Risking yet another Olympic rant: in my typical current events/cultural awareness lag, I just learned that the opening ceremonies were effectively simulated for all television viewers via computer-generated imaging (CGI). Yet another example of the insidious “not quite true but enough to satisfy us” infiltration of the psyche playing out there.

Plato lives!

Such prisoners would mistake appearance for reality. They would think the things they see on the wall (the shadows) were real; they would know nothing of the real causes of the shadows.

…or as Paul put it:

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

The Truth, the Truth….someday we will see it in its entirety. Maybe not this side of heaven tho’.

More fodder to underscore yesterday’s post…the opiate proliferates:

The west has been remarkably sanguine about this resurgence of authoritarianism, and one reason is that, this time, the comrades have money. Even as the Kremlin repeatedly confiscates the assets not just of its own businesspeople, but of foreign ones, too, investment bankers, and plain old investors, are flocking to a Moscow flush with petro-roubles. The same is true of the Gulf states. China, on a path to become the world’s largest economy, is the most attractive of all.

In a recent post I juxtaposed China against the rest of the world; however, a great article in the Sydney Morning Herald highlights just how much more sophisticated the regime is in not overtly dichotomizing its agenda – some excerpts:

There has been intense speculation for years that the Olympic Games would hold the Chinese Communist Party to ransom, and force open the system to competitive viewpoints and help entrench human rights. But that’s not what’s happening….analysts are now coining new definitions for the Chinese state model: “popular authoritarianism”, “hybrid” or simultaneously “repressive and responsive”….Chinese leaders prefer to stick to Deng Xiaoping’s old formula of “capitalism with Chinese characteristics”. It’s essentially pragmatism.

As a communicator, I can’t fail to notice how critical PR is in this ingenious approach:

Most importantly, and least understood in or outside China, Communist Party leaders learnt there was no point in a vast propaganda apparatus that served up only Marxist-Leninist dogma and scared people into submission. So they reprogrammed China’s propaganda apparatus into the world’s most successful public relations machine.

Rather than fearing new communication technologies, the state co-opted them. These days propaganda and security organs monitor text messages and send messages of their own. Tens of thousands of internet police block sensitive sites and seed “favourable” discussions on chat rooms and blog sites. They allow Chinese citizens to access many foreign media sites, while emphasising some reports and filtering out others.

In short, China is mastering the art of adhering to no ideology whatsoever beyond securing the ultimate power of the state — all while making its subjects feel like they have a voice …and, of course, giving them some bread. What would Marx think of this kind of opiate?