Reflections On Government
The fatal flaw of all democratic arrangements: The only person who ought to be granted power over other people is one who is temperamentally averse to possessing practical power over others, who sees none of the personal material advantages of power as desirable in the least, and who has pressing concerns and abiding enthusiasms which would make the commitments and duties of political authority odious and repugnant to him. No such person, however, would ever willingly submit himself to the shame (as he would see it) of seeking political power. Hence, in any existing democratic system, we are all obliged, every time, to vote for someone who is by temperament, character, and intellectual tendency unfit to rule — and then to hope, usually with a hope that will be quickly dashed, that the person we have chosen will at least not turn out to be unfit to the greatest possible degree.
The adjective “paternalistic” has long been used, either pejoratively or programmatically, to describe a government or ruling class that rules the people as a father governs his children. Would that this were so. For a government is by its nature designed to last, and in fact is hell-bent on lasting. By contrast, a truly paternal father, which is to say a father in the proper and well-functioning sense, is a man who sees his role, qua parental authority, as temporary, namely to protect his charges until they can manage their own lives, while actively preparing them for, and guiding them towards, self-management. A truly paternalistic government, then, if such were possible, would be ideal, for it would be aimed, like a good father, at ceding authority to its charges, which is to say it would be dedicated to the goal of being a temporary and useful guardian, but only to the extent that the people are incapable of self-rule, while simultaneously aiming to accustom them to self-rule. That is, a truly paternalistic government would be devoted to the good of its people, understanding their good to be inseparable from their practical capacity for rational self-determination and mature independence.
Sadly, the Earth has probably never seen a truly paternalistic ruler or governing arrangement, and it probably never will, humans being what they are — which is to say, such a “father” will not exist, or at least would not last five minutes if it ever did arise, the weakness of mistaking personal material advantage for the human good being the most recalcitrant stupidity of the human condition.
