To avoid or not to avoid, that is the question

We navigate through life by avoiding surprises, it a basic survival trait. The instinct to avoid threats or harm still dominates our lives, it is essential to what we are - obviously. 

As we should expect, there are numerous examples of how this essential instinct has moulded itself into modern life. We live in a world of avoidance, as we must.

Ideology seeks to avoid the messy unpredictability of life.

Political parties offer voters the opportunity to avoid their democratic responsibilities by passing it all on to a party.

The EU avoids many of the responsibilities of national government, that’s mostly what it is for.

Bureaucracy is a way of avoiding responsibility by diffusing it within the foggy realms of process and procedure.

The climate change narrative seeks to avoid the insoluble problem that the natural world never can be natural.

Gender politics even seeks to avoid the facts of human reproduction in what must be one of the most extreme avoidance ideologies ever concocted.

   

It's a long list because avoidance is part of life. Sceptics try to avoid irrational avoidance, but it is not the popular approach. Just avoid and have done with the messy responsibilities of analysis, that’s the popular way. As a philosophy of life, avoidance has a very long history. We can’t avoid avoidance.

To avoid a blog post which would go on forever, I'll finish with an old quote which points out that many things are well worth avoiding. Sceptics know that too.  

Do not make a Business of what is no Business. As some make gossip out of everything, so others business. They always talk big, take everything in earnest, and turn it into a dispute or a secret. Troublesome things must not be taken too seriously if they can be avoided. It is preposterous to take to heart that which you should throw over your shoulders. Much that would be something has become nothing by being left alone, and what was nothing has become of consequence by being made much of. At the outset things can be easily settled, but not afterwards. Often the remedy causes the disease. ’Tis by no means the least of life's rules: to let things alone.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Even deceit has practical limits.

Only Truth can give true reputation: only reality can be of real profit. One deceit needs many others, and so the whole house is built in the air and must soon come to the ground. Unfounded things never reach old age. They promise too much to be much trusted, just as that cannot be true which proves too much.

Baltasar Gracián - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)


Our digital world has made veracity much more democratic in that much of the time we may pursue it ourselves to probe official narrative, media stories or merely popular assumptions. Only potentially democratic of course, because pursuing veracity is not an overwhelmingly powerful human trait.

Yet anyone with a web browser usually has access to narratives more plausible than official or popular narratives if they choose to look. Not always possible of course, the fog or war is an example of that. Perhaps more significantly, anyone with a web browser has access to scepticism - pointers to what are uncertain, improbable, misleading, deceitful, even absurd narratives about the real world.

This seems to raise an interesting question. Has government resorted to promoting deceitful narratives in order to preserve its moral ascendency over scepticism? Or was it always like this, has government deceit merely become more transparent?

It is necessary for any hierarchy to preserve some kind of edge from the top downwards, some kind of authority over important narratives even if it isn’t moral authority. General self-interest in any medium to large organisation will often do to provide that edge. Keeping a job, staying in line for promotion, that kind of thing.

If we return to government deceit then self-interest is also a key way to promote acceptance. Put crudely it goes something like – accept the official narrative or you are a bad, dubious or deluded person, an outsider. Promote the official narrative and you are at least socially secure. Two more key ways to promote acceptance are policing and the law.

A problem has arisen with our digital world in that governments have no way to establish narrative ascendency without some level of deceit, with or without enforcement. Deceit may be lying by omission, distortion or outright falsehood. Combine this with the suppression of scepticism and governments have their tools for maintaining narrative ascendency over the general population.

Humiliation seems to be another tool – official narratives which are so ludicrous that acceptance is a measure of loyalty. This one seems to be relatively new and likely to be disastrous. Even deceit has practical limits.

Making an obligation out of a blunder

Do not follow up a Folly. Many make an obligation out of a blunder, and because they have entered the wrong path think it proves their strength of character to go on in it. Within they regret their error, while outwardly they excuse it. At the beginning of their mistake they were regarded as inattentive, in the end as fools.

