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Workshop 2

How to liberate oneself and others from Psychological Exploitation in political and commercial propaganda  

On this virtual field trip, we have reached the point where we have seen decent and indecent persuasion for what they are. It is time for some rest and a Q&A session now because at this point, having been introduced to the problem area, we face the toughest questions we may ask: How come? Who cares? Why does nobody seem to care? Why should I care? What has social science done about it?  

Well, let us look reality straight in the face. You would see that we all live in a communicative environment, a universe of discourse, in which mass media invade and permeate our space of living and making decisions; we inhale their messages the same way we breathe air in the natural environment. The reality is that communicators who control mass media are interested in serving their clients, who then pay them for persuading us. They have no decency in addressing us with their persuasive messages, no obligation to tell the truth, no need to provide relevant information, and no interest in respecting our right to make independent decisions. They use all their powerful means of communication to manipulate us to think and behave in ways that are good for them and their clients, not for us. The fact is they do it legally, normally, and smoothly in accord with our conventional thinking. 

Before we go any further, I believe it would help us understand these facts of life more fully if I referred the "How come? Why does nobody seem to care? Why should I care?" questions back to you. Please take some time to examine the reality and the dynamics of persuasion in your life until now. Some answers to these heavy questions would likely come from there.

Reflecting on our own experiences, we readily realize that Collective Insanity in persuasion could be highly appealing. Imagine sitting comfortably on a couch in front of an open TV with running commercials. It abounds in pleasant sensations; it entertains and requires no effort from you, not even that of thinking; it fulfills wishes; it affects a feeling of security that comes from being one with the multitude in contrast to the disquietude and insecurity that often trouble those who do not follow the crowd. By and large, like any addiction, exposure to media persuasion feels good. This is certainly part of the answer to “How come?,” that is, why such obviously dishonest behavior is tolerated.

Generally, academic social science has not been involved in research that aims to develop antidotes to dishonest persuasion. There has been no public demand for it except in one area: violence. Much research has established that mass media influence does work for violence. By age 18, the average American child will have seen 16,000 murders and about 200,000 acts of violence on television. Not one of these tells viewers to murder or be violent, but a substantial number of studies established a correlation between exposure to video-filmed violence and violent behavior. Influence works particularly well indirectly, without saying directly what one should do.

In the past 100 years, there was one particular time—the 1930s—when violence, not in artistic guise like in commercials but in political propaganda, generated a solitary attempt to counter it by educating the public about its “tricks of the trade.” This was during the peak of Nazi antisemitic propaganda, which found its followers in the United States, the most famous of whom was “Father McLoughlin” in Michigan, whose radio talks became what is today called “viral.” The countermeasure took the form of a 1939 periodical publication by Alfred Mclung Lee and Elizabeth Briant Lee titled The Fine Art of Propaganda. It died down soon after the United States joined World War II. War, expectedly, is the best time for the worst propaganda.

Other than the demand to protect young people from televised violence, dishonest persuasion has yet to become a popular public issue. I have not heard of any grants lavished on whoever will attempt to develop the necessary educational techniques to immunize the population against being duped and controlled by propaganda. Never did I hear of a politician who ran for office promising to control the ad men by legislation or otherwise. However, many social thinkers with uncontested integrity, social responsibility, and commitment to the scientific approach described the menace and appealed to the public to resist. They only did not go into detail in prescribing how to resist, which I intend to do later on.

The first who comes to mind is not an academician but a statesman: Thomas Jefferson. Engraved on the marble wall of his Washington DC memorial are the words: I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ALMIGHTY ETERNAL HOSTILITY AGAINST EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN. This would be his response to the question “Why should I care?” I myself have not sworn on any altar, but I confess I too feel that “hostility” against the mind-fuckers of the present day. In mass media’s prevalent practices of persuasion, I identify exactly what I believe Jefferson meant by “tyranny”: systematic attempts through devious means to weaken and guide, if not tyrannize, the minds of women and men.

Social thinkers who described the effects and the dynamics of mass media persuasion connected it to their respective professional fields. Sam Hayakawa, the flamboyant dean of San Francisco State University in the 1960s, referred it to education in addressing a teacher convention. He posited the question “Who’s bringing up your children?” and explained that the notion that parents pass on their values and cultural traditions to the next generation “for millions and millions of families it just isn’t taking place anymore.” What is taking place? He painted the picture:

 

""In order to describe what is going on today, let me suggest an analogy. Suppose from the time that your children are old enough to sit up, they are snatched away from you for three or four or more hours a day by a powerful sorcerer. This sorcerer is a story-teller and a spinner of dreams. He plays enchanting music; he is an unfailingly entertaining companion. He makes the children laugh, he is constantly suggesting good thing to eat and wonderful toys for their parents to buy them. . . . All happiness, all significance, all values that human beings might strive for are translated by advertising into purchasable commodities".

 

John Kenneth Galbraith, the eminent economist, stateman, and social critic, wrote,

 

“The emancipation of belief requires presumption against all persuasion. Such persuasion exists to impose the goals of the technostructure on the individual. The individual who wishes to be free cannot, therefore, accede. He must resist.”

 

To be free, I believe, is a good enough reason to resist. In addition, Galbraith explained that the goals of the “technostructure” in shaping economics are damaging to general welfare.

About a decade later, when television had already been established as a household appliance, C. W. Mills, the author of the classics White Collar: The American Middle Classes and The Power Elite, wrote,

 

"Contents of the mass media seep into our images of self, becoming that which is taken for granted, so imperceptibly and so surely that to modify them drastically, over a generation or two, would be to change profoundly modern man’s experience and character".

 

Mills wrote this passage before the global Internet and interactive social platforms, before virtual reality, and before fake news became a familiar term referring to an epidemic. Since then, the modern or in academic jargon the “postmodern” man’s character has changed even more.

In technically advanced nations, computer technology changed many aspects of life. Fortunately, our society did not become the nightmarish totalitarian world of George Orwell’s 1984. As you may remember in the book, Big Brother could see and monitor from the Telescreen each viewer at their private homes, give them orders right there, and punish them instantly for disobedience. In his intense and clear critical exposition of the relation between people and mass media, ominously titled Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman observed that in reality, Big Brother is not watching us; we are watching him. He chose, as relevant to our world, the other famous future dystopia, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, in which the enslaved population lived not in fear and terror but in the complacent emptiness of meaningless life. In his nonfictional Brave New World Revisited, Huxley himself commented,   

 

”In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or it might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies—the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions".

 

 My own realization of indecent persuasion, as well as its disastrous effects on my life, happened on political grounds. At that time and place, more than half a century ago, there was no commercial television. I was a true believer in my party’s ideology, which was to end the “exploitation of man by man” on Earth and establish a system of equal and fair sharing of all our goods. Then I was proud to be elected by my local branch as one of its delegates to the movement’s general convention, the highest authority in which the party’s ideology is discussed, all differences resolved by a majority vote, and the leadership elected by us delegates, all free and equal.

That event, which was the highest point of my political career to this day, was such a shocking travesty that it turned me around and set me on an inquiry into the “exploitation of man by man” by those with the means to persuade and influence people.

There was no time there for any discussion or any real opportunity to oppose leadership. In fact, there was no single moment that had not been planned and orchestrated by the movement’s establishment. Nothing was there to allow for free discussion, but there were plenty of banners and a lot of noisy drums and trumpets to accompany the chorus of “Party Line.”

That traumatic event convinced me that humans’ exploitation of humans, that passionate concept in my political being, could be observed not only in economic relations but also in human relationships. That started my lifelong inquiry into the dynamics of persuasion and influence that shape our decision-making in politics and all areas of life. There was no name in political science for exploitation by indecent persuasion. I had to name it myself, and I did: Psychological Exploitation.

