I have not seen the movies “V for Vendetta” and “Children of Men” nor have I listened to “Year Zero,” the new album released this week by the explicit rock band Nine Inch Nails. And because I avoid movies and music with “R” rated or explicit content, I am not likely to in the future. However, from what I can gather from news reports, critical reviews, and conversations with people who are familiar with them, they all attempt to push into the mainstream a view that is popular among the most radical liberals and a few of the most reactionary conservatives: that current events, the War on Terrorism, and the policies of Conservative Republicans and especially the Bush administration are intended to overturn and replace our constitutional Republic with some kind of corporate oligarchy or Christian theocracy.

This view is rampant among the more radical, liberal or progressive blogs and forums.

I think that a conspiratorial view of current events and of history has a certain natural appeal. It plucks the same psychological strings that make gossip attractive and wide spread.

Check out this interesting post by psychologist Daniel Goleman about the well known effect of electronic communication that allows people to say things online that they would never say in person.

A key mechanism for this involves circuits that ordinarily inhibit impulses for actions that would be rude or simply inappropriate — or outright dangerous.

In order for this regulatory mechanism to operate well, we depend on real-time, ongoing feedback from the other person. The Internet has no means to allow such realtime feedback (other than rarely used two-way audio/video streams). That puts our inhibitory circuitry at a loss — there is no signal to monitor from the other person. This results in disinhibition: impulse unleashed.