Today, any schmuck with a computer and an internet connection can participate in the distribution of information and ideas in our society. That has some good aspects (there is a lot more information available, and you can learn about stories that the media elites wouldn’t have covered). But it also results in a lot more content expressing thoughts and values that are more typical of the masses than of the elite. And that means a lot more terrible ideas. The people with authoritarian values and irrational, conspiratorial ways of thinking were always out there; now they have platforms.
Perhaps should be filed under Martin Gurri watch.
He writes in part:
“If it was put up to a vote, I bet the Bill of Rights would be voted down, as would most of the Constitutional constraints on government, especially on the President. (Not if these things were labelled “the Bill of Rights” or “the Constitution” on the ballot, of course – they’d have to be described without those labels.)”
If I recall correctly, Milton Friedman hypothesized the same thing in his brief book _Capitalism and Freedom_ (1962).
Basically like this: If we could secure for ourselves now a Bill of Rights only through current referendum we would be out of luck. We should not assume that such a document could easily be passed. Most possibly it could not now be passed by referendum.
I learned in a recent Free Thoughts podcast with Randy Barnett that the Bill of Rights were so in the background they weren’t referred to as the Bill of Rights until the New Deal era. In my opinion, likely arising due to the government control leanings of the New Deal, the imposition of the zwangswirtschaft (compulsory economy) of the Nazis eroding the protections.
“09:00 Randy Barnett: I think it’s important to remember something… Well, to realize something that’s only recently been established by historians. And by recently, I mean, within the last five or 10 years. And that is that the first 10 amendments were not called the Bill of Rights until the 20th century. This is remarkable. This is contrary to everything that I’ve been taught, everything everybody has been taught. But it’s been confirmed by numerous researchers now, and it’s culminated in a book by Gerard Magliocca called “The Heart of the Constitution,” which tells the story. But Gerard got this idea actually from me, when I put him in touch with Pauline Maier, the late Pauline Maier, who was working on this project, and came to me and asked me whether I noticed, when I was doing work on anti‐slavery constitutionalism, anybody had ever referred to the first 10 amendments as the Bill of Rights. And I went back and looked, and no one ever did.
“09:55 Randy Barnett: So, the emphasis we currently place on the Bill of Rights is actually, and Gerard makes this point in his book, is actually a product of the New Deal. And it’s interesting why. Because as the New Deal was coming under challenge for being unconstitutional, because it exceeded the powers of Congress to do it, it defended itself by saying, “Oh, look, there’s this Bill of Rights, this enshrined, hallowed Bill of Rights. And nothing we’re doing violates the Bill of Rights. And as long as we’re not violating the Bill of Rights, we’re good to go.” And as a result of that, the Bill of Rights assumed a central importance to modern constitutional law that it never had. It wasn’t even called the Bill of Rights before that. And it wasn’t until the 1950s that the original draft of the Bill of Rights got included at the National Archives on display. Prior to that, it had been in the State Department. And before the 1930s or ‘40s, it was actually in the basement in a file cabinet. That’s how unimportant it was thought to be.”
Barnett is kind of right, but that’s also misleading. The use of the term “bill of rights” had a long history prior even to the revolution, and was interchangeable with “declarations of rights”, for instance of revolutionary Virginia or revolutionary France. And the first ten amendments were referred to as a federal declaration of rights going way back, to distinguish between the old mix including positive rights and by covenant and the new conception of purely negative rights, universal and inalienable. The change in favored terminology to emphasize continuity with the traditions of English history was the kind of thing that seems to me happens in the law all the time, and not actually reflective of a sudden shift in emphasis for cynical or expedient political reasons. The early progressives were more interested in repealing the 14th Amendment as a real hindrance, until they realized that by creatively interpretating that constraint away it was then a great enabler.
Here is Hamilton in 1788 on a tangent of whether the constitution incorporated rights from the common law and whether the amendments would be necessary. “Bill of rights” language all over the place.
“The only use of the declaration was to recognize the ancient law and to remove doubts which might have been occasioned by the Revolution. This consequently can be considered as no part of a declaration of rights, which under our constitutions must be intended as limitations of the power of the government itself.
