I use the phrase “The Forces of Blandness” all the time. The post was counterintuitive to me at the time, but it has helped me understand what’s been happening to me in many situations — there’s a set of ‘elites’ who don’t have sophisticated and important perspectives, but just generically push for people to be less interesting, and less honest because it’s friction. Paul Graham calls them the aggressively conventional-minded, but the forces of blandness has stuck with me as a phrase much more strongly.
I use the phrase “The Forces of Blandness” all the time. The post was counterintuitive to me at the time, but it has helped me understand what’s been happening to me in many situations — there’s a set of ‘elites’ who don’t have sophisticated and important perspectives, but just generically push for people to be less interesting, and less honest because it’s friction. Paul Graham calls them the aggressively conventional-minded, but the forces of blandness has stuck with me as a phrase much more strongly.