Government and Public Opinion

A lot of people want the OWSers to delineate just what it is they want. That is, what policies are they in favor of, what steps they want the government to take. But I say, "No, don't do it." And here is why.

George Orwell wrote a piece some years/decades ago on an argument made by a guy named Burnham on what the latter called the "managerial revolution". According to Burnham, not only Communism but Socialism and even capitalism would fade away and be replaced by what Burnham called "managerialism," that is, a social order controlled by "managers." I think he, Burnham, might have meant something like those I label "bureaucrats" but I cannot be certain of this. I personally don't think Burnham's argument was all that off the wall and Orwell, while critical of certain aspects of B's argument, seemed to see something in this argument as well.

He had other problems with Burnham's arguments, however, and one of his objections led Orwell to remark on what is called "public opinion" and its role in social affairs. According to Orwell, it was precisely those political orders, like Hitler's Germany, that most often made what turned out to be gross miscalculations - such as Hitler's decision to invade Russia before defeating Great Britain - and they did so precisely because they excluded public opinion as a political force. Public opinion for Orwell was crucial for restraining government, for restraining those who held the reins of power in modern states of great power and who, as the elite or the intelligentsia always do, overestimated their ability to control things, to undertake great projects and control the outcome of these projects. For Orwell, "ordinary people" are far more sensible than elites, especially elites endowed with great powers, because they are, in the lives they live everyday, reminded of the limits of human action. It is, Orwell contends, the intelligentsia or the elite who lose sight of the truth that human beings are far less powerful than those with power wish to believe. And they make one very simple mistake, viz., that they project into the future whatever seems to be or is prevalent in the present. If Germany was riding high in Europe and about to defeat Great Britain, then they would be able to defeat the Soviet Union as well. Or so the intelligentsia thought, both in Germany and in Great Britain - with some exceptions of course.

It is then unnecessary and even undesirable for the OWSers or the Tea Partiers to fall into the trap of "elaborating on their preferred policies" because this is exactly what the intelligentsia does, thinking that because they have elaborate policies that they have the power to control events. It is not only possible but even desirable for people to simply object, to shout "NO! NO MORE!" over and over again. "No more war!" "No more cuts in needed social programs!" "No more 'Races To the Top' or 'No Children Left Behind!'" "No more war on terror, on drugs, on crime, on poverty!" It is time for a different kind of politics, a politics that is kept aware of the limits of human actions, of human control. And the way to do this is exactly as Orwell argued: Make public opinion the center piece of our politics. You may not always like the results but we won't be led in yet another quest for a "new world order" that will deplete us fiscally, politically, and spiritually.