I will never forgive that woman for her divisive measures and apparent delight in creating a two-tier society. I do not believe that this could ever be the actions of a ‘kind’ person. She appeared cold and vindictive with no attempt to understand
those who did not want to take part in a medical experiment.
Any leader who has gone along with the coercion and bullying that led to ‘punishment’ for exerting bodily autonomy deserves what is coming to them.
No, if we could do our own research so could they, they are paid to represent us... they did not and still do not listen. When confronted with the information (from both experts in the field and from the average Joe) they doubled down.
Predictable...and predicted...result of leaders substituting social and behavioral science for wisdom. Sixty years ago the eminent philosopher and legal scholar, Walter Berns*(1), wrote of times like these, the allure and hazards of weak leaders who's ignorance and arrogance in blindly following "the best science" as a substitute for wisdom merely informed by social and natural sciences. This information was out there for today's leaders to be cautioned and humbled by.
The first half of his work is a game-theory presentation of how the law, jurisprudence, could be informed by behavioral sciences. Which is how the Roberts Court has operated since he became Chief Justice. He is a behaviorist.*(2) Selected excerpts below. If you find it TL/DR then skip to the final paragraph or two in Part 2 contained in the comment below. The excerpts provide richness and contextual understanding of the concepts that speak directly to what has happened to leadership in the ensuing six decades after his warnings were published.
Law and Behavioral Science. Law and Contemporary Problems
"Thus, consideration of the problems arising in political life point to the question of the best possible political order or the best possible laws: all political decisions, whether by the framers of constitutions, legislators, administrators, judges, or masters in chancery, are based, consciously or unconsciously, on a view of what is good for man. The political philosopher claimed to possess this knowledge and therefore claimed to be the teacher of those for whom this knowledge was relevant. His science (scientia: knowledge) was knowledge of what is good for man. The numerous references to Montesquieu in the Federalist Papers, to Plato, Aristotle and Cicero in other writings of the framers of our Constitution, as well as the Lockian language adopted by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, all attest to the extent to which political philosophers were accepted as teachers by the men who brought this country into being."
"Behavioral science denies the very possibility of knowledge of what is good for man and, necessarily therefore, denies the possibility of an objective common good. It therefore denies the very premise on which the old-fashioned political and legal science was built."
"The explanation of this seeming anomaly lies in the redefinition of science. The new science eschews all interest in the best political order or in the best laws, and confines itself to acquiring information as to the way men behave. To justify its claim as a science, as opposed to a form of journalism or social recording, it adopts the "scientific method," involving itself in mathematics, hypotheses, models, developmental constructs, predictions, and the like, modeling itself on what is probably regarded as the queen of the sciences today, physics. And just as physics culminates in a body of laws describing the physical universe, behavioral science would culminate in a body of laws describing the social universe. The science of man will be a science of human behavior. Behavioral science is a science because its methods are "scientific," because they are "similar to those of the natural sciences," and because it limits its inquiry to what can be verified empirically. Since the goodness of a law or a constitution cannot be verified empirically, which means that its goodness cannot be seen or touched by one of the senses, questions of the goodness of laws are of no concern to these new scientists as scientists. The social scientist "cannot be an advocate in his role as scientist. Nevertheless, a major part of the work done by behavioral scientists in the law assumes a knowledge of what is good for man.
"Which of the social science disciplines is most likely to possess, or to have access to, the resources, now that all of them have based themselves on the so-called separation of facts and values and declared their incompetence to speak on the question of what is good for man? The answer is probably psychology - at least, the question is most likely to assert itself there. As Lon Fuller said a few years ago in the context of a discussion of psychology and modern jurisprudence, psychoanalysis assumes that the purpose-forming system called a man may be in need of being "straightened out," and at the same time contains within itself the sign posts that will direct the straightening-out process ... [and if] the psychoanalyst does not do something roughly equivalent to helping his patient realize his "true nature" then his whole profession loses intelligible meaning."
