The Secret Knowledge

But how may it be common sense for the auto industry to be run by one with no experience of it? This might be envisioned only through the intervention of some magical power—the process taking place in the dark, or in some closed cabinet. This is the essence of the wish for a czar: “Do it, but don’t tell me about it, I’m sure it will be fine.” It is the wish to be dominated by a strong beneficent power—the wish, in essence, for enslavement. See the various programs headed over the years by “czars,”—the Poverty, Car, Energy, Drug, et cetera—all exercises in magical thinking. What have they accomplished? Nothing.

How can a country grow rich through “redistributing” the wealth, by driving production overseas through taxation, by a refusal to exploit natural resources? This could be imagined only by those willing to suspend their understanding of the laws of cause and effect—the audience at a magic show.

Curiously, as magicians know, the more intelligent the viewer, the more easily he may be fooled. For the less imaginative and less theoretical know that a rabbit may not be produced from any hat which did not previously contain a rabbit; that wealth can accrue neither to an individual nor to a society not committed to the production of wealth, and that no organization may be made more efficient by adding to its bulk.

This delusion of an expanded government’s increased efficiency is, in Liberal thought, buttressed by a belief in such a government’s increased fairness—that more laws and more extralegal or administrative procedures will somehow bring about more and “better” justice than that provided by the Constitution. As some groups, we know, were discriminated against in the past, justice may now best be served by discrimination against other groups. This is suggested as a commonsense mechanical device. Psychologically, however, it is magical thinking: awarding to the State non-Constitutional powers, correctly deemed notorious when exercised by the individual.

How may justice be served by awarding to any special group a preference? Such awards may be welcome to the recipients, and their contemplation enjoyable to those of the good-willed who are not adversely affected by the redistribution, but they cannot be just.

Contemporary Liberal sentiment endorses the abrogation or elaboration of law to ensure that no one suffers, but the first and most important task of law in a democracy is not to right individual wrongs, but to ensure that no one suffers because of the State. And the simple, tragic truth is that this may be accomplished not by a Czar or a committee, or by reorganization, or by accession to office of the Benevolent or Wise, but only by limiting the State’s power.

21

RUMPELSTILTSKIN

Freud posits three main aspects of the mind: the Id, which is the unmitigated urge or nonnegotiable demand (“I want it”), the Ego, which attempts to integrate this demand with the Ego’s other conflicting needs (“I know I want unlimited sex, but I also want to stay out of prison”); and the Superego, which is taxed with finding a solution to this hopeless and enervating struggle.

Here is my example of the process.

One finds oneself, in the middle of the night, stopped at a deserted intersection by a red light. The Id says, “What the hell are you waiting for, drive on.”

“But wait,” says the Ego, “what if it is a trap? What if the police are hiding, right behind that road sign?”

“No,” says the Id, “their car would not quite fit, and we would see the tires, for the love of God.”

“But what if there is a hidden camera,” says the Ego. “Is it worth the risk? Why not wait the extra half- minute.”

“You fool,” says the Id, “there is no danger. You weak fool.” This is, of course, intolerable. A random moment at a stoplight occasions a battle for self-esteem and psychic integrity. Even the changing of the light will not still the conflict, for one stands insulted and accused, and the question of what should have been done remains unanswered and unanswerable.

However, comes now the Superego.

“No,” it says, “It is not that you are weak and foolish. You are, in fact, both worthy and good, and I will tell you why: you stopped at the light because you are a Good Citizen. And you realized that if everyone obeyed only those laws the transgression of which would result in immediate punishment, where would Society be? I congratulate and honor you for your choice.”

Everybody happy, well, I should say.

As we have seen, all under the sway of the Nazi regime had to greet each other with the Nazi salute. Many found this, as it was an avowal of subjugation, intolerable. The Id said, “I will not give the wretched salute.” The Ego replied, “What does it mean? You don’t actually have to believe in the Nazis; it’s just a simple gesture, and performing it will save your life.”

But this interchange, unfortunately, caused the individual to enter into a painful negotiation scores of times a day. To wit: “I do it, but I don’t believe in it. I am not a coward. I am merely making a rational and cost-effective accommodation. I am a worthy person, whatever the Id may say.”

How can one eliminate the pain of the continual repetition of a distressing and seemingly insoluble negotiation?

Here comes the Superego with a brilliant solution: let the gesture be consigned to the realm of the unconscious—it turns the continual nature of the repetition from a reiterated pain into a selling point. “Look here,” says the Superego, “there is just not enough time in the day to worry about it—we will let the dialogue lapse from consciousness, and replace it with unthinking habit.”

But this instance differs from that of the stoplight.

For here we have an unfortunate unresolved remainder. For though the conscious negotiation ceased, the salute survived.

What was the effect, Bettelheim asked, of the now unconscious habitual repetition of a gesture of subjugation? The individual became a Nazi. How could he not? Was he not now pledging, unthinkingly, his loyalty scores of times a day?

A friend reports that she saw a doyenne of the Left at a restaurant and asked her advice on some question of Liberal Doctrine. “Contact MoveOn.org,” the doyenne replied, “And do whatever they say.”