Sing it, Sister

This article is worth the time of any, like me, who find themselves both broadly sympathetic to progressive causes and yet wearied and generally opposed to the bien-pensant voices for those causes currently preeminent in the American Media.

Here's the intro, to whet your appetite:

In the interests of efficiency, I’ll start by asserting — not arguing — some propositions: In their discussions of cultural life and of societal trends, the organs of American educated opinion (the New York Times, NPR, the New Yorker, et al.); the faculty and students at our elite prep schools, colleges, and universities; and the members of the metropolitan class who read those publications and emerge from those institutions, frequently and increasingly assert, rather than argue, a set of vaguely interlocking propositions and slogans concerning (I’ll spare the scare quotes) white privilege, social justice, systemic racism, diversity, inclusivity, microaggressions, and the intellectual and cultural heritage — irrelevant at best, baneful at worst — of dead white males.

Although both the champions and critics of these propositions characterise them (and the attendant attitudinising) as ‘political’, they are nothing of the sort. They are merely gestural. Lacking subtlety and depth, they amount to the intoning of shibboleths unsupported by reasoned, detailed, systematic analysis and argument. An orthodoxy has taken hold of intellectual, cultural and academic life, an orthodoxy nurtured and protected by an overweening and aggressive sense of virtue and righteous aggrievement that permits it to go unchallenged by the scepticism and bracing scrutiny that used to characterise — in fact to define — intellectual, cultural and academic life.

Excellent Article

On Jordan Peterson, a current bete noire for all sorts of bien-pensant intellectuals, who tend to misrepresent his moderate (even banal) ideas, reframing them as hyperbolic, straw man arguments they proceed to diminish with great self-congratulation (see the recent piece in the NYTimes, for one of many examples).

A sample:

Moderation can, of course, be the wrong approach to any given problem and, like every other political temperament, it is susceptible to criticism. But one criticism it is not susceptible to is being a form of crypto-fascism, or covert anti-Semitism, or an attempt to “justify class and gender hierarchies,” when it plainly is none of those things. His goal appears to be to advance the cause of progress while taking care to preserve what is functional in our systems, whose capacity to sustain nation states of hundreds of millions of people in conditions of relative peace and prosperity he would like all of us to acknowledge. His own personal conservatism might lead him to strike the balance between equality and freedom at a different place than would an egalitarian liberal or leftist: But it’s the idea that there is a balance that needs to be struck that has come under assault.

There is something uneasily poised at the border of grandiosity and grandeur, heroism and quixotism, about Peterson that makes him appealing to undergraduates at the same time as it makes him a target-rich environment for haughty intellectuals and snarky journalists. 

How Many People Does this Describe?

No doubt by this behaviour they meant only to shew that, if there were things in the world which they themselves lacked — in this instance, certain prerogatives which the old lady enjoyed, and the privilege of her acquaintance — it was not because they could not, but because they did not choose to acquire them. But they had succeeded in convincing themselves that this really was what they felt; and it was the suppression of all desire for, of all curiosity as to forms of life which were unfamiliar, of all hope of pleasing new people (for which, in the women, had been substituted a feigned contempt, an artificial brightness) that had the awkward result of obliging them to label their discontent satisfaction, and lie everlastingly to themselves, for which they were greatly to be pitied

Within a Budding Grove, Again

"The time which we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions that we feel expand it, those that we inspire contract it; and habit fills up what remains."

Jordan Peterson

Canadian thinker Jordan Peterson's intellectual star is very much on the ascendancy these last few months.  This interview is a must-read as far as I'm concerned...

Walking the Tightrope Between Chaos and Order—An Interview with Jordan B Peterson - Quillette

Walking the Tightrope Between Chaos and Order—An Interview with Jordan B... In January, Jordan B Peterson was in London to launch his new book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. His...

The ending especially is worth your time.

A sample:...

OK, so moving on. When trying to explain to people your ideas, one drops in the term ‘postmodern neo-Marxism,’ and they just look at you and go,” What on earth are you talking about?” Can you not come up with a more accessible term? 

Well, there are analogies. “Social Justice Warriors” is a pretty good one. It’s a bit more pejorative. But the thing is, we are at a point where people have to actually understand what these things are. Because we are in a war of ideas, and if it’s solved at the level of ideas then there won’t be a war.

