We humans come into this world with a collection of physical senses, and a downright miraculous “figuring-stuff-out” engine: the human brain. From the beginning, our little baby brains are collecting sensations and experiences constantly, and extrapolating all sorts of stuff at an amazing rate. We all start as unbiased, honest, efficient scientists.
That’s not to say we do it perfectly. We often figure out stuff that isn’t actually true, and have to adjust our understanding later. Specifically, we tend to decide what the whole universe is like based on whatever our own limited personal experiences happened to be. For example, a child that has been growled at or snapped at by a dog or two may involuntarily decide, “All dogs are mean and scary!” Usually the cure for jumping to false conclusions is simply acquiring more information. Live your life, observe things, pay attention to stuff, wonder about stuff, figure stuff out—rinse and repeat.
Isn’t it great to be living in a world full of such amazing self-teaching beings, who start out equipped and eager to investigate, discover and figure out the world around them, mostly using their own built-in senses (thus the saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it!”)? But there’s a problem. Because today, much of what people “experience” … they didn’t actually experience. Instead of gathering information and evidence by observing the world around them, they mostly gather misinformation, false evidence and propaganda, by way of observing computer monitors and TV screens, and listening to radio broadcasts and “news reports.” And yet their brains often log and store such things as if they were actual experiences.
Of course, things like the internet can also be massively helpful in the quest for truth and understanding, but when people’s “experiences” consist largely of whatever someone else decided they should “experience”, that’s not being a scientist; that’s being a lab rat.
There are countless examples of this which could be discussed, but for this series I will focus on how statism is continually bashed into people’s heads by way of completely artificial “experiences” which mold and mangle how people see the world. There are numerous examples of very common thoughts and assumptions that come, not from people observing actual reality, but from people being continually exposed to blatant authoritarian propaganda, day after day, whether under the guise of “news” or “entertainment.”
As one of the most glaring examples, when it comes to “foreign policy”—i.e., agents of the state doing stuff (mostly violent stuff) overseas—what Americans take on faith is downright absurd. For example, “The troops are fighting against very bad people to protect our freedom!” Really? How do you know that? Have you been hanging out in war zones on the other side of the world? Or have you been “experiencing” whatever the ruling class has decide to let their lapdog media or movie-makers show you?
Thankfully, this has been changing some over the years, as a few rogue movie-makers have dared to depict the military as what it actually is, and to represent “the troops” as what they actually are: mostly stupid kids doing stupid and/or evil crap because power-happy politicians told them to. But, notwithstanding these exceptions, most of what is shown on American television and in movies still glorifies the U.S. war-machine and its human pawns. And then most Americans, based almost entirely on such fake, fabricated “experiences,” imagine themselves to actually be informed about what is going on in the world. (Then such people, when they see angry victims of U.S.-sponsored terrorism and murder burning an American flag, reach some asinine conclusion like, “They must hate us for our freedoms!”)
And integral to the heavily pushed worship of the military is the glorification of U.S. “intelligence agencies.” Once again, Americans constantly exposing themselves to the purely artificial “experiences” of TV and movies end up believing things like, “The federal agencies are out there keeping an eye on scary terrorists, foiling their plots and keeping us safe!” What makes this especially pathetic is that agencies like the CIA and NSA are quite open about the fact that you’re not allowed to know what they actually do. It’s “top secret.” But don’t worry, because they will tell you if they’re doing good stuff or bad stuff. And you can totally trust them. /sarcasm
And people are so bad at distinguishing between, on the one hand, their own real-world experiences, and on the other hand, the admittedly fake portrayals of what they see “spies” doing in the movies (usually bravely saving the day from evil terrorists at the last second), that many Americans actually think they have some idea what the CIA, NSA, etc. do on a daily basis. If, by contrast, you want a non-fictional glimpse at the true mindset and agenda of those in “high places” in the military and intelligence agencies, read up on “Operation Northwoods”: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf
(I do have to quickly mention a very glaring exception to the rule, which is the series titled “Marvel’s The Punisher” on Netflix. Frankly, I continue to be stunned by how honestly they dare to portray the CIA, the NSA, the U.S. military, the police, etc.)
Apparently the human brain can have real difficulty distinguishing between what the senses see and hear from the real world, and what they see and hear coming from screens and speakers, so much so that most Americans imagine themselves to be adequately informed about things even when they know that their only exposure and information about those things comes from admittedly fictional accounts. As a result, most Americans have a view of “current events” that is as reality-based as, “Of course dinosaurs exist! Didn’t you see Jurassic Park?”
In Part Two of this series we will look at an even more absurd example of this phenomenon, where people don’t just believe their fake “experiences” because they have no first hand evidence (as with U.S. “foreign policy”), but where they believe fake “experiences” in spite of having plenty of contrary first-hand evidence smacking them in the face every day.
PART TWO: https://steemit.com/anarchy/@larkenrose/fake-experience-fake-reality-part-two
PART THREE: https://steemit.com/anarchy/@larkenrose/fake-experience-fake-reality-part-three
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(Larken Rose is a speaker, author and activist who has publicly and loudly advocated the principles of non-aggression, self-ownership and a stateless, voluntary society for over twenty years. Donations to help support his articles, videos and other projects can be made by PayPal to "[email protected]" or by Bitcoin to 13xVLRidonzTHeJCUPZDaFH6dar3UTx5js.)
