Excellent break down and summary as well. Thank you.
It's amazing to me how acidulous and shameless these types of assholes are. This article is not journalism; it's activism through and through.
The fact that so many people can't see how consumer culture constantly being barraged with such mendacious bullshit is genuinely harmful is something that I'll never understand.
Perhaps they know that these types of messages — which saturate every facet of our culture — are harmful to society as a whole and they simply don't care because it serves as a vehicle for a myriad of self-serving objectives. It's not secret that "journalists" today use their outlets as a type of therapist or personal blog, so it wouldn't be unexpected for them to write entire articles to platform their activism; soothe their insecurity; seek validation of their views from others; use it as a sad method of attracting a partner; push a specific political agenda; use it as propaganda tool to manipulate others; use it to serve corporate or elite interests — the list goes on. It's no secret that many of those things have always been intrinsic traits to journalism. We've always seen at least some underlying motivation, but I would argue that in the past, competent Editors made it a point to have writers present both sides in a way that would make the reader think and form their own conclusion — something that seems almost completely lost these days.
In 2021, we've reached a point where consumerism has created the expectation that everything — including ambiguous beliefs — are spoon-fed to people because they're a necessity for the conformist culture that's slowly being created. People want to feel like they match the common consensus of society, which is exactly why you'll always hear these vacuous consumers screaming about "everyone thinks xxxxxx!" or "we all agree that xxxxxx." It's also exactly why they worship "consensus" and there's a new cult of "scientism" (just a word I use) being created. In their simple and hollow minds science has become the new cult of consensus — if only because they don't actually understand how science works. But this is another topic altogether.
Whatever society is currently heading towards will be anything but auspicious. Nonetheless, if current society is any indicator, it's also entirely our own fault and well deserved.
Excellent break down and summary as well. Thank you.
It's amazing to me how acidulous and shameless these types of assholes are. This article is not journalism; it's activism through and through.
The fact that so many people can't see how consumer culture constantly being barraged with such mendacious bullshit is genuinely harmful is something that I'll never understand.
Perhaps they know that these types of messages — which saturate every facet of our culture — are harmful to society as a whole and they simply don't care because it serves as a vehicle for a myriad of self-serving objectives. It's not secret that "journalists" today use their outlets as a type of therapist or personal blog, so it wouldn't be unexpected for them to write entire articles to platform their activism; soothe their insecurity; seek validation of their views from others; use it as a sad method of attracting a partner; push a specific political agenda; use it as propaganda tool to manipulate others; use it to serve corporate or elite interests — the list goes on. It's no secret that many of those things have always been intrinsic traits to journalism. We've always seen at least some underlying motivation, but I would argue that in the past, competent Editors made it a point to have writers present both sides in a way that would make the reader think and form their own conclusion — something that seems almost completely lost these days.
In 2021, we've reached a point where consumerism has created the expectation that everything — including ambiguous beliefs — are spoon-fed to people because they're a necessity for the conformist culture that's slowly being created. People want to feel like they match the common consensus of society, which is exactly why you'll always hear these vacuous consumers screaming about "everyone thinks xxxxxx!" or "we all agree that xxxxxx." It's also exactly why they worship "consensus" and there's a new cult of "scientism" (just a word I use) being created. In their simple and hollow minds science has become the new cult of consensus — if only because they don't actually understand how science works. But this is another topic altogether.
Whatever society is currently heading towards will be anything but auspicious. Nonetheless, if current society is any indicator, it's also entirely our own fault and well deserved.