Theme: Institution

Including: – The “Adjective-Profession-Name” Formula. – The Disagreeables, – And The “No-Living-Heroes” Theory. 1) Consider these adjectives: Embattled Controversial Divisive Reclusive Provocative Struggling Right-Wing Eccentric Self-styled Far-Left Recovering Disgraced Self-Promoting Free-thinking Volatile etc. 2) These adjectives are really reserved terms and the ‘tells’ of mainstream media letting you know who is off-narrative and who they have marked for reputation neutralization through FUD (Fear-Uncertainty and Doubt) campaigns. 3) So what’s wrong with calling a professor who is controversial, a “controversial professor” you may fairly ask? The problem is that MSM builds client side architecture in your own mind that you don’t notice. Proof? Check the graphic attached. 4) Apparently in the entire history of the internet, this tweet is the first to ever use the phrase “controversial professor Paul Krugman” to describe @paulkrugman even though he is famous for being a controversial professor. So…how can that be? 5) Let’s first dig a bit to look for positive framings of my colleague “controversial professor” @jordanbpeterson. Consider these attachments for a man whose fame is largely due to being a noble inspirational heroic maverick. The point is that real humans don’t talk like this. 6) My point here is that our minds are programmed to recognize the “Gated Institutional Narrative” or GIN and to take our emotional instructions from it. This is Orwell’s 1984 Newspeak: Adjective-Profession-Target. Or so asserts self-styled Internet personality 7) So who are the targets? Men and women who are off the charts on the Big-5 psychometric for disagreeability. These people are the pool from which our greatest Nobel Laureates & even heroes were once drawn. And right now the internet is having a bull market in disagreeability. 8) This brings us to one of my most controversial theories: Ever since Lindbergh’s attempt to keep the US out of WWII, our institutions have fought against us having ANY living heroes with self-minted credibility. This leaves a vacuum filled by acceptable institutional figures. 9) The lesson learned from Lindbergh appears to be that Mavericks are too dangerous to institutions…and in the case of Lindbergh that made some sense. But what about a John Lennon? Frances Kelsey? Charlie Chaplin? Paul Robeson? Frank Wilkinson? Katharine Hepburn? 10) Here’s the punchline: There are suddenly way way too many disagreeable individual voices to be found for people trying to escape from the constant cognitive abuse of our institutions, which want our co-dependence on them. So something new *has* to happen. Here goes… Either: A) The spell of the GIN breaks and we have lots of real self-minted heroes again. B) Disagreeables like Jordan Peterson, Camille Paglia, Nassim Taleb, Douglas Murray, Claire Lehman, etc… all get taken out. C) The institutions seat some of the disagreeables. CLOSING My prediction is that the Gated Institutional Narrative will fail. Exotic measures will be tried to get rid of the strong voices as was done to Jean Seberg. And then, at long bloody last, the institutions will seat the disagreeables. Here’s to Harvard Professor Nassim Taleb. –Eric Weinstein