A Call For Scientific Authoritarianism
I have warned repeatedly that we suffer from "expertitis," my term for the tendency to hand the most important policy decisions over to "experts." Now, a well known environmental author named David Shearman has written an hysterical piece urging that we toss aside democracy and adopt world authoritarianism to impliment the "scientific consensus" on global warming and other so-called world emergencies. And he holds tyrannical China (forced abortions, infanticide, killing prisoners for organs, repression of dissent, Tiananmen Square, etc. ad nauseum) up as the exemplar because it banned plastic bags! From the article:
I have been warning that there are some among us who worship at the altar of scientism and who want to institute a scientocracy where "the scientists" are granted a free hand and our opinions be damned. Well, this is a pretty explicit example. And the authoritarianism wouldn't just be over global warming. A scientific consensus could probably be forged around permitting human cloning, creating animal/human hybrids, imposing futile care theory (which Shearman seemed to be alluding in his comment about ICUs) requiring eugenic abortion of disabled fetuses, perhaps even to deny medical treatment to smokers or the obese as has already been called for in the UK, etc. etc.The ban in China will save importation and use of five million tons of oil used in plastic bag manufacture, only a drop in the ocean of the world oil well. But the importance in the decision lies in the fact that China can do it by edict and close the factories. They don't have to worry about loss of political donations or temporarily unemployed workers...
Liberal democracy is sweet and addictive and indeed in the most USA, unbridled individual liberty overwhelms many of the collective needs of the citizens. The subject is almost sacrosanct and those who indulge in criticism are labeled as Marxists [me: ya think?], socialists, fundamentalists and worse. These labels are used because alternatives to democracy cannot be perceived!...
The Chinese decision on shopping bags is authoritarian and contrasts with the voluntary non-effective solutions put forward in most Western democracies. We are going to have to look how authoritarian decisions based on consensus science can be implemented to contain greenhouse emissions. It is not that we do not tolerate such decisions in the very heart of our society, in wide range of enterprises from corporate empires to emergency and intensive care units. If we do not act urgently we may find we have chosen total liberty rather than life.
Democracy is not a luxury. It is crucial to human freedom and thriving. These would-be totalitarians can go jump in the lake.
Labels: Scientific Authoritarianism
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 6:58 PM
11 Comments
11 Comments:
Beware the scientists who think they know more than everybody else. Especially than you and me.
Some twenty years ago, Omni magazine interviewed a noted scientist. I don't have the issue handy and can't remember who it was, or much else about the interview, but he made the unabashed statement that smarter people in general, especially scientists, should have extra votes in elections. Joe Schmoe would have his usual one vote, while the most noted scientists' vote (presumably including him) might count as many as 10 normal votes. Don't underestimate the ability of some of these people to plan grand schemes for all of us, especially for poor ol' Joe.
Communism was an attempt to apply scientific principles to the normally unquantifiable affairs of economics and society as a whole, and numerous noted Western scientists were all for its adoption, especially during the Great Depression. Shearman's statements expressing admiration for China's (Communist, don't forget) authoritarianism are simply the latest in such fashion. Your reaction is justified.
The reality is that many high-IQ types including scientists lack knowledge outside their narrow spheres of interest, and often cannot cope in everyday life. The mathematics professor who relies on his wife to choose his clothes is a canard, but not that unusual. Supposedly, Albert Einstein didn't even know his own phone number and justified this by asking why he should memorize something he could easily look up. And today's counterparts are to eliminate democratic participation and run the economy?
This naivete extends to the political process, and here an anecdote will demonstrate the principle. I used to follow spaceflight avidly. The Clinton administration proposed cutting NASA's budget for manned space shuttle operations in the early 1990s. A number of intelligent, accomplished astronomers and planetary scientists who generally opposed spending big bucks on manned missions said, good, the money can go instead to unmanned spacecraft, which give more bang for the buck, and our projects will be sitting pretty.
