Foreign Policy Gnosticism: The Appeal to the Black Box of “Our Leaders Know More”

Tags: Media and Culture, Politics, War and Foreign Policy

09/14/2026 Joshua Mawhorter

Ignorance is treated as a reason to trust the state rather than a reason to withhold judgment about its exercise of coercion. To assume that the state’s unknown information is correct and justifying is therefore to err on the side of violence.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/foreign-policy-gnosticism-appeal-black-box-our-leaders-know-more

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