The Anti-Soapbox: Collected Essays

of its consumer requiring more and more substance in less and less elapsed time. Constrained by a busy people’s shortened attention span, today’s entertainment puts time at a premium, which, naturally, translates to its depiction of reality.

  Specifically, the depicted reality is condensed, as to omit the great many elements which constitute real-life events and, thus, create spurious fictional versions. For instance, in the realm of entertainment, things just happen, with objects and characters simply presented rather than explained. And, miraculously, the story’s actors accept this fully, regarding the hasty, illogical narrative of events as wholly sensible, as if there is nothing abnormal about spontaneous and impossible occurrence. Likewise, the viewer is compelled to accept these miracles at face value, including all the nonsensical thinking that goes with them. It works off the same principle of “monkey see, monkey do,” except with profound effects on the mind.

  Whether for the sake of time, simplicity, or brevity (or just laziness), this unrealistic, just-accept-it format dominates today’s entertainment, from movies to TV shows to video games, even many books. Indeed, such presentations do succeed in quickly conveying an understandable, if absurd, narrative. However, this fast-food-style entertainment comes with a side effect: the psychological influence mentioned above, that which lends to the confusion gripping our society. Easy-reading books. Easy-watching TV. Easy-understanding news. Whatever it’s called, it very often leads to easy thinking, which is the first step to the deeply rooted psychological handicaps which are epidemic in today’s world.

  To understand the enormity of this effect, one must first understand the concept of conditioning.

  When I say “conditioning,” I speak of it in the classical, psychological sense, that of a mental response arising from a repeated trigger. That is, something happens so often, in the same manner, that one’s mind begins to respond in a predictable way. Dr. Ivan Pavlov’s dogs were, famously, conditioned to salivate at the sound of their meal bell—a predictable, repeatable cause giving way to a predictable, repeatable effect. However familiar the underlying concept, Pavlov’s dogs demonstrate a profoundly important principle: living things can be conditioned into certain behavior, humans included. Due to the nature of the mind, we are every bit as able to be conditioned in this fashion, which can affect us right down to our most basic choices, actions, and reasoning, and how we see ourselves and the world. Sure, we may not be total slaves to our conditioned responses, resisting the urge to slobber upon hearing the dinner bell, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other, less-visible ways of being conditioned and controlled. This is because conditioning affects not only the conscious, topside mind, but the subconscious, “invisible” mind, that which we might not even know we have.

  One such means of conditioning is through entertainment.

  It’s no secret that media and entertainment have a wide array of psychological influence, nor that much of this influence is unhealthy. Lesser known, however, is how it can potentially shape our most basic thoughts and feelings, including that of how we perceive reality. Specifically, it is the condensed, distorted depictions of reality which affect us in this manner, for when we are exposed to such unreality on a regular enough basis, it begins conditioning us as described earlier. After repeated exposure to false reality, we run the risk of confusing actual reality with that depicted endlessly in media and entertainment. To complete the effect, one might then project this storybook reality outward, so that it is seen in the outside world, even though it’s all in the mind. In addition to other consequences, the result is a condensed mentality, where if something can’t be understood in five minutes or less, it isn’t worth understanding.

  This is how the line between fantasy and reality becomes blurred, when the subconscious mind is conditioned with distorted, make-believe perceptions of the outside world. And this condition lies at the heart of our epidemic confusion, leaving us seeing only what we’ve been conditioned to, rather than what’s really there, even when it’s right in front of us. For many, actual reality is “hidden in plain sight,” behind this perceptual veil of media-thinking and thirty-second commercials.

  Furthermore, what might happen if others, being exposed to the same conditioning, share this false reality between one another? Then, the effect is strengthened and reinforced, by way of agreement and repetition. In time, we are faced with a disturbing scenario, where this sort of thinking has gone largely unchallenged for generations, allowing it to accumulate in the mass mind. In the end, we are left in a state of dense unreality, with distortion piled upon distortion until actual reality is far from the minds and thoughts of a large segment of the population, from the media-bred distortions conditioned into them from birth, then agreed upon and self-reinforced. Picture the layers of an onion, with clear thinking and actual reality lying deep in the center.

  These are the ingredients of some serious confusion.

  What are the consequences of multigenerational media conditioning and its attendant confusion? For one, the desperate situation we now find ourselves in, a world where the dangerous and illogical behavior depicted by entertainment is not only tolerated but regarded as normal (and, perhaps, without alternative). Among other psychological symptoms, these widespread neuroses (and, sometimes, psychoses) that pass for normal behavior can be attributed, at least indirectly, to media conditioning. The same goes for violent crime and any number of deviant behaviors, all of which have exploded over the last several decades (coinciding with the increase in media penetration in the average household).

  Don’t get me wrong: media conditioning is far from being the lone culprit of the modern world’s ills, for there are many other factors involved. Were we to somehow ban all media, I don’t believe it would magically solve our problems. However, I will say this: our media-conditioned state is, at least, a central player in this foul drama. Without our media-imposed confusion, I don’t believe that things would have progressed to their present point, where society’s confusion is so dense and widespread. Also, things are further complicated by the very nature of the confusion, which obscures itself, like a self-erasing pencil. For this reason, our problems’ true causes are kept largely invisible and unknown—because, being so confused, we don’t know we’re confused. After all, how many folks nowadays would connect the psychological effects of entertainment with the armed robbery down the street (performed by someone subconsciously acting out the burlesqued robberies portrayed daily on TV)?

  So, what does this all mean to the individual? The answer: that they are, potentially, very confused without knowing it, a state comparable to a drunk not knowing they’re drunk.

  Many day-to-day consequences result from a state of media-conditioned confusion, all stemming from seeing only what one has been conditioned to see. However, none are more important than this: that chronic confusion leaves one highly vulnerable to manipulation, control, and exploitation. When it comes to living in an imaginary reality, the possibilities for exploitation are endless, from being victimized by conmen and charlatans (because soft-spoken men in nice suits don’t con people, as many media images suggest), to getting hit by a car while crossing the road (because in the movies, people can run recklessly across the street without getting hit), to accepting half-truths and outright lies (because on many TV programs, it’s agreed that certain people never lie). Etcetera, etcetera. For one whose thoughts and perceptions are dictated by the condensed, distorted realities depicted in popular entertainment, there is no shortage of intelligent, beguiled people ready to exploit the slightest of confused thinking of this kind. Additionally, many of these predators don’t see themselves as predatory, or see anything wrong with what they’re doing—because they, too, are commonly confused and conditioned, seeing their predatory actions as something else entirely. After all, if you prey only upon the Bad People, like on TV, then that makes it okay, right ...?

  These dangers are not limited to the visible, where people are obviously hurt, for there are subtler, non-v
iolent means of exploiting the vulnerabilities presented by a confused mind. For instance, manipulation by predatory organizations, such as illegitimate businesses or corrupt political groups. Such entities thrive on the confusion of their victims, as it is necessary to impose the predator’s illusions. Often, the scheme functions much as the condensed, distorted narrative of a film: things are merely presented rather than explained, with only the shallowest of facts and reasons given, if any at all. Yet, because these unexplained events are regarded as legitimate, the victim is compelled to do so also, regardless of actual legitimacy. In the end, such illusionary ploys allow the thinnest, most absurd of ideas to be passed off as the exact opposite—as valid, legitimate, and substantial. In this way, whole illusions of legitimacy and “facts” are manufactured, just like in a film. So effective is this practice, one might accept the illusion even when actual, true reality is staring them back in the face, in plain sight—or, now, hidden in plain sight, covered by the invisible distortions created by a confusion of fantasy and reality.

  For the adequately