What Are Virtucrats?

In the most recent issue of Commentary Joseph Epstein recalls a coinage that dates to four decades ago. In 1995 he defined people who he called “virtucrats,” a special breed of political fanatics who believed that their great ideas and impeccable moral behavior  transcended  right and usefulness, residing in the realm of higher truths.

Virtucrats are idealists on steroids. Most especially, the viruecrat does not believe that he can be wrong, but that he is always in the right. He eschews all references to reality; it does not care whether policies work or fail. Virtucrats will always find someone else to blame. 

They believe that they are always right, regardless of the practical consequences that pertain when their policies are enacted. Virtucrats are another form of tyranny, a  totalitarian imposition of certain beliefs on the polity. 

Virtucrats rejectreality checks. They will never allow facts or experience to throw doubt on their cherished beliefs. They might believe in love or equality or justice. The fact that they fail to govern effectively does not discredit their ideas. It discredits the rest of the population. They consider that the value of their beliefs is the depth of their conviction.

Epstein described it this way:

In 1985 in an article in the New York Times Magazine, I coined the word “virtucrat.” Elsewhere I’ve defined a virtucrat as “any man or woman who is certain that his or her political views are not merely correct but deeply righteous in the bargain.” A virtucrat apprehends the world’s injustice and feels obliged to set things right. He is confident that he sees through the lies and cons of the rich and powerful, which he feels must be exposed. His life becomes a mission, his view of himself that of a sensitive, serious, above all highly virtuous person.

Obviously, the virtucrat is a missionary. His goal is more religious than practical. He wants to produce a kingdom of right opinion, of orthodoxy, and does not care about how well the system functions. 

In today’s public life, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & Co. are obvious examples of the virtucrat at work. Their every public utterance shimmers with righteousness. Why the rest of us do not perceive their home truths is an unending source of wonder, and of sadness if not horror, to them. They view themselves as a force for good, with those who think otherwise ignorant and insensitive, unimaginative, and finally immoral. 

Needless to say, the virtucrat appeals mostly to the young and naive. Those who do not have enough experience to judge good from bad policy console themselves with the notion that they are on the side of the angels. The rest are on the side of the devils.

Do not ask what good or bad any government program does. Know in the deputy of your soul that the program feeds starving children-- even when it wastes enormous amounts of money on tasks that have nothing to do with feeding starving children.

Virtucrats have nothing to do with pragmatic considerations, about what does and does not work.