Thread by @PnictogenHorses

I'd like to return to this subject a bit—this strange business of how "movement #conservatism" in the United States, by which I mean the lethal strain of reactionary #Christian theocracy that infests the current Republican Party, puts such an enormous value on *feelings*.

(1/x)

https://twitter.com/PnictogenHorses/status/1618336588760780800

it's strange, because not one American reactionary—not @loganclarkhall, not @thomaschattwill or @shadihamid, not a single propagandist at @NRO or @AEI or @FRCdc—will ever admit to being motivated by anything other than pristine, sparkling _logic_. it's part of the costume.

(2/x)

the @GOP and its partisans have been practicing this pose for *decades* now. William Buckley—a coarse, vulgar, thoroughly ignorant man who was good at sounding erudite when a camera was running—was typical of the new "rationalist" pose in right-wing American politics.

(3/x)

it is easy for any mediocrity, any tenth-rate scam artist or city councilperson, to imitate the "look and feel" of an intellectual. even @jordanbpeterson was once able to manage it, though eventually the mask slipped clean off.

"logical" can be a pose, a practiced act.

(4/x)

there's lots of shortcuts, tips and tricks for sounding "rational" and "scientific" even when you don't know what you're talking about.

believe it or not, this is an old problem. as @jordanbpeterson may or may not recall, this was the topic of Aristophanes's "The Clouds".

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Aristophanes, the premier comedic playwright of ancient Athens, was an outsider to the lofty and profound society of Greek philosophy; he passed through this society memorably in Plato's "Symposium" (and presumably Xenophon's "Symposium", which we have not read.)

(6/x)

thanks to the effervescent activities of the great Greek philosophers, almost every citizen of Athens picked up some smattering of the stuff. any Athenian could learn a rhetorical trick or two from the masters—a handy weapon for getting the best in an argument or a debate.

(7/x)

in other words, Athenian society became, in its little intellectual bubble, something like the modern Internet: brimful with clever people who learned to play treacherous games with words and concepts—who mastered the art of *mimicking* the form of logical argumentation.

(8/x)

the general term for this sort of imitation-argumentation—argumentation meant to *prolong* arguments, so as to "win" those arguments simply by wearying the opponent until they drop—is _sophistry_.

Aristophanes didn't like it. I feel that's a safe enough guess about him.

(9/x)

at any rate he wrote a funny play about a man named Strepsiades who wants to slip out from under his debts, so he goes to sophistry school where he's instructed by the finest man around: none other than Socrates, who appears in the play in a basket dangling from a rope.

(10/x)

the pedantic may point out that Socrates was (at least in Plato's reckoning) an honest and sincere philosopher, who didn't accept money in exchange for teaching. and maybe it was unfair of Aristophanes to imply that Socrates was some mere huckster teaching tricks.

(11/x)

we may not like the idea that Aristophanes was equating Socrates to...well, the ancient Athenian equivalent of @benshapiro.

but let's be blunt: Socrates must have used tricks of argumentation to get out of social obligations *all the time*. he must have been infuriating.

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sophistry—the art of prolonging arguments and debates indefinitely, via specious and deceptive use of rhetoric—is the daily bread of #conservative discourse. Ben "FACTS and LOGIC" Shapiro is a famous practitioner, but they're all like that. @loganclarkhall is like that.

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everyone @loganclarkhall says he admires is undoubtedly *like that*: deceptive persons, well-practiced in intellectual sophistry, people adept at keeping "debate" forever rolling even on discredited concepts like eugenics or global-warming denialism or "gender criticism".

(14/x)

George Orwell's "duckspeak", from his novel "1984", is like a decay product of prolonged and determined sophistry.

all meaning and substance departs from the rhetoric, which becomes more hackneyed, more *memetic* in nature, until it can be uttered almost _automatically_.

(15/x)

because false "debate", bad-faith debate that's intended to go on forever without conclusive results, is still *useful* in a way even though its intellectual content is nil: sophistical, endless debate can be used for _emotional manipulation_. it's a method of propaganda.

(16/x)

there's nothing particularly *persuasive*, in logical terms, about a sophistical line of argumentation that never comes to an end—but one can try to persuade through *emotions*.

most "#conservative" arguments are, in fact, mere appeals to emotion.

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@jordanbpeterson makes little sense when he talks but that doesn't matter as long as the audience *feels* that they're hearing a great mind with great thoughts. @benshapiro talks rubbish but he's so rapid-fire in delivery, he gives the _impression_ of rhetorical command.

(18/x)

a lot of this is basic #sales technique: "high pressure sales tactics" are all about sophistical argumentation, tricking the other person into agreeing to things simply because they're too flustered or too angry to see that they've been deceived until it's too late.

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#sales and #marketing methods are also the methods of propaganda. in fact there's likely no real difference between the term "propaganda" and the term "marketing materials"—both are media calculated to deceive and manipulate the audience, yielding "manufactured consent".

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@mtaibbi's political propaganda is also #marketing himself—it's his "personal brand" as an "independent journalist" he's trying to hard-sell the American people, even though he's plainly a mere stooge in some plot involving the @GOP and @elonmusk to politicize @Twitter.

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@TheDemocrats are hardly innocent of this, but they've been less effective, because the Democrats have tried as hard as possible *not* to appeal to the baser emotions in their marketing. the @GOP have no such scruples. they've weaponized every single American #fear.

(22/x)

there's a reason that right-wing propaganda is always talking about #fear—it's because the propagandists themselves are always frightened. @MattWalshBlog is terrified now and always.

how does he deal with his fears?

he tries, as best he can, to heap them on US.

~Mona Drafter

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