"The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink"
source: Wikimedia Commons
The above quote is from the brilliant book Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, which, if you haven't read it yet, I can only say that you really should. First published in 1949, the society described in this book is much like the society we have today. The citizens in the book, as well as its protagonist, Winston Smith, live in a province of Oceania, where their lives are ruled by an upper class that manifests itself in the form of Big Brother.
Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, which is really the ministry of propaganda as its sole purpose is to provide the opposite of truth: it is responsible for any necessary falsification of historical events, as to align public opinion to the goals set by The Party Elite.
"As well as administering truth, the ministry spreads a new language amongst the populace called Newspeak, in which, for example, "truth" is understood to mean statements like 2 + 2 = 5 when the situation warrants. In keeping with the concept of doublethink, the ministry is thus aptly named in that it creates/manufactures "truth" in the Newspeak sense of the word. The book describes the doctoring of historical records to show a government-approved version of events."
Wikipedia
What I want to suggest here is that George Orwell didn't have some crystal ball in which he saw the truth of his future visions. He was merely aware of the fact that humankind has always been under the rule of some elite ruling class, and that they manufactured the truths we now read in our history books. To emphasize this, and to keep this post relatively short, I'll try to really drive home this point with a quote from Michael Parenti in a speech about his book The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History Of Ancient Rome:
"It's rather odd that history should be so dull, since a great deal of it must be invention. The struggle to lay claim to the labor, the land and the wealth of society, which is so much the motive force of history, that struggle is called 'class struggle'. And it carries over into the writing of history itself. The writing of history has long been a privileged calling undertaken within the Church, the Royal Court, the affluent Townhouse, the Government Agency, the University and the corporate-funded Foundation. The powers that be not only try to control events, but they try to control our memory and understanding of these events, which is part of controlling the events themselves."
"Truth is the first casualty of war", and this goes double for the war between the classes. Below is the entire talk for your enjoyment and education. It's more than an hour long, but well worth the watch in my opinion.
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