Tucker Week: Status Report

"shame" and ruling classes and narratives

Never mind whether Tucker Carlson quit or was pushed. The tell is that Carlson now says he is “ashamed” of his support for the Iraq War.

In other words he doubts the Narrative. Away with him!

You know, I think that’s the Big Thing right now. Lots of us — maybe millions, maybe tens of millions — Doubt the Narrative.

I imagine that is a problem for the ruling class, and explains the global effort to curb Disinformation. Yeah, that’s the latest from the Twitter Files.

Of course, the Narrative is the Thing for all ruling classes; it’s the likely story of how the gods, or God, or history, or “justice” chose them to rule the world. Bless their hearts.

Take Sam Adams, a noted publicist and revolutionary in 1770s Boston. Having read a biography, I’d say that he blew up an incident in which some Brit soldiers fired on an attacking mob — er, mostly peaceful protest — up into The Boston Massacre. So the Brits were massacring us! Away with them! Sam was good at “journalism.”

But hey, in the 18th century the chaps thousands of miles away from the home country — whether Britland, Spain, Portugal, France — got a bit impatient with the silk breeches set back home.

And they created their own Narratives to justify their rebellions and revolutions.

Are we at a similar moment right now? Maybe, maybe not.

I think that Tucker Carlson’s “shame” at the Iraq War is suggestive. It’s going against the Narrative that the US — and its “allies” — are the good guys and have been chosen by history to extend “democracy” worldwide, like the Sudan…

Frankly, I don’t go with the “democracy” narrative any more. It seems to amount to not much more than the global educated class deciding what’s next and then marshaling up support for their plan from the people sucking on the educated-class tit. And if, back in the day, we had royal rascals plundering the commonwealth to finance their dynastic wars, what is the difference with today when we have the educated class plundering the commonwealth to finance, first, their world wars, and now their existential war on ordinary people so that they can heroically save the climate and stop the sea level from inundating their beachfront properties.

I must say that I was modestly surprised to read about the global disinformation community including the requisite NGOs and international organizations revealed by the Twitter Files. I didn’t think that the disinformation / misinformation / malinformation thingy went that deep.

Talking about disinformation, I think the biggest thing going is the ruling class line on gender. I think that today the representation of what a man is, what a woman is, what a typical black is, etc., is monstrously and deliberately going against reality. Of which the least problem is the idea that white men are kinda dumb, that the black woman in the frame is smart and the white woman in the frame is dumb, and women can be superheroes. Because men and women are not like that!

So, in keeping my mind straight I read a lot of 19th century novels. Yep, Jane Austen was rather upper class. But George Eliot’s dad was a estate surveyor, the kind of guy that was doing the serious work around the landowner’s estate; in her books you are really introduced to middling sorts of people. And Anthony Trollope was a middling sort of guy. And they weren’t trying to pretend the world was something it wasn’t; if anything they were laughing at the powers-that-be — and everyone else, up and down the social hierarchy.

You don’t really want to try that sort of thing today, making fun of the suits, if you know what is good for you.

I suppose that Job One for all ruling classes is to control the Narrative. And I suppose that a ruling class that is comfortably in the driver’s seat can keep its narrative engineering down to a dull roar. But if you are trying to sell a reality that is just crazy, well, you may have to amp up the rhetoric, and the threat of force.

But, Rule One for any ruling class must surely be “don’t run out of other peoples’ money.”

Or maybe not. Maybe Rule One is to be charging once more unto the breach at Harfleur, because unless you are advertising your heroism and your determination to defeat the enemy you just don’t get people excited enough to follow your glorious lead.

But maybe, Joe Biden, if you aren’t charging unto the breach, and meanwhile you are running out of other peoples’ money, that’s not good.

But what do I know.