Virtuality signalling
The world in which we are living, and have been living for several centuries now, since at least Descartes but arguably before (starting with Abelard), is a Virtual World. It is a world that seems to be, rather than a world that is — or was, according to the ancients.
Cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore I am,” is a dangerously rusty two-edged sword. It cuts down everything but your lonely ego, which, in the absence of any other reality (that will be “nominal,” or “sermotic,” remembering Abelard) … is God. For that is who your ego is, now that God is dead. The world, the universe — formerly emanating from a god who was certainly external to ourself — is now answerable only to my ego.
He can only be “my” truth. I live in a Virtual World, and of course, I use it for my entertainment.
This huge fact, that makes our Modernity truly unique, becomes obvious in the moment we make the philosophical transition from Plato and Aristotle, to what we might (virtually) call “Science.”
What we apprehend, is now anchored in virtuality. Indeed, our Bible and our Mass came from that ancient time (as did the other religious texts and practices), in which things were — whatever they were called.
But words have taken charge of us, today, and ideology prevails. Things are what we call them, nothing less and (to break a fine egg on it) nothing more.
We might call this transformation the Humpty Dumptitious phase of our philosophical development, although it still contains a few apparently realistic elements, such as rapine, and murder. Or, in Canada, you may order MAiD — Medical Assistance in Dying — should you want to die, or more correctly, appear to die.
The Lord (whom I mention, because I am old-fashioned) is the ultimate author of this parody, anticipated “way back” at our beginning. God creates all the animals and birds and fishes, then brings them to Adam, to see what he will call them. This is, hilariously, the precise reverse of our method, in which we name things first, and then we “create” them, virtually.