Isn't that a great word, 'obfuscation'? Unclear about what it means? Here are a couple of definitions for the verb 'to obfuscate':
- To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand: “A great effort was made . . . to obscure or obfuscate the truth” (Robert Conquest).
- To render indistinct or dim; darken: The fog obfuscated the shore.
For students of Semitic languages, this verb is close to what we would call the 'causative mode': 'to cause to be unclear'. This is different from merely being unclear or confused. In contrast to fog, smoke, or darkness, human obfuscation is distinctly deliberate. It has, I believe, become the favorite means for people in authority to manipulate the people who are depending on them. This represents a great example of 'mushroom governance': keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em manure.
Sadly, manipulation works — at least over the short term. It represents the triumph of expediency and self-interest over people's best interests and the common good. The OSS (the predecessor of the current CIA) described Adolf Hitler's personality in these terms: "His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit
a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your
enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame;
concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that
goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and
if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe
it."
I said it was effective; I never said it was honest or ethical. Yet, we see these same tools of obfuscation being used against populations constantly. Once upon a time, we could point to the people 'over there' (the great, dangerous 'them' who were in opposition to the ever-virtuous 'us') and feel sorry for them and glad that we were not they. But, that's no longer the case. Obfuscation comes into play in everything from marketing to governmental statements. Why do we permit this to go on? If anyone would believe the truth, it's all about the bean-counters and the bottom line.
Fifty years ago, President Dwight Eisenhower warned the country about the 'military-industrial complex', a term that became very popular in the '60's and '70's. Somehow, after Viet Nam, the 'military' dropped out of the picture; they became the pawns in a great international game of resource-grabbing. What's left of this threat to our freedom is only the multinational corporations. They're the ones who buy and sell our elections and our political processes. Our leaders — corporate and governmental — owe their power and lucrative livelihood to their support. Self-interest demands that they not piss off the bean counters. So, obfuscation rules.
Am I just blowing smoke? Look at the facts: the Environmental Protection Agency is prevented from even talking about greenhouse gasses and climate change. The Consumer Protection Agency is so emasculated that they're powerless to stop dangerous imports. The Food and Drug Administration, while shouting about individuals importing 'dangerous' drugs from Canada and Mexico, does nothing to prevent poisonous compounds from China getting into our own medications. The business community wants to open up environmentally sensitive areas to oil drilling; the utilities want to build more coal-fired generating plants, and some are pushing nuclear power as 'green' even though nobody knows what to do with the nuclear waste these plants produce. And the beat goes on.
The only hope that the populations of our wold have of surviving into the future is education: a profound education (rather than what's been foisted on us by 'No Child Left Behind') that gets into the guts of history and culture and gives people the philosophical tools to be able to cut through the smokescreens. Yet, obfuscation is a powerful tool in the hands of the few who want to rule the world. I wonder what it'll take for us to come out of the fog, and will it be in time?
H. Les Brown, MA, FCC
Copyright © 2008 H. Les Brown
Technorati Tags:
anticipation, obfuscation, manipulation, self-interest, education, multinationals
Comments