I have found something that I thought that I had read. I had thought that Poul Anderson argued somewhere that a successful liberal politician must be dishonest because, if he is successful, then he is intelligent and, if he is intelligent, then he knows that liberal values are falsehoods. This is clearly the passage that I had in mind although its targets are not, as I had thought, liberal politicians but "demagogues":
"'Appropriate technology' is a slogan by which a few demagogues, some of whom must know better and are therefore consciously lying, rouse hordes of ignoramuses who who can't be bothered to learn a little elementary science."
-Poul Anderson, "Commentary" IN Anderson, Space Folk (New York, 1989), pp. 257-260 AT p. 258.
15 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I agree with Poul Anderson, there ARE demagogues who behave as cynically and dishonestly as this. A clear example being the hysteria whipped up against the use of nuclear energy!
Sean
Sean,
I find it hard to believe, though, that informed campaigners are consciously dishonest.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But many politicians and campaigners are dishonest. I take a grimmer view, I fear, of human affairs and politics than you do, it seems.
Sean
Sean,
Many professional politicians, yes.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Good, we agree on that much!
Sean
Poul tended to underestimate the power of the human will to believe -- what's technically known as motivated reasoning, confirmation bias and identity-protective cognition.
Generally speaking, people start with the conclusion they want and then go looking for reasons; the human mind doesn't have an inner philosopher searching for "truth"; it has an inner lawyer making a case.
Even if someone initially espouses a point with cynical disregard for truth, they will often come to sincerely believe in it simply by repetition and by associating with other people saying the same thing -- the desire to fit in and agree with your social reference group is enormously powerful.
And the real-world consequences of -not- agreeing and -not- fitting in range from the personally disagreeable to the lethal.
These are enormously powerful forces, much stronger than "reason".
Mr Stirling,
Right now there is a campaign to accuse the long-term anti-racist, Jeremy Corbyn, of anti-Semitism. No doubt well-meaning people join demonstrations with placards.
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
That was interesting, I never got the impression that Poul Anderson underestimated the power of the human will to believe, of motivated reasoning, of confirmation bias, and identity protective cognition. Perhaps he could have stressed such things more sharply in some of his works. Instead of leaving them to be inferred.
Sean
I don't think Corbyn isn an antisemite in the sense of finding Jews personally loathsome or wanting to kill them.
The problem is that he doesn't feel an instant recognition of people who do, or an instant repugnance at associating with people who do -- he's systematically tone-deaf to it, as witness things like not instantly seeing the classic antisemitic references in that painting of hook-nosed bankers around at table (whose maker -did- spout directly antisemitic conspiracy theories about the Rothschilds when called on it).
Or saying Jews in England don't appreciate "English irony" even if they've lived there all their lives (thus implying they're aliens who aren't English and can't be). Or publicly associating with Jew-killers who've threatened genocide against Jews and calling them "brothers".
Or contributing to websites frequented by Holocaust-deniers, and defending other people who do until he runs into a buzz-saw of public hostility about it, and then makes an unconvincing quasi-retreat.
And he visibly is baffled when this is pointed out to him, and feels aggrieved -- you can tell his non-apology apologies (*) are forced and meaningless, and that he's really convinced that he's being unjustly persecuted for things he couldn't possibly be guilty of by people who must be liars operating from bad faith.
Two biblical quotes are relevant in that context: "Touch not the unclean thing" and "come out from amongst them".
If you don't want to be justifiably if harshly tarred as an antisemite, you must rigorously avoid any sort of relationship (except denunciation and anathematization) with antisemites -and with their friends-. You can't be friends with people who are hostile to Jews.
It's not enough to not personally hate Jews as individuals.
You have to be "on side", if you're involved in the issues at all. It's painfully obvious that his "heart is not in the right place". For starters, you don't get to tell Jews the acceptable terms of their collective existence; you don't get to tell Jews what they can be on pain of your disapproval.
(*) a genuine apology starts with an -admission of fault-. You can't apologize if you're still trying to defend what you did, or claiming to be misunderstood, or saying some weasel word like "I'm sorry you're upset". An actual apology recognizes that the other party is right and that their anger at you is righteous and justified. It requires a degree of self-abasement, of surrender and willingly accepted humiliation.
