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Delusion as It Always Has Been
07/29/2003

In response to my column this week, Randy Barnett pointed me to his wrap up of his guest-blogging adventure, which further addresses the increasingly disconnected worldview of the Left.

For the most part, I don't think anything that he writes there contradicts what I've written. The fact that New Media has risen to the challenge of responding to the homogenous voice of the mainstream is certainly an indication that society as a whole is pulling back from the leftward madness. I begin to differ, however, to the extent that Barnett seems to imply that the problems exist in some significant proportion on both sides of the political line and that they have always existed thus, merely toning down or raising their rhetoric given current reality. To be sure, delusion is not a partisan playmate, but one ought not dismiss the reality that society does — people do — shift across the spectrum. It isn't a wave in which everybody stands and sits but remains in their places.

Consider this, which he quotes from ritingonthewall's JB:

the radical left bugs me more than before, but i think that's because they're more vocal about their views. chomsky is easy to dismiss when he and his disciples sit down and shut up, but that doesn't mean that the basic set of views isn't there.

likewise, the really crazy right is pretty quiet right now as things are going at least sort of well. they have less to complain about, not least of which because the party that they're generally identified with now has a wider platform. also because they have more to lose for shooting off their mouths.

there's also the status quo dynamic. the right (not the far right as far as i'm concerned) is in power. the left isn't. thus, compared to the status quo, the left is further left. along with the blockbuster theory at asymmetrical information on in-power versus out-of-power factions, it isn't hard to construct a discursive milieu wherein the left seems way, way further out than it was, say, four years ago.

but that doesn't mean things are "objectively" all that different.

This passage, I'd argue, was written from within a "social construction" in which two sides are battling on pretty much equal terms, and the only rational position is between them. This, to possibly coin a phrase, is faux moderatism, and peels with just a little perspective. Chomsky, for example, is not as easy to dismiss as JB would have us believe. He is, after all, a famous "scholar." A high-profile academic. There is no correlation for such a position on the right. The University is entirely dominated by liberals, most of them far to the left of middle.

Chomsky, Said, whomever... they've never shut up, and it is only because their ideas are influential — in the case of Said, arguably affecting foreign policy in a Big Picture way — that conservatives, driven into think tanks and alternative media, have found it necessary to address them. JB is correct in saying that the masses' not paying attention to Chomsky et al. "doesn't mean that the basic set of views isn't there," but only in a limited historical sense. The views are, actually, relatively new, historically speaking, and are now reaching such a stark lunacy, particularly in context of world events, that others are beginning to recoil. As the others recoil, the delusions of the Chomskyites will likely increase in intensity (partly to account for their not being treated as the sages that they know themselves to be).

But the point returns to this: where are the crazy rightists whom JB would place in opposition to Chomsky? Not in academia. Not in the media. Not in Hollywood. Not in wherever it is that writer-types hang out. How, then, can it be said that they (we?) have quieted down, when they didn't have a megaphone to begin with? Here's one possibility: the Leftists sought out "crazy rightists" for the purpose of presenting them as representatives of the right. In that sense, the "crazy right" was partially a component of the liberal social construction (witness the Berkeley study about conservatives that JB also addresses).

As for the Left just seeming more Left because the government has moved right, well, there are apparently moderate Democrats who don't happen to think that's the case:

"The Democratic Party is at risk of being taken over from the far left," U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, the group's chairman, told reporters at a two-day DLC convention here.

Back to Randy's (and my) suggestion: society is pulling right, exposing the kooks on the left, who are in turn retreating farther left. It isn't that the Left, broadly speaking, hasn't moved; it has. Things are objectively "all that different." The government may be more conservative, and conservatives may have more outlets for discourse, but the mainstream suppliers of information are still "asymmetrical." In fact, the reality of a conservative government and of an international stage that currently acts as a quick-result testing ground for the political ideas of both sides have contributed directly to the requirement among those who would perpetuate the Leftist myths to distort reality.

Under the influence of JB, Barnett moderates himself as if out of sight of his original suggestion:

This very new contrast between the two media may account for the perception that the Left is doing this more (when they really are not). The new media is available as a contrast and is itself identifying more instances of this happening on the Left and in the old media.

In his original post, Barnett's point was that the Left is more obviously making facts fit their view and shifting those facts as necessary to fit their social construction. In this light, what I've just quoted from his subsequent post misses the point: the New Media is forcing the Left to tell one lie to cover the other, so to speak. Without the New Media — and the broader shift of society — the lies on top of lies wouldn't have been necessary because the first lies would have stuck; the flip-flops would not have just been less obvious, they would not have been made because the flip would have gone unchallenged at any significant level of visibility.

As I've said before, clarity and confidence have been made to seem the enemies of truth. And this factor has so permeated our society that taking that view is often an instinctive reaction, particularly among those who strive to stand in the middle.

Posted by Justin Katz @ 12:40 AM EST