Propagandist points to False component

Most of the time for most people in most circumstances the Writer/Reader/Transmitter attempts to be as unambiguous as possible in order to communicate the most clearly with the least misunderstanding. In this context a good Writer creates images and ideas that are clear as possible.

The values are exactly opposite for the Masters of Deception. They are attempting to use words in as an ambiguous fashion as possible to lead the People to make faulty assumptions. Unfortunately the first faulty assumption is that we are human. The Lie Masters play this misconception like a virtuoso - threatening and rewarding the Person with materialism or lack thereof. On the other hand Direct Experience shows us that leading our lives with integrity is far more important because it leads to peace of mind. While most of us have experienced the material rush of new things, it is temporary and rarely leads to anything but the desire for another material rush. Eventually this abusive materialist cycle transforms the Human into an insatiable addict for Things.

While the Propagandist are guiding us the Public to understand the false component of their statements, most of us hope that our Listeners understand the true component of our statements. As an example, the Propagandists hope that the Public associate Politicians, who favor social programs for the good of the working classes at the expense of the wealthy, with raising taxes on workers and give away programs to the poor. While most of us want the facts to determine the ‘truth’ for ourselves, the Propagandists point away from any facts which might undermine any of the half truths they are trying to convey.

While the Words of this Text betray an unmistakable political bias, the intent of the words is to inspire the Reader to explore his underlying assumptions which make him a slave of his cultural conditioning. If instead the Reader gets hung up on the politics, attempting to attribute truth or falsehood to the words then the Writer has failed in his attempt to point past the words to the process of self examination.

For Most People Words Either True or False

Most people think of words as either True or False rather than as having a true and false component.

 

      Words = T Or F; Not (Words = T And F)

 

A Liar speaks False Words, while an Honest Person speaks True Words. Under this way of thinking the character of the Speaker becomes as important as the content of the words.

The Listener evaluates the ‘personality’ of the Speaker/Writer rather than questioning the words themselves --

Is the Speaker to be Trusted?

If Yes, then his words are to be trusted.

 

      If (Speaker = Trust) Then (Words = True)

 

If No, then his words aren’t to be trusted.

 

      If (Speaker = ~Trust) Then (Words = False)

 

‘As good as his Word’ - is an expression of integrity.

This view holds that the truth or falsehood is in the words themselves. The speaker has a choice - between using True Words or False Words. He either tells the Truth in which case he is Honest or he uses false words, in which case he is a Liar.

Under this viewpoint true and false are mutually exclusive. The false Statement has no truth in it. While the Truth statement has no falseness in it. All Statements are either true or false or meaningless.

Verbal Truth neither discrete, nor continuous, instead based in intention of Speaker

Let us represent this by 1 for Truth, -1 for Falsehood, 0 for no meaning.

For many people statements can only exist in these three states. The more sophisticated might turn these three points into a continuum, where a statement might be more or less true or false, such as a little white lie.

The first 3 point model is mathematically based. An Answer is either right or wrong absolutely. With the continuum model the statement can include the mathematical absolute right and wrong as well as the continuum. For mostly false - to equally true and false, which some mistakenly call meaningless - to mostly true on the other side.

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The illusion that this way of thinking is based on is that the Listener/Reader understands exactly what the Writer/ Speaker has to say.

But, as mentioned, words have an inherent ambiguity. Translating experience to ideas and then to words in the Writer’s mind and then for the Reader to translate these same words into the same experience that the Writer had, is fraught with potential misunderstanding at each stage along the way.

Hence instead of 3 points, i.e. 1, 0, -1, or even a line - which makes a statement more of less false in a continuum - our model suggest that every statement has both a true and false component and that the truth or falsehood is primarily based upon the intentionality of the Speaker and had less to do with the words themselves, which are fairly neutral.

The simpler the statement the more likely this is true. The more complex the statement the less likely this is true.

Hence the confusion.

The ‘Take out the Trash’ Example

Let’s examine a specific instance.

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“Take out the trash.”

This statement when used frequently between two humans - takes on a fairly exact meaning - between these 2 humans, at least. Add another human, who doesn’t understand the language or vernacular, and the statements or context immediately becomes meaningless or ambiguous.

