-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 12/14/2015 12:26 AM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
On 12/13/15, Steve Kinney <admin@pilobilus.net> wrote:
On 12/13/2015 11:01 AM, Georgi Guninski wrote:
On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 03:20:15PM +0000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
For those who have not yet read of this, it's a must to comprehend. Lest ye doubt humans are rightly labelled 'sheep'.
Call me a crank, but I am against the sheeple.
Sheeple are major cause of trouble, electing current so called "establishment".
When I see or hear the word 'sheeple' I think about how successful our adversaries have been in dividing the people they prey on into mutually hostile factions, each of which blames the actions of their common enemy on the others.
I agree that the wording I chose for the subject could be seen as divisive, yet is confronting since it suggests a specific target, which target turns out to be "most people/sheeple".
The divisive part is not good, but also not intended.
The "we need to be alert to reality - this is big/bad" is intended and I think is essential to assessing anything sane. I recall reading that Wikipedia article a few years ago, yet it had no less impact upon me, on my second reading.
Give people roles to play in an inherently violent system, and whoever those people are, they will begin to do violence. That's a general case that scales all the way up to what happens when "honest" politicians are given a representational democracy to run. The best part about the Milgram experiments was that a significant number of volunteers dropped out early. Pity it's a bit late to send them anarchist literature and encourage them to turn out for public events. :D
Populist and reformist politics ends and mindless compliance begins when people decide that they are categorically superior to those who don't happen to belong to their own gang, and start speaking and acting on that basis.
No, not the compliance bit at least. Just because I speak arrogantly, refused to wear a school uniform for -years- in a row and use vehemence and confronting language when I communicate, does NOT mean I am the cause of those "sheeple" who be compliance with mindless authority!
You can't be seriously suggesting as much, surely.
I was thinking more along the lines of "rebel as you are told," the oldest scam in the book. As a general case, the most productive way for a well entrenched ruling class to attack people who dislike authority figures is to provide them with models of rebellion that do not work: Mass market propaganda to the rescue.
In fact "sheep" is about as apt as it gets when describing compliant (to arbitrary authority) people. And the Migram experiments show that humans by an overwhelming majority, are in fact sheep, even in the face of their own stress, their own tears, inner conflict, emotional pain - they -still- fucking comply with arbitrary (worse, despotic!!) authority!
"We humans" are so woefully inadequate to the task of complying with our own conscience or inner sense of right and wrong, and so woefully tied to compliance with external authority, it is shocking, embarrassing, upsetting and yes, confronting.
But fuck, don't shoot the messenger!
That was never my intention. I just have a strong aversion to the 'sheeple' paradigm, which I do consider a core component of "rebel as you are told" propaganda.
Put your confronting reaction to something constructive - try to figure out how to simply and expediently educate those you come across to counter this problem - if you have actual successes, please share those, as that may go some significant way to enlightening us all on how to handle this very confronting problem.
I have had occasional success. The key concept is to avoid trying to move people all the way from their current position to the one you would prefer them to have at one go. Tailor the message to the audience and try to move them ONE step in the direction you want to see them move. Of course, don't neglect to preach to the choir: How else will they be able to get on the same page and put on a decent show? I have been pushing this packet of books for around a year now, and from time to time it seems to have been well received: It's a course in remedial politics, intended to fill basic gaps in people's information about how populist a.k.a. anarchist politics actually works: http://pilobilus.net/strategic_conflict_docs_intro.html
Another shot to prod you along a bit further:
Those who are compliant with despotic external authority in the face of their own inner conscience of right and wrong, ought be regarded as other/ outer/ "them", and treated with extreme caution!
"Those" sheep happens to be about 60% to 90% of everyone! You wanna sweep -that- under the carpet of your politically correct boat?
The presumption that people who are notably compliant with illegitimate authority have a "conscience" and fixed notions of right and wrong is questionable. Those who comply most eagerly include sociopathic personalities and people who are all to easily led due to other disorders. The "60% to 90%" cover a spectrum from grudging, minimal compliance to elaborate and even competitive compliance, typically related to the degree that their individual income and social status benefit from a show of compliance. But as the gap between rewards promised and rewards delivered continues to widen, and the violent excesses of our rulers become more and more obvious, compliance will continue to decline. This creates a growth market for populist political agitators - a market that opponents and supporters of authoritarian rule are already competing to capture. Politics is about power: Who has it, who doesn't, and how these groups interact. The object of political activity is to obtain and exercise power, toward whatever ends one chooses. Political models and strategies that actually work in this context are "correct" while those that do not work are "incorrect." There is a time and place for everything, but rarely a time when elitism, or driving wedges between groups who have political enemies in common with oneself, is "correct" in a functional sense. :o) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJWbml8AAoJEDZ0Gg87KR0LY5cQAOFTNPTyJs/Kf9eNj4zkGgLe AD3Q+1eW9jDrEBuIb54kjD1LvI9JaFHCIO4mo8iUXfDgFhNLCNEr5FU8brJlz4QW Qbe7XuLfhEzVtQP1fY5jOy+/p96vcUYvK1D1RlOqxcM1C4iLYW/QxJsc8YVto5lL 82Y12V+YEqqF8UgvXMJhFyQUcYxbOKovbmy0Y5afL4xtqMRxbE/DlkY+5WS4xoSG aPO+hRxfoJszBRSowVp/WVodHWBnkFJt3dYdOOJZiWSMiGoxqptlYdy++jndvccN YfTIx1uxx+CZKYF0LPsC61fY8SkjWnfO+DTcFYPXP0WHwBmRo4R0Q3wsapZhIoqA Ura3MmDyy/hmTevzxyoHeKSMd7TQoP4jZKb/dS2NyvPGZWowwQ7FvfsIa9JlJkkX kffMZvqUMWmUrQUID87ueCWE7KA5rhzrc2ZublDBAfr4mUbbylUY+IgLc4gO/vnp FP78KlMPyqP92RwC1mY8bI9u4w74Ujq+c2sHcG+wNvaL0uoyfj55lDSVGyoDQ2Pm 4qEv/J9/ELey1tOKkE9hHvyHJPpiw/T/qs5+P+9WMiSRUGM4BDiTDdnn9dV0MAJa XXN8txk+bCkd91PFQcAWa+u7lXuJYKwIOIsbzrFCxCe2OreTYxObOqenYcNajulJ oCQVxsLGC1lh4k5bhyzF =qhcm -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----