https://spectator.org/swamp-class-politics/
In an amusing and insightful article this week on JNS.org entitled “The upside of defeat,” Ruth Blum noted wryly how much easier it is to criticize an opponent who has gained power than to defend a friend who is in office. As she puts it, the critic’s task is simplified by having no need to account for the inevitable weaknesses of any human in high office. She writes:
Being on the offensive requires little more than hurling darts at sure-fire bullseyes, which is why the likes of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and their apologists in the West are comfortable targets.
Far trickier is standing up vigilantly for the person at the helm in one’s own country.
Far trickier indeed.
It is appealing to seek simplicity. William of Occam identified simplicity with truth, and the short and elegant solution to a problem is superior to one that requires complications to arrive at the same solution.
But that’s only part of the story. Occam’s razor only says to prefer the simple answer when the complicated answer is equal to it in every other significant way. Sometimes we impose simplicity on something that is in reality complicated. And that deviates from truth.
Intellectuals are most prone to falling prey to the oversimple idea. Proud of their specialized abilities and well-honed skill at abstract thought and ideas, they can fall prey to the propensity to imagine that their great power has at last triumphed and that their ideas control reality.