Monday, March 07, 2005

Elites and the Nanny State

According to a Jan. 7-10 [2002] Gallup survey,… support for abortion rights increases with formal education and household income.

Why is it that the well educated tend to be the most liberal?

Supple minds better able to absorb knowledge are by the same principle better able to absorb falsehood. Not only our educational system, but also our culture, are poisoned by a faulty picture of nature.

Modern science, based on Newtonian mechanics, says nothing about purpose in nature. Science's tremendous success at "mastering" nature gives it the appearance of presenting a complete conception of all reality, so that its silence on purpose is interpreted as a universal denial. This same success gives science a great credibility in the academy, so that all other disciplines aspire to pattern themselves in some way after science (physics).

But there is an additional, more radical factor at work. Natural science, even if unsuccessful, still mediates our understanding of the natural world. Notice that we humans take our knowledge primarily from our five senses. Knowing and thinking in sensible terms is most natural to us, so we understand even invisible things (like the human soul, God, and most of the universe) in analogy with visible, natural things. This means that scientific errors about the natural world will warp our conception of everything else: music, history, language, psychology, politics, etc.

Thus we see that both science's success gives it an unrivaled power in the modern world, but also its perennial place in human knowing makes it the foundation of any culture, including our own. Hence the "well educated," less "down to earth" elites tend to be more liberal because they have imbibed more of the spirit of the age, poisoned by materialistic science.

Why does the Elite use the Nanny State?

As we've seen, the purposeless (or chaotic) picture of nature removed the presumption that individuals can control and improve themselves, leaving the state to contain the necessarily ensuing chaos. We might call this the Hobbesian or negative Nanny State, after Thomas Hobbes, whose political theory called for an authoritarian Leviathan to contain the chaos of "The [Human] State of Nature."

Additionally the mistaken, purposeless view of nature takes on a positive or utopian form that encourages the Nanny State to surpress human nature in light of some arbitrary ideal. Karl Marx is the prime example. Despite our human propensity to act selfishly or stupidly, there is a basic goodness in human nature. In contrast, the liberal presumption that humans are not by nature geared toward their own happiness (in a broad, life-long sense) means the State must intervene to perfect society.

Without a clear picture of nature by which to judge the purpose of our existence, the standard of happiness shifts with the winds of fashion, or any crazy idea that enters some intellectual's head and catches on. Usually an idea's appeal comes from rebellion against some traditional stricture that feeds into an physical impulse.* At one point the "revolutionary idea" was extra-marital sex, then it became homosexuality, but recently it's been the (rather unextraordinary) pairing of older women with younger men (do you get the idea that they're running out of traditions to transgress?). Almost always these ideas presume that only the knowledge (gnosis) possessed by an elite can save mankind from languishing in its "natural" imperfection. This presumption against nature is why liberals treat the family, which no civilization in history has ever survived without, as by nature disordered and requiring the intervention of government (in particular of unelected judges). Parents are presumed incapable of raising their children without the help of "the village"—doublespeak for those who think they know better than you or your neighbors. Communities are presumed incapable of governing themselves without trampling on rights of minorities (however defined by the elite). In the minds of the Elite, the Many are unfit to direct their own lives and need Nanny to do it for them.


*Doing away with an objective (natural) notion of the good leads to subjectivism. In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis masterfully describes the results of subjectivism:
But what never claimed objectivity cannot be destroyed by subjectivism. The impulse to scratch when I itch or to pull to pieces when I am inquisitive is immune from the solvent which is fatal to my justice, or honour, or care for posterity. When all that says 'It is good' has been debunked, what says 'I want' remains. It cannot be exploded or 'seen through' because it never had any pretentions. The [elite] Conditioners, therefore, must come to be motivated simply by their own pleasure. I am not here speaking of the corrupting influence of power nor expressing the fear that under it our Conditioners will degenerate. The very words corrupt and degenerate imply a doctrine of value and are therefore meaningless in this context. My point is that those who stand outside all judgements of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse.

.... By the logic of their position they must just take their impulses as they come, from chance. And Chance here means Nature. It is from heredity, digestion, the weather, and the association of ideas, that the motives of the Conditioners will spring. Their extreme rationalism, by 'seeing through' all 'rational' motives, leaves them creatures of wholly irrational behaviour.

"Freeing" ourselves from nature actually leads to total enslavement to "nature."


Priests for Life, “Prolife Infonet News Update” (Jan 25, 2002) [accessed 2005-02-10]

5 comments:

Bonnie said...

Boy, I need to spend more time here! Great blog!

Do you think the "pride of knowledge" is behind intellectual liberalism?

Surely there's an arrogant "we smart people know better how to manage you dumb people than you do" attitude in the "nanny state," as you've said. I've always wondered whether the liberal call for social justice isn't really just a front for a patronizing attitude toward the "less fortunate." Or a power trip hoping to create a materialistic utopia on earth.

Or maybe their real motivation is political, in an "anti" sort of way. They are against the supposedly greedy bureaucrats, ... compared to whom they are actually no more generous.

Lawrence Gage said...

Bonnie,

Thanks for your encouragement! I'm sure you know that blogging sometimes seems a lonely business.

