Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): One of the worst mistakes you can make when formulating your understanding of the world is to begin with the assumption that the truest and most accurate position must lie somewhere near the center of the two major political perspectives you see laid out all around you.
Wow. This is the most concise and accessible critique of mainstream discourse that I've ever read. In a sane society, this would be shared far and wide.
This is also quite instructive in why the far left and far right may be able to find common ground. Not only because they have the same enemies, but because they can see that there is a problem that mainstream solutions cannot solve and in fact cause, even if they don't agree on the specifics of the solution.
Fact is, lots of solutions can be made to work, in a system not run by sociopaths.
Great article as usual. Just want to add, it isnt just politics that the narrative is controlled, it is every facet of life. The same apparatus that dictates the common political narrative is the same one that determines the scientific, historical, educational and cultural level narratives. ( weaponized anthropology anyone..) It is a manufactured reality. The spectrum that Chomsky discusses, while it certainly exists, it is the spectacle.. so the value of that contained debate is effectively nonsense. As you said, this contained debate, it does not affect the actual power structure, but it is more than that. It ignores and cuts out the actual structure, it removes it from the imagination of the consumer of the spectacle, which is a goal. A hyperreality. Propaganda is a sustaining element of this reality, but the foundations are institutional and have been for generations..as is its secretive protection by force mechanism, the national security state. This is so often overlooked, of course , this is partly due to the fact it is not included in the acceptable debate parameters. Our great grandparents were being hoodwinked too, just with different methods. Now with controlled technological advancements coupled with the existing mechanisms ( think public education, media et cetera) , the spectacle in the 21st century is akin to cortex communism with its algorithmic grooming. Biohacking is an understatement.
With that all being said, on the outside of the spectacle ( I call the spectacle wonderland) one can feel ostracized by mass society. Hopefully, a person has already tossed the opinions of mass society in the trash long before they put their head under the curtain and looked at OZ. If not, the ostracized person will suffer because they place too much value on the judgements of those hypnotized by the spectacle. If you find yourself on the outside, just be happy you have a measure of your own free will. Use that to discover things that actually have value to you, and spend your time accordingly, do not waste emotional and mental capital trying to make sense of the lies. While you are at it, try to love thy neighbor as you do yourself, especially the ones trapped in a mental cage of the spectacle. They, just like most of us, have been lied to..but they still believe. However, this does not mean we need to let them suffocate us with their boots.
I think propaganda is easily injected into the younger generations. Us oldsters have usually seen enough BS in our time to not get so easily taken in. The inexperienced in life will be searching for someone to lead them until, if ever, they can find their own way.
There is always ONLY one truth to everything. Any single construct can never have multiple instances of truth. It is always either or.
The people can only be controlled via the oligarch money supply. If the people get rid of the oligarch money supply and refuse to use it, the nation, and the oligarchy is over, as are the occupations of global Multinational Corporations, intent on exterminating most of humanity, in the very near future, the other prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, and global fascism.
We can survive a nuclear war, take shelter under your desk.
Your sins can be forgiven and the gates of Heaven will open to you.
We are the only intelligent life in the universe.
Pure as white bread.
You have come a long way baby, enjoy the smoke.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
The American dream.
Commies are evil.
Trickle down economics.
Global warming is a hoax.
Arbeit macht frei.
I once listened to an interview years ago with Rush Limbaugh. When asked directly whether he believed in all of his hype, he said no, but they pay me 30 million a year to say it. The rich and powerful control the message. The people mostly, to their ever lasting shame, believe the lies. The latest and greatest believed lie is that the war in Ukraine is a great battle between autocracy versus democracy. How many times do the wars start with great lies...the fight for democracy, protecting the women and young girls, the mushroom cloud, when in reality it is Empire, disrupting and stealing, and selling weapons. When will we ever learn?
What is important to understand: most all peoples on this Earth have the same fears, hopes, and aspirations as we do. They have families they love and communities they share in, and the desire to work for a living and to raise their children in a healthy, happy world. We need to be one with each other and to protect our Earth that nourishes us. Control the fears.
