People in power get to construct reality

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by coberst, May 3, 2008.

  1. coberst Registered Senior Member

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    949
    People in power get to construct reality

    President Carter declared that the energy crisis is the “moral equivalent of war” in 1977. This declaration immediately imposed a network of entailments (to impose, involve, or imply as a necessary accompaniment or result). These entailments were such things as “enemy”, “threat to national security”, requiring “setting targets”, “reorganizing priorities”, organizing “strategies”, accepting “sacrifice”, “obeying the Commander in Chief”, etc.

    New metaphors, like old tried and true metaphors, can have the power to define reality; thus the conclusion that power can determine reality.

    Metaphors create reality through a network of entailments that are coherent and commanding. Metaphors high light some things and push others under the rug. Our acceptance of a metaphor forces us to focus attention only on the aspects of our experience that it illuminates thereby by causing us to view its entailments as being true.

    Concerns of truth do arise regarding new metaphors but of most importance are our perceptions and inferences following the metaphor and the actions sanctioned by it.

    “In all aspects of life…we define our reality in terms of metaphors and then proceed to act on the basis of the metaphor. We draw inference, set goals, make commitments, and execute plans, all on the basis of how we in part structure our experience, consciously and unconsciously, by means of metaphor.”

    Can you give examples of how metaphors have directed action in your life?

    Quotes from “Metaphors We Live By” by Lakoff and Johnson
     
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  3. Clown Banned Banned

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    Power get to sell a reality.
    Those not in power either buy it or they don't.

    That which controls information controls the other's perception.
     
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  5. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Absolutely.

    Invaders and occupiers become self defence. Freedom fighters and the oppressed become terrorists. Its all in the manner of presentation.

    Framing


    As Adolf Hitler said:

    “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”

    “Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.”
     
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  7. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    That's better.

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  8. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Wait till you see the gas ovens my etchings
     
  9. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    In my observation Lenin is generally credited with the first articulation of this statement: "A lie told often enough becomes the truth."

    But if we keep repeating it with "Hitler" that will become the truth.

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