Language is the primary mechanism we use to describe our personal and collective experiences of the world, and what we perceive to be happening around us. We accept our 'reality' as being 'the truth' - but the breadth of our vocabulary, together with our choice of words, invariably constrain how close we can actually come to accurately expressing our concrete experiences and, even more so, any cerebral thoughts we have.
In order to accurately communicate our experiences to others we resort to the use of 'imageable' metaphors - concepts already (or capable of being) visualized, signifying commonly accepted notions easily pictured in the mind's eye. Without imageable reference patterns new ideas cannot materialize. We can only discover what is already known, often rebranding it as innovation in order to claim some degree of originality. This is one of the reasons I tend to dismiss a lot of 'academic' jargon - it mostly serves to complicate what we already ‘know’ without adding alternative layers of meaning.
A familiar means of denying reality is to refuse to use the words that express it as such. We can do this by remaining silent, resorting to euphemism, twisting the facts - or outright lying. Though we tend to be outraged when we discover that we've been told blatant lies, euthemism and silence can be just as harmful.
At this very moment, the mainstream media are throwing all their resources into communicating a narrative of utter Russian military incompetence. For most of us, there's a deep psychological need to believe in this narrative as the spectre of nuclear annihilation looms over our heads. In reality the media will never communicate the truth about what is happening in Ukraine. This is why there appear to be so many strange inconsistencies that simply don't reflect military reality.
In some contexts certain types of thought processes are politically unacceptable. For example, it’s not possible to conduct a sensible discussion on abortion in a nunnery. The Pentagon is only able to envisage its enemies through its own self-referential lens. In North Korea, Iran, or Myanmar it's extremely risky to openly challenge the regimes' actions. In the West we consistently refer to sustainable development at a time in history when our society as a whole is manifestly non-sustainable. Likewise developing nations are, more often than not, actually destitute nations.
Euphemism can be insidious. For example, US politicians from both sides of the aisle routinely insist that all options are on the table when it comes to dealing with what are perceived to be 'rogue' states. Presumably that includes pre-emptive nuclear strikes, although the actual term nuclear war has been studiously avoided until recently.
Lying and manipulating eivdence tends to betray a naivity that verges on the absurd. Yet we are so easily conned. In the late 90’s, for example, concerns arose over the tobacco industry that deliberately set out to falsify science. Phony experiments had been conducted by the major players 'proving' nicotine was harmless and non-addictive, while expert witnesses were paid handsomely to testify under oath to these lies. Another example relates to cynical efforts used by the fossil fuel industry, even today, to persuade an ingenuous public that coal and gas are the keys to future clean energy, when they know full well that they will continue to be a major contributor to global heating.
These are all forms of propaganda - used to cast doubt on the verity of a situation in ways that range from subtle innuendo to barefaced lies.
We resort to propaganda constantly – especially when a favourable 'spin' on events is desired by those whose interests are best served by manipulating or distorting the truth. Indeed, we live in a society where Public Relations firms have become superbly adept at convincing the public of half truths. It matters little whether we live in a totalitarian or democratic state: the motives and results are the same. These strategies of deception are designed to implant doubt in the collective consciousness and to mislead.
Three institutions routinely use strategies of deception. Powerful and interrelated, their strength resides particularly in the ways they seek to sustain each other. I refer of course to governments (the instrument that makes decisions and enacts laws often, it must be said, based upon ill-advised or partial interpretations of the truth); big business (whose prime concern is in growing wealth for shareholders); and corporate media (comprising owners, editors and journalists that weave and shape the stories, and manage the narrative, the rest of us hear).
The motives of all three are common in their short-term self-interest. In the case of governments their aim is to stay in power, often dispensing with the truth in order to do so. In the case of the media and business corporations it’s simply to make profits. Both distract public attention away from significant issues, focusing on the spreading of sanguine messages that then result in a lack of informed discourse. This then leads to a dumbing-down within society to the extent that the capability to see beyond dystopia is almost entirely lost.
In every case, too, the intention is simple: to conceal, confound, confuse and cast doubt in the minds of those who are merely witnesses to history and who have no immediate way of voicing their concerns or disapproval. We are witnessing this today in the war between the US and Russia, albeit being played out in Ukraine.
If the media was unbiased they would communicate both the positive and negative aspects of what is an objective reality. Instead, we don't see a shred of impartiality regarding the Russian question. This creates a situation where those in the West can be lulled into a false sense of security and blind overconfidence: that through mass psychosis a nuclear war with Russia may be winnable. But nothing can change the logic. Mutually assured destruction is not winnable. There are only different degrees of losing.
Every negative monologue against president Putin of Russia brings us one step closer to the end of Western civilization. Those of us that do not die in a primary nuclear attack will struggle to survive in what will be a highly contaminated world. A world in which people will starve and die from a myriad bizarre diseases. A reversion to a medieval society where many human advancements will be irretrievably lost. In the end, we may damage the biosphere in a way that it is inhospitable to all life.
We need to recognize Russia’s security concerns and de-escalate. The same pertains for the situation between the US and China. We are walking into an unwinnable endgame for no other reasons than sheer ignorance and unwarranted hubris.
Strategies of deception have been devastatingly successful for the greater part of the past two centuries. Strong evidence is emerging they might even have been used to propagate and feed the psychosis of social anxiety and compliance as a premeditated instrument in conceiving and then reacting to the Covid-19 pandemic. Though that seemed such an outrageous assertion initially, it’s becoming more likely as evidence accumulates in its favour.
But that event might also be the beginning of the end of public ingenuousness. New information and communications technologies have already generated extensive global networks, granting those of us with access to the internet or mobile telephones instant access to alternative views, the ablity to challenge orthodox beliefs, and to take collective action in ways that were previously inconceivable. And it seems that might very well be what we want. Representative democracy has failed us, and political power might be beginning to shift once again to the grassroots.
Three questions continue to intrigue me...
Firstly, are those wielding power really so formidable if they feel the need to resort to false pretexts in order to persuade the public of the desirability of a particular course of action? Surely it is fear, vulnerability and immaturity that most often generate the need for deception? Enduring strength, we know, arises from engagement through dialogue.
My second question relates to the bewildering choices made by governments everywhere to subsidize certain industries, at great cost to the public purse, when being transparent about such subsidies and the damage they cause would almost certainly receive the endorsement of a grateful electorate and enable more intelligent choices to be made.
Thirdly, how might the locus of power shift even further and faster with the advent of peer-to-peer and other decentralized technologies – the 21st century’s organizing principle for almost everything? Perhaps at this stage of the game it’s the only card remaining.