terça-feira, 28 de maio de 2013

Fuck explanations, that's my shit.
The brain washing is done by the ones in a favorable position to do so, like leaders of the fields where change/control is meant to take place: Opinion makers and media icons, professors and communitarian leaders. The ones hereby called Change Agents.
There are some identifiable general principles used in order to maintain, change and erode the mass’ opinions and behavior such as the following:
Hegelian Dialectics.
Semantic Deception.
Gradualism.
Smokescreen.
Power Maintenance.
Media Control and its institutionalized maintenance.

Gradualism and Hegelian Dialectics are the main practical tools in the strategy of shaping people’s mind through directing the “development “of the “course” of their “thoughts” to the desired point.

The Hegelian Dialectics:  Based on the dialectic studies of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.


The way that the Hegelian dialectics are usually used is portrait in the graphic above.
In order to produce a change in the public’s or individual’s view on a certain subject, an opposition of ideas is created and exposed.  The “Thesis” represents the established practice, stance or point-of-view of an individual or group of individuals that is lead to be challenged by an opposite perspective. The so called “Antithesis” comes into play by defending a contrary vision or understanding of the established stance that one wants to change, opening room for the Gradualist strategy.
People don’t simply change their opinions and attitudes abruptly. The proposed antithesis is not readily accepted by its target but the discussion caused by the divergent ideas provides the space for a “solution”: A common ground.
The “Synthesis” is mainly taken as a step forward towards a peaceful agreement and we are always willing to achieve Concordia Discors, are we not?  Unfortunately often it is used as part of a gradualist method of mind-changing and opinion-shaping. The synthesis is always a step further from the thesis and toward the antithesis. Hegelian dialectics are the utter counter-scientific practice that leads the testing of a certain hypothesis towards a conciliation of ideas instead of the achievement of truth. Hegelian Dialectics are the way to smoothly implement gradualism: Two steps forward, one step back.  It is given as the following:
One proposes a very large step onto considering or adopting a view or understanding very opposed to the current. Abrupt proposals of change are received with mistrust and, in the process of rejection, generates a debate where both (Thesis and Antithesis) are made known by exposing their points of view. In the end of the debate the antithesis is no longer an alien perspective into the target’s (current) worldview. Many arguments as possible were made known in the defense of the antithesis and, therefore, the initial level of rejection has been reduced. The new thesis is now different from the original. It resides one step closer to the antithesis.  In each repetition of the process, the target is lead closer to the challenger’s perspective. All the challenger needs to do is to increase the distance or intensity of the antithesis in every new discussion to get the target’s opinion or understanding each time closer to the desired point. The larger the pool in between thesis and antithesis the bigger the frisson caused by the discussion around it and larger the step taken towards the antithesis.
Gradualism is the reverse engineering of the process of weaning, bit by bit installing new patterns and behaviors.
Semantic Deception:
Semantic deception is largely used nowadays as a strategy of truth-distortion. Usually it is given through the semantic distortion and subversion of word’s meanings, in order to downplay relevance or mislead understanding. Through semantic deception one can argue all sorts of lies, irrelevances or false information to nullify or impair a conversation or dialectic process.
Using such strategy, one could argue that the sentence “I drank water from the ocean” is false or has no truth-value once the chemical formula of water (H2O) is different than the aforementioned, which contains sodium and chloride. Therefore the ocean has no water to be drunk.
One could also argue that the question “what is the circumference of this ball?” is not truth-appt, once circles are hypothetical figures existing only in one’s imagination with two dimensions, differently than a ball which is a tree dimensions spherical (not circular) existing object.
Of course, this kind of tool is commonly used in more subtle ways but often relying on such pointless argument only to devoid the challenged idea/discussion from its point, derailing it. To induce the confusion with the word “good”, for instance, is a trite use of semantic deception. To generate the confusion between what implies “goodness” in a moral sense of being benign and what implies “possessing a good evaluation of quality” as a knife can be, is a bright way of depriving morality of its status and semantic value, and leveling it with inanimate objects.   
Such a tool is largely applied on the defense of stances of neutrality, “no-right no-wrong” ideas and deliberately challenging and undermining opponents, making them sound dubious.  Easily done, this kind of psychological attack does not demand the attacker to state the opposite of its victim nor to provide reasons to defend a contrary point of view. All the attacker is required to do is to doubt everything, questioning and misleading the actual point into some irrelevant rubbish.
A good example of semantic deception is found in “THE PSYCHIATRY OF ENDURING PEACE AND SOCIAL PROGRESS” in The William Allason White Memorial Lectures by Major General G.B. [Brock] Chisholm, C.B.E., M.D., Deputy Minister of Health, Dept. of National Health and Welfare, Canada (Vol. 9, No. 1) as it follows:

“The re-interpretation and eventually eradication of the concept of right and wrong
which has been the basis of child training, the substitution of intelligent and rational
thinking for faith in the certainties of the old people, these are the belated objectives of
practically all effective psychotherapy. Would it not be sensible to stop imposing our local
prejudices and faiths on children and give them all sides of every question so that in their
own time they may have the ability to size things up, and make their own decisions? ...If
the race is to be freed from its crippling burden of good and evil it must be psychiatrists
who take the original responsibility.... The people who matter are the teachers, the
young mothers and fathers, the parent-teacher associations, youth groups, service clubs,
schools and colleges, the churches and Sunday schools—everyone who can be reached and
given help toward intellectual freedom and honesty for themselves and for the children
whose future depends on them....

