The Ultimate Hoax

 Brave New Jersey is a fictional movie which was inspired by the real life misunderstanding that people had that Martians were invading during the Orson Welles' broadcast of War of the Worlds. The story concerns a group of people living in a small town called "Lullabye", and who slowly learn about the alien invasion through their radios. I find it to be a commentary not only on how people create the news using their own imagination, but also on how aspirations are often built on the scantiest threads of evidence. Though the characters eventually come to realize that they are not in fact being invaded by Martians, the panic that ensues forces them face to face with the frailty of their relationships and faiths, as well as giving them a window to aspire to change and do 'bold' things with their lives. In the end, human nature itself seems to trump over the so-called 'truth' of the story, as the characters come to terms with their true loyalties and devotions in the midst of crisis.
   This story has made me somehow wonder; why has the search for an ultimate 'truth' been such an obsession with people these days, and what does that obsession do to people? I have heard a lot recently about 'fake news' in the news (!) and the paradox of that sentence appals me just now. How can media label other media as false or misleading, without revealing its own precarious credibility? Can there ever be an ultimate 'truth' criteria for something that is currently changing and evolving all the time? I don't mean to sound like a relativist on this one, but I am really asking whether we can ever rest in the sense of certainty and trust, when even the most reliable research can be fallible and subject to continual skepticism and reinterpretation. Facts can be 'reinvented' or re-contextualized to suit all kinds of hidden agendas, so is there any resting in one version of the truth?
    I am theorizing that whenever we cling to one understanding of the "truth" to the point where it seems unavoidable and menacing, then we are most likely creating a dogma that will cause suffering. The same goes for the opposite quest for heaven or a kind of salvific guarantee. In both cases, what people miss is how they are being in that moment with others. Somehow that element of inter-being or relating gets sacrificed to a dogmatic pursuit of the 'truth' (as symbolized by the evasive "Martians" in the movie). It also leads to a kind of ruthless, take-no-prisoners attitude toward life, and a false view that one can achieve security by eliminating a perceived enemy or threat. In many ways, Brave New Jersey touches on these themes, because it allegorically looks at the way people respond to each other in the face of a kind of incontrovertible, unavoidable crisis or threat. While it turns out that the actual 'threat' is not real, what is real is what people create with each other when they are in a state of fear and panic, as well as the choices that people make when they are not in a state of panic. In both cases, people choose who they want to be together. This human factor is easily lost in the shuffle of emergency, but it's the reality that the townspeople ultimately need to return to when all the dust settles and they can see things with cooler minds and attitudes.