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[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I read enough of 1619 to see that it was attempting to connect a bunch of things around a narrative that made slavery the most defining and essential element of the country's founding and operation since. It was factual to an extent, as I noted, but also trafficking in sophistry. You're either on that Woke Bus and willing to buy that stuff, or you're not. (In which case it's a target for critique.) It has a value, and I don't mean to suggest it doesn't. But it's also marbled with BS arguments. Cleverly so. It's impossible to take it apart - like a huge legal brief filled with carefully assorted out of context or slightly misquoted and misapplied authorities.

It has an agenda, and that agenda is more important to those invested in it, and those authoring it, than being dryly factual.* But that's progressivism in a nutshell, isn't it? The agenda is so important, so righteous, that facts should not stand in its way.

Conservatives think the same way. They'll countenance even worse things, like flagrant lying, to get what they want. They believe they're in a battle for the soul of the country, so turning one's head to QAnon loons, or trafficking in lies about the election, is fine.

This isn't equivalence, by the way. Conservatives are more overtly, openly anti-factual than progressives. But both are quite willing to chuck facts out the window as needed. Progressives just do it less. I think because they tend to have more defensible positions, the media coddles rather than scrutinizes them, and they tend to be better at messaging.

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* Anything started with a goal of creating a certain narrative operates from a find-the-facts-and-fit-them-into-the-narrative than a find-the-facts-and-let-them-tell-the-story position. The former is like research funded by industry participants. The studies on climate change funded by Exxon are going to be a whole lot different than those funded by the government.

Thank you for the confirmation that you haven't read any of the 1619 project.

And, dude, you're not even hotter than Luxembourg.