The Most Terrifying Words in the English Language
December 4, 2008Those words are “How to Fix the World”. Just the sound of the words makes my guts turn to ice water. It should have the same effect on all conservatives. When those words are accompanied by a photo of Barack Obama, well, the fear is compounded.
Even discussing how to fix the world presumes there is something wrong with the world that we can contemplate fixing. Then it assumes that whatever it is that needs fixing can actually be fixed and that somebody – in this case Obama – should fix it. Both assumptions are simultaneously ridiculous and terrifying. They are, unsurprisingly, always born of liberalism.
Liberals universally believe that humans are malleable. They hold that everything people do is the result of some external force imposed upon them. Criminals rob and kill because they had no fathers or because they lived in poverty. Terrorists fly airplanes into buildings because they are oppressed and poor. Every crime or misdeed is the fault of institutions. Gluttony doesn’t make people fat, McDonald’s does. Smoking isn’t an individual decision, it is imposed on people by big tobacco. It goes on and on: institutional racism makes minorities have children out of wedlock, corporations make people greedy and drug companies make people addicts. Liberals believe that if people aren’t perfect citizens, it is the fault of institutions, society and the world.
Conservatives universally take a different view of human nature. Conservatives see humans as individual entities who are ultimately responsible for their own actions. If you are a criminal, that is your decision and it was not imposed upon you. If you are fat, it sure as hell wasn’t because McDonald’s put a gun to your head and shoved McRibbs down your pie hole. If you are poor, you need to make some changes and work out of that, huh? Conservatives don’t blame institutions for what people do or don’t do. The responsibility for individual behavior lies with individuals. Institutions don’t corrupt people, people corrupt institutions.
Therein lies what Thomas Sowell calls a “Conflict of Visions”. Liberals believe people are malleable and can become anything that institutions mold them into. From this we see the hard left slogans like “A New Communist Man” or “The Great Leap Forward”. Conservatives see human nature as unchanging and, essentially, selfish. Conservatives believe that no amount of social engineering will ever create a new human condition. The veneer of civilization is thin. For conservatives, the best social order is one in which humans interact and trade with each other to serve their own selfish needs and, therefore, help all. Adam Smith captured this concept perfectly when he wrote, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love.” This is the essence of conservatism.
If, as conservatives believe, human nature is constant and selfish, there is no way to “fix the world.” In fact, the very phrase “fix the world” is somewhat meaningless. People will interact with one and other and the world will be what the world will be. The condition of humanity is guided by the invisible hand. Here is Adam Smith again:
…every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
You can’t fix the world, the world is what six billion people make it every day. Nothing more, nothing less.
Liberals take the opposing view. They believe, just as they can be corrupted by society, humans can be trained and formed and educated into better citizens and human beings by society. They believe that if people are placed in the proper social order, human nature itself will change. This is the basis of the Marxist idea that “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is a workable model for an economic system. This is the basis for the complete redesign of French society during the French Revolution and the Terror. All that is required to make it work is that humans be educated and trained to be unselfish. Since humans are malleable, selfishness can be trained out of humanity. This is why liberals believe that the solution to every problem from crime to your fat ass lies in fixing society by massive government intervention. They will make you a thin, productive and environmentally sustainable by fixing the society… by fixing the world.
This, then, is where the terror sets in. Liberals are wrong about human nature. Horribly, profoundly wrong. You cannot train away instinctual selfishness. It is at the core of the human condition. Liberals, whenever they are in power, however, try. They start with “consciousness raising”, the mainstay of liberal college activism. When everybody doesn’t experience a raised consciousness, they move on to to education. From there it is mandatory education as in required freshmen orientation in gay, lesbian and transsexual studies. Yet selfishness persists and liberals impose punishment: speech codes and hate crimes. At its logical extreme, liberal social engineering always ends up with the gulag or guillotine.
