In addition to being economically inefficient and ethically unjustifiable, statism is also aesthetically revolting: it suggests that complex social challenges can be addressed by the crudest principle of "might makes right", or, to put things metaphorically, that broken quantum computers can be fixed by repeatedly pummeling them with a caveman's club. It seems to me that even if, per impossibile, such a vision of reality were true, it would be unacceptable to any person with a modicum of good taste.
Perhaps, then, what is most sorely lacking in this world is not sound economic and ethical theory - their crucial value notwithstanding - but effective methods of imparting sane aesthetic sensitivity to the masses, so that their economic common sense and prudent moral judgment can withstand the corrosive kitsch of statist propaganda. Perhaps in the realm of social thinking, as seems to be the case in so many other realms as well, it is beauty that is the crucial missing link between truth and goodness.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment