Brainwashed: Part 6
Part 6 – Controlling the Message and Electioneering
Controlling the Message
Last time we discussed the Fourth Estate, and how often nowadays they seem to be withholding or not seeking out all the information, and perhaps using some sort of filter on what they put out.
Do we individuals play this game, too, of conveying only a part of the message, and with “spin”? We should take a moment to think about how people try to “control their message” in various ways. Of course, there are many professions in which we obviously do so: attorneys, doctors, and other professionals are carefully trained to have a courtroom presence and a bedside manner when they are on the job. Advertisers, too, are experts at controlling the message. This, though, is about individuals controlling their own messages.
Just creating a résumé or curriculum vitae is a way of branding oneself, controlling the message about who one is, what one does.
Our friend Jill is an accomplished professional, who wanted to serve as a volunteer on a transit council. Here is the résumé she put together to attach to her cover letter.
Jill Better
123 Oak Lane
Punxsutawny, Pennsylvania 15767
My whole world travels on public transit! Here is what I have accomplished, with the hopes of continuing along the same route.
Kindergarten through Grade 6
Route 74A to and from school
Grades 7 through 12
Route 58L to and from school
University
Route 56U to and from school
Employment
Routes 58, 61C, 71, and 75 to and from employment
Entertainment
Ultraviolet Route to and from theaters
Jill was appointed to the council. Even though they knew nothing else about her, she had conveyed a sense of herself and had sold them on selecting her. She would go on to become an officer in the council.
While there are some who think nothing of using an image of themselves standing on their head as their main image for LinkedIn (which may be seen by those with whom one works or does business), most of us think ahead about how we may appear to others.
For those who wish to hide their identities while putting forth their personalities, I note that the “comments” sections have played the ugly role of giving partial cover to those who wish to attack, berate, and rant against the authors of whatever the subject matter is. Sometimes they are attacking only the authors and not the subject matter at hand. They may use fake names, and presumably only the owner of the site has the ability to look up who it actually is. (If you believe that shaky proposition, I’ll sell you another: most certainly there are those who can find out anything they want about anyone they wish to uncover online. If someone really wants to know who is writing scathing screeds, the information is attainable. No one is completely anonymous anymore. It is yet another form of bamboozling, in this case bamboozling the bamboozler.)
Other than those semi-anonymous comment writers, we are learning younger and younger how to control our message.
Commentators on various platforms (outside the comments sections of articles) sometimes do what seems to me to be a horrible job of this, but they sign their names to it, and that is how they make their money. Folks will tune in to hear a rant (true or not) against some perceived enemy (real or not), and it does not seem to reflect badly upon the commentator.
So as much as you may be trying to control your message, others must be doing the same. It is very much like folks who put makeup only on the front of their face because that is all they see in the mirror, but when one views them from the side, one may see more of the reality. If, however, all we ever see is the front, then we may be fooled.
This is where teenagers may not have enough experience to understand that others are not “more perfect” than they, that they simply are better at projecting some sort of perceived perfection.
Politicians are an example of folks who have a long history of controlling their messages. They must become experts at controlling the message, and they often hire a regiment of individuals to help with that. This sort of control can affect us all.
I am thinking of the song in Evita in which, upon meeting, the young Eva Duarte sings to Juan Perón, “When you act, the things you do affect us all…” and Juan responds, “and when you act, you take us away from the squalor of the real world…”
Actors do this as well – they control their images – they have been trucking around their headshots and résumés for well over a century, and the good actors have it down to a science. Thus they obtain jobs in which they and their fellow artists may transport us to other worlds and other universes, controlling our minds even for just a moment.
For now, let’s look a bit closer at those politicians. Of course, Juan Perón was an extreme version; however, others lately are catching up to him.
Electioneering and Button Pushing
As long as we have mentioned elections, let’s pause for a sidebar. Consider yourself a candidate for election to some office you believe you would like to hold.
How might you use mind control to gain what you want? Here are a few scenarios.
- First you convince people of the need for something. Then you convince them that the only cure, the only path to fulfilling that need, is your own solution.
- First you convince people that something horrible is happening. Then you convince them that that is the worst thing in the world, and must be addressed to the exclusion of all else.
- First you convince people that they are needed to do something. Then you convince them that they must spend every waking minute focusing on that project.
Meanwhile, for the last two, once all the folks are responding to what you have planted, you have plenty of space to tend to everything else you have planned, all the items to which you didn’t want to call attention.
Does all of this make you just like your model of an ideal candidate? And remember, you have to do it all early and often – perhaps even after you are in office. And since it has been shown often that people tend to believe that which they hear first, you must begin very early.
It seems to me that many politicians are using just this sort of mind control. They often add the words “fight for you” to what they are saying, as if the entire function of government is to do battle amongst themselves.
Notice how much your buttons are being pushed by these maneuvers. Yes, we may push buttons to vote. Button pushing is also a form of mind control.
Freeda is a candidate for office. She considers the major problem of our time to be the potential imminent death of our planet. She is having a conversation with the head of her campaign staff.
FREEDA: I really want to run on how we can save the planet. I’ve put together a huge binder of potential legislation, of talking points, and ways to foment consensus on the various matters.
MARGIE: The voters do not want to hear it. The voters don’t care about the planet, they just want their gas and electric to work as usual, and their cars to be fueled up.
FREEDA: We are all going to die if we don’t take action on this! The weather is becoming more and more severe, the coral reefs are dying, the fires are multiplying, the flooding is overwhelming.
MARGIE: The voters are concerned with women’s health care and the right to have an abortion. There are those concerned about the rights of gay persons to marry. Some are concerned about how we offer to share our country’s liberty with those seeking to come in for a better life.
FREEDA: And there are other voters who are concerned with who owns what real estate and which bully can own more. And yet others who are concerned with whose religion is “right” and ought to be the basis of the laws of our land.
MARGIE: Yes.
FREEDA: No matter what side of each of those issues anyone is on, their pet issue will be the basis of their vote?
MARGIE: Yes.
FREEDA: And you want me to talk about those matters and only those matters. Not the imminent death of our planet.
MARGIE: Yes. Just get elected.
Alas, we are being directed into divisive topics to distract us from the major problems on which we ought to be united. Perhaps we may have to contend with some of those bullies in order to garner global support to address the important matters. Does that make the bullies the primary issue? Well they are a distraction.
How many politicians are talking about Freeda’s issue in a meaningful way? How many have it on their platform at all? And how many even have a notion as to how to address it? Certainly Freeda does, but she is fictional.
I do not generally advocate being a single-issue voter. But why are we driven toward the most divisive issues in our elections?
Possibly – again – because your buttons (and those of millions of others) are being pushed.
In our next installment we shall scrutinize the Media in general. What color is your pinwheel now?
