Is the World Returning to the Dark Ages? | Salman Rushdie | Big Think
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- čas přidán 22. 10. 2017
- Is the World Returning to the Dark Ages?
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Well! Salman Rushdie pretty much predicted the future in his new book, The Golden House, wherein the antagonist is "a ruthlessly ambitious, narcissistic, media-savvy villain sporting makeup and coloured hair." Read into that what you will, but Rushdie here posits that he's baffled by the sudden worldwide rejection of knowledge and the elites. He says that it's not just an invention of the American right wing - that it's a worldwide problem that's helped in large part by the likes of Fox News et al - and he wonders both what gave rise to that and how it will stop. Perhaps he'll have to write a sequel.
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SALMAN RUSHDIE:
Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist and writer, author of ten novels including Midnight’s Children (Booker Prize, 1981), Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, and The Golden House.
The publication of his fourth novel "The Satanic Verses" in 1988 led to violent protests in the Muslim world for its depiction of the prophet Mohammad. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a death fatwa against Rushdie, which sent him into hiding for nearly a decade. Rushdie weathered countless death threats and many assassination attempts.
In June 2007, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. In 2008 he became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was named a Library Lion of the New York Public Library. In addition, "Midnight’s Children" was named the Best of the Booker-the best prize-winner in the award’s 40 year history-by a public vote. In 2008, The Times of London ranked Rushdie thirteenth on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945."
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TRANSCRIPT:
Salman Rushdie: Well, I saw a really alarming newspaper article just a week or so ago in which it was-some survey had shown that more than 50 percent of self-identifying Republicans believed that universities were bad for America, really that universities were actually a negative, harmful force in American life.
I mean I had never seen any group of people saying that before, so that was shocking.
And I do think this is not unique to America, because also in England there is a similar kind of distrust of expertise.
In the Brexit vote there-one of the things that came up over and over again was a dislike of experts “telling you what to think”.
And so somehow this mistrust of “people who know things” has become internationalized, it’s not just something about the American Right.
Obviously to somebody who has seen knowledge as being a great virtue and who has spent his life trying to accumulate little bits of it and somebody who thinks of knowledge as a kind of beauty, it’s very discomforting to say the least to have people who think of it as being suspicious. You know, um...
Because what’s happening it seems to me is a strange distortion of the idea of the elite.
If you ask me “What’s an elite?” I would think more about the many, many billionaires sitting in the Trump administration.
Here’s a government with more super-rich people in it than has ever been in any American government, and that government calls college professors and journalists elites.
We’re not the ones with private planes and golf courses in the Bahamas-relatively few novelists have these things. And the idea that we’re the elites, whereas that group, that kind of 0.1 of the 1 percent that considers itself to be in some way possessing the common touch, that just seems like an absurd comic inversion of reality.
I think one of the things we see at the moment, and I tried to in a way capture in the novel, is this idea of a world turned upside down, in which things that one thought of as being normal-solid, believable descriptions of reality-are being stood on their head everyday.
The idea of reality itself, the idea of truth is something verifiable and objective, all these things are being inverted and knocked off their pedestals.
Well, I mean there is a terrible thing which writers sometimes say to each other, which is, “The worse it is the better it is,” because when the world is in a terrible condition there’s a lot to write about.
I mean one demonstration of this is the literature, very often underground literature-the Samizdat literature of the Soviet Union was of an extraordinary quality when there was this colossal adversary of Soviet authoritarianism. Many writers, both in a fiction and nonfiction, r...
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I mostly agree with what is being conveyed in this video lecture from Salman Rushdie ... But I would interject by also acknowledging the Toxic and Coercive nature of identity politics!
This is the problem... you can't get smart fast. The fact that you promote it is the fallacy. Didi you even listen to what Rushdie just said in his video? The problem is with people who have gotten smart fast, distrusting experts who have acquired their knowledge over a lifetime.
If I had money I would be doing dumbest shit with it!
“The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe. For the axe was clever & convinced the trees that because his handle was wood he was one of them”
Holly shit this is great
So true Richard.
@@rickycontreras2766 i believe it's paraphrasing an aesop fable
Brilliant!
Deep.
Let's not call them 'super' rich. They'll like that description. Let's instead call them what they are: obscene accumulators of capital by public theft.
They will be fine, on the Cayman Islands. While the upper half, of the middle class will burn. When the retribution, and wealth taxes start.
Exploiters of humankind.
Yes. This.
Very marxist
@@zufalllx let me guess, Karl Marx sucks and Capitalism is the best thing ever, huh? Look around you man. Capitalism is destroying the planet and the “small folk” around the world. How much more wealth needs to pool at the top before you say “ok, maybe there is a better way to run an economy?”?
When did feeling like you're "right" become more important than being educated enough to make a proper choice about something? People have become so self-centered.
Yes. Especially on the pronouns bullshit.
@@joesoldchanneldeprecated5948 We've already been through the pronouns thing fifty years ago and people whinged about it then but surprise surprise you now use those pronouns all the time without blinking an eye. Staying on the pronoun train will see you left at the station. Find something more important to support.
@@joesoldchanneldeprecated5948 they’re talking about people like you.
When we talk about people being self centered?
We are talking. About. You. And. Your. Kind.
Ego drives the ambitious
@@Cravenfester A lot more than ego drives my ambitions…. But ego is a part of it. It’s also a huge enemy that tricks you into thinking you don’t need to grow further.
'" If a people want to be both ignorant and free, they want what has never been and can never be" Thomas Jefferson
Ironic coming from Thomas Jefferson.
@@justthetipification Why is it ironic coming from Jefferson?
@@aransin167 slave owner
@@aransin167 the man was a slave owner who I think had the most slaves of any US president. Lots of people in those days tried to justify slavery by implying that African Americans were too “ignorant” or “uncivilised” for freedom. Which is incorrect. Many slaves tried to learn to read and write but there were laws against it in many states because slaveowners were worried that educated slaves would rebel. So essentially slaveowners and other supporters of slavery sought to prevent slaves from learning to read or write (things that would have made it easier for them to organise and rebel).
