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A superb commentary on The Political Narrative Watch this outstanding commentary on political correctness in academia and the culture and naked lies in the media called MSNBC & The Great Liberal Narrative: The Truth About The Tyranny of Political Correctness.
And I know Bill and he is a really great guy, a true gentleman. But Bill… stop calling them liberal. We are the true liberals.
PJTV really is getting some truly great stuff up lately.
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He comes across as a bit too angry and shouty IMHO. As such, the film is somtething that will appeal to people who already agree with it, but I wouldn’t show it to someone to help convert them.
As usually I disagree with you. I think he is a model of restraint actually.
Apart from any rhetorical matters, there are several errors in the clip.
A major flaw in the piece is its politically-correct characterization of the beating of the violent, drug-crazed thug Rodney King. The video of this incident, especially that part shown repeatedly on TV, was itself illustrative of the news story being amputated, in part by the late start of filming in the context of the incident, and in part by newsroom editing, so as to fit into the Procrustean bed of “critical” theory.
There is another major error that is less crucial to the clip’s analysis. Whether or not you define logic in such a way as to be (fully) independent of content depends on whether or not you treat certain logical contradictions as needing to be resolved in the context of reality or whether or not, in obverse, you treat logic, derived from reality, as able to be divorced from it in all contexts of its use. It is not a matter of laughable ignorance to claim the dependence of logic on reality, but it is certainly a sciolistic error to pretend otherwise.
There are several terminological flaws. In addition to the use of “liberal” in its Orwellian sense (for which I prefer “leftist” or more-specific terms such as “socialist,” when they apply), there is the use of “criticize” (&c) in its degenerate, carping sense, from a time when carping also derived from intelligent, critical analysis; this sort of equivocation tends to elevate what ought remain trodden into the muck. Of a similar nature is the uncritical use of “scientific” (“science”?) in the context of Marxism; Marxism’s polylogism and its evasion of envisioning and analyzing its reality were major, anti-scientific cultural factors in bringing about the nightmare that is socialism.
Thank goodness we’re not limited to folks like tdh to argue our corner. Perry is correct, this is a a superb work by Whittle. He, unlike tbh, uses the language the way most people listening to him do and so his piece actually has a chance of being relevant. Tbh also complexly misunderstand the context of the logical argument: it is the notion of ‘socialist truth’ and hyphenated truth generally.
IanB, you can come across as a bit angry and shouty, from time to time, old chap. So do I, in some of my less measured posts (that is whenever Henry George or Naomi Klein comes up).
Let’s face it, boys and girls, none of us is exactly a wallflower when it comes to telling varioius types of authortarian/collectivists that they are a bunch of moonbats/evil bastards/insert as appropriate.
I’ll check the clip when I am out of the office and see for myself.
Yes, and I’d be inclined to say that much of what I write wouldn’t play well to the wider world. If I were giving a speech to a general audience I’d work at presenting myself in a very moderate, easygoing manner. The presenter in this video just struck me as being too intense in that regard.
From the Bill Whittle stuff I’ve watched on PJTV, he’s certainly more animated in this one. Generally I prefer his more sardonic style, but this subject does merit some passion.
One of two things might have happened here. Either he’s been told by his producer to liven it up, or he really is pissed off. I vote for the latter, and I’m pissed off too,
I’ve been watching PJTV and Reason TV whenever possible over the last year or so. I used to follow Fox a lot, but in my mind they have slipped more and more into the pure Conservative frame, with the exception of Napolitano and of course their late night comedian and his Gregalogues.
It’s nice to have folk like PJTV out there with whom I can feel as comfortable when watching them as my liberal (leftist?) friends do with CNN.
Bill was a bit inaccurate in his characterization of Imperial Russia’s degree of development c. 1908-1918.
John Mosby’s dyslexic garbling aside, the piece was not about the polylogistic concept of “socialist truth,” but about the utter disregard for truth, as a propaganda device.
I finally had a chance to watch this video, and I agree that it’s brilliant. Far from being “angry and shouty”, I think he comes across as cerebral yet appropriately passionate and (occasionally) sardonic.
