
The Rise of the Thought Leader - imartin2k
https://newrepublic.com/article/143004/rise-thought-leader-how-superrich-funded-new-class-intellectual
======
mabub24
I was recently at a conference run by a progressive political think tank. I
was surprised and confused by the way some of the speakers discussed AI,
"innovation", entrepreneurship, and technology.

They basically all repeated a number of the same points.

1\. AI will be amazing, and will utterly decimate jobs in the future, though
it was never clear whether they understood AI technologies or even the
economics of automation.

2\. Everyone should be trying to become an entrepreneur. Disruption is a
panacea.

3\. Technology is the future. But, they use about 1,000,000 different
definitions of technology and give little heed to social ramifcations of some
of the technologies.

4\. Everyone in the future will work on a contract basis and this is amazing.
They gave little thought to many of the long term benefits usually associated
with careers.

5\. "Nudging" will be THE tool of governments in the future, with little
thought to the ramifications to democracy and liberal values.

There was such a small bandwidth of opinion and argument it was hilarious.
They were basically all repeating boiler plate stuff you read in a lot of
these "thought leader" books.

~~~
Spooky23
You're misunderstanding what a think tank is. It's a place that gets money
from places and is a parking lot for displaced political people. They aren't
there to have original thoughts -- they are there to support the perspective
of whomever is signing the checks. What they say isn't very important, but
what they don't say is critical.

Ditto for political people like cabinet members and CEO types. In public,
their outward messaging needs to be tightly controlled. Behind the scenes for
smart ones, their personal thoughts or agendas are often very different.

~~~
bayonetz
The RAND Corporation is a "think tank" but it's definitely not what you
describe. They are quite valued for their objective and bi-partisan analysis
domestically and even internationally. They actually shut down one of their
international offices because the government in power basically asked them to
spread propaganda on their behalf. RAND puts out great reports on all sorts of
topics around policy and decision making. Education, marijuana reform,
cybercrime, you name it. I bother saying this because I used to work there and
think folks really misunderstand that there are some think tanks doing very
valuable work. I'm a little salty even because when I moved to my current job
at well known tech company, once there, I found my past experience gets
massively discounted, even controlling for the differences between R&D/think
tank vs tech company. It's annoying and it mostly seems to stem from ignorance
and stereotypes based on a few of the bad apples that call themselves think
tank but are actually partisan propaganda mills.

~~~
biztos
RAND is a pretty interesting place -- and as far as I know totally not
connected to a certain author popular among libertarians. Research ANd
Development, right?

A couple years ago I was considering a move to Santa Monica and while my
obvious employment would have been some form of software development further
from the beach, I thought it might be cool to find my way into RAND in some
capacity.

Do they have part-time researchers there, or maybe researchers-in-residence
for sabbatical-length periods?

~~~
bayonetz
They have part-timers who were once full timers but typically you can't start
off part time. Closest thing is the summer associates program for visiting PhD
students.

Ps. I had an office overlooking the Santa Monica mountains and got to spend
time deeply immersing into interesting problems. Now at current tech co I'm
packed into an open office plan elbows to elbows and don't immerse much past
any problem that can't be solved in a week or too. I sometimes hear Gob saying
in my head, "I've made a huge mistake..."

------
tomc1985
The entire pursuit of "thought leadership" is a joke. If someone purposefully
seeks thought leadership then they are probably incapable of truly
demonstrating it. Thought leaders don't try to become thought leaders, they
become so by focusing on their areas of expertise

~~~
davidw
My favorite 'thought leader':
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shing)

~~~
ilamont
Valleywag was all over this guy:

Shingy's Book of Nonsense Prophecies

Shingy Just Spent 20 Minutes Yelling Insane Gibberish on a Stage

SXSW In One Photo: Shingy on a Wrecking Ball

[http://valleywag.gawker.com/tag/shingy](http://valleywag.gawker.com/tag/shingy)

