Scott Adams and Intellectual Courage
Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance
By Jeffrey A. Tucker, Brownstone Institute
When Scott Adams died, People Magazine led with a line that dominated most of the media for days: “Scott Adams, Disgraced Dilbert Creator, Dies at 69.” It’s a message for the living: depart from saying what you are supposed to say and you will lose everything. Even in death, your life will be called worthless. This was not eulogy but rather an enforcement action to keep the opinion cartel functioning.
It was in 2015 that the famed creator of the Dilbert cartoon first started speculating that Donald Trump had what it takes to become president. The feeling of shock was palpable. No one else was saying anything like this – more specifically, no one of his status and reach as a cultural influence. In those days, the opinions of The Nation and National Review were identical: this clown cannot be president.
For my own part, I recall feeling appalled by Adams’ statements. At the time, I was firmly in the Never Trump camp, without fully understanding that I was then accepting the most conventional opinion possible at the time. I further failed to understand the complex dynamic operating beneath the surface, namely that a broken system of government/media/tech had long ago stopped serving the cause of freedom and dignity and turned to full-time exploitation in surreptitious forms.
In words, Trump was out there saying that the system was gravely broken and needed to be fixed. This was Adams’ view as well, and he further saw that Trump had the gravitas necessary to pull people over to this view.
Adams of course turned out to be correct about this. It’s difficult to recreate the sense of those times to understand just how disruptive his views were. It was a universally shared opinion at the time that Trump was an unwelcome and deeply dangerous invader into electoral politics.
The establishment figured that the best way to shut down Trump’s effort was to treat them as wholly inadmissible to public life. The Huffington Post put their coverage under the entertainment category, while every other mainstream venue ran countless millions of articles on his evils.
Adams saw something others did not. He saw that Trump was compelling in ways no other political figure was. He was talking about real issues no one else would mention. He was a master improviser on stage. He was also funny. It was only after Adams’s comments that I started to listen. I realized that he was onto something important.
For holding this view, and then becoming ever more open about his support of Trump, Adams lost everything. His high-paid corporate speaking gigs were cancelled. He lost his income stream and social/cultural status. Eventually his syndication was cancelled too, on thin pretext. This cannot have come as a shock to him. He knew exactly what the consequences would be for departing from the status quo. He did it anyway.
We need to appreciate just how rare this is in higher circles of public influencers. This is a world in which everyone knows what they are supposed to say and what is unsayable. No one needs to send memos or give marching orders. The proper orthodoxy is in the air, discerned from all the signs by all intelligent people.
Entering into the upper echelons of opinion making, whether in academia or media or civil society generally, requires three types of training. First, you need...(READ THIS FULL ARTICLE HERE).
