WEBVTT - Is democracy impossible? 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.680 From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:09.080 riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:24.600 learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello, 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.120 welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. They 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:31.880 call me Ben. Our compatriot Knell is away for the moment, 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.440 but never fear. Our super producer Paul Decont is here. 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.720 Most importantly, you're here, and you are you that makes 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.680 this stuff they don't want you to know. Now, you 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:48.080 may recall our very first episode ever on a gentleman 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:53.400 named Edward Berney's one of the most important and uh 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.800 slightly obscure, at least until our episode came out thinkers 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:04.080 in history right, Yes, the the man commonly known as 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:10.600 the father of public relations, the most famous, the most 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:14.920 famous relative of Sigmund Freud in our modern age. Both 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.680 of those things are true. If you're a fan of 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.760 this show and you haven't listened to that episode of 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:24.120 the podcast, it is one of the few that Matt 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.600 Nike had agorically recommend you listen to and share with 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:31.640 your friends, family, and colleagues. Without going too far into 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.920 what happens in that episode, Let's put it this way. 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.120 Edward Bernets is the reason that you and your loved ones, 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.679 as well as your enemies to probably practice several things 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:48.640 that seem normal today seem normal, Yeah, because you know 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.840 that very very quickly. It's insane how quickly people can 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.480 become accustomed to something, something that is not normal, and 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.520 then all of a sudden becomes normal to the average individual, 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:03.160 to an our community perhaps or even civilization as a whole, 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:06.840 something that was never done before and now it's normal. Right. Yeah, 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:12.040 it's likewise astonishing how rarely we question bizarre things. So 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:16.239 often we hide behind the idea of tradition as a species, 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:20.800 I mean, or so often we uh, we don't ask 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:24.200 fundamental questions about why something has framed the way it 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:28.000 is or presented the way it is. For instance, why 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:31.400 do we eat bacon for breakfast? This was not the 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:36.280 case for the vast majority of human eras on this planet. 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.480 Why are we actually at war with a particular country 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.960 at any given time? And one that I always go 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.880 back to as as a strange example here is Matt, 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.720 why why do people wear ties like neck ties? Oh? Well, 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.800 it's because of the form. It's all about form, not 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:57.959 so much function. Uh yeah, it just looks really good 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.320 to have that line going down the chest. Someone's read 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.680 a couple of fashion guides. I see, yes, make it work. 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.760 So there, Yeah, that's that's a good point. We did 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:11.720 earlier on a different show that we've worked within the 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.519 past called brain Stuff. We looked at the origin of 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:20.520 where neckties come from. And Matt, you are spot on correct. 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:25.560 It serves no function. It's not I was talking from 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.919 that took us. It's not a it's not a functional thing. 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:33.720 That took us is more functional than an actie. So 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.640 leading to this, why why does a country work a 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.800 certain way? Folks think about the government in the country 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:45.600 that you live in today or the governments in countries 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:49.040 used to live in. Right, how closely does the government 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:53.440 in practice adhere to the theory of government as outlined 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:59.240 in your country's constitution or other documents? Yeah, wres this? 