Even the meanest of intellects can see that something like a Narrative™ exists. Sometimes we call it “the current thing.” Some call it the “hive mind.” The edgier on the internet refer to the “non-player characters” (NPCs), comparing the people apparently mindlessly parroting the accepted Narrative™ as if they are pre-programmed characters in a video game. As if they have no will of their own.

It’s impossible not to notice, though. When certain issues come up, anybody deviating from a certain position is viciously attacked and “cancelled.” The enforcers come from a certain economic or social class (“The Elite™), and while everybody can be victimized, the people most vulnerable are, ironically, members of the same class. This is because they more than most depend upon the social acceptance of their peers.

The Elite™ are the professional class. They manage things, produce and distribute our news and our entertainment, run corporations, and inhabit all levels of government. They run our schools and universities, and in general are the most visible and powerful in our society. Almost everybody who is “white collar” aspires to join this club.

A few are of underwhelming intelligence, but for the most part they are above average to very smart indeed. More than a few are mere ideologues, but then more than a few are capable of engaging in rational thought. Most are quick on their feet, and if asked to think about something outside The Narrative™ they often turn out to be intelligent and thoughtful.

So the question arises: why are they always saying the same thing? It’s not as if there isn’t ample room for debate on most issues, yet it is rare that we see vigorous debate among the Elite™ classes. Why?

Jeffrey A. Tucker, Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute, took a stab at this question in a great essay published earlier this month.

He makes an important argument that I think fills an important gap in most people’s understanding. While I am a bit less generous regarding the potential malice of some members of the Elite, I believe he hits the nail on the head explaining the near unanimity of Elite™ opinion.

First he lays out the conundrum:

Where was the outrage about school and church closings, the mandatory masking, the wrecked businesses, the bad science, the astonishing lies foisted on the public day after day?

How the heck did this happen? Why is it still happening? In particular, where were intellectuals? Yes, some spoke out and were severely punished for it as a lesson to others.

The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration have said repeatedly that their short statement was the least innovative and controversial statement they ever penned. It was a plain statement of widely accepted public-health principles applied to the current moment. But the moment in which they dropped that bomb was one in which widely accepted principles of public health had been trampled and buried for the six months before.

Thus did this plain statement of normal truths come across as shocking. It wasn’t just what was being said but that actual credentialed academic professionals would dare to deploy their knowledge and status in service of truth rather than regime priorities.

That it was shocking at all tells you all you need to know.

Indeed.

Of course, COVID is hardly unique when it comes to the enforcement of a Narrative™. On all issues of import to the ruling class you see the same phenomenon. Climate change, energy policy, income redistribution, globalism, abortion, population control, transgenderism…name any important issue and at some point everybody in the ruling class aligned and started mouthing the same ridiculous platitudes–and more importantly viciously silenced any dissent.

How? Why? I differ a bit from Tucker on the why, but the “how” of enforcement described by Tucker is spot on.

How to account for this? One explanation is that most intellectuals are controlled by a secret cabal somewhere in the world that is pulling the strings. All people in a position of power and influence readily complied. That explanation is easy but unsatisfying. It is also lacking in evidence. Whenever I look carefully at people such as Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates, I see clowns and fools whose wealth massively outstrips their intelligence.

I don’t believe they could pull it off.

There is a better explanation: opportunism. Another word might be careerism. This particularly applies to journalists and intellectuals. Their career paths absolutely require compliance with prevailing narratives. Any deviation could lead to potential doom for them. The spirit of going along is the driving force of everything they do.

Now I agree that neither Klaus Schwab nor Bill Gates is an evil genius. They do actually play those roles on TV, as it were, and Schwab is so perfect for the role that he could star as a Bond villain and pull it off perfectly. But to a certain extent they are clowns as Tucker describes.

Yet they are much more than that. As clownish as they are, Gates and Schwab do play the role of helping gather the transnational Elites™ into a coherent mass–which actually physically occurs yearly at the World Economic Forum Davos gathering–and they do come together to craft an agenda that becomes a blueprint for the people in power to implement. They even proudly proclaim so. It is not so much a hidden conspiracy as a well developed agenda they (may) genuinely believe is for the benefit of mankind, and is most certainly for the benefit of themselves. I have a VIP article coming out about this exact thing tomorrow.

