This is the first episode of a new series exploring the subtle dynamics of collective shadow, narrative making & our responses to how we are perceived. In the digital epoch, it is unlikely that anyone will escape confrontation with a negative image of themselves existing in the minds of others. Do we learn from it? Fight it? Absorb it? Ignore it? And how do we evaluate anything when information itself becomes dubious?
Layman is joined by Marc Gafni -- the religious philosopher of "cosmo-erotic humanism" -- who combines his analysis of contemporary story dynamics with his personal experience as a character in the public mind.
Some people hold and express very disturbing stories about him. He has a different narrative that he claims is moral and factual. Our task in this episode, and in this series, is not to demonize or exonerate. We encourage people to do their own research if they are interested. Facts matter. So do feelings. But in this series we are focused on something more specific.
We are not exploring content of the narratives but rather how they emerge, how they are perceived by the people inside them, how those people respond under the conditions of the emerging digital-planetary age & what they have concluded about their responses.