The Secret Knowledge

by David Mamet

  Film, and the Arts in general, have long been exempted from the category of “toil,” and so have been the refuge of the Leisure Class. This, however, was understood, if only unconsciously, as a socially acceptable holding area, protecting the males until they got an actual job (in the real, non-showbiz world), the females until they got an actual male.

  The jobs are no more, and the females are unlikely to marry a twenty-six-year-old fellow with no skills and no ambition to acquire them.18 Only the imprimatur remains.

  There is an additional effect of the Liberal, learned aversion to actual work: the young “practitioner” can exist only among his own. His specialized skills can be sold only in the Liberal Communities. He, thus, will quite literally never, cradle-to-grave, encounter a Conservative Idea, let alone a Conservative.

  These young people have, in the useful if lurid phrase, grown up in a parallel country. They do not know what they do not know, and their insulation, geographically and professionally, ensures their continued ignorance—those they meet, that which they read and see, nothing will induce nor force them to confront their inherited cultural assumptions, of which they are unaware, considering them “the nature of the world.”

  The world in which they live, in contradistinction to the America which created the wealth to allow their leisure, does not understand the concept of work. It is not that we are becoming, but that we have become two cultures occupying the same space.

  There is a good piece of fiction on this phenomenon. It is a novel by James Hilton, Lost Horizon. In this beautiful fantasy, a flier, blown off course and crashed in the Himalayas, is rescued and taken to a mysterious, inaccessible lamasery in Tibet.

  Here he discovers a perfect land—all its inhabitants are artists and philosophers, there is no disease, a person can, indeed, live as long as he wishes to; there is no want, the people of the Valley have for millennia devoted themselves to the care, physical, material, and sexual, of the folks on the Mountain.

  This is a sweet tale by a great storyteller. It is also, less admirably, a Fascist tract. For Mr. Hilton’s paradise (he understands, if only subconsciously) can exist only if there are slaves.

  Here we see the progression from good ideas to horror, down the path Mr. Hayek pointed out in The Road to Serfdom. We will recall that the sibilant in the acronym NAZI stands for Socialist. They, like the Italian Fascists and the pre-Bolshevik Russian Communists, believed, in their beginnings, in Social Justice, and the Fair Distribution of goods. But these sweet ideas are encumbered in execution by the realization that someone, finally, has to do the work; their adamant practice will quite soon reveal this: “Oh. We will need slaves.”19

  These slaves may be called, variously, the Rich, the Jews, the Kulaks, the Gypsies, Armenians, countercultural elements, and so on, but they are chosen not for their odious qualities but for their supine or defenseless nature. And they are enslaved to allow the elite not only exemption from work but exemption from thought.

  Originally they are enlisted (fellow travelers, or “useful idiots”) or convinced (taxpayers) in order to allow the ideological an exemption from toil and the malleable exemption from thought. As the money dries up, the ideologues are easily supplanted by tyrants and the malleable chained to their oars.

  History provides no counter-example. A country which will not work will fall.

  Our Hero (Hugh Conway) in Lost Horizon discovers, midway through the book, that it was no accident which led him to the lamasery; he, like all the inhabitants, was originally kidnapped—chosen for his “readiness” to unquestioningly accept this new, changeless, and perfect life. Like the young of the Left.

  6

  THE MUSIC MAN

  Somebody must have power in the state, and it is idle and academic to debate whether those who have power should or should not also have wealth, since they will, in fact, take it. Either you allow people to have power because they are rich, or they become rich through the possession of power. It does not make much difference in practice. Therefore all the common talk about the new equality and the abolition of privilege did not seem to have much meaning. That talk was usually to be heard from the lips of the left-wing writers and politicians who were at the very moment of uttering it busy with establishing new privileges for themselves and their children.

  —Christopher Hollis, Death of a Gentleman, 1937

  A subjective system can never be shown to have failed. If its goals are indeterminate, general, and its progress incapable of measurement, how can its performance be faulted?