"The Constitution was intended to "establish Justice," and one's conception of justice is necessarily related to one's conception of what is proper to man's nature. The Constitution was not ordained and established by "adjusters"; it was defended at the time of its greatest trial not by a conformer, a seeker of the easy way, but by Abraham Lincoln. Any psychology that cannot distinguish between the nobility of a Lincoln and the ignobility of a well-adjusted nonentity, any psychology that does not despise people whose horizon is limited to the consumption of food to satisfy the hunger drive, the seduction of women to satisfy the sex drive, or the reduction of psychic tension, is scarcely qualified to speak of the human condition, and its prescriptions, therefore, deserves but a limited standing in the courts of the land. "
"when the social scientists generally are excited at the prospect of playing a new role in the law, that it becomes necessary to enter a word of caution. These thirty-two may state their purpose modestly, but Feuer and Fromm want to reorganize society; Myrdal may disclaim any policy role for his science as science, but Harold Lasswell has in mind the establishment of what one of his critics has called a "psychoanalytocracy" - that is, rule by psychoanalysts.
If men are certain that they know the cure for the ills of society, they are likely to become impatient with traditional legal principles and procedures which have always been thought important precisely because of the great difficulty in knowing what is good for man, and what is good for man here and now. This does not mean that this knowledge is unattainable in principle, but only that, originally, it was thought to be within the competence of only a few exceptional persons to achieve it, and that these persons did not seek political power."
"The social scientists involved in the sterilization movement (and it was a national movement) were convinced that human inheritance was governed by Mendel's findings regarding pea plants-one of Virginia's expert witnesses had proved this to his own satisfaction by his studies of the Jukes family. The case, which culminated in Justice Holmes' famous epigram, "three generations of imbeciles are enough," was a feigned suit, initiated at the request of the eugenicists in order to win constitutional blessing for their program. This they accomplished, even though their so-called science was wholly unfounded."
"Praise of the Nazi racial policy continued even as they pressed their "model" sterilization law on state after state, until the number of states with such statutes had grown from the twenty-one at the time of the Virginia case to twenty-seven a decade later. Perhaps the day will come when, as Judge Miller said in the Parmelee case, "social scientists can advise not only courts, but the people generally; just as physicians ... do today," but Buck v. Bell illustrates the hazards potentially involved and as well the failure of the courts to scrutinize a program cast in the language of science. This was science polluted by a vicious brand of politics, but when science asserts itself in the law, there is always the danger, and the strong possibility, that it will become irresponsible.
Certainly moderation does not characterize the principal work of scientific jurisprudence in our day, Frederick K. Beutel's Experimental Jurisprudence. If Beutel is to be believed, we are on the threshold of a solution to man's most fundamental problems; all that is required is the transfer of "the techniques and knowledge so successfully developed in the physical sciences ... into the field of social control ...." His book is to be understood as a defense and an illustration of such transfer. It is with his defense that we shall be primarily concerned. Man, he says, has achieved power over nature but not over himself; the "philosophy of social control" has not kept pace with "the revolutionary developments of physical science," which has engendered grave "mental, political and social maladjustments."
"Beutel says that when "law as a matter of regular practice enters the field of thought control, as is already the case in some totalitarian states, then the findings of the psychologists as to the working of the mind in reaching subjective choices will be of great use to the jurists." While suggestive, to say nothing more, this statement does not tell us all we want to know about this aspect of experimental jurisprudence; fortunately it is not all Beutel tells us.
Looking far into the future, it may be predicted that the methods of legally directed thought control may eventually take over the direction and control of what some now call human values and that this power may be turned to scientific purposes. If this is to be accomplished, it should be along the lines of Experimental Jurisprudence [Behaviorism]. When this is done, there will no longer be any basis for the belief that social science is impossible because it contains no elements of control such as those found in physical sciences. The means of social control by law are now developing and increasing all about us. Mankind may soon be required to make the choice whether these powers are to be exercised for greed, lust and caprice of individuals or are to be used in the scientific advancement of the race.
Beutel is not altogether clear as to what he means by the "scientific advancement of the race," and the laws appropriate to this advancement; but he does have a test, of sorts, of good laws.
'The laws to be enacted or recommended should be those which lead to the greatest sum total of satisfaction of needs, demands and desires, in that order of rank. Thus a more complicated person is certain to have greater wants than a simple individual, and his combined interests as a whole will therefore weigh heavier in the scientific scale than those of a less complicated (less intelligent, if you will) individual.'
But supposing the "less complicated" people object to this dispensation?
'If . . . sufficient public interest is to be developed in adopting new scientific methods, it will be necessary for this small [at most "six percent of the entire population"] nucleus from which come the able scientists to convince the great majority to agree to types of governmental and legal devices which the overwhelming mass of people cannot even understand. Under the circumstances, the development of popular pressure for adoption of scientific discoveries into the legal and governmental field sufficient to overcome the inertia of those in control of the machinery is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.'
