THE EFFECTS OF OPPRESSION ARE BEING DEMONSTRATED
Created | Updated Oct 21, 2012
In light of current world events, the effects of oppression are being demonstrated.
People can be led to believe something that is not true when that information comes from a respected authority.
Add to that fact that people from one group who share a belief in some fundamental line of thought, will respect authorities that reinforce that same line of thought. They will also disrespect sources that conflict with that belief.
The purpose of propaganda is to direct attention to specific ideas.
Propaganda can operate at the subconscious level of the individual.
Distraction and repetition are key elements of successful propaganda.
Distraction causes a person to focus attention on one or more of the five senses.
When enough attention is focused on one of our five senses, our conscious thinking is diverted from normal analytical thought patterns that would otherwise accompany a given situation. Repetition of a suggestion during the cessation of analytical thought will plant the suggestion deep in the subconscious mind. The concept of repetition becomes more powerful with increased time periods.
For example, a thirty second commercial may assault your senses in many ways while repeating a suggestion several times. As effective as that can be, repeating that same commercial several times over a period of one hour is more effective. Even greater still, over a period of a week, if that one hour of propaganda is repeated several times, the effect becomes remarkable. Over a period of a year, if the weekly propaganda is repeated fifty times, the suggestion is planted very securely in our minds. But that does not mean that we will act on the suggestion.
The more we trust the perceived source of the propaganda the more we are likely to accept the suggestion as being true. Once we really believe something to be true, then we will be compelled to act on that idea, even if we do not understand the idea with rational inspection.
Once an idea is accepted in the subconscious as true, we are then hardwired to respond to that idea just as surely as Pavlov’s dogs did. One acknowledgement of the greatness of Ivan Pavlov’s discoveries was the awarding of the Nobel Prize for physiology in 1904.
“Well, I would not become some dog in an experiment like that!” you might say. After all, you have watched thousands of commercials and not been forced by your subconscious to salivate. “Au contraire mon cheri.”
Philip Zimbardo studied the effects of human control and suggests that any human is susceptible to manipulation. In a 1971 experiment he profiled several prospects for his infamous “Prison Experiment.” Psychologically “normal” males were selected and randomly put into two groups. What happened went way beyond what Zimbardo had imagined. The experiment was highly criticized as unethical, but the striking results were undeniable. In more resent times, the scandal at Abu Ghrailb, Iraq were further evidence that humans need to better understand the dynamics of human behavior.
http://youtu.be/sZwfNs1pqG0
Please be warned, BOTH sides to a controversy can be just as ethically wrong.
