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Humans are not rational animals. This observation is not unique to me by any means, it is something that JMG pointed out in one or more of his essays. It really changed my perspective on people in general and current events specifically. I say this as someone who has a degree in psychology and somehow missed that important fact in my textbooks. It may have been there but I don't think it got the emphasis it deserved. Due to the myth of Progress, it was probably presented as something we have overcome thanks to the "great leap in mental evolution" we've undergone since the rationalists became ascendant.
Now, it's pretty obvious that people aren't ALWAYS rational, but I kind of assumed that I was rational, and I also assumed that most of the people "like me" were rational too. Who were people like me? Fairly educated, at least semi professional, more or less informed (as though one can be properly informed by the media of our day... ha!). I always assumed that, while our elected officials may have disagreed on policy, they acted in rational ways for intelligent reasons. Boy was I naive!
When society began to act in clearly irrational ways over the Covid outbreak, I came to realize what it was like to live through events like McCarthyism, witch hunts, and the Satanic Panic of the 80's (which I did actually live through but don't recall very well, as I was quite young). Our saturation in media at all times probably contributes to the ramped-up intensity of what we are experiencing now (I hate TV but I still read text based news and propaganda every day, if I had the Will to look away from this slow motion train wreck I'd probably rest easier at least). Nonetheless, it's always been this way, even before mass media.
As someone who doesn't watch TV but knows a fair number of people who do, I think that the phenomenon affectionately dubbed TDS was brought about by simple conditioning. Newscasters linked images of Trump to feelings of fear and hate like early behaviorists linked the sound of a bell with feeding time. People who are a bit more insulated from the debased sorcery of our time may have a harder time understanding the simple root of it. Similarly, more pro-Trump outlets linked his image with feel-good emotions, so those viewers didn't understand what all the fuss was about.
Same symbol, different reactions. None of them actually KNOW Donald Trump.
With the covid outbreak, I know people who couldn't look away from the news coverage, and most of them are now functionally insane or living in a state of mental breakdown. It's not rational. It's behavioral conditioning driven by the media, egged on by the shitty bureaucracy that actually runs the country.
Is it a nefarious plot? I'm come to agree with JMG's idea that it really is just incompetence due to people with no practical experience doing much of anything except getting degrees being allowed to run agencies that have no real connection with events that are occurring on the ground. The Dragon Age has come, the age of pure abstraction where what occurs in physical reality has no connection to what's going on in the heads of the people in charge of our little zoo.
You see it with Covid, with Afghanistan, with the absolute dreck being spewed by media outlets, by educators, and by people who have become unthinking drones spouting off said institutions' nonsensical talking points. If you are going to let "experts" run your society and they are all a bunch of bumblefuck eggheads who's main skills are crafting Powerpoint slideshows and clapping like seals at the guy with the most degrees in the room, you're going to be in a whole lot of trouble before too long.
Once you see it you can't unsee it.
Now, it's pretty obvious that people aren't ALWAYS rational, but I kind of assumed that I was rational, and I also assumed that most of the people "like me" were rational too. Who were people like me? Fairly educated, at least semi professional, more or less informed (as though one can be properly informed by the media of our day... ha!). I always assumed that, while our elected officials may have disagreed on policy, they acted in rational ways for intelligent reasons. Boy was I naive!
When society began to act in clearly irrational ways over the Covid outbreak, I came to realize what it was like to live through events like McCarthyism, witch hunts, and the Satanic Panic of the 80's (which I did actually live through but don't recall very well, as I was quite young). Our saturation in media at all times probably contributes to the ramped-up intensity of what we are experiencing now (I hate TV but I still read text based news and propaganda every day, if I had the Will to look away from this slow motion train wreck I'd probably rest easier at least). Nonetheless, it's always been this way, even before mass media.
As someone who doesn't watch TV but knows a fair number of people who do, I think that the phenomenon affectionately dubbed TDS was brought about by simple conditioning. Newscasters linked images of Trump to feelings of fear and hate like early behaviorists linked the sound of a bell with feeding time. People who are a bit more insulated from the debased sorcery of our time may have a harder time understanding the simple root of it. Similarly, more pro-Trump outlets linked his image with feel-good emotions, so those viewers didn't understand what all the fuss was about.
Same symbol, different reactions. None of them actually KNOW Donald Trump.
With the covid outbreak, I know people who couldn't look away from the news coverage, and most of them are now functionally insane or living in a state of mental breakdown. It's not rational. It's behavioral conditioning driven by the media, egged on by the shitty bureaucracy that actually runs the country.
Is it a nefarious plot? I'm come to agree with JMG's idea that it really is just incompetence due to people with no practical experience doing much of anything except getting degrees being allowed to run agencies that have no real connection with events that are occurring on the ground. The Dragon Age has come, the age of pure abstraction where what occurs in physical reality has no connection to what's going on in the heads of the people in charge of our little zoo.
You see it with Covid, with Afghanistan, with the absolute dreck being spewed by media outlets, by educators, and by people who have become unthinking drones spouting off said institutions' nonsensical talking points. If you are going to let "experts" run your society and they are all a bunch of bumblefuck eggheads who's main skills are crafting Powerpoint slideshows and clapping like seals at the guy with the most degrees in the room, you're going to be in a whole lot of trouble before too long.
Once you see it you can't unsee it.
