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Lack of Critical Thinking is Key to the Corrupt Status Quo Maintaining Their Power
"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." - Henry David Thoreau
Have you ever noticed how vehemently people react when you question something they believe in instead of ever being able to have an intelligent discussion with him or her? In the below video, Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist, author, and war correspondent, nails the reason that explains why it is so difficult to change a person’s mind when they are committed to believing something even when they are confronted with a mountain of evidence that points to the contrary. Chris states that universities have stripped away humanities and other courses that develop critical thinking skills and instead, due to the historical influences of men like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, focus on teaching young men and women “what to think” instead of “how to think.”
Like the proverb that states we have two ears and only one mouth so we should listen twice as much as we talk, when we are confronted with actually having our views challenged, many among us fail to listen, fail to analyze, fail to think, and we instead immediately open our mouths in defense without ever seriously considering the contrary information, often in factual form, that has been presented to us. All of us, including yours truly, have been guilty of responding insensitively and unintelligently in this manner, and I believe that there is a reason for this type of response. The powers that be have used education against us by employing teaching methods within institutional academia that condition us to automatically dismiss any notion that might conflict with our internal belief systems that THEY have programmed into us. If you believe that this notion is far-fetched, consider that from 1900 to 1920, at a time when the direction of American education was very much still being molded, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller incredibly spent more money than the entire US government in funding and building the education system to meet their specifications and wishes.
Have you ever thought about why repetition, an integral construct in the effectiveness of brainwashing, is also an integral construct in most institutions of academia in every country of the world? Could education institutions possibly be serving as re-education camps? Should not true learning involve students questioning professors, students questioning students, and professors questioning students not just to repeat and regurgitate pre-packaged responses as is so often the case, but also to critically analyze and to defend one's positions and arguments? The Powers That Be (TPTB) that attend the Bilderberg conference must secretly smile and laugh behind closed doors at the “unthinking” nature that they have been able to instill within us. Refuse to accept something as fact just because an authority figure, whether a professor, the Vatican, or politician, told you to believe it, and automatically many amongst the sheep will accuse one of pandering to conspiracy theories, even when one can present many facts that support one’s opposition view much more strongly than the widely accepted view.
Because universities are so focused on teaching us “what to think” instead of “how to think”, this dumbing down process has produced many media figures and talk show hosts that respond to any questioning of their beliefs with censorship, an attempt to talk over opposition views, or with infantile ad hominem attacks, no matter how cogent and eloquently expressed the opposition view may be. When I lived in Japan, I learned of a Japanese proverb that states, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down”, as if uniqueness and individuality were undesirable traits. Perhaps this may be the case as the status quo views us, their subjects, but certainly humanity should strive to achieve creativity and foster critical thought in order to establish a more moral society and to root out corruption. Furthermore, the deliberate destruction of curricula in institutional academia that fosters critical thinking skills has given way to “hero” worship and learned helplessness instead of self-determination and self-reliance. Again, the status quo delights in the hero culture we have built today. Hero worship leaves one longing for salvation to come on the back of some mythical hero without any commitment or accountability from the masses. The status quo delight in the hero culture that they have built in the minds of the masses as they know that longing for salvation to come from someone else will leave people in a state of learned helplessness-induced inertia and thus create an effective barrier from the manifestation of a "peasant" revolt.
As long as we believe a hero can save us, we will not act and take control of our own fate, and all the easier it is for the powers that be to control us. Have you ever noticed how often someone will defend every fault of their country’s President, a huge pop star, or a star athlete as passionately as they would defend their own family if you should dare criticize their “hero” figure? From a logical standpoint, such defenses are the definition of irrational, as no one can truly know anything substantial or substantive about the character or true nature of a public figure with whom they have not spent a single hour. But yet people very frequently subscribe to the absolutely absurd belief that they know the character of their “hero” intimately and will defend this person’s honor (or dishonor as it may be in many cases) to the end of time. In closing, in addition to Chris Hedge’s video, I will leave you with a video I posted nearly a year-and-a-half ago in which I discuss ex-KGB Yuri Bezmenov’s discourse on ideological subversion and how such tactics can produce sheeple that will invariably obey and believe what they are told. Hopefully this will help us identify the ideological subversive tactics that are being deployed against us today all over the world and help all of us to transform into more open-minded people willing to consider alternate viewpoints other than the ones that "the powers that be" commanded us to embrace.
