This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Why Are Americans So Easy To Manipulate?
Originally published by Bruce E. Levine at Truth-Out.org,
What a fascinating thing! Total control of a living organism!
— psychologist B.F. Skinner
The corporatization of society requires a population that accepts control by authorities, and so when psychologists and psychiatrists began providing techniques that could control people, the corporatocracy embraced mental health professionals.
In psychologist B.F. Skinner’s best-selling book Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971), he argued that freedom and dignity are illusions that hinder the science of behavior modification, which he claimed could create a better-organized and happier society.
During the height of Skinner’s fame in the 1970s, it was obvious to anti-authoritarians such as Noam Chomsky (“The Case Against B.F. Skinner”) and Lewis Mumord that Skinner’s worldview—a society ruled by benevolent control freaks—was antithetical to democracy. In Skinner’s novel Walden Two (1948), his behaviorist hero states, “We do not take history seriously,” to which Lewis Mumford retorted, “And no wonder: if man knew no history, the Skinners would govern the world, as Skinner himself has modestly proposed in his behaviorist utopia.”
As a psychology student during that era, I remember being embarrassed by the silence of most psychologists about the political ramifications of Skinner and behavior modification.
In the mid-1970s, as an intern on a locked ward in a state psychiatric hospital, I first experienced one of behavior modification’s staple techniques, the “token economy.” And that’s where I also discovered that anti-authoritarians try their best to resist behavior modification. George was a severely depressed anti-authoritarian who refused to talk to staff, but for some reason, chose me to shoot pool with. My boss, a clinical psychologist, spotted my interaction with George, and told me that I should give him a token—a cigarette—to reward his “prosocial behavior.” I fought it, trying to explain that I was 20 and George was 50, and this would be humiliating. But my boss subtly threatened to kick me off the ward. So, I asked George what I should do.
George, fighting the zombifying effects of his heavy medication, grinned and said, “We'll win. Let me have the cigarette.” In full view of staff, George took the cigarette and then placed it into the shirt pocket of another patient, and then looked at the staff shaking his head in contempt.
Unlike Skinner, George was not “beyond freedom and dignity.” Anti-authoritarians such as George—who don’t take seriously the rewards and punishments of control-freak authorities—deprive authoritarian ideologies such as behavior modification from total domination.
Behavior Modification Techniques Excite Authoritarians
If you have taken introductory psychology, you probably have heard of Ivan Pavlov’s “classical conditioning” and B.F. Skinner's “operant conditioning.”
An example of Pavlov's classical conditioning? A dog hears a bell at the same time he receives food; then the bell is sounded without the food and still elicits a salivating dog. Pair a scantily clad attractive woman with some crappy beer, and condition men to sexually salivate to the sight of the crappy beer and buy it. The advertising industry has been using classical conditioning for quite some time.
Skinner's operant conditioning? Rewards, like money, are “positive reinforcements”; the removal of rewards are “negative reinforcements”; and punishments, such as electric shocks, are labeled in fact as "punishments." Operant conditioning pervades the classroom, the workplace and mental health treatment.
Skinner was heavily influenced by the book Behaviorism (1924) by John B. Watson. Watson achieved some fame in the early 1900s by advocating a mechanical, rigid, affectionless manner in child rearing. He confidently asserted that he could take any healthy infant, and given complete control of the infant’s world, train him for any profession. When Watson was in his early 40s, he quit university life and began a new career in advertising at J. Walter Thompson.
Behaviorism and consumerism, two ideologies that achieved tremendous power in the 20th century, are cut from the same cloth. The shopper, the student, the worker, and the voter are all seen by consumerism and behaviorism the same way: passive, conditionable objects.
Who are Easiest to Manipulate?
Those who rise to power in the corporatocracy are control freaks, addicted to the buzz of power over other human beings, and so it is natural for such authorities to have become excited by behavior modification.
Alfie Kohn, in Punished by Rewards (1993), documents with copious research how behavior modification works best on dependent, powerless, infantilized, bored, and institutionalized people. And so for authorities who get a buzz from controlling others, this creates a terrifying incentive to construct a society that creates dependent, powerless, infantilized, bored, and institutionalized people.
Many of the most successful applications of behavior modification have involved laboratory animals, children, or institutionalized adults. According to management theorists Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham in Work Redesign (1980), “Individuals in each of these groups are necessarily dependent on powerful others for many of the things they most want and need, and their behavior usually can be shaped with relative ease.”
Similarly, researcher Paul Thorne reports in the journal International Management (“Fitting Rewards,” 1990) that in order to get people to behave in a particular way, they must be “needy enough so that rewards reinforce the desired behavior.”
