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We’re Undermining Our Shared Reality and It’s Driving Us Nuts
The tragedy of the latest QAnon killing is that we are bound to keep making them the heroes of their own stories
Although we can knock on tables all we want and predict the motion of an object in space, reality is a lot more fragile than we’d like to believe. While there are bad actors who manipulate the facts that underpin our shared reality for their own ends, that doesn’t necessarily make us the victims.
As someone who writes pretty extensively about conspiracy enthusiasts and the cults their participation engenders, my constant refrain is that these people aren’t joking (and they are in no way a joke).
They are people responding to the same events and threats as everyone else. They are acting the exact same way you would if you knew what they did. They pity the rest of us in our blind acceptance of the status quo.
And they’re not necessarily wrong.
Our leaders (at best) hold us in paternal contempt. Our churches have lost their moral centers. The very notion of intellectual and moral authority has crumbled before our eyes.
In a black and white, Good versus Evil culture like ours, it doesn’t make sense to blame our woes on cultural atrophy. There has to be a grand obstacle to overcome. Reptilian Overlords are as good a foil as any.
A Holy Killer
Michael Coleman, who killed his children to save the world, was not, is not, a crazy person. If it were a movie instead of real life, we would all watch the hell out of it and recommend it to our friends. In fact, we probably already have.
Think Gregory Peck at the end of “The Omen.”
Think Christopher Walken at the end of “The Dead Zone.”
Think of any of the hundreds of books and movies that we love, and the tragic heroes who are understood only by the audience and themselves.
Think of the Holy Man Lot offering up his daughters to be gang-raped.
We come from a tradition of madmen being justified by the endurance of their faith. It is one of the things we prize most as a species, someone…
