The world be a better place if there were more articles like this and fewer in the Slate/TNR style. Andrew Gelman (via) summarizes:
From Joshua Keating at Foreign Policy magazine. Subtitled “Five things you think are true that are.”
Others on this blog are far more qualified than I to evaluate these claims, but I have to admit that I find this sort of frank anti-contrarianism refreshing. I also like that Keating is evaluating the claims, rather than merely reporting the conventional wisdom as some kind of game, as in Newsweek’s notorious “conventional wisdom watch” feature.
calipygian
Pretty funny you mention “Slate-style” since Foreign Policy is basically a higher quality Slate for FP nerds.
In fact, Foreign Policy, Slate and the WaPo are all part of the Kaplan empire.
El Cid
To be fair, though, if your standard like Newsweek‘s is that something which “looks mighty like” democracy is democracy, well, that’s a lot of playing room.
me
@calipygian:
Newsweek too for that matter.
Jason Bylinowski
This was a good read (caught it yesterday after work), and I think it is very much worth mentioning that sometimes, at least regarding foreign policy issues, the narrative given by analysts and reporters is the correct one. However, there’s a reason it was a top five list, and not a top ten list, and that’s because nobody can afford the time and massive expense it would take to exhaustively research the other five examples of this in all of history.
I wonder what is considered to be the conventional wisdom on HCR nowadays? I’ll mention this is the hopes that anyone else who may have heard it can confirm that I am not insane: NPR had a sound bite featuring Nancy Pelosi, who was saying in no uncertain terms that healthcare was going to be passed beyond all doubt. I forget the exact terms with which she presented her point, but you know that sound you can sometimes hear in someone’s voice when they are smiling? It was running all through her voice yesterday. For lack of a better word, she sounded fucking PSYCHED (and relieved, but I may be projecting there).
I have been somewhat encouraged the last few days on HCR, but hearing that from Pelosi yesterday really kinda leads me to believe that she, if no one else, is pretty certain of how things are going to pan out.
Mark S.
@Jason Bylinowski:
I think that’s why Stupak has been crying on the phone to NRO.
jayackroyd
Interesting that the second point, that Iran now has enough enriched uranium to make a bomb is undercut by the linked article.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog reported today that Iran had managed to enrich a metric tonne of low enriched uranium (LEU), which UN officials say is technically enough to build a nuclear weapon.
UN officials cautioned that there remained many practical obstacles to the production of a bomb, and pointed out that the uranium was under close surveillance, and the report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran appeared to have slowed down the rate at which its uranium enrichment capacity is expanding
Aaron S. Veenstra
I find it a little ironic that, for a piece dealing with Iran’s military/foreign policy stance, they chose a picture of Ahmadinejad. I mean, isn’t the conventional wisdom that he’s an important figure in Iranian foreign policy completely wrong?
DBrown
Looks like the writer was shooting fish in a barrel on Iraq – who thinks (except wingnuts) that Iraq isn’t anything but a failure? Mostly teabaggers and Death lord cheney are the only ones that still don’t know that we wasted thousands of US lives, hundreds of thousands Iraqi lives (strange this rather giant fact was missed) and trillions of dollars to change a secular, Iran hating powerless country into a hyper-religious allies of Iran?
Putin rules Russia? What utter, complete bullshit! Didn’t do their homework but they should have pointed out that Putin is now, was and forever will be, a creature of the KGB (but they have a new name now.) That organization is what controls Russia – please.
China a military power? First, no shit relative to nukes – they have had ICBM’s since the 1960’s (strangely, they have the exact same number today as they built then. No arms race for China.) Their surface navy is still a tiny fleet that couldn’t take on the UK, and their Air force uses designs that make Soviet era planes look modern.
Iran wants nuclear weapons – sound just like bush the ass-puppet for cheney talking. Maybe but their proof is a joke and frankly, Iran is many years away even if they did want one. Last time I checked, the treaty they (and many countries) signed clearly states that any country can enrich fuel for nuke power plants (following safe guards that Iran has followed in principle but certainly not in spirit.) Strange but they don’t seem to think we have their best interest at heart and don’t trust us.
That article is so full of BS and nonsense I hope you don’t normally believe such BS.
Jason Bylinowski
@Aaron S. Veenstra: Yeah, you’re right, he means nothing to Iranian foreign policy. However, he is so absolutely essential to American Foreign Policy that I am surprised he is not on CIA payroll.
srv
I find the whole thing confused. There’s anyone, anywhere, who thinks Putin isn’t in charge? Name one person. A conventional majority think Iran wants weapons but isn’t really developing them yet? Has he not read any polls?
