Tag: post-truth

Uncategorized by Fragile Dignity
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The Great Derangement: Capitalism’s Event Horizon

The great derangement in this society is precisely the manner in which a culture falls apart. And this is why there is no easy fix. It’s like we’re approaching a socioeconomic event horizon. In physics, the event horizon is the zone where time and space and reality are warped beyond all recognition as one enters into a black hole. We’re in the middle of this process sociologically, approaching the singularity of capitalism, entering the final acceleration where the fabric of this social reality will become more and more insane, reality turned upside-down, where the earth really does seem flat and fascist, in-real-life social reality molded by Facebook algorithms. Where we see all the paranoid tropes and fears and desires whiz by faster and faster so that we can never keep up with the 500 television shows we can’t seem to turn off vying for our ever shorter attentions, where our deranged reality becomes spaghetti-fied and ripped apart at the seams.

Uncategorized by Fragile Dignity
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Post-Truth President / Post-Truth World: Trump and Life in the Upside Down

The heel is the antagonist who breaks the rules, cheats, sabotages, and nastily takes advantage of his opponents outside the ring. In lucha libre wrestling, heels (rudo) are brawlers fighting with brute forces, often dressing up like devils or tricksters. Trump wears the same suite and tie every day, like portraying this character he invented. And he gets his crowd to boo, hiss, cheer and jeer, to chant “build the wall!” or “lock her up!” and carries on about “Lyin’ Ted” and “Crooked Hillary,” he turns his political opponents into wrestling characters, and brings what might have been reasoned debate to the level of vulgar theater. His opponents were caught flat footed while he stirred the nationalist id. They either never understood what was going on or were not prepared to meet him on the mat.

psychology by Fragile Dignity
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Psychiatry’s Recusal from the Mad World (Part II)

More important than the mere act of pathologizing Trump is to understand the social psychology that prepares a culture for Trumpism. This move not only sidesteps the Goldwater Rule, but points us toward a more interesting project of a systematic critical social and psychological introspection in a world of increasing shallowness and hateful reactivity. Wherever there is a post-truth president, there shall we find the post-truth world.

poly sci by Fragile Dignity
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O.J. and Trump: A Comparative Study in Post-Truth Justice

I think that to watch this (O.J.) documentary, you can get a harbinger, a microcosmic impression through a media-circus kaleidoscope, of a country that is preparing for a phenomena like President Trump. The social forces at work in letting Simpson off the hook are the same ones – if the racial vectors are switched from black to white – that elected Donald Trump. So that Trump too is a story of all of those same things – celebrity, domestic violence, race, tv, a media circus, money, a brain damaged sociopath, cities ravaged by racial profiling and corruption and a public that was fed up with it all.