  Karl Kraus makes this point about Freudianism, describing it as “the disease which presents itself as its own cure.” I came across this quote in Dead Aid, by Dambisa Moyo, an economist whose work for her native Gambia led her to identify the country’s problem not as a structural disposition toward poverty, but as international aid. She makes the case that aid prevents the development of a national economy, the exploitation of national resources, the prosecution of national interests, and leads to the subjugation of recipients to the powers of those agencies, international and domestic, who profit from aid, and, thus, from poverty: bureaucrats, dictators, and thieves.

  The distribution of alms, she writes, is based, at bottom, on the notion that it will help—actual evidence to the contrary is stilled by those personally interested in graft, profit, or in a subjective feeling of philanthropy.

  Why should Gambia et al. be incapable of self-development? Internationally this supposed lack is attributed to a structural cultural residue of colonialism. But what does this mean, and how might such “structural” inabilities be identified, to what attributed (the United States, Australia, and Canada were all once colonies, Britain a colony of Rome), and how ameliorated?

  For if these questions cannot be answered, as Ms. Moyo asks of Gambia and Mr. Kraus of psychoanalysis, and if the underlying assumption cannot be challenged, what possible “cure” other than increased and continued application of that which a reasoned and impartial investigation might identify as the cause of the problem?

  If, for example, African Americans are to have a special judicial status because of a legacy of slavery, how might one determine, conclusively, that that legacy has dissipated and it is time to welcome the descendants of its victims back into the general population? (Could such a “legacy” exist for a thousand years? Even the most vehement supporters of the idea would probably say no. Then, for how long? And how might one recognize its absence, and upon what authority announce it?) If Latina women are wiser than white men,20 then, in a dispute between the two, to accept the reasoning of the latter rather than the former can always be to risk the accusation of racism.

  If a country, a region, a race is in difficulty because of a lack of funds, any new or recurrent failure subsequent to any subvention in aid may be attributed to insufficient aid, and provide the rationale for that funding’s increase. But it may only do so given the acceptance of the nondemonstrable, indeed disprovable theory that government intervention increases wealth. (See also student failure attributable to low teachers’ salaries, resulting in increased salaries and benefits for teachers, when there is no demonstrable correlation between student success and teachers’ salaries.)

  Dambisa Moyo asks, of aid, “What would be enough?”

  Kraus asks the question of Freudian analysis: What would be enough? At what point would talking about one’s problems for x hours a week, be sufficient to bring one to a state of “normalcy”?

  The genius of Freudianism, Kraus writes, is not the creation of a cure, but of a disease—the universal, if intermittent, human sentiment that “something is not right,” elaborated into a state whose parameters, definitions, and prescriptions are controlled by a self-selecting group of “experts,” who can never be proved wrong.21

  It was said that the genius of the Listerine campaign was attributable to the creation not of mouthwash, but of halitosis. Kraus indicts Freud for the creation of the nondisease of dissatisfaction. (See also the famous “malai
se” of Jimmy Carter, which, like Oscar Wilde’s Pea Soup Fogs, didn’t exist ’til someone began describing it.) To consider a general dissatisfaction with one’s life, or with life in general as a political rather than a personal, moral problem, is to exercise or invite manipulation. The fortune teller, the “life coach,” the Spiritual Advisor, these earn their living from applying nonspecific, nonspecifiable “remedies” to nonspecifiable discomforts.22 The sufferers of such, in medicine, are called “the worried well,” and provide the bulk of income and consume the bulk of time of most physicians. It was the genius of the Obama campaign to exploit them politically. The antecedent of his campaign has been called Roosevelt’s New Deal, but it could, more accurately, be identified as The Music Man.

  7

  CHOICE

  There is nothing in the world so difficult as that task of making up one’s mind. Who is there that has not longed that the power and privilege of selection among alternatives should be taken away from him in some important crisis of his life, and that his conduct should be arranged for him, either this way or that, by some divine power if possible—by some patriarchal power in the absence of divinity—or by chance, even, if nothing better than chance could be found to do it?

