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My Mother the Historian

Tibor R. Machan

Heidelberg, Germany. My mother, who lives in Germany now, is nearly 90
years old and enjoys full use of her mental faculties. If anything, she
is sharper now than she has ever been, partly because at her age she no
longer can be bothered with trivial problems and has come to accept her
situation for exactly what it is. One reason she is in such good shape,
both mentally and to a considerable extent physically, is that all her
life she has been an athlete, competing for many decades and later
coaching in the sport of fencing.

On a recent visit I asked her whether judging by the stream of television,
radio, and print media news reports she finds the world she is aware of
now much worse, roughly the same or much batter than it had been
throughout her life. I figured she would have a reasonably educated
opinion about this, having lived through so much, smack in the middle of
Europe. The incredible economic upheavals in the first third of the 20th
century, then World War II and the Holocaust, then the cold war which she
spend in communist Hungary, and then the post 9/11 years. So I asked her
whether she thinks that today we are in such dire straits as so many
commentators claim we are?

As usually, my mother doesn’t make snap judgments but in the end the gist
of what she said was this: “Over the nearly 80 years of my conscious life
I have found that the worst thing was my and millions of other people’s
lives under Soviet style communism, with only the brief but horrible
experience with the Third Reich to match it. Apart from that, things have
been up and down but pretty decent during most times and the current
hysteria is just that, a way for politicians to scare people so they will
entrust them with the job of solving problems by taking everyone’s money
and imposing numerous restrictions of individual liberties and claming
this is necessary so as to remedy whatever ails us.”

My mother and I do not share each other’s overall philosophy, not by a
long shot. She certainly is no libertarian. But on this issue she and I
see eye to eye. I have never been convinced that the hyperbole broadcast
at television viewers gives an accurate picture of how things are with the
world. Nearly every day’s headlines suggest that everything is going to
hell in a hand-basket.

So with my mother’s admittedly amateurish but not ignorant help, I go back
to my old adage: “For every minute of watching TV news, also watch a
minute of some travel program.” Between the two sources of how the world
is doing, one is likely to get an accurate and balanced picture. Nearly
everything reported on the news presents the world as a miserable, failed
arena of human affairs, while nearly everything shown on travel programs
gives us a rosy view wherever the host is taking us, whatever aspect of
human life he or she shares with us.

No doubt there are overall better and worse times we all face around us
but they are rarely as lousy as the reporters, anchors, and commentators
at Fox TV, CNN, NBC, CBS, and ABC make them out to be. A quick clue to
this is available by comparing the facial expressions of the anchors,
reporters, and commentators in the media to the facial expressions of the
people one encounters in restaurants, sporting events, family dinners and
so forth. Indeed, if the former were an accurate representation of the
mood of the world, I suspect there would be far more suicides than there
actually are. Hardly anyone could carry on with the attitude these media
folks convey to us. A great many more of us than actually do would throw
in the towel.

Sadly, the mood conveyed in the media has its influence and that is
something highly lamentable. But if one remembers that those folks have a
personal stake in making things look much worse than they are, one may
regain a more levelheaded perspective on the world as well as about one’s
own—and one’s children’s and grandchildren’s—prospects.

The Statism of CNN

Tibor R. Machan

Should one ever claim that mainstream media is statist, let alone Left
leaning, a bunch of voices will rise in protest. How could that be?
After all, don’t giant corporations own the media? Which, of course,
assumes something totally unwarranted, namely, that corporations are
managed by champions of free enterprise. Baloney. Corporate managers can
be just as devoted to trying to get government to redistribute wealth in
their direction as are educators, artists, scientists, farmers, or any
other “special interest” group.

The charge that is worth considering is that the media, especially news
organizations with their commentators and reporters, lean toward statism,
which is to say, they favor turning to government with nearly any problem
people face in their communities. The only exception is where the press
itself faces problems, and when it comes to religious matters, mainly
because the fairly strong tradition of separation of journalism and
government, as well as religion and government, at least in the United
States of America.

On a recent lecture tour through a good bit of Europe I had a chance to
watch BBC-TV and CNN-TV quite regularly. Although I speak and understand a
smattering of German, English is the language I use routinely for
obtaining information on current affairs.

On one occasion I was watching a report on Kenya which just went through
an especially violent election season. I turns out that one result of
this has been a serious reduction of tourism in that country the economy
of which is usually the vital beneficiary of this industry.

At the beginning of the broadcast CNN’s anchor introduced the topic and
then brought in a stringer from Kenya who elaborated on it, giving some
specifics, numbers, and anecdotal evidence. Once this was over, the
camera went back to the anchor who promptly posed the following question:
“What is the Kenyan government doing about this problem?” Exactly why it
is the government’s task to do anything at all about tourism in Kenya
viewers were not told. Just what skills does the government possess that
would especially qualify it to do something about this problem? Nothing
was said about that.

