For a certain paranoid type—a growing contingency as paranoia has become a profitable enterprise—international gatherings of elites are seen as a threat. Exclusive conferences that attract the world's richest and most powerful people are presumed to be places where the geopolitical agenda is set, often in opposition to the interests of ordinary people.
But the real secret of these conventions is not the exquisite competence with which they conspire to subvert the will of the people. The big secret, hidden in plain sight, is that these bigwigs become profound embarrassments to themselves in these environments in the same way and for the same reasons as America's domestic elites: because they want to be liked by the right people.
Take, for example, this display at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, which was billed as a multicultural performance, but has the same feel as students playing guitar at college parties:
Is this vulgar multicultural ornamentation what the global elite uses as a smokescreen, behind which they carry out their grand machinations? Probably not. If it were, we would have to assume that the world is paying attention to what WEF participants say. And to hear them is to be privy to some of the most easily ignored words the global economic elite has to offer.
“I truly believe that if you turn on the natural gas taps everywhere, you won't be able to turn them off again,” noted World Bank President Ajay Banga, in articulating the challenge posed to international interventionists who want to stop the use. of energy generated by fossil fuels for the growth of developing countries. This is not new. Green energy advocates have been pushing the developing world to abandon fossil fuels for decades, only to be scrupulously ignored.
Of course, developing countries even promise that they will adopt the demands of elitist opinion, but they do not fulfill them. Why? Do the rewards associated with subservience outweigh the benefits associated with rapid economic development, which can only be realized with reliable, on-demand energy generation? Of course. And what are the costs associated with recalcitrance? None, invitations to next year's forum are practically guaranteed.
“The challenge of politics is that we know what we need to do,” Banga continued. “The problem in the democratic world is that you probably won't get elected again if you do that.” This sounds terribly ominous, but it should be understood less as a declaration of a desire to break democratic conventions than as an explanation of the problem faced by radical reformers. Their goals are routinely thwarted by the democratic process and the “unwise” voters who participate in it. Banga's frustration should make WEF critics happy.
A brief survey of the topics on which the meeting participants opine leads to the inevitable conclusion that they are irreparably confused with the world as it is. “I like to refer to this as variable geometry,” said US Secretary of State, Antony Blinkenduring a dialogue with Tom Friedman, columnist for New York Times, about the numerous power challenges facing the United States abroad. “And that's what we've been doing.” Oh, yeah? Is this what we have been doing? Highlighting the need for “global partnerships and cooperation”, which we are apparently now expected to euphemize into an incomprehensible mess? Well, call it what you want, it's not working.
The increasingly complicated scenario in the Middle East and South Asia consumed much of the conference's attention — a focus summed up by the event title “Middle East Conflict: What Will Happen?” The answer to this question is never “to neutralize terrorist groups and reduce the ability of malign states to project power abroad.” This would make the event very short.
FEM primarily serves as a platform on which participants demonstrate their expert ability to complicate simple concepts with polysyllabic verbiage. “To sum up,” said the governor of France's Central Bank, “this will probably be an era of fair money rather than easy or free money.” This is a subtle way of saying that interest rates are rising to combat inflation caused by excessive government spending. It seems nicer than telling the public that governments have spent too much and because of that you will now be unable to finance a car.
The commonplaces don't stop there. “It's clear that on some dimensions the world has become increasingly divided,” noted Bob Sternfels of McKinsey & Company, “yet the barometer shows that when you look at the whole picture, global cooperation has remained surprisingly robust over the past decade.” A careful analysis of this sentence leaves readers wishing they hadn't wasted their time on it. “The Forum provides the framework to develop research, alliances and structures that promote year-round mission-driven cooperation,” opined Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende. This is just an overly complicated way of saying something we already knew: the WEF is an opportunity to networking.
John Harris, from the American website Political, summed up the parodic state the WEF has descended into, in which the supposedly best and brightest struggle to deal with an uncooperative world. “It's not that the observations and arguments are remarkably stupid, although it's rare to hear something intelligent,” Harris noted.
Attendees at these conferences tend to have a lot of experience in a field, and forums like WEF compel them to weigh in and judge events well beyond their professional fields, a recipe for failure. “Their opinions are no more banal than those of an average person who also follows the news,” Harris concluded, “but they are generally no less so.”
Abusing the generosity, Harris adds that there is “no reason to criticize Davos”, but there certainly is. If the plans of this conference's participants are in any way nefarious, at least its participants are incompetent in their pursuit. But for the most part, the conference's goals are not evil. These are well-intentioned efforts to improve the condition of the globe's inhabitants. In fact, WEF attendees are likely to emphasize their good intentions because intentionality and self-righteous strutting are the only two deliverables the conference delivers. This is not a conspiracy hatching a grand plot. It's just “cringe”.
Noah Rothman is the author of 'The rise of new puritans: Fighting Back against Progressives' War on Fun' [A ascensão de novos puritanos: Combatendo a Guerra contra a Diversão dos Progressistas] and 'Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America'[Injusto: Justiça Social e a Desconstrução da América].
©2024 National Review. Published with permission. Original in English: Davos is cringe
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