"Describing [RFK's] views as ‘controversial,’ I think, is dishonest. They’re not controversial. They’re false. He’s not spreading controversial views, he’s spreading lies. And so the framing matters enormously, and that’s something that I foresee being a huge, huge issue in the 2024 campaign."
Agreed!
Some key distinctions made by journalist Seth Mnookin in this sharp interview. (He wrote a book about the anti-vaccine movement in 2011.)
I have a hard time calling them lies cause I think he believes them. I think he's very mentally damaged from his emotional experiences. Like Hunter.
On the political stage there is no functional difference between incompetence and malice. The one will always fuel the other, and the harms caused by them are indistinguishable in the end.
Besides, whether or not RFK actually believes them, the anti-vax stories began as lies, they'll end as lies, and they're mostly spread by liars.
for the audience, there's no difference. but there's all the difference in the world as to whether a conversation with them can get them to stop spreading the misinformation. maybe even turn them into an asset for changing minds since they now have the trust of those on the other side.
and what we think we know might always be wrong. we have to approach the public conversation with empathy and epistemic humility, lest we become like the worst visions we have of them.
@cadenza @theogrin @jayrosen_nyu
most of the world thought Sinead was nutty and wrong and her words would have a horrible impact. And that SNL did the right thing banning her. Or the bands that Clear Channel took off the radio during the Iraq War.
the companies (which are too big tho) have the right to decide, as they do now re RFK Jr. and there's not infinite space for every voice. but if somebody isn't acting out of bad faith, you treat them equally. show they are wrong if you believe that.
@cadenza @wjmaggos @jayrosen_nyu
The exceptional A.R. Moxon ( @JuliusGoat ) defines this in part as the Dipshit Paradox in his most recent post.
https://armoxon.substack.com/p/the-dipshit-paradox
One can certainly theorize that a person's patent refusal to acknowledge reality -- and it is a refusal -- is made in good faith. It's a choice between that, or acknowledging that the argument is NOT made out of honest and sincere misunderstanding, in which case it's disingenuous and even more actively destructive.
A fool or a murderer, as the saying goes.
The choice of a centrist to give equal weight to a person who came up with an idea while rummaging through their sock drawer, and to someone who has done research and presents credible evidence, is thus itself a validation of the leprechauns-in-my-socks petitioner, and thus intrinsically a harmful choice in and of itself.
Jay Rosen
william.maggos
Jennifer Kayla | Theogrin 🦊
Pamela Ehn