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What interest me the most, is the framework

January 12 2006 at 7:00 PM
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Response to Argumentum Incredulum

 
within which we chose to lean toward one side or the other of any argument. The framework decides the outcome of any observation. That’s why those in power better set up their framework properly that at the end of "our decision" making process they end up with one of two choices they decided for us.

It is perfectly explained by Professor Chomsky:

In 1921, the famous American journalist Walter Lippmann said that the art of democracy requires what he called the "manufacture of consent." This phrase is an Orwellian euphemism for thought control. The idea is that in a state such as the U.S. where the government can't control the people by force, it had better control what they think. The Soviet Union is at the opposite end of the spectrum from us in its domestic freedoms. It's essentially a country run by the bludgeon. It's very easy to determine what propaganda is in the USSR: what the state produces is propaganda.

In totalitarian societies where there's a Ministry of Truth, propaganda doesn't really try to control your thoughts. It just gives you the party line. It says, "Here's the official doctrine; don't disobey and you won't get in trouble. What you think is not of great importance to anyone. If you get out of line we'll do something to you because we have force." Democratic societies can't work like that, because the state is much more limited in its capacity to control behavior by force. Since the voice of the people is allowed to speak out, those in power better control what that voice says--in other words, control what people think. One of the ways to do this is to create political debate that appears to embrace many opinions, but actually stays within very narrow margins. You have to make sure that both sides in the debate accept certain assumptions--and that those assumptions are the basis of the propaganda system. As long as everyone accepts the propaganda system, the debate is permissible.


Brain
Ronald Reagan: Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

 
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  1. Re: What interest me the most, is the framework - Al on Jan 12, 8:11 PM
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