The Aerie
The increase in speed of communications has not led to an ideal world of instant learning and universal understanding. Instead we seem to be living through an age in which mass-marketing has combined with ideology and rapid communications to create a Perfect Storm of Propaganda. Just as spam uses plausable fake names and subject lines to convey legitimacy and elicit urgency, the caustic ideas of "memetic spam" are delivered pseudoscientific wrappings designed to lend credibility to stupidity, bigotry, lies, and nonsense that are absurd on their face, but that serve a particular group's interests.
This is the amplification of ideology over reason at the expense of credibility. The reputations of people and organizations that have been built up over decades are being leveraged and destroyed to serve short-sighted liars who actively despise the conventions of civil society. The Presidency has been abused to leverage corporate power and amoral ideology. Religion is abused to spread fear. Journalism is abused to lend credibility to lies. These are the Barbarians of Information tearing down the Rome of Integrity.
The end result is not just a frightened, reactionary, and easily manipulated population. The end result is a population which has been stripped of its belief and trust in any civil institution, whether that be Government, Scientific Method, Education, or the Rule of Law. Even Courtesy is labelled "political correctness" or "intolerance." Having been fed so many lies that they have lost faith in established societal institutions, people turn for guidance to whatever group best markets itself.
The best marketers are the groups with the most money, and those in turn serve powerful interests - corporations, organized religion, and ruling political parties.
Thus the population is taught to work against its own best interests in order to serve the interests of the rich and powerful. Deliberately instilled with fear in order to keep it disunified and easily manipulated, the submissive population is rewarded with flashy material goods produced by overseas slave labor, plentiful food designed to numb and addict, and banal entertainment designed to reinforce conformist messages. We are enslaved by low expectations, stripped of compassion by fierce moral judgementalism, and fed lies and comedy designed to control and lull us.
The best way to fight back is to reinforce and reiterate the values of education, diversity, reason, compassion, vigilance, and most of all courage. As individuals we must have the courage to loudly denounce lies, the education and wit to counter misinformation with truth. We must counter fearmongering with reason, and moral judgementalism with compassion. We must display a complete intolerance for corruption, and assert the supremacy of the Rule of Law over Authority or Power.
These assaults on the foundations of civilization are not the result of a centralized world conspiracy. These assaults on the foundations of civilization represent the collective efforts of countless amoral, self-interested parties seeking power and profit. They are permitted to scrape at the foundations of civilization by individuals who decide not to intervene, not to get involved, not to take a risk, not to live by their own values. In other words, everytime we relax our vigilance and allow ourselves a moment of hypocrisy, or let ourselves back down in the face of fear, we become complicit in the destruction of our own culture.
It doesn't take much to fight back - it doesn't take a lot of time, money, or even thought. We can each do our part. We don't have to go into politics or leave our jobs to work in the Peace Corps. We just need to resist fear. We just need to remain alert and present in our lives so that we can catch and counter the lies. We just have to preserve our ability to feel compassion. We just have to get educated. We just have to know enough history to maintain a healthy skepticism. We just have to recognize what we can do, and be ready to do what we can.
That's all it takes: alertness, willingness, courage, and a commitment live by our beliefs - in other words, integrity. That's all it takes. Everything it takes to save the world follows from there quite naturally.
Their first weapon is fear; their first victory is when you are too afraid to speak.
Posted by Albatross at December 16, 2005 12:20 PM | TrackBack