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:04.800 You know? Getting it right? For some of the most part, well, 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.400 most people, regardless of where they live, will generally agree 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.440 that there is at least some degree of difference between 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:16.800 the government on paper and the government in practice. Right, 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:22.560 And in some cases this can seem like a relatively 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.560 obscure difference, right, or it can seem like a matter 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:36.920 of persnickety, nitpicking interpretation. But speaking of obscure, today's episode 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:42.880 focuses on another figure, sort of like bern As, another 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:49.719 profoundly important, equally obscure historical figure, Walter Lippmann. Now when 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.359 we say he's obscure, we mean to the public, to 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:58.320 the every day Joe and Jane walking around. Uh, they 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.240 probably don't know who Walter Lippan is. I did not 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.520 know who this person was until we started thinking about 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:08.840 this episode and reading some of the materials. Um just 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:12.760 like Edward Berne. But but these gentlemen were very much 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.840 well known within circles of the powerful. I think we 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.520 should at least like put that out there right like 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.360 they were. They were the guy. Yeah, yeah, the we were. 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.600 It's funny because before Paul, Matt and I went on 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.839 air today, I brought in a a fancy glass for 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:35.320 my typical coffee because we are talking about the elite, 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.560 and it looks like an absentthe glass. Gotta be honest 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:42.200 with you, Well, I'll tell you what it is. Truth 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:46.880 be told. Not as convenient as the regular mug or 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:50.720 cup that I would typically use, but you know tradition. 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:57.440 So so here are the facts. About Walter Lippmann. As 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:03.440 we said nowadays, Walter Lippman is, let's say, obscure enough 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:08.360 that were you to walk on a on the average 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:16.080 city street and ask someone you know identify the following figures, say, 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.400 you know Neil Armstrong, probably know that, No, he's some 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:23.600 sort of astronaut. Maybe at the least identify you know, 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.400 the big current or past presidents. They probably probably at 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.400 least recognized the name of past presidents, right. Uh. But 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:34.880 if you said, who's Walter Lippman, they would say does 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:39.160 he Does he on the grocery store? I don't know, unless, 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.680 of course, you were asking someone in Harvard, and then 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:44.479 the answer might very well be I think that's a 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:49.040 building on campus. I'm pretty building. But as you said, Matt, 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:54.839 in his day, this man was profoundly influential and remains so, 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:56.919 so let's get to know him a little bit. Walter 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:02.920 Lippman was born on September eight nine, eighteen eighty nine, 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:05.880 in New York. He was a child of privilege. He 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:10.720 attended the Sacks School for Boys before matriculating into Harvard. 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.000 Now Sacks by the way, s A C. H. S. 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:17.640 You might recognize that name somewhere with a goldman in 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.760 front of it, like golden sax yes um. And this 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:24.320 is where he studied at Harvard under the famous philosopher 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:31.720 and novelist George Santayana, who was a teacher of numerous 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:37.720 other numerous other people who went on to become literary lions. 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:40.640 You know, T. S. Eliott would be one of the 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.640 most famous examples. Then in May of nineteen ten, he 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.520 began his career in journalism as a cub reporter with 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.320 the Boston Common after he dropped out of his the 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.480 master's course that he was taking at Harvard University. And 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:56.760 this this is interesting because we found a couple of 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:01.480 different things in the research. Will find many biographies to 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.520 say he graduated right in nineteen ten, and then you'll 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.760 find other writers who say that he dropped out. Yeah, 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:12.200 so either way, he did go to Harvard. At some 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:17.080 point he was assistant to the philosopher novelist George Santiana. Uh. 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:21.280 In nineteen thirteen, Lippman co founded a paper called The 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:25.920 New Republic. It's a liberal American magazine. The published articles 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.680 on politics and and the arts and UH. In that 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.560 same year he published a book called A Preface to 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:39.760 Politics and his writing, his philosophy at this time, in 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:44.640 this early phase, garnered the attention of one Woodrow Wilson. 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:47.440 Just a little side note there about the New Republic 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.000 at the time when he founded it, in quite for 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:52.959 quite some time afterwards, it had a fairly small readership 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.000 of only you know, ten to twenty thousand people. But 0:08:56.200 --> 0:09:00.400 the people reading that magazine were the important people, right, 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:06.400 the bankers, the professors, the jurists. And in nineteen fourteen 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:12.600 Lippman was appointed as an advisor to President Wilson Woodrow Wilson, 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.800 and during this time he helped the president draft a 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:20.720 famous speech about World War One and was called the 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:25.280 Fourteen Points. You can read it in full online today. 