  —Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn

  Imagine yourself as part of a group placed, magically, somewhere upon the earth in an environment which is foreign to all—in a wilderness. This group’s members have been chosen randomly, they have no common history, or culture of self-government, or religion.

  They have, somehow, never learned to respect or to reward industry; they, somehow, have neither the science nor the technology to exploit their land, nor to provide defense against real or potential marauders. They have no wisdom tradition.

  So, without science, without wisdom, without tradition, without any form of traditional government, or the culture to establish one, they form themselves into a cult.

  This cult, while it produces neither sustenance, peace, defense, nor philosophy, does provide one service, which service unites the group, and to which all other operations of the group are subservient: it provides the reassurance that although the actions of the world may neither be understood nor exploited, fear may be shared out and the stranded group may take comfort in its replacement by denial.

  But for denial to replace fear it must be universal, and anyone suggesting notions contrary to those of the group must be shamed, killed, or otherwise silenced—these must be at the very least excoriated as evil. For, indeed, if the group knows neither law nor religion, nor technology, its only good (which is to say its only service) is solidarity. Individual initiative or investigation, thus, is destructive of the group’s essence, and so to them is evil.

  Those things which previous tradition or observation revealed as absolutely good must, by this terrified group, be mocked: individualism and ambition called “greed,” development called “exploitation,” defense “war-mongering,” and use “despoliation.”

  Inevitable global conflicts are indicted by this group as “nationalism”; strife is brought about by arrogance; and laws sufficiently strict to provide actual guidelines for behavior, “injustice.”

  This new group will, of course, like any group in history, create taboos and ceremonies of its own. But to ensure solidarity, (for the group, we remember, lives in fear for the fragility of its illusions), these new observances must absolutely repudiate the old; and the cult will indict these previous observances as, for example, paternalism, patriotism, racism, colonialism, xenophobia, and greed.

  And it may indict religion as superstition. But man cannot live without religion, which is to say, without a method for dealing with cosmic mystery and those things ever beyond understanding; so the new religion will not be identified as such. It will be called Multiculturalism, Diversity, Social Justice, Environmentalism, Humanitarianism, and so on. These, individually and conjoined, assert their imperviousness to reason, and present themselves as the greatest good; but as they reject submission either to a superior unknowable essence (God), or to those operations of the universe capable of some understanding (science and self-government), their worship foretells a reversion to savagery.

  The laws of the seasons, for example, have been studied since human beings first observed that the seasons changed. But the new man, who fears change above all things, has decided that the seasons are now changing in one direction only, toward oblivion, and that this change must be stopped. How may this incomprehensible and awful catastrophe be averted? Only through sacrifice. So the new group, which is the Left, is prepared and is in the process of sacrificing production, exploration, exploitation of natural resources, and an increasing standard of living upon the altar of something called “global warming.”

  But the earth has, in fact, been noticeably cooling for the last decade, and has, at many times during recorded history, and before any emission of manmade carbon, been markedly warmer than it is now or was prior to this cooling trend. This supposed warming is a story known of old as the history of Chicken Little—it means the End of the World. And to the Left, those denying it are classed as heretics, for who but an evil monster would wish the world to end? And, for the Left, to refer its pressing question to adjudication is to hasten the end of the world. The heretics who would do so are marginalized and dismissed and mocked, even though many are renowned practitioners of science—an ancient social development allowing man to differentiate truth from falsehood by the process of observation and measurement.23

  See the Left’s inability to discard utterly exploded threats of extinction. In its cosmogony can still be found the theory of Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) that overpopulation will soon and inevitably destroy the world—resulting in mass starvation and the destruction of mankind (birth control); that power must come from “natural,” renewable sources (which it, at present, cannot; wind power will not run Philadelphia, and ethanol costs more and pollutes more than gas), and that nuclear power is an unacceptable risk (though it has powered France accident-free for over fifty years); that World Unity and disarmament is the only way to Peace (though the antimilitarism of France and England between the wars led to the conquest of the first, and the near conquest of the second).

