Trust The Process™

hello it's me thott sorkin and unfortunately in order to talk about what i want to talk about today i have to also talk about the west wing now normally i try to shield you from upsetting things like that but in this case it simply couldn't be helped i'm deeply sorry for those of you that don't know the west wing was a prestige drama about the inner workings of the white house under the imaginary democratic cabinet of president joseph bartlett liberals love the west wing because it presents a very comforting illusion that the world is controlled by extremely competent people the rules such as they are are the result of extremely smart people deliberating and coming to informed meaningful consensus the world of the west wing is fundamentally meritocratic people gain power and influence based on how intelligent and erudite they are and those who can't keep up are punished and humiliated publicly when they step out of line there is no dysfunction in government everything that happens is the result of highly complex maneuverings themselves the products of a socratic dialogue where the sharpest minds on both sides of the aisle duke it out in the marketplace of ideas and whoever proves themselves smarter inevitably and invariably wins anyone who thinks that the system isn't working or at least isn't working in the interests of the people is a rube who doesn't understand the grand design the system can't fail we can only fail the system by not articulating its virtues clearly enough conflict is resolved through argument and the argument is always won by the person with more facts and verbal flourish a very flattering worldview for writers i guess in the west wing or really in anything written by aaron sorkin when someone beats you in an argument you don't just tell them like go fuck you bud you just sit there awestruck by the courtly rules you have been cowed into silence and must accept your shame nobody ever just like lies or stoops to insults they just get sad and they look at the floor and they're like oh shucks sorry logic daddy take for example this the most notoriously bad scene in the show's entire run to set the stage here toby ziegler the white house communications director is tasked with going to see a protest to the world trade organization for some boring reason that i don't remember and the wiki does not explain now toby you have to understand he's a bit prickly but he's real smart just a big old egghead one of the smartest guys who boy let me tell you and he sees all these radicals these dummies calling into question fair trade a system that superior minds have decided is necessary and he doesn't like that one bit they don't get to question him they're not as smart intelligence is real and he has it and they don't and he delivers the following stunningly shitty speech it's activist vacation is what it is spring break for anarchist wannabes black t-shirts the gas mask is fashion accessories these kids today with the hair and the clothes usually at a protest activists don't wear gas masks as a fashion accessory they wear them because the police like the one you're having a cheerful little conversation with respond to lawful protest with tear gas and pepper spray chemical weapons banned in warfare by international law a gas mask is actually pretty helpful in that situation tobes because it protects you from those chemical weapons that are used on your face like for example when people in real life protest the world trade organization they tend to get tear gassed like that happens a lot and i have no idea what an anarchist wannabe is nobody wants to be an anarchist toby everybody hates us evidently it has something to do with wearing black t-shirts which i thought was just like a normal thing to wear but i guess it's an anarchist thing now i think maybe this is meant to be a reference to black block but i doubt the sorkin knew what that was in 1998 but it in case that is a reference to black block that once again not a fashion accessory so that fascists can't track you down and threaten your family afterwards is why they do that the benefits of free trade food is cheaper yes food is cheaper clothes are cheaper steel is cheaper cars are cheaper phone service is cheaper you feel me building rhythm here that's because i'm a speechwriter i know how to make a point cheaper for whom i live in the country with literally the highest mobile phone rates on earth india is the cheapest for the record canada and india both became members of the world trade organization in 1995 and so when's that benefit coming our way pal seems kind of like free trade doesn't make phone service cheaper like how would that work do you think that we're just inviting workers from other countries to come in and cheaply build their phone infrastructure like what the fuck are you talking about there's also a lot of evidence that free trade makes food insecurity in the developing world way worse i guess the question you might have to grapple with here is is it worth creating more starvation for the poorest people on earth so that you can get cheaper big macs at home i would argue probably not toby the lowest prices it raises income you see what i did with lowers and raises there yeah it's called the science of listener attention we did repetition we did floating opposites yes i see what you did there toby do you do you see it audience it's fun see because he framed those two things side by side so it seems like they apply to the same people you get lower prices and it therefore stands to reason based on the way he constructed the sentence that you'll also receive that higher income he's talking about see how that works