The Curse of Government by Committee

Towards a Theory of Political Stupidity: Part II

A committee of swans

Every time I write a post about a stupid thing that our rulers have done, people appear in my comments to explain why nobody has done anything stupid at all. In fact, these commenters tell me, our rulers are merely being super malicious, or hyperclever, or both super malicious and hyperclever at the same time. Their actions only appear to be stupid because they are a pretence for something else, or because I am simply too naive to understand their actual intent, or for some other reason.

A lot of people really, really don’t want to believe that their states can be stupid, and this despite overwhelming evidence – accumulating for decades now – of their unceasing and escalating failure across many domains. Perhaps it is simply more comforting to believe that we are ruled by intelligent systems and intelligent people, even if they also happen to be malign enemies. Perhaps it also helps to believe that there is a plan, particularly in an era wherein the state seems to have lost almost all of its capacity for strategic action. Maybe that is why so many are opposed to seeing the plain stupidity of our rulers for what it is.

This post represents the second installment of my ongoing effort to account for the burgeoning phenomenon of political stupidity more thoroughly. My thesis is simple: Political stupidity has become a very dangerous and potent force, and this relatively recently, in the past two or three decades. What is worse, this stupidity seems to be increasing in both depth and extent. Those areas of state action that were already stupid are getting even stupider, while other areas (such as local government) that seemed at first to have escaped the great stupid are now rapidly succumbing to the same general stupidity that is afflicting everything else.

This phenomenon has gone almost wholly unnoticed, and it inspires a wide range of questions for which we must urgently seek answers:

• What is causing the stupid and why does the stupid keep growing?

• Are its roots ideological or social?

• If political outsiders were to seize power and chase out our present elite, would they become stupid too, and if so how long would that take?

• What accounts for the robustness and dead-eyed determination of the present stupidity?

• Is there a point at which the stupidity will stop advancing, or will it literally consume entire economies and societies before burning itself out?

• Dare we even hope that there is a cure for this stupidity?

In my introductory post (from which I adapt the foregoing blurb), I explained what I meant by political stupidity and delineated the Four Areas of Primary Stupid. Here, we begin exploring causes, with a look at one of the foremost sources of political stupid. This is a venerable and eminently democratic institution which obscures the source of catastrophic failures, shields malefactors from responsibility, militates against long-term planning and strategy, advantages the morally hysterical and myopically plodding at the expense of the original and the brilliant, and increases exponentially the tedium of all decision-making.

I am talking, of course, about the vulgar, tiresome, boring, overdone institution of the committee.