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The Santa Claus Lie – A Gateway Drug to Collective (Self) Deception
The Santa Claus Lie – A Gateway Drug to Collective (Self) Deception
By
Cognitive Dissonance
I spend what some might imagine is an inordinate amount of time thinking about lies and self deception. But from my point of view it is a fundamental flaw that cripples us as individuals and as a society. Lying and lies permeate our culture from top to bottom in ways we often never perceive and rarely wish to see. Essentially it is the foundational building block that supports all that is wrong with us and why we continuously repeat our oftentimes disastrous personal and societal mistakes. Deception, self and societal, is the fatal flaw, something we have come to call ‘being human’.
Do as I Say, Not as I Do
Consider for a few moments how often we as parents come face to face with the sometimes embarrassing problem of explaining to our young children why we tell public and private lies, but that they should not lie to us. How our telling a lie can actually be good under certain circumstances, such as shielding our self and others from a painful (self) truth or a blow to (our) their ego. What is often unspoken is that we lie to others in order to be lied to by others.
The odd thing is that if you were to ask random people on the street if they believed themselves to be honest you would get answers along the lines of “Yes”, “It depends”, “For the most part” or “Most of the time”. I suspect my readers have answered the question in a similar vein; I know this author has. We really do believe we are (basically) honest because we have willingly (eagerly?) deconstructed the dividing line between ‘honest’ and ‘dishonest’ and reformed it into a soft squishy malleable moving target somewhere near the center.
In other words we ‘know’ that stealing $1,000 from our employer or family is dishonest, but taking some pens and paper from the office or an old mechanics socket set from gramps………well, that isn’t really ‘stealing’ per se, just sort of borrowing on a semi permanent basis. Unless of course we want to believe that they ‘deserve’ to be stolen from, thus righting some previous wrong. Then all bets are off.
Seven Billion and Counting
The examples of personal and social dishonesty are as numerous and varied as the people who practice (self) deception, which pretty much means all of us. And while just about anyone can conduct a reasonably honest philosophical discussion about self and social dishonesty, few of us would reveal our deepest darkest secrets to even our closest friends, family or spouse because those secrets often revolve around overt or covert dishonesty, even if only to ourselves.
And then there is the self deception that we aren’t consciously aware of, clouded by both denial and social programming. While my previous articles have discussed denial ad nauseam I wish to focus a bit on the social programming aspect promoted mostly by herd behavior and alluded to by the title of this article.
I have long felt that religion was (and in many respects still is) a gateway drug to rampant self deception and public enabling of the cultural lie. Please understand that I am talking about manmade and man administered ‘religion’ and not about whether or not there exists a supreme being. But as the world’s population slowly drifts away from blind religious obedience and begins to recognize the inherent hypocrisy of those who promote religious fervor and division (my God way or the highway) another mind control mechanism has risen to take its place……...narcissistic consumerism based upon the lie of endless resources and ever increasing debt.
I propose that some of, if not most of, our lying behavior is programmed into us culturally by social acceptance of ‘harmless’ self deceptions such as the Santa Claus lie. The key is that the lie must be perceived as harmless or as causing less harm (a wonderfully relative term that can be made to accommodate any lie) than the ‘truth’ might cause to the victim of the lie. From that point on our own internal psychological rationalization and justification process takes over and we reform the lie into a (relatively) harmless half truth/white lie in our own ‘eyes’. Or at least a lie softened enough for most of us to stomach.
Of course this entire process is infinity more complex than I have just outlined and yet amazingly it is that simple. And it all starts when we as very young children begin to receive our own personalized imprinting courtesy of our initial programmers, our parents and primary care givers who themselves have been, and continue to be, imprinted by society at large and their inner social circle of personal peer review. From there it trickles down into our inner consciousness for final fine tuning and assimilation.
Infinite Creativity
We are all individual conscious entities engulfed within a herd of like minded individuals, interconnected yet separate, seemingly born without an operating manual yet infinitely capable of self expression, creativity and inspiration beginning at a very young age. We are born into this reality as individuals, yet we spend our entire lives trying to be just like the rest of the herd, a product of centuries (millennium?) of conditioning to ignore the innate knowledge and wisdom that springs from within in order to blindly follow the herd and the alpha directly ahead.
