In the previous post I wrote about the fracturing of the social trust in our society. In this post I want to look at one effect of that fracturing of social trust.
Because social trust is in eclipse any crisis, or any significant news event, whether in a localized setting, or as on a larger stage, results in a rush to the microphones. When social trust is in arrears the goal becomes to set the narrative and that is often done by being the first one to get their story out on the largest platform possible. When “news” breaks, the lack of inherent social trust requires the participants in the potentially different shaping of the news to be the first ones to the microphone, the first one’s to the press, the first ones to social media. This becomes a information age version of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s motto as applied to military engagement with the enemy, “Be the first with the most.”
This Wuhan “crisis” has indelibly stamped upon my mind how important it is to be the first person to the microphone. Whoever can be the first at successfully implanting any narrative into the public consciousness via the media organs, that narrative, no matter how ridiculous and unrelated to reality, becomes the reality that now every other competing narrative must overthrow. Indeed, competing narratives of the first officially established narrative begin to quickly be known as “conspiracy theories,” and that no matter how much more rooted in reality those now “alternative” explanations are.
Because there is very little social trust the goal is to overwhelm people as fast as possible with a majority narrative that becomes the established narrative. If social trust was vibrant and healthy there would be more of a willingness to examine competing narrative claims but because social trust has become a causality of our social balkanization the only response left is be the first to the microphone with the most.
We have seen this repeatedly in our lifetimes. From the bombing of the Murrah building in 1995 which ridiculously claimed that a fertilizer truck bomb blew off the front face of a building, to the bombing of Centennial park in 1996 which found judicially innocent Richard Jewell tried and convicted in the Press as aided by a corrupt FBI (forgive my tautology), to the downing of the New York City Towers in 2001, to the recent Russia-gate spectacle wherein the media and the Democratic party together with the deep state tried to impeach Trump, to the current Wuhan crisis what we have consistently seen is a rush to the microphone so as to be the first with the most thus setting the majority report narrative that all other competing narratives must contend with.
And while the issue of “social trust” is not the only issue driving this it is certainly in the mix. A lack of social trust demands giving the varied plebes an immediate narrative so that there can be some kind of societal harmony.
As such, there is a race to the microphones to establish a majority narrative.
