I heard a great quote today. The great physicist Albert Einstein said "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." The mediocre engineer Aaron said "truth is truth, no matter when it was realized." So when is something a truth and when is it not? When is it a persistent illusion?
A truth is immutable. It never changes and can not be altered. Gravity attracts two masses. Death comes to all. Taxes come to some. Those that don't get taxed want to raise taxes on those that do.
Everything else is a persistent illusion. It is to this topic I wish to devote my meager intellectual juices. There are many people who have an agenda and wish to push their illusions off onto the rest of us. If they say it often enough, we should begin to believe them. They speak from a position of authority, or so they believe. Their authority comes not from their own merits or achievements, but from others who came before them. Others who worked hard to establish credibility and honesty. Most of the folks I am thinking of are reporters. They report the "news" on a daily basis. (By the way, news is something that is new. A new development. Anna Nicole Smith is dead, and has been for a while. Can we PLEASE not run any more stories about her, her children or her sordid life?!)
The news people from a few years ago strove to be fair and mostly honest. They saw themselves as the fourth estate; keeping a watchful eye on government so the rest of us could dedicate ourselves to worthy and noble pursuits. Somewhere along the way they realized their power and have nearly abandoned the fair and impartial mantra they used to have. Lately the news outlets have allowed themselves to become purveyors of propaganda. They mingle truth with the politics of man. Both sides are guilty of this. Even NPR (National Progressive Radio (yes, the P stands for public but who are they kidding?)) broadcasts with a slant on their news and stories.
The deterioration of trust and authority continues. Documentaries used to be something that reported a story, fairly and accurately, giving more attention than a news cast could do. I think of the documentary movies my Dad shared with me that showed how people, nice average people, could be turned into monsters. A study that showed that by having an authoritative figure take responsibility normal people could knowingly inflict intense pain and suffering on someone else. Or the study that was planned for a couple weeks and had to be stopped after 2-3 days because the students who participated altered so greatly. (That was a study where 1/2 the students were prisoners and 1/2 were guards. The guards became abusive while the prisoners began to withdraw within them selves.) Those were some great documentaries.
What do we have today? We have "An Inconvenient Truth." Why is it a truth? Because someone said so. Who? Well, the guy that invented the internet! Certainly we should believe him when it comes to climate. We have "Farenheit 9/11." And now, from the same person that brought you "Farenheit 9/11" we are about to be treated to "Sicko." The person who made this documentary took ten ill rescue workers from the Ground Zero rescue effort over to Cuba for treatment. (It is illegal for an American to travel to Cuba and do business, unless one is a journalist. To call Michael Moore a journalist is a stretch that even Detective Gadget couldn't pull off. By taking the workers over to Cuba, he not only broke several laws himself, he caused ten other sick people to break laws too. For money.) So he could make a movie and make some money. A movie that passes an illusion off as a truth.
A truth is immutable. It never changes and can not be altered. Gravity attracts two masses. Death comes to all. Taxes come to some. Those that don't get taxed want to raise taxes on those that do.
Everything else is a persistent illusion. It is to this topic I wish to devote my meager intellectual juices. There are many people who have an agenda and wish to push their illusions off onto the rest of us. If they say it often enough, we should begin to believe them. They speak from a position of authority, or so they believe. Their authority comes not from their own merits or achievements, but from others who came before them. Others who worked hard to establish credibility and honesty. Most of the folks I am thinking of are reporters. They report the "news" on a daily basis. (By the way, news is something that is new. A new development. Anna Nicole Smith is dead, and has been for a while. Can we PLEASE not run any more stories about her, her children or her sordid life?!)
The news people from a few years ago strove to be fair and mostly honest. They saw themselves as the fourth estate; keeping a watchful eye on government so the rest of us could dedicate ourselves to worthy and noble pursuits. Somewhere along the way they realized their power and have nearly abandoned the fair and impartial mantra they used to have. Lately the news outlets have allowed themselves to become purveyors of propaganda. They mingle truth with the politics of man. Both sides are guilty of this. Even NPR (National Progressive Radio (yes, the P stands for public but who are they kidding?)) broadcasts with a slant on their news and stories.
The deterioration of trust and authority continues. Documentaries used to be something that reported a story, fairly and accurately, giving more attention than a news cast could do. I think of the documentary movies my Dad shared with me that showed how people, nice average people, could be turned into monsters. A study that showed that by having an authoritative figure take responsibility normal people could knowingly inflict intense pain and suffering on someone else. Or the study that was planned for a couple weeks and had to be stopped after 2-3 days because the students who participated altered so greatly. (That was a study where 1/2 the students were prisoners and 1/2 were guards. The guards became abusive while the prisoners began to withdraw within them selves.) Those were some great documentaries.
What do we have today? We have "An Inconvenient Truth." Why is it a truth? Because someone said so. Who? Well, the guy that invented the internet! Certainly we should believe him when it comes to climate. We have "Farenheit 9/11." And now, from the same person that brought you "Farenheit 9/11" we are about to be treated to "Sicko." The person who made this documentary took ten ill rescue workers from the Ground Zero rescue effort over to Cuba for treatment. (It is illegal for an American to travel to Cuba and do business, unless one is a journalist. To call Michael Moore a journalist is a stretch that even Detective Gadget couldn't pull off. By taking the workers over to Cuba, he not only broke several laws himself, he caused ten other sick people to break laws too. For money.) So he could make a movie and make some money. A movie that passes an illusion off as a truth.
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