Seen from this perspective, something like The Santa Claus Lie has great utility in the conditioning process. Something that started out innocent enough, a tale of Saint Nichols, is slowly hijacked and commercialized by entities who wish to condition us in a way that creates ‘demand’ for products and services, many of which we do not need or even desire except for the fact that others in the herd are conditioned to believe they ‘need’ them, thus we do.
I find it endlessly fascinating that in ancient indigenous cultures the shaman or healer’s purpose was not just to administer the natural healing arts to his local tribe members, but to teach and guide the tribe to be emotionally and psychologically healthy and fit. Call it original sin, call it ‘being human’, call it herding behavior, but the shaman understood these self destructive tendencies and worked to help his people overcome this strange attraction in order to grow and blossom as powerful reality creators.
Intraspecific Kleptoparasites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptoparasitism
Yet the modern sociopathic man, essentially parasitic individuals who present themselves as our so called ‘leaders’ and thus the ultimate in Intraspecific Kleptoparasites, (Kleptoparasitism may be intraspecific (the parasite is the same species as the victim) or interspecific (the parasite is a different species) make every effort possible to exploit and enflame the very human flaws ancient shaman tried to heal. At the very least the shaman helped the tribe be aware of, and thus better able to defend themselves from, their own psychological and emotional flaws.
Seen from the perspective of the larger battle between reality creating humanity and those who wish to subvert and control humans for the parasite’s own benefit, one must question everything and anything that presents itself as (innocent) cultural expressions.
We tend to think that large population ‘control’ is nearly impossible because there are so many different human (re)actions to control. The key to understanding how this is done is to recognize that subverted humanity is perusing what it believes is its own self interest rather than that of the parasites. Thus total control is not needed, just a deceptive nudge here and there to move the willingly compliant herd along in the general direction desired by the Intraspecific Kleptoparasites.
Cognitive Dissonance
01-01-2014
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That probably depends more on "how" drunk you are ;)
Lol,
I see it more as asking permission to deny something she suspects is true.
The destructive behavior in this case would be to answer "Don't worry and just go with it, fatass."
Truth, in this case, is entirely subjective. Her ass would look positively svelte compared to a rhino wearing the same dress, so who's to say?
An Ericsonian response may work here. The lady may lose her fat ass as a result. BUTT she will prob not ever talk to you again.
perhaps the lie is so prevelant in society because the lie is a most effective survival mechanism. if this is true, then why is the lie such an effective survival mechanism?
two hypotheses:
(1) all Nature is based on deception. (also can substitute "Reality" for Nature)
(2) society is based upon the Myth of Scarcity and those who are most dependent upon society for their survival (especially those who are at the top of the food chain who are the most dependent of all) have mastered the art of point #1.
Trying to survive we turned occasional correlations into truth. Rain dances to bring in the crops. Then we condemed those who would question the truth out of fear the rains would stop and we would starve.
excellent point. as i was chomping down a new year's feast of lamb last night, i thought of another:
we have lied ourselves into forgetting that our survival depends on the death of other living beings.
I want my juicy burger, but I don't wish to meet (or know) the cow. This is always a lively discussion in my house. The further we distance ourselves from the real world, in this case mother nature, the greater our ability to self delude.
we'd never be able to even converse if we couldn't lie.
If there's enough food for one and you have it, if you run across someone else who needs food, you will lie for survival reasons.
If there's an animal that needs 2 or more to take it down, then honesty and coopertation is the way to go.
Then there are the predatory psychopaths who just can't do anything else.
CDis this was a great article to start the New Year.
Thank you. I am trying to write shorter and less dense. One out of two ain't bad for a first try.
More to come now that I have been retired to the pasture.
"Reverse Blockade: emphatically insisting upon something which is the opposite of the truth blocks the average person's mind from perceiving the truth. In accordance with the dictates of healthy common sense, he starts searching for meaning in the "golden mean" between truth and its opposite, winding up with some satisfactory counterfeit. People who think like this do not realize that this effect is precisely the intent of the person who subjects them to this method. "
Page 104, Political Ponerology by Andrew M. Lobaczewski
Is the glass half empty or half full? It is always both.
