Words Matter – This is Why Our Dear Overlords Wish to Control Them

Robert Bronsdon (Hollywood Rob) June 2018

It seems that everyone has a pretty firm idea of what their words mean.  Of course, no one has an unlimited vocabulary to call upon but we do have access to computer dictionaries which can be used to expand our options and make us look more erudite, but in general, this is a good thing as the rest of us will need to look up the new word and add it to our vocabulary.  That is if we can remember it.  I take it as small consolation that I didn’t have to look up erudite although I did have to have spell checker correct my misspelling.

There has been quite a bit of writing lately about Orwell’s 1984 as the technology to implement his predictions has now come fully into bloom.  As more and more people realize that they are trapped in what has come to be known as an Orwellian existence, they express an obvious concern that they will be trapped on the wrong side of the Orwellian tracks.  More and more of us prols are realizing that we may not be the ones who benefit from a new world order.  Some will luxuriate in Champaign Dreams and Caviar Wishes, but it most likely won’t be me.

It would appear to some that Orwell’s contention that power is the only goal of power is true because his explanation of how that power would be exercised seems to be true but that is not likely to be the case.  It is far more likely that the goal of power is to ensure safety.  Let me esplain.  No that will take too long.  Let me summarize.  (The Princess Bride)

There are only a few absolutes that govern the human condition.  Let’s make a list;

1. Air to breath – we won’t last long without air, specifically oxygen.
2. Water to drink – you might think food is next but you can go a long way without food.
3. Food to eat – Yeah eventually you will need food too.
4. Shelter from the cold – This isn’t important in some countries but it is in most.
5. Someone to boink – Well you do want there to be more humans after you.

After that it’s all extra credit points.  So in the final analysis all human activity is directed in one way or another around ensuring that these five requirements are met.  Humans, being inventive and more than a little bit contentious, have managed to find a very large number of ways to ensure that they get their share of the big five.  This has been going on since long before there were even humans on the planet, but it got really complicated once we evolved into the form that we inhabit today.  We invented tribes, kingdoms, states, countries, New World Orders, all centered around ensuring that the big five would be ensured…but for whom?

Two hundred years ago Marx and Engle skulled out a scheme whereby these necessities would be provided by the community.  That didn’t work out too well for a lot of people but even today there are many who embrace their theories.  Filthy rich royals in England came up with capitalism and hoped that they could ensure access to the big five.  Of course, that didn’t work out too well for the prols either.  They lived in slums and worked in factories that killed them while the filthy rich royals reveled in their wealth, and thereby their security, and their access to the big five.

Humans have a need to understand the world around them.  This is not unusual.  It can be found in literally all life on earth.  The simplest of life forms have only the simplest of understanding of the world around them but even a single cell animal can figure out what he has to do to get food.  As the complexity of the life form increases, so does the complexity of the understanding of the world around that life form, but it still all comes back to the big five.  If you can’t ensure access to the things that you physically need then you will fail as a life form.  You will die, and so will all the rest of your associated life forms.

Now some things that you need are likely to be beyond your control.  Oxygen might be one of those things.  But all of the rest of them can be acquired and ensured through power.  If your family is powerful, it can ensure greater access to the big five.  If a more powerful family comes along, your access is no longer ensured.  If you are lucky you might still get some water, some food, and maybe the occasional babe, but in general, your access will be drastically curtailed and that assumes that you are not killed outright.  So your family allies with other families to create a clan.  Let’s say through marriage, or just a common agreement.  The clans merge to create kingdoms.  The kingdoms merge to create nation states.  And all of this in an attempt to ensure access to the big five.

And why do you need to do this?  Why is it in your best interest to give up your ultimate sovereignty to the greater whole?  Well that is pretty simple actually.  Either you join the greater whole or you lose everything to a group of people who did join their own greater whole.  Your choice is either to have access to those things that you need to live or you do not.  You choose.  But for that which you gain, you must also give up.  You used to be a big important family and now you don’t even get to participate in the decision making process.  You might still have some local autonomy, some local power, but you know where the real power lies.  You know from where your access to the big five flows.

