Communication strategies and obscurantism
The evolution of the European crisis, both in economic and political, has been producing interesting institutional changes in the communicative spectrum. So we have seen, after the outbreak of the Spanish crisis, and the different Greek electoral process, Europe has established a new communication patterns.
On the one hand we observe the institutionalization of the leaks to Reuters as a communication strategy designed to put pressure on the citizenship of the peripheral states, with more and more apocalyptic messages. A good example of this, are the two leaks from community sources in a span of four days to Reuters news agency on fundamental facts: the "no bailout" of Spain and the veiled threat to Greek voters a week before the crucial elections -day 17th- about the possibility of their decision can take them out of the euro. And also Brussels seems to be not enabled to coordinate the responses of political leaders (fragmentation of political authority), which has allowed both say one thing and the opposite, with the resulting confusion created among citizens.
The information has been replaced by rumors and leaks interested: The role of Reuters is that one that Bismarck would have assigned to his related media in his "slush fund" to counter the propaganda from the other side.
On the other hand we see the distortion in the language, or whatever it is, the generation of opacity on the part of governments and institutions through a new vocabulary designed to fracture the relationship between meaning and significant guiding us into a nebula of words that say nothing. All with the sole purpose of disguise the truth.
We see how the words aid, rescue, intervention, are lost in an ocean of synonyms that make it difficult for citizens to see the true magnitude of the tragedy and prevent them to participate in a rational way in the decision making process that should lead us out of tunnel in which we are.
Eventually this leads to a democratic deficit, which is eroding not only the community project itself but also the legitimacy of their leaders. This can cause unexpected reactions in the population. Given a scenario that recalls, with great distance, the atmosphere of the 30’s, we see that we are in a process of change, but we cannot see where we are going.
The general theory of evolutionary systems (GTES) states that when a system becomes unstable branches, ie chaotic jump, which leads to the emergence of a new system. What we are experiencing now is a process of destabilization of our organizational systems (social, economic, political and cultural) which raises the question whether these systems are about to bifurcate, or even if we are not already in the midst of chaotic jump.
The TGSE indicates that any given system has a limit of tolerance for complexity and that once the limit is exceeded, the system starts to become unstable. If we take the complexity as an expression of raw information as we can understand this complex phenomena that the system does not understand or agree, the events which, in one way or another-shock or challenge the system. It is clear in our topic of study that the language, the communication process between the power (government and institutions) and the citizens is exceeding the limit of complexity.
No time like a crisis to innovate and create new models, ideas and theories. And yet, what are advocating solutions based on the models that we brought here but are unable to take further. We are required unconditional adherence to these solutions on the grounds that the alternative is chaos, when the truth is that we are passing a chaotic process.
If the correct TGSE the measures being implemented now will not reduce the complexity of current systems affects, at most postpone or dilate the phase of instability, but probably also increase the intensity of the bifurcation. Therefore, and always within the parameters of the TGSE, the choice lies between start riding a real transition to a new system or simply have this transition without having any control over it.
The only chance that the European Union has to regain its legitimacy and to find an orderly resolution to the present chaos, pass first by restore the value of the word. That is, restore the social function of language, which is simply to transmit messages, communicating in a clear and transparent way.
Europe must abandon the strategy of the leaks by opening official channels of dialogue that allow direct interaction with citizens, contradicting if necessary the state governments which manipulates public opinion as in the case of the Spanish government and its reaction to the rescue of the bank sector.
