise power over others, and the opportunity for individuals to surrender power to self-proclaimed leaders,
This is what I’ve been arguing for quite a while, but I don’t just restrict it to government officials. Most of us spend 8-10 hours a day at work, where were are under the much more stringent control of a boss. Eliminating the stranglehold of a few over the economy, and the means to produce goods and wealth is also vital.
I’ve explained the difference here between power over, and power to, and why power over always works out badly.
You’re dead-on in this column.
You want to eliminate the boss? :O
See, I don’t see a problem allowing individuals to surrender their freedom if they want to, I just don’t want them to be able to force others to as well.
I have only limited experience “working under the control of a boss”, but the most striking effect I observed is that it absolutely kills efficiency. I am currently a consultant and work mostly self-directed (customer defines results but not way to reach them), and we try to never work on customer premises. We estimate that we get a 50% drop in efficiency if we do, and that is not even direct control as we do not do body-leasing.
What I get from his is that we have an incredible amount of “work” just wasted, because people are not free to chose to work as they see fit and optimize. I would expect that a society of mostly self-employed people would see a drastic gain in productivity, and “slackers” would be absolutely no problem.
Those that crave power are usually those least suitable to wield it. Quite a dominance-submission game many (most?) people have going on there. The utterly immoral thing is of course that they force everybody into it. SM is fine if everybody is freely consenting, but the way it is done in “modern” society just amounts to rape.
I must point out that one of the many abolitionist arguments against American slavery was that it made the slaves “lazy” because, as you rightfully observe, tight control lowers productivity dramatically. To the grim Puritans who made up the bulk of abolitionists, this was an evil in and of itself.
Well, is not an evil to me. Perhaps I should clarify: If efficiency of individual work raises dramatically, even slackers will find it easy to do what is required for bare essentials, or alternatively cross-financing slackers will put very little demand on the rest. The latter may sound like socialism to some, but it is not. Ensuring that people will always have the basics for survival is like providing roads and education. And if that makes some people live off “welfare” permanently, so what?
There are some historical cultures that required about like 24h of work per week for _everything_ and that at certainly far, far lower efficiency that we could reach today. That we work so much can only be attributed to terrible inefficiency and terribly broken wealth-distribution. It is like for every one person that is productive, there are 4 or so that are there solely to destroy most of that productivity again, and in addition make outrageous demands on the one productive person and decrease its productivity.
Of course, everybody should be free to work as much as they want, and some things, like learning something or doing an interesting project can require a lot of work. But what is required should be very low and reflect the real productivity that can be achieved.
This is a quick, very cynical reaction based on the emotions that make me a flawed human being…
So, could it be said that you’re bashing your head against the brick wall you spoke about yesterday with this? We agree that humans are (fatally) flawed, and because of that every system we’ve ever invented has fatal flaws that allow them to destroy those who follow it. So how are we going to come up with this “wisely-organized system” if, more than likely, the people who are going to invent it have been killed either due to their own flaws or by the flawed people around them?
Edit: ‘Killed’ might be too harsh a word, perhaps ‘neutralized’ instead.
and to move past heteronormativity, there are variations of the “gay panic” defense for mansplaining away why it’s okay to violate/do violence against gay men and transwomen.
I want you to be wrong, but you’re not.
Except with regard to your absolutism. “Any human given power will eventually abuse that power” Nothing is absolute. Not even the venality of man.
Maybe the venality of man is not absolute, but never underestimate the stupidity.
“Nothing is absolute” – never understood that cliché.
“Absolutely” every human being is flawed.
“Absolutely” every human being will die.
It’s pretty “absolute” that … if I don’t feed my two dogs – they’ll starve.
“Absolutely” – I cannot survive in space without a spacesuit.
I could go on and on … there’s all kinds of “absolutes”.
She did, of course, caveat this by saying … “if given the opportunity”.
Nonesense, ‘Nothing is absolute’ is wonderful when you take its second meaning- Nothingness is absolutely nothing.
Absoluteness is absolute!
Seriously, “absolute” in the non-mathematical sense is just a figure of speech that means “almost completely”, or “with rare exceptions” or “exceptions are rare enough that it makes a highly credible default assumption and exceptional proof is required for any exception”.
I am quite sure Maggie understands that.
