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So everything you post is the truth?
A lot of people would disagree….
They’re called propagandists
@ Will
Give some examples, and find one of the “a lot of people” to come along and share them with us.
Forgive me Will, not an attack on you at all, but I think you’ve misconstrued the original snippet.
I read it as: the focus is on the propagandists seeding doubt with no reason, not on “purveyors of the truth” being correct!
“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” G K Chesterton.
It is true in a non religious sense.
Labelling things as ‘fake news’ and giving ‘alternative news’ often results in people not knowing what to believe so they choose an emotional position and dismiss what does not conform to it. Even if they have to believe nonsense.
I will give a bit further and say that they want you to stop caring about “what is truth?” That you to stop thinking about the question. They want you to think that thinking is a waste of time.
THIS.
Thinking (especially critical thinking) is an act of rebellion!
Is that the G. K. Chesterton who from 1933-8 was a member of the British Union of Fascists and went on to found the National Front? The quotation is patently false, as any member of the Humanist movement could provide plenty of evidence to refute it.
I have no idea where it came from
It was based on conversation in the Murphy household…
But it is straight out of the fascist rulebook
That’s A. K. Chesterton. G. K. wrote the Father Brown books, and much else.
his cousin A K Chesterton was in the National Front
There was a strand which was called Empire Loyalists
There’s that well known George Orwell quote:
“Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
That was in 1946. No change there then. We’ve put up with it for so long, I sometimes wonder if, deep down, we kind of like it. Someone to blame. That kind of thing.
Are we all ready and willing to deal with consistent, transparent and accountable statements and actions from them, that align with verifiable facts and evidence as well as their declared intentions, so that we can make informed judgments and hold them to account? That’s how it should be. Is that how we all are?
Whilst I agree that the purpose of propaganda is to cloud the picture or muddy the water, I have long held the view that it isn’t the ease with which we can be deceived nor the numbers of able deceivers that are ultimately the issue.
The problem is that humans have a fundamental desire to be deceived.
Fake news, or facts in dispute have been around forever. The judicial process that has been in place for millennia is our attempt at getting to the truth. Sometimes it works but we suspect that often it doesn’t. Again however disputed facts are not the issue. The issue is the false narrative that is woven from disputed facts and half truths. Woven with the careful discard of those pieces of evidence that are inconvenient to the desired narrative.
Humans have a soft spot for conmen, they adore illusionists and the person that didn’t marvel at a magician has never been born.
False narratives support our individual reckoning on how things work and ultimately most people are desperate to be in the camp that figured it out. Despite their training even scientists suffer from this frailty and it will be many millennia before we evolve so as to be more pleased to know the truth of any matter, should such a thing exist, than to just be in ‘camp correct’.
In summary, propaganda works not because we lack critical thinking skills but because we want it to.
Your evidence for this claim is?
Of course much of my evidence is empirical and anecdotal but one piece I would enter for the record is the fine 2014 semi autobiographical film ‘An Honest Liar’.
There are two specific events in this moving tribute to James Randi that beautifully illustrate my position.
The first concerns how Randi tricked the scientific community into believing in paranormal activity and the second is the blowback he encountered from exposing the fake US Christian Evangelical community.
I have no idea when you would find the time to watch this movie but I cannot recommend it highly enough for anyone that is thinking about how to change society for the better, which I see as your main objective.
I think you are missing the point and over-complicating the issue.
The public DO know what is going on (despite the hasbara the stifling of protest, the censorship of news, the pathetic lies and excuses from government).
The polls suggest that.
The public DON’T LIKE what is going on and have been vocal about it.
Greedy, callous, criminally complicit, corruptly bought out government ministers refuse to listen and have contempt for IHL. They have been at it for years.
We all know what’s happening. Including government.
We are colluding to perpetuate and facilitate genocide and other war crimes, for our own financial and political gain. That makes the UK government complicit in criminal actions and our PM & Foreign Secretary should be indicted for such serious crimes.
We, the British public are aware of this reality, and are not deceived. It isn’t as complicated as you suggest.