Posted on 07/19/2012 10:01:17 PM PDT by ancientart
In my undergraduate acting classes, we sometimes played a two character theater game called Conflicting Realities. The two actors began with completely different sets of instructions as to the basic nature of the scene. For one actor, the scene might be a two-man submarine bound to a secret rendezvous with instructions vital to the war effort, while, for the other, the scene was a sweltering fifth-floor apartment with an air conditioner that just had to get fixed before company arrived.
Such scenes tended not to work out very well. They quickly devolved into mutual accusations of dishonesty or insanity with little of the creative exploration of conflict and search for resolution that makes for the best drama.
Actors frequently cheated their way to “victory,” simply acting on their own notions of reality rather than making any attempt to take their fellow thespian’s world view seriously.
The tone of contemporary American political discourse is a lot like that of a badly acted Conflicting Realities game, filled with the same kinds of sneers at the honesty and sanity of one’s opponents.
Now it’s hard at first to see why this is so.
When you’re not on stage, establishing a consensus “true” reality should be easy. Open the window and you’ll know whether you’re in a submarine!
But there’s something about politics that often defies reason, a spirit that sets people enthusiastically on a course that will lead to catastrophe. The emotional thrill of events like the Nazi Nuremberg rallies or the French Revolution’s blood-thirsty (and ironically named) “Festivals of Reason” allows people to believe total absurdities — if they want to badly enough.
And people do want badly to believe. Especially, they want to believe in a charismatic leader who will solve all their problems for them — a figure, perhaps, such as Nero.
Nero Caesar (the Roman emperor from 54-68 A.D.) was thoroughly debauched, incredibly cruel, totally incompetent and just about as popular as he could possibly be with the general Roman populace. Many Romans and many of their subject peoples enthusiastically worshipped Nero as a god, building him temples and lavishing on him every honor imaginable. Even after his suicide, Nero was still viewed by many as their great hope. Rumors began to spread: He wasn’t really dead.
He’d come back again and make right all that was wrong. Two hundred years later, there were still Romans hoping for Nero’s return.
In a sense, Nero did return: again and again.
The Apostle Paul warned the Thessalonian Christians that those who refused the anchor of God’s truth would be dominated by frenetic wandering (King James Version, “strong delusion”), vulnerable to the blandishments of every deceiver who happened along. On their part, the wannabe Neros and their supporters labeled Christianity an extravagant superstition, a dangerous belief that, for the sake of Roman peace and prosperity, had to be eradicated.
Conflicting realities and a long, bitter struggle between two ultimately incompatible world views: a struggle that’s not over yet.
Yup; this will devolve into yet another MORMON themed thread...
This is complete nonsense.. jagged, disjointed wandering nonsense..
I guess you have to be a psycho-babble expert to really appreciate this article or inherently dimwitted.
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