Truth in the age of the Internet | 29 comments (29 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Truth in the age of the Internet (4.00 / 3)

Narrative wins over truth every time, because it selects which truths and lies are important.

"Kerry is weak" - and to some extent he ran a campaign that was - trumped the fact of his military service.

"Bush is strong" was played very effectively. It was pure theatre, nand pure lies. But it was reassuring theatre that the marks wanted to hear, and enough of them bought it to swing the outcome.

It's well known that one of the things that makes the Left weak is that it's very bad at crafting simple, solid narratives. There's always plurality, argument, a lot of one-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand.

Even now in the US, what does Hillary really stand for? What does Obama stand for? What's their narrative in a single sentence?

Compared to them, everyone knows exactly what the Right stands for. And even though the ideal has been so badly tarnished by scandal that there's a backlash, people know what the ideal is - so much so that the Left still spends a lot of its time trying to demolish the talking points one by one.

Narrative and mythology are what move people. Truth is just an occasional accessory to the fact.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 08:48:26 AM EST
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Re: Truth in the age of the Internet (none / 1)

So should the democrats message be "We're not crooks perverts and cowards"?

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 10:14:08 AM EST
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Re: Truth in the age of the Internet (none / 1)

yes, but positive.

by PeWi on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 10:21:13 AM EST
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Re: Truth in the age of the Internet (4.00 / 2)

we're better than those crooks perverts and cowards? ;-)

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 10:28:15 AM EST
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Re: Truth in the age of the Internet (4.00 / 5)

Seriously, that's a very interesting question.

If they had the balls to run it - which they don't - I wonder if a 'We're not crooks, perverts or liars' campaign might not be a roaring success.

The problem for the Dems is that they haven't differentiated themselves. So they've let the narrative become 'They're all the same' rather than 'We're honest and different.'

Which is possibly a fatal error. I think there's going to be revenge voting from the moderates for the Dems, combined with massive apathy and resentment from the Dem base.

If the Dems are thinking it's a sure thing, someone really needs to persuade them otherwise - and soon.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 10:54:43 AM EST
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Re: Truth in the age of the Internet (4.00 / 2)

Well if you look back at 1997 that was the core of the Labour parties message. they ran it very much like the dems are now and let the media run the they're not crooks liars and perverts message.

Unfortunately I cant see the US media running it for them. so they would have to do it for themselves. the big question then would be if it would be as effective if you were running it yourself rather than having a third party putting it out.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 11:00:07 AM EST
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Re: Truth in the age of the Internet (none / 1)

By using it in campaign speeches, it becomes third party.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 05:06:08 PM EST
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Re: Truth in the age of the Internet (4.00 / 2)

can the truth be tooled?

my 17- year old friend had to write an essay, 1600 words about truth and context recently, cf atwood, and so i went there with him, along the philosophical timeline, over the descartian fissure and up to today.

subjective, objective...

then i talked to a solar engineer for a while, and then returning to the intellectual fopdoodlery of how many versions of truth could dance on the head of a perception....i lost patience...

we have hard, practical problems facing us that philosophers have never faced before.

good to stretch adolescent brains, good to know how to keep an abstract ball in the air, i guess...

viva veblen

(sp?)

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 11:18:58 AM EST
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Re: Viva Veblen AND Pirsig (4.00 / 3)

subjective, objective...

A Subject/Object Metaphysics doesn't ask the right questions of Reality, I think.

See

Metaphysics of Quality

Your young friend could do worse than read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".

I never got the chance when I was 17, cos it hadn't been written!

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 11:42:24 AM EST
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Re: Viva Veblen AND Pirsig (4.00 / 3)

Does the "Metaphysics of quality" actually ask any questions of reality?

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 11:56:50 AM EST
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Re: Viva Veblen AND Pirsig (4.00 / 3)

Good point. Sloppy language.

Allow the right questions to be asked...

Next question. By whom?

Well, it's all relative.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 06:57:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]

it's all relative (none / 1)

says who?

Oye, vatos, dees English sink todos mi ships, chinga sus madres, so escuche: el fleet es ahora refloated, OK? — The War Nerd