Are The Plebs Taking Over?

The 'plebs' are not taking over. They have no more power with Trump, Brexit and potentially with Grillo, Wilders and Le Pen than they did with Obama, remain, Gentiloni, Rutte and Hollande.

What is happening is that for various reasons, a lot of normal people, or 'plebs' here, are unhappy with how things are. They're unhappy with the political system, or the economic system, or the geopolitical system. And they're looking for change. Who's providing that change? Elites, completely ingrained in the system with other elites, who masquerade as champions of the common people while in reality not caring a jot about them.

I'm sure it wasn't the 1st example but the most striking one in my head is the example of Clodius Pulcher.

He was a patrician (aristorat) in Ancient Rome during the time of Julius Caesar and the fall of the Republic. Patricians and plebs (just the common folk) had very different routes through politics for the most part and patricians could not become tribunes. This was no issue for Clodius, who got himself adpoted into a plebian family and gave up his patrician status in an incredibly abnormal ceremony which violated normal customs at the time (and indeed at any time; the guy who adopted him was actually younger than him).

Long story short, as tribune, he engaged in populist tactics, intimidation and thuggery in a way which changed the face of Roman politics forever. You can't put the blame of the fall of the Republic on him. Various figures and factors had been chipping away at that for a while and Caesar, Pompey, Crassus and finally Augustus eventually provided the hammer blows. But he certainly played his part.

Clodius didn't care about the plebs. He cared about himself, exacting revenge on his enemies and enriching himself. But he had widespread support and passed some genuinely popular measures.

So for the too long, didn't read bit. The plebs aren't taking over. But they have voted in other members of the elite who feign interest in their problems and imo at times threaten the democracy which elected them in the first place (not Brexit).
 
@africanspur I know of the story of Clodius, will read up more on him - thanks for sharing!

My point is not simply Trump or BrExit. All 'experts' (politicians, banks, corporations, media) are less trusted like ever before. We are in that flux right now.

Trump is merely the most extreme example of society appointing a non expert into a role tradionally held by an expert.

I dont think the mistrust of experts phenomena is going away. So I'm left asking what comes next.

Your answer is it will be other elites who gain office through populism and not principles. If you're right then we are going towards fascism!
 
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'Thing is, who genuinely considers politicians to be experts? Trump would probably have been elected even if he was a politician, so long as he said the 'right' things.
 
sammsky1 said:
@africanspur I know of the story of Clodius, will read up more on him - thanks for sharing!

My point is not simply Trump or BrExit. All 'experts' (politicians, banks, corporations, media) are less trusted like ever before. We are in that flux right now.

Trump is merely the most extreme example of society appointing a non expert into a role tradionally held by an expert.

I dont think the mistrust of experts phenomena is going away. So I'm left asking what comes next.

Your answer is it will be other elites who gain office through populism and not principles. If you're right then we are going towards fascism!
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I think it would help if you try to define the term expert a bit closer. In europe very few MPs are part of the economic elite. The majority of European politicians worked as teachers, bureaucrats, in the military, for charities, in unions, as lawyers, in SME or are career politicians. They are not millionaires or bankers and they are also no experts. I talk a lot to politicians and you would be surprised how little they know.


If you look at the patterns of this conflict, you see that the voters are very unhappy with centre right/left governments. But the consequences is not that they reject politics/governments, but it pushes them towards politicians who are more extreme. The politicians that profit from this crisis make even bigger promises, are far more nationalistic and far more authoritarian.
In the end these parties/people will win elections or at least influence other parties. We'll probably see a lot more illiberal policies when it comes to immigration and civil rights, more protectionism, a lot more state intervention into the economy and bigger welfare promises.
The silver lining is, that these are not good politics and these parties will discredit themselves. Additionally young people are far fairly cosmopolitan and outward looking. So the nationalistic backlash against globalism will be only a (short) episode.
I think the biggest realistic mid-term danger is, that the EU is not surviving this; at least not in the current form.
 
sammsky1 said:
Have lived in 4 Asian countries for 10 years in total. Visited all countries in Asia except N.Korea and 7 countries in Africa.

