Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
A Conservative friend of mine has a favorite exasperated phrase for our political class: "There just aren't enough bullets." He doesn't mean it literally. Like me - more or less - he's a peace and love kind of guy. What he's expressing is frustration that the fools in power who make mistakes which impact on all our lives never seem to pay any real price for messing things up.
In this week's UK Spectator, political journalist Peter Oborne gives a good example of this. He names the Guilty Men who, not so long ago, were urging Britain to scrap the pound and adopt the Euro as its currency. Hindsight tells us with absolute clarity that this would have been a disaster. But there were many of us who knew that perfectly well at the time - and often said so.
And how were we treated? As completely lunatics, that's how. We were called "swivel-eyed" and "Little Englanders". We were dismissed as reactionary eccentrics completely out of touch with the real world, that's how.
Here’s just one example, taken from the Observer columnist Andrew Rawnsley’s column on 31 January 1999: ‘On the pro-euro side, a grand coalition of business, the unions and the substantial, sane, front rank political figures. On the other side, a menagerie of has-beens, never-have-beens and loony tunes.’ Most of Mr Rawnsley’s ‘substantial, sane, front-rank political figures’ came together 12 years ago at the launch of the Britain in Europe campaign to take us into the euro — Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson, Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke, Charles Kennedy, Danny Alexander.
Guilty Men takes its name from a pamphlet published in 1940, naming the myriad Establishment figures who'd pursued a policy of Appeasement with Hitler. Needless to say, those who wanted to stand up to him - and who warned that war was inescapable, in much the same way an apocalyptic collapse in Europe is now - were of course treated "those in the know" as dangerous loons. Foremost among those dangerous loons was Winston Churchill.
Today we see exactly the same thing going on with Climate Change.
As someone who has been on the right side of these arguments (I'm sure you can all suggest plenty of US examples of similar instances) I hope I don't sound too peevish when I ask: "Where's my reward? How come the bad, wrong guys always get away with it - and the good guys get nothing more than the satisfaction of being right?"
Sure being right is nice. But I do wish you could monetize it.
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Mar '11
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
A prophet hath no honor in his own country.
Feb '11
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
Our local version is what they call the Peace Process. Oslo and all that.
May '11
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
The problem is, climate change is so nebulous a concept that its proponents will still be claiming righteousness long after the threat has passed. "It's because we took action," they'll say, after decades of bleating that not enough action was being taken to avoid catastrophe.
Feb '11
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
May '10
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
Always with the moaning and complaining. Isn't writing for free for your fellow Ricochet-eers rewarding enough?
Mar '11
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
Be fair, jmarksouth. They did, after all, protect us from Nuclear Winter, and The Population Bomb, and the hole in the ozone layer, and acid rain....
Sometimes I think that we should be working on replacing the arsenic in the water supply with lithium.
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
A Wired profile of Julian Simon - the Doomslayer who once famously won a bet with the eco-catastrophist Paul Ehrlich - put this rather well:
"There seemed to be a bizarre reverse-Cassandra effect operating in the universe: whereas the mythical Cassandra spoke the awful truth and was not believed, these days "experts" spoke awful falsehoods, and they were believed. Repeatedly being wrong actually seemed to be an advantage, conferring some sort of puzzling magic glow upon the speaker."
He was referring to the fact that despite being wrong about pretty much everything he predicted, Ehrlich still ended up being given a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" award.
It's in my book Watermelons
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
While I know the feeling, and complain of the same thing all the time, I think it's probably more profitable to think about the ways we've been wrong--and what's blinded us to seeing important emerging trends. I'm guilty of not having spotted the signs of an approaching American economic crisis sooner and not having warned more loudly of the risk. I did not fully understand what was happening in my own country, although people tried to warn me. I was blinded by my preconceptions and my memories. And we could all do with a bit less finger-pointing at this point and a bit more recognition that liberal democracy is really at risk.
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
Well, speak for yourself Claire. We can quibble over tiny details: I supported overthrow of Saddam and I was all for military engagement in Afghanistan but I now recognize that wars like that are only something you should engage in when you have the money and the will - and we never had either. But as to the bigger ideological struggle: NO. I feel that those of us on our side of the argument have NOTHING to apologize for. (By our side, I mean proper, thinking right-wing libertarians rather than, say, Dubya-style Me Too Conservatives who are very much part of the problem.
Mar '11
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
Look on the bright side, James, you could be a German taxpayer and compelled by law to buy debt from the defunct half of Europe.
Apr '11
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
You threaten the world view and self worth of many successful (in the worldly sense) people and dogmas. If you are right they are wrong and they don't like being wrong. In fact they will use every psychological and hermeneutic trick they can come up with to prevail. Once your reward would have been in heaven. Now if you are very lucky as events unfold you both may be in on the ground floor and accounted experts in a newly birthed zeitgeist.
Mar '11
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
The question is whether, when the people who have bad track records start touting the idiocy du jour, is it too out of bounds to remind them (and everyone else) of how many times they have been wrong in the past?
It is tiring dealing with the same people, secure in the convictions and short term memories of Chicken Little.
Apr '11
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
Conservative dissent? The left cuts it off at the knees by branding it with vile tags and ridicule.
The Campus Republicans at UC Berkeley are having a bake sale. Yes, the prices are skewed in favor of minorities to demonstrate the effect of affirmative action.
The outrage! The indignation! Because . . . well . . . 'it's been done before . . . it's . . it's sarcastic . . .
Just watch the smooth CNN anchor and this pandering 'nuanced' author take on this young kid.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/25/us/california-racial-bake-sale/index.html?npt=NP1
No, if you're conservative - you can't sell discounted cookies without being slandered - so my God - what made you think you could push back on Climate Change? Rewards for being right on an issue? !
You're lucky they haven't institutionalized you - yet.
You do lock your doors at night . . . ?
Update: The Campus Republicans are being threatened with violence on their Website and Facebook.
Edited on Sep 25, 2011 at 6:35amRe: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
Tiny details?
Do you think the world would be a better place now had Saddam remained in power? I don't know. I doubt it.
Sep '10
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Tiny details?
Do you think the world would be a better place now had Saddam remained in power? I don't know. I doubt it. · Sep 25 at 6:14am
Saddam was serving several purposes and was not any immediate threat. He was in a box and the choices were not between war and letting out of the box. It is becoming clearer as time passes Bush made several unwise choices.
Sep '10
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
Short "green stocks"
Dec '10
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
David Horowitz explains your problem in his new book A Point in Time. Liberals (leftists) seek redemption in this world through human agency. They have no quarrel with God and what he might do in the next life because a) they don't believe in Him or b) they're convinced He has their back because they mean well.
Conservatives (unlike the proper, thinking right-wing libertarians; btw, I, a lowly GWB conservative, was extremely hesitant about the Iraq war) seek redemption in the next life.
That, and liberals (leftists) love to give out prizes and awards!
Edited on Sep 25, 2011 at 10:42amSep '10
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
Being right is like being good. In the end, it has to be its own reward.
Dec '10
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
James, think for a moment. Who are you wishing would give you cash and prizes for being right? The very people whom reality has proven wrong, and to whom you've been saying "I told you so" for years. The last thing any of them will ever do is rub salt in their own wounds by recognizing you for knowing them better than they did themselves.
Mar '11
Re: Why aren't there more rewards for being right?
Maybe "Guilty Men" isn't the right approach. Instead, maybe we should sugar-coat it and tell our esteemed Thought Leaders that they have been working hard at being wrong for so long that they should take a well-deserved vacation from thought-leading.
By the way, I hope James stays at Ricochet forever.