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Getting through the pending mindfuckery

As kids, my friends and I used to complain about having to learn — and worse, memorize — things because we could just “look them up.” It seemed like such a waste of time. It was all right there.

I should contextualize this (and date myself in the process) by saying that this was pre-Internet. So, “looking things up” meant using a physical set of books. Sometimes this meant digging through the nonfiction section of the library, sometimes it meant using the encyclopedia.

I was lucky enough to have a set of encyclopedia in my house; not the venerable Britannica, but some other kind whose name escapes me just now. I remember that they were dark blue with gold-lettered spines, and each volume had a satisfying heft in my twelve-year-old hands.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that those encyclopedia, and the dictionary, and the library, and the independent bookstores, represented what felt like a core of generally accepted Knowledge with a capital K. Publishers still employed fact-checkers, and the authors were usually subject matter experts. There was a sense that there was consensus about reality and objective truth.

If someone came up to you and said something like gravity doesn’t exist, or germs aren’t real… you’d have smiled uneasily and backed away slowly because you knew otherwise. You felt like you had a firmer grip on things than the fellow in front of you, because, well, it was all right there.

Also, at that time, it still felt like we had Institutions with a capital I (government, school, church etc.). And there was that brief, sweet window in the 80s and 90s for North Americans where, for some groups of people hitting mid career or just coming of age, everything seemed awesome. It was post Cold War, there was little chance of being drafted or conscripted, and no major conflicts on home turf. There was a solidity to it all. And like the song said, “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades.”

That wasn’t the objective truth, of course. That consensus I referenced was actually just the worldview of older white men steeped in colonialism. Gatekeeping, institutionalized racism, and rampant misogyny were the rule, not the exception. We know now that those Institutions we trusted were engaged in horrible behaviours, everything from medical experiments on people of colour, to the systemic destruction of indigenous peoples and cultures, to criminalizing sexuality.

While there technically wasn’t a draft after the Vietnam War, for anyone trying trying to escape their socioeconomic circumstances, the US GI Bill — military service in exchange for college degree support — was one of the few pathways out. We were very busy polluting the crap out of everything (remember acid rain, the ozone layer, the Exxon Valdez, and of course, all those greenhouse gasses.)

And finally, the pace of discovery wherein even what we believed were objective facts (Pluto’s status as a planet, anyone?) were changing, and that meant that those solid, hefty, and super expensive to print encyclopedia were now becoming rapidly outdated.

All of which is to say that while those years probably felt idyllic to some, they were not, and there were very good reasons for proceeding with ‘disruption,’ to use the Silicon Valley term. A lot of things needed to be broken up, dismantled, rejigged. The old days were not ‘better.’ Change is good.

One of the best things the Internet has since facilitated is the democratization of many things, including publishing. With a relatively modest amount of money, almost everyone can publish regardless of gender, ethnicity, location, and reach a large number of people.

But fast forward to the sort-of-post-pandemic era, and the ground under our feet does not feel… solid. At all.

What the pandemic and it’s cascading consequences have brought into sharp focus is how broken all of our systems have become in a very short time. For example, those pandemic and climate change-related shut downs have made us realize how many of our supply chains are dependent on a very small number of mega producers, thanks to mergers and consolidation.

Tech companies make billions in profits and yet still lay off staff. Grocery chains make billions in profits and blame the inflation they helped cause for the prices they set.

Up is down.

Work for many has gone from being 9-5 with occasional overtime to being always on call, without the standby pay. Wage growth has stagnated and unions are struggling to remain effective. Our evenings and weekends are desperately overscheduled and we revenge procrastinate ourselves into sleep deprivation. Dealing with what should be minor inconveniences like a busted appliance turn into energy-sapping and frustration-inducing weeks-long sagas because of corporate malfeasance.

We’ve been systematically and deliberately hooked on social media. Kids who once got nights-and-weekends breaks from petty schoolyard dramas are now living them 24/7 in chat apps and videos. We adults spend our waking hours mindlessly doomscrolling, sometimes finding ourselves lead by the almighty algorithm into some dark, dark, rabbit holes.

When we’re not consuming, we’re performing. Living with other humans has always been performative, of course, but now we’re doing it at scale. Everyone is compelled to render an opinion on everything for the likes and follows. Expertise is not only no longer valued, its actively laughed at, with the average Joe Blow who skipped science class in high school somehow thinking he knows better than someone who spent years earning a PhD in a complicated subject Joe has never even heard of before.

Worse, some people with genuine credentials have found the siren call of the grift too hard to resist, because the Internet makes it easy to get famous being a ‘contrarian’ and then they can sell you something.

Indeed, one of the worst things the Internet has since facilitated is the democratization of many things, including publishing. Anyone can publish the most unhinged thing they can think of, and reach a large number of people, quickly.

