Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s description of “the permanent lie” in The Gulag Archipelago is eerily similar to how one can describe the lies by Big Pharma, the Biden administration, corporate medicine, and legacy media about COVID-19 so-called “vaccines” and the adverse events resulting from those shots, as well as about lockdowns, masks, and social distancing.
The permanent lie becomes the only safe form of existence, in the same way as betrayal. Every wag of the tongue can be overheard by someone, every facial expression observed by someone. Therefore every word, if it does not have to be a direct lie, is nonetheless obliged not to contradict the general, common lie. There exists a collection of ready-made phrases, of labels, a selection of ready-made lies. And not one single speech nor one single essay or article nor one single book–be it scientific, journalistic, critical, or “literary,” so-called–can exist without the use of these primary clichés. In the most scientific of texts it is required that someone’s false authority or false priority be upheld somewhere, and that someone be cursed for telling the truth; without this lie even an academic work cannot see the light of day. And what can be said about those shrill meetings and trashy lunch-break gatherings where you are compelled to vote against your own opinion, to pretend to be glad over what distresses you (be it a new state loan, the lowering of piece rates, contributions to some tank column, Sunday work duties, or sending your children to help on the collective farms) and to express the deepest anger in areas about which you couldn’t care less–some kind of intangible, invisible violence in the West Indies or Paraguay?
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 2, pp 646-647