◼ Though lots of groups think they should be running the show, the truth is nobody’s in charge. - Jonah Goldberg/Weigh in at National Review Online
...The notion that there’s a class or group of people secretly running things is ancient. It was old when the Roman consul Lucius Cassius famously asked, “Cui bono?” (“To whose benefit?”)
The reason is that we seem to be hardwired to assume there are no accidents, that the world is the way it is because people — hidden people — want it that way. The more extreme expressions of this cognitive reflex take many forms, whether anti-Semitic (Who benefits? The Jews!) or Marxist (Who benefits? The ruling classes!) or comedic (“Colonel Sanders with his wee beady eyes!”).
Today, on the left, such thinking has become institutionalized. When the champions of social justice can’t find an actual culprit, the villain becomes systemic racism or sexism or white privilege. But there is always evil intentionality lurking somewhere, like a ghost in the machine. The right has its bugaboos, too. For instance, there are many who think the mainstream media is biased (it is) and that its bias is somehow centrally orchestrated like a scheme by some Bond villain (it isn’t).
I think some people are scared of the idea that nobody is in charge, in part because they want someone to blame for their problems. Others don’t like this notion because they have an outsize faith in the power of human will. If villains aren’t to blame for our ills, then some problems cease to be problems and simply become facts of life.
Me? I like knowing no one is running things because, for starters, it means I’m free.
◼ A question being asked everywhere in the land. - Join the Discussion at Lucianne
