Resolutions for the New Year: Of Strings and Images
By: David Breeden
Tags: Resolutions, Humanism, New Year, Conspiracy Theories, Conspiracy Theorists

Photo by Pablo Hermoso on Unsplash

We awakened this past Christmas morning to a disturbing newsflash — there had been an explosion in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. As the day went on, the story became more bizarre: the bomb was in an old RV. A recording was playing, warning people about the bomb and counting down. Between announcements, the recording played a Petula Clark hit from the 1960s, “Downtown.” The detonation occurred when the fewest possible people would be in the area . . .

At the moment, investigators are not certain about the motives of the bomber, who clearly set off the bomb in a way designed to avoid mass casualties. What we do know is that the bomb damaged an AT&T facility, perhaps because the bomber’s father was employed by a precursor to AT&T. That’s one possibility. Another is that the bomber was obsessed with conspiracy theories, one being the danger of 5G networks.

Fear of cellular technology and wifi has been around for as long as those technologies have been around — who can forget the prophecies of cooked, cancerous brains when cell phones first appeared? As a new technology, 5G is the latest suspect. In addition to that, the spread of 5G networks and the spread of the coronavirus were bound to get linked by conspiracy theorists.

Something on the order of fifty cell towers in the United Kingdom were destroyed this past April during the initial spread of the virus in the UK. This current outbreak — if you will — of the conspiracy theory appears to have begun in France in a right-wing blog titled Les Moutons Enragés, “the enraged sheep.” (Or “rabid” or “mad.”)*

The fact that Facebook began cracking down on sites propagating the theory only made the conspiracy theorists more suspicious — it enraged the rabid sheep.

The so-called logic in this particular conspiracy fantasy is that 5G technology causes radiation which spreads Covid-19. Perhaps — goes the speculation — the pandemic is all about those towers that are going up all over the world at this point. (Weren’t they building 5G towers in Wuhan when . . . )

Another conspiracy theory that the bomber may have bought into is about shape-shifting reptilian aliens who — so goes the theory — are disguised as world leaders such as the Obamas and celebrities such as . . . Justin Bieber.

And then there’s the “satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals” that QAnon devotees fear. I’m sure the list goes on . . .

To repeat, investigators don’t know at this point if the Nashville bomber bought into these conspiracy theories, but a lot of people do.

And that’s my question: Why do people believe fantasies such as these? For my money the Spanish philosopher George Santayana has the answer: “People become superstitious, not because they have too much imagination, but because they are not aware that they have any.”

The believers in conspiracy theories (and dare I add philosophies, religions, and ideologies both right and left) just can’t see that they have been fed juicy, images that create their subservience to fantasy — killer cell towers; lizard people; pedophilic cannibals working out of pizza restaurants . . . these are compelling images.

We all do well to ask ourselves: Who or what is pulling my strings?

Because it’s not only right-wing conspiracy theorists who are believing the images planted in their minds. Human beings are prone toward both collective fantasy and individual delusion.

How to escape? The twentieth century French philosopher Pierre Hadot developed a neo-Stoic philosophy in a book titled The Inner Citadel: The Mediations of Marcus Aurelius. Number one on his list of ways to change our lives is:

Realize that your mental images and the voice in your head is not reality but your subjective judgments.

That is the essence of ancient Stoicism, and it is the essence of Taoism and Buddhism and some forms of Hinduism.

Pierre Hadot goes on with his Stoicism-inspired list like this:

Stop being a puppet on a string. Get into the moment. Assess where you are, now. What can you change and what can’t you change? Remember how short your time on earth is.

Not a bad way to start that list of New Year resolutions! May we all in the new year cease being puppets on strings.

FirstUnitarian.org

Huumanist.org

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