Every once in awhile in my various diaries here at c99% you will see citations of the philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, born 1922, died 1997. One of Castoriadis' most important ideas is that of pseudo-rational pseudo-mastery. This came up when Castoriadis was discussing the future, in a quote which I think dates back to the Eighties:

One path is now clearly marked, at least as for its general direction. That path leads to the loss of meaning, the repetition of empty forms, conformism, apathy, irresponsibility, and cynicism, along with the growing takeover of the capitalist imaginary of unlimited expansion of ‘rational mastery’ – pseudo-rational pseudo-mastery – of the unlimited expansion of consumption for consumption sake, which is to say for nothing, and of technoscience racing ahead on its own, and obviously a party to domination by that capitalist imaginary.

This quote is from p. 86 of the collection Figures of the Thinkable. It describes the path upon which the "collective West" has traveled since, well, since Reagan was elected. There's a "Reason"; it triumphed with the Enlightenment; but it's all basically wrong, and headed for a bad end.

The other path, as Castoriadis continues in the passage I quoted, would have to be opened up because it has yet to be marked. The other path would require a revolution or a renaissance or something along those lines. It would involve ecological thinking, whereas the pseudo-rational pseudo-mastery of the American corporate empire of today merely plays a giant game of Risk with the world, and loses.

Much of what counts as American politics today involves clever stupidity. Congress daily tells itself: "Let's create lots of billionaires and then act all surprised when it turns out we are completely beholden to the billionaires we created." Donald Trump gets into office on promises to end the war in Ukraine and then starts mouthing the same nonsense that kept the war going. Democrats spent the last two years along the lines of: let's pretend Ukraine, everyone's favorite lefty democracy, is winning, Putin is Hitler, Joe Biden is cogent, Kamala Harris likes joy, Gaza is justified, the Syrian "rebels" aren't terrorists, the economy is doing great for the working class, China is bad, and we're better off with for-profit health insurance gatekeepers denying all of our claims. Oh, and they claim to be liberals too. Their rank-and-file buys this fantasy, and votes for their losing candidates.

I suppose that the Democratic Party pseudo-strategy could be called "clever foolishness," and such a label might apply to the Democratic Party elites. But the elites created their fantasy world, sold it to the rank-and-file, and spent a firm billion and a half on a candidate they knew would lose and would drag down their other candidates as well. They'll do just fine. Their candidate, moreover, was a disempowered stand-in for what can be objectively shown to be one of the worst Presidents in American history. At some point the Dem elites will all go into the think-tank business.

The rank-and-file can be justly accused of not having researched the situation they endorsed with their votes. Said rank-and-file could have created an alternative to the situation that presented itself to them when RFK Junior was told not to seek the Democratic Party nomination. (As regards RFK Jr., his disadvantages are many -- but at least he was an alternative to Joe Biden, one the rank-and-file might have evaluated rationally.) There were -- and still are -- plenty of opportunities to pursue the path not clearly marked. Honestly, with some of the political rhetoric one saw being circulated last year, you have to imagine two consuming populations: suckers, and the paid-off.

Today, our new-old President thinks he's clever. This is what one can sense from the promised-threatened tariffs strategy, by the whole "let's buy Greenland from Denmark" cleverness, and so on. His likely economic policy is, like the orthodox Democratic Party policy on anything, based on a fantasy world. Here is Ben Norton debunking his fantasy world:

The rank-and-file, here in the US, is in the business of electing Presidents who are clever at winning the Electoral College while being stupid at governing. Let's look up the definition of "clever" given by Google:

quick to understand, learn, and devise or apply ideas; intelligent.

The problem with this definition is that "clever" is not, by the first definition offered, the same as "intelligent." You can be quick to understand, learn, and devise or apply ideas while at the same time being really stupid, if the ideas themselves are stupid ones.

Ultimately, stupidity can be identified by its opposite: wisdom. Clever policies would be wise if the ideas behind them were informed by any sort of wisdom. However (and here we return to the American case), if you're running a nation-state that has nothing to offer the world but bombs and debt, and you're being controlled by billionaires you helped to create, you are not likely to exhibit anything remotely resembling wisdom. Thus what we see from American politics today is clever stupidity.

A clever wisdom, then, is what Castoriadis would have called the path not marked out at all. We will have to invent a wise politics for our era from scratch, and we will be facing down the cleverly stupid from all sides.