psychology – Page 89

VJMP Reads: Edward Bernays’s Propaganda II

This reading carries on from here.

The second chapter of Propaganda is called ‘The New Propaganda’. Here, Bernays elucidates some of the differences between the original approach to propaganda that arose with the advent of mass media, and the “new” approach that was developed after the application of mass psychology techniques to making propaganda more effective.

The industrial revolution has made kings much less powerful than they once were, relative to the masses. It spread economic power, and, with that, political power. The old democrats used to believe that it was possible to educate everyone up to the level where they could participate in rulership – in reality, the average person falls well short of what is required.

Propaganda fills this gap, serving as the means by which the minority can still rule the majority. “Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible Government.” The education of the common man, instead of teaching him to think freely, only conditioned him to become receptive to propaganda. Now his mind is receptive to propaganda of all sorts.

Using examples from a daily newspaper, Bernays explains how propaganda works in the mainstream media. Anything stated as true by an authority, such as the State Department, is taken as such. Here Bernays gives us a definition of propaganda: “Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group.”

In practice, very little is done nowadays without some kind of propaganda campaign alongside it. Propaganda regiments the public mind every bit as much as the Army regiments the bodies of its soldiers. A group so regimented can be every bit as effective as an army.

Today, the approval of the public is necessary for any large undertaking. Therefore, propaganda is necessary for any large undertaking. Formerly, rulers could set the course of history simply by doing things. Today, the masses have control, so propaganda is needed to wrest that control back. As a consequence, propaganda is here to stay.

It was World War I, and the astonishing success of propaganda in that war to manipulate public opinion, that made people aware of what could be done. This was the first time that not only a multimedia approach was made to encourage people to support the national endeavour, but also key men were brought on board in a massive range of industries.

The new propaganda doesn’t just target the individual, but takes into consideration the structure of society and the way that information spreads through it. This is now a feature of society, because new proposals for reform must be clearly articulated before they will be influential. No-one can get anything done anymore without propaganda.

Bernays concludes this chapter by noting that “In the active proselytizing minorities in whom selfish interests and public interests coincide lie the progress and development of America.” The world is controlled by the small number of men that control propaganda, who make the rest of us think as they will, and society only progresses when their will is in accord with the collective good.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 is also available.

Why Intelligence Can Never Be a Fixed Concept

Intelligence is something that everyone appears to understand, but no-one can agree on a definition. Despite this, people are pretty sure that it can be measured. Although tests that measure IQ have been shown to have a lot of predictive value, a precise definition of term remains elusive. But as this essay will examine, intelligence can never be a fixed concept anyway.

What is intelligence? A common definition of intelligence is “ability to recognise patterns and avoid dangers”. Another is “the ability to apply knowledge and skills”, which assumes that intelligence is an entirely different thing to instinct. Other definitions involve a capacity for learning, logic, reasoning, self-awareness etc. Despite this variety, most people think they know it when they see it.

A previous essay here discussed how there are at least two different spectrums of intelligence, and how both of them might appear to be intelligent in some situations and not in others. Another essay suggested that there is both a masculine and a feminine intelligence and stupidity. What’s apparent from all of these different definitions is that some behaviours are intelligent in some circumstances, and unintelligent in other circumstances, depending on how adaptive they are to the environment.

For example, being able to faithfully repeat what you are told is a sign of intelligence when a student has a good teacher who educates them honestly. When the student is a political cadre being indoctrinated into a dangerous ideology, it’s not a sign of intelligence. However, the underlying neurological and psychological attributes that enable either are roughly the same.

Most people can also accept that intelligence is something that evolved, controversial as that may be when one gets into the specifics of it. The reasons for this evolution are presumably because intelligence provided a selective advantage in either staying alive or finding mates and reproducing.

The first one of these points seems pretty obvious: if you are smart you are better able to avoid the dangers that the natural world has created. Intelligence is highly correlated with pattern recognition, and recognising patterns is the key to recognising dangers. If you notice that the last person who did something died, you are less likely to do it. Therefore, you are more likely to survive to reproductive age yourself.

The second point is more subtle, but equally clear if one thinks about it. The more intelligent a creature is the better shape it will keep itself in, therefore the healthier it will be, and the more attractive a mate it will seem to others of its kind. This greater attractiveness will lead to more mating opportunities, and therefore more offspring (all other things being equal).

However, there’s a hidden paradox in this simple biological definition. If intelligence is biological, then it cannot be a fixed concept, because if it’s an adaptation to the environment it will change along with that environment.

Aside from the odd species like crocodiles, who have found one evolutionary niche and just stayed there, animal species tend to be opportunistic. They tend to range across a number of niches and take food, water and reproductive opportunities when they arise. The most excellent example of this is the human being, who has adapted to many environments and who is capable of anything.

As the environment keeps changing, so too will the optimal behaviours within each environment change.

