I saw someone comment on Musk’s tweet with words to the effect “the truth lies at the extremes”, by definition even. I’m not sure that is true—absolute truth is prosaic (e.g. the cup of tea is on the table), not extreme. However, it does raise the question as to what Twitter is for. From Musk’s tweet, I would infer that he thinks the platform’s purpose is for people to come together and build social rapport through discussion—yet that is superficial, since the tweet is rhetoric that serves a purpose.
The reason people think the truth lies at the extremes, aside from self-delusion because their position is extremist, is that they have taken the idea that “truth lies in the middle is a logical fallacy” and inferred from that the proposition that truth, therefore, lies at the extremes—that’s not what it means, the fallacy is the automatic presumption that truth lies in the middle; it doesn’t mean that the truth never lies in the middle, just that it cannot be assumed always to be so—the truth lies where it lies.
Musk has not said that the truth lies in the middle—itself a logical fallacy—rather what he has said is that Twitter is for the middle ground who are not driven by particular ideological points; nobody ever said Twitter was a truth platform—it’s a platform to socialise on; and the truth can be anti-social—hence characterised as “extreme”, for it disrupts social niceties (and, in this sense, “extreme” is relative and situational—moderate behaviour in the pub may be extreme at your great aunt’s raffle for the church).
However, there are people who put on the mask “truth-teller”—especially as regards with politics—who are not even transparent in their personal dealings with people or in their account of their own lives; when mask speaks to mask the “truth” is lost, even if supported with graphs—even “truth-teller” is a mask; before you stand for “the truth”, have you been honest? Truth and honesty are not synonymous—honesty is truthfulness about yourself, it is about integrity; you can be honestly wrong—yet you can also dishonestly speak the truth, hence the peril of the mask “truth-teller”.
Musk says the platform is for the silent majority, the reasonable 80% who do not drive the system—it being the Pareto “20%” who actuates any system. Ironically, it is always right-wing people who say this is so. The reason for this to be so is that the left is feminine, connected to perverted politeness, and so seeks to regulate social exchanges through lectures—to get “rude” or “dangerous” ideas under control; as with politeness it is not concrete acts under discussion (e.g. incitement to violence) but the perception created by such speech (just as politeness is about social perception).
In such conditions, the silent majority—not being verbally fluent lawyers or academics—must endure the yoke of perverted civility. To say that you will just serve the majority becomes, ironically, a right-wing point—the right has an elitist worldview that most people agree with, the left, “in the name of the people”, enunciates a worldview for the masses that the masses themselves do not agree with; although they cannot elaborate why they disagree and, if pressed, can be outmanoeuvred by lawyers and academics—since their profession is to convince and persuade through language, even if they are wrong.
Hence Musk’s tweet is a typically right-wing point, though it is also typical for right-wing people to refuse to acknowledge they are on the right—they are for reality, some people who are against reality call them “right-wingers”, “racists”, “fascists” and so on; yet that is just their protest against reality—I’m telling it how it is, if you call that “fascism” so be it. If you let the people say what they think and feel—with actual incitement to violence excluded—the emergent order will be on the right; in the first moments, there will be chaos—yet you have to have the confidence to allow chaos to prevail for order to emerge.
This is the Tao. It is the very attempt to “control anarchy” that leads to the left—to moralised priest-professors or journalists who lecture people about what is safe. People who promote order, create chaos; people who permit chaos, create order—it is the paradoxical reversal of opposites (treat her mean, keep her keen). Hence, if we just allow the silent majority to speak, genuine order will emerge—what exists at the moment is a false order, disconnected from nature, that exists to “protect the people”; it exists to protect people from the truth—the truth is not extreme in an absolute sense, it is simple and self-evident (the cup of tea is on the table); it is just that certain people have imposed a shame-based speech regime that makes it impossible to say “the cup of tea is on the table” (because otherwise there might be another holocaust, or something).
We all know the tea is on the table, it does not require special knowledge—let alone a PhD (a person with a PhD will talk about the possibility that, from a post-structuralist perspective, we can say there is “a cup” of “tea” within Cartesian coordinates and yet “tea” must be understood within a semiotic regime and, after fruitful discussion, we might, perhaps, tentatively, suggest a digestive biscuit could be added to the saucer—although this should be subject to peer review and replicable experiments). Yet the tea is on the table.
Hence, if we have confidence in the people, we know that they will submit to their legitimate king (Trump in this case)—it is only if we have confidence in the people, confidence in chaos, that true order will emerge. The anxious people who fear disorder create true chaos, since their attempts to control the situation lead to the false order founded on academics and journalists—hence the wise ruler leads through absence.