Ever wonder why the religious person sitting opposite you on the train is reading the Bible? I mean, haven’t they finished it yet? Or why recovering alkies go to three or more meetings a week and read the Big Book? Or why people read one self-help book after another, or yet another book on personal effectiveness? Or why people go to Church every Sunday? Let alone pray five times a day (Fajr, Dhuhr, ‘Asr, Maghrib, and ‘Isha) or even seven (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, Compline). Or why men check into dark corners of the Internet to read their filthy alt-right misogynist propaganda? Okay. The last one is obvious: they are filthy alt-right misogynists. It’s entirely different when liberals read the Guardian (or the Evening Standard, or the Financial Times) for the latest revelations about how Brexit is going to be a disaster.
No. It’s not because they are insecure aand need their thoughts confirming.
If you don’t fill your head with the thoughts you want to have, other people will fill your head with the thoughts they want you to have.
Advertisers using whatever current cliches they think will get your attention. Politicians, who don’t actually care about you, since they are talking to a very small audience of other politicians, major donors and businessmen. Left-wing journalists (a tautology) pushing their agendas. PR agents agitating hashtags for their clients’ benefit. Songwriters pushing Blue Pill sentimentality and Girlzzz Just Wanna Party. Scientists pushing out pop-science gee-whiz to get publicity to keep the grant money rolling in. The news telling you that awful behaviour seems to bring rewards, at least in this life. Not to mention Facebook propaganda from your fake friends, or faking friends. And let’s never forget those communications from management, with more spin than Nathan Lyon.
That’s what will pour into my head if I don’t put what I want into it. I can go looking for different opinions, and I can keep track of what The Enemy are thinking, but then I know what I’m doing. If I just wander through this media-soaked world, watching TV, reading the Metro on the train, and overhear whatever the girl singer du jour is pushing at the moment, I’m going to pick up mainstream ideas. I can tell myself I’m watching ironically, or that I don’t believe it, but there’s a part of my brain that, in the words of Gabriel Shear…
Some alcoholics ask why they have to go to so many meetings a week. The reply is: well, you went drinking every night, right?
You can’t get too much counter-propaganda.
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