The real choice is between obediance and expulsion. For this reason, there is a powerful tendency for people to want to believe that their thoughts and behavior at work are voluntary-the alternative, of perceiving the actual conflict, is simply too painful. Indeed, this struggle with conformity will be painful to the extent to which they are aware of their own conflicting inner needs, thoughts and desires. A person will suffer more intensely the more he or she is strong and independent. Given the apparent hopelessness of resistance, there is a powerful and continuous incentive for individuals to become less aware of their own feelings, beliefs and needs. Indeed, the only rational solution for an individual may often be to become dead inside, to become alienated from his or her feelings and desires. And it is exactly this internal deadness which has been declared the great sickness of modern man... pg 36 (David Edwards, Free to be Human)
I suppose I hadn't very coherently thought about how the nonconspiratorial way in which the mainstream media only allows an extremely narrow range of allowable debate, is exactly how virtually all of us are forced (generally to a somewhat lesser extent) to conform in whatever job we're doing...
The MSM though. They are our 'culture'. Whatever record we manage to leave behind... there they are. All on video and short of entirely blowing up the whole planet there will surely be left plenty of videos of them; the banter between the weatherman and the news anchor, between Bush and the friendly reporters. There is our culture. The decision to keep it light. To pretend. The Fake Smile. Etc.
'They (the public) ought to be sitting alone in front of the TV and having drilled into their heads the message, which says the only value in life is to have more commodities or live like that rich, middle class family you're watching and to have nice values like harmony and Americanism. That's all there is in life. You may think in your own head that there's got to be something more in life than this, but since you're watching the tube alone you assume, I must be crazy, because that's all that's going on over there. And since there is no organisation permitted-that's absolutely crucial-you never have a way of finding out whether you are crazy, and you just assume it, because it's the natural thing to assume.' (Chomsky, Spectacular Achievements of Media Propaganda)
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In the light of the evidence of reality-distortion provided by the propaganda model, it seems reasonable to suggest that the vast majority of modern neuroses are not at all rooted in repression of childhood trauma or sexual drives, but in a violent individual/social conflict between the desire of human beings to live and think in reasonably sane and rational ways and the requirement of our society that we live and think in ways which are absurd. Given the extent to which reality is filtered to fit the corporate need, it seems hardly imaginable that anyone today could have the independence of mind to form a balanced, realistic, sane view of the world-on which human happiness and sanity surely depend. (Edwards, Free to be Human)
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Hillman goes on to argue that our obsession with childhood, feelings and relationships in the absense of concern for the world around us leads us to place an impossible burden of expectation on our relationships, which consequently disintegrate under that weight. The most notable non-material obsession of our society is, after all, the dream of romantic love as an answer to all our troubles. When we listen to the endless stream of love songs, we hear continuous references to 'eternity','truth','dreaming','searching','the promised land' and so on, and this is surely the sound of the search for truth banished to the only permissible realm-the personal.
Unfortunately no romance can ever provide an adequate answer to a life lived in a society of dramatically limited freedom. 'All you need is love!', in fact, is an economically 'correct' fiction which, like green consumerism, corporate responsibility and the Western 'yearning for freedom and human rights', serves to divert genuine concern, genuine searching, into a harmless cul-de-sac while appearing to be a genuine message of hope for humanity.
Psychotherapy has been transformed into a similar mechanism for diversion, as Hillman seems to argue: "Psychology, working with yourself, could that be part of the disease, not part of the cure?"
