Poetic Essence

Canadian Blogger Kathy "Five Feet Of Fury" Shaidle comments over at Taki's about the suicide of former SNL writer Joe Bodolai.  You might click her name to read her other articles as well.

She notes the insanity of his politics, which figured in his suicide note.  A 9/11 Truther, anti-Semitic, FEMA camp type.

Few individuals have the power to raise my blood pressure like “truthers.” If you really believe 9/11 was an inside job, then you’re obliged to either assassinate those responsible or kill yourself in abject despair. And if, like Bodolai, you sincerely think that “Fascism will be America. It already is,” then either you leave the country on the next flight and burn your passport upon arrival, or you’re only a pretentious poseur and a barroom bore.

I have thought that myself, and have read similar others.  My brother believes that the onboard Flight 93 story was made up by the government to gin us up in hatred to go to war.  If you really thought that...

There are similar fevered beliefs on the right, certainly, and they make no more sense.  What are usually called the paranoid beliefs of the right, such as birthers or Obama-is-a-socialist types aren't the same thing.  Believing a politician might lie about his birth may be unfounded in this case, but it doesn't match trutherism.  (Believing Obama is a secret Muslim who wants to install sharia law - okay, that counts.)

An amazing percentage of Americans believe something like one of these.  How can that be? When reasonably intelligent people believe insane things, it pays to ask why.  I had not gotten any farther than recognising that being in the know is quite delicious, and to be more-cynical-than-thou sometimes requires an extreme attitude.  Yet that isn't really enough to get you to ideas that are so wildly improbable that they cannot be seriously credited without large amounts of weed.

I suggest that these beliefs are adopted in a general, almost symbolic way, which is part of why they are impervious to counterevidence.  The details of the conspiracy, or the hidden masters, or the imminent fascism do not especially matter.  Yes, perhaps that particular idea about the Twin Towers may not hold up, but then something else equally bad will turn out to be true. "They" are capable of doing this, but people don't see. 

Considered this way, you may notice that you encounter such beliefs all the time - reasonably sensible people who say "I'm really concerned where this country is headed," who mean something more than that we are spending too much or aren't educating the young.  They sense at some level that a great horror is just over the horizon.  They know this without knowing why. Feeling precedes facts.

The artists and comedians and writers who articulate this for them, no matter how wrong they are- how insanely wrong, in the case of the Oliver Stones or other political filmmakers - are believed because their audience thinks they have seen through to some essence.  The details don't matter - of what import are minor misstatements and slightly misdirected anger when we are talking about visionaries?  If their exact stories aren't true, then something very much like it is true, folks think.  Don't quibble, man.  That dude gets it. We're headed for fascism.  He tells it like it is.