I, like so many, have rather reluctantly come to accept life in today's world as it is, and as confusing and mind-boggling as it has become. It is like co-existing with a monster destined to devour us if we are not careful.
Personally, if after a lifetime of trying in earnest to figure things out, I can now make a concession of that nature, it is just as well that I accept the fact that a lot of life will continue to be a psychological challenge in the short time I have left on planet earth. The key will be in a healthy attitude toward it all and intelligent relegation on merit.
In such a complex, contradictory world that on the surface seems to be stacked against any rational reasoning then, how shall we get through the day? In my mind, it is best to start from humble premises:
-- Our social relations, our loves and friendships, are more important than anything else because they are our true anchors in an uncertain world. Embrace the reality of it!
-- The longer a practice or design has been around, say, a book versus an e-reader, the longer it is likely to be around. It has endured the test of time, if you know what I mean.
-- Just because the world is uncertain doesn’t mean it is implacably hostile. Sometimes good things come from an uncertain future if we are wise enough to have patience and to be on the lookout for them.
Personally, if after a lifetime of trying in earnest to figure things out, I can now make a concession of that nature, it is just as well that I accept the fact that a lot of life will continue to be a psychological challenge in the short time I have left on planet earth. The key will be in a healthy attitude toward it all and intelligent relegation on merit.
It seems to me though that life in general was so much easier when we could believe conclusively in things, our institutions in particular -- media, business, government, science, religion. Back then, we had clear-cut enemies. There were perceived enemies like communism vs. capitalism. There was mutual assured destruction. Fascism was bad and democracy was good. The world generally made sense, and you could understand it. Everyone knew the balance of power. Before character assassination reared its nasty head, we actually had leaders we respected and who were worthy of our trust. It appeared to be a much simpler world.
Bottom line, society today is the way it is because it is being overexposed to a steady diet of influence-peddling in several, closely related, forms.
Sadly, we are becoming victims of something I call deliberate public mass confusion. George Orwell referred to it as a necessary task for the rulers in a totalitarian society: “to dislocate the sense of reality.”
The mainstream media contribute to this daily. Think of their reporting of some recent news and ask yourself what exactly have they said? Gibberish piled upon gibberish, that’s what they’ve said. A salmagundi of contradictory verbiage that leaves a half-way sentient person shaking one’s head in astonishment. Or leaves one baffled, devoid of any sense of the truth.
We have now entered a new phase of propaganda where sowing mass confusion on every issue 24/7 is the method of choice. We have only to look south of the border for evidence of that.
But therein lies hope if we can grasp the meaning of Oscar Wilde’s paradoxical statement: “When both a speaker and an audience are confused, the speech is profound.”
Reduced to having to accept someone else's word for virtually everything we know, or questions that resultantly come to mind, the challenge now, as I see it, is to make the best of what lies ahead, come what may. And taking most of what we see and hear under advisement.
We must remember that, ideally, we live in an age of enlightenment, in the belief that the entire universe is open to our inspection and more than this, that it is theoretically all intelligible to us if we just apply enough science and enough rationality.
That we can wrest a comfortable life from the Earth is nothing special. Plants and animals do this without resorting to colleges, symposia or research laboratories. And, humans used to do it without these things as well. Ancient Greeks, if they survived childhood diseases, war and the occasional plague, regularly managed to live into their 60s and 70s among balmy Mediterranean breezes. It’s not that there hasn’t been any progress; it’s just that we may not have made as much progress as we think.
And yet, in the age of Big Data we have become ever more enamored with the representations of the world that we gather in the form of numbers and words, believing (wrongly) that the map is the territory.
This is the conundrum of the modern world. The world is so complex that it seems hopeless to try to understand how all things human and natural work together. We live in an age that calls out for explanations of nature and society that provide something genuinely revelatory to the layperson. What we mostly get, however, is hucksterism and public relations, information designed to mislead rather than clarify. Under the circumstances, we are lucky if we occasionally discover a small and perhaps fleeting truth.
This is the other ugly side of deliberate mass confusion that I was talking about.
We often believe that the explainers know what they are talking about because they speak with such conviction. The economists, the analysts, the technical geniuses, the captains of industry, the billionaires, the airwave pundits, they must know something we don’t or they wouldn’t be that successful. But what they know isn’t necessarily what they are telling us. And, what they are telling us is, in any case, almost always designed to advance interests of others, not ours.
