Epistemic closure is not a new term. Epistemic closure is not a term that liberals came up with to describe, or explain crazy right wing people.
Epistemic closure is a term created by the right to describe a segment of the right.
Back in 2010 the phenomenon was described by the New York Times:
‘Epistemic Closure’? Those Are Fighting Words
The phrase is being used as shorthand by some prominent conservatives for a kind of closed-mindedness in the movement, a development they see as debasing modern conservatism’s proud intellectual history. First used in this context by Julian Sanchez of the libertarian Cato Institute, the phrase “epistemic closure” has been ricocheting among conservative publications and blogs as a high-toned abbreviation for ideological intolerance and misinformation.
Conservative media, Mr. Sanchez wrote at juliansanchez.com — referring to outlets like Fox News and National Review and to talk-show stars like Rush Limbaugh, Mark R. Levin and Glenn Beck — have “become worryingly untethered from reality as the impetus to satisfy the demand for red meat overtakes any motivation to report accurately.” (Mr. Sanchez said he probably fished “epistemic closure” out of his subconscious from an undergraduate course in philosophy, where it has a technical meaning in the realm of logic.)
As a result, he complained, many conservatives have developed a distorted sense of priorities and a tendency to engage in fantasy, like the belief that President Obama was not born in the United States or that the health care bill proposed establishing “death panels.”
... Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush’s administrations, wrote that in the last few years, “epistemic closure” had become much worse among “the intelligentsia of the conservative movement.” He later added that the cream of the conservative research institutes, including the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, had gone from presenting informed policy analyses to pumping out propaganda.
...David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, argued at frumforum.com on Friday that the problem was not media celebrities, but rather conservative intellectuals.
“They’re the ones who are supposed to uphold intellectual standards, to sift actual facts from what you call ‘pretend information,’ ” he wrote, quoting a friend. “Rush Limbaugh isn’t any worse than he was 20 years ago. But 20 years ago, conservatism offered something more than Rush Limbaugh. Since then, the conservative elite has collapsed. Blame them, not talk radio.”
I would argue that the right has become systemically disconnected from fact, that they are unwilling or unable (probably both) to accept facts that don't conform to their alternate reality. The term for that is described as the 'Post Truth Era', with the right supporting 'Post Truth Era politics and ideology.
I would refer readers to Jay Rosen's blog "Press Think", generally, but specifically to his post from July/August of this year, BEFORE the Republican National Convention, with observations that apply equally to House and Senate campaigns, and to state and local conservative campaigns. It is not limited to Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan, and it is not an observation entirely unique to Jay Rosen.
Epistemic closure is a term created by the right to describe a segment of the right.
Back in 2010 the phenomenon was described by the New York Times:
‘Epistemic Closure’? Those Are Fighting Words
By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: April 27, 2010
It is hard to believe that a phrase as dry as “epistemic closure” could get anyone excited, but the term has sparked a heated argument among conservatives in recent weeks about their movement’s intellectual health.
 |
David Frum recently criticized “radical voices”
among Republicans and lost a job.
Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images |
The phrase is being used as shorthand by some prominent conservatives for a kind of closed-mindedness in the movement, a development they see as debasing modern conservatism’s proud intellectual history. First used in this context by Julian Sanchez of the libertarian Cato Institute, the phrase “epistemic closure” has been ricocheting among conservative publications and blogs as a high-toned abbreviation for ideological intolerance and misinformation.
As a result, he complained, many conservatives have developed a distorted sense of priorities and a tendency to engage in fantasy, like the belief that President Obama was not born in the United States or that the health care bill proposed establishing “death panels.”
... Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush’s administrations, wrote that in the last few years, “epistemic closure” had become much worse among “the intelligentsia of the conservative movement.” He later added that the cream of the conservative research institutes, including the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, had gone from presenting informed policy analyses to pumping out propaganda.
...David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, argued at frumforum.com on Friday that the problem was not media celebrities, but rather conservative intellectuals.
“They’re the ones who are supposed to uphold intellectual standards, to sift actual facts from what you call ‘pretend information,’ ” he wrote, quoting a friend. “Rush Limbaugh isn’t any worse than he was 20 years ago. But 20 years ago, conservatism offered something more than Rush Limbaugh. Since then, the conservative elite has collapsed. Blame them, not talk radio.”
I would argue that the right has become systemically disconnected from fact, that they are unwilling or unable (probably both) to accept facts that don't conform to their alternate reality. The term for that is described as the 'Post Truth Era', with the right supporting 'Post Truth Era politics and ideology.
I would refer readers to Jay Rosen's blog "Press Think", generally, but specifically to his post from July/August of this year, BEFORE the Republican National Convention, with observations that apply equally to House and Senate campaigns, and to state and local conservative campaigns. It is not limited to Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan, and it is not an observation entirely unique to Jay Rosen.
If Mitt Romney were running a “post-truth” campaign, would the political press report it?
No, they would not. This falls under: too big to tell.
...I think there’s evidence that the Romney forces have figured much of this out. And so even though we have a political press that believes itself to be a savvy judge of campaign strategy, here is one that will probably go unnamed and un-described because (…and this may be the cleverest part) a post-truth campaign for president falls into the category of too big to tell.
Meaning: feels too partisan for the officially unaligned. Exposes the press to criticism in too clear a fashion. Messes with the “both sides do it”/we’re impartial narrative that political journalists have mastered: and deeply believe in. Romney will be fact checked, his campaign will push back from time to time, the fact checkers will argue among themselves, and the post-truth premise will sneak into common practice without penalty or recognition, even though there is nothing covert about it.
I would argue that the two are inextricably intertwined, that there is both deliberate lies on the assumption that no media will call them on massive quantities of it in a post-truth era -- consistent with fact checkers having a quota on how many factually inaccurate statements from Michele Bachmann they will bother to check, because she makes SO VERY MANY, compared to more credible, factually accurate people. But that there is also an almost armored resistance to facts as well if they don't support the ideology predetermined. The right forces fact to conform to their conclusions, and if they don't fit, or can't be sufficiently contorted, they simply reject and ignore them.
As we see here from commenters - the right just makes stuff up - and they cannot tell the difference between their made up fact-turds and legitimate facts.
In that context, the following video clip is significant:
So, even the US right is admitting that the extreme right wing is fact adverse?
ReplyDeleteFunny, but Mitch hasn't caught on.
Over the roughly 20 years I've known Mitch, he's become more extremely right wing and a tea party supporter.
DeleteHe never used to be as fact immune as he appears to have become in his blogging career.
I think a lot of bloggers have a blogging persona that can be quite different from their real personality; so it is hard for me to tell how much might be persona and how much is a creeping shift further and further to the right.
But the fact aversion concerns me, not just for my friend, because it reflects a break with objective reality and sometimes with very paranoid assumptions - that near non-existent voter fraud is rampant for example.
I don't know how much further that can go without a swing of the pendulum back to a more rational and intelligently moderate political party emerges.
IF this election cycle is a significant failure, I suspect that conservatives will go one more cycle more extreme afterwards, and only if/when THAT fails will they try something different, instead of doubling down on same old/same old intensified. At that point it should be obvious that more extreme is counterproductive, and only THEN, go moderate. But I think they will then go MUCH more moderate, not in small increments. There will probably be a major turnover if there are two more election cycle failures, of who /what directs the party.
My hope is that for the betterment of the country, and for both sides of the political spectrum, because when they work well, is that the two parties balance out the weakness of each other as a sort of checks and balances relationship. They don't do that when the right goes fringie crazy and they can't contribute anything of value when they are disconnected from fact or critical thinking.
This:
ReplyDelete"The phrase is being used as shorthand by some prominent conservatives for a kind of closed-mindedness in the movement, a development they see as debasing modern conservatism’s proud intellectual history."
is just a blatant lie. The GOP and its various bastard, banjo playing teabaggist offspring have been anti-intllectual for at LEAST the last 60 years.
There was a definite intellectual segment that dominated the conservative side of the GOP in the 'olden days'; I don't know if it goes back a full 60 years, although there has always been an uneducated and therefore anti-intellectual segment. That segment simply lacked the dominance it later gained over the party that was especially prominent after the late 80s when the religious right came into power with their Jesus rode dinosaurs nonsense. I think all of their petty little divisions, the whole neocons, paleocons, etc. is just too tedious for serious attention. The tea bagger conspiracy theorists like the birthers and the rest are beneath contempt or consideration; the people who believe utter nonsense, like the earth is 6,000 years old are too silly to be given consideration. Those who believe in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary that tax cuts result in economic growth are as uneducated and unsophisticated and just plain bone ignorant as the others, it is just a little less painfully obvious.
ReplyDeleteThe origins of conservative anti-intellectualism certainly go back 60 years; but it took a lot longer to gain the dominance it has today.
Now the right doesn't know a fact from a fact-turd - as we've seen from Joe Doakes.
Nice guy, but can't read for comprehension apparently, combined with an inability to produce facts, and an incapacity for critical thinking so far.