see how we see how that's phrased and positioned in the sentence but in reality you might get some lower prices but the raised income goes towards big companies in the world trade organization itself you think h m is passing on savings they get from exploiting child labor in third world countries to their employees or are they just giving it to their shareholders and it certainly isn't the people in poorer countries getting more income because the whole structure relies on them being underpaid it creates a perverse incentive where large powerful countries are encouraged to apply pressure on poorer countries to keep their labor standards shitty and cheap and that also means that employers in your country don't have to do much better because if their employees get too uppity they can just move operations overseas where they're allowed to hire death squads to kill labor organizers now you end with the one that's not like the others ready free trade stops wars and that's it free trade stops wars and we figure out a way to fix the rest one world one piece i'm sure i've seen that on a sign somewhere free trade stops wars which is why there haven't been any wars since the rise of globalization you'll notice complete world peace has been achieved i couldn't find a clip of it but the cop he's talking to goes on to say boy i wish someone would say that to them and and she points at the protesters and then later toby's in a real good mood and he tells his co-workers how he just demolished these dumb dumbs and he had a big debate with them and they couldn't keep up he because of his big smart brain told him what what he thought he fucking owned them and they just had to sit there and take it because their ideas lack substance you know so you don't even have to see how it happens it all happens off screen you don't need the details there's no possible counter-argument to what toby is saying that anyone could articulate at all now it's not usually that bad but it's always like that the wrong people come around and say wrong dumb stuff and then the big smart boys speak very quickly at them until they go away intelligence which you have to understand completely exists and is observable by how well someone speaks is rewarded ignorance which is measurable by how unseriously a person takes norms in decorum is punished and then the person displaying it is banished within the world of the west wing in order to succeed politically you have to commit to understanding and abiding the way things are done you can only affect change according to the byzantine code of honor that everyone has de facto agreed to you must approach discussion in good faith or you will be eviscerated by those who do there is a fixation on the process things are done a certain way for important reasons and anyone who doesn't understand that is a fool or a dangerous manipulator but ultimately don't worry they're too simple minded to be any kind of real threat if they were big brain smarties they would follow the process it's the only thing that works the process goes like this firstly all of the rules laws common wisdom and norms of government are incontrovertible you behave speak and look like someone in the political sphere or you shouldn't be taken seriously and will not be taken seriously secondly everyone is informed on any matter they discuss and will accept without question or pushback the weight of evidence whether it benefits their argument or not thirdly in the event that consensus can't be reached both parties must compromise until they each feel satisfied refusing to compromise is essentially political suicide the process is sacred the process will inevitably lead to the best possible results therefore anyone attempting to change or disregard the process is either too dumb to understand why it works the way it does or is cheating we are the inheritors of a self-correcting perfect structure and it is our duty to champion its use until it's had time to create a more perfect world the actual results of the process are irrelevant if the process arrived at these results they must be the best results if bad results are achieved it's it's probably because the process was not correctly observed or respected critically it is assumed that anyone with any real political power 100 believes this and is willing to lose any policy dispute if it means protecting the process now nobody is naive enough to believe that people in the upper echelons of power actually behave like this but a truly frightening amount of people seem to believe that they a ought to and therefore b can the west wing didn't invent this outlook it is the nominal outlook of the entire liberal political class and all liberal pundits i don't know if liberal politicians believe it who can say what any politician believes politicians lie about everything but they certainly act as though they believe it which inclines me to believe that they do remember when michelle obama said when they go low we go high that was a commitment to obeying the process an affirmation that adhering to the process will lead to victory because the american people will respect their resolve they don't need a knockdown dragon fight they just need to follow the process recently nancy pelosi talked about how republicans would get their asses kicked at the polls if they tried to push through the nomination of amy coney barrett to the supreme court and that seems weirdly contradictory to me because why would republicans be turned off by the appointment of a conservative judge to the supreme court because it violates the norm they established in the previous election and i mean if you assume that they're committed to a fair