The Projection Racket, Pt. 1
September 14, 2020·23 comments·Politics
Societies speak constantly about freedom, equality, and self-determination. Yet the institutions defending these values often operate in ways that steadily erode them. The contradiction isn't crude or obvious. It's buried beneath compelling narratives that make criticism seem like opposition to the values themselves.
• The weight-and-switch mechanism runs deeper than most recognize. We don't lose freedoms to dramatic threats alone. We trade them away gradually for powerful stories about freedom itself, rendered helpless to protest because protest looks like betraying the ideals being invoked.
• When the erosion is gradual enough, it becomes invisible to those experiencing it. Decades of steady encroachment crystallize into single historical moments only in retrospect. Those living through it see only disconnected events, not a pattern. The fog is the point.
• Ten core systems structurally reduce individual capacity to influence personal outcomes. The two-party system, tax code, militarized policing, for-profit state enterprises, broken media, university gatekeeping, Federal Reserve policy, board representation, monopolies, and perpetual war. Each one defends itself with seductive rhetoric.
• The narrative protection around these systems is more sophisticated than simple propaganda. The stories don't deny the problems exist. They reframe resistance itself as a lack of faith in the values being compromised. Question monopolies and you're anti-market. Question elite universities and you're anti-meritocracy.
• The question becomes whether citizens can recognize the pattern while still living inside it. History suggests we usually can't until it's too late. The water we swim in is invisible while we're in it.
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Comments
I look forward to more flesh being added to the bone structure ET has created! One additional area ripe for inclusion in the list is the labyrinth of the US Healthcare system. Other than Ben’s note on his personal experience facing it this summer, and the valiant efforts to get PPE to places it might not trickle down, I believe more can be done. Health Care has its own rackets, monopolies, tax schemes, and narratives to shed light on through the ET plaform.
Fantastic news! I am all for (and yet still uncomfortable) with BITFD, but have long wondered what that meant from a practical standpoint for you and Ben. This is great.
Great piece Rusty and looking forward to the series. I am the little c. I am the little l. I am the middle. I want a cooperative game. I want win, win. I dislike the competitive game. I win, you lose. (I hate snakes Jock. I hate 'em.) If we were to have an Independence Day (the movie) alien moment right now, it would be a race to see which country surrendered first hoping for the greatest leniency from the aliens.
You and me both on all counts, Brian!
It does, and it probably deserves something more in-depth. The problem I tend to arrive at when I try to form a coherent intellectual framework is that even when you eliminate the monopolies, tax schemes and narratives, you’re still left with an insanely complicated issue with unsolved problems and conflicts.
Thanks, Dan!
Great work Rusty. If we hope to have any success dismantling mendacious, unfair, systems, I think the whole pack needs to be singing from the same hymnal. Right now BITFD is a cacophony of righteous indignation that is spinning its wheels and occasionally cracking 100 likes on Twitter. I hope ET can bring some focus to these issues and try to loop other groups in to pull the rug out from under institutions that no longer deserve to be considered sacred.
For example, what if ET collaborated with Kahn Academy to create a top flight, low cost, alternative to traditional, mostly in-person, universities? Perhaps you could even reimagine the entrance exam process to uncover great applicants who don’t shine in the SAT/ACT formats? Has there ever been a better time to attempt such a thing? It would be a huge undertaking, but I bet the pack could pull together a great curriculum and I am certain that there are enough pack members who can influence hiring decisions to create end demand for graduates. I know I would go out of my way to support an effort like that. As far as I know, there is no source of young, hungry talent that has been steeped in a Clear Eyes, Full Hearts approach to life. That’s who I want in the trench with me though.
FWIW I think ET is a great first step at pulling the rug out from under our woeful “news“ media. That’s a big accomplishment in and of itself. Keep it up!
The often used phrase “healthcare system” is a bait and switch. The system cares little about your health. Large systems and emotions make awkward bedfellows.
Outstanding note that helps answer a question, clearly, many of us had/have. I’m basically onboard with all of it - as always, I can find a quibble at the margin that’s unimportant to the big picture. That last part explains why no one invites me to, well, anything (I don’t blame them).
So, it’s from a position of enthusiastic support that I suggest we consider changing the name as BITFD simply sounds destructive; whereas, what we are really talking about is eradicating corruption, legal and moral, while rebuilding institutions with integrity and values that serve the greater good with honesty and sincerity.
BITFD is not on-message to Epsilon Theory in my opinion as it sounds like wanton rage and destruction, but conveys none of the hope, optimism or community of the pack. Perhaps we should be thinking about something more along the lines of ET’s outstanding “Make-Protect-Teach” description of its social movement to revitalize the foundation of our citizenship.
BD&BU is my humble recommendation as in Breakdown and Buildup. But my background and limited skillset is not in marketing, so I am convinced the ET pack will come up with much better recommendations than that.
Looking forward the rest of the series. Thank you Rusty for this note and Ben and Rusty for all of it.
I hear you, Mark, but if you would, give us a chance to make the argument for this framing over the course of the series. Just because our goal is peace, liberty and building up doesn’t mean that those must be our ONLY language.
“I have come to ignite a fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”
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