‘Narrative Truth’ vs ‘Factual Truth’

Bankrupt Idealism
Jul 27, 2017 · 2 min read

An interesting paragraph describing the changes in Breitbart News after the death of its founder and the assumption of control by Steve Bannon:

Former Breitbart staffers [say] the site changed direction under Mr Bannon. “I knew Andrew [Breitbart] since I was 16 and the idea that he and Bannon were best friends and that Bannon was the natural heir was utter bullshit,” says Mr Shapiro. “Truth and veracity weren’t [Bannon’s] top priority at Breitbart. Narrative truth was his priority rather than factual truth.”

It is interesting how this line of thinking — in this case taking the form of a distinction between ‘factual’ and ‘narrative’ truth — recurrently presents itself in the self-descriptions of a certain brand of rightwing radical propagandist. Remember, for instance, this famous utterance from 2004, attributed to an ‘unnamed aide’ to George W. Bush who later was revealed to be none other than Karl Rove:

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

‘Factual’ vs ‘narrative’ truth. Those who believe in the ‘judicious study of discernable reality’ vs those who ‘create our own reality.’ There’s a certain evil-genius ominousness to these sorts of statements, but what it means to think of politics and political propaganda as arts of composing new realities rather than reacting to the current state of affairs is interesting in light of the left’s dawning awareness that its failure to dream of new possibilities rather than simply parrying the onslaughts of what already is the case. More on this issue, via a discussion of this book, soon…

Bankrupt Idealism

Literature, Fiction, Politics, Advertising, Propaganda

Bankrupt Idealism

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Bankrupt Idealism

Literature, Fiction, Politics, Advertising, Propaganda

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