For instance, much of the behaviour that we currently associate with intelligence has much to do with avoiding impulsive behaviours. Someone who stops and thinks before taking action will be almost universally considered more intelligent than someone who does not. Likewise, someone who saves money will be considered more intelligent than someone who wastes it, and someone who reads books will be considered more intelligent than someone who parties.

This is all well and good in a civilised, industrial society like ours. But if society should break down, then the equilibrium point will shift back from cautious deliberation towards opportunism. If there is no law and order, then there’s no advantage in taking one’s time to consider things. The advantage shifts towards those with the propensity to hit and run before the opportunity is lost. Intelligence would then become a matter of understanding the importance of not hesitating.

Another problem is that the kind of skills and aptitudes that made a person become considered intelligent by their peers in the ancient past are not necessarily the same today. Human survival in the past had a lot to do with astrology, animal husbandry and swordsmanship – all skills that are now only practiced by small minorities. A person might have been considered highly intelligent in the past on account of that their brain made them good at animal husbandry, but the same person might be considered low intelligence today if they can’t find a technological skill.

It might even go the other way. Society might continue to become more and more technological, so that the selective advantage wasn’t in favour of impulsivity but in favour of the kind of semi-autistic gadgetry obsession that distinguishes people who are today considered nerds. Such a society might no longer have any need for social intelligence but would rather operate on computer science aptitude.

In all of these cases, the society that results after massive environmental change will define intelligence as adaptation to it, not as adaptation to some other time and place. Neither will they define intelligence as an adaptation to the natural world in which we evolved, because such a thing no longer exists.

In the end, the concept of intelligence is a biological one, and therefore can only be understood relative to a specific environment, or set of environments. Because the natural world keeps changing – and our social world even faster – the concept of intelligence will keep evolving as humans do. It can therefore never be a fixed and clearly defined concept.

Peterson Derangement Syndrome

Many words have been written about Trump Derangement Syndrome, and Obama Derangement Syndrome, and Bush Derangement Syndrome. This refers to the ability to cause people, who are otherwise reasonable, to go insane at the mere mention of your name. It’s rare for anyone who is not an American President to achieve this power level, but recently one man has threatened to: Canadian Psychology Professor Jordan Peterson.

Peterson was a minor celebrity among YouTube psychology nerds for his insightful lectures into psychopathology and Nietzsche when he inadvertently decided to tell the world that the emperor had no clothes. This he did in the form of refusing to accede to compelled speech in the form of pronouns.

In particular, he spoke out about a Canadian bill called C-16, which – according to Peterson’s interpretation – would lead to people facing criminal charges for referring to a person with a pronoun other than the one they would prefer to be used. The collective consciousness was shocked, at first, but Peterson insisted that refusing to use a person’s preferred pronoun was a fair thing to do, in cases when that pronoun clearly wasn’t accurate.

It was then the shitstorm began.

Accusations of “literal fascism” began to fly as the social justice warriors demanded Peterson’s head for refusing to meet their demands to dance on command. In response, he threw more petrol on the fire. The psychologist was not content with merely saying that transgender pronouns were bollocks, but that an entire suite of leftist shibboleths were all garbage as well.

Communism was crap, the gender gap was false, most of the racial IQ difference is genetic and – worst of all – he refuted the tabula rasa theory.

Peterson Derangement Syndrome is when an individual is reduced to a hissing, demented rage merely at the mention of the name of Jordan Peterson. Much like the derangement syndromes named after American Presidents, a person with this condition is unable to concede that there might be anything good about Peterson, or that he might have any ideas worth listening to. The mention of his name seems to trigger a limbic hijack in those with the condition.

Unlike the majority of talking heads in the media, Peterson is a legitimate intellectual. Not only does Peterson actually have a Ph.D, but he has also worked for many years as a Psychology lecturer at both McGill and Harvard Universities. On top of that, he has over 10,000 academic citations.

So part of Peterson Derangement Syndrome is believing that a man with a Ph.D and over 10,000 academic citations is not a legitimate intellectual. Sufferers of it are happy to dismiss him as a charlatan and a fraud, someone who simply makes things up with no basis in reality at all. This is clearly absurd when the man in question has passed peer review with such accolades.

The anti-Peterson movement has taken on cult-like properties, in the sense that for people with Peterson Derangement Syndrome, the rest of the world is either with them or against them on the matter. Social media has induced them into believing that Peterson is a Hitler-like figure who campaigns tirelessly for the reintroduction of some kind of fascism. It can be seen from this, that part of Peterson Derangement Syndrome is simple mass hysteria.

Many Peterson haters deride his fans as a horde of incels, desperately looking for a father figure to help them replace their lost masculinity. In this, they have half of a point, but they also betray their own neurosis. Most Peterson haters also hate their own fathers, and usually because those fathers failed to provide a space of order in which those people could grow. This father-hate is then displaced onto the foremost father figure, which is Peterson.

