That’s the goal of what Steve Bannon calls “flood the zone with bs”.
McKay Coppins created a fake Facebook account and dived head first into the world of Donald Trump’s propaganda machine. What he found surprised him. And yet, it is exactly what Hannah Arendt argued 70 years ago about the nature of modern propaganda. The point of propaganda is not to make people believe it. It is to foster cynicism so that we don’t know what to believe and come to believe that nothing is true, no facts are reliable, and the world is simply a battlefield for partisan ideas. In such a world, truth retreats behind success as the value to be sought. What matters is victory, no matter the cost. Arendt understood that when factual truths are denied and substituted for by lies, the result is “an absolute refusal to believe in the truth of anything, no matter how well this truth may be established.” Such cynicism, Arendt argues, is the true goal of totalitarians: “The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.”
Hannah Arendt wrote that in 1951 (or thereabouts).
Because Lefties need very direct language in words of one syllable so they can understand? Something like “ I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Mr Biden said back in May.
Sorry, but that excuse doesn’t work. Politicians use them every day.
Trump uses what’s called paralipsis, or “saying not saying”. It’s one of the ways he gets his message out without having to take responsibly for what he says.
For example “some people are saying " , “I heard”, it was just a retweet” etc.
It also means what Trump says can’t be evaluated in any precise way…
Paralipsis gives him and his supporters enough room to dodge and weave.
Or you can just ignore what he says and look at what he has done. Up to you. I suspect you’re overanalysing, but thanks, I’ve learnt another useless word and will forget it as useless immediately.
But it’s becoming increasingly clear that what sets Trump’s campaign apart is his reliance upon paralipsis, a device that enables him to publicly say things that he can later disavow – without ever having to take responsibility for his words.
The most amusing news in the last couple of weeks was watching Trump belittle Biden about wearing a mask and then the dumbshit caught COVID. The Guy is a in his own words a “Disaster”. Can’t wait to see who he is going to blame for his loss to corpse. Biden is barely alive but leading, it’s got to be embarrassing to lose to one of those old slow moving zombies from night of the living dead.
When you are the President addressing the nation, it is not a matter of left or right, and yes, direct, accurate, and concise information is what is needed. Not riffing off the cuff in non-sequiturs or as you seem to think, analogies.
Be honest. What would you say to a shipmate who included ‘paralipsis’ in a conversation and simply expected you, the intellectual, to know what he’s talking about. I expect it’s heard often in the stokers mess and the cooks quip about it in lighter moments in their galley banter and sometimes mischievously slip a little paralipsis into their discussion of metaphysical phenomena and the declension sequence of Latin grammar in order to deceive lesser beings as to what’s in the soup.
So explain how he got nominated … and then elected … at his first election … against someone who had much more experience and all the polls … and when it was a woman’s turn too … and people still like him … warts and all … enough to elect him again?
Do start lecturing on what a president should speak like when you have some practical experience, but until then, the electorate’s choice seems to trump yours.
I would say “that’s an interesting word and concept that I was unfamiliar with. Please tell me more.” Intellectualism is not knowing everything about everything, it is striving to know more. If I had a shipmate like KC, mealtimes would never be boring.
I call bullshit on that. Sorry, but you’re making me laugh. And KC wouldn’t know either because all his ‘knowledge’ of these sort of things seems to come from websites and I suspect googling at dinner to assist a discussion is frowned upon, even today.
I’m sure I could enjoy a pleasant dinner with KC too. I have several such friends who disagree with me about everything but nevertheless hold their own over a convivial snack or drink. Never be afraid of debate. It sharpens your mind and you learn new (useless) words. I have a list of utterly meaningless but nevertheless intellectual sounding phrases which I can chuck in at will just to see what happens … and if my interlocutor is awake and will call bullshit.