The Burden of Being Right: An Essay On Man

Author's Note: This was written to address the fact that so many modern philosophies and philosophers direct their efforts towards improving man's basic nature. With the unimaginable advances in technology on some level it is assumed that man himself can also be improved accordingly. So many familair attempts, most notably Marxism, believs in the pefectability of man, whereas I and my colleagues reject such attempts as laughable wastes of time which will result in all sorts o fhuman misery because they simply refuse to accept that they are wrong in their premises and continue to try and prove themselves right by directing more and more limiting and imposing acts upon man to try to bend him into their own little theory's vision of how things ought to be. Instead of succeeding all they do is cause misery create situations for people to invent ways of circumventing the impositions.
It is our contention that man will never change and any and all attempts to do so will only serve to cause harm, waste valuable resources, and show no greater result or benefit than any other previously tried social theory.

My friends and I are contemplating starting a club we'll tentatively name, "The 100% Club", because we are so consistently correct in our analysis, predictions, and evaluation of human behavior and events. There are many pundits with a good track record but so far none have come close to our accuracy. Rush Limbaugh is one of these. He even used to have a professional company on retainer to keep track of his accuracy rate. He claimed to be over 90%. I, for one, have found why he isn't closer to 100%, if he was ever over 90% at all. This can be summed up by a postulation he made recently. He said, referring to the slippery slope which morality in the world and this nation in particular have been falling down, that "Some future generation will come along and put their foot down and say enough is enough and put a stop to it." I hate to correct him, but by making such an assertion he makes two major errors in judging the human animal and his limitations.
His first error is that as we bemoan the decline of society in our lifetimes (in this group we range in age from 47 to 57, thusly Baby Boomers), so have our parents and grandparents bemoaned the decline of society in their lifetimes. Us post-war children don't and can't complain about the decline of morality during our predecessors lives simply because we weren't there to see it and experience it. We begin to observe the state of the world around us as we are growing. For each generation that is where their experience begins. All that occurred prior to it is nothing more than history and thusly ephemeral and dream-like rather than a reality. As we age we see how things change (mostly for the worse) and this is the situation that we lament. We cannot complain and lament the loss and decline of morality from our parents' times simply because weren't there to see it as it was happening. We shouldn't expect to "miss" the morality of our parents' times any more than we can expect to "miss" the morality of Antebellum times, Colonial times, or Elizabethan times, just because we weren't there to see them. How can we suffer a feeling of loss for a time and morality if we were never there to experience it in the first place? Obviously we can't because the story or collective recollection begins at the birth of each generation and not before.
Another charter member of the club once noted that the reason why so little is done to resist these changes and why so few even notice it, is that society collectively is like cooking a lobster. If you put the animal in a pot of boiling water it makes every effort to get out of the situation and kicks up quite a fuss in doing so. However, if you place a lobster into a pot of cold water and turn the flame to a slow boil, then the animal falls asleep and the change is so gradual it never notices it and it slowly boils to death. Again, as in the first point, if things happen slowly and over a great expanse of time, few will ever take notice of the change and therefore do little to resist. By the time the change has transpired there is little to be done. This basically says the same thing but it takes a different route to make the point.
This is the first mistake Rush Limbaugh and his contemporaries make. This summation is based in reality and not a spirit of wishful thinking. The second is not as basic in nature, but every bit as true.
I will not refer to it as a theory but as an admission of the limitations of mankind and thereby factual in nature. Man is very limited in his potential for improving himself. However, man's ingenuity for modifying his surroundings and improving his tools and "toys" is limited only by his imagination. Man has become so adept at this talent that he deludes himself into believing that he can even improve upon himself. The effort to improve man’s self has been taken up by both ends of the political spectrum. The Nazis have tried it and the Communists are still trying to do it (even though they’ve been trying endlessly and always failed). The Nazis tried the biological approach toward perfection and the Communists tried the political approach by their tired old tactic of "leveling the playing field". They try to punish the successful and reward the sluggards. This does indeed bring everyone down towards the center of the success ladder but by limiting everyone's capability for improving his or her own lot in life, are we really doing anyone a favor? This brings me to the crux of the matter.
My analysis of the human animal is that there are three basic types of people and, to be honest and truthful about what we can expect of man, we must come to grips with these simple and basic facts.
The smallest segment of civilization is that group who are decent people who also think and act with introspection and a consciousness of their own behavior and principles. This is the smallest percentage which number fewer than 10% of the general population (and perhaps closer to the low single digits). In a ten-year period of study I have found no more than ten which fall into this classification out of the thousands I have come into contact with. As such, I am sort of like Diogenes who was searching the world over for an honest man and found little reward for his efforts.
