Photo Credit: Pixaby
When I first started this blog site over (OMG!!!) ten years ago—2014, I wrote a blog post titled, “Science and Society.” Those ten years seemed like two. So, I thought I’d go back and see how some of the earliest posts held up to the test of time. Of course, I would hope that my writing would improve in a decade, but I was writing long before ten year ago. So, anyway, here goes. This is the decade later parallel sequel to the blog post from July 28, 2014, with changes and updates here, additions and clarifications there, implications for the near future everywhere.
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The world has become so complex these days that it is often hard to find solid ground to stand on. The barrage of all kinds of claims to the truth is unrelenting, but rarely uplifting or clarifying. Not only arguments of fact and complex detail are muddied or misrepresented—facts, it seems, are now denied outright despite overwhelming evidence, instead of being debated on the evidence or logic–but subtle and not so subtle images of glory or destruction compete for our attention.
Every manner of powerful economic or political interest attempts to influence our emotions as a way to get our intellect to follow. Images often have more emotional impact on our perceptions and beliefs; they exert more power than words do. The words that do have power are empowered largely because of their emotional impact. Think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and grifter Donald Trump. Both have shown great emotional impact despite being so extremely different in motives, as well as their contrast in the compassion of one versus the ruthlessness of the other.
We are bombarded with, in Carl Sagan’s words, “pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.” That is also called anti-intellectualism, that is, denial of the power of the mind to apply evidence to figure out facts, and appropriate actions as well. Some especially egregious congressional apologists for ‘climate denial’ come to mind. But it is only when we recognize propaganda and weigh it against the available evidence that we can retain our sanity and make reasoned decisions.
Propaganda is everywhere. Marketing is its most pervasive form of ‘communication.’ Unfortunately, marketing is in part based on some fairly solid scientific evidence of how we human beings can be influenced. Also unfortunately, the science of marketing has invaded the political arena in some very powerful ways. Vast amounts of money are dedicated to manipulating the emotions of consumers of both industrial products and political imaginary goods and imaginary evils, some of which are not so imaginary.
Nothing is off limits in the art and science of political persuasion, and the deep pockets of powerful financial, corporate, and political elites are deeper than we can even imagine. On top of that, the power of persuasion is exercised in extremely lopsided ways because of the accelerated impact of money on access to the channels of mass communications. Despite the illusion of left and right, liberal and conservative ideas and claims to right wrongs, fix people’s troubles and ease their struggles, the real fight is between the greed for power and human right to freedom. And only democracy brings freedom despite the claims of would-be dictators.
When money talks, democracy walks. Raw power can overcome reasoned consensus—or near consensus, whatever the topic, achieved by open and public discussion. Communication is controlled by a hierarchy of elites, who manage and filter the nation’s mass media channels and control social media platforms by algorithms that amplify misinformation, anxiety, and hate to get more clicks to ‘earn’ more advertising revenue. It is a corporate fight for attention no matter the social cost.
Open democratic political deliberation in the context of free flowing facts is not on the agenda of either form of corporate media, and is nearly impossible on both. Among the last bastions of open communications only NPR and PBS remain; that is why they are under attack by the members of the MAGA coup and its orange chief. All autocratic attempts attack any communication media they do not control because control of information in order to manipulate beliefs, is their goal.
Any debate that occurs is framed in the ideological terms chosen by the power elites. That is made possible because they own the channels of mass communication. As U.S. society reaches unparalleled levels of hierarchy, communication is more and more controlled by the increasingly powerful plutocracy. No amount of ‘democratic’ formality can change that. Sheldon Wolin calls this “Managed Democracy,” with democratic appearing social formations which are actually controlled by the corporate state.
Now that the Trumpist coup asserts the so-called “unitary theory of executive power,” in direct denial of the constitutional system of the balance of power between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the U.S. government, all pretense to sustaining democracy is mere invocation of the word as a cover for the rise of a new form of fascism in America.
The congress has become the paid agent of the corporate elite. The cultural acceptance of directly observable political corruption never ceases to amaze. That is so much more apparent now that the emboldened would be dictator is president again. Many, mostly Republican, members of the House and Senate now make embarrassingly contradictory to their fundamental conservative values.
The pandering to authoritarian interests by acceding to every ridiculously unconstitutional executive order in the Congress is so blatant as to fail the smell test from a mile away. Furthermore, the assertion of near total presidential immunity from accountability for any criminal act declared by the Supreme Court is actually so grotesque that it is acknowledged as such by the most respected constitutional scholars, both conservative and liberal, in the nation.
The president’s actions seem bounded by his obeisance to the desires of the billionaire class and the Wall Street bankers who got him elected—except for the blundering and erratic, well we can’t quite call it policy, since it seems to be driven by whim. It’s all such a messy package that the masters of phantom profit have no basis to predict economic conditions. Moreover, all businesses and their investors need predictability to make decisions on marketing, inventory, and all other corporate expenditures.
Insanity and Climate Destabilization
The so-called ‘debate’ over the reality of anthropogenic climate chaos demonstrates the power of the desire for short-term capital accumulation over the power of facts to make us aware of grave collective danger. What is already demonstrated by scientific facts continues to be politically debated by the crude application of pseudoscience, superstition, and imaginary constructs. Even as facts become so overwhelmingly obvious, ever more deceptive propaganda promotes pseudo-solutions to various forms of ecological damage due to global heating and its multiple destructive effects.
Crass rhetorical tricks and media filtration of information suppress and distort public understanding of even the most urgent real-world crisis. The growing surge of climate disruption all over the world, including in the U.S., has placed powerfully experienced facts right in the face of propaganda. When disruptive climate events become a personal experience, no amount of Koch brothers’ propaganda, MAGA conspiracy theories, or presidential orders to erase climate science findings from federal websites can override the facts of damage to one’s farm, business, or neighborhood.
The powerful fossil-fuel corporate lobby continues to force congressional inaction and manipulate state legislators as long as it can. The petroleum-industrial-congressional complex will squeeze the last possible profits out of the petro-industrial system before being forced to change by the power of facts. If allowed, it will continue its insane course until the consequences bring down not just the whole economy, but threaten the survival of humanity. However, the evidence is now overwhelming and most people can understand direct evidence of danger to them and their families. Threats to survival stimulate very sane responses, like paying attention to the science of climate change.
Years ago, Carl Sagan deplored the “decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media,” which constricts any meaning into 10 second sound bites. The result has been the blurring of facts with vague impressions and imagery, shaped for emotional impact rather than conveyance of information. However, sanity may yet be saved by the direct experience that people observe. Although the U.S. education system has been ‘dumbed down’ for generations, the native intelligence of people cannot be completely overridden by propaganda in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Science shall prevail, we hope, and if it does soon enough, our sanity may yet survive. Yet, much more is needed: a New Great Transformation of society itself, in order to operate within the parameters set by Mother Nature.
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 