Only History Could Help Us

[labelwench]

I read your latest post, with reference to The Simpsons, and similar so-named entertainment programs, with interest, as I recall upon my first viewing of same, that I found them quite offensive. Upon further viewing, I emerged with a different perspective, recognizing that at least some of these programs were still attempting to teach morals through the use of satire, not necessarily in a form that I appreciated, but still recognizable as a teaching form.

That being said, there are still many programs that can not make such claim, no matter from which perspective one views them.

My question then would be, what purpose does such desensitizing to violence serve, in the broader social context?

Perhaps I am old fashioned, yet my understanding of story-telling, in any genre, is that such is designed to serve a purpose.

Therefore, I ask again, what purpose is served by this excessive display of violence, thinly disguised as entertainment?

[RascalPuff]

I read your latest post, with reference to The Simpsons, and similar so-named entertainment programs, with interest, as I recall upon my first viewing of same, that I found them quite offensive. Upon further viewing, I emerged with a different perspective, recognizing that at least some of these programs were still attempting to teach morals through the use of satire, not necessarily in a form that I appreciated, but still recognizable as a teaching form.

That being said, there are still many programs that can not make such claim, no matter from which perspective one views them.

My question then would be, what purpose does such desensitizing to violence serve, in the broader social context?

Perhaps I am old fashioned, yet my understanding of story-telling, in any genre, is that such is designed to serve a purpose.

Therefore, I ask again, what purpose is served by this excessive display of violence, thinly disguised as entertainment?

A desensitized public is a less humane culture, prepared to rationalize and endure the abuse of others including themselves. Aka, 'tolerance thresh-hold expansion'. What does the rogue (major media monopolizing) corporate state have to gain by this? Perhaps, a higher national gross product... Normalising aberrent behavior, estranging people from self respect and each other. Dividing and thereby conquering. A disunited - rogue 'entertainment industry' distracted - masses is much easier to manipulate, take and maintain control of. It is not a new method, that being the establishment of 'order' through the application of chaos. (NeoFascism, long before the rise and fall of the 3rd Reich - which capitalized on appealing to the lower senses and exalting unneccessary militaristic posturing.) If and when you cannot, or choose not to govern, administrate and/or educate: entertain. P.S. Go for the crotch. The exemplary 'South Park' may be the worst offender, said to be an adult programming format, while featuring the interaction of many children, and of course it reaches the children, as, I submit, it was intended to do from its advent. When the mindset of the children is altered to compromise and otherwise agree with such a scenario, the cultural countenance is set for a downward spiral in future considerations. Examples of indifference toward violence are particularly evident in violent commercials, where the 'actors' who are not harmed or humiliated, remain unresponsive and unsympathetic. This is the stuff of which neoFascism is made.

Wiki:
Mein Kampf contains the blueprint of later Nazi propaganda efforts. Assessing his audience, Hitler writes in chapter IV:

"Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...) The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood."[5]

As to the methods to be employed, he explains:

"Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. (...) Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula."

Hitler put these ideas into practice with the reestablishment of the Völkischer Beobachter, a daily newspaper published by the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from February 1925 on, whose circulation reached 26,175 in 1929. It was joined in 1926 by Joseph Goebbels's Der Angriff, another unabashedly and crudely propagandistic paper.
During most of the Nazis' time in opposition, their means of propaganda remained limited. With little access to mass media, the party continued to rely heavily on Hitler and a few others speaking at public meetings until 1929.[6] In April 1930, Hitler appointed Goebbels head of party propaganda. Goebbels, a former journalist and Nazi party officer in Berlin, soon proved his skills. Among his first successes was the organization of riotous demonstrations that succeeded in having the American anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front banned in Germany.[7]
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What makes it different since the age of mass media is the fact that it can be projected upon and applied to so many people simultaneously, for such a long time. Incidentally, one of the first major political actions that Hitler enacted when he became Chancellor, is, he took control of all radio and press media (there was no TV at that time, except in laboratories). I respectfully submit, LW, that in 'adjusting' to the 'teaching method' found in the exemplary Simpson's, you - and a corroborating multitude - surrendered your tolerance thresholds to larger parameters, which is the objective of the rogue elements in the entertainment industry I allude to. I am grateful for your response, your concern and your candor, as usual - you consistently cast a wide loop of comprehension regarding just about any issue, certainly including this one.

Best regards,
- RP

[labelwench]

You make fair comment, Kai, and in truth, my tolerance for The Simpsons was only grudging, and from empathy with the character of Lisa, although I could relate to knowing persons who quite fit all members of the cast, so, cleverly done from the creative analysis.

Interesting that my initial reaction to the show was absolute rage, and I watched a few more episodes to analyze why it was triggering such in me. More guys than gals seemed to find the show entertaining, from my personal study, and I have not watched television, save for CBC news on occasion, in quite some time. Have not bought a paper in a couple of years, listen to 40 minutes of radio three days a week, when driving to work myself. A dreadfully 'unconditioned' member of society.

Thankfully, the 'endless loop music' is turned off in the store most of the night, so am only exposed to it for 2 hours at the end of shift, four nights a week. Subliminal influences are everywhere....hard to avoid, the next best defense is to at least be aware of most of them and monitor any change in one's own attitude or conduct.

It would be my observation, that despite our rallying cries for 'Freedom', and that so many have given their lives in pursuit of this most important attribute of our western society, in reality, very few individuals truly understand the responsibilities that befall them in the maintenance of such freedom, or make the best possible use of that personal privilege.

Our species is very much comprised of a majority of 'follower types' (despite the outcry to the contrary, lol). We are biologically a herd species, therefore not very difficult to condition by those who would study such matters.

After all, what is 'propaganda' but rhetoric with a specific purpose?

[RascalPuff]

A Luminary History Lesson
(Exerpted from 'The Story of Mankind', by Hendrik van Loon):

"Here, let me give you a little warning. When you read a novel about the French revolution or see a play or a movie, you will easily get the impression that the Revolution was the work of the rabble from the Paris slums. It was nothing of the kind. The mob appears often upon the “evolutionary" stage, but invariably at the instigation and under the leadership of those middle-class professional men who used the hungry multitude as an efficient ally in their warfare upon the king and his court. But the fundamental ideas which caused the revolution were invented by a few brilliant minds, and they were at first introduced into the charming drawing-rooms of the “Ancien Regime” to provide amiable diversion for the much-bored ladies and gentlemen of his Majesty’s court. These pleasant but careless people played with the dangerous fireworks of social criticism until the sparks fell through the cracks of the floor, which was old and rotten just like the rest of the building. Those sparks unfortunately landed in the basement where age-old rubbish lay in great confusion. Then there was a cry of fire. But the owner of the house who was interested in everything except the management of his property, did not know how to put the small blaze out. The flame spread rapidly and the entire edifice was consumed by the conflagration, which we call the Great French Revolution."

[RascalPuff]

"For the sake of convenience, we can divide the French Revolution into two parts. From 1789 to 1791 there was a more or less orderly attempt to introduce a constitutional monarchy. This failed, partly through lack of good faith and stupidity on the part of the monarch himself, partly through circumstances over which nobody had any control.
From 1792 to 1799 there was a Republic and a first effort to establish a democratic form of government. But the actual outbreak of violence had been preceded by many years of unrest and many sincere but ineffectual attempts at reform.
When France had a debt of 4000 million francs and the treasury was always empty and there was not a single thing upon which new taxes could be levied, even good King Louis (who was an expert locksmith and a great hunter but a very poor statesman) felt vaguely that something ought to be done. Therefore he called for Turgot, to be his Minister of Finance. Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de l’Aulne, a man in the early sixties, a splendid representative of the fast disappearing class of landed gentry, had been a successful governor of a province and was an amateur political economist of great ability. He did his best. Unfortunately, he could not perform miracles. As it was impossible to squeeze more taxes out of the ragged peasants, it was necessary to get the necessary funds from the nobility and clergy who had never paid a centime. This made Turgot the best hated man at the court of Versailles. Furthermore he was obliged to face the enmity of Marie Antoinette, the queen, who was against everybody who dared to mention the word “economy” within her hearing. Soon Turgot was called an “unpractical visionary” and a “theoretical- professor” and then of course his position became untenable. In the year 1776 he was forced to resign."
- Ibid (The rest is also, history, including Les Miserables...)

