4 ms·

>You can't game a 76% support for any cause in a few months in a liberal democracy. I suggest reading on Manufacturing Consent. People living in liberal democ

by antris 4y ago

>You can't game a 76% support for any cause in a few months in a liberal democracy. I suggest reading on Manufacturing Consent. People living in liberal democracies are swayed all the time. It has happened over and over again. Probably the most notable example being USA after 9/11. Bush approval rating spiked from 60% to 92%. When scary things happen, media coverage and politicians can together make drastic changes to public opinion. There are wars and crises going on in the world all the time, and media's coverage of them or the lack thereof do change peoples minds on whether they matter or what should be done about them.

bigDinosaur 4y ago
You can point to any change in public sentiment as 'manufactured'. Doesn't mean it actually is. This seems the opposite: aggressive neighbour starts biggest war in Europe since WW2 has influence on public opinion of much smaller and weaker country.
- antris 4y ago
  I already gave examples of media/politican manufactured narratives in the parent post regarding the Nato discussion.
fsloth 4y ago
I love Manufacturing Consent! Even though I don't agree with it's implied worldview I enjoy Chomsky's skill as an eloquent polemiscist. But Chomsky does not really understand the world outside US. I am a Finn and I can guarantee Chomsky does not help you in understanding what happened here. We share 1500km border of Russia. We feel the geopolitic shifts in our backbones. Almost every finnish male regardless of wealth or class would be up in arms as a combatant in the military if Russia was to invade. You can't have more skin in the game than that.
- calf 4y ago
  I see this point a lot but I don't understand it. I'm of both Taiwanese and Hong Kong ethnicity. The world has already seen what China did to Hong Kong's autonomy. But Chomsky's essays and lectures have helped me understand my old countries' political issues more clearly than many other sources, even when he isn't directly talking about Asia. So I don't understand the frequent assertion that Chomsky's arguments or his general political views are invalid when it comes to Ukraine or other European countries.
  - fsloth 4y ago
    Chomsky starts from the position that the general population is ignorant of history and politics and can be programmed by the elites to what ever worldview. He does not start from the position that an individual voter would have skin in the game, or understand the consequences of political and economic actions. Ukrainians feel in their guts their country is being invaded by an genocidal adversary. They are not driven from their homes by US capitalist fed propaganda, but by russain missiles and tanks, they take up arms not because the conscription service ran it's ad targeting the poor and the unemployed, but because their home is invaded. Chomsky simply does not comprehend a situation where he himself would wake up one morning, take his rifle and go defend his country with the local banker, the baker and the taxi driver. I.e. he does not understand when masses actually act out of their own volition to do something. Political events to him seem always to be a "nefarious game programmed by US capitalists to oppress the ploretariat" unless it's something directly hurting US corporate interests and then it's always universally good. In US this view is likely more correct than not as the financial oligarchy is pretty savvy there and does play it's own game. The world and the rules can be quite different outside US.
    - calf 4y ago
      Then will all respect I must disagree. I said that I am ethnically a Hong Konger. When China broke its UK treaty (effectively, a temporary neutralization treaty that granted autonomy to HK for a period of years), I also felt in my gut how horrible that was: it was cultural genocide, in my eyes. But at no point did I need to dismiss Chomsky's theories or find it invalid in scope. I have no problem pointing out how US and UK foreign policy escalated Chinese actions that harmed HK people's autonomy and oppressed young Hong Kongers' democratic party. And unfortunately I have to point out that if anyone objects to such a comparison, that the similarity is obviously not the same in magnitude compared to an international war, but the moral philosophy and political dynamics is a proper analog, just on different scales the way triangles are similar but have different magnitudes. I know this may not fully explain why I disagree with you in Chomsky's validity, but this is at least to suggest to you that someone in analogous situation may have a valid reason for a different assessment of Chomsky, specifically due to how one interprets his leftist ideas.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  So you originally made a claim about liberal democracies, which both Finland and the US are. Now after the counter-argument/proposal you change your tune and claim that a book about how the media operates in the US and by a extrapolation similar liberal democracies has got nothing to do with how Finland works. How convenient.
  - fsloth 4y ago
    I'm trying to explain how I see the situation from Finland and I don't see anything in Chomsky that would help to understand this situation. I'm happy we are joining NATO. I'm mostly sure I was not brainwashed into it by media. I just knew intuitively the second Russian tanks crossed Ukrainian border NATO would be the best option in Finland. I can't prove it but I'm guessing lots of finns felt the same. And it was this collective feeling that spread out through the population spontaneously. There are very few books beyond physics and mathematics with universal truths. And even those need savvy application to real world problems. Problem with chomskyism is that it sees everything through the lense of chomskyism which filters out everything else. It's like a high pass filter attuned to the detection of US human rights violations. Finnish consent was not manufactured. It was caused by the explicit invasion of Ukraine. As a people that has always bordered Russia and has been invaded by Russia for centuries we are quite sensitive to things affecting our relationship with it. You feel it in your bones the weather has changed.
KptMarchewa 4y ago
>Probably the most notable example being USA after 9/11.Probably the most notable example being USA after 9/11. When scary things happen, media coverage and politicians can together make drastic changes to public opinion. That's an weird assertion. People genuinly liked his first reaction.
- antris 4y ago
  Nobody is denying that. That's literally what I said when I said the approval ratings spiked to 92% (which you cut out from the quote). Consent can be manufactured, and the result is that people genuinely consent to the narratives given by the media.