Talked to lots while I did.

I don't understand your point.
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You don't understand the point because you see it as a universal truth that poor people have no purpose of life and are apparently undeveloped and should be looked upon as subhuman.
 
Blodssvik said:
You don't understand the point because you see it as a universal truth that poor people have no purpose of life and are apparently undeveloped and should be looked upon as subhuman.
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I stated in the OP that I was being facecous.

Many poor people are not living beyond stage 2 of maslow and it's neither discriminatory nor mean to recognise that.

as many pointed out above these people have regularly been exploited by expert society.

As an aside I've spent most of my life trying to improve that situation.

Hope that clarifies.
 
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PedroMendez said:
I think it would help if you try to define the term expert a bit closer. In europe very few MPs are part of the economic elite. The majority of European politicians worked as teachers, bureaucrats, in the military, for charities, in unions, as lawyers, in SME or are career politicians. They are not millionaires or bankers and they are also no experts. I talk a lot to politicians and you would be surprised how little they know.

If you look at the patterns of this conflict, you see that the voters are very unhappy with centre right/left governments. But the consequences is not that they reject politics/governments, but it pushes them towards politicians who are more extreme. The politicians that profit from this crisis make even bigger promises, are far more nationalistic and far more authoritarian.
In the end these parties/people will win elections or at least influence other parties. We'll probably see a lot more illiberal policies when it comes to immigration and civil rights, more protectionism, a lot more state intervention into the economy and bigger welfare promises.
The silver lining is, that these are not good politics and these parties will discredit themselves. Additionally young people are far fairly cosmopolitan and outward looking. So the nationalistic backlash against globalism will be only a (short) episode.
I think the biggest realistic mid-term danger is, that the EU is not surviving this; at least not in the current form.
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If you read the Edelman report it shows clearly how mistrust towards established institutions is exponentially growing. Its a new phenomena when nearly 50% of US categorically says CNN is untrustworthy. And that phenomena exists in many countrys and their leading media outlets.

Im from the corporate business world and this phenomenon is causing huge debate and paranoia.

Regarding politics I mean 'politicians' are the experts; traditionally people spend time learning that as a profession before they are elevated to President!

Its why none of the political media or career politicians can understand the tRump phenomena and why the 'plebs' love it - because he is not the archetype 'expert' and more like one of them.

tRump remarked on Thursday that 'I guess I've become a politician only since I became president'.

Let me ask another way: in next election should we assume people will suddenly vote to the traditional archtype again, will CNN and other big media ever regain trust they lost and will banks be considered as caring for its customers.

I don't think so and am curious what comes next.
 
There seems to be class-based anger and no Left organisation, hence we're getting support for right-wing authoritarianism, attacking the symbols of wealth (universities, which can be linked to support for minority rights, immigration, climate change) rather than actual holders of wealth.
 
Plus ca change.
 
sammsky1 said:
In what I wrote?
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Well firstly you are a pleb, yet you seem to think otherwise.
Perhaps what the experts don't realise is that Trump is actually one of them. He may have been born into riches and led a secluded elite life, but intellectually and morrally, he shares their opinions and ideology. Yes, a real pleb is in the White House.
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One of them, not one of us. That's quite a significant piece of snobbery given your overall point.

