Distortion of historical facts. Distortion of information

Science, called history, is built not only on facts that are more than obvious, but also on the conjectures of the minds who deal with it, study and interpret it. the main problem history consists in the fact that it is necessary not only to collect all knowledge in one place, but rather to speculate, to complete the knowledge gained, from small bricks of information, to find that connecting material that will make history an integral subject of study.
In order to understand and comprehend the events taking place in our time, people also need knowledge, fortunately there is a memory of what happened and, comparing the past, one can predict the future. After all, Thales, who was reproached for poverty, became rich thanks to the knowledge of nature, but nature is systematic, that is, he simply compared what was happening in the past, thereby being able to predict the future.

Perhaps, I will not go deep into the term "history", because the main topic of my article is far from this, but, rather, a side effect of adding history - distortion historical facts.

There are several ways you can distort a story. Here are some of the many options and examples, which are of course very important.

I. Categorical denial of facts.
There have been cases when there were so few witnesses to the course of history that it would be simply inconvenient to take their point of view into account. The information provided to the public is usually handled by the media, as well as history textbooks, but it is not always "profitable" to tell the truth. The truth can be disadvantageous to the government, as it can cause unnecessary opinions of individuals.
Everyone knows that Germany during the First World War used chemical weapons, which at that time were prohibited (according to the "Rules for the conduct of land war" signed in The Hague in 1907), as well as during the Second World War, using gas chambers for extermination of Jews. However, in 1979, Robert Farisson wrote a book that argued that it was not true, that the gas chambers were a figment of Israel's imagination. Believing that Israel deliberately spread false information around the world, with the aim of "desecrating" Nazi Germany.

II. Suppression of information, as well as ignoring the importance of facts.
What is actually a "decisive" factor in the flow of information to the masses can be easily forgotten if you break something up into small paragraphs, and then slightly correct it, not by changing, but by deleting, at first glance, unimportant, but , in fact, global factors.
From examples, I decided to write again about Germany and the First World War.
On August 6, 1915, a gas attack took place on the Osovets fortress (Polish front). 1600 people died, the survivors attacked the German troops, dying on the move, from poisonous gases. This so amazed and frightened the enemy troops that they did not accept the battle and decided to retreat, although their superiority was obvious.
Heroism and courage Russian soldiers did not receive much publicity under the Soviet Union, this was due to the fact that the heroes of the above-mentioned battle fought for Tsarist Russia.

III. Rearrangement of priorities of importance.
It seems that this is the most common method in our time. If there is an important but inconvenient historical fact, then its importance is reduced, while increasing the importance of a dummy, to which society will pay more attention.
On August 14th of this year, all the public's attention was focused on the Jewish Autonomous Republic. There, as everyone knows, Amur overflowed the coast, more than 12 thousand people had to be evacuated. Then something unthinkable happened: the people greedily began to follow the Olympic Torch Relay, which began on October 7th. An even more surprising incident happened this year: retirees who work were promised to stop paying their pension. But at the same time, where does so much money come from for this ill-fated Relay? The Republic of Karelia alone will spend 6 million rubles on it! The question immediately arises: how much will be spent in general? There is no answer yet. Meanwhile, in the Jewish Autonomous Republic, flood victims are only helped by six thousand rubles a month, and then if they work ...

IV. False analysis.
Everyone knows the expression: "There is no war without victims." In order to simply justify itself before society, the government announces that without sacrifices everything would be much worse and the goals set by the authorities would not have been achieved, but this is "for the good of mankind."
The colonization of America did not go without blood. The total number of killed Indians is more than 100 million! And these are real people. The colonialists did not take into account the lives of the "Redskins". But in last years, the Indians did not bring much trouble to the American government. They only wanted to live, but the extermination did not stop. But this, supposedly, could not be avoided, but slavery was banned, thereby washing their bloody hands. It turns out that "the most democratic country in the world" received territory through murder and infringement of the rights of indigenous people.

Those who deliberately distort historical facts should know that they leave behind only bad things, even if they do it for the good.

Remember: "We are alive as long as our history is alive."

