Charles Lindbergh

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On The Portal

This brings us to a final issue, which I think is incredibly important, which has to do with why there are no living heroes. In effect, we almost don't believe in heroism. As soon as somebody starts to make us excited about the world and what is possible for the individual, we come to start feeling terrible about that person, unless they're trapped inside of a Marvel movie, or something like that. If you go back to the history of ticker tape parades, you will see that there were many ticker tape parades given for individual aviators, individual explorers, ships captains who put their ship at risk to rescue the crew of another–and, in fact, this pattern largely stopped.

My contention is that the difficult case of Charles Lindbergh may have marked a turning point. In Lindbergh's case, he had flown solo to Europe from the United States and come back a hero, I believe in the late 1920s. Now, Lindbergh was a very difficult human being to deal with, because he was an authentic hero, and he was also somebody who believed in America First, and in isolationism, and given the Nazi menace in Europe, I think it's almost an unforgivable position. Nevertheless, the fact is that Lindberg commanded tremendous popularity, and that popularity could have been used to keep the U.S. out of a war.

What I find is that, since Lindbergh, it has been very rare to elevate any individual to the point where they can oppose our institutions. The Pete Seegers and Albert Einsteins of the world, who fought against McCarthyism, were a huge danger to the industry that was cropping up around anti-communism. When it came to the Vietnam War, it was very dangerous to have popular entertainers, like John Lennon, who were against it.

We have been frightened about individuals coming to rival our institutions in terms of power. And that's what's so great about the new revolution in long-form podcasting, and all of these other forms of social media. Now, we have a great danger in that most of these platforms are mediated. We saw what happened to Alex Jones. It's quite possible that if these powerful institutions come to believe that a particular individual should be removed, they can always choose to enforce the rules in a different way.

We saw recently the advent of Terms of Service changes to include deadnaming. Now if I say that Walter Carlos composed the album Switched-On Bach, or performed the album Switched-On Bach, that is a true statement. But because Walter Carlos became Wendy Carlos, I have no idea whether or not I can be accused of deadnaming. Now imagine that you have a hundred such rules, rules that are never spelled out, never clear, that can be enforced any which way to deny someone access to the major platforms. This is the great danger with this moment. We have unprecedented access, but we also have a gating function, which can be turned on at any time if we fall out of line with the institutions.

- Eric Weinstein on The Portal, Ep 18, Released 15 Jan, 2020

On X

2016

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The absence of politically vocal living US heroes w self-minted credibility is entirely unnatural. My best efforts trace this to Lindbergh.

12:57 PM · Sep 22, 2016

2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

1/ The "Adj.-Profession-Name" Formula, Disagreeables, & the "No-Living-Heroes" thy. Consider adjectives:

Embattled
Controversial
Divisive
Reclusive
Provocative
Struggling
Right-Wing
Eccentric
Self-styled
Far-Left
Recovering
Disgraced
Self-Promoting
Free-thinking
Volatile
etc.

4:39 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

2/ These adjectives are really reserved terms and the 'tells' of mainstream media letting you know who is off-narrative and who they have marked for reputation neutralization through FUD (Fear-Uncertainty and Doubt) campaigns.

4:45 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

3/ So what's wrong with calling a professor who is controversial, a "controversial professor" you may fairly ask? The problem is that MSM builds clientside architecture in your own mind that you don't notice. Proof? Check the graphic attached.

4:51 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

4/ Apparently in the entire history of the internet, this tweet is the first to ever use the phrase "controversial professor Paul Krugman" to describe @paulkrugman even though he is famous for being a controversial professor.

So...how can that be?

4:54 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

5/ Let’s first dig a bit to look for positive framings of my colleague “controversial professor” @jordanbpeterson. Consider these attachments for a man whose fame is largely due to being a noble inspirational heroic maverick.

The point is that real humans don’t talk like this.

5:06 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

6/ My point here is that our minds are programmed to recognize the “Gated Institutional Narrative” or GIN and to take our emotional instructions from it. This is Orwell’s 1984 Newspeak: Adjective-Profession-Target.

Or so asserts self-styled Internet personality @EricRWeinstein.

5:21 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

7/ So who are the targets? Men and women who are off the charts on the Big-5 psychometric for disagreeability. These people are the pool from which our greatest Nobel Laureates & even heroes were once drawn.

And right now the internet is having a bull market in disagreeability.

5:27 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

8/ This brings us to one of my most controversial theories: Ever since Lindbergh’s attempt to keep the US out of WWII, our institutions have fought against us having ANY living heroes with self-minted credibility.

This leaves a vacuum filled by acceptable institutional figures.

5:36 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

9/ The lesson learned from Lindbergh appears to be that Mavericks are too dangerous to institutions...and in the case of Lindbergh that made some sense. But what about a John Lennon? Frances Kelsey? Charlie Chaplin? Paul Robeson? Frank Wilkinson? Katharine Hepburn?

5:46 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

10/ Here’s the punchline: There are suddenly way way too many disagreeable individual voices to be found for people trying to escape from the constant cognitive abuse of our institutions, which want our co-dependence on them.

So something new *has* to happen.

Here goes...

5:55 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

/11

Either:

A) The spell of the GIN breaks and we have lots of real self-minted heroes again.

B) Disagreeables like Jordan Peterson, Camille Paglia, Nassim Taleb, Douglas Murray, Claire Lehman, etc... all get taken out.

C) The institutions seat some of the disagreeables.

6:02 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

/END My prediction is that the Gated Institutional Narrative will fail. Exotic measures will be tried to get rid of the strong voices as was done to Jean Seberg. And then, at long bloody last, the institutions will seat the disagreeables. Here’s to Harvard Professor Nassim Taleb.

6:08 PM · Jan 21, 2018

2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

We don’t empower living heroes with the ability to challenge institutions.

We allow for individuals tied to institutions. We allow collective heroism (e.g. crews of astronauts are neither individual nor unaffiliated). But Lindbergh taught them the danger.

And so we now destroy.

9:40 PM · Sep 10, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Most of my real heroes now appear before me as scoundrels. They are mired in smears, whisper campaigns, impoverished by boycotts, cancelled, beset by campaigns to discredit everything they do, say, or even observe.

That isn’t an accident. It is reputation warfare known as F.U.D.

9:40 PM · Sep 10, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Moral: Institutions are doing you a favor by whittling down the set of possible heroes. Ask yourself:

FEAR: who frightens me?

UNCERTAINTY: who is unpredictable?

DOUBT: who lives under a cloud of questions particularly with respect to motive.

Then ask: is there a FUD campaign?

9:40 PM · Sep 10, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Even a *total* scoundrel may at times have something valuable to say. When someone tells you: “You should *never* listen to *anything* that person says! Don’t listen. Not a good look!” that is the dead giveaway. There is no soul on earth who that fits. Not a single one.

Lastly:

9:40 PM · Sep 10, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Learn to notice accounts that overuse ridicule. An account that overuses LMAO, ROTFL, meh, ha ha, loser, etc, etc, is trying to bypass your rational mind to get at your evolutionary programming to avoid expulsion from society.

Learn to notice the strategy working, and laugh. 🙏

9:40 PM · Sep 10, 2020

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