The next group is also the largest group. These are the ones who are followers, act on impulse, practice very little in the way of introspection, and go through life reacting rather than acting and leading. To this extent, they are not basically or by nature idiotic or malicious, but their lack of initiative and lack taking positions on issues causes and contributes by default to a general situation of idiocy and maliciousness. This group numbers perhaps 70% to 75% of the general population.
The final group makes up the remainder of the balance of society but by its activism and aggressiveness in imposing their nature, the rest of us are dragged along in the slipstream. Again it's not usually a conscious effort but due to their aggressive nature and the lack of desire to respond to it by the second and largest percentage of the population, it overtakes the rest of us. A sub-culture of this bracket is aware of its power and does consciously and actively push its agenda on the rest of us. They are indeed just as stupid and maliciousness as the rest of this group; they differ only in that they are aware of it and that they take advantage of the situation purely to improve their own power base. This group I shall call the malicious idiots, or those who are idiots and malicious scumbags, and also are predatory in their nature. This group in numbers is larger than the first but not by much. The aggressive faction, if sorted out into its own category, is by far the smallest of the lot, but what they lack in numbers they more than compensate for by their aggressiveness, deceitfulness, and energy. Their overall influence makes them the most influential and dangerous.
The first and smallest group tries to respond to this group with occasional success. But this success is temporary and more defensive in nature. Thus, it takes on a holding pattern or what was once termed "containment" in the 1950s and '60s by political scientists.
What the attempts to level the playing field does is the following: by limiting the ability and avenues for success, all that is accomplished is to limit the ability of the first class of people to rise above it all and continue to achieve. Many still find ways to rise above their situations, but many more will become frustrated and slip back into the demoralized and settle into the second and largest group. This further shrinks the size and effectiveness of the first group.
When the playing field is level, the second group is enlarged. When restrictions for success are removed then a percentage of this middle group realizes that it is in their best interests to also achieve and work hard, thus shrinking the membership rolls of this segment and enlarging that of the first to a degree.
The third group, under the grip of the "level the playing field" philosophy, won't change either in size or in habits because the idiots and the malicious will always be idiots and malicious no matter what you try to do to change them simply because it is their nature every bit as it is the nature of a cat to eat mice. But the sub-culture part of this population will take advantage of the situation and increase their power and control of society. Note that their size won't increase but their hold on power will. I submit that the trend and promotion of leveling the playing field is a product of this group designed for the advancement of their own agenda.
Any attempts to micromanage human behavior with the hope of improving man’s condition by such tactics as “leveling the playing field”, will achieve nothing more than concentrate the idiots and scumbags and thus exacerbate the problem even further. The best way to deal with this is to simply leave people to their own devices and allow the achievers, the good, and the introspective principled people to improve upon their characteristics to the general benefit and improvement of society. This would also allow that segment of the impulsive followers’ group who will realize that it is in their best interest to succeed, to actually work to their own improvement which in turn trickles down to the rest to a degree (although as you approach those who comprise the third group, you reach a point of diminishing returns). As always, the idiots and scumbags class will always be that way no matter what measures are taken to change them so they are a lost cause and better left to stew in their own juices. But more importantly, that sub-group of this category which actively and evangelically impose their idiocy and maliciousness by poking their finger in the eye of the general populace ad infinitum, will be weakened because the best of the first two groups will serve as a counterbalance to that of the negative.
Once the reader has absorbed and accepted this, it should become clear that Rush Limbaugh was incorrect because of another reason; man's situation is limited at best and because of his limitations he is destined for decline. It is true that situations such as these have presented themselves before and man is still around to talk about it. What caused the change is always something dramatic and draconian. What will bring forth the change this time? Perhaps the deepening sexual promiscuity will cause an epidemic of disease which can only be dealt with by imposing strict measures and a shock back into a morality which prevented us from destroying ourselves this way down through time immemorial. Maybe a war between the righteous and the degenerates will ensue and an improvement will be born out. But I think these unlikely simply because I doubt if there are enough righteous people with sufficient influence to bring them about. Also possible is that the malicious idiots will abort themselves out of existence or at least down to a much more manageable size. Some say that the rest of the country wherein resides a larger amount of the decent and intelligent people, will secede from the unions thus leaving the looney left to legislate itself into such a state of decline that they will
self-destruct. Or will it be brought to us by the prophecies of Daniel and Revelations in the Holy Scriptures that an Armageddon and the return of the Messiah are the only possibilities?
