HAS NEVER MADE SENSE: The Nova broadcast didn't make sense!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 6, 2021

Apparently, nobody noticed: Way back in 1916, Albert Einstein did, in fact, describe "a very long train" moving with a "constant velocity" along a railroad track. 

As part of the same thought experiment, he also described two lightning strikes. He can be said to have mentioned a person standing halfway between them. 

In Einstein's scenario, the lightning strikes hit the embankment alongside the railroad tracks at two distant points, A and B. Also this:

According to Einstein's imagined example, the very long train was moving away from Point A. It was moving toward Point B. 

Einstein sketched this thought experiment in Chapter IX of his 1916 book for general readers, Relativity: The Special and the General Theory. To review his short presentation, you can just click here.

As he sketched this scenario, Einstein mentioned a male "observer" (a passenger) seated on the long train. He didn't mention any specific person on the railway embankment, though in our view it's perfectly reasonable to act as if he did.

Einstein sketched this "thought experiment" in Chapter IX of his book. As we noted in our last report, Walter Isaacson discusses this matter at some length in his sweeping biography, Einstein: His Life and Universe, which appeared in 2007. 

What point was Einstein trying to make through this illustration? As we've noted, this is the way Isaacson describes the "key insight" which allegedly lies at the heart of this matter:

[T]he key insight was that two events that appear to be simultaneous to one observer will not appear to be simultaneous to another observer who is moving rapidly. And there is no way to declare that one of the observers is really correct. In other words, there is no way to declare that the two events are truly simultaneous.

Plainly, Isaacson treats that "key insight" as a major element in Einstein's  special theory of relativity, which he formulated in 1905. After describing the thought experiment involving the train and the lightning strikes, Isaacson quotes Einstein from Chapter IX, then offers his own assessment:

“We thus arrive at the important result: Events that are simultaneous with reference to the embankment are not simultaneous with respect to the train,” said Einstein. The principle of relativity says that there is no way to decree that the embankment is “at rest” and the train “in motion.” We can say only that they are in motion relative to each other. So there is no “real” or “right” answer. There is no way to say that any two events are “absolutely” or “really” simultaneous.

This is a simple insight, but also a radical one. It means that there is no absolute time. Instead, all moving reference frames have their own relative time. Although Einstein refrained from saying that this leap was as truly “revolutionary” as the one he made about light quanta, it did in fact transform science. "This was a change in the very foundation of physics, an unexpected and very radical change that required all the courage of a young and revolutionary genius," noted Werner Heisenberg, who later contributed to a similar feat with his principle of quantum uncertainty. 

In Isaacson's treatment, the thought experiment involving the train and the  lightning strikes was based on a simple but radical insight. This radical insight produced a transformative change, "a change in the very foundation of physics."

In Isaacson's treatment, Einstein's thought experiment showed that "there is no way to say that any two events are 'absolutely' or 'really' simultaneous"—and the whole thing stemmed from that initial key insight. Here it is once again:

Two events which appear to be simultaneous to one observer will not appear to be simultaneous to another observer who is moving rapidly.

According to Isaacson, that "key insight" produced a radical change in the world of physics. It came to Einstein in a "eureka moment"—a moment which led him to take "one of the most elegant imaginative leaps in the history of physics."

To Isaacson and almost everyone else, this "relativity of simultaneity" is a major component of Einstein's universe That said, there's a major problem with Isaacson's assessment of this important matter:

Isaacson's description of Einstein's "key insight" just doesn't seem to make sense.

Two events which appear to be simultaneous to one observer will not appear to be simultaneous to another observer who's moving rapidly? In some situations, that will be true—but in other situations, it won't be! And that's just the start of the problem with the formulation we've quoted.

On it's face, Isaacson's account of Einstein's "key insight" just doesn't make any sense. In order to see why that's true, let's consider an hour-long PBS broadcast which aired in November 2015.

That PBS program, Inside Einstein's Mind, was a production of Nova. Because Nova dumbed this matter down a bit, its broadcast makes it easier to see why this whole high-level shebang has never made any sense.

THE NOVA BROADCAST AIRED in November 2015. It was designed as a hundred-year commemoration of Einstein's general theory of relativity, which Einstein formulated in November 1915.