It is also easiest to condition people who dislike what they are doing. Rewards work best for those who are alienated from their work, according to researcher Morton Deutsch (Distributive Justice, 1985). This helps explain why attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-labeled kids perform as well as so-called “normals” on boring schoolwork when paid for it (see Thomas Armstrong’s The Myth of the A.D.D. Child, 1995). Correlatively, Kohn offers research showing that rewards are least effective when people are doing something that isn’t boring.
In a review of the literature on the harmful effects of rewards, researcher Kenneth McGraw concluded that rewards will have a detrimental effect on performance under two conditions:
“first, when the task is interesting enough for the subjects that the offer of incentives is a superfluous source of motivation;
second, when the solution to the task is open-ended enough that the steps leading to a solution are not immediately obvious.”
Kohn also reports that at least 10 studies show rewards work best on simplistic and predictable tasks. How about more demanding ones? In research on preschoolers (working for toys), older children (working for grades) and adults (working for money), all avoided challenging tasks. The bigger the reward, the easier the task that is chosen; while without rewards, human beings are more likely to accept a challenge.
So, there is an insidious incentive for control-freaks in society—be they psychologists, teachers, advertisers, managers, or other authorities who use behavior modification. Specifically, for controllers to experience the most control and gain a “power buzz,” their subjects need to be infantilized, dependent, alienated, and bored.
The Anti-Democratic Nature of Behavior Modification
Behavior modification is fundamentally a means of controlling people and thus for Kohn, “by its nature inimical to democracy, critical questioning, and the free exchange of ideas among equal participants.”
For Skinner, all behavior is externally controlled, and we don’t truly have freedom and choice. Behaviorists see freedom, choice, and intrinsic motivations as illusory, or what Skinner called “phantoms.” Back in the 1970s, Noam Chomsky exposed Skinner’s unscientific view of science, specifically Skinner’s view that science should be prohibited from examining internal states and intrinsic forces.
In democracy, citizens are free to think for themselves and explore, and are motivated by very real—not phantom—intrinsic forces, including curiosity and a desire for justice, community, and solidarity.
What is also scary about behaviorists is that their external controls can destroy intrinsic forces of our humanity that are necessary for a democratic society. Researcher Mark Lepper was able to diminish young children’s intrinsic joy of drawing with Magic Markers by awarding them personalized certificates for coloring with a Magic Marker. Even a single, one-time reward for doing something enjoyable can kill interest in it for weeks.
Behavior modification can also destroy our intrinsic desire for compassion, which is necessary for a democratic society. Kohn offers several studies showing “children whose parents believe in using rewards to motivate them are less cooperative and generous [children] than their peers.” Children of mothers who relied on tangible rewards were less likely than other children to care and share at home.
How, in a democratic society, do children become ethical and caring adults? They need a history of being cared about, taken seriously, and respected, which they can model and reciprocate.
Today, the mental health profession has gone beyond behavioral technologies of control. It now diagnoses noncompliant toddlers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and pediatric bipolar disorder and attempts to control them with heavily sedating drugs. While Big Pharma directly profits from drug prescribing, the entire corporatocracy benefits from the mental health profession’s legitimization of conditioning and controlling.
»
- 30000 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
This is an American only phenom? Why are people so easy to manipulate? Why do people feel compelled to manipulate (defraud) other people?
Francis sawyer made a post today and I just thought I would reply and expand a bit.
This thing about the jews and zionists, until I had the wool pulled from eyes rudely about 4-5 years ago I would have called anyone a fucking idiot saying that jews/zionists/whatever the fuck you want to call them have an over bearing precense not only in America but over the pond here as well.
I would have called you bat shit crazy to imply that a jewish/zionist/whateverthefuck consortium have an overdue influence in not just banking, but political, and social spheres well above the population rate for the size of their community.
Well that was then, and this is now. I find it almost unbelieveable that a population of 2% out of 330 million people have as much influence and control in America of banking, finance in general, the media, and acedemia.
And over here in England, this same group of jews/zionist/whateverthefuck, make up a miniscule 1.2% of 65 million people but they just so happen to be involved like my American friends in all the fields that actually matter, where decisions are made, government policy, etc etc.
Now call me a conspiracy theorist here all you like. How many people are aware of the very over reperesentative views of a tiny minority of people hold sway over two counrtys? Could this explain the USA and Englands love of the apartied state of Isreal? The land of gods chosen? The only people in the world who are intitled to a land to call home while abusing the native palistinians and using genocide against them.
