Fatal Conceit

History is Needed

Fatal Conceit

Meek Submission

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            Watching John Wayne last night would have been construed by the domestic terrorists as being politically incorrect.

            They, these terrorists, seem to be everywhere. To say the least, it is confounding trying to find any logic in the actions of the leaders who condone their behavior. Oh, yes, the First Amendment clearly states that the people have the right to assemble, but there is a legal caveat. That right is predicated on the writ of peaceable assembly.

            There is nothing in the Bill of Rights, natural law, or, for that matter, human decency, though, that suggests terrorist have the right to destroy any property whether it’s yours, mine, or anybody else’s. There is also law that declares that theft, false witness, and murder are not acceptable and must not be accepted on the basis of zero tolerance.

            The problem is they are tolerated, and, in some cases, promoted by the very leadership and institutions that are pledged to guard against such actions. The battle of good and evil is fully in our midst, and, on this weekend of suppressed festivities for our American founding, celebration seems strangely …an unwelcome visitor.

            Fatal Conceit

            From various corners, an interesting concept, the idea of fatal conceit, is being revealed.

            If it is researched, the name of its literary describer, Friedrich von Hayek, emerges. Hayek believed that capitalism suffers from inherent contradictions, but unlike the past and present communists of our world, he believed contradiction is at once necessary and beneficial.

            Expanded, contradiction cannot be measured or described by any single human being. Rather, it is captured by the evolving summation of historical record. It is not a stretch to suggest that statues are one form of that complex historical record. The flag is, too. Textbooks, political parties, and evolution of laws are also benchmarks of that evolving process.

The only true measure is the ultimate success or failure of a society.

In the same line of reasoning, ethics are not defined by rational thought as much as they are accrued to society on an historical basis, a journey of sorts, that starts at some point and ends when the fatal conceit of human reasoning finally and fatally sabotages the process.

In a congressional hearing this past week, Senator Rand Paul attempted to make his point by describing the concept of fatal conceit in the management of the COVID-19 debacle. He reminded those gathered and or watching remotely that central planning and decision making concentrated in the hands of only a few is incapable of grasping the millions of individual interactions occurring simultaneously out here across the hinterland. It is fatal conceit to believe any one person or small group or people has the knowledge necessary to direct an economy or dictate public policy in a guarded vacuum.

Isn’t that exactly what our government is doing today?

It is trying to rationally reconstruct an ethical human system with flawed conceit of human reasoning. It is venturing into fragile territory where government should not be allowed to enter. Ethics don’t come from government programs or central planning. They come from trial and error across the expanse of the citizenry. Human action, traditionally handed down from generation to generation, is the bedrock. It is not central action.

Good citizenship is learned by imitation … not government fiat.

Meek Submission

The Fourth of July was always the dominant holiday aside from those of faith-based origins. It was very important in our social lives.

We celebrated Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day and July 4^th as the only true holidays. They were the only days planned and set aside traditionally for family gatherings and fellowship. The other holidays were just there. They were reserved for the rest of the world.

That has not changed as the ever-expanding list of secular federal holidays have been added to the roster. They are not for us. They never were.

In retrospect, we took note of them on the basis of meek submission.

Professor Hayek described that phenomenon as well. It is the societal tendency to accept institutional changes aside from more basic learned behavior that comes from the family unit, the local community, and collective, historical standard themes. The problem is these forms of administered changes are not tested. If they are wrong, great harm may occur.

That is where we find ourselves and our country today.

Standards are only conditional. Bad behavior is condoned and accepted. History is plagiarized and rewritten. Fatal conceit is rampant and unchecked. Character assassination is encouraged and our Fourth of July was hijacked.

There is not much here to celebrate.

So, I will watch John Wayne with renewed adulthood fascination and ever increasing affection. I may even practice the lines of the charge of the single man brigade in Rooster Cogburn when the outlaw leader sneers at the old marshal, Rooster’s, threat of killing all four of the outlaws or seeing them hang for their misdeeds against good folks.

That’s bold talk for a one-eyed fat man the outlaw yelled across the open flat.

It doesn’t take Rooster long to recognize the threat not just to his life, but the insult to his entire and cumulative being. He lets fly with a most profound historically and proper response.

Fill your hand, you son-of-a-bitch!

And, with his reins firmly in his teeth, he roll cocks his Model 92 Winchester and spurs ol’ Red into the teeth of critical uncertainty in a running, pitched battle of guts, unfettered resolve, and glory.

In retrospect, it is past time to celebrate the Fourth of July. In fact, we all need to practice that line.

Now, collectively and with much gusto, get ready to charge into our own critical and uncertain future with … Fill your hands, you sons-of-bitches!

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “A cow is so honest because all of her actions are either instinctive or learned. She is not corrupted by institutional behavior.”

Here is a quote from Hayek's The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism

• To understand our civilisation, one must appreciate that the extended order resulted not from human design or intention but spontaneously: it arose from unintentionally conforming to certain traditional and largely moral practices, many of which men tend to dislike, whose significance they usually fail to understand, whose validity they cannot prove, and which have nonetheless fairly rapidly spread by means of an evolutionary selection — the comparative increase of population and wealth — of those groups that happened to follow them. The unwitting, reluctant, even painful adoption of these practices kept these groups together, increased their access to valuable information of all sorts, and enabled them to be 'fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it' (Genesis 1:28). This process is perhaps the least appreciated facet of human evolution.

You will find a short, but informative, review of the book here. 

The first book I read by Hayek was The Road to Serfdom, followed by The Constitution of Liberty. Both are excellent, accessible to the average reader, and will help you "fill your hands". 

---Frank DuBois