Home » Chris Hedges, liar: and exactly why would this be surprising?

Comments

Chris Hedges, liar: and exactly why would this be surprising? — 16 Comments

  1. To me, the point of this post is not that a lefty lied. That almost goes without saying.

    The point is that his lies were so egregious and so constant that even lefty mags have turned on him, but for the less serious reason (plagiarism). And yet he continues to churn out the very same stuff and do his damage,and with most of his readers his reputation remains stellar (Pulitzer Prize intact and all that).

    If you say what’s the use of writing about this phenomenon, you might say what’s the use of writing (or reading) about almost anything.

    I write about it because I find it to be of interest, especially since I read Hedges’ 2001 article before I understood what he was doing. So I’ve looked at his writing from both sides now.

  2. I would like Neo to do a look-inside-his-head on Hedges. Why is he such a knave despite being so thoroughly outed by the dogs that used to run with him?
    Secondarily, a question we likely cannot answer: Who feeds him? Vlad the Putin? Probably not. Who? and Why? People like Hedges pretty much insist on living well; they do not stint.

  3. Without knowing very much more about Hedges than Neo has written here, I’m in agreement with Don Carlos in suspecting that Hedges has been ‘bought’ and is shilling for one of those parties most violently opposed to the existence of Israel.

    The sudden reemergence of a particularly nasty kind of Jew-hatred in the last thirty years is … extremely troubling. I can’t help suspecting that it has been nurtured carefully, and with a great deal of money funneled to useful idiots.

  4. Aaahhhhhhhhh….Shades of little Stephen Glass at The New Republic back, now, several years ago. Bless their little hearts. ((-:

  5. I am only slowly reading your lengthy post.

    I was a lifelong news junky. But The Age of Obama has taught me to read less and less “news” because I know Leftists distort the facts. Therefore to read as much as I was used to is self-abuse. I stopped.

    Instead, I read classics more. Instead, I rely on others I can trust more, when online. I gave up any NYTimes reading habit in 1999 because of the Big Lie – “it’s all about sex” – that shaped at the conclusion of Clinton’s impeachment. (The NYTimes became the principal tool advancing that Big Lie.)

    Occasionally, I’ll read “Mother Jones” or go to their facebook page. For example, today I read of all the reader-push back by GMO histrionics over Neil deGrasse Tyson’s critique. People wax apopleptic defending spurious distinctions of what is Truly “natural” – and thus right – in the old hippy New Age religion.

    Which brings me to a question directed to our host, neo-neocon. What accounts for Hedges cause-driven lying, as viewed through generalizations about Leftist political psychology?

    Leftists need to lie and distort reality through mechanisms of denial and diversion – if I understand this correctly. The best lies are those sincerely “Believed.” (And I concede that we all virtually do this, at some level, eg, denial of death.)

    Your piece is about how much Hedge’s has been a “useful traveller” for advancing the Leftist cause. And now that he’s not so useful, he himself cannot introspect or usefully examine his own conscience.

    This is a common human failing, of course. But in the moral arts and sciences like news and opinion journalism, it is a destructive one. And among public intellectuals leading a corrupted polity, dangerously so.

    Today, we live in an Age of Empowered Leftism, where Leftists believe their distortions of reality, and the Middle East is an excellent case in point – Leftists earnestly Believe in Lies about the PLA/Hamas and Israel. Nothing penetrates to re-order their distorting mechanisms.

    We’ve seen what becomes a genuine Truth-teller of worthy but not brilliant minds, eg, Sarah Palin. They are lied about and the lies become the Truth.

    Today, the Great Leftist lights who become Guided by the Light of Truth and thereby bear witness to it, like Christopher Hitchens, are dying off. These voices, like David Mamet and Melanie Phillips, grow fewer and rarer over time.

    Perhaps I’ve lost my simple pointed question – the search for personal tipping points (cf, your own “Changing a Mind…” series) in political change – what are they? Which? And when?

