Cults
the importance of critical analysis
Listening to today’s excellent Bunker podcast (which I can’t recommend highly enough) I was gripped by their discussion of how cults (groups that insist that 5G transmitters cause COVID-19, etc.) are always careful to build in reality protection mechanisms whereby anybody asking questions is confirmation of the conspiracy.
This all used to be for the cranks but is now becoming, it seems, almost mainstream, and it is pretty obvious that this trend is being fuelled by social media, allowing people to park up in echo chambers that reinforce whatever narrative is binding the group together — that alongside the declining powers of the traditional news media.
I think the eroding of the authority of the print media started with the 2003 war in Iraq when we were all lied to — or lied to ourselves — with the failure of the classic news sources to ask the questions they should have been asking. I just happened to be paying attention to the right sources so nothing surprised me, even a tiny little bit. I certainly believed that the days of receiving our opinions and information from the traditional sources, at least without checking them against specialist sources, were dead. I welcomed the rise of the independent bloggers, and joined them myself (in a small way).
Be careful what you wish for.
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