What made Charlie Kirk’s brutal assassination surprising was less the event itself, and more the aftermath. Half of the country watched in horror while seemingly one-third of Americans celebrated the bloody execution of a citizen exercising his right to speak freely. That day, so many realized just how wide and pervasive the gap in realities is. Many mourners responded to callous celebrators in anger, which, although in some ways righteous, failed to recognize the underlying problem. Americans are not only living in different realities, but when those realities butt heads, they are far more likely to exacerbate differences than to compromise.
There is one reality, but there are a myriad of ways to perceive that reality. We receive our understandings of reality from what we sense ourselves, but also through what others tell us they sense. Realities are reinforced by constant social validation. So, if a hundred people tell you something is the case, you are far more likely to believe it than if one person had. The more voices repeat and validate these extrapolations, even if misfounded or incorrect, the more traction they gain.
The internet birthed something unique: it gave people who once had no water to nourish their delusions a wellspring for said delusions to thrive on. What was once dismissed by one’s local community and matured away from has become a centerpoint for intralocal community through the internet. For example, if I believed the sky was falling down fifty years ago, those around me would have socially pressured me out of my unreasonable view. Yet, today, I could ignore the invalidation of my surroundings in lieu of those who share my unreasonability. The local is no longer the source of communal validation, but instead the unreasonable and intralocal. Journalism has largely given way to social media word-of-mouth. This is anarchy of information, with almost no merit to structure the diffusion of beliefs. Sensationalism sells better and easier on social media than possibly any point in human history.
People are talking past each other. There is a lack of actual communication. Communication is what makes relationships function, yet it often requires a small sacrifice of pride and passion to reach. Thus, the temperature is most likely to rise, as most people are selective with when they choose to sacrifice their pride. People, when speaking with dissenters, tend not to recognize the fact that their opponent is living in a separate reality, but instead express bewilderment at the conclusion they’ve reached, assuming that they’ve done so from a mutually shared starting point. Thus, there is little to no good-faith discussion being had. People see the extreme disparity of conclusions their countrymen have reached and assume that, if they were both working from the same starting point, the only way to reach that conclusion was through malice.
With this understanding out of the way, it is worth analyzing specific examples of this phenomenon occurring. And, it is worth noting before doing so: false realities are not limited by political affiliation. They are on the rise everywhere and should be exposed everywhere. The subject of this analysis deals primarily with a “left-wing” false reality, but that does not preclude the fact that “right-wing” false realities are abundant and harmful in their own right. Anyway, the most pronounced examples of false reality being purveyed are primarily those dealing with Kirk’s political affiliation, with many believing that Kirk was a nazi, a fascist, a racist, a homophobe, a promoter of violence, along with an endless slew of other empty descriptors. And although many Americans had heard these remarks levied against the right (and to some extent the left) for decades, the understanding that others view these sentiments as anything more than provocative hyperbole has only now sunk in. To many, these weren’t just dismissing prejoratives—this was reality. This was Nazi Germany. And, the consequences of nazism, as American culture has reiterated for decades, are death and defeat. So, naturally, some drew the lines others failed to after endless conditioning: if the “enemy team” is truly replete with nazis, the only means of defeating said team is violence. Kirk’s killer and his mockers seem to believe this in a steadfast manner, with the killer engraving on his bullet, “Catch this, fascist!”
Naturally, such conclusions necessitate an analysis of their validity. Was Kirk a nazi or a fascist? What is a fascist? Fascism, one of the most ill-defined words since its inception by even its founders, can best be categorized through historical analysis. Mussolini’s Italy, the truest vehicle of fascism, displayed the unique characteristics of being ultranationalist, collectivist, and authoritarian. The nation is viewed and characterized as a uniform living being, with such notions being supported by an emphasized, differentiating myth. Each individual must operate as a cell within this living nation, often in stark opposition to an enemy class. Now, fascism shares a great deal of similarities with many more benign characteristics of other political movements and behaviors. Most politicians bear some degree of populist sway, often characterizing an enemy class and expressing some degree of nationalism. Most who cry fascism can hardly state why fascism is wrong, let alone why the person or movement at hand is supposedly fascist. But, in a good-faith analysis, the metric by which we should analyze whether a person or movement has inherited the bad parts of fascism is whether or not they perpetuate a call to collectivize under the ultranationalist myth. This is awfully specific compared to the diluted understanding of fascism in American discourse, in which it is often just a synonym for “authoritarianism.” And, obviously, there is no evidence of Kirk perpetuating an ultranationalist myth.
In summary, the internet has facilitated the fastest constructions of misinformed realities in human history. In reacting to this watershed event, I ask that instead of responding with inflammatory retaliation, you analyze information critically before you let it seep into your reality, and especially before you post it anywhere. View the arguments of others in good faith. Understand that they often have good intentions somewhere down the line and are likely attempting to do what they believe is right.
De Facto Times 