Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), considered one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th century, was best known for her writings regarding the nature of power and evil, politics (which can be one and the same), and totalitarianism. Arendt spoke about extraordinary cases in which an entire society is being lied to consistently … unrelenting assertions of false or misleading information in a calculated attempt to deceive the populace.
Born into a German-Jewish family, Arendt had firsthand experience with tyrannical persecution under Hitler’s regime when the government-controlled nearly all aspects of life. She was eventually forced to leave Germany in 1933 – relocating to Paris for eight years–before immigrating to the United States in 1941 in the midst of World War II.
Arendt said the consequences of such unconstrained lying are “not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.”
Isn’t that precisely where we’re at today?
“Fake news” or “yellow journalism” (journalism that is based upon half-truths, sensationalism, crude exaggeration or “let’s make-believe”), with its incessant and deliberate misinformation broadcast 24/7, spreads its hoaxes via traditional print, broadcast news or online social media; often deflecting attention from uncomfortable truths and facts; i.e., reality.
Zach Vorhies, noted Google whistleblower, draws parallels between Google’s Machine Learning Fairness program and a number of classic books warning about how a totalitarian regime can take over by seizing control of what constitutes “political correctness” and indeed the overall narrative of “reality” itself; which, in a nutshell, is exactly what Google is doing on a daily basis.
A Google senior software engineer for eight years, Vorhies said he decided to come forward after realizing something “dark and nefarious” was going on with the giant among tech giants.
“I saw that they were making really quick moves …that they were intending to sculpt the information landscape so that they could create their own version of what was objectively true,” Vorhies said.
Vladimir Lenin, founder, and leader of an authoritarian regime responsible for political repression–certainly a controversial and highly divisive historical figure–guaranteed, “A lie told often enough becomes truth.”
This belief was central to Lenin’s proliferation of the communist ideology in Russia, leading to the development of a variant of Marxism known as Leninism. This same sinister evildoer also guaranteed, “Give us the child for eight years, and it will be a Bolshevik [member of the Communist Party] forever.” Hmm, as noted by Canadian-born investigative journalist Maryam Henein, “Google has become a digital thought police”– just as described in chilling detail in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.
Applying 21st century terminology, “technofascism,” a form of despotism that uses modern technologies to attain its ends, Henein says, “Part of technofascism is to confuse people, so their sense of memory is altered. They don’t know what is real and what is not real.”
Henein warns, “We’re now living in confusing times with fake news and alternative facts, and that is all part of it,” …basically, echoing Hannah Arendt’s words half a century earlier.
Vorhies agrees, saying, “The ultimate plan is to make you doubt your own memory and thus teach you to turn to the established authorities to learn ‘the facts,’ which will be whatever is considered best in the moment.”
As Orwell described in his haunting narrative penned from the confines of a bleak Scottish outpost in the desolate aftermath of the Second World War, “The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.”
Orwell’s long-time friend and publisher, Fredric Warburg, upon reading the manuscript of George Orwell’s novel, when it reached London in mid-December 1948, categorized Nineteen Eighty-Four as “amongst the most terrifying books I have ever read.”
Centuries before Orwell authored his prophetic words, the Apostle Paul made a similar profession, writing to the church in the Greek port city of Thessalonica, “Since they refuse to trust truth, they’re banished to their chosen world of lies and illusions.” (II Thessalonians 2:9 MSG)
“The more that a society drifts from the truth; the more it will hate those that speak it …for, in a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell
Former Cook County Commissioner Garry Gamble is writing this ongoing column about the various ways government works, as well as other topics. At times the column is editorial in nature.
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