When Wrong Wins
In the real world, the wrong side often wins. The Bolsheviks won the Russian Civil War. The Nazis won Germany’s 1933 election. North Vietnam won the Vietnam War. The Ayatollah beat the Shah. The more history you know, the more examples you see of the Triumph of Evil (or to be more precise, the Triumph of the Greater Evil). Question: When you witness these lamentable outcomes, what should you conclude?
Some people will reconsider their original evaluation. When “wrong” wins, perhaps we should conclude that “wrong” was actually in the right. But it’s hard to see why mere victory would exonerate anyone. Even if good ideas are generally more popular, this is counter-balanced by the fact that the unscrupulous – people who will “do anything to win” – are more likely to win. In markets, of course, mistreating others gives you a bad reputation, so customers avoid you. But in politics, mistreating others gives you a frightening reputation, so subjects obey you.
Another strange reaction: When wrong wins, some infer that its victory was somehow “inevitable” – and hence (?) futile to resist. But determinist philosophy aside, why would bad outcomes be any more inevitable than the opposite?
The most understandable reaction: When wrong wins, its tempting to say that the good guys (or at least the less-bad guys) made a major strategic error. This makes some Bayesian sense: On average, good strategy leads to better results; therefore, when results are bad, we should probabilistically infer that strategy was bad. But why think this is a strong effect? Captain Kirk may not believe in “no-win scenarios,” but he’s a fictional character. When I read history, I see plenty of hopeless situations. In any case, hindsight is 20/20; the fact that a strategy seems bad after the fact does not mean that a judicious observer would have acted differently at the time.
The same applies to more debatable disasters. Take Brexit and Trump. Many elite observers seem more upset about these events than they ever were about the victory of the Ayatollah. Perhaps they’re wrong.* But does the mere fact that these events happened provide a good reason to think that Brexit or Trump were actually good or inevitable? Hardly.
It is far more reasonable to infer that the opponents of Brexit and Trump made major strategic errors. For Brexit, there’s an obvious candidate: Cameron never should have supported a referendum. For Trump, this is far less clear. It’s tempting to say that Democrats shouldn’t have nominated Clinton, but what are the odds that the alternative candidate would have won?
The more general lesson: The world is not a morality play. When bad things happen, it’s not because the universe is punishing us for our misdeeds or misperceptions. The sad truth is that bad people can punish you for being good. Indeed, they routinely do. If you hastily blame yourself, you’re needlessly adding self-insult to injury.
* Personally, I think such elite observers are both provincial and hyperbolic. Brexit and Trump seem bad to me, too – but not remotely as bad as hundreds of thousands of people dying in the Iran-Iraq War.
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I Iike captain Picard's saying: "You can do everything right and still lose."
We all have one giant blindspot that is almost unavoidable: we believe we are the good guys, we know what is right and good, and we can predict the future.
None of these statements are objectively true. We have a perspective, an opinion, and a side.
It just so happens to be that there will always be plenty of people who will have the exact opposite opinion and perspective than us.
They will also have a competing interest and the win of your side will be a loss for theirs and vice versa.
To your point, historically speaking we, the winners, now judge the past as good or bad. In the moment, we tend to do the best we know but cannot know where that path will lead.
For example:
Trump seems bad for about half the population, while the other half is relieved beyond measure that he won. Whether the end result will indeed be be negative or positive will depend on the observer making that judgements and for historians to look back at.
Germans wanted a return of prosperity and dignity. They voted out of desperation amid impossible living conditions. Hitler promised them a better life, and gave them an imaginary enemy that is the cause of all their problems. As all politicians do. It turned out to be a horrible turn of events but they didn't know that before hand. They just wanted a better life.
The same is true for all communist, socialist, religious... ideologies. They sound good to those who believe they are being exploited and share those values and ides.
Equality for all, take from the rich and give to the poor, do as the Lord commands, etc. - what could possibly go wrong?
Plenty, it turns out.
Evil, good, bad, right and wrong tend to be judged in the aftermath. The intentions, believe it or not, are usually good in most cases from that specific perspective.
The communist and capitalist, poor and rich, religious and on-religious (or differently religious), left and right,... Can never see things the same way.
Sometimes one side wins, another the other. And the pandelum, well its swings from one side to the other into infinity.
I enjoyed reading your article and only wanted to share a different perspective. Sorry for the long comment. Have a good one!
I think you are committing a pretty obvious category error in comparing your expectations for Trump 2.0 against the known facts of the Iran-Iraq war.
You might think the "elite" perspective is miscalibrated, but it's hardly baseless. In the first 60 days of his second term, Trump has cut off vital support to Ukranians (and announced the fact to their enemies), launched air strikes into Yemen, ended the distribution of lifesaving medicine in several countries, and deported people without due process. Not to mention the current EPA and Education rollbacks, and promised cuts to Medicaid. Ill effects on the order of half a million deaths seem pretty conceivable.