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The Secret of Propaganda: Teaching Obedience

January 26, 2022

The Secret of Propaganda: Teaching Obedience

A classic example of modern propaganda. It dates from the 1940s and it shamelessly exploits the principle of authority. Note that there is no proof or evidence that a majority of doctors smoked Camels more than any other cigarettes. And there is no proof or evidence that, even if the claim were true, the doctors would be right. But the principle of authority works independently from data and truth and the campaign was a huge success. It is the great power of obedience.

Just a few days ago, I was a guest on a TV discussion on the usual subject* (practically, the only one being discussed nowadays).  At some moment, the discussion veered on propaganda, and the host** said something like, “but isn’t it strange that Germany fell so easily for the Nazi propaganda despite the fact that it was the most cultured society in Europe at that time?” And it dawned on me:

It was not despite. It was because.
Exactly that. Propaganda and education go hand in hand: they are one the consequence of the other. In an instant, my whole career as a teacher flashed in my mind. What are we teaching to our students? Plenty of things, of course, but mostly it is about trusting the authority. Obedience, in one word. 
I experimented at times with the opposite approach, pushing my chemistry students to criticize their textbooks. Many of my students are smart fellows, some of them appreciated the idea, and sometimes they found errors that I hadn’t noticed myself. But most of them found the exercise an annoying interlude in their studies. They were not stupid, either…

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Empowered Thinking for Deep Change

November 21, 2021

Empowered Thinking

Empowered Thinking for Deep Change

We’re so in the habit of controlling each other/being controlled that we’ve forgotten how to think for ourselves. We’re so overwhelmed by the challenges we face that we assume there’s nothing we can do (and it’s all our fault).  And we assume that controlling each other is necessary and failing was inevitable because humans are just basically bad.

Let’s re-examine these habits and assumptions.

I’ve been searching for a better name for the category of blog posts that I’ve been calling “Thinking Differently.” I’m leaning towards choosing “Empowered Thinking.”

Paying attention to the kinds of thinking we choose to engage in is critical to our quality of life as individuals, and to how we handle our collective challenges.

In his foreword to the book Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble, Charles Eisenstein writes that,

Cultures older than our own widely recognised that words carried a magical, regenerative power. They were not mere [symbols] connected through arbitrary social convention to the real world of things. Words were emanations of land and life, partaking intimately in the beingness of the things, processes, and qualities they signified. To name a thing was to invoke it.”

~ Charles Eisenstein (bold emphasis is mine)

These two words, “empowered thinking”—or any words we chose to use and especially if we use them repeatedly, with strong emotion or intention, or with ritual—are not just words. Words and thoughts name and shape our world, and choosing them carefully, deliberately, is one of our responsibilities as stewards of our world.

Are you authorized?

Here are some synonyms (alternative words with a similar meaning) for the word “empowered”:

  • authorized
  • allowed
  • sanctioned
  • permitted

In our culture (the dominant culture on earth today), words like these mean you have permission. You’re allowed to be somewhere and/or to do something.

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The Political Theater of Absurdity

March 30, 2021

The Political Theater of Absurdity

Do we have to wonder just how long will the press allow this complete farse to continue? Journalists have no sense of honor, for what they are allowing to take is devastating their own families’ future. Truthfully, if my children were a journalist selling this BS, I would disown them. The CDC has even reduced the social distancing from 6 ft to 3 ft. Then Fauci has come out and said that you can hug other family members if you are vaccinated. So here we have politicians, who Yellen has become, wearing masks when their own savior of the world, Dr. Antony Fauci, has said it is not necessary when people are vaccinated and they no longer need 6ft of social distancing.

This is all a propaganda agenda because what is coming is nothing but job losses and higher taxes, which will not be just the “rich.” Reliable sources are talking about putting a tax per mile driven as part of the Infrastructure Bill. They will say they need that to pay the $1 trillion cost, but in truth, this is what the real intent of lockdowns was — end commuting. There is no reason for Biden and Yellen to be sitting there with masks. This is all theater counting on the stupidity of the majority of Americans to believe whatever the government tells them.

