The rising rule of idiocracy in the West

Erosion of leadership quality is systemic and pervasive.

One facet of the Roman Empire’s decline, as they taught us in school, was the decaying quality of its leadership, including weak and inept emperors at the top of the political hierarchy. Today we can appreciate that this deterioration was the result of a systemic process that promoted and empowered those who were loyal to the ruling establishment's agendas and purged those who dissented, often violently. Today also, the ruling establishments across western liberal democracies have important plans. These plans are in fact so important, that they must be implemented whether or not they make sense or not.

Zealotry over competence

To climb the ladders within the corporate and bureaucratic hierarchies charged with these important plans, individuals must show a certain zeal and loyalty over and above their ability or competence. Individuals who believe in things like vaccines, human-caused climate change, energy transition, lockdowns, smart cities, CBDCs, artificial meat, insect-based diets, LGBTQ+ ideology and rules-based global order are far more likely to advance in their careers than those who openly point out the many problems with these ideas. Here are a few examples:

• Last year, the College of Psychologists of Ontario conducted an investigation of Dr. Jordan Peterson, a Canadian clinical psychiatrist and one of Canada's leading intellectuals over some of his public statements and Tweets. The College ordered him to complete a Specified Continuing Education or Remedial Program (SCERP) which is designed to address issues regarding professionalism in public statements.

• In January 2020, the long-time columnist of Denver Post, Jon Caldera was sacked over the piece he wrote that month and in which he said that there were only two sexes (male and female).

• In April 2023 in Norway, one Rianne Vogels, employee of a non-profit company Papillon which helps migrant young women was fired for tweeting that there are "only two genders."

• On Friday, 22 January 2022, German Vice-Admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach, speaking at an event organized by an Indian think tank in New Delhi suggested that the easiest, low-cost solution to the Ukraine crisis was to deal with Vladimir Putin with respect: "... it is easy to give him the respect he really demands - and probably also deserves." He also blundered to state that Crimea was "gone" and "will never come back - this is a fact." German Defence Ministry immediately distanced itself from the Admiral who was pressured into resigning.

• In July this year, Dr. Mark Tykocinski, MD, resigned from his position as the President of Thomas Jefferson University and Interim Dean of the Sydney Kimmel Medical College in Philadelphia. Tykocinski erred by liking some tweets that called into question the validity and efficacy of Covid 19 vaccinations and called gender reassignment surgery "child mutilation."

The list of similar career shipwrecks is now very long, a sort of pandemic that’s swept across the western world – the same "free world" that prides itself on its shared values, the foremost among which is freedom of expression. It would seem that we've reached the stage where doublethink has become part of our everyday normal: to save freedom of speech, it is necessary to destroy freedom of speech. 

Objectivity has got to go!

This destruction isn't the work of a few overzealous 'bad apples.' To the contrary, as Prof. Jonathan Turley reported, it is systemic and stems from the very top of the command-and-control hierarchy. Former Executive Director of the Washington Post, Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward conducted interviews with more than 75 media leaders and reported that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful.

Downie declared that, “What we found has convinced us that truth-seeking news media must move beyond whatever ‘objectivity’ once meant to produce more trustworthy news.” The mood was corroborated by San Francisco Chronicle's editor-in-chief, Emilio Garcia-Ruiz who said, "Objectivity has got to go." Stanford University's journalism professor Ted Glasser stated that journalism needed to "free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice."

The rule of idiocracy

We may not know how exactly that message percolated through the system's plumbing down to Glasser, Downie, Garcia-Ruiz and probably thousands or even hundreds of thousands of similarly ambitious and haughty apparatchiks, eager to serve the rules-based order's plans and agendas. A competent newsman, news-woman would take it for granted that objectivity should probably remain cemented in the very foundation of their profession. Objectivity equals credibility, without which that profession becomes pointless and useless. But none of that matters to the post-truth, post-objectivity professional whose first duty is to the "party." In this environment, loyal zealots rise to the top and competent professionals lose influence.

The consequence is that the whole system degenerates into an idiocracy staffed by ideologues, opportunists, unprincipled cowards or profiteers - such low-calibre leaders like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Boris Johnson, Justin Trudeau, Josep Borrell, Ursula von der Leyen, Jens Stoltenberg and many others in the west. Such systems can in all seriousness promulgate absurdities and ultimately accept the ideas that slavery is freedom, war is peace, ignorance is strength and that 2+2=5.

Has incremental reform become impossible?

In such systems, corrective action which the competent, principled professional could exert at important junctures may become so weakened that they ossify around distorted ideas and flawed plans, making any reform short of a violent, revolutionary collapse impossible. In the west, we may be past this point.

Alex Krainer – @NakedHedgie is the creator of I-System Trend Following and publisher of daily TrendCompass investor reports which cover over 200 financial and commodities markets. One-month test drive is always free of charge, no jumping through hoops to cancel. To start your trial subscription, drop us an email at TrendCompass@ISystem-TF.com

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