66b9uk5yPH

К. Байер

Норвежский арктический университет г. Тромсе, Норвегия

ПРОИЗВОДСТВО ЗНАНИЙ И ИЗБЫТОК МОНСТРУОЗНОЙ ИНФОРМАЦИИ: В ЦЕНТРЕ ВНИМАНИЯ – ПРОИЗВОДСТВО

МОНСТРОВ

Аннотация. «Венесуэла Блиц!» - в эти дни во всех новостях Боливарианская Республика. И вновь создается чудовище: «циник из Каракаса», который «блокирует мосты и помощь, чтобы его население голодало». Призывы к «гуманитарному вмешательству» и эмоциональные осуждения «диктатора», который «убивает собственный народ», похоже, повторяют недавние протесты против многих других воплощений зла, таких как «тиран Триполи» или «дьявол Дамаска». Будет ли сочувствие аудитории массмедиа снова направлено в русло «необходимости защитить», «призывов к действиям» и, в конечном счете, на требование какого-то военного вмешательства? Около тридцати лет назад, в 1988 году, Эдвард С. Герман и Ноам Хомски позаимствовали меткое выражение Уолтера Липпмана «производство согласия» и опубликовали свою оригинальную работу «Производство согласия». Их «модель пропаганды» вскоре превратилась в классику политической экономии и теории СМИ. Десять лет спустя Копенгагенская школа стала известной в области международных отношений благодаря своей концепции «секьюритизации», модели речевого действия, направленной на анализ убедительности «секьюритизирующих акторов», которые убеждают свою аудиторию узаконить «экстраординарные меры». Совсем недавно, в конце 2018 года, Дэвид Эдвардс и Дэвид Кромвель опубликовали «Пропагандистский блиц», в котором изображается «анатомия пропагандистского блица» - как катализируется демонизация в ситуации консенсуса корпоративных СМИ.

Как мы увидим, все эти три теоретические рамки имеют один важный общий элемент: они содержат переменную «монстр». Кроме того, все они могут обсуждаться в более широком контексте «производства знания» как такового. Помимо точного выражения «туман войны», любое более глубокое исследование синергии этих моделей позволяет нам говорить о тумане информационного переизбытка, который потенциально ведет к войне. Спустя сто лет после высказывания Хирама Джонсона «первой жертвой, когда приходит война, становится правда», наш «теоретический тур 1988–2018 годов» может позволить задуматься над следующим: для того, чтобы началась война, правда, если она и появится, должна быть мертва. И, самое главное: интерпретация «фактов» требует критического рассмотрения и тщательного исследования. В данной статье будут представлены теоретическе результаты процесса объединения трех моделей «в одну целостную структуру» в контексте создания магистерского курса по анализу документов в Университете Тромсё под названием "Производство монстров"

(Manufacturing Monsters, MaMo).

Ключевые слова: производство знания; производство согласия; "Производство монстров"; оружие массового отвлечения; информационная перегрузка; идеология неидеологии; слишком много; слишком мало.

40

Introduction

‘Dear Borderologists!’—In March 2019, at the VII International Kant– Bakhtin Seminar1, I had the pleasure of presenting to you a somewhat borderand boundary-related course at the University of Tromsø: Manufacturing Monsters. 2 In the following, I aim at textually summarizing my talk, highlighting its interdisciplinary theoretical frame, and setting it in perspective to other academic mediaand ‘monster studies’ endeavors.3

What can you expect from the following lines? I will start with the roots of the course: its establishment process in 2016, its contextual framing, and its

‘soul’. I will then continue to give a three-fold overlook of the course’s theory frame. In accordance, ‘three’ models will be combined and negotiated into ‘one’, thus appearing as a holistic, interdisciplinary theoretical core. I will point to further developments of the MaMo project: in the form of a workshop (critical symposium), a research network (both as a ‘research group’ and an ‘attitude of how to do things’, namely: a ‘lens’), and in the form of a special issue (which is discursively embedded by other related issues). At this point, a dynamic spiral is set off, since the special issue can be considered a primer reading convolute of the courses to follow, from spring 2020 onwards. Last, not least, I aim at creating confusion. Therefore: What can you not expect from the following lines? Instant clarity.

