Notebook per
Truth, Lies, and Authenticity in Politics
Citation (APA): Birzer, T. K. P. S. S. T. B. J. (2016). Truth, Lies, and Authenticity in Politics [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com
Parte introduttiva
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 4
Truth, Lies, and Authenticity in Politics Timur Kuran Paul Starr Sean Trende Bradley J. Birzer
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 9
The Authenticity Deficit in Modern Politics by Timur Kuran
Nota - Posizione 11
KURAN
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 11
Democratic politics requires not only compromise, but some degree of incoherence. Politicians naturally strive to create winning coalitions, but sometimes that can mean promising the impossible or simply just the mutually incompatible.
Nota - Posizione 13
DEMO: PROMETTERE L IMPOSSIBILE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 14
Timur Kuran argues, ultimately, that those who are willing to compromise need not be any less authentic than those who promise that they never will.
Nota - Posizione 15
COMPROMESSO OBBLIGATORIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 18
Spare Us from Authenticity by Paul Starr
Nota - Posizione 19
STARR
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 20
Every social interaction demands a sort of public performance. If we take performance and authenticity to be antithetical, then all of social life is inauthentic.
Nota - Posizione 21
HOMO HIPOCRITUS
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 23
Modern politics, though, puts the business of image management front and center, with speechwriters, consultants, strategists, and the like all discussing publicly exactly how a candidate should manage his or her image.
Nota - Posizione 24
LA MODERNITÀ ESAGERA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 27
The Perils and Promise of Authenticity by Sean Trende
Nota - Posizione 29
TRENDE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 30
Sean Trende compares the measured, thoughtful political speeches of the mid-twentieth century to those of our own era. He finds that politicians like Everett Dirksen, or even Franklin Roosevelt, would fare badly today simply because of their highbrow rhetoric, which is no longer politically acceptable. An affected folksiness is almost a necessity nowadays.
Nota - Posizione 32
RETORICA PASSATA E IL PAPALE PAPALE DI OGGI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 32
And this we call authenticity. In the Internet era, candidates must connect not only with elites, who formerly channeled both funds and votes, but also with non-elites, who are increasingly an essential donor class.
Nota - Posizione 34
INTERNET E LA PANCIA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 37
Authenticity and Ancient Virtue by Bradley J. Birzer
Nota - Posizione 38
BIRZER
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 39
Bradley J. Birzer looks at some key figures from the history of liberty: What did they think of authenticity?
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 40
He concludes on a pessimistic note:
Nota - Posizione 40
PESSIMISMO: IL POTERE CORROMPE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 43
Authentic or not, politics is concerned with grabbing ever more power, and it’s quite uninterested in anything else.
Nota - Posizione 44
CORROTTI D UFFICIO
Segnalibro - Posizione 47
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 52
March 2016 ABOUT THIS ISSUE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 53
There can be a fine line between compromise and lying.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 54
Building coalitions in a diverse electorate means emphasizing different aspects of one’s program, and sometimes those aspects will not be entirely compatible.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 57
At times outsider candidates promise to break down politics as usual, and to speak and act with greater authenticity.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 58
Professor Timur Kuran argues that we aren’t necessarily worse off from inauthenticity in politics per se. But to make politics permanently better, those who pose as exceptionally authentic - and who commonly take extreme positions on vairous issues - need to acknowledge that compromise does not indicate deception; it is, rather, an inherent part of the political process
Segnalibro - Posizione 69
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 70
The Authenticity Deficit in Modern Politics By Timur Kuran
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 78
In many democracies, established parties have been losing ground to populist, anti-establishment movements on the right or the left. Greece, France, and Austria offer a few examples.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 80
Syriza in Greece, the National Front in France, and Austria’s Freedom Party, rests partly on their claims to authenticity.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 81
Their positions are their own, not those of lobbies bankrolling their campaigns.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 82
more honest.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 88
If random individuals were asked to describe the typical politician, they would speak of an elected official who is smooth with words, knows how to please disparate audiences,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 90
Succesful politicians manage to give people hope through agendas that they know they cannot achieve.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 91
They can disarm skeptics by speaking endlessly without answering questions.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 94
Having multiple narratives in favor of a given program serves to make coalition members
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 95
Consider a bill to improve the schools in low-income neighborhoods. It will appeal to some people out of a sense of fairness, to others because the labor force will become more productive, or to still others because crime will fall.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 99
In switching colors depending on the audience, the politician effectively achieves compromises essential
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 103
Politicians epitomize deceit because they can put their own interests above those of their constituents while appearing to be motivated only by lofty principles and the common good.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 105
High on all politicians’ agendas is electability.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 109
Individual voters cannot always separate truth from fiction, or sincere advocacy from contrived pleading.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 111
But they understand the role that money plays in campaigning, the pressures that induce politicians to falsify their knowledge
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 114
The frustrations rooted in the dishonesty of politics have fueled the popularity of outsiders
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 115
In unprecedented numbers voters have embraced candidates who refuse to play by the established rules of American politics. Insisting that they will not be “bought,” Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have eschewed donations from corporate lobbies.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 117
Trump voices anti-immigrant sentiments directly and unapologetically.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 119
He uses vulgar language, both to distinguish himself from career politicians and to shock the political establishment.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 120
For his part, Sanders blames “Wall Street” for the stagnation of middle-class incomes, vows to break up big banks, and refuses to take contributions from the financial sector.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 122
They take positions that their party leaders consider harmful to electability, which makes them appear refreshingly honest.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 126
