Caitlin Johnstone — Rogue Journalist The Real Conspiracy: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Some conspiracy-type people say the world is messed up because we’re ruled by illuminati or reptilians, but I’m way more out there than that: I say our entire society is made of imaginary thought stories with little relation to objective reality, and some clever manipulators have figured out how to exploit this.

I say even what we take to be our very self is an ultimately illusory narrative construct made up of a disconnected network of thought, language and memories; look hard for a solid “me” entity and you’ll never find one. Same is true of most things people value in this world.

Some people lack healthy empathy centers, and as such they don’t use language the way the rest of us do: to understand and connect with each other. Instead, they use it to get things they want. They figured out how to trade stories for material goods, narrative for actual wealth. You can trade narratives about love for sex, narratives about God for tithes, narratives about terrorists or Russians or Democrats/Republicans for votes, narratives about the economy for wealth, narratives about government for real power, etc. Manipulators learn this and exploit it.''...

Yes, and it is a lot simpler if one or one's group has the power and venue to exploit this. So it is largely a class issue with the elite having power to control the narratives that count socially, politically, and economically.

What one takes as reality is a worldview that is a construct, partly individual but mostly social. The power to control narratives gives the ability to create reality.

In a famous exchange between a high official at the court of George W. Bush and journalist Ron Susskind, the official – later acknowledged to have been Karl Rove – takes the journalist to task for working in “the reality-based community.” He defined that as believing “that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” Rove then asserted that this was no longer the way in which the world worked.

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” (Ron Suskind, NYTimes Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004).

Caitlin Johnstone — Rogue Journalist
The Real Conspiracy: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Caitlin Johnstone