On his namesake show on January 8th, Jon Stewart made the claim that he understood what was happening in the US in regards to gun control and stated that "their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present." After Alex Jones' volatile appearance on the Piers Morgan Show, it is quite easy to dismiss the clear fears that Jones presented as mere paranoia yet, I found it riveting to hear Mr. Stewart's claim that our present is actually dystopian in itself. Of course, his definition of dystopian was the number of gun related homicides per annum, but what he failed to see was that these people who he is dismissive of are not truly responding in paranoid fear about a possible dystopian future but are instead, responding to fears of a very much current dystopian present.
The very idea of what makes a society dystopian is subjective in nature. For some, it could be presented in an over-reaching regime with intense personal intrusions, for others it could be one in which sloth, decadence and perversion are the mainstream. In Jones' appearance on Piers Morgan, he makes it quite clear that he is afraid of a variety of things from chemtrails to pharmaceutical drugs--fears that are very much rooted in the here and now, not the future as Stewart chose to focus on. Unfortunately, what Stewart later calls "a few" is actually more than just a few Americans. Whereas Alex Jones tends to be the right wing conspiracy theory reporter, the left wing also has its share of conspiracy theorists that are also growing in both prevalence and presence. The interesting thing about the growing capacity for people to accept or consider conspiracy theory is that, where it was once confined to an isolated corner, it is now becoming more accepted by the mainstream. Whereas most of us would most likely balk at Alex Jones' behavior and statements, I would like to see the portion that thought that Jones may have hit upon a subject that they were themselves concerned about. What the hell happened?
First of all, I am not going to voice my opinion on any particular conspiracy theory. What I am instead going to look at are those things that are rooted in the rise of conspiracy theory within society, itself. What things within the fabric of society have changed that have led more people to listen and pay attention to conspiracy theories to the point where Alex Jones is present on a CNN show? Oddly enough, my most immediate thought would be mainstream media, itself, for three reasons. First of all, one cannot argue that there are a great deal of shows gaining in popularity over the last several years that would embody what would be the fringe of science, pseudoscience, or even conspiracy, itself. Once upon a time, a show like the The X-Files was rather unique. Today we have shows such as Fringe, Alphas, Touch, Supernatural, and more bombarding our televisions with their novelty. Or, on the more "serious" documentary side, we have shows like Ancient Aliens or Dark Matters, or,, worse yet, mockumentaries that overlap into reality in an ARG like manner such as the mermaid mockumentary earlier this year that also included two websites purported to have been taken down by the Department of Homeland Security. If we're a society who believes that video game violence can lead to real life violence, then what does the bombardment of pseudoscience and conspiracy theory lead us to? Why, pseudoscience and conspiracy theory, of course. What we watch affects us and, considering the increasing prevalence of these kind of shows, they are clearly appealing to the television viewing public. Mainstream media has been doing a bang up job of shredding the box that generally encapsulates most people's thinking. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, it also opens the door to possibly formulating ideas that may have no foundation in actual science or history or perhaps a little foundation in either but are spun in such a way as to be wholly wrong.
Even more interesting, however, is the fact that viewership of mainstream media news has actually been declining and the way that it is presented has altered entirely quite possibly in response. Whereas previously, news articles would be written by a journalist writing through either AP, Reuters or on behalf of a news agency, now they may have tweets from perhaps relevant or rrelevant Twitter users on the subject matter on the same page as the news article, itself. Or, they may grab a blogger's article and present it as an article, itself, instead of as it should be--an op-ed piece of dubious origin (ironic, considering that's what I am, I know). I was really very humoured when a blogger whose post went viral was put on television to talk about Invisible Children. I can very well imagine that they were slightly horrified to find that who they had brought forward as an expert was a teenaged boy, who seemed slightly horrified at what they had done, himself. The inclusion of what would be basically heavily truncated and sometimes the anonymous textual equivalent of soundbites and op-ed from anonymous source actually further contaminates our journalism and allows the inclusion of potentially improperly sourced material as evidenced by the string of misreports in regards to the Sandy Hook shooting.