By suggesting all sorts of wonderful improvements, Chisholm can state that the objective of psychotherapy is the eradication of the concepts of right and wrong in children’s education. Training, excuse me. Chisholm also suggest that we let children decide what is right or wrong by themselves, ridiculously disregarding the fact that there are laws all over the world regulating the authority and responsibility of parents concerning their children’s orientation and guidance. Yet, disregarding and pretending to forget (Otherwise attesting his incompetence) the fundamental structural -psychological importance of parental guidance on the healthy development of the individual, defended and unveiled by psychology, which he is supposed to be defending.
Other possibility is that you, dear reader, is being mislead by me once so far you didn’t go looking the original context that this excerpt is taken from. Anyways, semantic deception is easily applied. Justice may be blind, dear reader, but injustice is quite visible.
Not getting religious here, but.
Just because the Church burned thousands in the name of Jesus, does it make Jesus the Lord of fire? Does it make the love that He spoke of, just a fugacity?
What has love become nowadays if not just an abstract noun? What others have done with the name of Jesus and the Love that he preached has no necessary connection with Jesus or Love.
How may one speak of love without have seriously considered to conceive a child. How may one have seriously considered to conceive a child without have considered to take a life? To murder?
Just a vain person, that cannot understand it and is impaired to feel it, could talk about it with such carelessness.
Does not a pregnant woman risks her life every time she decides to have the child? Would it be plain lack of thoughts and information? Is she not deciding to give the child, life so to speak, a chance, betting her own life in the process?
Do not women get into prostitution every day in order to achieve the means to feed their babies? Don’t they love their children more them themselves? To love another more than yourself is really that ridiculous things that they say at the magazines?  Can you point your finger at one of these prostitutes and call her “just a whore”? That is not, dear reader, ingenuity. But lack of character.
What does it matter then, what was made of Jesus name? One may not talk about love without being misunderstood. If love is or were anything related with which was spoken by Jesus, it has lost its semantic meaning…
As the rest in life, like pride, glory, honor and mercy… The ends are what matter. To achieve them.  For it doesn’t matter what you desire to give or receive, however, the delivery of the intended deed is what bears real importance. Not the transmission of the message but how it hits the target, How the message is received and understood. There is where the power of communication lies.




Smokescreen
Vulgar military term that comes from ages of bloodshed.  To create a smokescreen is to obscure the target’s or someone’s vision by casting a wall of smoke in between the enemy’s eyes and the caster’s sight. No grass or wood has to be burned and no platoon are demanded to hide nor to inflame its lungs with smoke anymore. The refinement of such strategy reaches levels never before imagined by its ancient creators.
The current use of the smokescreen strategy is far more subtle. As Carl Von Clausewitz alongside many others have instructed, to hide troops behind a curtain of fog is one among many possibilities allowed by the smoke in itself.
The obvious parallel of the aforementioned tradition would be the use of lies and half-truths to hide whichever deed or intention one wants to keep out of another’s view. Applied this way, however, the smokescreen implicitly ascribes the presence of troops. It can surely be used to confuse and mislead the understanding of the enemy but, yet, the present stage of this tool’s development is much more intricate.
Nowadays the smokescreen is an invisible device of unawareness introduced in the west by the Roman Empire. “Panis et Circenses” was its name at the time. The subjects of the modern smokescreen are both its involuntary victims and unaware of its existence.  The strategy consists solely in directing the target’s focus of attention away from what is to be shadowed. Maintaining the target looking away, constantly looking elsewhere, paying attention in something else and concerned with irrelevances, the aggressor has no need to burn anything nor to create smoke. The attacker has no need to hide. The attacker may not be seeing.
The smokescreen strategy may be used in narrow or broad ways. A good example of its functioning is the “Patriot Act” implementation in the USA, back in 2001. Protected by a hurricane of security issues, the North American congress and the president have passed a law that gives him and the state, powers like the ones of a dictator over the rights (Privileges) of citizens. No one saw, no one complained. Everybody was too shocked or busy with terror to pay attention on its own ground.
Same story is repeated daily in Brazilian soil, where the citizens are striped out of their rights during gatherings of politicians that, coincidentally enough, are bow to take place during the carnival, “important football matches” and other “events”. The Media has a special care to draw the citizen’s attention to the real and important deals happening in the country, making sure that no citizen will be left out of the festivities. 



