The Secret Knowledge

by David Mamet

  Thus, Monty’s supposedly generous offer was not generosity at all. As far as any benefit to myself, he could just as easily have made his generous offer before revealing the nullity of Door Two. He could have said, “You’ve chosen Door One, you can stand pat, or trade it for Doors Two AND Three. Which, as the penny dropped, I realized, was exactly what he was doing. I had defeated myself by accepting the shiny but destructive misinformation that he, in revealing Door Two, had offered me a gift.

  My greed convinced me that I possessed something which I did not in fact possess (more information), and so I seduced myself into a false (and destructive) understanding of the problem. “Oh,” I realized, “I am an illogical being.” This is sobering but helpful information.

  I now compare my escape from Monty’s fiendish cunning with my experience with an architect.

  My wife and I were renovating a house, and the architect said that there were two ways to figure his payment. We could pay him on a cost-plus basis; or we could pay him on an hourly basis.

  This seemed to me very sporting, and I was surprised when, near the end of the job, and facing the outrageously mounting costs associated with any building process, I was wrathful and sullen. But no, I reasoned, correct yourself—the fellow gave you a choice, the choice was yours (I’ve forgotten which scheme I chose), and now it is your part to live with it.

  Which I did. Until some years later it occurred to me that I had (as with the Monty Hall Problem), misconstrued the nature of the choice offered me.

  For why, I reasoned, would the architect offer a client a choice which was a fifty-fifty proposition to lose him money? The architect knew or would figure how to best reward himself in whichever scheme I picked. I do not suggest duplicity, but merely human nature—if paid on a cost plus basis, he (or you, or I) would indulge a natural passion for the most expensive materials—why not? The house would have his name on it, and expensive materials could only redound to his credit. If paid on an hourly basis, he would express this same passion for perfection by working himself and his staff more hours. It was impossible that it should be otherwise. Neither you nor I would do otherwise.

  But why, then, offer me the choice? Perhaps to offer the client two options, each of which would lead to different enthusiasms and the disagreements potentially resultant therefrom.

  Perhaps, that is, to dissuade against recriminations. But not, though it might so appear, to offer a bargain.

  My greed blinded me to the offer’s nature: Had the offer been of a bargain, that is, had it contained any possibility of my gain, the architect would have offered me the choice after the fact: that is, at the completion of the job. The architect then might have said, “There are two ways to figure my compensation, you will note that one is higher than the other, which do you choose?” But why would a rational architect offer me a choice which must redound to his loss? He would not. There was a choice, but only the illusion of a bargain. Which is the essence of a confidence game.

  Someone, and it may have been William Styron, said that a drinking problem is like a little Latin—sooner or later, it will find its way into your writing. That’s how I feel about the Monty Hall problem—I worked for it, and darned if I am not going to use it in my writing.

  The human body is 55 to 75 percent water, and an equal percentage of our endeavors, after food, clothing, and shelter, are nonsense. I play soccer with my dog, but I cannot fool her, for she cares nothing about my elegant and deceptive movements; she is only looking at the ball.

  That Iraq was “not another Vietnam” can only be interpreted as a proclamation of identity—else why make the comparison? See also, that the foreseeable bust of 2008 was “not another 1929.” There are only so many ways in which things go wrong; there are only so many things one may do with his money, health, and talents. Many make a living suggesting that they hold “the Magic Feather,” possessing the hidden knowledge which will spare us toil and grief (Bernie Madoff). And we late-appearing Moderns, and the Trobriand Islanders of 10,000 AD, fall for it every time, e.g., “the New Economy,” “Change,” “Compassionate Conservatism,” “Shark Cartilage.”

  There was a book called Sharks Don’t Get Cancer, which recommended that one concerned should buy and ingest shark cartilage in order to avoid the disease, his reasoning contained in the book’s title. But neither does a Buick get cancer, and who would suggest the afflicted go lick a bumper? No, we are a crazy bunch of monkeys. We have survived through the adaptive mechanism of a brain which is always trying to find the easy way out, and our devotion to our special skill, having allowed us to flourish, will surely, in God’s Good Time, kill us off and allow for another variation.

  Quantities may have different meanings. It is hard to divest oneself of their connotations. This may, I think, be accomplished in mathematics, where values are set, but, as the task of philosophy, it is certainly difficult to use reason to determine reason’s operations and their worth.

  There is, historically, much rancor on the Left against the existence of the State of Israel. And frequent mention is made, and, more destructively, implied, of Israel’s “aggression.” But what does the State of Israel want? To be left in peace within its borders. What does the Arab world want? To destroy the State of Israel. Whatever allegations or sympathies may otherwise be adduced, these demands, as above, are observable, oft-proclaimed and incontrovertible; Western Sympathy for the Arab cause, then, can only rest upon a sliding scale of Humanity—the Arabs, and, thus, their demands, being of a weight sufficient to nullify those of Israel, though the former wants slaughter and the latter peace. How can we know? Return to the mathematic certainty: Israel has no territorial demands (or was willing in negotiations with Arafat and after to concede any scant and still-disputed land). The Arabs want all of Israel.

