NEWS FLASH(S): LOBBYIST JACK ABRAMOFF INDICTED ON CHARGES OF INFLUENCE PEDDLING AND CORRUPTION.
THE DUMB-ASS RANT
Geoff Laundy,
December 9 2005
I’d like to revisit here the Straussian concept, which simply says that people at the top of the social pyramid often tell the “noble lie” in order to have a free hand at making things better (and safer) for the dumb-ass population at large. In slightly expanded prose, this controversial bit of scholarship (author Leo Strauss, 1899 – 1973) says that the citizenry is unfit––too stupid––to understand what’s going on and shouldn’t be relied on to make good civic decisions. The nation is dependant, therefore, on the small cadre of superior people, all with high-grade intelligence and enough street smarts to march us through the minefield of modern life and on towards the promised land. It’s much like the appeal of absolute values that filled Ayn Rand’s books, and the need for a confederacy of geniuses who understand value––to whom we should owe perpetual gratitude. Well, I’m a bit of a lowbrow know-it-all, with a keen nose for things that smell fundamentally bad. And what smells bad about the Straussian concept––and the fact that thousands of scholars, politicians, generals, and corporate executives subscribe to this kind of thinking––is not the issue of leadership. Without doubt, there exist an overwhelming number of dumb-asses in the world who require someone’s boot in their dumb, lazy buttholes to get them to do anything. No, the smell comes from the demagoguery of it, from the dude who gets himself on TV, or into newspapers or magazines, etc and gives the speech that pushes all your buttons with the topsy-turvy finger of misguided rhetoric that turns ‘bad’ into ‘good’, invents bogus situations and exaggerates the threat of enemies in an ongoing shell game designed to frighten the hell out us and diminish our ability to identify the real problem, which is us.
To get a breath of fresh air into the debate I need to ask the question: are we that much dumber than a Leo Strauss? Or a Milton Friedman, a Dick Cheney, a John Kerry or a Jerry Falwell, for that matter. Are we all too stupid to detect dishonesty and hypocrisy at the core level? I would like to believe that we are not so used to lying generally that we’ve ceased to give a rat’s ass what happens to us and the country, that we wave the flag merely out of desperation or sheep-like habit. I would like to believe that all of us have an inkling, even in our comatose ineptitude, that the institutional high-flyer is not only deceiving us with the platitudes, he’s fooling himself. He may believe he’s in it for “justice” or “democracy”, for the good of the nation and the little guy, for the oppressed and the poor, and getting good media leverage from the religious echo. But one thing is sure, Jack, he won’t be admitting to you, me or the media that a substantial part of the motives fuelling his efforts is the desire to impress his peers and patrons, and thereby increase his fame, his power and his stock portfolio. I’m not being overly cynical or skeptical here. Face it--––we enjoy being dumb, doped sheep even if the ecstasy of hero worship is vicarious and short. We admire the person who’s good at dissembling and elevate him to the status of a winner. Outright honesty requires genuine humility. Humility is an admirable virtue, but it is too easily equated to weakness, and weakness is a thing competitors can’t resist the opportunity to exploit. The strong team always beats the weak team. Happens every football Sunday. If the thing were topsy-turvy we’d be disconcerted. So the headhunters of politics––parading their genius as strength––invert values at will. Willy-nilly, they turn “good” into “bad”, implying that truth is weakness and honesty is depraved. It’s easy to stampede the masses with images of impending chaos, even more so when the message comes via the alleged claims of an educated, informed authority. As for the general claims of learning: In my recollection, no figure since Christ has been humble enough to admit publicly that the dictum “a little learning is a dangerous thing” applies to them, far less a recognition that in the realm of morality, knowledge itself is neutral and passive.
One bit of learning stands out in particular. Even a vaguely stupid person like me can see the illogic of living in the land of the free and having our ‘leaders’ define freedom in language that exploits our doped, dumb-sheep sentiments; and here I mean the “manufacturing of consent through necessary illusions”, a technique espoused by the celebrated newspaper man, Walter Lippmann, (who referred to the mass of US citizenry as “the bewildered herd”), which is right down there in the bad smell category with Strauss’s “noble lie” sentiment. Now, is any of this noble, at least in intent? Consider the impulse that drives industrial thinking––and by that I mean the “dismal” science of economics, whose stated dogma all the way back to founder Adam Smith comprises the doctrine of “self-interest”. I pick this one category of knowledge for a good reason. Be assured of one more thing, folks, in the modern world, economics is king. It’s the winning argument for just about everything. The gurus of economics are king makers. Their pride in being right, their aggressiveness in deciding public policy goes beyond money and into every corner of social commerce. According to them, the principle of “self-interest”, of “social Darwinism” (i.e. only the fit survive) drives even our love…our faith, hope and charity. Here we get an inch closer to a truth that even the bewildered herd can comprehend. The tyrannical dogma of self-interest supersedes any and all bleeding heart objectives no matter how urgent. But the worst of it is this: Notwithstanding the application of “necessary illusions”, “the noble lie” or any tactic that might lead to a greater nation, our leaders walk the same walk of dumb-ass ignorance as the rest of us. Forget the economic soothsaying, the national sales pitch, the bullshit mastery of the political closer or the charlatan in the pulpit, all the hopes and dreams of both leaders and the led are an irrelevant sideshow.
The damning truth is that we’re none of us going to change the system much because we’re all the same. Every human being on earth is an unholy mix of good and bad, black and white in morals, understanding, opinions and expression, whether economic, religious or political. We’re all confused to the core, and like the guy living behind the dumpster, we glory in saying, “I’m ignorant, proud of it, and if you remind me of it, I’ll beat the shit out you”. Likewise, the politician who stands up and says he’s not such a bad guy, doesn’t kick his dog, coaches baseball and only occasionally acts like a conniving, thieving, selfish, patronizing fraud…this politician is dead meat and we’re straight out not going to vote for him. We’re not ready for honesty because deep down we have good reason to fear. We mistrust ourselves, our neighbors, the French (and all other foreigners), and are wary of what’s coming over the horizon. We know also that the ghost of Leo Strauss and his allies are out there haunting us with their lies, noble or otherwise. Everyday we see and listen to politicians and their henchmen as they weave their necessary illusions. We instinctively retaliate by reverting to the dumb-sheep, bewildered herd modality because we know that the doctrine of self-interest, with its lies and illusions are the necessary ingredients in our battle to get out of bed in the morning and obey our superiors, no matter how stupid and inefficient they are. The guy at the very top orders us to do this. It’s the foundation of the country, he says, and without it we risk being slaves to an alien horde. We convince ourselves that it’s better to be a slave to some dumb-ass who was born here and understands money, because at least he’s our dumb-ass. Reluctantly we cave, pay our taxes and watch TV, hoping that just once, some asshole on the tube will admit that he or she is blowing smoke out of it. But we won’t change a thing, and for the same reason I’m going to the fridge for another beer. I can’t help myself…
G the Laundy
