I confess, I have never read 1984. George Orwell’s dystopian novel was published 66 years ago and is, of course, a fictitious account of an uncertain future. The question is: how fictitious has it all turned out to be?
Orwell writes about a future in which the world exists in a perpetual state of war. The public are controlled through a combination of omnipresent government surveillance and mass media mind control, ruled over by a political system run by The Party and euphemistically referred to as ‘English Socialism’. That system is itself controlled by a privileged elite that persecutes all individualism and independent thinking as “thought-crime” and their tyranny is epitomised by Big Brother, the quasi-divine Party Leader who enjoys an intense cult of personality, but who may not even exist. And all throughout, Big Brother and The Party justify their oppressive rule in the name of a supposed greater good.
The book was published in 1949. It was the same year as the formation of NATO. Many significant world events followed – including but of course never limited to the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cuba Crisis, John Kennedy’s assassination, the Treaty of Rome, Harold Holt’s disappearance, the Indo-Pakistani War, Martin Luther King’s assassination, Robert Kennedy’s assassination, the Cambodian Campaign, Bretton Woods, the Ebola Virus Outbreaks in Sudan and Zaire, conflict in Lebanon and Grenada, the Iran-Iraq War, the Falklands War, the Yom Kippur War, the Persian Gulf War, the invasion of Panama, the Balkans War, conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, the birth of the Internet and the introduction of the Euro, various UK riots in 1981/1985/1990/1995/2009/2011 as well as 9/11 and the Global Financial Crisis in 2007.
As individuals we can only ever hope to understand a small proportion of all the world’s goings on. On top of that we have to remember that everything we read or watch has passed through the filters of mass communication; events are almost always misrepresented and distorted by the media.
Two films come to mind: “The Running Man” (1987) and “V for Vendetta” (2005). Indeed, in 1997 an international television production named Endemol launched a phenomenally successful series known as “Big Brother”. The show still runs in some parts of the world and has been screened in over 50 nations. It is of course one of a great many programs in the same vein of reality television. While all of its incarnations fall under the umbrella of entertainment, the underlying message is the same and it is in the title of the show. It is the sentiment of its producers. It goes something like: the majority of individuals are happy to be treated as a mindless whole; a flock of sheep; a brainwashed collective. In the words of Felix Dzerzinski, “Mankind is slightly above the level of cattle; man is only interested in his own survival.”
We live in an information age but it is important to remember that not all information is useful information. The truth is that our media is oversaturated with poorly rendered and often useless information. Most of us believe ourselves well informed, failing to realize that our freedom to interpret and disseminate information and indeed to make important decisions about our own lives is dictated by little more than a complex multiple choice system. The options from which we may choose are in fact created by a range of social institutions ranging from socio-political trends and the legal system to the innovative think-tanks of “independent policy institutes” and of course the ever present media machine. None of us are free to form unaffected opinions because the information provided by the media will always shape our understanding of the world. In layman’s terms: the television will always tell us what to think.
And in the name of the “greater good” (in this day and age it is always – ironically – our “safety” and our “freedom”) we live in a society in which we are led to believe that we have control over our own lives (and that we should resist anyone who tells us otherwise). We are told to enjoy ourselves – that if we are safe and free we should have fun. That we should have fun because we are safe and free. And we watch things like Big Brother (like The Running Man) in order to watch ourselves as a whole, as a society or culture. We are obsessed with ourselves because we are told that we are the best – we are told that we should want to be the best – and that our success can be attributed to our freedom and our safety. To the “greater good”. And with the information revolution – with the introduction of mobile internet and the access it provides to digital pastimes like online gaming and gambling and even free newspapers – that “greater good” has cemented itself as an opiate for an increasingly purposeless mass of individuals.
