The Loudest Minorities do not a Majority Make
Americans too often confuse apathy with tolerance and high volume with significance and legitimacy.
Philosophically speaking, Western civilization (and especially the American variant) is claimed to be based on the will of the people – which many define as the will of the majority.
But is that a true belief or simply conventional wisdom?
It is true that America’s elections lead to governing processes based on votes leading to a majority – the membership in Congress, the passage of bills through these legislative bodies, attainment of the presidency, even becoming a federal judge, all require some form of majority approval through a vote.
Democrats scream about “democracy” and “equity” as if those two things guarantee that each person gets a say in determining the future, the assumption being that “the future” is the product of a consensus of the majority and that the majority will always come to both right and righteous conclusions and base decisions upon those conclusions.
But as a practical matter, that isn’t the way things really work, is it?
When one really puts our governance, our society and our culture under a microscope, an entirely different picture emerges. One begins to see that our nation, society, and culture is not run by some glorious consensus, rather it is dominated through a combination of stubborn, intransigent minorities imposing their tastes and ethics on others and 2) a naïve (and often ignorant and/or apathetic) majority that assumes the loudest minorities must represent the others in the majority otherwise they wouldn’t be so loud and or so prominent.
When one is honest about history, this is true for both things of which we approve and those we do not.
The American Revolution began with a small group of people with a different idea of their futures and the futures of their fellow citizens. Numbers ranging from a low of three percent to a high of twenty percent have been used by historians to describe the actual percentage of the colonial population who chose to participate in the rebellion against the Crown.
Most certainly, it was an extreme minority who signed the Declaration of Independence and later, the Constitution of the United States of America.
In his book, “Skin in the Game”, Nassim Taleb noted:
“Among other things, many other things, the minority rule will show us how all it takes is a small number of intolerant, virtuous people with skin in the game, in the form of courage, for society to function properly.”
Taleb also proposed minority rule is “the mother of all asymmetries.” He stated:
“It suffices for an intransigent minority—a certain type of intransigent minority—with significant skin in the game (or, better, soul in the game) to reach a minutely small level, say 3 or 4% of the total population, for the entire population to have to submit to their preferences. Further, an optical illusion comes with the dominance of the minority: a naïve observer (who looks at the standard average) would be under the impression that the choices and preferences are those of the majority.”
But what happens when the minority isn’t “virtuous”, at least as we define traditional virtues? What if the minority does not share the same ethics as the majority (including those of the naïve)?
Once one understands how rule by an asymmetric minority is a common feature of history, one also understands how powerful propaganda campaigns can be and how they are used to change culture. Media becomes an indispensable ally to the intransigent minorities in creating the illusion of the minority as the majority.
There are several issues that still poll badly with the American people and yet get outsized media coverage.
For example, when a representative cross section of parents of school age children are polled, there is strong evidence that the majority oppose the mainstreaming of LGBTQ lifestyles, especially transgenderism. It is also a statistical fact that, depending on the survey, people of all ages who identify as “transgender” are a fraction of a percent of the American population, most studies placing that number between 0.5% and 0.7%.
And yet, hardly a day goes by that transgenderism isn’t the subject of some “at the top of the hour” media report.
The same goes for same-sex relationships. The alleged percentage of the population is larger, somewhere around 3% to 5% (although the identification of being “same sex” is highly flexible these days) and yet significantly more than 5% of media presentations (from TV programs and commercials to movies) contain characters engaging in same-sex relationships.
I am personally aware of several popular current and past primetime programs fitting that model: NBC’s “Will and Grace”, CBS’s “NCIS: Hawaii”, ABC’s “Grays Anatomy” and “Station 11”, Fox’s “9-1-1: Emergency” and perhaps the grand prize winner, the Rob Lowe wokefest of “9-1-1: Lone Star” featuring two white men in a same-sex relationship, a POC Muslim character, a black transgender man, a Hispanic straight male and a white reformed country boy from the Hill Country who is married to a black woman rounding out the cast.
They really checked every box on that last one
I don’t watch too much broadcast TV, but the Alphabet Networks reach far more homes than cable, where the percentage of such characters and programs are far more prominent, so this certainly seems to be a saturation event.
I don’t say this as an enemy of any particular group, deviant or not. I’ve always been a “you do you - just don’t force me into it” libertarian from a behavior perspective.
My point is simply to highlight Nassim Taleb’s observations that the majority can be convinced, and relatively easily so, that minorities are not really minorities at all - and then allow them to drive an agenda that is counter to the ideas of individual liberty and freedom that form the basis for America, her culture, and her society.
The simple truth is that when any idea or culture is implemented through coercion (even passive aggressive coercion) rather than informed choice (there is that “choice” word again), that process is the antithesis of liberty.
But given that it seems a majority of America is made up of an apathetic, naïve, or even ignorant, cohort, it seems warring minority factions will continue this tribalism.
Americans too often confuse apathy with tolerance and high volume with significance and legitimacy.
It isn’t evil or wrong to refuse to participate in celebration of the intransigent minority – what is wrong is to allow that minority to act as if it is the majority and impose their will on a nation.
About Brandon's new Dept of Energy hire .... "Brinton – who has written in opposition to “gay conversion therapy” – was recently tapped to serve as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy for the Department of Energy. He also goes by “Sister Ray Dee O’Active” – his drag queen alter ego." Seriously???
Totally agree with checking boxes while watching a show-we quit watching when too many boxes are checked off!!