In my imagination “The Internet” descended from the deep reaches of the universe and settled upon our planet like a mist. We began to interact with this powerful and mysterious entity without any real understanding of how it was going to effect us, or even if it was going to effect us. Most of us just assumed it was going to make things better, amplifying potential in a good, rather than harmful way.
However, it hasn’t exactly worked out that way. The astonishing gifts we’ve enjoyed have come with tremendous penalties, the primary of which might be a massive, unacknowledged mental health crisis.
I don’t know about you, but I have never seen as many declarations of anxiety and depression in my life as I now see on a regular basis online. It’s not at all uncommon for me to have multiple chat windows open at once, each one a conversation with a friend in crisis. This is highly subjective of course, and that people now have the means and social sanction to communicate their feelings might be something to celebrate, or, as my intuition suggests, it could be something in the disembodied interactions we’ve been reducing ourselves to that’s causing this articulated spike in mental health problems.
It seems that the more we inhabit the abstracted realm of The Internet, the more certain we become of our beliefs. This is highly ironic to me, because we all know that amidst the spin and swirl of disinformation, fake news and uncanny algorithms, we should be as skeptical of claims to truth and certainty as we’ve ever been.
Take the White Power symbols that have been in the news.
As you may be aware, the symbol that you always thought meant “OK,” might now mean White Power.
This transition took place about a year ago on 4Chan, where it was conceived as a conscious lie. What I mean by that is that it wasn’t a White Power sign. The intent was to take an existing symbol and change it’s meaning, thus confusing the public and media and further eroding the idea of public trust.
Regardless, once this meme was in the blood stream there was no way to know what the use of the symbol meant. Did the person know it was a white power sign? Were they just saying “OK!?” Were they making a joke? Were they communicating racist ideology?
The first instance of this that I saw was of White House Advisor Zina Bash during a Supreme Court confirmation hearing.
Based on this image, people thought she was a White Supremacist.
Bash is of Mexican and Jewish heritage, and this photo that was widely circulated was a high resolution screen capture of a video, so she was in motion, not in a fixed, posed position. Claims that she was communicating a racist message seemed to me ambiguous at best. But people I know, like and respect saw this photograph, and others like it,
as crystal clear evidence of racist intent. Where I saw nothing but ambiguity, they saw none.
It felt like looking at the Neckar’s Cube, like some optical illusion was at play and the mechanics of our brains were prohibiting us from seeing the same thing.
There was simply no consensus on what was real. We were living two different stories when looking at the images. Where I was looking at what was directly in front of me, my friends were looking at circumstance, or perhaps subtext, seeing this single image as part of a much greater and evolving narrative.
Perhaps I am antique in my thinking, but when I see stories like these, I look for a kind of “courtroom proof.” If I have doubt, I am unwilling to prosecute the reputation and livelihood of the person being judged, even if they might still be suspicious to me. Maybe that makes me unwilling to act, and if so that is a sin I will one day have to answer for. Regardless, online a “thing” is true if it has momentum, if it supports the continuance of a passionately held belief, not if it meets some “clinical” standard of proof.
As our shared sense of truth and morality fall away– and disagreement leads to suspicion, if not flat-out contempt– we fearlessly share our certainties, but shamefully keep our uncertainties sheltered within, anxious that we’ll be attacked rather than supported by those whom we would love, and that, well that’s making us all feel a little jumpy and untethered.
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Once upon a time, as an American Patriot set off for market, he asked each of his three daughters what she would like as a present on his return. The first daughter wanted a brocade dress, the second a pearl necklace, but the third, whose name was Beauty, the youngest, prettiest and sweetest of them all, said to her father:
“All I’d like is a gun for self-defense!”
When the Patriot had finished exploiting the free market, he set off for home. However, a sudden storm blew up and progress was slow. Cold and weary, the Patriot lost all hope of reaching an inn when he suddenly noticed a bright light shining in the middle of a wood. As he drew near, he saw that it was a castle. He drew his gun.
His weapon, an AMT Automag II, made him feel safe and powerful.
When the Patriot reached the door, he saw it was open, but though he shouted, nobody came to greet him. Taking the safety off his weapon, he went inside. Wary of an ambush while calibrating his optimal kill zone and putting on his night-vision goggles,
he called out, hoping to flush his target from hiding.
Nothing.
As he continued his room-to-room search, he came upon a great hall where a splendid dinner lay served. The Patriot shouted for the owner of the castle, but no one came, so he sat down to a hearty meal.
Exploring his new surroundings, the Patriot ventured upstairs where the corridor led into magnificent rooms and halls. A fire crackled in the first room and a soft bed looked very inviting, so the Patriot lay down, carefully put the safety on his weapon, placed it beneath his pillow, and fell asleep. When he woke next morning, a mug of steaming coffee and some fruit were by his bedside.
