Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen
A fundamental problem of ruling: if you have one person in charge, that
person can screw up. So you put many in charge. But then there's
another problem: no one is solely responsible, so people fail to take
initiative, and you end up with the syndrome of too many cooks in the
kitchen. Because there's no one leader, power goes to no one; the duty
of acting out the will of the cook committee goes to someone, usually a
rotating someone, who starts the task and is constantly given peanut
galleries from the others. It is through such failure of leadership
that, it is said, the soup is ruined, because although you can put
almost anything in a soup and have it turn out okay, if you don't pick
what type of soup it is, it will taste like nothing.
This situation cannot be seen more clearly than in a democracy during
wartime. Back home, the president and congress in theory "balance each
other" by keeping checks on power, the situation becomes tenuous in
that the president sends the troops to war, and only after that
congress decides whether to fund them. In dire situations, it's hard
for them to deny funding, but they'll snip away at it here and there.
This unsteady balance causes policy to be planned in small increments
around some vague idea of what the war hopes to accomplish, and thus
any concept of organized goal is diluted.
If there's one thing you learn in life quickly it's that without a
goal, situations quickly degenerate into disorganization, the same old
thing we try to escape by striving for higher ambitions. However,
democracies of the kind where a leader defers to other leaders who
defer to the people, who are forever divided into different balkanized
camps, make having a goal impossible. Let's look for example at America
the democracy during the Iraq war.
This war is both popular and unpopular; there are more "support our
troops" and pro-republican sentiments in this country than there have
been for years, but at the same time, a large and restless
counterculture pulses with resentment that we went to war at all.
However, this has little to do with the war in Iraq. In democracies,
populations quickly divide between types of power. Some people gain
power through aggression, others through passivity. For this reason, in
any war except an invasion of America by a superior force, the
population will divide neatly into one half that will oppose any war,
and another half that will support any war. They see method, not goal.
In this last election, what probably swung people was that George W.
acts like a leader: he is assertive, he has unwavering belief in his
ideals, and he is impervious to most criticism. While most Americans
probably don't fully accept his platform, they responded to his style
of leadership; in contrast, John F. wavered a lot, and his most
decisive move appeared to be to consult opinion polls and then
conspicuously respond. That is not leadership behavior, and the
Republicans seized on that and used it heavily in their propaganda.
Most of the people voting for Kerry were doing so because they (a)
wanted the war over and (b) feared the conservative Christian agenda
regarding personal "rights" and "freedoms," both amorphous concepts
that represent a carrot held over the heads of the population by
government (no government can allow absolute flexibility of political
and social choice, because that includes the ability to act against the
interests of that government). While Kerry had followed a straight
career path to the white house, acting in every case to reward his own
ambition, Bush had taken a path with ups and downs that reflected more
a man seeking himself than seeking power. In power, he acted more
decisively, even if wrong most of the time.
For these traits alone, he was elected, albeit by a slim majority of
swing voters who overcame their traditional camp divisions (aggression
versus passivity), despite the massive amounts of money and free
publicity given to the Kerry campaign by leftist elements in media,
entertainment, social circles and academia. Although it was a slim
margin, it was significant: the American voters preferred someone who
acted more like a leader. What was not seen in this result was that
American voters, by virtue of having too many impulses at once, have
already selected out anyone who could actually display the kind of
leadership that is needed to (a) win the war and (b) fix America so
that a conservative Christian agenda regarding personal "rights" and
"freedoms" is not needed.
How did a nation founded by the few successful outcasts of Europe -
smugglers, religious freethinkers, political dissidents and those we'd
call "terrorists" nowadays - become this mealy-mouthed and indecisive
nation? The answer is surprisingly simple: the nature of its political
system changed, and thus its expectations changed; because one defines
one's personal ambitions by what is expected, when expectations change,
values change. When America was founded, it was a democracy, but a
democracy of elites; one proved oneself by becoming a landowning
independent and then could contribute. This was perhaps the last
vestiges of a feudal system by which the more capable people in a
society became leaders, and therefore were able to own land and rule
local areas in a compassionate, benevolent style.
That relatively placid worldview changes when internal dissent forces
every individual to scramble for as much power as they can grab, as
they no longer have trust in leaders to reflect their best interests.