They claimed that slaves were ignorant because they banned them from reading and writing. Whether or not Jefferson himself supported those laws I don’t know, but I imagine he probably didn’t want his slaves to be too educated because they might not have wanted to be slaves anymore.
So the slaves lacked freedom and were forced to be ignorant? How is it ironic for him to say that a people can't be both free and ignorant? Slaves were kept ignorant so it would be harder for them to gain their own freedom. Now we have freedom and choose to exercise it through the pursuit of ignorance.. Which will lead to loss of freedom...
I think it's far from ironic, it's accurate in a rather unnerving way.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
― Isaac Asimov
photonrayswaves beautifully said
Very well said welcome to America
photonrayswaves Wealthy Religious people disagree on education because they want to keep the lower income people ignorant. The more ignorant and brainwash the better so they can keep taking that 10% of your paycheck. Food for thought!
photonrayswaves True. Atlas Shrugged personified
Chuck-U Farly Religion is the reason society has come as far as it has today. People's fear of god kept them from doing things that are adverse to a functioning society. Until very recently law's couldn't be forced successfully, they only thing that kept people in check was their fear of a high power.
The less intelligent the people - the easier it is to govern them.
Only if your style of governance is an authoritarian one.
Roxor128 No, that is really not true. First, some people under authoritarian regimes are extremely intelligent, thoughtful human beings. Second, so-called democratic regimes still need to keep a certain amount of workforce docile and filling the factories for the elite to get rich. The "bread and circus" from the Roman Empire still works today.
+Vendicar Decarian "So you think you could govern 300 million cats?"
I am going to go out on a limb here, and assume you are not literally talking about literally governing 300 million cats. Because you would be an absolute moron if you did.
So I am going to interpret this to mean you are talking about human beings who are independent thinkers, who won't simply believe what someone tells them. Who are they? They are people who engage in critical thinking, logic, etc., and rather than simply accept what they are told - they question it. Freethinkers, skeptics, etc.
If you separate out people who are skeptics and freethinkers, and compare them to the rest of society, you will find a trend that they are better educated (this can be entirely self-education) and more intelligent overall. Why? Well, it isn't that using critical thinking makes you intelligent, but the simple fact that people who are not intelligent will have difficulty comprehending critical thinking and actually using it. So you will find a bias towards intelligence. I do think that people who are smarter tend to be more curious about understanding the world around them.
Which is not to say that incredibly intelligent people can't be total sheep. Because they can.
+Vendicar Decarian "Cats are also low intelligence free thinkers, so are monkeys, and rats."
Wow, so you really are a moron. I stand corrected.
Problem solving skills in animals is the closest analogy to freethought for which there is evidence. Freethought is a philosophical position which drives particular forms of problem solving. And problem solving is considered a direct indicator of intelligence. I would love to see any peer-reviewed evidence that any non-human animals engage in freethought, if you can offer anything up. Although I just expect to be disappointed with this.
What makes animals easy to govern is their social structure. Hive animals would be at the pinnacle of this. Naked molerats, ants, bees, etc. Are they the super-intelligences of the Earth? Your analogy is sloppy shit, pardon my French. Intelligence does not correspond to ease of governance.
As far as I know, the best predictor of political affiliation is brain structure, which slightly edges out (by
+Vendicar Decarian "So you think that you could heard 300,000,000 cats. LOL!"
Where did I say that? Cite it. Are you just pretending to read English? What is the social structure of cats?
Since you evaded the question, I can only assume that you agree that hive animals are the most intelligent species on Earth. Ants and bees are smarter than you, apparently.
"Try herding the equivalent volume of flat worms."
And what is the social structure of flat worms? Do flat worms organize in societies in nature? Do you really fail to understand how some animals can be "herded" or made to do what people want them to do?
"Yes. Conservatives are mentally inferior. And that is what makes them difficult to govern. They are just too stupid."
I cited scientific research to back up my claim. Now you back up your claim with a citation of scientific research. If you want to make stuff up, you are just playing into the propaganda of conservatives. Don't be lazy and stupid.
If you really believe that all conservatives are mentally "inferior" (a concise definition would be helpful) to all liberals, I am afraid you are delusional.
“Distrust of expertise,” perfect description of anti-intellectualism. It’s killing us.
In America, it feels to me like a condemnation of intellectual superiority akin to the attitude of spoiled children rebelling against their babysitter and Trump as the anti-babysittter, the permissive, give the children whatever they want so they'll like me sort that while popular with the kids, always happens to be in charge when that permissive attitude results in tragedy. Authority like that rarely comprehends the potential dangers of dismissing the rulebook or even the reason for rules, in the first place.
I've met people who were smart in a given field but ignorant in others, people who think they are superior to others based on intelligence need to realize that ability is god-given. Humility is to realize we are all fallible, no one is perfect!!!!
@@kurtomer1 yea but that's not the point. It's more akin to not trusting the medical advice from a doctor. Dismissive of opinions of relevant fields.
@@codacreator6162 hahahahahahahahahah you could not be more fucking wrong. I’m pretty sure the democrats who want the government to wipe their ass and spoon feed them are the babies. I pity but also admire your cluelessness
@@codacreator6162 This is a very true point. I've been observing this issue with the infantilization of grown americans acting like overgrown children. I think one of the key issues in that regard is that american children don't learn self reliance. Where I come from it is perfectly normal that 2nd graders walk or cycle to school, be around with their friends outside and unsupervised or run errands around town at the age of 10. This would be illegal in the US, while sheltering your children and helicoptering around them is the norm. There has been cases in the us where child protective services gave parents shit for them playing alone outside of their own friggin house. This is partially due to car dependent infrastructure (no walkble neighbourhoods and no public transport means no mobility for anyone without a license) and extremely unhealthy and unfounded paranoia of "all people bad, kidnappers everywhere" on the parents part.
not learning self reliance at a young age due to being overly sheltered of course leads to not being sufficiently self reliant as a young adult and without the right amount of self awareness forever.
