‘Social media has been one the most effective mediums at eroding the respect towards professionals.’
I agree. When we consider the decline of respect for institutions, for "professionals," for government figures, for academia, for "experts," and so on, I think it's obvious that a key element is that instead of seeing participants looking official in a suit and tie, saying something serious that we tune out, we see them on social media revealing themselves to be absolutely nincompoops and barking mad to boot.
This became very evident during COVID in the United States. The turning point was probably when the X hundreds of "public health officials" who'd spent months urging people to socially distance and wear masks and shut down schools and stores, suddenly did a turnabout and said it was just and righteous and even "science" to participate in mass BLM protests.
The professional classes of experts always maintained their hallowed status when they came with an aura of objectivity and nonpartisanship and understanding that truth was above politics and ideologies. But we've seen a collapse of that in just about everything (science, academia, media, and economics).
That was a key event, no doubt. In addition, all kinds of people - ministers, bureaucrats, tv personalities, elected officials, reporters - put up Twits or Facebook posts demonstrating, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are deranged and have the reasoning capacity of 5-year-olds. And then they tell the world's regular people to shut up and be "governed."
And let's not forget the masking itself. First, Fauci came out and said masks weren't necessary, then he changed his mind and claimed he'd only said that to preserve the mask supply for health workers and for a year everyone went around wearing flimsy cloth masks and judged and shamed people for not wearing masks and banned people from entering stores or schools or businesses without a mask, then it was tacitly admitted by CDC that the cloth masks we virtuously wore for a year did very little and what you really needed were the n95 masks....
Are we to believe it was down to evolving knowledge? Or that the same people urging everyone to wear cloth masks knew all along how ineffective they were? No prizes for the answer!
I'm rather irritated about the vaccines that don't prevent infection and don't prevent transmission. My family was vaccinated in summer of 2021, when the shots were first available, but they shouldn't be mandatory for anyone, now that we know what they don't do.
I particularly liked your comments on counter-culture as I am about to attempt to write a piece on what it tells us about the modern world that Barack Obama should team up with Bruce Springsteen on a coffee-table book entitled "Renegades". (Any thoughts welcome).
it's just children of the 60s forever prizing the values of the revolution I guess. No one believes in being a 'renegade' anymore than some comfortable Soviet apparatchik actually believes in workers rights.
'I wonder if the Beeb are deliberately targeting their most high-brow and respected service in order to protest proposed cuts, or is this me overthinking things?'
I don't think you are. I would assume the same, just as I assume the Labour-run Nottingham council always cuts the most important public services as a way of protesting not being given £1 billion by the Conservative government.
Ed, I read an interesting article a few days ago about the problems facing polling companies in the United States. In the last few elections polls have consistently underperformed Republican performance and it's a problem that seems to be getting worse, and the article points out that large swathes of conservative leaning voters have stopped responding to polls, which leaves the polls distorted by those who who do respond. It cited an example where a poll company had to poll 150,000 possible respondents in Michigan to come up with a same of 1,500. And this is influencing even surveys on public opinions. It pointed out the huge disparity between the popularly shared claim that up to 20% of zoomers have non-traditional sex/gender identities and the 2021 Canadian census showing 1.5% of Canadians report non-trad sex/gender identities (the whole LGBTA+ alphabet).
In short, while we love to cite polls and surveys, it's likely they're increasingly skewed by the ideological and committed and less an accurate portrayal of public opinion on the ground.
yeah that is interesting. no one likes to be an unpopular minority.
I think I sort of wrote this in my permission structures articles but most people hold progressive views in a very thin way, I reckon 1 in 5 actually care and the rest would switch if that's the way the wind blew or it wouldn't damage their chances of a date. Young people see race communism as strong and inevitable so inevitably they go along with it.
Didn't the polling company who got 2016 right do the trick of asking people how they thought their neighbours were voting. Much more accurate apparently!
I do remember reading about the polling company you mentioned. I can see how that'd be a clever way to get people to admit their feelings. On the other hand, I live in an area that is reliably 60% Democratic and 40% Republican so the former candidates always win, but in every election the split among campaign signs is 90% Democratic to 10% Republican candidates. How well do we really know our neighbors? Especially these days when Democratic politics have taken on sharply moralistic overtones so the dissenters just become quiet in public and are left with little but anonymous online discussions.
