Playlist for Show: Long Waves

The rules for an epistemology of ethics and meanings in the US have been discarded. The official pronouncements of the US government are often contradictory, inflammatory, or simply insane. Russian, China and many other countries are threatened bringing the world closer to nuclear annihilation, but this is just business as usual. The nation acts increasingly as if the psychopathic rhetoric of lies, deceit, and manipulation, both foreign and domestic, constitute a reasoned national discourse. Criticism of the state brings vehement condemnation, as we see in the US attacks on Russian journalism together with the unconsciousness about much of the criticism emanating from the rest of the world.

As Edward Curtin wrote:

Yet surely it is not an exaggeration to say that most people are liars and self-deceivers. Honesty, while touted as a virtue, is practiced far less than it is praised. There is almost nothing that people are less honest about than their attitudes toward honesty. Few think of themselves as dishonest, and even to hint that someone is so is received as a great insult that usually elicits an angry response. So most people follow the advice of the character Jean-Baptiste Clamence from Albert Camus’ The Fall: “promise to tell the truth and then lie as best you can.” In that way you satisfy your own and others’ secret desires for deception and play-acting, and other people will love you for it.

This show examines the causes and damages of the current flawed attacks on truth, reason, and decency.

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