File: A protester holds up a sign that reads in Spanish “the president lies” during a march against Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. –George Orwell
As with most societal dynamics, there are various approaches and thought-processes we can employ to help us make sense of the unpredictable nonsense that constitutes today’s politics and corporate spin.
There are four forms of political lies.
Those involved in politics — the politicians, reporters and corporate lobbyists — are constantly lying. We all know it, we just don’t all appreciate the scope of it. Of course, there is outright lying which might be done in any number of ways, including complete conjuration and outright elimination of important information. However corporate heads, politicians and their faithful media normally prefer more nuanced presentations to their lies — so it pays to understand just how they go about it.
Four Forms of Political Lies
There are four basic types of political lies, which immediately correlate to the four basic forms of arithmetic.
Like all effective lies, each type involves some nugget of truth.
For the sake of this discussion, let’s use as an example the political rhetoric surrounding the safety of nuclear energy:
- The first type of lie is the addition of information. Sometimes the addition of a small bit of information can change the story entirely. For example: yes the ailing Fukushima reactor is still spewing radioactive pollution … but did you know, according to nuclear industry supporters, low level exposure to radiation is actually good for you?
- The second type of lie is the subtraction of information. The removal of small key components can result in entirely different meaning. For example: with the nuclear site in Miami operating dangerous above standard ‘safety’ limits, the regulator temporarily increased the limit, averting an “emergency” by subtraction.
- The third type of lie is multiplication of information. Exaggerations of situations connected with the story as well as exaggerations of extraneous information are included in the presentation to dilute it.
- The fourth type of lie is division of information. The facts are interlaced with disconnects and the significance of information is separated or underplayed. To exemplify the third and fourth types: nuclear industry advocates claim nuclear energy to be ‘clean’ and ‘safe.’ To support this belief (not fact), they exaggerate the relevance of nuclear’s low carbon emissions in comparison to other energy systems while ignoring or downplaying the permanent environmental destruction their nuclear waste causes and discrediting the science that clearly proves radiation exposure = cancer and death.
Sure, this mixed up mathematics, irregular logic, circular reasoning and ill rhetoric is sometimes just due to a lack of information, combined with an unreasonable unwillingness to admit one doesn’t know everything. But institutional leaders and media do this constantly and intentionally. Given how commonly such twisted representations are embedded in modern politics, one can only assume that, more often than not, we are witnessing the cover-up of a web of implicit agendas which, given their secrecy, clearly run counter to the purposes of community governance and information dissemination.
There is no wild “conspiracy theory” here, just a matter of linking the dots. Those with the greatest access to information in our oligarchical society are correspondingly the greatest liars to our society. That is how oligarchies are built – not by gaining the explicit agreement of the people to an inequitable ‘pyramid’ society, but by the covert and gradual creation of illusions to which the people progressively succumb. Oligarchs employ the addition, subtraction, division and multiplication of information to influence the minds of its society, gain its ongoing “consent” to remain at the bottom of the illusory pyramid.
This is a rule of politics parallel with that of Lord Acton’s Rule; that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. When it comes to the oligarchy, official sources of information tend to lie, and information channelled through one absolute source absolutely lies.
And the result of this corruption? Governments that were instilled to regulate commerce and protect the natural rights of people are now regulating people, and protecting the ‘rights’ of commercial operations. All the while the merging of corporate, media, church and state institutions continues through a deliberate program of deception, deflection, division and distraction. They conspire through their connections and influences to steer both social thinking and political policy toward less than benevolent motives — which all requires lying, in one way or another. Thus we find ourselves in a world of perpetual war, pollution, poverty and panic, separated from our true human nature and potential. And it’s no accident.
Comprehensive Thinking
In today’s political arena, debate is dominated by polarized, dualistic thinking — the opposition of two competing ideas, two parties, left and right.
Is it so? Is it not so?
Is it good? Is it bad?
What if the truth was somewhere in the middle? Or elsewhere entirely?
In reality, to consider any information or situation comprehensively and in its entirety, questions must be posed in four ways, not just two.
Is it so? Is it not so? Is it both? Is it neither?
Is it good? Is it bad? Is it both? Is it neither?
The very inquiry into the origins of human thinking and being is typically posed through a limited, polarized mindset.
Are we the way we are because of nature? Or nurture?
Yet the best answer supersedes the singular polarity. Traditionally, it is philosophically viewed by the world’s “thinkers” as a trinity of options, the third option being the synthesis of one and the other, of thesis and antithesis, nature and nurture. But while the “both” option is often considered in this philosophy, the important fourth part missing – the nullesis.
Are we the way we are because of nature, or nurture? Or nurture? Or both? Or neither?
We humans are capable of questioning everything in these four dimensions. So one may wonder, why is this kind of thinking not used or taught more commonly?
The nullesis, or the “neither” option, indicates the infinite possibility of the unknown. It acknowledges the ever-present potential that the truth cannot be found in either known option or solution. It asks — “what are the other possibilities?” — “what other options are available?” And to those working in the sole pursuit of political and corporate agenda, such thinking in the wider public creates roadblocks. It empowers the people to question and to more accurately understand the words and deeds of government and corporate spin doctors, far beyond the scope of their (deliberately) polarizing rhetoric.