The History and Soul of Manufacturing Monsters—A MaMo Is Born

‘Hoohoo!’—That expression and hooting noise can be understood quite differently within diverse contexts. In the horror-and/or-monster genre, we may be reminded of spooks and ghosts. In a forest-walk situation, we may simply listen to the expressive language of an owl. Further, and still bird-related, the

1 ‘VII International Kant–Bakhtin Seminar: Theory and Praxis as Challenges for Borderology—Events and Knowledge on the Borders’, under the aegis of the Ministry of

Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation; Federal State Budgetary Institution of Higher Education ‘Murmansk Arctic State University’; Murmansk Regional Branch of the National Non-Commercial Organization ‘Russian Philosophical Society’; MASU Department of Philosophy, Social Sciences and Social Security Law. Murmansk: March 14–15, 2019.

2As part of the symposium’s ‘Section 2: Praxis and Borders—Linking and Separation’, my paper was entitled ‘Manufacturing Consent, Mediatizing Monsters—Us, Them, and the Propaganda Blitzes In-Between’. Murmansk: March 14, 2019.

3[i] ‘Footnote to the readership’: The following paper could as well be entitled ‘On

Manufactures [sic] of Knowledges [sic] and Their Desperate Practices of Taming Immanently Monstrous Information Overflows [sic] Through Diverse Forms of Manufacturing Monsters as Symptomatic and Self-Referential Acts of Sense-Making and Structure-Giving’. Or something like that: with numerous, odd plural forms, just to emphasize the arbitrariness of things. Yet, in search for a catchy title, the author chose to stick to a ‘smart’, ‘easy’ and ‘reader-friendly’ version of the matter. [ii] ‘Footnote to myself’: Keep it short and simple.

41

ornithologists among you might instantly be reminded of the mamo, or hoohoo, as a common signifier of two species: Drepanis pacifica, or Hawaiʻi mamo, as well as Drepanis funerea, or black mamo, or hoa. Both of these beautiful birds are extinct. Both extinctions are caused by man.

In Bulgarian and Ukrainian, мамо is the vocative form of мама; translating into mama, mummy, mommy, mum, mom—the mother. In Russian, we may be reminded of мамочка. The sheer existence of mothers is the best guarantee of not getting extinct. That goes for all species, at any time. Mothers, therefore, are the biggest treasure any species can think of. Yet, their fluctuating, and oftentimes under-appreciated roles and stands in society and culture are caused by man.

But how do you give birth to a MaMo? What is a MaMo? And how could it be ‘creatively’ set in context to an extinct bird and a mother? The following sections may answer these questions, but will—quite consciously—leave so many others unanswered. (Figure 11)

‘It all began with…’ four young doctoral students and their shared desire to design—or construct, or manufacture—a master’s course themselves, instead of simply overtaking the infrastructure and material of formerly given courses in the field of media and documentation studies at the University of Tromsø. By now, this ‘university’ has re-branded itself and will in the following be referred to as ‘UiT The Arctic University of Norway’.

First, these four offspring scholars had to negotiate on a common frame, and a name. Since one of the scholars focused on monsters, another one on

Manufacturing Consent, and all the four had to do with ‘monstrous cases’ within the ‘manufacture of knowledge’, the most logical symbiosis was chosen:

Manufacturing Monsters. Unfortunately, and most ironically, the one distinct

‘monster scholar’ had to pause for a bit. Therefore, she did not get the chance to follow the further development of the ‘course manufacture’. In the abovementioned spirit of fashionable-abbreviation utilizations (‘UiT’), we simply baptized our project MaMo.

1 [i] ‘Pretentious footnote’ entry: Painted by the Dutch ornithologist and artist John Gerrard Keulemans (1842–1912), published in volume 2 (1897) of Lionel Walter Rothschild’s The Avifauna of Laysan and the Neighbouring Islands: With a Complete [sic] History to Date of the Birds of the Hawaiian Possessions [sic] (London: R. H. Porter, 1893–1900). [ii] ‘Honest footnote’ entry:—Pgå! This figure was in fact found in the English-speaking Wikipedia entry on ‘black mamo (Drepanis funerea)’, as of June 5, 2019, and simply copy-pasted into the manuscript. Although being rarely quoted in ‘academic’ articles, Wikimedia Foundation’s

Wikipedia (2001–) can still, and currently, and in the near future, be considered one of the most convenient sense-making tools and places-to-go for easily digestible background knowledge on stuff of all sorts. Controlling the communicated ‘knowledge’ and ‘vocabulary’ on Wikipedia means controlling minds of the masses, including first and foremost the ones of academics, journalists and other knowledge architects around the globe—a gigantic snowball system.