Secondly, you evidently think very little of these plebs and you think even less of the almost non-human sub-section of it. Part of that seems to be because you've looked at your old friend Maslow's hierarcy of needs, like all good marketing gurus do, and you see them barely meeting their basic needs while you are no doubt self-actualised. Marketing's very fulfilling of course. One pretty significant misunderstanding there is the belief that you need to build your way up that pyramid step by step. That's an outdated perception.
"Our findings suggest that Maslow's theory is largely correct. In cultures all over the world the fulfillment of his proposed needs correlates with happiness," Diener said. "However, an important departure from Maslow's theory is that we found that a person can report having good social relationships and self-actualization even if their basic needs and safety needs are not completely fulfilled."
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To think they're subhuman because they have very different priorities in life to you is...well, if you can't see it then there's no point in saying it.
 
sammsky1 said:
If you read the Edelman report it shows clearly how mistrust towards established institutions is exponentially growing. Its a new phenomena when nearly 50% of US categorically says CNN is untrustworthy. And that phenomena exists in many countrys and their leading media outlets.

Im from the corporate business world and this phenomenon is causing huge debate and paranoia.

Regarding politics I mean 'politicians' are the experts; traditionally people spend time learning that as a profession before they are elevated to President!

Its why none of the political media or career politicians can understand the tRump phenomena and why the 'plebs' love it - because he is not the archetype 'expert' and more like one of them.

tRump remarked on Thursday that 'I guess I've become a politician only since I became president'.

Let me ask another way: in next election should we assume people will suddenly vote to the traditional archtype again, will CNN and other big media ever regain trust they lost and will banks be considered as caring for its customers.

I don't think so and am curious what comes next.
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Any chance you can stop doing this 'tRump' thing in your posts?
 
sammsky1 said:
My point is not simply Trump or BrExit. All 'experts' (politicians, banks, corporations, media) are less trusted like ever before. We are in that flux right now.
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If one considers what has taken place over the past decade or more, is such doubt not quite justified? Without the financial crisis and its aftermath the West would probably have muddled on for a some years yet, however that crisis helped to bring matters to the boil ahead of time.

Whilst on the surface the 2000s were seen as a time of plenty, the buoyant macroeconomics didn't tell the whole story. Trade deals, stagnant wages, cheap labour and a rising cost of living, these have all contributed to an increasing popular of the forgotten. Nor can it be simplistically dismissed as racism/xenophobia, for the well of resentment also includes an appreciable people who were themselves immigrants (or their parents).
 
Once upon a time in the UK politicians were made up of working class guys who were union reps/shop stewards ect (labour) or Solicitors/business men ect (conservative).

These folk actually did a proper job of politics most of the time, they listened to and understood their constituants needs and acted on them. They knew the real world, they had worked in the real world, in real jobs in factories or did thier time trawling the courts or whatever their proffession was.

Nowadays most MPs career path starts straight out of uni, where they will be some kinda junior under secretary or some other nonsense post which involves carrying your superiors briefcase ect. Their only interest at this point is to build up their own profile within a party so when their boss retires/stands down they hope they have done enough to step into their shoes.

Once they get into parliament they then are only interested in maintaining power, they don't really listen to the people no more, and do the bare minimum so they get re-elected.

They have no real ideals like in the past, they are happy to switch parties to the one that they see as having better career prospects and always follow the politically correct line and dare not speak anything that is not part of the script.

They will disagree with the opposition just for the sake of it so it doesnt give their rivals 'points' Even when they do agree with policy that is good they never say, "yeah good idea batman, this would be good for the country" instead they will tiptoe around with words that sound like its a bad idea but when you actually anylyse what was said they agree, but its kinda a poisoned chalice because they idea belongs to someone else.

They kinda remind me of all these protesters kicking off, 90% of them are students being indoctornated by thier lecturers.

If a pleb like me can see this then others who are far more educated than me can see this too. This is why the so called "rise of the right" is happening.

People need to start thinking for themselves instead of repeating this liberal leftist nonsense. Dont get me wrong, I'd love to live in a world where we all sit around a fire cuddling our teddy bears, holding hands and singing happy songs, but the reality is this is not the world we have created.

We need strong minded politics to fix this world.

/rant
 
sammsky1 said:
The experts are appraising Trump as though he is an expert. But he isn't. He is a pleb. A very rich and now powerful pleb. And plebs don't like experts.
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Am I the only one that was reminded of the dicks, pussies and assholes speech from Team America at this part?
 
