LIVING BEHIND THE TRUTH
Bertrand Russell
,
Conspiracy Theories
,
Holocaust
,
Information
,
Nine Eleven
,
Perception
,
realistic
,
Reality
,
society
,
The Analysis of Mind
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“When we perceive any object of a familiar kind, much of what appears subjectively to be immediately given is really derived from past experience. When we see an object, say a penny, we seem to be aware of its 'real' shape: we have the impression of something circular, not of something elliptical. In learning to draw, it is necessary to acquire the art of representing things according to the sensation, not according to the perception. And the visual appearance is filled out with feeling of what the object would be like to touch, and so on." –Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind.
The perception of reality is primarily extracted from the available information. Human society during the course of its development has undergone the change of the perception of reality. Therefore, this perception which was initially based on imaginations, turned to be more realistic. This relatively realistic perception mostly owes to the information system evolved in the development of human society.
Modern
societies live in the era of information technology where the development of
technology has brought information to every corner of the world. Although this
reach of information has done much to clear out the realities behind number of events
yet it has not succeeded in building a realistic approach to every event and happenings.
Yet there are certain matters where the information about reality either not
exist or is vague which create false and ambiguous perceptions.
In
both developed and underdeveloped societies of modern time masses spent most of
their life living behind the truth. They live with their specific perception of
reality. This perception is mostly based on false and exaggerated information. A
huge population in Europe and America don’t believe in the human travel to
moon, the happening of holocaust, the state information of Nine Eleven attack
and many other issues. There are different perceptions on each of these events
where a portion of population is made to believe on one version of truth while
the rest believe on another. These all are happening in the well informed and
well literate societies.
In
developed societies either government or influential groups bring conspiracy
theories to exploit the events. In such societies conspiracy theories emerges
due to lack of trust for authorities and the sources that are exposed with
their false claims. In such circumstances, the lake of concrete information and
distrust creates the environment where conspiracy theories can easily nourish.
Unlike
the developed world, where getting real information is relatively easy, in the
developing world the masses yet struggle to have the basic right to
information. Masses in such societies either entirely or in majority live their
life with false believe and exaggerated information which shapes their
perception of reality in a predefined way. Such societies are hijacked by
certain groups or forces of political and commercial nature. These forces
define the reality about the basic political and social happenings according to
their interest and then this perception is conveyed to the masses. The controlled
system of information also makes it easy for the influential groups to create
and propagandize conspiracy theories.
Conspiracy
theories and false claims have been used for the purpose of both exploiting the
masses and to overthrow oppressing regimes. Powerful groups and states own the institutions
and technologies which they can freely use to propagandize such conspiracy
theories. While the anti-oppression groups have their limited sources but still
their version of conspiracy theories has its own ground. They are mostly successful
in their objectives to reduce the trust on the authorities and shape the public
opinion in a particular way –for a revolution or overthrowing a regime.
In
these both cases the masses are deprived from the real sense of political and social
happenings around them. What they see and what they believe to be the reality
is actually an engineered truth. This version of truth doesn’t satisfy the universal
realities and also don’t give its audience a real account of the events which
make that certain thing to happen. Bertrand Russell writs in his book The
Analysis of Mind, “it is necessary to acquire the art of representing things
according to the sensation not according to the perception.” Therefore, things
must be conveyed according to their existence in the surrounding no according
to the specific perception which we want to build.
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