British politics is still different from American politics, and in some aspects, increasingly so. The divide in American politics isn't incompetence versus blandly untested (although that might change pretty soon with these worrisome economic tremors).
People are deterred from dissenting against the regime not because they believe in their dull messages but because they believe the regime has more power than themselves.
This is how slogans like ‘trans women are women’ work.
I remember hearing Douglas Murray say that he would much rather spend his time thinking about art and music than having to defend the West all the bloody time. Do you feel the same? That would be a post I'd like to read.
You once wrote that when you first read about the Middle Ages as a child it was magical. Was that because it was full of princesses, swords and armour or more to do with the romance of all things past? Do you still feel any of that magic? (I don't want to monopolise your time. Maybe you could write a future post about it).
not at all. To me a child I loved the aesthetics of the Middle Ages - yes, the swords and castles and armour and romance - but I also liked the GoT-like drama and struggle for the throne.
Now I've got older and know it much better I've also come to appreciate how remarkable it was in many ways, especially as I'm fully on-board the Holland-popularised idea that the ancient world was truly horrific and scary and heartless. Even though the medieval world was materially less advanced than the ancient, and would remain so in some ways until even the 18th century (tax-raising abilities for instance) or 19th (a city surpasses one million), it was spiritually more developed. Reading about the Black Death, and the victims being buried, it's notable how they were mostly laid out delicately in rows, so that they might have dignity in death. Compare to the footage of 20th century where so often pits were filled with bodies thrown in.
‘Social media has been one the most effective mediums at eroding the respect towards professionals.’
I agree. When we consider the decline of respect for institutions, for "professionals," for government figures, for academia, for "experts," and so on, I think it's obvious that a key element is that instead of seeing participants looking official in a suit and tie, saying something serious that we tune out, we see them on social media revealing themselves to be absolutely nincompoops and barking mad to boot.
This became very evident during COVID in the United States. The turning point was probably when the X hundreds of "public health officials" who'd spent months urging people to socially distance and wear masks and shut down schools and stores, suddenly did a turnabout and said it was just and righteous and even "science" to participate in mass BLM protests.
The professional classes of experts always maintained their hallowed status when they came with an aura of objectivity and nonpartisanship and understanding that truth was above politics and ideologies. But we've seen a collapse of that in just about everything (science, academia, media, and economics).
that really felt like I was completely surrounded by insane people. 'Racism is a bigger disease' - no it isn't you lunatic!
That was a key event, no doubt. In addition, all kinds of people - ministers, bureaucrats, tv personalities, elected officials, reporters - put up Twits or Facebook posts demonstrating, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are deranged and have the reasoning capacity of 5-year-olds. And then they tell the world's regular people to shut up and be "governed."
Pah! I say.
And let's not forget the masking itself. First, Fauci came out and said masks weren't necessary, then he changed his mind and claimed he'd only said that to preserve the mask supply for health workers and for a year everyone went around wearing flimsy cloth masks and judged and shamed people for not wearing masks and banned people from entering stores or schools or businesses without a mask, then it was tacitly admitted by CDC that the cloth masks we virtuously wore for a year did very little and what you really needed were the n95 masks....
Are we to believe it was down to evolving knowledge? Or that the same people urging everyone to wear cloth masks knew all along how ineffective they were? No prizes for the answer!
I'm rather irritated about the vaccines that don't prevent infection and don't prevent transmission. My family was vaccinated in summer of 2021, when the shots were first available, but they shouldn't be mandatory for anyone, now that we know what they don't do.
I particularly liked your comments on counter-culture as I am about to attempt to write a piece on what it tells us about the modern world that Barack Obama should team up with Bruce Springsteen on a coffee-table book entitled "Renegades". (Any thoughts welcome).
it's just children of the 60s forever prizing the values of the revolution I guess. No one believes in being a 'renegade' anymore than some comfortable Soviet apparatchik actually believes in workers rights.
A renegade was a Christian who turned Muslim so I suppose a modern one might be someone shilling for Putin.
I laughed! The history of words have a way of coming back and smacking you in the face.
Good stuff, Ed.
'I wonder if the Beeb are deliberately targeting their most high-brow and respected service in order to protest proposed cuts, or is this me overthinking things?'
