"Mushroom management" and information control

The metaphor of people being "kept in the dark and fed shit" echoes the concept of "mushroom management," where those subjected to power are deliberately kept uninformed and misled to maintain control and prevent resistance1. This dynamic parallels broader societal mechanisms that obscure realities from marginalized populations, reinforcing their subjugation.

Kali Yuga as a metaphor for societal decay
The reference to Kali Yuga situates this critique within a cosmic-historical framework where moral decay, conflict, and social disorder prevail23. Kali Yuga, the "age of darkness," symbolizes the erosion of dharma (justice, truth, and harmony), which aligns with the observation that in contemporary society, truth becomes malleable and power manipulates reality to sustain itself.

Achille Mbembe’s analysis of "complicated strangulation tactics"
Mbembe’s work highlights how colonial and postcolonial regimes deploy multifaceted, systemic violence to intensify the "suffocating conditions" endured by racialized and marginalized populations456. These tactics make life "unliveable," stripping people of agency and reducing them to objects or "zones of exclusion" where violence is normalized and legitimized. This "complicated strangulation" is not only physical but also legal, economic, and symbolic, creating a pervasive condition of oppression.

Civilization as grift and the liquidation of earthly life
Civilization as a "shell game played with reality" and Fred Moten’s phrase about a "genocidal and geocidal modality" captures the idea that systemic violence is not only against people but also against the planet itself, reducing life to data or abstractions that can be manipulated, erased, or commodified at will. This abstraction dissolves tangible harm into "something spectral," making destruction appear unreal or even benevolent, which facilitates ongoing exploitation and erasure.

The dissolution of societies and the fetishization of individual performance
The claim that "if there is no such thing as society," then we are left only to judge individualized performances critiques ideologies which symbolically erase collective structures and systemic conditions. This ideological shift "magics away" material realities and socio-economic orders, replacing them with superficial metrics of success or failure. This deflects attention from the underlying power relations and structural violence that produce inequality and suffering.

Enmeshment in abstraction and the erasure of harm
One of the most insidious forms of oppression highlighted is the layering of abstraction over concrete realities - injured populations, ecosystems, and wildlife become reduced to mere statistics, data points, or narratives that can be spun to obscure actual destruction. This process makes it easier to justify or deny harm, as the victims become "figments of our imagination" or paradoxically "preserved" through symbolic gestures that mask ongoing devastation.

In summary, your reflection captures a critical diagnosis of contemporary global conditions marked by systemic deception, structural violence, and ecological destruction. Drawing on the metaphor of mushroom management, the cosmic framework of Kali Yuga, Mbembe’s analysis of colonial violence, and Moten’s critique of civilization, it reveals how power operates through complex, multi-layered tactics that obscure reality, erode collective social bonds, and transform concrete harm into spectral abstractions. This analysis challenges us to see beyond surface performances and abstractions to confront the brutal material realities and resist the ongoing liquidation of life and justice.