The Cultural Factors Driving America's Departure From Reality

[Red]

I don't disagree with the problem; I've consistently wrung my hands over epistemological problem and rampant relativism as soon as I understood the forces in play and their apparent intractability. We've been accelerating within those orbits, no doubt. But one thing I definitely won't settle for is some facile or wistful view about the past and its easier relationship to truth. Nor will I be around while the mass culture takes 10 full steps back on the subjectivity-objectivity problem -- and where the "left" is pounding the streets on the side of rationality and objectivity in way Andersen does here. Especially if that means largely misidentifying the bogeymen and butchering the huge breakthroughs toward truth that emerged from the 20th century.

Andersen has identified a problem that many cultural critics have identified. Good for him? He then proceeds to botch just about every other aspect of the project (I'll give him a pass on the contemporary stuff that fills his piece, but, again, most of that is far from the cutting edge of cultural criticism).

I love science, and even majored in geology before switching my focus to social science. But, I'm not into what I call Scientism, and so I really disagree with Andersen's easy dismissal of trends I participated in during the 60's and 70's, and which I still consider valuable. He identified, and essentially, castigated as irrational and detrimental to rationality things that I don't think were harmful at all. Just as one example, studies of near death experiences, NDE's. It's a fascinating subject, and I won't piss on it the way he does.

The end of his essay, on the other hand, dealing with the rise of Trump, I just thought he nailed Trump in large part. I disagreed with his simplistic approach, and his tracing the roots entirely to the 60's, the New Age, etc. I think we need to consider the erosion of trust in all manner of authority as well. Which, in my lifetime, began with the assassination of JFK, but has now extended to a distrust in scientific authority, etc...

 

[Boris]

Well, here's the thing from where I stand...

Kelly Anne Conway was the first administration official to use the phrase "alternative facts". But if we see that as an effort to create an equivalency between truth and fiction, fact and falsehood, it's difficult to see how that really helps the body politic.

And it's happening at a time where, as a nation, we may be more divided since the Civil War.

I have a close friend, who declined my offer to view the Vice News footage of the Friday night torch led parade in Charlottesville. The reason he gave was "the media lies. I don't have to watch it. It's fake". Even telling him that a white nationalist leader had invited Vice News to film him made no difference. It was fake, and he did not have to watch it to know it was fake.

This is happening everywhere, to the extent there are now two sets of realities. With two narratives of current events in America. I am sorry if I have to look at people like Trump, Spicer, Conway, etc. as the drivers of an effort to create an alternative world that seems detached from the real world. That's my bias, but it sure seems like that is what is happening. It sure seems like creating this equivalency can be laid at their feet at this time.

If we want two Americas unable to communicate with each other, that's one way to go about ensuring those two Americas will grow further apart and not communicate. Not only is that detrimental, but it's difficult to see how we can fail to recognize how injurious to our political and societal health that can be. And that's why I started this thread. If I reach even a handful of people interested and able to agree we should be concerned with creating an equivalency tween fact and fiction, that's good enough for me.

You do realize you are self contradictory in the fact that you claim you are biased at the same time attackin bias? You also flung more Never Trump poop, confirmin what yer complainin bout. Than ya went on ta rant bout some great American divide that is not true an completely fabricated by your own departure from reality. Ya think it is true but facts would disagree. Ya really think we are as divided as civil war? Laughable. More divided then Vietnam? LOL son I lived through them years an the US oil crisis an I kin tell ya first hand it ain't no differnt taday.

 

[Harambe]

You do realize you are self contradictory in the fact that you claim you are biased at the same time attackin bias? You also flung more Never Trump poop, confirmin what yer complainin bout. Than ya went on ta rant bout some great American divide that is not true an completely fabricated by your own departure from reality. Ya think it is true but facts would disagree. Ya really think we are as divided as civil war? Laughable. More divided then Vietnam? LOL son I lived through them years an the US oil crisis an I kin tell ya first hand it ain't no differnt taday.