It’s confusing enough for us contrarians to understand the masses irrationality, so don’t go writing fluff strawmen pieces that make it sound like y’all agree with us based off of any sort of “wisdom” y’all think you have.
bago
“5 things that you think aren’t true but are” is a contrarian title that Slate is infamous for. It’s linkbait more obvious than Sully hiding his third paragraph behind the jump.
(The analogy is that the contrarian title is to linkbait as the concluding paragraph behind another pageview is to sullyhits. A transparent web strategy)
Michael G
They should have called it “The Keating Five”.
Joey Giraud
Everyone gets a dose of pleasure from being validated. This article manages to get you to feel as if your common wisdom is actually an insider truth. Rat, meet pellet.
srv
@Jason Bylinowski: It was always easier for Cheney to be on the IRGC payroll.
Tor Hershman
A ancient Foreign Policy matter that still ain’t “Generally”
been sorted-out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7iQRFP_e90
.
Brick Oven Bill
Plato teaches us:
“When the mind’s eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and comprehends them, and functions intelligently; but when it turns to the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its beliefs shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence.”
Sounds kind of familiar, does it not?
We will again repeat how Truth is determined by the Rational Man.
He utilizes the Five Senses provided to us. These are Sight, Sound, Touch, Smell, and Taste. These Five Senses provide us with ‘Knowledge’. TV does not count, as the only thing you ‘See’ is a photo tube. Reading is better than TV, but it again only has the power to impart an opinion, not to impart Knowledge.
The Rational Man gathers as much Knowledge as he can.
Then, armed with his Knowledge, the Rational Man engages the Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences (Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy) and uses them to process his Knowledge in his quest for Truth.
None of this involves forming an ‘O’ with two hands over your head in a group of people doing the exact same thing.
Alien-Radio
I’ll also have to add that the piece on china is also iffy. It correctly mentions that china is experiencing a massive property bubble. Many many times the size of that in the US. factor in the the structural rigidity of the economy and corruption, and China is not going to have a gentle landing. Economic growth is the governments only source of legitimacy and a bursting property bubble + a level of environmental devastation that’s generating 40,000 protests a year that a central government not known for it’s tolerence of grass roots organising allows, is a recipie for a rocky few years.
me
@Brick Oven Bill: Plato was full of shit.
RareSanity
@Michael G:
Dammit! Beat me to it…
Hat tip to you, sir.
tyrese
Intrade is a good barometer of the Conventional Wisdom, and it’s got Obamacare’s chance of passing at 65% right now.
The Dems are weeks away from passing the biggest social improvement legislation in 40+ years. Those who called Harry Reid weak and such will be remembered as retards. Strike that. They won’t be remembered at all. Any more than those who said the same thing about the other major reforms throughout history, which were passed in a modest form and later expanded.
El Cid
@DBrown:
I don’t agree. One of the things I feel has resulted from the giant SURGE PR effort was to convince the mainstream media that, yeah, it sure was a mess and probably a bad decision, but, gosh, after that whole SURGE and change of strategy, it looks like it’s working out all right.
And so this view being promulgated by the punditarian establishment and the hawk/right wing nexus makes me think that the next great war-mongering campaign that comes around will be undergirded with a sense that even if we start out messy, it’ll all more or less work out in the end.
tyrese
I think Iraq is not anything but a failure. I think it is a failure. The question is who thinks Iraq IS anything but a failure.
PeakVT
2. Iran wants nuclear weapons.
That’s probably true. But the CW (or narrative in the media) is wrong on why. Most of the time the Iran is portrayed as seeking weapons in order to destroy Israel. Nobody mentions that a certain country that meddled in Iran’s internal politics for decades and helped a neighboring country start a war against Iran now currently has hundreds of thousands of troops in two different countries that border Iran.
El Cid
@PeakVT: Clearly you love Ahmadinejad and want to have his babies.
me
@PeakVT: I think that them wanting a bomb is far less about the US and more about deterrence against Israel and Pakistan. I don’t think anyone except the staff at the Weekly Standard believes they actually intend to use it.
Brick Oven Bill
We must understand that life is not always a bowl of cherries. The weak mind can be drawn to promises, not based in Truth, that those seeking power make in an attempt to grab it.
