“Complexity” is sometimes noise
Note to self: as someone who always strives to grasp complexity and nuance, recognize when that can be used against me, especially when it comes to global politics. Sometimes sorting the signal from the noise really does mean swiftly cutting through the bullshit, not skillfully dissecting an elaborate tangle.
Most military issues are a lot more simple and clear-cut than most “experts” claim, because those experts are paid to narrative manage military agendas. Pundits who babble about the “complexities of the Middle East” are just obfuscating the simple fact that we shouldn’t be there. —Caitlin Johnstone, Notes from the Edge of the Narrative Matrix
Apologia depends on mountains of verbiage to spin obvious atrocities as reasonable and appropriate, but no 10k-word appeal to complexity can justify why it’s okay to bomb the limbs off starving children.
You don’t need narrative to frame such things are unacceptable, you only need narrative to frame them as acceptable. You don’t need mountains of words to frame Israel’s actions as evil, you only need mountains of words to frame Israel’s actions as good.
It actually speaks to a healthy wisdom that young people have begun disregarding the narratives and sticking to what’s immediately obvious before the narrative spin begins, because mental narratives are how humanity has gotten itself into so much trouble throughout the ages. It’s not the immediate here and now that has caused us to commit genocides and mass atrocities throughout history, it’s the mental stories that have been put in our minds by the powerful telling us why it’s actually good and smart to do something evil and stupid. In the immediate here and now there’s nothing telling you it would be good to start raining military explosives onto a giant concentration camp full of children; such things only look reasonable after ingesting and believing copious amounts of narrative. —Caitlin Johnstone, I Ain’t Reading All That; Free Palestine
Johnstone is far from the first to say it—off the top of my head, see also Ilan Pappé and Chomsky, On Palestine, and Jonathan Cook’s extensive journalism, such as How the Western media helped build the case for genocide in Gaza.
- previously: anatomy of a propaganda blitz, which is nothing but noise
- see also: mute the narrative soundtrack for global politics to see what’s really going on
- see also: this makes me think of the ace of swords in tarot, the idea that nothing is all good or all bad, even black and white thinking, and the point is learning when to wield the blade in your favor
- somewhat related: trust is a very simple thing