THE WANDERER, June 5, 2003
JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH
The Servile State Revisited
I am haunted by an observation of the philosopher
David Hume, which I must quote approximately from memory:
"To the philosophic eye, nothing is more surprising than
the ease with which the many are ruled by the few."
Consider my little dog Zipper, a Shetland sheepdog.
She is a bright, sweet little thing, but no watchdog. She
is afraid of other animals, even squirrels; she has never
been in a fight, even with other small dogs. Yet she has
been genetically endowed, through centuries of breeding,
with authority over sheep.
Now Zipper has never even seen a sheep. I vaguely
hope to buy her one someday, circumstances permitting.
But dogs of her breed and size have been herding sheep in
Scotland for ages. If she saw it done, I suppose she
would quickly pick up the knack.
To me this is a fascinating fact. A whole flock of
sheep will obey a single small, yapping dog. "There thou
might'st behold the great image of authority," says King
Lear: "A dog's obeyed in office." Maybe this is where
Hume got his idea. The sheep could easily ignore, or even
overpower, the dog, but they don't.
Aren't men really the same way? How easily they
might defy their rulers if they chose to; yet they rarely
do, even when their rulers are venal, annoying, and
tyrannical. I don't think this can be explained by force
alone. Even brutal rulers have sometimes been overthrown
by a united and determined populace whose patience has
been tried too far. But this is exceptional. To me, as to
Hume, that is the mystery.
It is as if most of us were bred to obey. I don't
suggest that social turmoil is desirable; on the
contrary, I devoutly believe that God has made us social
beings for whom cooperation is good, necessary, and
satisfying. We need civil society and law as well as
family life, the contract as well as the vow.
But in modern society the habit of obedience has
been taken far too far. The State now makes greater
claims on us than the family; in fact the State even
claims authority to redefine the family, which in the
order of creation is prior to any merely civil relations.
What God has joined together, the State may put asunder.
Yet even this is no longer recognized as the tyrannical
claim it is.
We are taught to beware of violent tyrannies like
those of Stalin and Hitler. But we are seldom warned
against the bland and gradual tyranny of the bureaucratic
State, which is the one modern man typically lives under.
The autocrat has been discredited, while the bureaucrat
goes his merry way, taking our wealth, regulating our
lives, subtly undermining our religion. We are no longer
sure just whom we are obeying; but we obey. We are even
led to believe that the bureaucrat is protecting us from
the autocrat (Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, even Manuel
Noriega).
In Christendom -- now derisively called the Middle
Ages -- it was believed that everything had its natural
limits, including law. A human or "positive" law could
not be the mere whim or will of the ruler; it was
expected to conform to natural law. Not that this
principle was always honored, far from it; but it was
acknowledged. The subject, even if he wasn't a
full-fledged "citizen," was supposed to know whom he was
obeying, and why.
Today, as C.S. Lewis observed, law has become the
unbounded will of the State, which is "incessantly
engaged in legislation." The citizen is told that he
enjoys "democracy" and "self-government," so that the
will he obeys is really his own will. The State is really
nothing more than an extension of ourselves, so that when
it seems to be harassing us "we" are really harassing
"ourselves."
This is nonsense, of course. Some men are forcing
others to obey, under the abstractions of an ideology few
bother to question. As usual, a minority rules the
majority, even if that minority is hard to identify with
any precision. Most of us are heavily taxed, while many
others are getting checks from the State (even if they
too have to give some of it back in taxes in order to
preserve the general confusion).
This is Lenin's famous "Who/Whom" question: "Who is
doing what to whom?" For the classical Marxist, the
capitalist was doing it to the worker, and the practical
solution was for the State to enslave both so that they
would cease to exist as rival classes. If class warfare
should break out between producers and parasites in the
bureaucratic State -- Belloc's Servile State -- many
people wouldn't know which side to take. The parasites
know they depend on the State; but many of the productive
people who create the wealth that supports the parasites
are also convinced that their freedom depends on the
State. The bureaucratic State has blurred the lines,
disguising the opposition of interests. It rules by
confusion.
To me one of the most dispiriting features of the
war on Iraq was the ease with which the State was able to
convince millions of productive Americans that this was
somehow a war for their freedom. These people, mostly
conservative, are simply unable to see the military
establishment as a huge and integral part of the
bureaucratic State, parasitic on the country's wealth.
The military is the one part of "big government" with
which conservatives have no quarrel, though every
objection to socialism applies to military organization
-- to the warfare state as well as the welfare state.
(Paul Fussell's book WARTIME makes this stunningly
clear.)
How hugely ironic that the bureaucratic State is
able to enlist the most conservative instincts to support
it. Where would Big Government be without conservatives?
"Evolutionary Purpose"?
As a rule this column chastely avoids the topics of
sex and violence. But there are times when they are
forced upon our notice.
A British biologist named Olivia Judson has written
a popular, often funny book about the mating habits of
animals, especially insects. I'll spare you the lurid
details, but she devotes a lot of attention to those
couplings that result in the demise of the male partner.
The female midge, for example, "plunges her
proboscis into [the male's] head" during the throes of
passion. "Her spittle turns his innards to soup, which
she slurps up, drinking until she's sucked him dry."
Among certain species of Australian spiders, the male
pays a similarly high price for gratification. Dr. Judson
provides many other illustrations, which can only
increase one's respect for the power of the male appetite
while lowering one's regard for male intelligence.
"All creatures are literally dying to pass on their
genes," Dr. Judson explains to THE WASHINGTON POST. "From
an evolutionary standpoint, that's the whole purpose of
life."
And this is why I raise the subject. I merely wish
to point out that most animals, especially insects, have
never heard of genes. They just want to have a little
fun. I would add that the whole idea of the theory of
evolution is to banish the idea of teleology or purpose
in nature. Yet this "creationist" concept keeps sneaking
back in, even into the rhetoric of scientists. Mother
Nature, it seems, uses male madness as her method.
Funny, isn't it, how scientists assume they're
confirming Darwin even when their data seem to confute
him?
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