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Liberalism’s Pessimistic Elites - Among the liberal establishment, there is gloom, selfishness, and demographic cynicism
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The pessimism of the liberal establishment about the capacity of voters to cast intelligent ballots in next week’s election is matched only by their doubt about the capacity of citizens to make intelligent choices in their own daily lives. The two pessimisms are closely related and go far toward explaining why liberal elites continue to cherish a vision of rule by beneficent experts not unlike that of the nine ranks of philosophical mandarins in old China, each distinguished by its characteristic button.
The belief that the common man is an idiot is the perennial cri de coeur of mandarinism. If most people are fools on whom “facts and science and argument” have little effect, it makes sense to deprive them (as discreetly as possible) of as much liberty of action and electoral leverage as practicable. It makes sense to enact laws that limit their freedom of choice and “nudge” them into making the approved decisions. It makes sense to outsource regulatory and purse-string power to administrative czars and quasi-independent bodies, to stimulus and bailout sages, to all those boards and commissions of experts which, being insulated from the power of voters to hire and fire their representatives, have proved to be less accountable to democracy than elected lawmakers and magistrates.
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The pessimism of the liberal elites grows out of the paradoxical nature of their situation as apologists for mandarinism in a democracy. The mandarin who oscillates between government work and lucrative assignments from private firms eager to exploit his connections to the powerful; the banker whose bonuses are implicitly subsidized by a too-big-to-fail policy he has lobbied the state to adopt; the teachers-union bigwig whose grandeurs are underwritten by stinted schoolchildren “waiting for superman”; the progressive lawmaker who oversees the financial industry and accepts gifts from its tycoons — none of these potentates can reconcile the grace and favor he enjoys on account of his privileged relation to the state with his egalitarian professions of fairness. Dissimulation is the school of morose spirits; and the continuous practice of hypocrisy will in time degrade the tone of even the most sanguine mind.
The sourness of the elites sheds light on their dark romance with an Old World mandarinism in which the citizen (in Tocqueville’s words) is “accustomed to find a functionary always at hand to interfere with all he undertakes,” and a central authority that “says to him: ‘You shall act just as I please, as much as I please, and in the direction which I please.’” Mandarinism assorts well with the elitist’s low opinion of others’ potential and his conviction that he himself is always the smartest one in the room. At the same time, the power the mandarin derives from his policies does something to make up for the burden of dissembling he bears in selling his program to people who are not intelligent enough to appreciate the virtues of a directing elite.
Most people may not be geniuses, but smart people aren’t all that bright either. That is why Tocqueville, although he was himself a highly cultivated aristocrat and deeply learned man, argued that freedom is the best policy. He favored not the pessimistic mandarinism of Europe but the optimistic American faith that the citizenry should to the greatest extent practicable be left “free in its gait and responsible for its acts.” “It profits me but little,” he said,
Tocqueville’s wake-up call has seldom been more pertinent.
The belief that the common man is an idiot is the perennial cri de coeur of mandarinism. If most people are fools on whom “facts and science and argument” have little effect, it makes sense to deprive them (as discreetly as possible) of as much liberty of action and electoral leverage as practicable. It makes sense to enact laws that limit their freedom of choice and “nudge” them into making the approved decisions. It makes sense to outsource regulatory and purse-string power to administrative czars and quasi-independent bodies, to stimulus and bailout sages, to all those boards and commissions of experts which, being insulated from the power of voters to hire and fire their representatives, have proved to be less accountable to democracy than elected lawmakers and magistrates.
***
The pessimism of the liberal elites grows out of the paradoxical nature of their situation as apologists for mandarinism in a democracy. The mandarin who oscillates between government work and lucrative assignments from private firms eager to exploit his connections to the powerful; the banker whose bonuses are implicitly subsidized by a too-big-to-fail policy he has lobbied the state to adopt; the teachers-union bigwig whose grandeurs are underwritten by stinted schoolchildren “waiting for superman”; the progressive lawmaker who oversees the financial industry and accepts gifts from its tycoons — none of these potentates can reconcile the grace and favor he enjoys on account of his privileged relation to the state with his egalitarian professions of fairness. Dissimulation is the school of morose spirits; and the continuous practice of hypocrisy will in time degrade the tone of even the most sanguine mind.
The sourness of the elites sheds light on their dark romance with an Old World mandarinism in which the citizen (in Tocqueville’s words) is “accustomed to find a functionary always at hand to interfere with all he undertakes,” and a central authority that “says to him: ‘You shall act just as I please, as much as I please, and in the direction which I please.’” Mandarinism assorts well with the elitist’s low opinion of others’ potential and his conviction that he himself is always the smartest one in the room. At the same time, the power the mandarin derives from his policies does something to make up for the burden of dissembling he bears in selling his program to people who are not intelligent enough to appreciate the virtues of a directing elite.
Most people may not be geniuses, but smart people aren’t all that bright either. That is why Tocqueville, although he was himself a highly cultivated aristocrat and deeply learned man, argued that freedom is the best policy. He favored not the pessimistic mandarinism of Europe but the optimistic American faith that the citizenry should to the greatest extent practicable be left “free in its gait and responsible for its acts.” “It profits me but little,” he said,
that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life, and if it so monopolizes movement and life that when it languishes everything languishes around it, that when it sleeps everything must sleep, and that when it dies the state itself must perish.
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