I conclude by suggesting that the claim that post- truths are solely attributable to Trump supporters/conservative Americans is not accurate. While this is most closely associated with the Presidency of Donald Trump who, in retrospect, was the first I-War president, it only represents a particular culmination and not an ebbing of I-War. The third section discusses the shift away from the ethical All-American to an I-War identification that has come to dominate American subject formation within the contemporary American neoliberal symbolic order-disorder (Lushetich 2019). The second section applies this theoretical understanding to the contemporary United States by discussing the ethical All-American identification which is comprised of three dominant social authorities or big Others: the capitalist, the religious- moral, as well as the nationalist-patriotic. It establishes the subject as a split subject whose desire for completion renders it split between nothingness and something offered through the social authority referred to as the big Other. The first part of this chapter discusses the theory of the subject from a Lacanian perspective.
To resolve this impossibility of being an ethical All-American, the I-War identification necessitates a topological worldview where the gap between knowledge and truths is held together through fantasy, specific traits, and enjoyed aggressivity which only then manifests as adherence to and propagation of post-truths. It contorts an already existing impossibility namely being an ethical citizen of the United States or more colloquially being an ethical All-American.
I-War signifies a specific distorted form of American subjectivity. This type of warfare is expressed through a warrior identification described as ‘I-War’. Drawing on the distinction between knowledge and truth, I argue that American culture is calling forth an ontological form of warfare. In doing so, a much deeper and historically rooted problematic surfaces within the American polity that has destructive implications within the United States and is of global concern. What is required, I argue, is an understanding of the subject that desires to believe in belief more now than before. For the purposes of this chapter, the seven concepts form a core to help facilitate a better understanding of the subject-in-formation from a Lacanian perspective. The seven provide a solid means of engaging with Lacanian theory by understanding key concepts to help anchor and situate oneself within this literature. To answer these questions, I introduce seven Lacanian concepts used to understand the formation of the subject: the mirror-stage, the split subject, the big Other, the real/imaginary/symbolic, fantasy, topology, and specific traits. Why should we assume the other needs to ‘wake up’ to the truth? Put another way, why do those that accuse the other person of being seduced by fake news, cultural Marxism and so forth assume that they have sole-possession of the truth? Why does the person who assumes a monopoly on the truth take up the position of moral superiority and of being more patriotic? Why do these same people assume that they are representative of the ‘real America’ while those others are actively working to destroy the nation? Why does the exposure to fact-checking, scientific testing and verification, and the consequent debunking of these post-truths, as lies, result not in their abandonment, but in many cases the dismissal and the reaffirmation of those debunked truths? But the focus on post-truth closes off deeper issues arising in American politics and society. More importantly, they fail to understand the elusiveness of truth and the complexity of knowing in a time when information flows have expanded, diversified, and quickened while other information flows are visibly constrained, noticeably blocked, and semi- hidden. At a minimum, the assertions themselves are post-truths predicated, as a matter of course, on a caricature of others and their worldview. These conclusions are problematic and require a rethinking of the idea of the so-called post-truth age.
#GOOD REAL WAR SAYS OUR NOSTALGIA DOWNLOAD#
You can download the book free of charge from E-International Relations.Īcademic literature, media coverage, and social media posts suggest that entire groups of individuals within the United States set truth aside and instead react incorrectly to fake news (see Bakir and McStay 2018 Polletta and Callahan 2019), or through conspiracy theories (see Hellinger 2019 Chebrolu 2021), or inauthentically because they are ‘woke’ (see Brian 2020 Kanai and Gill 2021) or have fallen prey to ‘cultural Marxism’ (see Jamin 2018 Mirrlees 2018). This is an excerpt from Global Politics in a Post-Truth Era.
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