126 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
126 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
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Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 7 Num. 84
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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Testimony and Communication: A Way Toward *La identidad*
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by Miguel Barnet
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Translation by Brian Francis Redman
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[Excerpts]
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Domination relies on force and the lie is its sign.
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With the mass media firmly monopolized, from the printing press
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to television and video, the democratization of culture has been
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no more than an illusion and a mirage in the Capitalist world.
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The workers, the exploited, have been made to systematically
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disappear by a system whose only interest is the mass production
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of material goods and the conjunct mass production of ideas.
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The true artistic and cultural creations, those that would have
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filled the deeply personal needs of the people, that would have
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helped them in their search for self-knowledge, have not reached
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the masses. On the contrary, the mass media have served rather
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to poison our consciousness and to standardize a sense of
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enjoyment that today serves as the acceptable model. All of the
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media paraphernalia have served only to block the development of
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a sensibility and taste in accord with the truest needs of the
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common man; they have created an endemic evil instead of a
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cultural message.
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The worst of all is the *appearance* of truth. With gallant
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models of bourgeois conduct, with the latest automobiles and
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tears of glycerine, they have innoculated us with the greatest
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and most atrocious lies, the cruelest deceptions, the most brazen
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blackmail of one group by another.
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Without a glimmer of their own spiritual autonomy, subjugated by
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a dominant mode of being and alienated from their legitimate
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self-interests, the peoples of our America have had to endure a
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merciless barrage of sleeping pills so that they can have dreams
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that are not theirs. The channels of communication, like a
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modern Dr. Faustus, insure that strange ideas that dazzle the
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eyes are accepted.
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The pathology of alienation has become something common and
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familiar. It is now almost impossible to distinguish alienation
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from a normal state of being.
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We are a manufactured product. A merchandise.
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What has the modern Capitalist society given us, with all its
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technological apparatuses? It has converted us into machines
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that reproduce ideas that have already been commercially
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processed. This is the equivalent of a psychological war. The
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mass media have been employed in order to promote this war, just
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as diplomacy has been employed for the other war that is its
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sister: politics. And marching arm and arm in the plot have
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been the Capitalist anthropologists and social commentators who
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have utilized their methodologies against the people, using their
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techniques to keep us submissive.
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The myriad of scientific, ethnologic and sociologic reports swarm
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out from the think tanks and intelligence agencies of the entire
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Capitalist world. These reports have served for nothing except
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as a platform for the use of sophisticated methods of
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exploitation and colonialism. The psychological war which uses
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these studies has sucked the life out of all spontaneity and has
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strangled the human conscience. The greater the familiarity with
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our various idiosyncrasies, the greater the strangulation and
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enslavement.
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Bourgeois anthropology has defined social conglomerates as if
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they are static bodies, ruled by implacable laws and
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incontrovertible schemes. Thus, the people can be perfectly
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processed by magic mechanisms of modern science into total
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inaction when confronted by colonialism and domination.
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On the other hand, the bourgeois press has portrayed the people,
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at the same time, as if they are an inexhaustible source of
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crimes and rapes, especially when the enlarging of these types of
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events can serve to turn attention away from more edifying acts.
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In spite of the fact that we know that art is not pure and that
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its nature is changeable, we should in any case dig into the
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depths of the soul of man. We are, today more than ever, able to
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do it. Modern technology simply cannot touch this depth.
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Computers will not here find earth to plow. This mission is put
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into the hands of man. We know that nothing is certain. But we
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have a greater consciousness and a more real possibility to
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overthrow the walls of lies and alienation.
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The Capitalist communication systems will be able to put all of
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their resources into exalting the joys of tomato soup by means of
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advertisements showing a beautiful, gorgeous tin of Campbell
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soup. We desire that the only model for our culture should be
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the soul of the people.
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+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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Preceding first appeared as "Conspiracy for the Day", 10/08/93
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
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Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
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pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
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