Yes. I must also point out that while many people can be corrupted by the slightest temptation, a few require very great temptation indeed. But given that all humans are imperfect, there is always some level of temptation, some degree of power, which could corrupt even the most pure. Remember, Gandalf and Galadriel had the wisdom to refuse the One Ring when it was offered to them.
“If you truly want to test a man’s character, give him power”
Indeed. It is also a measure by which we can judge ourselves: Look critically at how we use what power we have.
I agree on that. There are those people that wield power, but are able to keep themselves in check. These people are almost never found in positions of higher power these days. But there is the occasional teacher (on all levels), for example. Sure, these people do occasionally abuse power, but when they do they notice and make a conscious decision that this is not what they want to do and they correct their course.
I have noticed that for myself, for example when grading student work. You always have a tendency to favor those that repeat what you told them (due to your ego and everybody has one of those…). You must keep that in check though, as those with their own ideas have done better work and, if equally well reasoned, must get a significantly better grade.
Unfortunately, people that can keep themselves in check are rare. And they never crave power for itself, it is always only a means to an end. The problem is of course that most people with power crave it for itself and that immediately disqualifies them from wielding it fairly and competently as then it is about dominance and not about doing something right.
Bravo, bravo, bravo. Well said. I agree totally. For me the answer – IF there is one – lies in greater liberty.
Bravo, bravo, bravo! Agreed totally.
Wait, what??? I thought I was an angel!
You’re an angel in the theatrical sense, not the theological one. 😉
I couldn’t agree with this more. This is why I believe in the smallest government possible – with the maximum checks and balances inserted into it. The problem comes in “defining” just how small is “enough” and knowing when they government you’ve designed is too “big”.
The founders started with the Articles of Confederation – which had a really minimal federal government. It wasn’t the PEOPLE who decided to expand government – it was the men who had POWER who wanted more. To a certain extent, I agree with that – there was a genuine need to do some kind of regulation of interstate commerce, standardize the monetary system, and defend the country from foreign aggression. And everything argued in favor of expanding government.
They came up with a great system – I think the best this planet has ever seen. However, as you state … nothing created by man can be perfect – and the Constitution they created had a lot of flaws that … over time … have been discovered and exploited by … some devious men – and some men who thought that, in the name of the “greater good” – they were morally authorized to exploit those flaws.
But the thing is … when it comes to government – it really doesn’t matter what the INTENTIONS of the power exploiter are.
Lincoln went to war against the Southern States because they seceded – yet, I don’t see how anyone can argue that those states did not have a right to secede. Their reasoning was shitty – sure – and slavery made their motives impure (but slavery was enshrined in the Constitution). Had they seceded over the tariff issue (which they almost did a few years before) … perhaps Lincoln would not have felt that he had the moral authority to usurp Constitutional powers that were not granted to him.
BUT – he felt, in the name of maintaining the Union – that he had the moral authority to usurp those powers.
Doubtful you’ll find many people these days who don’t agree with what Lincoln did. Hey, it was for the greater good right? These pesky “rules” are tedious – and they have to be dispensed with, right? When the situation is dire enough!
That, of course – set a precidence for those who followed him the oval office.
So really, all you have to do now is create a dire situation – or have one visited upon you, like 9-11 … and voila! You have the moral authority to disregard the rules.
In violation of his powers as President, and in contradiction to laws passed by Congress – Reagan sold arms to Iran and took the proceeds and funded the Contras in Nicaragua. Hey – he was trying beat back Communism in Central and South America. Moral authority.
Clinton LIED to a grand jury. His reasoning? He had the moral authority to do so because the whole Lewinski affair was being used by the “vast right wing conspiracy” to overturn the results of a valid election.
Bush – and Congress, passed the “Patriot Act” – and a whole slew of laws in violation of the constitution. Why? Because they thought they had the moral authority too – for the safety of Americans.
Obama – where the fuck do I start? Except to say that he’s perverted the “moral authority” argument. When he has his IRS attack his enemies – he’s not doing that for the greater good … but he is doing it based on a weak moral argument that he and his political allies … ALONE … know what’s right for America – and what’s right for America is to have his political doctrine imposed on Americans – and cemented so that it can never be “un-imposed”.
