The post title is taken from a Liz Truss observation in this video made a few months ago - UK elites are able to rationalise truly bizarre things. Anyone paying attention will know this already, but she is very good at articulating the internal government issues degrading UK democracy.
4 comments:
Quote
‘Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'
I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.“‘
‘Through the Looking Glass’ is starting to look more and more like a documentary…
Thanks, AKH, that's a marvellous little clip that is very revealing. for me, there are two main issues.
1) Isn't it amazing that Truss is now routinely parodied as being completely insane, a screechy little woman who couldn't hack the top job because she had extreme ideas about economics? This is, I think, what happens when you challenge the status quo. Peter Hitchens pointed out years ago that you could always tell when a politician had fallen from favour with the elite. All their pictures in newspapers and on the internet showed them as gormless or mad: mouth open, eyes closed, snarling, whatever. This is exactly in line with what Truss says - there is no central directive, but people just realise that if they want to advance their career (in the loosest sense) as a comedian or commentator, then they had best start looking for the things that everyone else has taken against.
2) The idea that elites and intelligent people have mad ideas because they are better at rationalising them is a powerful and useful one. It probably applies more to Arts and Humanities types, which is why we see insane theories about gender and human rights and excellence in art, while the people who run nuclear power stations and bakeries and computer systems are conservative in their thinking. (Climate change is of course the exception, but that doesn't appear to be a proper science....) The question is why they are susceptible to made ideas if they are intelligent. It seems that there is a type of intelligence which allows us to understand new ideas, and a type of intelligence which enables us to rationalise those ideas once accepted. Something to do with conformation bias, perhaps.
Sorry, that should be "confirmation", not "conformation". Saw it as I was pressing "send"!
Macheath - "‘Through the Looking Glass’ is starting to look more and more like a documentary…"
Yes it is and it's becoming uncomfortable to dwell on. People at the top shouldn't be this loopy. A few we can cope with, but Liz Truss is right, there is a serious groupthink issue.
Sam - the full length video is good too, although enough key points are in this clip. There is a powerful elite groupthink aspect to it which seems to have become particularly intolerant of dispassionate analysis.
Maybe some of it is pressure from below, the realisation that millions of ordinary people know how poorly they are governed and what silly nonsense is foisted on them. Yes confirmation bias seems to be socially important, elites must have it in order to stay on board.
Post a Comment