and equitable process rather than getting the things that they want that assumption makes sense i guess this is the fundamental flaw with the process it requires that everyone play along anyone who violates the process decides to lie or deny the weight of evidence or refuses to compromise will get an immediate advantage all the respect paid to the process makes subverting it trivial because people are trained to just accept that whatever being said it must be true or at least have some basis in truth or else the person saying it would never be able to get away with it if they get caught out in a lie oh ho ho watch out that's it it's curtains for you trump you're done for the washington post gave you five pinocchios good good luck coming back from that one and i don't necessarily blame rank and file liberals for this i blame the political class the people who set the narrative not the people who follow it i think most non-mind poisoned liberals want their policies to be enacted more than they care about decorum or whatever i don't place the blame on your quirky aunt who just wears an i'm with her shirt to whole foods and has a bumper sticker that says this pussy grabs back that ant might not agree with a lot of my views but it sounds like she still kind of rules cool ant you got a slime certified cool ant the problem here is the ideology of the technocratic elite people who think that they're so savvy and so intimately familiar with all the wonky bullshit you need to know to be a real serious political thinker that they can't possibly be outmaneuvered the people that have convinced themselves that strict observance of these norms is just how serious people behave and nobody will stand for anything less and then they get really flustered when the other side openly flouts the rules when they're stonewalled and no matter how hard they compromise the other side refuses to move an inch that isn't how we do things when they can present facts for their case and the other side either lies or just ignores them or funds a policy think tank to manufacture more convenient alternative facts boy it didn't used to be like this remember ronald reagan he followed the process this is why everyone was so unprepared for donald trump that's the weakness he exploits trump does not recognize or value the process he has no illusions about needing to be perceived as acting in the greater good the idea of losing a policy dispute to maintain a healthy democracy is unthinkable to him the goal isn't to compromise until everyone is satisfied to create a dialogue between right and left where the best ideas from both emerge victorious the goal for him is to win at all costs his whole world view is based around the idea of being this amazing deal guy the guy who gets his opponent to agree to terms that benefit him more than them in other words not to compromise but rather to dominate see also mitch mcconnell the guy in the stately and respectable position of senate majority leader he must use his power responsibly and with respect for the rules of the constitution and if he doesn't oh boy we're gonna there there's you're out of here pal you're gonna block the appointment of a liberal supreme court justice but fast track the appointment of a conservative one okay people won't stand for that people hate winning for the wrong reasons they'd rather lose for the right reasons you're going to learn that lesson the hard way nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah hey hey good bye sing it with me everybody everybody did you watch chris wallace just chuckling along as donald trump flooded the rules of the debate with joe biden that seems feckless to me like because his whole job as moderator is to stop that from happening but in wallace's mind he probably thought wow this guy's really shooting himself in the foot people are gonna hate how he refuses to play by the rules and just says his points okay sir you can use your little sound bites let's see where that gets you they think that this is the position of strength they see someone flout the rules and they think well he stepped in at this time we got him you see if the process works which it must it just has to because otherwise the whole world has been in a state of chaos for centuries and the people who rule us actually aren't better than us they're just whoever has money or power and that that just can't be true so the process must work then if you obey the process while your opponents do not you'll win and sometimes they do win that of course they do sometimes this was essentially justin trudeau's whole electoral strategy in both elections and it paid off for him he was elected twice despite being a nothing person just because he's a very polite empty suit when the cameras are on him anyway i think that valuing systems over the results those systems produce even if those systems produce good results leads you to become inflexible i think that assuming that politics is some honorable back and forth a game with established and inviolable rules means committing yourself to a standard that your opponents will not and that gives them the advantage against you in reality politics is the application of power if there's a method to get what you want but that method is forbidden some people will choose that method actually especially if it's forbidden because that way they know you won't use it likewise against them if you don't have a plan to stop them beyond simply pointing out that that isn't done sir wait till the electorate hears about this and hoping everyone else agrees with you you're going to be in trouble trump doesn't care that it's unconstitutional to refuse to abdicate