The Dystopian Drumbeat: Media disaster rehearsal, desensitisation and framing (Therefore, expect the Unexpected)

Since 2016 there has been a sense of crisis in The West - and it is real. Although there is no substantive change, the Establishment are clearly worried that they are losing their grip. The rhetoric and repression have both escalated.

It is interesting, therefore, that for the past few decades, there has been a constant dystopian drumbeat in the mass media; narratives and scenarios relating to disaster, collapse, terror, totalitarianism, humans taken-over by technology and so forth.

Since the mass media are a part of the Global Establishment, it might have been supposed that They would be feeding the masses an unvaried diet of soothing distraction - rather than making us mentally rehears and subjectively-experience a vast range of threats - both plausible and grossly implausible (e.g. alien or zombie invasion).

One might suppose the dystopian drumbeat was counter-productive - but that would be to underestimate the enemy. So what's going on?

My inference is that something big is going to happen, and soon; and this something (let's call it IT) will have the tendency to produce a massive wake-up to the realities of our current situation; and if this wake-up to reality happens - then it would be very bad for The Establishment.

I don't know what IT is, and neither does the enemy - so they are trying to blunt the effect of whatever-IT-is by desensitising us to... everything they can think of. When IT arrives; the hope is that people will think, and they will be encouraged to think - Oh, it's just like that movie/ TV series/ novel I read a few years ago... Now, how did that end?

In sum; when IT happens - the spontaneous response will be blunted, and there will be a frame ready prepared to receive it; and the Establishment (via the media and official channels) will be able to shape and direct people's responses to negate any possible threat.

For example, if there is some kind of invasion - the media might claim that even to notice what is happening is 'racist'. If there is a religious revival, then this could be framed as actually due to sexism and homophobia. If there is a collapse, it may be put down to Russian infiltration, toxic masculinity or white supremacists. A whole range of narratives have been prepared - and are ready to trigger.

What this means is that if the triumph of evil is imminent, and there is indeed an End Times divine intervention aimed at triggering a Christian Awakening - then we should expect it to be unexpected. Because no matter how many narratives have been rehearsed; there are an unbounded number of other possibilities - beyond our finite powers of imagination.

We would expect that if God is responsible for IT, then It will be something out-of-the-blue, so unexpected as to be incomprehensible... at least for a while.

The Evil Establishment will - of course - unleash an onslaught of narrative explanation and interpretation; to fit IT into their prepared scenarios - but there will be a period of time when everybody is on their own; and trying to make sense of IT for themselves.

And upon our individual response at that time hangs our salvation - because to choose wrong, to fit with the Establishment narrative, is to choose to reject Jesus and to embrace damnation.