{"id":37124,"date":"2017-02-03T02:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T07:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=37124"},"modified":"2017-02-02T09:44:55","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T14:44:55","slug":"in-a-secular-age-it-is-inevitable-that-people-will-attach-themselves-like-limpets-to-miniature-religions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/02\/03\/in-a-secular-age-it-is-inevitable-that-people-will-attach-themselves-like-limpets-to-miniature-religions\/","title":{"rendered":"“In a secular age … it is inevitable that people will attach themselves like limpets to miniature religions”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colby Cosh<\/a> draws some parallels between the early Federalists in post-revolutionary America and the mainstream media today: both groups attempted to retain their privileged position in society as that society changed dramatically all around them:<\/p>\n

But now the seeds of fleeting confusion have fallen into the fertile soil of Internet crap-mongering. On social media there were immediate, unabashed, conflicting total lies circulating about the identities of the \u201ctwo\u201d perpetrators. Now, before much is known at all of the actual killer, we are seeing deliberately engineered hints at some kind of inexplicable cover-up by the (Muslim-controlled?!) police of Quebec, or by higher authorities \u2014 Liberals, reptoids, George Soros clones? Pick your poison!<\/p>\n

Those trivial little wobbles in the initial news coverage are being exploited by journalists and commentators who have abandoned respect for facts like \u201cthere are always reports of a second shooter\u201d in favour of efficient, direct manipulation of \u201cthe narrative.\u201d The actual full-fledged conspiracy theories are being designed as we speak, and soon will be ready for harvest.<\/p>\n

We live in a post-revolutionary media environment, and traditional newspapers and broadcasters are like the American Federalists: we are hoping to stay on top as trusted, sensible informers and teachers. I make no claim that this hope is well-founded or appropriate, but either way, the strategy did not end very well for the Federalists. One notices that they are already in irreversible, humiliating retreat at the moment when Wood\u2019s book begins.<\/p>\n

There is money in offering an alternative account, any alternative account of anything important or dramatic, to the gullible. Build a suspicious audience of millenarians and ignoramuses, and some of them will keep following you until you can start selling them protein supplements, bulk food for the apocalypse, religious knick-knacks, or penis pills. (Which business line will Rebel Media break into first? It\u2019s only a matter of time!)<\/p>\n

In a secular age, like ours or like the late 18th century, it is inevitable that people will attach themselves like limpets to miniature religions. Today they range from gold-bugs to survivalist \u201cpreppers\u201d to disturbingly overenthusiastic Harry Potter fans to Gwyneth Paltrow\u2019s Goop. (My apologies to those readers, and I\u2019m sure there are a few, who are devotees of all four faiths.) Such subcultures are the reliable basis of a bulletproof \u201cnews\u201d media model. The horrible part is this: they might be the only such model.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colby Cosh draws some parallels between the early Federalists in post-revolutionary America and the mainstream media today: both groups attempted to retain their privileged position in society as that society changed dramatically all around them: But now the seeds of fleeting confusion have fallen into the fertile soil of Internet crap-mongering. On social media there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7,28,13],"tags":[127,58,213,101],"class_list":["post-37124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-history","category-media","category-usa","tag-conspiracytheories","tag-internet","tag-newspapers","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9EM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37125,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37124\/revisions\/37125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}