Will on Hayek
Hayek brought a clear assessment of humanity and its organization to discussion, an assessment that those of political ambition and ideological fury must actively reject. He essentially debates the known and unknown, the knowable and the unknowable. This creates an additional problem for those who believe independence hinges upon the lack of interdependence.
Here is George Will on Hayek and the Tragic View of the Human Condition:
Hayek was enthusiastic about markets, but not because of utopian expectations. He was enthusiastic because markets comport with what he called the Tragic View of the human condition. Human beings are limited in what they can know about their situation, and governments composed of human beings are limited in their comprehension of society’s complexities. The simple, indisputable truth is that every one knows almost nothing about almost everything. Fortunately – yes, fortunately – this is getting more true by the day, the hour, the minute. As humanity’s stock of knowledge grows, so, too, does the amount that, theoretically, can be known but that, practically, cannot be known. As Hayek wrote, “The more men know, the smaller the share of all that knowledge becomes that any one mind can absorb. The more civilized we become, the more relatively ignorant must each individual be of the facts on which the working of civilization depends.” So, in a sense, ignorance really is bliss because so many other people, who are also ignorant of almost everything, are knowledgeable about something, and we can make use of their knowledge. People who travel by air as routinely as earlier generations traveled by bus do not need to know anything about how planes are built or flown or, for that matter, why they fly. Advancing scientific and technological sophistication constantly multiplies the number of things we do not need to think about because others are doing this for us. This division of labor into ever more minute bits liberates us to get on with our lives.
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