Zyklon B

[M]ost people living in the United States today—certainly more than half—are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.

My blood ran cold when I read those words. 

It was in the New York Times that I came across that assertion (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/opinion/trump-republican-party.html). That article linked to another article in Vox (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/4/1/22356594/conservatives-right-wing-democracy-claremont-ellmers), which in turn linked to the fons et origo of the quote, an essay by Glenn Ellmers entitled “‘Conservatism’ is no Longer Enough” in a publication of the Claremont Institute, The American Mind (https://americanmind.org/salvo/why-the-claremont-institute-is-not-conservative-and-you-shouldnt-be-either/).

In an earlier post, I pointed out that those entities known as “think tanks” are places where anything but thinking is rewarded. What the tanks spew out is propaganda in support of their political or economic bias. I recall reading several years ago about a miscreant being booted out of a conservative tank for deviating from the party line. I wish I had bothered to save the page.

The party line of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy (to give it its full name) was clearly stated by Ellmers in his essay:

Claremont was one of the very few serious institutions on the right to make an intellectual case for Trumpism.

Whether Claremont elsewhere was able to amass enough brainpower to make such an “intellectual” case is not important at the moment, as we focus on Ellmers’ article. Actually, one can dispose of the intellectual pretense of the piece by red-flagging two fallacies that its argument has at its heart: The “No-True-Scotsman” fallacy and solipsism. 

The “No-True-Scotsman” fallacy is an attempt to preserve the purity of one’s prejudices by defining out any examples that are contradictory (https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2011/06/drop-puck.html). Thus, Ellmers alleges that his political opponents do not share the beliefs and attitudes which he claims are those of “True Americans”: 

They do not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions, and ideals that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people.

What are the beliefs of “True Americans”? Why those that Ellmers solipsistically has established as reality in his own little mind.

In truth, Ellmers does not bother to exemplify what separates the “True” from the “False” Americans. All discussion is conducted on a plane of miasmic abstraction and vagueness. He claims, 

[a]uthentic Americans still want to have decent lives. They want to work, worship, raise a family, and participate in public affairs without being treated as insolent upstarts in their own country. Therefore, we need a conception of a stable political regime that allows for the good life.

What in hell does that signify? Do Ellmers’ opponents not want to “work, worship, raise a family, etc”?

But somehow it all comes down to “[t]he U.S. Constitution no longer works.” 

So what to do?

Accept the fact that what we need is a counter-revolution. Learn some useful skills, stay healthy, and get strong. (One of my favorite weightlifting coaches likes to say, “Strong people are harder to kill, and more useful generally.”)

This counter-revolution (“true” patriots revolting against their own country?) is to prevent “the victory of progressive tyranny.” “See you in the gulag,” says Ellmers.

Need we point out that from the Trumpian chants of “Lock her up!” and “Hang Mike Pence” to the erection of a gallows on the Capitol grounds it has been the rightwingers who have threatened punishment and death? And it is Ellmers who brings killing into the equation.

*

And so when Ellmers ends his piece with the call: “It’s all hands on deck now,” my blood runs cold. What would ensue in the wake of a triumph by Ellmersian forces? How do you rule over an America where more than half the population are allegedly unAmerican and would stand as a threat to those “True” Americans who want to work and (need we be reminded) worship? Ellmers has gulags on his mind (better us, he’s probably thinking, than the other guys setting them up). But how are you going to contain 81 million people who voted for Biden?

Surely they'll come up with a better way of nullifying non-American Americans.

My blood runs cold.  

 

The White Roller

Woody Allen was a screamingly funny stand-up comedian. His shtick was that of an unaffected loner who shrugged off the bullshit of the world around him.

As the years went on he became a successful filmmaker. And one wondered about his Garbo-esque vanting to be alone and free from celebrity scrutiny. As New York magazine once noted, how did that stance mesh with driving around New York City in a white Rolls-Royce? Or, as I observed to myself, with occupying a humongously-priced courtside seat at New York Knicks basketball games?

It became clear over the years—at least to me(1)—that he was far from unaffected and certainly a bullshitter. And he admits this in his new book:

“I have no insights, no lofty thoughts, no understanding of most poems that do not begin, ‘Roses are red, violets are blue,’” he writes. “What I do have, however, is a pair of black-rimmed glasses, and I propose that it is these specs, combined with a flair for appropriating snippets from erudite sources too deep for me to grasp but which can be utilized in my work to give the deceptive impression of knowing more than I do that keeps this fairy tale afloat.”(2)

That is something that I had always suspected; underneath the intellectual pose was no substance. What he was able to do was to attract an audience of similar poseurs, who pronounced shibboleth correctly and so were safe in the bosom of the church of Woody Allen.

