In Defense of Clear Thinking
by Butler Shaffer
The ultimate result of
shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with
fools. -- Herbert Spencer
My academic life in college was largely spent studying what were then
referred to as the "liberal arts." History, geography,
economics, philosophy, art, literature, music, psychology, and the
genuine sciences, were among the various subject areas we considered
essential to becoming mature, self-directed, learned individuals. We also
studied one or more foreign languages, not simply to help us navigate our
trips to other lands, but to provide us with the perspective that there
are other people on the planet who think, live, and speak
differently from us.
This approach to learning helped to provide us with the means of thinking
clearly, rationally, and logically; to help us understand causal
relationships in analyzing the interconnected and unpredictable
complexities of our world; to distinguish fact from fantasy, and
transcendent truths from fashionable opinion; all for the purpose of
living as responsible individuals pursuing our respective self-interests
with others.
I won’t dwell, here, on how most colleges have long since abandoned such
purposes in favor of curricula that [1] focus on career skills, and/or
[2] serve the ideological policies of groups with social/political
agendas, whose members have largely taken over the so-called "social
sciences." One of the numerous adverse consequences of this
transformation has been to produce many college graduates who are unable
to bring the art of critical thinking to an analysis of events. An
example is found in the incapacity of so many persons to identify causal
connections between actions undertaken by political systems and the
consequences thereof. When government officials intervene in economic
decision-making [e.g., mandating minimum wage laws] that produces adverse
consequences [e.g., increased unemployment], even seemingly well-educated
men and women fail to see the relationship. Indeed, economic ignorance
tends to feed upon itself, a fact addressed in Murray Rothbard’s comment
that "[i]t is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after
all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a
'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud
and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state
of ignorance."
Another example of the disordered thinking produced by the failure to
develop causal explanations of events began occurring right after the
recent shootings in Tucson. How easily have people fallen for the statist
lines that these killings were "caused" by private gun
ownership, talk radio, the Internet, hostile rhetoric, or some mushy
sense of a "failure to get along." I am surprised that the
statists have not tried to exploit the shootings as another symptom of
global warming! The comments made by politicians, government officials,
and media flaks, have all acknowledged the presence of an atmosphere of
anger in America, but none have addressed the cause of such
widespread resentment.
Nearly four decades ago, I wrote an article -- titled Violence As a
Product of Imposed Order -- that was published, in 1975, in the
University of Miami Law Review. At the core of this article was a
discussion of what is known as the "frustration-aggression"
hypothesis. Briefly stated, the idea is premised on a recognition that
each of us is motivated by the pursuit of what we consider to be our
self-interest. Without any need for forcible direction from
others, we will organize our energies and other resources in an effort to
maximize our well-being.
When our self-directed, self-serving undertakings are forcibly interfered
with by others [e.g., the state], our purposes become frustrated, a
consequence of which is often a resort to aggression. A number of
contributors to the study of aggression tell us much of the dynamics
regarding aggression. Two such commentators observe, "[a] person
feels frustrated when a violation of his hopes or expectations occurs,
and he may then try to solve the problem by attacking the presumed source
of frustration." In words that seem to have particular application
to our present world, another adds: "I believe we are witnessing at
all levels of our social network a conflict based on dualistic thinking,
the polarities of which are personal or individual freedom as against
social structures maintaining the functions of regulation and
control." Another scholar expresses the point more succinctly:
"[w]hen our drive to master the environment, or take from it what we
need, is obstructed, we become angry." As two others observe:
"the feeling that one has little control over his own destiny may
lead to attempts to restore oneself as an active agent. This may involve
attacking those who appear to be influencing and controlling the
individual."
The voices of institutionalism -- whose function it is to constantly
remind us that "all is for the best in this best of all possible
worlds" -- will reject notions that the forces of the status quo
have any causal connection to the violence and other aggression that
surrounds us. When, during the 2008 Republican presidential
"debates," Ron Paul introduced the idea of "blowback"
as an explanation for the terrorism of 9/11, Rudy Giuliani revealed
himself as intellectually unfit for any government office by expressing
shock and resentment at Paul’s analysis. What Paul was explicating, of
course, was the "frustration-aggression" hypothesis: if X
attacks Y, Y may choose to retaliate by attacking X. Children on the
playground understand this basic fact, even if former New York City
mayors do not. Those with even a rudimentary understanding of physics
will recognize the proposition as Newton’s "third law of
motion."
Those who refuse to recognize the causal connection between state action
and the epidemic of anger sweeping the world, would do well to ask this
question: why do political systems have to rely on the use of violence
to accomplish their ends? Violence forces life to abandon its own
purposes, and to move in directions it does not want to go. What could be
more frustrating, more conducive to aggression, than to deny to life its
very sense of being? Individuals and firms operating in the free market
don’t employ such methods. Indeed, this is what clearly distinguishes the
state from a free market system. Buyers and sellers in the
marketplace prosper by appealing to -- not frustrating --
one another’s purposes. Voluntary transactions are not only
profitable to each of the participants, but to society as a whole. Why,
then, the attraction of some, and the sanction of so many
others, to violent methods of dealing with one another? Why do we
persist in pretending that such practices serve any purposes beneficial
to life? Why do we condemn the victims of state-generated
conflict, compulsion, and brute-force for their counterattacks? Why do we
not grasp the obvious fact that we are destroying our lives, as well as
the lives of our children and grandchildren, by refusing to withdraw our
energies from the kind of antiquated, organizational thinking that life,
itself, can no longer tolerate?
The vertically-structured systems through which the institutional order
has long operated are in a state of collapse. In large part because of
technologies [e.g., the Internet] that are diffusing the control of
information into the hands of the millions rather than just the few, our
social systems – and thinking – are rapidly becoming decentralized. The
political establishment has mobilized its violent powers in a desperate
effort to shore up its weakened foundations and reinvigorate the status
quo. But such efforts will no more halt the ongoing transformations than
did the Luddite machine-breaking riots curb the Industrial Revolution.
What the state’s increasing resort to coercion will do, however, is to
further expand the sense of frustration people experience in their
efforts to promote their self-interests. As economic dislocations
continue to spread; as wars against the rest of the world widen the paths
of destruction; as individual lives are subjected to more expansive and
sophisticated police-state surveillance and intrusions; as men and women
experience an ever-diminishing sense of the material and emotional
quality of their lives; the resulting frustrations will produce more
aggressive reactions.
As a result of institutionalized conditioning, we have grown up with
certain expectations of the political system. Among these are lies such
as that government exists to protect our lives and other property
interests; that the state is necessary for the creation and maintenance
of social order; and that we -- the ordinary people -- control
it. In recent years, men and women have gotten fleeting glimpses
of the man behind the curtain, and are beginning to see through the fraud
and deception that has long been practiced upon them. There is a growing
awareness that the system does not serve its avowed purposes, thus
producing a frustration of expectations which, in turn, produces more
aggression. Even as the statists try to shift the blame for all of this
to the Totos of the world, centrifugal forces continue their
redistribution of social energies, and neither "all the king’s
horses nor all the king’s men" will be able to stop the process. As
we discovered, along with Dorothy and her friends from Oz, you cannot
lose your innocence more than once.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer228.html
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