Russell Pangborn
Marie Antionette, ignorant on how to deal with the lack of food for her populace, is said to have commented, “Let them eat cake.” Emperor Nero is said to have played his fiddle while a massive fire destroyed the city of Rome. Also, the 2020 U.S. election has been considered stolen by a significant percentage of the populace, and Canada needs to be liberated by the United States.
Most historians doubt the first two stories and while I never lived during those times they come up with good arguments. For example, the fiddle was not invented yet during Nero’s reign. As to the stealing of an election, one of the biggest boosters of that theory was Fox news. Millions of people were influenced by that TV channel. Thanks to a Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit, we have access to their texts and email. It turns out Fox News never believed the disproved charge they were championing. They just wanted to keep an audience that wanted their biases to be reaffirmed.
Conspiracy adherents are drawn to stories that go far beyond what we expect to be normal human behavior. If in the early centuries you believed a leader celebrated death and destruction of his own capitol city while a fire raged, you would have been happy to learn you have some descendants who would accept that same story with our current Prime Minister. You just need to mix plausible-sounding facts (e.g., Nero wasn’t pleased with the aesthetics of the city) with the fantastical (so he burned it down to build an entirely different plan with building codes). Sprinkle in an emotional reaction to what a leader stood for. Now Nero gets zero credit for trying to prevent the next fire with regulations on the construction of buildings.
Good for Dominion for getting Fox news to pay up over 787 million dollars. Although, one would have hoped that the company invested in supporting fair voting in a democracy would have gone beyond a mere monetary reward when their systems were impugned by Fox News. If it is just a cost of doing business for this pseudo news organization when they fomented an insurrection by knowingly supporting false information about Dominion voting systems, then Fox will continue to mess with democracy for profit. All the people not in the misinformation silo are having their lives impacted by the mislabeling of this TV monolith which should be called Fox Entertainment.
Some are disappointed that Dominion did not do more to support democracy and go for on-air retractions by all the guilty parties. Fox did part ways with one of their outed myth-makers, Tucker Carlson. But that is like the police putting away a crime family and another one steps in to fill the void. Mr. Carlson recently was attempting to fiddle with Canadians by slickly suggesting our country was an unjust dictatorship needing liberating by noble Americans. He showed videos of anguished Canadians being arrested (probably rightfully so) mixed in with a smiling Prime Minister. He was trying to whip up ratings with the Russian model. They actually did convince their people that the Russian army was liberating Ukraine from the Nazis.
The core values of CFIC involve critical thinking, good science, and secular decision making. The first two qualities embody a search for truth that always tries to out-muscle our propensity for emotional reasoning. I would rather know the truth, even if it is unpleasant, than ignore it because it makes me feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately, there is a substantial population wielding power that prefers an emotionally deduced truth. So the Fox viewers don’t care if Tucker Carlson may think the election deniers are crazy in his texts. As long as he lies during his show, they will watch and believe the lie.
Misinformation endures. How many people are walking around with the mistaken belief that an emperor of Rome serenaded an out-of-control fire as it destroyed his capital city? That lie has lasted thousands of years. Most of us don’t care. Whatever your take on that story, it doesn’t set in motion anything that harms our day-to-day existence.
CFIC members probably don’t believe an election down south was stolen and that our nation needs to be liberated by the United States. Like everyone else, they do need to be aware of the dangers of emotional reasoning and irresponsible journalism. I used to believe that there was always a crazy fringe that could be ignored. That is no longer the case. This current misinformation era, supported by a large enough audience, will impact my life and the lives of my children.
Very good and interesting read
“Fiddling while Rome burned” may well be Christian propaganda, while it is also to be noted that Nero blamed the Christians for starting the fire. The accusation against Nero has lasted as long as it has because Christianity survived the Roman Empire and is still a strong institution today. Nero oppressed Christians and they retaliated by such means as identifying him as “The Beast” in Revelations. The number 666 is what you get when you add up the numerical equivalents of the letters of all of Nero’s names (in Greek). Nero and the Christians therefore engaged in mutually antagonistic propaganda, but historical circumstances were such that it was the Christian version that came to dominate.