Manipulation with information flow - there are many ways to manipulate information to create a false model of the surrounding reality in a person. We will consider some of these techniques separately.

Silence (concealment) is the transmission of incomplete true information, as a result, the victim makes a mistake. A person withholds some information, without saying anything that does not correspond to reality. Not everyone believes that silence and lies are one and the same, therefore, if there is a choice of how to lie, people more often prefer to remain silent about something, not speak, rather than openly distort the facts. There are many benefits to hiding. First, it is easier to hide than to falsify the facts. You don't need to invent anything. There is no risk of getting caught because the entire "legend" is not worked out in advance. Concealment is also preferable because it is passive and seems less reprehensible than falsification. It can also be much easier to cover up later if it is exposed. Man doesn't go too far. There are many excuses: not knowing, wanting to talk about it later, bad memory, etc. By imitating a lapse in memory that distorts information, a person avoids the need to remember a "legend": all that needs to be remembered is a statement about poor memory. But memory loss can only be referred to if it is about minor things or something that happened a while ago, otherwise it would be implausible.

Breeding is an electoral pass to the victim of only information beneficial to the deceiver.

In rivalry with a business partner, it is also much easier to hide information from him than to challenge it in polemics. The ability to competently hide something from your opponent is the most important component of the art of diplomacy. The professionalism of a polemicist consists in skillfully avoiding the truth without resorting to outright lies.

Distortion is a way of presenting information, when attention is drawn only to the facts that are most beneficial for the source of information, this is a conscious emphasis on only one side of the phenomenon that is beneficial to the deceiver. This also includes the creation of an appropriate design, which presents the issue from a certain angle of view.

Distortion is an understatement, exaggeration, or out of proportion. Typical example distortion of the proportions of the transmitted information of the summary from the battlefield. The American psychologist F. Butler proposed a simple version of outwardly objective two-sided argumentation: he advised to give the strongest, most convincing arguments in favor of "his" position, while the weakest arguments in favor of the "other" side. This can show the failure of any opponent. It is also possible to compare categories that are known to be unequal. Non-specialists will not even notice this.

Turning over - changing places, replacing "black" with "white". Even the Polish humorist writer E. Lec wrote: "Never change the truth! Change the truth!" This can be a substitution of goals: when your interest is passed off as the interest of another person. Remember how Tom Sawyer painted the fence ("Painting the fence is cool").

Falsification (rigging) is the transmission of knowingly false information on the merits of the issue under consideration. This can be perjury, false statements and denials, fabrication of facts, documents, etc. (1)

It is necessary to resort to it when silence alone is not enough. In case of falsification, a person takes the next step: not only withholds true information, but also presents false information as true. The real state of affairs is hidden and deliberately false information is conveyed to the partner, which can be presented in the form of false documents, links to non-existent sources, to experiments, etc.

In some cases, an untrue message from the outset requires manipulation; concealment alone is not enough. For example, if you need to distort information about previous work experience in order to get a good job when applying for a job. It is necessary not only to hide inexperience, but also to come up with a suitable work biography. Fraud is also inevitable when it comes to disguising what a person needs to hide. This is especially true when it comes to hiding emotions. It is easy to conceal an emotion that has already been experienced, and it is much more difficult to hide one that is being experienced at the moment, especially if it is a strong feeling. Horror is harder to hide than worry, rage is harder than irritation.

More often than not, a person fails because some sign of latent emotion leaks out. How stronger emotion, the more likely it is that some sign of it will leak out, despite all attempts to hide it. Imitating another, unperceived emotion can help mask the underlying experience. By falsifying an emotion, you can cover up the leakage of signs of a secret experience. It is much easier to put on a mask, slow down or extinguish a number of other actions that express the experienced emotion. When your hands begin to shake, it is much easier to do something with them - to clench them into fists or clench them - than to make you lie still. The best mask is false emotion. Most often, a smile is used as a mask. It is the opposite of all negative emotions: fear, anger, suffering, disgust, etc. Another reason for the popularity of the smile as a mask is that it is the easiest of all facial expressions to reproduce at random. Most people find it harder to fake negative emotions. But not every situation allows you to mask the experienced emotion. In some cases, you need to solve a much more difficult problem: how to hide an emotion without faking another.