Santa, Satan
Encourage faith. Expose it as fraud, break that faith. No other faith based belief will ever be as strong as it would have been.
Don't encourage kids to believe in the red one who flys and knows... freak show.
santa was a shaman
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/atlantean_conspiracy/atlantean_conspiracy45.htm
satan a light bringer
if you strip the cultural connotations from both names and see them in terms of their original occupations (and what those occupations represent in the cultural psyche), then their interrelationship might begin to become more clear, especially how each and both have been twisted by a truth embedded in a bigger lie.
not only
also morning star:
http://www.thenazareneway.com/Lucifer%20Satan%20or%20Goddess.htm
I really like what can be found on that site.
It has contributed greatly to my continued awakening.
""" As anyone who has tried them knows, and most anyone who hasn’t fiercely denies, these Entheogens put us directly in contact with that spark of the divine within ourselves."
As one who spent years seeking enlightment via the use of little helpers, I had to spend years unlearning much of what was learned. There is a fine line between the divine that is within us and the delusion.
true dat, which is maybe why santa only comes around with his little helper elves once a year during the winter solstice...so that the "enlightenment" is balanced with an equal amount of darkness (depending on whether you're naughty or nice, that is) ;~)
The continuous delusion and craving of mankind for a parent, enables government. Mankind never wants to really grow up. Mommy and daddy are replaced in colleges by politically motivated substitute parents. In adulthood, they crave a system to act as their parents. In old age they want to be cared for by their adult children and government. Thinking, governing yourself and responsibility is rejected for the craved comfort of a perpetual childhood.
The delusion: Santa, a leader, a king, a government, an EPA, an NSA, the police, the FBI, a judge in a black robe, a teacher, or any one in an official office or uniform is your replacement mommy or daddy. The reality: "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." As Samuel, three thousand years ago, told the Israelites, who craved a king, "you, yourself will become his slaves." Your government is not your substitute parent,it's thieves stealing from you.
So a regime become corrupt, oppressive, filled with parasites. The system allows no other real path to change, or more insidiously, allows people to move for change, but it is mathematically imposible to vote such peaceful removal of corruption. We all know the quote by Kennedy in Berlin.
Irony of ironies, it will likely take a sociopathic alpha backed by violent "religious" fervor -- everything you despise -- to destroy the host. Such is history, such is the future, because for 100,000's of years we were tribal beings and the last couple of millenia has not changed how our brains are wired, unfortunately. This is also why peaceful libertarianism cannot alone overcome such a system, because the system does not need to follow its internal rules of good political behavior and respect individual liberty.
CD, Happy New Year and thank you for your continued contributions to ZH. They are much appreciated.
I have tried to express to family and many others what you articulated so well in your post.
It is really no different with children. They expect the truth and never imagine the opposite. Our children depend upon their parents to know their position. They trust until made to “untrust”. Children follow us blindly and believe whole heartily in what we transmit to them. They believe in what we believe and observe what we demonstrate. Is it not imperatively dangerous to play Russian roulette with this trust?
When our children come of age, how they deal with the outside world will directly affect us and reflect on us. We can’t sidestep this responsibility unless we completely and knowingly shirk our duty as parents. The lies we propagate to our children paralyze their soul and ironically embezzle what we were trying to endow.
CD
I have enjoyed reading your most recent posts.
The Journey and the Destination allowed me to recall the two summers I spent as a youth in Western N. Carolina. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes held their annual high school competition at the Blue Ridge Assembly and I was fortunate to participate. I can recall climbing to the apex of Black Mountain and overlooking Asheville. I truly believed I was on top of the world and my future was set in stone. How naive I was!!!
The various twists and turns of life have led me to many wonderful moments and some regrettable moments. I sometime wonder if I had taken a left turn at Albuquerque (as Bugs Bunny said), where would I have ended up. I have realized though that all the various roads I've taken have led me to where I am right now and this is exactly where I want to be.
Thank you for the gift of triggering my remembrance.
You have stated in The Santa Claus Lie, "Thus total control is not needed, just a deceptive nudge here and there to move the willingly compliant herd along in the general direction desired by the Intraspecific Kleptoparasites."
