Mostly Monday Reads: The Word of the Day is Nescience

“Martha-Ann Alito is single-handedly making flags great again.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The best thing about reading is learning new things and possibly finding a new word. I’ve always aced the university exams’ sections on vocabulary, and the Grammarly app hoisted upon me by Purdue weekly reminds me I still hang in the top users for nerdy words and tone.  Don’t ask me about punctuation, though. Grammarly reminds me daily that I don’t use enough commas. So today, The Atlantic‘s Peter Wehner gave me the present of a new world.   According to Meriam Webster, nescience is a noun that means a lack of knowledge or awareness.  Its closest synonym is the word ignorance.  I wish I had known there was a great synonym out there for the word ignorance when I was writing on all the crap coming out of the Supreme Court last week, along with the Alito lies around his wife’s red-flaggery (with apologist to A. de Blácam.)

Now for today’s example use. “The Motivated Ignorance of Trump Supporters. They can’t claim they didn’t know.”

Motivated ignorance refers to willfully blinding oneself to facts. It’s choosing not to know. In many cases, for many people, knowing the truth is simply too costly, too psychologically painful, too threatening to their core identity. Nescience is therefore incentivized; people actively decide to remain in a state of ignorance. If they are presented with strong arguments against a position they hold, or compelling evidence that disproves the narrative they embrace, they will reject them. Doing so fends off the psychological distress of the realization that they’ve been lying to themselves and to others.

Motivated ignorance is a widespread phenomenon; most people, to one degree or another, employ it. What matters is the degree to which one embraces it, and the consequences of doing so. In the case of MAGA world, the lies that Trump supporters believe, or say they believe, are obviously untrue and obviously destructive. Since 2016 there’s been a ratchet effect, each conspiracy theory getting more preposterous and more malicious. Things that Trump supporters wouldn’t believe or accept in the past have since become loyalty tests. Election denialism is one example. The claim that Trump is the target of “lawfare,” victim to the weaponization of the justice system, is another.

I have struggled to understand how to view individuals who have not just voted for Trump but who celebrate him, who don’t merely tolerate him but who constantly defend his lawlessness and undisguised cruelty. How should I think about people who, in other domains of their lives, are admirable human beings and yet provide oxygen to his malicious movement? How complicit are people who live in an epistemic hall of mirrors and have sincerely—or half-sincerely—convinced themselves they are on the side of the angels?

Throughout my career I’ve tried to resist the temptation to make unwarranted judgments about the character of people based on their political views. For one thing, it’s quite possible my views on politics are misguided or distorted, so I exercise a degree of humility in assessing the views of others. For another, I know full well that politics forms only a part of our lives, and not the most important part. People can be personally upstanding and still be wrong on politics.

But something has changed for me in the Trump era. I struggle more than I once did to wall off a person’s character from their politics when their politics is binding them to an unusually—and I would say undeniably—destructive person. The lies that MAGA world parrots are so manifestly untrue, and the Trump ethic is so manifestly cruel, that they are difficult to set aside.

If a person insists, despite the overwhelming evidence, that Trump was the target of an assassination plot hatched by Biden and carried out by the FBI, this is more than an intellectual failure; it is a moral failure, and a serious one at that. It’s only reasonable to conclude that such Trump supporters have not made a good-faith effort to understand what is really and truly happening. They are choosing to live within the lie, to invoke the words of the former Czech dissident and playwright Vaclav Havel.

One of the criteria that need to be taken into account in assessing the moral culpability of people is how absurd the lies are that they are espousing; a second is how intentionally they are avoiding evidence that exposes the lies because they are deeply invested in the lie; and a third is is how consequential the lie is.

It’s one thing to embrace a conspiracy theory that is relevant only to you and your tiny corner of the world. It’s an entirely different matter if the falsehood you’re embracing and promoting is venomous, harming others, and eroding cherished principles, promoting violence and subverting American democracy.

This is the rant part of this long read, with plenty of examples and sources to back this up. It’s brilliant, so forgive me if it is considered an excessively long quote for ‘fair use.’ I’m also feeling better because Grammarly flagged a lot of comma mishaps in the article, which made me feel even more comfortable with its author.  I’ve got the Oxford comma down and am happy about that accomplishment. Go read the backup to the rant.  It’s important.

In this monolithic divided between those choosing nescience over knowledge, there’s still a group of undecideds.  It’s difficult to believe.  I’m using a Washington Post article today, and we’re about to see if Katherine Graham’s legacy will end shortly as some of the worst of Fleet Street do a hostile takeover. “The 2024 ‘Deciders’: Who are they and what makes them tick? Six in 10 key state voters turn out sporadically or are not firmly committed, Post-Schar poll finds.” Politics has been my blood sport of choice since Junior High School. I confess total nescience and disinterest in anything remotely sportISH. My role model was Shirley Chisholm, and I couldn’t wait to get my chance to vote.

