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Paranoid Nation: Conspiracies Abound
by Gary Indiana
Like conspiracies themselves, conspiracy theories are as old as gossip and politics. To understand the world one inhabits, it is impossible to credit the idea of contingency or chance as the root of all weirdness. Just as any psychotic tends to utter something true in the process of saying something crazy, there is usually a kernel of reality in even the most far-fetched conspiracy theory.
While it is easy to distinguish a belief that aluminum foil wrapped around one's head filters out alien brain waves from rational but dissident ideas, some modern writers on conspiracy theory tend to conflate nonconformity with the most bizarre and cognitively defective extremes of it. So-called "consensus historians," following the lead of Richard Hofstadter's famous 1964 essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," have effectively pathologized any suspicion of active conspiracies, however defined, into a synonym for "nut job" in public discourse.
Our mass media, its ownership consolidated among a handful of billionaires whose interests are identical with those of corporate cronies (globalized "free trade" for the wealthy nations, peonage for the third world, Chomsky's "manufacture of consent" via a constant torrent of propaganda for the status quo), reflexively dismiss the most obvious or credible explanations for ugly phenomena as the perfervid fantasy of "conspiracy cranks"—for instance, the idea that successive "preemptive" wars might be launched against demonized enemies in order to award reconstruction contracts to corporations formerly helmed by, say, the vice president of the United States and other exalted government employees, or that the strategic purpose of one such war might be the economic colonization of former Soviet republics rich in oil and mineral resources, and to guarantee a secure pipeline for the exploitation of said resources. Instead, the altruism and democracy-spreading goodness of the American power elite are portrayed as self-evident, taking all other motives off the media table.
The necessary proof of such a conspiracy, if we choose to call it that, often turns up 25 or 50 years after the fact, when the release of classified documents churns up no public outcry or indictments. Such was the recent case with the declassified revelation that the late Connecticut senator Prescott Bush, grandfather of the current president, along with his law partner W. Averill Harriman, a former governor of New York, managed a number of concerns on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen. These included the Union Banking Corporation, seized under the Trading With the Enemy Act on October 20, 1942 (Office of Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order No. 248), Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation (Vesting Order No. 259), and the Holland-American Trading Corporation (Vesting Order No. 261).
The Knights Templar
The Union Banking Corporation financed Hitler after his electoral losses in 1932; the other Bush-managed concerns have been characterized as "a shipping line which imported German spies; an energy company that supplied the Luftwaffe with high-ethyl fuel; and a steel company that employed Jewish slave labour from the Auschwitz concentration camp." Fuller details are documented in George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, by Webster G. Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin; in Kevin Phillips's American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush; as well as in the colorful, conspiracist history Fleshing Out Skull & Bones, by Anthony Sutton et al., and further confirmed by John Loftus, a former prosecutor in the Justice Department's Nazi War Crimes Unit. Since only the Nazi partners in the Bush-Harriman interests were permanently deprived of their frozen stock, Prescott Bush and his father-in-law, George Herbert Walker, waltzed off with $1.5 million when the Union Banking Corp. was liquidated in 1951. (This was, in effect, the foundation of the Bush family fortune: once a Snopes, always a Snopes.) Briefly picked up by the Associated Press and buried deep in the pages of American newspapers, this half-century-late disclosure led to no media follow-up and left no impression on the potential electorate for the 2004 U.S. presidential contest.
The Illuminati
Contingency theorists would declare that the activities of one Bush 50-some years ago have nothing to do with those of subsequent Bushes. Yet the story confirms a pattern of corrupt profiteering through abuse of power that runs continuously through the Bush family dynasty. They would likewise find nothing "conspiratorial" about the duck-hunting trip Vice President Cheney took with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia during the week of January 4, 2004, "three weeks after the court agreed to take up the vice president's appeal in lawsuits over his handling of the administration's energy task force" (Los Angeles Times, January 17, 2004). "I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned," Scalia hilariously told reporters, perhaps believing they had already forgotten his sordid role in fixing the 2000 presidential election for George W. Bush. Perhaps the brazen lack of ethics and truthfulness displayed by everyone in or associated with the Bush administration shouldn't be characterized as "conspiratorial," since this implies a secrecy that Cheney et al. believe unnecessary, given the monumental apathy and programmed ignorance of at least half the American public. (Cheney may not want to release transcripts of who said what, but that isn't a secret—it's a crime in defiance of American jurisprudence. There are no secrets, only things we know about that we don't know all the little details of.)
Hofstadter's essay, written in the aftermath of the McCarthy witch hunts and the Kennedy assassination, with an eye on the then marginal but scary realm of right-wing plot-weavers, has been eerily assimilated by a certain idling pedantry, which rummages through the historical debris of arcane conspiracist subjects (the Knights Templar, Jesuit intrigues, Freemasonry, the Illuminati, alien abductions, the Rothschilds, the Bilderberg meetings, the Knights of Malta), often recounting the same narratives at numbing length, with little fresh insight. Only a few contemporary writers drastically depart from Hofstadter's historical itinerary, or his parochial vision of America as a "pluralist democracy" whose institutional framework is essentially benign and immutably fair, rational, and systemically mistrusted only by paranoid schizophrenics. "One need only think of the response to President Kennedy's assassination in Europe to be reminded that Americans have no monopoly on the gift for paranoid improvisation," Hofstadter declared, 15 years before the U.S. House of Representatives' Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Kennedy's murder was indeed the result of a conspiracy.
Hofstadter's prescience is amply evidenced in Michael Barkun's A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (2003). Barkun has ingested Hofstadter's imperious tome whole, and his book does little more than regurgitate its polemical eurekas. Barkun informs us that the "essence of conspiracy beliefs lies in attempts to delineate and explain evil." Ergo Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and most other organized religions qualify as conspiracy beliefs, though Barkun neglects to say so. Barkun identifies three principles "found in virtually every conspiracy theory," to wit: Nothing happens by accident. Nothing is as it seems. Everything is connected. Clearly Freud, Plato, Leibniz, and Einstein all suffered from at least one symptom of conspiracism; fortuitously, without mentioning any of them, someone has finally exposed these thinkers as mentally ill.
Writers like Barkun are fond of inventing buzz concepts like "improvisational millennialism," "the cultic milieu," "agency panic," and "stigmatized knowledge claims." The latter, according to Barkun, are "claims to truth that the claimants regard as verified despite the marginalization of those claims by the institutions that conventionally distinguish between knowledge and error—universities, communities of scientific researchers, and the like." Few besides the amply tenured and remuneratively institutionalized would be likely to endorse Barkun's tweedy self-flattery as descriptive of American academia—as Jane Jacobs points out in her new book Dark Age Ahead, our colleges and universities have largely degenerated into mere credentialing factories—and what political scientists consider a science tends to be more a recruitment pool for think tanks, few of which trouble to separate knowledge from error, but simply bend data to suit the particular tank's ideological orientation.
The Freemasons
The same impossibly murky entities are combed over in most books on conspiracism, though some of the literature and related nonfiction have begun to deviate considerably from consensus historicism and the Hofstadter school. The traditional conspiracist books look backward through the jumbled mythologies of nebulously interwoven secret societies, usually beginning with the Bavarian Illuminati (currently a hit topic with the rerelease of Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown's 2000 novel Angels & Demons), though some point back to the Knights Templar, an order of monks and knights founded by Hugh de Payens in 1118. The Templars originally occupied the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem and later went in for money lending; in October 1307, on Friday the 13th (a charged date ever since), the Inquisition arrested the leader and 123 other Knights Templar, who were promptly tortured into confessing blasphemy, black magic, devil worship, and homosexual sodomy. It's believed by some that rather than disbanding, the Knights reorganized themselves sub rosa and continued to influence events and the activities of other cults.