Is “cultural Marxism” better? 

It’s an oversimplification because it doesn’t take into account the effect of the postmodernists. And I actually think the postmodernists were worse that the cultural Marxists, because they identify the cultural Marxists within the Frankfurt School, and there is some utility in that although its complicated.

There was far more excuse for the cultural Marxists than there was for the postmodernists. Because the cultural Marxists were reacting to Nazism. They had their reasons for being terrified of the radical Right and they had their reasons for trying to set the Left straight. Now, I think they did all sorts of perverse and corrupt things but it’s kind of like the original revolutionaries in the Soviet Union. They didn’t know it was going to be a century-long bloodbath. So, there was a little bit more excuse for their revolutionary utopian fervour.

Are you familiar with Daniel Farber and Suzanna Sherry? They wrote a book: Beyond All Reason: The Radical Assault on Truth in American Law in 1997, which attacked critical race theory. They faced much of the same criticism that you have: that they were bigoted and so on. Part of their argument was to ask the question: “Do Jewish people enjoy white privilege?” because if they do, then the concept of white privilege begins to sound anti-Semitic, doesn’t it?  What do you think of that argument?

How about Asian people, do they enjoy white privilege? There is a major problem with [the privilege] argument, especially with regard to Asians. Asians are the fly in the ointment for the identity politics types because the Asians are suing universities all across the United States for discriminating against them. Which they do! You have to do way better as an Asian to get into an elite American university. Otherwise, the Universities would be just full of Asians.

So what do we do about that? Nothing! You select on merit and you let the bloody cards fall where they are going to. And then they say, “Well your mechanisms of merit are polluted by your patriarchal presuppositions.” And the answer to that that is, partly! But you don’t have a better solution! So you use objective measures despite the fact that they are flawed because they are not as flawed as whatever other things you’re going to use.

One of the ways that left-wing ideologues seem to be winning is through Wikipedia. If you go to the “White Privilege” page you will find that it’s effectively postmodern propaganda… 

It is a very intelligent point of entry for someone who is activist-minded. Why the hell wouldn’t you go on Wikipedia and gerrymander the contents? You have an ethical duty to do so.

And one of the ways this is entrenched is that the sources that underpin these misleading Wikipedia pages are professors who are peer reviewed…  

Ha! Peer-reviewed…that’s such a lie! First of all, 80 percent of humanities papers are not cited once. That’s fraud! That’s what that is, right. 80 percent, that’s a very bad number. “Peer-reviewed” means you have conjured up a specialty journal that only you and your friends publish in. You each review your own publications. Then you go the library, and say “You have to buy this.” And the library says, “Because you said so we have to buy it, because that’s our mandate.” And the publisher says, “Oh good because we will sell it to the libraries at a price so inflated that the mere fact that no-one ever reads it is irrelevant.” Right, and so then the libraries buy it. And that’s your “peer-review”. 

So it becomes a circular argument on Wikipedia because when you want to introduce criticism, say, by a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, and they say, “Well he isn’t a professor of critical race theory…” 

Exactly, they say, “He’s not qualified”. That’s what they keep telling me. They say: “You’re not qualified to comment on that’ and I say, “Well, you’re not qualified to comment on anything!’” This is part of the reason why I am unpopular in Canada: because I keep saying that these are pseudodisciplines. They bear no resemblance whatsoever to a [scholarly] discipline. And that would be all of the “Critical Studies” areas. They have no intellectual credibility whatsoever. They do far more harm than good.

This is what Janice Fiamengo keeps saying, and she deserves more attention because she is quite the character. She is Professor of English Literature at the University of Ottawa and she was deep into Women’s Studies for a long period of time and then learned that it was fraudulent from top to bottom. She has been making videos and going around campuses ever since, to quite vicious opposition. But she is a tough cookie, man.

Yeah, so, Sociology? It’s done. Social work? It’s corrupt. Faculties of education? They are so done they are not salvageable, as far as I can tell. Anthropology, history, literature, the humanities, generally speaking, they are done [Tammy: law!]. Law is the worst of the bunch.

We are finished then, aren’t we? If the lawyers are against us?

The law is really bad. I had no idea how deep the corruption in law had gotten until last year. I have been talking to law students and professors and it’s absolutely unbelievable.