*

Since the autobiography was unceremoniously slipped into the bookworld last week, there have been few reviews out so far (you could count them on one hand, less a finger or two). Talya Zax in the Forward is very astute in her review (for which clearsightedness, she gets blasted by Allenistas in the comments):

He’s the sole star of his own sympathies, describing his friends, family and enemies exclusively by how their actions and feelings impact him, and never trying to understand or empathize with them.(3)

I guess I appreciate her review because she echoes my observations in the previous blog post about Allen’s solipsistic self-centeredness.

*

Some other points I have gleaned from the reviews:

Allen engages in a screw-and-tell session, listing actresses and others he has bedded. The shlemiel as superstud seems to be the theme.Women are objectified, as Dwight Garner notes in the Times review:

Nearly every time a woman is mentioned, there’s a gratuitous pronouncement on her looks. Early on, he chases “delectable bohemian little kumquats” in New York City. While in London filming “Casino Royale” (1967), a James Bond spoof, he writes, “one could stroll on the Kings Road and pick up the most adorable birds in their miniskirts.” Birds? I kept waiting for him to sail to Australia to scoop up a basket of “Sheilas.”

Then there are the Mia-wars. I won’t attempt to place myself in the attic in Connecticut, where something or nothing happened between Allen and seven-year-old Dylan Farrow. However, Allen’s dealing with the Mia issues comes across as crazed as the hinged ravings of internet conspiracists. Again Garner:

[Allen] broaches the idea that Farrow may have slept with a state judge and a state attorney in order to try and influence their opinions during a custody battle. . . . Allen suggests that [their son] Ronan was groomed by Farrow to despise him. He alleges that Farrow had Ronan undergo cosmetic surgery to add a few inches to his height, which required the breaking and rebreaking of his legs.

*

Allen near the end of the book writes,

Not believing in a hereafter, I really can’t see any practical difference if people remember me as a film director or a pedophile or at all. All that I ask is my ashes be scattered close to a pharmacy.”

Not very funny(4)—as he once was as a stand-up comedian.

But then again, as his life has proven, he’s not a stand-up guy.

***

(1) I have written about Allen before: 

https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-church-of-woody-allen.html

(2) The first line of his autobiography reads in part, “Like Holden [Caulfield], I don’t feel like going into all that David Copperfield kind of crap. . . .” He can’t do better than to identify with a teenager? 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/books/review-apropos-of-nothing-memoir-woody-allen.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Books

(3) https://forward.com/culture/books/442575/woody-allen-memoir-review-apropos-of-nothing/#article-comments

(4) I must admit that while early on I found Allen’s comedy act hilarious, I was disappointed with his writing, where he seemed believe that silly non sequiturs equaled funny.

The Church of Woody Allen

This gold watch—on his deathbed, my grandfather—sold it to me.

***

In his stand-up comedian days, Woody Allen was a very funny man. He presented his audience with a world in which even the clichés were askew. Hamlet saw a tragic universe that was “out of joint”; Allen’s was a comic one.  

And then he graduated to the movies.

*

In the middle of  “Hannah and Her Sisters” David, an architect, is asked about his favorite buildings:

                         APRIL

                   (looking only at David)

            What are your favorite buildings,

            David?

                         DAVID

            You want to see some?

                         APRIL

                   (nodding)

            Oh, yeah.

                         DAVID

            Well, let's do it.

                         APRIL

                   (looking at David)

             Great.

David starts the car and the movie cuts to an unfolding

visual excursion through New York City's landmark buildings,

as seen from the trio's point of view in the moving Jaguar.

Inspiring classical music plays in the background.

The series of shots includes the Dakota, complete with

surrounding winter trees, the Graybar building on Lexington

Avenue, an incredibly ornate building on Seventh Avenue and

Fifty-eighth Street, a red-stone church, an old building

with embellished, bulging windows on West Forty-fourth

Street, the Art Deco Chrysler Building, a red-brick building,

Abigail Adams's old stone house, and the Pomander Walk

nestled off Broadway on the Upper West Side.

*

What was it that bothered me about this episode—which flashed on the screen a number of buildings that I appreciate—in a film that I enjoyed?