4-5 years ago I would have questioned this. Now I dont.
conspiracists are terrorists, or terrorist are conspiracists O_0
+1 man
Well done. Now please just because you have found one (global) powergroup don't try to explain everything based on that one, ignoring all the others, including the locals.
My answer to the article's question: "make it easy, simple, quick, confortable".
Ghordius You are worthy of a screen shot. That was an excellent post, from an obviously objective person.
I commend you, with KISS. Keep IT Simple Stupid.
Wow, some intelligent discourse today! I'm grateful, the dufus' have been wearing me out lately!
Very well stated Ghordius! My sentiments exactly.
In your reactionary response, please don't become the dogmatic logic clutz you are criticizing! You just join the movement on a different color team.
I think that no one is more surprised at the amount of power and control that the Zionists have achieved than the Zionists themselves. They merely started out with a fervent desire to support and protect Israel. Israel is an inextricable part of Jewish culture. This shows what can be accomplished by a fervent group with a single minded purpose. Alan Dershowitz, in a moment of candor stated that (I'm paraphrasing) Our generation (of Jews) has created the most powerful lobbying group the world has ever seen.
Zionists did not start "out with a fervent desire to support and protect Israel". Zionism predated Israel be quite a few years.
If you stay in school, you can learn to do stuff that the idiots around you can only enviously bitch about.
Love it or hate it, one 'racial' characteristic of the Jews is that they generally value education. And that doesn't mean getting into a college that has a kick-ass football program. Bubba doesn't get selected to run the financial program, even though he graduated with a Heisman Trophy.
Almost every country on the planet has 'ethnic' people who are abused by the new owners, hundreds of years later. USA, Canada, Bolivia, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Serbia, Turkey, Tibet. Oh yeah, and Israel.
If the damnable Zionists would just stop oppressing the native Tibetans, there would be peace in our world.
"If the damnable Zionists would just stop oppressing the native Tibetans, there would be peace in our world."
Don't forget Uighurs in China, Rohingyas & Karen in Burma, Muslims in South Thailand, Chinese & Indians in SE Asia, Dhalits (/Naxalites) & at the other end of the spectrum Parsees (eg Tata and Godrej) in India, Tamils in Sri Lanka, Kurds & ethnic Greeks in Turkey, Copts in Egypt, Christian Arabs more generally & too many indigenous peoples to list in Anglophone and Hispanic ex-colonial & Islamic countries, etc.
So it seems these damn Zionists get *absolutely everywhere*. And how many of those groups are in the news every week or even every month? Who was it that 'controls the media' again?
The crafty zionists also change their names to be less recognizeable. Rothstein becomes "Roth," you know the drill.
Think about 'Sumner Redstone.' I did not know until I researched the zionist background. Think Hollywood. Why did Sammy Davis, Jr. convert to Judaism? 'Cause he knew where the power was, baby.
studying the "Kabbalah" is the new "converting" in both Hollywood, and the music industry.
right Madonna? (and many, many others)
Re I had the wool pulled from eyes rudely about 4-5 years
Better Late Than Never I suppose.
Then again, having been brainwashed-since-birth by the Goverment Indoctrination Mouthpiece British Bullsh!t Corporation (aka BBC) et al. it's hardly surprising it took you so long.
If my experience of the clueless, benighted , lap-dog Brits is anything to go by, I wager not 1 in 1,000 - better make that 1 in 10,000 - of your countrymen would have the faintest idea of what you're talking about.
(Pssst... you've only started going down the rabbit-hole)
Another fucked up thing in your country is everyone worships and has to bow to your soveriegns. I mean WTF?
pssst. . . no they don't.
Inbreed fucks is what USSA has become.
IPHONE
IPAD
Jersey Shore
Inbreeding
More inbreeding
Trailer Tash
public schooling + television + fascist psychopharmacology destroys the mind of the average American
Perfect description of the toxic stew, and evidence of its terrible effects everywhere one looks.
Oh brave new world that has such people in it! And to think there was a time this country was a collection of independent thinkers. Now it seems to be populated by state conditioned mind numbed robots hooked on Soma. Whenever I attempt some meaningful dialog/debate with them the port cullis comes crashing down and they make a hasty retreat or change the subject. Conditioning seems complete to me, sadly. This article was brilliant in describing the method conditioning was achieved,however it appears to be lacking in ideas to reverse the effects. Perhaps this is because an individual must make a choice to be manipulated or not. You either swallow the blue or red pill. Society may offer but you must first agree. Reminds me of Miguel Ruiz's book the Four Agreements. He describes what he calls the First Attention where we are "domesticated" by our parents. We have no choice at this time because we are dependent on them for our survival. The Second Attention occurs when we are adults and must then dismantle the domestication and become our true selves. Each agreement made must be individually examined and judged as truth or fabrication, an arduous process but necessary for an individuals ultimate freedom.
