Three short articles on how public opinion is manipulated. Written by psychiatrist Igor Ulč, MD. They are intended for public dissemination, so let them be disseminated. J.Š.
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What is true for politicians and political power bodies is also true for individuals. Personal gain is obscured by higher goals and higher morals, not to mention ideological Potemkin villages. It must be noted, however, that the personal benefit of the individual is a broader set of self-satisfying ends and means than is the benefit at the level of political, let us understand power, control of a larger or smaller group, hence of states and countries.
The citizen has a figurative nose for more or less conspicuous guidance. There are many tools for this. However, one basic one, created from childhood in the family, is nothing other than recognized and experienced authority: the authority of a parent, older, higher, more popular, politically or economically powerful.
For a young child, it is often the case that "Mommy is always right", but this wooden principle shapes one's behaviour not only in childhood. For the claims and actions of authority are (usually) not questioned. After all, this is what education works on, for without the authority of the teacher, pupils would probably run away from school and the classroom... But teachers must be obeyed...
This, combined with the tendency to join the majority, not to differ from the majority (and thus not to incite the majority to hostile behaviour), together with the different psychology of the crowd from the psychology of the individual (the crowd acts more irrationally and emotionally than the individual), is the perfect breeding ground for individuals and whole groups of people to be led by the nose to where the skilful manipulator wants to lead them.
For an illustration, just look at the spectator cauldrons in football or hockey, and recall the former "he who does not jump is not Czech" - as a perfect illustration of the irrationality of crowd behaviour and the individual's submission to the crowd, induced to do something by authority or "the people's darling".
How many times have any of us heard, either during our schooling or in the public space, from persons of acquaintance or holders of authority (or office) a quotation from some classic or from some scripture (including the Holy Bible or the Koran)... And who has been suspicious enough to verify the quotation and - better still - to verify its existence in the context of the situation and the subsequent text?
Military service graduates know one organizing principle in the military: integral command authority. This includes that a subordinate carries out the order of a superior and is not entitled to question or dispute the order with the superior. For without this, the army would not function.
Only: the same principle is applied (without being called so) in civilian life; the organisational principles of non-military enterprises and institutions honour essentially the same. The superior decides, the subordinate obeys and executes...
And to make it so as above, sanctions are provided against the one who would not obey his commander, or just his superior. It's part of the orderly structure of society. Even a citizen of the state is given obligations by law, which the state has the ability to enforce and punish non-compliance (for example, the unpopular obligation to pay taxes).
The freedom of man in his actions and decisions is therefore not limitless, since he lives almost exclusively in a society that has its own rules and organisational and hierarchical arrangements. Ancient evolution has predisposed him to a collective life, creating in his unconscious a positive relationship to group membership as a source of relative security and a subconscious recognition of authority (reinforced by upbringing). And it is true that "whoever wants to live with wolves must howl with them". And it is indifferent if the Antiquity, the period of the Crusades, the century of steam, or the modern era, including the current and lively present, is underway. To defy the majority means courage, or also folly and the necessity to face the retaliation of the majority. While far from everyone will end up like Jan Hus because of this, he or she must certainly reckon with the unpleasantness.
Igor Ulč, MD
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How to lead (by the nose) - Part I., or how public opinion is manipulated
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