Stanley Milgram, an American social psychologist, did research that peeled back the surface of humanity, which he called “Obedience to Authority.” In one of his famous studies, an assistant stepped out onto a busy street in New York City and stared upward into the sky. At first, people just walked around him and did not bother to look up…

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martin armstrong, authority, government, armstrong economics, stanley milgram, obedience, journalism, belief

Message from Planet Japan: The good times never last forever

January 29, 2018

Message from Planet Japan: The good times never last forever

After having traveled to more than 120 countries in my life, the only person I know who’s been to more places than I have is Jim Rogers.

Jim is a legend– a phenomenal investor, author, and all-around great guy.

(His book Adventure Capitalist is a must-read, chronicling his multi-year driving voyage across the world.)

Some time ago while we were having drinks, Jim remarked that he occasionally tells people, “If you can only travel to one foreign country in your life, go to India.”

In Jim’s view, India presents the greatest diversity of experiences– mega-cities, Himalayan villages, coastal paradises, and a deeply rich culture.

My answer is different: Japan.

To me, Japan isn’t even a country. Japan is its own planet… completely different than anywhere else in ways that are incomprehensible to most westerners.

(Watch my friend Derek Sivers explain it to a TED audience here.)

On one hand, this is a culture that strives to attain beauty and mastery in even mundane tasks like raking the yard or pouring tea.

Everything they do is expected to be conducted to the highest possible standard and precision.

They start the indoctrination from birth; Japanese schools typically do not employ janitors and instead train children to clean up after themselves.

Later in life, the Japanese salaryman is expected to practically work himself to death (or suicide) for his company.

Obedience and collectivism are core cultural values, and the tenets of Bushido are still prevalent to this day.

One of the most remarkable examples of Japanese culture was the aftermath of the devastating 2011 earthquake (and subsequent tsunami) in the Fukushima prefecture.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bureaucratic Insanity: Free to be Slaves

May 14, 2016

Bureaucratic Insanity: Free to be Slaves

Schools in America today are less concerned about the overall welfare of students than they are with making sure that they obey all the rules, no matter how pointless, and produce good test scores. The emphasis on mindless obedience and rote learning prepares them for dehumanizing office work, where employers don’t even try to pretend that they care about the welfare of their workers. Instead, they shame them for taking vacation time and force them to work overtime for free. Employers and school administrators only care about what they can produce: children are treated no differently from widgets, and employees are treated no differently from robots.

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the hierarchical power structure embodied in our rigidly regulated and controlled schools and jobs closely resembles the relationship between a master and a slave. But there is a difference: slaves are under no obligation to pretend that they are free and can be as sullen and apathetic as they wish. They know that they are property, they do the bare minimum to avoid punishment, and they cannot be shamed for such behavior any more than a lawn mower or a toaster oven. We, on the other hand, require both students and employees to cheerfully and meekly deny their slave-like status, and to perpetuate the fiction that they are not compelled to conform but are acting of their own free will. They are gradually driven insane by the chronic cognitive dissonance caused by the mismatch between their pretend-freedom and their all-too-real slavery. In the following excerpt from his new book, Bureaucratic Insanity: The American Bureaucrat’s Descent into Madness, Sean Kerrigan delves into the nature of this effect.

 

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Is Obedience to Authority the Explanation?

April 1, 2016

Is Obedience to Authority the Explanation?

StanleyMilgram

QUESTION: Marty, your point is well taken that we instinctively seek a guru be it in forecasting or politics. We have to understand we are doing that in order to escape responsibility and are really followers. Do you have any idea why we do that so instinctively?

