The real mind-hack is that people believe it's exclusively one or the other, and argue vociferously against the other side. George Orwell once wrote of the Spanish Civil War:
"Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories, and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’."
This has always happened, and it's still happening. Anybody remember the Ghost of Kyiv, or the 'fuck you' surrender?
No, 'everything we see out of Ukraine' is not a lie (which in itself is a false dichotomy: we've seen plenty of 'facts' framed in a way that's explicitly misleading), but the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence of the past ~year, not to mention the rest of human history, suggests that a lot of it probably is.
Yeah, but constructing morale-boosting urban legend such as Ghost of Kiev is a bit different, than Russians trying to imply that Ukrainians are nazis who will systematically destroy own cities to make Russian saviors look bad. Don't you think?
Yes, it happens, but for Ukraine, I think you’re concentrating on small media-friendly stories and deemphasizing a larger amount of consensus reality. For example, there’s little argument over where the front lines are and how they’ve changed. There are maps. Sometimes there is temporary confusion when things are changing quickly.
"Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories, and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’."
This has always happened, and it's still happening. Anybody remember the Ghost of Kyiv, or the 'fuck you' surrender?
No, 'everything we see out of Ukraine' is not a lie (which in itself is a false dichotomy: we've seen plenty of 'facts' framed in a way that's explicitly misleading), but the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence of the past ~year, not to mention the rest of human history, suggests that a lot of it probably is.