Sean: Poul was familiar with the concepts -- they're very old, though not until recently have they been scientifically investigated -- but he thought in terms of some people deluding themselves and others being objective and rational.
This is far too optimistic.
Mr Stirling,
You are very well informed about British politics! The problem (or at least one problem!) is that pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist campaigns are branded as anti-Semitic by Zionists and anti-Corbynists.
Paul.
Daar Mr. Stirling and Paul,
Mr. Stirling: that is correct, Poul Anderson did tend to write and speak as you described. And translated into literary/SF terms, he COULD have written more often of characters who were actively, indisputably BAD people. Not merely of well meaning people who believed in bad ideas.
Paul: I have some interest in British affairs, but my knowledge of them is nowhere as in depth as that of Mr. Stirling. But what he said about the unsatisfactory (to put it mildly) Jeremy Corbyn fits in what I have read of him. Corbyn associates too eagerly and willingly with UNDOUBTED haters of Jews and makes unconvincing retractions and weasel worded fake apologies for what he said or the implications of what he said about Jews.
If the UK Labour Party does not want to become as repulsive and loathsome as the US Democratic Party, then people like Jeremy Corbym will need to be expelled.
Sean
Paul: the problem is that most Palestinians do not want coexistence, which requires as a minimum acceptance of the outcome of the 1947-48 war and all its consequences, which their leadership at the time brought on themselves by rejecting the Partition Resolution and declaring an intent to physically destroy the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Mandate Palestine.
The Jews accepted the Partition Resolution, which was far short of what they regarded as their just claims. They almost certainly did so in the firm expectation that the Arabs would reject it... but that means nothing.
You don't get to reject compromise, appeal to the 'wager of battle', promise destruction to the other side if you win... and then complain about the results if you lose. Any subsequent suffering is essentially self-inflicted.
It's on your head; you have forfeited all right to consideration, and all previous claims are void. War isn't about justice, which is altogether a subjective concept: war is about power, which can be objectively demonstrated as a fact.
If you launch a war, you're consenting to whatever results the actual balance of power produces, and that includes instances in which you overestimated your chances.
Exemplia gratia: between 11,000,000 and 14,000,000 Germans were ethnically cleansed from Eastern Europe after 1945, in the same years as the Israeli War of Independence, and between a minimum of 500,000 and a plausible maximum of two million were massacred in the process -- locked in trains and allowed to die of thirst, herded into churches and burned alive, just plain shot and bludgeoned and put behind wire and starved.
This doesn't give their descendants the status of "refugees" or any rights in the former East Prussia or the Sudetenland. Bluntly, they simply had it coming. Germans don't get to play the "suffering victim" card in the context of WWII.
As one of their children said at a conference on refugees a few years ago, "I can visit in peace the village where my ancestors lived for a thousand years precisely because I freely admit I have no right to return there."
Most Palestinians want an Arab-Muslim state over the whole of Mandate Palestine in which Jews would be a dwindling persecuted minority. This is the dearest wish of their hearts.
Such a desire is a statement of genocidal intent.
You cannot be -for- such people and not also want mass death for Jews. There is no box marked "other".
Mr Stirling,
Thanks. There was some ethnic cleansing in the setting up of Palestine and there is oppression of Palestinians now? I want to see one secular state where everyone is equal but I can see that it is complicated, to say the least.
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling and Paul,
Mr. Stirling: I agree absolutely with what you said, both about the German and Palestinian Muslim examples. The brutality, fanaticism, absolute refusal to accept any kind of compromise, and unrelenting hatred of Jews (and to a somewhat lesser extent, Christians) shown by Palestinian Muslims has long ago caused me to reject any sympathy I might have had for them and their claims.
Paul: MY view is that it is impossible for there to be a truly "secular" state (in the better senses of that term), if the majority of the population is Muslim. Because ISLAM teaches the only acceptable form of state/society is one shaped/molded by Muslim ideas and Sharia law. There is NOTHING in the Koran about rendering to God and Caesar what belongs to them.
Sean
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