I don't think you are. I would assume the same, just as I assume the Labour-run Nottingham council always cuts the most important public services as a way of protesting not being given £1 billion by the Conservative government.
Ed, I read an interesting article a few days ago about the problems facing polling companies in the United States. In the last few elections polls have consistently underperformed Republican performance and it's a problem that seems to be getting worse, and the article points out that large swathes of conservative leaning voters have stopped responding to polls, which leaves the polls distorted by those who who do respond. It cited an example where a poll company had to poll 150,000 possible respondents in Michigan to come up with a same of 1,500. And this is influencing even surveys on public opinions. It pointed out the huge disparity between the popularly shared claim that up to 20% of zoomers have non-traditional sex/gender identities and the 2021 Canadian census showing 1.5% of Canadians report non-trad sex/gender identities (the whole LGBTA+ alphabet).
In short, while we love to cite polls and surveys, it's likely they're increasingly skewed by the ideological and committed and less an accurate portrayal of public opinion on the ground.
yeah that is interesting. no one likes to be an unpopular minority.
I think I sort of wrote this in my permission structures articles but most people hold progressive views in a very thin way, I reckon 1 in 5 actually care and the rest would switch if that's the way the wind blew or it wouldn't damage their chances of a date. Young people see race communism as strong and inevitable so inevitably they go along with it.
Didn't the polling company who got 2016 right do the trick of asking people how they thought their neighbours were voting. Much more accurate apparently!
I do remember reading about the polling company you mentioned. I can see how that'd be a clever way to get people to admit their feelings. On the other hand, I live in an area that is reliably 60% Democratic and 40% Republican so the former candidates always win, but in every election the split among campaign signs is 90% Democratic to 10% Republican candidates. How well do we really know our neighbors? Especially these days when Democratic politics have taken on sharply moralistic overtones so the dissenters just become quiet in public and are left with little but anonymous online discussions.
British politics is still different from American politics, and in some aspects, increasingly so. The divide in American politics isn't incompetence versus blandly untested (although that might change pretty soon with these worrisome economic tremors).
This line in that Rob Henderson piece
People are deterred from dissenting against the regime not because they believe in their dull messages but because they believe the regime has more power than themselves.
This is how slogans like ‘trans women are women’ work.
".... Please send me your ideas and suggestions. ...."
I suggest you don't call your subscribers idiots.
Apologies. It’s a catchphrase or a mangled one ‘I’m literally a communist you idiot’.
But anyway, subscribe to him, he’s great.
'Please send me your ideas and suggestions'.
I remember hearing Douglas Murray say that he would much rather spend his time thinking about art and music than having to defend the West all the bloody time. Do you feel the same? That would be a post I'd like to read.
I'd rather write about history, but I can hardly complain about my job.
As in, history without any modern political resonance. While living in a castle in Gascony.
You once wrote that when you first read about the Middle Ages as a child it was magical. Was that because it was full of princesses, swords and armour or more to do with the romance of all things past? Do you still feel any of that magic? (I don't want to monopolise your time. Maybe you could write a future post about it).
not at all. To me a child I loved the aesthetics of the Middle Ages - yes, the swords and castles and armour and romance - but I also liked the GoT-like drama and struggle for the throne.
Now I've got older and know it much better I've also come to appreciate how remarkable it was in many ways, especially as I'm fully on-board the Holland-popularised idea that the ancient world was truly horrific and scary and heartless. Even though the medieval world was materially less advanced than the ancient, and would remain so in some ways until even the 18th century (tax-raising abilities for instance) or 19th (a city surpasses one million), it was spiritually more developed. Reading about the Black Death, and the victims being buried, it's notable how they were mostly laid out delicately in rows, so that they might have dignity in death. Compare to the footage of 20th century where so often pits were filled with bodies thrown in.
Great links Ed, thanks. My wife has by now accepted that I’ll be spending Sunday mornings reading your recommendations.
I was expecting you to have a link to Sullivan’s latest too, which I thought it’s great plus you got mentioned there.
As long as you establish the precedent there can be no arguing about it later.
I thought linking to Sullivan at the start was probably enough, don't want to look obsessed.
What is 'AMA'? I'm 87 years old, might need explaining to me.
Yes that is a typo, will fix.