Opinions/Editorials
See other Opinions/Editorials Articles
Title: How Stupidity Is Manufactured
Source:
Free-Man's Perspective
URL Source: https://www.freemansperspective.com ... -is-manufactured/#.W9mvfTEpCUl
Published: Oct 30, 2018
Author: FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE
Post Date: 2018-10-31 09:39:16 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 257
Yes, manufactured. It’s done all day, every day, and especially in the most advanced parts of the world. And I can prove it to you. Please look at this diagram and tell me which of the lines on the right side, A, B, or C, is the same length as the line on the left. That isn’t too hard, is it? A is obviously shorter and B is obviously longer. The answer is C. This diagram was part of an experiment run back in 1951 by a psychologist named Solomon Asch. And as you might expect, when people were asked to identify the same-length line in a neutral setting, more than 99% did it correctly. But then, Asch had the study participants surrounded by actors who maintained that either A or B was the same length and that C was not. In other words, the participants were intimidated into conforming to what they knew was wrong. With such intimidation, 75% of the participants said (at least some of the time) that C was not the same length as the line on the left. In other words, three quarters of these normal people could be made to act very stupidly. No force was involved and no threats were involved, just the intimidation that comes from conformity pressures… the fear of standing alone. It turns out then that stupidity can be manufactured and that it can be manufactured very efficiently. 75% is a serious supermajority. Of course it is. What, after all, are news channels, if not fear delivery systems? What’s the purpose of political advertisements, if not to compel us to fear the opponent? And how many advertisements don’t include some level of apprehension over what would happen without the advertised product? Fear, you see, is an excellent business, functioning on an inherent human weakness: Fear works. These are not overstated. Humans of our time are messed up in this way, and so long as we fail to deal with it, we’ll remain suckers to an army of fear merchants. For life. Most of us in the West are pretty well addicted to fear. We turn on Fear TV or Fear Radio to “stay up on events.” Or we check Internet feeds that provide the same fears in slightly more modern packaging. And why do we do these things? To show that we’re vibrant and engaged of course. Otherwise, what would we have to talk about at the cocktail party or the coffee shop? This is more or less the same as teenagers who become cigarette smokers (nicotine addicts) to show that they’re part of the cool group. We do these things because everyone else does them, because we’re told to do them, and because we don’t know what else to do. And yet, fear damages us, deeply and continually. Here are Napoleon Hill’s list of fear’s effects, from Think and Grow Rich: [It] paralyzes the faculty of reason, destroys the faculty of imagination, kills off self-reliance, undermines enthusiasm, discourages initiative, leads to uncertainty of purpose, encourages procrastination, wipes out enthusiasm and makes self-control an impossibility. It takes the charm from one’s personality, destroys the possibility of accurate thinking, diverts concentration of effort, it masters persistence, turns will-power into nothingness, destroys ambition, beclouds the memory and invites failure in every conceivable form… Why would we want to suck that into our lives? And if it hurts us… and yet if we can’t stop… doesn’t that sound a lot like addiction? No, you’ll detox. And what will you do if you unplug from the fear screen? You’ll take your child or grandchild to the park. You’ll read a good book. You’ll tend a garden. You’ll help an aged neighbor. You’ll learn (or teach!) a productive skill, such as welding or crypto mining. And so on, ad infinitum. In other words, you’ll directly improve the world, rather than authorizing political fear sellers to do it for you. (Which they never really do.) In short, you would stop worrying and start doing… something that would dethrone the fear sellers while actually improving our world. And by the way, you’d increase your effective intelligence at the same time. Just say no.
Is This Being Done to Us?
“I’m Not an Addict…”
“But I’ll Be Bored”
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]