Raphael Thys
René Magritte’s 1965 painting, Le Blanc-Seing (The Blank Check)
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.
— Abraham Lincoln. 1838
Research shows that 71% of Americans get their news from Social media. Danger has sprung up amongst us.
Turn on the TV, scroll through Social media and you’ll quickly discover that it’s a battleground out there. But why all the fighting?
It’s so easy to communicate with each other you’d think the world would come together, with more empathy, more reason, more compassion for our fellowman.
But this is not the case. We are more divided than ever. Emotions are running high and tempers are flaring.
We are in the Age of Communication. And we are not communicating.
Media / Social would paint a picture of the world based on stereotypes. It would make “a caricature of a world view that fears ‘the other’ and filter everything through it, turning the viewer into a soldier that views their neighbor as the enemy.
“It would rely on the most destructive tendencies of our evolutionary inheritance — our defense mechanisms, anxieties, survival wiring, fight or flight, our tendency to focus on the threat, danger, the negative — to weave a narrative that ultimately could be the most dangerous force that democracy faces.” — Then & Now.
Threat — even the illusion of it — is like a black hole. Its relentless pull is irresistible. People get sucked in. Panic ensues.
Higher reasoning shuts down, the thin veneer of civilization falls away, leaving only the fight or flight instincts of the limbic, reptilian brain.
“We have the fierce teamism of the lonely, who find fellowship in their online fighting group and will say anything for its approval.
“There are the angry who find relief in politics because they can funnel their rage there, into that external thing, instead of examining closer and more uncomfortable causes.
“There are the people who cannot consider God and religion and have to put that energy somewhere. America isn’t making fewer of the lonely, angry and unaffiliated, it’s making more every day.” — Peggy Noonan.
But what if we could change these pressures into something else — what if we could steer ourselves to a better, less fearful, combative, more humane place? What would that place look like?
It would be a place of recognition.
There’s nothing worse than being ignored. From the baker to the candlestick maker — all people want is to be appreciated.
But our society is not set up for that. Unless you’re “somebody” — important or in Hollywood — you are basically ignored.
My economic value quotient is less than that of Brad Pitt.
Does this mean I am worth less? I’ll admit, he’s a better actor than I am, and far better looking. But do these attributes tell the whole story?
It takes hundreds of people to make a movie. There are the stars, maybe 4 or 5, then there are the people who make it happen — at least 300.
Society recognizes actors more than it recognizes people who make things happen. This admiration for all things celebrity has been conjured up out of nothing. It’s an illusion.
What’s wrong with this illusion? Let me use an analogy:
Attention is energy. And physics tells us that energy is neither created or destroyed. So an excess of energy (or attention) given to Person Z will mean less energy for the rest of the alphabet.
When Media over-validates someone others must be under-validated. Value is added to actors while it is taken away from the everyday person. This is dehumanizing process.
A Hollywood invention, it was an effective solution for raising box-office receipts. Movie-goers may have been enraptured by the performances but might also have felt a tinge of sorrow for their own, “ordinary” existence.
The consequences of this societal value system guide our human interactions. And all of this is accomplished through our information machines. Our Media.
Change the Media. Change the World.
We have evolved over millions of years in small bands, tight-knit groups of nomads that had to work together to survive. Recognition and appreciation made this possible.
If I brought a deer back to the cave for my family I would be recognized for this act. The fact that we were eating that night would be a big deal. There was a need, hunger, and I’d filled it. How could there not be recognition?
If my baby is cold and his mother stitches a bear fur together for him, how could there not be recognition? There was a need for our baby to be warm, and she filled it.
If another man in the tribe had brought back the deer, I would certainly recognize him, as I would be expected to do the same one day.
Along with the recognition, we would probably have conversations about how he’d done it. What took place, what dangers were involved …
Now I go to the butcher and order it. There’s not much to talk about. The weather? The game?
It’s a question of responsibility. Pride in the simple acts. The life-saving acts. It’s how we developed as a species. Personal relationships. And it’s still how we think today. We can’t change that.
I bring home some meat I bought at the grocery store. Someone else went through the process (process here is important) of securing it, dressing it, processing it … it was all done for me. I was not responsible for it. I just traded a fiat currency for it.
It’s the process that’s important. And, as a human, I need exercise. As a human, I need the responsibility of securing my own food — the exercise, the relationships, in order to stay physically and emotionally healthy.
With money, we’re dealing with illusion. It has no tangible value, it only has value because society has been forced to agree that it does. Without that agreement, it would have no value.
Food always has value, agreement or not. Warm clothes in the winter need no agreement, they just are. Helping a friend get his cart out of a ditch has inherent value. It has meaning. No agreement is necessary.
Carl Jung said that “the least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it”.
Simple acts have value. And with them comes a simple but powerful recognition of the people and relationships involved.
If I wasn’t recognized for bringing home the deer, I would be satiated but I would not be happy. (This happens in our modern culture).
If my wife made a fur coat for our baby but I did not recognize for her contribution, our baby would be warm but she would not feel appreciated.
It’s about recognition. We need validation from our peers. It’s the human way. There’s no way around it. Without it we are incomplete.
Social is astonishingly popular because there are an astonishing number of people who are unvalidated, or even invalidated in the world.
Social is where we go to get the recognition, the appreciation we can’t get in real life. But this recognition is an illusion, because Social is not real life.
It’s like quenching my thirst with digital water. It isn’t real, so I’m always thirsty. I can never get enough of what I don’t need.
“When we realize that what we really need can only be found in small, in-person groups, we can begin to build the world we all actually want where it’s possible to get, and give, the attention we all crave.” — David Milgrim.
We are emotion before we are intellect
People go to extraordinary lengths to be recognized, to be liked on YouTube and Social. But it’s the wrong kind of recognition.
