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by Caitlin Johnstone
January 05, 2025
from
CaitlinJohnstone Website
Spanish version
Awakening from the
propaganda matrix
is like being a
conservative:
you're frequently disgusted
with society
and where it appears to be
headed.
But unlike a conservative,
you're disgusted by actual
problems
instead of imaginary
nonsense...
Also unlike a conservative, your problem is not
with relatively new societal developments like recent immigration
waves and
LGBTQ acceptance...
Your problem is with abusive dynamics
which have been plaguing civilization for centuries.
Many rightists warn urgently that our society is
on the verge of plunging into a nightmarish authoritarian dystopia,
but if you're truly unplugged from the indoctrination of the empire
you understand that,
the dystopia is already here, and has been for a
long time.
The overwhelming majority of the people in our
society are already,
thinking, speaking, working, shopping, spending,
voting,
...and behaving pretty much exactly how
the ruling class wants
them to...!
If they put microchips in our brains which
allowed them to fully control our minds, they'd have us moving
around in more or less the same way we've been moving for
generations...
We are seeing increases in authoritarianism as
our rulers tighten their grip on power, but those measures are being
rolled out to keep the current system in place, not to create a new
one.
They're not changing anything about the prison,
they're just installing better locks on the doors.
Until you've fully liberated yourself from the indoctrination of the
mainstream imperial worldview, you don't truly understand that this
is dystopia.
You don't understand how nightmarish it is to
live in a society where everyone is marching to the relentless
drumbeat of profit and domination.
You think it's fine and normal for people to
go their whole lives with their entire identities wrapped around
their careers and the goals that they have accomplished within
them.
You don't notice anything amiss with the way
human lives are being psychologically shaped by propaganda and
advertising to make them identify primarily as workers and
consumers, and for them to be imprisoned or made homeless if
they can't or won't be hammered into those shapes.
When you're still plugged into the imperial
worldview, you don't think much about the horrors your government is
unleashing upon people in other countries.
If you think about politics at all, "foreign
policy" is just one of many issues of consideration, and is much
less worthy of your attention than whatever hot partisan topic is
being pushed in mainstream discourse on any given day.
When you take the blinders off, you're not able to ignore that stuff
anymore.
You're acutely aware that unfathomable
suffering is always being unleashed by your rulers upon
foreigners whose lives matter just as much as yours does, and
that atrocities are being inflicted in your name which are just
as horrific as they would be if they were happening in your
neighborhood.
These things disgust and outrage you.
This whole dystopia does.
The way people in your life mindlessly
regurgitate war propaganda about this or that empire-targeted
nation.
The way movies and TV shows manufacture
consent for this hellscape.
The way almost every product you interact
with came into your life through depraved acts of international
exploitation.
The way none of the artists you've admired
seem remotely interested in truth or justice, serving up nothing
but vapid distraction in pretty shapes.
The elections...
The advertising...
The phoniness...
The way everyone's always running around in
circles frenetically trying to avoid experiencing even one
single moment of true sincerity...!
It looks more and more unwholesome the more lucid
you become.
You look at a US presidential debate, or MrBeast,
or Jake Paul staging a glitzy exhibition match with an ancient
Mike
Tyson, or the way people are using all kinds of exploitative gig
economy apps to sell off more and more of their time, labor and
dignity in order to survive, and,
you just want to howl like a
wounded animal... some primordial eruption at this twisted thing
our species has become.
This doesn't mean you become bitter and jaded - at least not if
you remain dedicated to the experience of truth. All it means is you
stop looking for joy and satisfaction in the places this perverse
civilization tells you to look for it.
Instead of chasing after this dystopia's warped
definitions of "success" and trying to look like what you've been told
a well-adjusted member of society ought to look like, you begin
finding enjoyment in real things...
Love.
Real human connection.
The thunderous beauty of the natural world.
The crackling delight of the raw sights,
sounds, smells and sensations which come with living a human
life on this planet - even in the thickest manifestations of
our madness.
True romance, if you dare...!
And as trying as it can be, it's the only path
toward real happiness.
None of the people who are plugged into
the
matrix are really enjoying themselves, as hard as some of them try
to pretend otherwise.
How could they be?
It's impossible to be truly happy when deep down
you know something's profoundly wrong...!
That's why antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds
are being shoveled out like Halloween candy. Everyone's getting more
and more miserable, because you can't build real lasting happiness
on a foundation of propaganda and lies.
The products never satisfy, the false definitions
of success never deliver fulfillment, the toil never ends, and the
cognitive dissonance grows stronger and stronger.
A devotion to truth can get ugly.
It can get uncomfortable.
It's sometimes downright agonizing.
But it's the only path toward a healthy
world...
We can only begin moving toward health by facing
the truth, as unpleasant as it might be.
Our future as a conscious species lies on the
other side of some confrontations that take us way outside our
comfort zones.
We come to
nirvana ('extinguishing of
the passions') by way of
samsara
('running around in circles')...
Video
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