The importance of language
Language is a mechanism where symbols and words are exchanged between individuals to communicate and express what they feel and think. Language, throughout the years, has made it easier for our communities to evolve peacefully by using negotiations, and avoiding looting as well as violent reactions when there is a misunderstanding. However, language can also be corrupted with the goal of controlling individuals. Language is defined as:
The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way. | Source
Using language as an instrument for political control can end up dividing, deceiving and confusing a lot of people. It is common to see some governments with totalitarian tendencies with an emotional speech, trying to trigger the sensitive side of the people, creating an enemy to blame for anything that goes wrong and further exploiting these circumstance to manipulate historical facts for their benefit. These leaders always manage to position themselves above the law, gaining a sort of mystical aura for the naive followers.
For years Venezuelan politicians has been using a style of communication where they are constantly disrespecting and even insulting anyone who doesn’t support them, clearly dividing the country in two, and developing what looks like a strong bond with only one part of the country. This way, any action they take will always be justified by a significant proportion of the people, regarding if what they are doing is moral or not, so much so that it begins to degenerate into a modern totalitarian system, obtaining undemocratic results through “democratic” means.
Since it surely must be difficult to use force and violence because there are many ways to expose the violent events when there is abuse coming from the government, they identify the need to resort to language as a method of controlling people’s perception (although this doesn’t completely stop them from using physical oppression).
This is part of a long process where lies are abundant to change the history and explain facts in a distorted way in order to influence the present and the future. The goal of this is to confuse, making it difficult for people to understand the basics of what is affecting the country.
Dividing the people can easily increase the hostility and throwing insults can end up being a common occurrence, little by little, the people supporting the government start to dehumanize everyone who thinks different. It also serves to glorify the leaders, so that the whole country observes them as beings that are above any regular person, and that there is no doubt every single one of their ideas is justified because they believe it will bring general welfare and a lot of happiness for the society and even to the world.
One example of this dehumanization came from a government official called Roy Chanderton, when he said that the heads of any member from the opposition were empty and therefore, a bullet wouldn’t make any sound when going through it. It sounds very harsh, but it really happened in a government sponsored TV show:
“The sound produced in a squalid head is like a click because the skull is empty. So it goes through fast,” he said with a smirk on a late-night state TV chat show. | Source
Notice the term “squalid”, this is a common way they have to refer to anyone who doesn’t support them. This hate is obviously transmitted and later on, adopted by the population. There is not a day when government people don’t try to dehumanize the opposition.
On the other hand, to solve the supposed economic war, help the people, save humanity from the "cruel capitalism", and bring joy and happiness to everyone, the leader cannot be a regular human anymore, it must be a kind of supreme being with superior capabilities, and just as the language is used to attack, insult and dehumanize anyone who doesn’t support the government, it is also used to glorify their leaders. Everything from paintings, statues, songs are employed as means to exaggerate the qualities of their leaders. In the case of Chavez they literally called him “supreme commander”, sort of like a cult, or perhaps, it is precisely like a cult.
Therefore, it is clear there is a great challenge that consists in stopping this type of manipulative language because this is not something that is made with good intentions. This is a strategy designed to control the language of individuals and in that way, manipulate their perception of reality, because for example, when people talk about a “fair price” (which is a term used by the government to justify their intervention in the market, causing stores to go bankrupt), people don’t mention the reasoning behind that fair price, probably they don’t even understand it, all they care is that its purpose is to solve the economic disaster, and by adopting this interpretation then it certainly seems like a positive thing to implement, without really thinking about the implications a controlled price could have in the hypothetical store. It is important to remember that having a currency exchange control creates a lot of economic distortions that aren’t easy to handle, and businesses have end up in bankruptcy due to strictly controlled prices of certain products. There are even groups of government supporters that organize themselves using social media and especially twitter, and they join forces to report and sabotage any store selling products without a “fair price”, this will probably escalate in the coming days after the new economic measures announced recently are reflected in the market. In short words, these economic measures can be summarized like this:
In addition to lopping five zeros off of Venezuela’s unit of account, the sovereign bolivar is supposed to be linked to the petro, Venezuela’s cryptocurrency, which is supposed to be anchored to a barrel of oil. So, if the sovereign bolivar works as advertised, Venezuela would move from issuing an irredeemable fiat currency to issuing a commodity-backed redeemable currency. | Source
The impact of this will begin in Monday 20 of August, and Tuesday 21 of August. So it is very likely major news about Venezuela are going to be released very soon.
