We Are Not the Problem. Stop Pretending We Are.
There's a particular kind of media story that has been around long enough to have grandchildren by now. It goes like this: A powerful person is doing something alarming to you, the credulous, vulnerable, easily-manipulated public. The storyteller, of course, is here to warn you. They're on your side.
I've been watching one of these stories make the rounds lately, and I want to name what I think is actually happening, not to defend the powerful person being criticized, but because the manipulation in the story itself deserves more attention than the story is getting.
The "Dumb Masses" Myth Has a Long Resume
The idea that ordinary people are uniquely susceptible to exploitation- that we're cognitively outmatched by elites who understand us better than we understand ourselves- is not an observation. It's a strategy.
It has been a strategy for a very long time.
The history of mass education is instructive here. Early public education wasn't primarily designed to liberate the working class. It was, by the accounts of many of its architects, designed to produce a population that was just literate enough to be productive, and just rational enough to not be dangerous. The goal was managed compliance, not genuine empowerment.
Understanding that reframes a lot of what followed. The polarized "intellect versus ignorance" culture that many of us grew up inside, the quiet condescension of credentialed people toward uncredentialed ones, wasn't a natural social dynamic. It was a managed one. It had authors.
And here's what's worth saying clearly: The people enforcing that hierarchy were, largely, its victims too. They received just enough status to become enthusiastic participants in a system that served interests far above their own. That doesn't entirely excuse them. But it does explain them.
Ancient People Were Not Stupid
One of the better arguments against the "dumb masses" narrative is sitting right there in the historical record, largely ignored.
The mythological traditions of ancient cultures, Egyptian, Greek, Mesoamerican, Chinese, are philosophically sophisticated documents. They encode paradox. They hold contradictory truths in productive tension. They process collective trauma through layered symbol and narrative. That is not the output of a population that needed to be protected from complex ideas.
Ordinary people have always been capable of this kind of thinking. The claim that they aren't is not neutral. It is useful to someone.
Ask Who the Story Serves
When someone tells you that a powerful figure is studying you in order to exploit you- pause before you react. Not because the concern is necessarily wrong, but because that particular framing does something specific to you.
It makes you feel vulnerable. It positions the storyteller as your protector. And it redirects your attention toward the named villain, away from the question of what the storyteller might be building on top of your fear.
The architecture of exploitation is not a secret. Behavioral economics, addiction science, marketing psychology, the mechanics of influence have been documented exhaustively for decades. Anyone who claims to be exposing a hidden system of manipulation is unlikely to be discovering something genuinely new, and more likely narrating a story about themselves while pointing at someone else.
It's worth knowing how to tell the difference.
A Practical Note
This is where an AI could be very helpful. You don't need a degree in media literacy. You just need to ask better questions. Try any of the following prompts:
1 Attribution Check "I just watched or read someone criticizing a powerful person. Can you help me figure out whether they're reporting facts about that person, or whether they're actually describing something about themselves or their own motives? Walk me through it like a detective would."
2 Beneficiary Question "Someone just told me something alarming about a public figure. Before I react, help me ask: who benefits if I believe this? Who loses if I don't? And does the person telling me have a stake in my reaction?"
3 Destruction Test "Help me understand this idea: sometimes people build their reputation or business on a problem they helped create, or that someone else made worse on purpose. Can you show me how to spot when that's happening in something I'm reading or watching?"
It's not about "dumb" or "smart", it's just about calibration. Most people, given the right tools, are perfectly capable of this kind of thinking. They always have been.
That, more than anything, is what certain people need to distract you from.