False explanation - a person may also not hide his feelings, especially if he cannot do it, but lie about their reason. By truthfully acknowledging the emotion he is experiencing, he misleads as to the cause of its occurrence.

Disorientation is the transmission of irrelevant, true or false information in order to distract from the essence of the issue in question. Anything is reported, just not about the essence of the matter. Such types of disorientation as flattery and slander are widely used. This technique is especially widely used by political leaders.

Half-truth is a mixture of essential true information with significant false information, a mixture of lies and reliable information; one-sided coverage of facts; imprecise and vague wording of the discussed provisions; links to sources with a proviso like: "I don't remember who said ..."; distortion of a reliable statement using value judgments, etc. The "half-truth" technique is most often used when it is necessary to avoid an undesirable turn of the dispute, when there are no reliable arguments, but it is imperative to challenge the opponent, when it is necessary, contrary to common sense, to persuade someone to a certain conclusion. The truth is, but only partially.

Tossing False Evidence - It is known that people trust the ideas that have arisen in their own heads much more than those thoughts that come from another person. Therefore, experienced deceivers always try to avoid direct pressure on the victim, preferring indirect, unobtrusive influence on his way of thinking. To do this, they seem to accidentally throw him certain information, the conclusions of which he must draw himself. With the correct presentation of certain facts, a person must himself draw exactly the conclusions that the deceiver is counting on. At the same time, it is important that the principle is observed: evidence should be thrown, as it were, by accident, indirectly, only then they do not arouse suspicion. Hence the conclusion suggests itself: having received evidence of someone's guilt, think about whether there are people for whom such a development of events is favorable. It is possible that this information did not come to you by accident.

Creation of "non-existent reality" - with the help of small but expressive details, a corner of false space is created around the victim, which should give the words and actions of the scammers a special persuasiveness.

Disguise (2) - represents an attempt to hide some material information with the help of some non-material information. There are four main options for disguise:

Disguise an essential lie with an insignificant lie.

Disguise an essential truth with an inconsequential lie.

The disguise of an essential lie with an inconsequential truth.

Disguise essential truth with non-essential truth.

False inference is another trick to avoid telling a lie. It consists in allowing the interlocutor to draw a conclusion from what was said himself, but at the same time lead him to ensure that this conclusion is false.

False interpretation - at the logical level, it is associated with the ability to introduce some false premises into the mind. To implement them, they use such techniques as the "presumption of normality": message a large number true and verifiable judgments, among which only one judgment is false. Because of this, it is rather difficult to detect a false judgment.

Change of context - an incident from life that was in reality is given. But this case is carried over into a different context. This makes it possible to retain in memory many small details related to the case, which creates the illusion of the truthfulness of the story. There is no need to compose something and specially memorize.

Deceived Expectation Effect: Successful misrepresentation of information is based on it. A person who is deceived, given the truthful information received, predicts the development of events in the most likely direction, and the person who distorts the information acts in such a way that violates his expectations. The purpose of an untrue message is to direct the interlocutor's thinking along the path of actualizing frequently encountered familiar situations. The deceived is always an involuntary accomplice in deception: he is a victim of his own inadequate ideas about reality. Also, deceivers can use true information, provoking the interlocutor to make erroneous conclusions from it.

Deception "by contradiction" - the wolf caught a hare. And the hare asks him: "Do what you want with me, even eat me, just don't throw me into the thorn bush." "If he is so afraid of this," thought the wolf, "then I will throw him there." This is how the clever hare deceived the stupid wolf.

Telling the truth under the guise of deception is another related method - telling the truth, but with overexposure, so that the victim does not believe it, i.e. to tell the truth is false. Otto von Bismarck used to say: "If you want to fool the world, tell it the truth." Deception with truth is a rare form of cheating. It works very well. The main thing is that people, as a rule, do not expect such impudence. True, here it is necessary either to be able to control oneself well, or to be a good artist.