Psychological Exploitation in politics would be another extremely decisive reason to care about how you and others are persuaded in your political behavior, beliefs, and choices. If the truth is that the masses are psychologically exploited, then they do not appoint their representatives. Instead, they are being manipulated by indecent persuaders, agents of the powers that be, to elect them again and again to governing positions. Thus, even elections that are legally free and feel free are not really free. In the final analysis, Psychological Exploitation forms and fuels Collective Insanity. 

 

DEVELOPING RESISTANCE SKILLS

The good news is that, unlike physical oppression and economic exploitation, you can end Psychological Exploitation in your life without struggling with anyone except perhaps yourself. That is because Psychological Exploitation works only in an atmosphere of ignorance, of unawareness. Once you become aware of it and could identify its presence, its influence vanishes like magic. Lack of awareness, indifference, and passive acceptance are its oxygen.

We have defined sane—that is, honest—communication as telling facts about an object or issue without resorting to means that disrupt another person’s independent thinking. Accordingly, to defend oneself against Psychological Exploitation first entails minding and becoming aware of the facts the Communicator relates about their object. As simple as it sounds, it is a crucial step toward freeing yourself and your family from dishonest propaganda, a step from unawareness to awareness. To accomplish this, all you need to do is stop the TV commercials running at one point or show a printed advertisement and ask everybody, “What are the facts it gives us about its product or issue?” This question in itself will communicate caring about not only what they feed us but also how. This simple procedure will necessarily bring to awareness the most important issue of factual substance in propaganda.

“What are the facts in it?” would be a first-aid kit against Psychological Exploitation. Then you could proceed and direct the attention to the means by which they are trying to influence you simply by asking, “How and by what means are they trying to convince us to buy their product (or idea)?” This will bring the “tricks of the trade” to awareness. At times, if the situation is appropriate, you may also ask, “Why?” Why could they not just tell us the facts and let us decide for ourselves whether or not to buy their product? Are we indeed influenced by their attractive and noisy messages? Should we be?

The whole procedure is so simple, so easy to implement, yet it would have a truly revolutionary impact on the persons involved, adults and children, in a conventional family home. Not only does the transition from unawareness to awareness feel psychologically “revolutionary”—the procedure also challenges the Big Brother worship of our time. In our reality, Big Brother is not even perceived or recognized as pulling the strings that animate most people as social beings. Such mental blindness to what is obvious allows for the deeply internalized routine of the passive intake of commercial propaganda characteristic of conventional wisdom. Therefore, as simple as it is, in bringing Psychological Exploitation to awareness, you would have to confront the psychological resistance bound to be generated by any real change.

Beyond the private sphere of application, effective resistance to Psychological Exploitation requires more specific skills to conceptualize, analyze, and develop alternative modes of persuasion and influence. It would be particularly necessary for those of you who would assume active roles in countering Psychological Exploitation in formal teaching, researching, and informing the public at large. In the following pages, you shall find an essential “toolbox” of the tasks involved in liberating oneself and others from Psychological Exploitation.

 

 

FACTS

The most important need when understanding any text is finding out what, if anything, it is talking about. What in reality is it trying to persuade us about? This is the first mental operation we perform naturally when told or shown something. We may think of it as sorting out the grains of substance from the straw of verbiage.

Fact-finding is fraught with problems. People hold their opinions as facts, consider your facts as only your opinions, and, not infrequently, embrace “sophisticated” ideas such as “What are facts? My facts are not your facts,” or “In fact, there are no facts—just different subjective narratives.” So let us put some order into this fact-finding job.

“Facts” are things and occurrences in reality. We can see, hear, touch, and smell facts directly with our senses, with or without instruments that expand our range of sensing. There can be no facts in what others tell us. Others, the Communicators, even our nearest and dearest, can only present us with information regarding the facts they know from their direct experiences. “Facts” in communication are expressions, words, and other symbols carrying factual information about specific reality. 

Next is the practical definition of “information” required in the analysis of texts, whether written, spoken, or artistically symbolized, for Psychological Exploitation. This should help you discuss and decide whether or not any utterance, picture, word, sound, gesture, and other elements in the communication hold informative substance about its subject and issue:

 

INFORMATION

Reporting something in reality: who, what, where, when, and so on.

Reporting something that could be recorded, photographed, or filmed.

Can be the truth, a mistake, or a lie but may be validated or disproved.

 

The skill of discerning facts in reports, whether about things, products, people, or events, must include an awareness of factual information about their subjects and issues. An example of factual information is ingredient listings on food products. In many countries and after many years of political struggle, manufacturers of products that people eat, drink, swallow, inject, apply to the skin or inhale are now legally required to provide true information about all the ingredients of their products and their health effects. They do it usually in tiny print, but this is factual information. These reported facts could be verified, proved, or disproved using scientific procedures.

 

TRUTH

The truth we are seeking lies (no pun intended) in the factual information about whatever they want to sell us. Having sorted out the grains of Relevant Information from the mass of persuasive and influencing agents, we, as a rule, do not know whether such information is true. To learn the truth, we must investigate and find out either from reality or from other sources of information.

For mass media propagandists, truth is not a problem. They know that if they lie, they could be apprehended and punished—but they seldom lie, they do not need to. They succeed in influencing the masses without providing them any Relevant Information that could be true or false. They also have the means to neutralize people’s critical–rational thinking, truth-seeking included. Collective Insanity goes along with it.  

Seeking the truth in political advertising is particularly easy because it generally has no information whatsoever—there is nothing to look for. In my country, towns are currently covered with large posters persuading people to vote for a candidate in the coming municipal elections. All those I have seen do not give one bit of Relevant Information, such as what that person promises they will do if elected mayor or councilperson. All their faces are the best-looking oversized mugshots in color, smile, and style. All their slogans are empty of facts and even of sense. Truth, definitely, is not what psychological exploiters worry about.

While becoming very much aware of Relevant Information, or the lack of it, in mass media or in interpersonal dialogues and discussions in which people persuade and influence one another, there is one point about truth that we must worry about. The truth about truth . . . is that we are human, not superhumans, demigods, or angels. We cannot be absolutely certain of knowing the truth. Anyone claiming to hold the absolute truth or behaving as if they possess one would be a sure sign not only of antiscientific orientation but also of attempted Psychological Exploitation.

Doubt is the holy fire we must keep burning lest we become dogmatic and unable to preserve our integrity in real trials when other people see things differently. Doubt that allows openness to change one’s view pertains to the “shirt of flame” in Michael Polanyi’s quote above, which scientists with integrity must wear “in good conscience” while not tiring of seeking the truth despite knowing they could never reach the “objective truth” absolutely.

How can we genuinely listen to our fellow human beings if we are 100% sure of being right in what we think? We cannot, and we will not be open to decent communication unless we get used to not being absolutely sure of our facts and of the truthfulness of our opinions. I have found that the best answer to the question “Are you sure?” is “Of course I am not sure. I’m human. And that is precisely why we can talk about it and hope to reach understanding and agreement.”

 

ANALYSIS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLOITATION IN COMMUNICATION

 

We now proceed to confronting Psychological Exploitation beyond our private family home. While Psychological Exploitation is a ubiquitous fact of life, it is invisible and goes undetected in the popular frame of mind. Therefore, we would need more precise tools to identify and characterize its presence and impact on people when we move to the public sphere. This would also involve the need to conduct empirical research into the dynamics of persuasion and influence by mass media and in interpersonal communication. Faced with general unawareness, we must sharpen our tools and develop specific skills for bringing Psychological Exploitation, with its many forms and faces, to public view.   

 

TERMINOLOGY IN THE ANALYSIS OF PROPAGANDA FOR IDENTIFYING AND CHARACTERIZING THE AGENTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLOITATION

 

  • Psychological Exploitation: Language that, through various means, turns the Receiver away from self-directed thinking and decision-making based on Relevant Information. 

  • Communicator: The producer, speaker, performer, or writer of the communication; the influencer in relation to the Receiver; the exploiter in relation to the psychologically exploited.

  • Receiver:  The viewer, listener, or reader of the communication; the influenced, the Communicator’s target audience.