Swann In Love

“Poor Swann,” said Mme. des Laumes that night to her husband; “he is always charming, but he does look so dreadfully unhappy. You will see for yourself, for he has promised to dine with us one of these days. I do feel that it’s really absurd that a man of his intelligence should let himself be made to suffer by a creature of that kind, who isn’t even interesting, for they tell me, she’s an absolute idiot!” she concluded with the wisdom invariably shown by people who, not being in love themselves, feel that a clever man ought to be unhappy only about such persons as are worth his while; which is rather like being astonished that anyone should condescend to die of cholera at the bidding of so insignificant a creature as the common bacillus.

Henry VI

I've never read it.  So far these two passages have caught my attention.

You are disputing of your generals.           

One would have lingering wars with little cost;           

Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings;           

A third thinks, without expense at all,           

By guileful fair words peace may be obtain’d.

Glory is like a circle in the water,           

Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,                     

Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.

Notes

I don't think any great novel has been cynical.   I don't think any great art has ever been cynical.  To be cynical is fundamentally to deconstruct, to carp, to cavil.  The test of greatness, the core residuum of its existence, by contrast is of making--building.  I don't say that there must, in a great work, be no trace at all of cynicism--for to make the universe is to make a universe complete, and no universe is complete without cynicism. I suggest only that it cannot be the animating force, the core elemental structuring device.

Within A Budding Grove

“Good heavens!” exclaimed M. de Norpois, inspiring me with doubts of my own intelligence far more serious than those that ordinarily distracted me, when I saw that what I valued a thousand thousand times more than myself, what I regarded as the most exalted thing in the world, was for him at the very foot of the scale of admiration. “I do not share your son’s point of view. Bergotte is what I call a flute-player: one must admit that he plays on it very agreeably, although with a great deal of mannerism, of affectation. But when all is said, it is no more than that, and that is nothing very great. Nowhere does one find in his enervated writings anything that could be called construction. No action — or very little — but above all no range. His books fail at the foundation, or rather they have no foundation at all. At a time like the present, when the ever-increasing complexity of life leaves one scarcely a moment for reading, when the map of Europe has undergone radical alterations, and is on the eve, very probably, of undergoing others more drastic still, when so many new and threatening problems are arising on every side, you will allow me to suggest that one is entitled to ask that a writer should be something else than a fine intellect which makes us forget, amid otiose and byzantine discussions of the merits of pure form, that we may be overwhelmed at any moment by a double tide of barbarians, those from without and those from within our borders. I am aware that this is a blasphemy against the sacrosanct school of what these gentlemen term ‘Art for Art’s sake,’ but at this period of history there are tasks more urgent than the manipulation of words in a harmonious manner.

From  "Swann at Home"

A New Way Forward

Will see me start blogging regularly again.  Good news for my millions of loyal readers.

I've felt less need to blog since I've returned from my long exile in California.  Most of the readers for whom I wrote posts now live in my area code.  That proximity takes away some of the urgency I felt about communicating my thoughts.   I think, though, that I've found a new way to make use of this space.  One that features thousands--literally thousands--of candid Kardashian pictures.  Plus, dancing dog gifs!

That's for the future, though.  This morning I'll just record the incredibly vivid dream I had last night. In it, Jon Gruden was teaching a class on "The Waste Land."  I was in the class, along with a lot of other high school students, and several professional football players.  Marshawn Lynch was sitting right next to me, wearing his Raiders outfit.  The lecture on "The Waste Land" itself didn't register.  I do remember that Gruden himself was very passionate about the material.  Then at some point the class devolved into a discussion of the subjunctive in English.  A heated debate broke out on whether or not the phrase "If I were a rich man" counted as subjunctive or not.  Marshawn Lynch came alive during this discussion, I remember.

Healing?

We've made progress, The Bink and I, towards his recovery.  Daily dosages of anti-inflammatories, plus pain meds, seem to have alleviated his suffering.  We haven't one had pain yelp in the last three days. 

We have a new problem now, however: his naturally rascally nature.  The Bear is not a Bear of idleness.  Check that--he is a Bear of idleness, but not unrelieved idleness.  Eighteen hours of sleep a day--yes: that's reasonable.  Necessary even.  But twenty-two hours of sleep a day--that's too much. 