Dion said:
Plebs aren't taking over. Plebs have incorrectly identified the source of their strife and have inadvertently handed over a whole bunch of powers to the very people who are causing them pain in the first place.

It's the cattle taking over the slaughterhouse if you count "jumping into the meat grinder" as a synonym for "taking over".
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Well put
 
Dan said:
Any chance you can stop doing this 'tRump' thing in your posts?
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Why does it bother you so much? What's the problem?

It my wish to write it like this. My personal way to disrespect somebody I dislike immensely.
 
Is the implicit message of this thread that experts are apolitical? With regard to economics, for example, i think that assumption runs into some difficulty.
 
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RamblingRebel said:
Once upon a time in the UK politicians were made up of working class guys who were union reps/shop stewards ect (labour) or Solicitors/business men ect (conservative).

These folk actually did a proper job of politics most of the time, they listened to and understood their constituants needs and acted on them. They knew the real world, they had worked in the real world, in real jobs in factories or did thier time trawling the courts or whatever their proffession was.

Nowadays most MPs career path starts straight out of uni, where they will be some kinda junior under secretary or some other nonsense post which involves carrying your superiors briefcase ect. Their only interest at this point is to build up their own profile within a party so when their boss retires/stands down they hope they have done enough to step into their shoes.

Once they get into parliament they then are only interested in maintaining power, they don't really listen to the people no more, and do the bare minimum so they get re-elected.

They have no real ideals like in the past, they are happy to switch parties to the one that they see as having better career prospects and always follow the politically correct line and dare not speak anything that is not part of the script.

They will disagree with the opposition just for the sake of it so it doesnt give their rivals 'points' Even when they do agree with policy that is good they never say, "yeah good idea batman, this would be good for the country" instead they will tiptoe around with words that sound like its a bad idea but when you actually anylyse what was said they agree, but its kinda a poisoned chalice because they idea belongs to someone else.

They kinda remind me of all these protesters kicking off, 90% of them are students being indoctornated by thier lecturers.

If a pleb like me can see this then others who are far more educated than me can see this too. This is why the so called "rise of the right" is happening.

People need to start thinking for themselves instead of repeating this liberal leftist nonsense. Dont get me wrong, I'd love to live in a world where we all sit around a fire cuddling our teddy bears, holding hands and singing happy songs, but the reality is this is not the world we have created.

We need strong minded politics to fix this world.

/rant
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This view is a bit simplified, though. Plenty of past politicians who claimed to represent 'ordinary' people still came from immense privilege, and plenty of them were still selfish power grabbers. The emergency of political bubbles and career politicians are nothing new.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
Is the implicit message of this thread that experts are apolitical? With regard to economics, for example, i think that assumption runs into some difficulty.
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No. As I said in the list of issues in the OP (Point 2 I believe) many experts make decisions to benefit themselves and the stakeholders who keep them in their job. Its a corruption of the role, and so creates the distrust that we see.

Media is a good example. When digital took over as a core medium of consuming journalism, and media wonders generated ad revenues based purely and accurately on 'clicks' the media began to over sensationalise news in order to bait readers onto their pages. The 'fake media' phenomena is true and rampant and is causing major media to chase advertising dollars over objective truth and so is mistrusted like never before.
 
sammsky1 said:
No. As I said in the list of issues in the OP (Point 2 I believe) many experts make decisions to benefit themselves and the stakeholders who keep them in their job. Its a corruption of the role, and so creates the distrust that we see.

Media is a good example. When digital took over as a core medium of consuming journalism, and media wonders generated ad revenues based purely and accurately on 'clicks' the media began to over sensationalise news in order to bait readers onto their pages. The 'fake media' phenomena is true and rampant and is causing major media to chase advertising dollars over objective truth and so is mistrusted like never before.
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Still more reliable than the alternative facts and alternative massacres the Trump administration is spewing out.
 
sammsky1 said:
No. As I said in the list of issues in the OP (Point 2 I believe) many experts make decisions to benefit themselves and the stakeholders who keep them in their job. Its a corruption of the role, and so creates the distrust that we see.

