Comment by SilverElfin
6 hours ago
I agree with your suggestion, but I wonder if it is enough. Look at what happened today. Moments after the shooting, there was a coordinated campaign to flood the zone with misinformation. Twitter accounts for Trump, DHS (Kristi Noem), Vance, Miller all said someone tried to assassinate ICE officers and was shot in self defense. This was completely the opposite of what happened and given how quickly they put out these messages, they had no way of knowing either.
They simply put it out there because no matter what, this is what they will say in response to an ICE shooting. It is a way of confusing the messaging and preventing their supporters from being convinced by anyone else or any evidence. Once their base form that initial opinion, it is very hard to change their mind. So will intellectually actually reach those people effectively?
Remember, this base has been told to distrust the academics and distrust science and distrust the news media.
You're right, but also we shouldn't make it easy.
The reason exterminate always go after academics is because they make things harder. The vast majority of academics could make more money than they do as a professor. The authoritarian relies on the religious nature of followers and it's harder for those followers to have faith when it's constantly being questioned. It's why your mental model of an authoritarian regime is where people are afraid to speak freely.
You're right that the strategy is to confuse and overload. It's difficult to counter and I think you're exactly right to say "enough". We need to adapt to this strategy too. I think it's important to remember that truth has a lower bound in complexity but lies don't. They have an advantage because they can sell simplicity. We have the disadvantage when we try to educate. But what we need to do is remind people of how complex reality is while not making them feel dumb for not knowing. It's not easy. Even the biggest meathead who is as anti academic as they come will feel offended if you call them (or imply they're) stupid (are you offended if they call you weak?). We need a culture shift to accept not knowing things and that not knowing things doesn't make one stupid. I have a fucking PhD and I'm dumb as shit. There's so much I don't know about my own field, let alone all the others. I've put in a lot of hard work to be "smart", but the smartest people I know say "I don't know" and that's often the most interesting thing you can hear.
It's no easy task to solve. Don't forget, we're a species that would rather invent imaginary invisible wizards than admit we don't know. We're infinitely curious but also afraid of the unknown.
> But what we need to do is remind people of how complex reality is while not making them feel dumb for not knowing.
Well-said, even if the sentiment is in-and-of itself somehow condescending. No way around it, really.
To be fair, as well, there are an enormous number of people who do this already. They are educators, they are docents, they are civil servants. They quietly perform this task day in and out without much recognition or fanfare.
The demonization of these people can’t be ignored, either. It’s as if their services run counter to the interests of those who put so much money and effort into that demonization…
In a complex world the little things matter. We feel unimportant because we're little. But also remember one person cutting you off on your way to work can ruin your whole day. But similarly one person giving you a smile can turn it around. The little things matter because all the big things are made of a thousand small things. That's why it's so important. I'm not asking everyone to go do big things. I'm asking people to do little things. You have to treat people the way you wish they treated you, even when they don't. Do they deserve it? No. But do you?
A thing I've learned is that often when people are mad they're not mad at you. Maybe you're part of it, but usually you're just at the end of some long chain. It's easier to respond to anger when you realize this.
I would describe events like that as:
battles of will where one side seeks to defeat the other in toto, not actually arrive at a solution that overcomes the conflict.
The deeper issue is immigration policy, which is a topic that displays the pattern I mentioned: no real attempt to solve the issue by addressing both sides/various parties, and instead boils it into an us-them struggle of political wills.
The responsibility of intellectuals in this case should be IMO to clearly analyze the immigration debate and discuss the benefits, downsides, likely consequences etc. of various actions.
But we don’t get that. Instead everyone just has an opinion already formed, including the intellectuals. And unfortunately unbiased rational approaches seem to lose (in money, attention) to the loud and opinionated.
So as the problem gets more complicated, people get further and further away from actually solving it.
Unfortunately the well was poisoned for this debate when the Republican Party enacted a decades-long campaign of obstructionism and propaganda. No doubt, there are individuals who must be absolutely giddy with excitement that the very “crisis” that they managed to manufacture (both literally through legislative obstructionism, and figuratively through media capture and propaganda) is now the perfect excuse to grab power to enact an authoritarian regressive agenda instead of slowly sliding more progressive due to demographic drift.
So, basically, my point is beware getting dragged into debates that clearly only benefit specific parties with specific agendas without first asking yourself more critical questions about the bigger picture.
I think reasonable immigration debate would benefit the left, or at least the anti-right.
Many people want deportations but don’t like how Trump is doing them. And he doesn’t seem to be going after employers, which would be more effective.
In fact, I think the lack of debate is really hurting today's left.
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