WEBVTT NOTE 3. A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.520 A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks 2 00:00:05.520 --> 00:00:09.680 Lots of people get interested in political ideas through political campaigns. 3 00:00:09.680 --> 00:00:15.880 Maybe this is because politics forces you to decide who you are and what you believe. 4 00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:22.260 I can vaguely recall when I was very young, perhaps seven years old, that I discovered 5 00:00:22.260 --> 00:00:27.720 that my best friend's family considered themselves democratic, whereas I was pretty sure that 6 00:00:27.720 --> 00:00:35.920 I asked someone what that meant and only received hazy answers that concerned seemingly big 7 00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:39.120 issues about government and public life. 8 00:00:39.120 --> 00:00:44.580 I didn't think much about it, but nonetheless, they were my first thoughts on the thing that 9 00:00:44.580 --> 00:00:47.920 would consume my life. 10 00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:54.660 So it is for lots of people politics is the entryway into taking political ideas seriously. 11 00:00:54.660 --> 00:01:01.360 If your interest intensifies, you tend to go one of two ways – wonk or geek. 12 00:01:01.360 --> 00:01:06.020 These are terms that apply in many categories of life – Wikipedia gives serviceable definitions 13 00:01:06.020 --> 00:01:13.060 of both wonk and geek, but the terms take on new meaning in politics. 14 00:01:13.060 --> 00:01:18.480 Political wonks are fascinated by process, they love the game, they get as much satisfaction 15 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:26.560 from Observing as Changing. They want to be players above all else. Ideals bore them. 16 00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:33.540 History is mere data. Intellectuals seem irrelevant. What matters to the wonk are the hard realities 17 00:01:33.540 --> 00:01:39.360 of the ongoing political struggle. They defer to title and rank. They thrive on meetings, 18 00:01:39.360 --> 00:01:44.980 small victories, administrative details and gossip about these matters. Knowing who is 19 00:01:44.980 --> 00:01:53.900 There are political wonks and policy wonks. 20 00:01:53.900 --> 00:01:56.740 They exist on all levels of society. 21 00:01:56.740 --> 00:02:01.420 They appear to be running things, because their aim is to control the levers of power 22 00:02:01.420 --> 00:02:07.520 in just the right and strategic way, which means in a way that benefits the other wonks 23 00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:09.740 of their tribe. 24 00:02:09.740 --> 00:02:15.380 Geographically, life begins and ends in the D.C. Beltway, the border that encloses their 25 00:02:15.380 --> 00:02:21.040 world and outside of which is to be found the Hobbesian state of nature. 26 00:02:21.040 --> 00:02:26.260 They thrive on keeping information private and cartelizing their class. 27 00:02:26.260 --> 00:02:32.280 Their newspaper is the Washington Post, which they consider to be the insider report. 28 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:37.840 In contrast to this are the policy geeks. 29 00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:42.280 They are no less fascinated by detail, but are drawn to ideals. 30 00:02:42.280 --> 00:02:48.440 Observation alone bores them, they are drawn to the prospect of change. 31 00:02:48.440 --> 00:02:52.520 They don't want to be players as such, they question the very rules of the game and want 32 00:02:52.520 --> 00:02:54.100 to change them. 33 00:02:54.100 --> 00:02:58.320 They are happy to make a difference in the ideological infrastructure, whether big or 34 00:02:58.320 --> 00:02:59.800 small. 35 00:02:59.800 --> 00:03:05.340 They tend to work alone, and totally disregard caste distinctions. 36 00:03:05.340 --> 00:03:10.120 They are interested not in the surface area, but what's underneath – not the veneer, 37 00:03:10.120 --> 00:03:11.900 but the wood. 38 00:03:11.900 --> 00:03:15.900 In software terms, they are forever looking forward to the next build. 39 00:03:15.900 --> 00:03:22.300 They are risk-takers, so they prefer to debug after the system is live. 40 00:03:22.300 --> 00:03:28.300 In politics, this means that geeks are drawn to ideas – even radical ideas. 41 00:03:28.300 --> 00:03:33.400 They can easily imagine what doesn't exist, which makes them dreamers and entrepreneurs. 42 00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:38.960 And so they are attracted to and study history and philosophy and economics. 