John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CAITLIN JOHNSTONE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Dissidents Must Understand the Difference Between Fact and Narrative
"The reason I talk about narrative so much is because it’s ultimately what all our problems boil down to"
I just think this is not accurate analysis.
It gives credit for almost mystical powers to the establishment.
And it gives credit equally to critics for understanding what is actually going on and being able to explain it.
Both assumptions are generally unwarranted.
The truth is closer to being that critics mostly never know exactly what the establishment is doing. They often have bits and pieces of truth but with no convincing, cohesive picture.
There simply is a lack of resources to really dig into events, especially for non-establishment investigators and critics.
It does take substantial resources to really find out about things, which is precisely why so many newspapers today have few if any foreign correspondents and investigative reporters. Under the financial pressures that newspapers are under, they do not have the resources. Independent critics have far less.
But, equally, working against being able to communicate events to the general public is the sheer indifference of a great part of the public to such matters as international affairs. They just don't care. We've seen evidence of that many times. The establishment very much counts on that reality.
Take just one of dozens of examples, Syria. Despite many little efforts and some real revelations, I don't believe events there have ever been convincingly enough stated to affect the general public.
But even if they had, much of the public would continue its quiet faith in government and the big press, just like Catholics who still go to church faithfully after learning priests or even bishops are pedophiles.
The “foreign factor” also enters here. After all, “it’s just a bunch of foreigners out there,” and that sentiment, in so many words, is often sensed or heard in the United States. Just as desperate refugees from abroad can be described as a mob of criminals and sexual deviates – something repeated daily by some politicians and some press in the United States.
It's a pretty big step to question foundational things, a step a good many people are not able or willing to take. That is also something the establishment counts on.
I think the only time critics have an opportunity to really shake things up is with really graphic information, as when cops are secretly photographed shooting or beating an unarmed man.
In Vietnam, pictures of Marines burning down civilian homes had quite an impact. Such images speak instantaneously to people and are next to impossible to explain away. We also had the instance of pictures of American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib. They had quite an impact for a time even though the worst of them were never released to the public.
It doesn’t have to be photos, it can be transcripts or letters, although they must be concise and unmistakable. Huge volumes of data, as we get from Wikileaks, often do not impact the general public. They are just too demanding to take in, too unfocused. That requires interpreters, and we do have them, but as soon as we have interpreters, we are a step removed from immediacy.
There very few opportunities for doing these things, especially photos. It just does not happen very often that someone with the inclination is in a position to access and release such stuff. Even then, many will ignore what they see, rather than disturbing the quiet of their universe.
There are many forms of religion or faith at work in human beings, and people’s politics are certainly among them. As a species, we are less rational than we generally credit.
And “There are none so blind…”
