The Arrogance of the Articulate: Introduction

Bush Derangement Syndrome. The Obama/Clinton foreign policy. Hoplophobia. The tendency (over time) for non-profit foundations to drift Leftwards. Admiration by our cultural elites for dictators like Fidel Castro and Cesar Chavez.

What do all these things have in common?

Many who write or speak well believe they deserve the power to rule everyone else.

It all goes back to the age-old question: "who shall rule?" In general, people naturally want power over others, so they justify that quest for power on the basis of some unique attribute they possess.

Greek philosophers argued that philosopher-kings would best lead society. Egyptian Pharaohs weren't just heads of government: they claimed actual godhood and required everyone to worship them too. In Iran today, the clergy claim ultimate civil power by appealing to divine scriptures, and by asserting the exclusive right to interpret and apply the writings of the prophet Muhammed. Similarly, the Christian Bishop of Rome claimed the right to appoint and depose civil authorities as the earthly "Vicar of Christ". The "divine right of kings" has a long history in Western civilization.

In this series of blog posts, I will try to show how this explanation fits with (and predicts) lots of things we see in contemporary American public life. My goal is to educate people so they can see this argument in its various forms, and appropriately evaluate claims to authority.

The Fallacy that Intellectuals Believe

In a recent interview, Thomas Sowell describes what intellectuals believe:

That intellectuals should influence--if not control--the kinds of decisions made in society. More specially, they should promote the transfer of decisions from the masses to those who have 'more intellect'.

Throughout the interview, he goes on to explain that this assumes that the knowledge necessary to make those decisions can be collected and processed by the intellectual elite. But in reality, the knowledge necessary to make those decisions is distributed widely throughout society. He estimates that 99% of the knowledge is not available to would-be central planners, so top-down command-and-control strategies will inevitably fail.

Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs television show, illustrates this point viscerally and memorably in this 20-minute talk:



Dr. Sowell and Mr. Rowe are right. Intellectuals do not (and can not!) know enough to organize society. We are better off when individuals make decisions based on their own local knowledge.