I'm convinced you do not get to criticize anyone about anything concerning "bias".

 

[Boris]

Easy peesy. We have a tendency to treat news like Knowledge by Acquaintance rather then Knowledge by Description. Meaning you think yer familiar with a topic like yer familiar with a person. In other languages they have differnt. Terms fer knowin someone an knowin somethink. English don't. We treat are news like tha subject matter is someone we know not somethink we actually comprehend.

To piggyback on this an give example, young people tend ta think they know why we are friends with Saudi Arabia an why we fight these wars. They treat this with Knowledge by Acquaintance. They do not know the history of Saudi Arabia's oil embargo that was economical warfare against the US akin ta are economic warfare against Russia Iran North Korea. They do not know 1 billion petro dollars went ta funding fundamentalist Wahhabism an funneled ta create Al-Queda an tha Taliban.

So what Kissinger an tha Neo-cons do? We made peace with Saudis an created regime consent change an we continue to charter ta them in Middle East policy so they do not engage in a nother economic war. They got us by the balls.

But you kids do not know any of this an yet ya think you kin have a proper perspective of war cause world peace Miss America Padgent winners to ya so.

No Knowledge by Description only Aquaintence.

 

[NAOS]

One or two names or links to the critics you have in mind would be appreciated.

Well, in the past few years this stuff has been pretty lively on the blogosphere. Julian Sanchez (search "coda on closure") and even David Frum (search "How the GOP Got Stuck in the Past") have written lightning rods that have produced interesting speculations on this subject.

More generally, Andersen doesn't seem to get the advances we've made with respect to the truth in several independent disciplines. For example, geology, physics, biology, philosophy.... all the way down to certain subfields within the humanities and social sciences have worked to cobble together a much better general theory/model of truth than anything humanity has ever expressed before. If you want references, I'd suggest reading anything in the Nietzsche and Deleuze traditions (including DeLanda). Enjoying the 20th century transformations in geology is highly recommended. A good start is McPhee's book Annals of the Former World. Biology texts which focus on radical distributed theories of life are not too hard to find. ETC.

The real bogeymen here are: (a) religious models of Truth (and their relationship to power / their lasting power), especially the monotheistic strain; I certainly don't think that, with respect to truth, we are anywhere close to achieving the death of God-the-creator and I'd expect there to be some wild tantrums in mass culture if/before we do; (b) the deep, grinding partisan nature of our political process right now; (c) an educational apparatus that hasn't responded well to the digital age -- specifically in how to cultivate/train mass culture on how to deal with information... especially generationally significant transformations in the form and flow of information.

 

[babe]

I had been thinking of starting this thread as food for thought for those interested in the growth of fake news and alternative facts. A comment by babe, in the Houston thread, that, with regard to his opinions on climate change, "I get to think what i want to think", decided me in favor of posting this. Kurt Andersen is a novelist and journalist who has written a book, "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500 Year History", which purports to trace the historical roots leading to the point where the truth becomes whatever one feels like the truth is. Each of these video clips is progressively longer, with the Charlie Rose interview being 17 minutes. Food for though I hope, and not reason for shouting matches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15ovRt5IW6Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMnLS0RZ-HM&app=desktop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJsyFUoMA1A&app=desktop

The human failure/inability to define "reality" has been fodder for ages of philosophers' speculations and vain attempts to present a compelling picture of something humans can really call "reality".

Having failed at the basic challenge, guvmints substitute propaganda lines and prescribed educational objectives or religions as tools for guiding the populace.

And that is the real problem. The fantasy that people need such control or guidance.

 

[♪alt13]

The issue IMV is that there are at present a great number of semantic dialects(truth dialects) and that they are much less mutually intelligible than we think they are. The same words and phrases represent different concepts, truths, and carry different meaning depending on which dialect you speak and think in.

NAOS' use of the word epistemological shows that he uses a rather obscure dialect and I think it is an interesting and fitting word here. It may be an English word but it is generally not understood or used much at all outside of his dialect.Most "truth dialects" have an implied truth as a function of being and therefore have little to no use for this word.

