ȂȄȃ Partʺʺ: Politics and Philosophyfirms for time spent coping with errors on their part. A quiet, well-bred
scene does not embarrass him. “[I]f more people did what I do,” he says,
“business practices might improve.” If middle-class people used their clout
“in the right way, they could make enormous changes in retailing, and in
other practices” (NemyȀȈȆȃ).Ȁǿ
Alsop and Klein were suggesting that the exceptional victim who does
protest deserves admiration for imposing costs on abuses and thereby dis-
couraging their repetition. Because this service is a public good, as Alsop
noted, the protester unfortunately reaps only a fraction at best of the total
benefit from his action.
A further reason why incentives to protest are inadequate emerges
from Helmut Schoeck’s analysis of a case less trivial than those reported
by Alsop and Klein. Schoeck’s case may even afford insight into why total-
itarian regimes can often enjoy apparent mass support. Schoeck supposes
that a new center of power has come into being in some organization, per-
haps by foul means. It seeks to bring “under its domination those groups
and persons who have not yet submitted to it.” Some groups or persons
will already have lined up behind it, “whether out of greed, cowardice,
stupidity or genuine enthusiasm. But these men ... are not satisfied with
conforming, themselves, and almost invariably develop intense feelings of
hostility towards those who continue to stand aside.... Tension, usually
originating with the conformists, then arises between those who conform
and those who do not.” A conformist “begrudges others their courage,
the freedom they still enjoy.” He “sees both himself and his chosen power
group endangered by those who obviously prefer ... to keep their distance.
Ļose at the periphery of the power center ... now begin to exert pressure
on other people ... with the object of getting them to conform as well”
(SchoeckȀȈȅȅ/ȀȈȆǿ, pp.ȇȈ–Ȉǿ).
Schoeck could have strengthened his analysis by invoking Leon Fes-
tinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance (ȀȈȄȆ, p.ȃ, chap.ȃand passim).
Ļose who resist evil not only fail to reap the full benefits of their public
service but even risk being reviled for performing it. Others will prefer to
ȀǿĻe Southern Economic Association has been victimized by the double-booking of
hotel rooms for convention sessions. Vigorous protest in every such case would presumably
hold down this sort of abuse, thus conferring external benefits. On the external benefits
of what Buchanan calls “strategic courage” in tough individual cases and the external
costs of what he calls “pragmatic compassion”—but “pragmatic compliance” might be a
better term—, see hisȀȈȆȁ/ȀȈȆȄ. Strategic courage is related to acting on principle, while
pragmatic compliance follows from treating each case on its own narrow merits.