That said, the Nova broadcast started at the beginning. Roughly eight minutes into the program, Nova reviewed that thought experiment from the earlier part of Einstein's career—the one which featured the very long train and the two lightning strikes.

In certain ways which seem perfectly reasonable, Nova made the scenario a bit easier to describe and to follow. Nova's narrator said that Einstein had specifically pictured a man standing on a railway platform as a train went by. The narrator further said that Einstein had pictured a woman passenger on the train—and the narrator said that the train was moving "at close to the speed of light." 

(To watch this part of Nova's broadcast, you can just click here.)

These were minor editorial changes to Einstein's original text. At least on their face, they strike us as reasonable—and they make the imagined situation easier to discuss and describe.

What was the source for Nova's treatment of this "thought experiment?" We'll take a guess—Nova may have been working directly from Isaacson's book, since Isaacson was one of the several major figures who appeared periodically as "talking heads" on the PBS program.

At any rate, as Nova proceeded, it simplified the matter—arguably, dumbed it down— in a way which turned out to be instructive. 

Indeed, if Nova was working from Isaacson's somewhat jumbled text, they simplified it considerably. Below, you see the transcript of Nova's presentation:

ISAACSON: [Einstein] realized that any statement about time is simply a question about what is simultaneous. For example, if you say the train arrives at seven, that simply means that it gets to the platform simultaneous with the clock going to seven.

NARRATOR: In a brilliant thought experiment, [Einstein] questions what "simultaneous" actually means, and sees that the flow of time is different for an observer that is moving versus one that's standing still.

He imagines a man standing on a railway platform. Two bolts of lightning strike on either side of him. The man is standing exactly halfway between them, and the light from each strike reaches his eyes at exactly the same moment. For him, the two strikes are simultaneous. 

Then Einstein imagines a woman on a fast moving train. Travelling at close to the speed of light, what would she see? 

As the light travels out from the strikes, the train is moving towards one and away from the other. Light from the front strike reaches her eyes first. For the woman on the train, time elapses between the two strikes; for the man on the platform, there is no time between the strikes.

This simple thought has mind-blowing significance. Simultaneity, and the flow of time itself, depends on how you're moving.

(For Nova's full transcript, click here.)

Some parts of that short presentation are bafflegab. For starters, we'll advise you to ignore the narrator's remarks about "the flow of time." Stick to what the narrator says about "simultaneity."

Stating the obvious, this account of Einstein's thought experiment parallel's Isaacson's account:

Nova says that simultaneity "depends on how you're moving." Isaacson said that events which appear to be simultaneous to one observer will not appear to be simultaneous to someone who's moving rapidly.

Nova says that this simple thought "has mind-blowing significance." Isaacson said that Einstein's simple but radical insight produced a transformation of physics. The two accounts are virtually identical, but Nova's account is extremely concise. 

Nova's account in quite concise. According to Nova, this is what was going on in that "brilliant thought experiment:"

For the man who's standing on the railway platform, "the two strikes are simultaneous," the Nova narrator says. For the woman on the fast-moving train, "time elapses between the two lightning strikes." 

Rather plainly, that seems to mean that the two strikes "are not simultaneous" for the woman on the train. According to Nova's summation, this means that "simultaneity depends on how you're moving." 

Except for one rather basic word change—Nova dropped the word "appears"—this concise presentation mirrors Isaacson's more convoluted account. According to Nova's concise presentation, here's what's going on: 

In Nova's treatment, the man is standing on a railway platform. The woman is moving past at a high rate of speed.

For the man, the two lightning strikes are simultaneous. For the woman, they aren't.

Isaacson used the word "appeared." Nova spoke more simply. 

That said, Isaacson's presentation didn't make sense. Eight years later, neither did Nova's.

AT LONG LAST, IT'S TIME TO EXPLAIN why Isaacson's account doesn't make sense. In his account, the story of the two lightning strikes illustrates this "key insight:"

Two events which appear to be simultaneous to one observer will not appear to be simultaneous to another observer who is moving rapidly.

