Washington, Jan. 20, 2017
I watched Donald J. Trump’s inauguration today with mixed feelings.
I didn’t vote for him, even though the prospect of another four years of Obama’s “progressivism” under Hillary was awful.
Watching his campaign with disbelief, I thought he was a blend of Peter Keating, demanding attention and affirmation with a hair-trigger intolerance for being dissed; and of Gail Wynand, building power by appealing to the lowest common denominator.
Yet I have to admit that, on election eve, my heart lifted when the results cascaded in his favor. It wasn’t just that Hillary lost, and that the commentators and media were so flummoxed. It seemed that something new and promising might actually happen.
Two things have boosted that feeling.
The first is that Trump has nominated strong, independent, successful people to his cabinet. Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon; Andy Puzder, CEO of CKE fast food restaurants; education philanthropist Betsy DeVos—these and his other nominees are not the yes-men sycophants one might have feared, and they are not insiders whose appointment is merely a good bureaucratic career move.
The second is my observation of the opposition. I was working at home today, on 14th St in the heart of DC, and heard helicopters and sirens all day. Finally I went out to observe some of the protests. They were not an edifying sight. “Black Lives Matter” shut down traffic on Massachusetts Ave. two blocks from my place, with protesters lying in the street to block a major commuter route and shouting “All cops are fascists.”
K Street was closed. I couldn’t get close enough to see the march except for one protester in a fur costume with a sign “Wolves are great.” Environmentalism, I guess.
Police were everywhere, lined up—it seemed to me—more to keep the crowds back than to control protesters’ disruptions, which snarled traffic for blocks around. Yet, as I write this evening, more than 200 people have been arrested, with reports of property destruction and police injuries.
In short, Trump has some good people on his team, and he has the right enemies. But what of his agenda?
His inaugural speech was refreshingly short, and he sounded one good theme: He attacked the “progressivist” idea that experts in a government bureaucracy can make better decisions for people than they can themselves. This doctrine has been a premise of government action for a century, and Trump implicitly denounced it:
"For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
"Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth."
Does he mean it? I’m not sure.
For one thing, the most prominent theme in his speech was nationalism, “America first.”
"We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength….
"We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and Hire American."
Excuse me, but didn’t Adam Smith refute mercantilist protectionism two-and-a-half centuries ago? I am not an economist, much less a specialist in international trade. Perhaps some deals need to be re-negotiated. But Trump’s theme sounds like a beggar-thy-neighbor policy that has always led to decline. If we trade on open terms, why is trade among nations worse than trade among the several states of our union?
But the worst thing, from my perspective as a philosopher, was the way Trump expressed his opposition to rule by a progressive elite:
"Today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People….
"What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people….
"Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams, will define our American destiny."
Returning power to the people is a galvanizing idea after Obama’s goal to make government “cool” again. But it’s ambiguous, and the ambiguity is dangerous. When politicians refer to “the people,” as candidates do routinely, they usually treat that term as a collective noun. But actual people are not a collective entity. They are individuals. Their voices, hopes, and dreams are not uniform, and cannot be blended into some communitarian consensus, a false hope that Obama and every collectivist leader has invoked. The voices, hopes, and dreams of people are as individual as their individual beings, and just as diverse. They do not amalgamate into a single collective purpose.
Those who think so rightly infer that government is the only way a collective choice can be enacted. Does Mr. Trump agree? If so, his administration will merely replace one favored constituency with another. It would be far better to recognize the basic meaning of “We the people”: The people are not a herd but an association of individuals who seek to live their own lives, by their own lights.
The only power Trump or other leaders can return to “the people” is not the power of collective choice but the power of individual freedom. In the iconic words of
John Galt in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, “Get the hell out of my way!”
ديفيد كيلي هو مؤسس جمعية أطلس. فيلسوف محترف ومعلم ومؤلف الأكثر مبيعا ، كان مؤيدا رائدا للموضوعية لأكثر من 25 عاما.
David Kelley fundou a The Atlas Society (TAS) em 1990 e atuou como diretor executivo até 2016. Além disso, como Diretor Intelectual, ele era responsável por supervisionar o conteúdo produzido pela organização: artigos, vídeos, palestras em conferências, etc. Aposentado do TAS em 2018, ele permanece ativo nos projetos do TAS e continua atuando no Conselho de Curadores.
Kelley é filósofa, professora e escritora profissional. Depois de obter um Ph.D. em filosofia pela Universidade de Princeton em 1975, ele ingressou no departamento de filosofia do Vassar College, onde ministrou uma grande variedade de cursos em todos os níveis. Ele também ensinou filosofia na Universidade Brandeis e lecionou com frequência em outros campi.
Os escritos filosóficos de Kelley incluem trabalhos originais em ética, epistemologia e política, muitos deles desenvolvendo ideias objetivistas em novas profundidades e novas direções. Ele é o autor de A evidência dos sentidos, um tratado de epistemologia; Verdade e tolerância no objetivismo, sobre questões do movimento objetivista; Individualismo inabalável: a base egoísta da benevolência; e A arte do raciocínio, um livro didático amplamente usado para lógica introdutória, agora em sua 5ª edição.
Kelley lecionou e publicou sobre uma ampla variedade de tópicos políticos e culturais. Seus artigos sobre questões sociais e políticas públicas foram publicados em Harpers, The Sciences, Reason, Harvard Business Review, The Freeman, On Principle, e em outros lugares. Durante a década de 1980, ele escreveu frequentemente para Revista Financeira e Empresarial Barrons sobre questões como igualitarismo, imigração, leis de salário mínimo e Previdência Social.
Seu livro Vida própria: direitos individuais e o estado de bem-estar é uma crítica das premissas morais do estado de bem-estar social e da defesa de alternativas privadas que preservem a autonomia, responsabilidade e dignidade individuais. Sua aparição no especial “Greed”, da ABC/TV, de John Stossel, em 1998, provocou um debate nacional sobre a ética do capitalismo.
Especialista reconhecido internacionalmente em Objetivismo, ele deu muitas palestras sobre Ayn Rand, suas ideias e seus trabalhos. Ele foi consultor da adaptação cinematográfica de Atlas Shrugged, e editor de Atlas Shrugged: o romance, os filmes, a filosofia.
”Conceitos e naturezas: um comentário sobre A virada realista (de Douglas B. Rasmussen e Douglas J. Den Uyl),” Reason Papers 42, no. 1, (verão de 2021); Esta resenha de um livro recente inclui um mergulho profundo na ontologia e epistemologia dos conceitos.
Os fundamentos do conhecimento. Seis palestras sobre a epistemologia objetivista.
”A primazia da existência” e”A Epistemologia da Percepção”, The Jefferson School, San Diego, julho de 1985
”Universais e indução”, duas palestras nas conferências do GKRH, Dallas e Ann Arbor, março de 1989
”Ceticismo”, Universidade de York, Toronto, 1987
”A natureza do livre arbítrio”, duas palestras no Instituto de Portland, outubro de 1986
”O Partido da Modernidade”, Relatório de política da Cato, maio/junho de 2003; e Navegador, novembro de 2003; Um artigo amplamente citado sobre as divisões culturais entre as visões pré-moderna, moderna (iluminista) e pós-moderna.
“Eu não preciso“(Diário do IOS, volume 6, número 1, abril de 1996) e”Eu posso e eu vou” (O novo individualista, Outono/Inverno 2011); Artigos complementares sobre como tornar real o controle que temos sobre nossas vidas como indivíduos.