As the 2016 presidential campaign season slithers toward November, we hear phrases from observers, citizens and info-media people that refer to the popularity of Trump's candidacy not "making sense." Let's pause and ponder that assertion.
I'm calling this the application of the sense metric, the way normal people try to understand the actualities of the world they live in. They observe, they read, they listen, and they apply the measurements of logic, rationality and norms. They do this not so much according to scientific principles (though that might not be a bad idea), but rather according to their experience in the world, especially the world of ideas. And they ultimately screw up their faces and say, "Wait, what was that?"
Trump's extraordinary numbers, regardless of whatever region of the country, can be accounted for only by the no-sense metric, not nonsense, because that implies foolishness. The no-sense metric is the motivating force behind the minds and feelings (especially the feelings) of the electorate who have abandoned the sense metric. For example, one hears an independent or even Democrat interviewed who says, "I voted for Trump, because he's a very successful business person, and that's what we need to get the job of government moving." First, placing the business of government and the business of business in the same thought bag is a suspension of logic. The purpose of business is to exploit production and trade opportunities in order to extract the highest possible profit from the enterprise. Second, the purpose of government is to keep the society operating in some sort of orderly fashion, so that things don't get out of control; profit is not a consideration of government. The voter's comment does not fit a sense metric.
The no-sense metric can be applied to virtually everything Trump announces he will do. And the reason he approaches his audience (i.e., the American electorate) with a no-sense metric is that he knows absolutely that his audience has been primed for a visceral response to their lives for at least the last decade. One can observe this everywhere one goes in our society, from our roadways, to our supermarkets, to the slaughter of us by gun violence and neglect, to our abysmal concerns for what's happening to how people learn...we are an atomized disparate people, facilitated by various forms of media that serve to keep us that way.
And into this morass steps the con man, the strong arm salesman with his magical potions that will salve our psychic wounds and be a force of unity around his loud, angry mystique. This no-sense style of the con man appeals greatly to people who are running in place and seeing their horizon grow dimmer each year. The Clinton and Cruz and Kasich appeals to common sense, the sense metric, are very iffy strategies in our current political environment.
Perhaps, at no other time since its first release, has the prescient truth of the film Network had so much actual application, has our society so accurately portrayed that film. The audiences at Trump's rallies are all but repeating Howard Beale's proposal to his viewers to open their windows and scream out, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" That was from a dystopian dark comedy. So long as the citizens of our country continue to embrace their no-sense metric of Trump, this dark comedy—which we should have anticipated from all that's been happening in our "government"—will become our actuality...and dark comedies are not really funny.
I'm calling this the application of the sense metric, the way normal people try to understand the actualities of the world they live in. They observe, they read, they listen, and they apply the measurements of logic, rationality and norms. They do this not so much according to scientific principles (though that might not be a bad idea), but rather according to their experience in the world, especially the world of ideas. And they ultimately screw up their faces and say, "Wait, what was that?"
Trump's extraordinary numbers, regardless of whatever region of the country, can be accounted for only by the no-sense metric, not nonsense, because that implies foolishness. The no-sense metric is the motivating force behind the minds and feelings (especially the feelings) of the electorate who have abandoned the sense metric. For example, one hears an independent or even Democrat interviewed who says, "I voted for Trump, because he's a very successful business person, and that's what we need to get the job of government moving." First, placing the business of government and the business of business in the same thought bag is a suspension of logic. The purpose of business is to exploit production and trade opportunities in order to extract the highest possible profit from the enterprise. Second, the purpose of government is to keep the society operating in some sort of orderly fashion, so that things don't get out of control; profit is not a consideration of government. The voter's comment does not fit a sense metric.
The no-sense metric can be applied to virtually everything Trump announces he will do. And the reason he approaches his audience (i.e., the American electorate) with a no-sense metric is that he knows absolutely that his audience has been primed for a visceral response to their lives for at least the last decade. One can observe this everywhere one goes in our society, from our roadways, to our supermarkets, to the slaughter of us by gun violence and neglect, to our abysmal concerns for what's happening to how people learn...we are an atomized disparate people, facilitated by various forms of media that serve to keep us that way.
And into this morass steps the con man, the strong arm salesman with his magical potions that will salve our psychic wounds and be a force of unity around his loud, angry mystique. This no-sense style of the con man appeals greatly to people who are running in place and seeing their horizon grow dimmer each year. The Clinton and Cruz and Kasich appeals to common sense, the sense metric, are very iffy strategies in our current political environment.
Perhaps, at no other time since its first release, has the prescient truth of the film Network had so much actual application, has our society so accurately portrayed that film. The audiences at Trump's rallies are all but repeating Howard Beale's proposal to his viewers to open their windows and scream out, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" That was from a dystopian dark comedy. So long as the citizens of our country continue to embrace their no-sense metric of Trump, this dark comedy—which we should have anticipated from all that's been happening in our "government"—will become our actuality...and dark comedies are not really funny.
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