Because it mirrors what the human mind, in an infantile state, is always doing: looking at the world and seeking a brief summary to explain what the world is, at any given moment.
Since the dawn of time, untold billions of people have been urging a “television anchor” to “explain the pictures.”
The news gives them that precise thing, that precise solution, every night.
“Well, Mr. Jones,” the doctor says, as he pins X-rays to a screen in his office. “See this? Right here? We’ll need to start chemo immediately, and then we may have to remove most of your brain, and as a followup, take out one eye.”
Sure, why not? The patient saw the pictures and the anchor explained them.
After watching and listening to the last year of news, the population is ready to see the president or one of his minions step up to a microphone and say, “Quantitative easing…sequester…”
Reaction? “Don’t know what it is, but it must be okay.”
Eventually, people get the idea and do it for themselves. They see things, they invent one-liners to explain them. They’re their own anchors. They short-cut and undermine their own experience with vapid summaries of what it all means.
“Here are the photos. Just look at these photos. Don’t look at any other photos. These are the killers. Here’s what it means: we’re going to send in SWAT teams and rout you out of your homes at gunpoint, we’ll search your homes, no warrants, and you’re going to comply, and when it’s over and we’ve caught them, you’ll cheer.”
“Sure. Okay. We will.”
Pictures, explanation, obedience.
The staging of reality, the staging of news; they’re the same thing.
Jon Rappoport
