What do you believe?
No. Not in any God v Allah v Budda v Ganesh v Thor sense. What I mean is, how much do you believe what you're told about the world around you?
Seriously. Put your tin foil hat on and think for a minute. You watch the news. Is any of it real? Really? How would you know?
Take the story of the day today here in Oz, about some 16 year old who threw a wild open house party while his parents were away. Was it real? Was it a carefully fabricated stunt, or was the whole thing a hoax of some sort. Whatever, it certainly was a media frenzy. Naked or semi naked boy running down street (note how well chiselled his body is). Parents conveniently away. Interviews with brat showing no respect. Broken bottles in gutter. Really... just a bit too well crafted to be real. A sort of new version of "if it seems too good to be true, it usually is". (Please, no comments on this kid. I merely use the story as an example.)
I watched the news footage and listed to the seemingly endless debate on talk radio and my instinct tells me it's not real. But how would I know.
Or what about "Psychic Detectives" on the Bio channel. Each day, we're subjected to well constructed and carefully laid out stories about psychics who help the police. There are interviews with the psychics, shots of quaint small American towns and even interviews with people who may or may not be police. Have you noticed that it's always some backwater? It's never the NYPD that gets led to the scene of the crime by a psychic. It's always a town that no-one's ever heard of. Is it real, or is it fabricated?
Even more dangerous... just about anything on the Crime Channel. Just think of the job they did on Arnie in the opening few minutes of Running Man... this is standard Crime Channel fare, presented and accepted as fact when I have no way of really knowing one way or the other.
I'm tired, and beyond caring, because I really don't trust anything I see on TV any more. Could be real. Could be a total fabrication. I just have no way of knowing.
Is it just me?
3 comments:
The problem is, you can take any story and take any aspect of that story and create an entirely new story from it. I've seen the same news story on different news networks be told completely differently.
On the psychics... While I think there may be something to it. I think more often than not, people want so badly to believe that they often see minor coincidences as infallible truth that the psychic solved the crime.
Hmmm Chester... you sound on the verge of disappearing into the closet with a tin-foil hat on your head.
I do see your point though - everything the media throw at us is a manufactured reality in one way or another. It's a bit like the "where there's smoke there's fire" comment... there's probably SOME truth to everything, it's just how much is truth, how much is hyperbole, and how much is opinion - it's impossible to sort out.
And is there such thing as "truth" at all? What's true for me may not be true for you.
With the myriad of information sources available to us in the globally connected world, the truth is essentially whatever you choose to believe it is after reviewing and taking into account many different sources, don't you think?
What you both say is true, but I've noted lately that it seems to be getting worse.
Let me put it this way... let's say there's a football match. At the end of the game, the score is 0-0. 50,000 people watched the game. The "truth" is that there was a game, and the score was 0-0.
There's probably a war going on in Afghanistan. Yes, I think that on balance of probability that might be real, but that's where my trust stops. Is the news footage real? Don't know. Is it as bad or as good as we're told it is? Don't know that eather.
The weather is real. They rarely get the forecast right, but if there was a storm, they usually report it as a storm.
Traffic reports are real. Usually. Though sometimes they're a little out of date.
And that, dear readers, is the end of my trust of anything I read or see in the media (mainstream, fringe or otherwise). I've just seen too much twist to trust anything I see any more.
Oh... and I think a cave might be better than a closet. A bit more room.
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