Discourse Poisoning Is Nothing New

February 13, 2017 Hunter Wallace Discourse Poisoning, Politics, Social Media 8

John Naughton writes in The Guardian:

“I thought about Rosling and MacKay a lot last week as the “fake news” crisis deepened. It turns out that the public sphere may be even more poisoned than we had supposed. We now have to reckon with artfully faked opinion as well. Among the many sites on the web that relay high-level commentary on foreign affairs is the Center for Global Strategic Monitoring. The website describes it as “a nonprofit and nonpartisan research and analysis institution dedicated to providing… a viable informed resource to the public, the media and politicians. It aims to play a positive role and offer proper tools for understanding and decision-making that define the relationship between the United States and the world.” …

Why are the massed forces of responsible journalism apparently so impotent in the face of this chicanery? If journalism has indeed become the “enemy” for the White House, then how should it fight back?

The first thing, wrote Adam Tinworth, an insightful blogger, last week, is to recognise the real nature of the war in which journalists are now involved. Tinworth borrows a concept from military strategy – asymmetric warfare – to explain why mainstream media are failing to hold Trump & co to account. What it comes down to, he says, is “narratives versus facts”. The alt-right crowd are good at narratives and very skilled at packaging them in images and video rather than text. Journalists, in contrast, are addicted to text and not very good at narrative. But narratives are what the punters crave – and what they “share” on social media. In such a climate, therefore, relying on fact-checking is a bit like whistling against a hurricane.

If it is to combat this postmodern strategy of poisoning the public sphere to the point where nobody knows what to believe, responsible journalism has to change. It has to become more combative and confrontational. It has to be ruthless in accurately documenting what’s going on, so that Trumpian allegations of “misreporting” never stand up. It has to learn how to package the truth in narratives that people can understand and share, which means relying more on imagery, video and animation. And – most difficult of all – it means that the savagely competitive instincts that usually divide journalists have to be temporarily shelved. …”

We’re going through a epochal transition from the huge media conglomerates and vertically delivered Jewish-controlled mass media of the 20th century – news, entertainment, opinion – to the decentralized, horizontally delivered Gentile-controlled social media of the 21st century.

We talk to each other through our smartphones now, produce our own content and watch it go viral. We can tune out the politically correct columnist in the local fishwrap newspaper who went to journalism school and is getting laid off in newsrooms these days. The day is coming when we will be able to tune out the talking heads like Bill Kristol on cable television altogether and subscribe to our own favorite commentators. If I don’t want to watch Chris Matthews on MSNBC, I can tune into, say, Vox Day on GabTv. I’ve noticed that they are both competing now for the 6:00 PM CST time slot.

I’ve always LOVED the 19th century. We’re returning to a 19th century media landscape, but this time the editor of a local segregationist newspaper in Greenville, MS can have a global impact. I can poison discourse in rural Alabama and it will have an impact on my fans in Germany. If I am so inclined, I can cut out Jewish influence at all levels of my social media experience.

As the memes spread, the discourse is poisoned, the commissars are bypassed and competing alternative narratives, news, facts and opinions circulate among the people, the “mainstream” ceases to exist. It loses its political legitimacy. As it loses its political legitimacy, the “mainstream” turns to authoritarian methods to repress dissent, which only hastens its collapse.

Donald Trump is already showing the complete irrelevance of the “mainstream” as a source of legitimacy for his presidency. He doesn’t have to cater to the fake news Lügenpresse anymore.

Note: As I pointed out in December, 2017 is the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation in Europe. There are parallels between the printing press and the Reformation and social media in our times. The Cathedral of liberalism, however, is what is collapsing this time.

About Hunter Wallace 12390 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

6 Comments

  2. A full-blooded Welsh Celtian, a feeble and nerveless Scot, a strong-sinewed Saxon, a nasty pedlar Jew, a Jesuit and a Freemason walked into a bar.

    The Spectator, 24 December 1910, Page 16:

    WELSHMEN AND BUDGETS.

    To THE EDITOR OF THE “SPECTATOR.”

