the truth about ... the truth

[unblock]

the fundamental reason there is such a sharp divide between the "red" mentality and the "blue" mentality is that they have fundamentally different notions of "truth".

those of us in the "reality-based" world know the truth is rooted in reality, and the physical world will make a mockery out of lies and falsehoods. we try to utter things consistent with the laws of the universe. we are ashamed and embarassed when the laws of the universe show us to be in error.

those in the "faith-based" world understand the truth is rooted in god, and the spiritual world will make a mockery out of lies and falsehoods. they try to utter things consistent with the laws of god. they are ashamed and embarrassed when the laws of god show them to be in error.


the common ground is that, as a matter of PRACTICE, the vast majority of both side LEARN and UNDERSTAND the truth by way of SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE -- common understanding within their respective communities. those of us in love with science usually do not carry gamma ray detectors, geiger counters, and test tubes around with us. those in love with god usually do not consider themselves to ultimate authority on all matters spiritual, either.

instead, both communities rely on authorities and transmit and propagate messages within the community. the reality-based lay person relies on the notion that any falsehood will be challenged by authorities within the reality-based community. if a proposition is widely accepted within the community, most members will accept it as truth (or at least until proven otherwise). the faith-based lay person also relies on the notion that any falsehood will be challenged by authorities within the reality-based community.

this is why the banana republican propaganda machine is so effective. the big lie is treated like the truth, propagated and widely accepted within the faith-based community. without apparent challenge, it is widely regarded as truth. the only challenge comes from the reality-based community, which has been dismissed as "other", using labels such as liberal, enemy, unpatriotic, godless, etc.

but the fact is, you don't have to a true believer to get sucked into the "red" worldview. because the "blue" worldview also relies on similar methods of information dissemination for lay people. let's say you don't believe in god, don't go to church, but simply live in a red state where most of your friends are church-goers and so on. you will soon find a critical mass of people around you utterring banana republican lies convinced that they are truths. how do you perceive these things? well, you might be skeptical, but without actively searching for the blue version of the truth, you will find yourself the subject of ridicule, ostrization, and worse if you challenge those "truths".

but most likely, you would not even be inclined to challenge them. they would come to you EXACTLY the same way scientific truths come to you -- via friends, television, the media, etc. yes, perhaps different channels, but such subtleties might be lost on a lot of people.


our challenge is not to convince the deeply spiritual, the true believers.
our challenge is to reach those more apathetic, incurious bunch who simply find themselves going along with the critical mass.

taking back the media would be one way to do this.
building our own media might help.
otherwise, we must shatter their worldview. find some way to convince them that their worldview doesn't work. usually that's a tall order.


but fundamentally, we must build that critical mass. we have to do this by challenging their lies at every limited opportunity we get. each time we let them get away with a lie unchallenged, the uncritical middle views that as confirmation of the "truth".

i think this necessarily implies that we have to get in-your-face, and perhaps a bit rude. people need to see liberals "winning" debates, and NOT winning by reality-based standards. i mean winning by more universal standards. how LAY people know the truth. not via thinking and getting convinced through logic, but by seeing someone HAMMERED in a debate. by reducing the other person to a blubbering, weeping fool. i mean winning in a way that you DON'T NEED LOGIC to know who won.

it's that standard by which banana republicans have been cleaning our clocks since reagan. we come up with great proposals and defend them with logic and facts, and they laugh and come up with lies and zingers. if the viewer uses logic, they can figure out we won the debate, but unless they see the debate and try to analyze it, they will just hear about the lies and the zingers and figure that the banana republican won.

the truth is important.
the facts are important.
but reaching the audience with zingers and jokes, ACTING like the other guy if full of crap, ACTING like the other guy is a liar, ACTING like the other guy is the enemy, THAT is the way to reach the people we need to reach.

[Hissyspit]

1. That is SO true!

recommended :7

[Katherine Brengle]

2. Amen! Have you read George Lakoff? >

If not, I highly suggest you check him out.

I've been writing extensively about the very things you talked about in this post--if you ever want to chat about anything, PM me.

K. Brengle

[unblock]

3. never read lakoff

my brother-in-law if visiting later this week. he's liberal and VERY well read. i'll ask him about him.

[Katherine Brengle]

4. Good idea--if he's a liberal reader, he'll most likely have read Lakoff.nt

[GuvWurld]

10. This post also has lots in common with Blueprint For Peaceful Revolution

Blueprint For Peaceful Revolution talks about the same reality-based/faith-based rift as being the result of intentional divisiveness caused by the government through many means, but most especially by creating inherent uncertainty - unverifiable elections, Orwellian paradoxes, censored transcripts and revised data (financial, environmental, etc.), he-said/she-said media reports, etc. - contradictions that make it impossible for many to know for sure what to believe.

The recommended tactic for addressing these contradictions is to lay them out in contrast. What would constitute the definition of Democracy? - could today's conditions meet that definition or do they match better with the definition of fascism?

Apply that approach to a variety of issues and we begin to target and challenge the cognitive dissonance experienced by those accepting of The Big Lie.

[OneBlueSky]

5. I've often said that the first politician to actually tell the truth wins

if just one politician of national stature would stand up and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth -- about everything -- he or she would win in a landslide . . . the truth about 9/11, about election fraud, about the war, about depleted uranium, about Fallujah, about global warming, about the federal budget, about the social safety net, about religious intolerance, about corporate corruption, about regressive taxation, about price gouging, about detention camps and Executive Orders, about corporate influence on (or control of) Congress -- about everything . . .

the bottom line is that most people simply don't know the truth about what is going on in this nation and across the planet . . . why? . . . because nobody's told them! . . . since they get their information from television "news", they are uninformed, ill-informed, and/or misinformed about damn near everything! . . .

and unless and until someone they respect (and will believe) tells them the truth, they're going to stay that way . . .

