C.J. Hopkins: Totalitarianism as a Free State Service
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Aug 22 • 59M
C.J. Hopkins: Totalitarianism as a Free State Service
EP. 6 of the LFBAM Mini Pod. Interview with Berlin based political satirist and dissident C.J. Hopkins about new forms of totalitarian censorship, GloboCap, and Orwellian concept creep
Dissident Philosophy Meta Inputs: upcoming topics, announcements, new books, and the occasional music recommendation
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7 comments
C.J. Hopkins: Totalitarianism as a Free State Service
Great interview! Thanks xx
A very good observation by Hopkins that he said that the voices opposing the measurements weren't called a "political opposition" but were defamed and named by and through unpolitical terms.
I attribute the fact that people have allowed themselves to be both taken in and impressed by this so quickly to the fact that there was a worldwide rapid course that one should really have been much more surprised about. But that did not happen. Instead, this synchronisation was seen as an act of solidarity on an impressive scale (through media influence, I think). A bit like in films or science fiction action movies where "the whole world and all governments are united against an evil enemy". The fact that people swallowed this so credulously points to a media "education", i.e. to a kind of perception of fictional content that one would like to take for reality. I think it is a fact that modern people are educated by films and fiction. Unconsciously, we remember things that never happened in real life, but are memories of cinematic scenes and dialogues, because the brain makes little distinction between fiction and reality when it comes to memories that are felt. So they represent an emotional memory.
The very fact of the dancing nurses makes it clear how much everyone wants to feel like heroes in the film.
Therefore, terms like "political opposition" in the form of a civic and non-party opposition are not very well known among people, I think. When people think of opposition, they immediately think of a party.
The idea that the demonstrations and protests, that the public appearances of the critics of the measures were exactly that in the eyes of those who were less critical and sceptical, was prevented by the media's narrowing of the terms to one extreme. If people like you and me were called "opposition members", they could not have been accused of things like "granny murderer" or "dangerous person" at the same time. According to the understanding, an "oppositionist" is not someone who is guilty of something, but merely exercises a democratic principle.
People in general are not very well educated in politics, I guess.
Most of my friends, ex colleagues and family members never read or dive deep into texts of political nature. Though I do not judge that. I didn't do it for the longest part of my life. So it's difficult to find someone on whose expertise and knowledge one can rely on. Ordinary people may learn to trust themselves amongst themselves more.