It didn't take long for America to become divided over the issue of how
much power states should have; indeed, the pre-constitution confederacy
of states was heading more toward the organizational system of Europe
today, where independent nation-states trade freely amongst themselves
and operate for larger political goals a bloc, but keep their own rules
and local regulations. After a disastrous Civil War, America began
handing the vote over to new groups, including recent immigrants from
the least-prosperous states in Europe, namely Italy and Ireland and the
first tricklings of the most Western of the Eastern European states.
Shortly after this point, the internal balkanization got more intense.
Because there were too many interests competing, or too many cooks in
the kitchen, no one could trust the government to represent their
interests, and thus political groups of loose associations were formed.
Women for example felt they needed to organize as a political entity
because there was no voice to protect them from the legal system.
Various other groups followed, until what happened in the 1960s was a
full conversion to populism. The electorate was no longer selected, but
being able to vote at 18 was considered a "right," and it was assumed
that with the full participation of the population, the power process
would represent everyone.
What a neat thought. What an idealistic thought. What a failure - in
any group, there will be competing interests, and those who are willing
to settle for the concept that we can please everyone, by definition,
don't understand power and are not attempting any sort of goal; they're
defending one. This defensive impulse is the same mechanism that
shattered tradition by handing over its guardianship to conservatives,
who despite asserting sometimes positive values, use passive methods.
Passivity does not mean pacifistic; it means merely that, like extra
cooks crowding around the elbows of the poor guy assigned to put
ingredients in the soup pot, they yell out demands only when they're
not shooting down the ideas of others. Active leadership asserts a goal
and works to achieve it; passive power structures work on the principle
that society as is needs maintaining, and they do it through a
good/evil form of kneejerk approval and disapproval.
It's this kind of system that causes internal division. Women, for
example, realize they'd better represent their "rights" to do certain
things, or they'll be completely ignored; same with people of different
tribes and races. You can't blame them for that, because what failed
was consensus: there was no longer any goal, because the civilization
"as it is" had become the goal, and the illusion was that by just
maintaining it according to our interests, it would be all okay-fine
until doomsday. Instead of opting to make a certain kind of soup, the
menu is always the same: soup du jour, with all of the ingredients in
the kitchen thrown in. Apparently, if you like carrots, you're supposed
to taste only those and leave all the other stuff on your plate.
Populist democracy, as a value, has destroyed a once-great society.
This is no surprise to anyone who has read the works of Plato, Socrates
and Aristotle, all of whom struggled with the concept and situation of
democracy; Socrates, being perhaps the first Christ-figure in the West,
lost his life for it when his ideas proved unpopular enough to unite
the quarreling and bickering elements of degenerate Athenian democracy
to elect him an execution. Unwilling to be a martyr, he died quietly
and quickly, knowing that he had achieved a great victory, albeit a
passive one, by demonstrating the democracies are willing to murder
great thinkers for being unpopular. As with great thinkers, all great
hopes are murdered by democracies, because democracies by opting for
passive, chaotic rule, are opposed to goals and indeed any kind of
unifying value to a civilization.
Those who found civilizations are aware that when a goal, or at least a
values system that indicates a consistent direction other than
self-maintenance alone, is lost, the civilization decays from within
and whether the final blow comes from disease, sword or natural
disaster, the disease that allowed it to kill came from within. This is
natural, much in the way that any stress or new predator on a herd
carries away the weakened, old and diseased long before it begins
destroying the core of the population. If every voice in that herd were
equal, the diseased and weakened would be voting for their interests,
which from fear of their own deaths would include the value that no one
should be allowed to die, and thus the herd would respond, passively
but not pacifistically, the predators, incurring losses among the
strong for the lofty ideal that occurs nowhere in nature, namely that
none should die.
All great civilizations pass in this way. No longer having leadership,
they are ruled by the followers, who are given equal voices to appease
them. These, fearing their own weakened states, enact an iron clamp of
passive rule; each time the guy putting ingredients in the pot says
"Let's make a chicken soup," they scream out, "But not all of us like
chicken soup, therefore you're infringing on our rights" - but they
also apply the same dictum to potato soup, cream of broccoli soup, hot
and sour soup, and so on. Eventually, the soup becomes the same old
thing consisting of every ingredient, and direction is utterly lost.