[RascalPuff]

"The Estates General came together on May 5th, 1789. The king was in a bad humour. The Clergy and the Nobility let it be known that they were unwilling to give up a single one of their privileges. The king ordered the three groups of representatives to meet in different rooms and discuss their grievances separately. The Third Estate refused to obey the royal command. They took a solemn oath to that effect in a squash court (hastily put in order for the purpose of this illegal meeting) on the 20th of June, 1789. They insisted that all three Estates, Nobility, Clergy and Third Estate, should meet together and so informed His Majesty. The king gave in.
As the “National Assembly,” the Estates General began to discuss the state of the French kingdom. The King got angry. Then again he hesitated. He said that he would never surrender his absolute power. Then he went hunting, forgot all about the cares of the state and when he returned from the chase he gave in. For it was the royal habit to do the right thing at the wrong time in the wrong way. When the people clamoured for A, the king scolded them and gave them nothing. Then, when the Palace was surrounded by a howling multitude of poor people, the king surrendered and gave his subjects what they had asked for. By this time, however, the people wanted A plus B. The comedy was repeated. When the king signed his name to the Royal Decree which granted his beloved subjects A and B they were threatening to kill the entire royal family unless they received A plus B plus C. And so on, through the whole alphabet and up to the scaffold.
Unfortunately the king was always just one letter behind. He never understood this. Even when he laid his head under the guillotine, he felt that he was a much-abused man who had received a most unwarrantable treatment at the hands of people whom he had loved to the best of his limited ability.
Historical “ifs,” as I have often warned you, are never of any value. It is very easy for us to say that the monarchy might have been saved “if” Louis had been a man of greater energy and less kindness of heart. But the king was not alone. Even “if” he had possessed the ruthless strength of Napoleon, his career during these difficult days might have been easily ruined by his wife who was the daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria and who possessed all the characteristic virtues and vices of a young girl who had been brought up at the most autocratic and mediaeval court of that age.
She decided that some action must be taken and planned a counter-revolution. Necker was suddenly dismissed and loyal troops were called to Paris. The people, when they heard of this, stormed the fortress of the Bastille prison, and on the fourteenth of July of the year 1789, they destroyed this familiar but much-hated symbol of Autocratic Power which had long since ceased to be a political prison and was now used as the city lock-up for pickpockets and second- story men. Many of the nobles took the hint and left the country. But the king as usual did nothing. He had been hunting on the day of the fall of the Bastille and he had shot several deer and felt very much pleased." - Ibid

[RascalPuff]

"Then a terrible panic of fear swept throughout the land of France. All the pent-up hatred of years of hunger and suffering came to a horrible climax. The mob of Paris stormed the palace of the Tuilleries. The faithful Swiss bodyguards tried to defend their master, but Louis, unable to make up his mind, gave order to “cease firing” just when the crowd was retiring. The people, drunk with blood and noise and cheap wine, murdered the Swiss to the last man, then invaded the palace, and went after Louis who had escaped into the meeting hall of the Assembly, where he was immediately suspended of his office, and from where he was taken as a prisoner to the old castle of the Temple.

But the armies of Austria and Prussia continued their advance and the panic changed into hysteria and turned men and women into wild beasts. In the first week of September of the year 1792, the crowd broke into the jails and murdered all the prisoners. The government did not interfere. The Jacobins, headed by Danton, knew that this crisis meant either the success or the failure of the revolution, and that only the most brutal audacity could save them. The Legislative Assembly was closed and on the 21st of September of the year 1792, a new National Convention came together. It was a body composed almost entirely of extreme revolutionists. The king was formally accused of high treason and was brought before the Convention. He was found guilty and by a vote of 361 to 360 (the extra vote being that of his cousin the Duke of Orleans) he was condemned to death. On the 21st of January of the year 1793, he quietly and with much dignity suffered himself to be taken to the scaffold. He had never understood what all the shooting and the fuss had been about. And he had been too proud to ask questions.

Then the Jacobins turned against the more moderate element in the convention, the Girondists, called after their southern district, the Gironde. A special revolutionary tribunal was instituted and twenty-one of the leading Girondists were condemned to death. The others committed suicide. They were capable and honest men but too philosophical and too moderate to survive during these frightful years.

