The Fruit of our Labors

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/01/weaponized-narrative-new-battlespace/134284/

Brad Allenby has written an interesting and thought-provoking article over at Defense One, about the 'weaponization' of narratives.  Here are my somewhat disjointed musings on it...

In brief, Allenby asserts that the speed of information exchange has overwhelmed the ability of cultures, institutions, and people to process this information and has caused many to retreat into one of two corners:  Nationalism or Fundamentalism.  From these simplified views of the world, individuals are more vulnerable to 'weaponized' narratives: Fake news tailored to leverage existing belief frameworks in order to manipulate one's behavior.

It's an easy enough thesis to understand, and accurate with respect to the purposes of  Fake News,  but it misses the mark on several points:

• While Allenby is correct that weaponized narratives offer "ringfenced belief communities...cheap passage through a complex world...at the cost of rational understanding", he fails to establish how this is in any way a new phenomenon, or any different than past propaganda efforts.

• Allenby's unspoken, yet clear assumption is that a secular globalist worldview is *the* correct view, and therefore not subject to weaponization.  In fact, ANY unquestioningly held belief leads to vulnerability on the part of the believer.  Even a fundamental and deeply held belief has to be questioned to determine if its assumptions are true and its rationale is logical.

• Allenby misses the point in stating that we're departing from an "Enlightenment" meme, namely, that there is such a thing as truth.  In fact, postmodernism and the "post-fact" culture that has recently emerged is the culmination of, not a departure from, Enlightenment principles.  The subtle, yet critical, elevation of reason above truth that occurred during the Enlightenment has led inescapably to the current view that each individual “makes their own truth”.

• Allenby completely skips the real factors that make individuals vulnerable to weaponized narratives: lack of truthfulness in underlying claims or "facts", and an unwillingness to think logically about the truth and its implications.

• Indeed, Allenby infers that narrative *is* truth and only when it's weaponized does narrative become problematic.  I would counter that while narratives of fiction can be used to communicate general truths (i.e. stories with a moral), narratives composed of hand-selected 'facts' are simply rhetorical tools when used to make specific points (e.g. hand selected sets of facts which paint a political candidate in a certain light while excluding information that might undermine the narrative).

Leaving Allenby behind for a moment, if the lack of truthfulness and the exercise of reason are indeed the source of our vulnerability to weaponized narratives, several questions come to mind:

• What has led us to the current state in which truth is not valued and reason is not exercised?

• What, if any, role has the systematic "dumbing down" of American education and culture played in bringing us to the present state of public discourse?

• What role has political correctness, which stifles the free exchange of ideas - even repugnant ones - played in stunting discourse and driving people into clans of like-minded folks?

This last bullet is where Allenby's attention should be focused, but perhaps this would lead him down the path of questioning his own beliefs?