That the scientists should be restrained by the need to get the consent of the ("less complicated") governed is reassuring, but perhaps only temporarily, since we know that this restraint does not derive from any principle to be found in the book. The Declaration of Independence states that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed," but Beutel dismisses its "theories" as mere "fictions," even more "advanced in the realm of fiction" than the notion of the "divine right of kings." Never lacking in boldness, he goes right on to state his lack of interest in any of these "theories":
'The experimental jurist as such has little interest in the general theories advanced to explain the purposes of government as a whole or to justify certain lines of policy. As a scientist he must recognize that these expressions are largely fictional. While he might possibly desire to examine the factual effectiveness of various devices used to disseminate these fictions in persuading the public to submit to the general policies of a particular government, his immediate attention preferably would be directed toward the effect of a particular law in accomplishing the real purpose for which it was created. It is much safer, he says, to have "enlightened theories of law and government carefully worked out by rational experimental processes rather than be left to rely on the speculation of cloistered philosophers or the mad dreams of imprisoned fanatics.'
"Rule by experimental jurisprudence is not imminent, and there would seem to be little danger of its ever coming about, at least in all its manifestations. Nevertheless, what this book represents must be taken seriously: an impatience with the "unscientific" aspects of democratic government.
It would be possible, by careful selection, to present a thesis from his book that is not wholly incompatible with a certain view of democracy, one in which experimental jurisprudence appears as no more than a means of effecting or of institutionalizing a pragmatic ethics."
"Beutel's book is an almost perfect illustration of the sort of misuse of science that Lee Loevinger must have had in mind when he said that "science has contributed little, if anything, to the solution of social or legal problems," partly because it has been asked "the wrong questions, and set . . . the wrong tasks," and specifically because science has been expected "to distill social policies from a test tube or a retort, much as Aladdin summoned a genie by rubbing a magic lamp." Loevinger makes no such claim for his "jurimetrics," which he nevertheless describes as "the most promising avenue of legal progress in the contemporary world." Rather than to replace the "cloistered philosophers" and the "fictions" of the Declaration of Independence, science's most "promising and immediate contribution ... is in automatic information retrieval." The computers will not solve legal problems, and will not make judging obsolete, but they will assist in the solutions and in the task of judging, just as social scientist can provide information that is not available from the computers but may be needed for the wise solution of the problems that confront the courts and the law generally. Such techniques as the public opinion survey undoubtedly facilitate the gathering and collating of information, and there will be times when such information is needed by the law. This may not be an exalted role, but as society becomes ever larger and more complicated, it is necessary and an appropriate role.
Doubtless there have been "phenomenal technical and scientific" advances during the past century, as Beutel says, and that there is a "social lag"; and perhaps it is true that the "general science and art of lawmaking" has not developed "since the days of the Roman Empire"; but this is no reason for law to imitate physics or engineering. On the contrary, a grasp of the fundamental problems might reveal that there is an irresolvable tension between science, in its old or its new sense, and politics, and that any attempt to resolve the tension is likely to have terrible consequences in the political world; that the political world must be ruled not by science but by prudence. This requires at a minimum the recognition that there will always be a "gap" between theory and practice, and that the recalcitrant or intractable political problems cannot be wholly resolved-at least, not by a government of free men. True, Socrates said that "cities will never have rest from their evils--no, nor the human race... until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy"; but Socrates, who failed even in his attempt to rule his wife, Xanthippe, knew and taught that it is extremely unlikely that the conditions required for the rule of the wise will ever be met. As Leo Strauss has said:
'What is more likely to happen is that an unwise man, appealing to the natural right of wisdom [to rule] and catering to the lowest desires of the many, will persuade the multitude of his right: the prospects for tyranny are brighter than those for rule of the wise. This being the case, the natural right of the wise must be questioned, and the indispensable requirement for wisdom must be qualified by the requirement for consent. The political problem consists in reconciling the requirement for wisdom with the requirement for consent.'
(1) Walter Berns, political scientist and philosopher, dies at 95
Bonus - the unwise behavioral science-following leaders knew masks didn't work, have never worked. But, by gosh, they were going to make them work this time! They'd make us obey and behave better than before. Really! SMH:
anyone in a position of power has surely read some history and knows what happens when you set aside a group for demonization. these people cannot be forgiven
Elected officials are supposed to do what they were elected to do, they're supposed to be like employees, not big brother or a nanny state telling their citizens what to do. It was always clear to me that the reactions to COVID were MIXED. There was always disagreements on how to handle it and how to best care for personal health.
