I’m a huge fan of Jimi Hendrix — I guess he must have been rather funny. This title of his (“Are You Experienced?” was the so-called “title track” song from his debut album) was obviously meant to be provocative, at least to people who are open to actually hearing and listening to the words … and most of all to think about what they say (or ask). It doesn’t require much thought to reach the conclusion that it’s impossible to be both alive and to be completely lacking in experience — every living being experiences something.
This weekend, I had a few experiences I don’t regularly have and so I experienced what I don’t regularly experience. None of these experiences was particularly exceptional, on the contrary they were probably all quite ordinary for many or even most people. I realize that my own life is rather exceptional — in the sense of being not ordinary.
I did not really experience any propaganda or manipulation until after I left school and academia. Perhaps I only became aware of it because it affects my “bread and butter” work in such a significant way. For most people living “ordinary” lives, it is also quite ordinary to not become aware of the degree of propaganda and manipulation bombarding their lives on a daily — no, a constant — basis every day of their lives. This is not because they are insensitive or unresponsive to it. It’s simply so ordinary that it’s phased out — perhaps like fish might be unaware that they’re swimming in water.
I think our everyday experiences shape our extraordinary experiences in a significant way. We perceive something as extraordinary or atypical because it contrasts what is typical or ordinary. Many people seem very willing to accept pavlovian conditioning sessions simply because they have been introduced as ordinary. They are as neat, right and salutary as communion. Such rituals cement people’s notion of “ordinary“, regular and “common sense”. The more people get on the bandwagon, the thicker the cement, the stronger the wall against any potential opposition. What a fine example of this the so-called corona virus (“CoViD”) pandemic was.
When it ended, I thought surely people must have now woken up to the propaganda and manipulation they are swimming in constantly. But I guess the way the pandemic was declared as “exceptional” and the world afterwards somehow smoothly went “back to normal” … the repetition of manipulative messaging after the pandemic was over is now comparatively somehow miraculously less manipulative, and so it’s also “back to normal”. Thus, conditioning through repetitive massaging of false narratives and propaganda is now again accepted as completely ordinary.
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