Patrick West has a timely Critic piece on the way accusations of "misinformation” are being used as a form of misdirection.
The problem with “lies and misinformation”
The charge of “misinformation” can be pure misdirection
This week, Keir Starmer joined the ranks of those shooting the messengers. He added his voice to that chorus deploring people who are in uproar about the failures that allowed the grooming gangs to go unpunished. In reply to Elon Musk’s provocations that “Starmer is complicit in the crimes” and that Jess Phillips is a “rape genocide apologist”, the Prime Minister denounced those “spreading lies and misinformation” on this matter.
The whole piece is well worth reading, particularly the two paragraphs below, from where I took the post title. There is a potent and silent force at work and it is not much of an exaggeration to claim that principled opposition to official censorship is opposition to totalitarian government,
The focus on “misinformation” epitomises a quintessentially modern malaise, one characteristic of a hyper-liberal dogmatic mindset. This is an outlook that is highly controlling, judgemental and simplistic — one that categorises and divides the world into those who are right and righteous and those who are wrong and revolting. This is the philosophy that censors and cancels, save only those who can literally afford to speak with impunity, such as J. K. Rowling or Musk himself.
This dogma, which remains a potent and silent force today despite much talk of “woke being over”, is partly an offshoot of a postmodern relativism that was hostile to those tenets of the Enlightenment: reason, doubt and open inquiry. That’s why progressive managerialism is so absolutist — why today’s liberal clerisy are unduly concerned with heretics who question iron certitudes. They are intolerant of dissent because they presume that truths are cast in stone and sacred.
4 comments:
Think they know we’re onto them now, AKH.
Good article.
I wouldn't mind more of an emphasis on the distinction between opinion and truth, or misinformation and correct information. Improving our understanding depends on it, in fact. It's essential to science and any worthwhile human endeavour.
These things take a lot of time and effort, though. The current government seem to rush to judgement, or - worse - to use these terms to suppress debate. Starmer just throws the terms around as a sort of argument-stopper. He knows how to say "this view wins", but doesn't appear to know what that means in this context
I'm reminded of the Monty |Python Argument Sketch:
https://youtu.be/xpAvcGcEc0k
An automatic gainsaying of what the other person says...
James - and finally it seems to be making an impact.
Sam - I don't know why, but I don't think many people are interested the distinctions such as that between opinion and truth. As you say, it's essential but takes a lot of time and effort.
The effort aspect seems to matter a great deal, we do seem to have a powerful instinct towards using less brain work if we can get away with it. Politicians trade on that all the time.
DJ - it's one of my favourites in the way it shows how easy and automatic argument can be. Also the way Michael Palin's character thought he was going to get a genuine argument for his money.
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