I’m going to play a little thought experiment here, which some of you probably won’t like. But bear with me; I think there’s probably some interesting points buried in here, if we have the patience to unearth what they are.
Okay, let’s say we are sliding into dictatorship. Why is that necessarily bad? Can you give me an answer that doesn’t make use of the following words: freedom, choice, rights, privacy? I know that’s probably like trying to explain basketball without talking about players, baskets or balls - but hey, maybe even that would be a worthwhile experiment for some other time.
What I’m thinking of is this: let’s say our country did become a crazy fascist dictatorship (assuming it’s not already!). How many generations would it take for us to essentially forget as a culture that it had ever been different? My guess is that it would only take one generation for most of the memories of the old ways to fade - especially in a media saturated environment where our history doesn’t come from our elders, but from marketing companies. Within one generation, maybe there would be scattered memories and half-baked theories about what used to be different and why. Within two generations then, I’m guessing that more or less all traces of there ever having been a different way of doing things would be totally gone. There would be nobody left who remembered it differently. And anyone who did would ultimately question their memory, because of how heavily they’ve been influenced by the media. Within three generations, the idea that things weren’t always this way would seem patently absurd.
So it would only be that initial generation who would probably even be aware that anything had changed at all during a totalitarian take-over. And that of course would depend on how aware that generation ever really even was to begin with. If they weren’t very aware, then chances are a totalitarian regime could come into power with very little fuss, avoiding any kind of bloodbath which would likely garner a lot of attention. Either way, I have a hunch that it would only be during that initial changeover that anything might seem out of the ordinary, that our lifestyles and national myths would need to be ripped off and replaced. It would hurt for a moment, like pulling off a band-aid, but then things would calm down again and we would settle into our ordinary routines of loving and working and living and drinking and drugging ourselves into submission.
My question, then, has to do with the past, rather than an imagined future. In a nutshell, how do we know that one or two or three or four generations ago, our government wasn’t already taken over by a totalitarian regime? The fact is, we really don’t. If you were a totalitarian government, it would be in your best interest to concoct a national mythology that said your citizenry were free. The social control mechanisms would be buried so deeply in our psyches that we likely wouldn’t ever even notice them. Our history would be forgotten, changed, left untaught, or simply made irrelevant to the concerns of the present day. People interested in it would mainly be quaint eccentric intellectuals or unstable conspiracy theorists.
Taking this line of thought, we could try to pinpoint where in the past our country had crossed over to a totalitarian regime. A number of possible events crop up in previous generations: the public assassination of JFK (rather than the character assassinations of later presidents); when FDR was elected for his fourth term in office; during the War of Northern Aggression (ie, the Civil War); during the War of 1812, when some say the British unofficially re-captured control of the Continent? How do we know the whole thing wasn’t simply a farce to begin with, but with an exciting and carefully crafted mythology of free (and unimportant) speech and elections?
How do we know we really won the Cold War? How do we know we really won World War II? How do we know the two sides didn’t just merge, weren’t one side all along, hammering out a new vision of the world, by means of Hegelian dialectic? It’s simple: we don’t. It’s unknowable. We have facts, events which *did* happen, but will we ever know the hidden dialogues and existing connections and eventual arrangements which were settled on?
Perhaps my cynicism has finaly reached its saturation point. If so, there’s nowhere to go from here. And that’s good news. Maybe the best yet. To find out that your worst fears have been realized means there’s nothing left to be afraid of. I’m not afraid anymore.
- END -
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13 Comments
When control becomes invisible it becomes complete.
hehe.
you know, i just finished watching good night and good luck with my girlfriend, and everytime i see something form that older era I’m struck by how much more articulate and open the public discourse was, albiet unpolished compared to now. even the ciggarette ads were erudite and thoughtful.
sometime between then and now, it was determined or simply neglected into the state it is currently.
terrence mckenna thought the sixities were the first generation of americans brought up under a universal commitment to education in the intellectual and cultural legacy of western culture. when the powers that be saw how that turned out, a significant about face was implemented.
I think a totalitarian state of force is not the same as one of simulation, e.g., “how do we know who won WWII?” is not the same as “are we under opression?” It’s one thing to have cops on every corner; it’s another to put the cop in your head… In good news, It’s a hell of a lot easier to break out of simulation (many cures grow on shit, literally: “This… What am I supposed to do with this?” “Spread it on your mushrooms.”) than it is handcuffs. I’m not going to play gnostipolitickal-paranoid tonight, simply because… It’s very easy to fill people’s heads with images etc. especially b/c so few have any conscious intention… and intention always defeats mere matter…
A “control system” is by default a scramble for control… I don’t feel the need to address the “are we living in totalitarian state that created a mythology” right now because of the amount of paranoia (Did grandpa fight in WWII on Iwo Jima, or was that an elaborate myth to make me believe in freedom etc…) borders on an interpretation that leads to a solipsism I’m not comfortable. I also think a lot of your questions have been addressed in detail by “conspiracy” theory and research about the history of banking. E.g., the only crime JFK committed was not being part of the intelligence community, but somehow entrance wounds became exit wounds and two “high powered” low-caliber bullets wounded him an another man no less than seven times.