The price you pay for allowing your country to be run in the interests of big corporates only.
Like Alphabet, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, Big Pharma, Big Ag, big woke-a-cola, slave labor nike, big government and all its unelected and anonymous administrators, regulators, and lobbyists. Oh and Big Ed where the unions and tenure are the only thing that matters and even though Marxism is being taught unbeknownst to parents at all levels of school including universities and all diversity of thought is shutdown and conservative voices are all but banned on university campuses...yeah there's no problem at all with universities.
Burundi isn't run by big corporates, why don't you live there?
@@shuacliff_7029 people should be taught Marxism. Just like they should be taught capitalism. Although in most of my interactions people can't even define Marxism. So i don't think they were taught Marxism. Red scare has such a massive impact on a lot of people.
no shortage of morons defending it begging for the ship to sink. See above for quick examples.
@@GaganSingh-nx2yv care providing an example of working marxism?
This reminds me of an incident within our family. We literally 'came over on the boat,' and many years later, one of my siblings married who you could today call an "American Patriot." We were so happy that there was a chance their children would, as we did, learn a second language and be able to know and explore and understand a larger part of the world. But the spouse refused to learn a second language and also forbade the three children from learning one. Later on the truth came out. "I didn't want anyone talking behind my back using a language I can't understand."
And that pretty much says it all.
He could have learned it.
That's not American, that's just snobbery and ignorant
@@Nanamka yeah, but he was probably too lazy!
What a waste. Poor children to have a father like that
That's what my grandfather did. He was a mountain farmer with 3 young children when he married my grandmother. I can totally see that he would find it impossible to imagine being able to learn a language none of his ancestors spoke. It's still regrettable, though.
When i was a very small kid, someone told me "Knowledge is power". Ive never forgotten that.
I will never forget what you tell me know. Thank you
Me too, then I hit them over the head with a big book and told them “ You’re damn right, NERD!!” 😂😂
Knowledge is potential power, action on knowledge is power
Dunning-Krueger in action. 🙄
@Bainsworth I must have struck a nerve. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The less intelligent the people - the easier it is to sell crap to them.
That door swings both ways bro. Stupid people on both sides of the fence, especially those indoctrinated by the Murdoch Press.
I mostly only buy things from small businesses these days. The franchises need to go bankrupt in order to bring back small business to the American economy.
@@GenerationX1984 The franchisers need to stop exploiting the franchises.
What does intelligence mean?
Never be to smart to be wrong as if you are only right how can you learn?
Ignorance isn’t bliss. Knowledge will set you free! Open your mind and open your windows, let the Universe in. Learn everything, and learn it well.Learn to love.
Well said Suzi!
Being superwealthy and narcissistic is a dangerous combination.
Wouldn't you say that they always go hand in hand though?
Yeah, probably.
But that is what we are teaching people on how to make money: be a narcissistic ass hole and you rake it in. And that is what our current system encourages. If you want to live by morals and compassion, you get shafted.
Pieter Actually I believe in America they call that "being electable".
Superwealthy, narcissistic, science illiterate, and yet appointed to head powerful department in government and thinking themselves qualified.. is suicidal.
I don't trust experts. I take my car to my barber and I get financial advice from the florist.
Funny. You have the same employee screening process as Trump and Bannon.
Robert Van Housen Not too surprising really. American voters, through a broken electoral college system, decided to "hire" a reality TV show star for the top government job. "Who would be better qualified to run the biggest economy and military on the planet? A former first lady and former Secretary of State or a reality TV guy with shady business practices?".
My barber called to say he won't have my transmission fixed by morning 'cuz he's not even sure which bit of my car is the transmission. I think I'll go ask my landscaper for legal advice.
Lenard Segnitz Trump made a woman with no background in education the Secretary of Education, put a man who fought against the EPA in charge of the EPA, and a man with no science background in charge of NASA. Your comment should be just a joke, but it's actually a summary of government policy.
Actually my barber gets great info chatting with his customers. He got great stock tips and did very well.
If your florist is gay, that's probably wise ;). (If your car was built after 1989, a diagnostic computer 'fixes' it.
God help us all.
I'm watching a lot of these videos over again, six years later. I would love to see some follow-up interviews and hear their thoughts on how the plot has developed.
Yes, now that Rushdie is fighting for his life from being stabbed 12 times including an eye and liver. Thank goodness he is surviving and may he make a full recovery while at the same time the stabber has pleaded "not guilty" publicly before a court of law. The answer lies in the brain of the killer. What's going on in there? Why is freedom of speech so vitally important to the survival of sapiens and life on Earth? It is, you know!
I think the problem with mistrust stems from the fact that experts are saying things like, "Globalism creates jobs and it's good for the economy," while the average person is saying, "Yeah, I have two of those jobs, I can't make my mortgage, and one of my jobs is getting shipped overseas."
The first statement is true, but it leaves out a lot. It's more a slogan created by politicians (also experts) to sell the idea to the common folk. It's a slogan that worked, but what it didn't say is for whom it created those jobs and who would benefit from them. It didn't say what effect it would have on the power of unions or what impact it would have on wages.
The global economy has been beneficial to the world overall. It has lifted many people out of poverty, created new markets and improved overall quality of life. However, it has hollowed out the middle class of developed nations. In moments like this, it's easy for charlatans to move in, scapegoat the academics and 'those people' who are taking your jobs. They can then destroy things like regulation, saying they are 'fixing things for the people,' and profit off the chaos.
The evil billionaires Rushdie is against are the same people who most benefit from the global economy and other ideas of the intellectual expert class of which he is a member.
Yeah, I'm sure the Romans could have claimed that slavery employed more people than ever before.
