A few days ago, (Sunday 3/24/24), I was watching "Sunday Morning", as is our usual Sunday routine, and I found that much of the program was a continuation of the scree against Russia and its war with Ukraine, while ignoring similar events in Gaza and Haiti. Too much of the program was about how horrible Putin and Russia are and how they have detained American journalists without clear cause. Finally, I could no longer watch. Talking of these issues, demonizing Russia while we are so complicit in Netanyahu's genocide in Gaza including the deaths of over a hundred journalists at his hands; or even our continuing interference in Haiti, is too much to bear. That we are so clearly complicit in things that are far worse than what Russia is doing is bad enough, but then to spend a Sunday morning pretending that those horrible Russians are doing things we would never even contemplate, much less support, seemed like the height of hypocrisy. This is not to propose that Russia under Putin is some idealized society, but to simply put it in context with what we as Americans continue to do internationally.
I was also disappointed that a venerable old program like "Sunday Morning" could be so easily used by the forces of government propaganda to throw away all pretense of objectivity and balance when issues could be presented so easily with real context and perspective.
The attempts to keep some anachronistic narrative alive in the face of our current realities, was sad, and pathetic and ultimately embarrassing. It made me rethink the entire idea of national narratives and attempts to keep the illusions alive long after change was required to continue any kind of relevance with the real world.
Narratives and Illusions
Every society has their narratives that are stories that explain and justify their origins and their trials, their successes and their failures throughout history. Those narratives are based on some version of real history, but they are narratives that tend to show the society as a positive and noble entity. The distance between the more complete telling of that history and that narrative is always a source of some form of controversy. Enemies of the society are most likely to use another version of that history to describe it in more negative terms, pointing out the flaws in its claims of nobility.
When, even the citizens of a society begin to see the differences between the reality that they are faced with daily and the realities of the national narrative, there begins to be pressure to update and perhaps modify the narrative to more closely fit with the realities the citizens find in their lives. This can be done in several ways, but one of the most common is to blame enemies that have required that society to behave in less than noble ways, or to postpone solving domestic problems until the enemy is vanquished.
The other elements at play in this process are the elements of entrenched power that have profited the most from that narrative. They often tend more to protect their power base than to resolve issues with the citizenry. In order to accomplish that they must find ways to continue the basic narrative, perhaps changing some minor appearances but continuing its basic substance. To do this, they begin to pump more energy and resources into sustaining the basic elements of that illusion.
Keeping Our Illusions Alive
How is that done here in the good old U. S. of A? Well, first of all they control the media and therefore can, not only control major parts of the message, but also how the news is presented. They also have immense influence on levers of power within the government itself and within the other major institutions. If need be, they can also use the forces of intimidation through official sources, threatening those who openly disagree with punishment and even imprisonment.
As the realities become more and more in conflict with the illusions presented as the official narratives, more energy and resources are poured into sustaining the illusion eventually with a certain amount of panic.
Soon the illusions of the old narrative begin to be so apparent, so threadbare, that those who try to sustain those illusions begin to look pathetic and embarrassingly out of step with the realities in which most people live. And thus, the emptiness of old narratives and the inconsistencies begin to become apparent, and the official spokespeople begin to lose credibility and become almost buffoonish in their attempts to breathe life into those dying illusions.
The realities of the world are staring everyone in the face. There is no longer any place to hide. Trying to present this nation as a noble example of democracy and human rights or even Christian principles; trying to continue the pretense that free-market capitalism is the only true religion for survival, while we see any sense of morality and humanitarianism being destroyed before our eyes, is too much. To try to continue that illusion in the face of those realities is to do a disservice not only to this nation but also to humankind. It also inhibits the likelihood that any ultimate solutions to emerge which might provide a path forward to some kind of sustainable future for humankind and for the planet.
