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The World Economic Forum held a “Great Narrative Conference” in Dubai back in November and a clip of the meeting is making the rounds online this week.
In the footage, Ngaire Woods, founding dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, offers a good news/bad news scenario when it comes to the elite who drive society that was interpreted online as the elitist cabal saying the quiet part out loud.
“With fear and anxiety people vote for people to break government, not to use it to do great things and that’s what we’re seeing around the world,” she said. “So to me the biggest obstacle is we can sit at Davos — a few years ago the Edelman survey showed us that the good news is the elites across the world trust each other more and more, so we can come together and design and do beautiful things together. The bad news is that in every single country they were polling the majority of people trusted that elite less. So we can lead but if people aren’t following we’re not going to get to where we want to go.”
The World Economic Forum’s Great Narrative Conference: “The good news is the elite across the world trust each other more and more… the bad news is that the majority of people trusted that elite less…” pic.twitter.com/c4I4zlew1p
— James Lindsay, watching narratives crumble (@ConceptualJames) January 21, 2022
Woods was referencing a study by the Edelman Trust Barometer, which for two decades has polled thousands of people on trust in their governments, media, business and NGOs, according to Reuters.
Reporting on the survey, the news agency noted that “public trust in governments running the world’s democracies has fallen to new lows over their handling of the pandemic and amid a widespread sense of economic pessimism.
The World Economic Forum, founded by Klaus Schwab, who is the executive chairman, canceled its annual meeting in the Alpine resort town of Davos, Switzerland, for the second year in a row because of the pandemic, announcing on Friday that it will now hold the event in May.
“The gathering is an essential stop on the annual circuit for the global elite, a weeklong schmoozefest where billionaires and autocrats mingle over canapés while activists protest in the frigid mountain air,” The New York Times reported. “Companies make climate pledges. Economists discuss inequality.”
Fittingly, Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke Monday at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda online conference, suggesting that the pandemic is far from over. According to Fauci, there are five stages, with the first phase of the pandemic being “the truly pandemic,” in which “the whole world is really very negatively impacted as we are right now.”
The next steps are deceleration, control and elimination. And the final step being eradication, not that Fauci is optimistic.
“That’s not going to happen with this virus,” he said, after noting that mankind has eradicated only one disease: smallpox.
Here’s a sampling of the online responses to Woods’ remark about the elites trusting each other, while the public trusts them even less:
“It’s a big club and you ain’t in it…” pic.twitter.com/Pl7tP5gvQR
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 21, 2022
The “bad news” is definitely good news and the “good news” is bad news.
— Tyler Carditis (@TyCardon) January 21, 2022
🤔 I wonder what it was like in France right before the French Revolution…
— Chuck Noland (@HeisenbergTheAI) January 21, 2022
Who is the elite? What are their names? Put out a list. What is the standard to become elite? Who oversees them? I don’t live in a caste system. I’m not a feudal servant relying on my betters. I never gave consent to be governed by them. I am an individual. My life is my own
— John (@TheRoyalPaladin) January 21, 2022
It’s enraging that they call themselves the elite. The hubris.
— Vorpal (@Vorpal_Saint) January 21, 2022
One of the wonderful things she’s talking about is totally ignoring pandemic protocols and locking down the world without looking into the consequences of such actions.
— Sean. (@boredofitnow) January 21, 2022
Lol. They actually call themselves ‘The Elite’ in real life.
This is hilarious. 😂 https://t.co/buY43EQTvV
— ZUBY: (@ZubyMusic) January 21, 2022
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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