Imagine for a moment that the TV audience was being given a report on a
sporting event, say the recent Wimbledon tennis tournament. As was the
case this year, many of the games, especially during finals, experienced
inclement weather. Frequent showers led to stoppage of matches and a few
had to be extended into the wee hours of the night. But, lo and behold, no
commentators raised the question, “What are the referees doing about the
inclement weather?”

But, you may say, well the weather is something very different from
violent interruptions of political elections. Yes, in some ways it is.
But in some ways it isn’t. Both manage to interrupt normal proceedings
and neither can be dealt with post facto, including by those charged with
upholding the rules. While the government might have done something about
the violence that interrupted Kenyan electoral politics, once the
interruption occurred, what could it do? Nothing.

The best way to improve the climate for tourism in Kenya has nothing much
to do with government. It has to do with merchants getting back to work,
resorts opening their doors, oil companies revving up their productivity,
and business in general hiring reliable security agents; this might well
make Kenya into an especially appealing place for tourists to visit with
no help from the government.

It is, of course, ironic that a CNN’s anchor would assume that government
will solve Kenya’s tourism problem, given that governments tend to pose
rather annoying obstacles to tourism in most places around the globe.
Moreover, the violence during the election campaigns had been prompted, in
large measure, by the political circumstances of Kenya, so it isn’t likely
that politicians are going to manage to remedy matters.

In any case, the point I wish to focus on is just how readily CNN buys
into the government habit, how it is nearly second nature to its anchors
to expect all problems to be solved by government, never mind whether it
is government’s expertise that best addresses the problem. And CNN isn’t
alone, only a clear cut example. For CNN the government is treated as the
almighty. Not only is it not the task of news anchors to perpetuate the
myth of almighty government but such a myth will reinforce false
expectations.

It is bad enough that too many ordinary folks place their trust in
government—the use of physical force—but to have the supposedly impartial,
unbiased media reinforce this is unprofessional and truly lamentable.

Scientists and Morality

Tibor R. Machan

Natural scientists are pretty much committed to understanding the world
without reference to morality since if what happens does so because of
impersonal forces of nature, there would seem to be no room for
consideration of right versus wrong, good versus bad, at least not so far
as human beings could do anything about it. So, for example, human
misbehavior or misconduct doesn’t depend on people but is due to
ineluctable natural determinants. Even the misconduct of scientists, the
few who fake evidence or plagiarize, simply happens the way a disease or
earthquake does. All one can do is lament it, the way one laments a
tsunami or tornado. No one is to blame. Nor, of course, are achievements
anything but welcome but impersonal events. No one is to be praised for
them, no one gains credit.

Yet, while many scientists are committed to expunging morality or ethics
from human life—at most they admit that there are undesirable and
desirable features of it—they also act as if morality or ethics did
matter. As when some of them, say ecologists or climatologists, blame
people for anthropogenic global warming or anything else that many believe
is due to irresponsible human behavior. They chide millions for imprudent
conduct; they denounce people who drive SUVs, fail to recycle, or ignore
the scientists’ warnings about what is or isn’t environmentally proper.
And, of course, medical scientists routinely blame patients for failing to
heed warnings about overeating or smoking or lack of exercise. There is,
also, the ubiquitous internal quarreling among some scientists about who
is right or wrong about various predictions and projections.

In short, even though many scientists are committed to viewing human
conduct as no different from the behavior of the weather or the change of
seasons—these just happen, never mind choice or decision—they also
frequently engage in moral chiding, blaming which assumes we can make
choices, for better or for worse. They talk of what would have happened
had people only done this or not done that, just as if they believed that
it is quite in people’s power to act differently from how they do actually
act, or to have done so in the past.

Yet, this internal inconsistency among many scientists who are also quite
moralistic about human behavior is not at all widely scrutinized. There
is almost a kind of polite silence about it all. When scientists complain
about how little attention people pay to their own warnings about one
thing and another, few if any ever raise the issue of whether people had
any choice about this—maybe they had to pay the little or no attention
they did, maybe that is all a matter of the unfolding of impersonal
evolutionary forces.

When a great many scientists, writing, say, for publications such as
Science or Science News, chide government for not supporting science with
enough funds—something that many of them do routinely vis-à-vis the
administration of George W. Bush and in anticipation of a new
administration—they forget all about their assumption of que sera, sera,
“what will be will be” and no choice exists about these matters, free will
being a pre-scientific illusions according to them—few take up this
paradox in their own stance. If, indeed, there is no choice about any of
this, then does it make any sense to complain that certain politicians
aren’t choosing to do enough about global warming and other environmental
issues? After all, they are powerless to do anything other than what they
do, are they not? But if so, what’s all the fuss about, why complain, why
chide?