  • Object: Whoever or whatever the Communicator talks about, either for or against or neither or both. This could be a product, an individual, several people, an organization, a gathering of individuals with any common denominator—even a whole nation, race, religion, gender, and others.  

  • Issue: The issue that the Communicator associates the Object with (in commercials, the Issue is whether or not to buy the product).

  • Unit of Analysis: A single phrase (including the language of visual and musical art)—word, name, sentence, symbol, sound, gesture, nonverbal expression (tone of voice, body language)—that holds meaning about the Object.

  • Facts: Something we discover in reality through our senses. Communication has no facts, only information such as those included in maps about the territory. Making the communication itself an Object of our analysis, we can sense and discover in it Facts about the Communicator. 

  • Information: Language—words, images, gestures—about Facts.

  • Findings: In Information, mathematical-statistical generalizations of facts, data, or events in a specific period.

  • Relevant Information: Language about Facts associated with the Subject and the Issue.

 

BASIC PROCEDURE IN THE ANALYSIS OF THE PROPAGANDA FOR IDENTIFYING AND CHARACTERIZING THE AGENTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLOITATION

 

  1. Establish who is the Communicator, who is the Receiver, who or what is the Object, and what is the Issue.

  2. List all Units of Relevant Information about the Object and the Issue.

  3. List all Relevant Information and Facts you know about the Object and the Issue that are not in the text.

  4. List all other Units of Analysis—generalizations, opinions, verbal-symbolic violence, irrelevant information, and others.

  5. Evaluate the results in terms of decency in persuasion. 

 

Sample Analysis 1:

DROP DEAD, NEW YORK. DROP DEAD, DEMS: HOW MIGRANT CRISIS WILL SINK BIDEN. 

UNFETTERED MIGRATION AND RISING CRIME ARE NOW IMPERILING PRESIDENT BIDEN'S CHANCES AT A SECOND TERM

NEW YORK POST - Published Feb. 9, 2024

Not since 1975 -- when a famous tabloid headline read, "Ford to New York: Drop Dead" -- have New York City's finances and politics weighed so heavily on national consciousness.

Just as the city's looming bankruptcy threatened President Gerald Ford's reelection in 1976, unfettered migration and rising crime are now imperiling President Biden's chances at a second term.

Nothing embodies the link between these two issues more than the upsurge in migrant crime in New York, particularly the recent cases of the eight migrants who attacked two cops in Times Square, the shooting there Thursday by someone police believe to be a migrant and the moped-migrant gang preying on New Yorkers.

It didn't help that some of the suspected cop-beating assailants were initially set free after their arrest, with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg claiming there wasn't enough evidence to detain them. Some promptly fled the state and remain on the loose.

Bragg's message is one that's echoed repeatedly in New York and throughout the nation: if you commit a crime in a Democratic-controlled city, the chances that you'll face serious penalties are slim to none.

Though bankruptcy isn't looming as in 1975, both the city and state face enormous financial challenges -- a $4.3 billion state deficit and $7 billion city red ink -- in large part because of uncontrolled illegal immigration.

With their political futures at risk, Mayor Adams and Gov. Hochul have been blunt in their condemnations of federal migrant policies. 

 

OBJECT: 1. Migrants 

                 2. Policymakers concerning migrants

ISSUE:   1. The effect of migrants on national support for Democratic Party candidates.

                2. The effect of migrants on support for Democratic Party candidates in New York.  

 

INFORMATION:

  1. Finding: There is a surge in migrant crime in New York.

  2. A gang of eight migrants attacked two cops in Times Square. Some were initially set free after being arrested by the Manhattan District Attorney because evidence was not enough to detain them. Some fled the state and remain on the loose.

  3. The shooting in Times Square was conducted by someone police believe to be a migrant.

  4. A moped migrant gang has attacked people in New York City. 

  5. The mayor of New York City and the governor of New York have bluntly condemned federal migrant policies.

 

OPINIONS:

  1. Immigration takes place unfettered.

  2. Immigration is imperiling President Biden’s chances at a second term.

  3. New York City’s soft policy on migrant crime jeopardizes Democrats’ chances in New York and in all other cities.

  4. The moped migrant gang preys on New Yorkers.

  5. The soft policy on migrant crime in New York City echoes as “in a Democratic-controlled city, the chances of criminals to face serious penalties are slim to none.” 

  6. New York State and New York City deficits are largely caused by uncontrolled illegal immigration.

  7. New York City’s mayor and New York’s governor were blunt in condemning federal migrant policies because they put their political future at risk.

  8. Authorities should tighten migrant control and impose more severe penalties on crime.

 

In listing Units of Information, change the opinionated language to clear any bias from facts as much as possible. Keep the text unchanged in listing opinions so that it serves as closely as possible the purpose of influence by the Communicator. See, for instance, no. 4 under Information (“attacked people in New York City”) and the original wording in no. 4 under Opinions (“preying on New Yorkers”). 

 

Sample Analysis 2:

Date: 11/02/2024 | Source: Internet, Voice of Korea

DISPATCH OF NORTH KOREA NEWS AGENCY

In the puppet Republic of Korea, traitor Yoon Suk Yeol in the crisis of ruin is mobilizing the military gangsters to the fascist suppression of university students.

The puppet military investigate the students who staged a protest action before the puppet presidential office in demand of the resignation of Yoon Suk Yeol and the special prosecution of Kim Kon Hui and take all kinds of high-handed measures with even the warrant of arrest.

Historically, whenever they are in crisis, the puppets of the Republic of Korea brand their oppositions as the "enemy" to remove them, kicking up a raging wind of gruesome suppression.

Traitor Yoon Suk Yeol is hell-bent on the fascist suppression by mobilizing the puppet Ministry of National Defence as well as the puppet Intelligence Service, prosecution and police, saying the phenomenon of weakening governance should be minimized and that the "dishonest forces" against the present political system must be severely punished.

 

OBJECT: South Korea

ISSUE: The conflict with South Korea

INFORMATION:

  1. South Korean students protested before the presidential office demanding the resignation of President Yoon Suk Yeol and the prosecution of another official; some were detained and investigated.

  2. President Yoon Suk Yeol said that the phenomenon of weakening governance should be minimized and that dishonest forces against the present political system must be severely punished.

 

OPINIONS:

  1. Yoon Suk Yeol is a traitor.

  2. South Korea is in a crisis of ruin.

  3. Military gangsters rule South Korea.

  4. The suppression of university students was a fascist response.

  5. The government of South Korea is a puppet.

  6. The puppets of the Republic of Korea brand their opposition as the enemy to remove them, kicking up a raging wind of gruesome suppression.

  7. The traitor Yoon Suk Yeol is hell-bent on fascist suppression.

  8. The Ministry of National Defense is a puppet.

  9. The Intelligence Service, prosecution, and police are puppets.

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SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS OF THE PROPAGANDA FOR IDENTIFYING AND CHARACTERIZING THE AGENTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLOITATION

 

With that terminology and using that procedure, you can analyze texts and messages from any medium for communication decency and Psychological Exploitation. The very intention to do so and the results will free you of it. You can do it alone or with family and friends, facilitating their learning of the necessary skills. This would change the lives of those who had been unaware of Psychological Exploitation in their lives. 

The concepts and the procedure suggested above would not be sufficient for formal scientific analysis and diagnosis of psychological exploiters. The next section shall present more findings about influence using various psychologically exploitative “tricks of the trade,” along with tools and techniques for more precise characterization and quantification of propaganda for each.

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RAISING CONSCIOUSNESS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLOITATION BY EDUCATION

 

Education seems to be the social system in which awareness of indecent persuasion can be readily introduced and communication for Psychological Exploitation can be analyzed. In democratic countries. even a classroom teacher, without permission from school authorities, can ask, along with teaching a historical or actual text, “What are the facts? What are the judgmental opinions? Is the author fair in presenting the case?” Even a lecturer in academia can introduce activities that analyze influence through texts and records in communication studies, political science, economics, education, psychology, and all other branches of social science and humanities.