The lightning strikes appear to be simultaneous to the man on the railway platform. They don't appear to be simultaneous to the woman who's moving rapidly past him. According to Isaacson (and later according to Nova), this is supposed to illustrates a "mind-blowing" point about the way a pair of events will seem, depending on an observer's state of motion. 

In reality, no such thing has been illustrated. It's time to explain why we say that.

FOR STARTERS, IT'S TRUE! In the specific situation which has been described, the lightning strikes will appear to be simultaneous to the man on the platform. Also, they won't appear to be simultaneous to the woman on the train.

Having said that, so what? To some other people on that fast-moving train, the lightning strikes will appear to be simultaneous. And to many other people standing on the railway platform, the strikes won't appear to be simultaneous, as they do to that one well-positioned man.

As a general matter, the state of motion of these observers has nothing to do with the appearance of simultaneity! Let's go into more detail:

As noted in the original story, the woman on the train is directly adjacent to the man on the platform when the two lightning strikes hit. But uh-oh! By the time the light from the lightning strikes arrives at the railway platform, she has moved far down the track.

The man is exactly halfway between the strikes. For that reason, light from the two strikes reaches him at the same time, and they appear to be simultaneous. By now, though, the woman on the fast-moving train is closer to the lightning strike which hit at Point B.

For that bone-simple reason, the light from lightning strike B will reach her before the light from lightning strike A. For that reason, the two strikes won't seem to be simultaneous to her.

In this particular case, the man is standing on the platform and the woman on the train is moving rapidly past him. But now consider another case. Consider the case of a second woman—a woman who's seated a hundred cars back inside this very long train.

The case of the second woman:

A second woman, Woman 2, is riding on this train. She's seated a hundred cars back from the original woman, Woman 1. As a matter of fact, she may be seated all the way back at the rear end of the train!

When the lightning strikes hit, this second woman is closer to lightning strike A; she's farther away from lightning strike B. But uh-oh! By the time the light arrives, she has drawn directly adjacent to the man on the railway platform! 

As with that man, so too with this woman. Because of where she now finds herself, the light from the two lightning strikes will reach her at the same time!

For this woman, Woman 2, the lightning strikes will appear to be simultaneous! She's moving at the same high speed as Woman 1, but the lightning strikes will seem to be simultaneous to her.

This has now become a tale of two women. Each is moving at the same rate of speed. But for Woman 2, "the lightning strike are simultaneous." For Woman 1, "time elapses between the two strikes."

Einstein's key insight, as described by Isaacson, has already broken down. To make matters worse, let's consider the case of the additional men.

The case of the additional men:

The original man—we'll call him Ishmael—was standing on the railway platform. By Einstein's stipulation, he was exactly halfway between the two distant lightning strikes.

That said, the train is a very long train—and it's hurtling past a very long railway platform. With that in mind, consider two additional men—men who are standing at the far ends of this very long platform.

One of these men—we'll call him Man 2—is at the end of the platform which is closer to lightning strike A.  Another man—we'll call him Man 3—is standing at the end of the platform which is closer to lightning strike B.

Man 3 is closer to lightning strike B; he's farther away from lightning strike A. For that reason, light from the two lightning strikes won't reach him at the same time! 

For him, the lightning strikes won't appear to be simultaneous, even though he's standing stock still on the railway platform, exactly as Ishmael is.

Light from the two lightning strikes will reach our original man at exactly the same time. But that won't be true for Man 2, and it won't be true for Man 3. For them, time will elapse between the two strikes—and for that reason, the lightning strikes will not appear to be simultaneous.

All three men are standing on the railway platform. None of the three is in motion. But for one, the lightning strikes appear to be simultaneous. For the other two men, they do not.

Back to that key insight:

At this point, we return to Isaacson's account of Einstein's "key insight." By now, we should be able to see why it doesn't make sense.

Allegedly, the key insight was this: two events which appear to be simultaneous to one observer will not appear to be simultaneous to another observer who is moving rapidly. 

Within the context of this thought experiment, that presentation has now broken down. 

In some specific circumstances, that sweeping claim will turn out to be accurate. In some circumstances, two events will appear to be simultaneous to someone who is standing motionless, but will not appear to be simultaneous to someone else who's moving rapidly.