While the words and intention of the Speaker haven’t changed the Listener’s ability to receive has changed. For the Listener who doesn’t understand English the words are meaningless.

For the Listener who has never heard of a weekly trash pick up - The words, which he understands, are misleading. He thinks he is being asked to take the trash outside the house - For what reason he can’t possibly fathom, unless the following words were added as a modifier

“And put it in the trash can.”

‘+1’         ->    Receive and Understand

‘0’           ->    Not Receive and Not Understand

‘+1/2’     ->    Receive and Partial Understanding

‘-1’         ->    Receive and Mis-Understanding

In the ‘trash can’ scenario, the Listener who took out the trash and put it in the trash can would be given a score of ‘+1’. The Listener who didn’t understand the language would be given a ‘0’. We might give partial credit of ‘+1/2’ to the individual who just took the trash outside, because he understood the content but not the context. His behavior was half right. The ‘-1’ score could be reserved for an idiot who took the trash out for dinner - or the teenager who misunderstood completely thinking that his mother was finally approving his trashy girlfriend.

And this is just for a simple statement. The point is that the words are neutral, while the Reader’s ability to receive and understand is of far more importance -

Pretending to Understand

Piling misunderstanding on top of misunderstanding.

Another misconception is that people speaking the same language understand each other completely. While everyone understands the problems of a Language barrier to communication - this is obvious - most of us assume that if a person knows the language of the words that they also understand the meaning - this despite much experimental evidence to the contrary.

To further this delusion most of us pretend to understand even if we don’t. We listen carefully hoping to comprehend the meaning of the Speaker thru the context of his consequent words. We might have been day dreaming - couldn’t hear - new lingo was used - unfamiliar people, places, or situations referred to - These are all simple ways that we might not understand the Speaker, altho we’re fluent in his language.

Through this mechanism of pretending to understand when we don’t, we further the illusion that each of us understand each other completely and accurately.

While we just cited some simplistic examples of pretending to understand, more complex situations arise when more complex words are used. Words like patriotism. liberal, conservative, freedom, drugs, welfare, success and failure, love and hate, are thrown around like everyone has the same definition of these familiar terms.

There are two flaws to common understanding inherent to this interaction. The first is that the Speaker and Listener might have different definitions of the same word, which have been determined personally. Fate, Destiny, Free will, Pain and Suffering, are all words which might have personalized definitions. The second flaw is that the Speaker and Listener might have only vague definitions of the words they are throwing around with such alacrity.

This is the worst scenario, because Speaker and Listener think they know what they are talking about and that they understand each other completely when neither has any idea what they are really meaning or saying. This is the worst because both Speaker and Listener think they understand each other and know what’s going on. This is contrary to the previous scenario, when the Speaker knew what he was saying and the Listener was consciously pretending to understand. In the case where both think they understand, they are incredibly resistant to external clarification. This is the scenario the Propagandist thrives on.

Summary

With all these words we are just trying to demonstrate two basic faulty underlying assumptions that can easily lead to a false transmission between people speaking the same language and belonging to the same generation and culture. 1) The first is that a Direct and Exact Transmission occurs regularly between Speaker and Listener. 2) The second is that there exists an inherent truth and falsity in the words, themselves, independent of the Speaker and Listener.

We attempted to show that exact verbal transmission is next to impossible because of the many layers of separation between the experience, the verbalization, the reception and then the response. Because of this inherent ambiguity, we suggested that each word or statement has a true and false component, which can be elicited by investigation, not by the assumption of common understanding, which is incredibly subjective. Remember that the only issue in communication is whether the intended message is received and understood, not whether the Reader knows the literal meaning of the words.

While flying against our common misconceptions - based on a general understanding - perhaps rooted in our Western culture - with its alphabetized Dictionaries - which imply that words are content rather than context based - this relativistic model exposes misunderstanding and ambiguity, leading to clarification and comprehension. While this seems to be piling complexity upon top of complexity this approach simplifies rather than confuses, which is the purpose of Propaganda. Hence this approach is heavily resisted by the Masters of Deception because it exposes their game and undermines their power. They bleat out the false component of relativism, which is that anything goes, rather the true component of relativism, which requires investigation into the corrupted underlying motivations of humanity. The Beast fights hardest when threatened with destruction.

 

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