{"id":6578,"date":"2013-10-01T13:54:13","date_gmt":"2013-10-01T20:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6578"},"modified":"2013-10-01T13:54:13","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T20:54:13","slug":"rich-arrogant-and-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/rich-arrogant-and-stupid\/","title":{"rendered":"Rich, Arrogant, and Stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The modern West demonstrates a phenomenon unknown in history\u2013\u2013\"750px-Bicentennial_Lunch_Box\"unprecedented wealth, technology, and access to information combined with abject stupidity. Wisdom once known by every village explainer and cracker-barrel crank has been discarded and replaced with phony \u201csciences\u201d making claims about human nature and behavior that are based on nothing other than false assumptions, political ideology, and wishful thinking. Whether it\u2019s foreign policy, managing the economy, or teaching the young, our leaders institute policies that violate the traditional wisdom accumulated by generations of human experience.<\/p>\n

The debacle unfolding in Syria is not a consequence of a failure of complex knowledge known by \u201cexperts,\u201d or of mismanagement of abstruse technical diplomatic procedures. It\u2019s a failure to understand human nature as well as illiterates did in the past. Common sense tells us that any negotiation with an adversary depends on a credible threat of serious force. Sometimes violence must be used just to demonstrate a willingness to back up words with deeds and convince skeptics you mean what you say. Likewise a treaty is only as good as the commitment to enforce its provisions with violence. A serial failure to do so, particularly when those failures are accompanied by empty bluster or passive-aggressive diplo-speak, invites more aggression and violations. History is full of examples of this simple truth. The 20\u2019s and 30\u2019s of the last century illustrate aggressor after aggressor brushing aside treaty obligations and the bluster of the League of Nations while pursuing their aggression\u2013\u2013Japan in China, Italy in Ethiopia, and of course Germany in the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.<\/p>\n

More recently, North Korea, a failed thugocracy surviving only by dint of Chinese life-support, brilliantly exploited the unwillingness of the West to back up its threats with force. Just peruse the\u00a0timeline<\/a>\u00a0of the West\u2019s attempts to stop North Korea\u2019s acquisition of nuclear weapons, and the serial failure of diplomacy unsupported by credible force becomes obvious. Yet despite that glaring example of the wages of ignoring common sense, Obama\u2013\u2013hard on his humiliating appeasement of Syria camouflaged by U.N. \u201cinspections\u201d\u2013\u2013is now playing diplomatic footsie with Iran\u2019s alleged \u201cmoderate\u201d\u00a0President Hassan Rouhani. This would be the same Rouhani who a few years ago publicly bragged about using diplomatic gabfests to buy time for advancing Iran\u2019s nuclear weapons program. Obama and other foreign policy na\u00effs think that his threat of an \u201cunbelievably small\u201d cruise-missile fireworks show frightened the Iranian regime\u2013\u2013the same terrorist gang with American blood up to its elbows\u2013\u2013into this charm offensive. The truth is Obama\u2019s patent willingness to perfume his failure of nerve with \u201cnegotiations\u201d convinced the Iranians that he will not use force to stop their nuclear program, and that throwing him a few diplomatic bones might win them a relaxation of sanctions for very little cost.<\/p>\n

Why do we do ignore traditional wisdom the way we do? Because we can afford to indulge the internationalist fantasy that war is an anomaly from our uncivilized past, and that all peoples want what we want\u2013\u2013peace, leisure, and prosperity\u2013\u2013and are eager to avoid conflict with diplomatic words in order to avoid military deeds. Common sense and a knowledge of history show that in reality, many peoples want something else\u2013\u2013honor, fidelity to their gods, domination of others\u2013\u2013and are willing, if not eager to use violence to achieve these goals.<\/p>\n

Back at home, we are currently pursuing energy policies that would have stupefied anybody before the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0century and the rise of romantic environmentalism. Any power in the history of the world that was dependent on a natural resource for its survival and flourishing took every means available to insure its access to that resource. The ancient Athenians did not have enough arable land to produce adequate grain for its citizens. Thus it had to import grain, much of it from the Black sea region. To ensure this supply, the Athenians controlled or dominated every other city-state on the sea-route from the Black Sea, with military force if necessary. That\u2019s just common sense.<\/p>\n

Similarly, our advanced economy and the rich material life it produces depends on carbon-based energy, whether oil, natural gas, or coal. That need, moreover, means that we must import oil from other countries, some of them hostile to our interests and security. Given the importance of carbon for our domestic affluence and foreign policy interests alike, you would think that we would exploit every possible source of this vital resource existing in our own territory.<\/p>\n

But not us rich, stupid moderns. We have put off-limits huge supplies of oil and natural gas\u2013\u2013a trillion barrels by some estimates\u2013\u2013everywhere from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico. The only development going on is on private lands in states that, unlike California, do not put up punitive regulatory barriers to exploration and exploitation. Obama has intensified this bizarre behavior. He has blocked the Keystone pipeline, and his federal Bureau of Land Management has just reduced by two-thirds the 1.3 million acres George Bush set aside for development in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.\u00a0Compared<\/a>\u00a0to the last 3 fiscal years of George Bush\u2019s second term, during the first 3 fiscal years of Obama\u2019s first, drilling leases on federal land fell 42%, and permits fell 39%. And his EPA has just issued\u00a0regulations<\/a>\u00a0on coal-fired electricity plants that are so severe and expensive that many plants will shut down and fewer new ones will be built, meaning electricity will become more expensive.<\/p>\n