That will be true in some cases—but in other cases, it won't be! Indeed, given the scenario with which we're working, it won't be true is most cases.

Given the scenario with which we're working, the lightning strikes will appear to be simultaneous only to someone who is positioned exactly halfway between them (or is equidistant from them). But for everyone else—for people all through the surrounding area—the lightning strikes won't appear to be simultaneous. 

That will be true for people who are in rapid motion; it will be true for other people who aren't. It isn't a question of their state of motion. It's a question of their position with respect to the two lightning strikes.

Nova and Isaacson convey a false impression. Without explicitly saying so, they seem to say that questions of simultaneity will always seem different to two people who are in relative motion.

It's hard to see why that would be true. On its face, their shared presentation just doesn't seem to make sense. 

Something else is hard to see. At least as this matter has been described, it's hard to see how a revolution in physics could have emerged from this twaddle. And yet, the twaddle has come from a major, well-received book whose contents were fly-specked by a dozen major physicists, and from a journalistic organization thought of us one of our best.

DID EINSTEIN MAKE SOME SORT of mistake in Chapter IX of his historic 1916 book?

We don't know how to answer that question, though it's certainly possible that he could have. (Einstein was a genius as a theoretical physicist, not as a popular writer. He also wasn't an all-star shortstop or a master chef.)

In his presentation, Einstein used more technical language that Isaacson or Nova later did. Speaking as a general reader, we'd have to say that Isaacson's treatment seems to follow reasonably from what Einstein seems to have written. It's just that Isaacson didn't realize that his presentation of Einstein's "key insight" doesn't seem to make any sense. 

On its face, Isaacson's presentation didn't make sense; eight years later, neither did Nova's. This is a point of special interest because Isaacson's scientific work was reviewed by all those major physicists, starting with Brain Greene himself, and because Nova is generally believed to work from the brainiac end of our vaunted PBS.

Did none of those physicists notice the fact that Isaacson's presentation of this seminal principle didn't seem to make sense? Eighty-nine years after Einstein's book first appeared, how could that be possible?

Also, please note: 

Isaacson and Nova both quote major physicists saying that Einstein's treatment of this matter illustrates a transformative, mind-blowing point. 

In the case of Nova,  Sean Carroll instantly vouches for the claim that Einstein's insight was "mind-blowing." Unfortunately, as presented in the Nova program itself, the whole thing simply doesn't make sense.

Nova's treatment of this matter doesn't make a lick of sense. It may be the worst explanations we've ever seen of any matter, scientific or otherwise.

That said, so it goes! Borrowing from the old Soviet joke, so it goes as they pretend to explain Einstein's universe, and we pretend to get it!

Again and again, attempts to explain Einstein's universe have come to us from the higher ends of the journalistic, academic and publishing worlds. They come to us in Brian Greene's books, and in endless PBS programs.

These attempts to make Einstein easy pretty much always fail. Two recent attempts to make Gödel easy have also plainly failed, including one which was favorably blurbed by everyone from Steven Pinker on down.

They pretend to explain Einstein's universe. We pretend that they've done it! They jangle the chains of academic authority and we quickly defer. Ironically, Isaacson makes a key point in his excellent treatment of Einstein's life:

Einstein's genius was closely tied to his lifelong refusal to do that.

In part, this is an artifact of anthropology, of our basic human imperfections.  More specifically, it's a reflection of the flight of the logicians, of their long-standing failure to serve. 

As deeply imperfect creatures, we humans have a crying need for the skills of clarity and cogency. But our logicians walked off their posts long ago, and there's no sign that they plan to return.

The logicians have walked away from their posts! As the weeks and months roll by, we'll eventually get to that point. This will take us to Wittgenstein's muddled but valuable work, and also to Horwich's claim.

Next week: "Appearance" and its discontents


27 comments:

  1. Einstein carefully defined simultaneity:

    "When we say that the lightning strokes A and B are simultaneous with respect to the embankment, we mean: the rays of light emitted at the places A and B, where the lightning occurs, meet each other at the mid-point M of the length A --> B of the embankment."

