An incisive post! You focus on the academy and public policy. I would emphasize firms and HR.
Do tenured radicals in schools and universities brainwash students and produce deceivers and enablers at-large in civil society?
Or, instead, do new technologies, broad prosperity, and Wagner's Law (inexorable growth of government) somehow generate a diffuse culture of deceivers and enablers in all institutions and organizations? In this case, tenured radicals are a dependent variable; i.e., an effect, not a cause or independent variable.
People like Yglesias and Klein are parasites (or symbiotes of the progressives, take you pick). Do they understand what you claim they understand? I doubt it, and it isn't in their financial interests to do anything about even if they did.
I would add a fourth category, noting that the categories are not cut and dried but could overlap to some degree. Some actors are deceivers or enablers some or most, but not all, of the time, and skeptics may be skeptics all of the time. Occasionally, the rubber must meet the road, and actors from one of these three categories must step up and become "the courageous." Under current circumstances, and at risk to their political careers, Liz Chaney, Adam Kinzinger and perhaps Ben Sasse come to mind. On the other side of the aisle, Joe Lieberman also might be in the fourth category. It's difficult to come up with a lot of examples, but that's what makes courageous people courageous. They are uncommon and daring.
“I also classify Jonathan Haidt as an enabler… Haidt will not insist that universities must rid themselves completely of their DEI administrators.”
I remember Jordan Peterson suggesting to Haidt in their first conversation that the solution might involve drastically cutting university funding. Haidt’s visible reaction was horror mixed with disgust in a way that ended any consideration of the idea on his part without saying a word.
Nothing short of brilliant. The Klingian tripartite scalpel strikes again.
Regarding enablers, in addition to the co-dependence of a longsuffering loyalist, it seems there are other, more insidious incentives at play. If we move to a broader spectrum, we see that leftists who have nothing good to say about the left can advance their careers by playing both sides against each other. Bill Maher has become an insightful and willing critic of the left, but if he leaves it, he kisses his career goodbye. C. Paglia seems to hold the left in contempt and agrees completely with J. Peterson but reassures her fans that she voted for B. Sanders and thinks he is not quite socialist enough. Even J. Carville knows he gets the most attention when pointing out the stupidity of left wing operatives while making millions as a left wing operative. Greenwald fits more into the Kling category of a straight ahead enabler, but one wonders what the impact is on his substack subscriptions every time he appears on Fox news. The left is where the money is for these individuals, but straddling the divide enriches to a degree that leaving the left behind would never attain. The list goes on....
Opportunity cost needs to be worked into this. As it stands, the Enabler is the bad guy for enabling a deceiver but there’s not a clear cut option in most cases. A voter can choose between a deceiver on his own side or a deceiver of the other tribe.
People who leave their jobs and spouses oftentimes end in worse ones.
Trump was ‘non of the above’ which is why he won and it took a whole lot of fixing, one way or another to get him out.
You missed out listeners and representatives - not unsurprising since they are scarce as hens’ teeth.
Trump listened to 70 million plus people who felt ignored, disenfranchised and represented them and said he would serve their interests - which he did.
On any given issue: climate change, attracting high-skilled immigrants and citizenship for long term residents, deficit reduction, trade liberalization, maintaining representative government, regulatory reform, I can see or at least imagine allies within the Democratic coalition, not among Republicans. But let's make the argument for the right policy and see who bites.
If you'll forgive a bit of a low blow, this is a very tribalistic post. The Skeptics are your tribe, they're as pure as the driven snow, and their enemies are the despicable outgroup. (Remarkable in that regard that you pick two such flawed characters to represent them as Caplan and Hanson. Both are interesting thinkers, but neither has a lick of common sense and both have moral consciences that are far outside the human norm, to put it as nicely as I can without speaking falsely.)
I think if you spent more time immersed in a contemporary campus, you would see that it is indeed a dysfunctional family, but it's one of those dysfunctional families whose members are better together than they are apart, where you can see why they still love each other even though they drive each other crazy.