Miffed:-)
By the way, Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freud's nephew. One of those wild and wacky ethno-religious tribe members, of whom we cannot formally speak of, of course.
I don't think they were especially religious. Unless you call the belief that they were members of a tribe of The Ubermenschen religious.
It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. - J Krishnamurti
Edward Bernays
Century of the Self - Part 1 / 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prTarrgvkjo
Zombie nation,here any day,
Let your Smartphone lead the way,
You dare not use, what's between those earplugs,
as you now need, that Smartphone to tie those Uggssssss.........
Fluoride.
and aluminium. deadly combo in the minds.
Excellent article except when the author admires how people are motivated by a desire for community and solidarity.
This sounds very much like conformism, and conformism and hierarchy are exactly those instincts being used to condition us, and yet the author thinks he is against such conditioning while he promotes conformism. This is why socialists, progressives, etc, are useful idiots for such "control freaks", and many are control freaks themseles.
Conformism and hierarchy are killing the Soul of Humanity.
Conformism and hierarchy are the Soul of Animals.
I want to be just like you when I grow up.
double post
This, B.F. Skinner? LMAO!
A metastasized cancer of convenience, consumerism and corruption.
Re Why Are Americans So Easy To Manipulate?
Hmmmm...... that's a tough one.... but could being collectively as Dumb As A Box Of Rocks have anything to do with it?
I keep telling everyone it's the Attack of the Killer Algorithms, the tools that allow this to happen, society is bascially pretty naive and when it comes to math and coding, something most know little about, it's easy for the those that do to write code that goes the next step and substantiates the methodologies for control to even combine predictive behaviors. I have no probelm with folks crunching numbers to help predict things as some of it is right, but not all and we seem to treat it that way sadly and get "Algo Duped". That's a new coin of mine that others, like univeristy professors seem to like these days too. Not bragging by any means, but again just tryint to get below the drag line here and wake more folks up.
I told all this was what the Occupy movement was all about too and even they didn't get it but knew something was not working right and could not put their fingeron it and even one of th editors at Forbes asked me to explain and got the same explanaiton, folks write dirty code and formulas for manipulation and it works. Again the folks in the tech world know this and I wish more would speak out. Watch this video and see the links from the Attack of the Killer Algorithms as I identified many in every day life situations tha happen. Even Kevin Slavin made that great video about how algorithms affect our lives and he said the same thing, "look for them", he gets it and is lot smarter than me and says
“if you’re an algorithm, life is looking pretty good, but can’t say the same for the human side”.
I keep his video on my front page and all pages all the time, vieable for anyone who wants to wake up. Do watch the video though on this link as the quants themselves tell you how they make up fictional numbers and suck everyobdy in. Home mortgate scandal could not have happened without those algorithms aka business models the quants built.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/02/attack-of-killer-algorithmsdigest...
While the author needs to reflect a bit more on the principal shortcomings of Democracy (vs. a [true] Republic where the persistent rule of law is of the highest regard, instead of following the quickly changing will of the majority),
otherwise a fantastic article.
do you by chance have any examples of where
has worked over time? genuinely curious.
Erich Fromm's 'The Fear of Freedom' written decades ago and read as part of my philosophy major in the seventies, tells it all in the title. we are like the peasants of the middle ages who gave up freedom for protection.
the population has been hooked up in to and are in a daze plugged into their Androids, Kindles, Galaxies, Widescreen TeeVees and AMERICAN IDOL. they have glassy eyes in a daze
oh almost forgot: TODDLERS IN TIARAS and HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOO and s/s/m/t/w/t/f night Football tools
If the Jews are in freaking control of everything like you moron bigots think, why havn't they figured out how to make you like them yet? The media, the banks that armies bwahahahaha they control it all yet people still hat ethem. Makes me say hmmmmm
I love jews and jew sycophants like you calling truth tellers about judaism bigots:
From the Talmud:
"Even the best of the gentiles deserve only death."
Do you not think that jews saying, thinking, and believing, and teaching they are god's "chosen race" is not racist, right?
BTW, a goyim is a gentile to jews, and goyim are mongrels, not human, which is why their Talmud gives them permission to lie and kill us.
Who they heck do you think gives Israel the "right to exist?" Fred Barnes lauged at me and told me it was "God". Why did chicken shite scum bag John Zenakis refuse to answer my innocent question: "Is Israel the fulfilment of the OT?" Because if he says "yes" the world knows every syllable he utters supports Zionism. If he says "no" the Rabbis will personally destroy him, at least financially. Gee, coincidence I'm sure what happend to Mel Gibson after his movie.
