If you see it as a narrative or a mythology, the problem becomes one of re-engineering the mythology.
What made the Chicago school so remarkable is that they did this consciously, deliberately and successfully. Where there used to be some nominal diversity of economic narratives, now there's only the Anglo-Saxon consensus.
In linguistic terms, this explains why all of those 'policy studies' think-tanks use that name for what they do, and why the screeds in the Econo, the FT, the WSJ and the rest use the same linguistic register not only to imply social dominance, but also to eliminate competing points of view from the narrative space.
The point is really that it's a two-pronged narrative attack. Not only is the mythology exclusive and self-privileged, but the means of distribution and the social status markers in the language reinforce the message.
Deconstrucing that isn't just a case of debunking the talking points, but of constructing an alternative narrative that's equally irresistible.
Marxism used to do this. After Marxism died (with its claims of the inevitably of history) there's been nothing on the left to fill the gap.
One of the problems for the left is that narratives are defined as being against the privilege markers assumed 'naturally' by the right. This makes them weaker because we let the right define the playing field.
A major win would involve creating our own narrative inevitabilities and forcing the Right to defend its assertions of dominance on our turf.
Using the privilege frame is one very good way to do that, because it makes the assertions explicit and conscious. If they're made conscious it becomes clear they're really only pseudo-rational at best, which weakens them dramatically.
I suspect for maximum impact a successful narrative has to be partly irrational. Marxism was only pseudo-rational, and that's one of the things that gave it memorability and staying power. The Anglo-Saxon consensus is also only pseudo-rational.
So a Left-driven attack on privilege also has to have some element of pseudo-rationality about it, preferably one that stresses how inevitable it is, and how impossible it is to frame the world in different terms.
A neat trick if someone can do it. :)
Brilliant.
You know where I come from so I would not use the pseudo-reality word since they are more real than reality (or in other words, they are real in any meaningful use of the word "real")...
But your comment about the Chicago School is spot on. You need revoluon or indoctrination. In the case of chicago it was clearly the later.
It is really one of the most incredible discovers of antrhopology as a science, you really can generate a fundational myth with indoctrination. And the studies done to uncover the method have been done this century. It is true that there are some adaptative aspects and that the Nazi method could not use exactly the same framework now since the "this is propaganda" narrative has reached the middle class... but you could see that formally there is no big difference between a close sect, a religion, Goebbles, scientific indoctrination (learning the fundational myths of science) or the Chicago school... they always use the same template... it is something very deep. And the chicago school has been a master piece...a truly master piece.
In a way they are better than purely scientific or religious indoctriantion by wich we acquire a structure or a symbolism to see reality.. the Chicago school changed the vision we had about our close and inmediate reality. About our most basic economic need.. Really amazing!! Disgusting but amazing.
So, in some sense, they were much more brilliant than anything I have seen before..and your comment has clarified it why regardign their master combiantion of the tools they had more than a hundred pages of research.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
the problem becomes one of re-engineering the mythology.
Not quite - this is where Pirsig is a continuing revelation to me - we must EXTEND the (irrational/intuitive) "Mythos" - from which springs the (rational/dialectical) "Logos".
I suspect for maximum impact a successful narrative has to be partly irrational.
Exactly - if we are to extend the mythos we are straying "outside" the accepted bounds of "rationality". This is the zone of insanity into which Pirsig strayed in his attempt on the Summits of Reality and the boundaries of conventional Philsophy.
I believe that a Metaphysics of Quality or Metaphysics of Value (it's the same thing) may give us the philosophical tool we need - a relational logic?
How this pans out linguistically God knows, but I believe that if we distil the essence of ET we might approach it.
What do you reckon, Sven? "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
