All I want is some truth & The Prevention of Literature

[Terrance]

> > Precisely. History is contested knowledge. We have to know how we've
> > arrived at what we know. The "distinctions" you speak of, funnily
> > enough, what Foucault calls "truth-games" or "regimes of truth", are
> > defined by those who have the power to do so at any given time.
> > Everything I've written has targeted that, but I guess there aren't
> > enough laughs in history.


History has never been free of error and distortion,  but what is
peculiar to "our own age" (or so O believed) is the abandonment of the
idea that history can be truthfully written. More importantly, it is
TOTALITARIANISM "the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long
run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective
truth."  



"The organized lying practiced by totalitarian states is not, as is
sometimes claimed, a temporary expedient of the same nature as military
deception. It is something integral to totalitarianism, something that
would still continue even if concentration camps and secret police
forces had ceased to be necessary."  




"Among intelligent Communists there is an underground legend to the
effect that although the Russian government is obliged now to deal in
lying
propaganda, frame-up trials, and so forth, it is secretly recording the
true facts and will publish them at some future time. We can, I believe,
be quite certain that this is not the case, because the mentality
implied by such an action is that of a liberal historian who believes
that the past cannot be altered and that a correct knowledge of history
is valuable as a matter of course. From the totalitarian point of view
history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian
state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep
its position, has to
be thought of as infallible."

A theocracy!  

"But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is
frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this
or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph
actually happened. Then again, every major change in policy demands a
corresponding change of doctrine and a revelation of prominent
historical figures. This kind of thing happens everywhere, but is
clearly likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where
only one opinion is permissible at any given moment. Totalitarianism
demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long
run probably demands a disbelief in the very
existence of objective truth."  

"The friends of totalitarianism in this country usually tend to argue
that since absolute truth is not attainable, a big lie is no worse than
a
little lie. It is pointed out that all historical records are biased and
inaccurate,
or on the other hand, that modern physics has proven that what seems to
us the real world is an illusion, so that to believe in the evidence of
one's senses is simply vulgar philistinism. A totalitarian society which
succeeded in
perpetuating itself would probably set up a schizophrenic system of
thought, in which the laws of common sense held good in everyday life
and in certain exact sciences, but could be disregarded by the
politician, the historian, and the sociologist. Already there are
countless people who would think it scandalous to falsify a scientific
textbook, but would see nothing wrong in falsifying an historical fact.
It is at the point where literature and politics cross that
totalitarianism exerts its greatest pressure on the intellectual. The
exact sciences are not, at this date, menaced to anything like the same
extent. This partly accounts for the fact that in all countries it is
easier for the scientists than for the writers to line up behind their
respective governments."


That right and wrong, true and false, fact and fiction, were as
relativistic and indeterminable as time and space seemed to O to cause
the collapse of our HUMANity. 

The denial of an objective truth takes away OUR  COMMON SENSE  of the
world and once that happens a nightmare world is born and THEY control
the future and the past.