It's Time to Go Home Eddie: Living in our false realities

 

Growing up, my father introduced me to the The Far Side comic strip by Gary Larson. We had several of his collections lying around the house—especially in the bathroom.  Being well before smartphones, this is the kind of things people did while on the toilet. As a teenager, I initially found them just silly and amusing. But over time, I came to realize they were more than just funny—they were brilliant. 

There was a subtle, nuanced exploration into  human psychology through the anthropomorphizing of cows, spiders, dogs, and inanimate objects. His intentionally awkward drawings added to the humor, wit, and intelligence of his single pane observations. And yet, I am not sure Larson was trying to be brilliant, which ironically, adds to his brilliance. He was famously reclusive, avoiding interviews and public attention, leaving us to interpret his motives for ourselves. Regardless, The Far Side managed to be both hilarious and deeply insightful, and that's what continues to draw me in.

This cartoon, in particular, has been on my mind recently. In it, a man believed to be the dictator of "Ithuvania" is told by researchers that it was all a psychological experiment. There is no Ithuvania. He’s actually Edward Belcher from Long Island, and it’s time to go home.

To me, this cartoon perfectly captures the spirit of our current cultural and political moment: a willingness to believe a carefully curated narrative—even when reality says otherwise. As you read it, ask yourself: Who is Eddie? Who are the researchers? What is our modern-day Ithuvania? There may not be one "right" answer, but the best answer might be this: in some way, we’re all Eddie..

This theme has been especially vivid for me in light of the recent release of Jake Tapper’s Original Sin, which exposes the coordinated effort to conceal Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and diminished capacity. I also read the transcript of Tapper's interview with New York Time's columnist Ezra Klein this morning and kept thinking about this cartoon. I know that many will see Eddie as representing Biden, but I think Eddie represents the media and, in large part, much of society. So many people were willing to accept something that they were told, even though their eyes and ears were telling them the complete opposite. The June debate served as the "researchers" telling all of the Biden supporters, "It's time to go home, Eddie."

The Angle Reese-Caitlin Clark-Robert Griffith III-Ryan Clark drama brought this to mind as well. For the past three years, Angel has lived in a kind of fabricated reality, convinced she and Caitlin are equals on the court. Meanwhile, Ryan Clark espouses a view that black women endure uniquely insurmountable hardships. However, the difficulty for most black women is the fact that so many are abandoned by their black fathers or by the father of their children. But that is not the reality most are ready to hear.

Trump supporters have a similar alternative reality about the character of their leader. They were so upset by how the Biden family crime syndicate used its power to enrich Joe, Hunter, and others, but can't seem to see the same issue with Trump crypto currency venture and all of his "deals" on his recent Middle East trip.  They see the genius of his tariff policy while their 401k takes substantial losses. I am not sure when the "researchers" will show up to tell them "It's time to go home, Eddie" but it will be sooner than later.

I wrote this four years ago about the media and society's need for truth, objective analysis, and the medias unwillingness to provide it:

Objective analysis requires a desire for the truth greater than our ideological biases and a willingness to confront facts that are contrary to our perceptions.  Objective analysis pushes back against our defensive mechanism that attempts to prevent us from the shame of being wrong.  It makes us vulnerable and uncomfortable.  It forces us into a dissonance that we do not like.  It is not an easy task, nor enjoyable, especially in the short term.  However, in the long term, we are better for it.  Objective analysis forces us to confront the truth, wrestle with it, and ultimately accept it.  But building on the foundation of the truth is a much better proposition than building on shifting sands of deceit.

That still holds true.

The best part of the cartoon is Eddie’s facial expression—the quiet realization that the world he believed in never existed. That moment of disillusionment, that flicker of recognition, is the face we’ll all wear when our own Ithuvania is revealed.