Too much, though, is what he needs.  For his body to fully heal, he has to stay calm.  Sudden jumps and lurches, yowlings, bounding--these are all actions the Bear enjoys.  But they're not good for his recovery. 

I'm trying to keep him as sedate as I can, but it's now been two weeks since he's gotten out of the house and walked in the neighborhood, and smelled the new smells.  He's becoming restless, and unhappy.  The obvious solution is to take him for walk.  That sounds fine--but walking requires a leash and that opens the possibility of reinjuring himself. 

Dark Days

Sad Bear

The Bink is suffering.  We don't know what happened, but on Saturday he woke up in pain.  When I rubbed behind his ears to comfort him he yelped--in pain.  Dogs don't yelp in pain often; in my life to this date I can count maybe ten times Bink has made that noise (usually when someone stepped on his paw by mistake).  The pain seemed to be coming from his neck and it didn't go away.  When we took him to the Hospital they gave us painkillers and anti-inflammatories but did not take XRays.  They hoped--we hope too--that after a few days it might go away.

Now it's Wednesday--four days later.  It hasn't gone away.  The wife is out of town and I'm spending all day alone in a house with a suffering animal.  It's been one of the worst (half) weeks of my life.

As anyone who's ever been around a suffering animal can tell you, they don't act like healthy animals.  They walk with their tail down.  They cower in odd places--Bink right now is huddled under an end table by our couch, pressed up against the wall.  It's as if he wants to make himself disappear, as if by taking himself out of existence he can also take his pain out of existence.

Of course we have to take him back to the Vet.  (We're waiting one more day to see if there's any improvement).  That doesn't promise to lead anything good, however.  The most likely reason Bink is suffering is so much is that he has a slipped disc, or a pinched nerve in his back.  Neither of those prognoses are good ones--neither are ones that admit to treatment.  If it's just inflammation, of a muscular-skeletal problem, it should begin to get better soon.  Let's hope it does.

Fargo's Unappealing New Season

I'm trying to get through the third season of Fargo right now.  It's pretty rough.  I guess the people who write the show must all have decided to get heavily into PCP this season, because it's been a disaster.  Poor casting choices.  Storyholes so big you could drive a semi- through them.  And a nausea-inducing reliance on curelty and shock, instead of story or dialogue, to generate interest.  The show feels like the spiritual equivalent of watching someone torture and then kill a small animal.  It is utterly unredeeming.

What a come-down this marks from the glories of last season.  The second season of Fargo was everything this season isn't.  Sharp surprising dialogue, complex memorable characters--but best of all were its villains.  Its villains were figures of complexity.  They weren't pasteboard monsters, who existed only to kill and maim, their depravities 'justified' by trite speeches about man's bestial nature--they were fully imagined human-beings.  That's all gone this season.  It's a grim, dispiriting slog, one unleavened by any notes of hope or cheerfulness.  Avoid it, I say--at all costs.

Whining about Wine

Interesting piece about a growing brouhaha in the world of wine.  My wife and I enjoyed the TV show Top Somm last year; it showed a group of highly-driven, slightly unstable New York sommeliers working to prepare themselves to qualify as Master Sommeliers--a designation that counts for a lot in the wine world.  One of them, Morgan Harris, is referenced in this article.

Cork Dork, the book that's excited all the furor, will, I confidently predict be turned into a movie within the next five years.  You heard it hear first.

Gotterdammerung

Last night the wife and I attended the HGO's production of Wagner's Gotterdammerung (trans: kitten play-time). It's about the apocalypse at the end of the world, and ends with the death of all gods. It lasted five and a half hours and featured two intermissions.

I have been to only two other operas in my life; both were relatively obscure Baroque works that featured little in the way of spectacle.  This had been described to my wife--two of her close friends at work are hard-core opera fanatics--as being like 'Cirque du Soleil, only with singing.'  So I was primed for some big-time excitement.  It's the end of the world, here, people.  It ought to be big.

The actual ending--the end of the world, and the burning down of Valhalla--did not live up to expectations.  Essentially it consisted of various 'Gods' hanging from the ceiling on wires and writhing in mid air while computerized fire imagery played on the large movable blocks they used for scenery.