Many of the people who become deranged at the mention of Peterson’s name are living out some unresolved conflict with an authority figure, from some point in their past. Usually this adversary is their father, but it could also be a teacher, guidance counsellor or even a Police officer. To these damaged souls, Peterson represents a force trying to suffocate their free spirit.

At the core of Peterson Derangement Syndrome is a hatred of masculinity, in particular a hatred of order.

Peterson is himself an exceptionally masculine figure, having succeeded in imposing major order upon his own life. It’s extremely difficult to become learned enough to get tenure as an academic professor, especially if you weren’t from a family that groomed you for such a role from youth. It takes incredible amounts of will and commitment, and many people see such a thing and feel self-hatred.

So some of what causes Peterson Derangement Syndrome is simple Tall Poppy Syndrome. The majority of his critics are bleating soyboys who would struggle to read a book, let alone lecture an academic discipline for many years and then write a book. Much of their opprobrium can be chalked up to the simple envy of a lesser towards their better.

At the core of it, though, is a depraved alliance of trans activists, Marxists, fedora-tippers, neo-Luddites, anti-science morons and, ironically enough, actual Nazis, all of who have generated so much collective outrage that encountering someone who likes Peterson is enough to tip them over the edge into derangement. Claiming to be a Peterson fan is to declare yourself the enemy.

Now that Peterson has been invited to speak at a Trilateral Commission meeting we can guess that his influence will be around for a very long time. This will mean that Peterson Derangement Syndrome will only become more intense, pushing up towards Donald Trump levels.

The Case For Cannabis: Reform Would Not Send The Wrong Message to the Children

One of the usual reasons trotted out for opposing cannabis law reform is that it “wouldn’t send the right message to the kids”. This was the statement that John Key frequently made to the media when pressed on the subject. As this article will examine, however, this thought-terminating cliche also attitude is mistaken.

It might sound laughable, but there are many in the New Zealand Government who believe that their personal conduct sets an example for the rest of the country to follow. These deluded fools genuinely believe that the young people of the nation look to them as an example of integrity, honesty and correct conduct. So detached from the people are they, that they are entirely unaware of the contempt in which they are held.

Some of these egomaniacs are afraid that making any move on cannabis law reform would “send the wrong message to the kids”. By this, they think that liberalising the cannabis laws will lead to a spate of young people taking up cannabis use as a habit, on account of that their elders had sent them the message that it was okay.

Leaving aside the obvious retort that this would actually be a good thing if it stopped those young people from doing as much alcohol or synthetic drugs, there are a number of reasons to think that this reasoning is illogical.

For one thing, the message that the politicians appear to be sending by example of their conduct is one of alcohol, tobacco and sleaze. If they are the ones setting the standards for the young to follow, then we can look forward to many decades of boozing, bribery, infidelity, dishonesty, backstabbing and all manner of petty quibbling and bitching.

For another thing, we have to ask ourselves if prohibition itself is actually a good message to be sending out.

The message that the Government seems to be sending by enforcing cannabis prohibition is that the best way to deal with drug problems is by putting people in cages. If someone has a drug dependency of some kind, the way to help them is not by giving them medical care, but by physically forcing them into a cage full of rapists, murderers and thieves.

They seem to be telling people that empathy and compassion don’t factor into government decisions, and that they are more than happy to brutally force citizens to conform to arbitrary laws, even when those same citizens don’t consent to them. Your body is the property of the Government, and they can do what they want with it, including put it in a cage if you use a medicine they don’t approve of.

Worse, they’re also sending the message that science, logic and reason don’t factor into government decisions. The Government is happy to go along with foreign mass hysteria about reefer madness, and thinks it acceptable to force laws onto New Zealanders on the grounds that they have been introduced overseas, with no consideration given to the science or to the need for evidence.

Perhaps the worst message of all has been that sent by Parliamentarians who have ignored all the letters and emails they have received from their constituents about cannabis law reform. For decades, Kiwis have been entreating their Parliamentarians to do something about cannabis prohibition, knowing how much access to cannabis medicine would improve their life quality. And for decades, those Parliamentarians did nothing – the vast majority too cowardly to even raise a peep.

By ignoring the will of the people for cannabis reform, the Government is sending the message that it’s acceptable for the Government to impose whatever arbitrary laws it likes on the population, even without that population’s consent, and then to ignore them when they complain about the suffering caused. This is far more of a danger than the risk of Parliamentarians sending the message that it’s okay to use cannabis.

If the Government is truly concerned about the message that their conduct sends to the people, they ought to legalise cannabis today, and make an apology for all the suffering their actions caused by waging a War on Drugs against their own people. This would send a message of humility, integrity and contrition – much better than imprisoning people for using a substance that the New Zealand people think should be legal.

This article is an excerpt from The Case For Cannabis Law Reform, compiled by Vince McLeod and due for release by VJM Publishing in the summer of 2018/19.