But all of these people got a “pass” from either the majority of Americans – or significant numbers of people because they agreed with the short-cuts being taken in the name of the “greater good”.
It’s not the Constitution CAN’T work – it’s the fact that we take too many liberties with subverting it in the name of expediency for the “greater good”. The debate over guns is just astounding to me. The founders installed the second amendment – sure – but they also installed a way for Americans to rid themselves of it. It’s called the amendment process. But … (insert crying baby here) … “that’s too haaaaaaard” … “the states have to get involved and most of them won’t agree with overturning it!” So … the moral authority argument says … “Hey lets subvert the constitution and find ways to curtail or eliminate guns because … it’s in everyone’s best interest!”
We give too much stock to INTENTIONS … without regarding the consequences and results of going outside the bounds of the checks and balances we were given by the founders.
I never understood the Clinton thing ( I was super little) why did a grand jury care about his sex life?
See – there you go. 😀
See how easy it is to “rationalize”?
Is it ever okay to lie under oath when you’ve sworn to tell the truth?
Lewinski wasn’t just his sex partner – she was also linked to the Paula Jones Sexual Harassment case as a witness.
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/impeachments/starr-excerpt.htm
Huh. I don’t know if it is productive to blame Clinton when the problem seems to be systematic.
Obviously he shouldn’t have lied, but honestly, he shouldn’t have had to. The whole thing was embarrassing, making Americans look like moronic, vindictive, and dishonest prudes.
In other words, telling the truth about most Americans.
*Sad nod*
By the way – I worked at the White House Military Office during the Clinton years.
During those years – we had a ZERO TOLERANCE policy toward adultery. I had Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines who were fired from their positions for even KISSING someone who wasn’t their husband or wife (single people could run amok – just not with anyone that was married).
In one case … LOL … I had a Sailor who was married who made a play for an Air Force girl at Ramstein, AFB when he was traveling in support of Hillary’s trip to India. He was spotted kissing the girl. He went back to her hotel room – and put the “moves” on her …
SHE SAID NO!
White House Security FIRED the dude and he didn’t even get any!
Why did we follow this strict policy? We were told that such affairs could be “blackmailable” and reflect discredit on the Oval Office.
Kind of ironic that the Commander in Chief expected his Military Office to follow these rules – but he didn’t hold himself to the same standard. I voted for Clinton – but I have no sympathy for him. I know I’m not the most moral person in the world … and God … I have transgressed. But for the 19 years I was married in the military – I never fucked another woman aside from my wife. Came close one time … with another Sailor of equal rank to me who was not in my chain of command – but that was never consummated.
And by the way … that ONE transgression was probably facilitated by the fact that … at that point of my career – I had more power than I had ever had. I was a virtual “rock star” in the Navy at that point and one of the most well known Master Chiefs in the Navy due to the position I held. I have no doubt that this other Master Chief was considering cheating on her husband with me – because of the position I held and the “alpha male” success it projected.
I regret that … it was the only thing I ever did that I think was inappropriate while in uniform – even though, the two of us never had sex. However, I’m sure many of the Sailors below me saw the two of us were spending a lot of time together – and they probably drew their own “conclusions”. And those conclusions cast “doubt” on my adherence to the core values. Even the appearance is enough to do harm. My example in that situation probably didn’t serve those junior Sailors well later on in their careers when they were confronted with a similar situation to mine.
Incidentally, nobody in Europe cared and it was generally interpreted as some kind of US-specific mental defect. “Hysteria” was one of the terms used.
most Europeans seem to assume that a man in power will have a wife and a mistress. Personally, I prefer the concept of compensated girlfriends, compensated by the hour
Actually, it is more like “none of our business”. What is important is how that person wields power. Whether he is a bad husband or not is completely immaterial unless it affects the way he wields power.
Quite frankly the investigation into Clinton degraded those doing it a lot more than it degraded him. He was basically mortally insulted for no good reason at all.
Seems to me that what people want is purpose. Authority is a means of getting it. One of them, anyway.
More likely a means of faking oneself out about having a purpose. Authority is meaningless unless you already have a purpose.
this is the issue with the entitlement class as well. They want the gov’t to give them everything they want for nothing, but on the other hand they say they want the gov’t to leave them alone for the most part. I’m still not sure how they’re heads don’t explode when trying to put those two ideas together. They probably don’t try, they prefer that the internal inconsistency be left unconsidered.