43 00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:42.920 It doesn't matter if a lesson can be learned from the ancients or moderns, indeed unearthing 44 00:03:42.920 --> 00:03:47.560 an old idea and bringing it back to life has a special appeal. 45 00:03:47.560 --> 00:03:51.960 They thrive on making information public, on smashing old structures, breaking cartels 46 00:03:51.960 --> 00:03:55.560 and busting monopolies of power. 47 00:03:55.560 --> 00:04:00.640 Geographically they can live and work anywhere, and they have no attachment to any single 48 00:04:00.640 --> 00:04:03.200 information source. 49 00:04:03.200 --> 00:04:07.800 The geeks and wonks can work together, but there will always be a natural tension between 50 00:04:07.800 --> 00:04:09.380 the two. 51 00:04:09.380 --> 00:04:15.120 The wonks think the geeks are hopeless, powerless, reckless outsiders whose heads are full of 52 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:18.620 useless and unrealistic fantasies. 53 00:04:18.620 --> 00:04:23.020 The geeks think that the wonks are part of the system, and therefore more than likely 54 00:04:23.020 --> 00:04:27.380 corrupted by it, and increasingly so. 55 00:04:27.380 --> 00:04:33.700 Broadening the view, the struggle to control history is a battle between the wonks and 56 00:04:33.700 --> 00:04:35.860 the geeks. 57 00:04:35.860 --> 00:04:42.020 The wonks are the ones who consolidate, stabilize and entrench the status quo. 58 00:04:42.020 --> 00:04:46.040 The geeks are the ones who prepare revolutionary change. 59 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:49.780 The wonks freeze it into place and make it work more efficiently. 60 00:04:49.780 --> 00:04:55.080 The geeks imagine and work toward a future that no one thought was possible. 61 00:04:55.080 --> 00:05:00.640 The wonks rule out drastic and extreme measures as imprudent and reckless. 62 00:05:00.640 --> 00:05:04.520 The geeks think that these paths are the only ones worth pursuing and have confidence that 63 00:05:04.520 --> 00:05:09.240 the unknown future will somehow work itself out. 64 00:05:09.240 --> 00:05:12.920 The wonks try to bring the king around to their point of view. 65 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:16.360 The geeks kill the king. 66 00:05:16.360 --> 00:05:21.920 Caesar wonk Brutus geek 67 00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:33.860 Hamilton wonk, Jefferson geek, Bush or Obama wonk, Ron Paul geek. 68 00:05:33.860 --> 00:05:37.600 Part of the agenda of democracy is to turn the whole of society into a herd of wonks 69 00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:42.760 who believe in the process and want to make it work, but it isn't so easy to control 70 00:05:42.760 --> 00:05:44.520 human nature. 71 00:05:44.520 --> 00:05:48.400 There are always the geeks to contend with who see that the system is based on a lie 72 00:05:48.400 --> 00:05:50.440 and want to overturn it. 73 00:05:50.440 --> 00:05:55.800 Why should the majority rule the minority? Or, more precisely, why should the well-organized 74 00:05:55.800 --> 00:06:03.640 minority rule the relatively indifferent majority? What we need is democracy 2.0 in which power 75 00:06:03.640 --> 00:06:11.760 and privilege is not steered but abolished altogether. Who will carry the day? In the 76 00:06:11.760 --> 00:06:16.880 short run, the wonks are right. They win. They rule. They ruled the ancient world for 77 00:06:16.880 --> 00:06:21.520 For hundreds of years, they ruled the Soviet Union for 72, they ruled the United States 78 00:06:21.520 --> 00:06:27.400 today, but the long run is another matter. 79 00:06:27.400 --> 00:06:33.480 Rome and the Soviet Union fell in revolutions enacted by geeks. 80 00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:39.320 The wonks eventually come to underestimate the power of ideas and underappreciate the 81 00:06:39.320 --> 00:06:43.000 effect of ideals. 82 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.800 Which life is worth living? 83 00:06:45.800 --> 00:06:48.460 The wonk is famous, even legendary. 84 00:06:48.460 --> 00:06:53.720 The geek rarely achieves fame, even when he does change history. 85 00:06:53.720 --> 00:06:55.600 Why? 86 00:06:55.600 --> 00:07:00.720 The wonks write the history, but it is the geeks who make history happen in the first 87 00:07:00.720 --> 00:07:01.980 place. 88 00:07:01.980 --> 00:07:06.680 The geeks will look back at their lives with satisfaction that they did their best to realize 89 00:07:06.680 --> 00:07:08.400 a dream. 90 00:07:08.400 --> 00:07:14.400 The wonks, looking back at their lives, see that they were little more than a cog in a 91 00:07:14.400 --> 00:07:20.240 and Machine Someday, even in the United States, they 92 00:07:20.240 --> 00:07:26.120 may have to concede that all they did crumbled into nothingness.