Image and Truth

Image and truth.

Do political distortions win elections?

There is a very old fable; about truth going about the world naked and unadorned; and was shunned by all. Yet parable went about in fine clothes and with misleading words and everyone loved them. So the idea that image is more popular than truth is a very old one. What has changed is the professionalism of the image makers and the deliberate use of image to mislead voters.

Some people will refuse to see reality, they prefer a myth, a fake, an act; rather than reality. They truly believe that appearance is far more important than substance. They truly believe that everyone should believe things simply because they do. The wealthy people with this same concept of truth and perception, are even worse. They actually believe they are special. They truly think that the trivia of their lives is actually important. They even seem to believe their own appearance, the false image they present; is really themselves. The ability to self delude is actually incredible, to the point that it is frightening to come face to face with it.

They are always the victim, never the cause. Truth must never get anywhere near this belief.

No matter what harm it does to others; this image must be preserved, because image is far more important that truth.

To some extent this has a parallel when people who live in safe and secure societies, with good levels of health care, consider the level of pain or deprivation they may experience, enables them to claim they suffer more than anyone else. They claim that they and they alone, know what pain or deprivation really is. A more modern example is the distortion that the celebrity governed media apply to who gets the credit for a good artefact. The image driven, celebrity enthralled, world, tells us it is the person who chose the colour and not the person who worked so hard on designing a functioning practical item. A celebrity puts their name to other peoples skilled work, chooses the colour of the paint and it is the celebrity who is praised.

Even for very expensive, up market cars, there are adverts stressing two years free servicing, if they buy the car new. Modern cars probably, for first two years, should only need oil checks and a diagnostic computer plugged into the engine management port and a click for “reset to default.” So this is not such a give away on a vehicle costing over £50,000. The advertising is not telling lies but it is misleading. This misleading is now part of our lives, commercially and politically.

Politicians may not actually have personalities that are predominately about image, but they employ people who do and these people are employed to ensure that what the voters see, is the projection not the reality. This is becoming an increasing danger to the democratic process and to the idea of democracy, as a beneficial objective.

Misleading advertising is bad enough but the damage done by persuading people to buy a worthless object is so little compared to the damage done by voting into power, an organisation that has no intention of providing what the voters expect of them. What, during an election campaign, is a firm promise; becomes an aim or unattainable objective, immediately they are in power.

Television is filled with entertainments billed as reality shows but in truth they are far from reality. How people behave with cameras, lights, sound engineers and all the other technical stuff around them; is so very different from how they behave in a normal natural unobserved environment. Real life does not instantly jump forward a few hours, nor does it stop to switch scene to other people just when anyone runs out of things to say. Yet despite the obvious scripted and edited output, some still choose to believe this is real life filmed exactly as it happened. Politicians and their spin doctors use this ability of some people, to choose image over fact, to place false concepts of themselves, in the public consciousness. If just 10 in every 1000 members of the public, really believe that what is being shown to them is real and this 10 will cause 200 more to have doubts about their own judgement. This results in those who can see through the image, having to spend time and energy to try and bring truth to light. All the effort goes in dispelling falseness not in telling truth. Since just about all political groups practice this manipulation of truth, to spin it to a more favourable impression of themselves; everything gets distorted and then nothing at all is the truth. We live in a world of lies and distortion.

We need a truth media, a place where only verifiable, evidence based, fact is published. No opinions claimed as fact. No preconception of what impression is to be created. Just verbatim and provable truth.

No edited conclusions by experts. Just facts, then allow the reader to decide on what conclusions to reach.