    He's not talking about any other place on the embankment, just the mid-point between the lightning strokes. Similarly, he talks about the point M' on the train midway between the lightning strokes, not other points on the train.

    He's not saying the strokes APPEAR simultaneous or not. He's saying they ARE simultaneous or not. And he shows that, if they're simultaneous with respect to the embankment, they're not simultaneous with respect to the moving train.

    By the way, it doesn't matter if a man is at M, or a woman is at M', or nobody's there at all. It's purely geometric and impersonal.

    This definition was too subtle for Isaacson, and it seems too subtle for Somerby.


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    1. Let's stipulate that the woman on the train knows the speed of the train and the exact locations of the train and points A and B. She could then calculate that the strikes were simultaneous.

      The light of the strikes reaching her eyes made them appear to happen at different times, but according to her calculations they were simultaneous strikes when the motion of the train was factored out.

      In this way, isn't it more accurate to state that the strikes appear to not be simultaneous, rather than that they are not simultaneous?

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    2. Yes. And it seems that the lengths of both the train and the station platform would have to be very long indeed to overcome the inability of the human sensory system to detect small differences in the timing of lightning flashes. I doubt that Einstein or Somerby has any idea what the just noticeable difference (JND) for the time interval between those two flashes might be. The example is meant to disregard human factors that would be crucial in reality, because this is physics. So they set aside visibility, wind, who was wearing contacts, and other details to simplify the experiment.

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    3. The woman knows exactly where the train is. The middle of it, M', is right under her butt. And it's not moving -- its speed is zero.

      She sees lightning at the front of the train, then at the back. Since she's at the middle of the train, that means lightning struck the front before the back.

      She sees the embankment moving backward fast. She calculates that its speed is just enough to make the two lightening strokes simultaneous.

      She wonders: were those two strokes natural lightening, or did some physicist generate them as an experiment in relativity?

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  2. It is a relief, finally, to have, after weeks of build-up, Bob Somerby's explanation of why he found inadequate Isaacson's explanation of Special Relativity. During the weeks of build-up I had always wondered what the problem was with considering the person who was moving rapidly AT THE SAME TIME AND PLACE as the person on the station when the light reached him from both original locations.

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  3. A normal person who wondered about the thought experiment in the ways Somerby does here, would take his wondering to a physicist and discuss it. He would get an answer similar to Imp's and perhaps realize how he is changing the situation.

    Somerby assumes that his redefinition of the problem is correct and boldly declares Einstein and Isaacson and everyone else to be wrong and the thought experiment to be senseless. This is hubris. Even the cockiest scientist who thought he had discovered something important would take his thoughts to an expert to see if they hold up under scrutiny. Not Somerby! Because, as has been clear forever here, Somerby has no respect for the expertise of others, so why seek another opinion?

    Gullible readers here may agree that Somerby knows more than Einstein about relativity. It is the same mechanism that causes people to decide that some idiot on the internet knows more about the covid vaccine than Fauci does.

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  4. Somerby's complaint illustrates why you need a class with a teacher and not just a book in order to learn a subject. The teacher could explain to him why his idea is misguided and point out his misconceptions, as part of a discussion about the material. Then he wouldn't still be raising the same objections as when he first brought this up in 2016, and again in 2018.

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  5. This is one of Bob's dumbest posts IMO. He writes, "At least as this matter has been described, it's hard to see how a revolution in physics could have emerged from this twaddle." Yes, it's hard for Bob and other ordinary people to see how, but it led Einstein to the Theory of Special Relativity. That's why Einstein is considered a genius.

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    1. Twaddle is what Somerby writes, not what Einstein writes.

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    2. Yeah, it's sad. When Bob started the Daily Howler, he had a lot of interesting things to say about the "liberal media." Now he's just a crank.

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  7. ‘With that in mind, consider two additional men—men who are standing at the far ends of this very long platform.
    ...
    All three men are standing on the railway platform. None of the three is in motion. But for one, the lightning strikes appear to be simultaneous. For the other two men, they do not.’

    Is Somerby saying that this causes the moving train thought experiment not to make sense? Or is he saying this shows that Einstein’s thought experiment was inane or trivial?