------
et1337
This article desperately tries to pin the thought leader phenomenon on
billionaires, but I don't buy it. Billionaires are certainly susceptible, but
plenty of poor people believe this stuff too. The article even tries to
cleanly separate academia from TED talks et. al., but I know plenty of people
who came out of their masters / PhD spouting stuff like this.

~~~
marcelluspye
What I took away is that while plenty of poor people might believe/agree with
thought leaders, it's the rich who _enable_ them, by giving them a platform.
I'd say the article is not so much academics vs. "thought leaders" as it is
intellectuals (i.e. people who apply a critical lens to their chosen objects
of study) vs. eloquent bullshitters (i.e. people who have one idea and
dogmatically try to fit it to everything, and evangelically try to convince
people that they're right. There are plenty of both inside and outside
academia.

~~~
tpeo
If the author wanted to pin something on the rich, I think he should've gone
explicitly after think tanks instead. I don't think your run-of-the-mill
celebrity intellectual living off book royalties, paid talks and columns has
that much to do with large political donors. All a paid speaker needs is a
paying audience, and preferably a large one. And if he's a bullshiter, that's
all the better: bullshit sells. They just seem target anyone with some
disposable income instead. But think tanks need _budgets_ (different order of
magnitude here), and their output is used to supply media and lobbyists with
stuff which might budge the decision of voters as well as politicians.

Also, I disagree that this is "The Rise" of anything in either case. Think
tanks are recent, but they've been here for a while. But someone peddling some
(seemingly?) shallow understanding of the world for money is probably old as
the hills. Certainly older than the sophists, older than Mesmer and his animal
magnetism, as well as older than any sort of quackery or intellectual sleight
of hand in historical memory.

Talking about this as if it were something new, and with allusions to Gramsci
to top it off, just strikes me as making it as unnecessarily ominous.

------
abakker
Thew criticisms leveled at the Thought Leadership industry are valid, I think.
I am much more skeptical that blogs, magazines, and small publications are the
solution, or even _a_ solution to this problem.

Gone unmentioned is the massive technical change in communication, and its
effect on the actual way in which humans absorb and communicate ideas. I would
look to the process of "going viral" as a literal embodiment of the problem.
Things which are easily transmissible can achieve that critical mass to self-
sustain. The Thought Leadership industry recognizes and exploits it, while the
countermanding vaccine of rationality, criticality, and analysis is much
harder to pass on.

~~~
muninn_
I shudder at reading the phrase "Thought Leadership industry". It is largely
manufactured, consensus-oriented opinions by people that happened to get
popular for one reason or another and most likely don't really know exactly
what they're talking about aside from some popular slogans, terms, or
arguments already having been made. It's really quite anti-intellectual, yet
at the same time ivory-tower.

~~~
abakker
Infographics, Advertorials, and TEDx talks, brought to you by Thought
Leadership of America Foundation for Progress, the Center for Media Excellence
and the nam-shub of Enki. /s

------
notadoc
"Thought Leader" and "Influencer" are terms that make me cringe. Anytime I see
those labels on someones bio, resume, twitter profile, etc, I can't help but
roll my eyes.

~~~
mpclark
They are terms that one can't apply to oneself. It's fine for other people to
call me a thought leader, but I can't say it myself. I suspect this may also
apply to "entrepreneur".

~~~
Hydraulix989
I can't believe people downvoted you for talking about yourself in a manner
that could be considered arrogant except they didn't realize you were actually
just being hypothetical.

~~~
Bakary
My understanding is that the standard usage is to employ the second person
singular instead of the first when expressing this.

~~~
Hydraulix989
And then it's mistaken instead to be a direct insult because the same people
who don't have a firm enough grasp on the English language to correctly
comprehend hypothetical speech in the first-person case are also not going to
understand the hypothetical second-person case either; instead, these people
will also misconstrue that the speaker is directly referring to themselves.

