Brainwashed: Part 9
Part 9 – Purposeful, Outright Bamboozling
Let’s look now at even more direct forms of mind control. In previous installments we have seen ways that society plans to control the way we think, for better or for worse (depending upon who may benefit).
Now let us touch on purposely diverting attention, white lies, fibbing, and really nefarious manners of controlling minds.
Pulling the Wool Over Someone’s Eyes
There is an anecdote about sculptor Michelangelo Buonarroti, concerning his “David.” One of his patrons, Pier Soderini, is said to have insisted that the statue’s nose was too big. Michelangelo quietly grabbed a handful of marble dust and pieces, climbed up to the nose, and dropped the loose marble as he pretended to whittle away at the nose. Soderini was happy, and the statue has stood proudly since 1504.
(Of course, I avoid the obvious note that maybe the sculptor wanted the statue to look more Jewish. That would have followed a stereotype that didn’t necessarily exclude many of the residents of Florence at the time, Jewish or not. Further, he might have circumcised his David a bit more to have a similar effect.)
At any rate, is this sort of thing what some call a “white lie”? Is it like telling your spouse that the extra 120 pounds is not at all noticeable? Or like telling a child that you have indeed already checked under the bed for monsters?
Gaslighting
If you have not yet seen the classic 1944 film Gaslight, with Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, and Joseph Cotton, directed by George Cukor, I strongly recommend it. The verb “to gaslight” came from the movie’s title. In the film, the poor wife is being driven mad by her husband lying to her and making her believe she isn’t seeing what is in front of her, or is seeing things incorrectly.
That is the essence of gaslighting. It is pulling the wool over someone’s eyes, as we have just discussed, but with a directly nefarious intent.
In recent years, the use of the term has broadened. It tends to include more breadth of intent than just to drive someone mad. For instance, it may include lying to get folks to take action (or to hold inaction), such as when an instigator of some sort nefariously proclaims that any and all immigrants are the source of all our problems, and we must attack them immediately. It has come to include the act of purposely convincing persons about a different reality, in broader terms.
Subterfuge
Perhaps you remember the kerfluffle in the 1970s when suddenly folks were afraid to go to the movies because of potential mind control? Or perhaps you do not remember the 1970s at all, for one reason or another.
The hubbub was about subliminal cuts in films, in television programs, or in commercials. Someone discovered that inserting a frame or three of a pot of popcorn would send viewers out to the lobby to immediately buy some. Never mind that they might lose track of the plot of the movie, they wanted popcorn!
Folks were so concerned about this that everyone’s favorite tv program of the time, Columbo (which my grandfather used to watch in Israel, dubbed), produced an episode in which the crime was committed using, in part, a subliminal cut, and then the case was solved using another.
Great Britain and Australia passed laws banning them. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission is responsible for guidelines, and they may revoke a broadcast license if the use of such cuts is proven. According to the University of Michigan’s website, the FCC said:
We sometimes receive complaints regarding the alleged use of subliminal techniques in radio and TV programming. Subliminal programming is designed to be perceived on a subconscious level only. Regardless of whether it is effective, the use of subliminal perception is inconsistent with a station’s obligation to serve the public interest because the broadcast is intended to be deceptive. (Federal Communications Commission Record, 2001)
The site has quite a wonderful history of these processes, including backwards recording of such a message over top of a forward recording, which they report was attempted in the 1920s by the BBC.
There are many ways for speakers, presenters, and general influencers to try to subliminally affect the audience. The color of clothing worn for a presentation can alter perception, for instance. Affect can have an effect, as they say.
If you want folks to pay attention to you, wear orange or chartreuse. If you want folks to laugh, a plaid suit and curly wig might be in order.
If one is to be testifying in court about blue collar crime, perhaps one ought not wear flaming orange and yellow. Maybe one should also not wear a blue collar!
How do we know that politicians are not inserting subliminal cuts into their advertising? We do not. We do, however, see and hear the “dogwhistles” – another form of mind bending – such as the vaguely antisemitic Star of David along with money placed behind an image of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential campaign. Some will recognize the dogwhistles, and others may only feel them in their subconscious.
Further along the lines of only vaguely subliminal, politicians who keep repeating the same phrases – regardless of whether they are true, and almost under their breath – can have a similar effect. Former President Donald Trump repeats the phrase “they’re bad people” quite often, many times not even connected to what he was saying just prior to the phrase. It has become meaningless to discern to which people he refers, his audiences hear only that the “others” are “bad people,” and hop to the defensive against everyone.
Remember, I am trying with this exploration to convince you readers of something. How many times have I inserted the words “brain” or “mind” paired with “control”? Maybe those words have a subtle background on the typeface, or are a subtly different color? Maybe there are barely visible images of mindless zombies floating in the background?
You may never know. But please don’t stop reading.
Hacking, Phishing, Nefarious Phone Calls, etc.
There are, as I am certain you know, nefarious characters swindling us by sending fake emails and texts, by sending mail with phone numbers, and by making random phone calls, especially to our senior citizens.
These criminals wish to convince you that you are making investments into a surprise for your daughter – send $10,000 right away in gift cards! – or that your online account must be released – type in your passwords immediately!
They will email you from something that looks like a large account that you cannot afford to lose, and will have you typing in your passwords on their webpage.
Or worse, these evil doers will lock up your computer, or the Town Hall’s computers, or the local hospital network’s computers, and will refuse to release them until they are paid large sums of money. They fry hard drives, cause loss of data, and cost individuals thousands in replacing what little they can.
Or they unleash all the information on every patient that exists in a hospital’s system, including not only their personal data and health information, but if the hospital still is wicked enough to use Social Security Numbers, those will be lost as well.
(Hospitals claim to “need” Social Security numbers in their computers so that they can go out and garnish the wages of those who cannot afford to pay their exorbitant bills. But they do not claim to secure them in any manner.)
All of this theft happens because one of us was snookered into clicking on the wrong link.
Yet again, the wool has been pulled over our eyes. Playing on our fears or need to do the right thing, they control our minds toward their own evil ends. And we should keep that Artificial Intelligence in the backs of our minds, as it can certainly become a further means to these ends.
I am feeling rather vulnerable in light of all of this bamboozling. How about you?