    Bearing my own witness comes in abandoning simplistic libertarian isolationism, between the Fall of Communism and 9/11. The first showed me that the Left was in outright denial and neocons were correct about the deep evil nature of communism, as well as the Left’s ideologically entrenched dishonesty. The second, that Ron Paul’s reflexive “Blowback” thesis was empirically wrong, requiring a twisting and mangling of facts – and thus the “reality” that was perceived – but I could no longer stomach it. I had to reform. I became a more pragmatic libertarian, instead of a (stereotypical) dogmatic one. (I still oppose Jeane Kirkpatrick-style reflexively altruistic neo-cons; instead, I champion realist and national self-interest in foreign affairs.)

    I’ll now return to digesting your observations about Hedges in the above post. And maybe I’ll have more precise questions to pose here, later.

  6. He seeks personal gain in service of ideological ‘truth’. As the first sacrifice upon ideology’s altar is actual truth, promotion of the ideology requires that all necessary means be employed to acquire the end point sought. Upon that calculus, lying in service of the ideology is literally an obligation. Arguably, a ‘holy’ obligation.

    Hedges’ continued loyalty to the left’s ideology means that forgiveness by the left is always a future possibility. His expulsion is merely a reflection of his limited usefulness at this point. Upon the triumph of the left, he will make a fine addition to a new “Ministry of Truth’.

    Or, should Islam triumph, his ‘surprise’ conversion to Islam is nearly certain with his documented antipathy to Israel his ticket to Muslim authenticity. I suspect that to be a possible, though secondary motivation for many on the left’s antisemitism. It’s always wise to have an ‘escape route’ planned.

  7. If Hedges has been bought off, then he’s simply getting paid for what he used to do for free.

    It must be a core part of his character, because there’s no need for him to attack fellow lefties when questioned. There’s no financial incentive for him to do it, either.
    (BTW, kudos to the one professor…anyone who quotes Plutarch can’t be all bad).

    There are several motivations for this type of lefty behavior, but I’ve settled on the “Salieri Complex” as being most common:

    (I know the real Salieri wasn’t as portrayed in Amadeus, but that’s the popular conception)

    Envy and ambition mixed with incompetence. These people crave social status, but don’t have the talents to achieve it themselves. They see others succeeding, and assume they must either be cheating or bad people.
    This rationalization then frees them morally to commit all sorts of inequities to exact “justice” (and coincidentally, get ahead themselves).

    Anyone who denies the special validity of the Truth must be a twisted soul.
    This is where evil is created.

  8. Run of the mill leftists do not think deeply about what they believe any more than a dog has to think about scratching at fleas.People like hedges know exactly what they are doing. Hedges is lying like a rug because he knows he will be rewarded and the zombies will believe his lies and applaud like seals flapping flippers for a fish. Dogs, fleas, and seals and fish; that is the left in a nutshell.

  9. Parker you didn’t give even one single fact about run of the mill leftists. Also, you have no telepathic powers and you can’t read the mind of a dog. I would assume it responds to a flea bite just like you would respond to a mosquito bite. When dealing with the dangers of the outside you can’t waste your time thinking about the action you know you need to take, however you should have a better awareness of your surroundings than a dog, a seal or a smelly hippy.

  10. In re-reading, yes, I recall L’Affair Hedges – such a risible one. And depressing.

    I have fewer and fewer Leftists I can call frriends, if only because this kind of sanctimonious and sefl-righteous reflection has become increasingly common in real life, just as it has among the cognoscenti.

    Thomas Sowell has a piece, today, confronting Geraldo Rivera on Israel and Hamas. Sowell demands that we see and seek out and demand clear thinking.

    That the Left has been seduced by PoMo rationales has exacerbated the decline of public discourse, such that we cannot have debates about the most important issues of our time. They are always ruled unfair, tout court.

    It has accelerated, this declines, and makes participation in public realms all the more fruitless and degrading. People, Americans to their soul, need to leave and take their Americanism with them. We need such islands of liberty if we are ever to see it reborn, somewhere, somehow, someday.

  11. Pingback:The blood libel is alive and well and living at the LA Times - The New Neo

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>