42

Figure 1. A mamo, or hoohoo. Even a black mamo, or hoa

Then, during the first round of seminar sessions in spring 2017, something magical happened. An associate professor from the department decided to join the course from the position of a ‘student’ or ‘guest auditor’. This social and principled, border-crossing and liminal lifelong-learning activity of joining a class as ‘a professor as a student’ must be lauded as quite unconventional, since he did not—at least not immediately—earn quantitatively measurable ‘points’ or ‘prestige’ or ‘privilege’ or ‘penger’ [Norwegian; meaning: money] for doing so. Yet, MaMo’s soul profited enormously. Suddenly, the boundaries between ‘the lecturers’ on the one hand and ‘the students’ on the other were substantially challenged. From there on, MaMo consisted of ‘scholars on equal terms, with the thirst for knowledge’—a condition that fundamentally enriched the debates

43

in class, and made the course appear as a critical colloquium, rather than a teacher-centered digestive process.

Over the last three years, the course attracted numerous guest lecturers. From spring 2018 on, the above-mentioned associate professor joined the

‘official’ lecturer ranks, an ‘official’ research group was established, an ‘official’ symposium with international ‘experts’ was organized. The rest is history. MaMo: Somewhat related to questions of extinction, somewhat related to the desire to revitalize.

One Crucial MaMo Expression—Manufacturing, or: The

Manufacture of…

Let us now ‘try to make sense’ in the most straightforward ‘scientific’ manner. Let us start by having a close look into three key references in the blurry field of ‘media and society’, namely three Oxford dictionaries. For doing so, I select the following self-referential bookshelf: Tony Harcup’s Oxford Dictionary of Journalism (2014), Daniel Chandler and Rod Munday’s Oxford Dictionary of Media and Communication (2016 [2011]), as well as Science, Technology, and Society: An Encyclopedia (2005), edited by Sal Restivo. This rather arbitrary selection contains Oxford publications only, just to underline their enormous impact within ‘Western’-oriented ‘academic’ disciplines and their vocabulary, framing, and naming of things.

If we read Harcup 2014 (172) and Chandler/Munday 2016 [2011] (249– 250) in conjunction, we receive the following knowledge; as paraphrased: The phrase ‘manufacture of consent’ seems to go back to a 1922 publication by the

US-American journalist Walter Lippmann (1889–1974): Public Opinion. Therein, Lippmann emphasizes on the necessity of such ‘manufacture of consent’ with the aim of ‘managing’ public opinion. He considers, quite plausibly, the public (read: the mass) as ‘an irrational force’. Less plausibly, he defends such management mechanism as a crucial guarantor to let ‘flourish’— what he calls—‘democracy’.

In the late 1980s, Slavoj Žižek postulates an ‘inversion of Marx’ (Žižek

1989; see also Beyer 2014)—with the aim of de-masquerading the ideology of

‘non-ideology’. Around the same time, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (2002 [1988]) postulate their ‘inversion of Lippmann’ through presenting a fivefilter ‘propaganda model’ (see next section). Suddenly, the positively connoted phrase ‘manufacture of consent’ transcends into the—frankly speaking: ‘less positivist’—monster icon Manufacturing Consent.

Further alterations of the ‘manufacture of consent’ are, for example, to be found in Althusserian structuralist Marxism (Louis Althusser [1918–1990]) or in the cultural-hegemony writings of Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), where the dominant classes and the ‘non-ideological’ (read: inherently ideological) state apparatus steer power by ‘engineering assent’. As such, the ‘engineering of a consensus’ or ‘engineering of consent’ is attributed to yet another man of the

44

era: Edward Bernays (1891–1995; see Harcup 2014: 172). The numerous, and oftentimes unknown, authors of closely related Wikipedia articles (see footnote 1) may have made decent use of the mentioned Oxford dictionaries, or vice versa. Regardless, the here-given overview and selection of personified ascriptions (read: the ‘Who’s Who of essential expressions’), seems, at least for now, to be the ‘consensus’ of multiple inter-medial basic works and encyclopedias.

