Dead General

Last week one of Iran’s top military men was assassinated by the USA.

Qasem Soleimani.

I had never heard of him before, nor do I suspect had the vast majority of people who like me, live somewhere within the mainstream. And so, the media gave us blanket coverage of his assassination, and in short order, after gathering as much as we could from social media, we all began to feel like we could go online and speak knowledgeably about the complicated history and uncertain future that encircled this radioactive event. The social media armies assembled, firing off memes, proclamations and supportive links. #WWWIII was trending on Twitter, as ironically, was Weight Watchers, who by dint of their hashtag in support of an Oprah tour– #thisismyWW–got sucked into the algorithimic machinery and were happily capitalizing on the extra publicity an obliterating nuclear apocalypse might yield.

And such is the world we live in.

In no time at all, people were absolutely set in their opinions. It was as if some sort of magic had just been deployed. In a flash, people went from absolute ignorance that this man existed, to absolute certainty about the motives behind his death, and what it all might mean to the poor world trying to keep up. This– the rapid mobilization of certainty in a population in which there can be no certainty– is in it’s way, as chilling as the act of war itself.

But it’s all chilling, very chilling, and here’s hoping our better angels call to us all in the new year.