💯
For several decades I would hear on the radio (in the UK) that the USA was pursuing a trade deal with some country but the country in question was saying,we don't want to sign up,this Free Trade you advocate will ruin our economy and put all our craftsmen and traders out of business. And the USA spokesman would reply,but it's a wonderful opportunity for you,you can export to the USA all the handwoven baskets you can make with no tariffs,in return well send you zillions of factory made baskets that will cost so little that your people will stop buying the local ones,but hey that's the wonder of Free Trade. You just don't understand it because you're poor,uneducated and stupid,and you've got brown skin. Of course they never said all that but people could read between the lines. Then maybe in the 1990s or a bit later America woke up to that China had got the Free Trade idea and was running with it and suddenly the USA instead of being the screwer was being screwed. And that's what most of Mr Trump's appeal was about. And academics and writers like Rushdie who don't get their living directly from that,they don't get it. I am extremely well read and know oodles of history but it doesn't gold plate my life. I'd have to become a writer or tv presenter for that. It's not having knowledge,it's applying it.
"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." - Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus
Nope, he lives in fear of being found different
You posted this four years ago. Today's headline was that he is likely to lose an eye from being stabbed while speaking. Eerie.
@@number3Gman indeed
You don't have to be smart to be rich...you have to be smart if your "poor" to survive. You know what I mean. Figuring out how to keep the basics going.
earthminus10 ...well put. For 99% of us it’s a daily struggle.
I think that is a good perspective and it sounds like it makes sense
It's a common delusion," if you're rich then you are successful and if you're successful then you would make a great national leader." it's been proven wrong over and over again but as a culture we still believe it.
@@tomw485
No you don't need to be smart, look at Zuckerberg and Bezos, both are absolute morons, who are dumb enough to let themselves and their corporations run constantly into conflicts which could be avoided easily.
Both could just make a bit less profits and fix their problems as well as their reputation and get out of the public view.
Instead they constantly drive themselves deeper into controversy in a country that literally worships the super rich like gods.
And your consideration is nonsense because you can't "just aquire some wealth". That is just wtf?
"Oh you are poor? You know you should try to get some money" "Oh thanks I never thought of it that way".
To get wealth you need the opportunity first, and you are not getting your opportunity if you have to work long hours just to not loose the little that you have left.
@@tomw485 ah the old embarrassed millionaire myth. I think you need take a serious look at the totality of populations in "first world countries" and see that not everyone gets even one real opportunity, let alone many. Hell some people got their first opportunity during a damned pandemic because the government actually gave them a cheque and now you see it manifesting with restaurants that treat their employees like shit not getting staff and being forced to be better.
And you literally don't have to be smart to become wealthy.Tell me how many of the so called self made wealthy people would you call smart?
This mistrust of experts come I think from the silo effect of social media, where we are constantly proposed content we agreed with and which confirmed what we already think.
So true and worth pondering 🤔.
Well, it happened earlier also, Social Media just creates the illusion that the information we get is not distorted and manipulated, but it is.
Exactly.
It also comes from experts/scientists that sold themselves to private interests and gone corrupt.
I think it's because the frequency in which the so-called experts are wrong
In the US, intellectual and creative children are bullied and tortured by their peers mercilessly. This is nothing new and it's brutal in the working and poorer classes. Intelligence is not admired, it's seen as a threat. Even parents put down any dreams of going to college or dreaming of owning your own business or being a professional. How dare you dream of raising your status and becoming a boss instead of a worker. The highest you are allowed to dream is getting a government job. If you are a girl, you are a burden and your job is to be married out. I've experienced this personally and seen it with others around me. It's still this way in 2022.
The tolerance for complexity is decreasing. The more dimensions an issue or event can be understood through, the more antagonizing.
We're in the weird timeline that the hero of the story has to go back in time to correct.
I like him as a person. He seems to be very intelligent, and also cares about society.
Cares about himself first,but don't we all.
I love how Joseph Heath explains in “Enlightenment 2.0” the way that a sitcom like Frasier participates in the cultural war... showing a couple of pompous college educated brothers always losing to the salt-of-the-earth simple good people that surrounds them... it wasn’t innocent at all
Education is always good. How I would see Collage as a bad thing is they get all these poor kids up to their Eyeballs in Debt before they even get started in life. I work in broadcasting and some of these new kids coming into the Business have $30,000 , $40,000 and in some cases $90,000 in debt to start out with. Good Lord how are they ever expected to work their way out of that?
The good thing about the UK system, is although you can get a large student, though not that large, you don't have to pay it back. You pay nothing until you earn over a certain threshold and 9% of your earnings over the threshold. After 30 years whatever is left gets cancelled.
It's because government and big business have taken over the "company store principle" via the banks that they own or run.
The individual no matter how hard he or she tries, is trapped in the cycle of debt.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191 whoa. I did not know that. Great comment!
The label of “expert” is often exploited for wealth to the point where it’s difficult to know who to trust as an “expert.”
Universities cause young people to get into crushing debt so early in life, and the fact that medical care is rarely priced publicly and is leeched on my insurance companies that influence a doctors medical advice as well as big pharma erodes that label more. So the “experts” don’t always have your best interest in mind and many times are experts at one thing, but not on how that one thing interacts with the complexity of life.
the US is not the world.
He pointed out that similar things are happening in the rest of the industrialized world and offered supporting evidence, like the Brexit vote.
@Kurt Barryman
Thank you for illustrating the point Salman Rushdie was making. This is exactly the sentiment driving people away from expertise is the Christian and Muslim world.
@@tofu_golem at least Muslim world is making somewhat progress recently,
Meanwhile, the west...
He is referring to the stupid part of the world, in which case it is true 😂
I love Salman , so articulate and intelligent , what’s amazing is as he speaks ..... I am listening to his 2nd or 3rd language .... I imagine what he sound like and articulates in his original language
Around 1900, there was a shift in the aim of public education from teaching children HOW to think, to teaching children WHAT to think, with an emphasis on obedience to authority.