    No. It shows that the time an observer reports for when an event occurs or whether two events are simultaneous is dependent upon the position of the observer in space. That is already an indication that ‘time’ is a relative, not absolute, concept, and that time and space are linked.

    What Einstein pointed out was specifically that motion has this same relativistic effect, and since there is no truly motionless frame of reference anywhere in the universe, then the problem of determining the timing of events outside our earthly frame (distant stars) or for objects at very high speed (electrons, for example) involves transforming one set of parameters to another based upon the relative motions of the observers. It’s also a consequence of motion that measurements of space (distance for example) are affected by the motions of the frames of reference.

    His other insight, never mentioned by Somerby, is that since the speed of light is a constant (ie it is independent of the motion of the frame of reference from which it is emitted), this implies that velocities are not truly additive, and you must therefore discard the old set of transformations and replace them with another.

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  8. The issue is not only linguistic but conceptual.

    Einstein goes to some trouble, in the sections previous to the one Somerby is inspecting, to make it clear that his thought experiment will not only stipulate the principle of relatvity (the stationary and moving observers can each validly determine where and when an event happens, each according to their own clock and ruler) but also the assumption that they find the same speed of light (each according etc). Now that's a lot to swallow! Naively one expects that if one travels in the direction of a light flash then one is tending to catch up with it. It's only reasonable. It takes more that a couple of sentences, not matter how deftly crafted, to help the reader shift over to the combined assumption. It takes the whole argument.

    The assumption of invariant lightspeed began with James Clark Maxwell, and it took decades of thought by sharp minds like Voight and Poincare before Einstein made the physical significance clear. In this sense Somerby is right -- the reader can't expect to assimilate the full argument just by reading a paragraph.No matter how fast I chase after that Tortoise, says the Hare, he keeps getting away from me at the same speed! Absurd! Ah, but suppose we're in a Wonderland where it is so, says Einstein. Then what follows? Each observer can validly determine the time of an event by their clock, and each observer gets a different result.

    Bizarre! Can we get away from these observers' biased perspectives, and see what is objectuvely going on? Yes, but it takes some work. Using a Minkowski space-time diagram will make it easier. Stare at it for a while, and you'll see how the two lightning-strikes are simultaneous for one observer, but are at different moments for the other.

    Now I declare for Somerby in this argument. If one simply introduces reader to the train setup in a few words, the reader can't help bringing along their own assumptions. They will most likely find themselves with the viewpoint of the baffled Hare. It's up to the writer who wants to explain relativity to make it clear that a new viewpoint will be required, and then unpack that viewpoint, perhaps with a little highschool algebra, perhaps with a spacetime diagram or two.

    No, it's not so easy that any reader will get it straight off. And it's not so physically certain that it shouldn't be put to the test (Michelson-Morely experiment).

    So stop making readers feel inferior because they can't grasp the situation on first glance. It takes a genuinely challenging reorientation.

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    1. There are many situations in which the naive views of non-expert readers will differ from that of experts. Should they all stop writing books? Somerby seems to be saying yes. And notice that he calls Einstein's writing "twaddle". Do you own that too? I find it disrespectful. And notice that Somerby has never accepted that the misunderstanding arises from his own ignorance, which it still does, given what you have written here.

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  9. Women standing on train platforms need to be careful not to look too happy:

    "TOKYO (Reuters) - The man alleged to have wounded 10 people in a knife attack on a Tokyo commuter train late on Friday told police he became incensed when he saw women who "looked happy" and wanted to kill them, Japanese media reported on Saturday."

    Maybe this knife wielding man was caught in that age-old dynamic of loathing and loving women?

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  10. The Republican Governor of Florida passed an anti-vaccine mandate in a state with a stand your ground law.

    That's entertainment.
    Roll the cameras, and pass the popcorn.