Baltasar Gracián - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)


This has become the function of the House of Commons, to make obligations out of blunders made by the permanent administration, including what is now the transnational administration. In return, MPs get a spell on the stage, useful contacts and further career opportunities.

Net Zero is an obvious blunder which has become an obligation. The pandemic response was another, a blunder so huge it had to become an obligation almost immediately. The EU is a cumulative blunder which went on for decades and could only be sustained as an obligation. Similarly with the UN.

An apparently widespread intention to vote Labour after a series of Conservative blunders won't have a long life as an obligation before it turns into yet another blunder. It's all a bit chicken and egg that one.

A target for unlucky undertakings

COVID inquiry about 'scapegoating', Boris Johnson's sister says

Ahead of the former prime minister taking the stand on Wednesday and Thursday, Rachel Johnson has said the multi-year inquiry is a "show trial" just like the Parliamentary Privileges inquiry into partygate.

She told the podcast by Sky News and Politico that "100% it's about scapegoating because, as I said, it's already been agreed that lockdown was the right thing to do.

"Therefore, the only questions they can really ask is, was it done properly? And if not, who do we blame? So this is going to follow the model of all public inquiries in recent years.


Know how to put off Ills on Others. To have a shield against ill-will is a great piece of skill in a ruler. It is not the resort of incapacity, as ill-wishers imagine, but is due to the higher policy of having some one to receive the censure of the disaffected and the punishment of universal detestation. Everything cannot turn out well, nor can every one be satisfied: it is well therefore, even at the cost of our pride, to have such a scapegoat, such a target for unlucky undertakings.

Baltasar Gracián - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Matt should have read Gracián

 

Keep the extent of your Abilities unknown. The wise man does not allow his knowledge and abilities to be sounded to the bottom, if he desires to be honoured by all. He allows you to know them but not to comprehend them. No one must know the extent of his abilities, lest he be disappointed. No one ever has an opportunity of fathoming him entirely. For guesses and doubts about the extent of his talents arouse more veneration than accurate knowledge of them, be they ever so great.

Baltasar Gracián - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

On being wrong

The Wise do at once what the Fool does at last. Both do the same thing; the only difference lies in the time they do it: the one at the right time, the other at the wrong.

Baltasar Gracián - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Here’s an imaginary situation. Suppose you are arguing with a person we’ll refer to as X. You and X are arguing about a media report. The report is so obviously misleading that you describe it as indistinguishable from a lie but X does not even agree that it is misleading.

A common enough situation, so suppose we focus on why X is so unwilling to identify the obvious lie. One simple explanation is that X is not so only unwilling, but also unable to identify the lie. Spotting media lies is an ability which X may not have sufficiently developed. Maybe X lacks a level of analytical ability analogous to the ability to solve crossword puzzles. Unwilling or unable? Unable is often simpler.

Usually we put this issue down to different attitudes or viewpoints, but it is worth exploring a simpler idea – X may be unable to do the sceptical analysis. This ability-based scenario seems arrogant of course, but it is simple and fits what we frequently have to deal with.

We navigate through life by avoiding surprises, which are anomalous situations requiring brain work to resolve them. It is more energy-efficient to avoid such situations so we evolved to do just that. Suppose we look at one common anomaly well worth avoiding - being wrong. Usually, being wrong about something is socially negative and best avoided, so we do avoid it.

We could push this along by crudely dividing the population into two general outlooks, the orthodox outlook and the sceptical outlook. We all possess both of course, but years of browsing the internet suggest to this observer that sceptical ability is far from being evenly distributed through the population. There are some incisively sceptical minds out there, but only other sceptics appear to be listening.

The orthodox tend to give their allegiance to power, majority, authority and virtue.

Sceptics tend to withhold their allegiance in favour of analytical scepticism.