Once several generations were so trained, the rest is as predictable as rain.
Where you around back then?
See no difference between this and the evangelicals dictating how we are supposed to live. Neither is conducive to free thinking.
School is not about learning everything, nor a brainwash machine, really, School teach you how to start learning, but ignorant people is afraid to send their kids to school , and the problem is that they are now more vulnerable to believe what they are told, because they can't think for themselves.
@@ramonarellano4988 true, including the kids forced indoctrination into their families faiths, there’s no independent thought in religion, there is only “It is.” Education of the science’s, health or biological and the more advanced education is feared for it often disproves their foundation’s of existence.
Public schools in the 1800s were designed to erase native American culture and turn them into tame, assimilated white people.
Education has always come with a motive since we'll before the 1900s, but that ulterior motive is typically the opposite of what right wingers claim it to be.
It's not experts or knowledge that they fear. It's experts being paid to say things by companies with an agenda.
In other words: "I am too scared to trust experts because experts are paid goverment shills"
He's absolutely correct as usual- we hope your recovery is going well. HE'S THE BEST. 🌿🌐🌿
I believe that a major part of our problem is that we Americans do not appreciate what we have. To make a statement like “I’m going to make America great again” is fairly confusing statement. We have over-abundance compared to most countries in the world. Our system basically prevents starvation. If you go to public school and average a C you get college scholarships in most states. If you can get better than a 30% on the ASFAB and have a high school diploma or GED the military will take you in. We have so much and of course we lack in some areas. Overall though, it’s pretty good. Other countries deal with extreme poverty. Our worst is better than some countrys’ best. Maybe it is time to just appreciate what we have and reject divisive hate.
There is a rational case for distrust of intellectuals. One reason is that the intellectual has been high jacked by neoliberalism and people who pose as intellectuals in the media toe the line of framing many issues within liberal economic theory. Many public institutions rely on private funding and to maintain the funding the push the narrative prescribed by the funders which may diverge from observable evidence. Many managers have risen through promotions based on their business school education with no practical experience and do not understand the culture of the industries they manage. Governments hire intellectual consultants who roll out prescribed ideologically based policies based on neoliberal narrative that has no basis in reality.
The lack of trust in intellectuals and government is nurtured by anti government neoliberal corporations who want to operate in a lawless business environment where they are accountable to no one. Many people actively oppose the institutions most able to help them. They have been propagandize to act against their own interests to appear as though they are pursuing their individual liberties.
Twisted thinking; there’s nothing neoliberal or otherwise in capitalist culture. It’s profit and nothing else. It’s interesting that you didn’t mention anything about the extremist religious ideology that decries anything that questions the existence of gods. Their fear of knowledge is based solely upon losing their hold on society. They are not the anchor they thought they were.
There are 2 types of elites, wealthy elites and elite cultural influencers
Both of those groups tend to be liberal.
Holy cow Batman this was done a year ago what will you say today buddy! Life on Earth right now is like watching a slow-motion train wreck
The movie Idiocracy fits the bill Prof Rushdie
Be careful what you wish for
And he is not fucking reading these comments
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”.- Isaac Asimov.
Well if anyone knows the answer to this one, Salman is your man. He spent years in very dark rooms...
There is still a significant difference in mentality.
Europe: Being rich corrupts you character.
USA: Being rich is a positive character trait.
Ditto and being rich is a measure of intelligence.
Depending on what one is rich in, I would agree.
Given the levels of complexity in technology, business, economics, the environment, etc., hardly-any to partial expertise is all that's possible (even among our most intelligent). And, there's no cross-lateral expertise between these domains and their many sub-domains, at all. Yet, our institutions, and the folks who run them, claim full-on expertise without hesitation or care or credibility! The arrogance is frightening.
I'm so glad that Big Think seems to have moved away from that strange habit of having several different camera positions which cause you to see the speaker talking away from the camera half the time. I always found that incredibly distracting.
I fear we are not in a "strange moment", we are being socially and culturally engineered. We are being trained to be on a side against another side dividing and conquering us all. Both "sides" are being led by corporate media which acts as an antagonist inciting rage and disgust of the other side. We fight each other, while the ownership class feeds off of us unnoticed. If the bulk of us do not start to understand this, there will be no stopping it.
Pretty sure it's not like that. As i think it was like you said for forever, and we are just becoming more aware of that normality that isn't quite right. So it doesn't mean is more rampant than ever but like with other aspects, things are actually improving more and more. Just that at the same time our ability to communicate, to hear about things that happen not just close but everywhere across the globe, is also improving.
So i'd say that is more a matter of ignorance is bliss and people get scared or annoyed that now they know stuff. So is really a matter of learning to cope with knowing. Somewhat comparable with that situation where the professional knows more about his field so he is more aware of how much stuff he doesn't know and thus is less confident. While the average Joe not having that knowledge, that veil off his eyes, has the impression that he knows everything, because he has no clue what are the correct questions to ask in order to be aware of what still he doesn't know, so because of that he is more confident.
So in a way, what it happens, is that simple people are not prepared to cope with what they don't know. To cope with the responsibilities of real freedom.
Simple people like safety. So they will act erratically and unsafe thinking they will get that safety. That's how you get snake oils and witch doctors and people wearing literal irradiated items in order to "treat" themselves for certain afflictions.
And to think he got stabbed repeatedly yesterday, on stage, speaking about... Creative freedom. May he recover well!
Why don't you mention who did it? Definetely not an evil republican 🌚
Knowledge is nothing without wisdom.
I was physically attacked at school, (a place of learning) for getting science questions right too often for the most violent kids liking. I learned that intelligence is opposed by violence. Nothing has changed now that I am an adult. I feel like I am surrounded by dangerous people who are just waiting to punish exceptional achievement. Not a good atmosphere for innovation and new ideas.