People who do dastardly things get recognized on TV, where even a small number of bad actors can have an outsized impact on our culture.
A man (usually a young white man who has been ignored) takes a gun and commits a terrible crime. (Often copying something he’s seen on TV). He’s front and center on the TV that day.
The authorities puzzle over a possible motive. But there is no motive. These acts are not personal. They are generalized outbursts of madness directed at a machine that cares not.
Unfortunately, innocent persons are part of this a-personal machine.
The common denominator here is TV. This is the problem. It recognizes the wrong things. And this is because of money. Money drives the networks to show what they show on our screens.
The more horrific, the more of it we want to see. It’s in our prehistoric wiring. The Officials of Entertainment know this, so they show us things that will get our blood pumping — to make us watch.
And what got our blood pumping this week must be bettered next week, lest we lose interest. What follows can only be a vicious cycle of the macabre. But it’s just business …?
If everything is based on money, and if money is an illusion, then everything is an illusion.
Value
This notion inspired Satoshi Nakamoto to invent bitcoin, more to the point, the Blockchain — which makes bitcoin happen.
If we’re going to agree on a currency, then there should be no tomfoolery from a middleman (a bank) making money off of the people by screwing around with their hard-earned money — be it derivatives, sub-prime manipulations … all of the things that cause depressions which only hurt the little guy.
Nakamoto’s White Paper was an effort to cut the worst part out of the illusion of money.
If we’re going to live by illusion, there’s no reason why it has to be a detrimental illusion. Nakamoto wanted more transparency, so the little guy could claim some responsibility for, could control his own life.
For example, if I have a chicken in my arms, it is plain to see. And you can tell if it’s healthy with your own eyes.
And you have a gardening tool in yours. I can look at it, hold it and feel its quality — test it to see if it works.
We can trade if we so desire. And in this exchange, we recognize each other. And in this recognition, we come to know each other.
Under Nakamoto’s system, everyone would be recognized, everyone would be responsible for their own currency. And we can see the transactions that take place with our own eyes.
And what about trust? Can we trust each other these days? Probably not as much as we’d want. With a blockchain, there’s no need for trust. By design, the system weeds out unscrupulous actors.
Our current system is designed for unscrupulousness. An advantage for some, a defect for most.
In fact, in many cases, our current economic system tends to discriminate against honesty. Blockchain levels the playing field and actively discriminates against dishonesty.
There are some out there who’ve been using the inherent defects in our system to do bad things. They don’t like bitcoin one bit.
With a blockchain, there is no illusion. Because there’s no place to hide. Every transaction is clearly documented, and every exchange is done in the light of day for all to see.
Transparency would be an overall systemic change. And that’s what we need right now. Bandaids for the old system will not root out the toxins. Illusion and secrecy just won’t work anymore.
Blockchain is a strict system that can’t be tampered with. (It could, in theory, but it would take phenomenal resources. And this anomaly would be immediately detected and corrected).
Illusion
I remember when Richard Nixon was president — my first memory of “politics”.
I was 12 years old. My mom and I were headed to the Virgin Islands and I was inspecting the wonders of our ship.
One of the stewards informed me that I could walk through the ship’s bar but couldn’t stop for a drink, as I was underage and not privy to such amusements.
During one of my walk-throughs, I glanced at a TV hanging from the ceiling to see Richard Nixon say he was resigning his presidency.
Later I asked my dad what had happened to make our president quit. His answer confused me:
“He didn’t do anything others haven’t done, he just got caught.”
I’ve read that, during his debate with Kennedy, Nixon did not fare so well (visually). People who had watched it on TV said that Kennedy won the debate. While people who heard it on the radio said it was a draw.
The power of TV. The look, the appearance, and the presentation had more to do with the message than the words that were said.
Enter Roger Ailes. He was hired to help Nixon secure the grand prize. Ailes groomed and guided this awkward man to the world’s highest office. How? Illusion.
Ailes set up a question-and-answer session with regular people. Nixon performed flawlessly. He looked good. But it was staged.
The whole thing was carefully choreographed, the people were not ordinary, and Nixon still had problems getting it right. But the final take was gold.
When TV came along it changed everything. And Roger Ailes, the master of illusion, was there. Since then, the best purveyors of TV have followed his example.
TV is an illusion. Movies are illusions. Deepfakes are illusions. Money is an illusion. We’re surrounded by illusion.
Since the dawn of Agriculture, which sowed the seeds of Civilization, illusions have been grown, harvested, and served to the people.
The early ones centered around a god — from the Pharaohs who relied on the illusion that they were gods, to the Church that claimed to be the conduit to god, to the King who kissed the hands of his subjects, to heal them through Divine providence.
Until the jig was up. Then came the concept of Freedom.
Secular modern media did away with gods altogether, directing our attention to the freedom of consumption.
Real freedom is the absence of control from without, the ability to recognize illusion for what it is — to see the world through my own eyes.
Politicians, the people who are running things, have become subjects of the Media. They work through it, and for it. To them freedom is just a Media catch-word.
History has repeated itself. Must there always be subjects?…
Media — the very thing that informs me about my world — wants me to be afraid of my world. It clouds my judgement with dangers, threats, and anxieties.
Through its ulterior motivations, Media has come to challenge democracy.
Maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s an inevitable step we must take to break through the illusions once and for all, to see, to recognize that we are all brothers and sisters in this life, on this earth, together.
Thoreau said that Heaven is under our feet. There’s no need to conjure up complexities — unless you’re up to no good.
John Lennon said Love is all we need. And he was right. Everything else is an illusion.
These days I look to find and hold to what is real.
I am genuinely interested in the people I meet. They are my brothers and sisters, here with me at this brief moment in time.
I want to know what they think, and why. I recognize them. Why would I do otherwise?