Trump Is A Racist Because 'Infested' Is A "Dog Whistle" Or: How The Method Of Free-Form Interpretation Makes The Left Stupid
Not going to spend a lot of time on this nonsense.
Erin Burnett: Trump's a racist because he said that Baltimore--that notoriously rat-infested craphole--is rat-infested. And because 'infested' is...wait for it...a racist dog whistle! Needless to say!
Now, 'infested' is in no way racist...but since this is all about free-form interpretation...well, heck, you can say whatever you want! Does the claim sound vaguely plausible in some inchoate, gut-level way? Oh, hell, why not? I mean, any number of things sound vaguely plausible... If sounding vaguely plausible is where the bar is set, then you're always basically going to win before you even begin.
Add confirmation bias to that, and you've got a powerful type of sophistry--once it's been suggested that it's racist...well...it becomes hard to judge. I can imagine someone using 'infested' in conjunction with some sort of racist idea about...teeming masses...nonwhite teeming masses! SO IMAGINABLE! SO TOTALLY IMAGINABLE!
Sure. You can imagine all sorts of shit. You can make up whatever you want. You can suggest just about any tenuous, BS association of this kind that happens to come to mind. Especially when you're starting with the assumption that the person in question is racist--and you're intent on ending up with the conclusion that whatever he did most recently is racist. This is something we call "bullshitting." It's why your political faction is a joke and a disaster. All sorts of irrational people "reason" in this general way. But the progressive left has raised improvisational, free-form speculation and creative interpretation to something like their primary method. Probably because of the left's disastrous association with postpostmodernism or whatever you want to call the radioactive stew of bad ideas, theories and methods infecting the humanities and soft social sciences.
Of course when someone says something like this the appropriate response is: you're full of shit. Or, more politely: no, that's false.
However, you can't shake such ideas loose from such people merely by appealing to the truth. That is not going to work, Bucko.
So we're repeatedly reduced to showing that someone (dialectically) unimpeachable has said similar things--usually Obama. But in this case: Elijah Cummings. Because once people who want to believe something have had it suggested to them, and, given that all they require in order believe it is a vague feeling that it might be true, there's simply no shaking it loose. Basically the only thing you can do is show them that their guy said it, too. This may convince some of them that it actually isn't racist...but others will probably never be convinced. They just don't want to say that Cummings is racist, so they concede merely because they've been outmaneuvered.
Let's make it easier for progressives to respond by making it multiple-choice:
(a) That's different.
(b) Black people can't be racist.
(c) That's racist.
(d) That's racist.
(e) That's racist.
Erin Burnett: Trump's a racist because he said that Baltimore--that notoriously rat-infested craphole--is rat-infested. And because 'infested' is...wait for it...a racist dog whistle! Needless to say!
Now, 'infested' is in no way racist...but since this is all about free-form interpretation...well, heck, you can say whatever you want! Does the claim sound vaguely plausible in some inchoate, gut-level way? Oh, hell, why not? I mean, any number of things sound vaguely plausible... If sounding vaguely plausible is where the bar is set, then you're always basically going to win before you even begin.
Add confirmation bias to that, and you've got a powerful type of sophistry--once it's been suggested that it's racist...well...it becomes hard to judge. I can imagine someone using 'infested' in conjunction with some sort of racist idea about...teeming masses...nonwhite teeming masses! SO IMAGINABLE! SO TOTALLY IMAGINABLE!
Sure. You can imagine all sorts of shit. You can make up whatever you want. You can suggest just about any tenuous, BS association of this kind that happens to come to mind. Especially when you're starting with the assumption that the person in question is racist--and you're intent on ending up with the conclusion that whatever he did most recently is racist. This is something we call "bullshitting." It's why your political faction is a joke and a disaster. All sorts of irrational people "reason" in this general way. But the progressive left has raised improvisational, free-form speculation and creative interpretation to something like their primary method. Probably because of the left's disastrous association with postpostmodernism or whatever you want to call the radioactive stew of bad ideas, theories and methods infecting the humanities and soft social sciences.
Of course when someone says something like this the appropriate response is: you're full of shit. Or, more politely: no, that's false.
However, you can't shake such ideas loose from such people merely by appealing to the truth. That is not going to work, Bucko.
So we're repeatedly reduced to showing that someone (dialectically) unimpeachable has said similar things--usually Obama. But in this case: Elijah Cummings. Because once people who want to believe something have had it suggested to them, and, given that all they require in order believe it is a vague feeling that it might be true, there's simply no shaking it loose. Basically the only thing you can do is show them that their guy said it, too. This may convince some of them that it actually isn't racist...but others will probably never be convinced. They just don't want to say that Cummings is racist, so they concede merely because they've been outmaneuvered.
Let's make it easier for progressives to respond by making it multiple-choice:
(a) That's different.
(b) Black people can't be racist.
(c) That's racist.
(d) That's racist.
(e) That's racist.
posted by Winston Smith at
10:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home