In this video, QualiaSoup responds to the abuse of the phrase "open-mindedness." Often skeptics of supernatural phenomena are accused of being insufficiently open minded. This video explains why this is a misleading use of the idea.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Stefan Molyneux on "Language as the Ultimate Government Program"
Now, I think Stefan Molyneux has his own problems with loaded language and misleading arguments, but this is an interesting speech on political language.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
"Radicals," "Crazies," and "Cranks": How Language Builds Ideological Constraints
“Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind,” wrote George Orwell in his classic essay Politics and the English Language. The truth of this statement is clear to me now, but until fairly recently I was easily manipulated by the deceit that characterizes political discourse. Consequently, I employed fallacious language, perpetuating partisan platitudes rather than illuminating issues intellectually. As I read the works of authors like Noam Chomsky and the aforementioned George Orwell, I overcame these stumbling blocks, improving my skills at both writing and critical reading.
My story begins around sixth grade, when I was a partisan Democrat who primarily obtained information through the daily newspaper. While independent research had solidified my opinions regarding separation of church and state, I based most of my views upon the manipulative language of mainstream news.
For instance, around the beginning of Bush’s second term I was very concerned with “radicals.” I railed against right wing gun nuts, racists, and theocrats. However, to guard against partisanship, I accepted the local newspaper’s politicized portraits of left wing radicals. I disdained Cindy Sheehan, not out of any substantive policy disagreement, but because the media deemed her unserious and disrespectful. Never mind the hypocrisy; never mind that I was personally very disrespectful towards President George W. Bush. I wasn’t representing the left on a national stage, I reasoned, and thus my ridicule was permissible, while Sheehan’s courageous protest was making us look bad. When I think back on this attitude, it reminds me of another brilliant passage from Orwell’s Politics and the English Language. “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible,” Orwell explained, “Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” In this case, while euphemisms such as “liberate Iraq” and “collateral damage” clouded political discourse, this process was accompanied by seemingly moderate and respectable dismissal of those who forced us to see the cruel reality of war. Cindy Sheehan did not settle for the usual debate, in which real lives and deaths were trivialized with dialogues about “fighting terrorism” for “national security.” Instead, she forced the world to see the poignant picture of a mother who lost her son to the Iraq War. So journalists, preferring their euphemized discourse, belittled Cindy Sheehan. And I bought it in a shameful display of credulity, an abject absence of critical reading.
This credulous fear of what society deemed “radical” was fortunately a phase which passed quickly. The catalyst for my rejection of such ideological boundaries was reading Noam Chomsky’s book Failed States. Chomsky’s arguments revealed to me the long history of war crimes by American presidential administrations, the criminally created carnage behind the patriotic platitudes. The book also explained Chomsky’s idea, most fully developed in his book Manufacturing Consent, that mainstream media only permitted conventional thoughts to be fully expressed. Chomsky theorized that while familiar and conventional platitudes could be easily condensed into a television news discussion or newspaper op-ed, unusual opinions required evidence and rigorous argument to explain. But as Chomsky put it, “You can’t do that when you’re stuck with concision,” and concision is required in most American media.
Once I understood both the horrific crimes committed by our federal government abroad and the intellectual limits of mainstream discourse, I started reading and listening critically. Rather than joining the chorus of patriotic American jeers in response to Hugo Chavez slamming the United States, I interpreted his comments as perfectly understandable in light of the history of violent American imperialism in Latin America. In my response to my history teacher’s blanket dismissal of Chavez as “anti-American” and “crazy,” I was often the lone voice in the room challenging epithets which posed as arguments.
Later, I generalized this skepticism of political marginalization to the entire political spectrum, and began defending "crazies" on "the right." Typically whenever topics such as secession or nullification are seriously proposed as political strategies, liberals and moderates derisively compare the proponents of decentralized power to racist neo-Confederates. Libertarian author and historian Dr. Thomas Woods brilliantly skewered such knee jerk responses with a video titled Interview with a Zombie. Woods points out that nullification, the refusal of state governments to enforce federal laws, was often used by the antebellum North to fight racist laws such as the Fugitive Slave Act. In recent years, nullification has furthered civil liberties by effectively stopping the privacy purloining REAL ID Act, as well as allowing patients to access medical marijuana in spite of the DEA's obstinacy. Regarding the even more taboo notion of secession, note that the Declaration of Independence declares a right to secession ("Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government"). Rather than simply being the domain of the right, secession has even been sympathetically portrayed by left wing columnist Chris Hedges. Yet in mainstream discourse, a few allusions to the Civil War can keep these ideas from being considered. Connotations preclude intellectual discourse.
