This is a question I often think about when watching a popular movie or TV show where the plot includes a giant conspiracy, a corrupt politician, or other government agency gone wild. How can the masses believe in the system yet find these plot lines believable. How can the masses accept the premises of movies but reject reality that keeps punching them in the face.
What I have landed on is that it is far to unsettling for most people to accept that most of what they have been taught and believe are lies. That it isn't some small group of evil bad guys. That it is just how the world is. Its the system. It is working as designed and they are just a cog in it. Most people would rather just keep on pretending.
Its my belief that there is a limit to this. We have seen it play out with the U.S.S.R. People lost faith in that system and it fell apart. I only know what I have heard and read about the fall of communism but it seems like it was many years of failure that led to people deeply doubting the system. People pretending it worked. The plebs. Not the state. But at a certain point they could no longer live a lie. People lost complete faith in the state and it fell.
What do you think? Why are people asleep? Does it take losing everything for some people to wake up?