    SIR,—Having been a diligent reader of your paper for many many years, I was astonished to find your columns on December 3rd open to the bald and abusive contribution of your correspondent Dr. Rouse, of Perse School House, Cambridge. I ask, Sir, what sane purpose can possibly be served by thus wantonly insulting a whole people ; for I write not to defend Mr. Lloyd George and his controversial methods,—he, I know, can well take care of himself. It would appear as if Dr. Rouse, from his prejudice and bigotry, had confined his reading entirely to Andrew Borde and his obscure contemporaries. Well, Sir, let Dr. Rouse note that gallant little Wales, I am glad to say, again worthily assumes her proud position in the van of all the forces of progress, and nobly reminds the denser-minded—if stronger-sinewed—Saxons that the inborn love of freedom that hurled all their power back from our bills for seven hundred years is as living and as strong as ever; and this should persuade even Dr. Rouse that a Welshman can ” labour and delve and dig ” on behalf of what he deems a righteous cause. Indeed, it needs no prophetic eye to see signs many which show that the future of our great Empire belongs to the Celt : not to what they foolishly call the domination of Redmond and his dollars, but the force of united Celtia governing by reason of its greater and brighter intellect over the duller and denser and less imaginative mind of Saxondom. Why, even in the past, to go back to Andrew Borde and his period, it was only this learning of the older races that enabled England to emerge from her once stagnant and obscure state to her position of greatness among the nations of the world ; for it was the Welsh house of Tudor that was the greatest single factor in that grand uprising of England ; and later still, when her destinies were all but wrecked by the feeble and nerveless Stuarts, nothing but the genius of Milton and Cromwell —both nearly full-blooded Welshmen—saved her from utter extinction and ruin. Yet, Sir, shame on them, say I, there are some men to-day, who from their positions ought to be above such puny methods, who have the impudence, assiduously aided by fitting descendants of pedlar Jews, to point the finger of scorn at Mr. Lloyd George and any one else who is not an “Englishman” ! Why I confess, in my laudable indignation, I should like to kick the whole nasty crew of the latter back into the Continental dens they originally crawled from : the chiefest service they have done England is to corrupt her Press to a deplorable extent with their spurious Imperialism ! Well, perhaps the purpose of their existence is at last revealed, for, faith, may they not furnish Dr. Rouse of Cambridge with a galaxy of congenial friends !

    —I am, Sir, &c., DOUGLAS LEWIS.
    Stoke-under-Ham, Somerset.

    [We are no Anti-Semites, and detest the unjust and insulting language in which our correspondent writes. We publish his letter to show how untrue is the allegation that we do not publish letters with which we disagree.—ED. Spectator.]

    The Spectator, 31 December 1910, Page 16:

    “CHERCHEZ LE JUIF.”

    To THE EDITOR OF THE “SPECTATOR.”

    SIR,—Having read the grotesque outburst of Anti-Semitism with which your correspondent Douglas Lewis sullies the pages of your last issue in his letter headed “Welshmen and Budgets,” I feel tempted to remonstrate with you in precisely the same language as that employed by Mr. Lewis in his offensive defence of Mr. Lloyd George. The words in italics are the only amendments called for to make the cap fit. My letter would therefore run as follows :—

    “Having been a diligent reader of your paper for many, many years, I was astonished to find your columns on December 24th open to the bald and abusive contribution of your correspondent Mr. Douglas Lewis, of Stoke-under-Ham, Somerset. I ask, Sir, what sane purpose can possibly be served by thus wantonly insulting a whole people ? It would appear as if Mr. Lewis, from his prejudice and bigotry, had confined his reading entirely to Drumont, Stocker, and their obscure contemporaries,” &c., &c.

    It is the old stupid cry of Cherchez le Juif,—he is at the bottom of all evil, the scapegoat of all climes and all times.

    —I am, Sir, &c., ERNEST LESSER.
    23 Portland Place, Brighton.

    [We fully sympathise with Mr. Lesser’s indignation, but the Jew is not the only scapegoat and bogy. The Freemason and the Jesuit share his liability to be considered at the bottom of all evil. As a rule these prejudices are held singly. We once, however, encountered a man who held them all simultaneously. He solemnly declared that his country (Italy) was being ruined by the Jews, the Jesuits, and the Freemasons.—ED. Spectator.]

  3. “We talk to each other through our smartphones now, produce our own content and watch it go viral.”

    But still, Trump needs to do something to break the Jewish control over television.

  4. “narratives versus facts”.

    Today, it no longer matters whose army wins. It’s whose story that wins, that matters.

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