The other issue, that I have mentioned previously in this blog, is that mainstream media has allowed itself to become increasingly polarized and sometimes, pushing more radical material in order to increase viewership. Just last week, I came across an article on Fox News that discussed the possibility of an upcoming Civil War. In fact, when Jon Stewart also jokingly stated on his show that "a few of us must remain vigilant against the rise of imaginary Hitler", he obviously wasn't paying attention to where that Hitler may have come from, which is relatively surprising--Fox News. It's been a pretty consistently reported comparison that has been repeated multiple times by the news agency and this truly highlights the issue of the polarization of the press. We have a nasty tendency of being a reactive society as opposed to being a reflective one and both sides of the party-polarized media are terribly guilty of it. You'd think that Jon Stewart could have made the connection of who their imaginary Hitler was but he didn't, did he? Doing so would've posed a problem about him stating that they were in fear of a possible dystopian future.
The liberal media has been just as bad in regards to cultivating conspiratorial leanings and worries. The Huffington Post is always very quick to post articles that are worded in such a way as to promote fear of a conspiracy or a totalitarian style regime even. Even more ironic is the frequent usage of RT as a news source. RT tends to use fear tactics in an almost anti-government frenzy which then gets shared over and over again by a variety of more liberal groups. The reason why it is ironic is that, some of the conspiracy claims are that Communists are attempting to take over the US. Considering that RT stands for Russia Times and was initially started by the KGB, it doesn't take long to figure out how that idea came to be. Regardless, most news agencies are very quick to report the indiscretions and corruption of the government and its agencies. Earlier today, there was an article on CNN about a DEA agent who had procured prostitutes for a Secret Service agent. Clearly, we're in corruption hell though there is no word on the majority of other agents working in the field and whether they deal with prostitutes as well.
Regardless of which lens one views the mainstream media through, the end result is oddly consistent: a corrupt, frequently over-reaching government with a Congress that seems to be better at making gaffes than actual pertinent legislation and who are not properly representing their constituents anymore. A very dystopian present. What we do not see are the more moderate representatives and senators being written about or aired on television--what we are seeing are the provocative and inflaming members of Congress, a relatively small portion. In the end, the mixture of the media presentation and their own failed and questionably successful endeavors ended up creating the most hated Congress in history. And if you can't trust our government to protect and represent you and if you can't trust the mainstream media for reporting things properly, then who do you trust? Apparently, conspiracy theorists, bloggers and tweets--and that's dangerous. I don't know how many times I have seen someone say something on facebook that I was able to trace back to a conspiracy theory and generally one of highly dubious source. The issue is that, once anonymity reigns the day, and many of the sources of this kind of thing are just that--fairly anonymous--, then nearly all accountability is lost. I could declare that I have a phd in Sociology from Cambridge and, whereas those of my readers who know me personally would know that I was full of it, the majority of my readers wouldn't be any of the wiser. (I have a B.S. in accounting and an associates of science: biology, for the record--true, I swear! lol).
At the end of the day, the primary reason why we are in this mess here in the US isn't because of some all conspiring entity or even entities. The reason is you. Until we can start becoming a public that can read or view something through a critical lens instead of a reactive one, we'll continue to be in this mess. It's not to say that we have to lose the shows that we love or anything like that but we have to maintain a level head. Question the hell out of everything but when you're throwing out the slants, skews and spins of media--don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater opens the door to more dangerous territories that could ignite this country like a powder keg because that's precisely what was seen on Piers Morgan's show. In its March 2011 issue, Rolling Stone reported that Alex Jones had more viewers than both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck combined and that his youtube channel has had over 80 million views. As of today, January 11, 2013, his videos have had over 264 million views. Zeitgeist, a movie under a similar type of genre, has had incalculable views and has even made it to Netflix. It's not to say that conspiracies have never occurred or do not exist for conspiring is within human nature. However, spin doctors also exist and, through the internet, are gaining a greater prevalence and influence than ever before. This, Jon Stewart, is MY dystopian present.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/talk-radios-alex-jones-the-most-paranoid-man-in-america-20110302
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