------
rrggrr
Makes me think of Kevin Kelly ([http://kk.org](http://kk.org)). His 1994 book
Out of Control, read retrospectively, has held up better than any other
prognostication I can think of concerning the nexus of business and
technology. Neal Stephenson's 1999 Cryptonomicon is another staggering
example. Asimov. Orwell. Machiavelli. Musashi. Tzu. There are the 'A' players
of thought leadership, and there is everyone else.

~~~
Bakary
What aspects of Asimov do you think are the most prescient?

(on a more pedantic note, his last name is Sun: Tzu is an honorific title)

~~~
paulddraper
My guess would be AI/automation.

An obvious thing today but not sixty years ago.

------
projectramo
Is there a proposal to distinguish between a "thought leader" and a "public
intellectual" beyond feeling that one is superficial and vapid, while the
other is deep and interesting?

The problem is that "superficial" and "deep" are just metaphors, and boring or
interesting is subjective.

~~~
mabub24
I think one distinction we should try to make is that a "public intellectual"
is someone who actively seeks to relate academic/scholarly research and
methods to the public in accessible, but not simplified, terms and is open to
serious debate. A "thought leader" tends to be associated with little
scholarly rigour, a tendency to skirt debate, and over-simplification of
complex ideas.

I think the author did have a good distinction as well. A "public
intellectual" questions and interrogates, while a "thought leader" seems to
inordinately promote and prophesize. (I'm thinking of someone like Ray
Kurzweil as a "thought leader" here) That's not perfect, but it seems to serve
pretty well.

~~~
sharemywin
How are they getting paid a shit professors paycheck or a big fat sponsor
check? That's how I would distinguish. Maybe not always right but pretty darn
close.

------
Top19
This reminds me of a comment from the book "Postwar: a History of Europe
between 1945 to 1989". Many oppressive governments that sprang up were
initially supported by the learned classes. The quote is as follows:

"Totalitarianism can never truly succeed without the support of the
intellectuals"

I'd like to point out that even religious totalitarianism usually displays
this trait as well by co-opting the theological intellectuals, so this dynamic
plays out again and again on both the liberal and conservative sides of
history.

~~~
humanrebar
Does North Korea have intellectuals or is it not truly succeeding?

------
cryptica
Thought leadership these days is almost always about pushing a corporate
agenda. It's not true thinking, it's marketing.

That reminds me of the time when Mark Zuckerberg announced that his favorite
book was "The end of power".

It's convenient for him to promote these kinds of ideas whilst his company
acquires a global monopoly on consumer attention/awareness without being
hampered by regulators.

~~~
thinkfurther
I would go so far as to say that "thought leadership" is an oxymoron. It makes
as much sense as "sex leadership" to me.

------
CryoLogic
Thought Leader is just another way of saying "Some guy who wants to sell you
something"