triumph of authenticity over politics as usual,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 129
Demonizing immigrants, Muslims, Wall Street, the trade partners of the United States, pharmaceutical companies, or the top one percent serves to oversimplify realities and to make intricate problems involving many complex constituencies appear to have easy and widely acceptable solutions.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 132
Trump conceals that expelling 11 million immigrants would harm a subset of his followers who depend on immigrant labor,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 133
Sanders disguises that making college free for everyone would transfer huge resources to the upper middle class, whose children attend college disproportionately.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 135
They speak as though the United States has the power to reset the rules of international engagement unilaterally,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 138
it appears unlikely that either Sanders or Trump will become President. But if one of them does make it to the White House, many of his campaign promises will come to nought. He will undoubtedly attribute any implementation failures to vested interests.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 143
How could Sanders have escaped the corrosiveness of Washington politics in over a quarter-century of service in Congress? How could his legislative service have been free of the sorts of compromises
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 146
Trump is a showman whose trademark has been bluster, exaggeration, and egocentrism. Besides, he has already demonstrated a lack of political principles by making campaign donations to candidates all across the American political spectrum.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 152
politicians operate within a society that discourages truthfulness. They are surrounded by innumerable lobbies, each prepared to pulverize any candidate who strays from its orthodoxy.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 157
Americans have long believed in freedom of organization and freedom of speech. By the same token, wide majorities will make exceptions when faced with a clear and present danger. Thus, during the Cold War most Americans were ready to deny suspected communists the right to teach; and today most favor the surveillance, if not the incarceration or expulsion, of Islamists.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 163
Consider any one of the many controversies that divide Americans: abortion, gay marriage, Israel and the Palestinians, social security, taxation, guns, racial inequality, or immigration, to name a few. On each of these issues, there are activists who consider their opponents illegitimate.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 174
To avoid being harassed, treated as immoral or ignorant, and denied opportunities, people with opinions that fall between clashing extremes falsify their preferences, or else stay silent and hope that no one asks.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 176
In essence, they give up personal authenticity for the sake of accommodating social pressures. A consequence is that public discourses cease to reflect what people want and know.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 178
members of society collectively destroy their ability to live together harmoniously,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 180
The politicians of a society composed of inauthentic individuals are certain to be as inauthentic. They cannot reach the pinnacles of power by being themselves, by sharing freely their reservations about established orthodoxies,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 187
The authenticity deficit in American politics is very real. But it is not a product of politicians alone. It is a social ill whose perpetrators are also its victims, and vice versa. People astonished at why Sanders and Trump have resonated with huge blocs should look in the mirror
Segnalibro - Posizione 189
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 404
THE CONVERSATION
Nota - Posizione 404
CONVERSATION
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 405
You Can’t Keep a Lid on Discontent Forever By Timur Kuran
Nota - Posizione 408
KURAN. I NUOVI POPULISMI: LA RIVOLUZIONE REPENTINA DELL AUTENTICITÀ
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 413
Preference falsification is “not necessarily a bad thing,” observes Paul Starr.
Nota - Posizione 414
STARR: W LA PRIVACY ABBASSO LA POLITICA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 416
Bradley Birzer reinforces the point in noting that most of us want to be left alone in many contexts and to be free to decide for ourselves without interference.
Nota - Posizione 418
BRIEXLI IDEM
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 419
Yet if nothing were politicized, there would be no civilization.
Nota - Posizione 419
MA...
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 420
Examples include national defense, controlling epidemics, and traffic rules. On such matters, finding the best balance among many tradeoffs requires everyone to be open about their knowledge, aspirations, apprehensions, and expectations.
Nota - Posizione 422
DIFESS EPIDEMIE STRADE. SENSO CIVICO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 433
Consider jobs, government subsidies, or wealth redistribution. On such matters, preferences are far more resilient, and disappointments are felt far more deeply than on those involving ancestral customs. Because perceived indignities and injustices are relived repeatedly, excluding them from public discourse breeds sustained anger,
Nota - Posizione 435
BARCAMENARSI SU CERTE MATERIE È RISCHIOSO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 435
Conspiracy theories that demonize some conception of the “establishment” start to circulate more or less clandestinely, usually through media that the politically connected scorn as backward, reactionary, and misinformed.
Nota - Posizione 437
COMPLOTTISMO È ACCUSA DI IPOOCRISIA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 438
When that explosion occurs, the elites accustomed to ignoring the masses will be unprepared to counter the populist leaders who emerge to fill the void.
Nota - Posizione 439
ELITES E POP
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 442
As Sean Trende notes, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are not the first American presidential candidates to champion outsider causes. If they have been far more successful than their predecessors, this is partly because they have gone much farther in dissociating themselves from the establishment.
Nota - Posizione 444
TRUMP E SANDERS I SINCERI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 456
As I pointed out in my lead essay, there is a difference between legitimizing existing grievances and solving them.
Nota - Posizione 457
LEGITTIMARE E RISOLVERE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 466
“Why now?” asks Trende. The honest answer is that we will never know exactly why it happened in 2016 rather than 2012 or 2020. Major shifts in public discourse are inherently unpredictable because they involve incentive changes that feed on themselves through processes discussed here, here, and here.
Nota - Posizione 472
TIPPING POINT
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 477
The relatively bloodless fall of several communist regimes in quick succession in late 1989 stunned the communist establishments, the participants in the demonstrations that brought them down, the distinguished scholars of Eastern Europe, the CIA, and the KGB. It surprised even East European dissenters who had predicted that some day the Soviet Empire would fall like a house of cards because it was sustained by endemic lying. The revolts known as the “Arab Spring” offer another example.
Nota - Posizione 480
RIVOLUZIONI REPENTINE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 482
These East European and Arab examples reveal that the outcomes of authenticity-promoting revolts are not foreordained.
Nota - Posizione 483
L AUTENTICITÀ ESPLODE
