…The
critics of charlatanism and ignorance in philosophy and political science
routinely accuse their quarry of lacking common sense. Common sense is of
course a necessary, but by no means a sufficient condition of scientific
probity. Which means that common sense alone cannot carry us to wisdom. On the
contrary, the blessed country bumpkin, common sense and all, can easily
fall prey to clever manipulators, whenever he is fed phony basic “facts”
as his input upon which he is expected to form that “commonsense”
judgment. Beware of the common sense, when it comes in the same package with
glaring ignorance!
General
education is indispensable as the basis in forming political judgments. Alas,
decent education is in such short supply in this country (I mean, in the United
States), that it is here more than anywhere else, that the greatest political
stupidity can be expected to originate and to prosper…
The
tragedy of historical education for one is that there is a quagmire of fact
drowning in fiction right in the very place where the actual information
bank ought to have been. Whether we may like it or not, the whole history of
the twentieth century is mostly fake.
Stalin
was cynically right when he called history “a class concept,” written by
the ruling classes to defend their power against the surge of wannabes, who, in
turn, want to come up with a “history” of their own. It is not about what
actually happened but about what your leaders want you to think and to “know.”
That’s why I insist that freedom of thought is such a rare and
precious commodity (much greater, I say, than freedom of speech, which
is creative and resilient enough to emerge on top in the survival of the
fittest), and even more rare and precious than one might suspect, because thought
control is permeating the political atmosphere of society to a similar
extent as hydrocarbon emissions affect its physical counterpart.
Freedom
of speech is worthless when the speech itself is from ignorance. It is
imperative for us therefore to exercise our freedom of thought properly. We
need to realize that our position vis-à-vis the social sciences of today is not
that much different from Dèscartes’, and we need to diligently read the opening
paragraph of his Method again and again, until we fully realize its awesome
relevance to our own modern experience:
“From my childhood, I have been familiar with letters; and as I
was given to believe that by their help a clear and certain knowledge of all
which is useful in life might be acquired, I ardently desired instruction. But
as soon as I had finished the full course of study, at the close of which it is
customary to be admitted into the order of the learned, I completely changed my
opinion. For, I found myself involved in so many doubts and errors, that I was
convinced I had advanced no farther in all my attempts at learning, than the
discovery at every turn of my own ignorance. Yet, I was studying in one of the
most celebrated Schools in Europe, where I thought there must be learned men,
if such were anywhere to be found. I had been taught all that others learned
there; and not content with the sciences actually taught us, I had in addition
read all the books that had fallen into my hands… I was thus led to take the
liberty… of concluding that there was no science in existence that was of such
a nature as I had previously been given to believe.”
In
a sense, political science can be compared to chess. There is a saying among
professional chess players that chess is not just a sport, a science, or an
art, but all of the above. Science alone cannot make politics work. We know
that all exact sciences are based on more or less arbitrary assumptions, and,
therefore, their conclusions are tied to practical applications, and cannot be
trusted as general principles. So, politics must possess a well-developed sense
of intuition and a creative talent of its own, to help overcome the otherwise
forbidding limitations of its respective components.
But
the bottom line of our resistance to all charlatans and ignoramuses, a.k.a.
experts, who come to deceive and mislead us into the selfish schemes of their
own, is a will to truth, rather than to convenience, without which the
truth, when it eventually comes out on its own, will never be coming to our
rescue from the lie, but as a vengeful Erinys, bent on punishing us for our
short-sighted hypocrisy.
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