Editor’s Note: We often discuss the manipulation by the media and have seen the exact issue discussed in this article used against law enforcement. This has been republished with permission by Dr. JC Chaix. His SubStack on the media is important and we are appreciative of his support.
(Source): Please allow me to defend U.S. Representative George Santos (something that was unimaginable to me until the moment I started writing this). By his own admission, Santos struggles to truthfully represent himself, which speaks volumes about his ability to represent his constituents. It also says a lot about the dangers involved in any attempt to describe his character with any sense of certainty. Yet we now have newspapers and a Harvard law instructor suggesting that Santos is a white supremacist. After all, he clearly“flashed a white power symbol” during congressional roll call. Even just the intellectually fanciful suggestion of such an idea should be recognized as the epitome of moronity.
The problem with postmodern media and mediacy…
Never mind the accused; pay attention to the accuser…
Before publishing what seems to be little more than a hare-brained association ignorant of all other contrary indicators (although I’m still hoping its mistaken folly and parodical satire), someone should have directly asked Santos about his purported hand gesturing. But nothing of the sort has been reported or mentioned thus far. We have yet to hear what Santos has to say, which hopefully, at least in this case, may bear some resemblance of truth for a change. Hence, thanks to unchecked accusations and not much else, we’ve been left with plenty of interpretation and nothing of intention. And therein lies a significant socio-cultural problem regarding media and mediacy and our collective lack of media skepticism…
Just to be clear, in this case we have an (idiotic) accusation based on a wild association being held up as something newsworthy. The problem here—and the much bigger meddling problem in American culture prohibiting civility and understanding—seems to be our tolerance for media malpractice. We’re allowing the media to put forth, publish, and legitimize opinions as news, as a representation of facts, as a newsworthy and meritorious darstellung of facts and certainty—when it is clearly nothing but an opinion based on an interpretation (and seemingly imbecilic one at that).
For so many logical, ethical, moral reasons, and for the sake of civility in general, we should be seeking to understand intention before we allow ourselves to rush forth to judgment—or be misled by absurd accusations. Indeed, we should be demanding accountability from those offering such absurdity, especially when they do so without any balance of interpretation and intent.
Symbols of “white supremacy” and language of The Third Reich…
I mean, why be content with just a single-handed accusation? Obviously, if we compare historical media, then clearly Santos seems to be closely styling himself after Hitler…
About the only thing missing from such an idiotic claim would be some accusatory detail about the position of Santos’ lips, which in the realm of postmodern media absurdity could purportedly indicate the German phrase “Sieg Hei—” (sorry, I think you get the point about the utter nonsense of such absurd accusations). In his defense, Rep. Santos is doing nothing of the sort. But skepticism and critical thinking are easily dismissed nowadays and aren’t going to help prevent his accusers from manipulating media to fabricate false accusations against him (like I just did).
And that’s a part of my point: without vigorous discourse among the accuser and the accused, we’re not far off from the subjectification and oppression that linguist/philosopher Viktor Klemperer witnessed through the manipulation of symbols, words, and meaning during the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s. If Klemperer’s insightful diary Language of the Third Reich: LTI: Lingua Tertii Imperii, is any indicative lesson about history repeating itself, then it seems we’re letting the same kind of mediacy and media manipulation grow wild and establish firm roots in American soil.
The problem is the media—the mediation and manipulation between the accuser and the accused. As a legislator and law maker, Santos is getting an early introduction about how how false accusations often go unchecked and unquestioned in the media. This isn’t limited to law makers of course, law enforcement professionals have suffered plenty of “white supremacist” accusations for years. The lies and accusations surrounding the death of George Floyd is textbook example of mediacy and media manipulation as well. It’s also a perfect example of cowardly police and political leaders failing to be courageous and stand up to false accusations and woke-minded nonsense.
The dangers of mediated interpretations/accusations
In closing, please allow me to be irrefutably clear: if we allow the media to espouse interpretation —without any balance or mention of intention from those who have been accused of an incidental hand gesture or worse—we’re permitting the very fate Klemperer warned us about decades ago. Moreover, as Klemperer revealed long ago, it’s often not the accused but the accusers who pose the greater threat to democracy, civility, and humanity. If so, then Santos’ accusers—and the media—are the ones overtly demonstrating neo-Nazi tendencies, which is a paradox that should deeply concern us all…
Dr. JC Chaix is an expert in strategic media, semiotics, text analysis/decryption, & propaganda. He was the first person in 400+ years to discover and illustrate the extraordinary textual, mathematical, and compositional correlations in The Revelation (King James Bible, 1611). You can read his findings here and follow his SubStack here.
