“The common lot of humanity is so stupid and foolish that the burden of responsibility must be lifted from the blighters, to save them.”

So runs the common rationale.

But, in lifting the burden of responsibility, this common lot become less responsible, having endured decreased incentives to acquire wisdom. This leads to more stupid, foolish people, whose obvious existence feeds the initial rationale, encouraging further unburdenings, and thus more foolish people.

The feedback loop is quite clear, and the direction of policy self-reinforcing. It is a positive feedback loop with extremely negative consequences.

Amusingly, the rationale of unburdening was initially advanced by stupid, foolish people, but as the process goes on, more evidence accumulates to pull in congenitally wiser folks. So while the initial rationale was mere prejudice, later instances are of a kind of wisdom.

It is a trap!

The process was identified by Herbert Spencer: ‘The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly,’ he wrote in mid-19th century Britain, ‘is to fill the world with fools.’

twv

Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.

William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)