“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”
– 1984, by George Orwell
Is knowledge power? Yes, in at least two ways:
If someone can control the information you are getting -- or even feeding you titillating distractions to capture your attention (like various forms of entertainment) and distract you from important things -- then your ability to function in reality is being restricted by others.
There is a power differential created from hiding, occulting and encrypting knowledge, and also from making information undesirable by ridicule and mockery. Intelligentsia specialize in a plethora of psychological warfare (psywar) tactics. So too do various secret societies that have been around for who knows how long.
The foundation for everything is based on truth. The more truth we have in common, the stronger the bond we can form because it is based in reality, what ‘is’, and not on a semblance of reality based on ignoring or denying the truth we don’t want to face.
Think about someone lying to you, being dishonest, or betraying you. How important is that in your life? Truth is the foundation for everything. Truth is a synonym for reality or existence.
If truth didn’t matter, trust in others and loyalty towards others wouldn’t be broken by betrayal, dishonesty, lying, etc. We don’t even have to think about this process of consciousness for it to apply in our lives. The importance of truth is a subconscious, axiomatic, intuitive, non-reflective, understanding we operate by in life, but it can be consciously recognized and used to willfully motivate us and our direction in life.
Truth is the most important thing in all our lives, yet we persist in ignoring its supreme importance. We don’t seek out quality truths to learn more and improve the quality of our lives based in real foundational principles like morality. Many are just passively stumbling into quality truths (like moral truth) through life and not actively engaging in seeking out the truth on issues that matter. Political and other ego-personality-identity attachments keep us blinded to our personal lives or polarized to false dichotomies.
It’s important to get on the same page of understanding with others. Speaking truth and being recognized as someone who does speak truth, as someone who is honest, will invoke confidence in your character and in your word from others. This will create a reputation of an honest person, that you’re not a deceiver or liar.
This is important in life for our social and cooperative living together. If you lie to someone, they will recognize that you’re not representing reality honestly to them. This does not engender trust, faith, loyalty or belief in another person. If you were to keep lying to someone, they would likely stop interacting with you. That is, if they cared about reality more than their attachment to someone who repeatedly lies to them.
People don’t like being lied to. That simple reality/truth demonstrates the supreme importance of truth that most people don’t even consciously recognize with their awareness. We go through life in a subconscious recognition of stumbling around trying to find truth, but few actively care and seek out truth to a higher degree.
If people are lied to, they will go elsewhere to get away from the liar. At least, they should do that. But our belief in “authority” and “experts” keeps us going back for more punishment and deception.
Think of the mainstream media and how they are fooling people with low quality, unimportant or insignificant information. Many people want to know what is really happening, and they think the mainstream media will give them that information. Many know they are being kept from more important information, and some people know they are being fed falsehoods or outright lied to by the mainstream media. Yet, how many are going to find alternative sources of information than the mainstream media?
