First, it seems very obvious if not preferred that someone's in control. Whether it's in a war and you're finding the pride to charge the battle field and take the first bullets so your brothers behind you can live on, or if you're looking for something to aspire to from mass marketing of the ideal living and family situation. We're a top down society in that sense. Something seems better than nothing. Being controlled or even enjoying in giving up control don't seem that bad in and of itself. Think about how elated religious people must feel...
Think of the idea of “herding cats” which is often a description about a group of atheists. You don't have to spend years of your life debunking myths and arguing with people online, finally overwhelmed with your knowledge and unable to escape it's conclusions. You can just be a random asshole who says “I don't believe in god.” Depending on where either of those two examples grew up, they could still find solace at an atheist convention, as if, because of sheer disbelief, that's how they'll form a friendship.
But they're still their own kind of cat. They still need a Dawkins or a feeling of fear or oppression that guides them to a place of common footing. They want their minds to be controlled as well, but by thoughts that can be characterized as "objective." These are people that wouldn't mind being told to go to school or get a job, but they're not going to trust the promises of a world unseen and without evidence.
In documentaries, especially like this one, I can't help but marvel at how sure of themselves each interviewee is. It doesn't matter if they're talking about a particular period in history, some influential character, or just from the pulpit of whatever board they sat on or place of insider knowledge. They give a presentation as if they're the authority. This isn't to say they know nothing or that their information isn't valuable or, genuinely, a form of expertise.
But it goes wrong. Take a random doctor from Harvard and let him say something about neuroscience. Now juxtapose that with Alex Jones explaining how the Bilderberg Group has been engineering schools to control your mind. You may want to forgo the grain and just swallow the salt shaker. But if you're informed enough about how schools have been funded, neuroscience, Alex Jones in general, and the people in charge of creating these groups and foundations who have a say in what gets taught, you can still begin to say something flirting with reasonable.
You're still stuck with fairly general ideas though. Should people who have an economic stake in how much you know be in charge of what you're taught? Probably not. Should leaders, who, as it basically comes with the territory are self-absorbed, egotistical, and often prone to sociopathy and psychopathy, be trusted to keep “everyone's” best interests at heart? Surely it happens, I doubt it's the norm. Do I want Alex Jones' perspective on ancient Greece or Plato? He's not my first choice.
The big secret that no one seems to want to say is that nobody trusts nearly anything they do. The ones who do are bred to. The rich kids or the spoiled kids who think and talk like Ayn Rand yet leech and never touch the kind of accomplishments her characters were shooting for. (The irony of Republicans touting her book and example is...staggering.) Though they have basically stopped the motor of government so here's a great example of leaders and the consequences of their interpretations.
Anyway, these mind control cautioners never seem to theorize about a world in which everyone's a raving lunatic with a megaphone explaining how you're not being controlled by the right parts of the machine. They rarely argue on behalf of awareness or changing some policy that sells people short. They just sort of lament this mongoloid hive mind that crashes into every layer of society. Mark their words, if we don't save ourselves, well, man, we're just never gonna save ourselves and that will be bad, bad news.
Drop out. If you're willing to ride your notoriety or your degree and claim a kind of authority on a topic, you have to bow and respect what your merciful masters set you up to have. If not, drop out. If you rely on ad revenue or a handful of rich fanatics to keep your voice afloat, you damn well expect their minds to be controlled by your outrage. Your institution gives you tenure and a platform, but for all your words of wisdom, you're being stamped out? You need Alex Jones to help you mold young minds or report on abuses of money and influence? If not, then who's being controlled where and what can we do to save them? It's the media? Okay, well, we'll leave that can of worms for another day.
I drop out to the best of my ability. I still get pulled over when my registration's expired. My master that day let me off with a warning. He was doing a pretty terrible job of reinforcing the idea of a police state I'd say. I don't even think he pulled his gun on me! But to listen to the news or to watch things like this, you'd think that it's even possible to exert such an exacting level of control and influence from the top. That for all the social upheavals and wars and even weather, it just takes billions of dollars to finally work out the science of controlling this world system.
I'd rather plead ignorance before fear. Fear shows a kind of precise naivety and heightened self-assuredness that seems to get us nowhere in conversation. Just onto the next blip from the next conspirator to fuel our anxieties.
And it's stupid to watch these things and say something like “Well, what they say does raise a lot of good points! Just ruminate on the overall idea but forget everything they're saying in service to it.” Um, okay, so we should probably drop acid or get really high and produce our own version that keeps the heart but drops the lies? Ya man, I don't like mind control and money is evil. Righteous. This sounds like a caricature, but I honestly don't know what else it would reduce to.
I could use a little more mind control. I actively try to avoid having a job. I've watched too many movies and read too many books to be too smitten by even the coolest or most novel ideas. I'd surrender to the machine if I saw any evidence that I could trust it. It can get pretty demoralizing to be a stray cat.
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