Information, knowledge, wisdom

Fake news is not a new phenomenon. Propaganda, falsehood, and pure lies have been around since human beings are human beings. The difference to our days is quantity. There is so much information going in every direction that it is hard to keep track of what is true and what is false. There is plenty of information about how to verify the authenticity of information circulating in the public domain. For example, media channels have teams to do just that.

Common people may feel lost with contradictory information. Besides distinguishing what is true and what is false, or deciding what to believe in, people also have to discover what is the best course of action for any given event. These are increasingly difficult tasks and basic concepts may help. Clarifying those concepts is the aim of the following.

Besides being a university professor, specialized in medieval history, Umberto Eco was a gifted writer. He had a personal library so big that he had to move to a new house due to the peril of the floor collapsing with the weight of the books and the shelves ended in the apartment below. Yet, this was no ordinary library. Every single book in each shelf contained false information. He thought imagination for false things was much more interesting than the pure hard truth. Indeed, fantastic stories are more attractive and impressive than a mere description of true facts. However, admiring the imagination of creating stories is not the same as to believe them to be true.

The first step to distinguish what is true and what is false is to remember scientific proven facts. The classic example is: the water boils at 100°C. Of course, according to some, even scientific facts can be contested. Think about climate change. Then, take a deep breath. Scientific facts are based on data. Data is the first layer of “truth”. Actually, data is a bunch of lines or columns in a document with “facts” collected from “reality”. It is so both for natural and social sciences. The difference is that in natural sciences the lines/columns are usually full of numbers and in social sciences are usually full of words.

The second step is interpreting that data. In the example above, someone somewhere in time registered their observations when heating water and came to the conclusion that water reacted to heat. Then, he or she realized that something changed at 100°C, and found the boiling state. A huge amount of data has been collected on climate change in different fields of study. Experts have studied them and compared them with their peers. The result is information. In other words, “information” is the interpretation given to a set of data. Conclusions are information, but everything that is thought of during the process is also information. Now, scientists can make wrong interpretations for several reasons. One of those reasons is ignoring crucial data, another is analysing data according to preconceived ideas. In other words: making data “respond” to our expectations instead of “listening to” what data has to say.

The third step is to confront the information available and turn it into knowledge. If you only take wrong information under consideration, or if you only pay attention to a certain type of information, your knowledge can be distorted. An example of this is eugenics, a supposedly “scientific” theory determining that there were superior and inferior races of human beings. Racism is based on this theory. On the other hand, the scientific community of the entire world has been challenging information that has been produced for centuries and concluding which is true and which is false. The accumulation of true information (knowledge) has provided the foundation to advance science in all domains. Specifically in the case of climate change, many scientists have been studying it, producing and confronting information from different sources. Now, there is an authenticated body of knowledge about the subject, on which further studies can be based on.

The fourth and last step is achieving wisdom. Wisdom is a set of universal and timeless truths that have emerged by cross checking all bodies of knowledge. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an example. Article 1 says that “[a]ll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. The following articles are about our rights as human beings, our freedoms as citizens, and our duties as members of a community. All of this is true and valid in every country in the world. The document was approved on 10th December 1948 after two years of intense work and taking under consideration both visions from the West and the East.

Some stories we are told since childhood are about the fight between Good and Evil. Good is represented as honest, pure, and sometimes even naive. Evil is sly, lying to make people do terrible things, and using all sorts of tricks to ensure a victory. Reality is not that simple, obviously. Or maybe it is. It depends if you can spot a deceiver. In the path to achieve wisdom, we can find many deceivers. Some are better disguised than others.

Let’s start with an easy one: advertising. It is common knowledge that most advertising is full of lies or, at least, exaggeration. The aim is to make you buy the product. For advertisers, it doesn’t matter if the product is good or not. What matters is making you believe it is. For example, tobacco companies wanted to increase sales, but they found out that tobacco was harmful to health. Instead of correctly informing the public, they gave the impression that smoking was “cool” and safe. Later, they wanted to expand the market and noticed that few women were smoking. Thus, they targeted women, creating commercials with famous women smoking. After successfully achieving that goal, they thought of targeting children to expand the market even more. This time, the commercials aimed to convince children they would look like adults with a cigarette in their mouth. It worked perfectly. Then, the bomb was dropped on the media: tobacco companies have always known that smoking was harmful to health and hide it in order to make a lot of money.