EDIT: In most cases

~~~
radicalbyte
The official term is "bovine scatologist".

------
jonbarker
There exists a need for a niche un-Ted, one without music and tidy closing
remarks.

------
jamesash
Quote: "The rich have, Drezner writes, empowered a new kind of thinker—the
“thought leader”—at the expense of the much-fretted-over “public
intellectual.” Whereas public intellectuals like Noam Chomsky or Martha
Nussbaum are skeptical and analytical, thought leaders like Thomas Friedman
and Sheryl Sandberg “develop their own singular lens to explain the world, and
then proselytize that worldview to anyone within earshot.” While public
intellectuals traffic in complexity and criticism, thought leaders burst with
the evangelist’s desire to “change the world.” Many readers, Drezner observes,
prefer the “big ideas” of the latter to the complexity of the former. In a
marketplace of ideas awash in plutocrat cash, it has become “increasingly
profitable for thought leaders to hawk their wares to both billionaires and a
broader public,” to become “superstars with their own brands, sharing a space
previously reserved for moguls, celebrities, and athletes.”"

Where does one start when trying to critique such muddle-headed dreck. You
could start with 1) the article fails to address the fragmentation of the
modern media landscape (any modern "big media" commentator's influence is
minor next to that once yielded by Walter Lippmann of yore), or 2) quibble
with the false dichotomies of a) "skeptical and analytical" versus "singluar
lens" or b) "complexity and criticism" versus "change the world" 3)
"marketplace of ideas awash in plutocrat cash" totally misses the point - it's
an attention economy now, stupid. "Plutocracy" applies more to the old media
oligarchy of the 20th century than it does today. 4) I don't even know what
"increasingly profitable to hawk their wares to both billionaires and a
broader public" even means. What's the mechanism here? That there's something
new about the fact that commentators write books and give speeches?

A much better critique of public intellectuals comes from Philip Tetlock, who
at least tries to hold them to account for their bad predictions. In that
vein, I like Bryan Caplan's "bettors oath": "Blathering talk surrounds us, but
I will take no part in it. My word is my bet; I will always put my money where
my mouth is. When challenged, I will bet on my words, refine them, or recant.
When no one is present to challenge me, I will weigh my words and thoughts as
if my fellow oath-takers were listening... "
[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/05/the_bettors_oat....](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/05/the_bettors_oat.html)

------
bitwize
I once read an article headlined something like "It's Clay Shirky's internet
and we just live in it". I thought to myself, who the fuck is Clay Shirky and
who decided it was _his_ internet? Is he besties with Vint Cerf or something?

I really have nothing against Mr. Shirky or his writing; some of his ideas
sound interesting. But this is nothing new. People privilege some people's
opinions over others not because they are the most qualified, but because they
happened to be around to say something profound sounding while a _New York
Times_ (or _New Yorker_ ) columnist was listening.

------
randrodoFrodo
No one to name. No examples to present. Just an agenda to suppose.

Seems a little hand-wavey, no?

~~~
TheCowboy
More than a few names are mentioned, such as Thomas Friedman and Sheryl
Sandberg, but it also seems a disingenuous at times. His theory looks more
coherent than it actually is once you begin to break it down. People can be
too quick to believe in vague ideas about "the elites" who are against us.

People the author likes, like Noam Chomsky, aren't considered "thought
leaders" who "develop their own singular lens to explain the world, and then
proselytize that worldview to anyone within earshot” in an attempt to “change
the world.” Even though Chomsky would definitely like to change the world, and
is quite prolific.

Some of the criticism leveled at some of the people is valid but doesn't
support his argument. Like when he mentions Fareed Zakaria's plagiarism, as
far as I know it was limited in scope and not common throughout his writing.
I'm ambivalent about Zakaria, but I'd rather talk about actual ideas than
focus on that episode.

He constructs this "thought leader" strawman to attack, when he would better
just directly addressing some of the core ideas presented by the thought
leaders he doesn't like.

Maybe the article pulled it together by the end, but I couldn't keep reading
when it was this sloppily presented. It's compelling, and there are even parts
that appeal to my own biases, but it's too ambitious and falls apart.

------
soared
Its comical how everyone in this thread shits on thought leaders, put then
praise PG in his thread on insurance. He didn't intend to become one, but
thousands of people read (literally) "Thoughts on Insurance". He is by
definition a thought leader. Like anything in this world, some are bad and
some are good.

~~~
robotresearcher
Thoughts on Insurance

By Aaron Harris

~~~
soared
That is fair, but my point still stands. I didn't see the byline, just the
domain and the writing style.

~~~
eduren
>but my point still stands

Does it though? You're criticizing people praising PG but using an article not
written by him as the example. If you have another example that's written by
PG and relevant to your point then please edit your comment to use that.

------
frgtpsswrdlame
Dan Drezner also spoke on his book at the lawfare podcast, I found it quite a
good listen:

[https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-ideas-
industry](https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-ideas-industry)

------
BrooklynRage
@ProfJeffJarviss on twitter is a great parody of the thought leaders. Would
recommend following
([https://twitter.com/ProfJeffJarviss](https://twitter.com/ProfJeffJarviss))

~~~
Bakary
You know it's a great parody when some light scrolling across the page is
enough to induce slight nausea.

