Dissident Veteran For Peace

Lies, Incorporated: The World of Post-Truth Politics by Ari Rabin-Havt and Media Matters has an important and, I submit, true premise. Namely that, on a host of issues, Americans and US politicians face manipulation by orchestrated, well-funded campaigns of deliberate misinformation. No surprise there, right?

However, readers should be aware that Rabin-Havt and Media Matters are themselves part of the propaganda machine they call Lies, Inc. I'll give just one glaring example.

In the epigraph to the book a "lie" is defined, in part, as "to create a false or misleading impression". This is exactly what the authors do in their hit on firearms researcher John Lott.

On page 116, they write: "When a group of researchers convened by the National Academy of Sciences examined Lott's thesis that the liberalization of concealed-carry laws leads to a decrease in violent crime, fifteen of the sixteen panel members found 'no credible evidence' to support this theory" (emphasis added) In support of their claim, the authors cite a 2015 article in Mother Jones magazine by Julia Lurie.

Here's the problem: Lurie is clearly engaged in an attempt "to create a false or misleading impression". In short, she's a liar. Given that the authors of Lies, Incorporated are aware of the methods of deceptive propagandists and yet take no care to correct Lurie's false narrative and tell the truth, I conclude they, too, are liars, especially since they took the liberty of slanting Lurie's statement even more strongly against Lott's position.

Here's Lurie's version: "The National Research Council, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, assembled a panel to look into the impact of concealed-carry laws; 15 of 16 panel members concluded that the existing research, including Lott's, provided 'no credible evidence' that right-to-carry laws had any effect on violent crime" (emphasis added).

I claim Lurie, Rabon-Havt, and Media Matters are liars because, years ago, I read much of the NRC report in question—Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review—and it was a real eye opener. Here is the full sentence from which Lurie (and Rabon-Havt and Media Matters) lifted the "no credible evidence" phrase: "For example, despite a large body of research, the committee found no credible evidence that the passage of right-to-carry laws decreases or increases violent crime, and there is almost no empirical evidence that the more than 80 prevention programs focused on gun-related violence have had any effect on children’s behavior, knowledge, attitudes, or beliefs about firearms."

The sentence in question is from page 2 of the report, in the Executive Summary (Lott's name appears nowhere in the Executive Summary). Here is one glaring and misleading omission by Lurie et al.: "the committee found no credible evidence that the passage of right-to-carry laws ... increases violent crime". Lurie et al. do not include this information or draw it to the attention of their readers because it does not serve their gun control agenda.

They also fail to note that the NRC panel takes a decidedly more judicious—though hardly uncritical—approach to Lott and his work. Readers interested in forming their own opinions on the matter are advised to read Chapter 6 and Appendices A  and B of the report along with the links below. My point here is not to defend Lott and his work—I leave that to others—but to highlight the hypocrisy of Ari Rabin-Havt and Media Matters.

See also:

• "A response to Mother Jones’ mistake filled article on John Lott and the Crime Prevention Research Center" on the CPRC web site, Aug. 1, 2015
• "Is it a 'Lie' That More People Carrying Guns Can Lead to Less Crime?" on the Reason.com web site, Apr. 26, 2016. This is a response an article by Rabin-Havt in the Nation.

Labels: crime, critical thinking, guns, truth

And I know that it's dangerous to judge
But man you've gotta find the truth
And when you find that truth don't budge
Until the truth you found begins to change

And it does I know, I know
When you love the truth enough
You start to tell it all the time
When it gets you into trouble
You discover you don't mind

'Cause if good is finally gonna trump
Then man you've gotta take stock
And you've gotta take your lumps
Or else they trickle down
Into someone else's cup below

Source: "People" by David Bazan on the Strange Negotiations album.

Labels: culture, music, truth, video

Note: The text below uses "true" and "false" in a manner that perhaps provides a useful illustration of Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of Sprachspiel or language-game. However, in positing the Genesis account as an example of "other practices than dividing truth from falsehood" it incorrectly implies that true and false are concepts which belong particularly in the realm of science. This does not do justice to Wittgenstein's complex understanding of truth.

Most of us wonder about our origins.

There have been two apparently contradictory accounts of it.

There is the account in Genesis of how God created heaven and earth and all living things in six days. And there is Darwin's account of how things evolved over enormously long periods, the mechanism of which is genetic variation and natural selection.

To many there is a hopeless contradiction between these two accounts.

The notion of language games helps us here, for it focuses on action rather than truth and falsehood.

We use the terms "true" and "false" in certain contexts.

Chiefly when we are investigating whether something is so or not, as in a scientific investigation.

Darwin was imbued with the methods of science, observing, sorting the true from the false; using the methods of scientific inquiry to give an account of the origins of things.

But why can't there be other ways of accounting for the origin of things, using other language games, ones that focus on other practices than dividing truth from falsehood?

A person for whom the practices of worship and prayer are central to his or her life might respond to fundamental questions in a different way and might find the account of origins in Genesis more real.

His search would be conducted differently from a scientist's. He might pray for guidance. This would not necessarily produce an answer in the scientific sense, for he would be seeking different satisfactions.

So there need be no contradiction between Genesis and Darwin, but what is important is to be clear on the nature of one's commitments.

Source: John M. Heaton & Judy Groves. Introducing Wittgenstein: a Graphic Guide. (Icon Books, 2009) pp. 120-122.

Labels: philosophy, religion and science, truth, Wittgenstein

Student: Professor Wittgenstein, (slaps self hard on face) you can't know this pain. Only I can.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Are you sure you know it? You don't doubt you had a pain just then?

Student: How could I?

Ludwig Wittgenstein: If we can't speak of doubt ... we can't speak of knowledge, either ... It makes no sense to speak of knowing something in a context where we could not possibly doubt it therefore to say I know I am in pain is entirely senseless ...

Student: I just can't see it, professor. It somehow just seems natural to me to say I know I'm in pain.

Wittgenstein: Oh, natural. Tell me, why does it seem more natural for people to believe that the sun goes around the earth rather than the other way around?

Student: Well, obviously, because it looks that way.

Wittgenstein: I see, and how would it look if the earth went around the sun?

Student: Um, well I suppose ... yes, I see what you mean.

Source: Derek Jarman's film Wittgenstein, beginning at 34:12, 45:35.

Labels: art and literature, philosophy, quotations, truth, Wittgenstein

... when Logic congeals into all-encompassing and perfect-seeming theories, then it can actually become a very evil con trick. Wittgenstein has a point, you see: "All the facts of science are not enough to understand the world's meaning."

Source: Character of Bertrand Russell in Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos, and Annie Di Donna (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009) p. 296.

Labels: art and literature, philosophy, quotations, religion and science, truth, Wittgenstein

MAD, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that they themselves are sane.

Source: Ambrose Bierce. The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson: I am afraid, sir, you have a rather weak grasp of reality.

Baron Munchausen (defiantly): Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.

Source: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Columbia Pictures, 1988.

When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it might be.

Source: The character of Miguel de Cervantes in Man of La Mancha. From "Don Quixote as Theater" by Dale Wasserman in Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America 19.1 (1999): 125-30.

Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.

Source: Character of Brother William of Baskerville (Seventh Day, Night) in The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.

Labels: art and literature, critical thinking, quotations, truth