As my memories tell it, as a ridiculously young person, I encountered a description of Big Harma pharmaceuticals as "Soma". A search of the literature I had to hand - this was a decade+ pre-Internet - informed me that "Soma" was the word for an ancient - and lost - wonder drug, (perhaps Babylonian?). This didn't seem to fit, but soon I heard that the word was also used in the scifi novel Brave New World. The library didn't have that, but it DID have Brave New World Revisited, from which I moved to Doors of Perception, before finally getting my hands on the novel BNW itself.
And, after some thought and meditation, I came to realise that "Soma" in that context was meant, in my own formulation, to create "Happy Slaves". People happy about being slaves, people who found slavery to be rewarding. It was around this time I began to comprehend I might be an "Anarchist", funnily enough.
Still young and naive, most people around me were popping 'illegal' SSRIs, and having a right old rollicking rave of a time, with few observable downsides beyond learning to like drinking water and becoming bloody fit. Didn't know anyone popping "anti-depressants". This wasn't to last, on either scale.
At first neutral, and later becoming increasingly skeptical and critical, it seemed to me that the goal of these Big Harma chemicals and multi-$Tn research goals, was indeed... "Happy slaves". Not to heal. That THEY were legal, and indeed heavily promoted, while the party-pills were treated like you'd beaten grannies to death with a sack of live kittens, was a big red flag.
So I was a young Conspiracy Theorist, lollol. Lol.
Still am. And every year brings more hard evidence. But that's 'Confirmation Bias' for you!! ;-)
Conspiracies exist. That's a fact. If you don't believe there are conspiracies, if you screech "Conspiracy theorist!" at everybody who doubts, then you are not thinking, you are an enforcer of the status quo. If you are convinced that behind every event or incident there is a hidden motive, a plot to deceive, then you are trapped in the netherworld of the paranoid fantasist, as in QAnon. If, however, you reserve judgement while steadily looking for unseen mechanisms, as distinct from motives, and you accept that random events occur and that stupidity is more common than malice, then you are well down the path to becoming a rational thinker.
Interesting article, the belief part is what jumped out at me.
Marketing makes people believe and there is a lot of very expensive mareting in pharma.
If a drug is marketed well enough then its enough to make those who diagnose people believe that the drug works even when there is no hard proof.
And if someone makes more money when making a certain diagnose thats another factor to install such belief?
If yes, then how dangerous is that?
Im not sure, but to me it seems that psychologist are worse when it comes to believing and assuming certain things then psychiatrists. But with half of society dealing with DSM defined medications then how big is the problem of false beliefs.
Then in my case 'i tend to believe' that people who religiously believe are more prone to believe marketing that was created by people they believe for a longer period, then people who are not 'religiously trained' to believe a certain doctrine.
It isn't the clearest thing I'll read all day but the point about people believing anything that comes from their "heroes" is valid. Look at Trump. His MAGA base believe any bit of drivel that oozes out of his dementing brain. It's interesting because he has forced people to make a choice they'd rather avoid: do they believe him or do they support the Pope? They can't support both, which leads to intense cognitive dissonance, can only be resolved by dumping one and keeping the other.
Same happened in Germany in 1945: even with the Soviet Red Army in the outer suburbs of Berlin, people still believed Hitler was a demi-god who would pull out a secret weapon and defeat the Allies. Post war, they were shattered to learn that the Nazis had slaughtered entire races.
The MAGA people are mainly if not all Christians just like Q-anon group think was.
And Q and MAGA used tricks rooted in religious history.
Edward Bernays exploited Freuds work to build the system of public opinion.
Wilhelm Reigh desribed it
Mattias Desmet does the same.
The first lie that sounds feasible or attractive is sooner believed then a fact that sounds inconvenient. Repeat that lie a few times. LIKE TRUMP DOES IN ALL HIS CENTENCES
Bad example like he would talk:
Im a peace president, im so peacefull i stop all wars, im a peace maker.
Then all the media starts writing about a nobel peace prize. And the believers religiously eat the crap.
Then you can show all the facts how he supported multiple wars, but those who are in the groupthink trap dont want to fall out of line with the group where they feel they belong. As going against the group will get you cancelled.
Books
Wilhelm Reigh - The Mass Psychology of Fascism
The Psychology of Totalitarianism - Mattias Desmet
I'd have to disagree that MAGAts are Christians, they're not, they're a heresy based on the bizarre Book of Revelation which was written about CE200 by some monk in Syria, I think. Completely cuckoo, has nothing to do with Sermon on Mount. There is a core message to Christianity and they don't follow it.
