tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post4784059952036449877..comments2024-03-11T18:46:56.863+11:00Comments on New England's History: Is technology bringing history to life or distorting it?Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-28771536573194354562018-06-11T14:27:59.897+10:002018-06-11T14:27:59.897+10:00Thanks for this John. I used it as a base for a sh...Thanks for this John. I used it as a base for a short post on Personal Reflections, Karl Rove and the rejection of discernible reality https://belshaw.blogspot.com/2018/06/karl-rove-and-rejection-of-discernible.htmlJim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-24062186606926445852018-06-09T19:38:28.080+10:002018-06-09T19:38:28.080+10:00Originally put in print by Ron Susskind Jim, a NYT...Originally put in print by Ron Susskind Jim, a NYT journalist. It is appears:three quarters of the way through this NYT magazine article. I remembered reading it at the time and had enough of the words to do the now normal Google search. The original 2004 article is not that easy to find as Google tends to list things in nearest date order and I see a certain amount of dust and controversy has recently emerged.<br />The senior advisor referred to has subsequently been identified as Karl Rove.<br /><br />https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html<br /><br />In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.<br /><br />The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."<br /><br />Johnbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09694479587834247002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-19155045578379896942018-06-09T18:53:58.715+10:002018-06-09T18:53:58.715+10:00Evening, John. That's quite a terrifying comme...Evening, John. That's quite a terrifying comment considering who Rove was. Do you have a source for the comment? <br />Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-70614042705987712122018-06-08T17:15:45.406+10:002018-06-08T17:15:45.406+10:00Quote:”The presentation becomes the history, not a...Quote:”The presentation becomes the history, not an interpretation of the history. The second is where the technology alters the evidence in some way, substituting a new for the original.”<br />Couldn’t agree more Jim, History has always been open to interpretation but the original record has always been there as a hard copy, that hard copy being available to all for all time is in jeopardy. Karl Rove of all people had something to say about the new reality we face.<br />“People like you are still living in what we call the reality-based community. You believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you are studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”<br />Discernible reality is to become the new norm.<br />Johnbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09694479587834247002noreply@blogger.com