The concepts of safety and freedom have been set against those of terror and terrorism. These words are loaded. Their meanings have been manufactured. A series of plans have been designed by our own governments in order to demoralize us; to tell us that any risk to our freedom or our safety is also a risk to our enjoyment of life; to tell us that the best life is the placid life in which nothing of any great significance happens; in which we do not need to make any important decisions. When that placid daze is threatened we are told that we should oppose it without question. With this in mind we are brainwashed methodically and systematically to fight against whichever enemy can be labelled an agent of terror. With a succession of crises and manipulation of the population (with the aid of the media), terror tactics are created so that the masses will do exactly as required. DNA is taken routinely by the police, finger prints (plus chips with more data) are present in most passports today, banks accounts are checked without consultation, mobile phones can pin point our whereabouts, our emails and conversations are checked and human microchip implants (aka RFID), now with a GPS, are also on a pipeline for the not so distant future.
Almost 70 years after the publication of 1984 it is evident that we are all getting disquietingly closer to Orwell’s vision of the world. So perhaps this is a time to reflect and, maybe, to be scared!
Max Procaccini 
Reblogged this on HISTÓRIA da POLÍTICA.
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, a cognitive scientist at the University of Western Australia, published a paper late last month in the journal Psychological Science that has received widespread praise for looking at the thinking behind conspiracy theories about science and climate change. We asked him to explain the psychology of conspiracy theories. This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
First of all, why do people believe conspiracy theories?
There are number of factors, but probably one of the most important ones in this instance is that, paradoxically, it gives people a sense of control. People hate randomness, they dread the sort of random occurrences that can destroy their lives, so as a mechanism against that dread, it turns out that it’s much easier to believe in a conspiracy. Then you have someone to blame, it’s not just randomness.
What are the psychological forces at play in conspiracy thinking?
Basically what’s happening in any conspiracy theory is that people have a need or a motivation to believe in this theory, and it’s psychologically different from evidence-based thinking. A conspiracy theory is immune to evidence, and that can pretty well serve as the definition of one. If you reject evidence, or reinterpret the evidence to be confirmation of your theory, or you ignore mountains of evidence to focus on just one thing, you’re probably a conspiracy theorist. We call that a self-sealing nature of reasoning.
Another common trait is the need to constantly expand the conspiracy as new evidence comes to light. For instance, with the so-called Climategate scandal, there were something like nine different investigations, all of which have exonerated the scientists involved. But the response from the people who held this notion was to say that all of those investigations were a whitewash. So it started with the scientists being corrupt and now not only is it them, but it’s also all the major scientific organizations of the world that investigated them and the governments of the U.S. and the U.K., etc., etc. And that’s typical — instead of accepting the evidence, you actually turn it around and say that it’s actually evidence to support the conspiracy because it just means it’s even broader than it was originally thought to be.
Are there certain types of people who are more prone to believing in conspiracy theories than others? Does it match any kind of political lines?
I don’t think there is a systematic association between political views and the propensity to believe in conspiracy theories. There are some studies that suggest people on the political left are inclined to it, and there are some that suggest people on the right are. But it’s always a weak association. There are some theories that appeal to only one side, however. For example, the idea that 9/11 was an inside job was fairly common among Democrats in the early part of the 2000s, and very few Republicans believed it at the time. But conversely, the idea that the U.N. is trying to create a world government is predominantly held by people on the right, but not at all by people on the political left. So it really doesn’t depend on politics.
Everyone is prone to some degree of bias and motivated reasoning — where do you draw the line, if there is one?
The crucial difference between having a preconceived notion — we all do that, of course — and conspiratorial thinking is when you get into that self-sealing reasoning and ignore every piece of evidence that is pointing the other way, when you’re starting to broaden the circle of conspirators, and when your skepticism gets to be nihilistic — when you believe absolutely nothing that the government or the media is saying — that’s when you’ve crossed the line.
I hear a lot of stories from people who email or from friends who have a brother, or cousin, or friend who they say is normal and smart, but then they’re horrified to find conspiratorial stuff on their Facebook page or whatnot. One was even a medical student at a very prestigious school. How do otherwise smart and reasonable people end up believing this stuff?
