Not all that long ago, news companies enforced what we call “journalistic standards” or “journalistic ethics.” These have largely been replaced by click bait, which is the most modern rendition of “if it bleeds, it leads.” You see, everyone from ~25 – 75 years old today was born after WW2 and before the second US war in Iraq. During that time, it was extremely valuable to the US government to “keep everyone singing from the same hymnal,” as the saying goes. Up was up, down was down, and while we knew that wasn’t an absolute truth with no variations across settings, we had shared implicit caveats. That is to say we live on a round Earth. When I say the sky is up, that’s not exactly a universal truth. For all I know, I may be referring to a different absolute position since I last referred to “up.” However, I am implicitly referring to a place relative myself.
But something happened. I’m not convinced it’s rooted in electoral politics, either. A benefit of computer tech is that every user can have a distinct perspective. The paradigms that effectively trapped and shaped perspectives during other times are no longer in effect. Rather, statements can be so specific that they appear arbitrary. Case in point, I recently saw a blog where the author referred to his “corner of the internet.” Presumably, that statement was a joke seeking to apply a common phrase nonsensically. However, it got me to thinking about subjective reality, the one that is not shared.
The consequences of different realities are considerable. After all, if the consensus that emerges is that people live alone in personal realities, many social contracts cease to retain significance. Paradoxically, this seems to quickly lead to “might is right.” Or, as teenage me heard his neighbor tell his child (poor kid), “If you want to cry, I’ll give you something to cry about.” The notion that we mostly live in personal realities seems like a tautology. After all, a subjective interpretation of reality seems fundamental to being just one person with subjectivity. That hardly seems like headline news. Yet, the notion that the individual is paramount above society seems ascendant, particularly in the US.
It is within this tapestry that the notion of “independence” (*cough cough*) seems so tone deaf. Now more than ever before, most production is a complex web. Perhaps there was a time where independence was more than just a concept, part of an identity — something that is more conceptual than actual. And so now, we get to see many people insist that they are able to independently do things they actually cannot, and for reasons I do not understand, that seems to be a reason for fanfare. It still culminates in coming up short.