Control, Polarize, and Dehumanize the Human Being from the Hidden Power that Acts and Controls Contemporary Political Action

Abstract

Today’s society is dominated by two political and social phenomena: polarization and tension. The contexts derived from these two concepts hinder collective understanding and erode the foundations of democratic dialogue. In an increasingly fragmented and scientifically devalued environment, public debates are transformed into ideological confrontations in which extremism prevails, and nuances, however small, are rejected. This phenomenon is not accidental but is the result of the complex mechanisms of power, which have the capacity to shape our feelings and attitudes, since they feed on strategies aimed at media manipulation with reductionist discourses and an exacerbated commercialization of social conflicts. This essay explores the dynamics that sustain and amplify these tensions, analyzing how the control of the masses, through the media and political narratives, acts as a lubricant for the structures of power with the aim of strengthening it. We start from the impact produced by these dynamics that are oriented towards the dehumanization of the individual, reducing him to another cog in the machinery of a political system that helps a few and denies it to the majority, which it controls. We also examine ideological reductionism, which is used as a tool to divide and manipulate societies, fostering favorable environments for the development of hatred and confrontation. We also address current phenomena: the role played by biased headlines in the written media and in the spoken media on television, applied to the same task in the so-called “news”, whose objective is to build polarized contexts, since the political circus that normalizes hostility between opposing sectors produces a commercialization of the conflict, and, at the same time, turns social division into a lucrative spectacle. In contrast to this dynamic, we also reflect on the role of citizen indifference, which becomes an involuntary accomplice of these structures. Finally, we propose an analysis to be applied to practical solutions, facing the dilemma between historical continuity and the hope of a change in basic assumptions that would allow for the construction of a more just and fraternal society. With this criterion, we will reflect on current challenges and the possibilities for transformation in a world like the current one, which is marked by polarization and conflict.