First, here’s an important preliminary quote from a recent Blog post about why politicians lie way more than you think:
"There are generally two ways to lie. One type of lie is called suggestio falsi, which is the suggestion of something which is untrue or deliberately telling an untruth – such as about where you were last night, about breaking something and blaming someone else, about not being at an event you claimed you attended, and so forth. The other type of lie is called a suppressio veri type of lie, which is concealment of truth – such as failing to disclose conflicts of interest, ignoring information about negative consequences, not revealing the true costs of policies, and so forth. Because suppressio veri lies are less blatant and slipperier due to the ambiguity of what they omit, they are harder to directly confront, more widespread, and therefore the most insidious and destructive kind of lies told in society. And they are mostly the kind of lies that underpin the political system – they are habitual tools of manipulation that erode trust and exploit people's assumptions, allowing politicians to shape narratives and control perceptions without outright fabricating facts. In the way that politicians craft the squalid art of omission and indirect duplicity, it could be argued that they, and the media that amplifies and legitimises their distortions, are society's biggest liars."
Now, I don’t like to be overly-bivalent in my analyses of societal phenomena, as I prefer a more sophisticated, nuanced analysis that considers a wider range of perspectives and complexities. But to the greatest degree, I really do think society is made up of two groups of people; those who have figured out what the system is like, and those who remain in its thrall. I acknowledge that this comes in degrees, but only up to a point – the reality is, once you’ve sussed out the trick and seen through the illusion, you can never unsee it. I think of it as being like a maze and a watchtower. Most politicians, most of the media, and the public who’ve bought into it all, from whatever side of the political spectrum they happen to place themselves, are controlled by strings inside a complicated maze, being guided through its dead ends and wrong turns, relying on signs of manipulation placed within the maze to have them believe they’ve been directed through their own volition and competence.
Those enlightened few who can see the maze from the watchtower can see the bigger picture; they can see the extent to which those inside the maze are bought cheaply to protect the interests of those who pull their strings, where their outcomes are frequently aligned with the agendas of their funding sources and political thrall. I’d actually go so far as to say that virtually everyone who is pushing for some kind of left or right wing political agenda, party political partisans, tribal in-group mentalities, so-called social justice warrior narratives, wokeism, identity politics, or culture war distractions, has been bought or compromised in some way, and they unknowingly serve the very power structures they would vehemently oppose if they could see beyond the snare.
Within the maze, there is a ladder leading up the watchtower – it’s the ladder of authentic, uncompromised truthseeking – but few dare to grasp its rungs. Many don't even see it is there, or don't recognise it for what it is, because it looks like too much hard work to reach. And the watchtower at the top of the ladder is not one small, isolated viewpoint - it is a vast, elevated expanse of interconnected insights - a profound vantage of extraordinary clarity, where the exposed realities of the intricate web of power, manipulation, ideology, and human susceptibility converges into a comprehensive awakening. From this grand perspective, the maze below is revealed in its entirety, and the forces that shape and direct it become unmistakably clear.
And it's important to remember both the conditions under which one finds oneself stuck in the maze, and the plight of being trapped there. Residents are contending with the elephant and the rider problem (see Haidt) - where they are driven by the emotional elephant, and where emotions frequently take the lead and steer our rationality, not the other way around, with the rational mind struggling to justify decisions made impulsively by the emotional mind. Instead of rationality guiding emotions, it often serves as a tool to justify what the emotional elephant has already decided. Furthermore, they are also contending with the fact that there is a divide between left and right wing ideologies that is often deeper than mere social influence, and how much the left and right are genetically predisposed to their beliefs, as differences in moral priorities appear to have a heritable component, where genetics predisposes people to certain orientations and beliefs. Add to that the fact that online content algorithms amplify this effect by feeding them material that aligns with their preexisting views.
As they consume content that supports their biases, they are pushed further into ideological silos, deepening the divisions within the maze and making the ladder of truthseeking even harder to recognise. These predispose them further to actively seek out views and content that already align with what they believe, where they search for mirrors that reflect and reinforce their own biases, and gravitate toward views that validate their existing beliefs, leaving them trapped in a cycle of confirmation bias and self-reassurance. And to entrench them further, tribalism fosters loyalty to one’s "side" - whether political, social, or cultural – often at the cost of critical thinking. Running around the maze, they seek to defend their group’s beliefs and narratives, not because they’ve diligently critically evaluated them, but because dissent feels like a betrayal of their identity.
Moreover, the maze amplifies their illusion of competence - the Dunning-Kruger effect - where they overestimate their understanding of complex issues, and mistakenly feel more informed than they actually are, emboldened to make confident assertions while ignoring the limits of their knowledge. And as those pulling their strings tug a bit harder, they remain subliminally motivated by fear and in the shadows of the maze, while all the time believing they are a force for good, acting with near moral certainty, convinced of their own righteousness even as they unknowingly perpetuate the very dynamics that keep them imprisoned. They remain fully sold on the labyrinth’s paths; blind to the watchtower, they embrace their imprisonment with the zeal of willing convicts.
I think most individuals are trapped in the maze, navigating its endless twists and turns without ever questioning its design. A smaller minority have begun their ascent, partway up the ladder of truthseeking, striving to rise above the confusion. And then there are the rare few who have reached the watchtower – where, through a determined effort to learn the truth, they are elevated to a level where they can see the maze for what it truly is and understand the forces that shape it.
