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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In the twilight of ancient times, the formations of some animal species began to take shape. One could say: pragmatism, behaviour caused by evolutionary Darwinian laws. The solitary individual was more vulnerable and its ability to survive in a hostile world was clearly inferior to that of individuals hidden in a group of the same species. However, the condition was that there was no more competition and mutual struggle for food within the group, i.e. it had to be an individual of a species where the environment gave that species an excess of food. Typically herbivores or omnivores.
Of course, if there is a group, from a certain developmental stage onwards, it needs a hierarchical arrangement to stay together; and with this arrangement, the position of leader is formed.
Schools of fish (even of thousands of fish) themselves have no internal organization or leader, for they do not need one. They do not compete with each other for anything; they are universally modern, for they actually share. Food and reproduction. Their protection of the individual lies only in the multiplicity of such a group: the group as a whole is indeed a target for predators, but statistically speaking an individual in a flock has a better chance of escaping a predator. However, in less numerous groups, especially of terrestrial animals with more complex ways of reproduction, or of obtaining (gathering, grazing, hunting) food, competition arises within the group, with the simultaneous need to stay together because of the danger lurking in the surrounding world. The struggle of males for females also means a struggle for position in the group. The strongest and fittest gains more females and at the same time the privileged position of group leader. Where he goes, the herd follows (or follows him).
The internal organisation of the herd (group, pack, troop) gradually becomes more complex as the division of roles and, eventually, work becomes more complex. Thus the emerging humanity has worked its way through the evolution to the foundations of its society, but also to the basics of how to manipulate the crowd, how to control the group, and hence the individual.
The prehistoric roots of the psychological basis of this phenomenon are deeply embedded in the subconscious, or rather unconscious, of contemporary man.
Modern man in our times and in the environment of European civilization and culture is not very aware of the archetype of herd behaviour at work in him and successfully explains and justifies his actions to himself with purely conscious motives.
It is not without reason that, in ancient times, thousands of years ago, religious or ideological or similar beliefs, cloaked in rituals and other symbols of ceremony, became a great tool for controlling human groups and communities. Multiplied by the human desire to associate, the fear of the unknown, the desire to be a member of a collective, a wider community - ideally one whose status and activities bring benefits (economic and social, a sense of security) to its members. The protection of oneself from the unpleasantness and danger of the outside world (including members of the human community) is exacerbated by the application of the thesis "who does not go with us, goes against us": protection of the group based on hostile actions against other groups and non-members of the group. In a way, the prevention of an external threat by eliminating (or at least intimidating and displacing) non-members of the group and groups of others; sometimes this is underpinned at its core by the simple need to control territory as an economic base for oneself. Nothing subversive and specifically human: even in the animal and bird kingdoms, the demarcation and defence of acquired territories by an individual or a pack, herd, flock, flock is a perfectly normal form of ordering the world in question.
The same principle applies in the control of human society and in the behaviour of state formations, where various lofty and attractive proclamations conceal much more mundane real motivations, intentions and goals. One can only conclude in this context, in the words of an ancient philosopher, that 'nothing new under the sun'.
Igor Ulč, M.D.
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How to lead (by the nose) - Part II, or how public opinion is manipulated
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