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https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://eand.co/the-revenge-of-the-age-of-the-idiot-20fd7cb51606>
"Call it the Great Gaslighting of the 2020s. Take a glance at some of the
headlines above. “Climate change obsession is a mental disorder. “Your body can
build up tolerance to heat. Here’s how.” “With a few basic steps, most of us
can finally ignore Covid.” “One more Covid Summer. Will it always be like
this?”
Meanwhile, in the real world? “July will likely be the world’s hottest month on
record and possibly the warmest in 120,000 years, according to climate
scientists.”
The killing heat is here. People are dying of burns they get from falling onto
superheated surfaces — roads, streets, pavements, patios. Canada’s still on
fire, from coast to coast — and nobody knows how to put megafires that big out.
Heat domes are heading back to America and Europe. China just saw apocalyptic
floods. Oh, and — Covid’s back.
If it feels apocalyptic, that’s because it is. It’d be bad enough if we just
had climate change to deal with. But we don’t. We have…a panoply of existential
threats. Climate change. Plus pandemics. Plus fascism.
And in the midst of all that, we’re being…gaslit. We’re told, increasingly,
that to care about this…that’s the pathological thing. That’s the message,
after all, of “climate change obsession is a mental disorder.” What’s “normal”
is…indifference. Quite literally: “most of us can finally ignore Covid.”
What’s happening here? On a formal level, norms are emerging. Societies always
negotiate — and renegotiate — norms. And norms are much, much more powerful
than many of us — especially Americans — understand. Why is it that America’s
so broken? It’s not just the politics — it’s that a certain set of toxic norms
set in, apathy, the celebration of ignorance, social indifference, contempt for
the public good. And soon enough, those hardened — and became the open hate,
violence, brutality, and idiocy we see rising everywhere, especially, of
course, among and championed by the GOP.
Norms matter. At a fundamental level. They lie beneath politics and
economics, and shape and mold what possibilities they hold."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
