Liberal illusions

One of the things which left-liberals and libertarians have a hard time grasping is the fact most people don't think like they do. I don't just mean that they don't share their ideologies, but that their thinking is influenced by a whole different set of priorities and limitations.

Most libertarians tend to be young educated, males of an introverted disposition, who believe that most people desire maximum autonomy and are capable of handling such freedom. However, contrary to right-liberal assumptions, most people tend to be extroverts who are more influenced by the world around them then their own thoughts and feelings. In other words, if other people are doing stupid things, many of them will too.

An example of this is the world of advertising. As an introvert I tend to think of advertising as a largely irrational waste of money, but it must work on some people or companies wouldn't spend so much money on it. Subsequently advertising tends to directed advertising at extroverts, particularly the status seeking, high IQ extroverts who dominate the world of business.

While intelligent extroverts are usually able to channel their impulsivity into constructive activity, underclass extroverts cannot manage their own lives without societal help.In most cases, low IQ extroverts are well aware of their poor impulse control and the fact they can be easily influenced, but are unable to control their own behaviour unless distracted by other activities and responsibilities.

Recently, I was watching a story on television about teenage pregnancy in the UK, in which a young mother was asked about her reason for having a child which she was unable to support without state help. The answer was very revealing, if a little obvious to some. She said that having a baby gave her a sense of responsibility, and that without it she would probably be out on the streets committing petty crime. According to her logic, it was cheaper for the state to pay her to stay at home and look after a baby, than have her skip school and get into trouble with the law.

Libertarians believe that such negative behaviours can be controlled through limited government. If there are no incentives for teenagers to have children, then they will rationally decide not to have children until they can afford to support them. But if members of the underclass are genuinely unable to control their impulses, then punitive punishments, which occur after the event, are unlikely to deter them. The absence of a welfare state doesn't stop millions of woman in poor countries from having children they are unable to support.

This is why it is important that social norms must take account of human nature.

If teenage mothers who had children out of wedlock were socially ostracized, as they were in the 1950s, they would have a much stronger incentive to delay having children. Nobody likes being socially ostracized, and this is especially true of those who are most strongly influenced by those around them.

Among modern liberals there also is a belief that, within the law, they should be able to do as they please, without regard to how their actions influence other sections of society. For example, if middle-class liberal woman believe solo motherhood is acceptable, and show off the fact they are capable of rising children on their own, then less capable, less intelligent women will try unsuccessfully to copy them.

One of the most ironic things about today's age of liberal individualism is that it is only differences in human preferences which are recognised. Differences in human abilities and dispositions are ignored, leaving society at large to clean up the mess created by giving too much freedom to those who are unable to handle it.