This is my point of departure. I am no longer actively following the details, except when they are thrown in our faces, as in this latest episode. My approach is now "academic" -- historical, you might say. Has there ever been a situation like this in all of history? Of course Lincoln's observation that you can't fool all of the people all of the time rings true, but have so many people ever been fooled so much of the time, and so many people not been fooled so much of the same time? Is there an analogy with Nazi Germany, for example, or the Soviet Union? Has this ever been the case in a society where so many people have so much access to information and so much freedom to express themselves publicly as they do today, at least in Europe and America? As I put it in an earlier essay, will our time be known to future historians as the Age of Constipation: "Never before have so many wanted to do so much -- and had the means to do so much -- and done so little"?
It looks that way. The wiser we become about how the world is being run, the less willing we become to try to do something about it. It is as if understanding it, at a certain point, leads to fecklessness. Call it burnout, call it resignation, call it despair -- when the veil of denial is lifted, the way forward is clear but blocked by seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The forces lined up against us seem just too powerful to oppose. This is the psychology behind transparent conspiracy. At first we want to shout it from the rooftops, and we do, but the echo ("Conspiracy nut!" "Anti-American!" "Socialist!" etc.) eventually drowns us out, and only the strongest voices persevere.
The one good thing about Fukushima is that it shows us that our Constipation is not limited to conspiracies. That catastrophe, unlike 9/11, is a message, loud and clear, not from our humanoid controllers but from the old gods of earth and sea who are surely watching in amazement as we ignore it. Nuclear energy will destroy us. We know it, and we also know how to solve the problem, but we will not because our controllers will not allow it. Is it any wonder that these same controllers have long since decided that they are more powerful than any gods and that they can do whatever they want to with us?