Both of these general outlooks go some way to avoid being wrong and in that respect both are successful. Ironically, the orthodox have a greater likelihood of not being wrong than sceptics because they have the power to deny that wrong really is wrong. The power of perception does the rest.

Sceptics also have an effective avoidance strategy. They put a greater emphasis on the importance of uncertainty, on a wider range of possibilities, on avoiding the possibility of being wrong at some future point.

Inevitably, the orthodox always have too much power and too little sceptical ability. Psychological manipulators such as the Nudge Unit have an inbuilt tendency to downgrade this ability even further, and in so doing, make things even worse. It’s in the system.

Fashionable Ignorance

Better Mad with the rest of the World than Wise alone. So say politicians. If all are so, one is no worse off than the rest, whereas solitary wisdom passes for folly. So important is it to sail with the stream. The greatest wisdom often consists in ignorance, or the pretence of it. One has to live with others, and others are mostly ignorant.

Baltasar Gracián - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)


A striking aspect of modern life is the spectacle of ambitious people in pursuit of ignorance rather than truth. The greatest wisdom often consists in ignorance, or the pretence of it wrote Gracián over three and a half centuries ago and he was right. Ambitious politicians engage in fashionable ignorance because they must. Fashionable ignorance is important for oiling the wheels of social position and political power.

On the one hand, she had contact with the world of fashionable literature, on the other with that of fashionable ignorance. Mrs Lane’s house was a meeting-point of the two spheres.

George Gissing - New Grub Street (1891)


In a technical world such as ours, the pursuit of truth is a narrow and comparatively unrewarding path to tread for the politically ambitious. Facts can be checked, claims destroyed by uncertainties, dishonesty exposed. Yet fashionable ignorance may be expanded, elaborated and pursued with boundless enthusiasm. As we know.

Politically, technical matters are not important unless gross technical incompetence leads to a level of embarrassment where even the most adroit ignorance is no defence. 

Yet a crowning achievement of fashionable ignorance has been gender politics, the fabrication of a ludicrous fantasy version of human reproductive biology. Obviously it has mostly generated fake ignorance, but ignorance does not have to be genuine – merely fashionable and therefore exploitable.

The Desert

A Solid Man. One who is finds no satisfaction in those that are not. ’Tis a pitiable eminence that is not well founded. Not all are men that seem to be so. Some are sources of deceit; impregnated by chimeras they give birth to impositions. Others are like them so far that they take more pleasure in a lie, because it promises much, than in the truth, because it performs little. But in the end these caprices come to a bad end, for they have no solid foundation. Only Truth can give true reputation: only reality can be of real profit. One deceit needs many others, and so the whole house is built in the air and must soon come to the ground. Unfounded things never reach old age. They promise too much to be much trusted, just as that cannot be true which proves too much.

Baltasar Gracián - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)


One deceit needs many others, and so the whole house is built in the air and must soon come to the ground. This is the slippery slope which so many moral lessons have taught but we still pretend it isn’t a slope and it isn’t slippery.

They promise too much to be much trusted, just as that cannot be true which proves too much. Climate change long-term forecasts promise too much to be trusted. A settled science cannot be true as it proves too much. The lessons are not new.

But in the end these caprices come to a bad end, for they have no solid foundation. Political caprices such as… oh I don’t know… wind turbines as replacements for Russian gas perhaps. Gender politics as a replacement for human biology.

Unreality is a desert. The great spark of life, the marvellously infinite cascade of reasons why things are as they are – all is absent. It is not even akin to a deserted village where weeds gradually choke the streets and a chill wind moans around crumbling walls and broken windows. Not even that, but a desert where nothing well-founded can grow and Unfounded things never reach old age. 

The Great Game

Some regard more the rigour of the game than the winning of it, but to the world the discredit of the final failure does away with any recognition of the previous care. The victor need not explain.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

It is clear enough that political actors, activists, senior bureaucrats and useful idiots are drawn into something far bigger than they are. It is also clear enough that whatever draws them in also moulds their behaviour.