This is no excuse to turn from Truth as, in the end, Truth is eternal and will always bite you in the ass if you try to deny it. Ignorance, as this plays out, will not be an excuse.
Our Constitution was founded in uncomfortable Truths, by strong men willing to face them. Socratic thought was their model. Take that dollar bill out of your wallet and turn it over. Above the pyramid, you will behold an eye.
This is different than the currency of Zimbabwe, which does not have a picture of an eye. The absence of an eye is emblematic of Arithmetic-denial, and is responsible for the quantity ‘ten million dollars’, printed on the Zimbabwe currency, and the man behind it laughing.
It is better to live in the United States than it is to live in Zimbabwe. Thus, Plato was not full of shit.
IndieTarheel
As usual, DougJ crushes with the title. Well done good sir!
Mark S.
@PeakVT:
The US media is completely oblivious how other countries feel toward the US. They seem to not realize that other countries don’t see the US as the greatest country in the world and only interested in selflessly promoting freedom around the world.
@Alien-Radio:
Count me a tad skeptical as well. Granted, China was starting practically from zero, but I have a hard time believing any country can grow at a 10% every year for two decades. If that were really the case, I think it would be unprecedented in the history of the world.
me
@Brick Oven Bill: Plato would have been a fan of Mugabe’s. Robert’s senses tell him that Zimbabwe is a paradise therefore it’s true, objective reality be damned.
licensed to kill time
__
More like a box of chocolates, right Forrest ?
Brick Oven Bill
It is my belief that Plato would consider Mugabe to be a ‘drone’, with brain chemistry incapable of processing the Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The Enlightenment was limited to Europe and North America.
Mathematics demonstrate that Zimbabwe sucks.
MikeJ
@IndieTarheel: Had there been one more item cited he could have gone with Feynman.
SGEW
[Insert standard formal request for banning Brick Oven Bill for overt racism here.]
me
@Brick Oven Bill: If Mugabe, who is rather well educated, lacks such brain chemistry who has it? Glenn Beck?
Brick Oven Bill
In Athenian Democracy, 3000 of 200,000 were granted the right to vote. These were overly represented by those, as described by James Madison in Federalist 10, that had the intellectual capacity to accumulate property.
But I would bet that twelve percent of Athenians were capable of appreciating the Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences. This is the same percentage of the population that was granted the right to vote following the Founding of the United States.
“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
-John Adams
I judge that Glenn Beck is one of the twelve percent. He is pretty sharp.
chopper
@srv:
it is pretty lazy to pick 5 opinions nobody really disagrees with and point out that they have support. the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.
Brick Oven Bill
SGEW prefers to live in the world that she wants to live in. Numbers bother her in this respect. She does not seek to use her Five Senses to See, Touch, Smell, Taste, and Hear.
This would be fine, but the only way to protect her is through censorship. And through this censorship, those who have the capacity to Understand are denied thought. In this manner people with ill intent are empowered to consolidate power.
This is a weak minded person.
burnspbesq
@IndieTarheel:
Looking forward to the NIT?
Linda Featheringill
To Brick Oven Bill:
Searching for Rational Truth is probably a worthwhile endeavor, even if it does take up a lifetime. Whether we will ever be in possession of Truth [with a capital T] is doubtful.
At this stage of our evolution, we humans are very primitive animals and not nearly as smart we think we are. That really hinders our pursuit of truth.
But we go for it, anyway. We invest entire lives trying to find what is really real. Hopefully, we will pick up a few gems along the way.
Also, the hunt itself is pretty interesting.
eemom
This is hilarious. You could replace that list with:
1. The sun rises.
2. The sun sets.
3. Night follows day.
4. Birds fly.
5. Fish swim.
and someone here would call bullshit.
gnomedad
@Joey Giraud:
I’ll bet someone could start a whacky populist movement based on that.
Mike in NC
B.O.B.’s ramblings remind me of a movie where one character is reading a book, and another comes up to him and asks what he’s reading. “Plato”, he replies. “Really?”, says the other guy. “Somebody wrote a book about Mickey Mouse’s dog?”.
More like the US media is completely oblivious that other countries even exist.
Mark S.
@eemom:
Bullshit! Emus don’t fly!
Uloborus
I appear to be the only person who thinks there’s a point to this article. It’s not that I particularly learned anything, although they threw a few extra facts at me that were nice. And it’s not that they’re correcting anything the common people don’t know.