Every slander in the universe is OK in the west against Jesus Christ, whilst any protest about jews is met immediately with "anti-semite". I guess that's a coincidence in your pathetic world? See the San Francisco "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence...you'll never find such a popular slander of jews if your life depends on it.
Uh, let's see: the latest Star Trek movie: gee, what a co-incidence, the bad guys' name is "Nero" and he destroys Vulcan planet, killing "6 million" vulcans and destroying their "culture". Gee what a coincidence, a metaphor for "holocaustianity", the highest icon and highest unnasailable sacrament of western culture...the alleged crime invented to displace mankind's worst crime, the Hebrew murder of Christ.
Why does Harvard (or yale, sorry forgot) Professor Deborah Lipstadt want to imprison anyone for thought crime of "holocaust denail" whilst she's totally cool with Jewish scum like her denying the actual Dresden Holocaust of 40k dead innocent civilians including babies suckling their mothers?
Just because a few here know some pertinent truths about judaism and the so-called "jewish race" doesn't mean the Rabbis have not purchased and wholly own all major western thought and culture sources.
The Rabbis took over the Roman "church", then the "Protestant" churce, own the Unversities, made certain thoughts about jews illegal (holocaust denial) for which persons languish in prison in Europe, changed the language ("judeo-christian" as oxymoronic as it gets, christianty is "jewish" another lie, up is down, down is up, evil is good, good is evil, the jews didn't kill jesus, etc, etc, etc, etc............), made the Germans whipping boys for almost 100 years.
This USA federal law, now in effect, makes it illegal to practice Christianity, which is idolaty per the Rabbis, which is illegal per Rabbinical "Noahide Law", which idolatry is punished by death.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c102:H.J.RES.104.ENR:
If the Jews are in freaking control of everything like you moron bigots think, why havn't they figured out how to make you like them yet? The media, the banks that armies bwahahahaha they control it all yet people still hat ethem. Makes me say hmmmmm
interesting, this is exactly what I wanted you to say.
Public schooling - it's hard to come out intellectually alive....
the catholic church is an incubator for anti-democratic, anti - self governing thoughts....it is a repressive totalitarian regime - its history is replete with murders, tortures, and control even though a few adherents managed to operate outside of its mind control....if you think that the church has changed, you don't know the church....
Simple answer, and it's not just the Americans or new to the human condition. Many have been convinced that ignorance is a virtue.
The more you learn, the more blissful ignorance becomes.
I just want you all to know that I will not be up-arrowing any of you ever again.
Who conditioned so many to become Hetero Loco?
http://heteroloco.wordpress.com/
Are they the failures or the successes?
When I told my friend homosexual adults touch more kids proportionately than hetrerosexual adults he was shocked. From Sandusky to the Archdiocese, touching little boys is dominated by gay men, regardless if they are married and hetero on the surface.
I always wondered why the education system teaches us how to learrn but not how to think....and now I see it is so that we are easier to manipulate...and the group that does this is not the Jews...but what David Icke calls the Rothschild zionists. Time for us to wake up and get rid of these criminals.
...PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE...
Stop misapplying the term "democracy".
Without any doubt whatsoever, "democracy" is one form of slavery. Specifically, "democracy" is the enslavement of every individual to the latest opinion sample from some [selective] majority. I drives me nuts to read essays written by reasonably intelligent people when they contain the most blatantly absurd, important, fundamental mistakes like this.
Never say "democracy" when you mean "liberty" or "individualism" (or anything else). Even a "constitutional republic" isn't necessarily similar to "liberty" or "individualism" --- it depends upon the completeness of prohibitions of individuals and fictions ("state", "corporation", etc) limiting or harming individuals... and, of course, how thoroughly and honestly "interpreted" and "enforced" too.
This article doesn't mention or describe this much if at all --- the predators-DBA-government and predators-DBA-corporations and predators-DBA-organizations have purposely taken control (via financing and regulating) over virtually ALL science at this point in history, so vritually all the output of modern science is mostly bogus and is mostly nothing but rationalization for endless abuse of individuals.
Yeah, I'd take a Constitutional Republic or even a benevolent Monarchy overy this Democracy crap.
...Without any doubt whatsoever, "democracy" is one form of slavery. Specifically, "democracy" is the enslavement of every individual to the latest opinion sample from some [selective] majority. I drives me nuts to read essays written by reasonably intelligent people when they contain the most blatantly absurd, important, fundamental mistakes like this....
+320 million... or whatever our population is now.