In the future I shall make it a point to watch more PJTV.
The polemical strategy of associating targeted leaders or institutions with evils that, for one reason or another, are in reality of small or no guilt on the part of the target necessarily relies on dropping context. Supplanting context is more a reflection on the ethics of the strategy’s adherents (and perhaps of the pressure to fill dead airspace) than a necessary part of the strategy. In the short term, the strategy relies on the ignorance or sloth of its intended audience, not only of the dropped context and its import, but also on similar and additional evils entailed in the alternatives, so that the unexamined alternatives may be smuggled in; the negatives’ purpose is to promote some other evil.
But in the long term, there has to be a way for the strategy to reproduce itself, so to speak. A necessary component of this is the continued stultification of the audience; this would be analogous to HIV’s attacking the immune system. But I get the impression that the inculcation of the story lines used in the strategy is some kind of marker, something akin to scent in mating. If the prospective newsbimbo has it, they’re compatible, and are more likely to get hired and thus to yack all over the airwaves, and if not, their odds are less favorable.
There must be character traits that help assume and promote the marker. Credulousness, except as conditioned otherwise by the marker; shallowness, so as not feel a need to examine the marker or the to-be-smuggled-in alternatives; and a lack of introspection and other drivers of integrity seem likely. This combination, not surprisingly, would corroborate the belief of the marker’s carriers in their own neutrality or moderation, when in fact they’re far from either.
And, of course, the ability to smuggle in an unexamined alternative requires that it, its pretexts, and its champions remain unexamined. This is probably at the root of leftists’ extreme response to Beck’s observation of Obama’s racism or Limbaugh’s observation of the close relation between current health-care “reform” and similar efforts on the part of Hitler’s National Socialists.
Somewhere in this picture seem to lie the keys to undoing the entire strategy, and the leftists’ extreme response corroborates that some keys are being found. IMHO the clip identified that strategy well, and is thus important.
But, damn, buying into the Rodney King story line made the clip seem almost too retarded to see through to its end. Many of the people in the clip’s target audience would know better and be put off by it.
Wow. Even assuming that the commenters above who pointed out errors in the video are correct, I think it still works effectively as a piece of investigative tv journalism. Food for thought.
Having now seen the whole thing, I tend to agree with IanB. (Link) The first few minutes are very good, before the lecture on critical theory and the history of PC. The lecture is a good history lesson, tho, and made me reconsider my sympathy for and interest in critical theory.
This pajamas tv video on the power of icons and the branding of the president(Link) is better, IMHO.
Having now seen the whole thing, I tend to agree with IanB. (Link) The first few minutes are very good, before the lecture on critical theory and the history of PC. The lecture is a good history lesson, tho, and made me reconsider my sympathy for and interest in critical theory.
This pajamas tv video on the power of icons and the branding of the president(Link) is better, IMHO.
Dale – Glenn Beck’s show is (in its timeslot) the best rated cable television show in the United States. It even beats many of the “free” broadcast shows.
Yet you seem to know nothing of it – or all the libertarian guests it has had over the last six months.
As for MSNBC.
A typical tactic:
Find a person near (not in) a Townhall meeting with a rifle on his back – then rant on about the danger of white racists to Obama.
The only person you can find happens to be black?
No problem – just film in such a way (from the back close up of the rifle) that people can not see that the man with a rifle on his back is black.
No I am not making this up – it is exactly what MSNBC did.
They do stuff like this all the time – as does NBC.
Just go into their store in New York City – they sell Obama T. shirts, Obama cups, Obama everything.
They might as well yell out “we are not an independent news organization – we are an arm of the regime”.
Fox News did not sell Bush stuff in its store – and had many members of staff (such as Alan C. ) who were on the left.
Indeed even (indeed especially) conservatives like Neil Cavuto blasted Bush over TARP.
Having now watched the film I see the gentleman makes the points I made in my previous comment – good.
However, he sets the incidents in the context of the work of the Frankfurt school brought to America by people such as Herbert Marcuse.
He is correct to set such incidents of media bias in their historical context – this is NOT just some grubby deal between Barack Obama and the head of General Electric. American schools and universities fill many students heads with stuff which is basically Marxist – yet they do not even know it is Marxist.
