The context in which you should assess Astrid Vella, and the reason why I am fighting her anti-democratic organisation
Read this article by Anthony Beevor, author of Stalingrad and Berlin. It was published in The Sunday Times Magazine on 18 January, and it’s about how easy it is to spread dangerous misinformation among the ignorant and the gullible in a post-literate society.
It is precisely how Astrid Vella and her group exploited the St John’s museum situation by filling the air with ‘counter-knowledge’.
THE INDOCTRINATION GAME
Anthony Beevor
In the West, we tend to assume that the greatest threats to democracy and liberty come from outside. We think of the totalitarian systems of the last century or fundamentalist terrorism today, but we fail to recognise the viral strain that has developed out of our own entertainment industries.
Over the past dozen or so years, television and movie-makers have managed to blur the border between fact and fiction to an unprecedented degree. They pretend increasingly that their film is based on a true story. Every device possible, from computer-generated imagery to place-names and dates thrown onto the screen seek to suspend the disbelief of historically illiterate audiences. Alarmingly, the new technology has coincided with a dramatic growth in conspiracy theories.
The author Damien Thompson has labelled the phenomenon ‘counter-knowledge’. This includes the propagation of totally false legends. They may well stem from a completely unbalanced person who genuinely believes in a conspiracy – usually a government one – and who, through the internet, makes it sound plausible to tens of thousands, even to millions of others who also have grievances and are eager to believe the worst. This is done by seizing upon one or two minor discrepancies in a government report, then joining up all the wrong dots to create a monstrous fable that runs completely counter to the facts. Examples of counter-knowledge include the notion that Aids was created in a CIA laboratory, that Princess Diana was murdered by the Secret Intelligence Service, and that the 9/11 attack on New York was orchestrated by the Bush administration.
The dramatic decline of traditional moderate forms of religion has resulted in a spiritual void and thus a desperate need to believe intensely in something. This has accompanied the ‘Wikipedia Age’. A populist notion has developed that any individual has the right to correct or change the truth according to their own beliefs. It is, of course, the democratic ideal taken to its most grotesque extreme. But in reality, it is the opposite of democratic. It is the easiest way for a demagogue to exploit gullibility and ignorance.
The home-produced movie Loose Change takes the ultimate conspiracy-theory approach to 9/11. It is now said to have been seen by more than 100m people on the internet. A few weeks ago, a leading Russian TV channel broadcast Loose Change to mark the anniversary of 9/11. The film was accepted as completely true by the presenters and the studio audience, who debate it in a three-hour prime-time programme.
Studies of internet sites reveal an unholy alliance between left-wing 9/11 conspiracy theorists, right-wing Holocaust deniers and Islamic fundamentalists. Many Muslims throughout the world now believe that no Arabs were involved in 9/11. Significantly, Islamic websites have also been learning from American creationists and have eagerly embraced their theory of intelligent design, which attributes the origin of life to a higher power and opposes theories of natural selection.
In a post-literate society where the image is king, the scope for mischief is almost without limit. I suspect that it will not be long before we see a Holocaust-denial movie. It could take the form of a Da Vinci Code-style thriller, and be packaged as straightforward entertainment. The commercial potential for such a project is huge, above all in the Middle and Far East. If it were banned under Holocaust-denial legislation in some European countries, this would only convince conspiracy theorists that the Holocaust is a Zionist exaggeration or even invention. Already in British schools, many teachers have stopped mentioning the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslim students. This is because, according to one survey, only 29% of Muslims in Britain accept that the Holocaust took place as western history books describe it.
Political correctness is so easy to exploit. Universities in the United States, supposedly the guardians of intellectual rigour and scientific proof, have been cowed into accepting courses that clearly reject normal standards of evidence. This is perhaps the logical extreme of the anti-hierarchical revolution begun in the 1960s, and now taken to a ridiculous and dangerous degree.
It may sound alarmist when one talks of these attempts to fragment proven reality. Yet the effects of counter-knowledge and pseudo-history might develop a bigger threat to liberal democracy than the authoritarian onslaughts of Stalin and Hitler. This new insidious power to produce intellectual and scientific chaos is easy to underestimate.
