Name: When The Narrative Replaces The News
Brand: substack.com
SKU: substack-com-107
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

When The Narrative Replaces The News

preview

SubscribeSign inShare this postWhen The Narrative Replaces The Newsandrewsullivan.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailMar 19, 2021Share this postWhen The Narrative Replaces The Newsandrewsullivan.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailanyThe suspected attacker in Pittsburgh allegedly said he wanted to “kill Jews” while rampaging inside a synagogue. Police said the man charged with killing people at an El Paso Walmart told them that he was targeting “Mexicans” that day. And the man who massacred Black parishioners inside a Charleston church detailed his racist motivations at length.there is no evidence for itMany of us woke up yesterday to the horrific news of the vicious and deadly attack in Atlanta, the latest in a wave of&nbsp;increasing&nbsp;violence targeting the&nbsp;Asian, Asian-American,&nbsp;and Pacific Islander&nbsp;community … This violence has a history.&nbsp;From Chinese Exclusion to the nativist rhetoric amplified during the pandemic, anti-Asian hostility has deep roots in American culture.None of them mentioned that he killed two white people as well — a weird thing for a white supremacist to do — and injured a Latino. None pointed out that the connection between the spas was that the killer had visited them. None explained why, if he were associating Asian people with Covid19, he would nonetheless expose himself to the virus by having sex with them, or regard these spas as “safer” than other ways to have quick sex. intentimpactdidn’tWe don’t know all the nuances of this case. Again, we shouldn’t take a killer’s confession at face value. Or his roommates’ memories. We may yet be surprised by some other factor — including perhaps anti-Asian bias that has so far been&nbsp;missing. (One rumor aired in Korean media, but unconfirmed anywhere else, is that the killer conveniently cried “I want to kill all Asians!” before the murder spree. ) EverythingandThere’s a reason for this shift. Treating the individual as unique, granting him or her rights, defending the presumption of innocence, relying on provable, objective evidence: these core liberal principles are precisely what critical theory aims to deconstruct. And the elite media is in the vanguard of this war on liberalism. This doesn’t prove much either, of course. Anti-Asian bias, like all biases, can infect anyone of any race, and the sample size is small and in one place. But it sure complicates the “white supremacy” case that the mainstream media simply assert as fact. But the theory behind hate crimes law is that these crimes matter more because they terrify so many beyond the actual victim. And so it seems to me that the media’s primary role in cases like these is providing some data and perspective on what’s actually happening, to allay irrational fear. Instead they contribute to the distortion by breathlessly hyping one incident without a single provable link to any go this — and scare the bejeezus out of people unnecessarily. The media is supposed to subject easy, convenient rush-to-judgment narratives to ruthless empirical testing. Now, for purely ideological reasons, they are rushing to promote ready-made narratives, which actually point away from the empirical facts. To run sixteen separate pieces on anti-Asian white supremacist misogynist hate based on one possibly completely unrelated incident is not journalism. It’s fanning irrational fear in the cause of ideological indoctrination. And it appears to be where all elite media is headed.That link also takes you to more remarkable emails from Dish readers, this time responding to our episode with Sally Satel. One reader is an expert on the opioid epidemic and shares his own personal insights on addiction from his time in AA: “I cannot think of another institution in American life that fosters these kinds of benevolent interactions with people from opposite ends of the political spectrum.” If you remember the old reader threads from the Dish, this page is where we’re building and expanding on them. I’m really honored to have the smartest readership on the web. And deeply grateful to the guardian of Dishness, Chris Bodenner, who makes all this happen every week.The episodes are really improving. You seem to be more receptive to the guest and are in more of an exchange. The more you can get them to speak, the more we learn. You have been challenging the guests with good counterpoints and have been brave and fair taking them to task. You have started to prepare well.This is what I love about the Dish and why I pay. It is what this space can be. Thank you so much, and know you inspire a white middle-aged non-college graduate like me to learn more and be fair. Thank you and the whole Dish staff.The whole Dish staff — Chris — thanks you back, as do I.contest@andrewsullivan.comThe results for the last week’s contest are coming in a separate email to subscribers later today.dish@andrewsullivan.comSee you next Friday.Like this postShare this postWhen The Narrative Replaces The Newsandrewsullivan.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailNo posts© 2022 Andrew Sullivan ∙ ∙ &nbsp;is the home for great writingThis site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please or unblock scripts

SubscribeSign inShare this postWhen The Narrative Replaces The Newsandrewsullivan.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailMar 19, 2021Share this postWhen The Narrative Replaces The Newsandrewsullivan.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailanyThe suspected attacker in Pittsburgh allegedly said he wanted to “kill Jews” while rampaging inside a synagogue. Police said the man charged with killing people at an El Paso Walmart told them that he was targeting “Mexicans” that day. And the man who massacred Black parishioners inside a Charleston church detailed his racist motivations at...

public

Andrew Sullivan

A place for independent writing. We make it simple for a writer to start a paid newsletter.

When The Narrative Replaces The News

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS