I really liked this post on Econospeak. He gives an example of an effective marketing/brainwashing technique.
You advertise "More doctors smoke Camels than any other brand." This is obviously nonsense. The main point is that smoking is bad for you.
However, repeatedly advertising nonsense DOES SERVE A PURPOSE! People learn to filter out *ALL* discussion about smoking, including "smoking is bad for you"!
This works in politics. 99.9%+ of all political discourse is complete and utter nonsense. Therefore, people learn to filter out all discussions of politics! Repeatedly broadcasting nonsense serves a purpose! This trains people to reflexively not think critically about politics.
If 99.9%+ of all political discourse is nonsense, people are trained to ignore anyone who talks intelligently!
When people see a discussion of politics, the critical thinking portion of their brain shuts down. Is this the reason for that behavior?
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Repeated Lies Drown Out the Truth
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Not unlike how politics and religion are meant to be taboo discussion topics.
When in fact, the broad sweeping effects of both should make them infinitely more important than football, American Idol, cars or shopping.
Remember this sage advice: if you can get them asking the wrong questions, who cares about the answers? The same applies with the State and other corrupt peoples.
Post a Comment