Our minds are wired to question, but we have been trained to ask limited questions. By design, our government-steered ‘education’ system teaches our children the value of remembering and recalling and replicating, and discourages or punishes those curious children who naturally stray beyond existing thinking and expectations. By teaching the practice of limited thinking to our children, institutional government is working to ensure that subsequent generations, like the people of “1984’s” Oceania, are so embedded in this limited way of thinking that they can no longer see “what is in front of one’s nose”.
1984 Was Not Meant To Be An Instruction Manual
George Orwell’s groundbreaking works “Animal Farm” and “1984” inspired the understanding of four types of political lies. The seven rules from “Animal Farm” and the three adages (below), which are now familiar axioms from “1984,” clearly demonstrate how the addition and subtraction of language is used to alter the spirit of law.
In “Animal Farm,” a burgeoning society of animals (personified) write down their rules for all to see and follow. However eventually, through the manipulation of language, the society’s self-appointed leaders (the allegorical “they”, illustrated as pigs of course) alter the messages entirely, along with the conditions of entirety, and use them to benefit themselves. Over time, new language is surreptitiously added to the original rules, altering them in word, spirit, and application.
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed (with sheets).
5. No animal shall drink alcohol (to excess).
6. No animal shall kill any other animal (without cause).
7. All animals are equal (but some animals are more equal than others).
–From “Animal Farm”
Ultimately, just the axioms of inequity within their society (“all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”) and without (“four legs good, two legs better”) remained.
In 1984 there are three main adages that are used as similar dogma on the farm. In “1984,” the official language is shrinking, being subtracted, effectively eliminating whole concepts from the vocabulary; concepts which of course are challenging to the status quo. The character Winston Smith’s job within “The Ministry Of Truth” is to eliminate information that is contrary to the official line, and to insert “information” that supports it, while many of his coworkers are involved with creating the incredibly shrinking (and linguistically twisted) dictionary.
In 1984, “doublethink” describes simultaneously accepting or advocating two contradictory beliefs as correct, with each belief typically applicable to different social contexts.
One of the slogans of The Party is “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength” is a perfect example. Though clearly contradictory by definition, it is accepted as truth by the citizens of Oceania.
Because “war is peace,” Oceania remains in a constant state of war while its people go on behaving like there is peace, believing that peace can only be achieved through war. Irrationally, they switch from one emotion to the other, just as they are conditioned to do. Just as we do today. Supporting that conditioning is the belief that “ignorance is strength;” that it is gainful to avoid information, other than that which The Party itself provides, and to accept The Party line as fact, without rational consideration. Just as we see today, where the twisting of language sees phrases like “conspiracy theory” immediately triggering the conditioned “tin foil hat” response — again, without rational consideration of any genuine conspiracy or collusion.
Although the story of “1984” begins in a time when these twisted slogans are already embedded in the fictional society of Oceania, I have extrapolated what I think is the most reasonable guess as to what these adages might have once said – what societal ideals they once represented — before being manipulated to suit the agenda of the ruling party.1
War (on individuals) is peace (to institutions).
Freedom (to institutions) is slavery (for individuals).
Ignorance (among individuals) is strength (to institutions).
In reality, this kind of manipulation is rife within governmental, legal and commercial institutions. The theatre of polarity politics and the insanely complex language of the legal system (“legalese”) excludes most average folks from understanding the law, much less influencing it, and thus small but important changes are more easily slipped into legislation by the institutional elite, without regard for the original intent or spirit of law.
That is how we find ourselves so far ‘off track’ today. It is no accident. Twisting the word of law to deliberately mislead an entire society takes careful and incremental manipulation of its psyche, and its boundaries. One political lie is slowly embedded – through addition, subtraction, multiplication and division — and once accepted, that lie it becomes the baseline on which the next falsehood is constructed.
But 1984 was not meant to be an instruction manual — not for the ruling elite, and not for the people.
The best mathematical lesson I ever learned taught me to question the deductions and answers of “authority” of all kinds. The arithmetic is simple — Where authority exists, so too does an imbalance of power. From that place of imbalance, the truth is easily corrupted.
Ignorance among individuals is strength to institutions.
You do the math.
The Complete Patriot’s Guide
Ethan Indigo Smith’s book The Complete Patriot’s Guide is an insightful exploration of history, philosophy and contemporary politics of today’s heavily institutionalized society.
An inspiration for positive, peaceful individual action, The Complete Patriot’s Guide is pro-individual in its perspective and, although political, discusses our society and its institutions from neither left-wing nor right-wing perspectives, exploring metaphors and symbolism relative to the fictional work of George Orwell through real history, philosophy and contemporary politics. Layered with insight, it is in part a literary exploration of the themes raised in Orwell’s 1984, and provides theories for individual and collective empowerment.
The Complete Patriot’s Guide is available now on Amazon.
Crossposted from Wake Up World.
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Ethan Indigo Smith travels from Mendocino to Maine to make positive impact and raise consciousness.
What is success? Practically everyone has a different answer to this question. When I first began writing success was selling a book or two. Now I realize that even if I were to sell enough books to buy a car, or a house, or amass wealth, it would be a surface level form of success. A higher form of success would be to generate positivity and help people, to participate in raising consciousness. Another next level of success, for me, today, would be to raise the collective awareness of nuclear experimentation and the oligarchical industries that mine, refine and burn earthen elements, endangering all life in the process.
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