Yet your average professor or pre-school teacher is neither a member of the ruling class nor taking orders from it. Neither are professors or most newscasters or columnists. It’s not like there are hit squads taking out dissenters. So what gives? Why are they so vulnerable if they dissent?

Tucker provides what I believe is the right answer: they have no skills that can be monetized without pleasing the Elite™, and certainly none that are marketable if the powers-that-be decide they are persona non grata. Get fired as a professor for dissent and kiss your career goodbye.

At all times, everyone in academia must play the game or else face career death. It is extremely hard to move from one academic position to another. You have to pick up and go to another town in another state. And you have to schmooze the existing faculty. If you develop a bad reputation as someone who does not get along with others, you could find yourself blackballed.

No one who has spent 20 years or longer to gain a credential will take that risk.

For this reason, intellectuals, especially in academia, have among the least fungible skill sets. This is why they hardly ever step out of line.

The same applies to journalism. It’s a really tough profession. You start at the local paper writing up crime stories or obituaries, move to a regional paper with a higher status, and so on. The path is set for you. The goal is always the same: major reporter on a single topic at the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. They will do nothing to risk getting off that trajectory because then there is no future.

This means that they must go along, not because anyone is forcing them to do so. They do it out of self-interest. This is why you hardly ever read difficult or unapproved truths in major media outlets. Everyone in this industry knows that rocking the boat is the worst possible way to advance in your career.

All these people hold on to their jobs for dear life. Their biggest fear is getting fired. Not even a tenured professor is safe. A passive-aggressive dean can always pile on a burdensome teaching load or move you to a smaller office. There are ways that colleagues and the dean can come after you.

Look at what happened to Bari Weiss of the New York Times. She had a plum job at the most prestigious newspaper in the country, yet once she stepped out of line she was thrown into the trash and exiled from the profession to which she had dedicated her life. She became a brilliant entrepreneur and built her own audience by breaking with the Narrative™, but that is hardly a path the average reporter would ever take. For most there is nowhere to go. Here she describes why she ultimately resigned from the paper:

My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m “writing about the Jews again.” Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.

So most comply. If they in their own hearts dissent, they keep their heads down. Because otherwise they will be washing dishes for a living. The skills they spent decades building are worthless outside their chosen profession. Who wants a reporter but a publication? Perhaps government, but only if you are compliant.

Tucker’s description of the spinelessness of those in the professions is perfect:

The people who are responsible for shaping the public mind end up as the most craven class of obsequious simps on the planet earth. We want these people to be brave and independent — we need them to be — but in practice they are the complete opposite.

It’s all because their professions are non-fungible. The same is true of medical professionals, sadly, which is why so few objected as their own industry was converted into an instrument of tyranny over three years.

Think about people who in the last years have been tellers of truth. Very often, they were retired. They were independent. They had a solid source of income from family or were wise investors. They wrote for an independent newsletter or Substack. They don’t have bosses or career tracts. It’s only these people who are in a position to say what’s true. …

The fungibility of professions is a major indicator of whether you can trust what the person is saying or doing. Those who are only interested in protecting a paycheck and a single job – clinging to it for dear life for fear of a future of poverty and homelessness – are compromised. That pertains to many of what are called “white collar” jobs. This is why you can trust your hairstylist more than a professor at the local university. She is free to speak her mind and he is not.

All of this applies to everyone in government, obviously, but it also pertains to large corporations, mainstream religions, and central banks too. The bitter irony is that there doesn’t need to be a conspiracy to destroy the world. Most people in the position to stop it refuse to step in simply because they put their professional and financial interests above the moral obligation to tell the truth. They go along to get along simply because they have to.

The one hole in Tucker’s argument, and the basis of my forthcoming VIP post is this: who decides what the Current Thing™ is, and why? Because it doesn’t arise entirely naturally. There is something behind it besides a coalescence of a hive mind. So what is it, or perhaps who?

Stay tuned.

Who decides “The Current Thing?”
Real question. I don’t know.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 23, 2022