When I come across a piece by Joe Stiglitz, I pay attention. This morning he has a column in The Guardian. The subject is the long term damage Donald Trump is doing to his nation's institutions:
What concerns me most is Trump’s disruption of the institutions that are necessary for the functioning of society. Trump’s “Maga” (Make America Great Again) agenda is, of course, not about restoring the moral leadership of the United States. It embodies and celebrates unbridled selfishness and self-absorption. Maga is about economics. But that forces us to ask: what is the basis of America’s
wealth?
Those institutions are rooted in the Scottish Enlightenment and the work of Adam Smith:
Smith himself was a leading light of the great intellectual movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment. The questioning of established authority that followed the earlier Reformation in Europe forced society to ask: how do we know the truth? How can we learn about the world around us? And how can and should we organise our society?
From the search for answers to these questions arose a new epistemology, based on the empiricism and scepticism of science, which came to prevail over the forces of religion, tradition and superstition. Over time, universities and other research institutions were established to help us to judge truth and discover the nature of our world. Much of what we take for granted today – from electricity, transistors and computers to lasers, modern medicine and smartphones – is the result of this new disposition, undergirded by basic scientific research (most of it financed by government).
That process of experimentation, learning and adaptation, however, requires a commitment to ascertaining the truth. Americans owe much of their economic success to a rich set of truth-telling, truth-discovering and truth-verifying institutions. Central among them are freedom of expression and media independence. Like all people, journalists are fallible; but, as part of a robust system of checks and balances on those in positions of power, they have traditionally provided an essential public good.
Trump is engaged in a full court press against truth:
The attack by Trump and his administration on every one of the pillars of American society, and his especially aggressive vilification of the country’s truth-seeking institutions, jeopardises its continued prosperity and very ability to function as a democracy. Nor do there appear to be checks on corporate giants’ efforts to capture the institutions – the courts, legislatures, regulatory agencies, and major media outlets – that are supposed to prevent them from exploiting workers and consumers. A dystopia previously imagined only by science fiction writers is emerging before our eyes. It should give us chills to think of who “wins” in this world, and who or what we might become, just in the struggle to survive.
The dystopian future imagined in 20th Century novels like 1984 and Brave New World is becoming a reality in the 21st Century.
Image: Lord Lawson Of Beamish Academy
8 comments:
We are indeed witnessing an emerging American dystopia, Owen. The seeds of something vaguely similar are sprouting in certain provincial legislatures and, of course, the Scheer Tories.
Who are the people who flock to Trump rallies and cheer as he feeds them one spoonful of horseshit after another? They are people afflicted with what Pierre Berton described as America's deepest flaw - a desperate need to believe.
The somewhat secular "belief-based" and the weirdly devout "faith-based" segment of the electorate constitute Trump's resolute base. It matters not to them what kind of addled, lying, pocket-lining deviant they have for a president. Some evangelicals believe that Trump, warts and all, was sent by their idea of God. Pat Robertson, Jim Bakker and others preach as much.
Wilkinson and Pickett's 2009 book, "The Spirit Level," chronicles how the Red State populations have the very worst social outcomes - health, longevity, unwed pregnancies, STDs, poverty, unemployment, crime and incarceration, porn and much more. Remember, this is the Bible Belt.
It's frightening to witness how the Spirit moves Trump's base, Mound. It's certainly not in the direction of Wisdom.
Animal Farm meets Nineteen Eighty Four in not only the U.S of Eh but "Great?" Britain and coming soon to a province near us IMHO Owen. Cynical, who me?
I don't think you're cynical, Rural. The evidence seems to point in that direction.
Listen I have lost most of my respect for any of the media, today. Imagine the asinine foreign policies ---for example ---Victoria Nuland 'comments they (the US) pick the leader of the Ukraine the EU can go and blank themselves....So what then becomes the foreign policies from the mouths of the US officials to all NATO members...The Ukraine picked their own leader (Victoria declaring for the US). Same asinine set of policy screams about Venezuela, and the truth be gone---regime change American Style and all country's leaders swoon with appropriate lectures to their legislatures ....to a country....not one leader questions for remarks as many civilians pay and die in this phony of phony regime changes...Right now Libya is going to be has badly off as Yemen once their oil is taken over ---(their development bank has already been looted by --lets see which countries were involved --France and Italy and other NATO countries line up for the goodies and yet my country full of two-faced hypocrites are falling over each other about how ethical and moral they are but not the government flavor of this term....liars all.
The libertarians were always in love with Trump. Where are the dummies now who doubted he would deliver for them? What’s their tune now that that it’s obvious that, if there actually is a Deep State of one form or another, he knows how to be its boy?
And to those who want so badly to continue to admire him, having noticed that they need to make room in their buttholes for one more foreign object, we say, “Maybe it won’t hurt so much once it’s all the way in.”
Those who collaborate with dictators usually have to pay a price, Marg. But the price may be a long time coming.
It's remarkable that Trump has gathered so many fools around him, John. But, then, it doesn't take much to be a fool.
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