It should be the duty of not just every scientist and historian, but also of every writer, publisher, movie-maker, TV producer and ordinary citizen to fight all attempts to exploit the ignorance and gullibility of audiences. Today’s silly conspiracy theory in the West can easily become tomorrow’s article of faith in the world at large. Quite simply, we play with facts at our peril. From selling fiction as truth in novels to peddling the big lies of counter-knowledge is not such a very big step after all.
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Daphne,
You make such a good point. Here’s from Mark Twain:
“If you don’t read a newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read a newspaper, you are misinformed”.
‘Ignorance and gullibility’? Welcome to the rock.
This is a great article. But sadly, the audiences are all too happy to be ignorant and gullible. How many people actually bother checking their sources if you tell them, “Certain studies showed that…?” Very very few. To most, it’s just too much of a hassle. So people believe whatever they hear, if it comes from enough different sources.
What is perhaps even sadder is that those trained to think scientifically have no clue on how to tackle this phenomenon. To reason with the masses is futile, as they will equate your reasoning to their blind beliefs, and cannot understand (let alone accept) evidence. To get into emotional arguments with them is to fall to their level and they are far more apt at it than you. So what most do is nothing. The problem continues to grow and everyone gets lazier and lazier until we end up in an oligarchy run by those who are best at manipulating mass emotion.
If only it were just Malta suffering from this malignancy.
If Anthony Beevor was Maltese he would have mentioned our “Xarabank”. On this TV show we even saw a re-enactment of a sea tragedy which probably never happened the way it was presented. Would anyone have dared to mention “fishing with explosives” in that programme?
And what about certain ‘facts’ sold out by our Austin?
1) He stated that only 17% of the population receive ‘Free to air’ analogue TV reception , and they will have to buy a box for digital reception…etc. When I see a breakdown of how this was worked out I will believe the 17% figure.
2) In the breakwater bridge project press conference reported on TVM News it was stated that the price of steel is going up, and so the cost can be higher than €2.8m.
And our so-called journalists just cut and paste and present to the public this trash news. As the saying goes: “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”.
In politics counter-knowledge has been used for centuries and it’s not just Machiavelli I’m talking about.
[Daphne – Ah, but they didn’t have internet, television, radio, satellite and the rest of the technological media, did they? They didn’t even have printing for most of history. It is those things that have changed the nature of the game.]
We have too many primadonnas! Look at the Sunday newspapers and you will see too many female (and some male) gurus telling us what is wrong: they should start telling us what is right for a change. Do we need Anthony Beevor to tell us what is wrong?
Most of the people who think very little and are confused in the western world have given up on any sort of belief ( and they are the great majority!) so you have the atheists and the scare-mongers to teach us unbelief? No wonder the real Christians, Muslims and Jews are trying to defend their religious patch: they feel threatened! Globalisation, greed,and ignorance are the real culprits.
Good article. After all, I fear the truth doesn’t sell that much. It needs two to tango. People never had so much opportunities to keep themselves informed since we live a so-called information society. Paradoxically, they don’t get as much information as they could (and should?).
Do people really want to hear the truth? Do they want to take their rose-tinted glasses off? I doubt it.
Good old ‘Gullible Fritz’ lives everywhere. Fiction lulls and therefore sells; facts are too dry to be swallowed. Who wants to cough up bone-dry facts all the time? What do ‘I’ benefit from it? It is all about personal benefit. We need tons of greasy gravy to gulp the truth. Life has to be smooth and people love to create their own constructions of reality.
It seems to be part of ‘human nature’ to mop up the so-called truth unconditionally, especially when one can press home an advantage. It costs quite some effort to distinguish between myth and reality. Thinking is hard work, being a democrat is hard work, being an individual is hard work too.
One wishes to cry out loud: dare to think yourself once in a while and protect yourself from that ‘hey presto instant soup’ mentality!
The truth isn’t easy and cannot be swallowed instantly. It needs to be chewed and digested to become healthy nutrition.
@Emmanuel Muscat
So it’s the people who think very little who become atheists? I would venture that it’s exactly the other way round. Religious texts are filled from cover to cover with the most ridiculous assertions, from talking snakes, to virgin births, to ships containing all the species on earth, to people walking on water and rising bodily into the heavens. And the people who believe THAT are the thinkers?