Get in a like-minded community bro
There are people like the ones you describe. However, the real cause of anger in this country is the punishing of workers by outsourcing their jobs, stripping the jobs they have left of any benefits and replacing affordable housing with luxury apartments/hoousing that no average person can afford. This is also a form of violence.
Welcome to the world of “equity”
Mistrust comes from broken trust. Find the roots, not the symptoms.
Easy: The American right have been failing (well, actively refusing) to adjust their world view to account for new information. Since they will only accept the expertise of people who agree with them, this means they have to dismiss broader and broader fields of science and knowledge to maintain their ideology as time goes on. Hence their growing "mistrust".
+Kenneth Wang "Mistrust comes from broken trust. Find the roots, not the symptoms."
Mistrust can be manufactured wholesale:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion
This fraudulent document is at the core of most of modern anti-Semitism, despite being demonstrated to have been fraudulent as early as 1921. Anti-Semitics still parrot what it says over 100 years after this fabrication was created.
Burnt Toast .... almost all of the Mistrust we see these days has been manufactured wholesale ...
If you take a younger generation and constantly give them TV shows like the Simpsons , South Park , Kick Ass and the like who all openly promote the idea that all teachers ,scientists , parents , business people and every other cultural norm and personality you can think of ...are either crazy and don't know anything or outright hypocritical ...you teach that generation to distrust everything....
This is what actually happened here ..this is why more and more people believe in conspiracy theories ..why they don't vaccinate their kids ...and also why so many young people would instantly believe Wiki Leaks .
The end product of selling the public a load of anti-social concepts just to make a buck ...is a reality TV Show President who gives the public what they actually want nowadays in America ...lies , conspiracy theories and drama .
TheMobileHomestead I honestly believe the shows you mentioned had the opposite impact on me.
Riesgo Garza ....I don't care one bit what you say you "Believe " ...
Any intelligent and informed person would know that using the term "Belief" describes nothing other then a subjective self-reported experience ...
Anything in the realm of the subjective is never taken as an factual objective statement in Science or anywhere else ... since there are a multitude of Studies that clearly show and document the negative effects of TV shows on young minds I'm speaking Objectively about this .
There are also a multitude of studies that document the negative effects of Social Networks and habitual Cell phone usage on people ... these studies show over and over again that the public's insane need to be 'liked' and seen as important has turned huge swaths of the population into malignant narcissists. ... once again my statement is backed up by science and is an objective one...
So here's a Science tip for you people who post dumb things on the internet....
Posting silly stuff like you believe this or that ..or your kid or yourself think you're an exception to what Science knows about the Culture ...means absolutely nothing in the REAL World.
You're just some anonymous person telling people stuff about what you think you are .. in Science your statements are worthless...
Might be a distrust of paying extortionate fees for a half arsed education. Rather than a distrust of education itself...
I worked for a government lab, was the only individual trained in statistics. When, I just asked questions about past and current testing and / or data analysis strategies, which appeared contrary to fundamental statistical principles, I was subjected to gaslighting and credibility damage strategies to the point in which I had to resign. I even used the metaphor of taking the car to the mechanic and ordering a cake from the baker.
What I experienced was collective narcissism.
Some individuals at the lab and higher components had such power in the organization and material gains in their personal life that they felt too entitled to listen to someone with differing views with more training to the point that they did evil things and acted in a state of cognitive dissonance.
It really does feel like the whole world is going backwards.
The rise of fascism. Requires this hatred/fear of academics. It also happened in the 30s in Germany.
The rise of fascism is driven by a wealth gap and wealthy people using bigotry to deflect the resentment of the masses.
Allowing extreme wealth concentration is what makes a society vulnerable to fascism.
Knowledge is beautiful, but the education system is neoliberal and elitist so yes, most universities are mediocre.
The problem is not the experts, but them thinking they can and are righteous in telling you what to do.
Knowledge is one thing , wisdom is quite another.
The left and right value capital different, the left values cultural capital and the right physical more.
People mistrust experts and yet look absolutely everything up on the internet!
People aren't growing to mistrust universities because they're scoffing at knowledge and experts, though. Universities have morphed into something very different from what they were in Rushdie's day, and making sure they're bringing in tuition has become a higher priority than making sure they're giving out an education. Less of a problem in STEM than in other fields, of course.
Maybe. But I think it's more an emphasis by the corporate elite on turning education into job training rather than on education for its own sake. The wanton desecration of the arts as a legitimate and valuable course of study plays a tremendous role. No, I don't think standards are as high as they have been, nor academic rigor nearly as challenging, but there is immense value in the study of philosophy, history, and literature that can only be denied at our peril. The term Liberal Arts has, for the intellectually stunted, become synonymous with a political ideology that has nothing whatever to do with it. Absent this academic pursuit that guides the building of critical and abstract thought, education is reduced to rote memorization and requires little in the way of conceptual thought and the ability to make connections between disparate subjects that drive innovation and progress in political, social, economic, and spiritual realms. Art is a means of communication across disparities in thought and belief that cannot be accomplished in its absence.
It's all well and good to have specialists in tasks in order to provide necessary labor requirements in a producer/consumer societies, but the wholesale demonization of the arts in favor of those specialties sacrifices the very discipline that made civilization possible. Even the CIA uses novelists to imagine potential hazards to US national security.
The fall off in quality of Russian literature that Mr. Rushdie attributes in part to a lack of adversarial relationship in Russian politics can be used as an analog for American literature, but with one caveat: in America, it is compounded by the social and political eradication of superior intelligence as a product of the study of the arts. The jocks, never able to outsmart the nerds, have resorted to shaming and bullying and the equation of complex thought with deception to the point that the masses, already disadvantaged by decades of intellectual retardation, now side with the jocks. It's far easier than the alternative and has the added benefit of permissive narcissism. Watching the inevitable destruction of our society by the ignorant is made all the more painful for the intelligent by the fact that we have been rendered powerless to intervene by the bullies that nullified our influence in favor of theirs. Meanwhile, the ruling class through the influence of the bullies, has Americans convinced that the continued rape of the nation for the benefit of the ruling class is in their best interests. As long as the ruling class can sustain the myth of upward mobility to their thugs, they can sustain an environment in which people will sacrifice themselves to ensure the continued domination of the status quo.
