5 ms·

I'm not going to try to diagnose you, but in general, the outrage that people have that someone is saying the wrong thing online is exactly what I'm talking abo

by rsj_hn 5y ago

I'm not going to try to diagnose you, but in general, the outrage that people have that someone is saying the wrong thing online is exactly what I'm talking about. The definition of "elite" is of course murky, but that does not mean that it's not real. There is a very real process of preference cascades among the discourse of those who hold power in society together with the professional classes that identify with them (even if they themselves do not hold much power). The ability to control the public discourse has collapsed as centralized media has been converted into decentralized social media, which has led to panic and calls to bring social media back to heel. Part of this is the (correct) belief that Trump and other populist phenomena - for example Democratic Socialists and the rise of Bernie Sanders -- are made possible by people being able to communicate with each other directly, bypassing whatever Overton window the major media outlets try to set, and even forming their own tribal Overton windows with no regard to what respectable people at the Heritage Foundation or the New York Times or members of the Davos-set think about this. These outsiders can then win elections or at least threaten to win elections. That creates a moral panic about wrongthink, "misinformation", fact-checker discourse, and general terror that ordinary people are able to communicate freely, form their own opinions, and coordinate without the supervision of elite consensus.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
The point is surely that many people without much power take issue with the discourse that the internet has enabled, and that therefore it is incorrect to hear such opinions and conclude that they can only be about the retention of some kind of power. If you'd like, you could accuse them of "false consciousness" (long a favorite derisive put down from Leninists and their friends), or of simply being patsies for the powerful (more typical of the current US right). So I'm wondering what your explanation of this concern among non-elites?
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > The point is surely that many people without much power take issue with the discourse that the internet has enabled Well sure, but that's always been the case. E.g. in the past, people who were outside the overton window had no choice but to get mad at views they disagreed with as they had great difficulty in getting their own voices heard. Now they can have their own voices heard. They can make their own overton window and completely ignore someone else's. Point being, there is a democratization at work, but whereas those on the outside always had to put up with disagreeable voices, now elites must also put up with it, which is something they are not used to, indeed they are offended by needing to - it's a real shock to them - and this is where the calls for censorship of social media are coming from.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    The Overton window isn't individually defined. It might not be false to say that there's more than one, but there isn't one per person. Most of the outrage isn't about democratization. It's about the gutter-level quality of the voices. I don't think many people at the time had much of a problem with someone like William Buckley being the mouthpiece for the views he expressed on national media, even if they strongly disagreed with those views. He may have been a racist bigot, but he was a thoughtful, literate, articulate racist bigot. Likewise, even the far right tends to have a little grudging respect for the ability of someone like Noam Chomsky to articulate a view of the world with which they fundamentally disagree. But democratization hasn't resulted in lots more voices cleverly or playfully or insightfully or creatively expressing new (or existing) points of view. It has resulted in a culture filled with endlessly repeating garbage, where the dumbest, most simplistic, least nuanced crap dominates by volume. Oh, and of course, endless snark, because people don't actually have the courage to say what they really mean, but instead just use snark to try to make other people seem less funny, less clued in and therefore "obviously" wrong. You seem to be claiming an awfully deep level of insight into the psychology of "elites" > "which is something they are not used to, indeed they are offended by needing to - it's a real shock to them" are you a part of this elite, or perhaps study them? They don't seem to actually write a lot - that would be mostly middle class pundits - or appear on TV or other visual media - that would be said pundits and/or party officials or elected representatives. I'm not sure where this level of insight can come from?
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > The Overton window isn't individually defined. Sure, it is. > It might not be false to say that there's more than one, There is one for any group of people definable as a meaningful political context, down to and including individuals. > but there isn't one per person. Because each person is a coherent political unit and there are also coherent political units with more than one person, there is strictly greater than one Overton window per person.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

by rsj_hn 5y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

The point is surely that many people without much power take issue with the discourse that the internet has enabled, and that therefore it is incorrect to hear such opinions and conclude that they can only be about the retention of some kind of power. If you'd like, you could accuse them of "false consciousness" (long a favorite derisive put down from Leninists and their friends), or of simply being patsies for the powerful (more typical of the current US right). So I'm wondering what your explanation of this concern among non-elites?

rsj_hn 5y ago
> The point is surely that many people without much power take issue with the discourse that the internet has enabled Well sure, but that's always been the case. E.g. in the past, people who were outside the overton window had no choice but to get mad at views they disagreed with as they had great difficulty in getting their own voices heard. Now they can have their own voices heard. They can make their own overton window and completely ignore someone else's. Point being, there is a democratization at work, but whereas those on the outside always had to put up with disagreeable voices, now elites must also put up with it, which is something they are not used to, indeed they are offended by needing to - it's a real shock to them - and this is where the calls for censorship of social media are coming from.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  The Overton window isn't individually defined. It might not be false to say that there's more than one, but there isn't one per person. Most of the outrage isn't about democratization. It's about the gutter-level quality of the voices. I don't think many people at the time had much of a problem with someone like William Buckley being the mouthpiece for the views he expressed on national media, even if they strongly disagreed with those views. He may have been a racist bigot, but he was a thoughtful, literate, articulate racist bigot. Likewise, even the far right tends to have a little grudging respect for the ability of someone like Noam Chomsky to articulate a view of the world with which they fundamentally disagree. But democratization hasn't resulted in lots more voices cleverly or playfully or insightfully or creatively expressing new (or existing) points of view. It has resulted in a culture filled with endlessly repeating garbage, where the dumbest, most simplistic, least nuanced crap dominates by volume. Oh, and of course, endless snark, because people don't actually have the courage to say what they really mean, but instead just use snark to try to make other people seem less funny, less clued in and therefore "obviously" wrong. You seem to be claiming an awfully deep level of insight into the psychology of "elites" > "which is something they are not used to, indeed they are offended by needing to - it's a real shock to them" are you a part of this elite, or perhaps study them? They don't seem to actually write a lot - that would be mostly middle class pundits - or appear on TV or other visual media - that would be said pundits and/or party officials or elected representatives. I'm not sure where this level of insight can come from?
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The Overton window isn't individually defined. Sure, it is. > It might not be false to say that there's more than one, There is one for any group of people definable as a meaningful political context, down to and including individuals. > but there isn't one per person. Because each person is a coherent political unit and there are also coherent political units with more than one person, there is strictly greater than one Overton window per person.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago