For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing

Introduction
In 1843, Marx wrote a letter to Arnold Ruge, then editor of a magazine entitled Deutsch-Französiche Jahrbücher (German-French Annals), in which he called for "a ruthless criticism of the existing order." In this spirit, I shall begin recording my thoughts on everything ranging from current events, politics, economics, history, social transformation, conflict, and philosophy. I do so in the hope that I will provoke further investigation of accepted definitions and conventional wisdom. I also hope that, by recording my thoughts, I can lend them further clarity.

That the conventional wisdom is deeply at odds with reality is accepted as a given in many circles. The question becomes, "how do we discover what is true?" When we are bombarded with lies and doublespeak, how do we know what we've discovered is true, and not one more piece of disinformation designed to lead us astray? The mainstream newsmedia wishes for us to accept a particular version of events, but even the worst lie contains a kernel of truth. Without seeing it firsthand - and even seeing it firsthand - how do we know what that truth is?

I've made the observation in the past that a successful disinformation campaign need merely convince its targets of anything other than the truth. I should take this one step further, however, and observe that it doesn't usually suit the source of disinformation to believe a version of events, no matter how untrue, that is unfavorable to it. Anything that makes the disinformer look bad is probably misinformation. But that still doesn't solve the question of how to penetrate the "bodyguard of lies" that Churchill is famously supposed to have posited (according to Wikiquote, it's merely attributed, and I'm unable to discover the source).

I'll discuss a couple ways of parsing media reports below.

The Propaganda Model
In 1988, (now retired) MIT Professor of Linguistics and noted leftist political commentator Noam Chomsky wrote, with (now) Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania Edward S. Herman, also a media critic, a book entitled Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. In Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky and Herman proposed a theoretical model for understanding the process by which the mass media produce news, based upon an analysis of the economics of media. Their conclusion was, unsurprisingly, that the mass media are propaganda outlets for major corporations and for the government. This model was appropriately named the "propaganda model." The model proposes five filters, each of which operate concurrently, in order to explain how information is processed by the newsmedia:

(1) Corporate ownership of media outlets. Media outlets are for-profit businesses, designed to create revenue for the ownership. The amount of capital holding required to publish a major daily newspaper or create and distribute television or radio programming is significant, meaning that not just anyone can afford to do this. Indeed, as competition in the marketplace has increased, so have the quantity of output and relative quality of presentation. This requires more staff (who have to be paid), more fixed capital whether in the form of presses or studios and broadcasting towers or satellite dishes, and more liquid capital required for re-investment to enable increased output and technical improvements thereof. Most major newspapers and radio and television stations are owned by chains. Many of these chains, in turn, are owned by major corporations. Anything that hurts the ownership's bottom line - such as reporting that exposes routine abuses of employees, consumers, or stakeholders - is heavily discouraged.

(2) Advertisers. As a corollary to (1), above, commercial media are dependent upon advertising for their revenue. Since advertising can be (and often is) expensive, most advertising is purchased by corporate entities. Advertisers unhappy with the content of the media outlet's reporting will pull their advertising, leaving the company scrambling to make up the lost revenue.

(3) Dependence on official sources. When reporting on complex issues or major institutions, the media relies heavily on outside experts to explain what's going on or provide information. This takes the form, e.g., of press releases by major corporations or press conferences held by the government. This is essentially free information for the reporter and his [I use this word as a gender-neutral pronoun] employer, as all he has to do is consult the official source and provide a summary, receive the press release and print it verbatim, or attend the press conference, ask a few questions, then go home. This makes reporting major news very economical. Furthermore, these sources are presumed to be credible because they are official. Anyone questioning the underlying credibility of the source will be criticized by that source and possibly denied access if they persist.

(4) Flak. This is the right-wing criticism of "liberal media bias," for example. Anyone stepping too far out of line will be attacked relentlessly by public-relations outlets or authoritative sources who have a vested interest in ensuring media compliance. When Chomksy and Herman wrote their book, this mostly took the form of threats of libel suits or prosecution. Since simply appearing in court is expensive, media outlets have a significant incentive to retract controversial stories or simply not allow them to be published or broadcast if they believe that it has a significant chance of provoking a libel suit or criminal prosecution. Since that time, the right-wing flak machine has stepped up its criticism and has called for outright bodily harm to persons who expose inconvenient truth. The margin within which inconvenience will be tolerated has also diminished.

(5) Professional culture. The people who conform most closely to the ownerships' economic goals and align themselves with the ownerships' interests and agenda tend to be promoted. This can also take the form of cultivating relationships with official sources in order to elicit comment, whether attributed or not. Simply put, the reporter who reports most favorably on the state of the media, accepts the official line, mouths the proper phrases, and doesn't offend too many powerful people is a successful reporter. "Journalitic professionalism" is the official cultural standard of the major media. According to this standard, the journalist is merely supposed to report the news, not interpret it. Notwithstanding the epistemological problems with this idea, it ultimately leads to an intellectual as well as economic dependence upon the aforementioned official sources.

Chomsky and Herman deliberately tried to avoid constructing a "conspiracy theory," as they note in Manufacturing Consent. They attempted to demonstrate how mass media were institutionally and structurally biased toward the status quo, without reference to "unethical" (within the ethical framework established by the journalistic profession) activities. Although journalists often act as mis- and disinformation outlets, they try to avoid spreading information they know (or strongly suspect) to be untrue. They simply fail to investigate the information they receive carefully due to the economic and structural disincentives noted above.
We know that the CIA has targeted and subverted journalists since the 1950s. The Church Committee Report contained an examination of what was popularly called "Operation Mockingbird," an ongoing propaganda effort to discredit dissident groups and restrict information about CIA activities. We also know that the FBI was involved in similar activities. Indeed, Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame, famously claimed in a Rolling Stone piece entitled "The CIA and the Media" that as many as 400 journalists, many of them Pulizter Prize-winners, were subverted by the CIA in this program (See also: SourceWatch). It is therefore, as Oliver Boyd-Barrett points out in his article "Judith Miller, The New York Times, and the Propaganda Model" (available at EBSCOHost), curious that Chomsky and Herman didn't cite these significant examples of direct government subversion of media sources for propaganda purposes. The existence of such programs leads Barrett to add a sixth filter to the Propaganda Model. Outside of normal source cultivation for PR purposes, official sources will often deliberately spread lies and rumors in order to mold public perception.

Shifting the Goalpost and Other Logical Fallacies
A common rhetorical technique used to avoid admitting error is called "shifting the goalpost." Imagine a football (American football) game, in which a team has neared the opponent's endzone but is not confident of its ability to actually score a touchdown. A common tactic in this situation is to kick a field goal, thereby scoring. Now, imagine that, just as the ball is kicked, the goalpost suddenly changes position such that the kick will not go through the uprights, and therefore not be considered a successful field goal. The equivalent in an argument is, just as you have demonstrated that your opponent has made a mistake, they claim that you misunderstood them, and where you maintain that they claimed x, they maintain that they in fact claimed y! This is, of course, an invalid argument technique, but if your opponent has been arguing falsehoods for the duration of the argument, he's not likely to just up and admit that he's wrong.

Another common fallacy perpetrated by commentators defending the status quo is bifurcation. You must either agree with them on every single point, in which case you are correct, or you cannot have a valid argument at all. This is, of course, an invalid technique for correct argumentation. We commonly disagree on what facts mean, without disputing that those facts exist, for example. Or someone may, in the process of arguing their way into error, stumble across a part of the truth. It's commonly said that the worst lie is the half-truth. Ergo, it is possible to be partially correct, and exposure of the kernels of truth hidden in mistaken analyses ought to be encouraged.

Then, of course, there's argumentum ad hominem. This is a favorite. By attacking you, personally, rather than dealing with your arguments, they wish to undermine the force of your arguments by character assassination, with the implication that moral virtue is a requisite for apprehension of truth. If you're a bad guy, you have to be lying, because bad guys always lie; if they're a good guy, they have to be telling the truth, because good guys always tell the truth. Unfortunately, character assassination is a very good way of dealing with opponents, since many people will focus on moral character before force of argument.

On Discerning Truth in a Cloud of Lies
Given the propagation of disinformation by official sources, how do we know what's true and what's not? This problem is made worse by the fact that the media do not always report lies. We have to rely on trusted sources. But whom do we trust?

First, trust no one completely or implicitly. Everyone has an agenda, and these agendas may not coincide completely with your own. This is not to say that they are necessarily antagonistic, but differences of opinion will always exist, and people will always try to interpret facts to reinforce their own position. We're doing that ourselves, in fact.

Second, ask yourself: cui bono? Who benefits? This will identify who has a stake in a particular conceptual framework and ordering of facts therein. Which frameworks do you think benefit you most? Then examine whether these frameworks actually give you the benefit you desire.

Third, apply Occam's Razor. The side that advances the argument with the fewest erroneous or unproven assumptions is liklier to be correct. Seek out the implicit premises in an argument and think about whether they jive with reality.

Fourth, most empirical data can be trusted to be accurate. Unless a source has a clearly partisan agend, they will not be driven to outright fabrication. Some data may be incomplete or missing, complicating the problem. Unfortunately, the government has become less reliable as information is increasingly distorted for political purposes.

Fifth, consult sources you trust personally. Since you're reading this, you have an internet connection. You probably know people with at least a college education. Ask them about what they know within their relevant field. If the information you receive for them sounds suspicious, ask them to cite a source and provide documentation.

Sixth, the amount of truth contained in an argument is typically directly proportional to the vitriol and volume of attacks against it, and inversely proportional to the volume of substantive criticism. If the opponent is reduced to argumentum ad hominem and phrasemongering, the likelihood that the argument they're trying to dismiss is true is pretty high.

Seventh, always examine your own assumptions. Has anything you've learned invalidated something you believed in the past? If so, how can you re-interpret in the light of new evidence? Were you way off, or were you close?

Eighth, don't take anyone's word for it! Go examine the evidence for yourself. You are the best judge of what you ought to believe. Engage the sources, and expose biases, underlying assumptions, and errors.

Discovering the truth is a dialectical process. In its simplest form, it requires examining arguments and testing their propositions against one another. It is therefore an ongoing process, one that never stops. What you believe today may be invalidated tomorrow by new evidence. Always be willing to accept new arguments from credible sources, but always weigh the arguments against what you already believe. Challenge these sources to provide evidence. Ocasionally examine discredited sources and see if anything they say can be re-interpreted in light of new evidence.

Ultimately, you have to decide what to believe about what the media is telling you. No one can tell you what you must believe, they can only tell you what they think you ought to believe. Armed with logic and reason and a critical mind, you are your best weapon against the disinformation that surrounds you.