The empire of lies

Among the countless images of the 9 October demonstration in Rome - where tens of thousands of citizens peacefully protested against the liberticidal measures adopted by the Draghi government - one in particular tells us better than any philosophical essay about the era in which we live, beyond of the case in question. Overlooking the improbable (if not insane) version of the facts provided by the regime media – which, of course, have refrained from publishing the aforementioned image, limiting themselves to framing the scene in a partial and misleading way - and leaving out the tested tense modus operandi what is striking to de-legitimize a peaceful demonstration is the fact that a minimum deviation, an imperceptible change of perspective, a camera rotated by a few centimetres is enough to transform the lie into truth, fiction into reality, the victims into executioners.

Ours, as Debord and Baudrillard teach us, is the empire of lies and simulacrum, of the integral falsification of the existing: the society of the spectacle is a sort of immense black hole that swallows everything and from which nothing can emerge unscathed. Ours is the time of parody and counterfeiting and the first victim of this process of inversion is the reality itself, which in the media narrative - this deadly weapon at the disposal of power, which allows it to perpetuate its dominion and its abuse - disappears or is systematically altered.

For this reason, every procession, every event, however sacrosanct and legitimate, fails at the start: just a camera held by a gallop of the single thought, the article of the mercenary on duty, the post of an influencer at the service of the Ministry of Truth, to transform the oppressed into oppressors. With this in mind, any street protest not only risks being useless, but even counterproductive and does nothing but facilitate the strategy of the enemy and his propaganda organs. Perhaps we have only one way to escape from this suffocating hood with which power has hidden reality: stop looking at this immense phantasmagoria, stop feeding with our eyes this darkness that imprisons everything, because it is omnipresent and immaterial.

This black hole grows because we look at it, it is a darkness that we ourselves illuminate, and with these artificial eyes it hunts us. And it manages to hunt us down precisely because we allow ourselves to be caught in its field of vision, we oppose it within the perimeter of its power, following its own rules, albeit as opponents. It can see us because we look at it, it can talk to us because we talk about it, it can listen to us because we listen to it: without our presence its power is nothing, it cannot exist without us, we are the fuel that feeds its fire, we are its food.

If for a week no one turned on the television and the computer, these deforming mirrors, this ghostly castle would melt like snow in the sun, suddenly revealing its ghostly and illusory nature: the regime thrives not only thanks to its supporters, but above all through its opponents. Do we not exist for the dominant narrative, or are we treated like criminal insane?

Well: from today it does not exist for us, its mirages no longer ensnare us, any threat leaves us indifferent. They went all the way, did what they want, as long as they are allowed: this is their time, it is necessary that things go like this, basically everything that happens has a meaning, although it often eludes us or is opaque. We will of course do our part, but let's stop considering the contingent as absolute, the transitory irrevocable: to see, you must close your eyes, today more than ever, since the lie is so extensive that it covers the entire horizon of the visible. Otherwise, we will continue to look without being able to see, if not the lies of this petrifying Medusa.

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Original column by Flavio Ferraro:

https://leggifuoco.it/2021/10/14/limpero-della-menzogna/

Translation by Costantino Ceoldo