Re: Theos-World According to demand or creating the demand
Jun 07, 2005 06:05 PM
by Jerry Hejka-Ekins
Dear Anton,
Yes, I remember an excellent book by Victor Papanek, Design for the
Real World, http://www.914.qc.ca/monde.html, in which he described
methods of the creation of artificial needs and how a socially
responsible industrial design (in the broadest sense) should look
like.
From the review this does indeed appear to be an excellent book. I am
especially impressed that he is interested in helping the underclass.
Perhaps there are some ideas here which could be applied to other
altruistic efforts? Ideas which we can use?
Yes, I agree, but the problem is not so much with the results.
Public opinion is created with the selection of "right" questions.
For instance, before your last presidential election I visited
Gallup Institute page and I was shocked. There were questions
something like (I don't remember exactly anymore):
Yes, you are exactly right on this. Often poles are used in political
campaigns in order to create public opinion. But, poles can have more
honest uses too, and they often do.
Do you find John Kerry inconsistent regarding the terrorism?
The last Presidential election is an excellent example of how public
opinion can be manufactured. Karl Rove was the mastermind behind it
and settled upon focusing the campaign saying that Kerry "flip flops,"
therefore he cannot be trusted. The Republican's political
advertisements featured a sound bite, taken out of context, of Kerry
saying that he voted on a budget item before he voted against it. It
was very effective. Another trick was creating a "Swift Boat Veterans
group." which produced a campaign ad of people from the Vietnam war who
gave the impression that they knew Kerry and that he did not deserve his
medals. Ben Ginsberg, Bush's re-election campaign lawyer was one of the
coordinators of this attack.
However, in spite of the barrages from his opposition, Kerry ran a very
poor campaign and the public had little sense of what he was really
about. Kerry's was the most poorly managed campaigns since Goldwater in
1964. Of course, Kerry is consistent. But the real issues were never
aired in that campaign anyway.
And some other similar questions about the democratic candidate. Not
that the questions about republican Bush weren't similar; they
weren't any at all. So, the manipulation begins before getting any
result.
Yes. That is exactly what happened.
You indeed mentioned that polls conducted by and for political
interests are often designed to create public opinion, but I used
this simple example to indicate how these things works, surely in
other areas too.
Theoretically, yes. One must always be aware of who is financing the
polls. However, polls also are used for information gathering. Protor
and Gamble spends a lot of money trying to find out why people might
prefer one brand of tooth paste over another. They are, in this case,
interested in getting accurate information so that they can market a
tooth paste that will sell better. On the other hand, sometimes
statistics are used in advertisements to create opinion. I remember one
that ran for years repeating the otherwise meaningless phrase: "three
out of four doctors recommend aspirin."
The sad thing is that from that time on this type of deception
became an art and evolved in the "Truman Show", more or less fully
practiced all over the world.
To a great extent, yes. It is easier to allow others to think for you
than to do your own. One thing I like about France is that the people
(on the whole) do not trust their government. That, combined with a
free press and a public who remains politically aware, they do a good
job keeping their government in check. On the other hand, Americans
(generally speaking) are overly complacent and politically unaware.
Generally, they also trust their government. It is a bad combination.
The saving hope is that the United States does have a free press. The
fatal flaw is that most Americans don't want to know how bad things
really are.
whenever they publish something that is even mildly critical of the administration, the White House calls the editor and threatens him<
Well, I didn't imagine that they do these things so openly. It is
obvious that they feel enough strong to do that; and history gave a
certain name to such governments which spread fear and cultivate the
idea of chosen nation.
Their arrogance is their greatest weakness. Right now, the
neo-conservatives control the Executive and Congressional branches. If
they gain control of the Judiciary, they will have power unprecedented
in this country's history. Recently, congress called a special session
in order to pass a special law which applied to one person in order to
embarrass the judiciary branch. It was one of those rare moments when
public opinion saw through the sham and Bush's popularity went way down.
But maybe the lesson we have to learn is not to rely on any word, on
any appearance, but only on one's own inner discrimination.
The development of discrimination requires training. People have to be
trained to think critically. Most do not know how. Most Americans,
anyway. It reminds me of a line HPB once used--something like:
Theosophy is for people who can think, or who can drive themselves to
think. One could also apply this to what is required to become an
awakened human being. A good place to start is for people to learn the
difference between feelings and intuition. In English, this is very
hard for people to see, because the two words are used interchangeably.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Anton Rozman wrote:
Dear Jerry,
They are interested in training people to be consumers - to buy
their products whether they need the product or not.<
Yes, I remember an excellent book by Victor Papanek, Design for the
Real World, http://www.914.qc.ca/monde.html, in which he described
methods of the creation of artificial needs and how a socially
responsible industrial design (in the broadest sense) should look
like.
I believe that American public opinion polls more or less reflect
public opinion.<
Yes, I agree, but the problem is not so much with the results.
Public opinion is created with the selection of "right" questions.
For instance, before your last presidential election I visited
Gallup Institute page and I was shocked. There were questions
something like (I don't remember exactly anymore):
Do you find John Kerry inconsistent regarding the terrorism?
And some other similar questions about the democratic candidate. Not
that the questions about republican Bush weren't similar; they
weren't any at all. So, the manipulation begins before getting any
result.
You indeed mentioned that polls conducted by and for political
interests are often designed to create public opinion, but I used
this simple example to indicate how these things works, surely in
other areas too.
Do you know where and when the story of Potemkin's village
originated?<
As far as I know it is based on the real events during the period of
Catherine the Great, but maybe Konstantin could say more about that.
Meanwhile here is a short description:
http://www.ehistory.com/world/amit/display.cfm?amit_id=2216.
The sad thing is that from that time on this type of deception
became an art and evolved in the "Truman Show", more or less fully
practiced all over the world.
whenever they publish something that is even mildly critical of the administration, the White House calls the editor and threatens him<
Well, I didn't imagine that they do these things so openly. It is
obvious that they feel enough strong to do that; and history gave a
certain name to such governments which spread fear and cultivate the
idea of chosen nation.
But maybe the lesson we have to learn is not to rely on any word, on
any appearance, but only on one's own inner discrimination.
Warmest regards,
Anton
--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Jerry Hejka-Ekins <jjhe@c...>
wrote:
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