Lies, misinformation, exaggeration, silliness, nonsense, bombast, overconfidence, cherry picking, sentimental appeals, flattery, abuse, superstition, histrionics, virtue-signalling, greed, supercilious stupidity and outright madness. It is all there in the public arena. All that shameful fraud and cheating must be facilitated by something powerful and enduring.

Disraeli referred to politics as the Great Game and it is still useful to see the public arena as a games arena. Political culture is an immensely complex and powerful game involving people, events, ambitions, money, status and influences. Plus malice. Malice towards outsiders is an integral part of the Great Game. There must be opponents and opponents must be defeated, threatened, abused or merely ignored.

The object of the game is social status where money and status are intertwined and even failure rarely closes the revolving door of opportunity. This is the gravitational attraction pulling in an endless parade of willing players. Usually charlatans but not always. The Game also attracts hordes of useful idiots as it appears to confer status and virtue for those in the stands.

We know the Great Game is real because we constantly see political actors and parties gaming everything thrown at them. They even try to game reality. When they succeed at that, the Game becomes more serious. Ministers, MPs, senior bureaucrats, celebrities, prominent experts and activists all game the system in one way or another. The Great Game draws them in because it offers more for less compared to the real, productive world.

The Great Game generates a vast array of tactics and strategies, varying widely from a raised eyebrow to a social attitude, a media interview, a new regulation, a major piece of legislation or an emotionally stirring speech. An important tactic is to abuse or to be offended by anyone who do not play, anyone who prefers to analyse the Great Game from outside the arena.

It follows that there is no point in expecting elected representatives to do two entirely incompatible things. They cannot both play the Great Game and at the same time reform it from the inside. That would be like trying to play football to different rules. Enter the changing room, pull on the kit, run out onto the pitch and tell the referee that the offside rule has changed. Doesn’t work like that.

Elected representatives disappear into the Great Game like professional players of any sport. As with professional sports they expect to be rewarded for their playing ability. Why else would they join one of the major teams, or political parties as we tend to call them? Why else would they become players in the first place? Not to change the Game.

When crude works best

Not all are men that seem to be so. Some are sources of deceit; impregnated by chimeras they give birth to impositions. Others are like them so far that they take more pleasure in a lie, because it promises much, than in the truth, because it performs little.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)


A striking feature of official dishonesty is how the crudest lies can be remarkably difficult to expose even when they are out in the open. Take the current transgender lunacy for example. We could say that the whole absurd mess is based on a crude lie, an assertion that if human beings of one gender simply claim to belong to the other gender then they do in fact change gender.

Yet a problem arises if we characterise the debate in this way. The basic assertion underpinning the transgender debate is crude biological lie but to point this out can be presented as simple bigotry. From this point it becomes possible to defend the transgender position by taking advantage of a particular problem –

If a heavily-promoted standpoint rests on a crude lie, pointing out the crudity of the lie can be made to seem even cruder, from simple naïveté to knuckle-dragging bigotry. Effectively it can be made to seem like a refusal to debate the issue properly even where there is little material for any kind of rational debate. The cruder the lie, the more difficult it can be for critics to establish its essential weakness. A crude lie may only have one real weakness - it is nonsense.  

The orthodox climate change narrative is similar in that it rests on a crude lie. This essential lie is the underpinning assertion that certain scientists can predict the trajectory of global temperatures with dependable accuracy decades into the future. Accuracy dependable enough to spend trillions on mitigation policies. This is a crude lie, yet without it there is no catastrophic climate narrative.

Here again, because the official climate narrative rests on a crude lie, pointing it out is made to seem like naïve or bigoted denial of a scientific fact. Of course it is not a fact but pointing this out can be made to seem like a crude sideswipe at scientific expertise, research, authority and achievement even where the science is not even worthy of the name.

The coronavirus debacle has been more complex in that the foundation claim about lockdown policy was not a lie and at first sight more plausible than the transgender and climate lies. Yet the supposed efficacy of lockdown policies soon weakened as costs rose and pandemic outcomes became more obviously intractable.