------
LinuxBender
I do not see any references to Thought Leader[1].

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZBKX-6Gz6A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZBKX-6Gz6A)

------
remotehack
It sounds like someone is trying to sell something.

------
Jabanga
I'd like to offer an alternate theory:

A unionized elite dominates the economy. This bloc constitutes millions of
unionized public sector workers who are in the top 10% of income earners, and
the writers of major establishment media organisations like the New York Times
and the New Republic.

I just googled David Sessions and NewsGuild, and it turns out he is/was a
high-ranking member:

[http://www.nyguild.org/post/contract-
approved](http://www.nyguild.org/post/contract-approved)

Like all elite groups with legally enshrined privileges, this group has
created a set of myths to justify its existence, and a scapegoat to blame for
society's ills.

This elite views the principle of a free market economy as the greatest threat
to its privileges, and so it creates a conspiracy theory where any
intellectual that promotes this principle is working for the interests of
billionaires who are really calling the shots.

This elite is afraid of the freedom the internet provides. It is already
looking to shut down free market interaction in digital media, by promoting
digital media unionization:

[https://newrepublic.com/article/122667/how-digital-media-
uni...](https://newrepublic.com/article/122667/how-digital-media-unionization-
can-and-cant-strengthen-labor)

~~~
TheCowboy
This sounds more like you have a chip on your shoulder for the people you
defined as elites than a legitimate argument. It sounds like you're doing what
you accuse them of: creating a set of myths to justify this imagined
scapegoat; creating a conspiracy theory to attempt to neutralize a perceived
threat by the defined group.

Do you have actual numbers to demonstrate this large group of people are
heavily in the top 10% of income earners? Journalism isn't that lucrative.
Public school teaching isn't that lucrative. Unions overall have shrunk and
continue to do so.

It sounds like a veiled communist/socialist conspiracy by journalists and
public sector workers, yet this is a group that you claim is in the top 10%
and is therefore thriving even though they exist in a capitalist system.
That's confused (unless you think we're knee-deep in socialism).

I'd argue this post doesn't belong here as it's so far outside any evidence-
based perspective that it becomes pure partisan spin representing what sounds
like an Ayn Randian inspired ideology.

To throw you a bone, I'm not a fan of all the power public sector unions
wield, and there could be some reforms, but this isn't the way to persuade
people.

~~~
Jabanga
Evidence that most federal employees are in the top 10% of income earners [1].

I haven't compiled comprehensive statistics on public servants as a whole, but
in all of the jurisdictions I'm familiar with, a large percentage are in the
top 10%.

For instance, across Canadian provinces, annual compensation for a teacher
with 10 years experience is well over the $80,000 mark, which is approximately
the threshold for being in the top 10 percent in Canada. [2] And these are
very secure jobs with very low possibility of ever being fired. That has value
that is not captured in compensation statistics.

The teachers in BC are so entitled now that they openly tell students they
don't like a particular candidate, and every student I've talked to hates that
candidate and their party. Yes I don't have statistics for this particular
claim - it's just anecdotes, but for me personally, it's clear as rain that
unionisation reduces accountability and creates an elitist mindset among the
privileged few who work in the public sector.

There's evidence that unionisation has been very harmful to the education
system [3].

Being a unionized journalist for a big media company comes with a lot of perks
and job security. That is a material benefit owing from the accepted political
ideology, that claims unionisation serves the public interest.

>It sounds like a veiled communist/socialist conspiracy by journalists and
public sector workers

I would say it is in their economic interest to advocate for political
ideologies that legitimize a major role of government in the economy, and I am
conjecturing that this leads to bias by unionized journalists against free
market ideology. I think it's a fair comment to make.

