The Story War: Our lives are organized around stories. To whatever effect one regards evidence, known facts and the vigor of science, when it comes to how the mind navigates belief, we invariably reduce things into narratives.
A news article, whether true or not, tells a story. A peer reviewed paper published in a scientific journal, no matter how academically sourced, is still a story in form. The very nature of who we think we are and where we think we came from, whether by way of an all-seeing God or a chemically charged Big Bang, is still a story on the level of comprehension and communication.
The same goes for long-standing traditions, social devices and cultural symbols that we share. For example, the legal system, as an embodiment of society’s conduct codes, is often supported by moral narratives commonly advanced by religion or secular philosophy, related to what is deemed “right” or “wrong.”
This was a great read! And it’s also perfectly summarized with:
The existence and persistence of conspiracy culture and such groupistic, non-evidence based belief, is largely the result of a basic lack of trust or social capital in the ever-angling, overly competitive capitalist world. And as pressures continue to emerge, we can only expect the draw of disinformation and group vs group antagonism to get worse.
Although it’s not a positive outlook that things might get worse, I do think Peter is right. The social-media bubbles aren’t helping either.
This is also why our friendly @zeit-bot posts the feed of https://fullfact.org/, a fact checker website. Some posts I’ll hide because they’re repetitive or don’t apply that much on an international level. But disinformation is part of our cultural zeitgeist and it damages our ability to make thoughtful and important decisions during e.g. a pandemic. TZM also struggles with being taken seriously due to all the BS some activists associate with our movement… It’s time to make some changes.