The Illuminati are another historically shape-shifting bunch. Historians generally date their foundation as May 1, 1776, in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, by a former Jesuit and future Freemason, Adam Weishaupt. Supposedly the Illuminati infiltrated Masonic lodges and came to dominate the movement for pro-democratic secularism. The Illuminati were shut down in 1785 by the Bavarian government, but the group allegedly reconstituted itself, like the Templars, under other names, and is still active today. It's unclear what the Illuminati are active in: satanism, control of international banking, anarchism, or Communism, depending on which conspiracist you read.
Early fears of an Illuminati conspiracy were widely disseminated via Abbé Barruél's four-volume Mémoires Pour Servir à l'Histoire du Jacobinisme of 1797, in which the author, a Jesuit expelled from France with the rest of his order, claimed the French Revolution had emanated from a conspiracy of Masons, Illuminati, and "anti-Christians." A contemporaneous screed by a Scottish scientist, John Robison, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies, advanced the same idea. The book became wildly popular in America, where, it is often pointed out, several Founding Fathers belonged to the Masonic order.
Hofstadter cites Federalist fears of "a Jacob-inical plot touched off by Illuminism" in the early years of Jeffersonian democracy. An anti-Masonic movement swept the country in the late 1820s and early 1830s, slightly overlapping a wave of anti-Jesuit hysteria. "It is an ascertained fact," one Protestant minister wrote in 1836, "that Jesuits are prowling about all parts of the United States in every possible disguise, expressly to ascertain the advantageous situations and modes to disseminate Popery."
Freemasonry, whose date of origin is somewhere in the 16th or 17th century, purports to be (according to its adherents) a benign organization, albeit with a mystical element, which served for much of the 19th century to disseminate rationalist learning among its members in the days before public education: geometry, architecture, astronomy, and similar subjects. Its members aren't allowed to discuss politics or religion within the Lodge. As Brother Roscoe Pound, a Mason and current professor of jurisprudence at Harvard, puts it, "Every lodge ought to be a center of light from which men go forth filled with new ideas of social justice, cosmopolitan justice and internationality." All the same, Masons have been periodically accused of satanism, manipulation of global finance, and secret influence among the world's movers and shakers. Robert Anton Wilson, in Everything Is Under Control, reports that the P2 society in Italy, founded in the 1970s (purportedly as a subsect of the CIA's Gladio operation), which allegedly engineered the Bologna railway bombing in 1980 and financed itself by fraud and drug running, "recruited exclusively among third-degree members of the Grand Orient Lodge of Egyptian Freemasonry."
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the death row activist, reports in his column that the "CIA hid massive stockpiles of weapons and explosives throughout Italy. They amassed an army of 15,000 troops in something called Operation Gladio . . . to strike vital targets and overthrow the elected Italian government if they dared to vote against Washington's will."
Well, who knows?
Flying Fascism on Your Doorstep
By Al Martin - Al Martin Raw
Sept 19, 2004
New high-tech surveillance equipment revealed at the Redstone Arsenal's Weekly Arms Bazaar promises a dismal future for freedom-loving people of the world.
The Friendly Colonel has filed the latest report from the most recent arms show at the Redstone Arsenal, which has been shut down and is essentially used for storage. Housed in this facility are several thousands of the new modified urban control Humvees, equipped with 14.5 mm cannons as well as many aerials and satellite dishes. Some are camouflage in color, but most of them are dark matte gray. They looked like they were painted with a sealer coat of paint (primer paint), before the final coat is painted on depending on the theater of operation in which they will be used.
Of greater significance was the introduction of the new DCHD (Domestic Control Hover Drones), which were displayed and offered for sale. They're about a meter in diameter and probably weigh about twenty kilograms each. It looks like a life ring (life preserver) with a motor in the middle of it.
The Chinese and Russian arms dealers were interested in them, and evidently the British Government has been one of this device's primary buyers. Evidently we're not selling them to a lot of foreign countries at this time, but still building inventories for ourselves. Each of these DCHDs costs $178,000 a copy.
He met with an Iranian colonel who is some sort of an engineer, who was trying to explain to him what these things can do. The Friendly Colonel admitted that he didn't even know such technology even existed.
Here are some specs. They can hover to a maximum ceiling of 500 feet, although they're really meant to hover about 50 feet off the ground. They not only hover, but they can go forward and back. Their maximum speed is 50 miles an hour, and they can stay aloft for up to three hours at a time.
There are counter-rotating rotors in the middle of the device with what appears to be an engine on top. All of the internal components appear to be made of some sort of super-advanced composite, like boron-graphite composite material that is very, very light, but is also very strong. The propellers are also made of this same material, and they weigh practically nothing.
There are two counter-rotating propellers, two propellers that rotate counter-synchronously, the way the Russians used to build turbo-prop airplanes like the TU-95s. The reason they do it that way is because it gives a much higher speed, lift and stability.
They're controlled electronically - either through satellites or through what they call Fixed or Mobile Relay Command Centers, built right into the Humvee. They showed how the two worked together.
The Friendly Colonel reports that inside this Humvee, which can control a certain quad of these things, it looked like the inside of a spaceship. The components and views screens, which appear to be holographic, and the technology are simply amazing -- "It's like nothing you ever saw."
The surveillance drones come in different color schemes -- a very dark black matte for night use or a two-tone matte white and sky blue top -- so it's hard to see them during the day.
They started one of these hover drones up, and he said it virtually makes no sound at all. Even if you're ten feet away, you couldn't hear the thing. That's how quiet they are.
They are fitted with what is purported to be one of the most-advanced micro-cameras ever invented by the US Government. Through satellites, their transmission capability is virtually limitless. Satellites can access its transmissions and give it directions, signals, codes, and tell it what to do.
They can be pre-programmed for certain flight paths, but the computer has the ability to think, so that if it acquires a target, it can deviate from a flight path. It also has sensors so it can get out of the way and not run into a tree or the side of a building. It also has infrared cameras and high-resolution night cameras with multiple neutral density filters.
They also have see-through capability -- with a thermal imaging sensor camera, which can actually see inside of buildings and see through walls. The device is meant to be used as a domestic control drone. It not only has cameras, but the most sensitive audio receivers that have ever been made. It can pick up a human conversation from five hundred feet away -- one human conversation. Not only can they photograph and relay still shots and real time video and transmit video, but they also have a "non-lethal" weapons capability, some sort of stun gun based on energy discharge technology. They're powered by what's known as a fusion power cell, which looks like a square pack of film. The power is produced through some sort of chemical reaction.
These drones can stop and detain people. Since they have a microphone, they can hover right in your face, while you're looking into the camera. It also has a transmitter, which can play pre-recorded messages, or someone can actually talk to you even though they're a thousand miles away.
During the demonstration, they hovered the thing around the room and then it came down in front of this Air Force captain's face, and it said, "Citizen, kindly present your national identification card."
Then a little telescoping plate comes out of it, and you're supposed to hold your national identification card in front of this plate. They wouldn't reveal all of its abilities of the drone because some of it was still classified. The manufacturer is the same company, located in Indiana, which makes other equipment for the NSA.
Let's think about where this device could be used. How about South Central Los Angeles street corners? Using these devices, only Government-Authorized crack dealers would be able to sell their product. Crack dealers, not approved by the Government, could then be sanctioned -- or removed.
The exhibit hall had high-definition presentation screens around the room, which showed how these things could be used. It showed them moving down a darkened street at night, and then it showed what the cameras were seeing, pictures of the people and how they looked through an infra red camera and an ultra violet camera and how different images looked through different camera receptors. It looked like it was right out of Star Trek.
There was actually a computer generated voice simulator, which announced, "Base price starts at just $178,543 for the Class IV model." Then it proceeded to announce the prices for all the options and add-ons, which could bring the total price up to $350,000.
And who would be most interested in buying these items? As the Friendly Colonel pointed out, as usual, there were a lot of Russian and Chinese arms dealers there - but you never really know their ultimate clients. And there were some military officers (they had staff patches) who appeared to be from the Office of Homeland Security, although they don't have military designation insignia yet.