Nothing has changed since Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath in 1939. Social and economic problems have been relegated to a place of inconsequence and the solutions simplified to the point of absurdity to emulate progress or deny its necessity.
I imagine those 50,000 annual suicides in America as the intelligent, sensitive next generation progressives, having recognized the depth of the problem, giving up in despair as society dismisses their potential contributions to create a better America.
I have always said that if you are rich enough, you don't have to know anything.
"Back to school" starring Rodney Dangerfield. loved that movie.
I've known we were entering a new dark age back when Bush Jr. was installed in office. Many people voted for him because they thought he would be good to have a beer with. We are in an age of technological wonders, where information is democratized through the internet and literally available to all, and yet we have almost half of the population who resolutely remain proud of their ignorance. They feel "less than," and dislike anything that makes them confront their ignorance, especially science and experts of any kind. It is disheartening that these troglodytes are given power over the rest of us. We are moving backward, into a dark age of our own making.
Rushdie makes some good points. Personally, I think the pursuit of wealth is a big part of the problem. When you spend most of your time chasing money, status, and goods it can be difficult think about morals or general interest. This goes for people with very little, who must spend most of their time and effort on survival and for rich people who spend most of their time and effort on acquiring more and more. I am not arguing that attempting to pursue wealth is evil in of itself, but simply that we need a balance between acquiring wealth and acquiring knowledge, morals, and happiness. I also think that American society in general has focused too much on acquiring wealth.
Just once I’d like to see a billionaire on an episode of Hoarders. Why is not the unfettered and interminable accumulation of wealth seen as a psychological disease yet? If you’re odd and poor they call you crazy, but if you’re odd and wealthy you’re “eccentric”.
Great minds, like Mr Rushdie's, terrify the close minded dullards, and they strike out like the whiney children they are. Sadly, the dimwitted far outnumber the thinkers. Darker days are surely ahead of us, ala Idiocracy, a truly prescient film.
Exactly Mr. Rushdie. This has been written about in the Book "The Death of Expertise" by Tom Nichols. In Music Leonard Cohen composed and wrote "The Future". I have witnessed the dumbing of America over the course of my lifetime. The architecture of inversion is nefarious and has been unleashed on the modern civilization, enhanced by technology.
Oh please! The respondents to this survey did not say they were averse to education; they said they were averse to UNIVERSITIES. Those are two entirely different things these days, in institutions where actual learning has been exiled to the margins, sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. People are averse to moralizing poser intellectuals who choose to propagandize students with their personal secular dogmas, rather than teach the subjects as described in the course catalog. Rushdie is a smart guy and surely knows this. He is maintaining a stance of intentional ignorance in order to benefit his straw man argument, and to prop up the public persona he wishes to curate.
I think that a lot of the people who say universities are bad actually mean that they oppose the system that makes a split in society. When you're poor you can forget to go to a university, en so you are cut of from the system. And when you can go to a university you will have an enourmous debt, so you will be paying for it for the rest of your life. Only when you have rich parents you can go to university and enjoy all of the benefits that come with such an education without the burden of paying this amounts of money.
1:07 “this mistrust of people who know things” is due to an inferiority complex, I think
Well said. It is also known as sour grapes or I-rather-remain-stupid-so-that-I-don’t-need-to-do-what’s-right syndrome. :)
Everytime I ask people to explain why they said something like, conciousness is everywhere, they always get defensive and either say I wouldn't understand ( all I did was ask) or tell me I dont deserve to know. Inferiority is my best bet. I'm more than willing to be proven wrong, because then I dont believe that wrong thing anymore, and I say thank you.
@@thegoodlistenerslistenwell2646 The idea that consciousness is everywhere explains the hard problem of consciousness by positing that everything is more of less conscious.
Its called panpsychism and Its alittle more nuanced than one might think.
@@adrianaslund8605 I read, and asked. Much is to be said. Seems like a random shot in the dark to me
@@thegoodlistenerslistenwell2646 Yeah I don't know much about it. But it has seen a resurgence of interest in consciousness studies.
There's a Wikipedia page on it.
"Panpsychism" I mean.
The pessimist in me realizes that the enlightenment period came about due to the preservation of the classic world like Greek philosophical texts. Even if society goes down in flames, we should do our best to preserve what wisdom we've learned about as a society.
The mistrust isn't of experts themselves, it's of the experts' allegiance to money or corporate interest. The surgeon general told people smoking doesn't cause cancer. The opioid crisis was started by doctors. These are experts we we're told to trust.
Get well and wish you a speedy recovery from the attack in NY ( 12/ 08 / 2022).
Holy Shit!!! The ad that I got for this video was an hour and 18 minute long video from endtimesnet! WTF?!
Get Adblocker my friend, haven't had any problem viewing this
Marlon Costa cellphones have adds.. youtube should be add free, but the greed
Get CZcams Red. No ads and you still support the creators you watch.
Daniel, there's no possible way CZcams could be free.
The ambition to make money from something that YOU get value from isn't greed.
YOUR desire to get value without cost is where the greed is, brother.
shade_grey I got some pro-conservative ad that drew parallels between the alt-right and the left in America which linked to an investment banking firm's website!!?!
Of course how could charging people 20k a year for the same information they could get for free today be a bad thing?
All of this is what happens when corrupt people in power break the people's trust too many times.
They won't trust shit anyone in power has to say, for better or worse.
Perspective is everything.
Amazing! One of the better Big Think contributions! However, I would say that's pretty normal when narcissistic people get the upper hand. And, yes, you are going to excel when that happens - because you have to.
