Disinformation
- Hardial Bains Resource Centre -
Most
significant in going through this particular historical period of
retreat of revolution, is that all the experience of humans relating to
humans and humans relating to nature from time immemorial is coming to
a head. If that vast experience is not thought through, then we could
be heading for a greater tragedy, an event causing great suffering,
destruction, and distress. It is in this context that what constitutes
disinformation has significance. Disinformation is
not synonymous with misinformation. It can include misinformation,
straightforward lying or misconceptions of various things but this does
not go to the heart of the matter which lies in the "dis" part of the
word disinformation. To "dis" is to destroy. Disinformation is the
destruction of what is being informed, that which is providing form.
A legitimate question is: What is the realm of what needs to
be informed with this vast human experience? What is the arena that we
are actually dealing with? How do we connect with, have links with,
feel the whole sensuous matter of this experience that we have in our
personal lives and in the lives of our collectives and in society in
general and internationally throughout the world? We
are speaking here of the ensemble of human relations -- all the
material that becomes thought material, that is provided to the human
brain. This is what has to be informed. We are not talking about
information as in bits of computer data or about giving the proper
piece of data that somebody in their brilliance can construct. This is
akin to sorting out the question of "what is what" by having a grocery
list of things or, for that matter, by collecting metadata. If we are
to take various bits of information and just string them together in
any way that we desire, giving it whatever form we desire, that could
be well and fine and there are various points of interest that could
possibly be communicated by doing something like that. But that is not
what we are talking about when we speak about informing, about having
information. Without tackling this, we will not see the disinformation.
 When
we look at the world, the natural and social environment, when we deal
with our society, our collectives, where we work, how we work, all of
these things, we get to see a vast entanglement, how everything is
related to everything else and how there is such a complexity. If one
could stand on a mountaintop and look down and see all the trees and
lakes together, one might see a city over here and cars and roads over
there. But for us in social life, it is never like having that vantage
point on a mountaintop because we are right in the midst of the
hurly-burly. How does one relate to one's colleagues and co-workers, to
one's comrades, family, neighbours, to one's nation, to one's polity --
all such questions arise. Not only that, there is a whole history that
has brought us all together up to this point. This history is the whole
social development and the stage of development now reached by the
productive forces, of which the most important are the human beings who
do the work, who have contributed to bringing society to where it is
today, to bringing civilization to this point. There is a human need to
see, to literally see, to observe what is known, to understand how did
we get here, what is unknown, to define precisely, especially what is
unknown, what is absent in our lives. And thus how do we deal with the
problems as they are presented?
All the
developments that have taken place provide very rich content, but this
content necessarily outstrips the forms that have been established in
the past. To put it very concretely, in the society we live in today
the fetter on our lives is the social relations of production that we
enter into independent of our will. Literally forced down everybody's
throats are the claims of monopoly right, to the extent that there is
no public right. People's right to make claims for a livelihood, for
conscience, for all the things that are needed, including those within
the spheres of knowledge and all such matters, are simply not
recognized. At the same time, being human beings in
a particular historical period, in a definite political and economic
arrangement, we all have to have our opinions about what we need to do.
If we cannot collect, inform this vast need for expressing our
opinions, we have no way of examining even what is correct or
incorrect, relevant or irrelevant. Everything becomes diffuse. At the
same time, because of the developments and because we live in a modern
society there are all sorts of institutions with their disciplines. For
example, with the development of modern capitalist society, one of the
most important achievements was the scientific and technological
revolution in which the relations of humans with nature could be
transformed for use by human beings. In order to carry this out, the
university system was developed, various institutions were established,
such as publishing houses and newspapers and associations, and this
constituted part of the original revolutionary struggles that
established the modern nation states. Within these universities and
forms of education, and within the development of journalism, knowledge
had its expressions, as well as all the opinions that
pertained to that knowledge. This constituted the various disciplines,
whether it was mathematics or biology or economics or political and
social sciences or fine arts, music or others. They were developed to
the level that social development had carried them, along with the
productive forces, but within the context of the social relations that
were already established. What was most important at a certain period
was the creation of something that was public, the formation of outlook
-- not just knowledge but an outlook based on that knowledge.
We are not dealing here with the question of world outlook per se, but an
aspect of it which is the creation of public opinion, that in the
creation of polities and political society there is the need for
arguing out all the distributions of claims and interests that people
have in different ways. That public opinion is going to be informed by
people fighting in their interests, expressing their outlooks. Because
we live in a class society, that fight within the domain of public
opinion goes on among all the contending classes and social forces.
This constitutes a definite complexity that is linked very
closely but is not the same as the problem that exists in fighting for
and carrying out the democratic revolution against medievalism. That
fight brought forth a modern conception of democracy which served the
needs of the society as it existed at that time. Today this no longer
adequately expresses what is required as people present themselves with
many interests as individuals, within their collectives, then in the
society overall and which are, at the same time, the consequence of all
the influences both of their own experiences and how they are affected
by the vast interaction through the institutions of their society. This
is what is called affect.
It is not simply a social relation that exists, but because of the
human brain, these social relations, to varying degrees and in various
ways, are cognized. All the human brain can do in cognition is perceive
and know the relations that underlie the basis of the society, those
relations between humans and humans and humans and nature. That affect
is expressed in the form of passions. It is what provides emotionality.
In the domain of public opinion, there will be the expression of all
the angers, joys, happiness, anxieties, lusts, strivings and so on of
that particular society, which will be informed by its culture --
political, ethical, scientific culture. Every
type of work that is done within that society, based on its stage of
development, has its own culture and that culture has a form. It has
material, social and ideological form, not as separate things, but as
that culture. Any work that is established develops its own culture. If
the needs of that society at any particular time are not met by
establishing work, whether it is in industry, or in scientific research
or in the area of class struggle, that culture is not able to develop.
This means that the affects, the sensuousness of people, the passions
are going to be influenced by those who have done that work, carried
them out in the domain of work. Put in
terms of what happens today, this is where the human personality
becomes either humanized or dehumanized. It either gets organized
adequate to or in conformity with this stage of development that
society has already reached or it does not. It is what history is
calling for as the task that has to be settled once and for all in
these particular circumstances. This is what has to be informed. All
the opinions expressing the affect, the social affect in that
emotionality that people enter into in their relations to one another
and to nature have to be informed. It means that we have to be able to
work together within the particular historical circumstances, we have
to have the facts of the matter and to be able to discuss the facts of
the matter. We have to decide where these facts of the matter will lead
us. We have to be able to make predictions. For instance, it is how
deliberations take place on how to prevent a natural disaster. In the
same way, we could stop the social disaster which is in the making; we
could turn historical success into victory. All of this is fought out
in this realm of what is public opinion. There
have to be the forms given rise to that are adequate to bring this
content into the public realm, to release the initiative of all the
people who have the expertise to make the contributions, to make this
advance, and to settle scores finally, historically, with everything
from the past. To be continued.
This article was published in
Volume
51 Number 3 - January 20, 2021
Article Link:
Disinformation
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
|
