a The Daily Insult


The Daily Insult
 
Anything approaching a fully satisfactory explanation of the phenomena of knowledge requires the co-operative efforts of all those who believe that there is a world of real existence independent of human minds and that this real existence can be truly known as it really is.
— Francis Parker, “Realistic Epistemology
 
 
In this section, I shall post brief discussions of errors in logic in commercials, news items, fiction — errors that just vex me. I just need a place to get this stuff out of my system. [Note: “Daily” in this context should not lead the reader to expect that I will be posting something every day.]
 
 
April 29, 2018
 
Tom Brokaw, a former major big-shot NBC news anchorman, has been accused by a journalist who used to work at NBC — Linda Vester — of making predatory sexual advances at her.

Ever since that story broke, the news has been filled with one thing, and it hasn’t been information that would confirm or discredit her story, or even with screeds from #MeToo. Instead we are told repeatedly that Rachel Maddow and other colleagues of Brokow have put their names to a statement assuring us that “Tom” had treated them with “fairness and respect.”

And that’s what the major media present as relevant. What an insult to the intellect of anyone who would ask the simple question, “Is Linda Vester telling the truth?”

Surely everyone reading my words knows perfectly well that a man can treat every woman in the world with fairness and respect, and still one particular woman, taking no action whatever, hits him — as it were, out of nowhere — with “the Thunderbolt,” so that she occupies his thoughts, imagination, and fantasies day and night.

I said, “everyone,” and that includes, of course, Maddow and Brokow’s other colleagues. So why are they saying it? They know perfectly well that he could have been fair and respectful to them and still out of simple human weakness have lost his mind over this other woman. They’re in the news business after all. It’s not as though they haven’t all of them heard stories like this in their careers.

No. I think it is obvious that they are not interested in the truth. They are interested in diverting our attention from the question of what Brokow did, to their high opinion of him. And that they expect our attention to be so easily diverted merely shows their contempt not only for the intellect of the colleagues who they know will endlessly report it, but for the intellect of everyone who hears it. Bah! 
 

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