Verkehrung ins Gegenteil

Since a fascist political system has justified a war through "denazification," it is clear: the world is out of joint. Trust in institutions is waning, facts are interpreted as fiction, even when confronted with them daily. Autocracy becomes dissent, and criticism turns into censorship. However, it is not only with Putin's autocratic regime, nor solely through conspiracy theories, denial of COVID-19 and climate change, or Trump's attempts to exploit the boundaries of democracy for personal interests, that the perception of reality and the capacity for reception and critique are under fire. As Sylvia Sasse compellingly demonstrates, history is rather full of political and media strategies for creating inverted worlds. It is therefore time to recap the observable inversions, understand their histories, and recognize them as one of the fundamental methods of disinformation. For the inversion of the truth is not a subversive strategy "from below," but a means of consolidating and legitimizing power and terror – and a direct attack on democracy.