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:30.960 So Lippman was at this point an interventionist in a 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:36.199 largely isolationist society. And what what we mean by that 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:42.600 is that the majority of the US public did not 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:49.479 support foreign intervention because there was this feeling that, well, one, 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.760 why should we get involved, right, It's it's imperialist on 0:09:53.920 --> 0:10:02.000 some level. And two we're separated by oceans, right, and 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:09.040 there's no imminent threat at this point in this isolationist society, 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.280 Lippman was an interventionist. He was one of the people 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:19.840 who argued that it was both rational and advantageous for 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:25.679 the United States to enter into World War One in 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:30.600 some capacity or another. He wrote propaganda that was meant 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:35.199 to sway the needle on public support. Right, because in 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:41.959 a representative democracy, the theory goes that the voters must 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.440 support a large scale government action, or at least the 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:49.439 majority of voters must support something for it to occur. Yes, 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:54.400 because the representative part of that government, the the people's 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:57.160 part of the government in Congress, they are the ones 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:01.319 that actually declare war in an act war, especially at 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:03.320 this time for World War One. So you had to 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.240 get the voters and the people's voice to say, yes, 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:10.120 let's do this. And so Lippman and Edward Bernese both 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:14.040 worked for what was called the Committee on Public Information. 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:18.400 I love that name, the Committee on Public Information. And 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:25.679 this was a wartime propaganda institution built to do two things. First, 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:33.480 to spread or propagate pro intervention, pro war literature, art, music, 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:39.400 anything in pop culture, as well as academic arguments for 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.880 intervention on the part of the US. And then the 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:51.199 second task was to suppress, discredit, or destroy anything that 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:56.319 was anti war. So if you uh, just pulling an 0:11:56.320 --> 0:12:01.400 example out of thin air, right, and one way in 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.680 which something like this might occur still happens today, it 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.880 happened for decades after, uh, would be Let's say there 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:13.400 are two there are two art galleries in a town, 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:19.240 and one of them has has a featured artist who 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:24.960 is glorifying the moral duty or imperative to save people 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.920 in another country. And this this gallery is filled with 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.320 this one artist work. And then in the other gallery, uh, 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:38.760 there's someone who has a exhibits about imperialism and the 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:46.160 unintentional tyranny of intervening, whatever your intentions, in a culture 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:50.280 you don't understand and a civilization that never asked for 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:56.160 nor needed your help. What this sort of operation would 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.920 do would not be to have the government openly shot 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:05.400 them down. You would have critics from newspapers praising whichever side, 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:07.440 it doesn't matter what side we're talking about. We have 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:12.360 critics praising the interventionist if they want to intervene, or 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:16.200 praising the isolationists, and then you would have them also 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:22.360 dismissing or ignoring the other side of that cultural argument. 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:28.120 And it's like it's almost this um uh soft aggression 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:31.880 tactic that that is employed by this stuff, and in 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.480 a weird way, it's it's not fully going after a 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:37.080 lot of times, at least from what I was reading 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:41.640 this research, the the Committee on Public Information wouldn't necessarily 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.640 physically go after anyone, but they would use the media to, 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:50.760 like you said, ben, completely ignore or just trash something 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:55.280 that they didn't agree with. Right, yes, exactly. And the 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.400 most important part of that is in these sorts of operations, 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:04.680 you wouldn't know the ultimate force behind this trend. It 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:07.240 would appear to be and this is the most important part, 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:11.840 it would appear to be an organic consensus arrived at 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:17.360 by every Jane John and Jimmy Smith in America, just 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:19.320 to pick I don't know, ridiculous. It's almost like the 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:21.920 rotten tomato score. If the tomato score is at a 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.480 certain height, or you know, if it's in the eighties, 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:27.680 you're like, oh, man, okay, I'm gonna go see that. 