I'm not one of those people who make everything about slavery and America's racial history, but I really think you're looking at things the wrong way when you suggest that government power was weaker overall and less constraining on the people in America during the country's early history. Yes, this was true economically, but in the same period that it took on more powers to restrict commerce, government gave up the power to force large numbers of people to live as chattel.
I think professors once defied the bully Joseph McCarthy because the like Communism. And it turned out McCarthy was more right than many realized at the time.
Andrew Sullivan might be included in the enabler category, complaining about the leftist excesses while conspicuously positioning himself as a man of the left. He had a great podcast with Christopher Rufo on CRT in schools. Hats off to him for having Rufo in as a guest. In the end Sullivan was forced to grudgingly agree with Rufo’s logic, but you could just feel him squirming to find a way out of it, to avoid offending the progressives in his audience.
I like the overall conception, but I think of these categories as a bit reductive. Klein and Yglesias have both been fairly rewarded for their scribblings, have they not? Being an enabler in a relationship typically means someone who allows a family member to continue a pattern of self-destructive behavior due to the enabler's own weaknesses or emotional/physical needs. The deceivers are not hurting themselves, though; au contraire. It's other people who are suffering, and Klein and Yglesias have not failed to benefit from the whole racket.
Rather, I would categorize them more like mafia wives: Carmela Soprano or Karen Hill from Goodfellas. Indirect beneficiaries or active participants in an amoral enterprise.
"Don't give me the babe in the woods routine, Karen. I've listened to those wiretaps and I've heard you on the telephone, talking about cocaine."
Natural selection has inclined us toward being Enablers. We are designed for collective action in small groups, where it is really possible to persuade all or almost all of one's comrades on a course of action beneficial to the group, to get their assent, and to monitor their performance. When we carry these inclinations over to political decision-making in a modern nation-state, we fall into Enabling.
An incisive post! You focus on the academy and public policy. I would emphasize firms and HR.
Do tenured radicals in schools and universities brainwash students and produce deceivers and enablers at-large in civil society?
Or, instead, do new technologies, broad prosperity, and Wagner's Law (inexorable growth of government) somehow generate a diffuse culture of deceivers and enablers in all institutions and organizations? In this case, tenured radicals are a dependent variable; i.e., an effect, not a cause or independent variable.
People like Yglesias and Klein are parasites (or symbiotes of the progressives, take you pick). Do they understand what you claim they understand? I doubt it, and it isn't in their financial interests to do anything about even if they did.
I would add a fourth category, noting that the categories are not cut and dried but could overlap to some degree. Some actors are deceivers or enablers some or most, but not all, of the time, and skeptics may be skeptics all of the time. Occasionally, the rubber must meet the road, and actors from one of these three categories must step up and become "the courageous." Under current circumstances, and at risk to their political careers, Liz Chaney, Adam Kinzinger and perhaps Ben Sasse come to mind. On the other side of the aisle, Joe Lieberman also might be in the fourth category. It's difficult to come up with a lot of examples, but that's what makes courageous people courageous. They are uncommon and daring.
“I also classify Jonathan Haidt as an enabler… Haidt will not insist that universities must rid themselves completely of their DEI administrators.”
I remember Jordan Peterson suggesting to Haidt in their first conversation that the solution might involve drastically cutting university funding. Haidt’s visible reaction was horror mixed with disgust in a way that ended any consideration of the idea on his part without saying a word.
Nothing short of brilliant. The Klingian tripartite scalpel strikes again.
Regarding enablers, in addition to the co-dependence of a longsuffering loyalist, it seems there are other, more insidious incentives at play. If we move to a broader spectrum, we see that leftists who have nothing good to say about the left can advance their careers by playing both sides against each other. Bill Maher has become an insightful and willing critic of the left, but if he leaves it, he kisses his career goodbye. C. Paglia seems to hold the left in contempt and agrees completely with J. Peterson but reassures her fans that she voted for B. Sanders and thinks he is not quite socialist enough. Even J. Carville knows he gets the most attention when pointing out the stupidity of left wing operatives while making millions as a left wing operative. Greenwald fits more into the Kling category of a straight ahead enabler, but one wonders what the impact is on his substack subscriptions every time he appears on Fox news. The left is where the money is for these individuals, but straddling the divide enriches to a degree that leaving the left behind would never attain. The list goes on....