It seems to be intellectually confused, if not outright dishonest, for
thousands of scientists to avoid this issue. They maintain that they are
the most reliable source of information about how we ought to be going
about many of our concerns in life, yet they are also committed to the
notion that whatever we do must happen and nothing can be altered as a
matter of our decision, our choice.

Perhaps the answer is that scientists, contrary to the conceit of many of
them, are not the only ones who can have something useful to contribute to
the understanding of human affairs. Perhaps they need to consider that
some of what is true about people isn’t informed only by their
relentlessly deterministic outlook. After all, they themselves aren’t able
to explain what they do from that perspective alone.

They should perhaps heed the words of one of their colleagues, the British
psychologist Bannister, who pointed out that a theorist “cannot present a
picture of man which patently contradicts his behavior in presenting that
picture.” (Borger & Cioffi/Bannister, eds., Explanation in the
Behavioural Sciences [Cambridge UP, 1970], p. 417.)

Some Sources of Anti-capitalism

Tibor R. Machan

There is, of course, the idea Marx made prominent that no one ought to
benefit from another’s need. So doctors and nurses and actually nearly
everyone who is working for another who has a need for this work should
just doing pro bono, out of the goodness of his or her heart. As all of
one’s clients and customers were one’s bosom buddies or one’s family. We
should just share our resources, our time, in the end ourselves with the
rest of humanity! That’s the ideal against which free market capitalism,
the arena of the deal, is being compared. No wonder it comes up short.
Anything would when compared with such a fantasy.

But there is another thing the matter with capitalism or what may come
close to it here and there in the world. This is another thing that’s
held against the system, namely, that lots of people like to obtain loads
of stuff that gets produced in it. Yes, consumerism is this supposed
evil, the thing the Pope recently complained about.

Now no doubt sometime people who are working hard or just got lucky like
to spend their money on lots of stuff, on vacations, and fine dining and
the like. The more the merrier, for some, it would seem, and refined
folks just won’t have any of that. Instead of finding this quaint and
understandable, consider that all these consumers come from families with
histories of poverty and bare subsistence—so a bit of indulgence could be
entirely forgivable (not to mention useful in creating millions of jobs).
The snooty ones, however, want everyone to purchase only articles that
come from museums and galleries. They deride those of us who just want to
have some goodies that our parents and grandparents never had the choice
to get. And for such accesses we are denounced as hedonists and
materialists! Oh, give me a break.

No doubt some of the exuberant acquisition that goes on in free markets
may look a bit over the top, even tacky. But why make such a big deal
about it? It doesn’t hurt anyone when people go shopping—they are
creating jobs, too, not just satisfying their wants and desires (as if
there were something wrong with that). There is little else people do with
strangers that comes as close to realistic good relations as what goes on
in free markets, even as people make deals and money off each other. When
people lash out at consumerism I get to thinking they haven’t got much of
a life and need to meddle too much in others’ affairs. A friend ascribes
nearly all of it to sheer envy but I suspect that the legacy of Puritanism
has more to do with it. You know puritans, whom H. L. Mencken accused of
being worried that someplace someone might just be happy and we cannot
have such a thing happen!

It is rue that in substantially liberal—classical not modern
liberal—societies men and women have the opportunity to be self-indulgent
to a fault. Such is it with freedom—a great variety of human tendencies
are given vent in free systems. But so long as the normal state of affairs
involves peaceful interaction among people, even this bit of
self-indulgence will be contained and have few negative externalities.
Moreover, with a little help from one’s family, friends and neighbors,
these can be reigned in.

Compare these awful liabilities of substantially capitalist systems with
those of socialism or fascism or communism. Now there are experiments
that take their toll on human societies big time. Concentration camps,
gulags, oppression, madness and such are routine when those dreams get
tried for real. All these attempts to coercively regiment human beings,
to force them to be good, noble, generous, valiant and the like may look
good on paper and in Hollywood movies but wherever they are seriously
implemented they produced disaster, misery, poverty and acrimony.

I bet all of us would be better of in a country where freedom is the
default position and on one gets to impose a one-size-fits-all approach on
the lives of the population. Sure, there will still be human failings
about. Yes, perfection will not descend upon us all. No, the critics will
not have exhausted their list of beefs with their fellow human beings.

But a free society is head and shoulders superior to any of the utopian
dreams the critics of capitalism invoke when they decry that system.

What’s the Pope’s Problem?