These surveillance drones could be used in Small Town America -- to cruise down the streets to seek out those who are potential threats to the security of the State - those who are "disloyal," those who are "different," and those who have already been deemed to be suspicious by Neighborhood Watch Groups, following the new protocols and reported to the newly created Civilian Defense Force.
At any rate, it was a very slick and very well done presentation. They had the giant Australian prawns, lightly fried in a light batter and served with an oriental plum sauce. The Friendly Colonel says they were just out of this world -- and there was an open bar, of course. He said there's nothing like having taxpayer-funded prime rib and shrimp.
Coming soon to your neighborhood - sci-fi fascism. People already understand that this advanced technology exists, and the government has not denied that they are using miniaturized fusion power cells. The reason they're not making a big deal out of it is because people would say, "let's replace the oil industry with fusion power." And that is something that even I understand could not be done - without massive economic dislocation, of course.
Domestic and foreign spying to be enhanced by micro aircraft.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Related Historical Profile ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 18, 2002
MICRO AIR VEHICLE SETS ENDURANCE FLIGHT RECORD
DARPA Milnews 2002
The WASP micro air vehicle used multifunctional structure/power materials to set an endurance flight record during tests this summer. The WASP flew for one hour 47 minutes, more than three times the previous micro air vehicle endurance record of 30 minutes set two years ago.
The WASP design replaces separate battery and wing structure components with a multifunctional structure/battery material system that supplies electrical energy for propulsion while carrying mechanical and aerodynamic wing loads. The WASP is the first in a series of developmental micro air vehicles designed to demonstrate performance enhancement through the use of these unique multifunctional materials.
The WASP is being developed under DARPA’s Synthetic Multifunctional Materials program, which is exploring materials that combine the function of structure with another critical system function such as power, repair, or ballistic protection. The combination is expected to optimize system performance and realize improved or new capabilities for military systems.
The WASP is a radio-controlled vehicle with a “flying-wing” design. The wingspan is 13 inches and the combined wing structure/battery pack weighs 120 grams. The total weight of the vehicle is 170 grams (six ounces). The vehicle uses off-the-shelf components and lithium-ion batteries, which produce the highest energy density among all rechargeable battery systems. The energy density of the battery structure was 143 watts per kilogram, with an average output power of over nine watts during the flight. The aircraft is stable and simple to fly using manually operated ground control of the aircraft’s throttle, rudder, and elevator surfaces. The next generation of WASP will incorporate a simple autopilot and carry a color video camera payload.
The aircraft design, fabrication, and flight test were performed by AeroVironment Inc., Simi Valley, Calif. Telcordia Technologies, Red Bank, N.J., contributed to the conceptual design of the wing structure-battery and supplied the custom-designed, plastic lithium-ion battery materials that were incorporated into the WASP wing. The Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C., contributed to the conceptual design of the wing structure-battery and helped to coordinate the prototype development.Military & Aerospace Electronics - DARPA's Micro Air Vehicle
... Experts at Telcordia Technologies of Red Bank, NJ, contributed to the conceptual design of the wing structure-battery and supplied the custom-designed, plastic ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dec. 21, 2002, 3:13PM
Use of drones in domestic surveillance advocated
By MICHAEL HEDGES
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Impressed with the success of pilotless aircraft in the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, some officials want to explore whether they can help patrol the borders or catch drug traffickers and terrorists inside America.
But while Americans marveled at the use of the lethal drones to spot and sometimes destroy targets during Operation Enduring Freedom, they might be less excited about having a government eye-in-the-sky looking over their shoulders, some critics warned.
Still, several lawmakers are ready to move forward.
"I have long supported the use of unmanned aerial vehicles by the U.S. military, and I believe that the potential applications for this technology in the area of homeland defense are quite compelling," said Sen. John Warner, R-Va. "In this day of unprecedented threats against our nation, it is vital that we use all tools available to protect our nation against terrorist attack," he said.
Warner said he would ask President Bush to order a study of how UAVs, or drones, could be used by domestic federal agencies without "unduly sacrificing the privacy rights of our citizens."
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., a strong advocate of tougher control on illegal immigration, is even more enthusiastic about the use of drones.
"I think they can be tremendously effective in helping to stop illegal immigration into this country," he said. "They can also be a great weapon against drugs smuggled into the country."
Officials are not yet set on using any particular type of drone; manufacturers make them with varying capacities. But Tancredo said using drones -- with the military at the controls -- could help, "address the old canard that the borders are too long and extensive and we don't have the resources to effectively police them."
Bush administration officials were noncommittal about the prospect of widespread use of drones inside the United States, either under military supervision or in the hands of civilian law enforcement.
A spokesman for the White House Office of Homeland Security said Director Tom Ridge would not comment on the issue at least until after the office transitioned into the new, Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security early next year.
One White House anti-drug official said, "We'd love to see the UAVs involved in helping stop drugs from crossing the border. But the fact is, the ones that are out there are being grabbed up by the military right now."
Drones have some attractive capabilities for assignments like patrolling a remote section of the border, or being an airborne sentinel guarding pipelines, reservoirs or power plants from sabotage by terrorists, supporters contend.
They can hover for hours or days over an area without risk of pilot fatigue. Their eyes -- video cameras -- are able to give a fairly clear picture of activity on the ground at an altitude of 25,000 feet or more. One experimental drone called the Global Hawk flies at 66,000 feet.
But having an unmanned aircraft that surreptitiously can monitor people has a creepy, Orwellian feel to some experts on privacy issues.
Wayne Crews, of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, said, "We have arrived at that eye-in-the-sky that people instinctively fear. This is an area where we have to tread very carefully."
The fear of Crews and others is that the use of drones will become commonplace and law enforcement agencies will use them in ways that violate Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted searches.
"I believe it crosses that line as soon as a person can be identified and is tracked without probable cause to do so," he said. "At some point, this is more than just a high-tech cop on a new kind of souped-up beat. If somebody was scoping out a particular home or neighborhood, that would be a problem."
Advocates of the use of drones like Tancredo say there is little difference in using an unmanned drone for law enforcement and using satellites, fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters or even a federal officer in a concealed vehicle watching through binoculars.
Early model drones have been used in a limited way for drug interdiction efforts along the U.S. borders for several years, mostly as part of operations like the Joint Task Force 6 in which the military conducts anti-drug missions and training exercises.
Among the federal agencies involved in JTF-6 operations using aerial drones is the Border Patrol, said spokesman Mario Villarreal.
"We have done a couple of these operations along the southwest border. We have used them in Texas," he said.
So far, each time drones have been used, they have been operated by military personnel, Villarreal said. "The Border Patrol does not utilize them on a daily or ongoing basis."
Tancredo witnessed an operation in northern Idaho in August in which a Pioneer drone -- a small UAV that flies relatively low and makes a distinctive "lawn mower" type sound -- gave its U.S. Marine operators a video bead on some suspicious vehicles making an unauthorized crossing.
The Marines alerted local law enforcement authorities and U.S. Border Patrol and Forestry Service officers. Two people were arrested with about 100 pounds of premium-grade marijuana.
Such limited operations involving drones have been going on for at least a decade, said Brad Brown, president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, located in northern Virginia.
Brown said the industry is seeing growing interest from federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies in using the unmanned aerial surveillance systems.
"There aren't any contracts yet, but some of the sub-agencies within the Homeland Security department are looking into them," he said.
For the drones to be used inside the United States., some issues would have to be resolved, experts said.
Brown concedes that the designs of the aircraft "do not come close to meeting FAA standards for flying over populated areas. That is what helps keep the price down."
And current Federal Aviation Administration regulations would forbid the use of the aerial drones anywhere near the flight paths of manned aircraft.
Also, industry officials concede that buying just a few of the drones might not prove all that cost-effective for agencies, compared to just using fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters for surveillance missions.
