I would have to think that through. My off the cuff reaction is that Lindblom's structural power thesis more or less starts from the assumption that business does have exit power that it can exercise, distinguishing it from more purely psychic predatory emanations. But he may be wrong, or my recollections may be cruder than his argument.
I'm not a foreign policy guy, so take all this with that in mind. Maybe my view of matters is simply incorrect. But I'm a bit confused how this disagreement with Drezner would cash out in slightly more specific terms. For instance: Drezner quotes a tweet of his saying that "There's stuff you can pin on the Blog but the Iran war damn sure ain't one of them", to which Ben Rhodes (the onlie begetter of the blob) replied "I literally coined the term 'The Blob' to describe people who wanted to go to war with Iran." I assume (possibly incorrectly) Drezner's argument was that this latest war was a brain fart of Trump's and thus couldn't be blamed on the policy establishment. (Personally this seems persuasive.) I honestly don't understand Rhodes's point of view (does he think that members of the Blob talked Trump into it?). And what would you say? That Trump's own perception of the consensus made him think it was a good idea? That seems to ascribe far more rationality to Trump than seems warranted.
Or to come at this from a different angle: Drezner argues (and it jibes with what I read in the papers) that Trump has fired the experts and promoted incompetents in foreign policy, as he has everywhere else. This strikes me as a good argument for Drezner's view: if the Blog is individuals & institutions (as Rhodes has it), then presumably those ins are not really that influential? (Unless you want to say that Netanyahu was the key factor, and they influenced *him*, I suppose.) But how would you argue it? If it's true that Trump has fired the experts and promoted incompetents in foreign policy as he has everywhere else, what is the role that the perceptions of consensus playing? Do you think that that perception is really influential among these new clowns who were promoted for their loyalty and not being part of the group who had independent reputations (and thus might. challenge Trump)? Seems unlikely. And then you need to factor in that Trump's appointees themselves may have less influence than the emotional resonance of whatever AI slop Natalie Harp has served Trump for breakfast that day. How do you, under your reading of the Blob, parse all this?
I too am not a foreign policy guy and, reading Drezner's post immediately agreed with, "There's stuff you can pin on the Blog but the Iran war damn sure ain't one of them" and thought that Ben Rhodes' response looked a bit silly.
But, if I try to think about a sympathetic reading of Rhodes' point it would be that ideas don't emerge in a vacuum. It's hard to imagine anyone more competent than the current administration would advocate for *this* particular war on Iran but, at the same time, there's a reason why the idea of "war with Iran" keeps coming up and why it would exist as a goal that appealed to a particularly short-sighted leadership.
That's an interesting point. I believe one possibility is just plain randomness - that is, some of the incompetent fools that Trumpkopf elevated share some of the same beliefs as "The Blob", just by pure coincidence. That's of course just one possibility.
Isn't it just the kind of autopoetic (in systems theory sense) impulse of any large bureaucratic organization to reproduce itself. Dickens had it down already when he said the main purpose of the legal profession is to create work for the legal profession. Nothing really mysterious here. Though calling it a "blob" doesn't help.
The foreign policy establishment could have two goals - war or peace- but war being the worst outcome, it tends to preoccupy those responsible for adverting it, and also tends to attract funding and power to those tasked with it. Power/money are hard for institutions to give up once gained. Anyone who has been part of large institution knows that justifying the status quo of one's institution drives a lot of what happens, regardless of the actual vies any individual or group within the institution. It does not require any malevolence on anyone's part.
What a great article! It opens up all sorts of discussions including the power of other “blobs” such as AI entities. All of this is very Jungian with the acknowledgment of the power of the “collective subconscious” and how it communicates through archetypes and symbols rather than through linear language. The MAGA blob experiences Trump as an archetype rather than the grotesquely flawed human he is.
Foreign relations has always been an art of archetype management (democracy vs. tyranny, capitalism vs. communism, etc.). Our choice is to be conscious of when we are releasing the djinn from the bottle or not as with Iran currently.
"The MAGA blob experiences Trump as an archetype rather than the grotesquely flawed human he is". He also gives them permission to be just as grotesquely flawed. The whole birds of a feather thing.
Starting from the current psychopath in the White House and working out to the Blob, i'd say that trump's hatred and revenge on Obama has led to his war agst Iran (as an almost 'innocent' victim, as Bibi was able to generate this war in trump's head as tantalizingly similar to the easy war crime adventure in Venezuela). trump's Iran war is to supercede Obama in the hearts of the citizenry (& the world). as in nearly everything he does, trump finds himself boxing a tar baby.
And on one level of description (or, perhaps, for just some Blob members) the US state is something akin to trump in whose head Iran is something like Obama.
compare The Blob formulating policy with an AI formulating a response based on a lot of "training" involving making connections between discrete patches of knowledge and walking through that web in a non-deterministic way
If the goal of 'success-driven' people is largely "...to start considering how they might look good on that podium behind the presidential seal."; and,
as you point out, all of our heads are being messed with by social media (owned by billionaires), Old media (owned by billionaires and their eager toadies), bots (owned by billionaires and tyrants), and AI (owned by narcissist billionaire tyrants), and the only functioning hemisphere of our brain that remains in our modern times is the one Iain McGilchrist describes as the left one (only eager to grab the thing, eat the thing or mate with and possess the thing) (it occurs to me here that 'thing' rhymes with Tolkien's 'Ring' which had "...all of them deceived"); soooo,
I think this all ends badly for Middle Earth, if you will, but hopefully, only in terms of one or two generations.