That is what so terrifying about a photo of Obama with the words “how to fix the world”. When liberals try to fix the world they will inevitably try to mold humanity which, of course, is impossible. They don’t let the rigidity of human nature stand in their way. They just double down without regard to individualism, freedom or liberty. After all, what they are doing is fixing the world and that is far more important than your selfish desires. You will be happier once you submit to the new order anyway. “Relax, we are from the government and we are going to fix the world and you along with it.”
“Of course if you refuse to cooperate, you leave us no choice….”
Roy Ryder :
Date: December 4, 2008
Wonderfully written, RD. Absolutely fantastic.
Fear no one more than the person who says they have your best interests at heart. The twentieth century saw untold misery, destruction, and heartbreak because someone with good intentions believed that they could “fix the world” and “make people better.” This is the happy face of fascism and the words monsters tell themselves so they can sleep at night.
R.D. Walker :
Date: December 4, 2008
Thanks Roy. Check this out. The clown who wrote the article telling us how Obama will fix the world can’t even handle basic math. Evidently the editors at Newsweek can’t either. This is from the article.
From three times faster to five times faster? Please. Those figures are meaningless.
The relevant figures for comparing growth are 1.09/1.03 vs. 1.05/1.01
In the fast growth scenario, China is growing 5.82% faster than the United States. In the slow growth scenario, China is growing 3.96% faster than the U.S. It will take China longer to catch up to the U.S. under the slower growth scenario.
You would think a writer and the editors of a national magazine who presume to tell us how to fix the world could, you know, master 7th grade math first.
R.D. Walker :
Date: December 4, 2008
Okay, now check this out:
Conservative View: These villagers are adults. They tried the burgers and gave their opinion. They got paid besides. If they wanted to take part in a Whopper vs. Big Mac taste test and get paid to do it, more power to them.
Liberal view: Giving the villagers burgers corrupts them. They are innocent of the sins of Western capitalism and, by using them in this way you vandalize their unspoiled and uncorrupted nature. It is violent assault to tempt them to embrace our corrupt society.
Same as in the post… Conservatives see the villagers as individual adults. Liberals see them as malleable innocents in danger of being influenced and changed by a corrupt society.
Conservatives see them as adults making their own decisions. Liberals see them as children falling in with a bad crowd.
Roy Ryder :
Date: December 4, 2008
Advice from Newsweek on how to fix the world is about as valuable as advice from baboons on how to hack into the Pentagon. Both involve a lot of howling and feces throwing but not much actual worthwhile information. Besides, if Newsweek can’t even fix its fading subscriptions and diminishing bottom line, how the hell can they expect anyone to take what they say seriously.
Jim :
Date: December 5, 2008
Sorry, if I ramble a bit too long in this post. There’s much to discuss. I’m not quite sure Fareed Zakaria’s article necessarily argues Obuma should go about ‘fixing the world’ but rather ‘fixing’ the US according the needs of the world. IMO, America doesn’t need to change the world through direct interference, its very existence already does that by presenting an counter-example for the world to follow.
I think this relates to what Mark Steyn and Spengler@AsiaTimes have been theorizing about Obama by essentially describing him as a ‘third world leftist.’ Besides growing up with a strong dose of left-wing anti-Americanism from his Mom, Dad, Step-Dad, and Uncle Frank, Obuma grew up in the third world(Indonesia in this case), and perhaps identifies with it more strongly than the US, and has even shown a Tony Blair-esque contempt towards rural culture e.g. ‘people in small town America are bitter, cling to guns, God, etc…’
Spengler/Steyn argue that while Obama may claim he’s American, he actually shares and recognizes the resentments of the 3rd world as legitimate resentments because of American cultural encroachment on 3rd world cultures.
Culture isn’t about genes or race; it’s about values, beliefs, and attitudes. Culture,(especially American culture) matters because it influences a society’s receptivity to individuality, democracy, justice, entrepreneurship, and free-market institutions. These are just some of the qualities traditionally espoused and exemplified by the US/West which have encroached upon and ousted more traditional 3rd world cultures. For the better I’ll add.
