Repeat and Control: The Unfolding of The Era of Hypnocracy

The human ability to understand reality has long been a subject of debate. German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel argued that our objects of inquiry are not 'truth' or 'meaning,' but rather configurations of consciousness — that is, the way we perceive the world depends on our frameworks of knowledge, shaped by each person's unique cultural, social, and historical context. Yet, in the digital age, the construction of perceptions has taken on new dimensions — ones we still strive to comprehend fully.

Today, citizens of the world are facing an overwhelming flood of news and coverage of historical events, all unfolding one after another or even simultaneously. These events span from the shift in the relationships between the US and Europe and its impact on the Western world to the war in Ukraine and the ongoing violence in the Middle East across countries, including Palestine, Syria, and Yemen. This news barrage is relentless as it is, even without reportage of silent wars in Latin America and some African countries, the frantic development of technology, and economic uncertainty in developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries.

This relentless pace not only threatens our physical, mental, and economic well-being but also hampers our ability to process and understand the realities around us.

Genocide, wars, trade wars, threats of invasion, political persecution of citizens, and human rights violations have become part of everyday life. To make matters worse, the ongoing climate crisis—arguably the biggest issue facing the world right now—continues to loom over humanity but receives only a fraction of the coverage compared to previous issues. Disturbing, worrisome, and desperate news has turned into a constant routine for all. Negativity simply sells better, and the world currently has an abundance of it available to disseminate from the newsroom to the public.

Amid this information overload — what some authors call infoxication — reality seems to be now shaped through a rapid multiplication of narratives — a pace so dizzying that it becomes nearly impossible to keep up, pause, question, refine one's judgment, and even build an opinion. Shaping narratives and controlling people through messaging and propaganda is not a recent practice. Joseph Goebbels, head of the Ministry of Propaganda of Nazi Germany once stated: “There is only one truth. Either we are lying and the others are telling the truth, or we are speaking the truth and everyone else is lying”. 

With that premise in mind, his ministry developed a series of strategies to shape collective views in a specific direction. Some of these strategies — such as individualizing adversaries, repeating messages and opinions so persistently that they become accepted as truth, and spreading ideas rooted in primitive attitudes like nationalism or prejudice — seem to have never become outdated, only refined.

So, what’s new? Although the tactics of media manipulation are not new, we face a different challenge today: one driven by speed and volume rather than the careful curation of selective truths. The speed at which we consume information today is unprecedented, and this is an aggravating factor. We barely have time to question one idea before we’re already discussing another — and another, and another. There’s no space for reflection, only reaction. This turns us into passive actors, immersed in a one-way communicative exercise where the emitter controls the pace at which our perceptions of the world are shaped. Even journalists are not immune to this manipulative process of homogenization; we too have become pacified in our efforts to accurately correct all the misinformation and disinformation being spread by unreliable sources, and so we join the chorus of regurgitating such falsities and calling it a day. We are witnessing how one reality is transmuted into another through relentless repetition.

This is how repetition turns into a reality without even noticing. Suppose the mainstream media is struggling to keep up with the rapid pace of falsified information being disseminated. In that case, the average person will struggle twice over and is more likely to fall for its traps.

In that context, the greatest challenge people face today goes beyond resisting fake news or AI-generated fabrications. The real challenge is to remain lucid: to break free from the trance of strong emotions and develop the critical awareness necessary to recognize when reality is being shaped before their eyes. It’s no coincidence when a word is repeated five, ten, or fifteen times in a speech: Migrants. Criminals. Freedom. DEI. Transgender. Great Again. Each repetition is meticulously placed there to weaken the foundations of reality. And perhaps, learning to spot those subtle yet powerful cues could become a new form of resistance in modern society.