Uneasy Riders, Divine Messiahs
The Beatles Conspiracy/1st & 2nd Matrix Tango, Part Three
(Art by Michelle Horsley)
Why Matrix 1 Gets the Good Writers
Ian MacDonald’s 37-page introduction to Revolution in the Head is some of the best cultural analysis I’ve ever read, and he makes a great case for why The Beatles might as well have been a cultural engineering psyop, even if they weren’t; even if the idea never occurred to him, which I would guess it didn’t, since he is neither conspiratorially-minded nor anything less than an admiring advocate of The Beatles “genius.”
Not surprisingly, MacDonald gives no sign of having any sort of parapolitical awareness, and of course he dismisses the “Paul is dead” story as absurd. Nonetheless, his social and cultural acumen is impressive, and it raises, not for the first time, the confounding question of why the 1st Matrix seems to get most of the really good writers and thinkers (albeit with blind spots roughly the size of recorded history).1
When it comes to the superior intelligence and acumen of so many 1st Matrix voices, the problem may have to do with who is being given authority, training, and funding—the special care and attention of the establishment—so as to become a voice of authority. It’s also a matter of how the 1st Matrix defines the terms by which we evaluate what constitutes intelligence and acumen, insight, authority, etc.
IQ tests measure ability to perform IQ tests, and The Beatles (or someone) helped create a new syntax and grammar for popular music writing, so we end up with a new standard backed not by real gold but by gold albums, radio play, and screaming teens. (IQ tests don’t measure paranoid awareness.)