Considering the needs of readers who would be involved in education beyond their private lives, we proceed to bringing Psychological Exploitation to social awareness. We shall focus on various means of Psychological Exploitation (“taxonomy” in academish) and suggest techniques for identifying, characterizing, and solving problems with each.

 

OVERABSTRACTION–UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF BIG WORDS

 

Overabstraction is by far the main highway not only to Psychological Exploitation but also to bad thinking, understanding, and talking. It refers to talking without caring what, in reality, one is talking about. Only when you become fully aware that facts are out there in specific times and places, sense them as accurately as you can, and become careful not to mix them up with your ideas and wishes—can your worldview be grounded in reality, and that means sane. Overabstracted language will not do this. It connects directly to your ideas and wishes and thus distracts you from sensing the facts. That is how psychologically exploitative communication works.  

Putting all the problems and causes of Collective Insanity in a nutshell, I would use one passage from Aldous Huxley’s Knowledge and Understanding. Keep it well in memory as it tells all I shall attempt to tell in so many words in this book:  

  

"For at least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice, and these great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism, and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious and political idols. But zeal, dogmatism, and idealism exist only because we are forever committing intellectual sins. We sin by attributing concrete significance to meaningless pseudo-knowledge . . . indulging instead in oversimplification, overgeneralization, and overabstraction."

 

In separating the grains of substance from the straw of verbiage, first focusing on facts in reality, then not confusing facts with words from our inner mind; or with words, sounds, noises and images, coming from others in mass media or in conversations with people, we shall not be committing those “intellectual sins” of oversimplification, overgeneralization, and overabstraction. The procedure of analyzing communication by first distinguishing factual information is meant to prevent that.

If normal people knew and cared about what in reality they are thinking and speaking about, it seems obvious to me that most, if not all, stupidity, human malice, idealism, dogmatism, prejudice, and zeal in worshiping religious and political idols would disappear. Aldous Huxley was dead right. Even “knowing” someone is a Jew, an Arab, white, or black is an abstraction, overgeneralization. As a living fact, one is a unique human being of limitless characteristics and change. Abstract thinking allows for normal Collective Insanity, such as prejudice. Our capacity for abstraction makes us engage in the Psychological Exploitation of people who take images painted by words for things in reality. They buy (“attribute concrete significance” in Huxley’s wording) meaningless pseudo-knowledge through oversimplification, overgeneralization, and overabstraction that psychological exploiters use to influence them.

Words are the only necessary raw material to build palaces in thin air or paint apocalyptic pictures; they cost nothing and are never in short supply. They can intoxicate, induce hallucinations, and drive people into committing terrible crimes with no less effect than any drug. Overabstraction also promotes agreement because agreeing is much easier on something unspecified that feels right than on what must be done about it. This reminds me of a delightful satiric song performed by Hugh Laurie titled “All We Gotta Do,” which you can watch on YouTube.  

Abstract thinking is a uniquely human organic system functioning in normal people. The potential to develop it is genetic; that is, we are born with the potential to learn language, which is what makes us special among all other living things. But for becoming a Homo Sapiens (wise human), genetics is not enough. We become human by learning our mother language. Our thinking is not bestowed by genetics but by our parents or caretakers, who pass to us their capacity for abstract thinking, including their identity and their faulty overabstractions and prejudices. Only later, when children become aware of their being separate individuals, can they learn to understand the relation between their thinking and the real world around them.

Learning how to sanely use language must be part of normal schooling, like learning about other systems in the human anatomy and their diseases—but it is not. Overabstraction is the most common and deadliest malfunction of the human thinking system, but to the best of my knowledge, thinking proficiency is not a learning subject anywhere. That fact is a major source of Collective Insanity. Teaching about overabstraction in a learning setting would be teaching thinking proficiency.

For that purpose, I wish to contribute a structured experience of translating abstract texts to meaningful language such that it clarifies what it is about. Overabstraction tends to pair with lofty bombastic rhetoric or highly sophisticated jargon whose meaning becomes vague and often impossible to discover; language is both magniloquent and meaningless. The directive for translating overabstracted language to make it less abstract and more meaningful should be that: “If you cannot understand what the author means—guess, and include the guess in your translation.” This exercise will sharpen learners’ awareness of the gap between wording and facts, develop the skill of minding and knowing what in reality one is talking about, and foster the skill of using the invaluable intellectual tool one of my teachers called the “crap detector.”

Comparison between translations of various individuals will expose the vagueness and meaninglessness of overabstracted language no matter how glistening, glib, scientifically ostentatious, or bombastic. Learners would also realize that for psychological exploiters, meaninglessness is nothing to worry about: different people would interpret their orations as they like and thus fill in their interpreted meaning where there is none.     

For example, as I write this (February 2024), my country has been engaged in war for more than four months now. War itself is a mighty overabstraction. Calling that presently ongoing war a manhunt and a mass killing is my less abstract translation. Billboards, walls, and even entire high-rise buildings everywhere are covered with the letters UNITED WE SHALL WIN. Both unity and winning are superlatively positive values albeit extremely abstract. Winning by counting goals and touchdowns is unlike winning by counting killed and wounded women, men and children, destroyed homes, and devastated land. Unity in the suppression of opposition to war is unlike unity in support of it. 

What would be your translation of the famous phrase in President John Kennedy’s inaugural speech “Do not ask what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country!”? Since all that your country can possibly do for you must be done through the legal authorities that the government controls and operates, my translation of this phrase into less abstract language would be “Don’t ask what my administration can do for you—ask what you could do for my administration.” This is my best guess of what he had in mind. I leave you and your friends the task of translating to less abstract language President Trump’s slogan “Make America great again.”

 

LYING

As I mentioned earlier, lying is not a popular means of propaganda. It is considered a sin in conventional thinking and is illegal. However, psychological exploiters manage to avoid outright lying in a way that could cause them trouble. I wish to mention three of their lying techniques here.

First, remember that it is legal to lie to millions of people if the statement is true to even one, for example, “Don’t be late to buy that lottery ticket and win $1,000,000.” Our culture allows us to openly lie when normal smart people should know it was a lie.

Second, photography is in reality the closest means of passing information about facts. It is the most reliable medium, like pictures taken by security cameras serving as evidence. In mass media, however, photographs could be staged, orchestrated, and falsified, which would be like lying, a picture of a pseudo-event. Keep in mind as well that people’s behavior could purposely change just by the presence of a camera crew, which would also be a distortion of their real conduct. If a photograph is presented as a work of art, not as evidence about the Object, it of course could not be a lie. Art is a different realm from reality. Its object in reality is the artist’s inner world.

Third is advertorials, which are ads disguised as reports and opinion articles. They are signed by an author and, if they were not ads, are rather well-written stories with much factual information. Usually, they are delicately marked as ads, but if you read them without being aware of it, it would be as if you had been cheated. They could be advertising products, services, health and wellness remedies, learning courses, retirement facilities, and others. The clear sign that they are biased is that all bits of factual information in an advertorial, including research findings and people’s testimonies, combine to describe the Object positively if not enthusiastically with no traces of negative aspects. 

In teaching media literacy about lies, the most important thing to do is highlight the fact that, by and large, we cannot know if the presented information is or is not true. If we are interested in the Object or the Issue, we may try to verify the given information if we can. Until we know more, we must be skeptical about it, have doubt (!), and be aware that we do not know. This would be a critical teaching in education for sane thinking, reasonable decision-making, and scientific orientation but would be rather contrary to the conventional wisdom passed to schoolchildren who are trained to believe that there must be a correct answer to every question and that “I don’t know” is a bad answer.

 

 A structured learning experience could consist of

  1. Discussing whether information in the text is true and gathering learners’ information about it from other sources.

  2. Letting each learner estimate and express, in percentages, their degree of belief that the information is true, which will be an exercise in developing the skill to doubt (hypothesize in academ-ish), away from either–or thinking.

