📰 The World as If

Magical thinking “confuses” the relationship between symbol and referent, between mind and world. Our modern world, to confuse matters even more, is mostly made of minds. In an attention economy completely translated into symbols and words, it is the case that symbols and words have power over the material world. Toppling statues and meme magic are the hallmarks of an ever-more “as if” world: symbols have power, and mental attention is power.