The entitlement class is part of the power paradigm. They feed the votes that keep their pet politicians in office. The politicians give back to keep getting the votes.
And “abuse of power” applies to the entitlement class directly to. They insist that more and more of the assets of the production class be confiscated and “re-distributed” to them. It’s basically government sanctioned robbery.
Indeed.
I’m reminded of the “What have the Romans ever done for us?” scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian…
Damn, Maggie, I wish you were in charge…oh…wait–I see what you did there!
Excellent post BTW. I have never seen things summed up so succinctly
Of course I can only speak for myself, but I would never rape a woman, no matter how many opportunities I had. Personalities really do differ, even though you evidently don’t believe it.
When did she ever say that personalities don’t differ?
“Abuse of power” comes in different forms. The example she cites is a religious leader who abused his power by raping little girls. Another religious leader my abuse his power by extracting money from his followers and using it to go on expensive vacations. Now – the guy who misappropriated money may be like you (and me) and he would never RAPE anyone – but he still abused his power.
What she’s saying is … it should be no surprise that this religious leader abused his power and raped those girls. Just as it should be no surprise when one abuses his power and commits a lesser offense – because these people have “unchecked” power … or power that has insufficient “checks and balances” to ensure it’s not abused.
Of course I believe it. I suspect you overlooked this passage:
“Most” and “tend” are pretty clear qualifiers, don’t you agree?
don’t enriching themselves and feeding their appetites tend to be the same thing
I meant sexual appetites.
In spirit I agree, but on two counts I do not:
Humans are not flawed except perhaps biologically (we die). No animal is. They may appear “flawed” when you apply some kind of external expectation on them, but it would be like claiming the sun is flawed because it causes cancer, or the earth is flawed because hurricane form. Human nature simply is. Expecting to deny human nature is flawed thinking, not the other way around.
The second is that I don’t agree that its the power that corrups at all, I think it is wholly a lack of accountability. Unless you are defining power or authority as literally the same as lack of accountability, any time someone has the opportunity to ‘get away with something’, regardless of that persons power, they will try and get away with it.
And really, moral systems that are at odds with human nature are the real root of these problems.
Well the “opposite” of “flawed” is … “flawless”.
Are you saying that … aside from the physical – human beings are “flawless”?
In other words … our judgement, our thinking … are flawless?
Naw, what I’m saying is that attempting to label something that is unique as either flawed or flawless is meaningless.
A copy can be a flawless copy, or a flawed copy. A machine either functions flawlessly, or it is flawed in some way (at the very least in efficiency)
In order to be flawed or flawless, there must be an ideal to compare it to.As I believe Maggie said in another post; the idea of an ideal human being is impossoble, therefore it is impossible for humans to be flawed, or flawless.
“Unfortunately, one of the most profound and dangerous of human flaws is our love for authority; the average human craves being told what to do by someone he perceives as superior to him, and the majority of exceptions to this are those who crave the power to tell others what to do.”
Not sure that I agree with this; perhaps it’s the use of the word “crave”. Rather, I’d have thought that most people are happy for others to make the decisions; they are people that have never made any serious decisions—particularly in areas where they have little knowledge or experience. It’s just easier, almost a cop-out; passivity rather than craving.
I think the underlying thing is not to have to take responsibility for your own actions and, you know, maybe have to justify or defend them? And then people may attack you? And then nobody loves you anymore and you will die alone?
Basically, it is a sign of immaturity. The dominators, on the other hand, are psychos that have failed to learn how to control their destructive urges. Well, that could count as “immature” as well.
You know, smart kids realize at a certain age that most adults are really just kids in an older body.
Love your blog, and have been meaning to comment for a while, so here goes:
Quote “Unfortunately, one of the most profound and dangerous of human flaws is our love for authority; the average human craves being told what to do by someone he perceives as superior to him, and the majority of exceptions to this are those who crave the power to tell others what to do.”
End quote.
I’m not entirely sure about that – rather I suspect that this is more inspired by the threat of violence against those who “go against the grain”, and most people are disinclined to avoid this. I’d reckon that most people actively resent being told what to do, and it is only fear of the consequences of protesting against this that stops them. If you think that there is a craving there, I’d think that it was more a matter of a self-preserving declaration that one will happily “toe the line” to avoid persecution. Which in itself says tons of bad things about just how far we’ve progressed.
