Conspiracies, “Truthers”, and the Post-Truth Era

Welcome to Life After Truth, my friends. There is no ‘Real’ anymore. Facts no longer matter, if they ever really did.  Opinion, innuendo, memes, and social media posts, created on a whim and a dare, are the forces that apparently are able to sway nations, voters, laws, and governments in this modern world we inhabit.

In our technology-heavy society, with so many of us getting our news and information from the internet and television, and to a lesser degree from newspapers, all second hand sources, how is it ever possible for any of us to EVER be sure that an event transpired the way we are told that it did?

The Sandy Hook shooting, for example, four years ago this week. The assassination of JFK. 9/11. San Bernardino. The Boston Marathon Bombing.

I wasn’t present or even nearby for any of these events. I have no way of knowing if they even occurred, other than if I accept the news reports I’ve seen at face value (and, if I reject or question them, risk being branded a conspiracy theorist).

But how is one to know?

How can any of us ever really know?

I am sympathetic with the many people who have lost all faith in our media, who believe nothing that any of our major news organizations try to tell them. I can understand those people who choose not to believe anything at all. We have all fallen down the rabbit hole, it seems.

But when a subject has been as heavily researched and looked into as, for example, the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook has been… with multiple books written about it, by journalists, by survivors of the massacre, by family members of the victims… with voluminous state investigation reports released, detailing investigations conducted by various agencies…when it is so clear-cut and dried that there was ONE assailant, named Adam Lanza… and that he shot his poor mother while she lay in her bed, and then drove to the school, shot his way in, murdered all of those poor victims and then killed himself. What makes people think there is more to this story? That these children somehow didn’t exist? That it’s all a false flag? Aren’t the actual events tragic and horrifying enough, in any context?

“They are so used to being bullshitted, they get skeptical,” said my friend Mike South when I asked him these questions.

Yes. I can see that. Mike is right, I think.

I guess it just feels like we’ve all slipped into a new era, one in which no reality will be universally perceived as real, where our perceptions of any situation will be warped and twisted until none of us is sure anymore of what time it is, or who is alive or dead, or whether we’re coming or going. It certainly makes one miss the days of Walter Cronkite.

 

 

143330cookie-checkConspiracies, “Truthers”, and the Post-Truth Era

Conspiracies, “Truthers”, and the Post-Truth Era

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2 Responses

  1. You see a similar thing with commercials. How are the American people supposed to make proper buying decisions when all the commercials are full of lies and smoke and mirrors to sell products? Companies don’t have to be truthful. They can say whatever they want and no one holds them accountable.

    Take media companies like Comcast, Verizon, Sprint, etc… All of them claim to be #1 and the highest customer satisfaction or coverage area with no dropped calls. How can they all be #1?

    Or auto companies that claim to have the most leg room or space and the people all getting into the vehicles are all 5′ tall and weigh 100 lbs? Anyone ever get a Whopper or Big Mac that looks like the one in the ads? I know I never have…

  2. Karma…that is sooooo true. Tim makes a very good observation, we were on IM while he was writing this and I expressed thoughts on it to him because it struck a chord with me.

    I have always believed in questioning authority but now in America questioning authority is epidemic and you have to ask yourself why?

    its symptomatic of a larger issue here because nobody trusts the government or the media
    and truth is why should they
    the government has spent the last 40 yrs thinking of ways to usurp our constitutional rights, the war on drugs, the patriot act, fisa courts, the war on terror, no knock warrants, the list is long. Every one has taken a way a little or a lot more freedom people should be skeptical….and pissed.

    When authority instills the need to question authority into the populace that should be a sign that the authorities are doing it wrong.

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