Online criticism of dominant political narratives can be a headache - it’s too easy. Many luxury beliefs in the developed world are too irresponsibly facile to criticise effectively. Criticism is easily dismissed with an irresponsible shrug until the next luxury belief takes hold or reality intervenes.
Parody, sarcasm and ridicule work to some extent, but it is all uncomfortably close to giving up on more structured criticism as irresponsible beliefs do not invite or respond to responsible analysis. How could they?
It is not that fashionably irresponsible political claims cannot be analysed. The problem is people, as always, they are not likely to recognise their own failure to connect with the world as it is. They have connected socially and politically which seems to be enough and it probably is enough until fashions change or reality bites.
As we know so well, societies engineer consensus and they do that via the ancient processes of approval and disapproval, smile and frown, acceptance and avoidance - or worse. Sceptics must tread warily around dubious and irresponsible social norms or accept the social consequences.
It is much the same online. Yes there is a major advantage in that online luxury beliefs may be criticised or parodied with fewer social consequences. Irresponsible nonsense is still a problem though – social norms have an online presence too. Hence the irresponsible pursuit of official censorship powers
To take one topical example, it isn’t easy to criticise the public speeches and announcements of UK Prime Minister Andrew Burnham. Apart from his lack of honesty, Burnham is irresponsibly facile in the things he says. Yet polls indicate that he is currently the most popular political leader. In his world, that counts as approval. He shrugs and moves on.
1 comment:
"The problem is people, as always, they are not likely to recognise their own failure to connect with the world as it is."
Regrettably the 'world as it is' has become more and more difficult to recognise as it has become more complex and camouflaged by a surfeit of opinions. People (including me) adopt shortcuts to reduce the need for constant reappraisal of 'events'. So democracy good and totalitarianism bad - but there some democracies that may be worse than a benign totalitarianism. How is an ordinary person to tell until the consequences of 'events' have shown themselves beyond doubt?
Brexit? Covid MRNA vaccines? Climate Change? Perhaps we need AI to churn through all the data and arrive at answers - but who would train the AIs and who would trust the result? I guess we will have to muddle along.
Post a Comment