It was the unspoken assertion of what is the good without any of the hard work of analysis or explanation. Woody Allen has smiled on these buildings, and, so, they have been blessed. The word that defines this is “ipsedixitism,” the claim of authority in an argument, not by presentation of evidence, but by “he said it.” It’s all talk the good talk the good reference, talk the good name drop. The filmmaker as pseud.

*

I first had embryonic intimations of Allen’s ipsedixitism when I saw “Annie Hall” (which I also liked). In every culture clash between the unsophisticated midwesterner and Woody Allen’s hip New Yorker, Alvy, the former is automatically wrong (I mean, come on: “I’m gonna have a pastrami on white bread with, uh, mayonnaise and tomatoes and lettuce”) and the latter is right (this is what she should be reading: Death and Western Thought  and The Denial of Death). 

But it is important to note here that whenever Allen goes into ipsedixitism mode his audience is with him—because he is with them; he is flattering them by reproducing their cultural prejudices. Consider the following scene in “Annie Hall”:

It's a beautiful sunny day in Central Park.  People are sitting on benches, 

others strolling, some walking dogs.  One woman stands feeding cooing pigeons.

Alvy's and Annie's voices are heard off screen as they observe the scene before

them.  An older man and woman walk into view.

ALVY

Look, look at that guy.

ANNIE

M'hm.

ALVY

There's-there's-there's-there's Mr. 

When-in-the-Pink, Mr. Miami Beach, there, 

you know? 

(Over Annie's laughter) 

He's the latest! just came back from 

the gin-rummy farm last night. He 

placed third.

ANNIE

(Laughing) 

M'hm.  Yeah.  Yeah.

The camera shows them sitting side by side relaxed on a bench.

ALVY 

(Watching two men approach, one 

lighting a cigar) 

Look at these guys.

ANNIE

Yeah.

ALVY   

Oh, that's hilarious.  They're back 

from Fire Island.  They're ... they're 

sort of giving it a chance-you know what 

I mean?

ANNIE

  Oh! Italian, right?

ALVY 

  Yeah, he's the Mafia.  Linen Supply Business 

or Cement and Contract, you know what I mean?

ANNIE

(Laughing) 

Oh, yeah.

ALVY 

No, I'm serious. 

(Over Annie's laughter)

I just got my mustache wet.

ANNIE 

Oh, yeah?

ALVY 

(As another man walks by) 

And there's the winner of the Truman 

Capote look-alike contest.

Funny? Yes. Nasty? Yes. And how easy to put down these people.They aren’t members of Allen’s congregation—Mr. Miami Beach? Hardly. We’re better than they are. They don’t read Death and Western Thought. They play gin-rummy.

*

I hung on with Allen’s films until “Crimes and Misdemeanors.” In this supposedly philosophical movie about guilt, justice, etc. I never got as far as bothering with those abstractions. What arrested my attention was an early scene between Cliff (Woody Allen’s character) and Barbara, his sister, who is relating a horrendous dating experience to him. The man was

Very attractive.

It was very nice.

I went out with him three times.

He was never fresh.

He was always a perfect gentleman.

So... we both came back here,

and Jenny was away.

She was sleeping over

at a friend's house.

And it was, like, one o'clock

in the morning or something

and we both had had a little to drink.

You know, I wanna tie you to the bed.

- Really?

- And rip your dress off.

Have you ever been bound up,

tied up and made love to? . . .

Barbara, I'm shocked at what I'm hearing.

You're my sister.

A nice, middle-class mother.

What are you telling me?

I couldn't move.

I was tied tightly to the bedposts.

Jesus. By a stra...

a guy that you didn't know?

And now you're gonna tell me

that he robbed you, right?

No.

He got on top of me and... and...

- And what?

- I can't say it. I just... I can't say it.

What? Tell me. What's so terrible?

He sat over me...

and went to the bathroom.

That's so disgusting!

Oh, my God! That's the worst thing

I ever heard in my life.

- Then he took his clothes and left.

- Barbara! You idiot!

This guy could've cut your throat!

Murdered you!

- I would've preferred it.

- Jesus. You're such a dope!

I wish I could have sympathy for this
 . . .

A strange man defecated on my sister
. . . 

Yeah, well, I gotta be up at seven.

*

“You’re my sister.”

“Oh, my God! That's the worst thing I ever heard in my life.”

“A strange man defecated on my sister.”

“. . . my sister.”

“. . . my . . .”

