Yeah, HOW? TL;DR—only really: do read it all. Important stuff)
Opening my Facebook 'Newsfeed' last week, I found this—posted by a friend who is a super-smart and internationally-know rhetorician of science. It's totally fake, and it's been around for several years, posted and re-posted. It's a zombie meme that won't die. I commented: 'Many of us may wish he said this. Or think that he thinks it. But it's fake. And though it's positioned on the political left, it's just as destructive as the fake clickbait of the right.' Within minutes, my friend took her post down, of course. But for a while she believed it, and told the world. How can we believe this shit? How could my friend? She's smarter than me. (Hint: I think she was in love with an epistemology. So we need to theorize 'love.')
'Culture Wars' are psychological warfare (theory problem summarized)
All right, I'm going to be as arrogant as I know how, and use ideas from a piece of my own writing to frame a blog: 'Beyond the Realm of Reason,' and the final entires in our 'Keywords' that summarize its key points (on Moodle). Go read them.
This post—and 'Beyond the realm of reason'—looks at the logic behind spouting nonsense. We all hear it every day ('can you believe that shit?'), but of course, we would never say anything that stupid, would we? This post just asks for a personal, small and more explicitly theorized shot at this maddening, critical topic. How is it that we fall so 'in love' with our favorite ways of seeing the world that we can't imagine things any other way. Nor can we imagine how anybody could possibly see things differently. How CAN they believe this shit?
Basically, we're trying to figure out why people (including us) get convinced of some f^%*ed up s#^*, even when they (we) should know better. In that old article, I offer us my best shot at a complex, multifaceted account of how this can happen. With a detailed example—the analysis of the rhetoric of a right-wing extremist magazine, which makes only the lamest attempts scientific accuracy—I try to explain how and why a certain group of people have come to accept it as fact. (And the explanation isn't 'they're dumb or crazy'; their writers have PhD's as good as mine. Their readers are pillars of the community.) But their arguments, now almost 20 years old, present a case against environmental science that is as close to false as science ever gets--and yet they structure ALL the current debate about climate change. 20 years. Nothing changed. Now, THAT is an enduring meme. What up?
Example: Alex Jones does 'false flag' conspiracy work
In this blog post, we're asking you to find another such example, and give it the same treatment:
Find a piece of rhetoric (words, images, sounds, or all of them together) that you think — no, know — is total b.s., but that some group(s) of people, for whatever insane reason, accept as fact. You can use something we're studying now in class, something we studied earlier in the semester, or something you've found someplace else. Just make sure it's something that matters to you, something whose misleading falseness is harming the world.
Example: Alex Jones does 'false flag' conspiracy work
If you haven't explored Infowars, you need to (go HERE)—-reading along and watching your emotions as you do. Both Kate Starbird and Carole Cadwalladr use it as a prime example, and it's multiply linked to all the politically-right sites that propagate (what seem to me to be) completely 'false' news. So it's important. And, like the right-wing environmental writing I analyze, it LOOKS like real news sites, and SEEMS to use the journalistic conventions of truth-building (witnesses, legitimating authority, sources, coherent narratives, and so on). Alex is loud, big, and absolutely certain. He invites me in; he's my bodyguard. And as I watch it, I find myself doubting my sanity and my worldview ('gaslighting'). It's that good.
Maybe President Obama was born in Kenya....
But, in fact, its images are stock footage, not taken from the ostensible story, and they repeat in many stories. It's evidence is often totally fabricated. And the articulations result in a world that looks totally grotesque and bizarre (to me). And I think it's dangerous, because it undercuts the reason / evidence basis upon which democracy depends.
What's its appeal? For whom? Why? What's at stake in believing (and loving) it? Or hating it?
In this blog post, we're asking you to find another such example, and give it the same treatment:
Find a piece of rhetoric (words, images, sounds, or all of them together) that you think — no, know — is total b.s., but that some group(s) of people, for whatever insane reason, accept as fact. You can use something we're studying now in class, something we studied earlier in the semester, or something you've found someplace else. Just make sure it's something that matters to you, something whose misleading falseness is harming the world.
Then, analyze that piece of rhetoric in detail, and explain how and why it works on those particular group(s).
It's a 'how does it work?' project. It's an empathy project; the goal is to understand the Others who so often drive us nuts. It's a strategy for intervention project; we're trying to design a way to change minds, step one.
Find a really good piece that stirs something in you. Look at it hard. Reign in the snark. Give us the details. Build some theory. Could be fun.
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