Technocrat Hubris
December 6, 2009 2:25 PM
Technocracy means political power, tyranny as it were, by "experts." Hubris is a pagan Greek word for a kind of disgraceful behavior characterized by unnecessary and deliberate dishonoring of a victim. In ancient Greece, hubris was one of the worst social crimes, and the comeuppance of those who perpetrated it was celebrated in literature and plays. Hubristic behavior included rape, murder, and the deliberate mutilation of the bodies of the dead.
Currently, hubris is often considered another just word for pride. It is also confused with the Christian vice of vainglory, an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Pride itself, however, is not necessarily vicious: a person certainly can and should feel proud of his accomplishments. Hubris, on the other hand, is a kind of evil. A very special kind of evil which, I believe deserves more attention than it gets.
As Aristotle wrote: "Hubris consists in doing and saying things that cause shame to the victim…simply for the pleasure of it. Retaliation is not hubris, but revenge.…Young men and the rich are hubristic because they think they are better than other people."
I am making a deliberate connection between the modern idea of technocracy and the ancient pagan idea of of hubris, because I believe that connecting these dots goes far to explain what is going wrong in the federal and the other governments among the United States of America, and especially what is happening now that the Congressional Progressive Caucus has seized control of Congress and their agenda is being pushed aggressively by the radical Barack Hussein Obama.
Here are a few recent examples of technocratic hubris:
1. The recent disclosure of emails exchanged by academics at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU) should be at the top of the list. Technocrats in the government-science complex have collaborated on a scheme whose goal is to cause legislation to be passed internationally to limit and put financial penalties on the production of the gas carbon dioxide, which they call a pollutant. There are in fact many gases that are pollutants, and toxic, but these "climate scientists" as they style themselves, deliberately blur the distinction between the toxic pollutant gases and carbon dioxide, a gas produced by all land animals and an essential substance needed to sustain the life of all green plants.
The outed emails have demonstrated how a group of technocrats at the UK university have excluded data and findings which do not support their alarmist conclusions that climate change is a consequence of human industry that threatens the Earth. That, however, is not, by itself their hubris.
Advocates of the anti-industrial legislation attempt to shame and dishonor those who have legitimate scientific disagreement with them. That is the hubris. They propagandize by claiming "consensus" among "all responsible scientists," and that "the conclusions are no longer in dispute."
A writer whose pen name is Archibald Putt has promoted what he calls Putt's Law:
Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.
The technocrat promoters of anti-industrial carbon dioxide legislation clearly belong to "those who manage what they do not understand."
2. The "Progressive" health care "overhaul" that is now pending in the Senate, and that will definitely be passed in one form or another, is an even more extreme example of technocrat hubris. The fundamental strategy of its proponents is to shame and dishonor almost anyone currently associated with implementing the existing health care system, including physicians, insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry and most disgracefully, the medical device developers and manufacturers.
I say most disgracefully because the medical device people have resisted political pressure to kowtow and support the pending legislation. As a result, the "Progressive" politicians will impose a 40% excise tax on medical devices. This means not only that the productivity and financial reward for the medical device designers and manufacturers will be hugely reduced, the health of patients is under assault! If you need a pacemaker, or a titanium hip, or a blood glucose monitoring machine, or even a wheelchair, you are going to have to pay forty percent off the top of its cost to the politicians and their bureaucratic apparatus.
For this reason and others, the health care "overhaul" is going to result in the deaths and physical decline of countless people. The politicians and the technocrats who are waiting in the wings to manage their "programs" (the kind who "who manage what they do not understand") is purportedly justified by "Progressive" compassion for currently uninsured Americans and immigrants; uninsured because the votes of the same politicians have prevented measures to reduce the numbers of uninsured.
Any intelligent ancient Greek who understands hubris would see through the machinations of the "Progressive" health care legislation.
3. At the risk of making this blogpost too long, I am going to add another example. I promise that it is unlikely to bore you, so please read on:
In March of 2004, a convoy of American civilian contractors was attacked by insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq, while carrying out a non-combat mission, delivering food. The prisoners were beaten, then, presumably while still conscious, set on fire with gasoline. The burnt corpses of the victims were then dragged around Fallujah and some were hung from a bridge. It was deliberate mutilation of the dead, of the kind that a Greek poet like Homer would consider an unforgivable outrage. Such was the hubris of the Iraqi insurgents. But the story gets worse.
On September 3, 2009, the insurgents who had captured, tortured, and burned the Americans were captured by a detail of US Navy Seal commandos. They were not killed in the process. They were not tortured in the process. They were not seriously harmed in the process. Somehow, however, they were punched. They promptly complained to Iraqi authorities. Because they were punched, their Navy Seal captors are now being court-martialed. Shamed. Dishonored.
Who are those technocrats whose hubris extends to shaming and dishonoring the courageous US military men who risked their lives to capture the perpetrators? Somewhere in the chain of command. Did the order come from Barack Hussein Obama himself, or one of the generals under his command, or from lower down? Yes, they are all technocrats. They are "experts" in carrying out a politically correct war in the Middle East purportedly on behalf of the 50 United States, but with another agenda.
Hubris. Technocrat hubris. It must be stopped.