*

There it is: All the pain, grief, and suffering of others (I wish I could have sympathy for this) is obliterated by the need to relate everything to one’s own self. In this case: Look at me, how I am disgraced, dishonored by this event. (At least, had the violated woman been the sister of a mafioso of type laughed at in “Annie Hall,” her date would have been in cement blocks the next day.) She would be avenged.

* 

Not that we hadn’t been warned before about Allen’s solipsism. Back to “Annie Hall”:

ANNIE : And you know something else?  You know, 

you're so egocentric that if I miss my 

therapy you can think of it in terms of 

how it affects you!

*

The comedy of Woody Allen (even at its best) was—if I may coin a phrase—shibboleth comedy. That is, it played to an audience who could pronounce the cultural passwords correctly. These congregants of the Church of Woody Allen, however, may not have understood that the new gospel read: “In the beginning was the word—and the word was me.”

***

The weird shifting of quotes from the left margin to the center and back is down to the texts of the movies that I could access.

Insanity Claus

George Carlin claimed that he knew why Santa Claus was always smiling: He knew where the naughty girls live.

This past Christmas Mr. Claus got an early start and gave out goodies to naughty people ahead of time. Specifically, he laid a document on Bob Dylan telling him he was being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (this to a man who wrote: “Then time will tell just who has fell.”)

Once upon a time I loved Dylan. I saw him on a Boston TV show, and came back to New York raving about him. But as the years went by, something struck me about the man: He was nasty and self-centered!

Consider the closing words of “Positively 4^th Street:

I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes

And just for that one moment I could be you

Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes

You'd know what a drag it is to see you.

That's how he reacts when he feels he's been hurt by friends.

Here's an even a better example of his solipsistic view of life. Compare these two contemporary lyrics about the failure of a love affair:

Bob Dylan (1963)

“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”

It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe

It don’t matter, anyhow

An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe

If you don’t know by now

When your rooster crows at the break of dawn

Look out your window and I’ll be gone

You’re the reason I’m trav’lin’ on

Don’t think twice, it’s all right

It ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe

That light I never knowed

An’ it ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe

I’m on the dark side of the road

Still I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say

To try and make me change my mind and stay

We never did too much talkin’ anyway

So don’t think twice, it’s all right

It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal

Like you never did before

It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal

I can’t hear you anymore

I’m a-thinkin’ and a-wond’rin’ all the way down the road

I once loved a woman, a child I’m told

I give her my heart but she wanted my soul

But don’t think twice, it’s all right

I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe

Where I’m bound, I can’t tell

But goodbye’s too good a word, gal

So I’ll just say fare thee well

I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind

You could have done better but I don’t mind

You just kinda wasted my precious time

But don’t think twice, it’s all right.

(Emphasis mine)

*

Tom Paxton

"The Last Thing on My Mind" (1964)

Are you going away with no word of farewell

Will there be not a trace left behind

Well, I could have loved you better, didn't mean to be unkind

You know that was the last thing on my mind

It's a lesson too late for the learnin'

Made of sand, made of sand

In the wink of an eye my soul is turnin'

In your hand, in your hand

Are you going away with no word of farewell

Will there be not a trace left behind

Well, I could have loved you better, didn't mean to be unkind

You know that was the last thing on my mind

You've got reasons a-plenty for goin'

This I know, this I know.

(Emphasis mine)

One singer accepts responsibility for his role in the break-up; the other shoves it all on the other person.

Oh, the tunes sound good all right. But step back from the music a bit and consider who is the self-centered one and who is the grown-up here.

Who is the nasty one—who the nice one.

Santa blew it.

This does not pretend to be the definitive work on denial; it would take a book-and-a-half to cover the topic. It's just a look at three different types of denial.

Deny, Deny, Deny

The famous advice given in the 1967 movie A Guide for the Married Man is the resort for all guilty persons who are afraid of being found out (in this case, of infidelity): “Deny, Deny, Deny!” It's the stonewall defense. Even with a smoking gun in your hands and a bleeding corpse at your feet--admit nothing at all costs. “What are you talking about?” “Oh this. I can explain.” And so on and so forth. The best exponent of the this ploy is Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part One (Act II, Scene 4).

PRINCE HENRY

We two saw you four set on four and bound them, and
were masters of their wealth. Mark now, how a plain
tale shall put you down. Then did we two set on you
four; and, with a word, out-faced you from your
prize, and have it; yea, and can show it you here in
the house: and, Falstaff, you carried your guts
away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared
for mercy and still run and roared, as ever I heard
bull-calf. What a slave art thou, to hack thy sword
as thou hast done, and then say it was in fight!
What trick, what device, what starting-hole, canst
thou now find out to hide thee from this open and
apparent shame?

