To the left, as advertised, is Thomas Sowell, he of the National Review, Stanford University, good friend of Justice Clarence Thomas, and frequent guest, at least in the 1990's, on G. Gordon Liddy's radio program (one knows a person by their friends, I am told . . .). Courtesy of this post at Think Progress.org (which I saw last night, but had not time to write about) comes this piece from the aforementioned Thomas Sowell:When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.
As Kevin Drum notes, in a linked post in the original TP.org notice, this particular little non-thought is apropos of nothing, one among a laundry list of random musings from what passes for his mind.
Now, were this the only example from the past couple days of such insanity, I would chalk it up to the frustration of a moral and intellectual midget faced with stubborn reality not conforming to their ideology. Today, however, I read Glenn Greenwald's analysis of this piece by Harvard government professor Harvey Mansfield, at the Wall Street Journal. The piece, a Machiavellian analysis of the defects in American democracy as it currently exists (Mansfield has written extensively on Machiavelli, as well as the translator and editor of my own copy of Toqueville's Democracy in America) contains the following cheerful thoughts:
The best source of energy turns out to be the same as the best source of reason--one man. One man, or, to use Machiavelli's expression, uno solo, will be the greatest source of energy if he regards it as necessary to maintaining his own rule. Such a person will have the greatest incentive to be watchful, and to be both cruel and merciful in correct contrast and proportion. We are talking about Machiavelli's prince, the man whom in apparently unguarded moments he called a tyrant. . .
The president takes an oath "to execute the Office of President" of which only one function is to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." In addition, he is commander-in-chief of the military, makes treaties (with the Senate), and receives ambassadors. He has the power of pardon, a power with more than a whiff of prerogative for the sake of a public good that cannot be achieved, indeed that is endangered, by executing the laws. . . .
In quiet times the rule of law will come to the fore, and the executive can be weak. In stormy times, the rule of law may seem to require the prudence and force that law, or present law, cannot supply, and the executive must be strong.
So, in the past two days, two prominent right-wing (pseudo) intellectuals publish articles that, in essence, attack democracy. I could be dismissive and say, "You know, this just shows how intellectually vapid and morally vicious right-wingers are," but that hardly does such frightening stuff justice. We are in the presence of the truly scary - the dismissal of democracy out of fear, either of terrorism or of democracy itself.
I was going to wait to write the following, but I think it is important to point out here that such anti-democratic musings are neither new nor limited to contemporary right-wingers. In the 1920's, The New Republic's founding editor Walter Lippmann wrote a small book entitled Public Opinion which has influenced elite thinking and discourse on American democracy ever since. Lippmann was frustrated and disillusioned with the Wilson Administration's failures during and after the First World War to mount a successful propaganda effort. He had been all in favor of the Sedition Act, the Palmer raids, the jailing of anti-war and anti-draft leaders; his complaint was that Wilson had not been vigorous enough in galvanizing public opinion to the cause. The result of his disillusion was his little book, which stated explicitly what too many people bleat nonsensically to this day - the American people are stupid sheep, needing a wise sheepdog and shepherd to guide them towards rational policy and political decision-making; democracy is much too inefficient to be left with the polloi and the lumpenproletariat who make up the country, so, just as Taylor had revolutionized industry with his managerial theories, Lippmann sought to revolutionize democracy with his own political Taylorism. Of course, for Lippmann, good friend and classmate of Marxist John Reed, office assistant to Lincoln Steffens when the Socialist was elected mayor of Schenectady, NY, this was nothing less than applying Lenin's reappraisal of Marx to American democracy. Both are elitist, inherently authoritarian, and anti-democratic. We have been suffering from the failed theories of Lippmann ever since, and both Mansfield and Sowell are direct descendants of this whole anti-democratic strain among our elites. David Broder suffers from the same illness, and is part of the reason he is such an insufferably irrelevant twit - he has neither the learning nor insight to hide his disdain for real Americans, even as he tries so desperately to speak to them.
As the Bush Presidency crumbles around us, as the ideological and practical supports collapse under the multiple strains of reality and public pressure, we will in all likelihood read and hear more of this kind of dangerous talk. It is incumbent upon all of us to demand more, and more, and even more democracy - more speech, more protest, more Congressional oversight - to counter the anti-democratic tendencies among our current ruling elites. The only ones who will defend democracy are, in the end, the people.
UPDATE: So I saw this post by tristero over at Hullabaloo, with a slightly different perspective from that of the Glenn Greenwald piece linked above. I am forced to agree with tristero, much as I have a man-crush on Greenwald, because the truth is, Mansfield's writing and thinking wouldn't pass an undergraduate survey class in political theory. They are conduct unbecoming an alleged intellectual at one of our finer institutions for educating our young. If this is the kind of thing Mansfield presents his classes, is it any wonder our political class is so messed up?
One point tristero makes, with gusto, that I just want to echo is the following - if this (and, by my own extension, Sowell) is the best conservatives can do in the guise of intellectual discourse, I have to say that right-wingers need to go back and read Edmund Burke, perhaps the last coherent conservative intellectual. Whether it's the anti-realistic hackery of Milton Friedman, the mind-numbing stupidity of Russell Kirk, or the gross lame-brainedness of Sowell and Mansfield on display today, these folks just can't hack it. I once read somewhere that Americans are infatuated with, and intimidated by, three letters more than any other: Ph.D. The problem, of course, is all that means is the individual knows how to negotiate certain hoops and curves and mazes of academe. Earning the title "Doctor" by know means indicates intelligence; some of the most outrageously stupid, inane people I have ever met were college professors, which is why I decided against becoming one. It seems the dumb ones were always in charge of the department.
We shouldn't be intimidated by Sowell's credentials or Mansfield's cv. Rather, we should just tear them apart if they are erroneous, full of it, lying, irritating, illogical, and just plain not of this earth (I loved tristero's comment about "the real United States" not "the United States in the galaxy Glorm"; that's the kind of takedown one always enjoys). Having a Ph.D. is not inoculation against stupidity, it just means your stupidity has more authority than other people's.
UPDATE: Specifically in regards to the remark of Thomas Sowell, I want to make clear that the lack of serious thought, the intellectual vacuousness, and political and moral viciousness inherent in such a statement clearly show that he is not so much in a line running back to Lippmann, as he is in a line running back to Joseph McCarthy. Fearful of real democracy, its messiness, the multi-various, multi-faceted nature of American society, and its expression in our public discourse, Sowell is expressing an inherent disdain for democracy precisely because he seeks to be rescued from having to defend himself in public. His ideas, and those of his fellow conservatives, are without serious intellectual or moral merit. Rather than face the truth that progressive ideas are succeeding precisely because they are successful, he would stifle debate to end the shame of having to face his own intellectual and moral shortcomings. At heart, Sowell is a coward. Should I ever meet him face to face, I would be more than happy to say so.
