Bearing The Burden Of Our Bad Ideas
By Trevor Bothwell (01/06/03)
In the world of economics, supply-siders often employ the philosophy of "less is more" to demonstrate economic efficiency and simplicity. For example, the less money the government takes from us in taxes, the more real income we'll have remaining with which to invest in the economy, thereby creating more jobs and granting prosperity to more individuals.
And economics aside, sometimes people apply this philosophy to quality of life in general. As in, the less our lifestyle requires us to reach for that extra dollar by working longer hours or multiple jobs, the more valuable time we'll have on our hands to spend with our children, do volunteer work, or simply relax.
When it comes to taxation, the federal government increasingly employs the idea of "more is less," where Americans are taxed progressively more, amounting to the systematic reduction of the right to control our own earnings, gradually suffocating the economy by restricting the money consumers can pay back into it.
Funny thing about this government of ours, though -- it seems it likes to play the "more is less" game with peoples' lifestyles, too. It goes something like this: the more government intervenes in society, the less meaningful social progress we seem to make.
From welfare subsidy and social services disability insurance to foster care funding and sex-ed and parenting classes, the more government spending grows, so too do the social problems that spending is supposed to solve, according to Heather Mac Donald's new book, The Burden of Bad Ideas.
Heather Mac Donald, a John M. Olin Fellow at The Manhattan Institute and contributing editor to City Journal, from which most of the research for this book originates, offers critical and analytical insight into the true mentality of elite opinion that has seeped into mainstream society and thus commandeered our ability to speak candidly regarding such important issues as race and gender, and even those as seemingly indelible as historical fact.
But Mac Donald doesn't just stop with government. She explains how bad ideas originate and erupt into debilitating orthodoxies that infect and corrupt our law schools, schools of education, public health agencies, museums, and even entire communities.
Ours is a culture that once was able -- even demanded -- to distinguish between those in society who lived moral lives and those who did not; respectable families that struggled but persevered through hands in life unfairly dealt were once the focus of our charity, only to find that they have been increasingly cast aside by intellectuals in favor of propping up the "victim classes" or those who have nothing to blame for their despair but their own self-destructive behaviors.
According to Mac Donald, today we've adopted the mentality that it is "imperative not to 'stigmatize the poor,'" that our social services organizations must refrain from making "judgments" about unwed pregnant teenagers, and that racism and sexism are so prevalent in our national fabric that we've been conditioned to think that "[b]lacks who say they are not discriminated against are in fact the most victimized of all, because they have been brainwashed into denying their oppression."
The prevalent theme throughout The Burden of Bad Ideas is that our most ubiquitous ideas and policies, whether generated by the federal government, teachers, lawyers, or politicians, often trade our expectations of societal responsibility and independence for compassion or the need to appease our supposed passive guilt.
In her book, Ms. Mac Donald describes, among many others, the following realities of bankrupt ideas:
While social workers often refrain from making moral judgments, Mac Donald argues that they have the equally vital role of cautioning clients against the consequences of self-destructive behavior. Failure to do so "ends up normalizing bad behavior."
Medical ailments that arise from promiscuous sex and intravenous drug use are more and more frequently attributed to the failures of society rather than to risky personal choices. Mac Donald scolds, "some of the very people who claim to be solving public health problems have embraced an ideology that can only make them worse."
One of "the hottest form[s] of legal scholarship today [is] critical race theory." Law schools have increasingly "driven away the more mundane task of teaching legal analysis" for the ability to "cleans[e] students' souls" of their inherent racism and sexism. Critical race theorists thrive on exploring racial hatred, so long as black students can share their dislike for whites.
"[F]or every disability that could be remedied, paying benefits for behavioral problems penalizes getting better."
"Many disability claimants belatedly discover mental impairments when their claims for physical impairments are denied" as a result of doctors' tendencies to ascribe "disorders" to those who are addicted to alcohol or drugs and are "unable" to work.
Mac Donald describes the blatantly manufactured bias of the New York Times regarding the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo in New York City.
With the aid of race hustler Al Sharpton, the Times helped to exacerbate a tragic accident by sponsoring the idea that the NYPD was a racist entity. Mayor Giuliani's tough crime legislation was breathlessly criticized as the profiling of black males, impinging on civil liberties by utilizing policing procedures such as a "stop-and-frisk" program, which coincidentally helped to dramatically reduce the number of homicides in New York City that year.
Mac Donald quotes Richard Green, the leader of the Crown Heights Youth Collective, who said, "I've been to six young people's funerals since January. If the Street Crime Unit pats me down because I match a description, and the next guy they pat down has a gun, God bless them. I have a right to privacy, but you have an absolute right to your life and property."
Heather Mac Donald cites myriad other examples of the brainless and costly ideas, programs, and attitudes that have in many cases accounted for even more societal malfunction after their inauguration than occurred prior to. But the best thing to do would be to read The Burden of Bad Ideas for yourself.
There's a reason David Brooks's review on the back of this book reads, "If there were any justice in the world, Mac Donald would be knee-deep in Pulitzer Prizes and National Magazine Awards for her pioneering work."
But, unfortunately, don't expect our current "intellectuals" to hand Ms. Mac Donald any well-deserved awards anytime soon.
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