Seeing But Not Seeing
"The November [1916] sessions of the Duma," Richard Pipes writes in his classic History of the Russian Revolution,
marked the onset of a revolutionary psychosis--an irrational but intensely felt feeling that 'things could not go on like this any longer,' that the entire edifice of monarchic Russia had to be pulled down. The psychosis, long prevalent among the radical intelligentsia, now seized the liberal center and even spilled into conservative ranks.
The psychosis, Pipes explains, was irrational because things could have gone on as they were. Although combat operations against the Germans and Austrians had inflicted enormous casualties, the Russians were holding their own. Russian industry, while still primitive, had begun to respond to the stimulus of war spending, increasing production of materiel. Russian agriculture remained the most important source of wheat and other cereals in Europe. The Duma itself represented a dramatic step toward democratic governance, and the monarchy, if grudgingly, had begun to accommodate itself to certain limitations on its power. If Russia could simply have defended its own borders while waiting for the First World War to produce a stalemate or settlement--and there was every reason to suppose it could do so--then after the war the country could have enjoyed economic modernization and an increasingly democratic way of life. The political elite saw none of this, succumbing instead to psychosis. Within months, the Revolution swept away the old order, casting the country into seven decades of darkness.
In the United States today, it occurs to me, we suffer from just the opposite psychosis, the irrational belief that things can go on like this indefinitely. What brought this to mind? The following passage in "The Lessons of the GM Bankruptcy," Paul Ingrassa's splendid column in today's Wall Street Journal (registration required):
Everybody knows that we're running unsustainable federal deficits. And that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac created financial sinkholes by helping lenders make mortgages to people who couldn't afford them. And that many states' public-employee pension funds are hopelessly underfunded for the level of benefits they provide. And that shoveling more money into the public schools without insisting on structural reforms and accountability hasn't produced results and won't do so in the future.
Everybody knows--and everybody puts it right out of his mind. Everybody, that is, in the mainstream media, in the universities, and in the political class, all of whom succumb to the psychosis of hope and change; which is to say, to the psychosis of unreality. Millions of ordinary Americans--in particular, the tea partiers--insist instead on seeing reality. And in November, they might just be able to impose it on the elites.
The difference between Russia in 1916 and America today? Our peasants, thank God, have the vote.
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May '10
Re: Seeing But Not Seeing
"Millions of ordinary Americans--in particular, the tea partiers--insist on seeing reality."
I'd say that's half-true. Millions of Americans agree with the vague idea that "this can't go on" but refuse to follow that reasoning to its end. I know many conservatives who will not consider that this isn't just politics as usual. They hope not just for good but for normalcy.
And that's understandable. It's a basic human impulse to expect life to go on much as we've known it. It's human to think of one's own life as the baseline for normal; to have trouble imagining any aspect of that life to take on historic qualities. It's why few people believe their neighbors or family could be famous one day. And It's why few Americans believe our country could fall apart or be fundamentally transformed in their lifetimes... or even their children or grandchildren's lifetimes.
All nations are fragile and ever-changing. So much can happen in a single generation.
May '10
Re: Seeing But Not Seeing
Peter, while I agree with your psychosis analogy to some degree, frighteningly enough, too many of those in the institutions you mentioned can't simply be excused by naivete. Too many on the left see the American system as corrupt enough to warrant its collapse, since they believe they can create something new in their own image. That is why Obama after the elections did not emphasize the renewing, rebuilding, or reestablishing of America but its recreation. It's difficult to see the current health care bill, for example, as anything but a time bomb designed to destroy the system and thus legitimize the need for a government mandate after it does. This psychosis I think applies just to the useful idiots who fall for the ideals (or the political payoffs) without thinking through the consequences of their actions. What you described, I think, boils down mostly to people not having an understanding of sacrifice and its prominent role in any type of widespread societal change. (Which is something the traditional Russian leadership understood perhaps too well).
May '10
Re: Seeing But Not Seeing
I don't know, Aaron. All the people I know are furious and can't wait until November. I took a Spanish class in graduate school on existentialism and the absurd and it supports what you said..."It's a basic human impulse to expect life to go on much as we've known it." We wake up and know the sun is out, the coffee pot will make coffee and the road to work or school is still there. But, I think your next sentence is the key to all of this..."It's human to think of one's own life as the baseline for normal". That's it. We think of our lives as the baseline for normal, so when you screw with our baseline, like this government is, our world becomes absurd...and that is why a population of people will rise up to get their baseline of normal back.
May '10
Re: Seeing But Not Seeing
I think it strongly depends upon where you live. Here in New York, those tea partiers are nothing more than rustic, unsophisticated Southerners.
May '10
Re: Seeing But Not Seeing
What's so depressing is that the intelligentsia of WWI-era Russia had a bit of an excuse for its foolishness that our current elites lack: In 1916 there wasn't a century-long track record of socialism's failure, nor was there the century-long model of freedom's having produced the most powerful, benevolent nation in history. Our elite class has the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, and STILL it's blind. On the psychosis issue, I'm more inclined to give the Lenin-Trotsky crowd a pass than I am the Chomsky-Vidal-Ayers-Obama crowd. It is very difficult not to question motives when seemingly intelligent people can't see a truth which is so obvious as to be rhetorical.
May '10
Re: Seeing But Not Seeing
Michael Labeit
I think it strongly depends upon where you live. Here in New York, those tea partiers are nothing more than rustic, unsophisticated Southerners. · Jun 2 at 2:15am
I'm sure you're right, Michael. There is no one experience that can summarize 300 million Americans. Just look at Sex and the City...apparently, I'm represented by a bunch of boisterous female tourists saying, "Niew Yaworrrk Cityyyyy!!" with scrunchies in their hair. :-)
May '10
Re: Seeing But Not Seeing
"Millions of ordinary Americans--in particular, the tea partiers--insist instead on seeing reality. And in November, they might just be able to impose it on the elites."
I agree that there are a lot of angry people out there. And many of them are ready to vote for change in November. I just worry that there aren't enough of us. What scares me is the statistic from the Tax Policy Center that under the new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act laws that about 47% of taxpayers will owe no income tax in 2009. And I have heard even higher percentages for 2010.(51%?) I worry that people who aren't paying taxes will be perfectly happy with the status quo. As Peter said, "the irrational belief that things can go on like this indefinitely." That people without "skin in the game" have a vested interest in a government continuing its largesse. I see that even on the brink of ruin the citizens of Greece refuse to cut back on their hand -outs. I hope that I am wrong....
May '10
Re: Seeing But Not Seeing
Everybody knows--and everybody puts it right out of his mind. Everybody, that is, in the mainstream media, in the universities, and in the political class, all of whom succumb to the psychosis of hope and change; which is to say, to the psychosis of unreality.
I admit that I disagree; I don't think that these people are succumbing to anything except ambition. The political class is positively motivated to persuade everyone to put it all out of our minds, and most of us prefer to do so because we just want to live our lives. Throughout history, that has been the way tyrants- whether pure despots like Hitler or "soft" despots such as Mayor Daley or the California Assembly- have gained and held onto power. So they hypnotize those proles who wish to be hypnotized, and it works for quite a while. Until they run out of other people's money or create the deconstructed multi-culti paradise with guess-who in charge, by which time it is generally too late.