Our elites live in "Ivory Silos"
The current JRE drama shows the contempt they have for anyone not in there with them.
I am not regular listener to The Joe Rogan Experience. I’ve listened to a couple of episodes when someone I was interested in was the guest, but it’s just not one of the shows that I listen to very often. I have known several people over the years though, that were big fans. Some came to be fans through his MMA work, some through his TV gigs, and some listened in for a guest and ended up becoming regular listeners. Their reasons for continuing to listen were as diverse as the ways they’d come to discover his show initially. Some seemed to like the his intense curiosity, some his straight forward “manly” style, and some for the eclectic mix of guests. I always respected his willingness to admit when he was wrong. It’s a virtue almost all humans struggle with, but it’s something especially rare to find in successful media figures. The one thing I know for sure about the Rogan fans I’ve known over the years, is that they all knew he was not infallible.
None of them looked to Joe Rogan or his guests to make their medical decisions for them. Hell, they didn’t look to him for advice period. They listened to him mainly for entertainment. While they may have listened for information, it was never their sole source. It wasn’t even a main source. There’s a huge difference between getting info from a source, and treating what that source says as gospel. Nobody ever made serious life decisions based solely on the Joe Rogan Experience. It’s insane to me that there are people out there who believe that anyone is looking solely to JRE for their medical decisions. It’s a glaring symbol of the “ivory silos” our elite journalists now live in. The whole chattering class now lives and works almost entirely within the Acela Corridor, LA, and a few other deep blue enclaves. Their media diet and social circles are the same. They attended the same elite universities, and work for the same NGO’s, institutions, and corporations. If they don’t end up in government.
There was a time that journalism had a lot more middle and working class people. In the 60’s and 70’s about 50-60% of journalists had a college degree. Now that number hovers around 90-95%. When you combine that with the ability we all have now to create our own echo chambers you get these “ivory silo’s”. Not only is our elite class still physically separated from the rabble, now they’re informationally separated. I can’t tell if those accusing Joe Rogan of killing people actually believe that regular people are such brainless automatons, or if it’s just cynical in-group signaling. I expect a bit of both depending on the person. I also can’t decide which is worse. I suppose it’s worse for the individual to say it cynically, but a worse reflection on our society if they believe it.
It often seems like a naked power grab. Just trying to knock off their top “competitor’. You can definitely hear their contempt for Rogan’s success. That, I believe is genuine. He is not one of the club, and thus doesn’t, in their eyes, “deserve” his success. Instead of trying to figure out what has lead to his success, they just want to shut him down. It certainly wouldn’t be an original move. Especially if you consider it in the frame of the legacy media pushing back against a new mode of delivery for news, information, and entertainment. The podcast vs the newspaper/cable news. Every old form of media has pushed back against new forms of media. The most famous being the newspapers successful campaign against radio. Also known as the “War of the Worlds” freak out in 1938. The well known, but bullshit, story says; millions of people heard Orson Wells on the radio that night, doing a radio “play” about a Martian invasion. They believed it to be a real new broadcast and proceeded to freak out in several outlandish ways. Like hopping in their cars and heading for the hills running out in their yards with guns aimed at towards the stars. It turns out the number of households listening is far fewer than was most think, according to slate:
"Far fewer people heard the broadcast — and fewer still panicked — than most people believe today. How do we know? The night the program aired, the C.E. Hooper ratings service telephoned 5,000 households for its national ratings survey. 'To what program are you listening?' the service asked respondents. Only 2 percent answered a radio 'play' or 'the Orson Welles program,' or something similar indicating CBS. None said a 'news broadcast,' according to a summary published in Broadcasting. In other words, 98 percent of those surveyed were listening to something else, or nothing at all, on Oct. 30, 1938. This miniscule rating is not surprising. Welles' program was scheduled against one of the most popular national programs at the time — ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's Chase and Sanborn Hour, a comedy-variety show."
Also according to PBS’s Radiolab:
"although most listeners understood that the program was a radio drama, the next day's headlines reported that thousands of others plunged into panic, convinced that America was under a deadly Martian attack."
So the papers, as a way to damage the credibility of radio, printed erroneous reports of panicked rubes losing their minds at “misinformation” from a new information source, the radio. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
The alternative bothers me very deeply. That the people who, for all intents and purposes, control the levers of power in this country, think that the uneducated masses are completely incapable of thinking for themselves. That we mustn’t be exposed to any ideas or thoughts that they deem undesirable. Our feeble minds are unable to handle the complicated world that we now live in. That we must have, not only our langue, relationships, and identities controlled by them. We must now turn over our medical decisions and bodily autonomy to them as well. The reasons don’t matter anymore. No consistency required. My body my choice? Not anymore, at least not for everybody. Like the Catholic Church, they believe their ideas to be self evidentially right and just. We commoners are not to question. We have not the mental acuity to understand these deep questions.
Something is desperately needed to break through these “ivory silos”. We can’t have a functioning society with this kind of informational disparity. Where a ideological minority, with such deep contempt for the rest of us, controls most of society. Especially when that minority’s contempt leads them to using the force of the state to impose their beliefs. That can lead us to some very dark places. Regular folk have a breaking point. I fear we may be nearing it. Hopefully it’s expressed through peaceful political action. I think the best solution is, as I’ve said before, is to elect more people with out a college education. For media companies to look to different sources than elite universities for capable journalists. There is no reason to not have apprentices in the new business. It’s due time for something to give. I was obviously heartened to see Spotify show at least a little backbone. I hope more companies follow Substack’s example and show a willingness to side with regular folks unequivocally. Not twitter activists and prestige media voices. Regular people who know how to censor things we don’t like. We don’t listen/watch/read it. It’s very easy. Now it’s time for the people in the “ivory silos” to follow our example for once. If they don’t like Joe Rogan, don’t listen to him, but don’t try to tell me I can’t.