Because there were disagreements, not everyone would mask or vaccinate themselves and not everyone would want to lockdown. If everyone agreed masks, vaccines, and lockdowns were good and beneficial, AND they agreed that COVID was bad enough that they thought those measures were the best option, then there would never be a need to mandate it because people would have WILLFULLY wore a mask, got vaccinated, and stayed home.
The only reason leaders put mandates out to wear a mask, vaccinate, stay inside, was because they knew that people wouldn't have willfully done it. There is no other way to see a mandate, right? The only reason you mandate something is because you know people won't do it willfully. So, they knew what they were doing on that front. They just didn't care.
Personally I believe that there should never have been social mandates like these because using it proves that people are opposed to it, so the mandates were not the will of the people. You can see how drastic that was if there was data on how many people stopped masking on airplanes as soon as the mandate was lifted. Some people still do, the majority never wanted to.
If there has been no asking for forgiveness, an admission that what they did was wrong, then there should be no excusing them from their desire to be authoritarians. If they continue to scapegoat and not take responsibility, then can we really call them leaders? Looks like they were following the bunk "science." That makes them followers, not leaders.
Why should there be forgiveness? If they are confronted with credible evidence that they are wrong and are too arrogant to change, more and more people are harmed whom otherwise would not suffer. Ardern is a member of the WEF, and someone who has close ties to the CCP. She is an evil woman. Shouldn't we be asking ourselves why so many mass murderers get to die in bed unpunished, like Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro, etc., and if someone murders only one or just a few people they are punished? Perhaps we are over-civilized.
I will never forgive that woman for her divisive measures and apparent delight in creating a two-tier society. I do not believe that this could ever be the actions of a ‘kind’ person. She appeared cold and vindictive with no attempt to understand
those who did not want to take part in a medical experiment.
Any leader who has gone along with the coercion and bullying that led to ‘punishment’ for exerting bodily autonomy deserves what is coming to them.
Absolutely not. Leaders lead by taking responsibility.
NO! They wanted authority over the lives and livelihoods of other people, and therefore need to be held to a higher standard of behavior.
Hell no!
No, if we could do our own research so could they, they are paid to represent us... they did not and still do not listen. When confronted with the information (from both experts in the field and from the average Joe) they doubled down.
"Shall we excuse our leaders for their tyrannical Covid policies because they were lied to?"
No, let's not.
Predictable...and predicted...result of leaders substituting social and behavioral science for wisdom. Sixty years ago the eminent philosopher and legal scholar, Walter Berns*(1), wrote of times like these, the allure and hazards of weak leaders who's ignorance and arrogance in blindly following "the best science" as a substitute for wisdom merely informed by social and natural sciences. This information was out there for today's leaders to be cautioned and humbled by.
The first half of his work is a game-theory presentation of how the law, jurisprudence, could be informed by behavioral sciences. Which is how the Roberts Court has operated since he became Chief Justice. He is a behaviorist.*(2) Selected excerpts below. If you find it TL/DR then skip to the final paragraph or two in Part 2 contained in the comment below. The excerpts provide richness and contextual understanding of the concepts that speak directly to what has happened to leadership in the ensuing six decades after his warnings were published.
Law and Behavioral Science. Law and Contemporary Problems
Walter Berns, Winter, 1963
Duke University School of Law
https://sci-hub.st/10.2307/1190729
"Thus, consideration of the problems arising in political life point to the question of the best possible political order or the best possible laws: all political decisions, whether by the framers of constitutions, legislators, administrators, judges, or masters in chancery, are based, consciously or unconsciously, on a view of what is good for man. The political philosopher claimed to possess this knowledge and therefore claimed to be the teacher of those for whom this knowledge was relevant. His science (scientia: knowledge) was knowledge of what is good for man. The numerous references to Montesquieu in the Federalist Papers, to Plato, Aristotle and Cicero in other writings of the framers of our Constitution, as well as the Lockian language adopted by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, all attest to the extent to which political philosophers were accepted as teachers by the men who brought this country into being."
"Behavioral science denies the very possibility of knowledge of what is good for man and, necessarily therefore, denies the possibility of an objective common good. It therefore denies the very premise on which the old-fashioned political and legal science was built."