Still sticking to the same, single page in Harcup 2014, another interesting phrase pops up: the ‘manufacture of news’ (Harcup 2014: 172). By Tony Harcup, it is soberly described as “[t]he process by which events in the ‘real world’ become items of news produced by journalists and news organizations” (172). He further elaborates that “‘[m]anufacture’ in this sense does not mean that the news is invented” (emphasis added), but rather, “that producing news is a form of industrial process involving identification of potential newsworthiness, selection according to notions of news values, and presentation in a way that conforms to a certain style” (172).

Let us note, at this stage, the structuralism lens: When talking about a

‘manufacture of news’, a ‘system’ is at play and its internalized logic should be understood as both driving force and catalyst. In focus is not: a single entity within the system, not ‘a single journalist’ who does, or does not do ‘her job’ properly. In focus is: a sheer requisiteness instead. That includes, necessarily, that “some events become shaped into news items while others are ignored” (172; emphasis as in original). The ‘construction of news’ and/or the ‘manufacture of news’ are simple expressions of what they already contain themselves (talking meta here)—matters of man-made and consensus-oriented naming and framing; to be seen as symptoms of a whole, instead of fixable

‘problems’ to approach. Read: If you want to fight the system, fight the system.

But do not even waste your time in masquerading, re-shaping, veneering and puzzle-solving (Kuhn 1970 [1962]) its logical outputs.

These fulminant remarks ‘on the whole’ underline the necessity of reading

Herman/Chomsky (2002 [1988]) from the perspective of a given (neoliberal, hyper-capitalist) political economy with simply logical phenomena and emergences; rather than approaching their work as a simple case study. Before we dive deeper into their five-filter model, we let, yet again, Harcup 2014 note:

“they [Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky] argued that whatever the motivations or intentions of individual journalists, the routines and practices of the bulk of the mainstream media have the effect of propagating and amplifying the world view of the most wealthy and powerful within society, while at the same time ignoring or ridiculing any alternative voices that ask fundamental questions about the social order” (Harcup 2014: 172). This can be considered quite some heavy stuff, on such few lines. But at this point, a mental bridge to the later-discussed ‘alternative voices’ and ‘flak’ is already being manufactured in our minds; at least this being the intention of the author.

45

Lastly, a not-so-short look into [Oxford’s] Science, Technology, and Society: An Encyclopedia (2005), as edited by Sal Restivo, which is considered a key reference in the field of ‘ST&S’ (namely, ‘Science, Technology, and Society’). Already in the introduction (ix–xi), Restivo refers to ‘manufacture of knowledge’, as ‘coined by’ Karin Knorr Cetina. Her major study of biology laboratory has, less surprisingly, the telling title: The Manufacture of Knowledge (1981). Most notably, Restivo directly focuses on the oftentimes-pretentious credulity and gullibility of so-called ‘facts’ instead of investigating: facts (note this as the author’s ‘inversion of facts’). With reference to Knorr Cetina, he calls for a conscious “use of words like ‘construct’ and ‘manufacture’ when talking or writing about ‘facts’” (Restivo 2005: xi–xii; quotation marks as in original).

Other than the afore-mentioned two explicitly media-and-journalism related Oxford dictionaries, the 728-page long Science, Technology, and Society encyclopedia was not written by few authors alone, but appeared in the form of an anthology—worked out by dozens of scholars. Yet, its section on ‘knowledge construction’ is solely written by Martina Merz (2005: 249–254), and as such to be seen as an independent work within the wider umbrella of the encyclopedia. In this specific section, Merz provides us with a fascinating synopsis of the vibrant field of ‘laboratory studies’, including philosophy-of-science scholars such as Karin Knorr Cetina, Bruno Latour, Michael Lynch, and Steve Woolgar.

The immanent question reads as follows: ‘How are facts constructed?’

This, in itself, is an astonishingly radical question. Is it not—‘in fact’—the case that facts are facts? According to the border-crossing line of laboratory studies, born of the curiosity of natural science and the healthy criticism of critical cultural anthropology alike, it is: not. And these ‘practical philosophers’ have good arguments on their side when they call scientific facts ‘facts’ (in quotation marks) and consider them as socially constructed; always. Reality is a ‘fact’, not a fact. In short: Laboratory studies succeed quite well in challenging the borders of scientific fields, on manifold levels.

