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> People just don't trust authorities anymore I would argue that the issue is not mistrust of authority per se, it is rather the rampant politicization of auth

> People just don't trust authorities anymore I would argue that the issue is not mistrust of authority per se, it is rather the rampant politicization of authority. To wit, I feel like a more accurate reflection of the zeitgeist is: People just don't trust authorities with different political leanings than them.

uberman 5y ago
This 110%
tablespoon 5y ago
> I would argue that the issue is not mistrust of authority per se, it is rather the rampant politicization of authority. To wit, I feel like a more accurate reflection of the zeitgeist is: > People just don't trust authorities with different political leanings than them. This. People aren't really looking at "the evidence" to make a personal decision on an issue, they search out some authority that appeals to them and follow that. In the past, I think we probably had more "norming," where people were guided into trusting certain common authorities. I feel that's degraded, probably for a whole host of reasons (e.g. erosion of community by technology, intensification of individualist ideology, discovery by some actors that fomenting division is a short-term winning strategy for them, etc.), and the result is what you describe. Policing misinformation is also kind of norming, but the way it's been done seems kind of ham-fisted due to the demands of technopoly [1]. The failures of too-centralized authority are pretty well known and understood (e.g. through the example of the Soviet Union). Honestly, I feel like our current era may end up being the example of the failures of too-decentralized/too-fragmented authority. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopoly
- thephyber 5y ago
  >> People just don't trust authorities with different political leanings than them. > This. People aren't really looking at "the evidence" to make a personal decision on an issue, they search out some authority that appeals to them and follow that. Never have people always gone to first principles on all of the evidence. They have always looked towards people they trust to prime their beliefs. There were times when experts were that trusted authority. Sadly it’s more common that your crazy conspiracy uncle is now trusted by more people than in the past and authorities are trusted by fewer than in my lifetime.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  "People aren't really looking at "the evidence" to make a personal decision on an issue, they search out some authority that appeals to them and follow that." Far more complicated than this, sorry. I agree with that observation if you gleen your evidence from portrayals in the media...and to some extent this is true but the populist power base in aggregate is far smarter and more purposed than this. What you described in the above quote could also be attributed to flatly thumbing their noses at the evidence because they want a certain outcome and they know they can get it by chaos. You create chaos by appearing to believe outrageous bullshit and acting on it within an approved political arena. It's protected chaotic behavior that serves the populist agenda.
foolinaround 5y ago
Take the Supreme Court judges and how their rulings, and take issues that you can assume. For atleast some of the judges, one can clearly have predicted how they would have voted. The justices might have just taken a vacation on the beach and just call in the vote...
avgcorrection 5y ago
Where there is power there is politics. The implication that authority can be depoliticized is ludicrous. Or perhaps by politics you really mean culture war leanings.
- Ansil849 5y ago
  I am not at all saying that authority can be depoliticized, I am simply pointing out that the underlying politics are what guides adherence to or rejection of a particular authority, depending on whether the authority's politics are in alignment with the recipient's or not. So I feel that statement that 'people just don't trust authority anymore' is not accurate, as people seem perfectly willing, in fact sometimes overly-willing to trust authority, with the caveat being that that authority must align with them politically. To clarify: I am talking about the reception of authority, not the innate linkage of authority itself to the authority figure's politics, but the linkage of the authority figure's politics to the politics of the people deciding whether to be receptive or not to that authority.
jimmyjazz14 5y ago
I think the problem is that literally everything seems to have a political leaning these days.
- Akronymus 5y ago
  "Everything is political" and the like? Yeah, it certainly seems like there are groups pushing to make everything political.
echelon 5y ago
> People just don't trust authorities with different political leanings than them. This. The CDC could do well to hire some conservatives to help with their outreach. Put them in positions of power. Both political parties should do this rather than engage in destructive and polarizing brinkmanship. I'm afraid focus on the short term and on "winning" makes this impossible, though.
- thephyber 5y ago
  This seems like accelerationism, not a solution to CDC’s issues. No, hiring more “conservatives” in a bureaucracy doesn’t balance the political polarity. Our current authority trust problems aren’t fixed by political stance (eg. Trump advocating the COVID vaccine, Fauci is a Republican). There is a strong anti-science, anti-academic, anti-government, anti-expert streak in the US political right. It is not exclusive to the right, but the right massively outranks the left in these characteristics. And pro-conspiracy/paranoia propensity is high, so I suspect facts simply won’t break through to some people. The problems the CDC had aren’t related to politics. It: - failed to build a test for COVID in the critical first weeks, - failed to allow many US labs to import and work with COVID samples, and - has continuously given dictates (eg. about masks) which were too simple. They didn’t trust Americans to say that “masks might work, but we want to reserve the best masks for medical workers and those at highest risk of death”. Michael Lewis had a book which describes how the CDC and FDA are simply too risk averse as the pandemic started (and before). They were unable and unwilling to change. Also, the problem I see isn’t that the CDC doesn’t hire conservatives. It’s more that conservatives don’t enter lots of fields in large numbers. Academia, journalism, science, art are dominated by liberals because conservatives don’t encourage their kids into those fields because modern conservatives don’t value these jobs. That and training for these jobs can easily disabuse people of several tribal attributes of conservatism (eg. It’s hard to be a biologist, geologist, or evolutionist and remain a Young Earth Creationist). It’s hard to retain a literal interpretation of the Bible after learning about other religions and myth stories.
  - nervlord 5y ago
datavirtue 5y ago
It's pretty much all the same to the unwashed "Trump Supporter." There is a populist movement in America that is somehow being missed for what it is. The populists will use and discard politicians on a whim. Whoever is perceived to piss on the establishment the most will curry favor and be elected at that moment. This is what Roger Stone and Steve Bannon we're looking to do with Trump. Slam dunk. This all arises from deep, deep mistrust and a perceived lack of representation on the part of the establishment toward the unwashed. The establishment is on the ropes right now.

