Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Seeing What's There

 Almost six years ago, I put up a little post that drew from George Orwell's great 1946 essay "In Front of Your Nose." It is well worth reading in this time of the Great Lie. In particular, I like this statement,

The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

When one looks at the all-prevailing schizophrenia of democratic societies, the lies that have to be told for vote-catching purposes, the silence about major issues, the distortions of the press, it is tempting to believe that in totalitarian countries there is less humbug, more facing of the facts. There, at least, the ruling groups are not dependent on popular favour and can utter the truth crudely and brutally. Goering could say ‘Guns before butter’, while his democratic opposite numbers had to wrap the same sentiment up in hundreds of hypocritical words.

Actually, however, the avoidance of reality is much the same everywhere, and has much the same consequences. The Russian people were taught for years that they were better off than everybody else, and propaganda posters showed Russian families sitting down to abundant meal while the proletariat of other countries starved in the gutter. Meanwhile the workers in the western countries were so much better off than those of the U.S.S.R. that non-contact between Soviet citizens and outsiders had to be a guiding principle of policy. Then, as a result of the war, millions of ordinary Russians penetrated far into Europe, and when they return home the original avoidance of reality will inevitably be paid for in frictions of various kinds. The Germans and the Japanese lost the war quite largely because their rulers were unable to see facts which were plain to any dispassionate eye.

Read it. It is cleanser for the soul.

8 comments:

  1. Orwell describes in that essay what would become the concept of “Double Think” in his much wider known work. While we don’t have the term Double Think in our vernacular. There is Cognitive Dissidence which is pretty much the basic requirement for being progressive leftist. The leftist position on gender demonstrates cognitive dissidence brilliantly. I am perfectly fine with other people’s mental illness, but I won’t play along.

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  2. Good catch Sal,
    can't wait to read
    the Orwell piece~~~
    My favorite Psychiatrists
    nowadays are Niles & Frasier Craine,
    an enlightening and entertaining pair,
    now in reruns on cheap TV, just what
    the Doctor ordered for world weary
    saviors, savants, n' sailors~~~
    On watch~~~
    "Cognitive dissonance" is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things. According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent. The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.

    https://www.dogpile.com/serp?q=Cognitive+Disonence&sc=53Q94PTTDPcI10

    "Let's Roll"

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    Replies
    1. Here from the
      "American Thinker"
      The Concepts are
      contrasted which
      may clarify, the
      distinctions~~~
      OW~~~

      February 8, 2015
      Cognitive Dissidents
      By Clarice Feldman
      In psychology, cognitive dissonance refers to the fact that people holding two different inconsistent views or those being confronted with information contrary to their beliefs suffer discomfort and try to find some kind of internal consistency. “Cognitive dissidents,” a phrase used by one Facebook savant, has an unknown meaning. I’d dub it the ranks of those like myself who stubbornly oppose the prevailing ideas of the power elites no matter how tarted up and widespread they are.

      Like those much younger than I, I cannot bear to watch TV news and so perhaps I have built up immunity to the pap the media elites spout.

      TV (and, of course, cable) news is not well suited to cover topics more complicated than weather, sports, and traffic. More complicated stories -- which is to say the really important things we need to know -- cannot easily be reported in pictures. So they aren’t covered at all well in that medium or they are misreported often by employing phony theatrics to entertain their viewers and engage them in the selected narrative.

      https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/02/cognitive_dissidents.html

      "Let's Roll"

      Delete
    2. OK. I'm another cognitive dissident surrounded by people mired in cognitive dissonance.

      Delete
    3. There you go, Mr. K~~~
      Let it all out, you'll
      be at your best self,
      before Sundown~~~
      3-cheers & a High-5 for
      Billy Sunday & the USA too
      Batter Up~~~
      OW~~~

      "Let's Roll"

      Delete
  3. "I have chronicled above, all finally traceable
    to a secret belief that one's political
    opinions, unlike the weekly budget,
    will not have to be tested
    against solid reality." -GO

    Ahso, but when finally examined,
    we begin to realize how costly
    'Foggy Bottom'ed damaged goods
    especially Girls like Vicky N.
    can quickly become a harridan
    of doom, when left to her
    lame brain solutions for
    repair of historical
    familial psychosis~~~

    On Watch~~~
    Beware, Crazy
    Women out there:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8tZO97uhyE

    "Let's Roll"

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    Replies
    1. ~~~OW~~~
      ...P.S.
      At Long Last,
      I've gotten it
      off my Chest &
      I feel like...
      Mr. CLEAN ;=)
      w/an Ear Ring
      and a haircut
      2 bits ~~~

      Delete
  4. Thursday, April 7, 2022
    Seeing What remains...

    On the brite side, we're still
    here!~~~
    Alas and alack, on the dark side
    so are our sworn enemies & assorted
    shmucks, running the country into hell
    or highwater! A Case in point, made by
    Rep Matt Gaetz and fumbled by the Sec of Def.
    at the House Armed Services Committee hearing

    “You guys have been blowing a lot of calls lately on matters of strategy, Mr. Secretary. You guys told us Russia couldn’t lose. You told us the Taliban couldn’t immediately win. So I guess I’m wondering: What in the $787 billion you’re requesting today is going to help you make assessments that are accurate in the face of so many blown calls?”

    Mr. Austin initially responded by saying he would let the Pentagon’s budget request “speak for itself,” but he responded forcefully when Mr. Gaetz then charged that Russia and China are outpacing the U.S. in hypersonic weapons development.

    “What do you mean we’re behind in hypersonics? How do you make that assessment?” Mr. Austin said.

    “I don’t know. I make that assessment because China is fielding hypersonic weapons systems and we are still developing them,” Mr. Gaetz replied. “I make that assessment because Russia actually used one.”

    “While everyone else in the world seems to be developing capabilities and being more strategic,” Mr. Gaetz continued, “we’ve got time to embrace critical race theory at West Point, to embrace socialism at the National Defense University, to do mandatory pronoun training” in the military.

    Mr. Austin then responded with an explosive accusation of his own.

    “Again, this is the most capable, the most combat-credible force in the world. It has been and it will be so going forward,” he said. “And this budget helps us to do that. The fact that you’re embarrassed by your country … I’m sorry for that.”

    “I’m embarrassed by your leadership,” Mr. Gaetz responded. “I’m not embarrassed by my country. I wish we were not losing to China. That is so disgraceful that you would sit here and conflate your failures with the failure of the uniformed service members.”

    And so it goes...
    almost enough to make
    a Patriot think, of the
    strategic value of National
    Isolation, sort of 'Rope a Dope'
    tactical moves, to get the SOBs close
    enough, to distinguisn Friend from Foe
    in order to, clobber the Bastids better~~~

    On Watch
    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/5/lloyd-austin-matt-gaetz-fiery-hearing-clash-youre-/

    "Let's Roll"

    ReplyDelete