51吃瓜

鈥淲hat is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.鈥� Francis Bacon thus began his meditation on the role of misinformation in Elizabethan and Jacobean society in his, 鈥淥f Truth,鈥� published 400 years ago. His message to his readers appears towards the end of the essay: 鈥淭here is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious.鈥� Earlier in the essay, he noted that some men possess 鈥渁 natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.鈥�

The academic tradition remembers Bacon as the English philosopher whose commitment to empiricism helped to usher in the glorious age of science that spawned Newton and everything that followed. It made the industrial revolution possible, before complicating the picture in the 20th century with the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. Empirical 鈥渢ruth鈥� enjoyed its heyday for three centuries before being called into question by the confounding equations that led new generations of scientists to question even whether particles exist. For the moment, no empirical procedure exists for settling that question.

Bacon, the moonlighting philosopher, had a day job. It consisted in part of reinforcing Queen Elizabeth鈥檚 and then King James鈥檚 surveillance state. In 1592, he established a private foreign spy network to rival his cousin Robert Cecil鈥檚 official state apparatus. As Devil鈥檚 Advocate, I would maintain that there鈥檚 no reason to suspect that Bacon鈥檚 operations were very different from how intelligence operations work today. Not so long ago, one contemporary former CIA director, Mike Pompeo, the world: 鈥淎t the CIA we lied, cheated and stole,鈥� a confession greeted by spontaneous, enthusiastic applause by his audience.

In their book, Hostage to Fortune: The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon, historians Lisa Jardine and Alan Stewart detail Bacons鈥� work on the Privy Council commission investigating Raleigh. They demonstrate that Bacon was motivated by an acute need to maintain royal favor and secure his own newly acquired position as Lord Chancellor.

Over the past decade, we have seen an ever-amplified outcry against the prevalence of disinformation and misinformation in our contemporary culture. Politicians blame opposing politicians and broadcast media for spreading 鈥渇ake news鈥� (translation: anything that is critical of their own actions, narratives or beliefs). Then all decent people seemed to agree the main source was social media. This spawned a debate about whether social media shouldn鈥檛 be praised for exposing the disinformation propagated by broadcast media. More recently, the preferred culprit is AI, not so much because of the algorithm鈥檚 propensity for hallucinations but for the obvious deception, managed and executed by human perpetrators, of deepfakes.

The truth may be concealed but the lies are evident

Better than most people, who depend entirely on the media for their understanding of what鈥檚 wrong with the world, Gavin de Becker has made a career of seeing through the illusions that we are constantly invited to believe. Considered by many, including presidents and public celebrities, to be America鈥檚 top security specialist, he specializes in threat assessment. He does so with an apparently open mind. His job is to predict and prevent violence, a goal our intelligence agencies seem to be less committed to. In an interview with Steven Bartlett, the host of The Diary of a CEO podcast, he offered this on Bacon鈥檚 reflections:

鈥淎ll power centers in human history lie. Knowing that they are lying does not tell you the truth, however. Meaning knowing that Oswald did not act alone as a shooter from the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository, if he was a shooter at all, knowing that does not tell you who was the shooter. So often the best we can get in our skepticism is to know that we are not being told the truth.鈥�

Bacon lived and worked within the central power center of his day. Which is why I think our friend, former CIA officer Glenn Carle, would agree with me that Bacon could not have written Shakespeare鈥檚 works. Several years ago, Glenn and I exchanged 40 pages of correspondence as both of us reread and commented on Hamlet. We converged on the idea that at the core of the play鈥檚 drama is a critique of the Elizabethan surveillance system.

Polonius wasn鈥檛 just a bumbling busybody, as he is often represented, but rather the inveterate professional spy who, to please an illegitimate king, unwittingly provoked the tragic outcome of the play. The fatalities began with the chief spook鈥檚 own death in Act III, pierced by Hamlet鈥檚 sword as he was hiding behind an arras to spy on the prince鈥檚 conversation with his mother. It continued in Act IV with the madness and suicide of his daughter Ophelia and the death of his son Laertes by his own poison-tipped sword in a rigged duel in Act V. Shakespeare may have been thinking of Bacon, amongst others, when composing the role of Polonius.

If we are to take De Becker鈥檚 words seriously, Bacon, who was employed by a power center, was as adept at deception and as willing to depart from the truth as Pompeo. History tells us, for example, how as Lord Chancellor, he did the king鈥檚 bidding to rid the realm of the famous adventurer and talented poet, Walter Raleigh. According to Mark Nicholls and Penry Williams in their book Sir Walter Raleigh: In Life and Legend, Bacon manipulated the legal machinery to ensure Raleigh had no right to a proper defense or trial by his peers. Raleigh was executed based entirely on a legal technicality engineered by Bacon to satisfy the King鈥檚 foreign policy goals. So much for the pursuit of the truth.