Here in the UK, official coronavirus mitigation soon evolved into a debacle as early policies were bolstered by crude exaggeration when became apparent that coronavirus risk was strongly age-related and only the elderly and vulnerable actually needed protection. It became obvious that it is not necessary for people below a certain age to be isolated or to take drastic precautions apart from protecting the vulnerable.

Here again, although there are caveats, complexities and uncertainties, official insistence on persisting with lockdowns, bubbles, restrictions on social groupings, all that morphed into crude exaggeration of coronavirus risk quite early in the pandemic. Most rules soon became unnecessary in that they caused more damage than they could ever prevent or alleviate. More of a crude exaggeration than a crude lie perhaps, but the distinction soon became too fine to make.

What of the future? It seems likely enough that we should anticipate more crude lies from the usual suspects. They work.

Worst ever government part II

Do not follow up a Folly. Many make an obligation out of a blunder, and because they have entered the wrong path think it proves their strength of character to go on in it. Within they regret their error, while outwardly they excuse it. At the beginning of their mistake they were regarded as inattentive, in the end as fools.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Following on from the Tuesday post about conspiracy theories, they may be dubious for a number of reasons, one of which occurs when they leave out the powerful ebb and flow of uncontrolled circumstances. However, powerful people usually try to take advantage of uncontrolled circumstances once they have grasped the implications and the opportunities.

Which leads us on to a popular and clearly plausible conspiracy theory about the coronavirus debacle. The endlessly protracted UK government response to this relatively minor pandemic certainly suggest a degree of covert opportunism. As if eco-loons have been promised something significant. To my mind this is an entirely plausible conspiracy because of another pandemic, the global eco-loon pandemic.

The UK government still appears to be committed to ludicrous, damaging and pointless climate change policies and pandemic measures are an entirely obvious opportunity to suck a considerable amount of consumer consumption out of the economy. A temporary suck perhaps, but the underlying aim probably concerns the cementing of unforgettable precedents with an eye to longer term behaviour modification.

There is an unmistakable sense of psychological manipulation in the political atmosphere at the moment, apart from the obvious pandemic scare stories and bleak exaggerations. As if David Cameron’s Nudge Unit has been tasked with using the pandemic to nudge us very firmly towards more abstemious lifestyles more consistent with environmental fantasies.

This of course is not new. Malthus has long been a source of middle class anxiety about the masses getting above themselves. What we appear to be witnessing now is that anxiety translated into political moves in a very old game. A culmination of many decades of zero sum political propaganda ultimately rooted in Marxism –

There is only so much to go round and we don’t think you should have more than your fair share, and by the way we apportion your fair share.

Covert as always, wrapped up in virtue as always, crudely misleading as always, flat out wrongheaded as always – but that appears to be the underlying opportunity being grasped very firmly indeed. Forget the private car, the holidays abroad, the unlimited travel and the freedom to be an active part of a free economy. Forget freedom.

Lockdown lift anticipated

The Wise do at once what the Fool does at last. Both do the same thing; the only difference lies in the time they do it: the one at the right time, the other at the wrong.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)


Nature hardly seems capable of giving us any but quite short illnesses. But medicine has annexed to itself the art of prolonging them.

Marcel Proust - À la recherche du temps perdu

They promise too much

Only Truth can give true reputation: only reality can be of real profit. One deceit needs many others, and so the whole house is built in the air and must soon come to the ground. Unfounded things never reach old age. They promise too much to be much trusted, just as that cannot be true which proves too much.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Following on from the previous post, it is worth pointing out that a media and entertainment organisation such as the BBC cannot possibly be impartial. Impartiality is not and cannot be a major aspect of mainstream media businesses. It is an ideal rather than some attainable state and in any event the audience for impartiality seems to be far too small. For mainstream media everything must be framed in a familiar way. The framing has to appeal to both stakeholders and to an audience - it cannot be impartial.

