CRTV and Propaganda

To they who have ears to hear, this is an interesting time to watch the evolution of propaganda. I think that anyone who is honest will admit that they have seen their favorite news shows sometimes engage in the practice - and that they have also occasionally stooped so low as to double down on something which may be petty, untrue, or both so as to not admit that their side was wrong.

All of this would be passable as just a part of our cynical modern condition were it not for our lingering desire to play at the enlightenment ideas of radically detached objectivity. One cannot attain this kind of objectivity. Yes, it is possible to be engaged in a struggle...an ongoing struggle...to fairly evaluate the news and current events. But it is a struggle that takes constant self-awareness, constant self-critique, and constant humility. One must practically mutter "I may be wrong, but I think that..." under their breath before every statement.

I acknowledge my strong liberal bias (just as I acknowledge that my gut reactions to things are usually initially conservative, given my background and temperament). I have to acknowledge these things if I'm going to try to live up to the pursuit of truth which philosophy espouses.

But to pretend that one has broken out of all political context and has a genuinely Truthful (with that capitalized "t") take on our situations is naive. To do so right on the heels of declaring a particular political orientation is either egregiously naive or else callously hypocritical. To do so, one must have the mind either of a child or else of a Machiavellian.

Enter individuals like Mark Levin.

Levin has begun a project called "CRTV", or Conservative Review TV, as an outgrowth of his original Levin TV. I've seen their advertisements on YouTube, and their level of flagrant partisan propaganda struck me as particularly horrifying. It is one thing to declare one's self to be conservative. It is quite another to assert that all critical news reporting about the nation and its leaders is "unpatriotic". Such sentiments are the very coinage of authoritarianism, which makes their overabundance among people like Levin and his cohorts at CRTV (people like Michelle Malkin, Gavin McInnes, and Steven Crowder) who all style themselves as radical freethinkers and individualists all the more tragically ironic.

It is also this eagerness to play the part of the scandalized, freedom loving individualist while at the same time enacting the very essence of authoritarian propaganda that makes me think that Levin et al lack the level of self-critiquing humility necessary to be both openly politically engaged individuals and commentators on current events.

Gobsmacked by the naked authoritarianism on display in their YouTube advertisements, I looked up some more examples of Levin's work. I found a commercial wherein, during just the opening ten seconds, he opines that the "liberal media" is biased and then, with barely a pause for breath, goes on to state that "...unless you watch Levin TV, you'll never know the truth!". Again, it is this sort of glaring lack of self-awareness that makes people like Levin uniquely unqualified to give their take on anything of political relevance. If Levin were simply a conservative he could still be a good news commentator if he maintained an air of self-critiquing humility. But he doesn't, and so he'll always fall into these ridiculous situations where he lambastes "the media" for having bias and then goes on to revel in his own bias.

I could assume malicious intent on his part, and suppose that he knows full well what he's doing and that he just doesn't care. It makes him some money to play the part of respectable-Rush-Limbaugh. But I don't want to go the easy route of just assuming absolute cynicism in those who I find wrong. Besides, it is just as likely that he legitimately thinks that he's "telling it like it is".

I went on to watch some more snippets of CRTV and was surprised by none of it. Nothing was shown save for the same sneeringly-delivered talking points that we are already familiar with. None of it was news. It was barely even commentary on the news. Much of it comes across as an attempt at being "edgy", like the fake interview with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the follow up discussion wherein it is claimed that this instance of satire was somehow "BLISTERING". It is the evolution of bad blogging; the mere airing of an opinion without anything of value given therein. The presence of social media personalities like Malkin and "extreme" pundits like McInnes lends more to the air of both supreme self-satisfaction and absolute paucity of substance.

However, I have no doubt that CRTV will be successful. It is precisely the news approach of our time. It is cynical enough to see everything through the lens of propaganda and to simultaneously play along and spin its own propaganda. It features the sort of people who are eager to fight the culture war, but uncaring as to how they go about it.