"The explanation of this seeming anomaly lies in the redefinition of science. The new science eschews all interest in the best political order or in the best laws, and confines itself to acquiring information as to the way men behave. To justify its claim as a science, as opposed to a form of journalism or social recording, it adopts the "scientific method," involving itself in mathematics, hypotheses, models, developmental constructs, predictions, and the like, modeling itself on what is probably regarded as the queen of the sciences today, physics. And just as physics culminates in a body of laws describing the physical universe, behavioral science would culminate in a body of laws describing the social universe. The science of man will be a science of human behavior. Behavioral science is a science because its methods are "scientific," because they are "similar to those of the natural sciences," and because it limits its inquiry to what can be verified empirically. Since the goodness of a law or a constitution cannot be verified empirically, which means that its goodness cannot be seen or touched by one of the senses, questions of the goodness of laws are of no concern to these new scientists as scientists. The social scientist "cannot be an advocate in his role as scientist. Nevertheless, a major part of the work done by behavioral scientists in the law assumes a knowledge of what is good for man.
"Which of the social science disciplines is most likely to possess, or to have access to, the resources, now that all of them have based themselves on the so-called separation of facts and values and declared their incompetence to speak on the question of what is good for man? The answer is probably psychology - at least, the question is most likely to assert itself there. As Lon Fuller said a few years ago in the context of a discussion of psychology and modern jurisprudence, psychoanalysis assumes that the purpose-forming system called a man may be in need of being "straightened out," and at the same time contains within itself the sign posts that will direct the straightening-out process ... [and if] the psychoanalyst does not do something roughly equivalent to helping his patient realize his "true nature" then his whole profession loses intelligible meaning."
"The Constitution was intended to "establish Justice," and one's conception of justice is necessarily related to one's conception of what is proper to man's nature. The Constitution was not ordained and established by "adjusters"; it was defended at the time of its greatest trial not by a conformer, a seeker of the easy way, but by Abraham Lincoln. Any psychology that cannot distinguish between the nobility of a Lincoln and the ignobility of a well-adjusted nonentity, any psychology that does not despise people whose horizon is limited to the consumption of food to satisfy the hunger drive, the seduction of women to satisfy the sex drive, or the reduction of psychic tension, is scarcely qualified to speak of the human condition, and its prescriptions, therefore, deserves but a limited standing in the courts of the land. "
"when the social scientists generally are excited at the prospect of playing a new role in the law, that it becomes necessary to enter a word of caution. These thirty-two may state their purpose modestly, but Feuer and Fromm want to reorganize society; Myrdal may disclaim any policy role for his science as science, but Harold Lasswell has in mind the establishment of what one of his critics has called a "psychoanalytocracy" - that is, rule by psychoanalysts.
If men are certain that they know the cure for the ills of society, they are likely to become impatient with traditional legal principles and procedures which have always been thought important precisely because of the great difficulty in knowing what is good for man, and what is good for man here and now. This does not mean that this knowledge is unattainable in principle, but only that, originally, it was thought to be within the competence of only a few exceptional persons to achieve it, and that these persons did not seek political power."
"The social scientists involved in the sterilization movement (and it was a national movement) were convinced that human inheritance was governed by Mendel's findings regarding pea plants-one of Virginia's expert witnesses had proved this to his own satisfaction by his studies of the Jukes family. The case, which culminated in Justice Holmes' famous epigram, "three generations of imbeciles are enough," was a feigned suit, initiated at the request of the eugenicists in order to win constitutional blessing for their program. This they accomplished, even though their so-called science was wholly unfounded."
"Praise of the Nazi racial policy continued even as they pressed their "model" sterilization law on state after state, until the number of states with such statutes had grown from the twenty-one at the time of the Virginia case to twenty-seven a decade later. Perhaps the day will come when, as Judge Miller said in the Parmelee case, "social scientists can advise not only courts, but the people generally; just as physicians ... do today," but Buck v. Bell illustrates the hazards potentially involved and as well the failure of the courts to scrutinize a program cast in the language of science. This was science polluted by a vicious brand of politics, but when science asserts itself in the law, there is always the danger, and the strong possibility, that it will become irresponsible.