Anyway, keep up the good work.
“and most people are disinclined to avoid this”
The wrong word is “disinclined”. “inclined” is the correct one.
Sorry, It’s late this side of the pond.
It is interesting that we think that humans are imperfect. Afterall, if we are all born with this potential then what is imperfect about it? Seems to me that Christianity is still alive in well in many people. Even the ones who dont follow it. 😉
I understand most of your post, and have seen enough to know that it’s true, but I’m not sure what you mean when you say that humans are imperfect. Is there some standard of design to which every human fails to wholly adhere?
Imperfect = opposite of perfect. To disagree that humans are imperfect is to claim they’re perfect, which is an obvious absurdity.
While I’ll readily agree with you that humans are rather less than perfect, and while “eqvvs” may have been a little obscure or imprecise, it seems rather moot – their point, I think – what precisely you mean by the term as it seems rather vague and ambiguous.
While I expect we can all agree that a step in the right direction might be if we were to give each other much less grief of one sort or another, the question is where do we go after that, and how do we get there. The problem of utopias, I think, and as you sort of suggested. As the anthropologist John Hartung rather succinctly put it:
Everyone seems to have rather different opinions about over which horizon lies the promised land. And while a large part of the problem there is the “hyperastronomical” number of possibilities, and the limitations built into the “hardware”, if not into the warp and weft of the universe itself, one might argue that some of those limitations are at least somewhat tractable and capable of being improved upon if not perfected. And, as suggested both by my previous comment and your OP, one of biggest limitations or stumbling blocks seems to be that humans, in general, tend to be rather gullible, easily led, and too quick to let others do our thinking for us. Apropos of which, Douglas Hofstadter in his seminal Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid suggested somewhat sardonically:
While he was of course jesting, there appears to be an element of truth in it. Although I’m not sure of the details and don’t have a link, it seems that some evolutionary biologists or psychologists have argued that evolution has more or less selected us to believe parents and other figures of authority – part of our evolutionary inheritance. But when one’s survival hangs in the balance and depends on a quick and correct response to danger, questioning the source of those recommendations tended not to be conducive to passing on our genes.
The problem though is, as many have suggested, that life on the savanna and jungles of Africa may not have “designed” us optimally, evolutionarily speaking, to survive the complexities of civilization. Moot point though whether we can, as the American moralist Philip Wylie put it, “discipline the instinct with the heart and mind” sufficiently before we destroy what we have so far created.
Were perfect in the sense of how we are created. We have propensities for all kinds of behaviour, some of which we deem favourable and others not so much. I guess a better term might be perfectly imperfect. 😉
While it is unlikely to be the entire explanation for it, and might be more of a symptom than the dis-ease itself, one might argue that extreme religiousity, particularly in America, is certainly a significant contributing factor. As Diderot put it:
A case in point being the Minnesota minister you linked to. But I think that Voltaire summarized the consequences, all too accurately, and traced the cause back a little further with his:
Though part of the problem there is that it isn’t always easy to decide what is absurd – “Climate change? Global warming? Quantum consciousness? Preposterous!” – or to prove any given conjecture. Which tends to leave the door open to charlatans and montebanks. All too easy to leave our thinking to someone else. And as Bertrand Russell noted,
People are imperfect. In fact, according to current science, 3-5% (mostly males) suffer from antisocial personality disorder (Donald W. Black, MD, “Bad Boys, Bad Men). It is this small percentage, if no other, that would require the existence of government, because they quite literally cannot control their baser impulses to rob, rape, assault, and murder.
Unlike conservatives, I think that most of us–left alone–will be helpful, kind, and compassionate to other people if we can. Selfishness is not a survival response for humanity as a whole, even in times of scarcity.. Perhaps I am naive, but the conservatives going back to Paul of Tarsus, Cicero, and Cato ended up destroying far more than they saved in the long term. Paul’s teachings all but undid those of Jesus of Nazareth; Constatntine the Great finished the job.
People need less control than they are led to believe by the fearmongers. And it is the fearmongers who make professional sex workers, especially sex providers, outcasts in society. until we teach people to quit being afraid, we can never know real freedom.