In a nation where many voters have made up their minds, Denning and Etter are among the voters whose decisions about the presidential race are neither firmly fixed nor whose participation is wholly predictable. As a group, these voters do not exactly fit the description of being undecided. Some lean toward a specific candidate. Some even say they will definitely vote for that candidate. But age or voting history or both leave open the question of how they will vote in November — if they vote at all.

The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University surveyed 3,513 registered voters in the six key battleground states. The survey was completed in April and May,before a New York jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts in the hush money trial involving an adult-film actress. Of the 3,513 surveyed, 2,255 were classified as “Deciders” — those who fit into one or more categories: They voted in only one of the last two presidential elections; are between ages 18 and 25; registered to vote since 2022; did not definitely plan to vote for either Biden or Trump this year; or switched their support between 2016 and 2020.

They are also classified as Deciders because they will have enormous influence in determining the winner of what are expected to be another round of close contests in the battleground states.

In 2020, a shift of about 43,000 votes from Biden to Trump in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin would have changed the outcome. As a result, it is common to see suggestions that the 2024 presidential election will not only be decided by just six states but by a relatively few voters in those states. While it is broadly true that a fraction of the total electorate will decide the election, the universe of voters whose behavior is not truly predictable is fairly large. By the definitions used in this survey, 61 percent of voters in those six states can be called Deciders. That includes 33 percent who are sporadic voters and 44 percent who are uncommitted to Biden or Trump, with 17 percent fitting both of these categories.

This article in the Independent shows how amazing science can be. It also gives us a window into the concept of gender. “Woman who is ’95 per cent genetically male’ gives birth to twins. Woman had no ovaries and 95% male genes, but was fertilised using IVF.”

A woman who is “genetically male” has had twins, after three years of pioneering treatment.

The new mother looks like a woman, but has 95% male chromosomes.

Though she has no ovaries and has never menstruated, doctors in India were able to help the woman conceive and give birth to the children through treatment that helped develop her uterus, which was described as infantile.

“This is something similar to a male delivering twins,” Sunil Jindal, the infertility specialist who administered the treatment, told the Times of India.

The woman herself did not know she had the condition, according to Sky News. She was “flabbergasted” when she was told but her husband was supportive.

The mother’s condition is known as XY gonadal dysgenesis. That means that the woman has external female characteristics, but doesn’t have functional gonads or ovaries. Those organs are usually necessary for reproduction, helping to create the eggs from which babies will grow.

Instead, doctors developed embryos using a donor egg and then placed that in the uterus, after it had been treated. That allowed the woman to become pregnant.

Doctors then had to help the woman carry the pregnancy “in a body not designed for it”, as Anshu Jindal, medical director at the hospital that delivered the babies, described it to the Times of India.

The two babies, one boy and one girl, were delivered through caesarean section.

There have only been four or five cases where women with this condition have been able to give birth, according to experts. Even in women without the condition, assisted reproduction has a success rate of about 35%-40%.

I can only imagine what Alito and Thomas would make of a court case brought up by some fetus fetishist judge in nowhere Texas.  So, there appears to be a bit of a rebellion in the news department of The Washington Post over its new overlords from across the pond.  “Incoming Post editor tied to self-described ‘thief’ who claimed role in his reporting. Unpublished book drafts and other documents raise questions about Robert Winnett’s journalistic record just months before he is to assume a top newsroom role.”

The alleged offense was trying to steal a soon-to-be-released copy of former prime minister Tony Blair’s memoir.

The suspect arrested by London police in 2010 was John Ford, a once-aspiring actor who has since admitted to an extensive career using deception and illegal means to obtain confidential information for Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper. Facing potential prosecution, Ford called a journalist he said he had collaborated with repeatedly — and trusted to come to his rescue.

Winnett moved quickly to connect Ford with a lawyer, discussed obtaining an untraceable phone for future communications and reassured Ford that the “remarkable omerta” of British journalism would ensure his clandestine efforts would never come to light, according to draft chapters Ford wrote in 2017 and 2018 that were shared with The Post

That journalist, according to draft book chapters Ford later wrote recounting his ordeal, was Robert Winnett, a Sunday Times veteran who is set to become editor of The Washington Post later this year.

Winnett, currently a deputy editor of the Telegraph, did not respond to a detailed list of questions. Ford, who previously declined to be interviewed, did not respond to questions about the draft book chapters.

Winnett is now poised to take over the top editorial position in The Post’s core newsroom, scheduled to start after the November U.S. presidential election. He was appointed by Post CEO and Publisher William Lewis, who has mentored Winnett and worked with him at two British papers. Lewis is also mentioned in Ford’s draft chapters.

NPR’s David Folkenflik had an interesting take on this information, linking it to Rupert Murdoch. “New ‘Washington Post’ chiefs can’t shake their past in London.”  BB pointed me to this story last night.

A vast chasm divides common practices in the fiercely competitive confines of British journalism, where Lewis and Winnett made their mark, and what passes muster in the American news media. In several instances, their alleged conduct would raise red flags at major U.S. outlets, including The Washington Post.

