By: Christopher Maffei
The use of gas, nuclear weapons, and the mass bombing of cities such as the carpet bombing of Dresden, and North Vietnam is a concept known as “total war.” and or the concept of “total politics“. This warfare was reintroduced in the Napoleonic period and its doctrinal language sounds like this:
Restarting Total War: Late 18th Century
“From this moment until such time as its enemies shall have been driven from the soil of the Republic all Frenchmen are in permanent requisition for the services of the armies. The young men shall fight; the married men shall forge arms and transport provisions; the women shall make tents and clothes and shall serve in the hospitals; the children shall turn old lint into linen; the old men shall betake themselves to the public squares in order to arouse the courage of the warriors and preach hatred of kings and the unity of the Republic”
If the above sounds somewhat familiar. The latter will sound even (more) familiar to post-modern thinking::
Moving forward: Mid 20th Century
“Carl Schmitt, a supporter of Nazi Germany, wrote that total war meant “total politics”—authoritarian domestic policies that imposed direct control of the press and economy. In Schmitt’s view the total state, which directs fully the mobilization of all social and economic resources to war, is antecedent to total war. Scholars consider that the seeds of this total state concept already existed in the German state of World War I, which exercised full control of the press and other aspects of economic and social life as espoused in the statement of state ideology known as the “Ideas of 1914”.
Current Events: Early 21st Century
Given the fact, we are in a state of war with Russia and China at this very moment. We once again come full circle to —authoritarian domestic policies that imposed direct control of the media and economy. For example, In the media, the perception of reality has been distorted to reflect narratives that encourage positive morale in the face of total defeat. Or in the case of the economy, synthetic pandemics can be used to mobilize a population and redirect economic resources to a state of “total war”. This military deception is used on the civilian populations to help the majority adhere to unreasonable requests– such as the hardships of a suspension of economic activity. Therefore when the majority of an insouciant and compliant population is asked to mobilize for “total war”. They will do so willingly. In the end, the majority will force the minority to comply with every request however unreasonable. Hence, the social experiment of COVID policies.
Given the high probability for nuclear war at this moment, the media is now heavily distorted, the information from the mainstream sphere seems disconnected and incoherent–(or) not connecting with reality. This is easy to understand when looking at the individual existing in a nihilistic existential universe. A person in this state absorbs false information willingly.
This can be explained by Sartre’s views of man— “to try to suppress feelings of anxiety and dread, people confine themselves within everyday experience, a person can relinquish their freedom and acquiesce to being possessed in one form or another by ‘the look’ or ‘the other‘ “.
Asserting Sartre’s view of man, we can very easily understand how the media is influencing society even when the information is false. For the vast majority of people, the universe around “the other” is too complex to understand. Therefore “Sartre man” needs to be told how to perceive reality. Hence, the irrational acceptance of false information.
In closing, if the information you absorbing is just partially true or omitting events–
The information needs to be disregarded in its totality. It’s just that simple.