Our modern politics is largely based on the idea that reality is so relative that anything "can" be a possible interpretation. I have always rejected this because of Nietzsche. He says that, while there are always many, if not infinite, interpretations to an action or state of reality, there will invariably be moral, immoral and amoral interpretations. I think that the idea that nothing can ever be "truly true" leads to sophistry and immoral behavior. I believe that modern Republican ideology is largely based on this kind of sophistry: that you can say whatever you want as long as it pushes forward your perspective, even if you know that it is factually untrue.
Sophistry (saying anything solely for the sake of its impact, to manipulate the listener) is the most hideous and disturbing thing that I have ever observed in my lifetime. I wish that people understood the difference between the description of reality being 'untrue', and the idea that everything is in the eye of the beholder, to the point that 'true' and 'untrue' are meaningless qualifiers.
This self-deception is a product of our times, living in an age where one's own projection of themselves is the most important part of social life. I saw a picture somewhere on the internet of what I guess I would call a “modern hipster” girl wearing those long, striped socks that go nearly up to your knee. They are the kind of socks that, somehow, show that she is underground. What I don’t think any of these kinds of people realize is that those articles that defined the people that didn’t care what others thought of them, thereby making them cool, was that they didn’t go out to a store specifically to buy ‘underground’ clothes. The kind of people that did were the kind that wanted to emulate them. But, now, that’s all there is. Everyone wants to be cool by acting like they are on the flip-side of culture, when they are in fact its demographic. In every facet of society, people live as sophists. They only care about the presentation, and think they are enriching themselves.
The political structure is the same. Every part of life is the same, and that’s what makes it profoundly saddening. The form that political discourse takes is the epitome of the wrongness of the Human psyche. Religious fundamentalists almost always win, and this is because they believe that there is nothing wrong with deceiving the public, with lying and misleading, with literally saying –anything- to get elected. They believe that their most important mission is to benefit the corporation that is American Christianity. They are usually hypocrites, usually are found out to be immoral (illegally so), usually disgusting examples of humanity. But, they always win. And they probably always will.
These things used to make me angry, but now that lead me to believe that the American strain of the Human race isn’t worth fighting for anymore. In the grand scheme of things, it would probably be for the best of the United States inevitably self-destructs, even if horrible things happen without us shoving our guns down the rest of the world’s throat. A thousand years into the future, there will be nothing good waiting for anyone if America persists as it is today, and will become if fundamental things don’t change for the better. I don’t think that they realistically can, though. I think that dishonest, selfish, religiously zealous people will continue to take advantage of all the idiots that believe in them, and the disparity between rich and poor will get larger and larger, national media will more and more be advertising channels for the powers that be, and religion will never stop dominating everything, to everything’s detriment.
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