But the reality we need to confront is not so much Francis Bacon鈥檚 hypocrisy as a thinker committed to the 鈥渢ruth.鈥� Instead, it鈥檚 the fact, as true today as in the 17th century, that the real culprit is De Becker鈥檚 power centers and their 鈥渘atural though corrupt love of the lie itself.鈥�

Most people today sense that governments are prone to lying. of government in the US has never been greater. Especially when they are engaged in war. It may be perversely true that one of the reasons today鈥檚 leaders, in Europe as in the US, appear so eager not only to go to war, but also to prolong wars they didn鈥檛 start is that conflict provides an opportunity to indulge what Bacon called their 鈥渓ove of the lie.鈥� Propaganda never prospers more than in times of open conflict, when the democratic right of the public to have access to and weigh the factors behind the conflict disappears in the name of national security. How many times have we heard pointed critical remarks of Western militarism dismissed as 鈥淧utin talking points?鈥�

Governments lie, but they also incite others to buy into their lies, in education and the media. Pseudo-historians who create hagiographies of national heroes 鈥� think of Pastor Weems who, in the early 19th century, invented the apocryphal of the young George Washington and the cherry tree 鈥� are capable of implanting enduring myths contrary to reality in the minds of an entire population. Educators and the media, through commission or omission, happily and often unwittingly 鈥渟imply the truth鈥� in ways that completely misrepresent not only the intentions of the actors but also 鈥� and this is the point 鈥� conceal the effects.

MK-Ultra is still blowing minds

Last week鈥檚 Congressional hearing dedicated to discovering the truth about the CIA鈥檚 notorious MK-Ultra program briefly provided a telling example. Most of us grew up with the conviction that the massively significant program known as the was not just a daring and successful initiative permitting the reconstruction of Europe after the devastation of World War II. We remember it as a morally noble act demonstrating the spontaneous generosity of the United States, always ready to share the fruits of its prosperity with its friends and allies. One of its stated aims was literally to rescue (which, in one of its details, included preserving the health of the tobacco industry).

Understanding that the full story of MK-Ultra has been carefully hidden from the public, Congresswoman Luna interviewed two key witnesses. A third, the one recommended by Democrats, admitted she had no expertise in the matter under discussion. She was there simply to complain about the Trump administration鈥檚 defunding of the National Institutes of Health! One of the well-informed witnesses, Dr. Stephen Kinzer at one point reminded the public of what historians had long known to be true, but which educational textbooks and the media have consistently suppressed. 鈥淲e now know,鈥� Kinzer, 鈥渢hat 5% of all the money appropriated for the Marshall Plan was diverted for covert activities. A number of US agencies were used as cover.鈥�

What covert operations was that massive amount of money used for? Among other things, in Italy that sought out 鈥渟tay-behinds,鈥� fascists and neo-fascists who could be mobilized for many things including terrorist acts and manipulating democratic elections: the kind of thing that could help the US put and keep in place governments that understood the real stakes of democracy, even if the local populations preferred other solutions. MK-Ultra didn鈥檛 need Marshall Plan funding. Instead, it used unvouchered CIA funds. The program, approved in 1953 by CIA Director Allen Dulles, was run out of the Technical Services Staff, which operated under special procedures allowing it to fund research without signing the contracts normally required by the agency.

If Bacon had lived in the US in the wake of World War II, given the strength of his intellect (and the apparent weakness of his moral fiber), he would easily have obtained all the funding needed to promote the cause of his brand of empirical science. And that, my friends, is 鈥渢he Truth.鈥�

Afterword

I鈥檒l leave the concluding thought to Dr. Kinzer, who explains why the truth is so elusive.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a reason why conspiracy theories are so widespread in America. It has to do with the dissociation between what we say we are and do and what we really are and do. It has become more and more clear to more and more people. They鈥檙e suspicious of nefarious dealings by the US and they鈥檙e also suspicious of other things that aren鈥檛 nefarious at all. But there鈥檚 just this mentality that is created by the covert sphere and that鈥檚 what makes people realize that things that used to seem really far-fetched are not so far-fetched after all.鈥�

*[The Devil鈥檚 Advocate pursues the tradition 51吃瓜 began in 2017 with the launch of our 鈥淒evil鈥檚 Dictionary.鈥� It does so with a slight change of focus, moving from language itself 鈥� political and journalistic rhetoric 鈥� to the substantial issues in the news. Read more of the 51吃瓜 Devil鈥檚 Dictionary. The news we consume deserves to be seen from an outsider鈥檚 point of view. And who could be more outside official discourse than Old Nick himself?]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.