I believe you are referring to the engineering of consent. One of Edward Bernays lesser known works addressed this specific issue. The deceptive nudges of which you write have, over the decades, been tested and perfected on an unknowing populace. To repel the effects of this subtle manipulation by the Kleptoparasites we must learn their techniques. The following is Bernays essay on The Engineering of Consent.
http://provokateur.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/The-Engineering-of-Con...
All the best to you and Mrs. Cog!!!
"I believe you are referring to the engineering of consent. One of Edward Bernays lesser known works addressed this specific issue.
The deceptive nudges of which you write have, over the decades, been tested and perfected on an unknowing populace. To repel the effects of this subtle manipulation we must learn their techniques. The following is Bernays essay on The Engineering of Consent."
I remember the first time I read about Bernays and his various techniques to sway the masses. I was stunned. There it all was right out in the open.
Step one. Turn off the TV.
Thank you for the link.
If you turn off the TV you will lose touch with their techniques. I watch my family and how they are affected by MSM, reality TV, twerking, all the latest crap. I try to show my children how the MSM tries to manipulate them. Teach them the world is not a nice place and to above all, be cautious. Bernays was the grandpa of propaganda, incredibly perceptive, undeniably devious.
Watch NCIS and look at many of the themes. There is a bunch of covert shit, a bunch of covered up shit, some government agencies are good, some are OK, others, not so much, and a bunch of constitutional violations. But this is all OK, because the main characters all have our best interests at heart. My real life experience is that a LEO looking to jam me up is a LEO looking to jam me up, and there are no "best interests" of society at heart.
But seriously, recommend watching it, just to notice the themes, because it is a very popular show. You get to see what a lot of others are eating up as gospel.
Predictive programming in every sense of the word.
We have TV's in our house and they are occasionally turned on for specific reasons. But for the average Joe who watches 6-8 hours of TV a day the best thing to do is go cold turkey and just shut the idiot box off.
When Mrs. Cog and I do watch TV we are amazed by the totality of crap on TV. Is this really the shit people watch day in and out. OMG, we are all doomed. :-)
No TV since 1999
One of my better decisions.
Welcome to the club Cog.
Very well done.
Gonna be a good year around here.
I agree. I cancelled my Cable Service many years ago. Turning the damned thing off was the best. Before I turned it off the NASA Channel was tuned in so I could watch the World from orbit.
After a couple of Months that became just too expensive to justify. I was not watching anything else if I watched it at all.
Turn the damned TV off. It will be the very best decision that you can make.
TV is just a poor substitute for living life. It robs the senses of Touch, Taste, and Smell. It allows one to live a vicarious existence of Sight and Sound and poorly reflects reality.
There's good TV and bad TV.
There are thousands of documentaries to watch that will inspire you to read more about a topic that piques your curiousity and many excellent films that will do the same.
When was the last time you watched 'To kill A Mockingbird'?
Then there's Ducks & Boo Boo's.
Don't know anything about them. Don't care.
I will agree that everything on TV is not bad. But most is.
I do not remember the last time when I watched "To Kill a Mockingbird" But I read the book while in High School as it was assigned reading.
I watch quality movies online, on YouTube. I surf through Documentaries and pick those which pique my curiousity. I will also watch fiction as I find that there are some truths there as well.
In fact I watched the longest film that I have ever watched, the night before last. It is a quality film written by Stephen King and deals with the Spiritual. It is six hours long. It is an amazing film.
Perhaps you also will enjoy it. The title is, "The Stand". Make sure that you set aside six hours.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBbQ3k9I24U
Trading the tv for the internet is just opening more doors to more shit. One must learn to discern and be afraid of neither.
The biggest difference to me is, other than the mute button, you have little control over what's coming out of the Box. Changing channels doesn't help much, as there are hundreds of channels of the same. But, you are right about discern and be not afraid. The trick is not to let either consume your consciosness.
Thank God I'm not the only one who feels this way. It seems like the modus operandi is to create enough "real life drama" to make one squeamish. I for one cannot stomach it. I prefer taking my beagle out for a walk in the cold refreshing air. Nature in it's all encompassing cocoon makes you feel tiny yet gives you hope the world will make all right.
I don't invite lying, manipulative people into my home.
Why, then, would I have a televison?
