Read on Twitter
When you start thinking of Wikipedia, NYT, 1619 Project, Harvard syllabi etc. not as information but as performative speech-acts, the world begins to make a lot more sense.
Obviously much of what they say is complete nonsense. No sane person could take it seriously. But it's not about whether it's TRUE or FALSE, it's about what the speech act DOES.
Words don't just describe things, words are deeds. And deeds are not TRUE or FALSE, but GOOD or BAD.
NYT doesn't tell you what's true, but what's GOOD TO BELIEVE.
NYT doesn't tell you what's true, but what's GOOD TO BELIEVE.
This can encompass flat out lying, but that's basic bitch performative utterance. Obviously fact and reality is reactionary because the river always reverts to its natural course. But the skilled woke crusader need not even lie.
One sort of performative speech-act is to speak things into being. "I take this woman to be my lawfully wedded wife", "I dub thee sir Kanye", etc. The ancients understood these as particularly powerful utterances, and so does the 1619 Project.
This is what the 1619 Project is all about: they believe (and are not wrong in believing) that by the simple act of pronouncement one can alter reality itself. "I name this ship the SlaveFlower" changes reality, because names have ontological standing.
So when the peddlers of this project redefine America's birthdate, they are bringing the very pith, the marrow of America into conjunction with slavery. America ceases to be about anything but--you'd better take that knee.
"America was born in 1619" is not strictly a proposition, but an ostensive, a command, and an indictment all rolled into one. The propositional content is analytically posterior. The one who names has power--cf. John 1:1.
But this isn't all. Reality-construction can work by omission too. This often takes the form of the perlocutionary act: a speech-act meant to affect the hearer. Scott Adams made a living on this--he calls it "persuasion".
So when Wikipedia's "fascism" entry doesn't define fascism but serves as an index of violence and its communism entry develops its definition and paints it sympathetically, none of the statements made need be FALSE--the effect on the speaker is what counts.
The asymmetry just is the point. The point is not to inform any more than the 1619 Project, or a NYT editorial is meant to inform. The point is not to make you think "fascism got it wrong"--an ideology isn't true or false--the point is to make you think "fascism, BOO!"
This operates at the level of gut instinct. The performative speech act is not meant to convince you of anything, but to rewire your disgust response.
We in the dissident right tend to be high in trait openness and high in disgust sensitivity. We like wild art and hate poz. Our gut reactions are very strong and not easily changed. Our physiology inoculates us against unnatural, dysfunctional nonsense.
But not everyone has the benefit of physiology working for them. Most people are mutable, changeable, and susceptible to performative speech-acts. This is why memetic warfare is so effective: "we wuz k@ngz" is all performative, almost no proposition.
TL;DR: the war is at bottom a war of aesthetics and morale. Take the Peirce-pill, accept the pragmatist view of truth, and watch the win column swell. https://twitter.com/ImperiumPress/status/1330484379110367232
