"It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion. Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play."
- Joseph Goebbels
"Words realize nothing, verify nothing to you, unless you have suffered in your own person the thing which the words try to describe. A powerful agent is the right word: it lights the reader's way and makes it plain; a close approximation to it will answer, and much traveling is done in a well-enough fashion by its help, but we do not welcome it and applaud it and rejoice in it as we do when the right one blazes out on us. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt: it tingles exquisitely around through the walls of the mouth and tastes as tart and crisp and good as the autumn-butter that creams the sumac-berry."
- Mark TwainI found this on a mathematics 'word problem' website:
"The hardest thing about doing word problems is taking the English words and translating them into mathematics. Usually, once you get the math equation, you're fine; the actual math involved is often fairly simple. But figuring out the actual equation can seem nearly impossible. Be advised, however: To really learn "how to do" word problems, you will need to practice, practice, practice."
So, my thoughts that I have had for a few years now, finely tuned, honed and distilled by countless swims, bikes and runs, will now be addressed. Hopefully.
This is a theory I have had on how to reverse the mathematical equation and apply it to English grammar. Basically, reversing the above statement: Taking mathematical equations and applying them to the word, sentence and paragraph. Even to complete books. I think choosing certain words and grouping them together in a certain way can obtain a desired effect, i.e. an emotional response or feeling. So, if you can repeat the desired effect with different combination of words, then one can focus a message and control the unknowing recipient.
PR people, marketing executives and politicians know this. It's what their job is about.
One timely event that should strengthen my theory is the upcoming presidential debates, starting Friday, September 26th.
Watch how each candidate carefully selects the words, sentences and paragraphs to say the least and evoke the most emotional response as possible to get you to vote for them. They answer a question without answering the question.
Words are symbols for concepts.
Concepts catagorize experience.
Experience provides knowledge.
Knowledge is expressed in words that are symbols of concepts.
It's funny because I have been interested in this subject for quite a long time. When I was 22-years-old and in my Communications 101 class in college, I wrote my thesis paper on "Shamanism and Language: The Creation of Reality Through Words." The main concept was that in aboriginal cultures, words were magic symbols which created patterns of thought which created realities. The Shaman would cast "magic spells" to help and heal the community. Sorcerers would cast "spells" to harm people. I stated that nothing has changed except amount of words the "controllers/media" (who used to be the shamans/sorcerers) have access to.
Seriously. At 22. (Oh, and for credibility, I got an A on the paper and in the class!!!)
So, here's the idea:
The mass media industrial concerns in both the commercial and governmental sectors that deal with information control spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually practicing the art of propaganda. Corporations, as well as the federal government of America, have spent many decades and hundreds of billions of dollars researching how best to effect the opinions of the American people.
The information available to the ordinary common American is radically less than that which is available to the producers of mass media or 'information' campaigns which use advertising agencies, public relations firms and political consultants.
An uninformed, ignorant populace is far easier to manipulate than an educated, thinking populace.
American culture has devolved into a materialistic consumption oriented society, uninformed and ignorant.
Opinion manipulation is practiced so individuals may acquire wealth. (i.e. advertising, marketing through branding)
This is the current American way of life.
It is known that the human brain processes different sensory mediums in different ways.
Written and spoken words are put through a symbol decoding process where the brain deciphers the words and the sentence structure in order to properly interpret what the mind is reading or hearing. In this process, both the conscious and unconscious mind go through an internal debate comparing and interpreting new information with what is already known to be true.
Two individuals communicating through words, written or spoken, that come from the same culture and social group will necessarily understand one another better than those that come from a different culture or social group. Even within the same culture and social groups those with different experience sets such as age, place of birth, social classification, work experience and hobbies will necessarily experience corruption of the original conceptual image created by the word symbols.
This corruption is inevitable.
By taking emotional responses attached to the words of the greatest common denominator of the human experience, those at the helm of the control machine can cross culture and social groups and reach the greatest number of their audience.
Fear of the unknown, the urge to mate/copulate and the acquisition of wealth are the key emotional reactions they use.
"We are what we think." - Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)
We are what we think is true in that our mental lives, which others experience as our attitude, predicates what we will become.The essence of reality suggests that thoughts creating actions of compassion will be reflected back as compassion; and thoughts creating actions of avarice will be reflected back as avarice!
By knowing this, the powers that be can engineer and replicate emotional responses with words just like a mathematical equation always has the same answer. That's the mathematical equation for opinion manipulation.
So what are you thinking? And, who or what is influencing your thinking?
Is the mathematics of nearest common denominator opinion manipulation controlling you or your life?
You'll know when 2 + 2 = 5.
I know this was a stretch and that there are many concepts here that could be expanded. Leave me a comment and expand on this discussion with your own thoughts. I'm just freethinking this concept and trying to organize my thoughts on it ...
"During a war, news should be given out for instruction rather than information. It would not be impossible to prove, with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the individuals concerned, that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas in disguise."
- Hermann Hesse
FYI - my friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. here is the link:
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1 comment:
We are so used to being manipulated, we never question if we are.
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