>I'd argue this post doesn't belong here as it's so far outside any evidence-
based perspective that it becomes pure partisan spin representing what sounds
like an Ayn Randian inspired ideology.

Please note the journalist in question is alleging a vast billionaire
conspiracy, with nothing but anecdotes as evidence, and impugning upon the
character of any 'thought leader' supporting market-based economic principles,
with nothing but conjecture to support his outlandish accusations. If that's
allowed here, then certainly my comment should be as well.

His position is not an evidence-based one, at all.

It's also note worthy that you're bristling at the possibility that I'm
accusing journalists of being socialists/communists while you yourself don't
hesitate to throw terms like "Ayn Randian inspired ideology" to denigrate me.
Can I say pro-union position is "Lenin inspired ideology", or would you call
for my comment to be expunged from here if I did?

[1] [https://www.cato.org/blog/federal-government-pay-exceeds-
mos...](https://www.cato.org/blog/federal-government-pay-exceeds-most-
industries)

[2] [http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-
sa/99-014-x/99-01...](http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-
sa/99-014-x/99-014-x2011003_2-eng.cfm)

[3] [https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-
abstract/111/3/671/1839...](https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-
abstract/111/3/671/1839935/How-Teachers-Unions-Affect-Education-Production)

~~~
speedplane
Gonna jump in here for better or worse...

> I would say it is in their economic interest to advocate for political
> ideologies that legitimize a major role of government in the economy

While this may certainly be true for federal workers, I'm not at all convinced
that this is the case for union workers. But even if it were true, I don't
think federal workers and journalists have nearly the same power as large
corporations and special interests who have don't just have "bias", but
explicit stated goals to change the status quo in their favor.

~~~
Jabanga
Even if someone doesn't work in the public sector, they depend on the
widespread acceptance of major tenets of 'big government' ideology for their
union perks.

Unions only have power because the law forces employers to negotiate
exclusively with them once a bargaining unit votes to unionize. Without this
type of legislation, which thoroughly violates property rights, employers
would boot all unions, including the NewsGuild, to the curb.

>But even if it were true, I don't think federal workers and journalists have
nearly the same power as large corporations

Are you sure that's true? Have you added up all of the compensation of
unionized workers to see what it adds up to? And what about numbers? Money is
very important, but having numbers helps too.

------
megamindbrian
thinkfluencing.

~~~
tpeo
Terrible. I love it!

------
HillaryBriss
I stopped reading after " _... organic intellectuals helped the bourgeoisie
establish its ideas ..._ " because I believe that an extremely convincing case
for the superiority of GMO intellectuals has already been made many times.

~~~
wgjordan
The term 'organic intellectuals' (Antonio Gramsci, ~1926-37) actually predates
'organic farming' (Walter James Northbourne, 1940).

------
tmaly
While some may shun Ayn Rand for her raw view of capitalism, if you read Atlas
Shrugged, she does do a good job of calling out this "arcane
unintelligibility"

~~~
sharemywin
title says it all:

[http://knowledgenuts.com/2013/09/20/ayn-rand-was-a-secret-
we...](http://knowledgenuts.com/2013/09/20/ayn-rand-was-a-secret-welfare-
queen/)

~~~
infoworm
You mean she used a system she had paid into?

How is this not merely a personal attack?

~~~
CalChris
A personal attack, or _ad hominem_ , attacks the character, motive, or other
attribute of the person.

One can be a welfare recipient and be of excellent character and the article
doesn't question her character. The article also doesn't say that Rand's being
on welfare was any sort of motive for any sort of act.

No one is questioning her right to receive welfare having paid into the
system.

The criticism the article brings is her evident hypocrisy for taking welfare
after criticizing it for others. That she clearly didn't need it, that she and
her followers kept this a secret only adds to that hypocrisy. That hypocrisy
has bearing on her _thought leadership_. Yeah, it really does.

