We spent time back in Montana on our recent trip, and had meals out with everyone we wanted to see that we had time to see again in Bozeman. Each of those meals was a trip of its own, leading to long conversations that I wished would never end. My thanks to our good friends who read this blog and spent time with us. It was really fun.
One dinner companion had an interesting observation: Most people who read this blog don’t get it. Most Americans don’t get the kind of talk that goes on here. They don’t look behind the curtain, don’t suspect that greater minds than ours are about the business of managing our perceptions. That phrase itself is an insult, as each person presumes to know his own thoughts and to be the originator of those thoughts.
So we all think alike, and we all think the same things, and we are all the originators of our own thoughts.
But to actively manage a population that thinks itself free is a much more difficult task. So it starts early, when we are very young. Our schools teach us a version of history that probably never happened, and it becomes our backdrop. We are also taught that our form of governance is the best, and that we had forebears that were saintly and courageous. We are constantly put through rituals, such as saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing the national anthem, to reinforce those ideas. We monitor one another to see if the open displays of patriotism are appropriate – do our neighbors take off their caps, put hand over heart?
Most importantly, after our leaders are decided for us, we decide on our leaders. It is essential that we view ourselves as self-governing.
It is usually enough to reach a person in the primary education phase. Most will go on to ordinary workaday careers, the backdrop firmly in place. Their lives will be occupied with work and bills and children and sports. Many of the poorer classes will be called upon to become soldiers and participate in attacks on other countries, and will presume to know that the cause is just, and will demand honor and repayment for their dishonorable work.
A few of us are people who Napoleon referred to as being “of noble mind.” We think further and harder, and so it is not enough that we be swathed in patriotism as young children and let go. The process has to be ongoing, reinforced in higher education, and deeply embedded by the social reward system. You might think the intellectual class of people to be the hardest to manage, but they are not. They are Orwell’s trained circus dog. They actually teach themselves to jump through the hoop without the crack of the whip of the trainer. They self-indoctrinate.
If they are Republicans, they are critical of Democrats, and visa versa. When necessary, when new people take power, they switch positions, criticizing the same policies they once espoused, since that policy is now being carried out by the other party. The act of position switching, which recently happened on our resource wars in the Middle and Far East, and on budget deficits, is truly a wonder to behold.
This class is everywhere to be found in chatterland, with one exception: Anyone who eschews the two-party makeup is ostracized. Outside the two parties, you will find honest thoughts and observations, critical thought and true patriotism, which is the love of a land and people couple with a desire for the good will of others and prosperity and happiness for the entire planet.
Christopher Nolan, who wrote and directed the movie Inception, seems to be at once uniquely talented and smart enough not to openly challenge power and the perception management system. He is smuggling his message to us. Good film makers do this – David Russell with Three Kings, Barry Levinson with Wag the Dog, Stuart Rosenburg with Cool Hand Luke … the list goes on far into the night – The Wizard of Oz, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Lesser attempts that more pistol-whip than smuggle include There Will Be Blood and Avatar.
For that reason, I am going to see it today. It must be quite good.
Piece of Mindful 
Mark,
Another excellent post. I, too, may actually pay money to see it.
Nolan’s Batman series also embeds the same “smuggled” ideas. He (and his brother) are among my favorite producer/directors as well.
LikeLike
Mark, I know you’re a dumbass who can’t read and all, but what is with this “Rod” shit? Do you actually think you’re making a point? Do you think you’re manipulating something? I’ve already gotten one email asking if I understand it, because no one else does. It’s supremely stupid.
So, unlike others, who have little interest in asking the delusional about their delusions, I’m somewhat curious? What the hell is the point you aren’t making?
LikeLike
So, I am a dumb ass, supremely stupid, delusional?
My comments about your nature tend to be more refined, as in an inability to deal with nuance, an authoritarian streak, tedious use of the language, preachiness, using logic 101 as a hammer rather than a paint brush, use of vulgarity, and lately a tendency to resort to group think to administer your points.
Might we communicate better if I called you a dumbass muther? Can we relate on that level?
You received no email, by the way.
LikeLike
Heh. On the contrary, Mark. I did. And you whimper your way away from the answer to the question. You won’t answer will you? You have no idea why you are using “Rod”, do you? It makes no sense to you. Guess what, Mark. It makes no sense to anyone else either, and I’m laughing my ass off about it.
LikeLike
You didn’t.
Let’s take these one at a time now:
Now, I don’t hallucinate, thought that is not a requirement. So my “delusions” must be “non-bizarre.” That can only mean that I claim to see things that others don’t.
What are these things? I see that 1) politicians are usually three steps ahead of you, and that you cannot discern this because you believe their activities to be sincere and genuine. Yet if indeed they are sincere and genuine, then they cannot be very good at it, as the art of politics is to hold together coalitions, and to do so requires that at least some parts of that coalition be lied to.
You seem to believe that you are some kind of exception, that you are part of an elite group that is not lied to. That would be a false impression, but not a delusion, as others are going to great efforts to reinforce it, making you merely stupid.
2) I see that people are more interested in belonging to groups that knowing what is true. This is not original with me. Orwell advanced this belief, as did Hans C. Andersen. Better than me, of course, using fiction and symbols to make their point. But the point is true nonetheless, meaning that I have hold of a truth that you do not, making you a tad oblivious.
3) I see that governments engage in propaganda to keep populations in line. This too is no great discovery on my part, as the nature of group behavior was uncovered in the late 19th century, and in the early 20th century, people began exploring techniques of influencing group behavior. My only presumption is that this exploration has achieved results, and that the art of opinion and perception management is still with us with more expertise at hand than ever before. Since techniques are sublime, eternal vigilance is the only answer, and even then we all fall for ruse and into spells. But at least I am aware of my vulnerability, while you are not, meaning that you are horribly naive.
Two parties are one: A basic dictum of logic is that a man believes as his paycheck dictates, and internalizes as he must to make his outer world conform to this inner ‘reality.’ Since both parties have the same financiers, it only follows that those who receive those paychecks act, and eventually ‘believe’ as those paycheck dictate. Further, a nuanced understanding of power realizes that money is only part of the equation … that to make a person do something he does not want to do requires far more than mere bribery, as most people do not accept bribes. Therefore, there are other means at work to force office holders to do things they do not want to do. The fact that wiretaps are prominent, and yet not investigated, would make a man of ordinary intelligence wonder if many in DC and other places have been compromised. Since you do not wonder about this, you are not a person of ordinary intelligence, and from this I deduce that you cannot imagine what might happen out of your view, meaning that you cannot grasp nuance.
Supremely stupid: The phrase, so far as I know, was coined or repeated by my daughter’s high school French teacher. She used it to refer to a fundamentalist teacher who was trying to convince the kids that abortion was evil. “Stupid” meant that he was deeply indoctrinated to the point where he could not be reached with ordinary evidence or reason. “Supremely” meant that he thought himself so right that his logic and reason was superior to all around him. This sounds suspiciously more like you than me, as I know I am subject to propaganda, have altered my views on many issues in the past few years, and continue to migrate as evidence dictates. You do not, meaning that the SS description more than fits you than me.
I’ll stop now.
LikeLike