Merz turns her attention to two reference works. These two can be added to our imaginary bookshelf: Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar’s Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (1986 [1979]), as well as Karin Knorr Cetina’s The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science (1981). What follows, is yet again, a conjunctive reading, this time through the lens of Merz.

According to her, each of the two works can be “considered a classic of the science-as-practice approach” (254); an approach that stands in stark contrast to ‘science as knowledge’—and an approach that, yet again, ‘beams’ us into hot debates of the 1980s (see the 1980s inversions above). One particular passage should be mentioned in full length:

What later appears as a natural phenomenon or as unproblematic data is the result of a complex production and selection process. Thus, terms such as

46

‘fabrication’ or ‘manufacturing’ which are sometimes used and the notion of ‘construction’ refer not only to the scientists’ active configuration of their research objects […][,] but also to the process by which scientists make sense of their observations and transform data and statements into ‘facts’. In this perspective, the laboratory appears as a system of fact construction (Merz 2005: 251; emphasis as in original; quotation marks as in original).

Note the ‘facts’, note the ‘manufacturing’; and note, yet again, the special reference to a system—a ‘system of fact construction’. What follows is a ‘best of’ of particularly enriching terms that unveil an almost poetic aesthetic: While discussing the “construction of scientific facts” (252), Merz mentions “discursive fact production” (249), notes that “the scientists construe facts” (250), observes “the fleeting character of fact making” (250), sketches “the intricate social machinery of fact making” (250), before recognizing “the constructed nature of knowledge” (252) as such.

She further highlights the essential imperative of so-called negotiations, not only once. “Eliminating ambiguity relies on negotiation and techniques of persuasion. In fact [sic], not only the data and their interpretation are subject to negotiation; so are a myriad of other elements that intervene in the making of knowledge” (251; emphasis added) and “when manufacturing [sic] facts, scientists are required to negotiate the different ontological orders and epistemic features between the simulated and the material object worlds” (253; emphasis added).

What did I do in this section of the paper? I re-wrote the re-writings of writings. In other words, I did science. Especially the last part consisted of a segment that was very close to the input text, condensing six pages into one, with a highly selective pattern of choosing suitable, but numerous quotes. This way, a convenient reader does not have to read the six mentioned Oxford pages, neither does she need to read the hundreds of pages in Latour/Woolgar 1986 [1979] and Knorr Cetina 1981. One thing is for sure: If doing so, and solely relying on my selection, much of the intellectual substance is lost. Yet, hopefully, this whisper down the lane manages at least to transport a certain

‘spirit’ and stands for ease of reference regarding all of these (not-so) ‘radical notions’. From now on, we can always hedge our bets in the finest way: ‘she already said that […]’, ‘Oxford already stated that […]’, ‘the laboratory-studies debate of the 1970–1980s has already shown that […]’, and so on, and so on.

What remains, is the good feeling of not being off-track when reacting on

‘given facts’ with skepticism, rather than blind acceptance. Throughout our MaMo seminar rounds, we oftentimes reflect on ‘facts’ and ‘fact checks’, ‘fake news’ and ‘fake science’. For the moment, we take the knowledge transfer of the three mentioned Oxford dictionaries as what it is: The outcome of selection and negotiation. At the same time, we note, with a wink, the slogan on Oxford’s webpage: ‘The World’s Most Trusted Dictionary Provider’.

47

The focus of this section was clearly on ‘manufacturing stuff’. It is time to enter the next section that will bring us back to the monsters. Enough of the Ma– , soon comes the –Mo, and lastly the reunion of the MaMo.

Three Crucial Theoretical MaMo Endeavors—Beyond the Disciplines

What follows is an inversion of style. Above, I have used a lot of space for direct citations from three dictionaries. Thus, the re-reading of the mentioned sources was very close to the respective texts. In this section, three models will be presented rather ‘freely’—in the form of an imaginary ‘mind map’ of the models’ essence only. I will therefore focus on their ‘cores’ in a way they were presented throughout our recent MaMo seminars, instead of jumping from quote to quote. In other words: Instead of maximal word-to-word accuracy, the

‘meaning potential’ will be outlined; in a quite condensed and curtailed way. In doing so, it is unavoidable to leave out many niceties and nuances. That is why all readers should be encouraged to also have a closer look at the three foundational works these models were firstly developed for: Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (2002 [1988]), Burry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde’s

Security: A New Framework (1997), as well as David Edwards and David

Cromwell’s Propaganda Blitz: How the Corporate Media Distort Reality

(2018).

