On Reducing the Power of the Government: Why the Educated Elite Resists
Oct. 22, 2011
A favorite theme in science fiction is this: robots take over. This is the theme of the short story, "Farewell to the Master," which became the basis of the movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still. In the story, the robot's name is Gnut, not Gort. (Gort has a more sinister sound to it.) In the story, Klaatu dies. In the story, the robot talks.
Of all the things Cliff had wanted to say to Klaatu, one remained imperatively present in his mind. Now, as the green metal robot stood framed in the great green ship, he seized his chance."Gnut," he said earnestly, holding carefully the limp body in his arms, "you must do one thing for me. Listen carefully. I want you to tell your master -- the master yet to come -- that what happened to the first Klaatu was an accident, for which all Earth is immeasurably sorry. Will you do that?"
"I have known it," the robot answered gently.
"But will you promise to tell your master -- just those words -- as soon as he is arrived?"
"You misunderstand," said Gnut, still gently, and quietly spoke four more words. As Cliff heard them a mist passed over his eyes and his body went numb.
As he recovered and his eyes came back to focus he saw the great ship disappear. It just suddenly was not there anymore. He fell back a step or two. In his ears, like great bells, rang Gnut's last words. Never, never was he to disclose them til the day he came to die.
"You misunderstand," the mighty robot had said. "I am the master."
The robot is the master, not Klaatu. This was mentioned briefly by Klaatu in his final speech in the movie. "We have placed a race of robots over us." But this is not explored in the movie. It would have made for a less happy ending. It would have turned the movie into Invaders from Mars, but with no happy ending.
This problem is the fundamental problem of all modern philosophy. It is sometimes called the science/freedom dualism. Other times it is called the nature/freedom dualism. It is this: when we design a tool to liberate us from nature, the tool can become our master.
We see our liberation from nature's limits -- scarcity -- as a benefit. But then we become dependent on the means of our liberation.
It works in society, too. We empower the state to protect us from other people or from nature, and the state becomes a tyrant. The great short by Robert Sheckley, Watchbird, combines the two versions of the dualism: the machine becomes the state. You can read it here.
This is not some peripheral philosophical question. It is the central dualism -- the fundamental contradiction -- of modern philosophy.
If science liberates us by providing us with predictable tools and techniques, then it liberates us from nature. Or does it? We are part of nature. So, scientific predictability is a threat to our freedom. Science is impersonal. It is like the laws governing balls on a pool table. Once the player whacks a ball with his cue stick, everything else is in theory predictable. The balls do not have a choice.
What if we are like the balls? Who holds the cue stick?
Remember the end of Men in Black?
There have been three -- and only three -- major dualisms in Western philosophy. These dualisms resist any solution. Philosophers go back and forth in a vain search for a way to balance opposites. The Greeks had no answer for the form/matter dualism: the connection/division between changeless forms or ideas and the flux of nature. Put simply: How can we make sense of a shifting, changing world? By what mental images? What connection do our mental images have with the Real Ideas? These Ideas were not regarded as mental constructs, but rather as metaphysical models -- the basis of all stability and continuity in the universe. They were seen as real.
The medieval world had the nature/grace dualism. How does God's grace operate in the natural world, which is governed by impersonal natural law? Put simply: What is a miracle? How does it work? How can it be true if nature really is predictable?
Ever since the Renaissance, the nature/freedom dualism has been dominant. How can man, a product of nature, deliver himself out of nature's clutches without turning over his personal liberty to his tools? Science liberates, then enslaves. So does civil government. The best introductory book on all this is Herman Dooyeweerd's In the Twilight of Western Thought (1960).
There is a cartoon I have searched for for 30 years. It is a an R. Cobb cartoon. It has two panels. Panel #1 has a drawing of a Neanderthal man holding a spike -- a tool -- in his hand. Panel #2 has a robot that holds a man in a suit in its hand. That is the best summary of modern man's dilemma that I have ever seen. The operational dilemma is an extension of the philosophical dilemma. It is this: If man gains power over nature through science, how does he retain freedom from other men who use science to suppress their fellows?
C. S. Lewis covers this in his book, The Abolition of Man. He got to the heart of it on page 42 of his novel, That Hideous Strength (1946). Lord Feverstone, who is an insider in a conspiracy of scientists and social planners against the public, is trying to recruit a young sociologist into the conspiracy. He offers him the power to transform mankind.
If man is made in the image of God, he is more than nature.. If man is God's agent in subduing nature, then nature will not become man's master. But if man thinks of himself as the unplanned, random product of a purposeless nature -- Darwin's vision -- then nature becomes a threat to him. Other men become a threat to him. If he is no more than a cog in a great machine -- natural or social -- then his liberty is an illusion. Then his only hope is the breakdown of the machine. But then he reverts to the state of nature. Without the division of labor, most people now alive would die within weeks. This is the theme of Mad Max and The Book of Eli.
We find that government expands its power over us. This is relentless. If Darwin's view of man's origin is true, then the future of man is a war between the grasping state and the autonomous individual, who seeks deliverance through politics or through personal retreat into those zones of society in which the state is not yet dominant. Think "spectator sports." Think "video games." Think "pornography." Think "mind-altering drugs." How have these grown as a share of GDP since 1965? How has the state grown in its influence since 1965?
If modern man sees personal liberation as the product of science and technology, then his only hope is that individual tools will somehow overcome the process of political centralization. I think this will be the case, but how many people have given this much thought? And then there is this: What will be the economic costs of the transition? What if the banking system collapses from a derivatives crisis? What if biological terrorism collapses production? You get the idea.
What we see around us is the working out of a specific philosophy of man, nature, and society. Man is taking charge of Man. This means that some men are taking charge of all the rest.
The battle for liberty must begin with this premise: Man does not have the God-given authority to take charge of man. Science cannot make the New Man. Grace can transform the Old Man into something ethically better. The state cannot.
The West's educated elite does not believe this. Most voters do not believe it, either. The voters want protection from nature and the free market. They want tax-funded safety nets. They turn to the state for aid. This is our central political problem in the West. It is a deeply religious battle. It centers on this question: Who saves (heals) man, God or the state? The correct answer: not the state.
I have written a book on this. Download it free here.