(Continued from Part 2.)
Denial is a form of selective information. If you can’t succeed in limiting the information that a brainwashing subject takes in, at the very least you can deny that the information they have received is true. Now many politicians and agencies are denying some of the actions they openly demonstrated during the Covid frenzy. In an October 1, 2023 Substack publication, attorney Bobbie Anne Cox outlines just a few of the reversals that public figures are attempting now that more information has come out about the lack of effectiveness of masks and/or Covid “vaccines.” What came out as forceful, even vitriolic mandates during the frenzy are now being walked back. “Oh, we never actually required people to get the vaccine”–even though people were humiliated, drummed out of jobs, out of the military, out of their professions, out of concerts, restaurants, whatever. Our ability to psychologically accept denial is so potent that this ruse will actually work on many people. They will actually adjust their memory to accommodate these new proclamations.
It comes down to this: don’t rely on any one source to give you the full story. We are easily deceived if we don’t verify assertions using multiple sources, and even then remain reserved in believing everything we see and read. Question everything that you are expected to believe.
Grandiose Promises: “If it SOUNDS too good to be true…”
In the preceding Case Study involving Sandy, he was appreciated in a way that he had never before. He was told that he was fortunate enough to be plugging into an ancient, neglected wisdom. He wanted these things to be true so much, that it was easy to use these things that he wanted so badly to get him to do things that he would not have done otherwise. Sustaining an ongoing emotional investment in a wonderful thing that we desperately want to be true can lead us into behavior that we would not ordinarily display if we were in our right mind. Following grandiose promises can shut off our analytical thinking.
Redirection
How often have we heard a politician respond to an uncomfortable question with “That is not the issue. Instead, we should be focusing on _____________ (Fill in the blank).” The person answering the question is attempting to shut down a topic that they do not want to scrutinize, and focus on some outrageous topic that can be blamed on someone else. Like a clever magician, a deceiver will redirect your attention to something flashy or emotional in the hope that you will not notice what is really going on.
False Authority
It is natural for us to follow the advice of an expert when we need to make a decision that involves something we know little about. We go to a doctor to advise us on our body, or what medication to take. We go to our accountant to do our taxes. We go to a lawyer to represent us in court. Deceivers use this natural inclination to fool us and control our thoughts. The use of a false authority is a type of deception of which we should be wary.
Typically, the term “false authority” has been limited to citing facts that are not facts, or using experts who are not really experts. However, in the last few years, the concept of false authority has been taken to new heights (or depths) of deception.
Science is a process of using a certain method to establish facts. And yet, if only a selective group of scientists are allowed to publish papers, and only if their conclusions support a political narrative, then they are not using an objective scientific process, and are false authorities. During Covid, we often heard the phrase, “the science is settled”, implying that we should believe the conclusions and comply. However, the very nature of the scientific process is one of questioning the standard explanation and bringing in new data to arrive at a more informed conclusion. There is no such thing as “settled science”, and we should have alarm bells going off in our head if someone uses that phrase on us.
“Fact Checking” is another method of exercising false authority. In our attempt to gain a foothold on certainty in the shifting, fluid “realities” presented to us, many have come to rely on “fact-checking” services to verify whether or not something occurred. While “fact-checkers” want people to believe that they are a bastion of objectivity, more often than not they are just a new layer of more sophisticated propaganda. There are no unbiased “fact checkers.” Pick any “fact checker” and look into the background of the people on their staff. Ask yourself, “what is it about the record of these staff members that makes them uniquely qualified to objectively define and investigate an issue, and then report all the results to me.” After going through this process a few times, I no longer believe that there is any such thing as an accurate “fact checker.” They assume an authority for objectivity and omniscience that they simply do not possess.
JWR’s Addenda: See this Heritage Foundation article, and many other similar ones: Prominent “Fact Checker” Gets Fact-Checked by Reality.
A recent government report came out entitled “The Weaponization of ‘Disinformation’ Pseudo-experts and Bureaucrats; How the Federal Government Partnered with Universities to Censor American’s Free Speech.” (Remember, this is the US government publishing a report that indicts the US government…your PSYOP alarm should ringing!) The report details how the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and an obscure branch of the State Department coordinated with Stanford University and other NGOs to create the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) to censor speech and electronic communication leading up to the 2020 election. (It seems to me that there was something in our Constitution that disallowed the US government to interfere with or censor free speech…) The US government has no right to filter our speech, so any effort to do so is another type of false authority.
Submission to Authority and Outward Roles
We think that we are in control of our behavior, and that we would have the presence of mind, strength, morals, intelligence, or determination to resist being forced to do something, even harm another person, against our will. As it turns out, there are limits to what we can will ourselves to do, or not do.
In 1963, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram constructed an experiment to test the assertion that a person will do anything, including harming a person, if they are told to do so by someone in authority who accepts responsibility for the action. The Milgram experiment came on the heels of Nazi war crimes trials, where a very large number of people — many that were high-ranking– took the defense, “I was only following orders.” The implicit lingering question that gnawed on our country was, “could similar horrific, barbaric events occur in America under similar conditions.” (The methodology of the experiment is fascinating, but I will not go into it here.) The chilling results showed that people are generally willing to obey commands, even if the command harms another person, if they are following orders directed by an authority who accepts full responsibility for the outcome.
This lemming-like behavior hidden within human nature could have devastating implications when it comes to getting people to harm other people, if they are simply following orders given by an authority.
In an equally disturbing 1971 study, Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo performed his now-famous prison study. In this study, he arbitrarily divided willing participants into two groups, “guards” and “prisoners”, and then put them together in the basement of Stanford’s Jordan Hall for a few days. Almost immediately, the guards began showing dominant, abusive behavior, and the prisoners became more submissive. They were not told to play act the behaviors; they simply moved into the behavior that fit their assigned role. The behaviors became so extreme so quickly that the experiment was stopped early. It showed that putting on a role and being placed in an extreme setting will prompt uncharacteristic behavior, even among people who have no outward inclination toward demonstrating abusive behavior.
These and other studies show that people can be placed in conditions that will evoke behavior they would never demonstrate otherwise. Removing accountability, providing an authority to accept responsibility, casting people into certain roles– can all direct an individual’s behavior, even to the extent of overriding their concern for another human being.
(To be continued tomorrow, in Part 4.)