In the classic political sci-fi novel 1984, Winston Smith is given the treatment by the Big Brother crew. The attempt to make him conform to the societal norms (blind loyalty to Big Brother and complete surrender to the party line) used various techniques and one in particular was the key sign that he had successfully been “reformed”. Amid heavy torture and anguish he would be asked how many fingers he sees...the interrogator would hold up 4 fingers then Winston would say 4...WRONG! More torture and anguish...then again how many fingers do you see? 4, I see only 4 fingers. This went on until Winston broke down after enduring the onslaught and finally said with conviction what his interrogator wanted to hear. 5, I see 5 fingers. So, in this terrible destruction of Winston’s own very personal sense of knowing what he sees, his observation gets “reformed" and he sees 5 fingers. What a horrible loss. He then on could only observe what he was told he was observing and that indeed made Big Brother very pleased.
Do we live in a similar dystopia?
The mainstream media holds up videos of a man being clearly chased and attacked defending himself and they want you instead to see a white supremacist murdering innocent protesters. And if you don’t see what they are telling you to see, then you too are a white supremacist. Actually, this accusation is made against about half the country’s voting population. So 70,000,000 +/- Citizens are not seeing correctly and not spitting out the media’s party line and that is proof positive that this is a racist nation and they are white supremacists. The question was, do we live in a similar dystopia to Winston’s 1984? YES WE DO!
As an executive and this is true of military commanders, teachers, police, parents et al as well, one must be able to see the facts of a matter in order to act in the proper way to resolve it. If you see a statistic rising and think it is really going down, the resulting actions ordered will be disastrous. If you see troops amassing and think they are on a coffee break, men will die, if Johnny says Billy did it but Johnny has the tell tale flour all over his hands then Billy goes to his room and cries hating his Mother. Any person needs to have and maintain the ability to actually look at what is presented and see it for what it is, no opinions, and just call a spade a spade. Observing what is obvious and not converting it to conform to some narrative is a skill. This creates a sort of unreality and causes division. Truth is simply the unaltered facts of a situation and courts use evidence to get at it. When ample evidence is presented it goes where it goes and if observed and adjudicated for what it is, it tells all what actually occurred. It's more than a consensus, it is the truth of the matter. That could be something other than what you predetermined, but that outcome is possible for all views and the evidence will settle it. So a jury is shown evidence of Winston’s answer being 4 apples on a table yet they get heavily indoctrinated and decide it showed 5 apples...wrong verdict. They actually decided it was 5 apples before the trial. The jury can see the 4 apples on the evidence table yet can’t or won’t bring a verdict of 4 apples. That would be a nutty jury and we have seen a few of them in my lifetime.
You can argue that my examples here are lousy or even pedantic. But the jury saw the evidence for what it was and Rittenhouse was found not guilty. Yet we get a media that still insists there are 5 apples and the protesters run amok crying a great white supremacist injustice has occurred. I’ve come to the inescapable conclusion that Big Brother is alive and well and has a good crew enforcing its factions to see what they want them to see. Open court, lots of evidence, a deliberative jury and still they cling to the wrong verdict...they seem to really believe that this kid was guilty of murder and that is was racially motivated even though the victims were white and the shooter was white. Now that’s some white supremacy. Cant’ they see that what they are observing is not the facts nor the truth? NO, because it does not conform to the party line now called the narrative? Thank God that this particular jury could still see what they observed, hold it as their own observations and ignore all other pressures to see something else. They still know that 2+2 = 4. Their ability to observe gave Justice a good day. All those who can also still observe and know what they observe can celebrate this as a victory against Big Brother.
To those who subvert, pervert and destroy the truth in favor of some destructive narrative, I ask...how many fingers am I holding up? If they see one, they still have hope.
Best,
Donn Marier
DM-Your Own CFO