  3. Assigning research roles to learners toward obtaining more information from different sources.

  4. Based on all information gathered about the truth of the matter, learning how close to the truth were individual learners in their estimations and discussing why.    

 

DIVERSION–UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE PIED PIPER

As in Aldous Huxley’s quote on page… the vast mass of communication industry is concerned “neither with the true nor the false, but with the more or less totally irrelevant.” Given “man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions,” such appetite can be easily exploited to influence people. In Psychological Exploitation, diversion means that the Communicator provides much irrelevant information that diverts the Receiver’s attention from the Subject and the Issue. In communication analysis, diversion is identified and quantified by comparing the number of Units of Analysis containing Relevant Information with those of irrelevant information about the Object and the Issue.

Diversion assumes a much more central and sinister place in Collective Insanity. It could be deliberately used by power elites that control mass media to divert people’s attention and energy away from interfering in their affairs and from social action that could challenge their government. If the rulers of the ancient Roman Empire knew that to make the population easy to rule, they must not just let them have bread but also circuses, it would be insane to ignore the possibility that diversion in a democracy can be used for the same purpose.

Many studies on the effects of commercial propaganda have found that its influence to make people buy advertised products is not substantial but that it has a great “agenda-setting power.” It indirectly influences the masses to put purchasing goods higher on their life’s agenda and thus contributes to consumerism in general. The ruling elites, through mass media, can effectively influence most people—not all, of course—to be interested in diversions rather than in activities that the government prefers them not to be involved with. They have an interest in the lack of change among people. Leaders want to stay in power, and it helps if the population is content, entertained, and distracted from whatever would require changes in leadership, in the distribution of wealth, and in the power to influence public opinion.

In such a situation, Collective Insanity is blind to the role of cultural diversions. Raising the problem of diversion to the awareness of people who have never bothered to think of it means interfering with their freely chosen pastimes and practical values of what is good for them. Who decides what is and is not diversion? The answer is, of course, that each person decides for themselves. For many good people, watching football games and sitcoms on TV four hours a day is the most satisfying pastime, and the evening news is a diversion. As much as I can influence you in that matter, I suggest that we define diversion as entertainment, the time during which we free ourselves of the need to make decisions in life. By that definition, watching baseball for four hours on TV is a diversion; there is nothing there for you to decide, to do, or to change.

Moving away from Collective Insanity, we must agree that we should make decisions in life to avoid becoming slaves to our routines. We must balance our entertainment and restful pastimes with activities. In what is not entertainment, we must make decisions to effect changes, grow, learn, develop, achieve, progress, contribute to others, and generally live a more psychologically healthy life. Diversion is a real problem, and balancing it with activity is inescapable. Letting social agencies such as mass media and conventional wisdom resolve that problem for you would be Collective Insanity. 

Our culture is dominated by mass media, and people’s conventional mindset is unaware of the influence of diversions on their lifestyles, preferences, and interests. The power establishment need not even control and direct mass media to secure its dominance over people’s hearts and minds. Our blindness to the effects of its influence on us, particularly that of diversion on our daily life and interests, makes most people loyal subjects of the contemporary “Big Brother.”  

Collective Normal Insanity lies in our disregard of the possibility that we are pleasantly manipulated to conform. Because people value their independence of thought and their ability to be self-directed, it is a real danger for them to ignore the problem of being distracted. If we can be made like the children who happily and thoughtlessly followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin to their doom, there is a reason to develop our capacity to resist.

 

CELEBRITY APPEAL–UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF SOMEONE ELSE’S SUCCESS IN SOMETHING ELSE

 

It is surely irrational to be persuaded to buy a product or “buy” an opinion of a person who has achieved success and fame for reasons that have nothing to do with the product or the issue. Yet advertisers are willing to contract highly expensive famous actors and singers to endorse their products and appear in their ads. For them, celebrity appeal works extremely well.

Celebrity appeal is part of the deeply ingrained human tendency to worship heroes who are more powerful, able, and accomplished. It naturally develops in early childhood, when we completely depend on grown-ups who appear as mighty omniscient giants compared with us.  Conventionally wise people do not fully grow beyond that childish stage. Not being satisfied with their achievements, they identify with those who are great achievers. Children who dress up as cowboys with handguns or as princesses and fairies with magic wands relate to such beings. The memory of it lingers in later life and resonates with one’s fantasies of their own success and glorious achievement. Beyond fantasy, conventionally wise people act upon their infantile drives by submitting themselves to the influence of celebrity appeal.

Celebrity appeal may be viewed as a particular case of leader worship and adoration, which in itself is a case of Collective Insanity if the same people endorse democracy, equality, and self-reliance. As a rule, political leaders do not endorse commercial products because people value them in terms of their achievements in political leadership, not in anything else. People believe them and follow them rather than wish to be them. Meanwhile, celebrities, who serve as persuaders in areas unrelated to their achievements, wield influence by being associated with the success viewers wish for themselves. If, as goes the saying attributed to J. K. Galbraith "conventional wisdom serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking,” then the surest way to apply conventional wisdom to one’s problems is to let a person who has already proved their superior achievability do the thinking for us.

In an educational setting, highlighting celebrity appeal as a “trick” of Psychological Exploitation will immunize learners against it. Structured experiences could help them internalize the truth that, on the one hand, our being influenced depends on whether we believe the Communicator is reliable, and, on the other, truth and value are not dependent on who proclaims them. One such experience entails providing learners with a list of quotations signed by fake Communicators. Some of these passages are presented as those of cultural, religious, political, or scientific celebrities and some as authored by cultural, political, or other notorious villains. In reality, all quotations should either be randomly collected and unspecific or belong to the same person.

Learners are assigned the task of evaluating each quotation on a scale between strong agreement and strong disagreement. When the truth is revealed that the quotations belong to the same Communicator, learners would be prompted to assess their susceptibility to celebrity appeal based on the difference between their ratings of the ideas of the “good” and “bad” persons who supposedly authored them.      

 

INSINUATION–UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF IMPLIED VALUES

 

When analyzing communication in Psychological Exploitation, insinuation is the means of influence beyond what the Communicator says about the Object and the Issue. Insinuation is not about facts, and sensing facts in the territory will not reveal it. It is not in the text; it is in the subtext. Insinuation influences people’s inner world, the mental space in which their personal and cultural values generate and develop.   

When a celebrity advertises an Object for sale, the insinuated idea is not explicitly proclaimed in words, but we are influenced to admit into our inner orbit of things that are acceptable to us as normal and not bad the reality of being sold products by famous actors who only play the role of enthusiastic users of the Object they sell. We know that in reality they may not believe a word of what they are saying about it, but that seems okay. We also know that people influenced by the advertised Object’s glorious artistic presentation do not just play a customer role; they spend their real money on it. They are persuaded by the text to buy the Object and influenced by the insinuated subtext to accept the ad’s presentation as legitimate and morally justifiable. In situations other than advertising, they would consider it as a dishonest conning of people. Not seeing it, not seeing even a possibility that many people are so influenced against one’s belief in the values of decency and honesty, is one more instance of Collective Insanity.   

When a bank advertises a savings plan for college with an illustration of a small boy in a mortarboard cap and a small girl in a bridal veil, gender roles are insinuated. Parents are influenced not only to buy that savings plan but also to prepare boys for good careers and girls for good marriage. By insinuation, the big Communicators of mass media execute their agenda-setting power on people’s practical values. 

The constant insinuation of the prevailing standards of propriety and normality in values, manners, esthetics, morality in “pursuit of happiness,” and other areas of life solidifies conventional wisdom, including Collective Insanity, as the only standard of social behavior and political correctness. Celebrity appeal sells; insinuation shapes the prevalent culture. Mass media, more than any other source, actually educate the population at large to think what they think and to behave as they behave. If they told people what to think and how to behave, they would stir resistance; insinuation does this smoothly.