power in the event that he loses the election which he likely will but if he doesn't then youtube criminal big joel will owe me six crisp american dollars which i intend to collect he doesn't care that it's dangerous to tell the proud boys to stand by and go and intimidate people at voting booths he doesn't care when he's lying or ignoring evidence of climate change and i think it's a big mistake to assume that the people who like him care either what they like is that he and people like him are fighting outside the process to achieve their policy goals to them it feels like someone cutting through the bullshit and if you're expecting these methods to backfire and for people to be repulsed by them i think you're in for a nasty shock this is why it's important for activists to do things outside of electoral [Music] politics to protest to distribute goods to educate to organize to defend our communities from the fascist creep with force when necessary no matter how much finger wagging and tutting we get from the establishment no matter how much gormless rubes pretend that it means we're giving ground in a battle of optics the process is incapable of dealing with anything except for the process the right has figured that out and the center still thinks everyone's using the same playbook now i don't want to give you the wrong idea admit i don't want to make it sound like i'm against submitting to a process when you can't see it and don't understand it whose goals seem inscrutable and destructive to you because in the far far reaches of our skulls there live our guides in such a process and if you listen you can hear them chittering speaking in the secret code that instructs us all hello and welcome to the eyeball zone here in the eyeball zone small leftist projects come willingly to us like lambs to the slaughter hey you ever watch a video and you just let out a long sigh of relief like you didn't know how badly you needed to hear someone say something until you heard them say it and then you hear them saying you're like oh man i've been i've been carrying around some damage i felt that way about ryan hibbs video why grading is capitalist propaganda i was someone that got terrible grades in school until the very day i was allowed to pick my own courses and suddenly i became an honor student the injustice of having some useless number reflecting my knowledge on subjects i didn't care about and had no interest in pursuing deciding huge portions of how my life would proceed always stung turns out i was right to be mad ryan's a former teacher who quit the profession because he hated grading so much so go listen to him explain why maybe you'll realize you internalized some bullshit about yourself too and maybe you'll realize that this dovetails kind of with the idea that the people in charge of us just have to be smarter than us and have to have reasons for the things they do i give this video an a plus do you have a small leftist project you would abandon to the mercy of the eyeballs send no more than one email to thoughtslime editor gmail.com with the word eyeballs in the subject line and pertinent details like your pronouns and perhaps you will find yourself trapped here in the eyeball zone oh also i know that the president in the west wing is named josiah bartlett i said joseph earlier to troll west wing fans that's one of the few pleasures still available to me in these bleak times hey thanks for watching the video here you know what would be great you know what would just be swell is if you hit like and subscribe those things are free to do nobody's g nobody's gonna take your money if you do that but if you want someone to come around and take your money every month you can get that at patreon.com thoughtslime and i think i've made a pretty compelling case for that uh you can see all the little drawings i did of people who did that scrolling by in the background if you want to see more videos from me you can go to youtube.com scaredycatstv where i talk about horror movies or the mega slime entertainment zone at youtube.com mega slime entertainment zone where i play video games i'm going to start uploading spelunky 2 very soon stay tuned on that one i also live stream every 8 pm eastern standard time on thursdays on youtube and twitch so you can check that out and also that's uh i said i didn't have an exit strategy for where this sentence was gonna go so what else do i want you to do uh make sure to wash your hands it's pandemic going on i'm the only one brave enough to talk about that but it's it's still happening don't don't drink and drive that's i would please don't do that that's uh if if that's something you were to do later cut it out recycle please it's good to recycle you

Channel: Thought Slime

Views: 165,319

Rating: 4.9428034 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: dsasDeI0VRg

Length: 22min 7sec (1327 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/kingjulian85]

Basically a condensed version of the Citations Needed episode on The West Wing, which is not a bad thing. These concepts are so important to grasp.

[u/Feezec]

coincidentally, this video kinda synergizes with the Philosophy Tube video about Confucius that was also posted today

[u/mugwort23]

There are a few people in my life I wish I could get to watch this vid.

[u/johntheduncan]

Another good thoughtslime video! If anyone's interested in arguments against capitalist free markets I have this video https://youtu.be/ymiIcM6K44Y

[u/xayde94]

It's a good video, but talking about liberals' belief in The Process after Innuendo studios already did a video on it is kinda like trying to make math videos after 3Blue1Brown