Ok, thats new to me. I'm not religious myself. The experience I have with MAGA weirdness was often loaded with religious ideas and they always claimed to be Christian
Hmm... OK I need to ditch another belief from my mind and figure out these people from another angle.
Here in the Netherlands the ones who went along with MAGA think were all very religious.
And the groupthink is like a cult.
This will be an interesting challenge now you shifted my perspective after turning what I took as a fact into a false belief.
Well... i had the oppertunity to observe my own brain dealing with shattered views right here and now.
It is a cult, you're absolutely right, and we all have to be aware of cults and keep right away. MAGA is no more Christian than the Inquisition murdering people or burning them alive to "save their souls." That's not Christianity at all.: Matthew 5.7: Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.
How much mercy is Israel showing in Gaza? But they're not Christians so they say it doesn't apply to them.
OK, try this: Exodus 20.13: Thou shalt not kill.
Well, say the rabid Zionists, that doesn't apply because Palestinians aren't really human, their souls come from the Satanic sphere so we're allowed to eradicate them.
I enjoyed reading your article, Sir. But I regret you've used the expression "conservative" in the case of Jordan Peterson. Regardless on how he's now, (even politically) I think he'd done a fine job on freedom of expression while lecturing on Canada. Do you recall his stance on "pronouns" usage?
As I said, I don't follow Peterson but the real concern is that he is now a casualty of the psychiatric drug industry. I'm sure he was never depressed, as in "a sustained mood of sadness and despair, with nihilistic ideas, guilt and worthlessness coupled with cognitive and physical retardation." He was probably a bit overwrought from his jetsetting life style so some clown prescribed antidepressant. Now he will be paying for many years, if not for life. Akathisia sufferers commonly describe it as torture.
As my memories tell it, as a ridiculously young person, I encountered a description of Big Harma pharmaceuticals as "Soma". A search of the literature I had to hand - this was a decade+ pre-Internet - informed me that "Soma" was the word for an ancient - and lost - wonder drug, (perhaps Babylonian?). This didn't seem to fit, but soon I heard that the word was also used in the scifi novel Brave New World. The library didn't have that, but it DID have Brave New World Revisited, from which I moved to Doors of Perception, before finally getting my hands on the novel BNW itself.
And, after some thought and meditation, I came to realise that "Soma" in that context was meant, in my own formulation, to create "Happy Slaves". People happy about being slaves, people who found slavery to be rewarding. It was around this time I began to comprehend I might be an "Anarchist", funnily enough.
Still young and naive, most people around me were popping 'illegal' SSRIs, and having a right old rollicking rave of a time, with few observable downsides beyond learning to like drinking water and becoming bloody fit. Didn't know anyone popping "anti-depressants". This wasn't to last, on either scale.
At first neutral, and later becoming increasingly skeptical and critical, it seemed to me that the goal of these Big Harma chemicals and multi-$Tn research goals, was indeed... "Happy slaves". Not to heal. That THEY were legal, and indeed heavily promoted, while the party-pills were treated like you'd beaten grannies to death with a sack of live kittens, was a big red flag.
So I was a young Conspiracy Theorist, lollol. Lol.
Still am. And every year brings more hard evidence. But that's 'Confirmation Bias' for you!! ;-)
Conspiracies exist. That's a fact. If you don't believe there are conspiracies, if you screech "Conspiracy theorist!" at everybody who doubts, then you are not thinking, you are an enforcer of the status quo. If you are convinced that behind every event or incident there is a hidden motive, a plot to deceive, then you are trapped in the netherworld of the paranoid fantasist, as in QAnon. If, however, you reserve judgement while steadily looking for unseen mechanisms, as distinct from motives, and you accept that random events occur and that stupidity is more common than malice, then you are well down the path to becoming a rational thinker.
Excellent presentation and replies to comments
Interesting article, the belief part is what jumped out at me.
Marketing makes people believe and there is a lot of very expensive mareting in pharma.
If a drug is marketed well enough then its enough to make those who diagnose people believe that the drug works even when there is no hard proof.
And if someone makes more money when making a certain diagnose thats another factor to install such belief?
If yes, then how dangerous is that?
