Cultural Grooming

I've wanted to discuss this for a while, but wasn't sure of the appropriate location. If not appropriate here, please advise.

While watching the televised, engaging entertainment that is the implosion of the US, I've observed some advertisements that got me to wondering if there is a subtle effort underway to further groom the US culture towards blind acceptance of, and submissiveness to, arbitrary exercises of inappropriate 'authority'.

Here’s the scenario:
Some guy hurrying to buy tickets for a commercial flight to somewhere for an important business opportunity. He can get a ticket, but the flight is soon, so no time to waste. So he pays for his business flight ticket with a credit card that has some trivial picture on it… kittens or something.

The airline person is immediately suspicious: This is a business flight?
Yes, the guy says.

Now totally suspicious that someone would pay for a business flight with such a credit card, the airline person calls in security who lead the guy away. The guy of course submits with complete docility to this action.

Then another guy comes up to get a ticket for the same flight, and pays with a no-nonsense credit card. He, of course, is treated with utmost respect and goes right through.

OK.

Clearly, this is an advertisement, and time to get another beer. But I got to wondering:

Here we have someone who is singled out for ‘official’ attention, possibly ‘detained’, misses his flight, etc for no good reason. No “You are on the official # list” or anything like that. Kittens (let’s say) on his credit card.

And he submits with no protest. No resistance.

I’m wondering if there might be some under-current conditioning going on, here, to get US citizens used to the idea that they might, at any time, for any reason, be turned over to the authorities and dealt with. The modern day version of Show me your papers! Are these in order?!?

Any thoughts?

This reminded me of the mass arrest thread recently. Here. I was amazed at how easily everyone just went along with the "authority", as if they knew they didn't have any real rights.

If that had been the 60s, you can believe there would have been a full-blown riot because people would have resisted!

I do think there's a lot more going on "behind the scenes" in order to condition us to be accustomed to authority pushing us around. Commercials are especially rife with suggestive power.

Like your commercial implied, if you don't go along with the crowd, if you stick out and claim individualism, you will be questioned, if not taken away...

reply to post by Open_Minded Skeptic


I know the commercial well.

Originally posted by Open_Minded Skeptic
I’m wondering if there might be some under-current conditioning going on, here, to get US citizens used to the idea that they might, at any time, for any reason, be turned over to the authorities and dealt with. The modern day version of Show me your papers! Are these in order?!?

Any thoughts?

Honestly, I think it's an indication we have already arrived there. In other words, it's not conditioning, but rather a symptom expressed in our popular culture that we find this already acceptable.

Spooky, isn't it?



[edit on 1-10-2008 by loam]

Originally posted by loam
Honestly, I think it's an indication we have already arrived there. In other words, it's not conditioning, but rather a symptom expressed in our popular culture that we find this already acceptable.

Dang, I hadn't even thought of it from that direction, but you may well be right on... especially in light of the whole mass arrest thing...

Spooky, isn't it?

Seriously so...

I know the commercial you are talking about.

2 points:

1)While it is nauseating to see how completely docile most people are even in my own personal daily interactions with the world, the man in the ad made the wise decision not to resist. It's better to miss your flight and have your lawyer work it out than end up tazed and dead because airport security or police thought you were acting suspicious.

2)This ficticious guy is a representation of how most people are. The majority of people today are so easily manipulated, bossed around, impressed upon, and cowed. All someone has to do is act as if they know what's going on or they are in charge and they immediately become the alpha in a group. I'm not very old (24) so I don't know how long people have been this way, but the fact is that most people definitely are this way now.

My guess is that people have always been this way. This is why people have mostly been oppressed by the government, the landowners, the police, invaders, and taxes rather than free to any meaningful extent.

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Your post hits close to home. I have been wondering the same thing about people being conditioned to accept things unconditionally with any questions or resistance.

I believe that there has been a long standing conspiracy in the education system to discourage free thought. Take a few examples for instance:

1) When Britain took over the Indian subcontinent they imposed a new education system in the schools. They had schools for the previlaged and schools for the others. If you were part of the first group, you would be literate on all the latest happenings and encouraged to be part of all the right networks so when your education is completed, you can take your rightful place in business, society, or the political system. If you were part of the larger group then you would be learning all about how to write basic business letters to your boss asking for leave, applying for a transfer etc. You were also taught basic mathematics ensuring you can count, do accounts 101, and if you were really driven learn the theories of algebra. Science was part of the curriculum but you did not really have the option of learning too much beyond basics of physics and chemistry (and that is if you were lucky enough to study past year 10).

2) The same system was applied in South Africa - and although I don't know the ins and outs of their educational system, I have had several interesting conversations with those who grew up in the apartheid. The colored were given basic education and at the end of it all were expected/conditioned/allowed to take their part in society and learn a trade. The privalaged learnt commerce and engineering. I am in recruitment and its one of those things that you see day in and day out. All the colored guys are tradies and the others are managers.

3) We have the same principles in practice in current society. Here in Australia if you want your kids to make the right connections then you send them to places like the King's School. Fee's are usually in the vicinity of $3,000 per month + extra's and ensure that you learn about business as early as year 6. You are supposed to make life long networks with all the right people and mix in society. Those who can afford it make sure their boys go there. My nephew goes there and the stuff about Business practices that I learnt in university was being taught in year 7 - not the theories about capitalism but how to 'network'. If you are like the rest of us then you study really really hard and try to ensure a place in university and then fight for that well paying job with everyone else.

What really scares me is the fact that we are now not even supposed to question our faith.

How many Christians have been Encouraged by their church to pick up the Koran or the Torak to read and understand them themselves?

How many Jews have been Encouraged to read the Koran and the Bible?

How many Muslims have been Encouraged to read the Torah and the Bible and learn from their wisdom?

... Ultimately the three books are all part of the Abrahamic system but we are taught not to question authority and seek the truth in anything. The church tells us one thing, and we are supposed to follow it mindlessly. No one is taught to go through the religious texts and make up their own minds. Those who are not religious are encouraged by a trend in general society to take the church/mosque/place of worship attendees as the 'others' who are fanatical in their thinking and not fit to mix with.

The military has long used concepts of 'Divide and Conquer' and 'Group Think' to control their masses, so why not use the same on civilians?

We are taught to not question anything during our education years and then these messages are reinforced after that by television.

Originally posted by sc2099
the man in the ad made the wise decision not to resist. It's better to miss your flight and have your lawyer work it out than end up tazed and dead because airport security or police thought you were acting suspicious.

This is a good point, but raises the question of "When is enough enough"? We are conditioned to behave just as you recommend - to not resist, let the lawyers work it out, turn it over to the judicial system.

And given a truly just judicial system, in a civilized culture, this is no doubt the most effective approach.

But where is the line? What about when a culture is sliding towards an authoritarian position, as many believe the US culture is doing? What about when we face a situation where the application of the "terrorism" tag is enough to remove all restraint and questions about the system and the actions of the enforcers of the system?

When does it begin to reflect the Civil Rights movement situation? Many people resisted "the law" in that era, frequently to their personal detriment, but ultimately to the wider good. Had they meekly gone along with 'authority', we'd still have Colored and White drinking fountains.