Untruths in oppression

I'm going to write about the role of untruths in modernism and post-modernism, and art, but first I wanted to think about it from a more political perspective.

The universal truth – the assumption
“My ball is purple, therefore all balls are purple, and so is yours”
This assumption of the universality of a concept is not new and it has been used as a justification of oppression and genocide for centuries from colonialists, missionaries and other fanatics. The arrogant assumptions of certain powerful people that they have the answers and they are in fact relieving those they oppress or harm. The basis of this is their inherent belief that they know best based on their arrogant assumptions. This is often how they gain their power in the first place, maybe they gathered a crowd of people all with a purple ball each by now and they believe they are sent on this earth to “help” you discover the universal truth about your red ball.

​The subjective truth – the lie
“Your ball is purple to me, but it can be red to you”
In this scenario, in order to maintain peaceful oppression, the dual truth is invented. Only one can be true, but only one can have weight. Admitting to a lie would mean losing control.

The denial of truth – the silencing
“Your ball doesn’t exist, only our differing perceptions of it are real”
Here, truth is completely erased, words denied from the oppressed, with the hope history will cease to exist, all in order to achieve complete control of every aspect of reality. “The denial of truth effectively robs us of the capacity to speak; of the capacity to understand; of the capacity to judge.” (Jeff Malpas). Now the oppressor can murder in broad daylight and it never happened.