  All the old canards can be found, as if new-discovered, today on the nearby Volvo: “The Population Explosion: It’s Your Baby”; “Wind Power”; “War Is Not the Answer”; “Coexist.”

  No wonder the Left embraces Socialism, the largest myth of modern times and the most easily debunked; for it is a religion, and the tests of actual membership in any religion are likely to include an endorsement of their Foundation Myths: God in the Burning Bush, Joseph Smith’s discovery of the Tablets; the Resurrection of Jesus. This is not to denigrate religions, merely to say that they are all based upon myth and symbol, which is to say that they proclaim at the outset their intention to approach toward the unknowable, and toward that over which we have no power. This is, however, necessary in religion, a rather unfortunate basis for a political philosophy.

  Observe that to propitiate an unknowable power, the Left, ignorant or dismissive of any society or history but its own, insists upon the primacy of Trees and Soil, Oceans and Animals—theirs is a return to the nature worship of the Savage. To see that this nature worship is not quite the good simple-heartedness they believe it is, but rather a religion, observe its imperviousness to information: polar bears are not, in fact, decreasing but increasing in population;24 the earth is not, in fact, warming.25

  The philosophy of the Left is not, in fact, a love of, but a rejection of wisdom. And it is contrary to common sense.

  For where is the wealth to come from? If we are no longer to explore, to drill, to develop or to use the world around us, and those things fashioned from that world; if we are to “cap and trade,” that which is, essentially, an imaginary commodity (carbon emissions do not in any way affect the temperature of the planet);26 if we are to tax and limit growth in service of a fantasy, who is to chance his time
and treasure to produce the wealth, and how?

  Carbon dioxide is not harmful to the atmosphere. There have, in the past, been periods, much colder than today, when the CO2 in the atmosphere was twenty-five times what it is today. Carbon emissions offer no threat whatever to the planet. And, as the Left is opposed to nuclear energy, how are we to provide power?

  Where is the power to come from? Where is the wealth to come from? From nowhere. For the Left, this new tribe, self-sufficient in its knowledge, ignorant of history, and unwilling to observe, does not understand economics—that man produces, that man consumes, that man trades—and that the necessary consumption drives trade and its attendant invention and exploration, which produce a civilization’s wealth.

  The Left (as Thomas Sowell points out in Intellectuals and Society) believing in what it calls “social justice,” believes that wealth should be “shared,” but enters the discussion in its middle. For wealth may or may not be shared (in fact, it is shared, as efficiently as possible, through trade), but the a priori question, to the Left, is unasked and unanswered: Where did it come from?

  It was not, again, quoting Professor Sowell, descended from heaven, like manna, and spread evenly over the ground. It was created by individual expenditure of effort and individual willingness to undertake risk. The Liberals see wealth as manna from Heaven, falling equally upon all; which, being to them the case, means that for any one to have more of any thing than another, it must have been gotten by cheating—the possessor of “more” must be a thief. To the Left, in spite of one hundred and fifty years of the most extensive and tragic disprovals of Marxism, property = theft.

  Rejecting both science and industry, the Left is fearful of man’s ability to survive, so it sees scarcity everywhere, and its one answer is to stop.

  As my generation did not live through the Depression, World War II, and the agony of the immigrants who are our grandparents or great-grandparents; as we were raised in the greatest plenty the world has ever known and in the most just of societies, we have grown lazy and entitled (not unlike Marx, who lived as a parasite upon Engels, and never worked a day in his life). The baby boomer generation, my own, is content, if of the Left, to live out our remaining years upon the work and upon the entitlements created by our parents, and to entail the costs upon our children—to tax industry out of the country, to tax wealth away from its historical role and use as the funder of innovation. The religion of the Left is to leave untilled that world whose operations it does not understand and, failing to investigate, fears.