There are differing levels of authority and spheres of influence for each dialect but none are preeminent. Trump is, I think, an assertion of power from a number of aligned dialects/intellects that are pushing back against what that rightly recognize as "foreign" dialects that threaten the legitimacy, power, and even existence of their own.

I think it will work itself out. For instance, [MENTION=14]colton[/MENTION] seems to speak/think an interesting creole semantic dialect that is becoming more common.

 

[Gameface]

The issue IMV is that there are at present a great number of semantic dialects(truth dialects) and that they are much less mutually intelligible than we think they are. The same words and phrases represent different concepts, truths, and carry different meaning depending on which dialect you speak and think in.

NAOS' use of the word epistemological shows that he uses a rather obscure dialect and I think it is an interesting and fitting word here. It may be an English word but it is generally not understood or used much at all outside of his dialect.Most "truth dialects" have an implied truth as a function of being and therefore have little to no use for this word.

There are differing levels of authority and spheres of influence for each dialect but none are preeminent. Trump is, I think, an assertion of power from a number of aligned dialects/intellects that are pushing back against what that rightly recognize as "foreign" dialects that threaten the legitimacy, power, and even existence of their own.

I think it will work itself out. For instance, [MENTION=14]colton[/MENTION] seems to speak/think an interesting creole semantic dialect that is becoming more common.

Interesting concept. It certainly seems legit based on my observations.

 

[Deleted member 365]

I think it's far more simple.

Rush and am radio have exploited on race and religion on the radio.

Fox News and its angry men and women in short skirts and low cut tops have been a successful investment in winning over a significant portion of the population into believing the fox narrative.

A lethal combination of race, religion, anger, boobs, and paranoia is tough to resist.

 

[Red]

I appreciate the thoughtful responses here.

Well, looks like I might have stumbled across my newest role model, lol. Timothy Snyder, a Yale University historian, specializing in 20th century European authoritarian regimes, and author of "On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th century". I missed the boat on this book, as it's been out now for 6 months. Seems to be a man after my own heart, in that his book is in part a manifesto on how to recognize authoritarianism, and how to protect democracy from authoritarians. Prior to publication, Snyder briefly outlined these 20 lessons in a Facebook post, and those 20 points are reproduced in this PDF file:

http://www.fransamaltingvongeusau.com/documents/news/63.pdf

#8 states:

8. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

It occurred to me that I've been emphasizing the recognition of truth as never more necessary then right now, in America 2017. The way I've put it, to my friends, is that it's important, and liberating, to avoid sleepwalking through that portion of history that's your's to live. Every second that we live is tomorrow's history. But it's liberating to not wait for history's judgement. Rather, try to stand outside ones own time and place enough to be able to recognize and judge what is happening while it is happening. And of immense help in that endeavor is to understand history, and, in the case of present day America, to recognize and understand earlier authoritarian movements. To recognize how easy it is to let democracy slip away. How easy it is to comply, to accent to authoritarian trends without realizing that that is exactly what we do when we sleepwalk through that portion of history that is our own lifetime.

A couple of reviews for "On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century":

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...-from-twentieth-century-timothy-snyder-review

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-tyranny-and-fight-it/?utm_term=.ed7d4960561f

There are quite a few videos available now where Snyder discusses his book and his basic thrust of how to recognize and respond to authoritarian tendencies in a democracy. If I can find one that seems particularly good, I'll post it in this thread....

 

[Red]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-aUTKHeJZc&app=desktop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7RBWea3Ie8&app=desktop

 

[DutchJazzer]

I think it's far more simple.

Rush and am radio have exploited on race and religion on the radio.

Fox News and its angry men and women in short skirts and low cut tops have been a successful investment in winning over a significant portion of the population into believing the fox narrative.

A lethal combination of race, religion, anger, boobs, and paranoia is tough to resist.

seems the left wing media are the ones angry!