In his article, "Rational Control, or, life without virtue" (from The New Criterion, September issue, 2006), Harvey C. Mansfield suggests something with which I want to simultaneously agree and for which I'd like to beat him with a wet noodle.
God is the foundation of the irrational order. Modern liberation is liberation from God as the source of irrational custom. (41)
Mansfield defines "rational control" as things, rules, and/or people who control the actions of others for a "rational" purpose, here identified with things like "life" or "the greater good." Things like mandatory seatbelts, airbags, auto-flush toilets, and those automatic sinks that never seem to work right. These things make our lives better, or would if they worked properly instead of getting stuck in their dispensers and car doors, going off for no good reason, flushing and wetting one's behind, and refusing to turn on or off no matter how much hand waving is involved. The idea behind them is, ultimately, altruistic. Designed to prolong and better (or at least sanitize) our lives.
The "irrational order," then, is that which goes against "rational control."
Don't get me wrong. I'm an atheist. While I personally do not have any faith in a higher being/power/flying spaghetti monster/invisible sky wizard, I also recognize that belief in a deity or deities gives great comfort, solace, and even joy to other people. I'm all for that - as long as they keep it to themselves.
But how is placing our human inclination to have faith in something in the handlessness of brainless technology any more or less "rational" than placing it in the possible handlessness of an unseen divinity? Given the track-record of auto-flush toilets, I personally don't feel any more inclined to allow the auto-plumbing of the world to have "control" over my "rational" impulses, thank you very much. Particularly since the faucets repeatedly confound my perfectly "rational" desire to wash my hands after using the equally "rational" (and often equally malfunctioning) auto-flush toilet.
How is the auto-flush toilet a better "replacement god" than god?
At least nobody asks god to flush for them. They're perfectly willing to do it for themselves.
But, Mansfield says, we are unable to exercise that kind of "rational control" over ourselves.
To liberate us from subjection, modernity must show that men can control themselves. (41)
Great. I'm with you Mr. Mansfield. But I do have one teensy little problem... Auto-flush toilets do not let me control myself. They don't even let me control my own fecal matter. The auto-flush is most certainly not an instance of human control. It represents our desire to give up control to some sort of porcelain god that will happily whisk away all unpleasantness from our spanking-clean bottoms. And this is most emphatically not a case of giving up liberty for progress - it's a case of transferred reliance. From god to technology. From ourselves to unreliable auto-plumbing. It's a case of the age-old human problem of "not-my-problem."
But Mansfield is aware that progress can come at the cost of our liberty. I wish - oh, how I wish - he weren't.
It appears that the two aspects of modernity are liberty and progress, and that the two are linked. Liberty means liberation from unreason, which is progress; progress means expanding the scope of liberty. Is there no difficulty here? Yes, there is, and not a small one. There is no liberty to be irrational or to be satisfied with less liberty. For example, women today are equal to men, or closer to equal than they used to be. Men, however, are less free to be their old sexist selves. No doubt this is all for the good, but men are still less free in a sense. Moreover, having abandoned the "traditional stereotypes," we have set in place new, non-sexist stereotypes. These are to be taught to children by parents, to parents by the mainstream media. (41)
I think I was just catapulted back to 1950. No, wait. To 1789 and the writing of the Bill of Rights. Not only do I find it extraordinarily insulting that Mr. Mansfield considers his freedom "to be [his] old sexist [self]" to have been curtailed by feminism, but the very idea that sexism - or racism, homophobia, etc. - is a freedom... For Pete's sake. Okay, fine. Freedom of speech says that you can feel free to be vocally sexist if you want. Fine. But it also says that I don't have to take that crap from you if I don't want. Just because I get to retaliate doesn't mean you are any less free to say what you think. It just means you might have to weigh some consequences before you open your big, fat, bigoted mouth.
Now I will concede Mr. Mansfield's point - modernity has led us down many paths on which improvements in medicine, government, and social expectations have also led to restrictions in our "liberty." But pick a less offensive example, please. In all fairness, perhaps that is Mr. Mansfield's point. He doesn't feel "free" to use offensive examples, so he does it anyway, just to push some buttons. But I think that in so doing, he does himself and his ideas a great disservice.
In this age of Patriot Acts and phone taps, there needs to be some recognition that just because we've allowed our language and ourselves to be "rationally controlled" doesn't make us any more "rational." It makes us, in my humble opinion, a good deal less "rational." I acknowledge that political correctness may seem like a restriction, but I will also say that does not stop us from saying what we want to say. It simply asks that we consider our speech.
And what I say - what I have always and will always say - is that if what you have to say is important enough, you should say it anyway. Speak up, speak out, political correctness be damned. To requote the oft-and-over-quoted Voltaire, "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."
Just remember, the auto-flush toilet has a button that lets you exercise your independence, to defy "rational control" and flush whenever you want.
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