Conclusion
Totalitarian governments are always in search for any method they can use to keep the people under control, manipulating them through the use of language is a very effective way because it doesn’t require violence nor it requires many resources, it only requires practice when expressing certain ideas in a certain way to achieve a particular impact on people’s psyche, and obviously the only way to stop this is to be aware of it, and being capable of identifying these manipulations before they start to have any kind of influence.
Authored by: @dedicatedguy
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Totalitarian governments develop mass propaganda and perfect the art of misinformation and manipulation. Propaganda uses all the media of communication: press, poster, radio, cinema, It always simplifies the doctrine in some striking slogans repeated tirelessly, it glorifies the chief.
Those regimes also organize large gatherings of crowds, parades and ceremonies. On the other hand, the intellectual and artistic life must be integrated into the project of the ideology, the creation is thus strictly controlled.
Yes they do.
Even if they can't, they can manipulate the pictures and virtually add more people to their gatherings. They have done this in Venezuela.
Politicians who insult others by any means should have not been elected in the first place. However, I believe there is a difference if you're stating a fact but it should be addressed in a nicely manner.
Also the prevalence of fake news massively influenced others believe in what these people wanted the society to believe. If you're just an ordinary citizen and don't know much knowledge about fake news, you won't be able to identify which is true.
It's hard to believe news today but it is good that there are schools starting to teach students how to identify a fake news. As much as language can be learned, being deceptive can also be learned just as how people has freedom to their opinion.
These days we don't have leaders. We have politicians for whom politics is a profession. These people don't know anything except dividing people. They cannot do any other business. Politics is bread earner for them. It also keep them safe from the consequences of their felonies and crimes. These shameless people know that public can be motivated by exploiting its emotion. So, they use such words and use such language which instigates a sense of pride or sense of hatred in the minds of people. They create false enemies. Nationalism is a common word for them. They use this word to mark their opponents as the enemy of the nation. In this way they can trample anyone who comes in their way.
But in my view public is the worst enemy of its own. I will not blame everything on politicians. They are doing what their profession demands from them. Can you expect a butcher to be merciful? How will he earn if he become non-violent? So, politicians are just like butchers who are working for a defined goal but I will blame the public for this sorts of things. Why it become follower of corrupt politicians? Why it blindly follow and support anything what politicians tell? In any form of government nobody can rule without the consent of the public. Why public send their sons and daughters in armies? Why armies are revered? Just to keep people slave?
This situation is present in every country and blind nationalism (jingoism) is the root cause of this problem. Especially in democratic countries no politician can be more vicious than the public.
1984 by George Orwell explored a lot of these ideas. When the government gains control of things like language, they can warp even basic facts to suit their agenda, and you can bet they will do exactly that.
You might think the internet would prevent this kind of propaganda, but that's only partly true. It allows real time and many times anonymous dissent from the published messages, but that can be counteracted by censorship. That is why freedom of speech needs to be protected; it's one of the last defenses against mass indoctrination and group think.
Sadly that's not the case for everyone, but it does makes the job more difficult for the government.
Of course, it is one of the most basic freedom that should be cherished, in Venezuela a lot of people supported the repression against the opposition, even some TV channels were closed for criticizing the government.
Happy to read @adsactly rich contents again as cheperoned by @dedicatedguy. Very dedicated indeed by flawlessly x- raying how Language , as good an invention as it is , is being deployed b for pecuniary purposes by Venezuelan " POLITRICTIANS" to the chagrin of majority of the citizenry!!
Here in Nigeria, Africa, the same is the Norm as "POLITRICIANS"has polarised the Nation, by their choice of language into divides of North Versus South; Christian Versus Moslems ; Tribes Versus Tribes; The Poor Versus the Rich.
In all these, the politicians who cut across the divides are the only Financial and Political beneficiary of these dichotomy.
It is a real shame the amount of people that can be manipulated through these means.