The medium is the message (bet you never heard that before...heh.)
which I take to mean:
It's not what you watch, it's the fact that you're watching.
Our C-level professionals, political leaders, and people of means--whether built or inherited--have all been given a huge priviledge. These people are the true allocator of society's resources. These people define the ethical code of conduct. As these are privilages, they also carry a huge burden to improve our society by investing in the community, being generous towards their fellow man, being competively honest and being in the community walking their talk.
Government forcing people to do right never works. When the idealistic government workers use their power for selfish reasons, the state dies, because the allocators will follow the evil political leadership and create a fascist state that makes everyone else a serf to the state.
The UN--Clinton Klan--want to do this on a global level.
The UN-Clinton Klan is so outdated that the world they were hoping to conquer is already gone. They have more important things to do now; like worrying about security.
Wealth is an accumulation of material resources. It is not a privilege and certainly not a burden.
I can be bereft of all material possessions I have and I shall recover them if not more.
Wealth is not a measure of what you have. It is a measure of that which you know.
Wealth is a privilege, an advantage.
The accumulation of things can be burdensome if one allows one's self to be consumed. Your things will end up owning you.
In times past, the richest familyin town was also the chief benefactor. But we had an aspirational society instead of one that authomatically slammed anyone with wealth. There is a direct correlation between a society's attitude toward wealth and it's health. Societies in decline inevitably turn on those with wealth just as those on the rise see wealth accumulation as a positive. Rome, China, India, the US, Russia, Germanym Argentina -all conform to this pattern. Maybe it's a result of dwindling economic resources and a fight over a reduced pie.
"Maybe it's a result of dwindling economic resources and a fight over a reduced pie. "
Maybe? Ya htink?
But... good for you on mentioning this (most are incapable).
It's always been my belief that all wars are about resources. If everyone had enough to be satiated (toss in growth as needed) then hardly would there be a need to go on killing sprees...
I would like to go one step farther.
It is my own privilege simply to sleep on the sidewalk that their most glorious shoes have graced. Why, without these great men...
I sympathise with the burden of this prosperity. Allow me to alleviate their duties, to distribute their wealth and to enjoy the luxuries that vex them so.
I sometimes steal food when I am hungry and have no money. I walk into a supermarket grab a loaf of bread and some peanut-butter and walk out. It feels exhilarating. I have never been caught.
There is a trick to stealing from other people right in front of them. The secret is to act as thought everything is perfectly normal. You must master the art of acting as though everything is routine. The great fraud of this day is no different if only on a larger scale. They have actually created an entire system of normalized behavior so that only a critical observant mind can realize the theft. These minds are so rare the rest is assured to operate smoothly.
God bless you and may you find the ability to provide for yourself. You have hit the nail on the head. If what the criminal banks do is normalized and made to seem like it is obviously the right thing to be done, then the average guy on the street thinks it is okay. Today's American is so dumbed down unless they just lucked into finding ZH then hey have no clue.
Thank you all for helping to educate me. I have about 10 converts, I hope to get a lot more than that this year. ZH unite. BITCHEZ !!!!
I hope the next person he steals from shoots him in the face. He obviously is intelligent and healthy enough to do some form of productive work. He CHOOSES to be a parasite and sociopath.
the biggest deception is the myth that change can only happen with more than a 50% majority. the reality is only 5% of the population is needed to change the world. that is why large contragroups like occupy must be violently countered, 9/11 truth movement fragmented, ron paul ostracized and gold buying discouraged.
"the reality is only 5% of the population is needed to change the world."
I have no intention of changing the world. And I believe others should stop trying as well.
We have 1% who have changed the world and currently control it. If you want their power then you need to become just like them.
Change your own world and make it serve as a guide for others to do the same. Have everyone be 100% of their OWN change-group- full ownership (you sign up with 5% of a collective and then you'll most certainly point fingers at the 95%, which, is pretty much what the 1%-ers do now [they just determined that THEY know best and have self-appointed themselves over others]).
7+ billion humans on the planet. 5% = 350 million people I'd think that I'm not going to wait around for there to be 350 million people on the planet who manage to align themselves AND have the energy left to battle the existing deeply-rooted gate-keepers...