The Predator that the CIA used to lethal effect in Afghanistan and Yemen costs just under $1 million. Some systems, like one drone called the Shadow, are less expensive -- around $350,000. But all require a well-trained crew to be effective, which adds to the cost of operation.
Right now, the Predator drones and others with high-tech capabilities like the Shadow, are being snapped up by the military.
But Brown said manufacturers within a couple of years could meet the demand of federal law enforcement agencies -- should such a demand develop.
Tancredo said there was no need to wait for civilian agencies to acquire the drones. He wants them deployed with military units along the borders.
"We don't have time to bring a new agency (Homeland Security) on line with tactics and training. We should get the military involved with their equipment," he said.
The Social Construction of Reality
by Erich GoodeAll civilizations set rules concerning what is real and what is not, what is true and what is false. All societies select out of the data before them a world, one world, the world taken for granted, and declare that the real world. Each one of these artificially constructed worlds is to some degree idiosyncratic. No individual views reality directly, "in the raw," so to speak, but our perceptions are narrowly channeled through concepts and interpretations. What is commonly thought of as reality, that which exists, or simply is, is a set of concepts, assumptions, justifications, defenses, all generally collectively agreed-upon, which guide and channel each individual's perceptions in a specific direction. The specific rules governing the perception of the universe which man inhabits are more or less arbitrary, a matter of convention. Every society establishes a kind of epistemological methodology.
Meaning, then, does not automatically come about. Rather, it is read into every situation, event, entity, object, phenomenon. What one individual understands by a given phenomenon may be absolutely heterogeneous to what another individual understands. In a sense, then, the reality itself is different. The only reality available to each individual consciousness is a subjective reality. Yet this insight poses a dilemma: we must see in a skewed manner or not at all. For, as Berger and Luckmann point out, "To include epistemological questions concerning the validity of sociological knowledge is like trying to push a bus in which one is riding."[1] Sociologists, too, are implicated in this same process. But unless we wish to remain huddled in the blind cave of solipsism, the problem should not paralyze us. We leave the problem of the validity of sociological knowledge to the metaphysical philosophers.
If we wish to grasp the articulation between ideology and what Westerners call science, we must look to fundamental cultural beliefs that stimulate or inhibit the growth of scientific-empirical ideas. One form of this selection process, the course of defining the nature of the universe, involves the rules of validating reality. A procedure is established for accepting inferential evidence; some forms of evidence will be ruled out as irrelevant, while others will serve to negotiate and determine what is real. For instance, some religious systems have great faith in the validity of the message of the senses.[2] Other civilizations give greater weight to mystical insight, to the reality beyond empirical reality.[3]
The sociologist's task starts with this vast cultural canvas. While the "major mode" of the epistemological selection and validation process involves the decision to accept or rule out the data of our senses, within this tradition, minor modes of variation will be noticed. Clearly, even societies with powerful scientific and empirical traditions will contain subcultures which have less faith in the logic of the senses than others have. Moreover, all cultures have absorbed one or another mode of reasoning differentially, so that some institutions will typify the dominant mode more characteristically than others. Certainly, few in even the most empirical of civilizations will apply the same rules of evidence in the theater of their family as in their workaday world.
The more complex the society, the greater the number of competing versions concerning reality. The positivists were in error in assuming that greater knowledge would bring epistemological convergence. The arenas of controversy are more far-flung than they ever have been. Now, instead of societies differing as to how they view the real world, sub-segments of the same society differ as well. This poses a serious problem for those members of society who have an emotional investment in stability and the legitimacy of their own special version of reality. The problem becomes, then, a matter of moral hegemony, of legitimating one distinctive view of the world and of discrediting competing views. These rules of validating reality, and society's faith in them, may serve as strategies in ideological struggles. Contending parties will wish to establish veracity by means of the dominant cultural mode.
All societies invest this selection process with an air of mystification. Using Peter Berger's phrase: "Let the institutional order be so interpreted as to hide, as much as possible, its constructed character.... [The] humanly constructed "norms" are given a cosmic status...."[4] This process must not, above all, be seen as whimsical and arbitrary; it must be grounded in the nature of reality itself. The one selected view of the world must be seen as the only possible view of the world; it must be identified with the real world. All other versions of reality must be seen as whimsical and arbitrary and, above all, in error. At one time, this twin mystification process was religious in character: views in competition with the dominant one were heretical and displeasing to the gods—hence, Galileo's crime. Now, of course, the style is to cloak what Berger terms "fictitious necessities" with an aura of scientific validity. Nothing has greater discrediting power today than the demonstration that a given assertion has been "scientifically dis-proven." Our contemporary pawnbrokers of reality are scientists.
1. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1966), p. 13. (back)
2. Robert K. Merton, "Puritanism, Pietism, and Science," in Social Theory and Social Structure, 3rd ed. (New York: Free Press, 1968), and Robert E. Kennedy, "The Protestant Ethic and the Parsis," The American Journal of Sociology 68 (July 1962): 11-20. (back)
3. Joseph Needham, "Buddhism and Chinese Science," in Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 2: 417-422, 430-431. (back)
4. Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 33, 36, 90-91, 203. (back)
Mind : It's Your Business
by Delmar EnglandDuring and after world wars, civil wars, riots, bombings, and other acts of violence where men, women, and innocent children are maimed and killed, the question, why, is asked again and again. Since the mind is the holder of motivating beliefs and values and the ultimate director of all action, the mind is the obvious place to look for answers. Yet, the study of the mind is almost non-existent.
Given the central importance of the mind to the life of each and every individual, doesn't it strike you as somewhat strange that study of the mind is not in the curriculum of formal education from kindergarten on, or before? Why is this most important of important subjects so blatantly ignored? Yes, there are licensed psychiatrists and psychologists that are alleged to make a study of the mind and hold knowledge of it, but what is the inference of setting authority over your mind and tacitly excluding you from knowledge of it?Could this be part of the problem rather than a solution to it? No doubt these "authorities" do hold some knowledge of the mind but what is the nature of the study and knowledge? How are you to evaluate claimed knowledge of your mind if you are kept in ignorance of it? Are you to simply accept and blindly react to something that you do not understand? Isn't this a little scary? In reference to these questions, what is the real significance of the existence of licensed psychiatrists and psychologists? Suppose that licensed psychiatrists and psychologist are actually a reflection of a widespread psychological problem. If this is the case, can the end result be anything other than propagating the very cause of the problems they are trying to remedy?
A medical doctor may set a broken bone or even perform a heart transplant. A mechanic may repair your car. A carpenter many build you a house, a plumber plumb it, and an electrician wire it. No one can be knowledgeable and proficient in all fields that are of personal interest and value. To fulfill one's wants and needs, it is frequently necessary to rely on the knowledge and expertise of another or others. However, the mind, your mind, is a different matter. To place the content of your mind as amenable to external construction, to turn it over to authority, is to abandon responsibility to self and simultaneously throw away your autonomy and individuality. Are you comfortable with this?
The cause of the resistance to examination of the principles of the mind and needed introspection is inherent in the fallacies that lie at the root of most philosophies and dominate thinking. It is the same resistance that disregards and denies the principles of language usage and principles of epistemology. Contrary to popular opinion, the mind is not an unfathomable mystery beyond the understanding of laymen. In fact, the concept, authority, in this field is a deterrent to the understanding of mental processes and psychological derivatives.
First, let's once again find and recognize with clarity the basis for facts, all facts. Literally everyone I know, or know of, verbally agrees that all knowledge is dependent upon the underlying order of the universe, the 100% consistent immutable natural laws. In a word, PRINCIPLES. Unfortunately, although all lay claim to this belief, nearly all belie the claim by contradicting it over and over again. The most obvious contradiction is the belief that an omni-god exists and can alter reality at will. Thus does claimed immutable natural laws become subject to the whim and caprice of an alleged omnipotent being, and the all-important 100% consistency factor goes out the window - and consistency in thinking with it. Unless you can find just cause to conclude otherwise, consciously focus upon the immutable natural laws and the 100% consistency factor. Hold to it as if your life depends on it. It does.
