Trolling, a Current Avant Guard Art Form

Misanthropy may be starting to infect me.

Everywhere I look I see the ludicrous ascendant. Not the funny ludicrous, the dangerous variety comprised of malevolence, greed, ignorance, calumny, distortion, manipulation and ignominy.

Perhaps it’s an illusion, I hope so. Or, as some believe, I might be crazy; ironically, that would be great.

Perhaps it’s just because the mass media is inept but I don’t think so. I think that those we trust to provide the information we need to make decisions about our leadership and our goals and our priorities are now as bought and paid for as most of our professional politicians (that’s legal in the United States now, the Supremes said so). And if most of our modern media’s attributes seem negative, they deserve credit for being great at what they do. The examples are now everywhere, especially with the advent of paid, professional social media trolls, well-armed with professionally designed scripts, pseudo facts, talking (more accurately, writing) points, etc. Among neologisms describing this phenomenon, “Clintonesque”, strikes me as particularly relevant although I find the description of a very interesting Latin American country of the “oligarchic right” as the “Democratic Center” (not really a neologism but rather a creative fiction) distracting.

It’s eerie but in a morbid sense it’s fascinating observing the brutal competence of evil unfolding. And how can it fail? It’s unfettered by inconvenient truths and bolstered by unlimited funds.

And the people? The battleground over which and for whom this epic battle is being fought?

Organized religions have done a great job of draining humanity’s spirit rather than raising it. Long ago I wondered how so called dark ages arrived, speculating that like ice ages, they were a cyclical phenomenon, albeit one I couldn’t fathom. Unfortunately, empirical evidence is making that process more and more clear. Is it any wonder that fundamentalist religions of all stripes are leading in the dumbing down of humanity, in the perversion of values, in the promotion of racism and xenophobia, in the justification of mass murder and genocide, in the proliferation of state sponsored corruption? All the things an ethicist might have hoped religions would have at least limited.

George Orwell’s prescience, like Cassandra’s, is devastating. So, … is there anywhere positive to go from here?

Ahhh but for the joy of just being crazy!
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2015; all rights reserved