Read Part II of this series here.
Read Part III of this series here.
About the author: JS Kim is the Founder and Chief Investment Strategist for SmartKnowledgeU, a fiercely independent investment research and consulting firm with a mission of helping to stomp out Wall Street fraud and to reinstitute sound monetary principles and sound money worldwide. We sincerely appreciate all of you that continue to “like” our Facebook fan page and "follow us" on Twitter. Through these mediums, we will keep all of you aware of some major campaigns we will be launching in early 2012 to raise global awareness of monetary truth and our proposed solutions to institute sound money.
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Yes, a stunning example of mass projection, borne out of corporate inculcated mental enfeeblement via the telescream.
Nice series Mr Kim
Rockefucker wanted our brains in a box.
This is better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwbxEfy7fg
Supports my hopelessness about any future course corrections. The problems we face are all the consequences of people at war with reality and man's nature. A lot of them cannot think, they can only tweak the various levers.
Exactly right Egoist, but why do they reject reality? I think because they have been trained in the concept that; The power of faith and Belief that can move Mountains, and get you a place in Heaven, can surely trump anything on Earth, if only we would all believe it, and believe it a little harder, that is why non-believers views and opinions are attacked preemptorially and visciously, non-believers are the problem, they stand between the believer and the solution the believer seeks!
"The problems we face are all the consequences of people at war with reality and man's nature. A lot of them cannot think, they can only tweak the various levers."
The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death - http://bit.ly/zKyNfy
"Relying on one’s conventional power of control-logic and will, when fully developed and perfected, leads to system lock-up – the self-cancellation of personal control power. Demonic reason taken to its full development creates an impossible mess and gets itself tangled up, paralyzed in its own net of reasoning about control, power, and will"
"One’s role as the independent creator and controller of one’s thoughts was an illusion. The current time-slice self or time-voyaging continuant self is helpless to control or restrain the future time-slice selves while playing with the idea of having, keeping, or losing control; the result is like an army of lookalike time-slice selves, fighting against each other.
‘Idol worship’, ‘pride’, or ‘vanity’ is the assumption that the power of egoic control agency is real and substantial. “Pride before the fall” is the futile attempt to depend on that doomed pseudo-power configuration to save oneself from the catastrophic failure of cybernetic self-control, a failure which is inherently, systemically entailed."
"Sacrificing your autonomy-claim, acknowledging your dependency on that which ultimately gives you your thoughts, brings mental peace and harmony and calms turmoil, because you are relieved from increasing your attempt to grasp and secure power over your own power; relieved from testing the power of your autonomy and the limits of your self-control thoughts."
Don't knee jerk vote it down....read the link then DISCUSS ;)
This is Fight Club bitchez!
Face it : NDAA is the symbol of the great muslim's victory.
They hate us for our freedom.
Thus, if we can only eradicate our freedom, they won't hate us anymore!
It's genius, really.
We will achieve victory against the freedom hating terrorists by installing a repressive police state
And, by their own definition, they will have won.
Beautiful: it's a win-win situation.
"Should not true learning involve students questioning professors, students questioning students, and professors questioning students not just to repeat and regurgitate pre-packaged responses as is so often the case, but also to critically analyze and to defend one's positions and arguments?"
Don't question my authorita!!!
I don't question your auctoritas, but you loose some gravitas by adding three exclamation marks - I top you now with four !!!! ;-)
LOL - red arrow catcher of the day: I just had to think that whatever some ZH commenters say about Jesuits, in their schools you do learn to challenge the teachings with logic...
Loose rhymes with noose ... which is what I feel like sticking my head in every time someone mis-spells lose, which rhymes with booze ... which is a less extreme alternative than the noose, to be sure.
Loose - contrary to appearance - does not rhyme with choose which does rhyme with confuse which is pretty ironic, really.
Logic.... And NAZI like precision as well.
We are more than just the ability to reason and calculate. Having an ability is not justification for employing that ability. Evil is the path of least resistence and the destination of least reward. Paradoxes abound and the thunder of confusion can blind, yet with senses suspended I can discover truth. True freedom exist only for those who give it away. Freedom cannot be held or possesed, only marveled at and lovingly left unsoiled by my desire to claim it as mine alone.