Looking at the great civilizations of past, we can see a disaster has
occurred. The Aztecs in Mexico were so fractured that when Hernan
Cortez came bearing Bible and sword they were defeated by a few hundred
men allied only with the dumbest and least useful people in the region;
the disease had already weakened them, thus they collapsed. Similarly
Rome fell at the touch of a far smaller army, and the Greeks, having
lost the Spartan leadership that had defended them for so long, were
overrun multiple times. What did they leave? Remnants of a great
population, but mostly an empire which would achieve nothing in the
following millennia (how many wars have the Italians, Greeks, or
Mexicans won lately?). You can see a similar situation in India, in
North Africa, in the once-great states of Afghanistan and Viet Nam, and
even in Iraq.
Speaking of Iraq and Viet Nam, these two wars demonstrate to the world
again the fallacy of populist democracy, where everyone has their own
interests and there is no consensus interest as a whole except the most
basic idea of making some kind of soup, no matter how mediocre, and
feeding it to everyone. America lost Viet Nam because she could not
unify on a policy, which clearly stated would have been: we will become
the superpower that occupies the third world before the Soviets can,
and we will eventually destroy the Soviet empire. Even the
conservatives backed off from this assertive position in favor of a
passive one, namely reciting how the Soviets didn't allow religious
freedom, didn't allow independent wealth, didn't allow "free speech"
and thus it was imperative that we don't let them take over. But was
there anything as decisive as Patton's offer, at the end of WWII, to
take his Armies to Moscow and give America a benevolent world
domination?
Even now, the divisions permeate America to the point where we cannot
clearly see the truth. Some, on the right, point out that all fallen
civilizations are of mixed-race, and thus see that as cause; but it's
clearly a symptom, as no tribe mixes with others unless it is either
conquered or has conquered itself. On the left, they think that
civilizations fall because they become too warlike and don't grant
equal rights and living standards to everyone, but that is also clearly
a sign of kneejerk reactions within those cultures. No, my friends, the
answer is exactly as it appears to be: they fell because in terms of
what they desired, they fell apart, and thus couldn't agree on taking
the action necessary to preserve themselves. Even a society where money
can buy anything, and our highest value is the power of money and what
it can buy, is a symptom of this decline.
At this point most people throw up their hands and say "But there's
nothing we can do!" and consider themselves smarter than others for
having adopted fatalism before it becomes obvious. Ahead of the curve,
you must be, you smart individualists. But there is something that can
be done, and it can occur either (a) from an offshoot civilization
being formed which does have consensus or (b) by imposing consensus
upon America such that a direction is chosen, even if it doesn't
benefit anyone. If that direction is a smart one, it will include some
system which in contrast to the values of liberal democracy and
totalitarian communism alike, emphasizes the ability of some
individuals to rise above not on the basis of earning money or
allegiance to doctrine, but by being better at their chosen task.
Cooks like to cook. When every cook in the kitchen has the same right
of input, by which they can suggest or deny suggestions, the soup will
always be the same; if you send those same cooks each to his or her own
kitchen, and have them make soups in competition, eventually it will
emerge that there is a best cream of broccoli soup, and that another
cook makes the best chicken soup, and so on. This is the order that
preceded the democratic impulse in Europe, something born in part from
a Christian desire to sustain the weakened and meek at the expense of
the stronger, and it usually has as its foundation what we now call
"socialism" but what was once known as feudalism: the belief that
everyone will be sustained by society, but that those who do better
work are promoted and that those who are weakened, diseased, or broken
are allowed to die (or, for societies that are fully ambitious, as the
ancient Germans were, drowned in swamps).
A society organized around money is the result of the tool of
leadership being used in place of leadership; the same applies to
democracy. Sadly for humanity, the global society and economy we are
now forming is based on this democracy, so as it decays it will not
take one nation but all industrial nations down the path of utter
failure. The first step toward revoking this travesty in progress is to
realize that there can be one cook in each kitchen, and to apply this
value backward up the power structure, changing expectations from
"everyone has a right to sabotage the process of leadership with
passivity" to "everyone has a need to be a cook in his own kitchen, and
to compete." If this realization occurs in even a small portion of the
population, people will no longer expect the generic soup of the day
made with all ingredients in the kitchen, and thus assertive and
positive decision-making will begin to reverse the neurotic disorder of
liberal populist democracy.
January 10, 2005
http://www.anus.com/zine/articles/kitchen/
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