Think! Reason, doubt.
"Fear is one of the most powerful human emotions. Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is. Fear can be used as a tool to manipulate others. Those in positions of power, past and present, have effectively used fear to control certain aspects of society. John Adams, one of the founding fathers of America, echoed this sentiment writing “Fear is the foundation of most governmentsâ€.
While there are numerous tactics and strategies that have developed over the centuries to effectively exploit the public through fear, two of the more powerful and efficient are the use of false flags, and the implementation of propaganda via repetition. The technological advances of the last century have given those in power the ability to propagate their narratives and engage in fear mongering to an extent never before seen in history. However, there is an antidote to the power of propaganda and fear mongering: that being, KNOWLEDGE.
The philosopher Voltaire stated that “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.†To avoid being an individual who can be convinced of absurdities, one must become an ACTIVE TRUTH SEEKER, instead of an all too common PASSIVE PROPAGANDA RECEIVER. An important step in becoming an active truth seeker is the realization that when evaluating the claims of those in power, SKEPTICISM is WARRANTED and even NECESSARY.
Those who have lived through the rise of oppressive governments have seldom realized the perilous situation they were in until it was too late.
The following quote comes from a German interviewed after WW2, where he discusses why he thought that more ordinary Germans didn’t take a stand against the rise of the Nazi government."
“One doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse… You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow…
But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked … But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between comes all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next…
And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident. . . collapses it all at once, and you see that everything – everything – has changed…Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed…â€
And a quote from Joseph Goebbels:
There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be "the man in the street." Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.
"Fear is one of the most powerful human emotions. Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is. Fear can be used as a tool to manipulate others. Those in positions of power, past and present, have effectively used fear to control certain aspects of society. John Adams, one of the founding fathers of America, echoed this sentiment writing “Fear is the foundation of most governmentsâ€.
While there are numerous tactics and strategies that have developed over the centuries to effectively exploit the public through fear, two of the more powerful and efficient are the use of false flags, and the implementation of propaganda via repetition. The technological advances of the last century have given those in power the ability to propagate their narratives and engage in fear mongering to an extent never before seen in history. However, there is an antidote to the power of propaganda and fear mongering: that being, KNOWLEDGE.
The philosopher Voltaire stated that “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.†To avoid being an individual who can be convinced of absurdities, one must become an ACTIVE TRUTH SEEKER, instead of an all too common PASSIVE PROPAGANDA RECEIVER. An important step in becoming an active truth seeker is the realization that when evaluating the claims of those in power, SKEPTICISM is WARRANTED and even NECESSARY.
Those who have lived through the rise of oppressive governments have seldom realized the perilous situation they were in until it was too late.
The following quote comes from a German interviewed after WW2, where he discusses why he thought that more ordinary Germans didn’t take a stand against the rise of the Nazi government."
“One doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse… You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow…
But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked … But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between comes all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next…
And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident. . . collapses it all at once, and you see that everything – everything – has changed…Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed…â€
And a quote from Joseph Goebbels:
There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be "the man in the street." Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.
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