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originally posted by: introspectionist
I did not draw the conclusion that you think you're free in that particular way you suggested above. And my point didn't reach to you. I'll stop trying now.
originally posted by: introspectionist
a reply to: WhiteAlice
As for conclusions, you drew faulty conclusions yourself.
originally posted by: introspectionist
My view is that mind control isn't inherently bad, nor inherently good, it's neutral. To me all politics is mind control, basically everything is mind control. When you were in school, somebody decided what books you were going to read and what the teacher was going to talk about; that's mind control. When you turn on your TV, no matter what is broadcast, good or bad, somebody decided what was going to be broadcast and what was not going to be; that's mind control. When you're in the grocery store, somebody decided what pictures to put on the packaging. Somebody decided which products to place near the entrance and which near the exit and which in the middle of the store. Somebody decided how the traffic signs are designed.
You are entitled to your opinion. I think I got your point, but I might be wrong. However, I think that you didn't get my point, nor do I think you got the message of Brave New World from reading it, because it was the same as my point, and the same as the point that Frank Salter presented in the quote about the Cold War that I posted.
originally posted by: WhiteAlice
no matter how gently one attempts to actually have a discussion with you in an attempt to offer perhaps a different point of view for consideration, your mind is fixed and will not be changed
drops of liquid sealing-wax, drops that adhere, incrust, incorporate themselves with what they fall on, till finally the rock is all one scarlet blob. "Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too-all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides-made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions!" The Director almost shouted in his triumph. "Suggestions from the State."
"But, Bernard, you're saying the most awful things."
"Don't you wish you were free, Lenina?"
"I don't know what you mean. I am free."
I'm not in my right mind apparently, so take it or leave it, but my view is that East Germany and the USSR actually were freer than the West of today in one sense. The people there understood exactly how unfree they were because the walls of the prison and the prison guards were in their face. The people in the West today for the most part have no clue that they are caged, just as yourself, because their imprisonment is vastly more subtle, so subtle that it's totally invisible to most people, which was exactly the point of Brave New World. Brave New World isn't primarily about what you call "actual mind control", it is about what you call
originally posted by: WhiteAlice
No one in their right mind would attribute the countries of E. Germany and the USSR were free and comparatively, while the US is better than both of those by a landslide, it's poorer in the qualities of freedom than other countries (ie Norway or Finland).
something as humdrum as a cute ad on the tele
I misread your username. Edited it now.
originally posted by: KnightLight
a reply to: introspectionist
Did you call me white light?
Brave new world is one of my favorite books, and opening the doors of perception is something I have followed..
You may still be missing a big point though.
Go be angry and what does that do for you?
You can control your own mind, so can I ask you a question?
What is your purpose on Earth? What is your goal?
originally posted by: introspectionist
I said in this thread that I think that the miserable and disturbed, the stiff neurotic introverts, those are the people that are undergoing enlightenment. The well-adjusted, the happy, the emotionally intelligent, they are the useful idiots, serving to enlighten the former group. Take it or leave it.
We've all got our frames of reference, which my posts were about to a large extent.
originally posted by: KnightLight
I do think I am right of course.
Here even the President of Israel is ruminating on the isolation of this wicked and evil regime that has alienated the entire civilized world. He speaks about the inhumanity of his nation and that they no longer are the people who past centuries championed the cause of the oppressed. Now they are the oppressor!
I didn't say they had to smile. Anyone who loves their parents, anyone who has children, anyone who isn't viewed as sick and disturbed is still too much within the groupthink to ever understand anything I say, i.e. 99% of people. Take it or leave it.
originally posted by: skunkape23
A smile doesn't always mean someone is happy. Maybe it's just a family trait, but if you think you might be pissing me off, and I start smiling, there is about to be trouble. My father and brother have the same quirk.
originally posted by: 0rbital
Not many here are really getting what the OP is trying to say. He's saying that for someone to feel happy all the time they must be very unfeeling to the suffering that's going on, he's just saying happy people must be living in their own bubble.....ignorant to what is happening in the globe. So in effect happy people are ignorant and unfeeling (the unfeeling part being the paradox)
originally posted by: introspectionist
I didn't say they had to smile. Anyone who loves their parents, anyone who has children, anyone who isn't viewed as sick and disturbed is still too much within the groupthink to ever understand anything I say, i.e. 99% of people. Take it or leave it.
originally posted by: skunkape23
A smile doesn't always mean someone is happy. Maybe it's just a family trait, but if you think you might be pissing me off, and I start smiling, there is about to be trouble. My father and brother have the same quirk.
originally posted by: introspectionist
We're all both subjected to mind control and are ourselves mind controlling. When you write a post on this forum, the readers' minds are affected, so you're mind controlling them. And then they write something that affects your mind, they're mind controlling you. I remember that Jan Irvin talked about this on Red Ice Radio.