RE: Tired of this “Red pill, Blue pill” Analogy
An interesting article and a good place to start a discussion. The whole Red Pill – Blue Pill meme is simply a popular culture symbol. We like our symbols and our memes. Many hold onto them with a death like grip.
My issue with the “Woke” meme is that is a fairly recent fad for some people to claim they are aware of the sociopolitical world around them. The problem is, just saying “I’m Woke” doesn’t necessarily make it so. Where were these “Woke” people five – ten – twenty years ago? And, just what is it they are “Woke” to? Are they now “Woke” to the machinations of the current President? Are they “Woke” to the history of the last fifty, one hundred, or several thousand years? All of these things are tied together… our Nation just didn’t drive along sleepily, and now suddenly the problems of today arrived unannounced, because the “Woke” person is currently aware of the issues our Society faces.
This is an interesting discussion point that the author made,
“You are free to believe that you are right and others are wrong. But how willing are you to let others believe what they believe?”
People can get very angry if you upset their boat of believes. And, rightly so if the person doing the waking is too ardently insistent. Another danger is if the person shaking the sleeper, destroys a sleeper’s core belief, is the one doing the shaking ready to fill in all the other believes that sleeper had that were tied to that one core belief? It is a terrible responsibility to wake others, especially if the Teacher doesn’t have the time to guide the sleeper fully to awareness. Leaving someone without one of their core believes only leaves them angry and confused, surely not better than before.
While I have had some success helping others clear up some of the things they were seeking to understand, they were already seekers, not sleepers… or swallowers of the Kool aide. Most I found, or they found me on the Internet in blogs and discussion forums. But, in the “Real World” I’ve found almost no success trying to ‘wake’ people. I’ve recently decided to give up on that pursuit, unless someone asks me a very pointed question, and then I have to dial up my awareness and watch how that person accepts my answers. If there is any signs of rigor mortis of ideas I stop quickly, because most likely that person isn’t a seeker, but someone looking for validation of their believes. They are not looking to hear my words, they are looking to tell me their believes, or even worse how I should think.
Truth is, in the real world, there is rarely time to explain to others what my thoughts are about the sociopolitical aspects of the world we live in… Online I can point to sources for research, and if the person is a true seeker they will look at the source, and then generally let me know they are grateful for the answers to the questions they may have had. Basically in the real world, how do you give an elevator speech about an idea that would take a book to explain?
Great comment here.
We cannot force people to accept truth, and we can never be 100% certain that what we know to be true is actually true, so all we can do is share our idea s respectfully and live our lives based upon them. If they hold up, others will notice and come join us.
In my opinion, the sleepers still need some sleeping in order to wake up well, and sometimes they may not be as clueless as I may assume, there are many paths to the same place.
I don’t reserve this kind of conversation for those who agree with me on everything but I make sure they at least respect my opinion before I get all tied up in any deep conversations about truth.
From your comment,
"In my opinion, the sleepers still need some sleeping in order to wake up well"
My concern is the sleepers will oversleep, by the time they wake up it'll be too late.
I should explain that I spend a lot of time reading about Propaganda, and over the last four years I've learned a lot form many sources. I studied Public Relations in college, back four years ago, and was introduced to Edward Bernays and his compatriots, one being Walter Lippmann... Lippmann's term the Bewildered Herd is what I called the sleepers. But, Lippmann's term expresses a disdain by leadership, for the sleepers that most should find repulsive.
What I've come to realize over the last several years is that most Americans are heavily programmed through propaganda, and the programming has been going on for most Americans, their entire lives since at least the early 1900s. The problem then becomes, if the majority of every generation since the 1900s has been programmed by the Propagandist, how do we distinguish truth from programming?
Another issue I see with the Bewildered Herd is that they seem to be waiting for some kind of Savior to come save them. The problem there being why would a leader be willing to put their neck out to help the Bewildered Herd, when the Herd actually has all the tools needed to save themselves, but are too afraid to do so? And, actually most Saviors know that if the Herd is too afraid to save themselves, they certainly won't stand when the Savior needs protection. It would take a very brave Savior to be willing to become a Martyr.
As someone who has turned off the tv and left my native culture, I can attest to the severity of programming that we go through, it took me a long time to even realize how programmed I was...still am to some degree.
We’ve been programmed to need a savior (leader) particularly none is coming. We have also been programmed to not recognize or protect any savior that comes, and to self destruct if we try to become saviors ourselves. A savior is not the answer.
But there are those of us who are waking up. If we just make what we do look easier and more fun than what those who keep us asleep would have us do, others will start to join us. If a kid is sleeping and you wake him up and tell him it’s time to get to work...he said going to want to stay in bed. If you he hears you playing with a new game console, he’s much more inclined to wake up on his own :-)
Yeah, I turned off the TV too. But, it seems I’ve replaced it with the Internet, in fact the reason I turned off the TV was because I wasn’t watching it anymore – except the occasional sporting event.
As far as human programming goes, when I read Edward Bernays’ 1928 book “Propaganda” I found where he laid out his entire plan to influence American and Western societies. He talked about using the sources of information and entertainment of the day, and going even further as to enlist the population's churches, clubs and any community organizations to bend people to word of the Propagandists. And, of course he didn’t leave out using our Education system to educate children to the correct way of thinking.