Arise and fight together against the war mongers, the sociopaths, the cheats and liars that will doom us.
"We can still find each other online, so we’re never really alone, and the cost is definitely worth it."
Exactly. We "fringe members" are able to reach out and communicate with each other better than ever since the advent of the internet. It's the reason why the propaganda volume has been turned up so loud. They're trying to keep us from finding each other. Keep reaching out to each other and keep sharing your truth with others and encourage them to do the same. “The cost of sanity in this society" doesn't have to be alienation. It can be solidarity.
It's curious to us Chinese: All anti-Chinese Press (NYT, Guardian, etc) and media (YouTube, Substack) propaganda (a) appeals entirely to and is bought by an Anglophone audience (including Anglophiles here on Substack) which in China is less than 0.001% of population, and (b) on topics (macroeconomics, international relations, governance), issues (national/personal debt, security, kinship) and problems (housing, welfare, jobs, drug epidemic) wholly absent in China but found everywhere in US coast to coast. Yet, the propaganda seem effective; why? On whom? How so?
Why is propaganda so rampant in the US/West, not other societies?
Further regress the US/western propaganda leads to the conclusion: (a) the propaganda is effective only because it easily penetrates the vulnerable (which you've described in this essay, "propaganda ruled"), but that at levels which doesn't connect with education. Instead, the vulnerability is purely on ethical, civilized, cultural terms. And, (b) only some societies are more prone to this "propaganda rule" than others (and democracies, with its "freedom of speech" rights, whatever that is, fit best into this category) .
In China, one of our best singer-composers 刀郎 Dao Lang released the song《羅剎海市》, translated the Kingdom of Lousha. Since its official release Aug 19, there had been more than 10 billion (yes, billion) online downloads, and heard street to street. Dao Lang never said a word since but there's universal Chinese agreement, fitting all the given lyrical criteria, the song parodies the US.
In the Dao Lang lyrics is an explicit mention by name of Austrian/German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein whose Picture Theory of Language in his 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' Dao Lang invokes: "The world is everything that is the case." That is, Americans (or white people) grow up in the language that made them and they, in their turn, made the language, which includes the language of propaganda that Caitlin describes here. Restated another way, if your language is defective at onset it produces in its turn defective persons/personalities. Small wonder the US is exemplar of such a sick society.
Wittgenstein isn't new to us Chinese. We very easily understood what he means because we learn the same epistemology (how do you know what you know) from 2,500 years ago in Confucian training, within which is this idea in an Analects passage 13-3: The Rectification of Terms. 名不正、則言不訓。言不訓、則事不成。事不成、則禮樂不興。禮樂不興、則刑罰不中。刑罰不中、則民無所措手足。Inter alia, “If terms be false, then what's said can't be transmitted true to its end. If all that is said aren't in the end true, then nothing is accomplished. If nothing is accomplished, then comes.... crime ....Thus, in the 君子 (noble person) meanings must be true to language, speech true to actions.."
Top of examples of this bad language birthing the US that it is today is found in the Bible. It's pure voodoo! In contrast, the Chinese hanzi 汉字 language is always true to its terms: it can never lie, deceive much less. This is the essence in Wittgenstein’s Pictorial Theory of Language.
The Golden Mean of Aristotle, who didn’t invent the idea but developed it most famously in his ethical thought, is also a powerful trope of Western intellectual heritage that undoubtedly contributes to the conception that the middle way is right.
I am disconnecting as much as I can as quickly as I can. As wonderful as the Internet is it didn't set us free it imprisoned us. Just another opportunity to propagandize. It's an illusion.
As I've mentioned before, I think your messages are perfect to be read over the radio waves all across the world. There needs to be some kind of Schindler's list scene where someone highjacks the airwaves and reads the message the millions of people (if not billions). Or, it's simultaneously run during commercial time at rush hour on major radio stations.
Caitlin - gold every time for the people!☮️❤️🎶
Wow. This is the most concise and accessible critique of mainstream discourse that I've ever read. In a sane society, this would be shared far and wide.