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:29.440 You don't even have to read the stuff about it. 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:32.040 If it's in like the thirties or twenties, and then oh, 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.800 I'm never probably not gonna go see that trash because 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:37.560 you don't have time usually if you're the average person 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.480 to go through and read every single review now you 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:44.000 want the bottom line the best news, Explain it to 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:49.400 me now, because I'm almost off the elevator, right or 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:52.280 the light almost turned green, as the case would be 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:54.640 from any communities, only have twenty bucks to spend, and 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:56.920 I gotta choose where I'm gonna spend it. Even better, 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:03.880 Lippman also traveled the world and wrote extensively, prolifically. That's 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.960 that's such a fantastic dream life. You know. I think, 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.000 here I am in Vienna, and here was my thoughts 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:15.520 on the Viennese. Oh, man, you want to be Anthony 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:20.680 Boordain so badly, don't you? Lippin know you? Oh you 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.760 know what? You know what? Uh? A little food centric? 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:26.280 I think, Yeah, I think he's doing a great job 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.720 being Anthony boording Okay, but but I appreciate it. Yeah, 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:32.400 I'd love Who wouldn't love to travel the world and write? 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.840 I don't know, Yeah, I can't think of anyone. So 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.480 Lippman was no exception to that, that rule that we 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:45.120 have arbitrarily decided as almost universal. So then on September eight, 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:49.440 n Lippman's column for The New York Herald, which was 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.840 called Today and Tomorrow. I love that title. It first appeared, 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.560 and eventually this was syndicated to more than two and 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:00.120 fifty newspapers within the United States and then another twenty 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:04.400 five other nations. And then it also won two Pulitzer Prizes, 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.360 one in ninety eight and another in nineteen sixty two. 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:13.680 So in his day, Walter Lippman was a world famous 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:16.760 columnist for the New York Times and other papers of note, 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:23.240 and overall the world held his opinion in tremendously high regard. 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:28.440 He lived amid New York's elite and therefore a a 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:32.440 percentage of the world's elite. He dined with presidents, he 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.880 would write speeches for them, He advised them in formal 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:41.960 and informal capacities. He was a true man behind the curtain. 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:47.640 So let's talk about what he truly believed in. Right, Yeah, 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:50.680 this so well and good? But why why is he 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:56.040 the subject of today's episode? Uh? Is he them? Is 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.080 he that? They? And stuff? They don't want you to know. 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:02.080 What did he actually leave? We'll tell you after a 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:11.720 word from our sponsor. So let's bring the rubber to 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:18.480 the road. Matt Walter Lippman is responsible for creating, popularizing, 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:24.960 coining several terms that you have almost certainly used at 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:29.160 some point in your life, friends and neighbors. The first 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.880 one is the well let's let's do let's do one 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:37.040 that's little us specific first, that's the Cold War. He 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:42.480 is the person who popularized the term Cold war with 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:47.680 a series of articles Inn called the Cold War right 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:52.120 pretty good. When you title something, it's probably gonna stick. Uh. 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:56.040 In those articles, he was speaking out against President Truman's 0:17:56.080 --> 0:18:02.960 policy of containment. Uh. And the more popular term that 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:07.640 you have you have obviously heard. There's no one who 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.880 has not heard this, this term, at least no one 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:13.560 that speaks English has not heard this term. And that 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:18.399 is stereotype. Yes. One of his works, Public Opinion, It 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:23.240 begins with the world outside and the Pictures in our heads. 