Gabfests

Nietzsche famously said of the French Revolution that it had become thoroughly submerged in its own discourse —  that the underlying ‘text’ had, in effect, become buried beneath all the contemporary critical interpretation.

One of the many unfortunate side effects of the rise of digital media in the past couple of decades is that we appear to have many more French Revolution-type mass chatter-events unfolding around us all the time; the kind where human action is somehow both constrained and amplified by the gabfest.

I seem to recall being straightforwardly opposed to things like BREXIT and the Trump presidency when they first impinged themselves upon my consciousness, yet nowadays have a definite urge to put my fingers in my ears whenever they are mentioned. This, I have to admit, cannot be a good thing.