It has been several times truly remarked that bills of rights are, in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgements of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince. Such was MAGNA CHARTA, obtained by the barons, sword in hand, from King John. Such were the subsequent confirmations of that charter by succeeding princes. Such was the PETITION OF RIGHT assented to by Charles I., in the beginning of his reign. Such, also, was the Declaration of Right presented by the Lords and Commons to the Prince of Orange in 1688, and afterwards thrown into the form of an act of parliament called the Bill of Rights. It is evident, therefore, that, according to their primitive signification, they have no application to constitutions professedly founded upon the power of the people, and executed by their immediate representatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retain every thing they have no need of particular reservations. “WE, THE PEOPLE of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ORDAIN and ESTABLISH this Constitution for the United States of America.” Here is a better recognition of popular rights, than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our State bills of rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government.
But a minute detail of particular rights is certainly far less applicable to a Constitution like that under consideration, which is merely intended to regulate the general political interests of the nation, than to a constitution which has the regulation of every species of personal and private concerns. If, therefore, the loud clamors against the plan of the convention, on this score, are well founded, no epithets of reprobation will be too strong for the constitution of this State. But the truth is, that both of them contain all which, in relation to their objects, is reasonably to be desired.
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.
On the subject of the liberty of the press, as much as has been said, I cannot forbear adding a remark or two: in the first place, I observe, that there is not a syllable concerning it in the constitution of this State; in the next, I contend, that whatever has been said about it in that of any other State, amounts to nothing. What signifies a declaration, that “the liberty of the press shall be inviolably preserved”? What is the liberty of the press? Who can give it any definition which would not leave the utmost latitude for evasion? I hold it to be impracticable; and from this I infer, that its security, whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any constitution respecting it, must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government.3 And here, after all, as is intimated upon another occasion, must we seek for the only solid basis of all our rights.
There remains but one other view of this matter to conclude the point. The truth is, after all the declamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS. The several bills of rights in Great Britain form its Constitution, and conversely the constitution of each State is its bill of rights. And the proposed Constitution, if adopted, will be the bill of rights of the Union. Is it one object of a bill of rights to declare and specify the political privileges of the citizens in the structure and administration of the government? This is done in the most ample and precise manner in the plan of the convention; comprehending various precautions for the public security, which are not to be found in any of the State constitutions. Is another object of a bill of rights to define certain immunities and modes of proceeding, which are relative to personal and private concerns? This we have seen has also been attended to, in a variety of cases, in the same plan. Adverting therefore to the substantial meaning of a bill of rights, it is absurd to allege that it is not to be found in the work of the convention. It may be said that it does not go far enough, though it will not be easy to make this appear; but it can with no propriety be contended that there is no such thing. It certainly must be immaterial what mode is observed as to the order of declaring the rights of the citizens, if they are to be found in any part of the instrument which establishes the government. And hence it must be apparent, that much of what has been said on this subject rests merely on verbal and nominal distinctions, entirely foreign from the substance of the thing.”
For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?
Silly, silly Hamilton. Not realizing that the enumerated power “to regulate interstate commerce” means the power to regulate anything affecting interstate commerce, which means the power to regulate everything.
The bill of rights was a challenge at the time; but in the opposite direction – people believed it would be used to constrain rights rather than secure them from the Federal government. And boy, were they right. Because the Bill of Rights was used to tell the States that they couldn’t make decisions about local legislation, rather than to constrain the Federal government’s accelerating accumulation of powers and authorities. In short, it doesn’t currently do what it was created to do.
Further, ironically, the people who are arguing that the masses are authoritarian are actually in favor of giving international regulatory, legislative, judicial authorities above the level of the nation (in Europe, the EU; above the US, the ICC, WHO, etc) the authorities without accountability that can be used to constrain nations in their internal governance. Why?
Why? Because they hold the masses in contempt and frankly love any centralization of authority that leaves them unaccountable to hoi palloi. The destitute, the permanent underclass, however, provide a very useful echo chamber for their own opinions, a canvas on which to display their virtue, and are individually so hapless as to pose no threat no matter what is bestowed upon them in largesse (or even better, … pose no threat because of the addictions and distortions caused by that largesse).
