Narrative Collapse
28th June 2021
Severian continues his deep dive.
Before turning to look at effective propaganda, let’s address an important objection from Anonymous White Male:
Oh, they always have a capital-T version of the truth, and they pretend to believe it. But, that capital-T truth is constantly changing. Sort of a fungible propaganda. Remember, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. Oh, damn! This is Monday. Remember Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
I hate to sound like Ulynaov’s mini-me, but that’s the kind of “bourgeois objectivism” we need to get over, comrade. They don’t “pretend” to believe it, they DO believe it, with all their hearts and souls… and yet, they don’t believe it, because they can’t. We’ve always been at war with Eastasia today, and we must act like it, if we are to survive… and yet, the very act of “acting like it” entails knowing that we could easily have always been at war with Eurasia tomorrow, and acting like it. I can’t explain it, but somehow it must be both true and not true, simultaneously.