The performance itself, however, had a lot to offer.  The first scene features the three Norns suspending in mid air wearing an immense strand of rope which represents time and fate.  While they sang complicated net images played over them, and they rose and fell in mid-air as each one handed the rope to each other.  Later, the Rhinemaidens sang while suspended in floating cubes of water (each, according to the program, weighed about 2500 pounds).  The sequence where Siegfried, disguised as the evil Gertrun, comes to Brunhilde's fortress castle and forces her to marry him was exceedingly well done.

In general the whole experience was supremely satisfying.  Sitting in a dark space and surrendering to  an experience offers an escape from day-to-day worries.  For the first thirty minutes I worry about my dog and my business and the emails I need to send.  Then that all gives way and I attain true contact with the present, existing only in the moment, without any irritable reaching before or ahead.  It has value.

I want to see more operas, I think.

I also intend to resume posting.

WTF!?

I am sad but I am slowly making my peace with it. I am nourishing the hope that, while Trump has done a lot of awful things, and said a lot of awful things while running, he has always, in the years prior to now, been (politically) a fairly moderate person. He's so duplicitous that I think it's fairly likely most of what he said he would do on the campaign trail won't happen. I hope. My fear is really international relations. I don't want us to go to war.

The New House

We've now been here about two months and slowly things are coming into shape. For the last two weeks we've had landscapers shuffling and rooting around the home's perimeter. The dog is a constant state of furor and working on anything requiring unbroken concentration has proven impossible. But--and it's a big but--our yard finally exists. We no longer are surrounded on three sides by piles of grassless dirt. We have planter boxes and climbing jasmine and Backstar gravel (which is gray) and all variety of flowering plants. And our sprinklers have been made to work. The inside of the house also progresses. Two of our rooms are still uninhabitable, however--the formal living room and the dining room. Our dining room table, ordered off EBay, arrived last week. Then, as the movers were bringing it inside--check that: after they had brought it inside and were in the final stages of lowering it to the floor, the table slipped. A leg broke and they took it away. They claim they can repair it back to how it was, however. We'll see. Regardless, we have no light source for that space--the home sellers took the chandelier--so it's not likely we'll have any dinner parties very soon. Maybe before the New Year. In an hour I'm going to a football game--the first professional football game I've been to in maybe twenty years. My wife's father has season tickets to the Texans and he's been good enough to let us borrow them. We're going to go early and experience the tailgating. The way our QB is playing, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Coach O'Brien asked me to suit up, either. Given my knowledge of 19th century French poetics.

Who Knew Saturday Live Could Be This Good?

Jeopardy Test

First off, I am aiming to get back to regularly weekly blogging.  We've been laboring mightily these last few months to get our new house operational.  At the same time, I'm trying to reestablish my tutoring business in the city after many years away.  Add my growing cosmetics empire to all of that, and it leaves very little time for blogging.

But I will make the time.  Damn those women and their mascara needs!

Last night I took the Jeopardy qualifying test.  (They are offering it today and tomorrow as well, if any reader wants to sign up for it).  It went well, I think.  It's not a hard test--I passed it fifteen years ago, and I know more now than I did then.

The challenge, though, is blocking out one's nerves and focussing on the questions.  Not that I should be nervous, sitting in my room, typing answers into computer, but somehow I was.  It gives me insight into the real challenge of going on the show.   It goes without saying that it's far easier to summon up a fact when you're out with your friends than it is to do so when you're standing in a TV studio with lights and cameras all around you.

When I tutor, I suggest to my students that to really KNOW a fact means you can be woken up at three in the morning and instantly summon it up.  That's how it is with your name or your birthday--that's information that's always accessible.  For me, that's going to be the challenge going on the show: instant recall, no matter the situation.   At this point, I would say I 'know' 90% of what's likely to be on the show.  The question is, can I recall it all under pressure.  We'll see.

The test, though, was easy.  Easy easy easy.  A few questions that I can recall (not the exact wordings):
1) In what month was Julius Caesar murdered?
2) Biggest hit of Meghan Trainor  (knew this only b/c I'd studied pop music--and found I really like M Trainor, btw)?
3) What's the stuff in plants that effects photosynthesis?
4) What animal's name means 'water horse?'
5) What's a ten letter word to describe a country that doesn't border water?
6) Recent musical about someone buying an old shoe factory (knew this only b/c I'd studied musical theater)?
7) Where's the Simpson desert?
8) Who was ruling England when Shakespeare died?
9) What former first lady wrote a memoir called "Woman from Plains?"
10) in 2017 Charles Darwin will be taken off the UK 10 pound note and replaced with this woman.  (Did not know this)
11) The seven largest starts of Ursa Major are better known as ___
12) Who wrote 'The Naked and the Dead'?
13) What does LAN stand for, in computer-speak? (missed this)
14) What word that starts with an 'a' means 'to give up a throne'?