I know of nothing more unique than the mind. Although the mind is derived from the physical brain, it is not physical in itself, and not subject to quantitative measurement. This, however, does not place it out of range of understanding. Unique though it is, the mind is still part of the universe and must necessarily be governed by specific natural laws, i.e., principles. This means that although mind content (beliefs and values) varies from individual to individual, all minds function by the same principles of operation. Pre-natal or post-natal brain damage (or drugs) may affect certain functions, but does not alter the natural principles.
The phenomenon called the mind is so unique that upon cursory examination, it appears as a mass and mess of contradictions that defy untangling. The mind has the capacity to mentally discover and to mentally invent. Alas, it also has the capacity to fail to make a distinction between the two; that is, fail to make a distinction between what is inside of the mind and what is outside. This happens more often and in much greater degree than you might imagine. Worse yet, it appears quite correct to most because the mode of thought involved is unquestionably accepted by nearly all. In conjunction with this is a natural principle of the mind that all but disappears in the process: Volition. Each individual is by nature a volitional entity imbued by natural principle with the freedom of choice. Yet, the mind is highly susceptible to being programmed and controlled by dominant beliefs that proscribe the parameters of thought. This means that choices are made only within the parameters allowed by the dominant beliefs. Knowledge of reality outside of these parameters is emotionally regarded as non-existent. Much to my sorrow, most go through life not as an independent thinking individual, but as a reactive entity motivated in thought, feelings, and actions by the directives of the dominant beliefs. If this is true, is there an escape from this mind prison? Yes. Its knowledge of the mind. This is the means of controlling your own mind and thinking independently.
As a primary illustration of subconscious response emanating from held beliefs, let's look again at one of the statements above. I, in effect, stated that the failure to make a distinction between what is inside of the mind and what is outside is a common occurrence and generally accepted as the "norm" beyond questioning. What was your mental response to this statement? In all probability, it was casually passed over with no conscious thought or analysis, or of its significance if true. Why? To speak of someone failing to make a distinction between what is inside of the mind and what is outside usually evokes the thought of a person severely mentally deranged and perhaps committed to a mental institution. This reflex emotional picture does not in your mind equate with the "norm" in which I placed the conclusion. Ergo, the statement is emotionally and instantly rejected as false without any examination and effort to ascertain why I made the statement, or what evidence I can offer as proof of it. The idea that the "norm" in thinking accepted by millions is "abnormal" is too far removed from the accepted "norm" to be seriously considered. Nevertheless, the statement is quite true and there is an abundance of evidence to support this conclusion. (The observation above about positing society and a corporation as "entities" are a couple of examples of confusing mental inventions and ideas with objective discoveries.)
Since every thought and action presupposes the existence and operation of mind principles, an infinite amount of data is always available for study. As in all scientific study, the ever-present core objective is to accurately relate cause and effect. Fundamentally, I'm talking about tracing effect back to action and action back to motivating beliefs and psychological causes. This is accomplished by identifying the mind principles and causal nature of the principles that determine the final outcome of given premises and beliefs. By using the same mind principles, we can also ascertain how and why specific premises and beliefs are created and accepted. Granted, sometimes the twists and turns of mind functions create a mental circumstance with some beliefs deeply buried and not so easy to detect. However, in general, and in reference to the commonly held beliefs that are the central subject of inquiry, we do not have this problem. They are practically on the surface and highly visible.
I mentioned near the beginning of this book the problem of resistance to any idea that opposes the status quo of what "everybody knows". The psychological resistance of which I speak is not of a conscious variety. It is not like deciding between higher or lower taxes, drug laws or no drug laws, abortion or no abortion. The resistance of which I speak is not consciously known at all. There is no mental viewing of alternatives with a conscious and consciously emotional response to options. If there were, there would be no problem. It is precisely the absence of awareness of an alternative that constitutes the problem. The resistance to awareness of an alternative is quiet, subtle, and nearly absolute. Given this declaration, you may justifiably ask: How then does one know that such a psychological barrier exist? And how does one deal with it if known?
First, let's establish that such a psychological barrier does exist; that emotions, known or unknown, derived from dominant beliefs, denounce and reject what your conscious mind tells you is logical and true. Start with an overview of the general situation of perpetual war and other violent conflicts discussed earlier. Is it your conclusion that this is a natural condition and nothing can be done about it? If so, how does volition fit into this conclusion? Are you saying that volition does not exist and individuals do not have a choice about the matter? If determinism is your answer, this takes us down a different road of necessary discussion as to how you reached such a conclusion in the face of choice to do so. On the other hand, if you believe the situation, i.e., the eternal war problem, can be resolved, why is that millions over hundreds of centuries have failed to find and implement the solution? What I'm getting at is that either perpetual war is a natural and naturally unchanging condition, or that the means to resolve the problem lies undiscovered because of psychological resistance to the knowledge required. If this is the case, would you call this a substantial psychological barrier protecting the violent status quo and sacred ideas? If yes, is such resistance consciously known to the holders and believers that perpetuate the condition by their thoughts and actions? Are they aware of an alternative to war, but refuse to choose it? If so, why?
An individual's beliefs and values are a sum total of all of his (her) life's experiences, and evaluation of these experiences. The evaluations are not always of a conscious design. Many beliefs are held by subconscious association from direct experience or subconscious mental integration of expressed or implied premises. Beliefs subconsciously accepted and held by logical inference are no less directive beliefs than those accepted by direct declaration and conscious deliberation; indeed, are even more so. What poses the problem is that subconsciously held beliefs are frequently not defined and not known to the holder. They exist only as directive emotions often in direct conflict with conscious observations and conclusions. By mention and illustration of the resistances, I am trying to call your attention to an element that may preclude grasp of observations and conclusions that I present. In the final analysis, it comes down to trusting your conscious mind rather than succumbing to emotional dictates that are contrary to what conscious mind tells you is true. The rationale behind this is that all emotions are a reflection of beliefs held whether acquired consciously or subconsciously. Since a belief may be either true or false, to rely on emotions to make that determination is to dismiss conscious mind and the principles of epistemology. While emotions are the motivator, the movers and shakers of all thought and actions, emotions are not reliable tools of cognition.
Every scientific researcher worthy of the name focuses upon discovery and use of principles, the 100% consistent natural laws that determine action, reaction, cause, and effect. The study of the mind is no different. Grasp of mind principles is the key to understanding. It will not suffice for me to just point them out and you to casually accept if so inclined. This won't work. It is for you to see the principle in operation and to know by your own mind and experience that they are indeed principles upon which you can rely at all times. I can furnish information but, in the final analysis, this is the ultimate do-it-yourself project. It can't be done any other way.
By nature, every individual is a volitional, valuing, goal-seeking entity. Although a goal sought is not always designated as such, goal seeking is an ongoing mental operation of every conscious individual. A goal is simply a desire for a change in a set of circumstances. A goal may be as involved and complex as building and flying a space craft, or as simple as raising a finger. The latter could very well be a consciously desired goal by someone recovering from paralysis of a hand. Goal seeking is mental or physical action. Also, while not always consciously recognized and declared, every action is preceded by a theory. For instance, if you arise and walk to the refrigerator to get a drink of water, this action takes place only after theorizing (subconsciously in this case) that you have the ability to achieve the end desired. By bringing this theorizing to the surface and viewing it in conscious light, we may view the mind principles in action.
The hypothetical or syllogistic form is often used in testing a theory. Although many elements are usually involved, fundamentally it consists of two premises and a conclusion. The first premise sets a propositional condition. The second either confirms or denies the proposed condition. A logical conclusion is drawn in correspondence with either the confirmation or the denial.