Whichever happens to be the case, it will indeed be a cataclysmic event. Us One Hundred Percenters bear a tremendous burden by being right so often. Not only does our accuracy bring forth the ire of others simply because, as Mark Twain once said, "There's nothing harder to put up with than a good example." But because we see things as they are we know that things will only get worse before they get better – which is not a pleasant thought to have to live with .
This brings us to another issue at hand; does man indeed possess the power and capability of choice? The answer unequivocally and resoundingly is yes. The problem is that the majority seem to use it seldom if ever. By merely going along following and reacting to stimuli and circumstances as they arise, is not really using the power of choice in the truest sense and for the purpose that it was given to us in the first place. A case can be made that not using it is in itself a choice of sorts. With that I can’t argue, but again I query, is that really why we have the capability of making conscious choices anyway? Clearly the answer is no. The only ones who do use their power of choice on a consistent and conscious basis are those on the two opposite ends of the spectrum; those who act regularly and consciously with their convictions toward decency, thoughtfulness and introspection and the malicious idiots who consciously spend their waking hours poking their fingers in the eye of the general populace.
This can also find immediate applications in the world of business. Once again, the principles are painfully obvious to anyone who is truthful. It is a fact that in every place of work there are one or two (rarely more than that) employees who have the capability, responsibility, and initiative to shoulder the work necessary to keep the workplace functioning. It is observed that whenever these persons go on vacation or extended sick leave, the day to day machinery of getting the job done grinds to a slow pace or an outright halt. Whenever these people return to work they are met with mountains of backlogged paperwork and orders to fill, and they must then work themselves into exhaustion to get things running on an even keel again. In other words, as in society as a whole every work place muddles through on the backs of a select few talented and motivated people, without whom the company can not function. I do not refer to these observations as theories as they are so painfully obvious and true that to term them anything other than factual would be a lie.
There are some who will label us as misanthropes, but I disagree with that moniker. A misanthrope hates man. Because we admire that in man which has shown great selflessness and ingenuity we do not hate man categorically. What we hate in man is that he refuses to admit and confront his limitations and this failure has caused man to convert the universe and man himself after his own image, rather than settling for the situation that God has given us and coming to grips with our circumstances and dealing with those that we can influence within that framework. This is not only a rejection of God's will, but also a formula for perpetual disappointment, sadness, and catastrophe. We are not misanthropes at all, but we are realists. And because of our realistic views and our inability to delude ourselves into thinking that things are not as bad as they are or just different than they really are, this also makes us cynics. If I may coin a term, as a school of philosophy, we may name it "Realistic Cynicism". Of course, “Cynical Realism” is equally acceptable and would be interchangeable and synonymous. I also consider it a type of fundamental Christianity. With that label I am comfortable.
Then too, at time will come to assign this to a particular field of scientific study it will have to be given a name within that realm too. Being that it deals with a human behavior, it can hardly be classified as a science after all, because a cornerstone issue of our philosophical principles is that studying behavior can never be considered a science but at best involves a matter of opinion. Even bearing this in mind, as realists we are aware that someone will eventually give it a classification with an “ology” at the end of its name. Rather than allow someone else to give us a name (who might possibly be opposed to our ideology who may also have an agenda to attack and denigrate us and create a rubric which would be insulting and inaccurate) we will take the precaution of creating our own title as a scientific study. It will be not only accurate, but appropriate. We therefore call it “Socio-proctology”. With this title I am not only comfortable but pleased as it perfectly fits the bill in every sense. Not only is it accurate, but the sense of the depth of our truthfulness and grasp of reality comes across.
For those who might take umbrage to our name, our political positions, or just be envious of our flawless record of human predicting events, I will offer a quote from Lillian Hellman, which may become one of the founding principles in our manifesto. It is, “Cynicism is just another way of telling the truth.” A future paper will have to be an examination of philosophers whom we subscribe to which would include some of their assertions and anecdotes. A cursory look at this early juncture shows that it would contain the likes of Groucho Marx, Mark Twain, W.C. Fields, Robert Benchley, Will Rogers, and other renowned curmudgeons.
A member of our 100% fraternity once made a very astute proposal and observation. Being a philosophy professor it was predictable that it originated with him. He said, "We are always complaining about the adverse changes and decline in morality and the world over the last twenty five years and we're always frustrated by it. Imagine how frustrating and stressful it would be if we lived to be 500 years old. Then we'd have 475 years worth of complaining to do. It's a good thing we only have a limited life span because life would be so frustrating we couldn't bear it!" Once again, we're right. Then again, I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
Copyright © AJS 2001