In October of the year 1793 the Constitution was suspended by the Jacobins “until peace should have been declared.” All power was placed in the hands of a small committee of Public Safety, with Danton and Robespierre as its leaders. The Christian religion and the old chronology were abolished. The “Age of Reason” (of which Thomas Paine had written so eloquently during the American Revolution) had come and with it the “Terror” which for more than a year killed good and bad and indifferent people at the rate of seventy or eighty a day.
The autocratic rule of the King had been destroyed. It was succeeded by the tyranny of a few people who had such a passionate love for democratic virtue that they felt compelled to kill all those who disagreed with them. France was turned into a slaughter house. Everybody suspected everybody else. No one felt safe. Out of sheer fear, a few members of the old Convention, who knew that they were the next candidates for the scaffold, finally turned against Robespierre, who had already decapitated most of his former colleagues. Robespierre, “the only true and pure Democrat,” tried to kill himself but failed His shattered jaw was hastily bandaged and he was dragged to the guillotine. On the 27th of July, of the year 1794 (the 9th Thermidor of the year II, according to the strange chronology of the revolution), the reign of Terror came to an end, and all Paris danced with joy.

The dangerous position of France, however, made it necessary that the government remain in the hands of a few strong men, until the many enemies of the revolution should have been driven from the soil of the French fatherland. While the half-clad and half-starved revolutionary armies fought their desperate battles of the Rhine and Italy and Belgium and Egypt, and defeated every one of the enemies of the Great Revolution, five Directors were appointed, and they ruled France for four years. Then the power was vested in the hands of a successful general by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, who became “First Consul” of France in the year 1799. And during the next fifteen years, the old European continent became the laboratory of a number of political experiments, the like of which the world had never seen before.

Napoleon was what is called a fast worker. His career does not cover more than twenty years. In that short span of time he fought more wars and gained more victories and marched more miles and conquered more square kilometers and killed more people and brought about more reforms and generally upset Europe to a greater extent than anybody (including Alexander the Great and Jenghis Khan) had ever managed to do." - Ibid

[RascalPuff]

"In 'A Clockwork Orange', author, Anthony Burgess also attacks the theories of B. F. Skinner, a behavioral psychologist who believed that indiividual freedoms were an illusion. Skinnner was interested in modifying people's behavior by rewarding them for certain behavior and punishing them for other kinds of behavior. Like other psychologists before him, he believed people would eventually associate the behavior desired with the pleasure of the reward they received for it. Burgess parodies Skinner's techniques with his fictional 'Ludvico's Technique', which scientists use to brainwash (a violent criminal named) Alex. Burgess considered (this kind of) behaviorism (Behavior modification technique) revolting and its (Stanley Kubrick film adaptation) popularity, threatening. In an interview he called one of Skinner's works, 'Beyond Freedom and Dignity', "one of the most dangerous books ever written". - Excerpt from 'Sparknotes on Literature'. Illustration from Wikipedia.

[Mikal]

The contrived excuses for our divisive behaviors have been:
• Social Darwinism (the need to compete for survival),
• B.F. Skinner's operant conditioning theory (that man is a slave to reward and punishment),
• Konrad Lorenz's theory, which excuses our divisive behaviour by saying it is stereotyped and the product of past experiences (i.e. it's instinctive),
• Robert Ardrey's theory, which said our competitiveness was due to an imperative to defend our territory and
• Edward Wilson's sociobiology theory, which argues that our selfishness is due to our need to perpetuate our genes.
• The latest contrivance is the emphasis given to chaos rather than order in the label 'Chaos' Theory. As Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Zoology at Harvard University) said, 'Chaos is fundamentally a deterministic theory' (from a lecture in Sydney for the Australian Museum Society, 15/6/91).
I would point out that each of these contrived excuses contains an element of truth. In fact they represent significant advances in knowledge, but the insight they contain is being presented in such a way as to protect humans from unjust criticism.

Biologist—Jeremy Griffith


'What has happened in our society in the last half century or so is that our young people in the colleges, universities and schools have been taught the theory of evolution as an established fact. They've been taught that evolution is an exclusively naturalistic theory, and that God is not necessary. God, by definition, is excluded from the process. When the student hears this, he thinks we start with hydrogen gas and our only destiny is a pile of dust. [The pile of dust is a reference to the evasive emphasis of science on entropy, which implies that disintegration is our destiny or meaning.]' (Dr Duane Gish, Associate Director, Institute of Creation Research, San Diego. The Sydney Morning Herald, 8/1/86.)