Then, there’s propaganda. It is similar to advertising, but with a different purpose: to convince you that a certain political ideology, a certain religion, or a certain course of action is the best for you (or your country). As examples you have election campaigns, religious discourses, and war. Each party, each religion, each war antagonistic wants you to believe they are the only ones who are right. In these contexts, you can find much counter information, which is a reaction of what their adversary is saying. For example, in espionage some information is released to expose the lies of the other side (and hide the truth of our side). They say that the first casualty when a war breaks out is the truth. This is due to propaganda. Each country at war must convince their population to enlist or to help with the war effort. If they say the truth (how ugly, gory, and traumatizing war actually is) no one would want to join. So, they say that the enemy is a devil and it is “our” duty to fight and defeat it. Naturally, this is said on both sides.

Every falsehood has its purpose. Some fake news is propaganda in disguise. Others are intended to create chaos in society. This is a technique widely used by the far right to increase their votes (and it works!). In social media, where what each individual says can reach an ever-increasing audience, some people spread fake news just to get attention. Unfortunately, the worst pieces of information are the best candidates to achieve this. When it is out there, it can be an unstoppable snowball. For example, a woman in a city in the USA wrote on social media that immigrants were kidnapping pets to eat them (because her neighbour’s dog or cat went missing). As immigrants are being targeted by the far right to create chaos, this story ended up serving as an example of the (false) narrative on how immigrants were evil. In the end, the cat or dog that was missing returned home a few hours after that post was published, but the damage was already done.

What the lady from the USA wrote on social media was misinformation: “incorrect or misleading information”. She had heard that the dog or cat was missing and made wrong assumptions due to the narrative about immigrants she kept listening to in the media. What the far right does is disinformation: “false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumours) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth”.

It is impossible to avoid false information and it is impossible to verify the authenticity of every piece of information available. We have to trust. And here lies the question you should ask yourself: in who do you trust? Most people want to live their lives as carefree as possible and do not think much about what they hear. They trust in their friends and family, in the media, and in the Government. On the contrary, there are others who look further and realize that the truth is elsewhere. Those may be ostracized by society, regarded as annoying, because they often speak against the established power. Trusting in what they say may represent a risk, a risk of being ostracized as well or, in case of dictatorships, a risk of being arrested and tortured. The reality is that some of our friends or family may be wrong, that not all politicians are well-intentioned and that some media channels mainly convey propaganda. So, rephasing it: in who should you trust?

Created in 1945, the United Nations works based on the wisdom of all countries in the world. The UN is a beacon of hope for a better future and a source of reliable information. It currently includes 15 specialised agencies, 6 funds and programmes, and 9 entities and bodies. In addition, 8 independent organizations are also part of the UN system. Although there are offices in big cities like New York, Geneva, and Paris, the UN works on the field, where the world problems are more acute, together with the people who are facing them more closely. For these reasons, we may say that the UN is the reference for fact checking. You should choose other sources of information, obviously, but this is where you can go when you face contradictory information.

In the long term, education is the best solution to face disinformation of any kind. High-quality education, based on verified knowledge and wisdom. Unfortunately, education can be used to brainwash the population, as in the case of dictatorships, feeding young minds with lies. This was the case of Nazi Germany. Nowadays, it is important not only to educate with truthful information, but also to teach how to distinguish between what is false and what is correct. The UN has been working on this issue:

UNESCO is the specialized agency of the UN for education, science, and culture. It was created in 1945 with the goal of working worldwide to promote quality education for peace. As it depends on the countries’ funding, this major ambition had to be reduced for lack of money. Nevertheless, they are making a difference in the world. Besides helping preserve world heritage, it promotes the sharing of good knowledge and valid ideas.

Yes, there is a lot of disinformation circulating in the world. But there is also a lot of good information, information that can lead to progress and a better world. Which one do you pay attention to is up to you.

Keyword: ENTERTAINMENT | The weight of entertainment

Everyone wants to have fun, even those who take life too seriously and seldom smile. James Suzman’s study about work informs us that “leisure” was born after our ancestors learned how to master fire. This provided free time, which was spent by painting, building tools, and creating accessories (like necklaces). Just as working time evolved, so did leisure time. Nowadays, we have plenty to choose from: television, radio, cinema, amusing parks, museums, theatre, music, circus, comedy, ballet, workshops of different sorts, a wide range of parties, sports, literature, social media, video games, travelling… The list is very long.