I gave an illustration earlier, but importance warrants a repeat for emphasis. Example: Premise 1. If it is raining, the ground is wet. Premise 2. It is raining. Conclusion. Then the ground is wet. Or - Premise 1. If Individual A wishes to live, he must take nourishment. Premise 2. Individual A wishes to live. Conclusion. Then Individual A must take nourishment. If A is equal to B and B is equal to C, then A is equal to C, and so on. The validity of this mental process is dependent upon a specific principle of the mind and the 100% consistency of the principle.
Focus most strongly upon this "if-then" factor for it is an absolute and working mind principle, i.e., the "logic circuit" involved in all your calculations via conscious mind and in both aspects of subconscious. Literally every belief you hold, consciously or subconsciously is by this means. However, and this is a most critical however, and again I repeat for emphasis, the mental integrator does not evaluate premises given as true or false. This is the function of the conscious mind and choice. The mental integrator is a natural mental reflex that simply and always produces a logical conclusion from antecedent premises. Since the mental integrator consistently produces a logical conclusion from given premises, it is the ultimate error detector. If a logically inferred conclusion is self contradictory or is in contradiction of some other belief or beliefs held, then beliefs held or at least one of the antecedent premises must be false. Several or all may be false.
Let's test further. Premise 1. If Individual A is flapping his arms, he is flying. Premise 2. Individual A is flapping his arms. Conclusion. He is flying. If you hold the conclusion that Individual A cannot fly by flapping his arms, then you must logically conclude that either this conclusion is false or else the premise that logically led to the contrary conclusion is false. Observe another mind principle evidenced in this mental action: You cannot simultaneously hold something to be true and untrue. You may from time to time change your beliefs, but your mind cannot hold a contradiction within itself. (The net result would be zero.) Whenever something is regarded as true, that which opposes it is necessarily regarded as false, i.e., mentally displaced and regarded as non-existent.
The mind principle of differential reference and mental displacement of the contrary is evidenced in the physical realm as well. A wanderer lost in the desert and dying of thirst "sees" a pool of water. If he "sees" a pool of water, then he cannot see the actual sand that the pool of water displaces. Again, another mind principles emerges: With sufficient provocation by fear and desire, a mind can create alleviating compensation and project that creation upon objective reality and believe that the subjective mental creation is objective discovery. Some have "seen" Jesus or the Virgin Mary. A grieving mother "sees" her dead son. There is much evidence of these happenings, but little understanding of delusional cause.
A much stated belief in Christianity is that an omnipotent god gives man free will. Let's examine this via hypothetical form and see how the belief stands up in the "logic circuit" and how the belief is sustained.
Premise 1. If an omnipotent god exists, then man has free will. Premise 2. An omnipotent god exists. Conclusion. Then man has free will. The problem is, of course, arbitrary declaration absent definition and connection to reality. If we define and then set the proposition in hypothetical form, we arrive at a far different conclusion. Premise 1. If an omnipotent god exists, then the omnipotent god controls all. Premise 2. An omnipotent god exists. Conclusion. Then the omnipotent controls all. Premise 1. If an omnipotent god exists and controls all, then man has no control, no free will. Premise 2. An omnipotent god exists and controls all. Conclusion. Then man has no control, no free will.
The seeming escape from definition and the unwanted logical conclusion is simply by ignoring the definition and unwanted logical conclusion. However, the matter does not end here. The mind cannot hold the self-contradiction. It must either accept the omni-god idea and reject individual volition, or reject the omni-god idea and accept individual volition. While the conscious mind may delude itself, subconsciously, this choice is made. Premise 1. If an omnipotent god exists, then individual volition does not. Premise 2. An omnipotent god exists. Conclusion. Individual and individual volition does not, is an illusion. This subconsciously held conclusion, derived from denial of the principles of knowledge and denial of finite individual as the real, is the dominant belief that is manifest in many forms throughout the prevailing philosophical and socio-economic environment. It will be discussed in much detail later. For now, let's clarify the existence of determinant mind principles.
Three critical and descriptive terms of mind are self (ego, if you prefer), conscious, and subconscious, the latter two already discussed in some measure. There are two aspects of the subconscious. One is highly visible and easy to discern and accept as a principled operation of the mind. The other is no less principle, but obscured and not so easily recognized since it harbors dominant fallacies that psychologically act in their own defense to hide from the conscious mind.
To visualize the primary subconscious, let's hypothetically put it into practice. Suppose you are driving down the road at 60 miles per hour and a car suddenly exits from a side street and stops directly in front of you. What do you do? Quickly apply the brake? Why? When you learned to drive a car, you consciously learned the function of the brake. This knowledge combined with other knowledge and the desire to avoid injury or death all instantly combined to create a mind-physical reflex in correspondence with antecedent knowledge and values held. This is primary subconscious at work. It is necessary for survival. Time does not allow for re-learning or reevaluation of prior beliefs where circumstance calls for immediate decisions and actions. Even in non-emergency situations, daily you perform hundreds, if not thousands, of tasks without conscious review of all relative knowledge and directive values.
If we put the car situation in the simplistic form of mind functions, we find the mental integrator in action. The mental integrator is a principle of the mind that integrates given premises and infers a logical conclusion consistent with the premises given. In the car instance, let's begin with the value of your life and the knowledge that a severe impact on the body can cause injury or death. In effect, the integrator takes this path: If I wish to live, then I must avoid severe impact of my body. Knowledge of brake function creates: If I wish the car to stop, then I must apply the brake.
The important thing here to see and grasp with confidence is that subconscious directives are very real, not mysterious, and always are a reflection of beliefs held either consciously or subconsciously. If the beliefs integrated are true, they will result in the proper response to produce the desired end result. If the beliefs integrated are false, the end results will not be as consciously preferred and expected.
While everyone uses this principle in many calculation actions, as they must do to survive, when the integrator infers a logical conclusion in conflict with dominant beliefs, the conclusion is oft denied, which is also denial of the integrator as a 100% consistent principle of the mind. To do this is to abandon the greatest safeguard against error that the mind can provide.
In the automobile example, the subconsciously held beliefs are a matter of antecedent and known conscious conclusions. This is not always the case. Many beliefs are created and held by subconscious mental integration without conscious deliberation. The situation of subconsciously creating and holding beliefs is a matter of mind principle and is ever-present from the cradle to the grave. Subconsciously created and subconsciously held beliefs by a human individual is by a mental method very similar to that of animals of the four-legged variety.
If you observe the actions of an animal such as a dog or a horse, you will see that the minds of these animals work very much like that of a human except for the fact that a human being can think in the abstract. By calculating in the abstract, I mean mental operation by which one can know the consequence of an action without taking it, i.e., the mental ability to deal with ideas and abstract representations. For instance, a dog may struggle with a board trying to carry it through a doorway, but can't know if the board will go through the doorway without trying it, by direct experience. Whereas, a human individual may tell just by looking, or certainly can by measurement with a tape measure without moving the board. The knowledge held by a four-legged critter such as a dog comes by three basic elements: Instinct, parental guidance, and experience. The knowledge registers as emotional impressions, but the "if-then" factor is still visible as determined by observing actions and counteractions. If a dog encounters some other animal, say a badger, and comes out on the very painful end of the conflict, this experience will register in the mind and integrate with instinctive values for future reference. Without a conscious determination, the experience results in: If I wish to avoid pain, then I must avoid the badger. This is belief by causal, or what is seen as causal, association. This same mental element can be found in a human individual in many instances. A humorous one is the superstition of "lucky hat", etc. If the person was wearing a particular hat at the winning of a ball game, it sometimes superstitiously becomes emotionally regarded as the cause, that is, there is an effort to duplicate the previous conditions of which the "lucky hat" was a part. That a person consciously knows better does not automatically eliminate the emotional "associated cause". A car dealer advertises a car with the decoration of a beautiful woman. Many products are promoted by celebrity movie or sports stars. These are but versions of "identity via association." These cons are highly visible, yet enjoy much success in the marketplace. Other than perhaps being induced to buy a product by influences other than its quality, no great harm is done. Other instances are often a great deal more serious. Beliefs by association without conscious deliberation are very real and often constitute very real problems in humans and other animals.