The mainstream media contribute to this daily. Think of their reporting of some recent news and ask yourself what exactly have they said? Gibberish piled upon gibberish, that’s what they’ve said. A salmagundi of contradictory verbiage that leaves a half-way sentient person shaking one’s head in astonishment. Or leaves one baffled, devoid of any sense of the truth.
We have now entered a new phase of propaganda where sowing mass confusion on every issue 24/7 is the method of choice. We have only to look south of the border for evidence of that.
But therein lies hope if we can grasp the meaning of Oscar Wilde’s paradoxical statement: “When both a speaker and an audience are confused, the speech is profound.”
Reduced to having to accept someone else's word for virtually everything we know, or questions that resultantly come to mind, the challenge now, as I see it, is to make the best of what lies ahead, come what may. And taking most of what we see and hear under advisement.
We must remember that, ideally, we live in an age of enlightenment, in the belief that the entire universe is open to our inspection and more than this, that it is theoretically all intelligible to us if we just apply enough science and enough rationality.
That we can wrest a comfortable life from the Earth is nothing special. Plants and animals do this without resorting to colleges, symposia or research laboratories. And, humans used to do it without these things as well. Ancient Greeks, if they survived childhood diseases, war and the occasional plague, regularly managed to live into their 60s and 70s among balmy Mediterranean breezes. It’s not that there hasn’t been any progress; it’s just that we may not have made as much progress as we think.
And yet, in the age of Big Data we have become ever more enamored with the representations of the world that we gather in the form of numbers and words, believing (wrongly) that the map is the territory.
This is the conundrum of the modern world. The world is so complex that it seems hopeless to try to understand how all things human and natural work together. We live in an age that calls out for explanations of nature and society that provide something genuinely revelatory to the layperson. What we mostly get, however, is hucksterism and public relations, information designed to mislead rather than clarify. Under the circumstances, we are lucky if we occasionally discover a small and perhaps fleeting truth.
This is the other ugly side of deliberate mass confusion that I was talking about.
We often believe that the explainers know what they are talking about because they speak with such conviction. The economists, the analysts, the technical geniuses, the captains of industry, the billionaires, the airwave pundits, they must know something we don’t or they wouldn’t be that successful. But what they know isn’t necessarily what they are telling us. And, what they are telling us is, in any case, almost always designed to advance interests of others, not ours.
We're continually sold bills of goods, biases and self-serving personal opinion, all under the guise of news of the day perpetrated by clever, professional media manipulators.
In such a complex, contradictory world that on the surface seems to be stacked against any rational reasoning then, how shall we get through the day? In my mind, it is best to start from humble premises:
-- Our social relations, our loves and friendships, are more important than anything else because they are our true anchors in an uncertain world. Embrace the reality of it!
-- The longer a practice or design has been around, say, a book versus an e-reader, the longer it is likely to be around. It has endured the test of time, if you know what I mean.
-- Just because the world is uncertain doesn’t mean it is implacably hostile. Sometimes good things come from an uncertain future if we are wise enough to have patience and to be on the lookout for them.
-- Avoid gullibility. Take into consideration the source of all information. It is okay to be skeptical until an issue is proven to have merit to your satisfaction.
-- Know BS for what it is and relegate it to the nearest garbage dispensary.
-- Be diligent. Do your homework.
-- Pray a lot!
None of these principles will deliver you from all of life’s difficulties and annoyances. But they can help you counter the exploitation we've been talking about.
We should never stop asking questions and looking for reasoned answers. Turning down the dial is not indicative of a loss of interest, rather it can be a go-to measure of self-preservation.
-- Know BS for what it is and relegate it to the nearest garbage dispensary.
-- Be diligent. Do your homework.
-- Pray a lot!
None of these principles will deliver you from all of life’s difficulties and annoyances. But they can help you counter the exploitation we've been talking about.
We should never stop asking questions and looking for reasoned answers. Turning down the dial is not indicative of a loss of interest, rather it can be a go-to measure of self-preservation.
Sometimes too, we just need to have faith that truth and common good will prevail, as it usually does.
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