Brute factual reality resists attempts to impose an alternate one

Evidence

The power to make people affirm the message is the power to impose reality. But brute facts are stubborn obstacles, as the philosopher Hannah Arendt argued. She illustrates the point by telling of French prime minister Georges Clemenceau’s answer to a question about how future historians would assign guilt for the outbreak of World War I: “I know for certain that they will not say Belgium invaded Germany.” What Arendt calls brute facticity impedes those who want the power to remake the world according to their desires. — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 167

Categorization

• XREF: The Clemenceau line is a compact, memorably quotable illustration of brute facticity worth keeping as an example. — connects to: Attempts to capture reality unmediated transform it into hyperreality instead — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 99; Reality constitutes itself by repressing an unrepresentable Real — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 40; Established reality structurally resists the logic of contradiction. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 536 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Established reality structurally resists the logic of contradiction. #corroborates (0.85) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 536
• Reality constitutes itself by repressing an unrepresentable Real #corroborates (0.82) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 40
• Theory must translate reality rather than force reality into abstract schemas. #corroborates (0.80) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 810
• Physical reality eventually punishes those who deny it #corroborates (0.78) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 347
• Comprehending the interrelation of experienced facts shatters false realism #corroborates (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 801