As quoted earlier, C. W. Mills observed that “Contents of the mass media seep into our images of self, becoming that which is taken for granted.” His assertion is not a fact; it is a generalization. However, such generalization is so deeply alarming for those of us who value our freedom of thought that it would be prudent to check its validity at this point against facts in our own life. Please take some time to reflect on how true it could be for you and your close social milieu; better yet, discuss it with friends and close persons.

Who, more than others, made you what you are? Who has shaped the cultural environment in which you have lived? How much have the celebrated heroes and villains of TV programs affected you, your friends, and your children? Who were the influential sources on the important decisions you made in life? Who or what influenced you in deciding how to spend your time, money, and energy? Who influenced you most in your behavior in conflict with other people? Are there any parts of your belief system that you absorbed through the insinuation of mass media? 

To what extent is your life’s experience consistent with the opinion of many scientifically oriented thinkers that mass media is the most powerful means of socialization in modern society, the high priest, the Gothic cathedrals of popular culture in its rituals of consumption, having fun, and worship of various celebrated idols? 

The insinuation of cultural values by the media does not figure in the minds of people stricken by conventional wisdom. It is largely an area of blindness—a symptom of Collective Insanity. To counter its effects on our culture, those aware of it must disseminate their awareness. Once people see and feel the insinuated subtext in the messages they take in, they would naturally be able to address it according to their needs and values. 

 

VERBAL AGGRESSION–UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF STRESS AND FEAR

 

Collective Normal Insanity regards verbal aggression as communication about its Object. “He is (or you are) a complete idiot!” is mistakenly understood as a sentence that may or may not be true about “him.” In the reality of interpersonal interactions, verbal aggression is only formally a verbal statement. In fact, it is an expression of aggression that intends to win by frightening, threatening, devastating, obliterating, and incapacitating its Object. “He is an idiot” is like “He is a son of a bitch.” It appears as a sentence made of words but is not a sentence like in language that conveys meaning. The proper translation of it would be a spit, a threatening gesture, a blow, a roar, a baring of teeth. Conventional Insanity may be observed in the phrase “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words shall never hurt me,” which directly denies the obvious human experience since early childhood in which words could hurt, wound, and traumatize no less than sexual abuse that also will not break any bones.

As soon as we learn language, we use it to think and communicate but also to fight. The same centers in the brain are involved in both physical and verbal violence; the same muscle contraction occurs in the limbs, jaw, and larynx, the same hormones secreted. When people interrupt each other while talking, raise their voices, shout, and then try to outshout each other, they fight, not communicate, to solve their problems. Psychologically, they wage war not with fists or guns but with their vocal cords, not to physically knock the enemy down but to obtain the scarce resource in verbal encounters: time for talking while others shut up. When discussants try to snatch the microphone from each other, the physical face of their aggression can be seen, not just heard.

It is an extremely common mistake to regard violent verbal expression, words, gestures, and shouting as communication that holds meaning about the Object, but it does not. You can comprehend verbal aggression in any language without understanding the words. In fact, utterings of verbal violence have no meaning beyond expressing the Communicator’s aggressive state of mind regarding their Object. 

The influence of verbal aggression is like that of any aggression: fight or flight. When the aggression is not threatening them, it has a strong effect on Receivers who share the same aggressive feelings about the Object—hate, fear, contempt, disgust, wish to humiliate, intention to get even, and other feelings that people feel for their enemies. For demagogues addressing crowds of sympathizers, aggression is a sure winner in influence. In such occasions, Collective Insanity is extremely dangerous for cases of peace, morality, democracy, and simply sanity.

Receivers on the “flight” side, those who do not identify with the Communicator’s side, will not be influenced in their views and feelings about the Object but may perceive the aggression as strength and be influenced to fear the Communicator and be silenced. Those who will not be influenced to flee may be tilted against the Communicator. Charlie Chaplin was so conversely influenced by Adolf Hitler’s public appearances that he created his still-relevant masterpiece film on the subject, The Great Dictator.

Naturally, commercial or political advertising does not use verbal aggression. Because their Objects are whatever products, services, ideas, or personality images they sell, products or politicians must be praised and adulated to love them, not to hate them. Put simply, Collective Insanity is evident in people taking verbal aggression for communication about the Object and letting themselves be influenced about the Object instead of being influenced against the Communicator based on the evidence of their aggressive behavior.

However, the influence of verbal aggression goes deeper beyond the Objects and the Issues that cause its eruptions. Its worst effect is that it legitimately comes instead of communication. If people were trained to understand verbal aggression as a form of violence, they would not immediately become less aggressive, less hateful, or less quarrelsome. At least, however, on the community and public level, in writing, in public appearances, and anywhere people who have time to think ahead how to speak or write would decide to use their words as carriers of meaning rather than as sticks and stones. Except in some eruptions of aggression, verbal wars would become, as befits human beings, discussion and deliberation. Explosive demagoguery will become ineffective as a means of influence as it already has to a remarkable degree in many societies. Verbal violence will not work on people who can identify it for what it is and not be affected by it. That could be a real change. 

As of today, change in that direction seems utopian more than ever. With the proliferation of personal social media, verbal aggression has expanded to enormous proportions. In many channels, it has completely replaced communication. In face-to-face meetings, people must at least expose themselves to others and bear the physical consequences of aggression. In social media, anonymous aggressive thugs who do not know better are empowered to do their worst, turning the feedback-talkback channels into sewer canals of public discourse. Levels of community interaction reach lower than ever. Decent democracy becomes impossible to practice in a reality of social bubbles, at which rational deliberation is not known and is substituted by aggression. Virtual verbal violence, fed by fake information, establishes many communication networks as hothouses for the growth of an antidemocratic, antisocial culture of violence. Restraining the Collective Insanity of verbal aggression has become as imperative as perhaps never before.

     

DEVELOPING RESISTANCE SKILLS

Besides educating ourselves and others to understand verbal aggression as aggression and not as expression of opinion, those with access to formal institutions of learning can do more to lay it and its champions bare before the public eye. Academics who examine communication must develop standards for deciding what is and is not verbal aggression or verbal violence. This should not be difficult, but so far they have not been keen to try. 

For my studies, I developed a “verbal aggression pressure gauge.” I created a list of the most frequently used words and phrases in verbal fighting and then asked a random sample of people in the same culture to rate each on a scale between superlative praise and worst condemnation. The scale had 10 points on each side of a line marked + on one side and ˗ on the other. At the “+10” end was “Superlative,” and on the “˗10” end was “Extreme Damnation.” Median ratings between ˗8 and ˗10 were designated as indicators of the (objective) measure of aggression in each phrase. 

Scholars could likely develop better scientific tools for diagnosing verbal aggression through its symptoms and measuring its intensity and character. An academic institute for the analysis of verbal violence in communication would do much to change the reality of the verbal-symbolic dirty and bloody battlefields on which people are trying in vain to solve their problems with one another. 

My favorite method in developing the personal skill of using communication rather than aggression to persuade and influence others, particularly in formal educational settings, is to assign learners the task of translating texts to weed out verbal aggression. These could be texts from current media, texts on the subject of teaching history, or learners’ own spoken and written texts.

The directive for these “translation” exercises should be decisive in demanding that they do not change the author’s ideas and that they should accurately translate their emotions. They must not impair the author’s freedom of expression. For example:

 

Directions:

  1. Assume that you are the author. You have written this text.

  2. Do not change anything that could distort the author’s intention, ideas, opinions, and perceived emotions.

  3. Change only words and phrases that you feel are aggression, not communication. Change words and phrases that are violent, abusive, insulting, offensive, excessively rude, and others. 

  4. Accusation is not aggression, but accusation without any factual basis could be libel. If you find accusation (e.g., liar, thief, etc.) without factual basis, provide a fictitious factual basis for this assignment.   

 

A comparison of translations and discussions around various points of view regarding the effects of aggressive and nonaggressive language will teach learners to understand and appreciate the difficulties. Developing the ability to overcome challenges in deciding between violent and nonviolent means of self-expression will provide learners with the freedom to choose their mode of argument. Most often, what must be done to rid communication of aggression amounts to no more than changing the language that tells what the wicked Object is to what it does or did.

