The Arbitrary as Propaganda

In 2020, a United States District judge dismissed a slander suit filed against Fox talking head, Tucker Carlson. In her ruling, the judge said,

The ‘general tenor’ of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not ‘stating actual facts’ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.’

Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statement he makes.

According to the judge and Fox lawyers, what Carlson says should not be regarded as true. But that doesn’t mean what he says is false. Many of Carlson’s statements are neither true nor false. They are arbitrary.

The arbitrary, wrote Ayn Rand,

means a claim put forth in the absence of evidence of any sort, perceptual or conceptual; its basis is neither direct observation nor any kind of theoretical argument. [An arbitrary idea is] a sheer assertion with no attempt to validate it or connect it to reality.

An arbitrary claim is worse than false—it has no cognitive value. One can’t evaluate an arbitrary claim; one can only dismiss it without consideration.

Carlson is certainly not the only propagandist to use arbitrary statements. However, Carlson’s program is regularly the most watched on cable, meaning that millions are being exposed to his arbitrary claims. And while “reasonable viewers” may not regard his claims as true, “unreasonable viewers” are likely to accept his pronouncements.

For many of those “unreasonable viewers,” Carlson is feeding into their anger and frustration. Whether his claims are true or not is irrelevant. What he says appeals to them on an emotional level, and that is all they care about.

Those who accept Carlson’s arbitrary claims are capable of almost anything. If truth and facts do not matter, then the only guide to action is emotion. And when anger is the dominant emotion, we get things like the attack on the United States Capitol last January 6, which Carlson has defended.

It is a sad state of affairs when cable’s most popular “news” personality admittedly tosses out arbitrary claims like beads at Mardi Gras. Drunken revelers at Mardi Gras have a grand time for short period, but the next morning many awake wondering what they had done to themselves. Someday, Carlson’s followers will suffer that same type of hangover. Unfortunately, they may very well inflict the same pain on the entire nation.