Comes The Dawn

8

THE VAGARIES OF VALUE JUDGMENTS

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils.

—WOODROW WILSON

Rereading my 1964 Journal recently, I came upon an all-but-forgotten letter. It was written to me by a man who is both rich and famous. Never have I been so overrated, and this puffery is perhaps one explanation as to why he fell by the wayside—no signs of a continuing interest. In any event, there was in this and similar cases a dramatic turnabout in value judgment—not at all uncommon—the reasons for which are worthy of examination. Here is the letter, slightly abbreviated:

This is first of all a “fan” letter, secondly, a thank you letter and lastly, it is a letter of transmittal. But one at a time.

Your recent work, Anything That’s Peaceful, is great, outstanding, stupendous, elegant, everlasting, wonderful, magnificent, articulate and noble! Your 238 pages consolidate into an orderly philosophy all the many thoughts that a reader may previously have accumulated. Furthermore, those same pages present many new ideas, some shocking at first, but lovingly embraced when they turn out to be the missing links between segments of a partly assembled puzzle. You are truly a prophet. Today you may be heard only by the remnant, but your work embodies more truths than that of Adam Smith. It most surely will become a standard text for the generations who survive the fall of statism.

Thank you for sending me an autographed copy of Anything That’s Peaceful. I read it slowly (over a ten day period), reread many passages, and when half way through, ordered five additional copies from FEE. I am grateful for your little gift of a single copy. But my real gratitude is for your wondrous works which have brought a new satisfaction, the satisfaction which comes from achieving a new level of understanding.

Enclosed are two checks for $10 and $28. . . . Please find another of my checks for $10,000, for whatever purpose The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. may deem appropriate.

“Overrating” is a feeble term to describe the above. ’Tis a momentary idolatry, doubtless inspired by novel phrasings of his own ideas which excite him. Later, he comes to himself with the inevitable adverse reaction—a swing equally as far in the opposite direction. I have yet to observe an overrating that was not followed by a comparable underrating—a pendulum kind of action. Any time someone refers to himself as your disciple, prepare for a swing to the opposite appraisal. You, as “the god,” turn to dust because of the mistaken presumption that you were a god in the first place! Henri-Frederic Amiel correctly observed:

If we begin by overrating the being we love, we shall end by treating it with wholesale injustice.

Interestingly, value judgments that begin with underrating another, seem never to result in overrating. What is the explanation? I can only hazard a guess based on what’s happened to me. Countless times over the years I have discovered in others a wisdom that previously escaped my notice. Their quietude? My ineptitude? In any event, my gratitude! What happens is no change in them, only in me—my enlightenment. There is no place for overrating in this equation. It would be absurd to overrate my tiny enlightenment—or its sources!

A famous author comes to mind—an out-and-out atheist. As we say in air flight, he did a 180, becoming a devout Christian. No overrating is possible in his case or of The Source. Old and darkened vistas fade as Divine and glowing vistas come into view. Here is an example of a value judgment that graces the achiever.

What a brilliant observation by Woodrow Wilson: “One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils.” By “councils,” he assuredly meant the same as Leo Tolstoy:

From the day when the first members of councils placed exterior authority higher than interior, that is to say, recognized the decisions of men united in councils as more important and more sacred than reason and conscience, on that day began the lies that caused the loss of millions of human beings and which continue their unhappy work to the present day.1

I feel equally certain that Wilson’s phrase, “One cool judgment,” was meant to convey the same thought as Tolstoy’s “reason and conscience.” At this point it is important to reflect on the distinction between councils and counsels.

Councils are committees reaching for the lowest common denominator. The truth as each individual discerns it—cool judgment—is forfeited for whatever most nearly approximates majority opinion. This is mere nose counting, which is nothing more than a mindless or senseless potpourri! As C. F. Kettering wisely observed, “If you want to kill any idea in the world today, get a committee working on it.” We hear a lot about “environmental pollution” these days; we should be more concerned with the pollution spewing forth from councils.

Cool judgment goes hand in hand with an individual’s concept of righteousness. This leads him to seek counsel from those who, in his opinion, may enlighten. After which he stands on his own two feet, as we say, making sure that his proclaimed positions are absolutely consistent with the truth as he sees it. Such a stance is a goal which any one of us might achieve.

Another reflection on the vagaries of value judgments. Cool judgments—reason and conscience—have an enormous force working against them, which is responsible for a gruesome distortion of the process of decision making. Instead of seeking counsel from those who enlighten, most people are guided by pomp and ceremony, by those in the limelight, that is, by persons in conspicuous positions before the public. It’s the king-can-do-no-wrong syndrome.

Let a President of the U.S.A. advocate wage and price controls, or any one of countless other absurdities, and millions of people are afflicted with warped judgments. When the Queen of England confers the title of Lord on a Cambridge professor, who then tells the world that we can spend ourselves rich, the masses—including a large percentage of teachers—genuflect before the man-made Lord and his nonsense.

Let those who are skilled and famous in a single trade or science or art utter nonsense in areas beyond their competence, and millions bow the knee. Those who do no thinking for themselves will accept the word of the world’s most renowned mathematician, for instance, on matters about which he knows nothing but is unaware of the fact. Thus, those who have not developed discriminatory talents stuff their heads with folly.

A concluding value judgment: The force which gives socialism the appearance of working is the freedom which socialism has not as yet been able to destroy. Give America a few cool judgments and we will know why freedom works its wonders!

For further comments on councils, see “Appoint a Committee” in my Anything That’s Peaceful (FEE, 1964), pp. 99-107. Also, “On Being My Own Man” in my Castles in the Air, pp. 93-98.

• 1In Roman mythology, Aurora is the goddess of dawn.