“In an era of increasing concern about misinformation, the share of people who say it is very important to have internet freedom, free speech and freedom of the press has risen in a number of countries around the world, most significantly in France (+16 percentage points or more on all three items), the UK (+11 or more), Indonesia and Argentina (both +8 or more).
In the countries for which trends and a measure of ideology are available, changes in the number of people who believe these measures of freedom of expression are very important often cuts across ideology. That is, all ideological groups are trending in the same direction in their views on free speech, free press and free internet. For example, in France, the percentage of people saying freedom of the press is very important grew from 46% in 2015 to 65% in 2019, including double-digit increases among all ideological groups: the left (+14 points), the center (+19) and the right (+24).
In the U.S., however, the increase occurred mostly among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, rising from 64% to 85%. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, it remained largely unchanged (72% to 77%).”
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/02/27/attitudes-toward-democratic-rights-and-institutions/
How does one find the best ideas at present?
“ Liberal leaders never weary of repeating that the tragedy of the nineteenth century sprang from the incapacity of man to remain faithful to the inspiration of the early liberals; that the generous initiative of our ancestors was frustrated by the passions of nationalism and class war, vested interests, and monopolists, and above all, by the blindness of the working people to the ultimate beneficence of unrestricted economic freedom to all human interests, including their own. A great intellectual and moral advance was thus, it is claimed; frustrated by the intellectual and moral weaknesses of the mass of the people; what the spirit of Enlightenment had achieved was put to nought by the forces of selfishness. In a nutshell this is the economic liberal’s defense. Unless it is refuted, he will continue to hold the floor in the contest of arguments.”
-Karl Polanyi
Words that he uses – “unwashed masses”, “schmuck”, “elites” – rankle the “unwashed masses” now and they are revolting; they see that those “elites” imposed globalization has actually brought their life to peril; their idea of bringing China to a liberal order was all just a dream that never is going to be realized; their idea of “universal values” is nothing but a figment of imagination. Its high time the “learned” and “thoughtful” and “serious” start treating the “hardworking” and “laborers” with better terms. They want the “elites” to realize that it is but an accident of parentage/genes/geography through which they are what they are; nothing more; nothing less.
Yeah, even to me it sounds like politically correct speech (like handicapped became specially-abled, blind became vision-challenged), but times and mores, they change. So the language has to change with that too?
@Duane stiller: only consume information from people with skin in the game — from personal relationships, brands, or investments. Also, be ruthless about blocking bad sources.
I would be sympathetic to what Michael Huemer is saying of it weren’t that the universities are currently where most of the worst stuff is happening.
+1. Huemer isn’t being reasonable. He’s bashing Trump and defending the “elites”, but it’s clear that the elites in the universities, the prestige media, and on the political left are driving the present revolt including the riots and conspiracy theories like Russiagate. Huemer himself is absolutely part of the university elite, which is likely why he’s unwilling to recognize it.
Before internet connections, we really only had top down communication, with two exceptions. Voting gave us a very narrow binary expression, and markets, which didn’t allow us to express anything directly, but gave us the ability to return much more information.
Economist always told us this information was filled with local knowledge the elites could never match, and produced a kind of collective wisdom we should all cherish.
To speak to the market, suppliers continued to gush top down at us, almost never appealing to utility, but rather attempting to create some type of emotional affiliation.
Now, we have a wider channel via the internet, and we can hear more completely what the masses are actually thinking, and economists are now explaining to us that there is quite a bit of stupidity out there bubbling up. No one quite knows how to react to this, but it appears that the top is scared of what they are hearing.
My question is how do we square the Hayekian view of bottom up knowledge with Gurri view of incoherent revolt?
Hayek argues that localized knowledge was held by ‘localized people.’ Nothing about that should lead us to expect a shopkeeper who knows his market to not be a total moron on distant matters like tax law or net neutrality or the latest Supreme Court decision (unless maybe it has something specifically to do with his shop). As has been repeated many times, no one (except maybe populists) is arguing that the common man is wise, just that he knows more about what he probably does for a living than what people who write and enforce laws for a living know about what he does for a living.