To take a very simple example - in reporting the activities of Greta Thunberg an impartial BBC would recognise that she exemplifies an appeal to false authority. She is not an authority on climate change and her lack of authority would have to frame all BBC reports about her activities. The puppet’s strings would have to be visible.

A related problem affects enormous swathes of BBC reporting. In general celebrities are not authorities on areas of life beyond their professional expertise. This is not to say that outside opinions have no value, but celebrity status rarely adds to that value. In world of mainstream media it obviously adds value, but in an impartial world it would not.

In a similar vein, whenever a minister or shadow minister makes some kind of claim, an impartial BBC would have to provide background sources to the claim - no misleading omissions. It would have to find out who advised the minister and on what basis that advice is deemed to be valid. Yet this is probably not what BBC viewers actually want. They want the cut and thrust of politics not the dull grind of impartial reporting. This is what the BBC clearly wants too.

Another problem would arise from politically influential people. An easy but powerful example has been provided by Jeremy Corbyn with his long history of sharing platforms with political extremists and fanatics who engage in or seek to justify political violence. Skating around Mr Corbyn’s inglorious political history is not impartial.

The BBC generally claims to have an even-handed approach to political debates, but even-handed is not the same as impartial. Mr Corbyn’s political history would be a major factor in any impartial approach to many political debates in the UK. It need not be an issue in the even-handed approach favoured by the BBC. Even-handed can be and often is far less than impartial.

There is no particular need to labour these points because the BBC quite obviously has a corporate culture and like all cultures it cannot be impartial, otherwise it would not be a culture. This is the problem which has to be tackled politically because the failings of the BBC are essentially political. It purports to be more than it ever can be. As Baltasar Gracian wrote over three and a half centuries ago They promise too much to be much trusted, just as that cannot be true which proves too much.

In which case the BBC has to evolve into a commercial business because only this would allow it to be tolerably open about its allegiances. As a media business it must project allegiances because it must appeal to an audience with similar allegiances, an audience which is not and never will be impartial.

Problem One

Failings of the intelligence are incorrigible, since those who do not know, do not know themselves, and cannot therefore seek what they lack.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

The thinking behind this Gracian quote is both well known and well disguised because of the difficulty we have admitting what may be our number one human problem. Apart from things we know we don't understand, we cannot know what we don’t know because we cannot know that we don’t know it. Otherwise we’d know it wouldn’t we?

This is why so many people are equipped with crap blinkers. I don’t mean blinkers bought off eBay that don’t work, but blinkers which obscure the crap.

There is so much crap out there but people don’t see it, or they see this little pile over here but not the great steaming heap in their back yard. Even humongous piles of crap fade into the background when those who do not know, do not know themselves. We cannot see what we cannot see because we cannot see ourselves not seeing it.

Move along there - nothing to see.

Or maybe not. Perhaps we see ourselves more clearly now social media are such an important aspect of our lives. If so then the future may be much brighter than we tend to assume. We may be learning to know ourselves better than the political classes assume and the consequences of that could be profound indeed. Brexit may be more than an isolated victory.

Choose your battles

Never contend with a Man who has nothing to Lose; for thereby you enter into an unequal conflict. The other enters without anxiety; having lost everything, including shame, he has no further loss to fear.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Why did Theresa May choose to resurrect the battle over grammar schools and selective education? She may feel strongly about it as many do, but the issue is controversial and Jeremy Corbyn should have no trouble making political capital from it.

Unfortunately for May, she has now engineered a situation where she must contend with a Man who has nothing to Lose. 

Better off mad

Better Mad with the rest of the World than Wise alone. So say politicians. If all are so, one is no worse off than the rest, whereas solitary wisdom passes for folly. So important is it to sail with the stream. The greatest wisdom often consists in ignorance, or the pretence of it. One has to live with others, and others are mostly ignorant. "To live entirely alone one must be very like a god or quite like a wild beast," but I would turn the aphorism by saying: Better be wise with the many than a fool all alone. There be some too who seek to be original by seeking chimeras.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Perhaps we are better off mad with the rest of the world, but it would be reassuring to have the option. Is democracy supposed to sort that out?

