This post is not, I hope, an example of the “three parts of ego” that one reader finds in “Mobs,” though he grudgingly admits it was a “great read,” which missed being even better because of the heaping scorn it poured on a variety of people and things.
I wonder about that.
Bill and I had many discussions about the levels of snarkiness the many-headed would take before throwing some of it right back in our face.
We were warned it would offend reviewers. It might. We took out a lot of things. And we put back some. We thought about softening a lot of it. I tried numskulls and nitwits, instead of idiots — just to be nice and all…..
But the herd we are talking about…..is not something outside any of us. That’s the point of the book.
Some people seem to have missed that. The mob isn’t really “out there” — it’s something we all struggle against within ourselves. The urge to conform, to follow, to do as others do, to obey senseless orders, turn on the outsider, commit judicial murder.
The heroes of our book are the individuals who don’t turn their back on the defenseless and the voiceless. But we aren’t about to confuse that kind of goodness with the professions of corporate journalists, public policy wonks, and verbose politicians.
So let me say this. Except for some modest Bush-bashing ,and of course, the mandatory Thomas Friedman festivity (this is a cottage industry not only down at the Daily Reckoning but on some academic and left-wing sites), I really don’t know who or what it was that we ridiculed that was so sacrosanct….or didn’t deserve it.
It’s apparently OK to commit mass killings, despoil countries, lie, cheat and swindle, but mentioning that fact bluntly is altogether just too, too terrible. Next, I am going to hear — mean-spirited!
Our critic doesn’t seem to have figured out how hopeful the book is. It has nothing offensive whatsoever to say about those who really do good — the Sophie Scholls and Dr. V’s of the world. Its venom is directed at the great ones who so richly deserve it, but are protected by our platitudinous culture from public scorn.
As for James Surowiecki – we criticize him a bit, but only tangentially. Proving a thesis is not what this book is about. It’s exactly what it’s not about.
“Mobs” is not a pop sociology tract. It’s simply our report on the state of affairs in what we call the public spectacle. Wars, manias, swindles — don’t any of these call for some excoriation?
They do.
No apologies.
Go for it. I don’t know what it is about people today, they can’t stand truth, they
can’t stand judgments, they can’t stand. As you say, we destroy and swindle, but
can’t hear the words that reflect the truth of our actions. This disconnect
between thought and reality, words and actions, has created a culture of
violent wimps and of nasty weaklings. The ability to think is compromised
by this attitude that “if I don’t hear it I won’t have to deal with it.” We are creating
an anti-culture… an anti-civilization… in which all the things that people have
fought for for thousands of years are being overturned and mocked. We are
becoming counterfeit, just like our money, our economy, our politics. Sooner or later the total absence of the genuine will make us all sick. I think it has already made
our politics suicidal.
The renewal of culture begins with the commitment to truth and truthful speaking. I hope you and Bill Bonner really start something. Stand by your principles!
<p><p>Thanks very much Carol.
People assume that harshness toward the gross lack of ethics in public life is harshness toward human beings. Well, it is not.
When you read some of the flack on the blogs, you wonder who are these sensitive souls who care so much for humanity in public, but in private are so vituperative?
–