As I write this, it is Good Friday, in the morning. The cock has crowed three times. Jesus has been tried and convicted by the Sanhedrin. He is brought before Pilate who is sympathetic, but the mob chooses death. Jesus has been cancelled. There is much to unpack here, but the relevant portion to the thoughts I wish to convey is this: while much has changed since this day in history, very much remains exactly the same. We humans are “wired” to behave in certain ways. Understanding this circuitry is a science that needs further reflection in our society. We have an innate gyroscope deep within our souls that directs us to go places and do things without much conscious thought. If we are not careful in analyzing this force and the direction it leads us, we can easily slip and fall and do things our conscious regrets. Indeed, we are all corruptible and capable of bad or even evil acts. Yet, there is a duality to man, where with work and an understanding to thwart our more primitive instincts, we can do great good and even selfless acts. Although I could give y’all a stemwinder of a sermon right now, I will focus solely on the secular and why we should be warily distrustful of “institutions,” most notably collective bodies of experts.
The good news for us is that we have several thousand years of data on human nature. Human behavior is the operating mechanism that determines the trajectory of economics, history and political events. We can solve almost all our societal problems by studying and understanding this phenomenon. Our Founders understood this which is why James Madison stated “if men were angels, there would be no need for government.” Always and everywhere, our constitution and rules promulgated under it should thwart out darker sides in favor of leading us toward our better angels. However, this can’t be done unless we acknowledge how the fluid state of our imperfect nature affects our world.
Let’s look at the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin. They were strict adherents to specific and detailed orthodoxies. How would you feel if you spent your whole life being taught what to think by the most notable scholars of the day and these fundamental principles of your core were under attack? Perhaps proven to be wrong? Suppose you had invested your whole life into a field of study that had given you great prestige, you were an acknowledged expert, your whole identity was associated with this school of thought, and now it was being challenged? Would you listen or would you try to cancel the “heretics” who threatened your world view? Because institutions are made of man, they are self-preserving and corruptible, which inevitably leads to monolithic thinking and efforts to “cancel” dissenters. These issues are at play today in economics, medicine, politics and all “sciences” known to man.
Let’s look at economic science and so called “economists.” Let’s acknowledge that just like the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, many are invested in a particularly rigid school of thought. Perhaps, like the Pharisees of old, they were taught only “one” way and any diversion would be heretical (this seems to be the way our universities operate today). Like the Pharisees, they ascribe a great deal of self-importance to themselves due to their training and supposed knowledge of arcane and minute matters. Using tactical sophistry, they often make matters more complicated than need be in efforts to dazzle you with their brilliance.
They sound impressive, but are they really? One need not look far to see these issues at play with the Federal Reserve Board and their slavish adherence to their godlike powers to manage our economy. In actuality, it is a paper tiger. Policy drives the economy, not the elevated egos of the expert class. The belief that a handful of pointy headed academics can magically manage a multi-trillion-dollar economy by tinkering with interest rates is an example of gargantuan egotism and extreme hubris. This modern Sanhedrin elite engages in economic snake-oil-ism, primarily because it enshrines itself with highly coveted self-importance and societal purpose, not to mention the most powerful aphrodisiac in the world, power. Many economic shibboleths taken for granted as truth, are merely tools to keep entrenched institutions further entrenched. Beware Greeks bearing gifts, beware associations of experts because they often are practicing self-preservation and not truth. Every institution made of man is on a road to corruption.
Let’s look at the axis between big government and heath care. The pandemic has flushed out the institutional corruption of the medical establishment. Virtually, everything our government told us about the corona-virus has turned out to be wrong. Space does not permit me to give an exhaustive list. I suggest reading Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s The Real Anthony Fauci. It will shock you. The collaboration between big government and big pharma is a story of self-enrichment on an extraordinary scale, all of which enabled hundreds of thousands to die needlessly. The CDC, WHO, FDA and NIH are all institutions that proselytize their superior academic knowledge to which, like the Sanhedrin, we are all supposed to bend the knee. In truth, they are corrupt, self-preservation guilds.
Whatever you may think of Donald Trump, he was above anything else a disrupter and an extreme threat to all of the agencies of experts in Washington DC. He threatened their power, money and prestige. In essence, he wanted to throw the money-changers out of temple. No, I am not comparing Trump with Jesus. I am simply making an analogy about human nature and the natural evolution of institutional corruption. Oh, how these institutions fought back! Trump was impeached twice on absurd charges.
My point Dear Reader? Please don’t blindly accept as gospel any pronouncement from any group of experts. We need institutions and we need experts, but history teaches us that while these institutions may begin with noble and august intentions, they will inevitably and perhaps unknowingly become something else. When institutions enlist the help of the mob, they have completed their journey from corruptible to corrupt.
It is easy to “wash our hands” in front of the powerful cabal of experts and their lackies who attack us for challenging them, but that is our job as citizens, parents and investors. Truth is the noblest of all human pursuits. Courage combined with healthy dozes of Aristotelean logic and Socratic truth finding will get us there.
Don’t listen to the man, be the man!