They deceive those who want to be deceived. In many cases, the victim of a deception overlooks the mistakes of the person who distorts the information, giving his ambiguous behavior the most favorable interpretation. This is done to avoid the dire consequences that exposure could have. Often, the victim will win and lose at the same time from false information or from exposing it, but these results are not necessarily balanced.

Rearrangement cheating - when a potential victim is forced to assume the role of a cheater. As a result of various psychological manipulations, the victim begins to think that he is deceiving others, while real scammers diligently maintain this illusion up to a certain point. And only in the final everything falls into place.

In any case, the key point in the analysis, whether this message is true or not, is the determination of the subject's motives, the establishment of the reasons why he considers it necessary to keep silent about some of the facts known to him.

Perhaps one of the most important points in understanding a person as a person and recognizing possible deception on his part is the definition of his motives. Think: is there any reason or any interest in this particular person to keep silent about any facts or to change them altogether. It is not for nothing that the police, when solving crimes, always ask themselves the question: who benefits from it? If you are about to enter into some kind of trade deal with a partner, it may be worthwhile to read the text of the agreement more carefully, especially what is written in it in small print. Better yet, compose the text yourself so that there are no misunderstandings.

On January 13, 2012, on the website of the news agency INTERFAX, a message was published under the heading “Some of the negative comments of visitors that disappeared from Putin’s website have been restored”, with the following content, we publish it in its entirety to eliminate omissions:

"Moscow. January 13. INTERFAX.RU - Some negative comments, including proposals to resign, the disappearance of which from the election website of Vladimir Putin was reported by some media the day before, have been restored. however, their rating has dropped significantly.

During the first hours of operation of the prime minister's election website www.putin2012.ru on January 12, it received several offers from visitors to V. Putin to abandon the struggle for the presidency. Several of them, according to users, then disappeared from the site.

Press Secretary of the Prime Minister Dmitry Peskov explained this by the difficulties in the work of the portal due to the influx of visitors, and said that in the near future the work of the site will be restored.

As of midday Friday, these comments are indeed present in the voter proposals in the "Other Topics for Proposals" section, but now their rating has changed from positive to negative: proposals to Putin to resign or refuse political activities 60% and more percent of voters do not support.

At the same time, one of these proposals is still included in the top ten most popular wishes for a presidential candidate. "

Pay attention to the fragment of the message highlighted by us in bold text: “ however, their rating has dropped significantly. " The implication of this proposal is that all messages were recovered with the same rating as they were before the disappearance. However, later their rating has already decreased. Those. in the INTERFAX message, the essence of what is happening is briefly, but true, which cannot be said about the message on another information resource.

On the same day, an article titled "Visitors to Putin's election site now condemn proposals to resign" appeared on the website of the electronic edition "Gazeta.Ru" with a link to the above INTERFAX publication, but note how the meaning of the entire publication changed by substituting some words (the article is reproduced in full):

"Negative comments and proposals of citizens to Vladimir Putin to resign on the pre-election website of the Prime Minister restored with a lower rating, Interfax reports.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich, I suggest you not to bring the situation to a revolutionary one and resign from the post of prime minister, as well as withdraw your candidacy from the presidential elections in the Russian Federation” - this proposal is still on Putin's website.

However, if a few hours after the opening of the site on Thursday about 90% supported it, now the rating of this proposal has dropped to 29%, 71% voted against it.

After the launch of the putin2012.ru website the day before, in the first hours of operation, comments and requests to Putin to resign were in the lead in the proposals section.

However, a few hours after the launch of Vladimir Putin's election website, requests to resign from the top ten most popular wishes for the presidential candidate disappeared, which had headed the list of the most popular wishes in the morning.

Later, the prime minister's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, denied reports that he had been removed from the list of the most popular proposals to Putin.

In an interview with a Gazeta.Ru correspondent, Peskov said that the messages had disappeared from the site as a result of a technical failure. "Gazeta.Ru" "

In the article "Gazeta.Ru" there was a substitution of words and a phrase "However, their rating has dropped significantly" was replaced by another one that clearly distorts the meaning of this message "Restored with a lower rating." The distortion is that "Gazeta.Ru" asserts something completely different, something that did not exist at all, namely the restoration of messages with deliberately artificially low ratings. Is it a misunderstanding or a malicious lie?