Media is a good example. When digital took over as a core medium of consuming journalism, and media wonders generated ad revenues based purely and accurately on 'clicks' the media began to over sensationalise news in order to bait readers onto their pages. The 'fake media' phenomena is true and rampant and is causing major media to chase advertising dollars over objective truth and so is mistrusted like never before.
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you are very focused on the USA. The first paragraph doesn't apply for many countries in Europe. Additionally you have outlets like the BBC or German public television, that don't need to chase clicks.
The mistrust of the media didn't start because the mainstream media became any more/less reliable. It is far more helpful to look at stuff like the "overtone window", "Hallin's spheres" or Chomskys book "Manufacturing Consent", to understand why people don't trust the mainstream media anymore. The polarisation and politicisation of media adds to this, but this happens far less in europe and is not the only reason for the development.
 
Cheesy said:
This view is a bit simplified, though. Plenty of past politicians who claimed to represent 'ordinary' people still came from immense privilege, and plenty of them were still selfish power grabbers. The emergency of political bubbles and career politicians are nothing new.
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Yeah I agree, I have generalised the matter, and I'm sure there are MPs out there who are genuine and in it for the good of the people, but I'm just going off how I have seen a change over the years. I'm just an average Joe with no real knowledge of what really happens in the corridors of Westminster, just like the majority of the voting public, but this is how it looks to me, and I'm sure others see it this way too.

They know something's wrong, they know they have no real voice and become disillusioned. We had Blair lying about WMD, there was a million people who marched on London to protest against going into Iraq/Afghanistan, and we had the Irish refererendum which totally made a joke of democracy. No wonder the voting public is looking for something new and vote Brexit and Trump and now we have loadsa whingy arses whining like babies coz they didn't get their own way and a war criminal like Blair telling them not to put up with it.

Brexit and Trump is democracy as it is supposed to work. Whether we agree with it or not, that is the system we have been ramming down the worlds throat for the last 75 years. We gotta live with it.
 
RamblingRebel said:
The one where the Irish voted the wrong way, so Europe said, "ah feck that bunch of drunks, make 'em vote again until they vote how we want"
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That always happens. Happens in my own job recently. Keep making us vote until they get the vote they desire.
 
RamblingRebel said:
The one where the Irish voted the wrong way, so Europe said, "ah feck that bunch of drunks, make 'em vote again until they vote how we want"
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Lisbon Treaty wasn't it? Then somewhere else then France said no and they canned it. That was a real mess.
 
Yet we are told that we live in a Democracy, and we (the west) are starting wars, invading countries, and creating coups by proxy to bring Democracy to those poor backward countries that are living in the stone age.

I'd probably have no problem with a government that said. "look, our goal is to create a world society so we are basically one nation. If we acheive that we are gonna put all our efforts into trying to fix our planet. Once we fix that we are gonna put everything into making EVERYONES life better. Then we can turn our focus to space. Btw, it might get messy"

Or "look, these guys in Durgadurgastan are just a bunch of wankers, they are sitting on a hundred years supply of oil, with no idea what to do with it coz thier industry revolves around donkeys and heroin, and they keep blowing themselves and innocents up coz some sky fairy who rode a flying horse to heaven tells them to go slaughter the unbelievers... Look we're gonna bomb the shit out of them until they kop on"

Instead of the tired old "freedom and democracy" nonsense they spout now.

But lets hope its not the left that would be the leaders coz instead of creating scientists they will create degrees in being offended and how to be a professional protester.

I'm all for the plebs, the only place in the world for snobbery is in a smokey backroom in London where the old boys gather and chat shit.
 
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