Prisencolinensinainciusol

This is a fantastic song by Adriano Celentano (several versions to be found on various sites) and a metaphor for our times. It’s got a great beat, makes you want to move. The singer is attractive, charismatic. It makes you want to hum along, but the lyrics are nonsense. This is not me being cruel, but they are actual gibberish. (One of the stories is that Celentano was too lazy to learn English, and just made English sounding noises with his mouth.)

It’s like so much of our times. We just keep humming along, but I don’t know what we’re selling anymore. None of it makes sense. It’s got a great beat and makes us want to dance, but we’re dancing around in circles and we want to keep going even when the music has faded away. We’re that desperate.

Been listening to a podcast called “Philosophize This!”. Episode 202 discusses Mark Fisher : “We live in a world where nobody can agree on what the truth is…even when I’m watching the news how is anyone supposed to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s propaganda…or if there’s even a difference between what’s real to us and propaganda. Anybody who says that’s easy is already captured by an ideology. Even if I could tell what’s real…what am I going to do about it?”

How do we know what’s real and what’s gibberish?

Episode 202 continues, “Again, when you’re hyper focused on the individual…and you’re not thinking about the social relationships that produce the bad results you see in the world…it becomes incredibly easy…. for someone to assume that this bad outcome that I see in the world…must be being caused …by bad people . When in fact it’s just an unintended consequence of a system we need to pay more attention to.”

“I mean it’s worth asking: how many conspiracy theories out there…that claim there’s a handful of people maliciously orchestrating events all around the world, pulling the puppet strings just trying to hurt people…how many of those are actually just unintended by-products of bad incentive structures in a political and economic system?”

His point what that “liberalism” was intended to work for a better society, but “neo-liberalism”‘s goal is just to earn more money for its own sake.

We’re supposed to just keep dancing and there’s no meaning to the song, other than to keep us dancing. Prisencolinensinainciusol.