But ‘conventional wisdom’ isn’t about what WE know. It’s about what the media knows. And even throwing an *attempt* at looking at facts into these opinions usually held by the media on the grounds of pure bullshit seems to be to be a positive thing.
eemom
@Mark S.: \
yep, knew that was coming. : )
dmsilev
@Mark S.: That can be corrected through the use of a sufficiently large catapult.
-dms
bago
Way OT, not that Plato Bob hasn’t taken things there already, but this song has been winning my week. Starts out slow and builds.
AhabTRuler
@dmsilev: Eh, that’s just a form of gliding, and given an emu’s L/D ratio, a poor form at that.
SteveinSC
@Brick Oven Bill:
–BoB on BoB.
Seriously, BoB is fucking nuts as we all can clearly, um, see. It must be some kind of experiment with the 1000 monkeys flailing away at typewriters gone horribly wrong.
jeffreyw
Dammit, ran out of tortillas.
geg6
SteveinSC@49: Not only weak-minded, but a racist misogynist who actually thinks Glen Beck is smart. Glen Beck, who even the wingers on “Real Time” last night laughed at with derision and without fear. I like to think of BOB as the uber-Teabagger when I think of anything about him other than pie.
gnomedad
OT: I don’t know whether to thank heaven for small favors or mock Jonah Goldberg for giving women permission to be feminists. In any case, when will he apologize to Rush?
The comments are about what you’d expect.
Brick Oven Bill
The Rational Man observes the attention paid by the power structure to:
1. Glenn Beck (lots and lots); and
2. Sean Hannity (zero).
He then notes Alinsky’s strategy of destroying political opponents through mockery and personal demonization.
Leading the Rational Man to the following conclusions:
1. Glenn Beck is smart and a threat to the power structure; and
2. Sean Hannity is a harmless moron.
licensed to kill time
I guess things are a little slow at The Facility today.
DougJ
@Uloborus:
And even throwing an attempt at looking at facts into these opinions usually held by the media on the grounds of pure bullshit seems to be to be a positive thing.
Yes, exactly.
Brick Oven Bill
This is actually a day off from The Facility licensed to kill time, so we can now consider the opinions of Jonah Goldberg.
When weighing the opinions of Jonah Goldberg, one must consider that he elected to be a member of the first set of males sent to a historically all-female college.
It is clear to me that Jonah has never observed one of these females operating a fork-lift.
It is not really ‘female-phobia’ as Jonah terms it, a better word is ‘female-realism’. Men are forced to give these females a wide berth, or risk potentially permanent disfigurement. This negatively impacts the harmony and efficiency of a warehouse, and is a really bad idea.
Rick Taylor
Honestly, this is kind of silly. Just because something is contrary to the common wisdom doesn’t make it untrue. Back in the run up to the Iraq war, the common wisdom was of course Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction; it was only the dfh’s (and non-Americans) who thought otherwise. If this article had been written back then, I imagine it would put “Iraq has significant stores of weapons of mass destruction” as things you think are true that are. I find it’s arguments for why we know Iran “wants” nuclear weapons about as convincing.
licensed to kill time
Ah, got a 24 hour pass, hmm? Do be careful when you cut the tracking device off your ankle…I hear they can turn you into a female forklift operator if you do it wrong, risking potentially permanent disfigurement to countless paranoid males.
Wile E. Quixote
Brick Oven Bill
He’s certainly sharp enough to con morons and closeted homosexuals such as yourself. But he’s also a coward who never served the country he proclaims to love (probably because he couldn’t do ten pushups) a drug addict and a whiny little crybaby.
bago
As someone from Mount Vernon, I apologize for the Beck.
Phoebe
I’m super not a fan of the Slate style to which DougJ refers, but reading this list was kind of annoying in other ways. If something is CW, does it really need defending? Yeah, everyone’s all “Iraq war was a mistake” now, but thanks a shitload, CW, for stampeding into that mess in the first place.
And yes, the article is maybe a taking-back from the freakonomic types [nobody hates that book more than I do] who like saying that down is up on these various issues, or worse, who want to portray the ridiculous as CW [Dick Cheney], so I guess it’s a good corrective. But, for myself, I didn’t really need to be told that China is on the rise. Meh.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Incorrect. The Iraq war was a crime and a moral outrage.
Wrong way to put it. Iran wants acceptance as a regional power and security guarantees. Uranium enrichment is their bargaining chip.
Can’t argue with that one.
Nethead Jay
@bago: That is really fsckin’ good. Thanks for the linkage.