Empire of lies

Economic growth is not enough. Erosion of democracy is not enough. Expectations matter. Expectations management matters even more. And yet, see what happened in Chile, a country with fairly high economic growth and a stable democracy. In 2019, it witnessed an outburst of anger on the streets paving the way for the leftists to emerge victors. This can happen to other elected autocracies

- ASH NARAIN ROY

Charles Dickens’ aphorism, “ask no questions, and you will be told no lies,” has been turned on its head in the post-truth world.

A larger part of the media across the world has stopped asking questions but the political class, self-serving maximum leaders in particular, haven’t stopped telling lies.

The empire of lies is flourishing in the age of permacrisis, what Hannah Arendt had called “generalised crisis” in her book Crisis of Culture.

Uncertainty and volatility have become the new normal. It has led to a sense of pessimism. Artificial Intelligence is a new form of technological arrogance. Nothing will perhaps remain uniquely human in future. An alarming thought! Techno-solutionism is giving way to techno pessimism.

American economist Paul Craig Roberts’ book Empire of Lies lays bare how the Western mainstream media provides propaganda rather than news.

The story is no different in other parts of the world. The false narratives, he argues, have the intended objective of surrounding the public with a fog of misinformation so as to condition them to hate and fear. The posttruth world is witnessing brainwashing on an Orwellian scale.

Social media is far worse. Elon Musk’s boast about Twitter being important to the future of civilisation notwithstanding, social media platforms are essentially money-making enterprises.

As former CBS president Les Moonves said in 2016, Trump “may not be good for democracy,” but he’s “damn good for CBS.” Last year, speaking at the University of Chicago, former US President Barack Obama blamed these platforms’ uncontrolled “pursuit of profits” which is undermining democracy.