Collective Delusion

Collective Delusion aka Mass Hysteria!

Pick a subject:  The Kennedy Assassination, 9/11, terrorism, the economy, our perverse government, our perverse corporations, gun control, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

There is a propensity in the human condition to look for reasons why things happen.  And, to punish the people responsible, if those things are bad.

I, for one, subscribe to the Conspiracy Theory of History.  This means that while we may only see the titular head of the iceberg (John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald) there were less-than-obvious forces behind the scenes, involved in the giant ongoing chess game about control  (see my previous post How it Really works).  Both pre and post the event(s).

And as we know, the winners write the history books.

Of course, this doesn’t mean everything is the result of some dark conspiracy.  Sometimes individuals are just koo-koo.  Or evil.  Unto themselves.

But today, more than ever, with rapid electronic communication and the Internet, disinformation gets out of bed and makes it’s way around the World before the truth facts have their socks on!

It’s even easier when one is predisposed to believe what is presented.  If the President or Bernie Sanders is said to have made a collectivist statement, I tend to believe it, as they are collectivists.  The same for Rush Limbaugh if he is alleged to make a right-wing statement.  And, of course, if I already think poorly about the person and their opinions, statements attributed to them seem automatically true:

“Our main agenda is to have ALL guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn’t matter if you have to distort facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed.”  -  Sarah Brady

The only problem is she never said that!  And it keeps getting re-attributed as proof of her beliefs.

We need not to keep passing on disinformation as fact – not buying into the collective delusion.

For more on this phenomena, please go read The Great Seattle Windshield Epidemic.

Trust, but verify, before passing along information.

h/t Neatorama