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.920 This is the chapter that introduced his idea of a stereotype, 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.840 what what a stereotype is? And Uh. It explained how 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:34.520 public opinion was formed and how it was manipulated because 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:39.679 of what we trust as what he called an authentic messenger. So, 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:43.240 as we mentioned before, Littman was working um with the 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:47.280 Committee on Public Information also called the Creole Committee, and 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:50.240 they were influencing public opinion by censoring information that was 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:53.280 anti war they're also producing thousands of these pro war 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:59.159 pamphlets and cartoons and magazines, movies, all kinds of media. Also, 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:04.040 the USA enter World War One or World War let's say, 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:07.600 in the nineteen seventeen it wasn't a one at the time, nobody, 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:10.399 nobody was waiting for the sequel. But the whole idea 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:12.600 is that the United States said it was not going 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.359 to enter World War One no matter what, and this 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:20.680 committee is sitting there actively trying to make it happen. Right. So, this, 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:25.080 this idea of a stereotype, the picture in our heads 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:31.480 versus the world outside is is the subject of a 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.240 great deal thought in public opinion in the Lippman book. 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:39.400 In this work, he attempts to explain how these pictures 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:44.160 that arise almost spontaneously in people's minds. He was hoping 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:48.680 to explain how those come about. The most simple way 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:52.760 to say it would be that, according to Lippman, we 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:57.880 all live in these second hand worlds, and we live 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.600 this way because we are aware of much more than 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:06.800 we have ever personally experienced. You know, we like Neil Armstrong, 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:12.359 we know that astronauts exist, but many people have never 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:16.479 met and we'll never meet one we know that billionaires exist, 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:19.240 but many people have never met and will never meet. 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:23.600 When we know that what Reddit loves this joke about 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:27.000 this town in Germany that everyone says doesn't exist. Maybe 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:29.480 a better example would be Bhutan. You know, the nation 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.920 of Bhutan exists, but many people will never go there. 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:39.600 According to this, Lipman's argument is that our own personal 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:46.639 experience is primarily second hand, primarily indirect. We read about things, 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.879 we watch things about things, and hope that the people 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:55.680 who have experienced it directly are telling us something objective, rational, 0:20:55.840 --> 0:21:00.960 and accurate. Yeah, in other words, the truth. That's why 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:03.720 when you get Mermaids on Discovery Channel, you're like, what, 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:08.159 oh boy, sorry, I think enough time has passed for 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.359 us to tell people we've talked about it before. So 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:19.680 here's another aspect. What did he think of democracy? Because 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:24.119 you see, Lippmann wouldn't have considered himself just a journalist. 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:28.280 In fact, he considered himself a public philosopher, and most 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:34.399 of his work centered around the concept of democracy in 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:38.840 all its forms, representative democracy, so on. So what did 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:43.800 you think of it? Unfortunately it's a terrifying question. Early 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:50.040 on he was optimistic about this American US flavor of democracy. 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:55.119 He embraced what we will call a Jeffersonian perspective. He 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:59.320 believed that the American public would become intellectually engaged in 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.240 political world issues and that they would fulfill the ultimate 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:05.960 role of the public right, which is to be an 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:11.360 educated electorate. Not only does everyone vote, but everyone understands 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:13.919 the issues of play and why they're voting the way 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:17.600 that they do. If you ask them who the h 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:21.240 if you ask them who the county commissioner is going 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:24.320 to be and why, they would know. If you ask 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:28.840 them about humanitarians spending in you know, Yemen or in 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:34.000 Mauritania or something, not only would they know their position 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:37.359 on it, but they would know why, Yeah, do you 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:40.920 support engaging Germany and defending Poland or you know, some 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:43.000 something to that effect. And you would hope that the 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:46.240 person would come back with a reasoned argument about why 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:49.280 or why not. That would be nice. Sure, well that 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:53.520 was that That's the optimistic view. But with the rule 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:57.960 of industrialization weighing heavy in his mind the events leading 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:06.040 to World War Two and the spread of totalitarianism, Lippman 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:12.840 came to reject this view. Instead, he felt that nobody 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:19.080 was questioning fundamental