Certainly, and we might suggest that the reason that psychotherapy has persisted with its irrational approach, rather than seeking rational norms for sanity, is because that search is in profound conflict with the propaganda system, which requires an essentially insane set of presupposed (but not explicitly stated-becase absurd) norms for the successful functioning of corporate consumerism. (Edwards, Free to be Human)
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'Here I could not agree with Freud. He considered the cause of the repression to be a sexual trauma. From my practice, however, I was familiar with numerous cases of neurosis in which the question of sexuality played a subordinate part, other factors standing in the foreground-for example, the problem of social adaptation, of oppression by tragic circumstances of life, prestige considerations and so on.' (Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections pg 170)
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'Both the 'economic' man and the 'sexual' man are convenient fabrications whose alleged nature-isolated, asocial, greedy and competitive-makes Capitalism appear as the system which corresponds perfectly to human nature, and places it beyond the reach of criticism. (Erich Fromm, The Sane Society pg 77)
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Like Chomsky, Fromm has the tragi-comic distinction of being sufficiently accurate in his analysis to know that he would be declared absurd and irrelevant. Thus, he too, has been consigned to the Lutheran 'zoo' along with Copernicus, Chomsky, and all the other 'asses who dare to speak out against the limits of 'respectable' discourse. We spend our time well when we consider that this fate befell Fromm-an outstandingly clear and rational thinker-within the 'science' devoted to explosing lies! (Edward, Free to be Human)
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...We have all, no doubt, been criticized for discussing something that is 'too deep', whether we are discussing matters psychological, philosophical, religious, environmental-anything that attempts to go to the root of problems. We all sense where the limit is. We know when we are steping over the line and when we can expect a sarcastic aside, or groan, from someone around us. We may even make a self deprecatory joke to pre-empt the diapproval. Similarly, when listening to other people, we immediately sense when the conversation has stepped over the mark and will elicit disapproval, when it has become too 'serious' or 'deep'. We might ask who, or what, is setting the tolerable limits of 'depth'?
The answer is that they are set by the same framing conditions on which our system depends; the same system which maintains the near-uniform frivolity on our magazine shelves and in our television schedules; the same system that depends on our commitment to light-hearted, frivolous consumption. The simply fact is that our culture needs to be infused with a 'buying environment', it needs to be swamped in 'muzak' encouraging us to have fun-and fun requires that we do not consider anything too seriously. For were we to do so, the version of common-sense reality to which we are continually encouraged to adhere (that fun, status and consumption are everything) would be revealed for the childish absurdity that it is. (Edwards, Free to be Human)
private tyrannies searching online
Couldn't find the similar article talking about how you should avoid ever saying anything critical about any employer you've ever had when you're online. Was thinking about that last night at the same time watching some corporate commercial going on about education for the younger generation; one young girl saying how she has learned 'to ask why?' Except of course when it comes to any action any corporation ever takes. Then, you better not ask why, lest you end up not getting fed.
We do have an insane set of social norms which we do not actually state out loud because they are clearly insane. Out loud we say one thing but it's understood-or you better learn to understand it-that what is said out loud is not what how you're actually expected to act. This applies first and most clearly to journalists in the MSM. And this is what unfortunately 95%+ of people just don't understand. Thus they figure there is no meaningful bias in the MSM or absurdly they believe the MSM when it complains of itself that it's too liberal. Because they think the alternative would mean a conspiracy.
But then you go for a job interview and it's understood-among other things-that you are quite simply expected to lie about certain things. You never ever admit to not having liked any job you've ever had. The boss doesn't say, "I expect you to lie and tell me every job was wonderful." It's just understood. It's no conspiracy. But if to you it's not understood then you won't be working in that job.
And so for me I recall an interview where I refused to take part in that absurdity and admitted to a R&D company that I had not enjoyed working for Toyota. Now, the reality of Toyota (in Kentucky) is that everyone hated it. Absolutely hated it. It was incredibly bad. To sit there and pretend that, "Oh yes! What a fun job that was!" Instead I attempted to assume my potential boss wasn't utterly retarded and could comprehend that there are actually bad jobs out there.
I didn't get the job. In fact I could quickly tell I had really bothered him by saying I disliked this past job. I was expected to adhere to the unspoken insane social norms and I failed.
I was glad I didn't get it though, the little fucker. I choose to be a slave instead of a slavemaster. But in some cases I'll take being free to starve.
