Tread lightly on the things of earth

Bob’s words warrant being shouted from the rooftops, IMO, so here they are, repeated from my rooftop:

The folks in the suburb where I grew up — good, honest people I truly care about — read their paper every single day, and are almost assuredly under the illusion that they’re informing themselves about the world. Quite plainly the opposite. I’ll say it again: What they’re consuming is actually negative information, worse than illiterate blankness in that it provides both a false worldview and confidence in it. Sheer ignorance and an open mind would seem preferable.

In other words, when it comes to national news, I’m almost convinced my hometown would be better off reading blank sheets of paper. That way, when truth eventually surfaces, it wouldn’t have to fight six months of falsehoods to be understood.

—Bob Harris, in WMD vs. Fluffy (2003-06-01 weblog entry)

Comparing the Matrix to present reality (as I’m apt to do upon reading this) doesn’t result in a perfect analogy, but in this aspect of wholesale worldview manipulation from without, the Matrix story is eerily spot on.

Alternatively: As illogical as the U.S. media’s false worldview is, it’s being widely accepted in the U.S. according to the conditioning maxim Aldous Huxley gives in Brave New World:

“Sixty-two thousand four hundred repetitions make one truth.”

as in (paraphrasing Huxley) —

The [citizens] nodded, emphatically agreeing with [statements] which upwards of sixty-two thousand repetitions in the [U.S. news] had made them accept, not merely as true, but as axiomatic, self-evident, utterly indisputable.

The first step toward a truthful worldview — toward seeing things as they really are — is to read international news sources / take the red pill / lay off the soma; choose your preferred analogy and proceed.

[via Kalilily Time]