A Masked Reality- The Manipulation of the Minds by Big Corporations
It has long been drilled into our heads that one should never question our government. The government serves as a tool to “protect society” and serve in its “best interest.” But exactly how much of this concept is true? If we do not question our government and the way things are ran, how can we be assured that the information we are given is accurate and reliable?
Noam Chomsky, an MIT Professor, turned political activist and freethinker, ignited this radical and creative way of thinking and curiosity. In the early 90’s Chomsky warned of a 20% elite mass that controlled the 80% of the population who follow orders. According to Chomsky this elite mass was made up of the educated, wealthy, and the articulate that have a political voice and influence. These elites are only interested in their own profit and interest through advertising, there is a bias in the “news” that they present to the public. The media can manipulate our minds almost as easily as a parent manipulating a child’s mind. Like the child, we believe everything that our superior says, in this case the elite, that run our media, not questioning a single word or idea. The information is soaked and then discarded to make room for new “unquestionable news” the next day, and thus the cycle of controlled oppression and manipulation is repeated.
The warning by Chomsky of big media corporations controlling our thoughts was prevalent in the 90’s and it is still very prevalent almost two decades later. This manipulation and oppression of the people and their deprivation for curiosity has been most recently seen with the lack of concern for the millions of people that were killed by the US’s “mother of all bombs.” Anybody with a sense of empathy and a heart can realize that this act is inhumane and in no way justifiable.
However, the media shaped the coverage of this story in a way that would “assure” the people that this is a “war against terror.” The media’s justification for this atrocity was that the terrorizing group, ISIS, had lost 36 of its members and would be frightened to ever want to commit another act of terror again.
And just like that, the people in the US questioned nothing; they did not find a single act of inhumanity done. Even though an air strike that massive killed far more than the ISIS members. Not only that, but later, ISIS themselves spoke out and said that they were not frightened and they had not suffered any casualties with this bomb. The US got away with mass genocide as the media fed people lies to justify our invasion and killing of innocent lives.
Why is no one protesting? Why aren’t the people talking? What happened to our activist voice? Have we became so desensitized by media that we no longer feel any empathy or remorse for the millions of lives that were unrightfully taken away by us?
What is there to say about the media’s further controlling dominance over the entire society in which we live? It is not only enough for the media to control our opinions in order to oppress our voice and curiosity, but the media also dictates how we function as a society. According to another intellectual mind, Louis Althusser, the wealthy corporations have unconscientiously enforced the oppressed establishment of a lower class through an ideal known as wages. The proletarians are working everyday of their lives, earning just enough money to survive the next day, and the cycle is repeated.
This strategy assures that the working class remains working, and in doing so they are discouraged from becoming financially mobile and reaching a wealthy status that can have an influence over the rest of the population. There are two apparatuses that exist according to Althusser, the ideological state apparatus, which includes education, news, and media among other things, and the repressive state apparatus, which includes the military and police and uses coercion. The repressive state apparatus would also include those with authority over others, as Chomsky says, this would be the elite class.
The controlling of the production of labor power is established through a base and a superstructure. The superstructures being everything not directly having to do with production, like ideology. While the base are the mean and relations of production, the tools, machines, raw materials, the bourgeoisie, the capital, etc. According to Althusser the base and superstructure shapes and maintains the other and vise-versa. The base being the wealthy class is generally dominant, but in order to be dominant they must control the super structure. Both function together and both are needed to maintain the social order established by big corporations.
This theory is seen in the way that large, wealthy corporations exploit their workers, as was the case with corporations exploiting their workers through taxes. There are many recorded incidences where big companies pay their workers a minimum wage and not a living wage, and on top of this, these companies tax their workers for unnecessary expenses.
Why doesn’t the worker speak up? A possible explanation in the article given for this is that in reality the people don’t speak up because they only have a slight understanding of the information that is given to them, they are only aware of what is presented and not the other surroundings. But I think otherwise. The people may only be aware of what they are presented and nothing more because this is how media and big corporatins have hard wired our brains and way of thinking.
How much more of these lies will we keep accepting from the media? How much longer will our voices be silenced? How much more exploitation before we’ve had enough?