Im not sure, but to me it seems that psychologist are worse when it comes to believing and assuming certain things then psychiatrists. But with half of society dealing with DSM defined medications then how big is the problem of false beliefs.
Then in my case 'i tend to believe' that people who religiously believe are more prone to believe marketing that was created by people they believe for a longer period, then people who are not 'religiously trained' to believe a certain doctrine.
Does thar make sense?
It isn't the clearest thing I'll read all day but the point about people believing anything that comes from their "heroes" is valid. Look at Trump. His MAGA base believe any bit of drivel that oozes out of his dementing brain. It's interesting because he has forced people to make a choice they'd rather avoid: do they believe him or do they support the Pope? They can't support both, which leads to intense cognitive dissonance, can only be resolved by dumping one and keeping the other.
Same happened in Germany in 1945: even with the Soviet Red Army in the outer suburbs of Berlin, people still believed Hitler was a demi-god who would pull out a secret weapon and defeat the Allies. Post war, they were shattered to learn that the Nazis had slaughtered entire races.
Yes MAGA makes my point.
The MAGA people are mainly if not all Christians just like Q-anon group think was.
And Q and MAGA used tricks rooted in religious history.
Edward Bernays exploited Freuds work to build the system of public opinion.
Wilhelm Reigh desribed it
Mattias Desmet does the same.
The first lie that sounds feasible or attractive is sooner believed then a fact that sounds inconvenient. Repeat that lie a few times. LIKE TRUMP DOES IN ALL HIS CENTENCES
Bad example like he would talk:
Im a peace president, im so peacefull i stop all wars, im a peace maker.
Then all the media starts writing about a nobel peace prize. And the believers religiously eat the crap.
Then you can show all the facts how he supported multiple wars, but those who are in the groupthink trap dont want to fall out of line with the group where they feel they belong. As going against the group will get you cancelled.
Books
Wilhelm Reigh - The Mass Psychology of Fascism
The Psychology of Totalitarianism - Mattias Desmet
I'd have to disagree that MAGAts are Christians, they're not, they're a heresy based on the bizarre Book of Revelation which was written about CE200 by some monk in Syria, I think. Completely cuckoo, has nothing to do with Sermon on Mount. There is a core message to Christianity and they don't follow it.
Ok, thats new to me. I'm not religious myself. The experience I have with MAGA weirdness was often loaded with religious ideas and they always claimed to be Christian
Hmm... OK I need to ditch another belief from my mind and figure out these people from another angle.
Here in the Netherlands the ones who went along with MAGA think were all very religious.
And the groupthink is like a cult.
This will be an interesting challenge now you shifted my perspective after turning what I took as a fact into a false belief.
Well... i had the oppertunity to observe my own brain dealing with shattered views right here and now.
It is a cult, you're absolutely right, and we all have to be aware of cults and keep right away. MAGA is no more Christian than the Inquisition murdering people or burning them alive to "save their souls." That's not Christianity at all.: Matthew 5.7: Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.
How much mercy is Israel showing in Gaza? But they're not Christians so they say it doesn't apply to them.
OK, try this: Exodus 20.13: Thou shalt not kill.
Well, say the rabid Zionists, that doesn't apply because Palestinians aren't really human, their souls come from the Satanic sphere so we're allowed to eradicate them.
I kid you not, that is how they justify genocide.
So somone needs to create a textbook on how to protect oneself against cults. And more specific zionism.
I see, that the MAGAism is coming from that corner more clearly. And that what I experienced is probably rooted in Christian zionism
I always found it creepy that Dutch Christians went all in on the MAGA doctrine.
Dutch people going America 1st. But it shows how gullible people are for groupthing specially when they are already in a group...
It just requires a clever way to hijack an existing group.
I enjoyed reading your article, Sir. But I regret you've used the expression "conservative" in the case of Jordan Peterson. Regardless on how he's now, (even politically) I think he'd done a fine job on freedom of expression while lecturing on Canada. Do you recall his stance on "pronouns" usage?
Thanks
As I said, I don't follow Peterson but the real concern is that he is now a casualty of the psychiatric drug industry. I'm sure he was never depressed, as in "a sustained mood of sadness and despair, with nihilistic ideas, guilt and worthlessness coupled with cognitive and physical retardation." He was probably a bit overwrought from his jetsetting life style so some clown prescribed antidepressant. Now he will be paying for many years, if not for life. Akathisia sufferers commonly describe it as torture.