Tibor R. Machan

Salzburg, Austria. BBC TV broadcast the news a few days ago that Pope
Benedict has condemned “popular culture and consumerism” during his trip
to Australia. I am not sure why this is important to report—would BBC TV
inform its viewers about the pronouncements of the “Reverend” Moon, the
current leader of the Mormon Church or, indeed, of the leaders of the 4000
plus different religions registered in the USA alone? What makes this
particular church leader so special?

I ask this as a former Roman Catholic, one who was raised in that religion
as a kid in Communist Hungary and who is fully aware of the myriads of
negative side effects this can produce for a person (namely, guilt, guilt,
and more guilt for just wanting to have a reasonably joyful life). Since
that time I have come to be very, very suspicious of the claims of Roman
Catholics and, actually, members of most other churches to having a sound
understanding of human affairs. And one area where I am especially weary
of what men like the Pope say is concerning the mundane purposes people
have, such as wishing to live prosperously, wanting to gain some pleasures
and wealth in their lives, of hoping to enjoy themselves instead of
suffering, which is what many religions teach is the noble way for us all
to live. No, that just won’t do for me and, I suspect, for increasingly
many people.

It is, by the way, one thing for Jesus to have suffered since, after all,
he was supposed to be both man and God and as such suffering couldn’t
possibly amount for him to what it does for an ordinary mortal. So
imitating Jesus in this and many other respects simply cannot be something
humanly noble—why should a mortal human being seek to suffer? There is
simply no sense in that at all.

But even apart from the wrongheaded idea that we ought to reject what
pleasures and enjoyments this world can offer us—i. e., condemn
consumerism—there is the sheer audacity of the head the Vatican City
chiding other people for their embrace of abundance and wealth. Have you
ever visited the Vatican? I have and the measure of its ostentatious and
very mundane wealth—no, opulence—is something to behold.

Indeed, the very first attraction on the way around the City is a gaudy
shop with thousands of Catholic trinkets for sale. Talk about
consumerism—few places match this blatant display of commercial savvy.
(If you don’t know the place, just think of those shops you find at art
museums, with all those reproductions of the works displayed and the books
about them for sale! And then multiply these several hundredfold.)

All of this really comes down to the great likelihood of Papal hypocrisy.
And this cannot be news to most Catholics, either, given their awareness
of the display of splendor, glitter, and pomp at high mass. I don’t know
where else we would find the likes of this other than at some of the
palaces that remain as reminders of the obscene plunder of kings and other
monarchs and the dictators such as “communist” Rumania last dictator.
Who, then, is the Pope to condemn consumerism which, by my study of
history, is a feeble attempt of ordinary human beings, ever since the
emerges of relatively free markets, to acquire, honestly, a tiny fraction
of the world’s goodies compared to what the upper classes, including
religious leaders, of the past got their hands on mostly illicitly.

Yes, just think of it: consumerism amounts mainly to folks making a try at
acquiring, fair and square, all sorts of useful and enjoyable goods and
services now available to millions of us. In the past comparable stuff
was only available to a select few and they didn’t come by it honestly but
mostly by plunder and conquest. We today go shopping, after we have
earned some coins in the market place doing work that other people freely
chose to purchase from us.

Honest trade is a central feature of consumerism and this is what the Pope
finds so abhorrent. Would he rather have us return to an era when only the
leaders of Church and assorted monarchs were in the position to obtain
such merchandise, mostly by intimidation and extortion—such as selling
forgiveness to gullible well to do folks who went along with the deal
through ignorance and fear rather than free judgment and by threatening
subjects within the realm, respectively?

Furthermore is it not curious that the Pope’s pronouncements seem to
escape the scrutiny of the chattering classes? Perhaps not, since the bulk
of them also lament it endlessly that ordinary human beings would rather
go shopping than sacrifice themselves for various more or less dubious
objectives like taking precaution with the environment (whatever that grab
bag idea really is supposed to mean). Although many of these intellectuals
are doubtful about religion, they do share with the myriad of churches a
disdain for the popular pursuit of earthly joys.

So no wonder that the Pope condemns popular culture and consumerism—they
are in competition with him in the effort to gain people’s devotion and
loyalty. Trouble is what the Pope claims to offer is something quite
elusive and mysterious, whereas what we find in the market place, at the
mall for example, has the advantage of bringing us concrete, clearly
understandable satisfaction. No wonder we are implored to feel guilt for
wanting it in our lives!

Maybe I am just harboring resentments against the Catholics for having
made my childhood and adolescence so full of misery—guilt, shame,
self-denial, self-loathing, and so forth. Probably I just wish to warn
people off of falling for the ruse I went along with for a couple of
decades of my early life.