The Looming U

Media manipulation is something that, for some folks, is becoming more and more obvious; for others, it is something that is viewed as obvious.

Last week, I finished my rewatch of Altered Carbon – an annual routine in the making it seems. Of course, several quotes stood out as relevant to contemporary issues:

When everyone lies, telling the truth isn’t just rebellion.

It’s an act of revolution.

So think carefully when you speak it, because the truth is a weapon.

Altered Carbon S1 E5

“It is not our enemies that defeat us. It is our fear. Do not be afraid of the monsters, Miss Elizabeth. Make them afraid of you.”

Altered Carbon, S1 E6

This is the weakness of weapons.

They are tools to kill and destroy. They are not what gives you power.

You are the weapon.

Altered Carbon S1 E7

What we believe shapes who we are. Belief can bring us salvation… or destruction. But when you believe a lie for too long, the truth doesn’t set you free. It tears you apart

Altered Carbon S1 E8

Sometimes, fiction is one of the best mirrors of reality.

Lies, the truth, and weapons… Fear and reflection… The misunderstanding of the source of power… Belief, salvation, and destruction.

Each of these quotes could be the topic of separate posts, really. However, the mental formatting of what my point would be in each of them would only be a rehash of previous posts. They’re here, and they have always been; to go back and point each one out would be to continue my trend of frustration that I have been talking about much of this – where we were in the moment and where I saw us going – for years. Only now, to hear the pundits and contributors echoing many of the exact concerns today… well, that is just amazing, distressing, and frustrating.

When all of these events of the last week started kicking off, I was commiserating with Dave and made a casual observation which resonates today:

We have forgotten how resilient we can be… and we will learn how resilient we need to be.
Don’t fret – we will have to self-assume the role of chroniclers.

As I have stated many times before, this blog serves several purposes: to provide a tangible foundation for my kids to understand what Dad was going on about “back when __ happened,” to provide the reader with a different perspective, and – the current imperative – to serve as a form of catharsis for the maelstrom of thoughts and considerations going through my mind 24/7.

Which brings me to the evolution of “The Looming U” up to this particular point…

Look…

I don’t know how to say this more clearly: you are being played.

It doesn’t matter what side of the political fence you have entrenched upon. It really doesn’t. You are being played like a master musician articulates an inanimate object in a way which creates powerful emotions.

Support Ukraine? Support Russia? Support NATO? Support the US? Support one president over another?

It will be interesting to see how the stocks of the major social and traditional media companies are doing since Wednesday. Honestly, I don’t care to look at the moment… I’m already disappointed enough at the increased division between folks when it comes to their stance on a limited understanding of the issues they are so passionate about. That’s one of the wonders and perils of social media – that it gives the least-informed access to the largest (and most reactive) audience.

That last sentence… reread that. If it doesn’t give you pause… if the implications don’t make the hair on the back of your neck rise… then… well… I don’t know what to tell you.

I have always been a fascinated observer of human nature and interaction. This keeps me in a reluctant orbit with social media and naturally leads me to certain conclusions:

Twitter is now conflict porn.
“Explosion here”
“Two tanks one explosion”
“Slow-mo of tanks when no one is looking”
“Bad angles of what would have been an amazing explosion”
“Russian on Ukrainian explosion”

Fucking hell.
This is distressing.

The truth is a weapon, but when the informational landscape is saturated, the credibility and effectiveness of such a weapon becomes subjective and debatable in an amazingly self-negating way: if truth is subjective, then is the truth absolute?

What we have here… isn’t failure to communicate… but failure to associate what is marketable and subjective from what should be factual and neutral. Twitter, Reddit, YouTube… all of these have become portals of conflict porn – a representation of what the source thinks the viewer expects or desires to see. I won’t venture to suggest that none of it is real… that would be quite foolish and irrational… but what I will offer as my perspective is that much of it carries the subtle weight which may tip the scales of public opinion in a desired direction.

Lippman. Bernays. These are but two names of many who understood the evolution of public opinion a century ago…

And finally since opinions do not stop at the normal members of society, since for the purposes of an election, a propaganda, a following, numbers constitute power, the quality of attention is still further depressed. The mass of absolutely illiterate, of feeble-minded, grossly neurotic, undernourished and frustrated individuals, is very considerable, much more considerable there is reason to think than we generally suppose. Thus a wide popular appeal is circulated among persons who are mentally children or barbarians, people whose lives are a morass of entanglements, people whose vitality is exhausted, shut-in people, and people whose experience has comprehended no factor in the problem under discussion. The stream of public opinion is stopped by them in little eddies of misunderstanding, where it is discolored with prejudice and far fetched analogy.

Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd,1922), 85

[Sigh]

Who and what do I support? What is my interpretation of what truth there might be in the digital world?

I support those who agree and disagree with my words and thoughts… I support that which affords civil discourse and an appreciation of the tragic beauty that is influence in one direction or another…

As to what my interpretation of what truths and falsehoods are out there might be?

Ha.

Look in the mirror.

This will be bad for the person looking back at you… and this will be good for the person looking back at you.

YOU choose.