Regards Mikal

[RascalPuff]

The Seville Statement
"At a meeting (* in Spain) at Seville University in 1986, a majority of those present issued a statement, modeled on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's Statement on Race, condemning belief in man's violent nature in absolute terms.

The Seville Statement contains five articles, each beginning 'It Is scientifically Incorrect'. The articles together amount to a condemnation of all characterisations of man as naturally violent. In succession they deny that 'we have inherited a tendency to make war from our animal ancestors' or that 'war or any other violent behavior is genetically programmed into our human nature', or that 'in the course of human evolution there has been a selection for aggressive behavior more than for other kinds of behavior' or that 'humans have a "violent brain", or, finally, that ‘war is caused by "instinct", or any single motivation'.
- John Keegan, A HISTORY OF WARFARE, p.p. 79-81

The Seville Statement, Pt. II
“At a hopeful time in human history, a time of effective disarmament and the adoption of Humanitarianism as a principle in world affairs, the lay person naturally seeks the reassurance that the drafters of the Seville statement have right on their, side. Mankind's success over the last two centuries in altering for better the material circumstances of life would then encourage support for the materialist's explanation of organized human violence, in the anticipation that a continuation of the efforts that have largely defeated disease, want, ignorance and the hardship of manual labor, might eliminate warfare also...

The history of warfare from the stone age onward, would then become an antiquarian interest, of no more relevance to every-day life than that of world exploration or of pre Newtonian science.

'If, on the other hand, the drafters of the Seville Statement are wrong, if their condemnations of the naturalist explanation of human violence are mere expressions of optimism, then the materialist explanation is wrong as well, and our end of-the-century expectations of an end to war, is entirely misplaced. It is important to know what both the pessimists and the optimists in the naturalist (Materialist included) school have to say.

“The Seville statement has found weighty support. It has, for example. been adopted by the American Anthropological Association. It does not yet much help the layman; who is aware that war has ancient origins."
- A HISTORY OF WARFARE, p.p. 79 - 81, Why Do Men Fight?

Advocates of 'manifest destiny' are content with and profiting from the nationally epidemic woman and child-abusing status quo. Beware therefore, the impotent advocates of 'manifest destiny' and heed these liberating words:

'Humanity stands alone upon this planet. Condemned to freedom. Having no other destiny, than the one it forges for itself...' - Jean Paul Sartre, rejector of the Nobel Prize

The abuse of power as policy has many allies. Among its most required needs, an important operational fuel of power abuse is simultaneous denial. Accompanied by methodological creation of false issues, frequently capitalizing on and specializing in creating: diversions. Giving whatever designated target, ‘something to deny’. Blaming the victim.
Assignment of irrelevant goals and enemies that do not exist. Scapegoat and Cry Wolfism looms large in the tactical - accountability averting, responsibility reversing - diversion methods. Blurring reality; focusing and otherwise zooming-in on fiction as fact. Creation and maintenance of false issues as viable currency. Lies abound here.

Boldly asserted lies, widely and aggressively told. Characteristically defying the beholder to know the difference - or even the existence - of truth from falsity. Not only to believe in falsehood, but to aggressively maintain and protect it.

The majority of Americans today hesitate extensively - often defiantly - when asked if they know the difference between good and bad.

They have been programmed ‘not to be judgmental’.

Example:
"There ain't no good guys. There ain't no bad guys. There's just you and me. And we just disagree."
- A popular lyric, emanating out of the Hollywood Entertainment Industry.

Who profits from such a misunderstanding? The good guys, or the bad guys?

An oath of personal impotence. The attitude and philosophy of the popular and dominant paradigm. Refer, ‘the will of God’, ‘manifest destiny’, and variously employed misusages of the word ‘karma.’ Creating and maintaining a general social environment occupied by people who have surrendered to the idea that when destructive human aggression happens, it is a foregone event over which no one has any power or potential control. A much surrendered-to call-to-surrender ones individual powers.

"Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him." - Jonathan Swift

"Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being."

Best regards,
- RP