Politics seems to have reached a point that has nothing to do with facts and everything to do with stories. There’s no real middle position on offer. You simply choose which narrative suits you. And once you choose, no accommodation can be made – no conversation can even be had – with those who subscribe to the other one. The result is to replace a political culture of disagreement with a political culture of contempt. This applies to both the political left and right.
Unfortunately the same post-truth problems apply to ram air kites and their failures. The inferiority of ram airs makes contempt appealing. But this contempt inevitably spreads to ram lovers, not just their kites. The effect is a lack of accountability. Ram lovers can continue to fail at your local beach and cause more rescue call-outs and accidents, but the problems are consequence-free. Ram air failures are subsumed by a grander narrative of the witch-hunt against ram lovers. Notions of objective truth have been subsumed to a narrative of ram air persecution.
Persuasion and deliberation are possible if we agree that we’re starting from a loosely agreed set of facts, and that the other side is even worth engaging. Ram lovers have dismantled all of these things. It’s now “us vs. them” with no regard for kite performance facts.
The reason ram airs persist - the reason they still claim 4% of the market despite their inferiority, relates to narrative, not fact: a post-truth kite for a post-truth world.
Pumpy