As if Wag the Dog were a documentary? It just doesn't seem plausible to me that this is being posited by anyone in good faith, but I don't think denialism is about that--although some people will buy it. It's about the debate. Exhausting, proof-pulling, stupid debate.
Think about how from stupid little acorns of bad faith, mighty conspiracist oaks grow--like with Andrew Wakefield's bad science that grew into the anti-vaxx movement that has since spawned actual terrorism threats. Or people who can't accept any demonstration that the voter fraud that has them so furious never existed. Or think about climate science denialism and how people want to believe it's all a hoax started by people who want you to sit in a freezing room and eat bugs. (No, that's Brexit, dear....) And this "fake Ukraine War" canard seems like an outcropping of Russiagate--the denialism that Putin is a really bad guy who fucks with elections and has imperialist aims.
You can pile up Pelion upon Ossa of data to show that vaccines work and aren't harmful, or that climate change is real. You can try to pull together all the footage you like of Ukraine at war, and the flattened buildings and the bodies, but the denialist vortex just sucks it all in and spits out:
"Debate me! Change my mind!"
It's meant to be a stupid frustrating slog that impresses people who truly do not possess critical thinking and depress people who hold a view because it is generally correct and reality-based, and they should not have to become a subject-matter expert to demonstrate that for the benefit of someone who wouldn't concede anyway.
This is why I used to believe debating creationists or flat-earthers had a point, and now am not so sure. It almost seems like remarking "How fucking stupid!" and going one's merry way might be a better use of one's time. (In other words--find an audience who actual cares about the truth.) The debate doesn't do anything if both sides feel like they've won just because the debate exists.
Anyway, it's something I keep coming back to--is the denialist vortex, the final, brain-deadening argument of "Nuh-UH!", sucking the life out people's critical thinking? Because the view from here is--maybe? And yet, fake news and lack of critical thinking is the triumph of the swill, and still needs pushback.
2 comments:
kyrie irving played basketball in new york city. kyrie irving is a flat-earther. in nyc, kyrie irving can ACTUALLY see the curvature of the earth from coney island or riis park (i mean, he's ALSO an anti-vaxxer, but you can't actually see viruses, so he gets a mulligan). mere evidence will NOT sway these fucking fascists from what they "know".
as they lie ALL the time and live at "the basecamp of bullshit mountain", (h/t the menu) they don't deserve your debate. like, they haven't earned the right.
also, i don't get this logic at all. they said, (waves rightward) the fascist media ecostructure said, the ukrainians were nazis. do these fucking idiots want reporters embedded with nazis?!?!
wtf?
Part of the thrill of believing bullshit seems to be the joy of "being different"--it's about the endorphin rush of standing out. People in a cult feel like they are in a chosen, special group. They self-reinforce after awhile. The evidence of that is Fox News--if they broke the cult-truism that the election was stolen by admitting it was not, the lie-junkies would go out and seek a new dealer.
Idiot Rep. James Comer recently referred to Ukraine as an "adversary". Where did he get that? Well, if one buys the lie that Ukraine conspired with Hillary Clinton to frame Donald Trump to make it "look like" he was colluding with Russia, that conclusion might make sense--in the parallel through the looking glass TrumpVerse. To reach the nefarious conclusion that the US was putting weapons in the hands of Ukrainian Nazis, Matt Gaetz went to far as to quote Chinese propaganda. To badly mix a metaphor, they will clutch at metal straws to weave a tinfoil hat with.
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