What started as a way to pass the time (hence, the word “pastime”), turned into various industries. Entertainment means work for millions of people around the world. Moreover, the variety is so great that many people dedicate themselves to telling others what they should do to have fun: the dreaded critics. Of course, there are also journalists and bloggers who just recommend what they think is best. They are probably paid to do that. So, besides spending our working time being told what to do by our bosses, we end up being told what we should be doing in our free time: what books we should read, what films and TV series we should watch, what destination we should travel to, the amount of time we should play games, what sports we should practice, which parties we should go to… In a nutshell, we are constantly being advised on the right way to have fun.

The line between advice and censorship can be very thin. Throughout the centuries, there has been censorship for a numerous of reasons. Morality (often linked to religion) is number one. For example, the “Index Librorum Prohibitorum” was a list of banned books by the Roman Catholic Church, which existed between 1559 and 1966. Political regimes, especially dictatorships, are also very keen on banning books. The most terrifying event of this kind was the Book Burning on 10th May 1933 that took place in 34 cities in Germany almost simultaneously. Chosen by university students, thousands of books were looted from libraries, book stores, and publishing houses. Afterwards, the students piled up those books in public squares where thousands of people watched the students set the books on fire in a huge bonfire. And this was just the beginning.

Entertainment can also be used for propaganda purposes and for spreading a certain type of culture. That was the aim of the Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda of the Nazi regime. They did not just censor information and culture, they spread their ideology via cinema, theatre, education, the media. All information was controlled by the State. After World War II ended, the USA used the film industry (especially, but not exclusively) to portray the Soviet Union as the “bad guys”. The Cold War was particularly fertile in spy movies, where the CIA would always be better than the KGB.

Discrimination and preconceived ideas can also be spread through entertainment. For example, Western’s image of Eastern countries is based on what is depicted on television, cinema, and fictional books, which are based on crystallized notions that are passed down from generation to generation without being questioned. Most of these notions were built during colonialism. The acclaimed writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie shared her experience in her TED talk “The danger of a single story”. Not only her American university colleagues were mistaken about her Nigerian reality, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie also had a wrong image about other countries. Moreover, she tells us about how she became “African” in addition to being “Nigerian” and how she struggled with rejections about her writing not showing her “authentic” background enough. Culture can open our minds, but it can also limit them.

The weight of entertainment can be heavier than we realize. Having fun can become a political statement. Consuming entertainment products can shape your mind, limit your view of the world and twist your idea about “the others”. However, entertainment can also be an opportunity to get to know different realities, to open our minds to other cultures, to learn about ourselves and to realize that “the others” are basically like us, but with different backgrounds. Or, it can simply be a way to relax and stop thinking about serious things.

Keyword: WAR | War’s Propaganda

In 1622, the Sacred Congregation for Propagation of the Faith (known as Propaganda), was established to regulate the work of missionaries. Their mission was to spread the word of the (Catholic) Lord to the entire world. It was not always peaceful and the word was sometimes more imposed than spread. The term Propaganda evolved to mean “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumour for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person”. Nowadays, it pretty much means making people believe in ideas or false information for a certain purpose. The difference between propaganda and marketing (or advertising) is the aim. The first aims to make people believe in governmental lies for political purposes, the second aims to make people believe they need to buy products or acquire services they don’t really need.

War is an especially fertile ground for propaganda. Governments need to make people believe that war is absolutely necessary and, thus, they twist the facts or simply lie about them. Arthur Ponson was a Member of Parliament in Great Britain and he was one of the few who stood against the participation of his country in World War I. In truth, he spent his life advocating for peace and he was even physically and psychologically attacked because of it. In 1928, he published the book “Falsehood in War-time”, where he stated at the beginning of the introduction:

Falsehood is a recognized and extremely useful weapon in warfare, and every country uses it quite deliberately to deceive its own people, to attract neutrals, and to mislead the enemy. The ignorant and innocent masses in each country are unaware at the time that they are being misled, and when it is all over only here and there are the falsehoods discovered and exposed. As it is all past history and the desired effect has been produced by the stories and statements, no one troubles to investigate the facts and establish the truth.