My WWII Seabees veteran old man once shared with me that "There are some fights worth losing, Tim", saying that it was sometimes better to maintain one's integrity to that which enflourishes the community and the self, than to suck up to untrammeled violence for the sake of 'winning'. Because there's still some good in this world.
I really appreciated your dissection of that amorphous pile of cells, that thing that keeps some members of the present opposition party still trying to catch a handhold on this runaway freight train. So, thanks, again, sincerely.
"I think this all ends badly for Middle Earth, if you will, but hopefully, only in terms of one or two generations." I'm afraid it's going to be a lot more than just one or two generations. It's likely going to take at least five, and probably more.
Wonderful, again. One more book and two more papers to read :-)
My mind triggered and produced the word 'species', all different individuals with different behaviours and positions, but sharing a code (with internal variation). The species itself, like a collective, has some sort of existence.
I wonder if, in fact, it's not just an oligarchy, a "self-selected elite who consider themselves best suited and most deserving to rule."
Not as pop-culture as "blob" and virtually everyone mentioned in both posts would (a) be part of that oligarchy but (b) be quite reluctant to describe themselves in those terms. A Derek Chollet/Mike Pompeo podcast sums it up.
I appreciate this example of how to disagree strongly, but civilly. I found Dan's argument more compelling because what you've written , Harry, and quoted, I have a hard time seeing a meaningful distinct difference between the Blob and neoconservative foreign policy. I may well be out of my element, lol. Is it that the Blob is a particular if amorphous set of neoconservatives?
'“When we saw this operation unfold and we heard the results of it, I think we all thought, damn, that’s impressive,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said...' WTH?
"In a June article for the Financial Times, Hillary Clinton defended the president’s Board of Peace..." Double WTH? I have to be careful here, I could all too easily start blurting out ribbons of expletives.
"...if e.g. Marco Rubio takes over after Trump departs the scene". That's not gonna happen.
The notion that a foreign policy consensus exists only because its participants believe it does is rather disturbing.
Great stuff. Would love to see that additional survey. But was surprised not to see a link/parallel with lindblom and structural power of business
I would have to think that through. My off the cuff reaction is that Lindblom's structural power thesis more or less starts from the assumption that business does have exit power that it can exercise, distinguishing it from more purely psychic predatory emanations. But he may be wrong, or my recollections may be cruder than his argument.
I'm not a foreign policy guy, so take all this with that in mind. Maybe my view of matters is simply incorrect. But I'm a bit confused how this disagreement with Drezner would cash out in slightly more specific terms. For instance: Drezner quotes a tweet of his saying that "There's stuff you can pin on the Blog but the Iran war damn sure ain't one of them", to which Ben Rhodes (the onlie begetter of the blob) replied "I literally coined the term 'The Blob' to describe people who wanted to go to war with Iran." I assume (possibly incorrectly) Drezner's argument was that this latest war was a brain fart of Trump's and thus couldn't be blamed on the policy establishment. (Personally this seems persuasive.) I honestly don't understand Rhodes's point of view (does he think that members of the Blob talked Trump into it?). And what would you say? That Trump's own perception of the consensus made him think it was a good idea? That seems to ascribe far more rationality to Trump than seems warranted.
Or to come at this from a different angle: Drezner argues (and it jibes with what I read in the papers) that Trump has fired the experts and promoted incompetents in foreign policy, as he has everywhere else. This strikes me as a good argument for Drezner's view: if the Blog is individuals & institutions (as Rhodes has it), then presumably those ins are not really that influential? (Unless you want to say that Netanyahu was the key factor, and they influenced *him*, I suppose.) But how would you argue it? If it's true that Trump has fired the experts and promoted incompetents in foreign policy as he has everywhere else, what is the role that the perceptions of consensus playing? Do you think that that perception is really influential among these new clowns who were promoted for their loyalty and not being part of the group who had independent reputations (and thus might. challenge Trump)? Seems unlikely. And then you need to factor in that Trump's appointees themselves may have less influence than the emotional resonance of whatever AI slop Natalie Harp has served Trump for breakfast that day. How do you, under your reading of the Blob, parse all this?
I too am not a foreign policy guy and, reading Drezner's post immediately agreed with, "There's stuff you can pin on the Blog but the Iran war damn sure ain't one of them" and thought that Ben Rhodes' response looked a bit silly.
But, if I try to think about a sympathetic reading of Rhodes' point it would be that ideas don't emerge in a vacuum. It's hard to imagine anyone more competent than the current administration would advocate for *this* particular war on Iran but, at the same time, there's a reason why the idea of "war with Iran" keeps coming up and why it would exist as a goal that appealed to a particularly short-sighted leadership.
