We are fed up with neologisms and anglicisms: post-truth,
fake news
... and, now, where there is no room for one more strange word, I introduce this one:
oopart
.
Oopart
is the acronym in English for "misplaced artifact" and those who trace them argue, for example, that some Egyptian hieroglyphs represent airplanes or that maps of South America have been found before 1492. Of course, everything related to these alleged anomalies Out of history it has proliferated on the Internet, where they star in an important part of the crazy conspiracy literature.
Today I can think of few things as out of place as that gang of thugs and barbarians who stormed the US Capitol.
Something in his appearance and attitude (the stuffed animals, the boots on Nancy Pelosi's table) caused, in addition to concern, enormous confusion:
the live broadcast of this serious attack against the
most powerful
democracy
in the world resembled a Christmas rerun of The Visitors, that French comedy in which medieval knights travel to our time.
But, if the main characteristic of the
ooparts
is that they appear on impossible dates, these rustic Trump supporters are indeed a product of our time - despite the Confederate flags - and what they have in common with the phenomenon of archeology. The alternative, let's say, is that both deviations (from orthodox science and democracy) emerge and are reinforced in the less enlightened corners of the Internet.
Some of the attackers may have always been like this.
There are authors who refer to them as
white trash
(
white trash
) and turn this expression, a priori derogatory, into a call for attention about the lack of opportunities in rural America.
Future and capital are scarce there, and stubborn and desperate types abound, like those described by Faulkner or featured in
Tiger King
, a documentary about the life of an eccentric tiger tamer.
Guys who are not responsible for the injustices they suffer, although they are responsible for their brutal behaviors.
However, many of those who participated in this unlikely episode had dressed up for the occasion.
Many made gestures, repeated slogans and carried symbols related to different extremist communities organized through Twitter, forums or Telegram.
Many would have gone unnoticed until then
, anonymous workers who are fond of discussing politics with strangers, reinforcing their convictions (networks favor confirmation over confrontation) and joking among virtual colleagues.
This explains why everything had the appearance of a buffoonery - although five dead people do not laugh - and is that, on the Internet, what ends up imposing itself (ideas, aesthetics), goes viral when some pioneers (well-intentioned or not) ironically claim it.
Thus, the recovery of a falsified and false past (with its ideals of racial purity and founding myths -the buffalo-) is in some forums (in the United States,
4chan
; in Spain,
Forocoches
) a recurring joke that is distributed through memes and which ends up generating, among those exposed to its bombardment, a tricky nostalgia.
The old inhabitants of the Internet know how to recognize how grotesque our nonsense looks when they overflow the screens.
Almost nobody remembers but in 2010, during a gala broadcast by TVE, Anne Igartiburu suffered an incident of this nature.
Rapper John Cobra, beside himself after a lamentable performance, shouted obscenities among which he repeated "Long live Roto2."
It was the password with which he thanked
Forocoches
for the ironic support
that had brought him there.
Anne had a hard time while I rejoiced to learn the back room of that nonsense.
What happens in the virtual world configures reality and belongs to it as much as what happens in the physical world but, increasingly, when these planes collide, short circuits are produced that cause fires.
It's unclear whether closing Trump's Twitter accounts is the most appropriate or legitimate measure.
And we are burning - we have a serious problem - with what we read and write on the Internet.
The philosopher José Luis Pardo writes that "what is humanly distinctive is the word that submits to the meaning publicly agreed upon in free assembly (even to try to question it)."
On the other hand, in 1917, Max Weber declared, in a famous conference that "science [knowledge] is for those who are able to convince themselves that their destiny depends on whether their interpretation of a certain passage in a manuscript is correct."
They are the two foci of the ellipse of knowledge: that of Pardo (Aristotelian) who defends the discussion subject to some rules (of the State or the polis) as a method to establish truth or justice;
that of Weber (Platonist) that relies more on the conclusions of individual work and reason.
Persevering in the geometric metaphor, if the foci of an ellipse coincide, a circle appears with all the positions at the same distance:
the undesirable homogeneity of totalitarianism
.
But the Internet has fostered just the opposite: the spotlights are moving away, the distance between the public debate and the isolated, dogmatic and self-sufficient group is increasing.
The ellipse flattens and ends up becoming a line dotted with tight and alien communities.
The gulf between ideas is insurmountable, due to its content, but also due to the difficulty of moving between them.
Since the algorithms that regulate Facebook and Twitter are responsible for this situation, it is not clear that the closure of Trump's accounts, which has caused an exodus to Parler (a similar network) and widened the cracks between users, is the most appropriate or legitimate.
To avoid new grotesque episodes (in addition to judging its instigators) it will be necessary for the Internet to become a free assembly that is as wide, airy, and public as possible.
Wild, extravagant and confusing ideas will continue to appear, but there will be those who will be able to dissolve them before they turn into rage and materialize (as votes or as a circus and tragic show).
After all, good philosophers and intellectuals know that their job is to make distinctions and undo confusion, and they are not afraid of the speed of the networks - they should not fear the troglodyte (often
oopart
) of Washington either.
Now that we are threatened by at least two global evils, it is time - also here - to remember Doctor Rieux, the protagonist of La Plague de Camus.
When asked what honesty is, he replies, “I don't know what it is, in general.
But, in my case, I know that it is nothing more than exercising my trade ».
Enrique Rey is a writer.
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