The subject of truth and lies is more complex than it may seem at first glance. What people admit as truth depends on many factors. There is a scientific truth, but also a philosophical, religious, personal, ideological, etc.
Not all those "truths" have the same degree of validity. In science, for example, you can not postulate something as true if there is no physical or theoretical evidence that it is true. Something similar happens in philosophy. However, this does not apply to the other fields. In those areas, such as ideology or religion, something is true if it is said by an authority figure. It does not matter that he is unable to prove it.
"With a lie, one often goes far, but without hope of returning" .- Jewish Proverb-
Between an unproven truth and a lie sometimes there is no great distance. Despite this, many people do not care. In fact, they are willing to believe, even against all evidence. This happens because sometimes the lie comforts, while the truth worries. It is because there are fears or guilt involved. Also to that the lie is usually easier to understand than the truth.
This reality opens a crack that many have exploited thoroughly. In many cases it is enough to tell people what they want to hear, because we all want to believe those messages that please us regardless of their parallelism with reality. But not only that. They also achieve a falsehood culturally and socially. Also, that many are capable of everything to sustain that lie. They do not realize, or do not want to see, that this does not benefit them but those who direct them.
The power and the lie
The phrase "a lie repeated a thousand times becomes truth" is attributed to Joseph Goebbels. There is no certain evidence that it was its author, but definitely it is a good synthesis of what this propagandist did during the Second World War. So effective was his work, that even today there are those who still defend the "truths" of the Third Reich.
So successful was the work of Goebbels, that it can be said that his mechanisms have been copied repeatedly by many world leaders. Powerful sectors continue to be consciously using lies as a means to manipulate the minds of the people they want to influence and thus get them to accept the unacceptable and follow plans that follow the interest of a few.
The large sectors of power realized, thanks to the Nazi experience, that societies were able to believe in any message if it was presented in the proper way. You only had to exercise absolute control over the social media and all those institutions that transmitted ideology, including the school. It was enough to delve into fears, hatreds and insecurities. Then build a convenient "truth" and repeat it ad nauseam.
The lie that is repeated a thousand times
What happens with repetition is that it generates very deep beliefs. When the brain captures a new situation, there is an imbalance, which is followed by an assimilation, an accommodation and then an adaptation. Like when we arrived in a city we do not know and at first we felt misplaced, but little by little, from seeing the same places, we became familiar until we appropriated the new environment. In fact, we are making a kind of own map based on what we know.
With repeated lying, something similar happens. The mind adapts itself to listen to it, to perceive it and ends up incorporating it into its sphere of thought. It is the familiar, the known, what everyone affirms. In the case of the great lies of power, it is also the response to fear or insecurity. Or the understandable explanation of what is ignored or not understood.
It is not gratuitous that there is such a close relationship between power and the media. Traditionally, in almost all countries it is the large economic or political groups that control the press. Until recently, independent media was an exotic flower. With the emergence of social networks this has changed. Independent voices have multiplied and alternatives to inform us have expanded.
However, the networks have also arrived with their own lies. Finally, it does not matter through what medium a content is transmitted, but from what intention it is narrated and commented on. Also, and above all, it matters how interested the receiver is in what is true. "There is no worse blind than the one who does not want to see" reads the popular adage. And this always works in the field of truth and social lies.