That's their final goal, to enrich themselves by stealing the money from the country.
Very apt!!
Perhaps the goal is to confuse people about what’s true and what is not. Sometimes, it’s easier to believe all these lies governments are feeding us all over the world. Not in Venezuela only. In Venezuela are people who believe anything the government says, even if it’s complete lie and there are people who won’t believe a word no matter what. Devided countries are all over the world when it come to politics.
Have you heard about new curency in Venezuela? I just read about it. Do they really think new curency will solve all problems? Perhaps, it’s the first step of many.
You are totally right with this.
You are right, and the amount of people who don't believe them is growing by a lot.
Of course I have my friend, another fraudulent strategy that will fail as it always does.
Maybe the most extreme supporters of the government really believe that, but the majority knows that problems won't get solved as long as they remain in power.
Good job! I am Venezuelan and this post seemed amazing to me, reflects very well my thoughts on the methods that this government has used for years. My vote today is not worth much, but you know that you have my support, I really appreciate that you write about this. I'm sorry to have to use a translator xD
I am glad you agree with the article @alixboom!
Manipulation through language is something historical, of yesteryear, even more so if we talk about totalitarian governments. It is true that those who handle the reality of a country can control everything. It is not only the scope of politics, but of any social sphere in which the way of speaking is aimed at manipulation. Sometimes this way of influencing brings with it a certain hatred and resentment to those who think differently, the bad part of all this is intolerance for the other. Very good your Publication. Following you
Agree, manipulation can cover subjects beyond politics. Thanks for your kind words.
The people will still take sides for the government until a successful revolution had established a government different from the current government in Venezuela. @adsactly
That's a difficult thing to achieve, but eventually it should end up happening dear @cryptopie.
Thanks for stopping by.
me ha encantado tu publicacion, este contenido vale la pena leerlo, saludos!
Acertado el artículo en su totalidad, es el día a día de todos los venezolanos, como bien lo dejo el ex-ministro de educación Hector Rodriguez: No podemos sacar los de la pobreza porque se volverán escuálidos; La pobreza va de la mano con la ignorancia. Mientras más ilusos más dominable, más manejables.
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Language is a tool and a weapon, for some people.
@dedicatedguy and @adsactly, For sure words have power and sometimes i feel that the Ancient Art Language was more better because in my opinion for sure in the current phase of time Words are used to divide and to hurt and that is really unfortunate for sure.
And yes, in my opinion this is the very old Phenomenon and Strategy to use the Divide and Rule so that few people can hold the complete control and these politicians know that when people divides then for sure it becomes easy to control and influence them.
And another most biggest drawback in my opinion is, Biased System Of Money and that means, if you have more money then you can hold more privileges than others and that means people who lack money they can be dominated easily and that's really unfortunate and most painful aspect.
And if we observe then in current phase of time Freedom Of Speech just stayed as saying and there is no freedom of speech and if anyone raise true points against any Government then they will be called as Traitors. First of all people forgetting their rights and their own importance that's why they are getting dominated so, every individual should wake up to bring the change.
Wishing you an great day and stay blessed.
Buen trabajo
GREAT POST. Your post become flame in the darkness. Your describing about your country full of hope and I pray for the better life in venezuela.
wherever they are, every power will always try to maintain it. Especially in a totaliarian country, of course the ruler will instill maximum propaganda for every step and their efforts. Often lies and manipulations are done to gain the trust of the community.
Such a government has a strong channel to recommend their programs. They will convey to the people and the world as if they have done development successfully.
if there is a group that criticizes it will certainly be muzzled and no channel to express opinions because they are a form of threat that can sometimes be a plot.
The totaliarian government tried to maintain a safe and controlled position. therefore usually they will control semura of telecommunication facilities. Freedom of the press is something that is very difficult and expensive, almost nonexistent.
The most likely way to break through this barrier is internet media. but even then it is still very difficult to make major changes due to strict government controls.
but I, including those who believe that change will inevitably and must occur. It's just how we move to continue to recommend our independence. If the support of the people who feel oppressed is getting stronger then just waiting for the time for people power will overthrow the tyrannical power.
Thank you @dedicatedguy
Thank you @adsactly
Thank you steemit
Warm regard from Indonesia