How Cues and Programming Work in Mind Control and Propaganda

... Propaganda techniques are similar in many ways to programming techniques. One could say a person is being programmed when being propagandized. The combination of vision and sound on TV make a person more suggestible. Most people get their news from TV. Once a person is overly emotional or numbed out, they become more suggestible and less likely to critically think about their choices. Subliminal learning is then enhanced.

According to Sargant, various types of beliefs can be implanted in people after brain functioning has been disturbed by fear, anger or excitement. These cause heightened suggestibility and impaired judgement. These group manifestations may be classified as the herd instinct, they appear most strongly in wartime and periods of common danger.
Prolonging the time between giving a signal and the reward or giving an unexpected shock or alternating positive and negative signals and not giving the reward can also cause dramatic changes in patterns of behavior. Sargant describes Edward’s conversion techniques. In brain-washing and eliciting confessions an induced sense of guilt is important to achieve. This is also common when programming survivors. Anger against external and internal enemies nationally can be used to make the masses suggestible, like our war against Iraq. Examples in our media today are all too obvious. It is unfortunately too easy to direct people’s attention away from the fraudulent elections in our country and the outright thievery (like Enron) of the rich corporations against the populace, by creating enemies (like Iraq) and fear (like different color codes against apparently almost nonexistent threats).

Skinner believed that the environment controls the behavior (operant conditioning). Behavior is shaped and it is continued by its consequences. Operant behavior is behavior that operates on or manipulates the environment to produce consequences. This is like the bird in the Skinner box being conditioned to peck at the button to get the food. Organisms act to eliminate or avoid harmful stimuli. The consequence of this action is called a reinforcer. A negative reinforcer is aversive, the organism attempts to eliminate the aversive stimuli. People react to negative stimuli by moving away, acting aggressively or by initiating the desired behavior.

People can also be conditioned this way. A person will act, speak or dress a certain way to gain approval or to avoid insult. According to Skinner, freedom is not dependent on the feelings the contingencies generate, but it is dependent on the contingencies of reinforcement. In other words, it is not how you feel, but the result that determines your action. He believed that the ideas of a culture are the social contingencies or the behaviors they generate, the reinforcers are the society’s values. In cultural evolution, acquired practices (not genetic) that promote survival are transmitted.

Feelings are by-products of the controlling social practices. A cultural designer needs to accelerate the development of practices that develop appropriate social behavior through consequences (like laws). The malevolence or benevolence of the society depends on the social programmers, in our case those that control the media and television. Malevolent social programmers will cause wars, extreme poverty and suffering, like we see in the United States. But Skinner also believe that people make the environment which in turn controls them. Therefore people can have control, if they take it.

How can we avoid being programmed and propagandized ? (From smart issue #30)

From FactNet (about Coercive Persuasion listed under sources):

“The subjects easiest to influence are usually young, trusting, gullible, and non-critical people from protective backgrounds or people who may be particularly vulnerable because of some recent unsettled transition (my note: survivors may also fit in this category)…the rejects are likely to be individuals who have easy access to accurate, critical, or counterbalancing information. Insolent, self-centered, street-wise, highly critical or recalcitrant individuals are generally culled out…” Though everyone is susceptible to some degree.

1) Try to find out both sides of the story.

2)Learn about propaganda and mind control techniques and learn how to recognize them. If necessary, learn to avoid those using these techniques (this may be online or offline.) The media and advertisements may be a good place to start either learning about these techniques or avoiding them. At times, advertisements don’t even discuss the product or its attributes at all.

3) When in a potential situation where you can be MC’ed or propagandized, learn how to recognize the feelings of going into a meditative state and learn some of the techniques for getting out of these states. “Conference trigger management and safety” is available at http://members.aol.com/ smartnews/page5/NBpresentation99.htm I believe that avoidance of these situations is usually the best way to keep from being MC’ed or propagandized.

4) The user of propaganda or mind control techniques may exhibit a “lack of morals,” lying and/or disregarding the rules of the debate, list, group or society. This is similar to the “us vs them” or may be justified by “the ends justify the means” arguments organizations may use.

5) Try to use your gut feelings. If something doesn’t feel right, step back or remove yourself from the situation. I believe that a legitimate group or organization will give an individual the time and room to make their own choices. ...

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