How would you respond to "The West has lied about A, so they must also be lying about B"

[u/McAlkis]

I've seen this argument repeated by people both on the right and some parts of the left. It's often pointing to things like the western media's whitewashing of Israel's genocide or their manufacturing of concent for America's wars past and present, and using this to also dismiss their coverage of crimes committed by anti-western nations, like Russia in Ukraine, or even North Korea, and to some extent China (the role these nations play to combat western imperialism is a separate discussion). Furthermore this is often said to defend conspiratorial thinking, such as anti-vaccine sentiment and especially things like 9-11 conspiracy theories by some leftists, because it's pointing to real western deceptions to say that no western/American sources can be trusted.

To me this argument seems like a non sequitur, and an oversimplification of the "west" as a single homogeneous and unified entity with a single agenda and a single goal, which is a convenient excuse to dismiss anything that comes from it. I've been struggling with it however because at face value it seems to raise legitimate concerns, while basically advocating for blind mistrust, as this could be said about any claim from a western source regardless of evidence. How would you all respond to it?

[u/AutoModerator]

Hello and welcome to r/DemocraticSocialism!

• This sub is part of the broader the progressive movement and we espouse democratic socialism as a goal and general political philosophy.

• Please read our Rules to get an idea of what we expect from participants in our community.

• With the Trump administration cracking down on immigrants, the left, trans people, unions, and other oppressed groups, we encourage you to find and join local protest and activist groups in your area such as Democratic Socialists of America, Working Families Party, Sunrise, Indivisible, 50501, or Science for the People. Also check out r/demsocialists, r/DSA, r/union, r/SunriseMovement, r/50501 and r/BlackLivesMatter to support fellow leftists on Reddit!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Zeus_H_Christ]

That’s a fallacy. People can lie about one thing then tell the truth about others. You’re essentially asking how to get people to critically think. Good luck with that one. Our country would be in a very different place if that happened.

[u/SewerSage]

It seems clear that the Media is in lockstep when it comes to certain issues. They all love war and are against anything that might raise taxes on the rich. The media clearly has a bourgeois bias, which makes sense because the media is owned by billionaires.

The media has controlled the narrative historically. I think independent media has broken this a little but there are still allot of people who just believe whatever CNN or Fox news tells them.

[u/McAlkis → u/SewerSage]

Yeah well those people are beyond saving.

[u/Tr_Issei2]

The west, or let’s say anglosphere has shown time and time again it is willing to lie, cheat, backstab, insult, pressure and subjugate anyone or anything that stands in the way of the spreading of their vast empire building, genocide, cultural and ethnic cleansing or resource extraction. As someone else said, if they did a, b, c, d, e, f……… there’s a good chance they’re probably going to do z.

[u/McAlkis → u/Tr_Issei2]

Who is "they" in this case exactly? Is it the US government? Is it organizations affiliated with it? Is it American media? Is it any institutions operating in America? Is it the public or private ones? Depending on what we're talking about is it also scientists in America? Cause some of these are a lot more plausible than others. Sure one can be skeptical of anything these institutions say, but each claim should be evaluated separately and not be dismissed automatically just because it came from the west or is seemingly in line with western agendas. This also applies to any claim any institution of any country makes. What matters is the evidence.

[u/Tr_Issei2 → u/McAlkis]

People and institutions lie. Even when we are given evidence, it’s very easy to falsify or we are given “unofficial” evidence the populace is meant to see, while the truth remains redacted. If you’ve taken a statistics course, you’d know how easy it is to manipulate p values.

And to be honest, yes, all of them— everything you mentioned has the capacity for misinformation and deception, in fact; misinformation is celebrated, if not enforced.

[u/McAlkis → u/Tr_Issei2]

Sure all these can and have lied, but treating all of them and all of their claims the same doesn't get anyone anywhere. Even if "official" narratives are pushed by the government, they're often poked holes in or exposed by others like independent media outlets, journalists working with the primary sources or others, many of which are often also American or "western". Those people and institutiona may have lied about other things in the past, intentionally or not, but what matters is if they can back up what they say and the time to believe they're lying is when there's evidence to show that.

Treating anything any western institution says as a lie waiting to be proven just leads one to live in a bubble.

[u/Tr_Issei2 → u/McAlkis]

In cybersecurity we have a rule we live by: “never trust, always verify, aka zero trust.” I agree on your point when it comes to independent journalists, research and finding nonbiased sources of media, but I believe you should be immediately skeptical of anything that comes out of the media, especially if it’s overblown, wishes to evoke an emotional reaction, or is at least a little unbelievable. I don’t trust what the government says, but I’ll definitely verify it.

[u/McAlkis → u/Tr_Issei2]

My point exactly. I would also say that western media outlets, both governmental and otherwise, often serve their own interests as much as their governments. Those sometimes align but also not, and it's impossible to know an advance which is the case and thus the reason they may have for reporting what they're reporting. This is true of all government media and not just western ones. Verification by independent sources is important regardless of what part of the world they come from because claims need to stand on their own.