So this isn’t just about the dominance of US cultural products like McDonald’s, US pop music and movies, and the NBA in across the world. Rather it’s just as much about the US living up to its own cultural commitments like the importance of the individual, equality of the sexes, free market economies, constitutional government, free speech, and freedom of conscience. All of these values are inherently bound up in the culture of ‘America’ and it is American culture by its mere existence that presents itself as a challenge against global cultures that don’t share the same values and have been overwhelmed by American culture.
So what happens now that the US has a president that recognizes those grievances from the world towards America as legitimate issues? Instead of being an advocate for individual rights, what if our president relegates/limits that value to being just another value equally as valid as collective ownership/community rights/Sharia Law?
I suspect the answer is we’ll all be seeing four years of Obama state-driven multiculturalism and guilt-ridden moral relativism, at home and abroad, which plays on differences and acknowledges and condones segregation at the expense of individual rights and responsibilities. I fear that an Obama administration really doesn’t want immigrants or any people repudiating their ancestral cultures, especially the nastier bits–because then they might, just might want to join OURS e.g. US/Western civilization, as unhyphenated individual citizens and full participants.
I have no interest in changing the US to kow-tow to the world’s needs. The US constitution doesn’t ‘bow down’ to any other nation or government on earth. So everytime I read/hear some UN/globalist like Zakaria, I can’t help but think of British General Charles Napier when he encountered the locals in 19th Century India practicing their time ‘honored’ cultural ritual of sati:
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
All cultures are not equal, frankly some stink. So while Obuma will attempt to lower US cultural standards to gain the world’s approval, I’ll bitterly and chauvinistically cling to my American cultural commitments to the US constitution, God, guns, hard work, free speech, American civic values, and unrepentant individualism.
AW Mens :
Date: December 5, 2008
This is one of the best things I’ve read all year…..and it has been a VERY long year….
Thanks R. D. for yet again sharing your clarity of thought.
R.D. Walker :
Date: December 5, 2008
Thanks AW. I really owe credit to Thomas Sowell’s “A Conflict of Visions” which I read in college in the 1980s. That book did more to help me understand how liberals and conservatives think differently than anything else I have ever read.
Modern leftism, liberalism, Marxism etc. can be traced back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his Theory of Natural Man. What a load of farcical crap that was. Yet it led to the French Revolution which, of course, was seed to every half baked theory to create a new man through social engineering since.
You know that commonly presented fantasy of getting a time machine, traveling back in time and killing Hitler? Well, to hell with that. If I had a time machine my gift to humanity would be to travel back to Geneva in 1712 and strangle the infant Rousseau in his cradle. Now that would be a public service.
R.D. Walker :
Date: December 5, 2008
Jim, I wholeheartedly agree with your comment with one caveat. Your description of the foundation of the American condition (like the importance of the individual, equality of the sexes, free market economies, constitutional government, free speech, and freedom of conscience) is a generally conservative view. (Okay, Classic Liberal if you must get technical.) The frustration and conflict we are experiencing in our public life is based on the left’s desire to change American culture and our sacred duty to stand athwart history screaming “STOP!”
Getting back to the basics, the classic liberalism we now generally refer to as conservatism was the real revolution that gave us more freedom, liberty, health, welfare and leisure than ever before and, frankly, it is the only revo we need.
The Real Revo. That sounds familiar.
McLaren :
Date: December 5, 2008
Anecdotal evidence alert!:
When the most neo-liberal, unhinged, BDS-afflicted of my co-workers was speaking of the murders and other nonsense in Mumbai, he said: “That’s another reason why I hate religion. Religion is the root of all the evil in this world.”
You see, it isn’t that some individual humans abuse religion for evil purposes, it’s that religion itself, by its existence, creates evil in Man. In his view, guns are bad, as well as anything that is either harmless or actually helpful to our society but that sometimes is abused by individuals making poor decisions. As said by R.D. above, my co-worker believes McDonald’s is bad because he saw Supersize Me and believes the way the moron who made the movie believes: That poor choices have no place in the argument. They believe the very existence of McDonald’s is the problem and therefore if the choice of going to McD’s to eat was eliminated, people would never be fat.