BH

ANSWER: No. Perhaps it stems from the same concept that, as they say, if God did not exist, man would create him. Being a guru implies that you know everything about everything. It seems that the general expectation of a guru, appears to be defined as having some special access to some inner source of all-seeing, all-knowing, wisdom that, if mere mortals could only get close to, then all would be well. This does seems to have infected both analysts and politicians. Even in politics, society applies the same guru stupidity. Once a politician says one thing, they cannot possibly change positions. They will search someone’s statements 30 years ago to argue that was he real view. The press imposes this standard or never reversing a thought. It is curious.

Yet, it is strangely evident that we all change our opinions with time, for as time passes we gain experience and that is the foundation of knowledge. Perhaps we just do not want to think. Religion is an overpowering factor that often stops people from critical thinking and applying logic. If all religions assert that killing is a sin, then why is it OK if you are working for government as a policeman or a soldier as long as some higher-up orders you to do kill someone? The Germans put on trial after World War II said they were just following orders. Perhaps this is really just the “Obedience to Authority” as discovered by Stanley Milgram, whoi was inspired by those Germans saying they were just following orders.

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China Just Launched the Most Frightening Game Ever — and Soon It Will Be Mandatory

December 22, 2015

China Just Launched the Most Frightening Game Ever — and Soon It Will Be Mandatory

(ANTIMEDIA) Oceania, China — As if further proof were needed Orwell’s dystopia is now upon us, China has now gamified obedience to the State. Though that is every bit as creepily terrifying as it sounds, citizens may still choose whether or not they wish to opt-in — that is, until the program becomes compulsory in 2020. “Going under the innocuous name of ‘Sesame Credit,’ China has created a score for how good a citizen you are,” explains Extra Credits’ video about the program. “The owners of China’s largest social networks have partnered with the government to create something akin to the U.S. credit score — but, instead of measuring how regularly you pay your bills, it measures how obediently you follow the party line.”

In the works for years, China’s ‘social credit system’ aims to create a docile, compliant citizenry who are fiscally and morally responsible by employing a game-like format to create self-imposed, group social control. In other words, China gamified peer pressure to control its citizenry; and, though the scheme hasn’t been fully implemented yet, it’s already working — insidiously well.

Zheping Huang, a reporter for Quartz, chronicled his own experience with the social control tool in October, saying that “in the past few weeks I began to notice a mysterious new trend. Numbers were popping up on my social media feeds as my friends and strangers on Weibo [the Chinese equivalent to Twitter] and WeChat began to share their ‘Sesame Credit scores.’ The score is created by Ant Financial, an Alibaba-affiliated company that also runs Alipay, China’s popular third-party payment app with over 350 million users. Ant Financial claims that it evaluates one’s purchasing and spending habits in order to derive a figure that shows how creditworthy someone is.”

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The Reason You Work So Hard to Participate in the Rat Race

September 29, 2015

The Reason You Work So Hard to Participate in the Rat Race

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “A man in debt is so far a slave.” Money has no intrinsic value yet we spend our days damaging our health and spirit in order to obtain it. Why do we sacrifice our well-being for it? Is it the cliché that “we just want to provide a better life for our kids than we had?” Is it just way of the civilized world? The most important question to ask, however, is what power do we have to change this way of thinking and living? The reality is simple: money is a vehicle for social control. Debt makes us good, obedient workers and citizens.

The traditional workweek started in 1908 at The New England Cotton Mill in order to allow followers of the Jewish religion to adhere to Sabbath.  With the passage of The Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, the 40-hour workweek became the norm. Data from the 2013 American Community Survey showed that the average commute time in America is about 26 minutes each way. According to a Gallup poll, the average workweek in America is 34.4 hours, however, when only taking into account full time workers, that average shoots up to 47, or 9.4 hours per day during a 5-day workweek. Keeping averages in mind then, between commuting, working and figuring in an hour for lunch (usually less), that puts us at approximately 11 hours and 40 minutes for the average full time worker. If you have a family with young kids, just add in another few hours for homework, baths, etc.

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