But the point about living memory is of key importance. I often take it for granted that the powers that be have actively and intentionally sought to reduce the length of living memory and obscure much of history. If they have not done so intentionally, they benefit from the weakening of memory nonetheless.
E.g.: “Who remembers the Armenians?” –Uncle Adolph
E.g.: In the fourteenth century (or so I’ve read in “The Distant Mirror”) there was a French baron who required his serfs to carry identification papers. He was declared the antichrist and had a revolt on his hands. A few years later in France, some princes sought to raise taxes on wheat, goods, etc., by something like 5%. They spent three years pacifying the revolt. Congress just increased their ability to sell your future by almost a trillion dollars. Did you even notice?
At this point I percieve the world around me as an illusion, which is a useful paradigm. It prohibits me from making any assumptions about reality, history, nature, etc. Humans are easily manipulated through ideas, and social conditioning is everywhere. You don’t require a group of sinister looking men in lab coats and syringes hanging over you to be conditioned, it’s as close as your last conversation. A good example is how a coincidence is just chance, it’s nothing important (or it’s a particular god), anarchy would lead to chaos! or where the meaning of a word is distorted to prove a point (evolution is a theory, not a fact!) If not wordplay it’s too much emphesis on the positive qualities of living life in your country, and turning a blind eye to whats unpleasant. The only way to break free of social conditioning is to question everything, even the things that don’t seem to need questioning, especially when your in a comfortable place where you feel happy. With so many people refusing to think outside of their comfort zone who allow themselves to be easily swayed by others, we may never be able to shake off those who would assume themselves fit to control the public and continue to send Earth to hell in a handbasket.
Would it be that bad? Of course it would. One could muddle along just fine if one was the sort to accept being told what to do, what it’s acceptable to think, etc. Can you imagine being jailed because your neighbors suspect you aren’t patriotic enough, or being hounded and abused because your art or literature is perceived as threatening? What about being murdered for having a negative opinion of one’s local politicians? This really can’t be argued without using the word choice, because that’s what it really IS all about.
I’ve known people who lived under Hitler and had to “play along” in that atmosphere, and I can tell you that level of fear and never-ending paranoia (literally to the last breath) is nothing like the self-righteous political dissatisfaction suffered by middle class americans (myself included). I might not make ‘lasting changes’ if I protest against war or abortion or what-have-you, but there’s a lot less chance even in today’s climate that I’ll disappear just for having a difference of opinion or wanting to express my individuality.
“how do we know that one or two or three or four generations ago, our government wasn’t already taken over by a totalitarian regime? ”
We’re alive, that’s how.
Explain why cheating on a significant other is so bad without using words like “trust,” “love,” “respect,” or “commitment.”
It could probably be done, but when you omit certain words, you gut the feelings, impulses and values underlying a belief—whether it’s “you shouldn’t cheat” or “totalitarianism is awful.” So why bother when you exclude the very things that matter in the first place? And in this case, what matter are freedom, choice, privacy, and rights.
… speaking of the policeman in your head…
NASA researchers can hear what you’re saying, even when you don’t make a sound.
Well, I warned you that you weren’t going to like it. What can I say? It’s an experiment. Just like everything…
“now. even the ciggarette ads were erudite and thoughtful. ”
Even “four out of five doctors smokme camels?”
I’ve always felt that totalitarianism could only happen in America voluntarily. We’re ornery folk who don’t like being told what to do, but post-9/11 trauma has caused this country to crave a paternalistic state ruling over it.
Now you hear people saying things like, “Illegal wiretapping isn’t bad. If you don’t have anything to hide, then you won’t be spied on…” which is exactly how I predicted it would happen in this country pre-9/11.
IMO totalitarianism is bad because it’s the equivalent (there I go with that word again) of a girl sticking with an abusive boyfriend because her self-esteem is so low. I value individuality but I wouldn’t sacrifice it for anything that made me feel more “secure”– that defeats the whole point of being an individual or independent in the first place.
There’s no way to ever prove if we haven’t already been taken over (CTers talk about the “military-industiral complex” but even they haven’t made a complete transfer of power yet) but then again it doesn’t matter: local politics and government affect us way more than federal laws. That’s why California gets no respect from the Bushies. They tried to get another Pete Wilson in office over here but ended up settling for The Governator, who plays his politics straight down the middle. I know lots of people hate him, but it could’ve been worse: Dan Lungren? Bill Simon? Tom McClintock? All right-wing Nazi seeds that were itching to plant themselves in Sacramento.
What I’m saying is, since most people spend most of their time in one city, your civic duty lies with making sure your own city doesn’t turn into a Stepford Wives-nightmare like up in Calabasas, where the smoking ban is ther harshest in the nation.
I guess for me, the point of this whole post was summed up in the last line, all the stuff about totalitarianism was just the set-up to this realization:
To find out that your worst fears have been realized means there’s nothing left to be afraid of.
The fact that we’re talking about this without being killed or imprisoned and tortured means, as I see it, that we’re not in a totalitarian state right now in America.
I think it’d be pretty damn easy to tell if you lived under real totalitarianism or not.
I would say general cognitive dissonance began with the OSS merging with the Nazi elite… that made everything pretty official to me.
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