They didn't begin to realize the political reality, which was that the administration wanted to spend the money elsewhere, not hand it to the scientists. In the end the funds indeed went to other programs, not to anything remotely related to space research, because NASA appropriations historically have been part of a larger package that included welfare and veterans' programs. The jilted scientists were dumbfounded that such a thing could happen. Again, these guys are going to run the show without a grip on how the real world works?
The risk is that someone such as Shearman praising China's shopping bags policy might worm his way into a position of influence with a future administration. It wouldn't be the first time.
You might find these words by Noam Chomsky in a series of interviews interesting. They get to the root of many bioethics quandaries and even to Shearman's elitist appreciations of authoritarianism:
"Social Security is based on a principle that is considered subversive [by certain elites] and that has to be driven out of people's heads: the principle that you care about other people. Social Security is based on the assumption that we care about each other, that we have a communal responsibility to take care of people who can't take care of themselves, whether they're children or the elderly....Maybe each individual can't say, 'I benefit from that kid going to school,' but as a society we benefit from it. And the same is true of caring for the elderly. But that idea has to be driven out of people's heads [by the anointed elites]. There is huge pressure to turn people into pathological monsters who care only about themselves, who don't have anything to do with anyone else, and who therefore can be very easily ruled and controlled....
"The United States is basically what's called a 'failed state.' It has normal democratic institutions, but they barely function....The genius of American politics has been to marginalize and isolate people."
(From Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World: Interviews with David Barsamian, pp.145-146, 198.) Thereby leaving the door open for eliminating compassionate programs and instituting coercive policies. Make no mistake about Chomsky's views, as he despises attempts to undermine democracy. He is simply pointing out others' agendas.
And as a final note, a Soviet defector, Viktor Suvorov (real name Vladimir Rezun) noted that the Soviet Union manipulated certain Western environmentalists. He said that Soviet intelligence called them "watermelons": green on the outside, red on the inside, and so tasty! It possibly isn't any coincidence that Shearman advocates a Soviet-style world government to address environmental "problems"...
So far as I've been able to tell, Democracy and Capitalism are the only two systems of government and economics that work relatively well (democracy sucks, but everything else is worse).
Personally, I blame the advent of the nuclear family for the sense of isolation and the drift from community caring to self-centered, easily controlled sheep behavior. Actually, make that cows - cow behavior. Sheep at least freak when a wolf is at the door - I'm borrowing heavily from Dean Koontz here, so the metaphore isn't mine.
We have to get back into the feeling of community spiritedness. Every member of the community is precious. Anybody who does harm to members is cast out.
The U.S. is doing the same thing by banning the incandescent light bulb in favor of the fluorescent one.
I wonder what's going to be next.
I hope that the good David Sherman has an enviromentally friendly way of fueling the ovens.
Mort
Go, WEsley. I loved the "ya think."
People like that guy give me the creeps.
Lydia, you live:) Holy Second Hand Smoke. John Howard, Susan and Royale must be lurking too.
Hey, Don, I put most of my blogging energy into What's Wrong with the World--
www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net
Royale has started commenting over there.
But, yes, I mostly lurk here at SHS now. But you'll see references to Wesley's posts showing up over at WWWtW occasionally as evidence of my lurking.
nothing works like a Kingdom. A King is usually of Royal Bloodline not elected. Who would be King of Scientifica/Academia? Would he be elected by the elitist science community and all non-scientific acredited people would be non-citizens?
Lydia: You do more than lurk, you contribute for which I am grateful.
jj: I nominate Richard Dawkins. He's a flawed moral thinker.. He's self important, calling his Foundation Web site "A clear thinking oasis" (if he doesn't say so himself), and best of all for the science ubber alles crowd, he is an expert at the sarcastic putdown.
Hate to sate the obvious but if there was indeed a "consensus" then wouldn't democracy work just fine?
Thanks for dropping by steven paul. It isn't SOCIETY'S consensus that they care about. It is the SCIENTIFIC consensus. Hence, they want a scientocracy that can step on the societal consesnsus or not wait until it deveolops.
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