Exposed by numerous sites, it has been revealed that Congressional staffers have been editing Wikipedia articles.
Have you been reading your Aldous Huxley?
Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too -- all his life long. The mind that judges and desire and decides-made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions... Suggestions from the State.
I think this is where Huxley got it right and Orwell got it wrong -- the future seems to revolve around conditioning humans into subservence rather than forcing them into it. Too bad Wikipedia already blocked their IP address....
This IP has been previously blocked. It's currently unblocked as feedback from users by this IP is expected at the request for comment page. It belongs to Information Systems, U.S. House of Representatives and is responsible for a large amount of vandalism.
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Comments (2)
I think the difference between the Huxley quote and the present reality is the absense of a unified suggestion. Huxley's State projects a unified message, whereas Wiki-gate (yes, I just coined that) exemplifies a more decentralized type of propaganda.
Truth, particularly in politics, is no longer based on facts or evidence. Truth is a PR campaign... a battle of ideas. It doesn't matter what you say, as long as you scream it louder and more frequently than anyone else (or in this case, whisper it quietly in thousands of ears).
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari | January 30, 2006 6:30 PM
I agree with your point about truth and that there is no unified 'conditioning', but how do the majority of Americans make TV = fact, or news = truth, or opinion = verdict. You could argue that most humans are sheep, but they still have a thought process that rationalizes them turning into sheep. I end up sounding like an elitist liberal, but I don't see a way escaping the fact that a lot of people directly or implicity accept a lot of falacies about the world without hesitation.
So, in summary, does truth just become a media battle, separate from sincerity or fact?
Posted by Alec | January 31, 2006 12:34 PM