This is also quite instructive in why the far left and far right may be able to find common ground. Not only because they have the same enemies, but because they can see that there is a problem that mainstream solutions cannot solve and in fact cause, even if they don't agree on the specifics of the solution.
Fact is, lots of solutions can be made to work, in a system not run by sociopaths.
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." ~George Orwell
Were it not for you and a handful of other voices, Caitlin, I would feel very alone and isolated.
When one's worldview is so outside of the Overton Window, it can seem quite surreal.
Great article as usual. Just want to add, it isnt just politics that the narrative is controlled, it is every facet of life. The same apparatus that dictates the common political narrative is the same one that determines the scientific, historical, educational and cultural level narratives. ( weaponized anthropology anyone..) It is a manufactured reality. The spectrum that Chomsky discusses, while it certainly exists, it is the spectacle.. so the value of that contained debate is effectively nonsense. As you said, this contained debate, it does not affect the actual power structure, but it is more than that. It ignores and cuts out the actual structure, it removes it from the imagination of the consumer of the spectacle, which is a goal. A hyperreality. Propaganda is a sustaining element of this reality, but the foundations are institutional and have been for generations..as is its secretive protection by force mechanism, the national security state. This is so often overlooked, of course , this is partly due to the fact it is not included in the acceptable debate parameters. Our great grandparents were being hoodwinked too, just with different methods. Now with controlled technological advancements coupled with the existing mechanisms ( think public education, media et cetera) , the spectacle in the 21st century is akin to cortex communism with its algorithmic grooming. Biohacking is an understatement.
With that all being said, on the outside of the spectacle ( I call the spectacle wonderland) one can feel ostracized by mass society. Hopefully, a person has already tossed the opinions of mass society in the trash long before they put their head under the curtain and looked at OZ. If not, the ostracized person will suffer because they place too much value on the judgements of those hypnotized by the spectacle. If you find yourself on the outside, just be happy you have a measure of your own free will. Use that to discover things that actually have value to you, and spend your time accordingly, do not waste emotional and mental capital trying to make sense of the lies. While you are at it, try to love thy neighbor as you do yourself, especially the ones trapped in a mental cage of the spectacle. They, just like most of us, have been lied to..but they still believe. However, this does not mean we need to let them suffocate us with their boots.
I think propaganda is easily injected into the younger generations. Us oldsters have usually seen enough BS in our time to not get so easily taken in. The inexperienced in life will be searching for someone to lead them until, if ever, they can find their own way.
There is always ONLY one truth to everything. Any single construct can never have multiple instances of truth. It is always either or.
The people can only be controlled via the oligarch money supply. If the people get rid of the oligarch money supply and refuse to use it, the nation, and the oligarchy is over, as are the occupations of global Multinational Corporations, intent on exterminating most of humanity, in the very near future, the other prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, and global fascism.
Please have a look at __Why You Should Stop Using the Concepts "Left-wing" and "Right-wing"!__
https://whatdoino.substack.com/p/why-you-should-stop-using-the-concepts-a49
We can survive a nuclear war, take shelter under your desk.
Your sins can be forgiven and the gates of Heaven will open to you.
We are the only intelligent life in the universe.
Pure as white bread.
You have come a long way baby, enjoy the smoke.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
The American dream.
Commies are evil.
Trickle down economics.
Global warming is a hoax.
Arbeit macht frei.
I once listened to an interview years ago with Rush Limbaugh. When asked directly whether he believed in all of his hype, he said no, but they pay me 30 million a year to say it. The rich and powerful control the message. The people mostly, to their ever lasting shame, believe the lies. The latest and greatest believed lie is that the war in Ukraine is a great battle between autocracy versus democracy. How many times do the wars start with great lies...the fight for democracy, protecting the women and young girls, the mushroom cloud, when in reality it is Empire, disrupting and stealing, and selling weapons. When will we ever learn?
What is important to understand: most all peoples on this Earth have the same fears, hopes, and aspirations as we do. They have families they love and communities they share in, and the desire to work for a living and to raise their children in a healthy, happy world. We need to be one with each other and to protect our Earth that nourishes us. Control the fears.
