4 ms·

Gosh, really accurate. Reminds me of Eric Weinstein's "Kayfabe Politics" concept a bit as well [0]. From the article: > Mr Curtis: No one is really sure what

Gosh, really accurate. Reminds me of Eric Weinstein's "Kayfabe Politics" concept a bit as well [0]. From the article: > Mr Curtis: No one is really sure what Trump represents. My working theory is that he’s part of the pantomime-isation of politics. Every morning Donald Trump wakes up in the White House, he tweets something absolutely outrageous which he knows the liberals will get upset by, the liberals read his tweets and go “This is terrible, this is outrageous,” and then tell each other via social media how terrible it all is. It becomes a feedback loop in which they are locked together. In my mind, it’s like they’re together in a theatre watching a pantomime villain. The pantomime villain comes forward into the light, looks at them and says something terrible, and they go “Boo!!”. Meanwhile, outside the theatre, real power is carrying on but no one is really analysing it. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRGVk4d6Gkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRGVk4d6Gkk

HourglassFR 6y ago
This idea can be traced even further back to Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle It's not that surprising to find it here, the Situationist had a lasting impact on the intellectual theory of the left.
esyir 6y ago
This is basically the same thing as the "deep state" narrative that's popular in right-aligned, just with different window dressing.
- sebmellen 6y ago
  To say there's no "deep state" is a contradiction of very clear reality. Whatever you call them, the doyens of the DC establishment are permanent members of our government. Chomsky and Peter Dale Scott were some of the first to use the "deep state" terminology, and I have no idea how you could call them or their philosophy "right-aligned." The deep state, as Eisenhower warned of it (though by the name of the military-industrial complex), is very real. Further to your point that pointing this out is to be "right-aligned," Weinstein is/was a Bernie supporter. If you want to argue that opposing these sick and deeply entrenched power structures is "right-aligned," I'll gladly adopt the label.
  - astrange 6y ago
    It's odd to complain about this in the US, a country which has an unusually high amount of political appointees. The UK and China are the ones with giant permanent civil services. We probably need more of it so we can keep expertise longer than 4 years at a time.
    - sebmellen 6y ago
      I think you're getting at something very different, and I don't disagree. But the US is perhaps unique in that it has a massive lesion caused by the tumorous growth of the "military–industrial complex" — or whatever other name you want to give it — and this is entirely different from the civil service type of appointee you mention. Someone who heads the CDC or NIAID, though perhaps identified as a member of the "deep state" by some on the fringe right, is not the deep state. I'm talking more about the high-powered lobbyist who works for a private-equity-owned, $24 billion valuation, silent giant kind of company that manufactures surveillance and missile equipment.

HourglassFR 6y ago

This idea can be traced even further back to Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle It's not that surprising to find it here, the Situationist had a lasting impact on the intellectual theory of the left.

esyir 6y ago

This is basically the same thing as the "deep state" narrative that's popular in right-aligned, just with different window dressing.

sebmellen 6y ago
To say there's no "deep state" is a contradiction of very clear reality. Whatever you call them, the doyens of the DC establishment are permanent members of our government. Chomsky and Peter Dale Scott were some of the first to use the "deep state" terminology, and I have no idea how you could call them or their philosophy "right-aligned." The deep state, as Eisenhower warned of it (though by the name of the military-industrial complex), is very real. Further to your point that pointing this out is to be "right-aligned," Weinstein is/was a Bernie supporter. If you want to argue that opposing these sick and deeply entrenched power structures is "right-aligned," I'll gladly adopt the label.
- astrange 6y ago
  It's odd to complain about this in the US, a country which has an unusually high amount of political appointees. The UK and China are the ones with giant permanent civil services. We probably need more of it so we can keep expertise longer than 4 years at a time.
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    I think you're getting at something very different, and I don't disagree. But the US is perhaps unique in that it has a massive lesion caused by the tumorous growth of the "military–industrial complex" — or whatever other name you want to give it — and this is entirely different from the civil service type of appointee you mention. Someone who heads the CDC or NIAID, though perhaps identified as a member of the "deep state" by some on the fringe right, is not the deep state. I'm talking more about the high-powered lobbyist who works for a private-equity-owned, $24 billion valuation, silent giant kind of company that manufactures surveillance and missile equipment.