At the Brussels Journal yesterday, George Handlery discusses the Iranian nuclear question. What he has to say, particularly early-on in his essay, is a great analogy of democracy as the fable of the Emperor’s new clothes:

We like to assume as we idealize democracy that common sense and officially accepted wisdom interrelate. Alas, this relationship can frequently be a negative one. What is generally accepted can and will often make no sense…

What is meant here by accepted wisdom? It is the gamut of assumptions made into commands by a largely self-appointed élite – celebrities, professors, reporters and the “beautiful people” – self-authorized to think in our behalf. In the debate about public affairs, common sense equals the child’s cry, “The emperor has no clothes”. In the fable, accepted wisdom is represented by the crowd that saw what it saw but still pretended to believe what it was told.

As if he were channeling Mill, who cautions that, “The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. A contemporary author has well spoken of ‘the deep slumber of a decided opinion’” Handlery makes a case for there being too much self-reinforcing “accepted wisdom,” and not enough “common sense,” and on this issue I wholeheartedly agree. Accepting the “collective wisdom” is a denial of one’s fallibility. Would that there were far less of that brand of accepted wisdom. It’s worth a read, although I’m unfortunately rather convinced that Handlery was drunk by the time he concluded it, because a few sentences are grammatical nightmares. Either that, or he ran it back-and-forth through babelfish.

So what about Iran? According to Handlery, accepted wisdom perverts Pascal’s wager; suggesting that nothing can be done, and even if it could, it wouldn’t be enough. On the contrary, common sense tells us: “Don’t do nothing!” – or to be grammatically correct, “Do something.”
I don’t know what to do, but it wouldn’t involve invasion.

Now, it’s imperative to apply the common sense/accepted wisdom test to pretty much everything you hear from any so-called authority: if you’re going to challenge the conclusion, you need to examine the premises, too. I’d suggest starting with the notion that “democracy” is something to be idealized in the first place, because common sense will prove to you that it is not – but I digress. Handlery limits this test to the policy recommendations of self-styled authorities and petty-dictators. I’d include “politicians” in that mix – collectively these people are often inventing or revealing the very problems they aim to resolve in the first place! How do we even know the problem is real? If they don’t know how to solve the problem, isn’t it possible that it’s not been properly diagnosed to begin with? And then what?

It’s hard to believe anything about international relations or foreign policy these days, so here’s a wager of my own: even if Iran isn’t a threat, she’d be portrayed as one anyways.

Because it’s not about destroying Iran, or ending despotism, or seeding democracy in backwards countries – it’s about control.

Get ready for the newspeak:

The EU is not a European superstate, [Italian President Giorgio] Napolitano said, it is a “a new form of democracy.”

Sounds like pan-European hegemony, if you ask me. Democracy’s many, many demerits notwithstanding, it is by definition a government of the people. Whatever you take that to mean, removing the people from the political process is fundamentally a negation of democracy, no matter how much you dress it up. When the constituents of a “democracy” are subject to a higher, overriding power, democracy no longer exists. It’s either democracy (which is not a value judgement), or it’s not.

The EU is an aspiring Super-state which can only be realized if the old States relinquish power. This is unlikely to come from within, and therefore its genesis must be foreign. A slave does not choose willingly a harsher, stronger master. Now, the E.U. calls itself a democracy, while attempting to usurp the historical sovereigns, and in no way accountable to their respective serfs. The Britons (or the French, or the Dutch, etc.) will never have the popular appeal to unilaterally effect change within their borders – as long as they are subject to the E.U.’s brand of democracy. And if they will not give up the power, it must be taken from them.

Of note, is the classic rationalization for representative government: the people are too stupid to make appropriate decisions on matters concerning politics, therefore it is necessary that an autocrat/dictator/philosopher king/etc. make these decisions for the people. Typically slipped in the back door is the fact that the autocrat/dictator/philosopher king establishes his own rules about how future autocrats and dictators can be chosen, and also about who may become the future leaders – this, as always, is to protect the people from themselves.

But if people are too stupid to judge what needs to be done, they can’t really be counted on to elect the right people to make these decisions in the first place. Which raises the question: “How in the hell do we figure out who’s in charge, if we’re all so goddamned stupid?”

And furthermore, if we’re all so stupid, we cannot be expected to judge post hoc the consequences of the policies put into place by the leaders we’re unfit to elect to solve the problems we’re unfit to evaluate. The argument for authority can be reduced to the internally inconsistent “I judge that I should not judge,” and therefore must be false. Like the hydra of mythology, no matter how many times this lie is beaten down, it comes back with yet another head.

Such is the price of vigilance.

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H/T: Brussels Journal