by antris 4y ago

bigDinosaur 4y ago

You can point to any change in public sentiment as 'manufactured'. Doesn't mean it actually is. This seems the opposite: aggressive neighbour starts biggest war in Europe since WW2 has influence on public opinion of much smaller and weaker country.

antris 4y ago
I already gave examples of media/politican manufactured narratives in the parent post regarding the Nato discussion.

fsloth 4y ago

I love Manufacturing Consent! Even though I don't agree with it's implied worldview I enjoy Chomsky's skill as an eloquent polemiscist. But Chomsky does not really understand the world outside US. I am a Finn and I can guarantee Chomsky does not help you in understanding what happened here. We share 1500km border of Russia. We feel the geopolitic shifts in our backbones. Almost every finnish male regardless of wealth or class would be up in arms as a combatant in the military if Russia was to invade. You can't have more skin in the game than that.

calf 4y ago
I see this point a lot but I don't understand it. I'm of both Taiwanese and Hong Kong ethnicity. The world has already seen what China did to Hong Kong's autonomy. But Chomsky's essays and lectures have helped me understand my old countries' political issues more clearly than many other sources, even when he isn't directly talking about Asia. So I don't understand the frequent assertion that Chomsky's arguments or his general political views are invalid when it comes to Ukraine or other European countries.
- fsloth 4y ago
  Chomsky starts from the position that the general population is ignorant of history and politics and can be programmed by the elites to what ever worldview. He does not start from the position that an individual voter would have skin in the game, or understand the consequences of political and economic actions. Ukrainians feel in their guts their country is being invaded by an genocidal adversary. They are not driven from their homes by US capitalist fed propaganda, but by russain missiles and tanks, they take up arms not because the conscription service ran it's ad targeting the poor and the unemployed, but because their home is invaded. Chomsky simply does not comprehend a situation where he himself would wake up one morning, take his rifle and go defend his country with the local banker, the baker and the taxi driver. I.e. he does not understand when masses actually act out of their own volition to do something. Political events to him seem always to be a "nefarious game programmed by US capitalists to oppress the ploretariat" unless it's something directly hurting US corporate interests and then it's always universally good. In US this view is likely more correct than not as the financial oligarchy is pretty savvy there and does play it's own game. The world and the rules can be quite different outside US.
  - calf 4y ago
    Then will all respect I must disagree. I said that I am ethnically a Hong Konger. When China broke its UK treaty (effectively, a temporary neutralization treaty that granted autonomy to HK for a period of years), I also felt in my gut how horrible that was: it was cultural genocide, in my eyes. But at no point did I need to dismiss Chomsky's theories or find it invalid in scope. I have no problem pointing out how US and UK foreign policy escalated Chinese actions that harmed HK people's autonomy and oppressed young Hong Kongers' democratic party. And unfortunately I have to point out that if anyone objects to such a comparison, that the similarity is obviously not the same in magnitude compared to an international war, but the moral philosophy and political dynamics is a proper analog, just on different scales the way triangles are similar but have different magnitudes. I know this may not fully explain why I disagree with you in Chomsky's validity, but this is at least to suggest to you that someone in analogous situation may have a valid reason for a different assessment of Chomsky, specifically due to how one interprets his leftist ideas.
avgcorrection 4y ago
So you originally made a claim about liberal democracies, which both Finland and the US are. Now after the counter-argument/proposal you change your tune and claim that a book about how the media operates in the US and by a extrapolation similar liberal democracies has got nothing to do with how Finland works. How convenient.
- fsloth 4y ago
  I'm trying to explain how I see the situation from Finland and I don't see anything in Chomsky that would help to understand this situation. I'm happy we are joining NATO. I'm mostly sure I was not brainwashed into it by media. I just knew intuitively the second Russian tanks crossed Ukrainian border NATO would be the best option in Finland. I can't prove it but I'm guessing lots of finns felt the same. And it was this collective feeling that spread out through the population spontaneously. There are very few books beyond physics and mathematics with universal truths. And even those need savvy application to real world problems. Problem with chomskyism is that it sees everything through the lense of chomskyism which filters out everything else. It's like a high pass filter attuned to the detection of US human rights violations. Finnish consent was not manufactured. It was caused by the explicit invasion of Ukraine. As a people that has always bordered Russia and has been invaded by Russia for centuries we are quite sensitive to things affecting our relationship with it. You feel it in your bones the weather has changed.

KptMarchewa 4y ago

>Probably the most notable example being USA after 9/11.Probably the most notable example being USA after 9/11. When scary things happen, media coverage and politicians can together make drastic changes to public opinion. That's an weird assertion. People genuinly liked his first reaction.

antris 4y ago
Nobody is denying that. That's literally what I said when I said the approval ratings spiked to 92% (which you cut out from the quote). Consent can be manufactured, and the result is that people genuinely consent to the narratives given by the media.