.. it is not in the order of nature that
I should handle a mutiny... it is not in the order of philosophy that
I should consider mutiny... I know how to navigate... I do not know
how to navigate a ship full of sailors... and if they do not see that
I am the man to steer, I cannot help it. We shall all go on the rocks,
they to be punished for their sins; I, with the assurance that I knew
better....
3
Whenever we make an appeal to reason in politics, the difficulty in
this parable recurs. For there is an inherent difficulty about using
the method of reason to deal with an unreasoning world. Even if you
assume with Plato that the true pilot knows what is best for the ship,
you have to recall that he is not so easy to recognize, and that this
uncertainty leaves a large part of the crew unconvinced. By definition
the crew does not know what he knows, and the pilot, fascinated by the
stars and winds, does not know how to make the crew realize the
importance of what he knows. There is no time during mutiny at sea to
make each sailor an expert judge of experts. There is no time for the
pilot to consult his crew and find out whether he is really as wise as
he thinks he is. For education is a matter of years, the emergency a
matter of hours. It would be altogether academic, then, to tell the
pilot that the true remedy is, for example, an education that will
endow sailors with a better sense of evidence.
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