New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 34
A common operational tactic of Woke Marxists is to weave a long narrative arc about what’s happening in society through media and education and then to give “proof of worldview” by plugging useful events into that mythology to spur mass line activism and direct action. That is, they fit events into narrative arcs that have been strategically laid ahead of time. If you can spot the narrative arcs and how they work, not only can you refute them, you can also predict what kinds of events would count as “worldview proof” and interrupt their success. In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay breaks down the strategy and gives some useful advice for spotting and desynchronizing narrative arc fitting operations. Join him to learn to beat this tactic.
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2 comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuXZoWeAVDM
A few thoughts come to mind on this matter:
There’s something called ‘rain making’ where a rainmaker (in other words someone with a theory of rain) claims that if he does this or that, rain will happen. If rain happens then he takes credit, but if there’s no rain then you need to pay him again to encourage it to rain; not enough ‘rain making’ was performed. Eventually, it rains and he takes all credit. The rainmaker’s theory of rain is impossible to falsify, has no predictive power but ostensibly ‘fits the facts’, i.e., it always explains why it rains.
In a way, this example highlights both how cheap explanation is epistemologically speaking and how valuable prediction should be in determining truth claims.
Similarly, the Woke takes credit for every particular instance of police brutality, which can (apparently) be generalised in support of their theories, which explain all. The counterfactual (if police aren’t being brutal) only means they’re either hiding it, have not had an opportunity today, or they’ve ‘recentered’ their privilege by being ‘nice’ to black people, or some other such nonsense. At any rate, there’s no way to test or falsify their theories about ‘white supremacy’ vis a vis the police. There is only explanation. Everything is a priori.
Of course, society isn’t a lab so prediction can be a problem practically, but that’s one good reason to be suspicious of grand social theories of which Critical Theories are but one flavour.
You could certainly appeal to lower-level social theories (such as middle theory) for why particular police (whether that be individuals or departments) may be bad, and this may predictably point to the right way forward for police reform. Such theories are much simpler, assume less and are somewhat testable compared to Marxian/Critical Theories. However, they don’t offer the same level of pathos or the drama of good vs evil battle. They don’t have the glamour, in other words.