Opportunity cost needs to be worked into this. As it stands, the Enabler is the bad guy for enabling a deceiver but there’s not a clear cut option in most cases. A voter can choose between a deceiver on his own side or a deceiver of the other tribe.
People who leave their jobs and spouses oftentimes end in worse ones.
‘ Think Clinton, Obama, or Trump.’
Trump was ‘non of the above’ which is why he won and it took a whole lot of fixing, one way or another to get him out.
You missed out listeners and representatives - not unsurprising since they are scarce as hens’ teeth.
Trump listened to 70 million plus people who felt ignored, disenfranchised and represented them and said he would serve their interests - which he did.
If he hadn’t he would still be in the WH.
So, "What Is To Be Done?"
On any given issue: climate change, attracting high-skilled immigrants and citizenship for long term residents, deficit reduction, trade liberalization, maintaining representative government, regulatory reform, I can see or at least imagine allies within the Democratic coalition, not among Republicans. But let's make the argument for the right policy and see who bites.
I wish I could disagree with this post.
I wish I could disagree with this post.
An earlier expression of this idea simply called them Moes, Larrys and Curlys.
If you'll forgive a bit of a low blow, this is a very tribalistic post. The Skeptics are your tribe, they're as pure as the driven snow, and their enemies are the despicable outgroup. (Remarkable in that regard that you pick two such flawed characters to represent them as Caplan and Hanson. Both are interesting thinkers, but neither has a lick of common sense and both have moral consciences that are far outside the human norm, to put it as nicely as I can without speaking falsely.)
I think if you spent more time immersed in a contemporary campus, you would see that it is indeed a dysfunctional family, but it's one of those dysfunctional families whose members are better together than they are apart, where you can see why they still love each other even though they drive each other crazy.
I'm not one of those people who make everything about slavery and America's racial history, but I really think you're looking at things the wrong way when you suggest that government power was weaker overall and less constraining on the people in America during the country's early history. Yes, this was true economically, but in the same period that it took on more powers to restrict commerce, government gave up the power to force large numbers of people to live as chattel.
I think professors once defied the bully Joseph McCarthy because the like Communism. And it turned out McCarthy was more right than many realized at the time.
Andrew Sullivan might be included in the enabler category, complaining about the leftist excesses while conspicuously positioning himself as a man of the left. He had a great podcast with Christopher Rufo on CRT in schools. Hats off to him for having Rufo in as a guest. In the end Sullivan was forced to grudgingly agree with Rufo’s logic, but you could just feel him squirming to find a way out of it, to avoid offending the progressives in his audience.
I like the overall conception, but I think of these categories as a bit reductive. Klein and Yglesias have both been fairly rewarded for their scribblings, have they not? Being an enabler in a relationship typically means someone who allows a family member to continue a pattern of self-destructive behavior due to the enabler's own weaknesses or emotional/physical needs. The deceivers are not hurting themselves, though; au contraire. It's other people who are suffering, and Klein and Yglesias have not failed to benefit from the whole racket.
Rather, I would categorize them more like mafia wives: Carmela Soprano or Karen Hill from Goodfellas. Indirect beneficiaries or active participants in an amoral enterprise.
"Don't give me the babe in the woods routine, Karen. I've listened to those wiretaps and I've heard you on the telephone, talking about cocaine."
Natural selection has inclined us toward being Enablers. We are designed for collective action in small groups, where it is really possible to persuade all or almost all of one's comrades on a course of action beneficial to the group, to get their assent, and to monitor their performance. When we carry these inclinations over to political decision-making in a modern nation-state, we fall into Enabling.