The title of this piece refers to an acronym I heard for the first time today that, I was told, is told to students in college writing courses. KISS is the acronym and it stands for Keep It Simple Stupid. And I had always thought that a good part of what good writing was about was getting at the complexity of things! I must have been a stupid.
On another subject which may be more closely related to the above subject than I want to spend time thinking about now, this:
The following is from an article by David Frum titled “How to Build and Autocracy,” that appears in the March 2017 edition of The Atlantic. A very potent form of deception deceives by confusing notions of deception and truth. The game is to make people believe that all is deception, even that which is true and, thus, nothing exists that can be considered to be true so that lies have the same truth value as that which has no basis in evidence, alternative fact a co-equal of actual fact.
Frum writes:
“Mostly, however, modern strong men seek merely to discredit journalism as an institution, by denying that such a thing as independent judgment can exist. All reporting serves and agenda. There is on truth, only competing attempts to grab power.
“By filling the media space with bizarre inventions and brazen denials, purveyors of fake news hope to mobilize potential supporters with righteous wrath—and to demoralize potential opponents by nurturing the idea that everybody lies and nothing matters. A would-be kleptocrat is actually better served by spreading cynicism than by deceiving followers with false beliefs: Believers can be disillusioned; people who expect to hear only lies can hardly complain when a lie is exposed. The inculcation of cynicism breaks down the distinction between those forms of media that try their imperfect best to report the truth, and those that purvey falsehoods for reason of profit or ideology. The New York Times becomes the equivalent of Russia’s RT; the Washington Post of Breitbart; NPR of Infowars.”
