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“Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups…So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.” - Philip K Dick
you say sophisticated techniques thought up by sophisticated people trap the majority of the rest of us. i disaggree on one thing - the sophistication. the idea that there is a level where people create cunning traps for the intelligent public amuses me. surely it is far simpler; moderately intelligent people create traps for stupid people which are the majority and the remiainder - to some degree - follow due to peer pressure and innocent ignorance. there is not a great desire to know the facts for ones self unless it is directly applicable. to plainly put it ‘it is easier to be led than to lead’.
I don’t think the people who shape the realities are often even aware of it. Their motives would be money/power/inluence, they are unlikely to say “I wish to change this whole societies view on reality”. Perhaps you could say Hitler did that.
I think alot of people never realise they are being led, and hence, never try to do anything about it.
So it is possibly a by-product created in fact by the masses (though stimulated by the original urge to sell/gain of the initial people/person) in an attempt to aid their understanding of what is being presented to them?
Personally i think it is down to individual perception and the ability to draw the conclusion of ‘What i am being told is not the truth’
Can you really believe that Hitler changed the mind set of the whole country just because he managed to start a war? Is it not more likely that he changed enough peoples perception of themselves and other countries to gain support through propaganda and fictitious evidence of the people being aryans?
Though what i truly believe is the truth is this;
There is no complexity it is just the current mode of doing things, living. In time it will go as everything else has in the past. People draw on it because it is their own little bit of escapism. Imagine thirty years in the same job/routine/lifestyle, surely a short period in which you could forget that would be bliss…the new ‘reality’ isnt important all that matters is that you aren’t having to deal with the one you usually live in. I put it to you that people accept this as it is now because they can use it, admittedly some get confused concerning where to draw the line between the real and the simulacra, but most do not.
But, is it right to live in a fake reality? I don’t think the lines are so clear. Think of newspapers, media etc. They are presented as fact, and for many, interpreted as fact. For an extreme example you only need to look at people’s responses to books like “The Da Vinci Code”to see that a fair few people have no idea where the line is. That is presented as fiction, how much more must the delusion be when the source is presented as fact?
Escapism, fair enough, but it is vitally important to distinguish between a fantasy world, and your own reality.