File under serendipitous synchronicity, Steve Sailed has a post on Dr Kling’ s Dunbar Number analysis of the topic of the Huemer quote:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/george-floyd-and-the-dunbar-number/
“OK, but once again, is there any evidence that elites of the “Super-Dunbar” dealt more rationally with the George Floyd whoop-tee-doo? How many of them came out and said:
“Look, there are 20,000,000 black guys in America. That’s a huge number. There is always one of that 20,000,000 doing something knuckleheaded and winding up dead. You can’t let yourself go insane over some drugged-up bouncer in Minnesota. We may feel emotionally like we live in a tribe of 150, but we don’t. It’s actually a huge country, so restrain your out-of-control emotions and think sensibly. It’s just the power of The Megaphone to make you believe that George Floyd or Emmett Till is representative. Don’t fall for the statistically nonsensical Narrative.””
Devil’s Advocate: notice the language of these summer protests over and over again repeat the terms”systemic racism” “white privilege” “allyship” etc. These are buzz phrases from academia, they weren’t invented by random Twitter users. They spread from the former to the latter.
Likewise, the defacement of statues of founding fathers both directly connected to slavery and otherwise have led some people on both the left and the right to dub these the 1619 riots. Who was it who gave us the 1619 Project? Oh, that’s right, the New York Times. But the NYT didn’t invent these junk historical narratives on it’s own, it had the work and assistance of a group of third rate academic historians to drawn on as well.
In other words, I disagree with Heumer that everything was fine until the internet came along and gave demagogues a platform. There’s much more of a reciprocal relationship between elites and mass movements, in my mind, than in what he describes.
You can extend the revolt of the masses to any field or institution that has become democratized.
Look at universities, fine arts, journalism, academia, social science, etc. Quantity went up in each but average quality fell.
The present revolt isn’t the unwashed masses versus the elites. It’s the left-wing elite revolting against political opposition and moderation.
The incident Huemer cites at the University of Massachusetts nursing college: that’s not the unwashed masses versus the elites. That’s woke elites purging moderate elites.
The Russiagate theory that Trump was not elected by Americans but was a Russian asset installed by Putin was an absurd conspiracy theory. That wasn’t advanced by the unwashed masses that were recently enabled to publish misinformation via the Internet; that was the left-wing elites of society that were unwilling to accept an election loss and became personally enraged over the election of Trump, and lashed out and revolted. Similarly, the conspiracy theory that Stacey Abrams lost the election for Governor of Georgia due to voter suppression. That wasn’t a conspiracy theory from the unwashed masses; it was an absurd and unfounded conspiracy theory from the left wing elite revolt.
Regarding the current wave of violent riots and tearing down statues: The unwashed masses of America generally like the police, they want normal police service, they don’t support tearing down statues, and they definitely don’t support looting of stores, or the political violence that we’ve seen. Prestige media is suppressing mass opinion and is twisting words to paint the “movement” in the most positive light. Many left-wing university professors are encouraging political violence as a means to an end, some are doing this openly. Biden’s campaign staffers are donating bail money to anyone arrested, including those involved in violence.
For Huemer and Kling to describe this as a revolt of the unwashed masses against the elite is entirely wrong: this is a revolt of the left-wing elite against opposition.
When Biden introduced the kooky idea of using the Logan Act, never used even once before, in order to keep Flynn from uncovering what had been going on at the FBI, I mean, Biden was still vice-president, which sort of counts as an elite position, doesn’t it?
Certainly Comey was in a position of power. And Rice and Brennan, these guys aren’t rubes and hayseeds. Strzok is proudly anti-Walmart. The people with authoritarian values and irrational, conspiratorial ways of thinking were in the FBI and the Oval Office, pretending to believe that the new guy was in violation of the Logan Act. These kooks convinced themselves that when you don’t agree with the policies of the Democratic Party you’re an anti-American traitor.
For Huemer it’s just Nixon then Trump. But which president boasted about his pen and his phone? About bypassing congress and doing everything by executive action instead? “We can’t wait.”
Which populist demagogue said this? “I am desperate for change–now, not in 8 years or 12 years, but right now. We don’t have time to wait. We need big change–not just the shifting of power among insiders. We need to change the game, because the game is broken.” That was Michelle Obama, from backwoods, benighted Princeton.