Harry Purdie
And if you knit your own truth from tangled news, you’ll become an oddly laced guy!
@ Daphne. Sure. My point was that it’s not only individuals, or TV producers etc who Beevor speaks about. In politics counter-knowledge has been used for ages, and surely today a much wider audience is reached for the reasons you give. In Malta it is worse because political parties have their radio and television stations.
[Daphne – That’s right, and now Joseph Muscat is calling for us to give his party EUR7.2 million to fund those things. Both parties should just shut down their broadcast media if they can’t afford to maintain them, instead of milking tax-payers for funds for propaganda.]
The problem in Malta is cultural as well as historical. People expect to be spoon-fed information rather than seeking it, and that’s the fundamental problem. Take religion as an example – how many people read the bible in Malta? Almost no one. Everyone is read the bible from the pulpit and during duttrina classes, but no one tries to analyse it himself. Rather, people prefer to be fed with the analysis. By the way, how many people in Malta actually believe that Adam and Eve existed, and all the other Moses stories?
This is a problem in Malta and also in other Roman Catholic countries. On the other hand, Protestant people (mainly Anglo-Saxon countries) are encouraged to read the bible and hence seek the information for themselves. This reflects on their attitude to life, information in general, and coming up with challenging questions to what one is told.
I notice that our culture might be similar to the Muslim world, in the sense that the Muslims are also fed information in the mosques. How many Muslims, actually believe that the 9/11 was a CIA plot?
It’s what I’ve been calling “Maltese relativism” for a while now. Our very local version of the phenomenon.
Incidentally, and this is a rhetorical question, by starting your “fight” against her “anti-democratic” (rather harsh description – it’s not like she wants to install a dictatorship tomorrow) aren’t you risking starting an “organisation” of your own that is just as “anti-democratic” (I’d call it non-institutional)? Rather contradictory isn’t it?
[Daphne – The FAA is both anti-democratic and non-institutional. The two are not mutually exclusive. An organisation that claims to speak for the people without consulting the people, works to ensure that the truth doesn’t reach the public, mines ignorance, and claims to have national backing on the strength of a petition signed by 1,500 mainly AD and Labour supporters, is anti-democratic. The democratic approach is that taken by, for example, Din L-Art Helwa, which respected the democratic process. Democracy, as you very well know, is not the process of voting once every five years, but respect for the procedures that shore up democracy.
There is no such thing as an “organisation”, in inverted commas. Something is either an organisation or it is not. If you mean that I might be contributing to the galvanisation of public opinion against Astrid Vella’s claim to be the emodiment of the ‘people’s will’, then yes. It’s about time somebody did it, and I’m sorry I didn’t do so before. I failed in my duty towards my readers there. As the cliche goes, all it takes for wrong-doing and evil intent to triumph is that others do nothing. Mrs Vella’s real motivation, and her personal malice, are revealed in her targeting of particular individuals within the foundation, her call for the resignation of the foundation members because she said so, and worst of all, in today’s newspaper article, a demand for the resignation of Cynthia de Giorgio, a fellow Baroque Studies graduate and contemporary who was good enough to get the internationally prestigious job of curator of St John’s Co-Cathedral. I’ll leave the rest of this sentence unspoken.
But there will be no organisation. I speak only for myself, and will continue to speak only for myself. If people agree with me, fine. If they don’t, fine. I also make it clear that I am speaking only for myself, because my column is signed with my own name, and not on behalf of some organisation.]
Whilst living in Malta, I was astonished at the number of illiterate people I met in the villages. Those people were ardent party supporters. How can they verify the information provided by their party leaders and their brainwashing propaganda? Without reading various books or newspapers? How can they compare? How can they form their own opinion? How can they broaden their horizons?
Poor education creates blind followers.
And by the way: how can they have a driving licence?
@ Andrea
That was some profound thinking. You are so right. Many of us prefer to create a picture to please our whims and then call it the ”truth” because it becomes so convenient. Engaging in debate, to many, is too much like hard work so someone like Astrid Vella riding on her high horse creates a crusade for them, and they tag along for the ride. They become over-inflated with their self-importance, get together and the result is: the FAA.
