The Experts have no Clothes

Timothy Birdnow

Here is why it's so hard to penetrate the thick skulls of so many well-meaning and even rather small c conservative individuals.

From the article:

If facts won’t convince others, what’s left? Instead of facts, consider helping to uncover beliefs that are driving confirmation bias.

A common mistaken belief, invisible to a believer, is that individuals can be trusted with unchecked power. Driven by that unexamined belief, some focus on getting the "right” individuals into power.

Like North Koreans, many Americans don’t know the natural rights they have and so do not know when their rights are being violated.

The frightened believe some politician or expert must decide COVID-19 policy. They see no other way to deal with the threat and experience more order.

Read Hayek’s famous observationabout order, replacing the words "that in complex conditions” with the words "during a pandemic:” "To the naive mind that conceives of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex conditions [during a pandemic], order and adaptation to the unknown can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions.”

With that simple substitution, we expose a core belief shared by many Americans. They believe centralizing decision-making is effective in unknown, complex conditions and they want their politicians to do something. Like Dr. Fauci, they believe the path forward is obedience.

In short, people cling to a belief in the power of experts and the good intentions of the ruling class.

Growing up we are all told to listen to our teachers and other adults, and to trust authorities. How many times were we told to seek out a policeman or fireman or teacher or whatnot if we were lost or in trouble? While that is sage advice for children one must grow up at some point and become the one doing the leading and protecting - and at that point it is necessary to educate yourself on HOW to do that - and that means understanding issues and taking charge yourself.

There are many who just don't want to do that. They still want to be told what to do and how to think.

It's ultimately a religious faith. Many in our modern world seek the guidance of lesser gods; government, "experts", media people, scientists, labor unions, political parties,  etc. Where once the public largely sought guidance from priests and monks and the like and followed Biblical teaching they now turn to civil authorities for their marching orders.

The Christian seeks the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but they are growing scarce in these parts; the post-Christian seeks to the guidance of the world.

At any rate, it is still a religious phenomenon. But a very different, neopagan sort. Science, technology, and government are now our gods in America.

So you can present facts all day long to no avail. You aren't going to change the minds of the masses with logic. Logic is the enemy of blind faith.

And while most Americans instinctively know something is very wrong here, they are completely at a loss as to what that is. So they do what they were taught as children, and listen to the "experts" and authorities who have always cared for them. Well, these are the very same people who have hopelessly mired our country in quicksand. They have told us we can spend our way to prosperity, and we now owe more titanic sums of money we cannot repay. We were told it was o.k. to screw around outside of marriage and we now have a lost generation of people who are desperately grasping at any radical idea as they were born out of wedlock or ignored while growing up. We have a growing acceptance of insane ideas, like transgenderism. And yet the public doesn't understand that all of this will lead to our ruin; they trust the powers that be.

Well, if these experts were so smart why do we have so many problems?  Seems to me we would be living in paradise by now.

Every fix, every bold policy initiative, has only led to more problems. We have worse race relations than we did in prior days. We have poverty and homelessness, despite decades of money poured out to fix the problem. America's crime rate soared as a result of the "fix" by our betters. Every time these busybodies tell us to do something we obey - and the problem just seems to get worse.

But the public clings doggedly to their belief in the benevolence and efficacy of the ruling class, because they can think of nothing else to do and they don't want to admit their lifelong philosophy was bankrupt.

So we continue down the path to destruction. And not only will people not wake up but rather they grow wroth with those who have. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a prime example of that; so many hate Trump not because of anything the man has done but because he is pointing out imperial nudity. So many people don't want to face reality.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:18 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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