I think last time I took the test, a passing score was 30 out of 50.  Maybe 35?  But no more than that.  I can only think of three questions that I missed so far, and I doubt I missed more than six.  So, I should be ok.

Next step is to do some kind of physical audition.  If I get invited to do so, I'll let you know.

The Echo Chamber

Here is a recent piece in the Times that tells you everything you need to know to understand why the GOP is no longer functioning as a viable party in presidential elections.  The fact that serious people can be conned into believing Hilary Clinton has hidden health issues based on the outright lies concocted by Sean Hannity should convince any genuine Republican that they need to do more--much more--than watch FOX News if they want to be informed.

In fact, I'll go further: to watch on FOX News

Note the pushback from Wall Street Journal and former Bush officials, however.   There is some sign of hope.

During major inflection points in Donald J. Trump’s campaign, the advisers, family members and friends who make up his kitchen cabinet burn up their email accounts and phone lines gaming out how to get his candidacy on track (and what counsel he might go along with).

But one person in the mix brings more than just his political advice. He also happens to control an hour of prime time on the Fox News Channel.

That person is Sean Hannity.

Mr. Hannity uses his show on the nation’s most-watched cable news network to blare Mr. Trump’s message relentlessly — giving Mr. Trump the kind of promotional television exposure even a billionaire can’t afford for long.

But Mr. Hannity is not only Mr. Trump’s biggest media booster; he also veers into the role of adviser. Several people I’ve spoken with over the last couple of weeks said Mr. Hannity had for months peppered Mr. Trump, his family members and advisers with suggestions on strategy and messaging.

So involved is Mr. Hannity that three separate denizens of the hall of mirrors that is Trump World told me they believed Mr. Hannity was behaving as if he wanted a role in a possible Trump administration — something he denied to me as laughable and contractually prohibitive in an interview on Friday.

But he did not dispute that he lends his thoughts to Mr. Trump and others in his close orbit whom Mr. Hannity has known for years.

“Do I talk to my friend who I’ve known for years and speak my mind? I can’t not speak my mind,’’ he said.

Continue reading the main story

But, Mr. Hannity said, “I don’t say anything privately that I don’t say publicly.’’ And, he acknowledged, it’s unclear how far his advice goes with Mr. Trump, given that “nobody controls him.”

Mr. Hannity is unapologetic about his aim. “I’m not hiding the fact that I want Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States.” After all, he says, “I never claimed to be a journalist.”

That makes Mr. Hannity the ultimate product of the Fox News Channel that Roger Ailes envisioned when he founded it with Rupert Murdoch 20 years ago, as a defiant answer to what they described as an overwhelmingly liberal mainstream news media that was biased against Republicans. Mr. Hannity was there from the beginning with Mr. Ailes, who was forced out over sexual harassment allegations last month.

Mr. Hannity’s show has all the trappings of traditional television news — the anchor desk, the graphics and the patina of authority that comes with being part of a news organization that also employs serious-minded journalists like Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly.

But because Mr. Hannity is “not a journalist,” he apparently feels free to work in the full service of his candidate without having to abide by journalism’s general requirements for substantiation and prohibitions against, say, regularly sharing advice with political campaigns.

So there was Mr. Hannity last week, devoting one of his shows to a town hall-style meeting with Mr. Trump at which his (leading) questions often contained extensive Trumpian talking points — including the debunked claim that Mr. Trump opposed the Iraq invasion. (As BuzzFeed News first reported, Mr. Trump voiced support for the campaign in a 2002 discussion with the radio host Howard Stern.)

On other days, he has lent his prime-time platform to wild, unsubstantiated accusations that Hillary Clinton is hiding severe health problems. He showed a video of a supposed possible seizure that was in fact a comical gesture Mrs. Clinton was making to reporters, as one of them, The Associated Press’s Lisa Lerer, reported. He also shared a report from the conservative site The Gateway Pundit that a member of Mrs. Clinton’s security detail appeared to be carrying a diazepam syringe, “for patients who experience recurrent seizures.”

