The collective responses to the dramatic revelations of NSA mass surveillance feel like the well-worn plot of a classic movie. The story reminds me of the government’s admission a few years back that Iraq did not, after all, have weapons of mass destruction. By the time it was admitted, everybody had already figured out the emperor was naked. But there was something about the formal acknowledgement that gave us permission to finally wrestle with the reality we had already suspected overwhelmingly.

Those of us who make a habit of dissent have gotten used to this frustrating complacency. It demonstrates that we as a social body don’t trust ourselves, that the complex of media, government, academia, and business — otherwise known as the state — that purports to lead us can be better described as creating and curating our reality. This insight renders many radicals outright misanthropic, but I tend to approach our apathy sympathetically, regarding our behavior as a kind of learned helplessness inculcated by decades of spiritually arresting mediation. When political expediency necessitates disclosure, we don’t know what to do with it, much like paroled prisoners who don’t know how to live on the outside. ...