So now that my foray into philosophy is over...Check out the new :
Zero Hedge Reads...Looks like the Tylers have given us a few more gifts? And I'm off to post this gem far and wide. Lack of Critical Thinking is Key to the Corrupt Status Quo Maintaining Their Power.
Good stuff! Thanks.
Logic.... And NAZI like precision as well.
Only Nazis can have precision?
We are more than just the ability to reason and calculate. Having an ability is not justification for employing that ability. Evil is the path of least resistence and the destination of least reward.
Why is the path of least resistance evil? Why must virtue be the most difficult choice? I find it quite easy to love my children, so love must be evil by your logic?
Paradoxes abound and the thunder of confusion can blind, yet with senses suspended I can discover truth.
So the best way to know what is true is to get drunk, close your eyes and just pretend to know what is true?
True freedom exist only for those who give it away.
If you give it away, how can you still have it?
Freedom cannot be held or possesed, only marveled at and lovingly left unsoiled by my desire to claim it as mine alone.
Who says only you can be free? Almost everyone I know who loves freedom wants it for everyone else who will be responsible with it as well.
But wait, you think love is evil because it is easy anyway, right?
Dude, you are in hopeless self-imposed delusion thinking yourself a sage of great wisdom, lol.
no day in ZH without some nazi comments, eh?
I guess you have not seen that episode of South Park. Superfluous exclamation points are required.
gotta see it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! which season & number?
which reminds me: is South Park an expression of "red America" or a "blue America" parody of the first? honestly, I'm clueless
Interesting read. Thank you.
Sorry to jump the comments queue like this but if you're interested in Chris Hedges here's the link to his 3 hour long C-span Book TV 'In Depth' program. Hedges was the first invite for 2012:
http://www.booktv.org/Program/13110/In+Depth+Chris+Hedges.aspx
cheers and Happy New (4th) Year to ZH and ZHers
The US school system was designed to produce two things: soldiers and employees!
The best way to climb the academia ladder is to be liked. The easiest way to be liked is to be pro state and pro welfare because of course the more resources you want other people to give up means the more you care. It's very good for teaching institutions for its staff to reach high levels of government and pro government people make it into government, so there's another incentive for colleges to higher socialists.
TheSilverJournal.com
I think the overwhelming majority of Americans fail to appreciate how, and the degree to which, the inculcation of the 'importance' of team sports such as football and baseball in the school system contributes to the indoctrination of children into the collectivist, "my team right or wrong", statist mindset.
As a natural-born libertarian from my earliest memories, I always instinctively rebelled against both team sports while in school, and more so against the extreme amount of time, attention, and emotion which I saw my father, uncles, and other adult men around me invest in them while growing up. I could never help but feel that they were all suffering from some sort of collective insanity in their passionate involvement with a group of grown men playing a children's game being viewed on television. "WHO THE FUCK CARES?" and "WHAT THE HELL DIFFERENCE TO MY LIFE DO PROFESSIONAL SPORTS MAKE?" were the thoughts I always had in response to it, and which I still have today.
It seems to me no coincidence that some of the most avid participants in, and fans of, team sports are those from the various military schools and academies, team sports merely being the proxy for war and the statist, collectivist mentality outside of the formal battlefield. As well, they serve as a highly convenient distraction to the problems which our societies face today. "Keep 'em distracted by sports, and maybe they won't come after us, their enslavers".
The Roman emperors kept the masses entertained and distracted by circuses and gladiatorial fights, and we modern Americans have our team sports, from grade school to college to the national leagues --- there is utterly no difference. I have always said that if Americans would pay just 10% of the attention that they give to professional sports to the problems of this nation instead, and to understanding the extent to which our political leaders are destroying our freedoms and our prosperity, this nation would be nearly a utopia.
Bravo.
Look where sports/war got Pat Tillman:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Tillman
Dead.
If you buy what they sell you....you might get more than you bargained for.
Aaron Russo in the documentary "Reflections & Warnings" says he was told by Nick Rockerfeller that the reason for womens lib was to get them working, because up untill then they could only tax roughly half of the population!
The fact that there are so many women in the work force today and still the standard of living hasn't gone up in the last ten years shows how many resources the central bank is stealing from the economy. And the theft is only in the beginning stages of being exposed.
TheSilverJournal.com