Julian Baggini identifies a “highly contagious meme [that] is spreading around the world,” one that “takes serious ideas and turns them into play, packages big subjects into small parcels, and makes negativity the deadliest of sins.” The culprit? What he terms “Generation TED”:
To be progressive and radical once meant being sceptical and opposed to large corporations. For Generation TED, however, this is outdated thinking that leads only to cynicism and inertia. It’s time to grow up and accept that to do good things in a capitalist world you often need to tap the wealthy. In reality, this has always been true: think of Engels supporting Marx, or Beatrice and Sidney Webb funding Fabian Socialism with inherited wealth.
The rejection of cynicism, however, sometimes looks less like realism and more like naive, starry-eyed optimism.
In its mission statement, TED says: ‘We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world.’ It goes without saying that this change is supposed to be for the better. Viewers get to choose which adjective best describes the video they’ve watched: beautiful, courageous, funny, informative, ingenious, inspiring, fascinating, jaw-dropping, or persuasive. ‘Bullshit’ and ‘misleading’ are not on the list. Generation TED believes that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all.
He continues, “Generation TED does lack sufficient scepticism”:
Truly great ideas are sculpted with the chisel of critical thought, not created fully formed by spontaneous genius and good intent. We don’t need to wallow with postmodern irony in the contradictions and paradoxes of the modern world but nor should we ignore them. There are signs that Generation TED is learning this lesson. TED, for example, has added an asterisk to its strapline ‘Ideas worth spreading’, which leads to a series of wry footnotes including ‘and challenging’. It is as though even TED has realised that undiluted positivity is not enough and that critical, sceptical voices are needed too.
Previous Dish on TED skepticism here.
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