Chicken-Egg-Chicken

What comes first, the Event itself or the Story about the Event that occurred?

Our first instinct is to respond that, of course, the Event occurs and then the Story about the Event is told. But is that the only way reality operates? No.

Event preceding Story (E→S) is a natural understanding of how reality unfolds over time. Certainly, this is the way reality operates often enough that we opt for a shortcut and act as though Story follows Event all the time. We apply a hard rule to an unknown. In doing so, we strike an aspect of Reality Prime from existence within our conceptual reality. We believe we observe E→S so consistently that considering other possibilities strikes us as a waste of time and energy. Despite an innate sense that other things are happening—knowing some of which must be beyond our awareness—we act as though nothing is.

That which happens beyond our awareness is, by its nature, subtle and hard to detect. If we spend no time considering what else might be happening, we have no chance of recognizing when it is, much less interacting with it in the proper ways. Many of these operations of reality as we know it are not imperceptible. We simply ignore them by choice, an act of psychological protection leaving us unequipped to properly respond when these aspects of reality emerge. We have been conditioned to rely on knowledge from authority and reject knowledge from intuition. We are conditioned to reject knowledge even from our own observation if we are forced to choose between our senses and the word of the Authoritative Source. It is a fundamental fact about the world that none of us knows everything and each of us operates on what we do know. Even without entering the realm of esoterica, we must admit there is knowledge we simply do not possess, but it is foolish to assume, therefore, that others do not possess it. We know things others do not know. Others know things we do not know. Why would this phenomenon stop before reaching the spiritual domain? It is foolish to assume those who posses the knowledge are not using it right now to gain an advantage. Of course they are.

In choosing ignorance to avoid short-term psychological stress, we place ourselves in greater danger. If powerful strangers, for instance, can perceive and interact with parts of reality we choose not to access, we make ourselves easy to exploit. Their knowledge appears to us as magic because we have chosen not to learn their tricks. This leaves us at the mercy of powerful strangers, a terrible strategy for survival, much less for creating the lives we want for ourselves and our children.

If we are unable to recognize emergent aspects of reality when they are occurring, judgments like “reality operates in E→S fashion, almost all the time,” collapse completely. On what basis could we claim to know something is not happening if we are wholly unable to recognize when it is? Our appeal to the knowledge of consensus gets us no further. The consensus agrees that E→S is how reality operates pretty much all the time. The widespread agreement is comforting until we remember that no one sharing the consensus perspective can recognize when something other than E→S is occurring any better than we can. All of us have simply chosen to ignore the possibility.

What we intend to do is based on what we believe. A change in belief precedes a change in behavior. By inducing beliefs in others, presumably, their behavior can be changed. This is the basic, underlying premise of advertising. If Ford wants to sell its latest pickup truck, the automaker could identify a target demographic of people who need to tow things and then differentiate its product through innovation, proving Ford is the best choice for towing, OR Ford could simply message to instill the belief that real men drive the new Ford pickup truck. Sure, all pickup trucks tow things, but the new Ford pickup truck is the only choice for real men. Creating and maintaining that belief across a consumer base over time makes “owning a Ford pickup truck” part of what it means to be a “real man.” For as long as Ford pickup trucks serve as a proxy for “real man” and “real American” (and both remain desirable identity characteristics), Ford will be able to sell pickup trucks to men who identify as “real” and “American,” even when the men are not actually American.

(In consumer culture, brands become proxy for identity. Identity becomes a collection of brand-associated characteristics. If I exemplify the characteristics of a real man or a real American, and portray myself as such, then I am, in fact, a real man and a real American (at least within a layer of abstraction). This can even work for illegal aliens, if they commit to the portrayal. For a time in our recent past, “real man” and “real American” were not desirable traits in America. Perhaps this explains the proliferation of foreign-branded pickup trucks. The pickup truck says real, American man and the foreign brand says, but not the bad kind. In an ascendant consumer culture, a person can be a real American by virtue of buying foreign-branded products. How have so many things been inverted? How indeed!)

Inducing belief that drives behavior is the point of political propaganda as well. Edward Bernays, in Propaganda (his seminal 1928 book on public relations and mass persuasion), described the process of creating Events for the purposes of promoting a political agenda. He writes:

Since he is campaigning on the issue of a low tariff, he not merely would tell people that the high tariff increases the cost of the things they buy, but would create circumstances which would make his contention dramatic and self-evident. He would perhaps stage a low-tariff exhibition simultaneously in twenty cities, with exhibits illustrating the additional cost due to the tariff in force. He would see that these exhibitions were ceremoniously inaugurated by prominent men and women who were interested in a low tariff apart from any interest in his personal political fortunes. He would have groups, whose interests were especially affected by the high cost of living, institute an agitation for lower schedules. He would dramatize the issue, perhaps by having prominent men boycott woolen clothes, and go to important functions in cotton suits, until the wool schedule was reduced. He might get the opinion of social workers as to whether the high cost of wool endangers the health of the poor in winter.

All of these Events would be set to occur prior to the politician making his pitch directly to the people. The politician would simply present his candidacy as the vehicle to provide people with that which they have already been conditioned to want. Various beliefs about tariffs would be induced in the public and the public would behave accordingly by supporting the politician. Depending how thoroughly convinced they have been about the importance of low tariffs, they might be willing to assist in punishing anyone in public life who supports the raising of tariffs.

(Tariffs became a critical issue in the years after Bernays wrote Propaganda, both in America and abroad, most particularly in Germany, just as tariffs have become once again. How about that?)

Staged events, coordinated messaging, numerous markets and demographics targeted, prominent and respected characters enlisted to promote ideas, input from social advocates or academia, the list goes on—all tools the propagandist will use to induce beliefs that drive behavior. If an advocacy group or academic department is needed where none exists, assuming access to the proper resources, one can simply be created. Control over the institutions, the media, and the currency allows for the creation of a society run solely by groups set up to promote the political agenda. People are coming to realize this describes our current situation. Bernays wrote Propaganda a century ago. Today’s tactics are far more sophisticated and the system of control is generations more deeply embedded.