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“Everybody feels safe belonging not to the excluded minority, but to the excluding majority. You think, oh, I’m glad that’s not me. It’s basically the same in all periods in all societies. If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things.”

Haruki Murakami

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“The opponent has always to be explained, and the last explanation that we ever look for is that he sees a different set of facts.”

Walter Lippman

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“Thus the rise of diversity means that, although our political systems are theoretically founded on majority rule, it may be impossible to form a majority even on issues crucial to survival. In turn, this collapse of consensus means that more and more governments are minority governments, based on shifting and uncertain coalitions.”

Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave

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Let me begin by suggesting everyone pick up a copy of Toffler’s book The Third Wave and flip to page 435. There begins a section called “Minority Power” and it outlines the future as seen from 1980. Its, well, futuristic gold. Next. I actually wrote about the minority majority paradox in the 2014 wayback machine where I discussed specific situations in which the minority loudness overwhelmed the majority numbers. Anyway. A shitload of discussions in, and among, communities, and society in general, happen in the gap between what people think, or feel they know, and what they actually do know. That gap is noisy, angry, often misguided, sometimes well intended, and always a hellhole for truth tellers. In the end, it is a moshpit of, well, mostly shit. I say, with some confidence, its shit because, as Dan Williams suggested, “many people are naive realists – that is, they tend to think that they see the reality of whatever they’re opining on objectively, clearly, and comprehensively, with little or no conscious awareness of their own ignorance, or perceptual distortions.” In other words, full of shit. But let me get to today’s point. The minority. The minority is the loudest and often the most full of shit. That doesn’t mean they don’t always have “a” point (emphasis on “a”), just that in order to forward their point they use a lot of loud shit and dubious logic. They do so maybe not just out of ignorance, or being a naïve realist, but because they are in the minority and will use whatever they can to convince a generally uninterested public they represent a majority. And that is the minority majority paradox. The loudest, most earnest, voices get the most airtime and headlines, but actually do not represent the majority’s opinions/views/attitudes/beliefs. The minority majority paradox is actually a subnarrative of the circulation of elites just that in today’s world it is more often than not the dumber version of it. What I mean by that is, presently, the minority is loudly offering obstacles to progress (of ideas, thinking and actual ‘doing’ of necessary things). I thought about this while writing the circulation of elites and listening to the whole political crap spewed day in and day out through media. Basically, in today’s world it is difficult to avoid the sliver who spew an embarrassingly simplistic vocal minority opinion. This is actually a fairly important topic because ultimately it affects what society perceives versus what is reality.

Which leads me to how a minority can suck the energy away from progress.

MAGA is a small, negative force and anti-progress cause. It conflates past threats with future threats and have been a huge waste of national energy, time, focus and opportunity. In other words, it represents lost progress. I say that because progress is always grounded in connectivity and relationships. Relationships that support progress can be especially challenging to achieve and maintain particularly when much of the MAGA narrative is crafted online where time and space is warped. These online spaces produce a “disinhibition effect,” where people are emboldened to craft outlandish narratives behind a screen of anonymity. To be clear. Progress is always a narrative; therefore, one always has to be aware of anti-progress narratives; like MAGA. MAGA’s narrative is not only stuck in the present, but is also grounded/anchored, in the past. This means their narrative loses all vigor and forward velocity and is simply a narrative impoverished of any progress. They are a minority anchor with an inertia-based narrative. That said. The paradox is online spaces also provide important outlets for airing perspectives that run counter to the majority, where anonymity may also provide protective cover. Additionally, digital platforms offer opportunities to expand beyond our face-to-face networks and form new relationships.

Which leads me to small groups with loud voices.

