Anyone who has ever worked in advertising knows this is so. Likewise when trying to get a “new” idea accepted by your immediate at work superior.
The best way I can think of to personally combat the tendency is to read read and explore ideas and concepts from as many points of view as possible and then, as I always told my kids, “question everything” (even me).
Posted by whattheheck on Jul 31, 2010 at 7:07 AM
Adolph Hitler wrote that anything, if repeated often enough with a tone of authority, will be accepted as fact by the masses.
Our govt embraced this strategy, it appears, with the help of mass media, starting with the Reagan administration.
Take a single social issue— welfare. By sheer repetition, we were taught that welfare recipients enjoyed such generous benefits that getting a job would mean a reduction in income. We (repeatedly) heard about their “easy lifestyles.” In reality, benefits remained below the poverty line (i.e., the minimal income needed to cover the costs of basic needs). We repeatedly heard that women got pregnant to get more welfare benefits. In reality, the increase in benefits was a fraction of the amount needed to provide for a baby, so an additional baby left families much worse off. The leading reason for ending AFDC was that it created a “culture of dependency;” in reality, over 80% of recipients quit welfare for work as soon as their children began school. The remaining 20% had barriers to employment (illiteracy, illness, disability). By sheer, numbing repetition, we disregarded the facts to embrace beliefs that defied all logic.
Progressives are as vulnerable to this sort of training as conservatives, and have dropped the issue of poverty. A line was drawn between the “poor” and the “working poor”, one deserving and one undeserving. As you still have a job, you matter. Fall below that point, and you become a non-person. By the power of repetition, we were taught to believe that our socio-economic structure is so perfect that Americans can be poor only as a matter of “lifestyle choice.”
When can’t discuss US poverty beyond calling for jobs, as we’ve been trained to do. We’ve been doing this since the Reagan administration. Welfare “reform” created a glut of super-cheap (replacement) labor at the same time that hundreds of thousands of jobs have been draining out of the country. Far more workers, far fewer jobs. We’re still stuck at calling for jobs, unable to consider anything else.
Reality: Not everyone can work, and it will be years (if ever) before there are enough jobs for all who need them. The last I heard, for every job opening, there are six people desperate for a job. What should we do about those for whom there are no jobs today? That’s not a rhetorical question. People have, indeed, died as a direct result of our chosen policies.
Can we break past our training to start discussing this?
Posted by dhfabian on Aug 11, 2010 at 10:46 PM
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Reader Comments
It seems to me that a fine example of Sirota’s premise is militarism’s closed loop multimedia dreamscape which bore a recent public assertion that Wikileaks’ founder ‘has blood on his hands’ for posting the ‘Afghan War Diary’—perhaps implying that the perpetrators, participants, and perpetuators of that war are as pure and white as the driven snow and that any deaths preceding the release of information to the public were incidental to righteousness—a judgment that appears tragically misguided.
Anyone who has ever worked in advertising knows this is so. Likewise when trying to get a “new” idea accepted by your immediate at work superior.
The best way I can think of to personally combat the tendency is to read read and explore ideas and concepts from as many points of view as possible and then, as I always told my kids, “question everything” (even me).
Adolph Hitler wrote that anything, if repeated often enough with a tone of authority, will be accepted as fact by the masses.
Our govt embraced this strategy, it appears, with the help of mass media, starting with the Reagan administration.
Take a single social issue— welfare. By sheer repetition, we were taught that welfare recipients enjoyed such generous benefits that getting a job would mean a reduction in income. We (repeatedly) heard about their “easy lifestyles.” In reality, benefits remained below the poverty line (i.e., the minimal income needed to cover the costs of basic needs). We repeatedly heard that women got pregnant to get more welfare benefits. In reality, the increase in benefits was a fraction of the amount needed to provide for a baby, so an additional baby left families much worse off. The leading reason for ending AFDC was that it created a “culture of dependency;” in reality, over 80% of recipients quit welfare for work as soon as their children began school. The remaining 20% had barriers to employment (illiteracy, illness, disability). By sheer, numbing repetition, we disregarded the facts to embrace beliefs that defied all logic.
Progressives are as vulnerable to this sort of training as conservatives, and have dropped the issue of poverty. A line was drawn between the “poor” and the “working poor”, one deserving and one undeserving. As you still have a job, you matter. Fall below that point, and you become a non-person. By the power of repetition, we were taught to believe that our socio-economic structure is so perfect that Americans can be poor only as a matter of “lifestyle choice.”
When can’t discuss US poverty beyond calling for jobs, as we’ve been trained to do. We’ve been doing this since the Reagan administration. Welfare “reform” created a glut of super-cheap (replacement) labor at the same time that hundreds of thousands of jobs have been draining out of the country. Far more workers, far fewer jobs. We’re still stuck at calling for jobs, unable to consider anything else.
Reality: Not everyone can work, and it will be years (if ever) before there are enough jobs for all who need them. The last I heard, for every job opening, there are six people desperate for a job. What should we do about those for whom there are no jobs today? That’s not a rhetorical question. People have, indeed, died as a direct result of our chosen policies.
Can we break past our training to start discussing this?
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