"Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?"
And "give me six lines written by the most honest of men, and I will find something in them with which to hang him".
These were said by the most outstanding politicians of their age and time. The first is an open admission of general incompetence in political elites, and the second of knavery and the love of power for its own sake.
My own life experience confirms Pournelle's Law, which is essentially an assertion that any organisation that lasts long enough will be taken over by knaves and sociopaths. And politicians are dumb, lazy, prejudiced and characterless, taken as a group. "Mistakes were made" - their relentless use of the passive voice is confirmation. In that they are no different from anyone else around me.
There is a small fraction of people with an engineering mindset that wants systems and institutions to do the things they are supposed to do, but they are nearly always sidelined and ignored.
Conspiracy theories are too high-effort for me. I can't suspend disbelief (in competence) for long enough. But discarding cynicism will take a reversion to a system of political advancement that selects for character above personality or accidents of heredity. It's a pity Warren Susman died so young.
Got your book, by the way, and I'm making my way through it slowly. It's full of things that I want to believe, and that's making me suspicious, of it and myself. I should add that it's well written (not an accolade I hand out freely) and you seem widely read in the relevant history. Well done!
Remember the movie Don't Look Up? An asteroid is going to destroy Earth, the government covers it up, the people smell something is rotten but don't know exactly what so they come up with crazy conspiracy theories. This is how it works - they are "half true", true in the general sense of "something is rotten" (cynicism), but wrong in the details.
Now the problem is not that politicians are rotten, I think you misunderstand cynicism here. It is that they have no real power. Why do you think they have? They obviously do not.
Reagan said "my greatest surprise in my life was that I was elected President, I gave an order, and nothing happened".
Conservative politicians are the stupid ones who think they are supposed to have power, once elected. Liberal politicians are smart, they know what is up - look at Trudeau, he is basically just a media celebrity, he knows he has no real power and his only job is to look cool.
Why do you think figureheads have power? Look at the Pendleton Act. They cannot fire e.g. the diplomats. So why would the diplomats obey them?
It is not that humans are bad or politicians are bad. It is that the system is a lie. It might be a noble lie! Maybe it is all for the good. But still it is a lie, hence the cynicism of not believing official truth.
I think you're eliding a valid distinction within cynicism. A cynic would be correct in saying that their daily life would not be noticeably affected by the election of one candidate over another. This would be expressed as "the election doesn't matter, because the important stuff is decided by bureacrats." This is partially correct, and a good and healthy response to people who think America will be destroyed if [insert name here] wins.
It is incorrect to say that the election is meaningless; it distantly determines a lot of bureacratic decisions. However, if all you're trying to do is escape a conversation about the personal life of [insert name here], it's ok to say that the election doesn't matter.
To actually believe that elections don't matter at all, is more cynical, and incorrect.
I think some confusion might arise because people hear the escape route phrase and take it literally. If they look up to the person who said it, they'll take the statement to an extreme, and posit a shadowy conspiracy to explain why "elections don't matter," which is true because [smart person] said it.
If I am any indication, society is full of people who will be friendly to your face on repeated encounters, but the longer they know you their aversion to your presence will leak through and be taken for contempt, distrust, cynicism.
But the root is social anxiety. The aversion, and thereby the distrust, comes from anxiety. If people could be more at ease with others they would not feel this way. The worst is the cynicism toward those lovely, accepting, inclusive non-cynics, that merely comes from irrational modern aversion to face to face, in-person interaction. Disliking the social chores and effort, even when babied by the presence of prosocial super nodal virtuosi. Where did that come from? Overload? Sequelae of density?
A better question: are cynicism and conspiracy theories "true"? That is really more relevant to the discussion than whether they violate some moral convention. Perhaps Trump truly has the mandate of heaven...
So, what do I make of these two quotes?:-
"Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?"
And "give me six lines written by the most honest of men, and I will find something in them with which to hang him".