In this book, Arthur Ponson exposes the lies told by governments during the World War I. Based on this, in 2001, Anne Morelli summarized his work and published the book “The Basic Principles of War Propaganda” *. She explains each Principle and gives examples from other wars that took place after World War I, showing that the same techniques are still used today. This is also confirmed in a documentary from Spiegel TV called “Fake War”, under the perspective of the use of mass media in war propaganda. The first episode is about World War I and mentions some of the false events described by Arthur Ponson.

Before World War I began, photography was used to complement articles published in newspapers. Film, which had been discovered by the end of the 19th century, was also used for the first time for propaganda purposes. Staged scenes of atrocities carried out by the enemy served Principle #3, showing the enemy as evil and full of heartless creatures. It also prepared the population for war. In fact, the British Government had created the first (secret) propaganda department with the aim of conveying false information in a way that looked objective and true. The target was the Germans and the Germans failed to properly respond to this campaign. However, years later, the Nazis took propaganda to another level. Inspired by the corporation advertising, the Minister of Propaganda conceived a coordinated plan using newspapers, photography, radio and film to influence the minds of the German population (they also tried to influence foreign countries, but failed), feeding them with lies and manipulating their thinking.

In the Vietnam War, the situation was reversed. There were no restrictions on journalists’ movements and there was not any kind of governmental censorship. This did not mean that the USA Government had given up on official propaganda. By this time, television was widespread throughout the world and journalists were no longer limited to written articles, outdated photos, and staged films. The problem was that the lies conveyed in official statements were being systematically debunked on a daily basis by the images that were shown on television and by the photographs that were published in newspapers. The discrepancy between these images and the official statements was considerable, which resulted in huge demonstrations and protests in the USA.

This was a lesson that the USA learned very well. In the Gulf War and in the Iraq War journalists were no longer authorized to go to the front line and they had no information on what was actually happening. This time, all the Principles were successfully applied. Both the general public and the journalists were fed with lies they could not dispute. Therefore, the war looked perfectly justifiable. It was only later, when the USA finally left Iraq, that journalists were made aware of the consequences of the US invasion and all the atrocities committed.

The Internet, especially social media, is making it increasingly difficult to control information. Yet, it is also making it increasingly easier to spread false information. Nowadays, propaganda is more than ever being confused with authentic information, even when it is proven to be false. Furthermore, there is this idea that propaganda is something that is only produced by the other side. People from “the other side” are the ones who are being brainwashed. Those in “our side” who disagree with what is said about the other side are liars and traitors. If we look closely, this is Principle #10.

As Aeschylus, the Greek and so-called father of tragedy, said: “in war, truth is the first casualty”.

* The 10 Principles are:
1. We do not want war.
2. The opposite party alone is guilty of war.
3. The enemy is inherently evil and resembles the devil.
4. We defend a noble cause, not our own interests.
5. The enemy commits atrocities on purpose; our mishaps are involuntary.
6. The enemy uses forbidden weapons.
7. We suffer small losses, those of the enemy are enormous.
8. Recognized artists and intellectuals back our cause.
9. Our cause is sacred.
10. All who doubt our propaganda are traitors.

Keyword: WAR | “Das Boot”, by Lothar-Günther Buchheim

Lothar-Günther Buchheim was born in 1918. He was 15 years old when the Nazis took power and, while attending the Hitler Youth’s meetings, where he had military training, he seized the opportunity to take photos and write articles about the activities of the organization. When World War II broke out, he was studying art, but he left his studies to become a war reporter for the regime. The Ministry of Propaganda had created military structures (called Propagandakompanie, known as PK) to train and employ war reports in the service of propaganda. These reporters would transmit information for the general public about what was happening in the front line (according to the Minister’s guidelines, obviously) via photography, cinema, and written articles.

After finishing his PK training in Potsdam, he was sent to Baule-les-Pins, 15 kilometres away from the port of Saint-Nazaire, to report about U-Boots. In the meantime, the U-96, whose Commander was Captain Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, arrived there around that time and the first photos Buchheim took in the port was precisely of its return from its 3rd mission in the Atlantic, in March 1941. Both men met later and, in October 1941, Buchheim was assigned to participate in the 7th mission of the U-96 submarine. A dedicated, thorough, and enthusiastic “PK man” (as he was known), Buchheim took 5000 photos, documenting everything and everyone. The result was unique and historical. His photos were published in several newspapers and magazines, influencing many young men to enlist in the Navy as submarine crew.