Among the episodes: a six-figure payment for a major scoop; planting a junior reporter in a government job to secure secret documents; and relying on a private investigator who used subterfuge to secure private documents from their computers and phones. The investigator was later arrested.

On Saturday evening, The New York Times disclosed a specific instance in which a former reporter implicated both Lewis and Winnett in reporting that he believed relied on documents that were fraudulently obtained by a private investigator.

Lewis did not respond to detailed and repeated requests for comment from NPR for this article. Winnett also did not reply to specific queries sent directly to him and through the Telegraph Media Group.

The stakes are high. Post journalists ask what values Lewis and Winnett will import to the paper, renowned for its coverage of the Nixon-era Watergate scandals and for holding the most powerful figures in American life to account in the generations since.

“U.K. journalism often operates at a faster pace and it plays more fast and loose around the edges,” says Emily Bell, former media reporter and director of digital content for the British daily The Guardian.

Allegations in court that Lewis sought to cover up a wide-ranging phone hacking scandal more than a dozen years ago at Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers are proving to be a flashpoint for the new Post publisher.

On at least four occasions since being named to lead the Post last fall, Lewis tried to head off unwelcome scrutiny from Post journalists — and from NPR.

In December, before he started the job, Lewis intensely pressured me not to report on the accusations, which arose in British suits against Murdoch’s newspapers in the U.K. He also repeatedly offered me an exclusive interview on his business plans for the Post if I dropped the story. I did not. The ensuing NPR piece offered the first detailed reports on new material underlying allegations from Prince Harry and others.

Immediately after that article ran, Lewis told then-Executive Editor Sally Buzbee it was not newsworthy and that her teams should not follow it, according to a person with contemporaneous knowledge. That intervention is being reported here for the first time. The Post did not run a story.

Lewis has denied the hacking coverup claims and is not a defendant in the lawsuits. Nor is he being criminally prosecuted. Lewis has said he acted to ensure people who were hacked by Murdoch’s papers were compensated.

As previously reported, on separate occasions in March and May, Lewis angrily pressured Buzbee to ignore the story as further developments unfolded in court.

You may read more salacious details at the link.  One more article about nescience.  This one is from Amanda Marcotte, who writes at Salon. “A tradwife drops a racist slur: Why the right’s trolling economy made Lilly Gaddis’ rise inevitable. Cashing in as a “cancel culture” martyr is getting harder, so attention addicts have to get more extreme.”

Let’s stipulate up front that it is theoretically possible that Lilly Gaddis, wannabe “tradwife” influencer, did not realize what she was doing when she used the n-word in a recent cooking TikTok. Her defenders, far more numerous now than in her more anonymous past, offer an “innocence by ignorance” excuse. But even not knowing the story, you’d be right to be skeptical. After all, she didn’t just let the word slip — she filmed, edited, and posted the content online. If you actually watch the clip that has gone viral, it becomes even harder to ignore the likelihood that it was a deliberate word choice

In the video, Gaddis is decked out in the standard tradwife gear of a cleavage-baring sundress and a cross necklace to justify the sexualized marketing. She is vaguely arranging food while providing a rant tailor-made to tickle the reactionary male brain. She accuses immigrants and Black women of being “gold-diggers,” while insisting Christian white girls like herself will love you, pathetic male viewer, solely for your masculine might, even if you are “broke.” She is going for maximum shock value, dropping not just the n-word, but other five-dollar curses that are clearly meant to to offer a transgressive thrill, coming from a young woman playing at being a more scantily clad June Cleaver.

But just in case there was any lingering doubt that this was a deliberate play for attention, Gaddis soon confirmed it in a tweet responding to the outrage: “Thanks black community for helping to launch my new career in conservative media! You all played your role well like the puppets you are.”

This wannabe Christian influencer is so obviously out for attention, so it’s tempting to ignore this story in hopes of not letting her have it. Still, Gaddis is an important illustration of the vicious cycle of greed and far-right radicalism driven by the social media ecosystem. The field of strivers wishing to be America’s next top troll is growing faster than can be maintained by the existing audience of incels, white supremacists and other miscreants radicalized online. Becoming the next big thing means attracting the coin of the authoritarian realm: liberal outrage. Yet as liberals get numb to the constant barrage of fascist provocation, the trolls have no choice but to up the ante. So this is how we get a woman in an apron pretending to cook on TikTok while dropping the most notorious of racial slurs.

I think I have done enough damage today.  Fortunately, we’ve had a few days of rain and clouds, so the heat is off its highs from the 90s.  Unfortunately, the humidity is oppressive. Thank goodness for long, billowy, cotton sun dresses.  I hope you have a good week.  BTW, “Trump challenges Biden to cognitive test, but confuses name of doctor who tested him.” This happened last night.  Donnie Demento is just getting worse and worse with every rally.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?