These were said by the most outstanding politicians of their age and time. The first is an open admission of general incompetence in political elites, and the second of knavery and the love of power for its own sake.
My own life experience confirms Pournelle's Law, which is essentially an assertion that any organisation that lasts long enough will be taken over by knaves and sociopaths. And politicians are dumb, lazy, prejudiced and characterless, taken as a group. "Mistakes were made" - their relentless use of the passive voice is confirmation. In that they are no different from anyone else around me.
There is a small fraction of people with an engineering mindset that wants systems and institutions to do the things they are supposed to do, but they are nearly always sidelined and ignored.
Conspiracy theories are too high-effort for me. I can't suspend disbelief (in competence) for long enough. But discarding cynicism will take a reversion to a system of political advancement that selects for character above personality or accidents of heredity. It's a pity Warren Susman died so young.
Got your book, by the way, and I'm making my way through it slowly. It's full of things that I want to believe, and that's making me suspicious, of it and myself. I should add that it's well written (not an accolade I hand out freely) and you seem widely read in the relevant history. Well done!
Thank you very much! If you like it, tell others!
One can always find reasons to think the worst of humans, but I would recommend taking a more balanced view.
Remember the movie Don't Look Up? An asteroid is going to destroy Earth, the government covers it up, the people smell something is rotten but don't know exactly what so they come up with crazy conspiracy theories. This is how it works - they are "half true", true in the general sense of "something is rotten" (cynicism), but wrong in the details.
Now the problem is not that politicians are rotten, I think you misunderstand cynicism here. It is that they have no real power. Why do you think they have? They obviously do not.
Reagan said "my greatest surprise in my life was that I was elected President, I gave an order, and nothing happened".
Conservative politicians are the stupid ones who think they are supposed to have power, once elected. Liberal politicians are smart, they know what is up - look at Trudeau, he is basically just a media celebrity, he knows he has no real power and his only job is to look cool.
Why do you think figureheads have power? Look at the Pendleton Act. They cannot fire e.g. the diplomats. So why would the diplomats obey them?
It is not that humans are bad or politicians are bad. It is that the system is a lie. It might be a noble lie! Maybe it is all for the good. But still it is a lie, hence the cynicism of not believing official truth.
I think you're eliding a valid distinction within cynicism. A cynic would be correct in saying that their daily life would not be noticeably affected by the election of one candidate over another. This would be expressed as "the election doesn't matter, because the important stuff is decided by bureacrats." This is partially correct, and a good and healthy response to people who think America will be destroyed if [insert name here] wins.
It is incorrect to say that the election is meaningless; it distantly determines a lot of bureacratic decisions. However, if all you're trying to do is escape a conversation about the personal life of [insert name here], it's ok to say that the election doesn't matter.
To actually believe that elections don't matter at all, is more cynical, and incorrect.
I think some confusion might arise because people hear the escape route phrase and take it literally. If they look up to the person who said it, they'll take the statement to an extreme, and posit a shadowy conspiracy to explain why "elections don't matter," which is true because [smart person] said it.
For sure, it’s a good idea to avoid political conversations sometimes. But using cynicism as a way of doing that seems like a bad idea.
If I am any indication, society is full of people who will be friendly to your face on repeated encounters, but the longer they know you their aversion to your presence will leak through and be taken for contempt, distrust, cynicism.
But the root is social anxiety. The aversion, and thereby the distrust, comes from anxiety. If people could be more at ease with others they would not feel this way. The worst is the cynicism toward those lovely, accepting, inclusive non-cynics, that merely comes from irrational modern aversion to face to face, in-person interaction. Disliking the social chores and effort, even when babied by the presence of prosocial super nodal virtuosi. Where did that come from? Overload? Sequelae of density?
A better question: are cynicism and conspiracy theories "true"? That is really more relevant to the discussion than whether they violate some moral convention. Perhaps Trump truly has the mandate of heaven...