Noble Lies and Spinning Wheels
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| The Media Tree USC Symposium on Digital Media |
Anyone who is a child,
parent, spouse, teacher, brother, sister, co-worker, boss, minister, or (you
pick) is a master of spin. "How are we going to convince the kids to
do....?" Or, "How can I get mom and dad to allow me to do...?"
Most will say, this is not spin but manipulation. Exactly!
Spin is manipulating fact to achieve a predetermined goal. It may
not be as obvious in our everyday life but it is a reality. Today,
however, with the widespread use of multimedia, spinning is an art that
requires daily attention. Particularly with politics, it incorporates the
use of Plato's Noble Lie.
Plato's Noble Lie has been in practice for centuries and applies a different set of "truths" to different groups in order to achieve maximum support with minimum resistance. It doesn't require a lot of thought in its application, just a basic understanding of the various groups that need to be convinced. We need look no further than the Obama and Bush administrations so see it applied in a masterly fashion.
The Obama administration used this very successfully in its presentation of the Health Care Reform Act. The assurance that our preferred health care policy would not be going away was a lie and they knew it. Our preferred health care policy would not go away IF our current policy met all of the requirements of the reform act. It wasn't a lie so to speak, it just didn't reveal the whole truth. The Reform Act supporters in the the House and Senate also did their part to promote the lie.
In the run up to the war in Iraq, the Bush administration used the noble lie in the presentation of their "facts" on weapons of mass destruction. They knew there were no stock piles of such weapons but forged ahead with the presentation at the UN and the State of the Union address with the nuclear threat. However, I will give the Bush administration kudos for quickly re-framing the run up when they were losing national support for going to war based on weapons of mass destruction.
I was in Washington DC in January 2003 doing legislative advocacy and met with Rep. Jim Kolbe from Arizona to discuss several issues. During our informal discussion, I told him as a combat veteran, I was strongly opposed to a war in Iraq. The weapons of mass destruction data were shown to be incorrect and we were already engaged in Afghanistan. He agreed. He said he was an integral part of the discussions with the White House and fellow Republicans and wanted to assure me that the weapons of mass destruction issue was a very minor part of the necessity to go to war with Iraq. The primary goal, he said, was to "free the Iraqi people." After I left his office it hit me; they have changed the message. Well Done!
The use of the Noble Lie and spin is non-partisan and has been used throughout history to obtain a goal. For the masses, it would behoove us to become informed and fully investigate an issue:
Plato's Noble Lie has been in practice for centuries and applies a different set of "truths" to different groups in order to achieve maximum support with minimum resistance. It doesn't require a lot of thought in its application, just a basic understanding of the various groups that need to be convinced. We need look no further than the Obama and Bush administrations so see it applied in a masterly fashion.
The Obama administration used this very successfully in its presentation of the Health Care Reform Act. The assurance that our preferred health care policy would not be going away was a lie and they knew it. Our preferred health care policy would not go away IF our current policy met all of the requirements of the reform act. It wasn't a lie so to speak, it just didn't reveal the whole truth. The Reform Act supporters in the the House and Senate also did their part to promote the lie.
In the run up to the war in Iraq, the Bush administration used the noble lie in the presentation of their "facts" on weapons of mass destruction. They knew there were no stock piles of such weapons but forged ahead with the presentation at the UN and the State of the Union address with the nuclear threat. However, I will give the Bush administration kudos for quickly re-framing the run up when they were losing national support for going to war based on weapons of mass destruction.
I was in Washington DC in January 2003 doing legislative advocacy and met with Rep. Jim Kolbe from Arizona to discuss several issues. During our informal discussion, I told him as a combat veteran, I was strongly opposed to a war in Iraq. The weapons of mass destruction data were shown to be incorrect and we were already engaged in Afghanistan. He agreed. He said he was an integral part of the discussions with the White House and fellow Republicans and wanted to assure me that the weapons of mass destruction issue was a very minor part of the necessity to go to war with Iraq. The primary goal, he said, was to "free the Iraqi people." After I left his office it hit me; they have changed the message. Well Done!
The use of the Noble Lie and spin is non-partisan and has been used throughout history to obtain a goal. For the masses, it would behoove us to become informed and fully investigate an issue:
- What is the message?
- Who is the messenger?
- What is the goal?
- What is the hidden agenda?
- Who is the messenger trying to convince?
Comments are most welcome!
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