Yes, you're right about "pride of knowledge" being part of intellectual liberalism. But there's a lot more to it. Notice also that "social justice" is an extrinsic or superficial form of justice.

Duke theologian Stanley Hauerwas put it this way (to paraphrase): "The social justice crowd thinks it is possible to have a just society without just people." Since justice is necessarily ordered to another person**, this means that they think it possible to have a just society without just actions.

"Social justice" allows people to feel just by holding a set of (usually PC) beliefs (pride of knowledge, as you say; like the ancient Gnostics) without concretely helping the person right in front of them.

The welfare state destroys true charity: a machine (even a bureaucratic one) cannot exercise charity; only persons can. (Not to mention the practical drawback of having to apply universal standards to people with particular problems that some of whom need understanding and encouragement and some "tough love.")

Let me add here that not all "social justice" people are this way; some are merely saddled with poor terminology. It is telling that the original phrase (coined by a 19th-century pope—I forget which) was "social justice and mercy." It wasn't originally so much about demanding "rights" as about working from one's real wealth (justice—ordered virtues) to help God's less fortunate children.

Not that you're doing this, but it would be a mistake to spurn projects labelled "social justice" because of bad terminology. The important thing to keep in mind is that the demand for justice begins by God's call to me to be just (metanoia).

MJ

** Insofar as a man's virtues are oriented to act justly, the man is called metaphorically just (ST II-II, 58, 2).

Bonnie said...

"The social justice crowd thinks it is possible to have a just society without just people."

This statement hits the nail on the head, for sure. What's interesting to me though is how justice is defined. The social justice crowd obviously defines it differently than you or I do. As you've pointed out, their definition comes from some sort of (rather arbitrary) external standard, not from an absolute concept of personal righteousness as revealed in Scripture.

The type of discussion you are providing is really important -- the language you're using, i.e., language that cuts to the quick in generally-understood terms, is not heard often. It's so easy to resort to spiritual platitudes. I've been guilty of this myself, for lack of a better way to articulate my thoughts (...saddled with poor terminology, as you say!)

Anyway, keep it up!

Oh, one other thing: you said,
"the purposeless (or chaotic) picture of nature removed the presumption that individuals can control and improve themselves, leaving the state to contain the necessarily ensuing chaos."

I guess I've gotten a different impression from the likes of Bishop Spong and others, who, from what I understand, see man as continually "evolving" toward betterment (whatever that is) insofar as man can throw off his "old tribal mentality" and embrace a new, enlightened understanding. Your thoughts?

Please indulge me one more:

"This presumption against nature is why liberals treat the family, which no civilization in history has ever survived without, as by nature disordered and requiring the intervention of government"

Is it this alone, or is it that human nature drives one to change the rules so that what one does is not "wrong"? Never mind that the double-standard applies to this too, i.e., one may want to tell lies yet not appreciate being lied to.

Thanks for wonderful, thought-provoking stuff!

PS Have you considered providing a means of contact (email address)?

Lawrence Gage said...

Spong and others...see man as continually "evolving" toward betterment (whatever that is) insofar as man can throw off his "old tribal mentality" and embrace a new, enlightened understanding.How I can reconcile this fact with the assertion that liberals believe man by nature chaotic is a very good question.
I'm not very familiar with Spong's "thought" (though I do remember his invections against conservative African bishops are having more than a hint of--shall we say--racism?) It sounds like Teilhard de Chardin; unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to study Teilhard's ideas. I've heard that there are serious problems with his ideas (not the least of which is Darwinism's evidential problems), but I've also heard from a trustworthy and knowledgable source that he has a core insight that is true. (From what little I know Tolkein's creation myth captures at least some of this truth.)

I suspect the answer lies in the neighborhood of something like this:

Spong, et al. think themselves as more advanced (on the evolutionary scale) than those who hold different, less "progressive" opinions. They have replaced a transcendent, theological Hope with an immanent, worldly hope; otherworldly perfection with a worldly process moving toward perfection. Problem is that there can never be any endpoint to this process, which means that Perfection (the Exemplar of all) doesn't exist.

Back to the question...their presumption is that we troglodytes are chaotic, and though we can become less chaotic by learning from their superior wisdom, it's not clear that we could ever reach any sort of perfection on our own. Anyway, that's just a shot in the dusk. If you could tell me more of what Spong says, it would help.

Is it this alone, or is it that human nature drives one to change the rules so that what one does is not "wrong"?No, you're certainly right there. The explanations reinforce each other.

Thanks so much for your encouragement! It means a lot to me.

Platitudes are sayings empty of real meaning. The way to avoid them is to know what the words mean—what they really mean in the most radical sense. For this reason, we have to cultivate the rest of our thinking; we can't live a double existence, separating our spiritual life from our "secular life." The Lord who saves us is the same Lord who created everything. We need to study creation, knowing that it reflects its Maker (cf. Rm 1:20). Human thinking always explains what is less known in terms of what is more known; what we know most clearly are the sensible things directly in front of us, and we best describe God by using the language we use to describe the world. (Of course God so far transcends any of our worldly categories, that our language necessarily falls short.)

MJ

Lawrence Gage said...

I'm a little paranoid about posting my email address on the web. I noticed that you have done so on your blog. What has been your experience with that?

MJ