Fox News reaches a sliver of the US [population. This is not to suggest it doesn’t reach a significant segment of the US population just that while 5 million is significant it is only a sliver of the larger 330 million. It gives voice to, well, a minority. No matter how often this sliver claims they represent what America wants and needs; it doesn’t. it just represents what a minority of people feel and think. They are an echo chamber for the MAGA-verse and a prime example of the minority majority paradox. While the minority majority paradox has always occurred the roots of today’s venomous version can be found in changes which began occurring in maybe 1990:

These groups feature movements of highly organized minorities whose objective is to obtain through power what could not be achieved through other means. Pluralism both in society and in polity is to be perceived as a challenge to political processes and political leadership as well as to all the represented groups and individuals of our society. The challenges of the new pluralist institutions require particular attention in terms of: their social responsibility; their community responsibility; political responsibility; individuals’ rights and responsibility; and the newly perceived role and functions of government.

Peter Drucker

This all means that smallish single-cause groups become increasingly dominant in politics/society and, consequently, societal opinions <not truth>.  How the heck do they achieve such power? Oddly, the power resides is in their small numbers. As a minority their strength is derived from their single task or purpose, which are usually related to prevent or to stop rather than to be organized to do something.  Politically these minority groups are increasingly dominating the mass movements of modern politics thought they count only 5% to 10% of the electorate. In contrast, the majority tends to be not well organized, is inert and not committed to a particular purpose and or a unified objective. That said. It can change because when the majority actually kind of gets grumpy, they get focused and organized. Its, well, about power wielded. Now. Majority rule is not always about “supreme power.” If it were, the majority would always tyrannize the minority (Tocqueville). The reality is, a democracy well implemented, ensures the implementation of the popular/majority yet also guarantees the majority will not abuse its power infringing on the rights of the minority; the rights needed to compete fairly with the majority. The problem is ‘compete fairly’ is often framed within an unhealthy, i.e., kind of a “kill or be killed” social competition. This begets a weird tug of war between a righteous “feeling” group and a truly righteous group. Or let’s call it feelings versus facts. The reality is the gap between facts and fiction, feelings and reality, or a lack of quality discourse, is often the largest gap between a minority group and a majority group.

Which leads me to quality dissent.

A healthy society needs quality dissent, where people in communities can critique the status quo, raise awareness of problems, and put forward alternatives. This sort of disagreement can be a source of better community sensemaking because minority views, misguided/untrue beliefs, even conspiracy-like thinking, emerges and can be dealt with. In addition, communities learn to effectively respond to the dissent of others (it becomes a circular way of learning and adapting). Quality dissent ensures the majority concepts do not squeeze out or mask the minority experiences and desires. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out MAGA is quite resistant to quality dissent (as is a small minority of the progressive wing). That said. Without quality dissent a loud irrational minority will always be at odds with a rational passive majority.

“The world isn’t being destroyed by democrats or republicans, red or blue, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist — the world is being destroyed by one side believing the other side is destroying the world.”

Which leads me to suggest the MAGA minority just doesn’t teach us a lot.

To be clear, social, and political movements educate communities, albeit not necessarily with the same conclusions or consequences. This is important because understanding the multi-faceted objectives and desires of communities is important if you want to enable progress. It is here I will suggest “center” or “centrist” as a lazy way of thinking about effective pathway to progress building – especially with MAGA in play. We use “center” as a concept to navigating a way inbetween, a way to navigate polarized communities, but it is more than likely to only force us into what is called the “middle ground fallacy” where ‘center’ is some supposed mid-place between two extremes.

“If you say, “All elephants can fly,” and I say, “No elephants can fly,” then we could compromise on, “Some elephants can fly.” Obviously, that is not true.

the middle ground fallacy

So, if MAGA resides in some alternative universe, that would mean finding some wretched place in no man’s land where the center, or the compromise position, absurdly has to accommodate some horrible alternative universe shit. Yeah. The reason MAGA doesn’t really teach us anything that helps with progress is that there is no real middle ground which facilitates progress; it would only compromise progress and compromise some moral integrity. The ‘center position,’ like it or not, shouldn’t involve some of them, and some of their ideas, at all. That may sound horrible, but if the objective is progress, well, then it is the most pragmatic path toward progress and possibilities. Ultimately, MAGA is neither complex or complicated nor does it help us interrogate the truths of progress. It is a minority focused on reductionism and reductionist ideas when the world, let alone the country, should be demanding what the majority wants – progress. Ponder.

“The enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth-persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”

John F. Kennedy