Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Reader’s Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or [t]he New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?
This is really quite complicated, though. Especially if one also asks which reader would’ve been better informed about the realities of capitalist democracy (neither would be well off in that regard, but still).
Isn’t this an invalid comparison? If The Nation were writing for an audience of reader which only read The Nation, wouldn’t it change what it prints? The point is these publications are fundamentally part of a discussion.
Imagine if I thought there were fewer insects on earth then you did, and we had a discussion. If you compare the naive person who reads only my lines vs the naive person who reads only your lines, your person ends up better off, because on the whole, there are indeed a very large number of insects on earth This will be the case regardless of who actually has the accurate estimate of number of insect species. The point is that my lines will all present evidence that insects are less numerous, in an attempt to get you to adjust your estimate downward, and your lines will be the exact opposite. However, that says nothing about who has a better model of the situation.
Concerning what everyone on the right around here says the voluntary doublethink of the Left:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag
This is really quite complicated, though. Especially if one also asks which reader would’ve been better informed about the realities of capitalist democracy (neither would be well off in that regard, but still).
Isn’t this an invalid comparison? If The Nation were writing for an audience of reader which only read The Nation, wouldn’t it change what it prints? The point is these publications are fundamentally part of a discussion.
Imagine if I thought there were fewer insects on earth then you did, and we had a discussion. If you compare the naive person who reads only my lines vs the naive person who reads only your lines, your person ends up better off, because on the whole, there are indeed a very large number of insects on earth This will be the case regardless of who actually has the accurate estimate of number of insect species. The point is that my lines will all present evidence that insects are less numerous, in an attempt to get you to adjust your estimate downward, and your lines will be the exact opposite. However, that says nothing about who has a better model of the situation.