Other similarities of mind functions are highly visible. A dog can be named and learn his name. A dog can mentally abstract existents on the sensory level, categorize and learn commands without conscious effort and without awareness of self as a mortal entity. Whatever the circumstances involving knowledge by the mind, the "if-then" factor is in operation. Where the similarities end, identity begins. An animal's view of the world is restricted by the elements named above. The human ability to calculate in the abstract, to conceive ideas, to communicate via language, to believe without restrictions presents a far different mental and psychological situation.
Most are aware that a child's environment has much potential for influencing a person's beliefs and values for life. What is not so widely understood is the hows and whys of this situation. Recall that the mind works by differential reference. What one knows to be true acts as a defense against accepting fallacy that opposes known truth. What of the mind of a child that holds little knowledge and little defense against whatever fallacy may be heard or taught? When this is combined with the physical and psychological dependence of a child, the door is wide open for dominant beliefs and influences to be realized in every type of behavior imaginable.
It is not just a matter of conscious teachings, but the logical inference and subliminal directives that literally direct all the thinking and actions of the individual for their entire life. A child does not need to be told directly that he is "evil"; nor does he (she) require that "evil" be defined. It is simply emotionally attached to things and thoughts. If a thing done or not done is labeled as "evil", the child by association and conscious or subconscious mental integration evaluates self by his relationship to the designated "evil". A child does not need to be told directly that persons or a particular race or nationality are "inferior". He may hold such a belief and opinion from the subconscious integration of a passing remark or gesture. If by the conversation of his parents, a child concludes that intelligence is much valued, intelligence (though undefined like "evil") becomes a measure of self. If said parents give the impression that tying a shoelace is a mark of intelligence, and if the child is unable to tie a shoelace, it creates a negative impression of self. There is literally no limit to such incidents in a child's, or an adult's, life. In fact, undefined, emotionally held beliefs directing opinion, values, and value judgments often play a very large part in the view of self and interpersonal relationships on every level.
Subliminal directives and indirect instruction are all the more influential precisely because they are subliminal. There is no conscious awareness of exactly what is being taught, therefore no conscious evaluation and no conscious resistance. Tie a subliminal directive to the self value of a believer and it has more force than a thousand skilled orators arguing against it. A believer will pursue the directive even unto death none the wiser as to what or who is directing the motivating thoughts and consequent actions.
Think for a moment about the world you were born into and in which you now live; an earth mentally chopped up into "nations", "states", "governments", and "collective entities" of nationalities, race, whatever. Have you ever really questioned this? Have you analyzed it and found it all to be based on truth? Have you accepted all the beliefs that underlie this philosophical structure because your conscious mind found them to be true - or because "that's the way things are" and there can be nothing else? Have you considered these underlying directive beliefs and evaluated them in the context of your self value and personal goals? What's going on in your mind and other minds? How does thinking and mode of thought relate to your happiness or absence of it? What one believes to exist, to be true, is their concept of reality and their place in it. These determinations are made by thought. Mode of thought is a critical element in these determinations and decisions. It is of paramount importance to an individual to correctly identify them in order to act upon the real and achieve desired ends. What is involved in the necessary process? Is your thinking consistent with the principles of knowledge?
Let's begin the inquiry by observing a popular but fallacious notion dealing with the mind function of identifying an entity. I dare say that at least 99% of the population would say that they identify by both similarities and differences. Eyesight is a swift and proficient sense and the mind is so proficient at speed integration that it appears that differences and similarities are known simultaneously. This leads to the conclusion that identity is by both difference and similarity. Emotions fit this belief and there is a psychological resistance to accepting that which runs counter to the emotions. As demonstrated earlier in the epistemology chapter, these emotions do not conform to reality. Objective identity is by difference and difference only. If I can demonstrate this fact conclusively, would you accept it as principle and truth even though you still feel that its not true?
Bear in mind that when I speak of emotions influencing thinking and decisions, I am talking not just about the highly visible and obvious such as a murderer's mother believing that he is innocent. The influencing of which I speak is of a quiet and consciously unknown nature. It is actually incorporated in the dominant mode of thought itself, which makes it more difficult to recognize. One knows that it is emotional influence and emotionally held conclusion by observing the conflict with conclusions that your conscious mind tells you are true. The following will suffice as a primary illustration.
If you speak of the similarity of two entities, aren't you saying that you are aware of the two entities? Is it possible to know of the similarity before knowing that each of the entities exist? Forget the speed and efficiency of eyesight for a moment and focus upon principle as indicated by your own logical conclusions. Isn't it objective fact and principle that to note the similarities of two entities, one must first know that two entities exist? If identification of each entity is a pre-requisite to awareness of similarities, obviously similarity plays no part in objective identity. Does this make sense to you? What this is all about is to discipline thinking by principles and make correct objective identities in all areas of life. At first, emotions resist and it takes a conscious effort to keep thinking in line with the principles of identity. When the truth of identity becomes well set in the mind by thought and experience, then it become a matter of mental reflex with emotions corresponding. Many things that you once considered unquestionable truth, you will now see as obvious fallacy.
To further illustrate this most important point of identity by difference, imagine three large, identical cardboard cartons, each containing a kitchen appliance. The cartons are labeled A, B, and C. The appliances within are a food mixer, an electric cooking range, and a refrigerator. The task is to locate the refrigerator as a description of each appliance is given. Item A is metallic. Item B is metallic. Item C is metallic. Where is the is refrigerator? Item A is white. Item B is white. Item C is white. In which carton is the refrigerator? Item A operates on electricity. Item B operates on electricity. Item C operates on electricity. Where is the refrigerator? Item A has no compressor. Item B had no compressor. Item C has a compressor. Which item is the refrigerator?
I trust the point is made that an infinite list of similarities may be offered, but will not aid one iota in mentally abstracting and identifying an entity. Only when a compressor is added to the description of Item C, creating a different set of characteristics, is mentally abstracting and identifying possible. Identity by difference and only by difference is principle. This elementary, irrefutable, and all-important fact is psychologically dismissed by the idea of similarity as a fundamental of identity. The consequence of this is emotionally regarding a subjectively created, similarity-based category as an actual objective existent, i.e., mentally treating it as a real and causal entity. The category element is combined with other abstract mental inventions resulting in a philosophy of illusory "infinite entities" and "universal values." This philosophy, epistemology, and mode of thought is nearly universally accepted without question. Language usage attests to this regrettable fact. Constitutions, laws, books, speeches, and all elements of the media are saturated with non-identity and contradiction. By most, it is all blandly and blindly accepted without so much as a raised eyebrow. What "everybody knows" is not to be questioned. After all, didn't consensus of opinion make the earth flat?
The test above and any other valid test you can devise shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that objective identity is by difference and difference only. It also demonstrates a very important element of the mind: Emotions are the product of beliefs and conscious confrontation with facts that oppose those beliefs will not instantly dismiss the emotions although the conscious mind concludes that they are false. Which do you trust, your conscious mind or your feelings? The why of and the significance of this principle of identity by objective difference is a matter of life and death, for it is a matter of separating fact from fallacy. One acts upon what one believes to be true. If correct entity identity is not made by the principle of difference, then neither is the actual relationship(s) known and understood.
Awareness of subconscious and subliminal influence is hardly a new discovery. Advertisers and politicians have been playing to this fact for a very long time, but only in a most superficial manner. What is most ironic about this is that the advertisers and politicians are apparently completely oblivious to the subconsciously held beliefs and subliminal influences that direct their own thinking even as they consciously attempt to direct the thinking and choices of others. They are completely unaware that their parameters of thought are confined by the subconscious directives of dominant beliefs.
