Adventures in My Mind
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Sep 11, 2005
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Dennis Roddy writes about Hysteria 101, wherein he describes the fictions that are told in the absence of, or in spite of the truth.
I consider myself a storyteller. I am a published writer, filmmaker, blogger, Internet marketer, and all around raconteur of various other persuasions. I am not afraid of stories. In fact, stories are how we communicate. Everything that we know and do is transferred to us via a story of some type. The forms and varieties are numerous: fables, legends, myths, parables, religions, cultures, brands, etc.
Most of the time the truths represented in our shared stories are timeless. The characters, facts, and events are fictional, but the themes portrayed are perceived as truths valuable to the human condition. These themes often include selflessness, obedience, loyalty, dedication, committment, veracity, and temperance.
Over the course of human existence we've used stories to move these values from generation to the next particularly in the wrappings of our shared cultures. Stories are responsible for transferring the best that we have to offer each other to one another, ensuring a cultural integrity that provides value and truth to the participants.
Stories are also used to create negative experiences, artificially manipulating and controlling thought and behavior (See my post from 9.07.2005). We know these stories as lies, fabrications, half truths, and misrepresentations. Sometimes we are capable of seeing through the falsehoods and dismissing them for the fraudulence they are.
The Bush administration which has relied heavily on our inability to make such distinctions is wipping up a fresh batch of libels, forgeries, and distortions to spin its response to Katrina. Not satisfied with labeling our efforts in Iraq as a war against terrorism, they are hard at work spinning the events of the past two weeks. As Roddy writes Iraq became synomous with Bin Laden. And in so doing Bush swept the nation along into a war, a la our friend Mr. Goering.
Roddy concludes:This talent for conflating one thing with another to create alternative truths went into full bloom as the Gulf Coast turned into a swamp and people died for lack of a coordinated rescue.
The White House and Bush's apologists, stung by criticism that federal response was lacking, went in search of everything from the political registration of the New Orleans mayor to 100 school buses swamped in a lot, to shift blame for people stranded days after the storm.
They dealt with New Orleans the same way they dealt with Iraq. Confronted with inconvenient facts, they constructed an alternative narrative. When one reality doesn't suit, they retreat to the madrassas of Fox News and talk radio.
Two conflicting realities, fact and opinion, stand like Twin Towers of unreality, a ready target for the next enemy we misjudge and the history that will someday wonder how an empire could enwrap so much of the world and not comprehend what it embraced.I, for one, do not believe the hype.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 11:47 AM