This is the mindset of the neo-liberal who wants to “save the world.” And as Washington is now lousy with these types, I am heavily arming myself.
BaconNeggs :
Date: December 6, 2008
RD, excellent to the point post, definately a “keeper”.
You are so right about these collectivist people, always on a mission trying to save someone or something, they deem broken.
If there aint a crisis they’ll damn well find one or manufacture one, where only they can be the heroes, riding to the rescue.
Ordinary people have to keep telling the socialist Obama’s of the world, ….
“if it aint barrack, dont fix it”.
Spense :
Date: April 30, 2009
“Liberal view: Giving the villagers burgers corrupts them. They are innocent of the sins of Western capitalism and, by using them in this way you vandalize their unspoiled and uncorrupted nature. It is violent assault to tempt them to embrace our corrupt society.”
You arent fooling anyone ..its obvious you wrote that.
/fail.
R.D. Walker :
Date: April 30, 2009
Wow Spense, with nothing more for evidence than my name on the comment you were able to deduce I wrote it. Well done.
Liberal :
Date: May 19, 2009
You are a bad person.
and a ignorant one as well.
R.D. Walker :
Date: May 19, 2009
See how Liberal dismantled by thesis point by point using geometric logic and brilliant insight? How will I ever be able to post on this site again when my arguments are so effectively and utterly destroyed?
notamobster :
Date: May 19, 2009
I had one tell me I was a dummy-head one time to stop an argument… oh I’m sorry that was my brother — when I was 6!
McLaren :
Date: May 20, 2009
That should read “…an ignorant one…”
But you know, you are a bad person.
Not that I have any evidence, I just feel that way.
blueknight :
Date: May 27, 2009
So! Maybe you have relatives in Germany, (or Russia, or China, or Cuba)eh? Glorious Social Revolution, Comrades! Obama and Holder have expanded domestic surveillance beyond Bush and maintain that no warrant is required. This may vindicate Bush in that he was only interested in the external terrorist threat and keeping America safe. Why are the MSM and lefties silent now on expansion of the Patriot Act? Obama, Emanuel, and Holder are worried about anyone who may beg to differ with them on the road to Fabian Socialism… The future with – Cap and trade and Green Taxes, ACORN and GPS Census (GPS Census planned long before Obama, so that is not his fault!) Nationalization of banks and industry,and Health Care, Nationalize Retirement Accounts. Register and Confiscate most private Firearms, Domestic National Civilian Security Service more powerful than the military, National Heath Care, National Manditory Universal Servvice and Conscription, National Sales Tax VAT,increase capital gains taxes, eliminate inheritance tax exemptions, ‘Jim Snow’ Laws, shall I continue!?!?
1969: Victor Charlie in the Wire, 2009: Victor Charlie in the White House.
Ron Saff :
Date: June 22, 2009
GREAT EDITORIAL
Sixty years ago who would have thought (or written) we would be at the edge of the precipice where we now sit. Well actually Ayn Rand did write about what could happen. She was criticized for her characters being too black and white (pardon the symbolism).
ACTION
I say we sit on the edge of the precipice because we are not doing enough to support people like Ron Paul and Tom Coburn.
MORE TAXES
The politicos have spent all the taxes that they are currently collecting. So what is next? More taxes, in the form of carbon cap and trade!!! Enforcement of tax collection. And anti-gun legislation so we cannot protect ourselves.
REQUIRED READING
Everyone should be required to read ‘The Declaration of Independence’. The answers to the current political crisis are there. I say political because that is what is at the root of the financial crisis. And also read “Atlas Shrugged”.
Stylo :
Date: June 29, 2009
I thought the most terrifying words in the English language were, “I’m pregnant.”
I stand corrected.