Maria Byskiniewicz, 1976
Every day, online and off, we are subjected to overt & covert forms of social conditioning. The reality of zionism’s ugly, potent grip on the psyches of too many has never been more obvious or out in the open; impossible to deny. Despite witnessing the consequences of propaganda, we seem disinclined to acknowledge how prevalent coercive persuasion is and exactly how vulnerable we are to it.
The truth is, we are endlessly exposed. We live in a social hallucination, one where we are only as impressionable as we would like to be. We live in denial of weakness too terrifying to accept, fearing the act of recognizing our impotence will provoke some kind of irreversible self-knowledge. Even so, the conclusion is unavoidable, no matter how much we try to elude it: we are not untouchable or unaffected. We speak the official language of the state, we are porous.
The false consciousness can never know itself and so, we don’t. We simulate autonomy and create myths of self-determination to cope with the barrage of influence and persuasion. Propaganda is an everyday violation, which utilizes and directs us.
Unable to truly look at our reflection, at the ravages of conditioning, we sink further and deeper into intolerance for contradiction.
In his book Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, Jacques Ellul writes:
Every new idea will therefore be troublesome to his entire being. He will defend himself against it because it threatens destroy his certainties. He thus actually comes to hate everything opposed to what propaganda made him acquire. Propaganda has created in him a system of opinions and tendencies which may not be subjected to criticism. That system leaves no room for ambiguity or mitigation of feelings; the individual has received irrational certainties from propaganda, and precisely because they are irrational, they seem to him part of his personality.
He feels personally attacked when the certainties are attacked. There is a feeling here akin to to that of something sacred. And this genuine taboo prevents the individual from entertaining any new ideas that might create ambiguity within him.
I write about this often, this refusal to engage with nuance or challenge. This attachment to certainties, as Ellul calls them, is everywhere.
All we have ever known is being students of propaganda, hurrying toward the finish line of certitude, the safety of landing somewhere, anywhere
Individualism and liberalized identity politics dictate that we adopt and proudly display multiple oppression narratives for ourselves. The only undesirable victimhood is that of brainwashing. Now that’s unflattering. That is for other people, different people, not me. No, I could never be that susceptible. No, I am Sharp. Look at all the ways I can name my oppressions. I know exactly how broken the world is! I know all the cracks. I am certain of what kind of victim I am!
99 problems but indoctrination ain’t one.
I swear.
In the same way that we cling to delusions about freedom, we refuse to accept or forgive fallibility in ourselves when it comes to influence. Weakness in the face of various forms of hypnosis —an entire system of distraction—is far from inexcusable. One does not become a monster for succumbing to the cascade of spin and advertisement.
What is disgraceful, harder to understand, is the instinct to minimize the size of the barrage for comfort. Refusing to look at it, name it, or know it. What is contemptible is the hubris and the delusion, the ridiculous notion of immunity against something designed with you in mind, with your very nature. Stupidity for a semblance of peace of mind.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
Bertrand Russel
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Phew this is so good