A Propaganda Model—Herman and Chomsky 1988

To put it straight forward, Herman and Chomsky’s ‘propaganda model’ aims at systematically sketching a common procedure of how ‘Western’ mass media transforms ‘events’ into ‘published opinion’. What are key variables that shape the outcome of ‘news’ (their framing, their vocabulary, their focus, their selection), as they later appear on screen or paper? Not by coincidence, Herman and Chomsky opted to call their model ‘a propaganda model’ (2002 [1988]: 1– 35) instead of ‘the propaganda model’—just to emphasize that numerous other narratives could, or even should, be chosen in addition to further complicating any deeper investigation of the matter. Throughout the last thirty years, it raised prominence as one of the prime models in media and documentation studies, both within mainstream research as well as critical schools of thought. Quite strikingly, Noam Chomsky appears as a ‘pop star’ of so-called ‘critical’ research in diverse academic fields—such as above-referenced Slavoj Žižek: ‘the mainstream’s critics, the critics’ mainstream’. Co-author Edward S. Herman, who actually worked out substantial parts of Manufacturing Consent, received less prominence.

In a condensed form, ‘a propaganda model’ consists of five ‘filters’.

Oftentimes, the model is therefore referred to as the (or better: a) ‘five-filter model’. These five filters are as follows: (i) ownership [power], (ii) sources

48

[advertisements], (iii) sourcing [‘experts’], (iv) ‘flak’ [discipline], and (v) ‘anticommunism’ [fear]. Herman and Chomsky call these the “essential ingredients” through which the “raw material of news must pass” to “leaving only the cleansed residue fit to print” ([1988]: 2). While the first filter focuses on the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; filters two and three take into account advertisement as the primary income source of the mass media, as well as the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business,

‘experts’ funded and approved by these primary sources and further ‘agents of power’. Note, in that regard, that the key focus here is on the parameters and basic conditions of a quite specific political economy: the one of neoliberalism. In that regard, filters four and five highlight certain forms of inherent practices; namely ‘flak’ as a means of disciplining the media, as well as ‘anticommunism’, which is here described as ‘a national religion’ and control mechanism

(Herman/Chomsky 2002 [1988]: 1–35).

On the one hand, this model description (which apparently fits into one paragraph only) unveils a seemingly arbitrary shorthand collection of impact factors that could easily be put on a blackboard in class and memorized by the students; yet on the other hand, it opens up for creative interpretations and applications alike. It can simply be seen as an invitation to ‘grasp’ larger journalistic case studies under the lens of a criticism regarding an overall system, rather than applauding any scapegoat approach that assumes a mainly

‘fact-oriented’ mass media and tries to search for the ‘few’ (and mostly ‘foreign’) ‘fake news’ creators elsewhere. Keep in mind the nature of ‘facts’ as elaborated above—in stark contrast to any assumed facts. As in academia, the work of journalists is steered by time, budget, and infrastructure constraints. To unmask these, and to set them plausibly into perspective, is the specific legacy of ‘a propaganda model’.

Over time, the fifth filter ‘anticommunism’ transformed into a wider ‘anti- *ism’. The key message remains the same. To name and frame ‘friends and foes’, ‘us versus them’, ‘good versus evil’ can be seen as a primer of massmedia dichotomization and propaganda campaigns. Here, we already enter the sphere of the ‘monsters’. In that regard, Herman and Chomsky’s remarks on ‘worthy and unworthy victims’ [of such ‘monsters’] (Herman/Chomsky 2002 [1988]: 37–86) are crucial. Our knowledge of, and focus on, ‘the other’ is always predisposed by sense-making belief structures that were created over time, relate to previous knowledge productions, predisposed forms of collectivememory processes, and are deeply embedded by the ‘logics’ of overall ideologies—especially if these ideologies appear in the form of a hypercapitalist and profit-oriented meta ideology of ‘non-ideology’. Perceiving the world around us objectively… is simply impossible. So, why do we ‘know’ what we know? What are the forces that generate our perceived ‘realities’ and the ‘facts’ that we aim at dealing with? Who is a monster and why?

49