Latent Confusion

Suppose a person accepts the standard BBC climate narrative without analysing it in any detail. A far from uncommon situation, but it is worth asking what such a person has accepted. Scientifically the BBC narrative is confused as to what in principle would falsify it. The covert answer is “nothing” but that cannot be admitted because it is too unscientific even for the BBC.

Baruch Spinoza classified confused ideas as disconnected from reality which leads us to a state of affairs governments often promote. They don’t want too much connection with reality – reality is the ultimate umpire. To counteract this possibility, governments sow a kind of latent confusion embedded in their narratives. Easy to accept but don’t look inside. Question the narrative and the confusion emerges.

Susceptible people certainly do accept official narratives even though the slightest challenge would expose their confusion about terms and meanings. Yet in an important sense they are not confused until challenged – the confusion is latent.

For governments, latent confusion has powerful advantages. It allows debates to be conducted on two levels, public and official, confused and analytical. It also increases the effort required to oppose a deliberately misleading narrative.

Latent confusion makes official answers more difficult to dislodge. In general, people have a powerful aversion to even a limited public display of confusion.

“I don’t want to know. Talk about something else.”