Arise and fight together against the war mongers, the sociopaths, the cheats and liars that will doom us.
"We can still find each other online, so we’re never really alone, and the cost is definitely worth it."
Exactly. We "fringe members" are able to reach out and communicate with each other better than ever since the advent of the internet. It's the reason why the propaganda volume has been turned up so loud. They're trying to keep us from finding each other. Keep reaching out to each other and keep sharing your truth with others and encourage them to do the same. “The cost of sanity in this society" doesn't have to be alienation. It can be solidarity.
It's curious to us Chinese: All anti-Chinese Press (NYT, Guardian, etc) and media (YouTube, Substack) propaganda (a) appeals entirely to and is bought by an Anglophone audience (including Anglophiles here on Substack) which in China is less than 0.001% of population, and (b) on topics (macroeconomics, international relations, governance), issues (national/personal debt, security, kinship) and problems (housing, welfare, jobs, drug epidemic) wholly absent in China but found everywhere in US coast to coast. Yet, the propaganda seem effective; why? On whom? How so?
Why is propaganda so rampant in the US/West, not other societies?
Further regress the US/western propaganda leads to the conclusion: (a) the propaganda is effective only because it easily penetrates the vulnerable (which you've described in this essay, "propaganda ruled"), but that at levels which doesn't connect with education. Instead, the vulnerability is purely on ethical, civilized, cultural terms. And, (b) only some societies are more prone to this "propaganda rule" than others (and democracies, with its "freedom of speech" rights, whatever that is, fit best into this category) .
In China, one of our best singer-composers 刀郎 Dao Lang released the song《羅剎海市》, translated the Kingdom of Lousha. Since its official release Aug 19, there had been more than 10 billion (yes, billion) online downloads, and heard street to street. Dao Lang never said a word since but there's universal Chinese agreement, fitting all the given lyrical criteria, the song parodies the US.
In the Dao Lang lyrics is an explicit mention by name of Austrian/German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein whose Picture Theory of Language in his 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' Dao Lang invokes: "The world is everything that is the case." That is, Americans (or white people) grow up in the language that made them and they, in their turn, made the language, which includes the language of propaganda that Caitlin describes here. Restated another way, if your language is defective at onset it produces in its turn defective persons/personalities. Small wonder the US is exemplar of such a sick society.
Wittgenstein isn't new to us Chinese. We very easily understood what he means because we learn the same epistemology (how do you know what you know) from 2,500 years ago in Confucian training, within which is this idea in an Analects passage 13-3: The Rectification of Terms. 名不正、則言不訓。言不訓、則事不成。事不成、則禮樂不興。禮樂不興、則刑罰不中。刑罰不中、則民無所措手足。Inter alia, “If terms be false, then what's said can't be transmitted true to its end. If all that is said aren't in the end true, then nothing is accomplished. If nothing is accomplished, then comes.... crime ....Thus, in the 君子 (noble person) meanings must be true to language, speech true to actions.."
Top of examples of this bad language birthing the US that it is today is found in the Bible. It's pure voodoo! In contrast, the Chinese hanzi 汉字 language is always true to its terms: it can never lie, deceive much less. This is the essence in Wittgenstein’s Pictorial Theory of Language.
Here's that Dao Long parody on America/western societies 《羅剎海市》: https://youtu.be/1-suGKGFjus?si=XT45y2LAFWZy0oC0
The Golden Mean of Aristotle, who didn’t invent the idea but developed it most famously in his ethical thought, is also a powerful trope of Western intellectual heritage that undoubtedly contributes to the conception that the middle way is right.
I am disconnecting as much as I can as quickly as I can. As wonderful as the Internet is it didn't set us free it imprisoned us. Just another opportunity to propagandize. It's an illusion.
This is a great one Caitlin! Right on.
As I've mentioned before, I think your messages are perfect to be read over the radio waves all across the world. There needs to be some kind of Schindler's list scene where someone highjacks the airwaves and reads the message the millions of people (if not billions). Or, it's simultaneously run during commercial time at rush hour on major radio stations.
Stranger things have happened :)
Thank you Caitlin🙏