[Beam Me Up]

6. I agree. THE TRUTH spoken clearly would come as quite a shock, though.

And, for this reason, it could not easily be believed. Those who maintain the corporate-consumerist reality structure aren't going to give it a platform that will lend it credibility. We're going to have to create and maintain that platform outside of corporate media--not an easy task. However, there may come a point where the media will have to begin to tell the truth as well--after all, THEIR OWN SURVIVAL is as much a part of this equation as is our own. We saw a little bit of this during the Katrina fiasco (which I believe was in part a test case to see what a mass subject population of Americans will do under extreme duress).

We have to all begin telling the truth, not just our leaders. All of us. We have to support those who speak the truth along with us and give them strength and courage. They and we are going to need it.

[rucky]

9. Funny how big lies are easier to swallow than big truths. n/t

[unblock]

7. either that or shot by an "insane" relative of a bfee family friend.

:tinfoilhat:

[unblock]

8. kick for the lunch crowd

:kick:

[PATRICK]

11. A faith community

that leaves inconvenient or scary truth behind for whatever comfort or assurance is faithless. Lies feed off each other because the facts won't sustain either.

[BlueEyedSon]

13. A book for the future

http://www.samharris.org/

[BlueEyedSon]

12. The wedge of the criminal ruling elite is "OPINION"

Neither truth or belief, it is belief masquerading with the mechanisms of truth. This is how they get the reds to vote for them and bend to their ever whim on the issues.

Reducing everything to an OPINION

Opinion need not be accurate, supported by statute, evidence, history, etc etc. Fuck the Constitutional lawyers, the career foreign service people, lifetime intelligence experts, scientists, statisticians/accountants..... when everything is an OPINION, there is no right answer.

WMDs in Iraq?
Saddam's support of Terra?
Number of troops needed to occupy Iraq?
Global warming?
Constitutional limits of the POTUS' power?
Social security's solvency?
The risks of running the US at a deficit?
Timing of peak oil?

[unblock]

14. right, and this is all the media reports. opinions are easy to verify

it's hard to say the news did wrong when it reported someone's OPINION that wmds did in fact exist.
the media takes itself off the hook because they rarely claim to provide actual facts. they only report opinions.

the fact that viewers take those opinions as fact, or "truth", is something the media washes its hands of, at least when called on it.

[PATRICK]

15. Your facts and truth

is defined as an opinion by them. Their "opinion" is thin politeness for concrete, dominant dogma. Very thin and very dishonest, but operating from a position of strength not facts or undeniable truths. So in fact it is the opposite of opinion and not to deep down they know they are putting one over on you, they think, in your own game.

Now if the tables are turned and Thomas More is in power, or us, we do not treat our tormentors in kind. Nor do they continue to argue paternalistically in a veneer of "opinion". They abandon the field of reason entirely in a huff. If they can't lead they won't play the game of pretending to respect your "opinion".

By the way, historically, don't expect too much patience if you don't change your opinion. The next stage in total power is also dropping the veneer and persecuting "error". If you haven't heard strong hints of that from the fringe you haven't been listening hard to bloviators on hate radio, O"Reilly and Coulter and Falwell and Robertson to name a few.

This pose of opinion in balance is only a way to disrupt the presentation of evidence. And meant to be temporary until the power to present that evidence is suppressed. I say "meant" even though it does not have to be conspiratorial. It is such an old story as to be a force of radical conservative habit

[BlueEyedSon]

16. I read your post (esp ref to More) as indicating their dogma is religious.

I am more cynical... I see the religious as "useful idiots" for the neofascist right, who are motivated by greed & power, not Jesus.

[PATRICK]

17. Useful idiots

can be cast off and sacrificed but generally they get totally corrupted, only without the cynicism. They thought the trip would be pure and they were heroes. Now they are tainted and schleps. The collusion of both classes is lockstep. The parting of the ways is in holding the actual reins of power. O'Reilly is in love with himself and his power. So is Robertson. The individuals who argue on the boards or in the streets for these heroes share the "faith" but not the perks.

The errors of false faith is pretty clearly defined by Jesus and ignored by divided Christians. Growing impatient with useless argumentation where no one is convinced anyway, the judgment is based on the a actions and results. I suppose you would say most Christians are not of the Robertson mold, but More was pretty alone when he got axed.. The Robertsons get more than their due. The heroic Christians get murdered before passive crowds. Unfortunately for Robertson, according to faith and history, the argument and everything else goes to the authentic.

[unblock]

18. it makes you wonder why they have conservative "pundits" on the air

their "opinions" are completely predictable. partly because they're literally getting the same talking points from the same sources, but more fundmentally because the philosophy is so transparent.

put a liberal on the air, and you can never be sure what he's going to say or how he's going to say it. this or that particular liberal might even hold a conservative view or three.

but put a conservative on the air and their position is 99.44% predictable, and most of the remaining 0.56% is them just slipping up.

even the more "moderate" republicans (e.g., christine todd whitman, who was recently on the colbert report) will rarely diverge from script. she is doing so now that she's free. but the ones who are actively in the game (pundits, pollsters, officeholders, appointees, etc.) so predictably follow the script that a genuine NEWS show would give 25 minutes to the liberal and 5 minutes to the conservative, and call the conservative "today's messenger boy from the republican party department of propaganda".

[GuvWurld]

19. kick (eom)