assumptions of democracy. Yeah, he didn't believe 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:23.879 democracy as we understand it was working at all, And specifically, 0:23:23.880 --> 0:23:26.160 he didn't believe that the average citizen was in any 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:29.520 way qualified to have any kind of input in the 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:32.440 rebel of politics or in the actions of the state, 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:36.359 and basically that the public was being led around like 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:40.159 this pack of animals by journalists and the media and 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:43.800 people who reported what the government was saying. Right. During 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:48.000 the nineteen twenties, Lippman published two more books which were 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:53.840 criticisms indictments of humanity. They were, in the parlance of 0:23:53.840 --> 0:23:59.879 our time, they were distracts, right mix like hot mixtape distracts. 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:04.800 One was called Criticizing Democracy, one was called Public Opinion, 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:08.760 and the other was called The Phantom Public. The American voter, 0:24:09.160 --> 0:24:12.520 Lippman claimed, was not capable of acting out of any 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:17.960 rational collective self interest or even fully considering the issues 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:21.439 at hand in a rational way, not only not having 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:26.720 an answer to a question, but not understanding the question. Instead, 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:31.800 he said, the average voter was ill informed, my opic, 0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:38.520 and prone to fits of enthusiasm. So in his disillusionment, 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:40.800 if we were to put it in a modern context, 0:24:41.200 --> 0:24:45.680 would be something along the lines of, hey, you are 0:24:45.920 --> 0:24:53.360 supposed to vote in every election based on your aggregate calculation, 0:24:53.440 --> 0:24:57.360 whenever that might be of who becomes the best candidate, right, 0:24:57.880 --> 0:25:01.280 or why you think a certain local law shoot or 0:25:01.320 --> 0:25:05.639 should not be in place. When he says that a 0:25:05.720 --> 0:25:10.360 voter is ill informed, he means that they He means 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:12.400 they don't know what they're talking about, right, they don't 0:25:12.480 --> 0:25:16.160 understand the issue for one reason or another. And when 0:25:16.240 --> 0:25:19.399 he says biopic, he means that they might be what's 0:25:19.520 --> 0:25:23.439 often called a single issue voter, someone who says, well, 0:25:24.520 --> 0:25:28.800 I will typically vote, you know, for a certain ideological 0:25:28.840 --> 0:25:32.280 standpoint or a certain party line, but the only thing 0:25:32.320 --> 0:25:38.640 I really care about is, you know, the the the 0:25:38.800 --> 0:25:44.000 illegality of owning a will to beast. I think it 0:25:44.040 --> 0:25:47.640 should be illegal. I think that, you know, the country's 0:25:47.680 --> 0:25:50.399 going to hell in a handbasket if one more person 0:25:50.440 --> 0:25:53.720 can own a will to beast. Well, yeah, and that's 0:25:53.840 --> 0:25:56.400 that's what I vote on. That's it. And that's that's 0:25:56.440 --> 0:26:01.320 where you get some of the more social issues becoming 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:03.919 the most prominent things that are spoken about in the media. 0:26:04.080 --> 0:26:07.359 Shoure you think about stances on abortion or stances on 0:26:07.600 --> 0:26:12.320 Second Amendment rights, things that aren't necessarily the most important 0:26:12.359 --> 0:26:15.520 things to be focusing on, but they become the one 0:26:15.640 --> 0:26:18.119 thing that the voter will latch onto. And that's the 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:21.920 craziest part because essentially it makes this an exercise in 0:26:22.080 --> 0:26:26.680 mad lib in a very dangerous way. Uh. I hope 0:26:26.720 --> 0:26:29.480 everybody has had the wonderful opportunity to play mad lib 0:26:29.720 --> 0:26:32.920 on a road trip or something growing up. But mad 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:36.800 lib is a game wherein you ask talking to people 0:26:36.840 --> 0:26:38.800 like they don't know what mad libs are. I feel 0:26:38.840 --> 0:26:42.280 like we can't make assumptions. I guess, so, yeah, you're right, 0:26:43.280 --> 0:26:46.360 what are you? Let's let's tell people what mad lives are. 0:26:46.440 --> 0:26:49.880 You do it, but do it in the voice, okay? Uh? 0:26:50.080 --> 0:26:52.720 Mad lives you, guys, is where you got a bunch 0:26:52.760 --> 0:26:56.159 of blanks in a sentence, a long set of sentences perhaps, 0:26:56.240 --> 0:27:00.200 and you fill those blanks in with nouns and adjectives, adverbs, 0:27:01.359 --> 0:27:03.520 and then you read the whole thing and you've got 0:27:03.560 --> 0:27:07.880 this jumble whacked noodle sentence. I feel like you are 0:27:09.000 --> 0:27:14.760 unfairly criticizeing v I I don't know, not everybody, okay 0:27:14.760 --> 0:27:19.240 it maybe maybe everybody knows what bath libs are. You 0:27:19.280 --> 0:27:21.960 think they do I don't know. I think you're I 0:27:21.960 --> 0:27:24.359 think we're somewhere in the middle. Some people don't know 0:27:24.440 --> 0:27:28.800 what they are, but people who are listening to this podcast, 0:27:29.000 --> 0:27:33.639 yeah probably do. Okay, all right, okay, right in conspiracy 0:27:33.640 --> 0:27:36.680 and how stuff works, that come you know what a 0:27:36.880 --> 0:27:41.720 mad lib is. So so the reason I'm setting that up, Matt, 0:27:43.600 --> 0:27:47.639 is because the it's it's a fundamental assumption that you 0:27:47.680 --> 0:27:50.400 and I are making. That absolutely right, people would all 0:27:50.480 --> 0:27:52.880 know what a mad lib is and how it functions. Right, 0:27:53.480 --> 0:27:57.240 And so the idea of fits of enthusiasm, right, that's 0:27:57.280 --> 0:28:01.200 the last the last piece of his his primary criticism there. Uh, 0:28:01.240 --> 0:28:04.719 the idea of fits of enthusiasm would be the best 0:28:05.480 --> 0:28:09.600 explained today by social media. Right, So you see a 0:28:09.680 --> 0:28:14.600 post and it's shared over and over. Look at all 0:28:14.640 --> 0:28:18.240 these assholes buying wilde beast, you know what I mean? 0:28:18.800 --> 0:28:21.399 This has to stop. And then all of a sudden, 0:28:21.520 --> 0:28:25.919 somebody who ordinarily would never vote whenever, you know, go 0:28:26.080 --> 0:28:29.200 to a protest or maybe even isn't that active, uh, 0:28:29.240 --> 0:28:33.120 and their social media. Right, then all of a sudden 0:28:33.240 --> 0:28:36.880 it's the most important thing, you know. And we we've 0:28:36.880 --> 0:28:43.120 talked a little bit about the really uh, really depressing, 0:28:44.160 --> 0:28:49.960