Certainly moderation does not characterize the principal work of scientific jurisprudence in our day, Frederick K. Beutel's Experimental Jurisprudence. If Beutel is to be believed, we are on the threshold of a solution to man's most fundamental problems; all that is required is the transfer of "the techniques and knowledge so successfully developed in the physical sciences ... into the field of social control ...." His book is to be understood as a defense and an illustration of such transfer. It is with his defense that we shall be primarily concerned. Man, he says, has achieved power over nature but not over himself; the "philosophy of social control" has not kept pace with "the revolutionary developments of physical science," which has engendered grave "mental, political and social maladjustments."
(Part 1 of 2 - comment below contains Part 2)
(Part 2 of 2)
"Beutel says that when "law as a matter of regular practice enters the field of thought control, as is already the case in some totalitarian states, then the findings of the psychologists as to the working of the mind in reaching subjective choices will be of great use to the jurists." While suggestive, to say nothing more, this statement does not tell us all we want to know about this aspect of experimental jurisprudence; fortunately it is not all Beutel tells us.
Looking far into the future, it may be predicted that the methods of legally directed thought control may eventually take over the direction and control of what some now call human values and that this power may be turned to scientific purposes. If this is to be accomplished, it should be along the lines of Experimental Jurisprudence [Behaviorism]. When this is done, there will no longer be any basis for the belief that social science is impossible because it contains no elements of control such as those found in physical sciences. The means of social control by law are now developing and increasing all about us. Mankind may soon be required to make the choice whether these powers are to be exercised for greed, lust and caprice of individuals or are to be used in the scientific advancement of the race.
Beutel is not altogether clear as to what he means by the "scientific advancement of the race," and the laws appropriate to this advancement; but he does have a test, of sorts, of good laws.
'The laws to be enacted or recommended should be those which lead to the greatest sum total of satisfaction of needs, demands and desires, in that order of rank. Thus a more complicated person is certain to have greater wants than a simple individual, and his combined interests as a whole will therefore weigh heavier in the scientific scale than those of a less complicated (less intelligent, if you will) individual.'
But supposing the "less complicated" people object to this dispensation?
'If . . . sufficient public interest is to be developed in adopting new scientific methods, it will be necessary for this small [at most "six percent of the entire population"] nucleus from which come the able scientists to convince the great majority to agree to types of governmental and legal devices which the overwhelming mass of people cannot even understand. Under the circumstances, the development of popular pressure for adoption of scientific discoveries into the legal and governmental field sufficient to overcome the inertia of those in control of the machinery is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.'
That the scientists should be restrained by the need to get the consent of the ("less complicated") governed is reassuring, but perhaps only temporarily, since we know that this restraint does not derive from any principle to be found in the book. The Declaration of Independence states that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed," but Beutel dismisses its "theories" as mere "fictions," even more "advanced in the realm of fiction" than the notion of the "divine right of kings." Never lacking in boldness, he goes right on to state his lack of interest in any of these "theories":
'The experimental jurist as such has little interest in the general theories advanced to explain the purposes of government as a whole or to justify certain lines of policy. As a scientist he must recognize that these expressions are largely fictional. While he might possibly desire to examine the factual effectiveness of various devices used to disseminate these fictions in persuading the public to submit to the general policies of a particular government, his immediate attention preferably would be directed toward the effect of a particular law in accomplishing the real purpose for which it was created. It is much safer, he says, to have "enlightened theories of law and government carefully worked out by rational experimental processes rather than be left to rely on the speculation of cloistered philosophers or the mad dreams of imprisoned fanatics.'
"Rule by experimental jurisprudence is not imminent, and there would seem to be little danger of its ever coming about, at least in all its manifestations. Nevertheless, what this book represents must be taken seriously: an impatience with the "unscientific" aspects of democratic government.
It would be possible, by careful selection, to present a thesis from his book that is not wholly incompatible with a certain view of democracy, one in which experimental jurisprudence appears as no more than a means of effecting or of institutionalizing a pragmatic ethics."
"Beutel's book is an almost perfect illustration of the sort of misuse of science that Lee Loevinger must have had in mind when he said that "science has contributed little, if anything, to the solution of social or legal problems," partly because it has been asked "the wrong questions, and set . . . the wrong tasks," and specifically because science has been expected "to distill social policies from a test tube or a retort, much as Aladdin summoned a genie by rubbing a magic lamp." Loevinger makes no such claim for his "jurimetrics," which he nevertheless describes as "the most promising avenue of legal progress in the contemporary world." Rather than to replace the "cloistered philosophers" and the "fictions" of the Declaration of Independence, science's most "promising and immediate contribution ... is in automatic information retrieval." The computers will not solve legal problems, and will not make judging obsolete, but they will assist in the solutions and in the task of judging, just as social scientist can provide information that is not available from the computers but may be needed for the wise solution of the problems that confront the courts and the law generally. Such techniques as the public opinion survey undoubtedly facilitate the gathering and collating of information, and there will be times when such information is needed by the law. This may not be an exalted role, but as society becomes ever larger and more complicated, it is necessary and an appropriate role.