That post provides some good examples of the kind of uninformed claims which convinced me to give up on Huemer as a waste of time after reading “The Problem of Political Authority” and checking out some his blogging on Caplan’s unwarrantedly glowing recommendation. Alas, it only made me downgrade my opinion of Caplan as having succumbed to a bad case of intellectual confirmation bias.
Fundamentally, Huemer is just 180 degrees from reality about who is against liberal values. You have to use the Charles Murray trick and focus only on whites to reduce the racial confounder, but when you do, it is crystal clear that it is the elites who are leading the charge against free speech, who most support firings and terminations for offense.
Bill of Rights? Who is against the following:
1. Free expression. (Lol, or even for compelled speech like Diversity statements and loyalty oaths)
2. Bear Arms
4. Prohibition on spying on presidential candidates without probable cause
5. Prohibition of Double Jeopardy (if the locals acquit, we’ll just investigate at the federal level.) Due Process (We’ll threaten colleges that if they don’t handle the sex cases without cross-examination, low burden of proof, change to examine evidence, etc. then we’ll punish them). Prohibition of takings without ‘public use’? Go read Epstein.
6. Speedy trials! Lol. It takes 20-30 years to uphold a death sentence. The case of Akbar is kind of an exception because it was a military justice trial, and he killed his officers in time of war in plain view of lots of witnesses, so it makes sense that his case made it through the courts in only 13 years. Also, he is still alive. Trump won’t sign the SCOTUS-approved execution order (how’s that for the narrative?) Confront witnesses? See the college sex cases above (and also the endless drama about the sexual sections in the Model Penal Code).
7. “no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law” – Lol again, this got thrown out a long time ago if someone alleges the jurors were being racist when they found their facts.
9-10. State and Individual Rights the Feds can’t touch. Lolololol. “Commerce Clause” = Plenary Power. It’s a tax, not a penalty.
I left out 3, which never comes up and is obsolete, and 8, which no longer means anything even remotely close to what passed in the actual “Bill of Rights”. Commoners would probably be ok with understanding of 1790. Would elites? To ask the question is to answer it.
And in all those cases above there is absolutely no doubt at all that it is the elites who are much more opposed than the commoners to practically anything in the Bill of Rights or the “liberal / democratic values” contained therein.
As if that monumental error isn’t enough, there is additionally the presentism and ignorance of recent history:
First, the outrage and bitter division is a recurrent feature of history. Check out Burrough’s “Days of Rage”. “In a single eighteen-month period during 1971 and 1972 the FBI counted an amazing 2,500 bombings on American soil, almost five a day.” Do people remember Bush Derangement Syndrome? Oh, but the bitter division now is as bad as it’s ever been, sure.
Second, the “democratization of information” is nothing new. Thirty years ago the elite press was freaking out local AM talk radio hosts as undermining The Narrative, and Rush Limbaugh was already getting big before Clinton’s election blasted him into a whole different tier. Then in 1996 the Fox News freakout. It’s still kind of a mystery how Fox was able to make any money at all. After all, private competitive media is not some kind of ideological monoculture which would leave money on the sidewalk just to maintain synchronized propaganda discipline for The Cause. Lol. The joke is that the solution to this puzzle is that Murdoch and Ailes only succeeded to extent of finally figuring out how to reach an underserved niche market … of half the country. Sometimes markets fail I guess.
But also, there is this feeling among many people that the internet is still somehow new and fresh, a kind of evergreen false consciousness. Eternal September was 27 years ago! The mosaic browser came out the next semester. US Adults hit already 50% adoption in 2000 when AOL bought Netscape. By 2008 – when the golden age of blogging was already ending, smartphone penetration had already passed 10%, there were 100 million people on Facebook, and there were already one million tweets a day.
Look at the graphs in Zach Goldberg’s recent article about The Great Awokening in Tablet.
It wasn’t the internet. It was Obama’s second term.
The Washington post *quadrupled* mentions of racism in just three years. Huemer is 50 and remembers The Great Moderation from 1978-2008. In 2011, only 35% of White Liberals thought, racism was a “Big Problem”, five years later, 80%, but conservatives are now at 30% like they were back in 1995. It’s not “the internet”, or “democratization”.