I half agree with Mr Beevor. It has now become very difficult to distinguish between knowledge and counter-knowledge. At the end of the day, most people believe what they want to believe.
However, it doesn’t take too much effort to doubt and challenge ‘knowledge’. In fact, with a little practice it becomes routine. This is a rather uncomfortable state to live in, but it’s preferable to making a wrong decision based on wrong information. Eventually, one learns not to worry about the things one can’t change and reaches a state of equilibrium, or serenity. You can also call it cynicism, depending on your point of view.
As Mr Beevor seems to be saying, the world is full of lies and bullshit. It’s not that difficult to lose your gullibility, though.
@ Tim Ripard. True the world is full of lies and bullshit, but don’t despair, it’s also full of comic relief. Have a look at this: http://richardmadeley.blogspot.com/
[Daphne – And just in case there’s any confusion, as with the clip from The Onion, this is a satirical take on Richard Madeley of ‘Richard & Judy’ – http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/1281:1466/Richard_Madeley_Judy_Finnigan.htm ]
Andrea,
‘how can they have a driving licence?’. They ‘buy’ it.
@ Andrea. I’m not despairing at all. I love a good laugh (not that Richard Madely impressed me) too. As I said, I’ve reached serenity and there’s very little that I let bother me. (Apart from bad footie results, but you probably wouldn’t understand that – and Daphne CERTAINLY wouldn’t).
I can also state with hand on heart that Astrid and I have shared lots of jokes, puns and dozens of humorous emails and had many a good laugh. She’s far from being the wicked witch of the East. But again, there’s no truer saying than ‘perception is reality’, so I’m not going to bother trying to convince anyone else otherwise. I’ll stick to my perception, based on 30+ years of knowing the woman. I hope that readers of this blog will not rush to judge someone on the strength of a second-hand opinion.
[Daphne – You know as I do that far more problems are caused by those who are are stupid, and I use this word in the broad sense and not as a reflection of intellectual quotient, than by those who are wicked. Her behaviour is stupid, not wicked, or maybe I should say, wickedly stupid. I know, and you don’t, that she has had the far-reaching consequences of her behaviour explained to her by people far more respected than I am, for want of a better way to put it. The extent of her stupidity and lack of insight is made manifest in her having approached some very, very senior figures – who I know personally – and asked them to walk with her up the steps of Castille with her petition. If I were to tell you who these men are, you would be stunned at the absurdity of her proposition. They are the sort of people one wouldn’t even think of asking, because even the act of asking would be considered offensive. She has even tried to rope in somebody so senior that it is quite breathtaking; somebody whose role means he must take every precaution against being dragged into controversies of this nature. When he told me, I laughed and cried at the same time. Her approach is almost childish, a strange coupling between extreme naivety and visceral female scheming.]
@Tim Ripard. My tongue was firmly planted in my cheek when I wrote “don’t despair” I find Madely quite funny. Incidentally I was reading this morning in the Culture magazine of The Sunday Times (London) that his blog is listed amongst the 100 best blogs. Goes to show li ghalhekk il-baqra tinbieh kollha. As for football results, I have a young son who is obsessed by the game, so I do know something about the consequences of bad results. I must thank you though for giving me an answer which I have been looking for lately; I have noticed that I have been putting my priorities in perspecitives and as you say, there is not much which I let bother me, but I never thought of it in terms of ‘reaching serenity’. The downside to this is that there’s an old people’s home called serenity I think, and even adult nappies. So maybe my mind was blocking the word for these reasons.
[Daphne – Be careful. There’s a fine line between serenity and complacency, and some people who think they have reached the former have actually settled into the latter.]
–There’s a fine line between serenity and complacency, and some people who think they have reached the former have actually settled into the latter–
That’ll be my ‘motto of the day’.
Thank you!
@ Daphne. Very true but I am aware of the perils of the latter state of being. I care and act upon what is going on around me and around other people, I just don’t get worked up as much as I used to over things which I know I can’t change.
@ Tim Ripard. Nappies for adults of course not adult nappies.