Anyway, Edward Bernays took his uncle Sigmund Freud’s ideas and applied them to the masses. The idea was to appeal to people’s desires over their needs. And, we ended up with a more base society because of it.
My question has been and the reason for my seeking is to find out how to reverse that Propaganda and turn it to making a more hopeful and healthy society. Why appeal to mankind's most base desires, and not appeal to those things that make humans better?
As to the Savior? He’s not meant to survive, isn’t that the message we’ve been programmed with?
Making the truth entertaining is a workable idea. On my old site, I used to do polls as a way to learn about the audience I was posting articles to. One of my earliest polls had to do with asking how many Lurkers were on the site. Having a poll allowed them to speak up without revealing themselves. One other reason I did the poll was because many of my articles were receiving more votes, than comments. And, I didn’t know who they were, or why they were not commenting. It wasn't unusual to see articles and seeded links with several hundred votes and comments, there were some that even had thousands of comments. It turned out from the poll results that about 70% didn’t like the tone of the site, and didn’t want to be ridiculed by others. So, how many Silent Lurkers were there? About 60% of the people reading articles on the old site never commented... which is about normal for the Silent Majority in most groups.
Once, I realized that there were that many people reading, but not commenting, I started to write as if all my articles, and comments had many more readers than were actually actively involved commenting. On my old site I had some really smart friends there as well, and we would have entire conversations – that we’d had before, and that we knew, each other knew the facts and truth of – just to entertain and inform the Lurkers. It is an effective way to reach others, and people would just watch and occasionally comment on how much they enjoyed the interplay in our conversations. It is a good teaching tool.
I’ve been meaning to get around to that book!
The whole concept of a savior is a program! That doesn’t exist in nature, it’s a dramatization, and an unhealthy one at that. We are all potential saviors, none above any one else, it’s just about being able to stand up and fulfil whatever it is that we were born to do, whether it’s teach, build, plant, or share. From there Strong communities are possible and peaceful networks between communities (similar to trade relationships between countries, which make war more difficult) can form and that’s how we can root out the old programs together.
It seems like you have a lot of experience blogging and stuff. I might have some questions about how to branch out off steemit. I like it here, but it’d be nice if I could make some fiat until crypto really takes off. Just thinking.
I’d probably say that the notion of a Savior comes from the human desire for the symbolic replacement of a parent's offer of safety.
What brought me to bring it up was something I read from Noam Chomsky. He was talking about the difference of giving speeches to groups in the U.S. and groups outside the country. He said after giving a speech in a foreign country, audience members would seek him out to tell him what they were doing to make their Governments or Countries better. But, after giving speeches in the U.S., audience members would seek him out and ask, “What can we do?” That’s always stuck in my mind.
The other thing I was remembering when I brought up the myth of the Savior was a conversation I had with a Conservative co-worker. Now, before I go to far, I need to be clear about something, I’m not Liberal or Conservative, and neither party appeals to me at all… I just mention my co-workers party for context… See here was big, burly 300 lb man telling me he was waiting for a Savior to lead the revolution, he’d heard about on Limbaugh’s and Prager’s radio shows. Further, this Savior would have to be a Saint, with no agenda of his own… before my co-worker would throw in his lot with the Savior. I just shut up at that point, but my mind was mulling over some questions… like why would a Saintly Savior put their skin on the line for people that wouldn’t take a chance to save themselves, unless that leader was pure and untainted? The other thing that bothered my was why would a Savior put their life on the line, if their followers wouldn’t do the same? I thought my co-worker was being cowardly.
Anyway, that’s kinda where I was coming from on the whole Savior thing.
oh, I also meant to address your question about blogging.
I spent six years on another site that was very active when I started... it was my first experience with social media, and since I was a budding new writer it was a great place to practice my skills. The plug was pulled on that site, so there's no going back...
As far as starting your own website? I've looked into and have most of the pieces in place to do so... but other things in life require more attention right now.
What I plan on doing is having a friend 'host' my website on his server. And, then I'll take his advice and use 'WordPress' for the basic structure of the website. WordPress offers free versions of its product and there are many free 'themes' you can use as well. And, then I found a Domain name I like and bought the rights to it from a domain name registrar, like GoDaddy, there are others domain name registrars out there.
So, step one, find someone to host your site. There are many services that will do that for you. I'd find someone local if you can. And, then depending on how much you pay-per-month, you will receive varying levels of technical assistance.
Step two, find a theme for WordPress you like free or for rent.
Step three, get a domain name registered.
Step four, mix 'em all together and you have your own site.
That's about the limit of what I know and until I do it, I don't know what I don't know.
Finding good tech assistance is key...
The other thing to consider is how to get traffic to your site. I know you can link to it here on your blog with Steemit... and I'd probably do both sites at the same time, just for exposure.
The other thing to do is do a YouTube channel and maybe podcasts for exposure... some YouTuber's do pretty well for themselves, although I doubt it could be more than supplemental income for most.
I hope that helps?