The Secret Knowledge (32 page)

It means leaving the group.

It is not difficult to endure, but it is painful to recognize the incredulity and scorn which one encounters from one's native Group (the Liberals) on announcing a change of philosophy. It is shocking. And it is sobering, for it reveals this truth: that the Left functions, primarily, through its power as a primitive society or religion, dedicated
above all
to solidarity, and not only to acceptance but to constant
promulgation
of its principles, however inchoate, as “self-evident” and therefore beyond question. But, as Hayek points out, that something is beyond question most often means that its investigation has been forbidden. Why? Because it was untrue.

How does the Left draw and maintain its unthinking allegiance from people of intelligence, compassion, and goodwill? By offering an illusion. Here is Whittaker Chambers, speaking of the Communism from which he wrenched himself in the 1940s: “Its vision points the way to the future: its faith labors to turn the future into present reality. It says to every man who joins it: the vision is a practical problem of history; the way to achieve it is a practical problem in politics, which is the present tense of history. Have you the moral strength to take upon yourself the crimes of history so that man at last may close his chronicle of age-old senseless suffering, and replace it with a purpose and a plan? . . . The answer is the root of that sense of moral superiority which makes Communists, though caught in crime, berate their opponents with withering self-righteousness.”
¹⁰⁶

We human beings need order. We crave it, and we thrive under it.

How do we adjudicate between our need for order and our need for freedom (for the Left offers only the first)?

By realizing that this determination must be made, and that it can never be made perfectly; and through sufficient maturity to accept the burden of choice rather than submit to the comfort of the Group.

“An' I was thinking, Hinnissy” (Mr. Dooley said in conclusion), “as I set in that there coort, surrounded be me fellow-journalists, spies, perjurers, an' other statesmen, that I'd give four dollars if th' prisident iv th' coort'd call out “Monsoo Dooley, take th' stand.'

“ ‘ Here,' says I; an I'd thread me way with dignity through th' Fr'rinch gin'rals an' ministers on th' flure, an' give me hand to th' prisident to kiss. If he went anny further, I'd break his head. No man'll kiss me, Hinnissy, an' live. What's that ye say? He wudden't want to? Well, niver mind.

“ ‘ Here,' ” says I, ‘ mong colonel, what d'ye want with me?'

“ ‘ What d'ye know about this case, mong bar-tinder.'

“ 'Nawthin',' says I. ‘But I know as much as annywan else.' ”

—Finley Peter Dunne,
Mr. Dooley in the
Hearts of His Countrymen

 

 

I am a guy who got his nose broke playing high school football.

I remember very well what it is to look for work. It is my experience that being self-supporting is like shooting free throws: if you hit, you get to shoot again, if not, not.

I believe, like Coach Lombardi, that every man wants to test himself, and is never happier than when he “lays on the field of battle, exhausted, and victorious.”

The Chicago literary tradition is born not out of its Universities, but out of the sports desk and the city desk of its newspapers. Hemingway revolutionized English prose. His inspiration was the telegraph, whose use, at Western Union, taught this: every word costs something.

This, of course, is the essence of poetry, which is the essence of great prose. Chicagoan literature came from the newspaper, whose purpose, in those days, was to Tell What Happened. Hemingway's epiphany was reported, earlier, by Keats as “ ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty'—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” I would add, to Keats's summation only this: “Don't let the other fellow piss on your back and tell you it's raining.”

I believe one might theoretically forgive one who cheats at business, but never one who cheats at cards; for business adversaries operate at arm's length, the cardplayer under the assumption that his position will be conducted under the strict rules of the game,
period
.

That was my first political epiphany.

And now, I have written a political book.

What are the qualifications for a Political Writer?

They are, I believe, the same as those of an aspiring critic: an inability to write for the Sports Page.

I was born in Hyde Park and grew up on the South Side of Chicago. I hold no brief against someone who is not interested in sports, but I could never trust someone who
claimed
such an interest, in order to advance his own agenda, and then could neither name a member, past or present, of his self-apostrophised “Home Team,” nor correctly pronounce the name of their ballpark.
¹⁰⁷

I can forgive someone who lies, but if he can't think on his feet, he has no business representing my interests. If he can't lie to me, how can I expect him to lie, on my behalf, to the other guy?