And now we finally come to words, for words are not all that necessary in a small society where little information exchange is required.  Birds, for instance, manage to show their young how to find access to all the big five without any words.  But if danger appears, they still cry out to warn the others.  But in a very complex social structure words are critical to the way in which the society functions.  The use of language is what allows the explanation of what is to be done by whom to ensure access to the big five.  Without words, you can’t have a king, a nation, a new world order.  This is why you only find these concepts in human societies.  Sure there are powerful animals, but their power only extends to the reach of their paws, or talons.  It is only in human society that we find the concept of a ruler, or a ruling class because it is only through words that such a concept can be proposed.  “I am your king.  What? My king?  Well I didn’t vote for you.  You don’t vote for a king!”  (Monty Python)

So the conclusion is that these organizations are created in response to others who are organizing so as to take stuff from you that you might want to keep.  If nobody was sitting just over the horizon; blades drawn with lust in their hearts, there would be no need for a powerful king to protect us all.  And from there it is just a small step to “hey, we have this king and a most bitchen’ army – why not go over there and take their stuff?”  And it seems like a really good idea because we could all use some more stuff.  You know, like more food, or maybe more oil, or some more of those fabulous babes that live over there.  We can go and get that from them.  Why not?  They were going to come here and take our stuff anyway.

And here is where we get to the use of language and control of those who have ceded power to others.  There is only one method available for controlling the masses.  Whether the goal of power is to coerce the masses into some action, or to convince the masses of some action, it is the communication of that message that will ultimately be the mechanism of transference that will evolve the world view of every individual in the society.  It started out as the town crier, evolved through printed billboards, through newspapers and tv and ultimately the internet.  But in each case, the message from the rulers to the ruled was the primary intent.  To maintain control over the mechanism of propaganda has always been the thing that is foremost in the rulers minds.  They will offer up any inducement to maintain that direct path to each and every one of the ruled.

And they will do this because it is the way in which they ensure their access to the big five, and ultimately to life itself.  They are not interested in power because power feels good.  They are not interested in power for powers sake.  They are interested in power because power gives them access to things that they need.  Sure it feels good to know that you have so much power that you can virtually assure that no one will ever come to your house and take your stuff, but it isn’t about the feeling good, it’s about keeping the stuff.

So now we come to the words and why they matter.  If you take my stuff, I am going to think that you did something evil.  You didn’t buy my stuff.  We didn’t trade stuff.  You just took it.  That’s evil.  If I took your stuff, you are going to think that I did something evil.  We both took stuff from each other, we both did an evil act.  The government is evil because they took my stuff in taxes.  The Germans are evil because they invaded places and took other people stuff.  The Muslims are evil because they take stuff.  The British are evil because they take stuff.  Do you see that you don’t need a god or a devil for evil to be done.  People have been doing evil things to each other for as long as there have been people and long before anyone dreamed up your god or anybody else’s god.  As soon as somebody had stuff to take, there was somebody else to take their stuff.

But nobody wants to be considered evil, so as societies became more and more complex, more and more effort has been put into molding the words that are used to make it appear that we are the good guys and they are the bad guys.  We would never take anybody else’s stuff but they…all they do is take other people’s stuff.  Our side can’t do evil things.  Their side only does evil things.

This is just one example.  As has been pointed out many times, the world view that you concoct in your head using your brain is in response to the reality that exists around you.  In other words, some things are painfully obvious like don’t touch that hot pan.  Other things you include in your world view because someone else told you too, but all of the things in your world view were either put there through your own experience, or by some communication from somebody else.  That communication, that modification of each individual world view, is what forms the bonds that define the success or failure in attaining access to the big five.  You, with your brain in a bone box, can only come up with one world view.  You, and your friends can come up with a slightly larger world view, some of it from experience and some of it from communications based on other peoples experience.  Once your step beyond the small group of family and friends you enter into a realm where communications becomes the dominate method for formulating a world view.  You can only get information from the world in a very condensed form.  It is a big world and a lot of things happen every day.  So you use an information aggregator which sifts through all of the things that are happening and tells you only the things that matter.  You skip over the “7 million people took a shit today, some more than one,” and focus instead on the “bombs were dropped on Syria today.”

But in doing this, in relying on an information aggregator, you expose yourself to the risk that the aggregator may have an undisclosed agenda that ensures that the words that are sent to you actually don’t mean what you thought that they did.  In fact, anyone who rules you has, and always has had, a vested interest in tailoring the message that you receive so that your world view will serve his best interest.  In other words, he ensures his access to the big five by modifying your access to the big five by tailoring your world view through the words that he sends to you through your information aggregator.

What could possibly go wrong?