Bullshit Du Jour (Russia Did It)

We are well past the point of no return here in the United States. To understand this, we needn't look beyond the bullshit du jour, which is that Russia determines what happens in the U.S. (and see here).

Understanding Flatland requires a capacity to discover and posit plausible unconscious motivations underlying surface events (like "Russia did it").

I'm throwing you a softball today in the hopes you can hit a home run. Ask yourself this simple question—

For those who lost the recent election, why would the Russia hacking story be plausible and appealing?

Keywords or phrases to keep in mind — blaming, filtering (denial, avoidance, etc.), imaginary but all-powerful human agents (bad actors), rationalizing, tribalism.

This unsubstantiated "Russia did it" bullshit could not be easier to understand psychologically. Basically we're dealing with a near-total inability to deal with reality.

If you understand that, you've got a handle on the best diagnosis of what is happening in the United States (not to mention everywhere else on Earth).

Comments

[Jeremy MG]

No one wants to believe we elected a reality TV star as president. The media doesn't want to admit that they treat elections like sports entertainment and focus on personalities and rivalries instead of policies. They don't want to admit they were complicit in creating much of buzz and attention around Trump's campaign. They also don't want to admit that when they realized their fuck-up, and when it was too late too stop the momentum, they shamelessly propped the candidate they wanted elected.