Some People’s Idea of Freedom of Speech, Is To Suppress Everybody Else’s
Increasingly, that is the unfortunate tone of most public discourse, in which the primary objective and tactic, is not to discuss the merits of any issue, but to shout down and express disapproval of everything they don’t want to be heard.
It was at that point, that most civilized and thoughtful people realized they could avoid the boorishness and abuse of such people by merely avoiding such venues, like they could dysfunctional relatives. Out of sight, is out of mind -- and the tremendous drain of energy solving the innumerable problems that can be created in response to any solution -- because the objective is not to solve any problems with these discussions, but to create greater difficulties, and demonstrate who has the power, who is the Boss in these futile exercises. Outside of these arguments, these bullies have no power except what is given to them. That was the realization of the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States of America.
Whatever power another has, is given them by the consent and recognition of the other that they have a right to that power. That’s how newspapers and all those quasi-official organizations derive their power -- that the only information allowed, is the information provided by them -- and nothing else. One sees a lot of liberal blogs that operate with this reality -- using the newspaper’s opinions as their only “facts,” no longer thinking that what they see with their own eyes and senses, is what is actually happening. Thus, they provide no original content and insight but merely affirm and reinforce everything their controllers want them to repeat -- as the only reality.
A population becomes dispossessed in that manner -- of no longer thinking it is all right to think for themselves, but that the only thing they are allowed, is to embrace what others have deemed (politically) correct to believe and embrace, which is largely what the current education is about, rather than the discovery of any truth, on their own. Advanced students are taught to believe who the right persons are to believe -- and nothing more.
That goes on in many other “conditioning” venues. It is easier to just control other people’s thinking, than have them come upon the truth of any matter on their own -- especially when the whole point, is to get others only to embrace one’s thinking -- as the only reality.
The curious turn is that because information is discovered so quickly and further refined constantly, the institutions that seem themselves as the guardians and defenders o the status quo, are often left holding the untenable and indefensible invalid information -- which they are convinced, they must defend with their dying breath -- which of course, ensures their demise.
An admission that they have no idea what they are talking about, is what they cannot allow themselves to reveal -- and because of that, are never in the state of mind that can discover any truth for itself, because they are so consumed with convincing everybody else to believe everything they know, as all that can be known -- and never learning anything beyond that.
posted by Mike Hu @ 11:54 AM
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3 Comments:
In Plato's Republic, the argument was not for democracy as the ideal form of government, but that it might let the ideal emerge -- while the great danger of "democracies," is that it could result in the tyranny of the mob, or the masses, exploited by demagogues whose only skill is at manipulating others.
Thus it is possible for a small group of people to appear to be a "majority," if they know how to exclude everybody else from participation, or intimidate and bully everybody else by seemingly overwhelming show of strength.
The mass media has long perfected these techniques of convincing people of exactly the opposite of what is true -- and pride themselves on that ability, as a demonstration of their own "superiority." In other venues, it is recognized as the exercise and abuse of arbitrary power -- just to show and reinforce who is boss and in charge.
That becomes the entire preoccupation when the efforts of society are not measured in productivity and merit -- but simply, who can get public opinion on their side, to believe that which is not true, no matter how destructive and counterproductive.
That's the reason Hawaii has no global manufacturing facilities; it doesn't produce anything the rest of the world wants and values.
If people don't want "everyday low prices," they have every right NOT to shop at Walmart.
But a few "howlies" and "whiners" shouldn't be allowed to prevent everybody else from doing so -- just so they can preserve their own exclusive vision of Paradise -- which is invariably they alone deciding for everybody else what is good and right for everybody else.
In every newspaper, the headline writing is given to the most junior and ideological people -- which prejudices the reading of the article, even if it is well-written, which is usually also biased. And then the editors adds their own biases and prejudices, and so every original insight becomes distorted into a individual perspective by committee -- contradicting itself with no integrity.
That's why a lot of people prefer blogging -- because it allows them to say what they want to say, in their own words, even with their own imperfections and inadequacies, which are preferable to the "politically correct" (edited) versions that newspapers produce -- that accurately reflects nobody -- and more and more real "experts" refuse to be manipulated and distorted in that fashion, so that finally, the reporter themselves dispense with interviewing anybody, and just proclaim themselves the ultimate authorities on every matter -- and thus, seem just like demagogues everywhere else in the world.
Perhaps that's the problem of the chaos, anomie and lack of moral compass in the mass media that the reading public has come to perceive as "the problem of mainstream media?"
Ignorance and prejudice is very easily manipulated by the demagogues of the world who know how to flatter such people into thinking they are singularly the most intelligently and righteous people -- what is known as "true believers."
They believe everything they are told is the truth, as though they alone, have heard of it, and everybody else has not be "chosen" as they have been, to deliver the word of God to the rest of humanity. Their god further sanctions that it is all right to silence any opposition, no matter how ruthlessly, to achieve one's ends -- that justifies any means.
Thus they fragment understanding into a lot of these words that exist mutually exclusively of any underlying reality -- so what they say, anything they say, is justified by some greater glorious righteousness. It is the ultimate form of vanity -- which is the compensation for a life of degradation and prostration.
The individual is told they are nothing but that their cause and entity is everything. Unions use this technique a lot; this is the whole basis of "hazing," which explains how people can do the most irrational, unjustifiable and horrendous things, and think they have won a special place for themselves in paradise (Heaven).
So time and the fragmentation of reality into the past, present and future, characterizes their orientation (mental illness), and so every future (or past) justifies the destruction of every present reality, at which they are so clever at convincing doesn't matter -- rather than that it is the only reality that matters.
Which is not the superficiality of acting without consequence, but acting with the understanding that everything has consequence -- and risk, which the demagogues promise, one never needs to take, if one consents to allow them to do their thinking for everybody else.
I think we live in a time in which those appeals have much less attraction and power because many more (even if not the majority) are capable of thinking for themselves and thinking beyond what was possible for entire institutions and cultures before.
So while mainstream (media) politics has devolved into countless petty politics, the leading edge is defining a new meta-politics that supplants all the old and failed "ideologies" -- largely based in the 19th-century society and mindset of neurotic fears, and domination and suppression as the only socially approved and recognized manner of being and expression.
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