Operating outside of such standard ideological constraints has served me well, and significantly impacted how I read and write. I no longer evaluate articles based upon how the ideas within may conform to what is considered mainstream or reasonable, but instead upon the strength of the facts, arguments, and principles contained within. My political polemics no longer rely on stale smears such as “wingnut,” but upon fair and critical analysis. In addition to searching literature for imposed ideological constraints, I scour my works for Orwellian obfuscation of uncomfortable truths. With this literary understanding, I am equipped to seek truth and challenge dogmatism as I never was before.
My story begins around sixth grade, when I was a partisan Democrat who primarily obtained information through the daily newspaper. While independent research had solidified my opinions regarding separation of church and state, I based most of my views upon the manipulative language of mainstream news.
For instance, around the beginning of Bush’s second term I was very concerned with “radicals.” I railed against right wing gun nuts, racists, and theocrats. However, to guard against partisanship, I accepted the local newspaper’s politicized portraits of left wing radicals. I disdained Cindy Sheehan, not out of any substantive policy disagreement, but because the media deemed her unserious and disrespectful. Never mind the hypocrisy; never mind that I was personally very disrespectful towards President George W. Bush. I wasn’t representing the left on a national stage, I reasoned, and thus my ridicule was permissible, while Sheehan’s courageous protest was making us look bad. When I think back on this attitude, it reminds me of another brilliant passage from Orwell’s Politics and the English Language. “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible,” Orwell explained, “Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” In this case, while euphemisms such as “liberate Iraq” and “collateral damage” clouded political discourse, this process was accompanied by seemingly moderate and respectable dismissal of those who forced us to see the cruel reality of war. Cindy Sheehan did not settle for the usual debate, in which real lives and deaths were trivialized with dialogues about “fighting terrorism” for “national security.” Instead, she forced the world to see the poignant picture of a mother who lost her son to the Iraq War. So journalists, preferring their euphemized discourse, belittled Cindy Sheehan. And I bought it in a shameful display of credulity, an abject absence of critical reading.
This credulous fear of what society deemed “radical” was fortunately a phase which passed quickly. The catalyst for my rejection of such ideological boundaries was reading Noam Chomsky’s book Failed States. Chomsky’s arguments revealed to me the long history of war crimes by American presidential administrations, the criminally created carnage behind the patriotic platitudes. The book also explained Chomsky’s idea, most fully developed in his book Manufacturing Consent, that mainstream media only permitted conventional thoughts to be fully expressed. Chomsky theorized that while familiar and conventional platitudes could be easily condensed into a television news discussion or newspaper op-ed, unusual opinions required evidence and rigorous argument to explain. But as Chomsky put it, “You can’t do that when you’re stuck with concision,” and concision is required in most American media.
Once I understood both the horrific crimes committed by our federal government abroad and the intellectual limits of mainstream discourse, I started reading and listening critically. Rather than joining the chorus of patriotic American jeers in response to Hugo Chavez slamming the United States, I interpreted his comments as perfectly understandable in light of the history of violent American imperialism in Latin America. In my response to my history teacher’s blanket dismissal of Chavez as “anti-American” and “crazy,” I was often the lone voice in the room challenging epithets which posed as arguments.
Later, I generalized this skepticism of political marginalization to the entire political spectrum, and began defending "crazies" on "the right." Typically whenever topics such as secession or nullification are seriously proposed as political strategies, liberals and moderates derisively compare the proponents of decentralized power to racist neo-Confederates. Libertarian author and historian Dr. Thomas Woods brilliantly skewered such knee jerk responses with a video titled Interview with a Zombie. Woods points out that nullification, the refusal of state governments to enforce federal laws, was often used by the antebellum North to fight racist laws such as the Fugitive Slave Act. In recent years, nullification has furthered civil liberties by effectively stopping the privacy purloining REAL ID Act, as well as allowing patients to access medical marijuana in spite of the DEA's obstinacy. Regarding the even more taboo notion of secession, note that the Declaration of Independence declares a right to secession ("Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government"). Rather than simply being the domain of the right, secession has even been sympathetically portrayed by left wing columnist Chris Hedges. Yet in mainstream discourse, a few allusions to the Civil War can keep these ideas from being considered. Connotations preclude intellectual discourse.
Operating outside of such standard ideological constraints has served me well, and significantly impacted how I read and write. I no longer evaluate articles based upon how the ideas within may conform to what is considered mainstream or reasonable, but instead upon the strength of the facts, arguments, and principles contained within. My political polemics no longer rely on stale smears such as “wingnut,” but upon fair and critical analysis. In addition to searching literature for imposed ideological constraints, I scour my works for Orwellian obfuscation of uncomfortable truths. With this literary understanding, I am equipped to seek truth and challenge dogmatism as I never was before.
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