Truth or Reality? Simplicity or Leadership?

Spinning off from the topic of connection and thinking about growth and expansion, the ‘idea of progress’ also comes into play. This concept often comes up whenever questioning the ways of the world, or our ideas on what we think the world is about. J.B. Bury (1920) wrote about the ‘idea of progress’ and whether or not human progression was a positive or a negative, in terms of success within society and finding happiness, which really does make us think about what we know and why we know it. We are fed pieces of information from when we are born, which if not questioned seem to be ultimate truths, and most people take this knowledge for granted because not often are we given a reason to question it. The dominant binaries which function within all aspects of our culture seem to be placed so perfectly so that we keep taking these ideas at face value. Even in today’s culture hints, questioning the truth come out in many different forms, including fantasy TV shows or science fiction.

TV Shows such as Doctor Who or even the latest vampire craze True Blood, portray these ideas about what’s real and what’s not, which is done somewhat ironically, because it’s done using TV shows which focus on ‘different’ and alternate realities.  In the 2007 Series 3 final episodes of Doctor Who, there was a portion of the story which focused on a communications network called “Archangel” which was used to subconsciously influence people around the world, specifically used to influence them to vote for an enemy of the Doctors, into a position of political power. In fact he became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In True Blood the latest season will be looking at the hidden truth behind creatures supposed to be pure of heart.  The fairy people hide their true forms so that they are trusted. This seems simple and silly, but these are only two shows in a genre perhaps not as main stream as Home and Away, but these are just an example of how ideas associated with reality come into context in popular culture. On a larger scale commercial media plays a huge part in the fabrication of news and information for the public eye, producing layers upon layers of stories picked and chosen to be published for the public by someone, who I’m sure, has a bigger interest in gaining capital than most people. Gonzo journalism is one example of how in this portion of the commercialised businesses around the world, different tacts are taken to acquire a different view on otherwise ‘normal’ issues.


Doctor Who archangel scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxHt-L1N-4E&feature=related


True Blood fairy scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pt-clMON2E

The other big problem with masses of people being engrossed in dominant ideologies means that people do become oblivious to other forms of truth. It could be simpler that way. People who live day by day in scheduled and allocated slots of time, selling their own time as labour, are living life like most of the population. Capitalist societies function on the day to day workings of labour markets, producing commercial goods for people to purchase, with money earned by them selling the only thing already available to us, time (Thompson 1967). This is an underlying aspect of life which seems to be overlooked or again just taken for granted, which makes it worthless in noting, so it’s then cyclically reinforced again and again by all levels of class within societies, for it’s what makes the world tick. So is there any means to escape or step out of this train of thought? Or is it something engrained within our culture so deeply that most of the time we are vacantly unaware that it is even a choice?

Personally I think having a good read of Arjuna Ardagh’s, Awakening Into Oneness (2009) might not be a bad place to start. Not that I have, but I would like to.