The Patriot had breakfast and went downstairs to have a look around when he saw a beautiful, unlocked gun collection. Remembering his promise to Beauty, he reached in to the display case to pick out a great semi-automatic he thought would be appropriate for his favourite daughter. Instantly, a horrible beast wearing splendid clothes appeared from out of nowhere. Two bloodshot eyes, gleaming angrily, glared at him and a deep and a terrifying voice growled: “Ungrateful man! I gave you shelter, you ate at my table and slept in my own bed, but now all the thanks I get is the theft of my favourite semi-autmatic! I shall put you to death for this slight!”
These were the last words the beast ever uttered.
Blam!!
Blam!!
Blam!!
Blam!!
Blam!!
Blam!!
The Patriot, shooting in a controlled manner and ever conscious of maintaining a tight kill circle on the beast’s chest, emptied his entire clip into it, killing him on the spot. Any man or beast careless enough to leave a gun collection unlocked deserved whatever he got! The Patriot, knowing that 9/10th’s of the law is possession, moved his family into the grand castle and enjoying the high ground and excellent site lines from the turrets, lived happily ever after, sparing his daughter, through savvy gun ownership, of ever having a relationship with the beast.
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(As of this writing there have been 1,901 gun deaths in the US since the Sandy Hook killings.)
Given the revolutionary context from which the United States was forged, the 2nd Amendment makes some sense. As a hedge against despotic governance, the populace must be permitted the opportunity to defend itself, to be playing on a relatively even playing field so to speak.
Fair enough.
However, this right was enshrined nearly a quarter of a millennia ago, and the world, America in particular, has changed in unfathomable ways since then, whereas the 2nd Amendment has not. Then, a musket (firearm) was a realistic way in which to do battle with evil overlords, who were similarly bound by the technology of single loading weaponry.
Now, of course, the difference between the technology owned by the government and that of its citizens has widened to unimaginable proportions. The US military, widely recognized to be the most awesome martial presence in history, spends more than the next 13 nations behind it combined.
If the 2nd Amendment were to have kept the people and the Government at commiserate technological levels, it would have had to be amended every generation so that the people had not just the right, but were enabled to have jet fighters hidden under tarps in their corn fields. As it is now, with the American government having a mighty arsenal of firepower that includes the media, lasers from space, drones and aircraft carriers, to name just a few, the 2nd Amendment enthusiasts are little more than Stone Age tribesmen running out of the jungle and shooting arrows at the mysterious airplanes screaming above. Telling the people that they have the right to bear arms is like telling an impoverished and over-taxed populace that they have the right to buy lottery tickets.
It seems to me that the 2nd Amendment exists as a symbol now, a vestigial relic of a political principle. It’s abstract, really, but it has concrete and ruinous effects on the society at large. (For instance, statistics suggest that a young, black man has a greater chance of being shot and killed in Philadelphia than if he were serving in the conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan.) In a sense, the gun owner in the States is making a moral decision that his right to feel secure by owning a weapon is more important or valid than your right to feel secure in knowing that he doesn’t own a weapon.
It’s a fuck-you, kind of thing.
If the American people need some “hammer” with which to strike back at a tyrannical governing force, then they should be demanding that education is constitutionally enshrined. For surely, it will not be survivalists rising up from the misty hills of West Pennsylvania that saves America from herself, but an informed populace and people living in the 21st century, people who can hack computers, shut-down operating systems and disseminate information.
]]>As far as I can tell, Foster’s iconic status was earned for surviving childhood stardom with fewer visible scars than most. This is no small achievement, of course, but it’s not exactly an artistic one. As one friend put it, we feel protective of Foster because we will always see her as the precocious child she was in her defining role in Taxi Driver, and because of this we shelter her.
On Sunday night Foster was given a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes awards. (Helen Hunt, who received her fifth Golden Globe nomination this year was not) As many of you are probably aware, Foster’s speech was a weird, seemingly improvisational flight that had a polarizing effect on the audience at large. Those who instinctively shelter Foster or see in her a champion of intelligence and integrity loved it, while others saw it as a self-serving and deluded Hollywood indulgence. I would fall into the latter camp, I think.
Looking entirely healthy, beautiful and confident, she proceeded to congratulate herself on her appearance and then pretended to come out of the closet, all the while using a tone that diminished those who had previously come out of the closet as somehow self-interested or even vulgar. She then talked about how hard it was for her to lead a normal life, ignoring the possibility that it was hard for anybody to lead a normal life, made a self-important plea for privacy, and then seemed to enjoy flirting and teasing the audience by hinting at retiring from acting (what a national tragedy that would be!) — before publically and somewhat melodramatically, bringing attention to her mother’s dementia. And of course, she chose to do all this from the glittering pulpit of the Golden Globes.
She was a little mixed-up, I think, and far too fast to congratulate herself and dismiss the pedestrian efforts and realities of those who lived outside her bubble of privilege and popular acceptance. It was ironic, to say the very least, that she would choose this platform to champion Mel Gibson, her great friend, instead of pioneers within the LGBT civil rights movement. There was an angry piety to her words that suggested the megalomania of a person who saw herself as a kind of martyr. She seemed small, lonely and disconnected up there on stage, almost cruelly insulated, and it made me sad to see that celebrity had torn her so.
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