He can choose what things shall be seen by weaker minds

A pertinent observation from Using the Truth to Lie by Thales. Clever thinking expressed in rich writing.

Picture in your mind a political debate between acquaintances, perhaps on social media, or in meatspace. You make your point, your opponent makes his. Demands for evidence are made. Your opponent cites a media piece. Perhaps an article on CNN, or a reference to a study on The Atlantic. The onus is on you to prove that the item is now incorrect. Yet you cannot do so, for the citations within it are true, even though the spin has rendered it into something it really is not. How do you articulate that?

Consider this CNN headline: Children found in New Mexico compound were training for school shootings, prosecutors say.

What is wrong with it? The headline is true. The children were indeed in a compound in New Mexico, and were indeed training to commit school shootings. Ah, but it omits that this was linked to Islamic terror. Now the article itself sort-of admits this in the last section of the article.

Hogrefe said FBI analysts told him the suspects appeared to be “extremist of the Muslim belief.”

Compare this to how the same event is reported on Fox News: Investigators raided New Mexico compound on tip from terror-tied New York City imam, cleric claims.

Note the difference in spin. One emphasizes ‘school shootings’ and the other ‘terror-tied’ and ‘imam’. This is how the tone of a thing is subtly changed, depending on the journalist’s preferred viewpoint. Of course, aside from Fox News, most media outlets are Left-leaning. So the spin is much more weighted toward the Left, and furthermore Fox News is usually casually dismissed by any Leftist. It is, in essence, banned from the court of polite opinion. And yet, both articles are fundamentally true.

I’ve been on a Tolkien kick of late, for which I blame my friend Francis. And so I caught the connection quite readily when I read the above headlines:

The Stones of Seeing do not lie, and not even the Lord of Barad-dûr can make them do so. He can, maybe, by his will choose what things shall be seen by weaker minds, or cause them to mistake the meaning of what they see. Nonetheless it cannot be doubted that when Denethor saw great forces arrayed against him in Mordor, and more still being gathered, he saw that which truly is.

Denethor was shown nothing but truth by the palantir. It could not be made to lie to him. But Sauron could spin what was shown, and cause Denethor to mistake the meaning of the things he saw. This tactic is readily employed by the media, and in the past it has been extremely effective. The journalist, if confronted on his spin, could escape with the excuse “but everything I have said is true!” We know there is a wrong here, we can sense it, but to prove it unequivocally is difficult, and essentially impossible if the instances are few enough.

I encounter, not many people, but more people than in the past, with whom basic discourse has become close to untenable. They have adopted unworldly beliefs, which if you are to respect (in the sense of avoiding refuting them) preclude constructive engagement. I don't like the situation, but it is unclear to me what can be done.

I live in an area that is deep blue and have many deep blue friends. Critical Theory Social Justice versus Classical Liberal is not the issue. We share common aspirations and experiences even if there is variance in how we interpret things or the significance we attach. There is sufficient mutual respect that we can politely navigate around points of discord to find plenty of common ground and in the process, and over time, perhaps move each other's dial just a bit. No dramatic conversions of fundamental belief perhaps, but an increasing awareness of nuance.

But every now and then I encounter someone whose premises are beyond reach. They believe with deep and abiding conviction that President Trump is a fifth column Russian colluder. They believe that all whites must inherently be prejudiced against blacks and that blacks can do no wrong against whites because of history. They believe that there are whole classes of scientific controversy which can have only one interpretation.

And I don't mean that they are taking a position for rhetorical effect and are doggedly adhering to it. I mean they believe. As in Eric Hoffer's True Believers.

The point isn't that they are a True Believer. The point is that there is no bridge by which to reach them. If you do not accept their predicates wholesale, there is no means by which to share an interpretation of an event. The usual bromides of walk in their shoes, see the world through their eyes, etc. have no application. You can see their view but they will not see anything but their own. They cannot understand alternate interpretations.

The efficient response is not to engage with people whose predicates are unassailable. But that is a bleak position and encourages one to ignore that which might possibly, no matter how improbably, be true. But if there is no mutuality, there is little benefit and much effort.

I guess I need to go back and reread Hoffer and see if he has any advice.