Trump's Campaign Proves Fiction Matters
Nov. 23rd, 2015 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastEvery so often, I get preemptively defensive about how I tend to focus on matters of fiction. After all, who cares if there's a better way to do movie X or a way to take better advantage of premise Y. It's fiction, it's just entertainment.
But, it isn't just entertainment. This matters. It impacts where we go as a people.
Trump's presidential campaign proves this, because fiction is how I know how Trump's campaign works and why.
Two books really give me the insight, here. 1984 and Small Gods. I can recommend both books, heartily. In fact, if you haven't read them yet, go do so. There will be spoilers here, but read these two books anyway.
In George Orwell's 1984, we have an oppressive nation. It isn't communist or fascist. There may or may not be a singular dictator running everything. There may or may not be a council. The economic philosophy or the exact structure of the government isn't the point. The point is control.
The means of control are language control and rewriting the past in order to eliminate the idea that the structure in power could ever be not as it is. "We have always been at war with East Asia." There is a massive control-force to keep these working, including an always-watching government. But, that's merely the force behind the tools.
This tells me much of how the Trump Campaign, among others, works. Trump is willing to casually ignore and rewrite history. He's willing to state the value of registering all Muslims or shutting down Mosques. He's willing to claim, with a straight face, that American Arabs cheered at 9/11. The only question is whether he cares enough about the truth to be, technically, lying.
In Terry Pratchett's Small God's, we have a theocratic nation in which everybody ostensibly believes in the one god Om, but there's only one real believer in the entire nation. Not a one of them truly believes in the god Om, but they all think they do. The reason they think they do isn't that they've got the wrong god in mind, but that they're all terrified of what happens if they're caught, even within the depths of their own minds, not believing.
That, I believe, is how someone can say, even within the depths of his own mind let alone at a rally and on camera, "we have a problem and it's called Muslims." Less as a matter of actually believing and more a matter of knowing that going farther and farther, even to the point of believing whatever he needs to believe in order to be seen to be a believer, is what it takes to be seen to believe.
That's the how of matters. But, the why is also important. Why would people create such worlds? Why would people's visions of ideal political and social realities look like this?
In 1984, O'Brien explains that, by giving one's self up to the party and losing one's identity within, one becomes a part of the party and therefore takes part in the power. In Small Gods, the philosopher Didactylos explains one of the things he saw when visiting Omnia and witnessing the stoning of an adulterer. “I’m talking about the people throwing the stones. They were sure all right. They were sure it wasn’t them in the pit. You could see it in their faces. So glad it wasn’t them that they were throwing just as hard as they could.”
People so ready to feel powerful that they will exert any level of cruelty it takes, just happy that it isn't them in the pit.
These fictions explain to me how he is selling this particular vision of an ideal world and why it's working. 1984 also explains exactly where it will lead.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever."
It matters. Because someone has to see this and express this, and the base facts aren't doing it on their own.
But, it isn't just entertainment. This matters. It impacts where we go as a people.
Trump's presidential campaign proves this, because fiction is how I know how Trump's campaign works and why.
Two books really give me the insight, here. 1984 and Small Gods. I can recommend both books, heartily. In fact, if you haven't read them yet, go do so. There will be spoilers here, but read these two books anyway.
In George Orwell's 1984, we have an oppressive nation. It isn't communist or fascist. There may or may not be a singular dictator running everything. There may or may not be a council. The economic philosophy or the exact structure of the government isn't the point. The point is control.
The means of control are language control and rewriting the past in order to eliminate the idea that the structure in power could ever be not as it is. "We have always been at war with East Asia." There is a massive control-force to keep these working, including an always-watching government. But, that's merely the force behind the tools.
This tells me much of how the Trump Campaign, among others, works. Trump is willing to casually ignore and rewrite history. He's willing to state the value of registering all Muslims or shutting down Mosques. He's willing to claim, with a straight face, that American Arabs cheered at 9/11. The only question is whether he cares enough about the truth to be, technically, lying.
In Terry Pratchett's Small God's, we have a theocratic nation in which everybody ostensibly believes in the one god Om, but there's only one real believer in the entire nation. Not a one of them truly believes in the god Om, but they all think they do. The reason they think they do isn't that they've got the wrong god in mind, but that they're all terrified of what happens if they're caught, even within the depths of their own minds, not believing.
That, I believe, is how someone can say, even within the depths of his own mind let alone at a rally and on camera, "we have a problem and it's called Muslims." Less as a matter of actually believing and more a matter of knowing that going farther and farther, even to the point of believing whatever he needs to believe in order to be seen to be a believer, is what it takes to be seen to believe.
That's the how of matters. But, the why is also important. Why would people create such worlds? Why would people's visions of ideal political and social realities look like this?
In 1984, O'Brien explains that, by giving one's self up to the party and losing one's identity within, one becomes a part of the party and therefore takes part in the power. In Small Gods, the philosopher Didactylos explains one of the things he saw when visiting Omnia and witnessing the stoning of an adulterer. “I’m talking about the people throwing the stones. They were sure all right. They were sure it wasn’t them in the pit. You could see it in their faces. So glad it wasn’t them that they were throwing just as hard as they could.”
People so ready to feel powerful that they will exert any level of cruelty it takes, just happy that it isn't them in the pit.
These fictions explain to me how he is selling this particular vision of an ideal world and why it's working. 1984 also explains exactly where it will lead.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever."
It matters. Because someone has to see this and express this, and the base facts aren't doing it on their own.