In my experience, the “translation” learning effectively helps understand and accept the idea that, given our good will and a little time to think, we can express even our strongest emotions without necessarily reverting to aggression. With some training, we can do without it, at least in situations where we have time to be aware that we write or talk in public. Such learning is important because attempts to restrain verbal aggression are often met with resistance in the name of freedom of expression. They do not need to be that.

 

SEDUCTION   - UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF AN EMPTY PROMISE

 

Seduction, in the context of Psychological Exploitation, entails two things: offering a material prize and selling to children. These practices contradict the idea of fairness even in the conventional mind because people understand that the prize actually goes to the seller, and tricks of seduction are loaded for the seducer’s profit. Many societies forbid gambling, which is selling good luck for a material prize. Governments, however, forbid others from gambling but monopolize it in state lotteries.  They rationalize this as benefiting the public. However, because one’s chances of losing are considerably larger than those of profiting by all mathematical and rational means, seducing less rational people to voluntarily pay taxes for the public good, is an ethically questionable practice.

Public opinion is more likely to accept restrictions on selling to minors for the same reason as in gambling—it is not fair. Unlike adults, children have no ability to defend themselves against seduction. A relatively new means of seduction, accepted without opposition or restriction, are TV reality shows in which networks seduce viewers to participate in the show by voting and offer them financial prizes for winning the viewers’ favor.

In sales, offering products “for free” is a seductive method of selling. Only if you buy one can the second one be for free, and there is always a possibility that the first one’s price has been doubled. In this litany of tricks of the trade, I found it necessary to mention sales, but I have no remedies to offer. Character building for resistance to legal mass-propagated seduction has no other means than education, persuasion, and keeping such resistance public. We can politically struggle to forbid advertising to our children and open casinos in our private homes.

 

SLANTING –UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF IRRELEVANT INFORMATION

 

Slanting is an insinuated value judgment that influences the Receiver about the Object by providing information about the Object that throws light only on one side of it, whether positive or negative. Such information could be relevant or irrelevant like some gossip about the Object. For example, if the Object is reported to have a greasy stain on their jacket, the influence may cause a stain on them. If they have a radiant smile exposing a line of even white teeth, that could influence the reader to like them more. The slanting effect is achieved by the characterization of the Object through either positive or negative details. The clear symptom of slanting is that you will not find both positive and negative characterizations of the Object that the Communicator is writing about.

In discussing lies as a means of Psychological Exploitation, we mentioned advertorials as having the effect of a lie in case the Receiver is mistaken to read it as if it were an editorial. Advertorials are good examples of slanting as they provide lots of information, testimonies by happy customers, and enthusiastic impressions of the reporter. Receivers are seduced to buy the product because its other not-so-wonderful qualities are not reported. 

Countering seductive influence, remember step 3 in analyzing Psychological Exploitation, which requires minding Relevant Information and Facts you know about the Object and the Issue that are not in the text. If the Object is all delightful pleasure and success, it is obvious that the Communicator may not be telling the whole truth. In self-defense against Psychological Exploitation, never underestimate the degree of human blindness to what is obvious but is not there.

A formal analysis of media texts for slanting can be done by extracting all information about the Object and then marking each informative item with either + (positive) or ˗ (negative). If all are either positive or negative, or if there is a wide disproportion between them, the communication should be suspected of slanting.

 

ARTISTRY–UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF NEVER-NEVER LAND

Artistry in Psychological Exploitation involves the use of artistic means such as rhyming, singing, playing music, dramatization, animation, painting, and others to influence people to make specific decisions in real life. William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is art, and art is a never-never land. We can never get there, to sixteenth-century Venice. If during the intermission in a theater, some actors would pass along the lines of spectators soliciting donations to bail out poor Antonio from Shylock’s bond, it would be artistry, not art.

Art does have influence. Many great works of art and literature were intentionally created to influence people. However, the influence of literature and art can enter into viewers’ or listeners’ hearts and minds only through the filters of their inner soul, never through a direct call to act upon it, like the messages of commercial and political propaganda. For something to be literature or art, it must represent the artist’s inner world. If it carries a directive to do something in the real world, we perceive it not as art but as propaganda using art for its purpose.

Artistry is a means of Psychological Exploitation when instruments of art are used to directly influence our real-world decisions. It serves advertisers as an attractive wrapping around their package. It influences feelings and moods in situations where we must make rational decisions based on true information.

In an analysis of communication for artistry as a means of Psychological Exploitation, the basic datum is the more, the worse. The more art in the commercial or the political jingle—the heavier the pressure on the Receivers’ feelings and mood and the farther it takes them from rational thinking such as we assume in making decisions that matter.

Apart from personal awareness and limiting one’s exposure to the media, I see no way to control artistry in propaganda other than by some regulation that would make it less offensive. If ever attempts to restrict the use of arts in advertising are made, the ad men are sure to object, arguing that it will deny them their freedom of speech. That, in my view, would be a preposterous extension of the meaning of “speech.” Given mass media technology, the issue would be like implanting a microphone chip in people’s brains and defending one’s right to free speech using that device.

The regulation of propaganda should not limit freedom of speech in any way. I have that fantasy of a public debate on the issue, in which the advertising agencies and their supporters can speak freely and express their opinions fully, provided they speak artistically—sing, dance, with a chorus line of beauties to aid them, even a whole orchestra. Let those who make their lucrative careers exploiting human stupidity for once feel like idiots but be convinced beyond doubt that their freedom of speech had not been limited in the least.

 

CONCEALMENT–UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF SECRECY

Everyone has the right to keep their knowledge about any Issue to themselves. However, when a Communicator does write or talk about an Issue and deliberately covers up the Relevant Information about it, this could be a highly effective, extreme means of Psychological Exploitation.

What you do not know cannot hurt you, as the saying goes, but it also cannot make you form your own opinion and do something about it. Concealment could be compared to perjury in court in which the jury consists of the readers or viewers. It tells the truth but not all of it.

In her famous sociopolitical historical analysis The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt wrote, “Factual reality is the greatest danger to totalitarianism, greater than the innate yearning for freedom.” In an open society, the innate desire for freedom is not what people feel. Yearning for freedom from Psychological Exploitation is practically nonexistent although nobody cares to conceal it or could have succeeded if they tried. It is obvious and yet unknown to the general public. On top of that, I cannot imagine that in our time of the Internet, anything of much consequence could be concealed for long. Powerful global actors have worked to conceal from the public facts such as that smoking causes lung cancer, Israel has nuclear capability, or the planet is warming dangerously, which became general knowledge. What people do not know and do not care about in a society open to national and global intercommunication is less the result of concealment and more that of people’s lack of interest and indifference.

The human orientation system is equipped with extremely effective conscious and unconscious mechanisms for filtering out and repressing problematic information. People ignore or immediately forget or explain away and forget all about information that is incompatible with their ideas about the world they live in. They also live in a semantic environment of diversion, a means of Psychological Exploitation that has grown into gigantic proportions in modern life.

 

Analysis for the assessment of concealment in communication

For formal learning, I propose the following five-step facilitation framework:

  1. List all Information in a given text about a public Issue.

  2. List your questions about the Issue that were not answered in the text.

  3. Let learners call their questions that were not answered in the text and discuss whether the missing answers could be deliberately covered up by the Communicator. 

  4. Give learners the assignment of finding out more information from other sources about the Issue and the Objects. In the next meeting, discuss the process in light of the additional information available. 

  5. Provide feedback.

 

This procedure facilitates the development of vital skills in thinking, orientation, and navigation of our ways in reality, where we must frequently decide what to believe, knowing that we are uninformed of the whole truth. 

Self-Concealment: When the Communicator, the Object, and the Receiver are the SAME person

 

To paraphrase Hanna Arend’s assertion about the totalitarian society, that is, “Factual reality is the greatest danger to totalitarianism, greater than the innate yearning for freedom,” I could say about our open society that awareness of obvious reality is the greatest danger to the status quo, greater than the yearning for progress in solving our problems".

