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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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There is pretty good evidence and a lot of coincidence that suggests Christmas (ie birth of Christ) was actually a merging of the story of the Christchild and pagan celebrations of winter solstice with a mixture of Egyptian mythology. Just like this land our country was formed on, there was someone and something else here before us. I wouldn't get caught up in " this is ours and everyone is ruining it". It is one of the lies the article speaks of.
I have researched several interpretations of the story of Christ including how it was a creation of the ruling Roman family many decades after the supposed birth of Christ as a psyops to infiltrate and defuse what at the time was a radical Jewish religious movement.
Like you said, there is good evidence and a lot of coincidence to support alternative narratives about Christ and the entire Christian religion. It would not be the first or last time a religion was created and promoted for political purposes. Just fascinating when you begin to travel deep down the rabbit hole.
Believe nothing and consider everything. It is often our preconceived notions and conditioning that blinds us to the sometimes blatantly obvious.
"Believe nothing and consider everything." I find Christian worship and the Bible as interesting "jumping off" points to explore one's own spirituality. The hand of man goes deep into religious practice, but the higher things are still there, to be considered and applied. Christianity alternately asks one to judge and be judged, and also to let things go. To fight back and to turn the other cheek. To bow down in supplication, and to stand tall for what is right. So, basically, to participate in being human, with all of its contradictions.
Humans are not random and also not rational. Or, to put it in a SF story, the computers take over, and put humans to death for the benefit of the machines. A moral code is introduced to the computer Borg so that "good" people are spared. Then the computers kill the rest of humanity because no one is innocent. Humans are a mass of contradictions. So why should our spiritual side be any different? I look forward to your treatment of the issue, Cog.
"Believe nothing and consider everything."
So how can you consider something if you don't believe anything? Quantum projection or the church of modern liberalism.? Sure you didn't mean, trust no one and question everything.
If you take a literal interpretation of 'believe' than what I said is silly.
What I am talking about is to believe no conclusions or explanations that are handed to you as 'fact' and instead do your own research. Belief handcuffs our power of perception and perspective. If we 'believe' something to be fact then we rarely if ever question our facts. Firmly held beliefs weight us down cognitively and constrict us from making sometimes obvious connections because we do not see what we do not believe exists, especially if it is in conflict with our beliefs.
An open mind and beliefs don't always work well together.
Belief in logic and reasoning Cog. Math and science. Like my pre-christian ancestors who believed in their form of spirituality. Jeez, why is it so hard to believe that there can be a higher power that exists within the truths of the physical world, which you can perceive and can even test, according to your ability.
It seems we are talking to each other but neither is listening. I honestly don't understand how you are coming to some of your conclusions about what I may or may not "believe" in. It seems you are taking my philosophical thoughts and assuming this is what I believe. May I suggest you read some of my early articles such as "Welcome to the Insane Asylum" or even my recent "The Science Delusion".
Your philosophical thoughts are not what you believe? Greater minds than you have delved for meaning. I will read your "articles". My beef with you is the same beef I have with many enlightened atheists. Which is that they can't understand how any logical mind can also have spiritual faith.
Of course the logical mind can be spiritual. You are imposing upon me your general beliefs about a class of people you have already lumped me in with. Thus you see me for what I am not and no longer have the capacity to hear what I am saying. You are hamstrung by your beliefs.
"We came to believe that logic and math were controlling us and finally accepted the possibility of a higher reason."
Cue HH.
math may be...but logic is man-made, no?