Lunatics
Once upon a time, I wondered why the Boston Globe employed second-rate columnists like Jeff Jacoby when the Boston area had smart academics who could certainly do a better job. Alas, I mentioned Harvey Mansfield by name. And now I know why the Globe might have been better off with Jacoby.
In a recent Wall Street Journal column, Mansfield explains why despotism is sometimes best.
Now the rule of law has two defects, each of which suggests the need for one-man rule. The first is that law is always imperfect by being universal, thus an average solution even in the best case, that is inferior to the living intelligence of a wise man on the spot, who can judge particular circumstances. This defect is discussed by Aristotle in the well-known passage in his "Politics" where he considers "whether it is more advantageous to be ruled by the best man or the best laws."
The other defect is that the law does not know how to make itself obeyed. Law assumes obedience, and as such seems oblivious to resistance to the law by the "governed," as if it were enough to require criminals to turn themselves in. No, the law must be "enforced," as we say. There must be police, and the rulers over the police must use energy (Alexander Hamilton's term) in addition to reason. It is a delusion to believe that governments can have energy without ever resorting to the use of force.
The best source of energy turns out to be the same as the best source of reason--one man. One man, or, to use Machiavelli's expression, uno solo, will be the greatest source of energy if he regards it as necessary to maintaining his own rule. Such a person will have the greatest incentive to be watchful, and to be both cruel and merciful in correct contrast and proportion. We are talking about Machiavelli's prince, the man whom in apparently unguarded moments he called a tyrant.
The problem with thinkers like Mansfield is not that they are inherently indisposed against Democrats, but that the are inherently indisposed against democracy.
Few writers who seriously consider the dictatorship of the proletariat to be a useful model for contemporary American politics get taken seriously by anything approximating an important segment of the press. But their right-wing counterparts are somehow respected, whether they write wistfully of despotism like Mansfield or pine for a military coup like Thomas Sowell.
Labels: despotism, Harvey Mansfield, lunacy, quasi-monarchists
