"True Enough" by Farhad Manjoo has been an eye-opening read so far. Over the last few years, I have become aware of some of the conspiracy theories around the world. Manjoo further examines these conspiracies when he describes how these theories actually gain momentum. He describes a movement during World War II in which a shortage of protein would occur unless housewives began serving organ meats for their families. The government persuaded housewives to serve this meat by changing what was acceptable for them. This revealed that "what we understand to be the "truth" around us-is defined through our interactions with other people" (52). Just because the housewives engaged in "organ-meat discussion groups", they were able to change their habits because they mutually agreed to serve organ meat.
Additionally, with the constant evolution of technology, it's becoming harder to understand what actually is real. Manjoo describes this perfectly when he states "To light, the real danger of living in the age of Photoshop isn't the proliferation of fake photos. Rather, it's that true photos will be ignored as phonies" (82). Will photots someday lose all of their credibility? Someone could easily photoshop an entire gallery of fake photos, in which they boast achievements that they never actually achieved. At what point will we have to question how real our own photos are? And when will every photo out there be suspect to investigation? It's amazing how much technology can help us, yet at the same time hurt us. How much of what we see in the media is true, and how much is false? And how much is technology separating what we perceive to be the truth, and what actually is the truth?
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