In Search of the Old Curmudgeon
Or the Importance of Laughing Down the Left
by James D. Davidson
retrieved from The Libertarian Forum, VOLUME VI, NO. 8 AUGUST, 1974
Readers of LIBERTARIAN FORUM used to be able to depend upon the Old Curmudgeon. He would sally forth with a certain indignation and much good humor to deflate the socio-political buncombe which is so widespread in America today. The Old Curmudgeon had good sense. And he understood the devastating power of the laugh, a power which he used to enforce Jacques Barzun's point that intellect deteriorates with each surrender to folly. The Old Curmudgeon did his best to see that folly did not pass into us, but rather passed by us. In this respect, that irascible gentleman did us a favor. But whatever happened to him? Time passes; culture deteriorates, and we haven't heard a peep from our stalwart. In his place we have Murray Rothbard, that all-too respectable voice of moderation and scholarly detachment.
When Professor Rothbard wrote about the current kidnapping binge, for example, he made some valuable points in his own way. But he fell well short of what we might have expected from the Old Curmudgeon. My comments cannot fill the gap. My nature is too gentle and I am hardly old. Yet someone must speak out to put a little starch into the positions that Professor Rothbard has been ironing over with his scholarly detachment – hence this critique and plea that the Old Curmedgeon be brought out of retirement.
In the case of the Hearst Kidnapping, to which Professor Rothbard addressed a few passing comments, we have further proof of Albert J. Nock's dictim that the worst sort of people read the papers. Patricia Hearst's kidnappers and Patricia herself grew up on a steady diet of newspaper philosophy. If researchers in the Hearst case discover that all the principals read Hearst papers, that alone would explain the profound moral and ethical confusion which motivated their acts. It is little wonder, then, that Patricia apparently has nestled in with the preposterous world view of her captors. One can suppose that the morality that Patricia derived from her parents as a girl was of no more substance than the editorial policy of their newspaper. In that instance it probably boiled down, in addition to the perfuntory religion and welfare state civics, to something like "Don't be late for dinner."
Patricia was evidently ripe for the comic opera doctrines of the "Symbionese Liberation Army" precisely because she had never had anything sufficiently potent to believe. Bob Love says that no one of fair intelligence, who is taught both the socialist and free market philosophy in childhood could possibly become a socialist. Even if that is a bit of an exaggeration, can anyone imagine how a properly reared individual could be impressed with the SLA philosophy? Could anyone with walking-around sense, let alone an acquaintance with the classics of Western thought, believe that marriage and monogamy could be outlawed, as is proposed in the SLA platform?
Such preposterous positions and more abound in the canon of the SLA. If this represented no more than the rantings of a few psychotics it would be distressing enough. Yet we find, not surprisingly, that the young leftish terrorists are not alone in their opposition to all forms of "racism, sexism, ageism, capitalism, individualism, possessiveness, (and) competitiveness." The SLA merely takes up and exaggerates attitudes which are fast becoming cliches of contemporary culture. Distressingly, even persons who otherwise lay claims to libertarian disposition have proven weak marks when it comes to resisting some of the current assault upon human nature.
What is at stake is the understanding which T. S. Eliot aptly said is on the "pre-political" level. That is, "the stratum down to which any sound political thinking much push its roots, and from which it must derive its nourishment." Somewhere along the line, the great mass of persons, including; unfortunately, many advocates of free market economics, has lost sight of the fundamental fact that man has a nature; that he is not merely silly putty to be re-shaped according to passing fad. So-called "racism, sexism, ageism, etc." exist because, no matter how imperfectly, they incorporate certain truths about the human condition. It may well be, for instance, that there is a fundamental difference between male and female which explains the observable phenomena of all human cultures – that the male – as a rule – predominates. This does not mean, and no sensible person would claim otherwise – that all males will dominate and out-perform all females. Yet acknowledging that, how silly is it for women to be constantly badgering radio stations to give equal time to female composers? A station with a great library might then muster enough programming to stay on the air for an afternoon.
The same might well be said, although it is a lapse of taste, about the so-called "racist" issue. In a free society, knowledge that members of one race might tend to be less nimble mentally than members of another would be almost totally useless information. It would tell nothing about any given individual, just as it would be virtually useless to know that most short persons are of lower intelligence than those six feet tall or greater. Since there are always geniuses who are midgets as well as tall idiots, knowing that an individual was tall or short would tell you nothing. It is only in a statist society where recognition of such tendencies of nature becomes meaningful – precisely because a hue and cry is raised deploring "racism" or "shortism", "ageism" or the like, whenever statistical analysis does not reveal a proportional representation among all groups in the higher income levels of society. When the issue is forced, it then becomes crucial to know, as many scholarly studies have suggested, that members of one race may indeed tend to be in certain ways less capable.
