However, this is the thing with the, "Taking it on face value," that I feel I have to squeeze in there. The sadness is amplified by a sense of uncertainty and dislocation. What happened? What's true and what isn't? Are my real emotions being wasted on unreal things? I try to speak in a more circumspect way these days, but as I've alluded to before on here, it's true that sometimes media/government just fabricate things. Parables are told in news form.
Everyone's a conspiracy theorist now it seems. So there's little point pretending I'm speaking some great secret here. In fact, in today's world of mass media, and now AI, you'd have to be lobotomised to not question things. In a world where artificial is so easy only a fool would accept things unthinkingly. And if you do choose not to think (as many do), the smart move is to automatically not believe the things you see on screen. As at least that way you avoid the emotional drain and the buy-in.
It's easier to not care. To console yourself that it's all just political theatre and that therefore you can cast things aside into the box labelled fiction. However, as I type, this looks very vivid and real. It looks like a man - a decent Christian family man - has been the victim of a mafia-style hit in broad daylight. The footage itself, from multiple angles, looks bloody and conclusive.
The official narrative is that it was carried out by a loony leftist with a trans girlfriend. A narrative with clear elements of soap opera. There are also other oddities: the boomer guy in glasses who originally claimed to be the shooter, who was led from the scene with his trousers around his ankles; the fact that the very question Kirk was answering was about trans shootings when he was shot. So it all leads itself to a mishmash of interpretation. A bloody act of violence wrapped in cartoons. I don't know how to fully parse it. I don't know what's happened.
And, of course, if you can't get a handle on what's happened you don't know how to respond. You find yourself fighting spooks, spectres and monsters. Are you swinging your feeble sword at a monster, or was it just a shadow? Or are the monsters fighting even bigger (and more dishonest) monsters themselves? The complexity leaves you helpless. Uncertain what the landscape is.
The one thing you can have certainty over though is your own values. In a world full of lies and violence your own actions can at least be true. Even if they tread uncertain ground. Which brings me to a point of optimism. I'm struggling to get a handle on this situation, but generally I'm quite good at reading the larger cultural landscape, and I think the major upshot of all this will be more people finding faith. It was going that way anyway, but this will only push that further. The left/right political stuff is becoming redundant, as people search for a firmer foundation to root their world upon.
In America they have a real, living Christianity, so that will swell from the upswing.
Here, in the UK, things are different. We really are a godless people. The only major living cultural reservoir in the country is Islam. So it's harder to say where things will go. Recently we've had all the flag waving on the streets. I love the Union Jack, but these political symbols are puny when stood up against the behemoth of faith-based religion. Even a nationalism rooted in ethnicity is weak as it lacks the power to convert. Once upon a time the Union Jack (and its English and Scottish parent flags) were symbols of religion as well as of nationhood. They're literally the cross. However, again, religion has to be living, and barely a single living Brit would think "Christianity" when they see these flags now. For sure, the street rabble of the English looks pathetic when compared to the church unity Americans often show.
It seems strangely unfitting to talk about the UK. Perhaps I should've saved that last paragraph for another blog post. May God bless America.