Wished away

Some do honour to their post, with others ’tis the other way. It is no great gain if a poor successor makes the predecessor seem good, for this does not imply that the one is missed, but that the other is wished away.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

They resemble liars

source

Do not always be Jesting. Wisdom is shown in serious matters, and is more appreciated than mere wit. He that is always ready for jests is never ready for serious things. They resemble liars in that men never believe either, always expecting a lie in one, a joke in the other. One never knows when you speak with judgment, which is the same as if you had none. A continual jest soon loses all zest. Many get the repute of being witty, but thereby lose the credit of being sensible. Jest has its little hour, seriousness should have all the rest.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

As we know, Boris Johnson has a gravitas problem, much the same problem Baltasar Gracian highlighted over three and a half centuries ago.

Currently Boris leads the betting for our next Prime Minister yet his public persona is hardly statesmanlike. Even Jeremy Corbyn has more gravitas than Boris. What are we to make of that if Boris is so smart? Perhaps it suggests he isn’t because the alternative is a little hard to swallow. 

Know how to withdraw

source

Know how to Withdraw. If it is a great lesson in life to know how to deny, it is a still greater to know how to deny oneself as regards both affairs and persons. There are extraneous occupations which eat away precious time. To be occupied in what does not concern you is worse than doing nothing. It is not enough for a careful man not to interfere with others, he must see that they do not interfere with him.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Modern life has become too complex, too demanding for the elite. In former times they imposed narrow limits on social mores via religion, narrow cultural norms, toil and harshly repressive laws. Now things are different. We have our big bellies, our bread and circuses, our vulgar satisfactions. It is time for the elite to move on and rid themselves of the tangled mess democracy has dumped in their laps.

An enduring trait of elite classes has always been their ability to withdraw from our world to enjoy theirs. To achieve this happy state of affairs they cannot afford to spend too much time catering to the demands of the lower orders. They need their social isolation and that requires a degree of government isolation. It is time to clamp down again. Democracy, if it exists, has to be shorn of its messy tangle of demands and unpredictable possibilities.

The EU is a power structure designed to isolate European elites from the chaotic demands and inevitable failures of democratic responsibility. They intend to escape from our routine world to enjoy a golden world of unrestricted lifestyles. For those with money and social connections this is a golden age and elite classes intend to enjoy it to the full.

If this means treating people as the cheapest possible unit of production, if it means trampling on cultures, getting rid of the middle classes and subverting democracies then so be it. If it means attracting petty tyrants and martinets to manage EU structures and feed the rest of us with bread and circuses then so be it.

A vote for Leave is unlikely to make much difference in the medium to long term. Our elite classes no longer have any taste for the grind and uncertainties of good government. One way or another they intend to put the whole unrewarding business in the hands of their stewards - as their ancestors did in the good old days. These days stewards are senior bureaucrats who actually enjoy drafting and enforcing impossibly complex laws and regulations. Stewards in love with a world where everything is either forbidden or compulsory.

Not that it is likely to work out that way.

Each Man's Thumbscrew

Find out each Man's Thumbscrew. ’Tis the art of setting their wills in action. It needs more skill than resolution. You must know where to get at any one. Every volition has a special motive which varies according to taste. All men are idolaters, some of fame, others of self-interest, most of pleasure. Skill consists in knowing these idols in order to bring them into play.

Knowing any man's mainspring of motive you have as it were the key to his will. Have resort to primary motors, which are not always the highest but more often the lowest part of his nature: there are more dispositions badly organised than well. First guess a man's ruling passion, appeal to it by a word, set it in motion by temptation, and you will infallibly give checkmate to his freedom of will.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Does Cameron keep his hand in his pocket these days? I must check.