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  11. The ideas expressed here by Somerby during at least the last 6 years, closely align with those of David Brooks in his pseudo-sociological book: "Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There" (2000). Yastreblansky (Rectification of Names blog) discusses that book at length in an Aug 2 post: http://yastreblyansky.blogspot.com/2021/08/sociolology.html#more

    Brooks' pop sociology is also described in a new Atlantic article which Somerby may get around to discussing:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/blame-the-bobos-creative-class/619492/

    Here are some of the similarities:

    1. Animosity towards a so-called creative class encompassing the media and the university-based meritocracy.
    2. Animosity towards wokeness, defined as: "...not just a social philosophy, but an elite status marker, a strategy for personal advancement when used to attack power-wielding boomers."
    3. The belief that Democrats are responsible for Trump's rise because they used racism and sexism to attack comservatives, who in turn embraced Trump because he validated their worthiness and turned shame into pride.
    4. Contempt for racial and sexual diversity and equity concerns.

    Brooks says: "When I interview members of the GOP donor class, they tell me they often feel they cannot share their true opinions without being scorned. Few of them supported Donald Trump in the 2016 GOP primaries, but by 2020 most of the red one-percenters I know had swung enthusiastically pro-Trump, because at least he’s scorned by those who scorn them."

    Yastreblansky disputes Brooks, especially his assertion that the white working class was behind Trump -- they turned out for Biden in 2020. He also notes that Brooks entirely leaves out non-white people in his classifications.

    Somerby has repeatedly claimed to be liberal, but his alignment with Brooks belies that. Brooks is described by Wikipedia as: "Ideologically, Brooks has been described as a moderate, a centrist, a conservative, and a moderate conservative." Note the absence of the term liberal.

    Yastreblansky explains Bobos and their opposite (called Boubours in France by anthropologist Nicholas Chemla) as follows:

    "The boubour is the bobo's evil twin. Bobos—properly speaking the descendants or younger siblings of Brooks's own native 1980s yuppies—combined healthy financial circumstances (we're told you needed an income of better than $105,000, which in 2000 was over 200% of the median) with countercultural aspirations, wearing distressed clothing, listening to indie music, spending their money on experience rather than display, anxious to be seen as sensitive to minority rights (it's implied, if not stated, that they are themselves invariably white) and carbon footprints, and of course voting generally left (as Brooks, obviously, did not). Boubours, in contrast, are defiantly no-culture and anti-intello, given to vulgar ostentation, contemptuous of racial and sexual diversity and ecological stewardship, big fans of macho posturing, and voting—duh—right."

    Somerby seems to be placing himself within the latter group, attacking the enemies of Trumpism and expressing the crude views of the boubours (aka Trump supporters) while claiming to be liberal. Talking about Einstein in derogatory terms is aligned with the anti-intellectualism of conservatives, as mentioned above. Whatever Somerby may be (since he is also a boomer), he is NOT liberal.

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    1. Thomas Frank writes abut the same thing. I guess he's not liberal either. Or are you sure your (illogical, nasty, ignorant) argument is not a way to avoid discussions of income inequality and our flawed political system?

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    2. 8:18,
      Did black people overwhelmingly reject Trump because they don't suffer from income inequality or our flawed political system?

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    3. Riiiiight. Talk to the black people who stayed home or, even cast a protest vote for Trump, in 2016 and 2020. And think about why Trump gained votes from Black & men (+6) and women (+5), Latino men (+4). and white women (+3)—but not white men, who shifted toward Biden (+7).

      You get popular support and build a movement by respectfully defending and fighting for the people’s material interests, not by looking for people who have the same ideas as you and attacking those who don’t.

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    4. Almost 90% of the black vote went to Biden in 2020, not Trump.
      As for 2016, Hillary Clinton got more votes than Trump.
      Your inability to understand basic mathematics makes me think you're a Right-winger.

      Also, no liberal could possibly have more contempt for Republican voters than Republican politicians. If you believe otherwise, show some proof.

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    5. "Talk to the black people who stayed home or, even cast a protest vote for Trump, in 2016 and 2020."

      Should I talk to all 10% of them?

      Delete
    6. 9:17,
      Over here in the real world, Republicans have doubled down on suppressing the votes of black people.
      You'd think a guy who fancies himself as informed, would notice.

      Delete
    7. Repub/Dem - we're all in the same boat.

      Delete
    8. Republicans get us into wars. Democrats get us out of them.

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  12. How long was that train? As long as this post? Then I wouldn't be surprised if the laws of physics were affected.

    ReplyDelete
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