The demand for bastards

Earlier this week Michael Fallon warned that the Tories could use nuclear weapons as a pre-emptive measure. This is seen as evidence of “strong leadership” rather than the threat of a psychopathic war crime. At the same time, Labour’s promise of more Bank Holidays is presented as something fluffy and non-credible rather than as part of a plan to improve the UK’s terrible productivity.

Something odd is going on here.

The story of Juan Carlos Enriquez tells us what. He was ripped off by Donald Trump, and it took years to get his money back. But he voted for Trump.

What we see here is that there’s a demand for bastards. Being a dishonest psychopathic bully isn’t a disqualification, but a sought-after trait.

I’m not thinking here of the fact that many people prefer the unpleasant but competent boss to the nice but ineffective one. What I have in mind instead is that people interpret nastiness as a sign of competence. Nasty=tough=effective, at least when the nastiness is towards migrants or benefit recipients rather than to (perish the thought) bosses.

It’s not just in politics that this happens: boardrooms are stuffed with narcissists and psychopaths.

What’s going on here is a cluster of mechanisms. One is a form of wishful thinking. Just as people want to believe lies, so they want to believe a strong person can transform companies and societies.

Another is a fallacious form of the halo effect. People infer from the cliché that Mussolini made the trains run on time that you have to be like Mussolini in order to make the trains run on time. This is not necessarily true.

Another is that we mistake overconfidence for actual ability. We thus imbue the confident narcissist or tough talker with talents which he doesn’t actually possess.

A third is a tendency to under-rate emergence and bounded rationality and knowledge. This leads to a demand for “strong” leaders and a dismissal of uncertainty as weakness rather than what it is – a recognition of our complex world and limited cognition.

In her endless talk of contrasting here “strong leadership” to the weakness and chaos of Corbyn, Theresa May is of course exploiting all these tendencies.

There’s just one problem here. It’s often wrong*.

George Osborne tried this trick. He wibbled about “tough choices” which mediamacro interpreted as evidence of strength and competence. But of course, it wasn’t: the government borrowed £52bn in 2016-17, £31bn more than the OBR forecast in 2012, which means austerity failed in its own terms. It was pure vandalism.

And Fred Goodwin was a tough and ruthless leader at RBS, but also one of the most catastrophic bosses in history.

Sometimes, bastards are just stupid bastards.

As Archie Brown has shown, the desire for strong leaders is often erroneous:

Popular opinion about whether a leader is strong or weak in the sense of being a dominating or domineering decision-maker can be extraordinarily wide of the mark…There is no reason to suppose that the “strength” of a prime minister’s leadership (in the sense of a domineering relationship with Cabinet colleagues) leads to successful government (The Myth of the Strong Leader, p 120)

In a complex society, decentralization and “weak” leadership might work better. As Clement Attlee said: “The foundation of democratic liberty is a willingness to believe that other people may perhaps be wiser than oneself.”

All of which leads me to agree with George Monbiot: “After 38 years of shrill certainties presented as strength, Britain could do with some hesitation and self-doubt from a prime minister.”

* But not always: one defect of agreeable people is that they can agree to the wrong things.

Comments

[Matthew Moore]

'All of which leads me to agree with George Monbiot: “After 38 years of shrill certainties presented as strength, Britain could do with some hesitation and self-doubt from a prime minister.”'

Ah yes, Monbiot: the man who would organise all our lives according to his designs. The man who would deindustrialise society for the greater good. Not much self-doubt there.

And is he talking about Corbyn, the man whose politics has been preserved in aspic for decades? That hardly screams self-doubt does it? More granite-like certainty.

Corbyn prevaricates on various defence issues, not because he's exercising a modest caution, but because he finds all the West's enemies to be sympathetic and valiant heroes, but can't say that.

Hesitation and self-doubt? Isn't that the definition of conservatism?

[Jacques René Giguère]

Mussolini didn't make the train run on time. He was a bully and people believed him when he told them to believe.
Under every incompetent dictature, the people always say:"Ah thing would work so well if only the Great One knew!"

[decnine]

The new Bank Holidays proposal is potty. St David and St Patrick both fall in March; St George falls in April. Easter shuttles back and forth between March and April. So, some years, we would get 4 Bank Holidays in March. In the other years there would be 3 Bank Holidays in April. St Andrew falls in October. So, 4 new Bank Holidays, all of which would happen at times of year when the weather is likelier to be lousy and the hours of daylight are certain to be shorter. Socialist Planning at its very best.

[Blissex]

«Michael Fallon warned that the Tories could use nuclear weapons as a pre-emptive measure. This is seen as evidence of “strong leadership” rather than the threat of a psychopathic war crime.»

First pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear armed enemies is the official, bi-partisan, strategic policy of the UK, and arguably of NATO and the USA too, according to Wikipedia, quoting official sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_first_use#United_Kingdom
«In March 2002, British defence secretary Geoff Hoon stated that the UK was prepared to use nuclear weapons against "rogue states" such as Iraq if they ever used "weapons of mass destruction" against British troops in the field.[28] This policy was restated in February 2003.»

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1883258.stm

«The UK is prepared to use nuclear weapons against rogue states such as Iraq if they ever used "weapons of mass destruction" against British troops in the field, defence secretary Geoff Hoon has told MPs.
Mr Hoon said he was not certain Britain's nuclear arsenal would deter a first strike from a state willing to sacrifice its own people to make a "gesture".»

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_first_use#United_States
«The United States has refused to adopt a no-first-use policy, saying that it "reserves the right to use" nuclear weapons first in the case of conflict.
... The new doctrine envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use nuclear weapons to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear weapons to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437510/no-first-use-nuclear
«Once Again: Why a ‘No First Use’ Nuclear Policy Is a Very Bad Idea
It would reduce the potential cost of using conventional, chemical, and biological attacks for would-be aggressors. [ ... ] NFU has, however, been rejected by all previous Democratic and Republican administrations for very sound reasons, most recently by the Obama administration in 2010.»

[Blissex]

«Hesitation and self-doubt? Isn't that the definition of conservatism?»

Surely of the conservativism of Thatcher, Duncan-Smith, Howard, Hague, Osborne, ... to name a few Conservative leaders clearly cautious and self-doubting. :-)

[MayP]

It's Corbyn's attitudes rather than his policies that have been preserved in aspic. But there again if you think I am my brother's keeper why would you change it? It is just our devout Christian Prime Minister who has no self doubt at all about cutting the benefits for the poor.