I know it’s the fashion, but actually this will be more than one thought. Is that ok? I think I can manage it but I do worry about ever decreasing attention spans.
There is so much that contributes to the very prevalent phenomenon of conspiracy theory. Cripes, I get paranoid thinking about it. The world has become incomprehensible. Words like ennui, angst, anomie, disconnected, ambiguity etc. and yes, meaningless are used to to describe our place in it. Narcissistic solipsism has moved from philosophy to the house right across the street. What are they doing in there? People intuitively know that they are helpless to change the world, no matter how they idealize it. Voting on reality tv shows has become a parody of democracy. Disconnected events occur, reduced to entertainment, and race by in an ever accelerating rate of change towards an unknown future. And we have learned not to trust our institutions, including politics and mainstream media.
Something terrible happens and shakes us. Terrible things happen constantly. We demand immediate answers with all the focus and anxiety of living in a present that demands instant gratification. Investigations take time and we can’t wait. Mainstream media has lost its capacity for investigative journalism and is suspect and ridiculed. There’s so many stories out there, or narratives as they say these days. And nothing is as it seems: the pretty woman at the bar in heavy war paint across from your table scratches his/her balls and looks directly at you and then returns a bored and distracted gaze to a football game taking place across the continent.
We want to comprehend and it has to be simple. It has to reveal the hidden truth. We want certitude. But the real truth is our insignifance in all this hustle and bustle and our inability to effect what seems important and is beyond or comprehension or control. And the particular conspiracy theory, even if it is not true in a literal sense has a dark metaphoric truth to it.
I know it’s the fashion, but actually this will be more than one thought. Is that ok? I think I can manage it but I do worry about ever decreasing attention spans.
There is so much that contributes to the very prevalent phenomenon of conspiracy theory. Cripes, I get paranoid thinking about it. The world has become incomprehensible. Words like ennui, angst, anomie, disconnected, ambiguity etc. and yes, meaningless are used to to describe our place in it. Narcissistic solipsism has moved from philosophy to the house right across the street. What are they doing in there? People intuitively know that they are helpless to change the world, no matter how they idealize it. Voting on reality tv shows has become a parody of democracy. Disconnected events occur, reduced to entertainment, and race by in an ever accelerating rate of change towards an unknown future. And we have learned not to trust our institutions, including politics and mainstream media.
Something terrible happens and shakes us. Terrible things happen constantly. We demand immediate answers with all the focus and anxiety of living in a present that demands instant gratification. Investigations take time and we can’t wait. Mainstream media has lost its capacity for investigative journalism and is suspect and ridiculed. There’s so many stories out there, or narratives as they say these days. And nothing is as it seems: the pretty woman at the bar in heavy war paint across from your table scratches his/her balls and looks directly at you and then returns a bored and distracted gaze to a football game taking place across the continent.
We want to comprehend and it has to be simple. It has to reveal the hidden truth. We want certitude. But the real truth is our insignifance in all this hustle and bustle and our inability to effect what seems important and is beyond or comprehension or control. And the particular conspiracy theory, even if it is not true in a literal sense has a dark metaphoric truth to it.