And why have these policies adversely affecting a resource vital to our economy been issued? Because we are rich enough to afford gratifying Disneyesque fantasies about a beneficent nature with whom we should be living in \u201charmony,\u201d and lurid apocalyptic scenarios about global warming, both of which we dress up in bad science. Thus we promote and fund dubious \u201calternative energies,\u201d and start a war on carbon that if unchecked will damage our economy and way of life. In short, we ignore the wisdom an illiterate ancient Athenian knew\u2013\u2013that if there\u2019s a resource critical to you survival, you\u2019d better control and exploit it.<\/p>\n

Or take the continuing failure of our schools to give our children the skills necessary to be productive members of our economy and good citizens worthy of political freedom. For nearly a century our so-called \u201ceducators\u201d\u00a0have pursued every fad of pseudo-sciences like psychology to throw out traditional learning and replace it with voodoo like \u201cself-esteem,\u201d \u201ccollaborative learning,\u201d \u201cvalues clarification,\u201d and other nostrums reflecting progressive ideology and pop-psych snake oil. The result has been abysmal ignorance of basic skills evident in\u00a0comparisons<\/a>\u00a0with other countries. For example, in a 2010 report, only 6% of U.S. students were performing at an advanced level in math, a percentage lower than 30 other countries, and only 32% of 8th<\/sup>\u00a0graders were proficient in math.<\/p>\n

Of course, any village explainer could tell us that learning has little to do with massaging the feelings and self-esteem of children, and nothing to do with filling their heads with progressive superstitions like \u201cenvironmentalism\u201d\u00a0or \u201csocial justice.\u201d\u00a0 In a recent\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0article<\/a>, the author discusses new evidence suggesting that common sense is indeed more useful than the faddish pedagogical theories generated by educational schools and inflicted on future teachers. The author\u2019s list of the eight principles of educational success comprises exactly what any frontier one-room-school teacher in the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century would have known: \u201cA little pain is good for you,\u201d \u201cDrill, baby, drill,\u201d \u201cFailure is an option,\u201d \u201cStrict is better than nice,\u201d \u201cCreativity can be learned,\u201d \u201cGrit trumps talent,\u201d \u201cPraise makes you weak,\u201d \u201cWhile stress makes you strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

So why do we continue to chase pedagogical fads that make our children more ignorant and unprepared for the adult world? Because we can afford to. The malign effects of turning out generation after generation of ignoramuses with bloated self-esteem are insidious. Like the exploding federal debt, the apocalypse lies down the road, which means it will be somebody else\u2019s problem. Meanwhile we have enough accumulated capital from our forbears, and enough smart people who somehow escape or overcome the educational mediocrity machine to keep the economy humming just enough for most of us to keep shopping, eating, and twerking ourselves into oblivion.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s something else every cracker-barrel philosopher knew\u2013\u2013there\u2019s no free lunch. Eventually the bill will have to be paid, and then we\u2019ll see the wages of forgetting traditional wisdom and thinking that the eternal laws of human nature and behavior have been repealed just for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine\u00a0 The modern West demonstrates a phenomenon unknown in history\u2013\u2013unprecedented wealth, technology, and access to information combined with abject stupidity. Wisdom once known by every village explainer and cracker-barrel crank has been discarded and replaced with phony \u201csciences\u201d making claims about human nature and behavior that are based on nothing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,11],"tags":[12,1023,289,479,1071,213,894],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1I6","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2446,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/do-we-need-politicians-who-are-smart-or-virtuous\/","url_meta":{"origin":6578,"position":0},"title":"Do We Need Politicians Who Are Smart or Virtuous?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society \u201cThe president isn\u2019t very bright,\u201d Bret Stephens writes in\u00a0The Wall Street Journal, an assessment that raises an important question: Is \u201cintelligence\u201d necessary in a president? That we raise the question at all is a testimony to how thoroughly progressive ideas about governing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3823,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/dumbing-democracy-down\/","url_meta":{"origin":6578,"position":1},"title":"Dumbing Democracy Down","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society Many in the west are interpreting the demonstrations in Egypt against Hosni Mubarak as populist expressions of \u201caspirations for a democratic future,\u201d as a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron put it. So too President Obama, who spoke of the \u201cuniversal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":500,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/before-the-culture-fades\/","url_meta":{"origin":6578,"position":2},"title":"Before the Culture Fades","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton City Journal A review of\u00a0The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia\u00a0by Roger Kimball (St. Augustine\u2019s Press, 2012) Roger Kimball has long been one of America\u2019s most learned commentators on intellectual history, contemporary politics, fine art, and architecture. Longtime editor of\u00a0The New\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6606,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bruce-thornton-on-secure-freedom-radio-with-frank-gaffney\/","url_meta":{"origin":6578,"position":3},"title":"Bruce Thornton on Secure Freedom Radio with Frank Gaffney","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Seth Jones, Bruce Thornton, Peter Pham, Diana West October 9th, 2013\u00a0\u00b7\u00a0Comments SETH JONES, Associate Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, joins guest host DAN BONGINO, to help explain the terror threat from and historical background of the terrorist organization al-Shabaab. BRUCE THORNTON, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5409,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/liberal-racism\/","url_meta":{"origin":6578,"position":4},"title":"Liberal Racism","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The assault on skilled, independent, intelligent blacks by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers When Barack Obama accused Hillary Clinton of \u201cplaying the gender card,\u201d the hypocrisy that typically defines our public discourse on race descended into the surreal. Obama\u2019s whole career has been created by and has exploited the perception\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5435,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/fighting-at-a-disadvantage\/","url_meta":{"origin":6578,"position":5},"title":"Fighting at a Disadvantage","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Bad cultural habits plague the West in the War on Terror by Bruce S. Thornton City Journal Six years after the terrorist attacks of 9\/11, we continue to hunt for those whose blunders let them happen. The latest addition to earlier investigations such as\u00a0The 9\/11 Commission Report\u00a0and television\u2019s\u00a0Path to 9\/11\u00a0is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6580,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6578\/revisions\/6580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}