Paranoia — or can I trust the messenger?
When the enormity of events such as occurred in America in September
of last year is revealed to us, we cannot help but react with shock,
fear, compassion, even grief perhaps as the full horror is absorbed.
For many of us those events acted as a watershed, compelling us to
confront — at a very personal level — the whole question
of "international terrorism" and where we stand on the issue.
Inevitably this meant that, perhaps despite a more reasoned approach,
people found themselves — certainly at an emotional level —
"taking sides".
This also prompted many to pay far more attention to world affairs
than had, perhaps, previously been the case. And in doing so, equally
inevitably, opinions were formed regarding other conflict situations
and suchlike.
All well and good but, alas, opinions formed purely upon emotional reactions are rarely very sound.
Fortunately, as time softens the edges of such emotional reactions, reason begins to intervene and we can pause to reflect, asking searching questions of ourselves and others. Questions such as who? how? and why? These questions that we pose to ourselves, and ask of others, are part of the attempt to gain understanding, and part of the effort to avoid or prevent similar events occurring again.
Central to this process is information. Without information none of our questions will be answered. Indeed, without information we would not even be aware of such events unless we are personally caught up in them.
Focussing upon the American twin towers tragedy (because it is, to date, the most dramatic of such events), practically the whole world finds itself sucked into a process of escalation that seems, at the moment, to offer only one conclusion... world war! And we can see, very clearly, how this process is fuelled by, and feeds upon, information.
But, if our understanding is to be valid, if our decisions are to exhibit wisdom, and if our actions are to be appropriate, then it is vital that the information upon which these things rest must be accurate and truthful. If the information in our possession is incomplete, or inaccurate; is misleading, or distorted, then we cannot sensibly draw any conclusions or determine what subsequent actions are appropriate.
The real difficulty is, of course, how will we know when the information presented to us is incomplete, inaccurate, misleading, or distorted? Often only with great difficulty, and much careful reflection.
However, there are a couple of "rules of thumb" that we can apply...
reliability of the sources of information
Where does our information come from? Who is providing it to us? And, perhaps of equal importance, why are they providing it to us?
Maybe the only reliable source of information is personal experience. But even that can create difficulties. For example, we then have to look at the circumstances enveloping the experience. Were those circumstances "contrived" in any way; were we in a "controlled" environment where the means of control was not in our hands? And in this context we're not referring to "controls" in the scientific sense, but in the sense of control imposed by indoctrination, and/or the covert manipulation of environmental factors. Illusion, sleight of hand, misdirection; these are all stunts to be aware of, and to be wary of, and they can all impact upon the validity of personal experience. Things are not what they seem!
So, having established a sound basis for a healthy dose of paranoia (who wouldn't be paranoid when you can't even believe the evidence of your own senses?), let's move into even murkier realms.
Most of the information upon which we base our decisions and actions comes to us from external sources. Even more worryingly, most of the information that we react to unthinkingly comes to us from such sources!
So, perhaps the very first question we should ask ourselves is, "Is the information being offered to us presented in such a way as to trigger an emotional/ego reaction?" (bearing in mind that we react to appeals to ego equally as much as we do to appeals to emotion).
If so, then we have to ask whether that particular presentation is deliberate (contrived) or not? There are many legitimate reasons why a presentation may be biased in such manner. Discernment between "innocent bias" and contrived manipulation is usually possible by careful and objective reflection.
However, this is where the whole things begins to get a bit tricky. For even if information is presented in a contrived manner, this may not necessarily invalidate the information itself.
Nor can we simply dismiss the "messenger" from the equation, for what we may glean about them may shed additional light on the "information" they convey. So, we must now turn our attention to the credibility of sources.
For simplicity we'll call our source the "messenger", although it should be understood that this messenger may be a person, an organisation, "public opinion" or "received wisdom", a text book — or even a website!
Whether or not we believe the messenger to have deliberately manipulated the presentation of the information, the following issues require our attention:
We need to consider the source from which our messenger gets the information. The same criteria that were used to analyse information deriving from personal experience can be applied equally as well here. Unfortunately, in most cases we'll find ourselves unable to satisfactorily resolve the questions posed thereby.
So we then have to ask whether we consider the messenger to be in a position to have access to the information they're conveying to us. As a simplistic example, were you listening to descriptions of the Matterhorn, which would you find more credible; that offered by the traveller who'd just returned from a mountaineering expedition to the Swiss Alps, or that offered by the local "know-all" who's never set foot beyond the bounds of their own village?
Why is the messenger conveying the information?
Perhaps the conveying of information is their rationale; newspapers for example, news broadcasts, the Information Offices of various Government departments and so forth. But even these are not above suspicion.
Newspapers, broadcasting services and suchlike, are seldom run for purposes as altruistic as "keeping the public informed"; never forget that their principal reason for being is to make a profit. They are simply capitalising on the very normal human desire to be informed. The objective and factual conveying of information will almost certainly be compromised at the very instant that it impacts upon the revenue-earning ability of the messenger.
