coberst

Do the sophisticated practice demagoguery?

The demagogue is a “leader who makes use of popular prejudice and false claims and promises in order to gain power”--Webster. Demagoguery is often the preferred tool of politicians and plutocrats because the muddled masses are moved more easily by emotion than by reason.

SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) reports “Nearly a decade after virtually disappearing from public view, the so-called “Patriot” movement is back…This is the most significant growth we’ve seen on 10 years. All it’s lacking is a spark…These groups are steeped in bizarre conspiracy theories and seething with rage”

I am convinced that our (American) educational system, which teaches young people what to think but not how to think, is greatly to blame for this unfortunate situation.

Quickie from Wiki: “The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the German syndicalist sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties. It states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic or autocratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop into oligarchies. The reasons for this are the technical indispensability of leadership, the tendency of the leaders to organize themselves and to consolidate their interests; the gratitude of the led towards the leaders, and the general immobility and passivity of the masses.”

Is it possible for a nation to overcome our human nature to fear the responsibility inherent in free will? I think that the answer is YES.

The way that we can overcome this human weakness is by a large segment of the population becoming self-actualizing self-learners with Critical Thinking skills that will tend to overcome the hypnotic appeal of group psychology.

The sophisticated do practice demagoguery because the appeal to emotion is the best way to manipulate the unsophisticated who have little or no Critical Thinking skills.

diddyriddick

Absolutely. Josef Goebbels, Joseph McCarthy and Al Sharpton are all very sophisticated demagogues.

coberst

An oligarchy controls public policy in America. The oligarchy consists of those who manage the great wealth of American institutions. This oligarchy designs our educational system to graduate good producers and consumers and does not desire independent thinkers.

CA (Corporate America) has developed a well-honed expertise in motivating the population to behave in a desired manner. Citizens as consumers are ample manifestation of that expertise. CA has accomplished this ability by careful study and implementation of the knowledge of the ways of human behavior. I suspect this same structure applies to most Western democracies.

A democratic form of government is one wherein the citizens have some voice in some policy decisions. The greater the voice of the citizens the better the democracy.

In America we have policy makers, decision makers, and citizens. The decision makers are our elected representatives and are, thus, under some control by the voting citizen. The policy makers are the leaders of CA; less than ten thousand individuals, according to those who study such matters. Policy makers exercise significant control of decision makers by controlling the financing of elections.

Policy makers customize and maintain the dominant ideology in order to control the political behavior of the citizens. This dominant ideology exercises the political control of the citizens in the same fashion as the consuming citizen is controlled by the same dominant ideology.

An enlightened citizen is the only means to gain more voice in more policy decisions. An enlightened citizen is much more than an informed citizen. Critical thinking is the only practical means to develop a more enlightened citizen. If, however, we wait until our CT trained grade-schoolers become adults I suspect all will be lost. This is why I think a massive effort must be made to convince today’s adults that they must train themselves in CT.


“Thomas R. Dye, Professor of Political Science at Florida State University, has published a series of books examining who and what institutions actually control and run America. to understand who is making the decisions that affect our lives, we also have to understand how societies structure themselves in general. Why the few always tend to share more power than the many and what this means in terms of both a society's evolution and our daily lives. they examined the other 11 institutions that exert just as powerful a shaping influence, although somewhat more subtle: The Industrial, Corporations, Utilities and Communications, Banking, Insurance Investment, Mass Media, Law, Education Foundation, Civic and Cultural Organizations, Government, and the Military.”
http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/12-dye.html