Popularity and Truth – Part II
- Martyn Foster
- Sep 12
- 3 min read
“I’ve become so numb!”
Popularity and Truth – Part I – read here
There is an inherent numbness I sense pervading about society, a sense of not wanting to be with ourselves and hence seeking an out, an escape, something to numb the senses with which is gladly provided by technology, along with the more traditional drugs and alcohol. The relative ease and constant stimulation that technology can so effortlessly bestow upon the modern individual almost eliminates the feeling of boredom, and it certainly doesn’t allow for self-awareness to develop; introspection and learning about yourself.
The void created by this emotional numbness is filled primarily with technology. People put off knowing and experiencing themselves which essentially prevents us from knowing who we are and what we like, developing our internal drive/motivation, our character/integrity, and connecting our inner compass. There is a futility in living for external validation, but there is a redeeming quality in overcoming it. To some extent, we’re seeing this play out in the changing nature of society and work.
“For many, either the pursuit of meaning is too exhausting, or the exhaustion is killing our desire for meaningful pursuits.”
In the name of nihilism and impulsive hedonism, we’re witnessing the erasure of the sacred, of beauty, of taste, of the truth, of the ethical…all to the whim of the moment. The death of nuance has accompanied this with the rise of, “you’re either with me or against me”, which has practically made the middle ground disappear across society, culture and politics - you’re either a fanboy or a hater. I feel a bit like Agent Smith from The Matrix in that I feel saturated by it, and I fear that I’ve somehow been infected by it. It’s repulsive!
At the end of my article last week, “Compassion and Understanding”, I bring up the idea of unity – which is difficult currently as people either care about nothing because it’s meaningless or they only care about themselves and what they want. I always get this sense of caring for one, but not the other, as if there’s only room for one on the life raft.
The opposite of unity is multiplicity, and we see how fractionated society is with so many broken off into their own groups with an inability (and unwillingness) to understand one another. Unity requires a stable centre, however, as you incorporate more of the margins into the centre it naturally begins to destabilise, and sometimes the baby gets thrown out with the bath water. More to the point, if we embrace the extremes into the centre, don’t the extremes become even more extreme?
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Of course, I say “everybody” wants to rule the world, but it really only feels like about four people: Vlad, The Donald, Xi and Bibi. Still, where these four go the rest of the world follows, whether we like it or not. It’s funny how we’ve gone from Bush telling us to “now watch this drive”, and Obama in a tan suit, to now Trump loving the smell of deportations in the morning while posting memes from The White House account…it’s like what even is the difference between fantasy and reality in a post-truth world?
I don’t really know how to end this article…perhaps I’ll make this point:
There is an inherent cost of being open-minded. I’ve lost money, lost friends, lost status. It would’ve been easier and more beneficial – at least on a surface-level – to stay close-minded, but it never would’ve sat well with me and the chickens would’ve come home to roost at some point. It would be like the “just vs unjust man” argument in Plato’s Republic. Open-mindedness requires understanding, compassion and empathy, whereas most just vehemently, narcissistically, and ignorantly defend their position which they poorly understand. A significant amount of people go along with what's "in vogue" because then they don't have to think rather than because of any conscious, moral choice. We’ve forgotten how to deal with someone who thinks differently to you and holds different views which, as a result, illustrates itself in the increasing polarity in people and hostility or lack of compassion to those different from ourselves.
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