Comfortable Enough Not to Notice or Protest
On the normalization of state dishonesty, concealment, and abuse.
The hazard of paying attention to “the course of human events” is that the observer may become too preoccupied with all the vice and corruption and therefore fail to appreciate the good things that our civilization provides for us.
I appreciate the wisdom of not allowing oneself to become too critical. Always seeing the bad side of things takes the fun out of life and the pleasure out of being in the company of one’s fellow man.
Most of the time, this posture is indeed the most reasonable and sociable. Being too critical and serious makes one a bore.
However, this same posture may become perilous if one assumes it in one’s attitude towards the State. Modern man has long been in the habit of believing in the State and looking to the State to provide him with security and guidance.
We want to believe that the State is interested in our well-being and that it wants what is best for us. When things are going well for a nation—that is, when the majority of its citizens are enjoying a decent standard of living—our tendency is to credit the state for our peace and prosperity.
During such times, the citizenry may cease paying attention to what the men who run the state are doing. This explains why we are often surprised when a crisis or disaster occurs. Because the men who run the state are adept at claiming that they too didn’t see it coming, they are usually able to conceal the fact that it was their policies and actions that caused the disaster.
One of the most prosperous periods of European history was the so-called Belle Époque between 1871-1914. I once attended an aristocratic ball at the Grandhotel Pupp in Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) Czech Republic, and I marveled at the fact that the final, splendid additions to the hotel were completed in 1913.
Had I gone to a ball during the summer of 1913 and told the German and Austro-Hungarian aristocrats attending that a cataclysm would soon strike their world and almost completely destroy it, most of them would think that I was a crazy bore.
Speaking of German aristocrats, there’s a passage in Joachim Fest’s biography of Hitler in which Hitler explains to one of his comrades how the German aristocracy can be persuaded to go along with the National Socialist project for Germany. To paraphrase it (if my memory serves me):
All these lazy aristocrats want to do is retire to their estates and go fishing with the assurance that they are secure. All we have to do is persuade them that we will provide them with the security they crave, and they won’t concern themselves with the rest what we are doing.
It’s possible that our American civilization will remain comfortable and secure enough for the majority of its citizens not to notice or protest what their government is doing.
Since 2009, we’ve been able to maintain our high standard of living largely by financing it with debt.
Because less than 1% of the U.S. population serves in the active-duty military, and because most of our military actions (either by our own forces or by proxies) are performed abroad, our people are able to remain unaware of the costs, brutality, and risks of war.
Regarding the dangers of vaccines that we often report in this newsletter: Most people are not inclined to pay attention to these dangers unless they or their children are injured by a vaccine. Even then, many don’t recognize that their injuries were caused by a shot because their doctors deny the link.
John Maynard Keynes once famously remarked of short selling stocks that “the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” His observation may equally apply to the business of having a healthy relationship with the state.
If one is too critical and pessimistic, one may fail to enjoy the good times at hand. However, a people that places too much trust in the state will likely be badly abused and ultimately led into a disaster with terrible consequences.
https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/comfortable-enough-not-to-notice