POINS

Come, let's hear, Jack; what trick hast thou now?

FALSTAFF

By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye.
Why, hear you, my masters: was it for me to kill the
heir-apparent? should I turn upon the true prince?
why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules: but
beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true
prince. Instinct is a great matter; I was now a
coward on instinct.

Falstaff doesn't just deflect the shame from his being branded a coward, but he turns his cowardice into a positive quality. The “coward on instinct” is the champion of “Deny, Deny, Deny!”

***

Deny, Deny!

It's easy to understand that the guilty (in thought and/or deed) will readily turn to the stonewall tactic. Without a confession the accusers have a lot of work to do to prove their case. But what if there is absolutely irrefutable evidence of guilt. Well, first of all, you just deny that it is absolutely irrefutable proof of guilt. Take, for example, the photograph of the teeth mark on the shoulder of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini inflicted by the bite of Uruguay's Luis Suarez in a World Cup match this past week. (It should be pointed out here to those who don't already know that Suarez is now a bi-continental biter with multinational tastes, having chomped a Dutchman in Holland, a Serb in England, and now an Italian in Brazil.)

The denial project was essentially a three-step process.

First step: Denial that the proof is indeed proof. There is a simple explanation for the photograph showing teeth marks, according to Suarez's home country defenders in the media and the Uruguayan Football Association--the picture was Photoshopped!

According to newspaper reports in Uruguay and Spain, when submitting its evidence in defence of Suárez, who has now been banned by Fifa from football for four months and nine international matches for his actions, the Uruguayan FA planned to argue that digital manipulation of images has been rife and that they cannot be trusted.

The Guardian, UK

Which brings us to the second step: Did you note where the above quote came from? The whole incident is a conspiracy concocted by the British (with a little help from the offended Italians and the Brazilians, who, according to the Uruguayans, would supposedly have an easier chance of winning the tournament if Uruguay were out of it).

The Uruguayan Football Association has gone on the offensive in an effort to save Luis Suarez from a lengthy ban for biting Giorgio Chiellini, claiming he is the victim of a smear campaign by the Italians, the English media and the Brazilian hosts.

Oops, sorry, that's from the conspiratorial Guardian, again. Here's an obviously unbiased reaction—from Tenfield.com, the website of the corporation which broadcasts Uruguayan football:

Los británicos, en la conferencia de prensa, en tres ocasiones preguntaron a Oscar Tabárez sobre la incidencia, afirmando que “Suárez mordió a Chellini”. Inclusive señalaron que la FIFA debería intervenir y expulsar a Luisito de la Copa del Mundo.

(British reporters, in the press conference, asked Óscar Tabárez [Uruguayan team manager] three times about the incident, saying that: “Suárez bit Chiellini.” Their intention was Fifa should expel Luisito.)

Sorry once more, that's a Guardian translation.

The Tenfield response segues into the third step of defense. It concludes (in translation):

It would be good if these Englishmen remember how they won the World Cup in 1966 with a ball which was not a goal.

This should be called the “Na Na Na Na Na” fallback: You benefited from something perhaps not-quite-right about half-a-century ago, so you have dirty hands and should keep your mouth shut about other people's misdeeds (metaphor like James Bond's martinis—shaken, not stirred).

***

Deny!

Whereas Denial Type 2 is a tactic to defend  the emotional side of life, Denial Type 3 is employed in the worlds of punditry and politics, by those who purport to be engaged in serious debate on intellectual issues or legislation.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has concluded, “Human influences are having an impact on some extreme weather and climate events.” Now consider the following two statements on this issue:

1--“There is . . . no evidence for the increase in extreme weather. . . . I own a home on an island in South Carolina looking south in the direction of hurricanes, and after Katrina I was really interested when they said this is a harbinger of increased hurricane activity, which since then has plummeted."

2--“I don’t agree with the notion that some are putting out there—including scientists—that somehow, there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s happening in our climate. I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it.”

The first statement, which offers an anecdote as a supposed rebuttal of scientific evidence, is a clear violation of an old Yiddish proverb (and nobody wants to violate one of those) that goes (in English, since none of us are up to snuff in Yiddish): “'For instance' is not proof.” But I guess we shouldn't expect much from the speaker of the first statement, our old friend the pundit George Will (we met him in the previous post, “Stinking to High Heaven”), who does not score high in Yiddishkeit. Will feels that he can pit his anecdote against the overwhelming scientific evidence because “Scientists are not saints in white laboratory smocks.”