To develop the thinking skills against self-concealment, I suggest two techniques that could be used individually and in facilitated group learning. The first applies to the analysis of texts. In listening or reading or watching, become aware of what is it about the issue that is important to you! In a group setting, each learner should spend some time pondering that question, and then different people’s answers could be compared and discussed. This is an extremely important skill that involves not only focusing on what is important to the Communicator but also having our own priorities in dealing with vital issues.

 

BRAIN WASHING–UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF REPETITION

Brain Washing as a means of Psychological Exploitation is not what is generally meant by “brainwashing.” It is repetition beyond what is needed to communicate one’s message about the Object and the Issue. It is psychologically exploitative because repetition adds nothing to your perception and understanding of the Issue. Instead, it hammers the message into the brain’s long-term memory center. I am sure that I am not the only one who feels as assaulted by the repetition of advertisements as by physical violence because it often ambushes my failing eardrums with a sudden increase in volume.

What can you do to avoid being victimized by Brain Washing? Until, if ever, some legal restrictions on Psychological Exploitation are in effect, gather the strength, determination, and courage necessary to stretch your hand to turn the device off.

 

DEMAGOGUERY–UNDER THE INFLUENCE  OF A BULLYING LIAR

 

Demagoguery has not been authoritatively defined in social science. In a special issue of Rhetoric Society Quarterly (2019, 3), the editors admitted that there are “varying understandings of who or what a demagogue is or what a demagogue does” and that scholars “are still grappling with demagoguery—how to define it, how to identify who engages in it, how to explain its rhetorical character and effects, how to resist it, and how to reverse it, or if it’s even possible to do so.” -- I shall answer these questions, approaching demagoguery as a means of Psychological Exploitation.

These are the symptoms of demagoguery:

  • The Issue is about a public political conflict.

  • The Communicator’s central thesis about the Object is clearly and openly groundless.

  • The Object is sharply attacked, derided, and condemned.

  • Information about the Object and the Issue is either absent or one-sided; no Information could support the central thesis.

 

Take as an example the following cartoon published in an Israeli magazine:

[ The cartoon presents three persons one next to the other. in the middle an old judge in a black robe, to his right an Israeli soldier in full gear and to his left a Palestinian terrorist holding a long knife dripping with blood.  The judge punches the nose of the Israeli soldier with his gavel and with his other hand embraces the shoulder of the Palestinian terrorist ]

 

The Issue is the government’s campaign to strip the country’s judicial system of much of its authority and transfer it to the government. The Object is the judiciary. The cartoon’s central thesis is that courts are hostile to Israeli security forces and friendly with Palestinian terrorists. This is the most extreme condemnation possible of the Object—treachery, siding with the bloodthirsty enemy. Legal processes in which the courts, particularly the supreme court, pass sentences involving Palestinians’ rights are routinely reported as a matter of fact. Facts about that Issue are public knowledge. Seeing this cartoon, I did not even need to conduct any fact-finding to realize that the thesis is not only completely groundless but also a direct, obvious, opposite of the truth. This example contains all the characteristic symptoms of demagoguery.  

Opinions abound that fly in the face of everything we know about reality; demagoguery is a real problem. In formal analysis, the diagnosis of any opinion as demagoguery should be a matter of agreement grounded in evidence. The criterion for such diagnosis should be the perceived gap between what is known about reality and what the Communicator tells about it. If the Communicator distorts reality to the point that it seems obvious, and the distortion serves their derogative opinion about the Object, we may justly diagnose them as a demagogue.

In sum, demagoguery may and should be “smelled” and analyzed in speech and media, and demagogues should be exposed to the public. If academic institutions start working on this using their prestigious image, means, and tools, it would be a good answer to the question “How can I resist it?” Scientific analysis of texts related to sociopolitical conflicts could hopefully make demagogues less secure in their knowing, that they can rape the truth and steer their audiences toward violent idiocy with impunity and never be apprehended as demagogues as there are no objective criteria for diagnosing demagoguery. 

 

 

CONCLUDING REMARKS ON COLLECTIVE INSANITY IN BEING INFLUENCED

 

Back in my assumed role as your guide in the areas of Collective Insanity, we have reached the end of the field trip in its district of persuasion, influence, and Psychological Exploitation. You have observed how it works, its tricks of the trade, and what could be done to prevent it in your private life, including exactly how to do it in practice. You could have made up your mind about the gravity of the problem and could decide what of it is relevant to you in case you consider making some changes in facing, with your nearest and dearest, the big influencers of mass media. 

How can we counter Collective Insanity in the area of influence in our society? The overall finding identified scholars and teachers in social science and education as those of us who are in the best position to make a difference if they will. Insofar as my influence on you as your guide on this field trip to the lands of Psychological Exploitation, my best hope is that it will move them.

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 COLLECTIVE INSANITY UNDER INFLUENCE

 

People were once told by their gods, goddesses, kings, priests, elders, and other authorities what to believe and what to do. Nowadays, the mass media of communication persuades people in what to believe and what to do.  Then, as now, there were found people who did not believe and behave as they were told and influenced. Then, as now, the great majority acceded to Collective Insanity.

Our first stop on this field trip into the lands of Collective Insanity is the social system of persuasion, as it is omnipresent in the intimate areas of each person’s daily life. Additionally, each of us can change our patterns of being influenced independently of others. It is all up to you; it does not require persuading others beyond your private sphere, and as long as you stay there, you will not be involved in social change and social conflict. Persuasion entails affecting people’s minds, and so we must begin there—with our own mind. Then we shall be free to decide if we want to become socially active in that field.

Let us define sanity in being influenced. The baseline would be what we want and what we intend. In making decisions, one’s intention to do it sanely could be put into words as follows: I want to know the facts, the truth about what is there in reality, and then freely decide without being pressured toward one side or distracted emotionally or physically by irrelevant information.

That intuitive definition of sanity in decision-making is common to practically everybody as that is their self-image. Normal humans such as you and me believe they behave reasonably when making their choices, otherwise they will not feel sane. On that baseline, the directly corresponding definition of sane persuasion would be the following:  Telling or showing true facts about the object of persuasion and telling one’s true opinion about it without using means intended to disengage or bypass the other person’s independent critical thinking.

This is how good friends and people who love and care about each other communicate or at least agree that they must be decent and fair in their interrelations. They must respect others’ freedom of thought and their right to make their decisions freely themselves. Accordingly, people involved in decent communication tell the truth and do not intend to manipulate others out of their minds.

Persuaders in commercial advertising and/or political propaganda do just the opposite: they do not divulge relevant facts about their objects of persuasion, and they use all means to bypass the people’s independent critical thinking. People who value their freedom of thought in deciding how to spend their money, whom to vote for, and what to do in their free time but let themselves be influenced by voices and images broadcast by mass media are subjects to Collective Insanity.

Our Problem

We live in a communicative environment in which mass media invade and permeate our space of living; we inhale their messages the same way we breathe air in the natural environment.

The communicators who control the mass media are interested in serving their clients, who then pay them for persuading us.

They have no decency in addressing us with their persuasive messages, no obligation to tell the truth, no need to provide relevant information, and no interest in respecting our right to make our decisions independently.

Their influence on people is Psychological Exploitation.

Our Workshop

We work out a practical program for Liberation from Psychological Exploitation. First, we discuss the toughest questions:

How come? Who cares? Why nobody seems to care? Why should I care? What has social science done about it?

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Then we teach the basic skills of how to defend oneself against Psychological Exploitation. You'd be offered a "toolbox" of instruments for the analysis of communication for Psychological Exploitation and use them on some examples. Then you'll get all you need to liberate yourself, your children, students, friends, etc. from each of the "tricks of the trade" of Psychological Exploitation: Over-abstraction, Artistry, Distraction, Demagoguery, Celebrity Appeal, Verbal Violence, and the rest. 

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LINK TO WORKSHOP PROGRAM

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