truth is treason in a land of lies
A society, just like a person, is its taboos as much as its activities, Its ignorance as much as its knowledge.
official stories
A society's core technology is in the stories that create common values. When people value ideas, things and activities in similar ways they will understand each other, co-operate, love allies, hate enemies, vote, pay bills, wear clothes, respect authorities, fill out forms, follow traffic signs and turn up to work and church on time. Like schools of fish or flocks of birds swirling in formation.
The stories are in places like the news, laws, advertising and theories that populate public consciousness. When they seep into the language and the architecture they turn into facts and just speaking the language and walking the streets rehearses them.
deception
A story does not have to be true. Interest groups deceive communities into activities that are not in their interest by hi-jacking the stories that distribute power, privileges and access to the public purse.
denial
Most of us know in detail of official delusions and corruption in our own circles but are only dimly aware beyond that.
What is common knowledge in private may have to be overlooked in public. Habits of looking the other way, and politely not noticing are the good manners that enable the obvious to remain invisible.
Not many rock the boat until its fashionable, especially when their jobs are on the line. It can be hazardous to upset the hosts and spoil the party. Silence is discretely bought and sold.
But when a community or a person hides information from themselves they lose the feedback they need to see where they are going and plan. The tipping point is when we start to believe our own propaganda and polite fiction becomes truth. Disaster can then creep up unawares. Invisible until slowly and then suddenly it disregards our expectations and becomes too obvious to ignore.
Denial and self-deception are the opposite of awareness and the origin of mental and social collapse.
denial is physical
Self-deception can be all consuming and exhausting. Denial is physical as well as emotional and mental. Parts of the brain and the body have to shut down for emotions or thoughts shut down. Similarly a nation in denial shuts down vital functions and becomes sick just like a person in denial.
Recovering the capacity to see can take time and in the meantime we are vulnerable.
too late
As a rule by the time conservation begins the place has been logged, species have vanished, dunes have washed out to sea and the river is dry. Trucks are carting sand and regulators and entrepreneurs are squabbling over taxes, licenses and credits to make money out of what's left.
Liquidators usually come through the door after the money has gone.
After winning every engagement we suddenly discover that the war is lost, our reputation is in tatters and we are pulling out.
Officially everyone is taken by surprise even though the alarm was sounding for years and it was old news in primary school playgrounds. Real activity seems only possible after the event. After the roof has collapsed in front of everyone. After everyone has taken their cut. After yet another bill has been forwarded to the next generation. Too late.
The side menu examines how regulators work so hard on unlikely threats and miss inevitable disasters.
knowledge is power
If we hero-worship authorities and adopt their stories over the evidence of our senses then we stop being ourselves and thinking our own thoughts. There is a sense of unease, discomfort or distress that tells us something is wrong but we are unprepared when the real world ignores the stories.
Communities and individuals control their destiny when they know what is happening. The awareness therapy pages are pathways to sense ourselves and the world more clearly. The media page has links to help work out what is really going on.