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The Cognitive Dissident

The Cognitive Dissident

By: Samuel McKenney Claiborne
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About this listen

A podcast of essays and lively interviews featuring nuanced, civil discussion of interesting cultural and political topics. We question why we believe what we believe, and what place the media and other social forces have in not only fostering those beliefs, but in framing our basic assumptions. We are obsessed with injustice, irrationality, and with injecting some civility and tolerance back into civic discourse. To that end, questioning assumptions, slaughtering sacred cows, and calling out nude emperors is also a lot of what we do.Copyright © 2022 Samuel Claiborne. All rights reserved. Politics & Government Social Sciences
Episodes
  • On The Media Jumps The Shark
    May 29 2022

    Something odd has been happening to the once wonderful On The Media podcast for quite awhile. But finally, is has utterly capitulated its journalistic integrity, falling prey to its own ideological and editorial blind spots, omitting facts, reducing complex topics to black/white oversimplifications, and indulging in, frankly, toxic and irresponsible hyperbole. OTM has, alas, become a parody of itself. It has lost its way as a nuanced and fair-minded source of thoughtful journalism and become an organ of propaganda.

    Today, we examine one of its most recent episodes to see where 'the new journalism' technique of omitting important data that might contradict the preferred narrative reaches its apotheosis: a total smear job on the Depp vs. Heard trial.

    Alas, poor OTM: we knew (and loved) you well.

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    38 mins
  • What is a war crime? Is the USA committing them?
    Mar 27 2022

    Why are different countries judged so differently for similar behavior? Why are some blamed fairly, some disproportionately harshly, and others are seemingly let off the hook entirely? Could it be that, in this respect and many more, your media are not actually that much more unbiased than Russia's? Could it be that they're omitting exculpatory and inculpatory evidence to suit the ends of their corporate owners?

    This week we contrast the media's coverage of Ukraine with their coverage of the war in Yemen, a war that is killing thousands of civilians with USA-supplied planes, bombs, missiles, and artillery.

    We also examine the double-standard of how the world reacts to Israel's killing of even a single Arab versus the reaction to Arab-on-Arab violence, some would say, genocide, in places like Syria.

    And lastly, we also examine some other ways our media have lied and distorted, from World War II, right up to the present.

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    35 mins
  • That time my all white band used the N-Word in a song (and why that did and still does make sense).
    Feb 27 2022

    The savage murder of artist Michael Stewart by New York City Transit Police causes an outraged band of white boys to release a song. In it they use the N-Word, in order to show the shocking apathy of most white people towards the brutalization of black people. It was the right choice then, and it's still the right choice.

    This choice, of course, flies in the face of current 'woke' orthodoxy that states that this word should never, ever, under any circumstances, be uttered by a non-black person.

    In this episode we take on that orthodoxy, calling it out as absurdly simplistic and wrong-headed, using the power of this song, and the history of this word as it was used on TV and in the movies in the 70's, 80's and 90's

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    31 mins
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