This actually makes the United States MORE vulnerable to Marxism than some European nations.
For example, if you try sub Marxist victim class stuff on an educated Bavarian they will know of its Marxist origins – an “educated” American will not.
Try Gramsci stuff on an educated Italian (even an Italian who has never been to unversity, but who has read a conservative newspaper or watched a view serious shows on television) and they will know it is Gramsci stuff.
An “educated” American will not have a clue.
This is perhaps why the “ex” Communist leader of the opposition in Italy (who wrote the introduction to the Italian edition of Barack Obama’s “Audacity of Hope”) LOST the Italian election – even against a man as old as John McCain and with a lot more “ethics problems”.
And it is also why even the (non Communist) SPD is going to get it backside kicked in the German elections next month.
Indeed it is interesting to remember that Barack Obama would not even be allowed to be a member of the SPD – as he was active in Marxist politics (working with various Marxist organizations, going to conferences and so on) and has never denounced his past – indeed appoints Communists to high postions.
Such a man would clearly be in violation of German Social Democrat rules and would not be allowed (since the great anti Marxist move of 1959) to be a member of the German S.P.D.
In the United States he is President.
That says more about you than Bill. That you regard the Rodney King beating as okay places us somewhere very different in terms of moral theories and even utilitarian analysis. Hardly worth the effort to go there.
Then you completely and utterly do not understand what you were looking at and who it is actually aimed at. Not you, obviously.
I will admit that I flinched a bit when the Rodney King episode was described as a crime. The government had to (essentially, but not literally) try the police for the same offense twice to get any sort of conviction (for many of us it was a clear case of double-jeopardy, so there was much blame to go around). The Rodney King who pleaded “can’t we all just get along” was not the man wrangling with police that night. A taser would have probably been a better weapon to subdue him and would have prevented the injuries he received, and achieved the objective of complete submission, but they weren’t in common usage at the time.
That said, it is a sensitive issue. Some people, despite the jury verdict in Simi Valley, California that found the police innocent of all wrong doing, believe (because they only saw the portions continuously played on TV and not the whole tape) that the police exceeded their authority. Others do not. Bill, it would appear, believes that the police exceeded their authority (that’s his opinion and he has a right to it).
The more important point is that Los Angeles didn’t dissolve into anarchy when Kenneth Gladney was beaten by union thugs, nor did the usual cadre of Black activists show up to defend him. Members of an organization invited and supported by the President of the United States participated in the beating up of a citizen passing out flags… yet it was (from a mainstream-media perspective) as if a tree fell in the woods with no one around. If Blacks and racist-activists can get angry when a criminal is beaten up by the police, should others not have an equal right to be incensed when the POTUS planted union thugs at a town hall meeting?
Regardless, the rest of the video was brilliant and made the case of “the narrative” so clearly that I suspect that it will become the blogosphere shorthand for incidents of media propaganda.
“We do not accept the narrative” or a variation of such, will become a rallying cry.
I know Bill, too, and he is one of the finest human beings I have ever known. He’s genuine in his pride of country, without being nationalistic. (His mother was English so comparisons to Winston Churchill’s schizophrenic love affair with America and Britain are appropriate.)
As for his temperament… he was angry and had good reason to be. Bill is not trying or pretending to be a poker-faced newsreader. He is an opinionist. If he’s angry about falsehoods being propagated against the American people, anger is the appropriate emotion to express. We SHOULD be angry when we see things like that. Others “who need to be convinced” may be put off by his rage, but they also learn that rage is the response of many.
The idea that we should be calm and collected in the face of propaganda, and calculated manipulation of the people, or when Presidentially-planted thugs beat up a citizen handing out flags, are also part of the narrative. No. We’re angry and refuse to be calm when lies, distortions, and crimes like this go unchallenged.
Nixon fell because he hid the facts of the Watergate case. Is there any chance that Obama would be impeached and removed from office for putting plants and thugs at a town hall meeting who beat up a guy for expressing his opinion? What did he know and when did he know it? That doesn’t fit the narrative.