Fun Futility

Developments [in the modern world] are not merely beyond man’s intellectual scope; they are also beyond him in volume and intensity; he simply cannot grasp the world’s economic and political problems. Faced with such matters, he feels his weakness, his inconsistency, his lack of effectiveness. He realizes he depends on decisions over which he has no control, and that realization drives him to despair. Man cannot stay in this situation too long. He needs an ideological veil to cover harsh reality, some consolation, a raison d’être, a sense of values. And only propaganda offers him a remedy for a basically intolerable situation. Jacques Ellul, “Propaganda, The Formation of Men’s Attitudes”

I feel this weakness every time I open a book or newspaper and read about current events. We are all essentially playing a game where we take the otherwise undecipherable events of a world that is complex beyond our ability to grasp and reduce them to manageable thoughts and concepts. Some of us who read a lot get very good at spraying words about, and can even deal conceptually in these matters, but it is really pretense.

The above quote isn’t talking about Joe Schmeau, the guy who doesn’t know whether to vote for Obama or McCain. He’s fine. His vote will rectify his despair. It’s talking about us pompous fools who think we really have a larger grasp of things. We are educated beyond 12th grade, given to one political outlook or another (liberal, libertarian, etc.), and we seek out propaganda. We need our propaganda. Without it, we can’t carry on with our essential business, that of having an opinion on every damned thing on the face of the earth.

The purpose of this post is to put my feet on the ground and accept that this is a game we play to fight our despair over our inability to control events that deeply affect our lives. We are hopelessly dependent on decisions and events we cannot understand, much less control. Putting up a blog is the ultimate expression of hopelessness. It’s a flimsy cover.

But it’s fun.