J.K. Galbraith, quoted by the excellent Chad and reblogged by many of my absolute favorites, towards whom I mean no disrespect by the following:
I like Galbraith, but this is patently untrue; even if it were the functional outcome of conservative policy, it is no more accurate than saying that “Communists were engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for killing everyone who doesn’t submit to your rule and many more besides.”
That’s what they wrought, but it’s not what they searched for. The transformation of what we all seek -a better world for ourselves and those we care for- into what we create -a world of faction, discord, exploitation, and needless suffering- is the crucial mystery of human life. Why does all we touch turn to dust?
If one does not understand that those whose beliefs one despises believe them just as one believe one’s own, with the same sense of logical clarity, moral decency, and threatened sensitivity, one does not understand humanity, history, conflict, or even, perhaps, the nature of reason.
For Galbraith to perpetuate the idea that whomever we disagree with we ought to fault for evil intentions or selfishness is odd; I am astonished at the statistically-indefensible reductionism of it. Tens of millions of individuals aggregated into a mass and crushed beneath a patronizing quip, the thrust of which is simple: if you don’t agree with me, it’s because you’re a bad person and your arguments are just pretexts.
I remember when conservatives described anti-war protesters as “America-hating radicals in peace-protester disguise; they want us to lose!” And I recall when any activity against their interests was ascribed by Soviet or American cold warriors to “the subterfuge of the enemy.” It is common enough to deny the agency of disagreeable individual actors and suggest that only the gnosis of the party elite can detect the true (devious and dim) motivations of the automata across the ideological divide. It is common and it is wrong, logically and ethically.
Here is the question one must ask: is it possible to imagine someone with a good heart and a sound or even brilliant mind who disagrees with our political beliefs? If no one with a good heart or mind can disagree with us, why should we permit the enfranchisement of those who disagree? If we know what is right, what principle of pluralism could possibly obstruct our implementation of what is right? This is the justification, of course, which all totalitarians use: why let evil or stupid inferior-types restrain our progress?
If we say that we can imagine such a person -or better, that we know such people, as I do-, we’ll see at once how silly Galbraith is here. (I might add that Galbraith is engaged in an old sort of moral philosophy, too: the ad hominem insulting of opponents to avoid the difficulty of empathy, engagement, and persuasion).
I have known both liberals and conservatives vastly smarter and of better character than I am; I suppose I am lucky for that, or I might be inclined to believe that anyone who doesn’t accept my reasoning is just looking for a fancy disguise for their low immorality. As it is, I must accept the basic proposition of democracy: no man can be said with finality to know what is best, or what is in his peers’ hearts.
(Note: My hero Langer has already responded).