A simple call to the Secret Service spokeswoman Nicole Mainor, as I made on Friday, would have resulted in the answer that the “syringe” was actually a small flashlight.

People in Mr. Hannity’s audience of 2.5 million who are inclined to believe the health allegations, and who believe the mainstream media are covering for Mrs. Clinton, are unlikely to be impressed by the Secret Service’s explanation.

That’s the ultimate result of the hyperpoliticized approach Mr. Hannity and so many others use in today’s more stridently ideological media: A fact is dismissed as false when it doesn’t fit the preferred political narrative.

But while this informational nihilism appears to have hit a new high, the last two weeks have signaled the start of a possible reckoning within the conservative media.

First there was The Wall Street Journal’s deputy editorial page editor Bret Stephens, who, after trading insults with Mr. Hannity over Mr. Trump, said on the MSNBC show “Morning Joe” that “too much of the Republican Party became an echo chamber of itself.”

Those who spend an inordinate amount of time “listening to certain cable shows” and inhaling the conspiracy theories promoted on “certain fringes of the internet,’’ he said, wind up in a debate that’s “divorced from reality.”

Then there was the conservative radio host Charlie Sykes, who lamented in an interview with the Business Insider politics editor Oliver Darcy, “We have spent 20 years demonizing the liberal mainstream media.”

That criticism was often warranted, Mr. Sykes said. (Just take a look at the decision by the former Clinton White House aide and current ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos to give some $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation, for which he apologized last year.) But, as Mr. Sykes said, “At a certain point, you wake up and you realize you have destroyed the credibility of any credible outlet out there.” Therefore any attempt to debunk a falsehood by Mr. Trump, he said, becomes hopeless.

What really caught my eye, though, was the moment on Fox News on Wednesday when Dana Perino, a host of “The Five,” refused to go along with a colleague’s attempt to dispute the many polls showing Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. Trump. “That’s a real disservice to his supporters, to lie to them that those polls don’t matter,” said Ms. Perino, a White House press secretary for George W. Bush.

She went on to express regret for joining with other Fox News hosts who doubted the polls showing President Obama leading Mitt Romney in 2012.

You can’t help but see it as a sure sign that Mr. Ailes, who presided over all of that polling doubt four years ago, had left the building. Still, even Mr. Ailes occasionally reined in his more opinionated hosts when he worried they would tarnish the credibility of his news reporters.

It’s why, for instance, he abruptly canceled Mr. Hannity’s plans to attend a major Tea Party rally in Ohio in 2010 after it came to light that the organizers were using his appearance to raise money.

Mr. Ailes faced another Hannity-related issue shortly before his ouster, when CNN reported that the host had provided Newt Gingrich with private jet travel to Indiana, for a possible vice-presidential interview with Mr. Trump. (Mr. Hannity had been lobbying Mr. Trump to choose Mr. Gingrich.)

Mr. Ailes opted against forcing Mr. Hannity to collect the fare from Mr. Gingrich. He had a possible reason: Mr. Hannity was among those supporting Mr. Ailes amid the sexual harassment scandal, eventually even discussing a walkout in the event of Mr. Ailes’s ouster, as Breitbart reported a few days later. (After Fox News executives shared with Mr. Hannity and others the full details of the allegations, which Mr. Ailes denies, the talk of a walkout ended.)

Mr. Hannity says Mr. Gingrich is a very close friend and it’s his business what favors he does for him, though he left open the possibility that Mr. Gingrich might cut a check for the plane trip just the same. Since Mr. Ailes’s departure, Fox executives have not pushed the issue. Nor, apparently, have they warned Mr. Hannity away from giving advice to Mr. Trump and his campaign — at least not so far during a turbulent time at the network.

Then again, at this point there are questions about how much advice Mr. Ailes himself was lending to Mr. Trump when he was running the place, given that, as The Times reported on Saturday, he has already emerged as an influential Trump adviser.

Mr. Hannity told me his support for Mr. Trump makes him “more honest” than mainstream reporters who hide their biases. It turns out even “honesty” is a relative concept these days. For some people more than others.