Good work interviewing Robinson before he got the Nobel-Bank prize in Econ. I really enjoyed this as an economist long frustrated with my field’s narrowness.
Robinson’s message is important for the Persuasion Community, but it lacks a key factor that should be part of his framework. He’s got the Institutions and the People which need to balance in a narrow corridor. For dynamics: technical and intellectual (political?) innovations, which are subject to “historical contingency.” That’s all good.
But these intellectual processes develop by the somewhat rational spread of ideas, despite the random contingencies. The missing factor is completely non-rational the same way evolution is.
The missing factor is ideology. That’s huge and it’s mainly what the good fight is fighting. Woke/CRT/Identity politics is pure ideology. Those evolve exactly like religions just as religions do.
Intellectual innovations and ideologies develop and defend themselves in completely different ways. Ideologies gain their power through an evolutionary process not through intellectual/technical processes. Communism, Nazism, fascism pretend to be intellectual, but in practice they just evolve by trial, error and the “naturally” selection of dogmas that capture minds quickly and thoroughly.
Frighteningly, ID politics is pushing us toward the likes of Robinson’s “68 different ethnic groups on the Jos Plateau,” in order to destroy the capitalist-racist-heteronormative state. And as the state is weakened, as Robinson notes, “the absence of the state is often [replaced by] the “cage of norms,” [which] puts enormous constraints on liberty.
So Yascha, could you write an essay on how you would modify Robinson’s analysis to make it more applicable to our Community fighting the good fight against the Woke/CRT identity trap and perhaps right-wing populism as well?
Good work interviewing Robinson before he got the Nobel-Bank prize in Econ. I really enjoyed this as an economist long frustrated with my field’s narrowness.
Robinson’s message is important for the Persuasion Community, but it lacks a key factor that should be part of his framework. He’s got the Institutions and the People which need to balance in a narrow corridor. For dynamics: technical and intellectual (political?) innovations, which are subject to “historical contingency.” That’s all good.
But these intellectual processes develop by the somewhat rational spread of ideas, despite the random contingencies. The missing factor is completely non-rational the same way evolution is.
The missing factor is ideology. That’s huge and it’s mainly what the good fight is fighting. Woke/CRT/Identity politics is pure ideology. Those evolve exactly like religions just as religions do.
Intellectual innovations and ideologies develop and defend themselves in completely different ways. Ideologies gain their power through an evolutionary process not through intellectual/technical processes. Communism, Nazism, fascism pretend to be intellectual, but in practice they just evolve by trial, error and the “naturally” selection of dogmas that capture minds quickly and thoroughly.
Frighteningly, ID politics is pushing us toward the likes of Robinson’s “68 different ethnic groups on the Jos Plateau,” in order to destroy the capitalist-racist-heteronormative state. And as the state is weakened, as Robinson notes, “the absence of the state is often [replaced by] the “cage of norms,” [which] puts enormous constraints on liberty.
So Yascha, could you write an essay on how you would modify Robinson’s analysis to make it more applicable to our Community fighting the good fight against the Woke/CRT identity trap and perhaps right-wing populism as well?