The mission began in October 1941 and ended in December 1941. During those months, Lothar-Günther Buchheim lived in the submarine alongside the crew and became a great friend of Captain Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock and First-Engineer Freidrich Grade. Years after the war had ended, when he wrote a book about this experience, the two military officials were paramount to review the details of “Das Boot”. Although it was a novel, he wanted the story to be as authentic as possible. Freidrich Grade corrected and explained all the technical details of a submarine and Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock gave him all the detailed information about the chain of command and how orders were given.

The book became an international bestseller precisely due to its detailed and authentic description of how life was inside a U-Boot. It starts with a scene at a hotel, as a way to describe the military setting. This was probably inspired by what Buchheim witnessed in the Hotel Majestic, where the U-Boot officials stayed when they were not on mission. The second chapter is dedicated to the submarine itself, how it was constructed, how it operated, how people would move around performing their routines, where they would sleep and eat, how they would relate to each other. The description of each post is detailed and we get an idea of the role that each man played inside the submarine. Then, the author tells what they did when there was nothing to do. Contrary to what one might expect, this is actually very interesting due to the mastery of the narrative.

The action itself (the attack on a convoy and the attempts to escape from the British Navy) are so vivid it seems the readers are there, alongside the military personnel, feeling the same emotions. The encounter with another U-Boot in the middle of a storm actually happened. In fact, the attacks and the escape also happened, as did the stopover in the Port of Vigo and the attempt to enter the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar. Impressive is also the description of being inside of a submarine during a storm. It’s something similar to being inside a washing machine.

The book was published in 1973 and in 1981 a film was released, aiming to meticulously depict the book. A documentary entitled “U-96 – The true story of Das Boot” was released in 2022 with accounts from people who were involved in the production of the film. It also includes an interview with the First-Engineer Freidrich Grade himself, the last survivor of the U-96, who was still alive at the time.

The film was faithful to the book just as the book had been faithful to reality. After watching the film, submariners were surprised at how much the film captured what they actually lived. The aim of the book’s author was to show the military’s point of view, those who were fighting the war inside the German submarines and had just on mission: sinking British ships. Some say it was an antiwar story. Regardless of whether this is true or not, the book (and the film) is a remarkable historical document, even though it is fiction.

By reading the book and/or watching the film, we learn what those German military went through during the Battle of the Atlantic. About 70% of the U-Boots’ crew died.

The book for next month will be “Le Petit Prince”, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Information

Information is a two-step process. Firstly, data is collected. The data has no meaning as it is a list of numbers and/or words. Secondly, data is processed and transformed into information. The way information is created depends on the purpose for which it is created. This means that the exact same data can result in opposite results. It is not a question of denying or dismissing facts, it is a question of choosing the facts and using the wording that best fits the purpose. However, information must always respect the facts and be based on the data that is collected (assuming that the data were correctly collected).

Sometimes, the result is misinformation, which is “incorrect or misleading information”. In this case, the data was incorrectly used. It is a little bit different from disinformation, which is “false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumours) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth”. In this case, the information is not at all based on data, but in lies (or in manipulating information on purpose to make people believe in false information). Fake news is disinformation. That is why nowadays most media use “fact check” tools to verify if the news is based on lies and not on true data/facts.

Then, there is propaganda, which is a specific type of disinformation: “dissemination of information—facts, arguments, rumours, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion”. It may have many different purposes, but usually is related to political motives. Interestingly enough, the term comes from a religious organization aiming to spread the Catholic faith (or better yet, to convince other people that the Catholic faith was better than all other religions). Propaganda sometimes may be confused with advertising (which also aims to convince people of something) as it can use similar techniques.

A new concept is now emerging: information pollution. In today’s digital world, information is overwhelming and, as filters are removed, true information equals false information in so many different channels that people lose their capacity to distinguish between the two. These channels are also full of irrelevant and redundant information that help distract and confuse. The result in the long term is hate speech, disrespect of human rights, and general violence.

António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General, stated that “[c]ountering disinformation requires lasting investment in building societal resilience and media and information literacy”. Measures and solutions exist and are available online (just search it on the Internet with “countering disinformation” as key words), but the problem is hard to fight. Knowing this, the United Nations published the report “Countering disinformation for the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms”. In 19 pages, the report explains what disinformation is, what its legal framework is, and how states can tackle it.