  There can be a sentiment of sympathy with the Arabs only based upon a pre-facto assessment of them (rather than their cause) as “better” or more worthy than the Jews.

  This illogical sentiment, which can only be called “racism,” is found again in the Liberal love of the idea of “apology”—that the Government should apologize for Slavery, Japanese Internment, Coolie Labor, and so on. But the Rabbis teach that no apology is legitimate unless the offender (a) expresses remorse stating specifically what he has done; (b) makes restitution; (c) refrains, in similar circumstances, from again committing the offense.

  But upon even the first of these, a governmental apology founders. For who is the “we” and who the “they” of the apology?

  Is the American Government of today guilty of slavery? If so, are those African American members of the Government equally guilty? Or, are the American People alive today guilty? If so, which citizens? The Black as well as the White? Is the guilt heritable, or not? If so, then would not those (the great majority of) Americans whose ancestors did not arrive until after slavery be exempt from apology? Are the ancestors of the 300,000 white males who died to defeat slavery excepted from apology? If not, on what basis are the descendants of slaves entitled to it?

  Is one entitled to apology by genetics? If so, then those making the apology must be tainted by their own blood. Is this an American concept?

  How is it that, sixty-some years after the West defeated Nazi Racism, we are enmeshed in a race-based culture, and making governmental decisions on the basis of genetics?

  Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwaffe, had, as his second in command, Erhard Milch. It was pointed out that Milch had a Jewish father, and so should not be employed as a Nazi, but rather executed as a Jew. Goering replied, “In Germany I decide who is a Jew.” Equally, to indulge in any racial preferences is not to award to a Race, but to the State the power to create differing classes of citizens, and to rule on who shall belong in each class. For all our blood is mixed. Our country, like all in recorded history, engaged for a while in Slavery. It also produced the white, northern males who enlisted and died to eradicate Slavery during the Civil War, and fought it and, again, died during World War II; an
d the white males who voted in the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act. Is it not evident, after a clinical look, that the desire for Justice cannot be served quite so easily, and that a reduction of human beings to classes deserving differing grades of the same is the beginning of the end of Democracy? It costs politicians and legislators nothing to apologize, but costs us citizens much to award them or ourselves credit for the indulgence.

  13

  MAXWELL STREET

  Her conclusion was that any human being lies nearer to the unseen than any organization, and from this she never varied.

  —E. M. Forster, Howards End, 1910

  Most legislation aimed at eliminating unhappiness and discontent has resulted in misery. Human beings are flawed, and as unlikely to create contentment with amended or increased legislation as they were to create perfect legislation in the first place. The best we might do would be to create a set of laws which made allowance for the imperfection not only of the legislation but of the judges and the administrators who would pass and implement it, and, indeed, of the Electorate.35

  Within the memory of many, groups who believed in their own rationality voted for laws against miscegenation. They did not do so because they were white, but because they were human, which is to say, flawed—betrayed by their belief in their own rationality, and compromised by reliance on their own indignant and righteous feelings.

  Government is an organic cultural organism. It lives by growing, and it grows by accretion. It will arrogate to itself all the power it can by the apparent mechanism of legislation and the less apparent but more virulent operation of bureaucratic growth, by usage, and precedent.

  The Constitution reserves to the Congress the power to declare war. But Roosevelt declared war on Japan and asked the Congress to affirm that this state of war existed. The act was reasonable and defensible as a pro-forma inversion of the usual process. But ever since Korea and Vietnam and the War Powers Act and so on, the President has achieved the de facto power to declare war, enshrined not in law but in custom.

  The Written Law says Congress has the power, but the Unwritten Law, by which the written law is understood, is that such power has become the Executive’s. But, defenders might say, the President may declare, not a “war” but a “police action,” or a “widening of the sphere of defense,” under such and such conditions and various new stipulations. Such an elaboration of detail may stem from a desire for Justice, or from a desire to protect the “spirit” of the Constitution, but it, by demanding an accompanying elaboration of oversight and bureaucracy, merely exacerbates the problem it pretends to address, for it entrenches a new, bigger, more powerful class of bureaucrats, paid by the State to deal magically with the issue of when it is acceptable for a President to declare a war by simply calling it something else (the answer, now, “always”); to enforce new rules, which is to say, to meddle and obstruct the possibility of simple rules of human interaction (e.g. “The Congress shall have the power to declare war”).

  The Liberal state, in the worthy desire to exorcise greed, poverty, and unhappiness, has given birth to a radical view of the world: that it is the responsibility of the State to protect anyone who may claim to be powerless. But what check is upon these champions? And what inducement do they possess to refrain, since to refrain is to diminish their power and, so, their livelihoods? Is it not evident that to be accused before the bureaucrats of OSHA, Equal Opportunity Commission, FDA, Consumer Safety Board, and so on, is to be found guilty, for the organization’s first and only responsibility is to grow, and, in contrast to the free market, it is not the populace, but the government which characterizes failure and success, and that all government programs must not only expand after success, but expand after failure, in order “to bring about eventual success.” Note that all this hocus-pocus is taking place with the money actually earned by hardworking individuals.

