Jeffrey Quick's Blog

The Endarkenment and the intelligensia

"Sometimes I have believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."-- Lewis Carroll

It takes at least a masters degree to maintain an obviously contradictory position with a straight face.Folks like my wife, whose highest education was a stint in Uncle Sam's School for Killers, can't do it.Thought doesn't come easily for them, so they value it highly and do it with due deliberation. Academics can make ideas dance on the head of a pin, and in so doing often forget that ideas are masters, not servants.

There's a notion out there in Objectivist circles that, if only people bothered to think, they would never believe some of the crap that they do, and that, given enough self-examination, we can be totally rational beings. The problem is, they've never come up with an example. Rand was a fruitcake. Her disciples unto the furthest generation, myself included, have been fruitcakes. Scientologist Clears and militant atheists are fruitcakes. Inevitably, we all blank out over something. The attempt to think is absolutely worthwhile; don't get me wrong. It's just that at some point, with almost everyone, it's bound to fail. And why is that? It's because nobody can resist the lure of an unearned value, but nobody rational would attempt such a thing. This lack of resistance, in a move which will surely infuriate all the abovementioned groups, I will call Original Sin. It's an interesting way to read the Genesis story. The fruit was not theirs to take. But the snake said, "Good things will happen to you if you take the fruit that is not yours." And we've heard that argument ever since.

Today's example comes from a list dedicated to the composition of traditional classical music, but which often goes a bit off-topic. Which list and which participants aren't important here, but it's a classic blankout.

God(dess) forbid our clothing or houses or computers or musical instruments should belong to any State, even one that claims to act for the common good of "the people"! ;-) A reasonable degree of private ownership is essential.

And who decides what "a reasonable degree" is?

It goes without saying that personal freedoms are of paramount importance, especially to artists and other creative people.

However, I will support universal healthcare because of the following:

1) any "nation" that fails to be responsible for the physical health and security of its own citizens,

At which point does that responsibility end, if it exists? Since most diseases are at the very least abetted by poor diet, wouldn't the State's "responsibility for physical health" mandate government-provided perfectly-balanced meals, cooked in licensed government kitchens (to prevent food poisoning)? Why don't we have "universal food care?" "Well, because everybody wants to eat something different" Well, everybody wants different health care too. Most people want to see a MD, but some want homeopathy, or chiropractic, or naturopathy, or to be prayed over by a Christian Science practitioner, or have rattles shaken over them. Will the government provide all that, or will it "be responsible" and force those other foolish people into the standard "scientific" healthcare system? Will it arrest people for not getting their annual checkup? Aren't those "personal freedoms" which should be of "paramount importance"? What about hearing protection? there's music out there that's too loud to listen to. And it's not just rock; think of those poor orchestral musicians playing Wagner and Stravinsky. A government big enough to tell you what to eat and how to treat your ills is big enough to tell you what kind of music you must write if you want it to be performed.

There are two places where all physical needs are taken care of: farms and prisons. I'm not livestock or a jailbird. Or the property of the State.

and elevates profits above people,

I have never understood that mindless slogan. People invest; people make profits. If you decide that "profits are bad", and forbid people from making them (or control or tax what they make, which is a milder version of the same thing), haven't YOU actually put profits above people, given that those people wanted to make a profit? I think it was J. Paul Getty, who when asked "How much money is enough?" said "One more dollar than I have now." Now, that's not me...I'm not that strongly motivated by money. But that's how many performances "enough performances" would be for me, so I can understand the motivation. And as long as it doesn't involve force or fraud, I'm all for it, because anyone making those kinds of profits is providing what other
people want.

amounts, in my view, to nothing more than a tenuous coalition unworthy of the name

2) as a result of very negative personal experiences with the insurance industry and healthcare system and the fact that so many of my artist friends are now uninsured through no fault of their own, I see that such a reform is necessary. In fact, I would go much further, and make provisions to ensure that no personal or natural disaster leaves anyone homeless and destitute. (Before Katrina, there was Andrew, and I was there! It was very, very bad, even with insurance.)

well, you aren't God (to control disasters), so I guess what you want to insure is that people be helped ASAP. I'm all for that. That's what charities are for, and I assume you give liberally. I also assume that you support price-rationing of things like hotel rooms and generators near hurricane areas, so that those who need them the most can get them, instead of people buying separate rooms for Grandma and the kids. And that you're looking to move out of hurricane or earthquake territory (we don't have either, and not many tornadoes, in Ohio). The point is that government is not necessary to insure these things, and that (as in Katrina) they can actively make things worse.

That much said, I tend to agree that the government is best that governs least (cf. Thoreau),

You can't be a thinking man and sit with that contradiction. If you want a government powerful enough to provide universal healthcare, you want a damn big government. Even the power to shake that much money out of its citizens' pockets is too much, let alone what happens when it gets the money. And even if you find a staff of saints and philosopher-kings to run it (which you admit is impossible), they are still going to run roughshod over your rights and personal freedoms, as do-gooders have always done (that's an -"ism" too). There is no difference between "personal liberties" and "economic liberties" -- they are one seamless whole.

but with the provisio that such a government is impossible without ethical politicians of the kind that today seem to be in deplorably short supply.

You should have ended that phrase after the tenth word.