For our part, we can state that we tracked some of these proposals and, on January 12, some of them were already restored on the putin2012.ru website, which happened after the publication of the relevant articles on the Internet indicating their disappearance. However, the restored proposals retained their previous rating with a predominantly positive assessment, and only later it changed. On January 13, the rating of offers really changed to the opposite, but this happened after they were restored on the site.

Lipin Eric Eduardovich

Project Manager:

Badash Olga Fedorovna

Institution:

AMOU Humanitarian Lyceum, Izhevsk

This research work on history "Distortion of historical facts on the example of order number 227" was developed in order to understand exactly how the historical information is distorted on the example of order number 227, to analyze the consequences of issuing this order and the means of its execution.

The author, in his project on history about the distortion of historical facts using the example of Order No. 227, believes that in modern realities, the distortion of historical "truths" is one of the most effective methods of propaganda. He will have to determine the factors due to which there is a distortion of historical events.

Introduction
Analysis of the facts.
Order No. 227
Analysis of the execution of order No. 227.
Analysis of the consequences of order No. 227.
Examples of information distortion (myths).
Distortion of information on the execution of order No. 227.
The first myth
Second myth
The third myth
Conclusion
Bibliography.

Introduction

In modern realities, distortion of historical truths is one of the most effective methods of propaganda. Rewriting history, incorrect or incomplete presentation of information is used in many countries of the world in order to ensure their political ambitions.

The facts of distortion of history have been and will always be. Today in this research work the question of filing information about the famous order number 227 will be raised. The ambiguity of its consequences led to the emergence of many different myths associated with the execution of this order, and against the background of the collapse Soviet Union a number of historians appeared who openly lied to the population about the number of victims of this order.

In order to understand exactly how the historical information is distorted on the example of order number 227, an analysis of the consequences of issuing this order and the means of its execution will be carried out. This information will be compared with data that is misused for advocacy purposes.

distortion of historical facts is built around the incorrect interpretation of events and the consecration of false judgments about this or that event. Also, often distortion occurs due to the use of unreliable sources of information.

distortion of historical facts.

the reasons for the distortion of historical information.

determine the factors due to which there is a distortion of historical events.

1. Analyze the execution of order No. 227 and its results.
2. Compare distorted information with historical events.
3. Make a conclusion.

study and analysis of literature, generalization and analogy.

(fragmentary) information

Misrepresentation and misinformation

It should be borne in mind that information coming to you may be:

1) communicated as disinformation directly to you or this source of information;

2) is intentionally distorted by the source;

3) changed - voluntarily or involuntarily - during its transmission.

Verbal messages circulating through horizontal and informal channels are less prone to distortion and targeted misleading action(although rumors can also be launched for the purpose of misinformation).

Let us also remember that information intended for leaders (organization, region, state) is also distorted: usually embellished because of the eternal desire to please the authorities, to receive a reward, to avoid punishment.

Although it happens and vice versa(to "substitute" a colleague, a boss): the information deliberately portrays the situation as simply extremely lousy.

How to analyze information fordetecting distortions and misinformation?

The following criteria can be used.

At deliberate misinformation(which they have already received) are most often used as a deliberate lie, and a refined half-truth, gradually pushing the perceivers to false judgments, decisions, to those actions that are needed by a disinformer, a manipulator.

The most common disinformation tricks used in manipulation are:

1) direct concealment of facts;

2) biased selection of data;

3) violation of logical and temporary connections between events;

4) truthful information, but in such a context (with the addition of a false fact or hint) that it is perceived as a lie;

5) presentation of the most important data against a bright background of distracting information;

6) mixing dissimilar opinions and facts;

7) communication of information in words that can be interpreted in different ways;

8) hiding key details of the fact.

Distortion arising in the process of retransmission of the original information, most often occur due to:

1) transmission of only part of the message;

2) retelling of what he heard in his own words ("spoiled phone");

3) passing the texture through the prism of subjective-personal relations.