  We have abundant natural resources. But if there were a system in which there was no waste, we would all be wearing the same clothes, for our clothes would be chosen for us on the basis of the theory of maximum conservation of resources. As would our cars. But suppose someone wanted a different car. Could he alter it? With what resources, if the State had decided that he had “all that he needed”? But suppose he foresaw a way to make his car even more efficient. Could he experiment on it? Again, using what resources of time or energy? But perhaps as a Hobby. But what if his Hobby required more energy or time than that deemed useful by the State?36 Could he stint himself of sleep and food? Why should he, if his eventual invention were to be taken by the State—appropriated for the Good of All? And if his subsequent fatigue robbed the State of his exertion in those activities it deemed more useful?

  A fixation on natural resources blinds one to the worth of human resources: We live in and are designed to exploit (which is another word for “use”) the natural world. The Socialist vision constrains human inventiveness and imagination.

  Why would the worker on the assembly line come forward with a better idea? Why, if his compensation was always the same, would he even fantasize about it, which is the beginning of all progress?

  Socialism is the end of all invention; it is the happy face of slavery. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.

  —J. S. Mill

  14

  R100

  The controversy of capitalism versus state enterprise has been argued, tested, and fought out in many ways in many countries, but surely the airship venture in England stands as the most curious determination in this matter.

  —Nevil Shute, Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer

  Nevil Shute was one of the best-selling authors of the twentieth century.

  He wrote the novels On the Beach, A Town like Alice, No Highway in the Sky, and so on. Many of his books (the above included) were made into very successful films.

  By day he was an aircraft designer.

  His novels, like those of Dreiser and Trollope, were romantic paeans to those processes the lay populace might presume mundane. Dreiser wrote The Trilogy of Desire, some thousands of pages, on the subject of street railway franchises; Trollope wrote the Palliser series about the romance of Parliament dealing with Irish Home Rule, and decimal coinage. Shute, in the main, wrote about aviation.

  Aviation was his day job. He was a very successful designer of aircraft. His company, Airspeed Ltd., designed some of the first commercial air transports in the world. He designed the trainer which was used by the RAF until World War II; Airspeed eventually merged with de Havilland. He was the real thing.

  In 1925, Vickers Ltd., for which Shute then worked as chief stress engineer, was commissioned, by the British government, to design a rigid airship (that is, a zeppelin) practicable for transocean and transglobal passenger travel.

  But the British government decided to hedge its bets; it awarded the contract to two groups, Shute’s (Vickers), and a governmental group under the auspices of the Air Ministry.

  The groups worked independently, but were free to exchange information with each other. Shute’s group (makers of the airship R100) learned that the government’s group (airship R101) was consistently making choices that were heavier, more complex, and, to the eyes of the free-market Vickers group, unnecessary or, indeed, unsafe.

  The certainty of the governmental group drove the Vickers group back to their drawing boards, to retest their results, which they again found technically correct. No, the government ship, R101, was, they determined, too heavy, too complex, and unsafe. The various redundancies and compromises resulting from its design as the work of a government committee had rendered it unairworthy. Shute’s group shared its concerns with the government and were told to “go away.”

  The R100 made the first east-to-west commercial airship crossing of the Atlantic, with Shute on board. The R101 set off to Karachi, India, carrying Lord Thomson, Secretary of State for Air, and Sir S
efton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation, who were both proponents of the government’s plan. It crashed and burned in France, after three hundred miles of travel, and the British airship program was scrapped.

  How often must this experiment be tried?

  Israel’s economy wanes under socialism, and burgeons under the free market; West Germany throve, while East Germany, the slave state, lived in starvation until the fall of Communism; Cubans in Miami grow rich, and the prison they risked their lives to flee continues as an eighteenth-century feudal fiefdom. California taxes its flagship movie industry out of the state, and Toronto, Ireland, and the Czech Republic reap the benefits; the United States taxes the auto industry to Japan, the textile industry to China, and so on, and then wonders at the fall of the dollar.

  I don’t know anything about the auto industry, but I am a member of another big business which has killed itself.

  Anyone working in show business for any time—actually working, that is, writing, acting, designing, lighting, crafting—has said to himself, when the middle managers come on the set: “Why are those fools elected to do that job?”

  The affronted, on continued interaction, comes to see that the problem is not with the supposed abilities or personality of the individual bureaucrat; the problem is the existence of the job itself, which is not only unnecessary to but destructive of actual industry.

  In the growth of any successful organization, a now-entrenched bureaucracy may work to change its object from production of a product to protection of its (useless) jobs.