This line of reasoning could be elaborated to fine detail. But the point is clear. Anyone with insight should know that biological reality, and not "brainwashing" or environmental control, is the prime factor informing man's existence. What must always be borne in mind, as Eliot said, is that no political philosophy can escape the right answer to this question: "What is Man? what is his misery and what his greatness? and what, finally, his destiney?" (See George A. Panichas, "T. S. Eliot and the Critique of Liberalism," MODERN AGE, Spring, 1974)
The strength of the libertarian position is precisely that it is a philosophy which harmonizes with understanding of man's basic nature. To work, it awaits no wonderful transformations. Man need be no stronger, wiser, finer than he is at present for free market economics to succeed, because the principles of the free market are deduced from axiomatic truths about reality. This is not to say, that man might not be at least wiser, if not finer and stronger, if a free market did exist. The masses could then see clearly evident the truth of libertarian positions, such as there is no reason to have a state monopoly post office and that public education is not the essential cornerstone of civilization. Man would become wiser in that he would simply be privy to revealed economic truths rather than being forced upon his own meagre logical resources to dope out the form of an economic system. The only other sense in which the free market might elevate man is that since it is more productive, it would afford greater leisure for contemplation: This might redound to the benefit of civilization.
Many libertarians, however, fail to understand this. They reason, erroneously, that since the masses have been indoctrinated to believe that the free market will not work, that any and all other opinions or values of the masses can be equally wrong. Thus, women's liberationists do battle with "sexism" on the assumption that male/female sex roles are not essential components of the human experience, but rather cultural whimsy, of the same order as an opinion about agricultural price supports or foreign policy. Of course, sex roles are not opinions, nor are they matters of indoctrination. They are matters of hormonal chemistry. Because this is so emphatically the case, there is no grave danger of the women's liberationists succeeding. The only mischief that they can do is bureaucratic. They can agitate for quotas and regulation of jobs and promotion by fiat. They may generate a bit of short term inequity by displacing more qualified persons (of either sex) from positions they might otherwise have held. They may cause confusion and unhappiness by causing young children to feel guilt over inclinations to follow normal sexual roles. But in the long run, so-called women's liberation is bound to come to nothing because it is based on a profound misunderstanding of human nature. Short of wholesale chemical manipulation of the populace men will ever be men and women will be women.
The attack upon sexual stereotypes, of course, is valid to the extent that those stereotypes are false. But any individual, woman or man, who wished to defy the so-called sex roles could do so at any time. A man could always stay home to mind the kids. The woman could always work, except where legal impediments (which all libertarians oppose) bar the way. But the real thrust of women's lib has not been an opposition to discriminatory laws, but rather a gripe against nature. What especially galls the women's libbers is that being a woman has some decisive meaning which is distinct from being a man. In this sense, the women's liberation movement is an extension of the tendency of modem life noted by Soren Kierkegaard, to "level" humankind to a mathematical equality in which no one would be afforded any individuality or access to novel pleasures. As the mere existence of distinct sexes stands in the path of such a philosophy, an assault has been aimed with particular relish at the main expression of human sexual nature – heterosexual love. The mounting militancy of homosexuals, especially in the women's movement, testifies to this effort to reduce mankind to an indifferent, amorphous mass. The SLA membership, studed with dykes, has merely seized upon the essential content of women's liberation by seeking to do away with all forms of individuality.
It is hardly likely that this or any like-minded revolutionary movement should succeed. Nature stands in the way of that. But the revolutionaries can and will make a botch out of society and culture if they are not treated to the widespread derision which is their rich desert. The SLA and its ilk should be despised for what they are – a congregation of lowlife ruffians, aided and abetted by some bored and humorless middle class brats. It should be the task of everyone concerned about the quality of life to laugh them back into the shadows rather than afford them the limelight and dignity which the media and liberal commentators extend to their "thought." And not only should the terrorists and kidnappers be punished with the shame that their preposterous criminality deserves, but they should be dispatched to quick justice.
The underlying elements in the culture which nourish and give rise to left wing terrorism and destructive violence should also be singled out for attack. Thus libertarians should use the harshest rigors of logic to understand the ultimate consequences of such apparently harmless fads as "women's lib" and other egalitarian movements. Aspects of those movements which have merit from a strictly libertarian position, such as opposition to political restrictions, should be supported. But never should libertarians join in the agitation against nature which is at the heart of most current "reform" movements. For if women's lib, and its inevitable successor movements, such as "ageism," pansism," "shortism" and the like prosper, the chief casualty will be culture. The turgid and graceless propaganda of the leftish groups gives fair warning of what their version of civilized living would be if they came to dominate society. There would be precious little humor. The dreadful seriousness needed to sustain the effort to change man would see to that. Instead of accepting human nature as it ultimately is, with literature and art directed toward elucidating man's limitations and foibles, we'd have only such "truth" as would make the Russian version of "socialist realism" as flippant as Mother Goose. No one could laugh at anything.
Before we slip so low, there is still time to allow the power of laughter to save us. Let's hear, then, from the Old Curmudgeon, while we still have the discretion to laugh out loud at the assault upon human differences. In its way, that could contribute as much as scholarly detachment to the evolution of "a more civilized world of dignity, reason and order" which we hopefully can find, without riding as Virgil's hero did, in a rowboat through hell.
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The Old Curmudgeon replies:
I'm still around, Jim; the Old Curmudgeon lives! But what a pleasure to see a young lad like Jim Davidson even more curmudgeonly than the Old Master; you can't get hardly any of that from the Younger Generation these days. God bless ye, Jimmy; it's a pleasure for this grizzled old-timer to know that after he hangs up his six-shooter for the last time, Jim Davidson will be around to ride point on behalf of the ontological order.
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