I would love to find a video with encouraging information about the future of America but right now they don't seem to exist
We can start, by exposing the narrative, to placate the Communist Party in China. Try to critique the CCP, vs the USA, on Tic Tok, CZcams, or in a movie. One is censored, the other encouraged.
@@billpetersen298 Or how about we critique both Chinese goverment and American goverment? Because so far, I have seen no good thing come out of the two.
@@razi_man If they appear the same to you, enjoy education camp.
@@billpetersen298 Mate, I went to China once, you can still say literal shit on social media and get away with it.
There are cases where in America, saying dumb stuff can get you a SWAT visit.
Yeah, sure, they are totally "different". Get a life.
When there is great wealth in to few hands their desires are the only thing that matter.
this is happening in the Philippines, but it's not the rich people placing a distrust on education but the poor... also this is related to election/politics. so i think it's not wealth that is related to ignorance but the desire for power and desire to control other people's minds
Knowledge is power and a threat to tyrants when the public possesses it to defend against them.
Tha is what manipulation, and dictating truths are for, aren't they?
It's odd but, I've wondered for a time can one have technology and such advances and yet be cast in a new dark ages ? Upside down indeed.
The world changes, technology envolves but people stay the same. The stupid are mislead. The smart now that the stupid hunger for drama. They use different collosseums to connect with the public. And they burn witches to get rid of their anger and hurt.
The world is going down down down to a burnin' rang a far, it go down down down an da flames'went hier.
I think the reason why people think universities are bad is because a lot of people get in a lot of debt for going to a university. Not a lot of people finish school either. When you do get a degree there’s also not a lot of job openings for these ‘experts’. Also there’s a lot of universities being subsidized by the government but are these schools actually helping people out? Like I said before not a lot of people finish school. So people get mad that their tax dollars are going to a program that is not very helpful.
when knowledge has been monetized, people without knowledge mistrust.
Is world returning to the dark ages? Are you fucking kidding me?! It never came out of the dark ages...
Writers are admired in retrospect. There’s nothing “all the writers he knows” can do to play any role in the internet/social media dominated education of the public
best of wishes and a speedy recovery, btw, to mr rushdie
Spy novels: who is the enemy? “I have seen the enemy, and he is us, but I’d somehow imagined him taller.”
People don't distrust experts, they distrust ideology.
No, they distrust experts.
Most of those against Universities, have Never attended a class
IN a University.
We are actually living in the society portrayed in the movie Idiocracy.
The ‘American right’ have close relatives in Australia and the UK, as well as some other nations but especially those three nations and they’ve another similarity, Murdoch.
Knowledge is one thing.
Wisdom another.
Credentialed, spineless, careerist priesting and shilling for status quo (while ignoring inequality and injustice) is something else entirely.
Equality is for fools, Quality is what we need.
Inequality is no guarantee of quality, though.
Equality of opportunity, not of outcome. The status quo provides the latter for some, but the former for none. Due to this, integrity and merit take a backseat to entrenchment and entitlement. The result is a growing reduction in quality; and an increase in ineptitude and mindless self advancement.
Pretty sure I was replying to Sabretooth. CZcams really needs a context system for it's comment section.
This world never left the dark ages.
My personal experience with that people not trusting experts when it come to Brexit, is that the media only gave a platform to experts what were on the remain side while other experts were ignored. An example of this is the number of scientists such as Richard Dawkins who has quoted saying Brexit was a bad idea but no news outlet (that I'm aware of) mentioned the report by the Royal Society saying that overall leaving the E.U would be better for British Science; due to our main partnership is the US and the strict laws passed by the E.U, what asks the opinions of randomly assigned citizens via questionnaire and not scientists (I only knew about it because of the Royal Society website and I read it all.)
When it comes to Business the media also forget to mention the support of leaving the E.U by many fashion houses (fashion makes more money for the UK than cars), or Dyson because it allows the U.K to make trade deals with emerging markets.
Overall the coverage, especially when using experts, felt like propaganda, and people distrust propaganda.
(Sorry for any bad grammar, I'm dyslexic but I am a Scientist so I am educated, hence why I read reports by the Royal Society.)
I just heard about the knife attack against Rushdie... I wish him a speedy recovery.
It was the experts and elite's journalist who said Globalism will be great for everyone. Tell that to the people in middle America who lost their manufacturing jobs.
"Mistrust of people who know things.." BUAHAHAHHAHHAA
Wealth by definition provides security, but only at what time and perspectives. If you are in peace time, wealth means that you are financially secured, so ignorance will come, because you are financially secured.
There is no lack of enemies to stir the spirits of writers. What there is a lack of is publishers willing to publish work that shines light into the dark recesses of our current culture. During the cold war the right wing propaganda machine funded by the deep state paid authors to keep cold war tensions alive.
After the old war the enemies of the public had nowhere to hide, so they made themselves invisible by not covering the big stories of the day. The war crimes, the vicious and brutal interference of small countries the economic sanctions that are modern versions of medieval sieges, the environmental devastation and ecological collapse, the horrors of climate change, the fate of Julian Assange. And many many gut wrenching best seller true accounts of reality that are studiously avoided by the 'free Press'. There is not a lack of material there is a lack of will to hold the elite criminal class to account.
meh, book advertisement
Yeah them books are bad. Idiot.
I think that intelligence and expertise are wonderful things, that being said i think he has missed the mark on this by a mile which isnt really surprising, there is a good deal of literature on the huburis of intellectuals and how having an expertise in some area gives many a false sense of competence when it comes to addressing issues in areas that are outside of their expertise.
He shouldnt equate a mistrust of universities and what they have become with a mistrust of what they were or a mistrust of experts and to just assume such things is perversely ignorant though more likely a byproduct of political biases.
I think people mistrust experts because of the corruption of institutions of power, one example could be certain elements of the pharmaceutical industry in America.