The concept of objective truth

[QuitTheirClogs]

The following is taken from Part IV of Orwell’s essay “Looking Back on the Spanish War” (1942?).
http://www.george-orwell.org/Looking_Back_On_The_Spanish_War/0.html

I remember saying once to Arthur Koestler, 'History stopped in 1936', at which he nodded in immediate understanding. We were both thinking of totalitarianism in general, but more particularly of the Spanish civil war. Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various 'party lines'.

…This kind of thing is frightening to me, because it often gives me the feeling that the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. After all, the chances are that those lies, or at any rate similar lies, will pass into history.

…for all practical purposes the lie will have become truth.

…The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but THE PAST. If the Leader says of such and such an event, 'It never happened'--well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five--well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs--and after our experiences of the last few years that is not a frivolous statement.

[acrobat74]

Among other things, you're touching upon an issue of vital interest:

How do we build & finance independent, trustworthy media?

If these media are financed by private interests, they're just potential propaganda / party line outlets.

If they are financed by a central controlling structure, e.g. the government, they're potential gov't propaganda outlets.

I can't think of any solution. When you think about such organizational issues in this context, it is rather evident that totalitarianism is pretty much inescapable.

The challenge I think, and I'm just thinking out loud here, is to go deeper and address the next level: changing the perceptions of individuals.

[QuitTheirClogs]

One of the ironies of this essay is that it was censored by the media and didn’t get published in full until 1953. The essay is reproduced in “Orwell in Spain” where Peter Davison (editor) writes:

It has not proved possible to date this essay, nor even to discover exactly when it was first published. When it appeared in New Road, probably in June 1943, sections IV, V and VI were omitted, much to Orwell’s annoyance. On 23 July 1944, Orwell wrote to Dwight Macdonald that ‘the little beasts’ at New Road ‘cut it about without informing me.’

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Orwell-Spain-Catalonia-Associated-Articles/dp/ 0141185163/