In theoretical terms, individuals should always put reality first if they had to make a choice between it and a simple fictitious appearance or reality. In practice, however, the opposite is true. Appearance is a fundamental factor for individuals above reality itself. Philosophically there is as such no paradox in this problem, but with regard to the possible reasons that causes individuals to put fiction above reality and truthfulness if it could be of great interest for analysis.
Lies are nothing more than simple appearances that do not seem to be, and that is the advantage they have, that they cover up the truth under a disguise full of dirt and dust. These lies always have some other quality that makes them valuable and interesting, usuall,y they always tend to exaggerate to create these factors that cause an attraction effect for others.
Richard P. Feynman, the most brilliant physicist of the second half of the last century was recognized as a scientist who did not give in to any convenience, was part of the commission that tried to explain the failure of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986, a spectacular and spectacular explosion that shook the world and jeopardized NASA's ambitious spending plans.
The commissioners were inclined towards some sort of political dissimulation, and Feynman, who disagreed with that strategy, demanded that what had happened to be published in full and independently. His final words have been repeated many times since then because they express a truth that he was trying to hide:
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.This case is a clear example of the virtue between different worldviews. A fundamental difference between a virtuous policy and one that is not. In real science, lies have little chance of prospering because competition and the critical spirit of scientists prevail over any absurd appearance that will end up being revealed, therefore the moral principle on which the scientist bases himself will always be the truth; in politics, on the contrary, the appearance in the form of a story or narrative becomes a force that by its own weight always ends up being revealed, unlike scientific reality, politicians opt for deception and swindling biased by power because the will to impose themselves, partisanship, prevails. Politics is not based on self-critical questioning or deep reflection.
Deception is a recurrent strategy of the political class to keep anyone who is a dissident at bay, it is based on an anti-moral precept that dirties people's souls. Therefore, I find it necessary to remember the phrase of the one who was once the sixteenth president of the United States and remembered as one of the greatest presidents in history, Abraham Lincoln, who said the following:
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.Truth and nature are common to all, but words can be used to hide it, to impose the language of interest, which is partisan by definition, and those who benefit from it end up constituting an undoubted force that ends up subjugating others, who are subject to progressive indoctrination through the control of social spaces theoretically destined for conversation and free discussion among equals. It is surprising how the profession of journalism once charged with reporting the truth and nothing but the truth has become a curtain that covers all the deceptions of politicians, a mere tool within the reach of the factual powers that decide to deceive and submerge individuals in the misery of unique thought. And as if that were not enough, the final strategy of use by political deception is the inclusion in education plans, which is responsible for imparting only their respective doctrines, the final step to achieve the desired and necessary social control.
This is the key to the predominance that we want to impose with more and more force in group policies, in the impulses towards privilege, always starting from a cause of injustice, and when this does not exist they invent it. It is not for the same reason that today there are so many problems adjacent to reality that are based on mere subjective emotions of individuals. By belonging to a group and making that fact a feeling of identity, the members of that group feel able to impose their preferences as something natural, stop perceiving the portion of privilege that may be in their demands and impose their public relations on the political agenda making those who do not share them feel guilty, including them, whether they like it or not, in the group of oppressors, of liars. This is how this dynamic works, with full independence from justice and courage.
These group demands tend to become irresistible in mass societies in which individuals do not constitute more than a dissident factor that must be eliminated because by not thinking as a collective, the individual is more likely to make use of self-reflective and critical thinking in order to decipher the deception promoted by political leaders. For the collective, the individual is an enemy from which one must try to defend oneself by forming part of a sufficiently aggressive collective with a common identity. This dynamic is far from the ideals that were sponsored by the great authors of the Enlightenment, the movement with the greatest significance for humanity. The collective repudiates both sapere aude and free thought in such a way that it can configure a society that, as in the case of Aldous Huxley's The Happy World, is, at the same time, ironically submitted to the design of a few, and usually unknown, but, in exchange, feels very comfortable and free, because it is subject to chains that seem to him of his choice.
To be before appearing is a courageous motto with which very few dare to be consistent. Lying is one of the most powerful cancers, and appearance is what most ordinary people value without much concern. That is why it is so important to say that one has a legal master's degree without really having reflected on the concepts or even really knowing a word about law, one claims to have a will to serve when one wants to hide the most rapacious spirit, or one wants to boast of being a liberal being an authoritarian who seeks the social vindication of the collective and puts the interests of some above those of those who are sceptical and make use of reflective thought so as not to be deceived.
We should be concerned about living in a country where celebrities are paid homage for no good reason, where prestige is given to real big mouths, and where the critical spirit has practically disappeared, if ever really materialized. We have a history against us, a non-bright past in which a more otodoxic and dogmatic culture sponsored by religions has predominated, more baroque than empirical, skeptical and scientific, in which the preference for any pope over philosophers like Socrates or Emmanuel Kahn has tended to be more than a simple paradox.
Ernest Hemingway talks about a militiaman dispatching a well-intentioned Anglican missionary telling him that, if he has not believed in the true religion, he will not believe in the one they are telling him. It always seemed curious to me how fiction has more notion of reality than the vast majority of societies in the world who seem to have abandoned that true religion of which the militiaman spoke, but it is to be feared that he is not having the same freedom of spirit against the various religions that now assault him promising them the paradise of moral cleanliness that constitutes self-critical thinking, those who defend truth with strength and courage, those whose concept of life lies among the main ideals: Virtue, truth and freedom.
Delivered to a welfare state, we can become easy victims for those who control it by abusing the good faith of the common, of citizens insufficiently protected against the empire of appearance for lack of critical dexterity against the lying allegations with which they seek to control us.
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