For the success of the confrontation deliberate misinformation follows:

a) distinguish between facts and opinions;

b) ask yourself the question: "Is the given source of information, according to its position, able to have access to the reported facts?";

c) take into account the subjective (self-conceit, fantasies) characteristics of the source and its intended attitude to the issued message;

d) it is imperative to use duplicate channels for obtaining information;

e) exclude all unnecessary intermediate links in the transmission of information;

f) remember that it is especially easy, with confidence, to accept the misinformation that you expected or would very much like to receive.

Dealing with imprecise, incomplete and fragmented

(fragmentary) information

What needs to be done to clarify the information, increase its completeness? What attempts can help formulate hypotheses, give meaning to facts that at first glance seem to be scattered or mixed?

First of all, in this case, you need to be able to disregard one's own prejudices... If you underestimate the enemy ("we will crush Dudaev in one regiment of the Airborne Forces in 2 hours"), then you will always try to exclude a priori certain hypotheses about him and 9 to 10, which is where he will catch you if he threw in the information on purpose.

The United States underestimated the spirit of independence of the Vietnamese, the Israelis underestimated the ability of the Palestinians to revolt in the occupied territories, Western entrepreneurs underestimated the Japanese "offensive" in the 70s, Hitler underestimated the potential of the USSR and its administrative apparatus.

While it is easy to express the principle of disregarding one's prejudices, it is difficult to apply it, since the same mistakes are not often made.

Here again the method can help us "circulation"... Incomplete and inaccurate information can be clarified and supplemented by specialists of your own company, who are closely dealing with the same problems and solve similar problems. Independent experts and scientists working on the same subject as this incomplete and / or inaccurate information can also help.

The method can also help "synthesis", when we combine all pieces of information concerning one problem, subject, process (company, etc.) to create a general idea of ​​the activity (action) of the studied subject, organization, process. This is not always easy, because often parts are missing or they are not the right shape.

And in the first and second cases, it is important to find the second and third source of information that is important or very important. In a word, even during the "synthesis" we can resort to such sources of information as highly qualified specialists of your company, outside scientists, experts, specialists, newspapers, magazines, Internet sites, etc.

The main (and sometimes the only solution), including in order to avoid the trap, not to fall for misinformation, is to ask for the opinion of completely different people(not directly related to you, independent experts). This will allow not only to compare opinions, but also to obtain information on certain assumptions and even more.

There are three to four tricks that can be used to obtain probabilistic hypotheses.

Extension method is that the most appropriate explanation is sought for the data available. Often, when completing the formulation of several hypotheses, contradictions are found. In this case, it is important to do the following:

1) find the information that is capable of confirming either the first or second hypothesis;

2) discard the hypothesis that is not confirmed

Of course, the first thing to analyze is information about the worst development of events, but not vice versa.

2. The intent method consists in discovering the actor whose intentions include the latest facts, information received. But you can't think for someone!

You just need to put yourself in his place in order to understand what game is he playing to draw a conclusion about its possible actions. Based on this, many hypotheses are built about his intentions and each of them is investigated (as they are explained by information) Finally, comparing the hypotheses with the available data, we choose a hypothesis (or hypotheses) that covers the largest range of observations and information.

Imagine, for example, Japan: small islands (about half of France), a strong industrial state, but practically devoid of reserves of raw materials (and this, among other things, is manifested in the fact that it does not really like all of Asia, especially its closest neighbors - Koreans and Chinese). Under such conditions, one of the most important issues, which is decided by the Japanese - is the supply of raw materials, food.

Looking at the map, you discover that Siberia with its huge resources is relatively close and there is direct access to it. Hence, one can draw conclusions: about Japan's interest in establishing good relations with Russia; about the emergence among Japanese entrepreneurs of those who can enter into a criminal conspiracy with Russian customs officials on the smuggling of raw materials, etc.

The quality of analysis and interpretation largely depends on the professional affiliation of the expert to whom the analyst turns. When analyzing a business organization, this means that the most appropriate person to interpret certain information is a person with responsibility in the relevant functional area (production, marketing, finance, research and development, etc.)