Well, there is no relationship to intelligence, in my experience. Many of these people are actually quite smart, though not all, so it’s not that. It’s the need to explain and control, as I said, but it can be other things also: A general sense of disgruntlement, feeling excluded from society. Feeling discriminated against. Even insecurity in one’s job.
And it’s often with good reason. For instance, the conspiracy theory that AIDS was created by the U.S. government is held disproportionately by African-Americans. In a sense, there is good reason to have that suspicion, since it wasn’t that long ago that, in the 1950s or even later, that the U.S. government was sterilizing African-Americans and doing all sorts of horrible things to them without their consent. So some conspiracy theories have a grain of historical truth in them — that’s not to say the theories are true, but the conditions that give rise to them are.
How should we think of conspiracy theorists? They’re often dismissed as fringey nuts, but an awful lot of Americans believe in one conspiracy or another.
First of all, any extraordinary event will be followed by conspiracy theorizing. I can tell you that right now. Whatever happens tomorrow, there will be a conspiracy theory about it. Number two, I think it’s important that we understand that it satisfies a need. It isn’t that these people are necessarily disordered or marginal members of society. After all, not that long ago, half of Republican primary voters thought President Obama was born outside the U.S. So, if half of one segment of a population believes in a conspiracy theory then you can’t talk about marginal elements and you have to accept that it’s a real part of society and serves a need. And I think we have to understand that need and find ways for society to find other ways in which that need can be satisfied.
Interesting…
A big thank you to Sam Tobares for proposing professor Stephan Lewandowsky “study”. We must not forget that even Einstein and Freud have been proven wrong.
The same individual can be addressed as a “freedom fighter” or as a “terrorist”; it depends who is pointing the finger.
In the ‘90s, with little access to the Internet, it was very rare for people to talk or know about the Bilderberg Group. Now we have ‘passed’ that post and we are looking at “Club of Rome” and “Committee of 300” and so on. In the ‘90s those people were “ridiculous” conspirators. Yet, Bilderberg members meet every year, since 1954, and nobody knows why.
There would be no conspiracy if there was openness and clarity on what goes on behind the scenes. The post on what really goes on keeps moving forward and that is based on information and education. The more we get proper information and real education the more questions seem to come up and some truth to surface.
A similar attitude could be addressed to acupuncture and even chiropractic treatment/techniques; as they are not “scientifically” proven, they don’t work; they don’t meet the “standardised system” and approach ‘they’ would like us to follow.
Within any theory there are also those that many could consider the extremes; seeing UFOs or meeting extra terrestrials or encounters with Our Lady (Madonna) of Medjugorje, for example. Without many and accurate proofs I will find it difficult to believe in them but that doesn’t mean I reject them completely.
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky has to be very careful on what he is proposing to his audiences: “A conspiracy theory is immune to evidence”(??). Evidence is not there if we don’t look for it; even with the Internet it doesn’t just jump on our lap. Barack Obama’s recent speech on Ukrainian crisis has left the public confused as he claimed “Kosovo broke away from Serbia – after a referendum”. But – there was no referendum in Kosovo! Ignorance, lack of information and forgetfulness play also a big part on most conspiracy theories.
HAARP is real, we can see it often in our skies and history is also real as it is the revealing strategy of current events, if we care to find out the facts. ‘The Aquarian Conspiracy’ written by Marilyn Ferguson in 1980 and ‘Changing Images of Man’ edited by O. W. Markley and published in 1982 (with contributions by B. F. Skinner and Margaret Mead) were also studies on …changes. Similar to Bilderberg meetings why bother to spend so much money and resources just to meet or carry out a study that, according to Lewandowsky, is only there to give people a “sense of control”???
A very insightful article, so much of this has come true due to the supposed “Pandemic”. It’s quite scary when you think about what happening.