The second statement is a clearer presentation of the stance that Will takes. It's by Marco Rubio, the Republican senator from Florida. Rubio's key words are “I do not believe.” As Amanda Marcotte noted in a Salon.com article,

Rubio isn’t disagreeing with the opinions [my emphasis] of scientists; he’s disagreeing with the conclusions derived from the evidence. Even if all the climate change scientists died tomorrow, the planet would still be heating up. This isn’t a matter of one person’s opinion versus another. It’s a man being presented with facts and refusing to believe them.

Perhaps what we can call people like Will and Rubio is “scientific philistines,” analogous to artistic philistines, who “know what they like.” Scientific philistines know what science (and the technology that flows from that knowledge) they like and deny the validity of the science they don't like. Thus, they can wear digital watches, use computers, fly in airplanes, take antibiotics, etc. without bothering to consider the fact that the differing sciences of metallurgy, physics, chemistry, etc. are interconnected. Decades ago, I first came across a famous scientist (I don't recall who it was, though) suggesting (tongue-in-cheekily) that people who don't believe in evolution shouldn't be allowed to fly in airplanes. Here, more recently, is William Hirstein's take on the subject:

To be consistent, extreme science skeptics such as creationists should not trust any existing technology. They should not use computers, drive modern cars, fly on airplanes, or have an MRI done, since the same science that tells us that animals evolved created these technologies. But of course these are reliable technologies. The best explanation for this fact and the fact that our cars go, our bridges do not fall down, hospital patients get better at ever-improving rates, and so on, is that the science behind these achievements correctly describes the world.

But like Rubio, other politicians will go on proposing legislation that ignores scientific findings, while gloating about their philistinism. John Becker, Republican member of the Ohio legislature, defended his bill on birth control devices thusly, “This is just a personal view. I’m not a medical doctor.” And like Will, other pundits will deny evidence when it displeases them (e.g., Charles Krauthammer, on the same television show as Will: “I'm not impressed by numbers. I'm not impressed by consensus”).

Should we call this type of denial intellectual dishonesty? Or is there another term that might be used?

*

I learnt a new word today: 'solipsism'

Reader “JimKent”

commenting on a Guardian article

May 24, 2012

*

Maybe that's it: Scientific philistines are so wrapped up in their subjectivity that no other truth can exist in their world. Some comedian (again, I heard it many years ago and can't name the person) once put down artistic philistines with the analogous retort: “I don't know much about medicine, but I know what I like.” Unfortunately, as John Becker has shown, the laughable has become reality. And reality for too many, is no longer determined by evidence.

*

In the Principles and the Three Dialogues [Bishop] Berkeley defends two metaphysical theses: idealism (the claim that everything that exists either is a mind or depends on a mind for its existence) and immaterialism (the claim that matter does not exist).  His contention that all physical objects are composed of ideas is encapsulated in his motto esse is percipi (to be is to be perceived).

"Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy"

In his Life of Samuel Johnson, James Boswell relates the following story:

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus."

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Epistemology (by Richard Wilbur)

I.
Kick at the rock, Sam Johnson, break your bones:
But cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones.

II.
We milk the cow of the world, and as we do
We whisper in her ear, “You are not true.”

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Some Sources:

Jonathan Chait

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/05/krauthammer-george-will-attack-climate-science.html

Owen Gibson, http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/25/luis-suarez-uruguay-fight-against-ban

William Hirstein,

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mindmelding/201301/why-creationists-should-not-fly-airplanes

“Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,” http://www.iep.utm.edu/berkeley/

Amanda Marcotte, http://www.salon.com/2014/06/13/beyond_the_war_on_science_why_the_right_embraces_ignorance_as_a_virtue_partner/

Amanda Marcotte, http://www.salon.com/2014/05/23/how_right_wingers_are_amping_up_their_war_on_science_partner/

Amanda Marcotte,

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/06/05/hb_351_in_ohio_john_becker_s_bill_would_ban_insurance_coverage_of_abortion.html

Luis Roux, http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/28/luis-suarez-uruguayans-hurting

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And for another angle on denial (and, this time, those who believe in global warming):

Emmett Rensin, http://www.thebaffler.com/blog/2014/07/cigarettes_and_climate_change