Passive Aggressive Adrenaline Junkies
Yes, they exist - and they are running (and ruining) our institutions.
On the way to work this morning, I heard this story about a school that has declared lunch time “dangerous” because the kids must pull down their masks to eat.
Really?
Because OMG! Danger is everywhere!
Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!
Once upon a time, I wrote a piece that wondered if our society was too stupid to live, preferring to be protected against everything – now I am wondering if we are to nihilistic and afraid to live.
It struck me as very interesting how our society has become trapped by people who control the institutions who are passive aggressive adrenaline junkies.
Fear most certainly produces adrenaline, and adrenaline is addictive – it produces a pronounced high when it is experienced, and many people seek those highs by pursuing dangerous sports or activities – but not this bunch. They are more interested in leveling out their high by taking smaller hits over a greater period of time.
That drove me to think about John Stuart Mill’s idea of the “harm principle”. I got so engrossed and on autopilot, I almost hit a deer.
In his seminal work "On Liberty", Mill posited, as have other philosophers and political theorists like him, that we should respect the decisions of individual agents when those decisions affect no one other than themselves. This is something for which I have always made the case, because to respect that autonomy is the chief way to bear witness to the intrinsic value of persons.
You must ask why some people are so afraid and prefer to turn to some form of government “paternalism” for safety (which it cannot supply in any real quantity).
It would seem for any version of paternalism to be workable, we have to:
Accept that the world is simply too complex for us to understand and,
People are too stupid to act in their own best interests and make the “right” decisions,
There is a human authority above the individual that can understand this complexity and can never make the wrong decision.
This line of “reasoning” is remarkable as it mostly comes from academics and political elites who simultaneously argue that while you, the weak-minded plebian can’t be expected to make decisions for yourself, somehow a collection of individual elites are capable of making that decision for you.
Well, we all know how good our government is at getting it right – which hovers between “rarely and by accident” and “not at all”.
From whether eggs or coffee are good/bad for you to going to war, there are examples that government is pretty bad at making good choices Take the cases of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – the left will constantly argue that these were mistakes and errors on the part of the Bush government but things like “leading from behind”, Benghazi and our chaotic exit from Afghanistan are not the fault of Democrats and represent “smart” policy. No matter if you support or oppose any of these positions, they all can’t represent correct decisions by government.
This is not the way America is structured or is designed to work. I’ve long held the opinion that our troubles are not because somehow our Constitution has failed us; we have failed it by trying to operate a collectivist system in the framework designed for a representative republic.
But then again, maybe people don’t really care because they just like getting high on fear.