Doubtless there have been "phenomenal technical and scientific" advances during the past century, as Beutel says, and that there is a "social lag"; and perhaps it is true that the "general science and art of lawmaking" has not developed "since the days of the Roman Empire"; but this is no reason for law to imitate physics or engineering. On the contrary, a grasp of the fundamental problems might reveal that there is an irresolvable tension between science, in its old or its new sense, and politics, and that any attempt to resolve the tension is likely to have terrible consequences in the political world; that the political world must be ruled not by science but by prudence. This requires at a minimum the recognition that there will always be a "gap" between theory and practice, and that the recalcitrant or intractable political problems cannot be wholly resolved-at least, not by a government of free men. True, Socrates said that "cities will never have rest from their evils--no, nor the human race... until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy"; but Socrates, who failed even in his attempt to rule his wife, Xanthippe, knew and taught that it is extremely unlikely that the conditions required for the rule of the wise will ever be met. As Leo Strauss has said:
'What is more likely to happen is that an unwise man, appealing to the natural right of wisdom [to rule] and catering to the lowest desires of the many, will persuade the multitude of his right: the prospects for tyranny are brighter than those for rule of the wise. This being the case, the natural right of the wise must be questioned, and the indispensable requirement for wisdom must be qualified by the requirement for consent. The political problem consists in reconciling the requirement for wisdom with the requirement for consent.'
(1) Walter Berns, political scientist and philosopher, dies at 95
Washington Post, January 14, 2015
https://archive.ph/5lgZM#selection-395.0-1371.206
(2) "US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts cited the journal in his decision regarding the Affordable Care Act."
Health Affairs Journal
https://www.healthaffairs.org/about
Bonus - the unwise behavioral science-following leaders knew masks didn't work, have never worked. But, by gosh, they were going to make them work this time! They'd make us obey and behave better than before. Really! SMH:
Flu Masks Failed In 1918, But We Need Them Now
May 12, 2020
https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20200508.769108/full/
anyone in a position of power has surely read some history and knows what happens when you set aside a group for demonization. these people cannot be forgiven
Elected officials are supposed to do what they were elected to do, they're supposed to be like employees, not big brother or a nanny state telling their citizens what to do. It was always clear to me that the reactions to COVID were MIXED. There was always disagreements on how to handle it and how to best care for personal health.
Because there were disagreements, not everyone would mask or vaccinate themselves and not everyone would want to lockdown. If everyone agreed masks, vaccines, and lockdowns were good and beneficial, AND they agreed that COVID was bad enough that they thought those measures were the best option, then there would never be a need to mandate it because people would have WILLFULLY wore a mask, got vaccinated, and stayed home.
The only reason leaders put mandates out to wear a mask, vaccinate, stay inside, was because they knew that people wouldn't have willfully done it. There is no other way to see a mandate, right? The only reason you mandate something is because you know people won't do it willfully. So, they knew what they were doing on that front. They just didn't care.
Personally I believe that there should never have been social mandates like these because using it proves that people are opposed to it, so the mandates were not the will of the people. You can see how drastic that was if there was data on how many people stopped masking on airplanes as soon as the mandate was lifted. Some people still do, the majority never wanted to.
If there has been no asking for forgiveness, an admission that what they did was wrong, then there should be no excusing them from their desire to be authoritarians. If they continue to scapegoat and not take responsibility, then can we really call them leaders? Looks like they were following the bunk "science." That makes them followers, not leaders.
Why should there be forgiveness? If they are confronted with credible evidence that they are wrong and are too arrogant to change, more and more people are harmed whom otherwise would not suffer. Ardern is a member of the WEF, and someone who has close ties to the CCP. She is an evil woman. Shouldn't we be asking ourselves why so many mass murderers get to die in bed unpunished, like Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro, etc., and if someone murders only one or just a few people they are punished? Perhaps we are over-civilized.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, Harvard law degrees and evil deeds.