Crazy? But of course. Sanity could only diminish her power. For American politicians, true sanity would be a handicap as crippling as intelligence, curiosity, or honesty. What we require of the powerful is that they tell us whatever it is we want to hear with absolute conviction. We want to have our fears soothed, our guilt assuaged, and our responsibilities placed on any shoulders other than our own. We want to be eternal children, all our lives, and Mommie Dearest is preferable to no Mommy at all. In fact, an abusive fantasy parent who fills our ears with self-serving lies may suit our needs best. Who better to blame for our stupidity, weakness, and exploitation? Its all _their_ fault! We didnt do _anything_! Quite right. We didnt - and we dont - do anything at all. When the goal is to manipulate belief, one must be _real_, not truthful. Weve created Bachmann and her ilk to put on a show, not govern. Americans dont want to be governed - we want to be entertained. In a mass-media culture where most individuals are abysmally ignorant, any sufficiently repeated statement becomes true for however many news cycles it lasts. A fact is now a thing one creates by adroit use of the media, indistinguishable from belief. As a culture, weve found understanding as difficult as it is emotionally unsatisfying and so have replaced it with faith. Reality is whatever we believe it be, and the easiest thing to believe is whatever were told most often by whomever it pleases us to listen to. Consider that belief in the patently ridiculous statement everyone has a right to their opinion is as common as the failure to recognize its bad grammar. Intelligent design is brilliant marketing, and in a culture uninterested in knowledge, marketing is everything. It works not least of all because it allows superstitious ignorants and their exploiters to refer to themselves as intelligent. Say intelligent design fifty times in a row and youll find yourself simply assuming theres actual intelligence somewhere in it. Its magnificent. By comparison, creations like trickle down economics and The Patriot Act appear blunt, bumbling, and unfocused. The insidious, seductive susurration of Intelligent Design makes Big Brother Loves You sound like a machine-generated fart. Darwin and his evolution dont have a chance: even if the other product didnt have the Sky God™ seal of approval, evolution would still be a bad slogan for a campaign so poorly conceived that even those who claim to believe it almost never accurately summarize it or its repercussions. In the decades following the collapse of our K-12 system, facts, reasoning, and supportable conclusions in American public discourse are in a position similar to that of ballet after AIDS. Even those few brilliant dancers who survived found themselves without an audience. There was almost no one left alive who could comprehend their performances or recognize their excellence, and they found themselves dancing a dead language to bored tourists whod been disappointed by the lack of discount tickets to Cats. Art ceases to exist when communication becomes impossible. So does reason. There are so few Americans who can recognize facts or follow an argument that leaders who attempt to do so might as well be speaking Vulcan. Theres almost no one left who can understand them. Any failure to pander and condescend gets an immediate hostile reaction reminiscent of a clown reciting calculus at a childs birthday party. Even intelligent people under 30 cant parse a debate that lasts longer than a shampoo ad, and are generally unwilling to try if not rewarded with a punch line at least once every 20 seconds. In the past year, how many Americans have given their entire attention to a piece of music that lasted longer than four minutes? How many are even capable of doing so? Its unsurprising that the closest thing America has to journalists are stand-up comics - thats who we listen to. If a journalist reports facts in a forest and no one is around to hear, is it journalism? When people vote based not on self interest, but on fantasies completely divorced from any demonstrable reality, is it democracy?
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 01:47:14 +0000
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