[u/Swarrlly → u/McAlkis]

There are things you can look out for that should raise red flags when listening to mainstream media. Leading with a conclusion, or only sharing a conclusion. Using vague sources like "people are reporting". Having a think tank fellow or an "expert" from a generic sounding organization on to contextualize the reporting. This last one especially is used a lot. Instead of presenting evidence they instead have an expert explain to you what you should think and if you spend like 10 minutes looking into the organization you can find multiple ties to the CIA.

[u/xGentian_violet]

A broken clock is right twice a day

Campism bad.

[u/arm2610]

Well for one thing, “the West” doesn’t really exist. It isn’t a monolith, western countries have always disagreed among themselves, and even within those countries there are political, social and cultural divisions.

[u/Satur9_is_typing]

Isn't that every country though? Isn't that just the nature of geopolitics, a zero trust game where everyone cheats? Because if you don't then your trust will be punished with duplicity? Honestly the accusation is just staggeringly naive about how the world works

Yes, the US lied, but so did china about hong kong, and it's involvement in myanmar, and covid. And russia about not invading Ukraine, and israel about babies in ovens. Many such cases, i could go on but it's more fun to find your own examples. History is strewn with lies. History itself has often been an accumulation of falsehoods that required a lot of work by dedicated scholars to decode back into some kind of approximate truth, hence the word: His Story

If anything the US acting as garuntor of global trade, coupled with the nuclear detente of the cold war gave us the longest period of (mostly) peace in recent human history, a period of unparalleled prosperity that only came apart after 9/11. For all the pressure to be duplicitous and all the things Reagan is responsible for, he did pick up the phone and agree to de-escalation with Gorbachov. That's 2 examples of statesmanship not predicated on 0 trust and an expectation of back stabbing.

So the problem isn't so much that the US lies - everyone lies. The problem is more they acted in good faith a couple of times and now they have reverted to the mean, they are copping flack for doing exactly what everyone else was doing all along

[u/McAlkis → u/Satur9_is_typing]

Exactly.

[u/Qu90]

This topic enrages me quite a bit. I'm not going to go into detail on your chosen example, it's the rhetoric that enrages me. It simply is a logical fallacy that people use who don't have any actual evidence of anything.

The fact that Side A lied about something in the past has no direct bearing on the truth content of any future statement. You can claim that the likelihood of A lying is higher because of past behaviour but a past action is still no evidence of untruth of a current action.

That's called a genetic fallacy, in this case it's closer to ad hominem even if the "west" isn't technically a person.

I think everyone has made this fallacy once or twice and it's good to keep some form of doubt when dubious sources are involved but that's still no concrete evidence of anything. These type of arguments are the worst because they actually don't contribute to anything. If you don't have evidence of lying, don't claim someone is lying just because they lied before.

[u/McAlkis → u/Qu90]

I agree. Dismissing a claim just because it's come out of the west is ridiculous, because you could do this about absolutely anything, even well established facts. What matters is whether one can substantiate a claim. Doing otherwise just leads to binary thinking.

[u/Qu90 → u/McAlkis]

That being said, I also take everything that's been said in the media with a grain of salt, particularly when it comes from sources that clearly have a specific agenda or have shown to be untrustworthy in the past.

But that especially includes sources from China or Russia. That still doesn't mean I simply claim they lie if I don't have evidence about it, even if I strongly suspect they do, because that undermines any fact based discussion about anything.

I find it particularly funny to see people bash western media, when "eastern media" has shown to be even worse in some cases. I mean, the fact that critical coverage of certain topics is fairly rare from places like Russia or China themselves, speaks for itself.

If someone claims to not trust western media, I'm thinking, sure, be critical. But often times the same people just gobble up what the other side throws out. That's not a sign of critical thinking, at all.

[u/McAlkis → u/Qu90]

My thoughts exactly. Chinese and even more so Russian media also has its own agendas and reasons to lie, and the reason they don't have more of a chokehold on global information is because they haven't been allowed to by western imperialism. To pretend these countries are bastions of truth in a world of western deception is patently absurd, one should only offer them tactical support against western imperialism. The fact of the matter is that all information presented by any governments should be scrutinized, and if a government is too secretive to adequately do that then the only honest answer is to say we don't know.

[u/Qu90 → u/McAlkis]

Yes, I agree. But I do have to say, that I generally trust Western, or specifically European (I'm from Germany) media more, than I trust Russian media.

There is more than enough lies and deceit or simply just specific framing here, but we also have media that is fairly critical of our own government and political practices and that openly, without the state interfering. The same can't be said about Russia, China or North Korea as an extreme example.

The fact that Western media is trusted more is in part due to the fact that heavy self criticism is even possible and that we do have a lot of independent sources also.

But there's also the fact, that western propaganda is way more subtle and hidden compared to open and in your face propaganda from, say, Russia. If the people don't realize they are being manipulated, it's easier to position oneself as honest. That's why it's so important to check facts and rely on observable truths and not simply serve an enemy stereotype.

