The Ubiquitous Matrix of Lies

Reality Sandwich: The Ubiquitous Matrix of Lies

It reminds me of the much passed around Stephen Colbert segment titled, appropriately, “The Word.” Specifically the one on Wikipedia. In it he points out that if everyone goes online and changes something on Wikipedia- for example that numbers of African elephants are in fact rising, not declining- then technically, for all the vast majority of the people in the world know- it becomes true.

The same holds true for all environmentalists. Our arguments have literally NO power- because we can say anything we like. We can talk endlessly about climate change, we can show a million charts and graphs and statistics, and the funny thing is, so can the other side. Everyone knows, nearly from birth it seems, that statistics can be manipulated to say anything you want. And so they have no power. You can list the tonnes of carbon in the air, spout percentages of increase until you’re blue in the face, and then someone will come along and point out that no, if you calculate the numbers in another way the increase isn’t so much, that there have been increases in the past, and so on and so forth until no one has the faintest idea who to believe. Another, less volatile example would be nutrition facts- we are back and forth from one year to another about which nutrients are good for you or bad for you and which foods you should eat and which leave out- to the point where most people refuse to believe any nutrition claims they hear, because they know perfectly well that they will change in the next few months, depending on the current fad.

This is not to say that some people won’t believe it- there are many who, among the constant barrage of messages, will cling to almost anything that comes into the mainstream media. Many people panicked over swine flu. But as the author of this article points out, many more just yawned and went about their lives. There have been so many crises- so many pandemics- so many scares about this and that, that it’s the least we can do to even pretend to pay attention to it.

So, if we are to supposedly to save the environment by changing the consciousness of the populace (as most of environmentalists will say- we can’t have change without changing the general attitude toward the environment), and at the same time the general populace is tuning out everything we say, how exactly are we supposed to bring about change? It’s something of a pickle. I think this is a rather valid point:
“When environmentalists focus on cost-benefit analyses and study data rather than real, physical places, trees, ponds, and animals, they end up making all the sickening compromises of the Beltway…Visit a real "mountaintop removal" operation and you know that there is no compromise that is not betrayal.”

It’s quite true. Visit the reality- put it right up in your face- and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get someone to pay attention. It doesn’t always work. I always wondered how anyone who had watched someone die of lung cancer- this was while I was in fact watching my grandfather suffer from the disease, the result of years of smoking- could actually smoke cigarettes. But I met people again and again who, despite looking the prospect of that debilitating, most unpleasant of deaths straight in the eye, weren’t in the slightest swayed from their determination to smoke a pack a day.

As the author points out, we fear that authenticity. We don’t want to look it right in the eye, because once you do, the elaborate web of illusions built up for you from birth begins to crumble, and your life becomes one mess of attempting to untangle reality from the “ubiquitous matrix of lies.” It’s not an easy task, and most people would rather stay in the matrix, though it leaves us with a sense of loss that can never quite be identified, and which we drown in via any number of mind numbing devices.

But there are some who are ready to hear- and it is to these people, the people who are tired of the status quo, tired of spin, tired of images and brands and the false tripe that’s surrounding you, everywhere you look, that we (if we wish to be successful as environmentalists) need to speak to- and not with more spin, not with more hype, but with the naked, simple truth- as plain and straightforward as possible, which means, as much as possible, without words (ironic to be writing this on a blog), but in the real world, where we can touch, and smell, and taste, and feel- the few senses that have yet to be entirely co-opted by others than ourselves.