uberman 5y ago

This 110%

tablespoon 5y ago

> I would argue that the issue is not mistrust of authority per se, it is rather the rampant politicization of authority. To wit, I feel like a more accurate reflection of the zeitgeist is: > People just don't trust authorities with different political leanings than them. This. People aren't really looking at "the evidence" to make a personal decision on an issue, they search out some authority that appeals to them and follow that. In the past, I think we probably had more "norming," where people were guided into trusting certain common authorities. I feel that's degraded, probably for a whole host of reasons (e.g. erosion of community by technology, intensification of individualist ideology, discovery by some actors that fomenting division is a short-term winning strategy for them, etc.), and the result is what you describe. Policing misinformation is also kind of norming, but the way it's been done seems kind of ham-fisted due to the demands of technopoly [1]. The failures of too-centralized authority are pretty well known and understood (e.g. through the example of the Soviet Union). Honestly, I feel like our current era may end up being the example of the failures of too-decentralized/too-fragmented authority. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopoly

thephyber 5y ago
>> People just don't trust authorities with different political leanings than them. > This. People aren't really looking at "the evidence" to make a personal decision on an issue, they search out some authority that appeals to them and follow that. Never have people always gone to first principles on all of the evidence. They have always looked towards people they trust to prime their beliefs. There were times when experts were that trusted authority. Sadly it’s more common that your crazy conspiracy uncle is now trusted by more people than in the past and authorities are trusted by fewer than in my lifetime.
datavirtue 5y ago
"People aren't really looking at "the evidence" to make a personal decision on an issue, they search out some authority that appeals to them and follow that." Far more complicated than this, sorry. I agree with that observation if you gleen your evidence from portrayals in the media...and to some extent this is true but the populist power base in aggregate is far smarter and more purposed than this. What you described in the above quote could also be attributed to flatly thumbing their noses at the evidence because they want a certain outcome and they know they can get it by chaos. You create chaos by appearing to believe outrageous bullshit and acting on it within an approved political arena. It's protected chaotic behavior that serves the populist agenda.

foolinaround 5y ago

Take the Supreme Court judges and how their rulings, and take issues that you can assume. For atleast some of the judges, one can clearly have predicted how they would have voted. The justices might have just taken a vacation on the beach and just call in the vote...

avgcorrection 5y ago

Where there is power there is politics. The implication that authority can be depoliticized is ludicrous. Or perhaps by politics you really mean culture war leanings.

Ansil849 5y ago
I am not at all saying that authority can be depoliticized, I am simply pointing out that the underlying politics are what guides adherence to or rejection of a particular authority, depending on whether the authority's politics are in alignment with the recipient's or not. So I feel that statement that 'people just don't trust authority anymore' is not accurate, as people seem perfectly willing, in fact sometimes overly-willing to trust authority, with the caveat being that that authority must align with them politically. To clarify: I am talking about the reception of authority, not the innate linkage of authority itself to the authority figure's politics, but the linkage of the authority figure's politics to the politics of the people deciding whether to be receptive or not to that authority.

jimmyjazz14 5y ago

I think the problem is that literally everything seems to have a political leaning these days.

Akronymus 5y ago
"Everything is political" and the like? Yeah, it certainly seems like there are groups pushing to make everything political.

echelon 5y ago

> People just don't trust authorities with different political leanings than them. This. The CDC could do well to hire some conservatives to help with their outreach. Put them in positions of power. Both political parties should do this rather than engage in destructive and polarizing brinkmanship. I'm afraid focus on the short term and on "winning" makes this impossible, though.

thephyber 5y ago
This seems like accelerationism, not a solution to CDC’s issues. No, hiring more “conservatives” in a bureaucracy doesn’t balance the political polarity. Our current authority trust problems aren’t fixed by political stance (eg. Trump advocating the COVID vaccine, Fauci is a Republican). There is a strong anti-science, anti-academic, anti-government, anti-expert streak in the US political right. It is not exclusive to the right, but the right massively outranks the left in these characteristics. And pro-conspiracy/paranoia propensity is high, so I suspect facts simply won’t break through to some people. The problems the CDC had aren’t related to politics. It: - failed to build a test for COVID in the critical first weeks, - failed to allow many US labs to import and work with COVID samples, and - has continuously given dictates (eg. about masks) which were too simple. They didn’t trust Americans to say that “masks might work, but we want to reserve the best masks for medical workers and those at highest risk of death”. Michael Lewis had a book which describes how the CDC and FDA are simply too risk averse as the pandemic started (and before). They were unable and unwilling to change. Also, the problem I see isn’t that the CDC doesn’t hire conservatives. It’s more that conservatives don’t enter lots of fields in large numbers. Academia, journalism, science, art are dominated by liberals because conservatives don’t encourage their kids into those fields because modern conservatives don’t value these jobs. That and training for these jobs can easily disabuse people of several tribal attributes of conservatism (eg. It’s hard to be a biologist, geologist, or evolutionist and remain a Young Earth Creationist). It’s hard to retain a literal interpretation of the Bible after learning about other religions and myth stories.
- nervlord 5y ago

datavirtue 5y ago

It's pretty much all the same to the unwashed "Trump Supporter." There is a populist movement in America that is somehow being missed for what it is. The populists will use and discard politicians on a whim. Whoever is perceived to piss on the establishment the most will curry favor and be elected at that moment. This is what Roger Stone and Steve Bannon we're looking to do with Trump. Slam dunk. This all arises from deep, deep mistrust and a perceived lack of representation on the part of the establishment toward the unwashed. The establishment is on the ropes right now.