That's an interesting point. I believe one possibility is just plain randomness - that is, some of the incompetent fools that Trumpkopf elevated share some of the same beliefs as "The Blob", just by pure coincidence. That's of course just one possibility.
Isn't it just the kind of autopoetic (in systems theory sense) impulse of any large bureaucratic organization to reproduce itself. Dickens had it down already when he said the main purpose of the legal profession is to create work for the legal profession. Nothing really mysterious here. Though calling it a "blob" doesn't help.
The foreign policy establishment could have two goals - war or peace- but war being the worst outcome, it tends to preoccupy those responsible for adverting it, and also tends to attract funding and power to those tasked with it. Power/money are hard for institutions to give up once gained. Anyone who has been part of large institution knows that justifying the status quo of one's institution drives a lot of what happens, regardless of the actual vies any individual or group within the institution. It does not require any malevolence on anyone's part.
What a great article! It opens up all sorts of discussions including the power of other “blobs” such as AI entities. All of this is very Jungian with the acknowledgment of the power of the “collective subconscious” and how it communicates through archetypes and symbols rather than through linear language. The MAGA blob experiences Trump as an archetype rather than the grotesquely flawed human he is.
Foreign relations has always been an art of archetype management (democracy vs. tyranny, capitalism vs. communism, etc.). Our choice is to be conscious of when we are releasing the djinn from the bottle or not as with Iran currently.
"The MAGA blob experiences Trump as an archetype rather than the grotesquely flawed human he is". He also gives them permission to be just as grotesquely flawed. The whole birds of a feather thing.
Starting from the current psychopath in the White House and working out to the Blob, i'd say that trump's hatred and revenge on Obama has led to his war agst Iran (as an almost 'innocent' victim, as Bibi was able to generate this war in trump's head as tantalizingly similar to the easy war crime adventure in Venezuela). trump's Iran war is to supercede Obama in the hearts of the citizenry (& the world). as in nearly everything he does, trump finds himself boxing a tar baby.
And on one level of description (or, perhaps, for just some Blob members) the US state is something akin to trump in whose head Iran is something like Obama.
compare The Blob formulating policy with an AI formulating a response based on a lot of "training" involving making connections between discrete patches of knowledge and walking through that web in a non-deterministic way
If the goal of 'success-driven' people is largely "...to start considering how they might look good on that podium behind the presidential seal."; and,
as you point out, all of our heads are being messed with by social media (owned by billionaires), Old media (owned by billionaires and their eager toadies), bots (owned by billionaires and tyrants), and AI (owned by narcissist billionaire tyrants), and the only functioning hemisphere of our brain that remains in our modern times is the one Iain McGilchrist describes as the left one (only eager to grab the thing, eat the thing or mate with and possess the thing) (it occurs to me here that 'thing' rhymes with Tolkien's 'Ring' which had "...all of them deceived"); soooo,
I think this all ends badly for Middle Earth, if you will, but hopefully, only in terms of one or two generations.
My WWII Seabees veteran old man once shared with me that "There are some fights worth losing, Tim", saying that it was sometimes better to maintain one's integrity to that which enflourishes the community and the self, than to suck up to untrammeled violence for the sake of 'winning'. Because there's still some good in this world.
I really appreciated your dissection of that amorphous pile of cells, that thing that keeps some members of the present opposition party still trying to catch a handhold on this runaway freight train. So, thanks, again, sincerely.
Tim Long, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15
"I think this all ends badly for Middle Earth, if you will, but hopefully, only in terms of one or two generations." I'm afraid it's going to be a lot more than just one or two generations. It's likely going to take at least five, and probably more.
Wonderful, again. One more book and two more papers to read :-)
My mind triggered and produced the word 'species', all different individuals with different behaviours and positions, but sharing a code (with internal variation). The species itself, like a collective, has some sort of existence.
I wonder if, in fact, it's not just an oligarchy, a "self-selected elite who consider themselves best suited and most deserving to rule."
Not as pop-culture as "blob" and virtually everyone mentioned in both posts would (a) be part of that oligarchy but (b) be quite reluctant to describe themselves in those terms. A Derek Chollet/Mike Pompeo podcast sums it up.
What if Keynes' beauty contest, but for ugliness?
I appreciate this example of how to disagree strongly, but civilly. I found Dan's argument more compelling because what you've written , Harry, and quoted, I have a hard time seeing a meaningful distinct difference between the Blob and neoconservative foreign policy. I may well be out of my element, lol. Is it that the Blob is a particular if amorphous set of neoconservatives?
I must confess that I too was thinking something along those lines.
'“When we saw this operation unfold and we heard the results of it, I think we all thought, damn, that’s impressive,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said...' WTH?
"In a June article for the Financial Times, Hillary Clinton defended the president’s Board of Peace..." Double WTH? I have to be careful here, I could all too easily start blurting out ribbons of expletives.
"...if e.g. Marco Rubio takes over after Trump departs the scene". That's not gonna happen.
The notion that a foreign policy consensus exists only because its participants believe it does is rather disturbing.
the blogosphere is back baby