Let's look at another example of the quiet and subconscious resistance to the status quo and sacred ideas. A few paragraphs above I stated: ".... the above recognition of principle and non-principle clearly differentiates and clearly presents two choices in modes of thought: A - conscious adherence to the principles of identity as described above and B - abandonment of these principles to an imaginary infinite entity. Since no one is omniscient and infallible, strict adherence to A, the principles of epistemology, does not mean that one's conclusions will be correct 100% of the time. However, abandonment of these principles does mean that one will be wrong 100% of the time in this mode of thought."
Before any testing, let's look at the claim and evaluate it as a hypothesis. If there are two modes of thought and one mode is certain to produce error, would it be of value to you to know this mode that you may avoid it, and thereby avoid certain error? How much value? Even if the odds are a trillion to one against the claim being true, would its value if true warrant investigation and testing?
Obviously, if true, the value of such knowledge is incalculable. Yet, if I presented this idea to a thousand persons, it is doubtful if even one would grasp the significance of the claim and expend the time and effort to test it. Actually, the idea is very easy to test and confirm as true. First, observe that literally every thing you accomplish every day depends upon mentally abstracting a limited entity by difference. You distinguish your hat from your coat, your auto from another auto, your house from another house, your self from other individuals, by limitation and difference. From the simplest task to the most scientifically complex, literally every identity and accomplishment is irrevocably linked to the principles of epistemology and the fact that identity, that is, knowledge of any aspect of reality, is a matter of differentiation. To be sure, there are many beliefs held of gods, ghosts, disembodied spirits, and phantasmagoria of every "non-description", but no validation is ever forthcoming, nor will there ever be. This also applies to the endless list of "infinite entities" and revered abstracts called people, nation, society, majority, minority, public, ad infinitum. I submit that no one ever has or ever will find an exception to the principles of identity via limitation and difference. So, why the total disregard and de facto denial of such important knowledge? What underlies this absolute resistance, this quiet and subconscious instant rejection without consideration?
The answer is highly visible, indeed, covers the earth. The principles of epistemology denounce as fallacy any and all, expressed or implied, "infinite entity" beliefs and ALL beliefs derived therefrom. At least 99.9% of the world population not only subscribe to some infinite entity belief, their entire view of the world, especially view of self and self value are totally psychologically dependent upon the infinite entities belief. This has been so throughout all known time. The beliefs and consequent circumstances are so constant and so nearly universal, that these beliefs and conditions register in the mind (conscious and subconscious) as absolute. There is no alternative to an absolute and the mind cannot envision a "counter absolute", even if the beliefs held as absolute are false. Ergo, the principles of epistemology that oppose these totally dominant beliefs cannot exist in the mind of a believer. In such minds, there is no alternative, and, therefore, nothing to consider and investigate. Of course, such believers have no idea of the why of their default rejection of principles; for they have little or no understanding of their mind. The dominant beliefs themselves preclude the examination of the mind - unless one strongly wills it otherwise and makes the effort. Can any single endeavor be more important in an individual's life?
Another major element in influencing thinking is authority. In this concept, fact and fiction become so entangled in so many ways for so long, that they tend to blur together with all "authority" emotionally considered to be fact. As a matter of necessity, we all begin our lives under parental authority. Then comes school and the authority teacher from which we learn. We encounter proficient authorities in many fields further embedding the idea of authority as synonymous with truth. Encompassing all of this is the ever-present authority of "government" and all of the derivative "authorities". Is it any wonder that subordination of the conscious mind to authority is so easily and so casually accepted? Most spend their entire lives, not deciding what to believe, but WHO to believe; indeed, often making a god or goddess of their favorite guru. In this state of mind, they are easily offended if one disagrees with the opinion of their discovered "superior being". They are emotionally unable to discern the difference between a criticism of a particular belief and a personal attack upon their deity. Thus do they set their beliefs as immune to criticism. They succumb to the revered and "unquestionable". "Authority" is their epistemology, not their own conscious mind.
Colleges and universities crank out experts and authorities at a rapid pace. They are accredited knowledge commensurate with degrees awarded. Sometimes rightly so and we would do well to heed their conclusions and advice in many instances. Other "degreed authorities" raise some very large questions. Although not perfect by any stretch, by and large, knowledge claimed by medical doctors, biologists, engineers, etc., is validated by application producing the intended results. Can we truthfully say the same about claimed knowledge of those holding degrees in theology, sociology, political science, philosophy, and other such subjects? Also, let us not forget the expert economists who play word games with illusory gross national product, ignore subjective value as market principle, and fail to define money and its role in the marketplace. To be rather blunt, other than in the technical areas, the professors and instructors in colleges and universities are unknowingly engaged in trying to standardize error.
No matter. They are all called authorities and few there be who think to challenge the idea of putting theology and the like on an academic parallel with the sciences. Nor does anyone seem to notice that degrees earned in medicine, engineering, and other tech based studies are earned only by adhering to the principles of epistemology, whereas degrees in theology, philosophy, economics (and others) are "earned" only by denying the principles of epistemology. Of course, in these institutions of authority, the principles are not recognized as they would rudely disturb the cherished status quo of authority by decree and deception.
In support of all the "authorities by decree" is the unofficial but much revered authority, "consensus of opinion". In a philosophical environment based on "higher powers" and subordination of the individual mind to the alleged higher power, mass opinion wields massive influence on the minds of most individuals. If nearly all hold certain sacred ideas, it follows that much influence rejects out of hand anything that opposes. To grasp the measure of the psychological resistance to the principles of epistemology, let's look at a partial list of what these principles oppose and declare to be fallacy.
"God's" will, life proper to man, the will of the people, the values of society, national interest, for the good of the community, public welfare, majority rule, natural rights, human rights, state's rights, federal rights, minority rights, public welfare, constitutional rights, objective morality, gross national product, family values, America's children, on and on and on. - Psychological saturation. These revered illusions have been around for centuries and all the violence and bloodshed derived from them has induced few to reexamine their premises. There is no doubt that the psychological dependency on these beliefs is near total and it is most unlikely that any argument will persuade many to take a new look. How ironic it is that millions feel that they cannot live without these beliefs, when in fact, the very things that they fear and consciously seek to prevent are the inevitable consequence of these revered fallacies.
Although these beliefs come under a wide variety of labels and claims, psychologically and epistemologically, they are all the same. The common denominators are hard to miss. First, in abandoning the principles of epistemology, the actual identity, human individual, is emotionally dismissed in deference to an expressed or implied "infinite entity". The epistemological and psychological effect is that real human individual is declared non-existent. Certainly, everyone is absolutely certain that they recognize human individual as real, but their thoughts, conclusions, and actions contradict the claim. The "infinite entity", under whatever label and claim, is explicitly or implicitly posited as a superior being to which the deposed and denied individual is subordinated. Real individual goals are now denied as each individual is effectively declared to be the means to a "universal goal". (Which, of course, is actually the goal of each believer hiding from self while seeking to collectivize all under his (her) personal beliefs and preferences.)
Since all ideas of "infinite entities", expressed or implied, are psychologically and epistemologically the same in that they deny identity and subordinate real individual to an expressed or implied omni-superior-being, for sake of utility, I refer to one or all as the god concept. "God's will", will of the people, and all other such ideas that express or imply an omni-entity of volition and creator of value. The alleged values are consciously or unconsciously believed to exist independently of any human individual creating them. In other words, these alleged values are said to be discovered and objective as opposed to being individually created and subjective. The concept, objective value, is diametrically opposed to the reality that values are subjectively created and attributed by each individual. No exceptions. There are no objective values or "natural standards" of any type anywhere. How could there be in the reality of human individual and unqualified natural volition?
If you believe that "the ways things are" is derived from unquestionable truth, then you accept the conditions as determined by nature and there is nothing you or anyone can do about it. On the other hand, if you suspect something may be wrong at the core and make the effort to think independently AND trust your own conscious mind, then a critical look at "the way things are" and why they are may culminate in a far different perspective than the one you now hold.
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