A forum I use has a thread titled “Kony: What is going on here?” There is some discussion of the issue, and the predictable skepticism and cynicism. But most posts are just people baffled at how quickly this thing sprouted up out of the blue. One user said “I got a video about Kony in a mailing list for a Melbourne nightclub. This is getting absurd.” I know what is going on. Here is what is going on. A group of people who are very passionate about one very specific issue in a very distant part of the world have used the manipulative magic of media to draw attention to their issue. That issue itself provokes immediate moral outrage, but any serious attempt to address the issues runs you almost immediately into the same miserable and disgusting human quagmire that afflicts every corner of this festering planet. The only available suggestion for a solution, the only solution left these days, is “send money”. There is no reason to trust that sending money in this situation will do any good whatsoever. At the same time, and entirely coincidentally, there is a huge population of highly interconnected chatty westerners who have over the past few months convinced themselves that they, collectively, have the ability to foster real and significant change. Collectively, they have no particular hobby horses to guide them to particular causes; indeed, much liquid crystal has been displayed concerning the lack of “focus” that prevents the collective from establishing a stable social role. Nevertheless, the collective recognizes the power it has to affect change– real, significant, global, humanitarian change– and so they are, collectively, hungry for opportunities to exercise that power. They want a cause to rally around. In this case, and again entirely coincidentally, the media manipulation was successful […]