Friday, 10 June 2011

When the masquerade fails

From Wikipedia
I suspect some people will find the following argument difficult or impossible to accept, but sometimes, if you are prepared to go along with certain assumptions, you arrive at interesting conjectures. Here we go:-

An old and well-known philosophical conundrum may be stated in this way: if we assume a universal law of cause and effect, then free-will disappears. Any action of mine is caused by events which must in turn be caused by prior events and so on. So eventually all the causes of my actions lie outside my body, otherwise I’d have to create an uncaused event. I see no harm in accepting this argument. Many of the things I do still feel like the exercise of free-will because I understand them and that’s all that matters to me. Understanding is a kind of involvement.

Anyhow, the next step is to imagine political opinions as lying on a simple scale from extreme left to extreme right. It doesn’t matter how over-simplified this is, because the point being made isn’t political. Most folk with hold political opinions somewhere near the middle. A middle of the road consensus will be the norm.

If matters didn’t sort themselves out in this way, there would be no such thing as a society, because all we are pointing out here is our natural tendency to cluster, in this case around political norms. It’s social cohesion doing its job. It is our tendency to emulate because emulation saves time and cuts down mistakes. But we can’t expect to control these things. As there is no free-will, we are always controlled, we never control. We may understand, but not control.

So those in government never control anything, which is probably why they often seem so absurdly incompetent. They no more exert control than those outside government. We commonly assume that prime ministers and presidents exert control over those who are not prime ministers or presidents, but this is simply a convention. A political leader is merely a clearing house for external pressures to resolve themselves. The largely unidirectional convention of leadership is another example of social cohesion doing its stuff. The myths of leadership are the masquerade that keeps it all going.

Of course, if it becomes too obvious that political leaders are tossed around by events beyond their control, then the leadership masquerade fails. We don't have a spare either - haven't actually invented one yet. Might be a good idea to get on with it perhaps?


James Higham said...

Then there is the hidden government who don't err, except in that they rely on incompetence to continue the agenda and the agenda, when all the smokescreens finally clear way - is money and control.

Mark Wadsworth said...

On a purely human level, there is such a thing as 'charisma' or 'leadership skills', which is just nature's way of speeding up the process whereby everybody falls into line.

I work in central London, so I see dozens of groups of peers every day (groups of pensioners, groups of school children of all ages; groups of yobboes out on the piss, groups of women on a hen night etc) and you can tell within a few seconds who the leader of the group is.

It is simply far more efficient for small groups to organise themselves by simply following a leader figure than to debate every single decision at length. The leader may make the 'right' decision or make the 'wrong' decision, but at least a decision is made and the group moves on to the next pub, gallery, shop, decides to call it a night and go home etc as appropriate, rather than standing on a street corner arguing the merits of all these possibilities.

Having been in many such groups myself, I also observe that there are some natural leaders who actually make decisions in the best interests of the group as a whole, and others who are just on a power trip.

To cut a long story, let us not confuse raw 'leadership skills' with 'the ability or even intention to make decisions which benefit those being led'.

And as JH points out, behind the scenes, it's the same Home-Owner-Ist elite (or as he refers to them, teh Common Purpose/Bilderberger eilte) pulling the strings - for while it cannot be denied that Cameron has some leadership skills, he is merely one face out of thousands of people in the UK who could have played his role just as adequately.

A K Haart said...

JH. There is a hidden government - the pressures we don't see - usually money and the need to be on top as you say. I think needing to control, to be on top is a powerful driver, presumably linked to survival.

MW - I agree, leaders emerge naturally as they must to avoid inefficiencies. There are such things leadership skills, although I'd call it conditioning, even though some of it may be innate, ie genetic.