And as for Government Information Offices; when they're not acting as self-appointed guardians of "national security" or "public interest" then they're protecting the interests of the masters to whom they answer. Who, contrary to all common sense, are actually not the people who pay their wages (i.e., the ordinary tax-paying public).
So what of the messengers that seem not to be motivated by profit, and have no political axe to grind? We're not really left with much to choose from; the institutions of academe and religious bodies of one sort or another readily spring to mind.
Undoubtedly the academic ideal is knowledge for its own sake, allied of course to the second ideal that knowledge is in some way related to truth. Even accepting that knowledge not related to truth cannot really be called knowledge at all (mis- or even dis-information in the context of the present discussion), sadly we still have to accept that the other ideal seldom works out in practise either.
In the "real world" knowledge generally has to be funded in some way, and this inevitably introduces other, less wholesome, agendas. But even eliminating or allowing for this, not inconsiderable, bias we still cannot rely upon the complete impartiality of information disseminated by messengers from the world of academia.
It is well documented that the academic establishment tends to be fairly conformist and rejecting of those things that do not adhere to the "official" view. This is really little more than the working of the very human trait that may be characterised by the phrase "fear of the unknown". Anything alien, different, unusual, out of the ordinary, or conflicting with "received wisdom", must necessarily be bad, wrong, misguided, and untrue... mustn't it?
The distortions that taint the utterances of the politically-motivated and the "vested interests" of the academically-motivated are, in a slightly modified form, equally as rampant in those of religious motivation, the essential difference being that the latter usually claim some form of divine sanction which, if anything, makes them even more misleading!
So, yet another factor that comes into play when assessing the credibility of messengers of religious motivation is a need to examine "where they're coming from"; i.e., the claims made by their particular religion.
It is in no-one's interest, and certainly not my intention, to debunk specific religious "myths". Rather, an alternative and preferable approach may be to apply a pre-defined set of criteria by which any religion or religious movement may be measured and assessed for its veracity. Criteria such as, for example, the "yardsticks of belief".
Are there any other potentially credible messengers? About the only category left to consider is the "human rights" movement; the civil liberties organisations, the "equal rights" associations, the "personal freedom" groups and suchlike. These are the natural home of the liberal, the environmentalist, the individualist and the inveterate "do-gooder".
Unfortunately, these are also the natural home of woolly thinking and rampant idealism that takes no account of ordinary common-or-garden human nature. In seeking to achieve remedies for perceived injustices and imbalances, too often all that happens is a reinforcing of what I call the "cult of ego" that, in the long term, generates even greater injustices and imbalances.
Having (hopefully) filtered out, or at least made allowance for, both the natural bias of the messenger and the various "vested interests" that may conceivably benefit from the dissemination of whatever information we're confronting, we are now left with the simple question of truthfulness.
In other words: "OK, accepting that this information may not be all the facts, and may be slanted to influence my reaction, is any of it actually true?" In other words again, having made full allowance for the unconscious conditioning of the messenger, and the various pressures that may have been brought to bear on the messenger, do we actually regard them as having integrity? Are they being as honest as they could be? Do they believe they are telling the truth? Or are they simply lying to us?
The reality is of course that no matter how conscientious we may be in posing questions such as these, and considering all the foregoing factors, we are unlikely to be much closer to the real facts that the information purports to convey.
Consequently, we need some sort of "tool"; some sort of scalpel that can help to peel away all the different skins that may have accreted around the pearl-like facts we need if we're to form a sound opinion.
Much of the foregoing can be resolved into a very simple question: "Whom does this serve?". That is to say, "If I accept this information at face value, and act accordingly, who really benefits?" In other words, whose purposes would be served by our acting in a certain way, dictated by the nature of the information received?
Nor be satisfied with just a cursory mental glance. The ways of Man
can be extremely convoluted, particularly when deception is the name
of the game. But, inevitably, the truth will be revealed, if
one digs deep enough.
Consider not the immediate consequences that may follow from a given
action, but the consequences that follow from that, and even
the repercussions of those consequences. If reduced in this
manner far enough, one will usually find that it is not one individual,
or even a group of individuals, that benefit, but that a particular
quality or influence begins to acquire an ascendancy.
This is the real beneficiary, and true author of that
with which we're confronted.
Whether you see this ultimate beneficiary in terms of an archetypal psychological driving force, or an over-arching evil spirit, depends very much upon your own personal paradigm of course.
By now you should be well on the way to a highly sophisticated paranoia. Suitably primed, in other words, for the next step.
So, having concluded that you can't accept any information at face value, the only recourse left is to seek verification. Pointless seeking such verification (or "versions of the facts") from messengers similar to the original. Therefore, clearly, alternative messengers have to be sought out...
Alternative Information Resources
