Ignorance is Bliss.
I understand, I think, for the first time why most people prefer those sugar-coated, mind-numbing movies and TV shows packed with celebrities and other pleasant things.
Watching the National last night, I realized that Peter Mansbridge and his guests were not discussing the possibility that this is our “new normal” – they were confirming the obvious. An over-used term, but still applicable. These recent attacks, homegrown and ruthless, in Ottawa, in Sydney, and now in Paris are horrific and terrifying, to me anyway. I feel like we are all at risk now. This is our normal, we of the post 9-11 generation. Which city will be next and when? London, Washington, Berlin, Rome, Tokyo? Toronto has been spared for now, but for how long?
I remember learning in journalism school that therapists and journalists have higher levels of something like secondary PTSD. While they may not be experiencing these events first-hand, their exposure to first-hand accounts on a regular basis can generate a wave of similar symptoms.
Watching all these news programs, reading these articles (some fantastically well-written, answering the questions I didn’t think to ask), following the chaos of Twitter – it can be exhausting. I found relief last night during the commercial breaks of the National, with previews for silly shows about space, animals, and consumer trends. It was like a dose of comfort before getting back in the ring when the program started again. I felt like a character in Brave New World, but it wasn’t taking hits of Soma that made me feel better, it was television. And with it, the promise of a familiar-but-novel distraction, spread to the masses to keep us somewhat entertained, but mostly chained to our couches, away from the news, newspapers, books, and somewhere out there, the truth.
Paper Clips 
The harsh reality will live in is bone chilling. Sometimes distraction is the best way to just keep yourself sane and at peace. I’m not sure if you’re interested in the legal side of things but I have a blog- The Social Paralegal that might of interest to you. 🙂 Great work on this piece.
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Thanks very much! As a fellow Paralegal, I will definitely check this out.
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It seems to me democracy seems to have a natural obsolescence, just like the technological goods in a socio-capitalist democratic system. I’m currently finishing Hans Herman-Hoppe’s book, “Democracy: The God That Failed” he is an economist and philosopher. He’s got a funny accent lol. It’s a real eye-opening, challenging book that really points the finger. It seems to me that this is as inevitable as the seasons changing. People will continue to churn the values of democracy, unknowingly, unquestioning. To Herman-Hoppe, democracy thrives on all types of “issues” and the complacent minds that have been brought up in the society that ignore blaming their very own values and beliefs which cause it’s very own demise. Because most have been brought up to believe what they’re told, people go along with it. It’s disheartening but palpable. There’s not one political entity that didn’t label it as a “threat to our democracy” but what if democracy facilitated in the first place, they can’t ask that, No never, Why? Because it undermines their own BS lol. The media is reluctant to critically examine their beliefs because it’s hard, but they can only perpetuate what education and institutions has taught them, “democracy is best”, “all animals are equal but some are more equal than others”, “Everyday when you’re walking down the street, everybody that you meet Has an original point of view And I say HEY! what a wonderful kind of day.Where you can learn to work and play And get along with each other” etc.
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Very interesting points, and very well put! How can you tell the truth when everything you know is a lie? It may be that the only universal truths are the lessons we learned in Arthur…
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