The Media's Power of Suggestion
Does it limit the Ability of the Public to Think Freely?
The term "brain-washing" and "suggestion" are often thought by most people to be of a similar thing, however both phrases mean almost entirely different things the only thing in common they have with each other is that they both affect the human psyche. While "brain-washing" takes almost total control of a person both the conscious mind and the sub-conscious leaving them with a very damaged and small aspect of free will. It does not take you long to find small groups of individuals that you could say have been "brain-washed" terrorists are one of the most noticeable group as they are now a topic under constant debate you find a strong argument that terrorists are largely "brain-washed" as they are conditioned sometimes from birth to believe resolutely in the cause given to them, that is the point being made their orders their targets are given to them by the person or persons that "brain-washed" them removing self will and control. This is where the difference occurs between "brain-washing" and "suggestion", while the person who has been "brain-washed", conditioned has almost no free will, the person who is the target of a "suggestion" remains in almost total control. However while this may be the case does a prolonged almost daily contact with a suggestive influence limit a person's ability for independent thought?
The human psyche is perhaps the most delicate and dangerous thing on the planet, if one could control the entire population of earth through simple psychological means there would be almost no resistance. An insane theory most would say, but the proof is already there. Terrorists, fanatical religious groups and cults. So why has no one attempted this in the past? The answer is simple, to control a person you must control both aspects of their mind, sub-conscious and conscious. The sub-conscious is most easily affected it does however have a "guard" or a "bouncer" of sorts, the conscious mind stops the sub-conscious mind being exposed to the full force of anyone wishing to control it. The conscious mind notices attempts to warp it. The sub-conscious would not notice an attempt and would also be more likely to be overcome, therefore it takes prolonged mental strain to break the conscious mind and gain access to the sub-conscious. Done on a large scale this would be easily noticed hence the reason only small groups of people are affected by this sort of psychological control. The rest of us are still not free form, a form of psychological programming. This programming comes in the form of suggestion, something only the sub-conscious mind notices unless you’re watching out for it. If someone asks you "How you are?" And you respond “Not bad" While your conscious mind notices nothing out of the ordinary your sub-conscious mind is imbedded with the word Bad. The media can affect your sub-conscious in the same way yourself can, “People on benefits cost the tax payer money". Your conscious mind can judge this for itself but your sub-conscious takes it as it comes, this is not media brainwashing as some people would like to believe this is just your mind being affected by key words without knowing it, just because your sub-conscious mind begins to believe it your conscious one does not, you still have your ability to think freely.
Mass media brain control has been a topic of conversation and conspiracy theories since before the 1920's, but how sure are you that it's just theories? The media has been used to control the people for decades, World War One was the first major use of mind control in the form of propaganda, harmless you might think but then governments began to become interested in psychological warfare, the use of psychology to control the population of their countries and control the population of their rivals. This cannot possibly be a coincidence this is a purposeful attempt to "dumb" down the population to make them sheep at the behest of the government. The media slowly breaks us down day by day under monopolization of the ruling body. The media only tell us what they want to tell us, soon we have no ability to think independently.
They make us think that threats come from terrorists and other such things but these are just lies, the real threat to us comes from within. To see the truth of this you need just look at the average news report on the television see how censored and controlled it is. The media is the greatest weapon in psychological control as we are exposed to it every day.
Despite over whelming evidence people still insist that the media is a form of brain washing. If it was the case, surely everyone would have been In agreement with the war in Iraq or Nuclear Power? If the government controlled the media and the media controlled us surely they would not slander them on a daily basis? The media lies and warps the truth, it exaggerates and try’s to bend the view of the public everyone is no doubt aware of this fact. This is simply to boost profits; this is where the line is drawn between so called "mind-control" and simply making people want a product. If you’re sitting watching the Television and an advert for ice-cream comes on you can resist that ice cream, yes? You do not find yourself propelled out the door to buy it. No one can accuse that of being mind-control it is simply another form of suggestion by means of advertising. Showing something that we as humans enjoy in this case food will of course make us want it. So it seems conclusive that the media simply use suggestion to boost profits they make you want something or believe something you perhaps will go out and buy it or tell your friends this new idea "you" have recently thought of . However this is where things get disturbingly grainy. Is it due to repeated suggestion that you go out and tell your friends what you’ve heard or seen, is it due to this constant mind beating that you buy their newspaper or their brand of pencils or a whole host of other things advertised and given to us by the media? Or is it because you actually decide you need these things?The thing about your mind is you can't tell.
There is proof of secret government programs which involved the application of psychological warfare and mind control one of the most well known being MK-ULTRA which was a CIA mind control program for the use as interrogation techniques, however these were tested on innocent citizens. They carried out tests on civilians before, while this was just individual experiments could it not be conceivably turned into a mass control device set up within media organisations, A memo was recovered from one of these related operations "Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self preservation?" Proof that mind control is not just a theory but has been done and could easily be done on a massive scale not just in the USA but across the globe. This is alarming in itself being controlled by your own government; however this could be manipulated by other countries, your already weakened mind easily broken. Can you really trust what you’re seeing? What you’re hearing? When the evidence is there to prove that mind control has been and could be used by governments to control the masses. In the past the average person knew very little about such topics as "psychological warfare" does that mean the worlds governments capable of something like this have lost their window of opportunity as people become more educated propaganda and the like seems to have less and less effect gone are the days of mass anti-communist rallies simply because your government says communism was evil, perhaps this is proof enough to show that while psychological warfare was a possibility it is now an obsolete theory left to rot in the deepest archives of world history.
It was the most obvious course that governments would explore psychological control at some point, it does not mean they are doing it now. By all accounts any experiments of this sort were stopped decades ago and have never been restarted as leaks in today’s modern society would be risky at best. The past is no reason for the same thing to happen in the future the evidence against adverse effects of the media greatly outweighs the evidence to the contrary. The media simply can affect someone’s judgment and make them feel differently about subjects but so can many things; friends, family books and films and you don't accuse them of brainwashing you. This is proof more than anything else said so far that "brain-washing" is something best reserved for science fiction. You read a book about Vietnam, if you enjoyed it or found it interesting that topic would remain in your mind, you would think about it, I don't think anyone would suddenly go raving in the streets about it. Despite this, people seem to think that while your friends and family and things you do and read and see out of interest do not "brain-wash" you watching the news does?
With almost no doubt at all, the effects of the media are in no way damaging to someone’s ability to think freely even if exposed over long periods of time. The effects are easily ignored unlike mind-control or brainwashing, suggestion is a totally different thing and while it can perhaps be blamed for some of the social problems. It is no way a dangerous way of controlling society, and does not noticeably limit the public's ability to think for themselves or make informed choices without being led by the hand. The paranoid may like to call it mind-control but there really is no strong evidence to prove this point and until some surfaces, which is doubtful it will, remain nothing more than a profiteering attempt by the media to boost sales and ratings and effect the publics view’s and opinions.
A little off topic, but I think its still relevent. Brain washing is the total removal of self will and while there are cases of that, I don't really think what faceless mentioned could be counted as that. I think its wrong but not "Brain-Washing"
