- 15 Jun 2019 14:36
#15012132
One reason that propaganda often works better on the educated than on the uneducated is that educated people read more, so they receive more propaganda. Another is that they're the commissars. They have jobs as agents of propaganda, and they believe it. By and large, they're part of the privileged elite, and share their interests and perceptions. — Noam Chomsky
"Very Serious People" is a mocking title given to "inside the Beltway"[2] pundits whose views remain "respectable" among centrist politicians despite either:
a)being dishonest and self-serving,
b)presenting facile "common sense" analyses as Great Wisdom, and
c)consistently getting political predictions or policy recommendations wrong.
They identify with Northeastern, upper middle class, respectable person values and culture to a man, regardless of original background. Public policy discussions are filtered via a parochial, gated community lens.
They are reluctant to identify their exact politics, but if they do, they usually identify themselves as something uncontroversial such as being "moderately liberal", "moderately conservative,", "center-left", "center-right", a "traditionalist," or as being a "responsible conservative" or being a "grown up".
They consistently take the moderate positions of their time. Very rarely will an individual Very Serious Person have an opinion that is too far out of the mainstream. This also leads to VSPs being reflexively dismissive of alternate political perspectives, such as libertarianism and socialism, regardless of the truth value of individual claims.
They overemphasize civility and niceness in public discourse. The Tea Party movement and Donald Trump on the right, and the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements on the left, are looked down upon not because of their aims, but because their tactics are too "disruptive" and "mean".
As long as the previous caveat is satisfied, they have a fondness for the style over substance fallacy when evaluating political positions. Bullshit wrapped in a folksy anecdote and a G-rated zinger is more worthy of praise than the sober counter-point.
They get bored examining proxy causes or causal chains with more than two links. They love the abuse of Occam's razor.
They are hegemonic. The government, regardless of ideology, is given the benefit of the doubt. This is especially true of the U.S. military. At the same time, a VSP discounts the competence of a private citizen and the reliability of the private sector.[7]
But most importantly:
They face no punishment, ridicule, or loss of status for incorrect predictions or mistaken opinions, as long as the predictions and opinions were mainstream when they were made.
Typical policies
On economics, they are neoliberals to a man. They are staunch and reflexive supporters of free trade, supporting all trade deals while often not going into detail about why they actually support them beyond "just because". This includes hardline support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and dismissal of anybody (even actual economists) who disagrees. The European Union and NAFTA are sacrosanct and must never be questioned, and as such, they are very hostile to Euroskepticism and the Brexit, which they blame on ignorance and consider blasphemy of the worst order. This is coupled with deficit hawkery, placing an emphasis on budget deficits and "fiscal responsibility" over and beyond what both left-wing and right-wing economists do. They led the call for austerity in the face of the Great Recession, arguing that countries like Greece, Spain, and Portugal should be forced to impose large budget cuts or else face sanctions. They love the International Monetary Fund keeping the world on the hook with insupportable debt, and call it democracy.
On foreign policy, they are neoconservatives to a man. They enthusiastically support wars, (especially, preventive wars) along with peacekeeping operations and nation building as long as these military operations aren't too bloody. American VSPs are big into American exceptionalism, while their British counterparts are fans of "whig history", both viewpoints that, in the 1990s and 2000s, led to support for a neoconservative policy of "spreading democracy".
While Very Serious People are mostly harmless insofar that they allow the country they reside in to bumble along inefficiently, the insistence on respectability and consensus over the more important concern of being correct can have disastrous consequences.
That said, the existence and historical failures of Very Serious People should not be evidence of useful idiots propping up some sinister government agenda. Rather, it's a result of insular groupthink and the need to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible. Very Serious People have existed throughout history. The truth hurts and confrontation is offensive, but pablum is a warm puppy. Paul Krugman also refers to this as "Serious Person Syndrome," which states "it’s better to have been conventionally wrong than unconventionally right."
"Very Serious People" is a mocking title given to "inside the Beltway"[2] pundits whose views remain "respectable" among centrist politicians despite either:
a)being dishonest and self-serving,
b)presenting facile "common sense" analyses as Great Wisdom, and
c)consistently getting political predictions or policy recommendations wrong.
They identify with Northeastern, upper middle class, respectable person values and culture to a man, regardless of original background. Public policy discussions are filtered via a parochial, gated community lens.
They are reluctant to identify their exact politics, but if they do, they usually identify themselves as something uncontroversial such as being "moderately liberal", "moderately conservative,", "center-left", "center-right", a "traditionalist," or as being a "responsible conservative" or being a "grown up".
They consistently take the moderate positions of their time. Very rarely will an individual Very Serious Person have an opinion that is too far out of the mainstream. This also leads to VSPs being reflexively dismissive of alternate political perspectives, such as libertarianism and socialism, regardless of the truth value of individual claims.
They overemphasize civility and niceness in public discourse. The Tea Party movement and Donald Trump on the right, and the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements on the left, are looked down upon not because of their aims, but because their tactics are too "disruptive" and "mean".
As long as the previous caveat is satisfied, they have a fondness for the style over substance fallacy when evaluating political positions. Bullshit wrapped in a folksy anecdote and a G-rated zinger is more worthy of praise than the sober counter-point.
They get bored examining proxy causes or causal chains with more than two links. They love the abuse of Occam's razor.
They are hegemonic. The government, regardless of ideology, is given the benefit of the doubt. This is especially true of the U.S. military. At the same time, a VSP discounts the competence of a private citizen and the reliability of the private sector.[7]
But most importantly:
They face no punishment, ridicule, or loss of status for incorrect predictions or mistaken opinions, as long as the predictions and opinions were mainstream when they were made.
Typical policies
On economics, they are neoliberals to a man. They are staunch and reflexive supporters of free trade, supporting all trade deals while often not going into detail about why they actually support them beyond "just because". This includes hardline support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and dismissal of anybody (even actual economists) who disagrees. The European Union and NAFTA are sacrosanct and must never be questioned, and as such, they are very hostile to Euroskepticism and the Brexit, which they blame on ignorance and consider blasphemy of the worst order. This is coupled with deficit hawkery, placing an emphasis on budget deficits and "fiscal responsibility" over and beyond what both left-wing and right-wing economists do. They led the call for austerity in the face of the Great Recession, arguing that countries like Greece, Spain, and Portugal should be forced to impose large budget cuts or else face sanctions. They love the International Monetary Fund keeping the world on the hook with insupportable debt, and call it democracy.
On foreign policy, they are neoconservatives to a man. They enthusiastically support wars, (especially, preventive wars) along with peacekeeping operations and nation building as long as these military operations aren't too bloody. American VSPs are big into American exceptionalism, while their British counterparts are fans of "whig history", both viewpoints that, in the 1990s and 2000s, led to support for a neoconservative policy of "spreading democracy".
While Very Serious People are mostly harmless insofar that they allow the country they reside in to bumble along inefficiently, the insistence on respectability and consensus over the more important concern of being correct can have disastrous consequences.
That said, the existence and historical failures of Very Serious People should not be evidence of useful idiots propping up some sinister government agenda. Rather, it's a result of insular groupthink and the need to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible. Very Serious People have existed throughout history. The truth hurts and confrontation is offensive, but pablum is a warm puppy. Paul Krugman also refers to this as "Serious Person Syndrome," which states "it’s better to have been conventionally wrong than unconventionally right."
Socialism without freedom is fascism.