He is absolutely right about one thing which the fact is that intellectual culture *has* collapsed. But he is so completely out to lunch on the reasons why, that it seems he is not observing that collapse from the outsider’s perspective.
I read Huemer’s “The Problem of Political Authority” and I was impressed. I was inspired to further explore Huemer’s ideas and I was disappointed. Most of his political ideas are rather mediocre. In the linked post, Huemer is just wrong. I’m still impressed by “The Problem of Political Authority”.
Yes. If 2016 was a revolt of the masses, now we are seeing The Empire Strikes Back. I elaborated more on this in my other post in this thread.
I think you’re being unfair to Huemer, in part perhaps because you have an overbroad definition of ‘elite.’ Everyone who lives in NYC or Portland or San Francisco isn’t an elite. Undergrads at universities aren’t elites. But I would say it’s clear that the turn toward illiberalism at elite institutions is from the bottom up. Undergrads are lighting fires under administrators to fire disliked professors; at the major newspapers, low level staffers revolting against the leading editors. The mayor of Portland isn’t leading the revolt there, he’s following it.
I think you’re also succumbing to Manicheanism. You ask “who is against the following” as though only one cohort can be against those things. Many ordinary people – including on the right, loath as some may be to admit it – seem more accepting of certain illiberal policies than was the norm 20 years ago. The first amendment doesn’t survive because blue collar, salt of the earth, heartlanders still enthusiastically support it. It survives mainly because of a few old judges, elites if ever there was such a thing.
Is an undergrad at Harvard not elite?
Are these “low level staffers” not just the kids of elites at a particular age, fully expected to advance through these institutions?
Do we not expect them to be the next generation of administrators, professors, newspaper editors, and mayors?
This suggests that the elites — while outnumbered — are going to have to work harder to capture, convince, and retain their audiences.
“But it also results in a lot more content expressing thoughts and values that are more typical of the masses than of the elite.”
I’ve thought for a while that a lot of what we are seeing is a civil war among “intellectuals”. Intellectuals, while not homogeneous, are given their sinecures because they market the State and its ideas to the masses. But the market for intellectuals expanded massively with the internet and the monopoly of news media on access to the masses collapsed. Dissenting opinions, more informed working experts writing can just appear wiping out those who had access. Blogs started this trend, social media sped the appearance of dissents to the detriment of content. Those who fancy themselves “intellectuals” fighting to regain control is behind the efforts toward censorship. How can a journalist, even with quotes from academics up wazoo in their article compete with one working engineer or doctor writing after their long shift working on the exact matter that is the topic of the article?
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“For this essential acceptance, the majority must be persuaded by ideology that their government is good, wise and, at least, inevitable, and certainly better than other conceivable alternatives. Promoting this ideology among the people is the vital social task of the “intellectuals.” For the masses of men do not create their own ideas, or indeed think through these ideas independently; they follow passively the ideas adopted and disseminated by the body of intellectuals.”
–Rothbard, Murray N.. The Anatomy of the State (LvMI) . Ludwig von Mises Institute. Kindle Edition.
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How long will the State continue your sinecure if you, the intellectual, can’t deliver the masses?
As for the bad ideas, well, the elites have believed variously in socialism, fascism, communism, lobotomies, eugenics, etc. The “educated” classes were easily swayed to the fashionable ideas of the time.
“Why you fool, it’s the educated reader who CAN be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they’re all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don’t need reconditioning. They’re all right already. They’ll believe anything.”
— C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
From elite media:
“Democrats introduce bill to give the Federal Reserve a new mission: Ending racial inequality”–headline Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/05/fed-racial-inequality-democrats/
So elitesvar the WaPo and Donks are so deep into woke-ism they think a central bank can “end racial inequality”…and no doubt Trump is preventing this…
On the next episode of Gilligan’s Island we learn how to implement new kind of monetary policy.
And come to think of it, Gilligan’s Island was also brought To Us by elite media.
Masses are certainly revolting on comments on this post.
The masses do not have a monopoly on terrible ideas.