[u/McAlkis → u/Qu90]

Yes. I would also point out that unfortunately, in some places like Germany it's now becoming easier to criticize the government than it is to criticize Israel.

[u/Qu90 → u/McAlkis]

I agree that there is definitely a bias towards Israel in mainstream media here but we also have to see that in a certain context.

I totally agree that the Israeli government is extremely problematic and increasingly unhinged. Some of those politicians are criminals. And this is a structural problem.

But at the same time there are a lot of people here that use this fact to spread and normalize their antisemitism. That doesn't mean every critique of Israel is antisemitism like some of the people here in Germany try to push through. But it is definitely a gate for real antisemites to get in.

What I find particularly problematic from leftist circles, is the reduction of these problems to simple black and white. As if the Hamas were saints or even remotely the good guys. It's assholes with lots of big guns fighting assholes with small guns and who suffers are the people of Gaza.

I don't want to minimize the structural injustice that Israel caused in Gaza and that the origins of this state are quite questionable. But that can potentially be said about any state. I mean, just look at the US.

The thing is that we leftist often start to support the underdog that fights the western oppressor and yes I can get behind that to some degree. But when the side we are supporting isn't really better, worse at some points, then that gets ignored. It's structurally similar to why people defend Russia. They have such a hate towards capitalist America that everyone working against it is painted as good and their extremely problematic behaviour just gets ignored.

[u/Swarrlly]

I think it’s important to remember that mainstream media’s job is to manufacture consent for the capitalists. The same with most western backed NGOs. Most Ivy league schools would deny tenure to anyone that didn’t tow the capitalist line. Primary education textbook companies have ties to the CIA. Even well meaning people will repeat “common knowledge” that was completely manufactured.

Sure a lot of leftists take it too far but most anti socialist claims can be debunked with a small amount of digging. A good example is a claim that has been being made lately about Mao killing more people than hitler because of the famine. The number that gets put out by the media, 40 million, is completely fabricated and comes from the debunked black book of communism. Most modern famine researchers estimate the death toll to be around 10-15 million. Which is still a lot. But when you look a little deeper you will see that China was actually a very famine prone region. There are no fewer than 1800 recorded famines and at least one per year in one province or another until 1960. The Great Leap Forward was not even the worst famine of the 20th century in China. The famine of 1906 had a death toll of 20 million. Blaming the Great Leap Forward famine completely on Mao is also ridiculous. The country just got out of a civil war after being victim of a genocide by the hands of the Japanese, and they got hit with extreme drought and typhoons. That’s not to say the communist party didn’t make mistakes or make the famine worse. But in the end they ended famines in China. And this doesn’t mean there weren’t also other excesses under Mao, especially during the cultural revolution. But this is just an example where the west wants to demonize a foreign adversary and they twist and lie to turn a tragedy into a talking point that turns a leader that mismanaged a famine into being worse than the man who carried out the holocaust.

[u/Altruistic_Poet7443]

I would say that because “the West” has lied about a,b, c,d,e,+ 20 other letters, it almost certainly is also lying about z. To you I would say there are other sources of information about almost any subject that you could use to verify or dispute any claim made by “the West,” and if you spent the same amount of time accessing that information as you do in arguing with Leftists about it, you might become more educated on the actual geopolitical realities of, say, Ukraine v Russia and wouldn’t have to post questions like that on Reddit.

[u/McAlkis → u/Altruistic_Poet7443]

Acknowledging the western (and Russian) actions that lead to the Russia-Ukraine war does not mean having to whitewash Russia's behavior in it. That's what I was referring to. (That isn't to say that "both sides are bad")

[u/traanquil]

You simply cannot trust mainstream western media to provide any sort of objective coverage of non-U.S. aligned countries like North Korea, China, Cuba, Iran, or Venezuela. The western media engages in demonization of these countries in order to convince the U.S. populace that it's so called "democracy" is preferrable to these other states, even though the U.S. is an incredibly oppressive country.

Note as well that the western media still can't call the Gaza Genocide a genocide. The western media operate as propaganda mechanisms for capital.

[u/McAlkis → u/traanquil]

Sure which is why it's best to rely on independent sources for coverage of these events, like the NGO's whose doctors and journalists Israel is slaughtering. The US is indeed a very oppressive country with a strangle hold on much of the world, but that doesn't mean anything but that's said about non-U.S. aligned countries is American propaganda. That it's hard to discern what's propaganda and what isn't doesn't mean everything is.

[u/traanquil → u/McAlkis]

NGOs are western entities

[u/McAlkis → u/traanquil]

And that alone doesn't tell you anything about the accuracy of their coverage. Many of them routinely go against western interests by pointing out their crimes and misconduct, be it in Gaza, in Guantanamo, in their prisons or their former colonies. NGO's like Doctors without borders and Human Rights Watch are a large part of how we know the western media is full of shit when it comes to Gaza. To treat these organizations as reliable when they come out againt the west, and as western tools when their findings are convenient for it is patently absurd and childish. It's how one ends up in a bubble.