And now the robots are publishing too, with AI solemnly advising people to put glue on their pizza or to eat poisonous mushrooms. People are being suckered by AI slop, which includes ‘images’ of historic events that never happened, or deep fake videos.

And so the baseline for anyone post Gen-X is a world that’s almost entirely digital, and therefore ephemeral. That web link that once explained the functions of a cell has been bought by some dudebro who’s using it to hawk cryptocurrency schemes and NFTs. Wikipedia pages can be edited to soft-peddle fascism. Any one with some free time and a bit of tech know-how can put together a super convincing website, a video, a persuasive meme. Any one keen to put food on the table can be made to pump out disinformation by the gigabyte.

What’s real, what’s true, what’s the consensus on reality? If you weren’t paying attention in school, or if your schools were crap, who knows? As a society, we are ridiculously under-equipped in critical thinking skills.

Left is right. Dark is light.

Add to this: We’re encouraged to drink coffee and energy drinks by the bucket-sized cup, and we get anxious and jittery; we’re pushed to whiplash between super pious ‘dry’ months and day drinking and we get depressed and ashamed.

Traditional publishers no longer worry “is this book or web article correct?” The only metric is “will it sell or bring clicks?” So we get sold dubious diets, and horrendous ‘methods‘ for relating to each other, and legions of ‘influencers’ with zero credentials encouraging people to believe woo over science.

The worst of our politicians are gas lighting the crap out of us, and their aggressively gullible followers happily parrot everything they say. And when they’re not gas lighting they’re rage-baiting.

Steve Bannon once said, “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” And Jonathan Rauch nailed it: “This is not about persuasion: This is about disorientation.”

This is about disorientation.

Wrong is correct. Germs aren’t real. Gravity doesn’t exist.

Two legs good, four legs bad.

Is it any wonder you’ve been feeling so unmoored for so long?

At the height of the pandemic and the peak (trough!) of the Trump presidency, even the most seemingly stable, even keel, reliable people I knew were struggling not to lose their grip on reality. Some of them did lose it, and they haven’t come back.

The relentless pace of our daily lives, our personal dramas, the lingering aftershocks of the lockdowns, the ‘oh, what the fuck now?!’ politics, the stochastic terrorism. The increasing cost and scope of climate changed-fuelled disasters. An economy that preys on our insecurities. The very real mental, physical, and economic damage of it all.

And here we are again, staring down the barrel of another Trump presidency, and the crazy making from that has already started.

It’s deja vu all over again. How do we get through it this time?

Here’s where I’m at:

The only winning move is not to play.

First, I’ll be regrounding myself in reality. Things I can see, things I can hear, and particularly, things I can touch. That means physical media (books, magazines, newspapers) over websites, in person socializing over Facebook. Moving more. Sitting less. Normalizing chronically offline.

And real self-care, not aftercare.

When I do have to go online, I will be blocking over ‘engaging.’ Ignoring over screenshotting, amplifying, and pearl clutching. I will not be giving the likes of Shapiro and Carlson or their many followers any more of my time. No more hot takes. No more brain rot.

I will no longer be a willing participant in Bannon’s shitshow. It’s time to unplug.

That’s not to say I’m disengaging or calling it a day. Far from it, because, as the saying goes, “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

I will be boosting, amplifying and uplifting the people I know who are out there fighting the good fight. I’ll stay informed. I’ll be supporting indies over corporations whenever I can, especially the news media, because the corporate media is not our friend, it’s not even a neutral third party, and we really, really need to stop acting like it is.

But most importantly, I’ll be reclaiming my time to do the work.

Because there are three reasons for the disorientation campaign, you see.

  • One is to make strong, authoritarian types appealing. It’s chaos out here! Remember how it was better before? I’ll fix it!
  • Two is to hide the fact that it’s the strong, authoritarian types making it chaotic in the first place. Every accusation is a confession.
  • And three, the barrage of bullshit is to keep you so off balance you can’t fight back. Blitzkrieg.

Don’t let ’em do it this time.

Find your solid ground again, and hold it. Link hands with others doing the same. Help up those who can’t.

Good luck.

If you enjoy my writing, my latest book is here, and the purchase supports indie bookstores. You can find me on Bluesky.

Comments(3)

    • Diane Hinkle

    • 2 months ago

    What a great, great look at what we are trying to find our ways thru! Pretty sure I’m older than you and staring in the face of four more years of you know what! I’m anxious to say the least! And, oh, I had Brittanica and Compton’s. Brittanica was wine colored and Compton’s black. I about wore those treasured books out.

    • Michael P Cowtan

    • 2 months ago

    If only I could disconnect………..I am an addict. But I am old, and my addiction amuses me.

    • julie riverview

    • 2 months ago

    I love this. It summarizes my life, my insecurities; the residue that is me, merely a reflection of all this. I will share it. Thank you.

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