Prolegomenon. Let us begin with an immutable fact of human behavior, specifically contemporary American behavior. Americans simply hate the truth. The troublesome truth, the uncomfortable and (dare I remind you) the inconvenient truth. Truth that bristles and frightens and awakens and piques. Truth that confronts us with the lie of contemporary fable masked as history. History, as Tolstoy reminds us, would be a wonderful thing if only it were true. Truth would be a wonderful thing if only it were pleasant.
Clean up on aisle nine. Americans prefer sanitized reality with happy endings and controlled outcomes. We hate to be surprised and caught off guard. And we doubly hate to feel stupid and duped. And we will go through great lengths to control our reality. Just look at the complexity of our religions and mythology, our belief systems in astrology and psychics, media, shamans, priests, holy folk, name it. Locus of control is our only master. We hate the idea that we’ve no say in outcome and will gladly manufacture and reverse engineer reality to fit the comfortable matrix. Locus of control is the extent to which humans believe and trust they have power over events in their lives. And they hate to have that control security blanket disrupted. So much so that Americans turn to their sainted and retrofitted media platforms to reframe and readjust reality to comport and fit within the pleasantly tolerable.
Chrome wasn’t built in a day. Americans have come to think that broadcasting channels and platforms are the modality of news expression without thinking what that term even connotes. Today, it’s narrowcasting that compartmentalizes the news and view and perspective into the palatable and intellectually toothsome. Narrowcasting targets specific segments of the targeted public as defined by values, preferences, ideology or sympathies. It’s rooted in great respect as to the postmodern concept that the mass audience is extinct. The crowd has been retooled and downsized. Like-minded distortion and parochial delusion.
Intellectual seizure. Americans have developed a kata of sorts in combating news or ideas that confound and tend to destroy the warmth of misinformation and myth. Enter the conspiracy theory, perhaps the most effective tool in shutting down the intellectually troubling, especially when it hints and suggests governmental duplicity, complicity or deliberate neglect as to the presentation of truth as a platform. Being able to denounce a thought as a conspiracy theory allows the citizen to apply a self-defense choreography to avoid intellectual confrontation. And the history of the concept is worth note. But that requires attention paid.
Enter the theorem. Conspiracy theory is a term that was weaponized in the 60s by the CIA and is still used today as an effective tack to dissuade and distract. And for additional flair, throw in the tinfoil hat reference and you’re on your way as a Company dupe, thwarting active investigation by throwing up he classic intellectual road block. Americans love their news and lore and history neatly packaged amend presented in a tasty, intellectually digestible morsel. And whom have they used heretofore to present the lavish array of amuse-botches? That’s right, the mainstream media (MSM) now caught in the last throes of extinction. The meteor that hit their information planet and sent them off to enjoy the fate of the Pterosaur was the Internet along with an awakened public. It was their smelling salts. It roused hem from intellectual slumber. The Internet killed the media news star, with apologizes to the Ruggles.