It is
the fashionable belief that an idea is wrong in proportion to its “extremism”
and right in proportion as it is a chaotic muddle of contradictory doctrines. To the professional
middle-of-the-roader, a species that is always found in abundance, the
demagogue invariably comes as a nasty shock. For it is one of the most
admirable qualities of the demagogue that he forces men to think, some for the
first time in their lives. Out of the muddle of current ideas, both fashionable
and unfashionable, he extracts some and pushes them to their logical
conclusions, i.e. “to extremes.” He thereby forces people either to reject their
loosely held views as unsound, or to find them sound and to pursue them to
their logical consequences. Far from being an irrational force, then, the
silliest of demagogues is a great servant of Reason, even when he is mostly in
the wrong……….
It is true that, in the long run, we will
never be free until the intellectuals–the natural molders of public opinions–have
been converted to the side of freedom. In the short run, however,
the only route to liberty is by an appeal to the masses over the heads of the
State and its intellectual bodyguard. And this appeal can be made most
effectively by the demagogue–the rough, unpolished man of the people, who can
present the truth in simple, effective, yes emotional, language.
The intellectuals see this clearly, and this is why they
constantly attack every indication of libertarian demagoguery as part of a
“rising tide of anti-intellectualism.” Of course, it is not
anti-intellectualism; it is the saving of mankind from those intellectuals who
have betrayed the intellect itself.
Rothbard
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