The Media Control and the use of psychological techniques (Such as Pavlov, Skinner, Bloom and Chisholm) in schools and other corner-stone institutions are the daily basis of power maintenance in any government or state. The schools shape the minds of the future work forces and politically active generations, making sure they will be able to fulfill their role as working obedient force.  Meanwhile, the media channels take care to keep the public unaware of relevant issues and decisions made in their name concerning their lives, overwhelming them with all sorts of entertainment and gradually implementing changes on the public’s mind. Edward Bernays, great supplier of this kind of material have stated:
“So the question naturally arose: If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?
The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits. “ . (- Propaganda -THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS pg 47)

The alliance between corporate Media and consumption collaborates to incorporate the logic of the discriminatory value of the individual. Do so, beyond characteristics as the name, activity and profession; incorporating also the type of consumption of which one has access and the goods and services that it chooses.
Even though consumption is commonly reduced to sheer consumerism, it’s well known that the processes of consumption are much more complex than product of unstoppable impulses given by advertisements. Consumption is the code which we relate to our peers by as we do with the world around us. Such as dress codes, haircuts, gadgets and accessories.
In a society based on consumption, to become a desirable product is the matter of which dreams are made of.
Coherently with the neoliberal ideology, the entrepreneur subject has become the role model on diverse contexts. The success of the entrepreneur subject is no accident. The entrepreneur subject has to be, above all, willing to risk. In a society ruled by uncertainty and everlasting competition, the capacity to face risks and overcome challenges has become a matter of survival. 
In the same way that is demanded that the subject learn self-management and that it finds itself well oriented in the corporative world, so it is given in its private and sexual life.
Dress code, hairstyle and alike; are under full time analysis on the streets at any situation in one’s life nowadays. Every of the aforementioned aspects have become mere symbols of expression inside given patterns. They define how pretty, seriously taken and sexually appealing you are and determinates (supported by the expected social behavior) which doors are sealed and which are open. To be the perfect product, the perfect subject of consumption is the ultimate goal for all those who crave any kind of power. 



And why is that we should listen to this voice that point “they” as puppeteers? Why should the reader take this author seriously?  What do this people want and why do they have to steer the rest of us like cattle? Is it not too much of a fuss?
Edward E. Bernays, Freud’s nephew has an answer to those questions:

“They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure.”  (“- Propaganda -THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS- pg09)

Note that he does not give names; however, he describes them as those gifted with “key positions in the social structure”. The elite: owners of the media and financial system. The usual.
In fact, Bernays sees that as a gift for those less fortunate minds who are under the rule of the modern princes, as he states:

“In theory, every citizen makes up his mind on public questions and matters of private conduct. In practice, if all men had to study for themselves the abstruse economic, political, and ethical data involved in every question, they would find it impossible to come to a conclusion about anything. We have voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issues so that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical proportions.”   (- Propaganda -THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS pg10)
They want to keep the power that they have. Forever.
Wouldn’t you? Or would you prefer to be your limited self?

I must explain better, why and how power characterizes the ultimate objective.
For example: That’s the reason for why society has psychopaths in leading positions all over the world. CEO’s, presidents and all kinds of leaders composes the puppeteers behind most of relevant organizations. Studies have shown the inclination of sociopaths and psychopaths to look for a position to exert their will comfortably.   
The enemy understands the concepts of power and its uses, making relevant part of their personal efforts to acquire and maintain power. Throwing the acknowledgement of such concepts into oblivion is a central part of the strategy. One does not simply give their opponents its own means and secrets.
Power is all that matters. Knowledge is only a step towards power, not power in itself.
Power may not be wisely used without knowledge, that’s a fact, however, knowledge alone is no more than a gun without ammunition. It may impress but may not fulfill its purpose, which is to operate changes on the objective realm. It is foolish to think that a book can operate bigger changes in a human’s life than the strike of an axe. Anybody can be changed by an axe; the same cannot be said about a book. They may censor a book.  Can they stop a trigger? Can they cure a maniac? Maybe with an axe.
The cattle do not do as it pleases but, yet, as commanded by the shepherd in the very way they are steered. The cattle are not able to perform individually nor have their own ideas. They are only able to follow. They seek nothing more, they deserve nothing less.
How many of these biped pigs have we encountered throughout our lives that have received the means to express their individuality? The education to develop themselves as individuals? Nevertheless, they are still cattle. They wish no freedom, plead no justice, seek no revenge. Laziness and weakness are their gods, shoulder to shoulder with Mamon.
If you are no different of them, do not pity the fools. Pity is given from above to below, keep that in mind before pretending empathy. Keep your despise for my words to yourself and maybe do something about the undeniable reality. Lead them onto something better. Or behead with them.