I have written a political book not because I am an expert but because I am a citizen. I have
published
a political book because other citizens wrote a Constitution denying to our Government the power to control Speech.

I am the beneficiary of those who lived and died to defend our Constitution. I need no permission to publish my work—only the endorsement of another citizen or group who believe they may, financially or otherwise, profit from its publication.

For many, what may be accepted as common sense is only that which comes out of the mouths of experts. But Harry Truman said the smartest man is the farmer, for, while he works all day, he's thinking.

I would add that the smartest man is the immigrant, for he has to assess each situation afresh, and
mechanically
. Which is to say he starts with no misconceptions, and so is very difficult to misdirect—his ability to eat depends upon his ability to figure out the way things work.

Things work in ways both wonderful and stunning, when set next to the way we
think
they work.
¹⁰⁸

The gap between the two grows naturally, through use and elaboration. It is capable of misuse by those who can profit from it: the politician who would like more patronage money to dispense, the entrepreneur who is selling snake oil, and the investment banker who may be his brother.

What is the difference between equality and fairness? A standard may be applied to the former, which the latter will not bear. The cry for “fairness” is the child's cry. It is, indeed, the first sentence dealing with the abstract which the child speaks, “It's not
fair.”

“Fair,” then, may mean “What I want,” or, in the altruist, “The way I believe the world should be,” but it is, finally, subjective; and an insistence on this subjective standard opens the way both for evil in the name of good (busing), and for the unprincipled exploiters of
any
system, (Lenin, Mao, or their contemporaries of various ranks and denominations).

Equality can only, practically, mean,
equality before the law
—this is to say that everybody gets his turn to be heard out by a judicial system which, in the way of the world, is overworked, and indifferent, and may be misguided, or indeed, corrupt.

The question is, “Whom would I want on the jury trying me?” The answer, “Persons like myself,” brings us down to the Courthouse when it is our turn to serve, with personal and civic pride counterbalancing the inconvenience.

You and I would want, on a jury tying our case,
not
the expert,
not
the hypothetical or overeducated, but the plumber, the grocer, the carpet salesman, the firefighter, the Marine—a regular person just like you or me.

For
our
case, were it, God forbid, before a court, would be, in our estimation simple
,
and we would want our jurors wary of abstractions—capable of and experienced in differentiating between simple things: the debt was paid, the debt was
not
paid; he struck me
first
; he promised X and did Y. These are the things the average, undeluded, and undeludable worker deals with every day, the things with which
we
deal when we recall (should we forget) that
we
are workers.

The awe and majesty of the Law are our basic inheritance of freedom. Without these nothing can exist in Freedom: here is the bright line, stay to the correct side and the community will protect you, venture across, and you will be at the mercy of its other name, the State. Likewise, those we call “leaders,” were originally understood to function as
representatives,
with one to
preside
over their deliberations.

The imperial Presidency is a bore. No one is perfect, and no man can know or understand all things.

On the movie set, there is one person and one person
only
who need possess no quantifiable skills, that is the director. The actor must be able to act, the designer to design, the carpenter to build; the director need be conversant with the technicalities of none of these; his job is to move the project forward, allowing each of the workers involved to do
his
own job. That of the director is to listen to their suggestions, to propose a course of action, and to bring the entirety, happily and simply, to a shared devotion to that course.

The rules of behavior on a movie set are largely the Unwritten Law: who shows deference to whom, when one should speak, when one should be silent, how to deal with unpleasantness, with an excess of zeal, with shoddy work; how to evaluate that which falls short of the perfect. The set is infused with a sense of commonality and dedication not only to the project at hand, but to
training by example
the new workers, by extending and protecting the precious lessons of the past.

This perception was the beginning of my love affair, or, let me say, my recognition of my love affair with America. We do things differently here. We were and are a country of workers and, as such, get along so well that we became the preeminent power in the world. This came about not through a “lust for power,” not through colonialism or “exploitation,” but as a result of our ethos and cohesion. It begins with the notion that all are created equal.

The definition of “all” has widened over time; and the history of our country, when finally written, will appreciate that this widening was the essence of our Republic; that we, in the process of devotion to the essentially religious goal, the “self-evident truth,” managed to shape, through our Industry and through our art, a new and better world.