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SpaceMost posted:I wonder what a hard left version of Fox would be like, and if I would get suckered in. Not some trifling liberal network like MSNBC, but a fullblown Leftist Fox News. I know you're dreaming or joking, but I think instead of just complaining about the right wing and how delusional they are, this thread is a good place to examine the messaging of the right, how it has gone forward almost unimpeded since Reagan, and why the real left in America can't (or, in my opinion, won't) adopt the methods, techniques, or rhetoric of the right. I get real tired of hearing people complain, because the American right has one of the most effective propaganda/rhetorical machines in recent history and the left seems content in their discontent. If the left has moral qualms about lying, or propagandizing, or pandering, then we deserve to lie in the grave that's being dug by the right.
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Oct 18, 2012 17:02
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BIAS ALERT
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BiggerBoat posted:No, that's what makes us "the left" - valuing things like truth, honesty, sourcing, verification, confirmation and facts in news reporting. Adopting the tactics of the opposition would be a huge mistake and destroy whatever credibility we have. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that unless the left becomes dis-honest lying scumbags, then we deserve what we get. I think that's absurd and counter-productive on nearly ever level. Well, in the first place the left is in no way defined by those feel-good nouns you list; rather, most leftist politics are predicated on the reduction or elimination of social inequity in a society. The point I'm making is that the right has figured out a much more effective way of producing and controlling discourse, despite your and my ethical qualms. The left must figure out a way to do the same thing. Here's an example of the problem: computer parts posted:How is "society is unsustainable and if we don't do something now the end of humanity is upon us" (a statement I have heard from many leftists) not preying on fear? This is not an effective emotional appeal. Typically of the American left, this statement points to a broad, remote, and abstract issue and then leaves it to the reader to draw conclusions. "The facts" are not the means of framing a discourse or influencing opinions. A better way to put this would be: "Your and your childrens' way of life is under threat unless we change X." Let me pursue the environmental argument for another moment. I work in a college of science at an R1 university. Most of the faculty are, in my estimation, leftists. One thing that unites them (and most scientists) is that they are exceptionally bad at engaging the public in understandable and compelling terms. For convincing people to actually do something, charts are bad; facts are bad; "implied moral superiority" is bad. What's good is direct personal appeals, an art which the right has mastered since Reagan.
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Oct 18, 2012 18:34
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