Menocchio, could you please extend your idea. I'm not sure how it clarifies the conversation.
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Programmed responses to 9/11 truth (35 posts)
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Posted 17 years ago #
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It's just the idea that in order to get a message across you need to gain and maintain the audience's attention. It's also not necessary that you convince a person immediately. Getting the right information to them so that they might put the pieces together on their own is far more important.
Posted 17 years ago # -
Let the audience maintain their own attention span. Otherwise we turn ourselves into snake charmers. Not that the audience are snakes, but we honor them only as being dangerous if we try to control them, especially if we try to control their manner of addressing us.
As an alternative to the entertainment option, I'm not advocating shooting out a laundry list of facts to the public. It's more about doing what one can to create a space in which distraction is not necessary.
Posted 17 years ago # -
(mini rant not directed at this forum, but a philosophy opine I have often shared on DU.)
As Emanuel Sfarios accurately noted in his 5 year anniversary analysis, the media hyped stigma surrounding the "9/11 truth movement" often causes potentially powerful allies to have less interest in actively pursuing the 9-11 issue. http://www.septembereleventh.org/five_years_later....
Increasingly, much of the media coverage about 9-11 has seemed designed to manipulate a viewer's attention on a primitive sociology level rather than encourage cerebral critical thought. Media focus on the meme "the 9/11 truth movement ... yadda yadda yadda" serves as a distraction that intermingles with and trivializes the 9/11 cataclysm. Some of our target viewers have grown saavy about propaganda tactics but it continues to work on many.
I propose that a zero tolerance policy be considered for media who are unable to respect the distinction. At this point in America's post 9-11 history, main focus on the (arguably tainted) messenger rather than the message is simply illogical, inappropriate or unethical, depending on intent.
Posted 17 years ago # -
Jan,
That's not a rant as everything you said was logical and appropriate to the situation. We appreciate urgency.
Increasingly, much of the media coverage about 9-11 has seemed designed to manipulate a viewer's attention on a primitive sociology level rather than encourage cerebral critical thought.
This thought is relates to my comment over on the Chomsky thread.
http://www.truthmove.org/forum/topic/794?replies=9...
Primitive sociology indeed. I call it bad social science. History, social science, and journalism all share a common concern for incorporating all relevant variables. You aren't dealing with an issue comprehensively or responsively if your personal, institutional, or cultural biases cause you to ignore relevant data.
The 9/11 truth movement is important specifically because of our understanding of those biases. We are asking the critical question of what history, science, and journalism look like without bias. We find institutional bias in our government, corporations, academies, media outlets, and our own movement.
As you suggest Jan, we should have a zero tolerance policy regarding all forms of bias that serve to undermine, wittingly or not, our basic concern for discovering and well representing the truth. And much of that commitment is simply our explicit willingness to respect all logical critique. Not to ignore any evidence or alternative interpretation.
This is certainly one of the things that most obviously separates us from O'Reilly and Fetzer.
Posted 17 years ago # -
Just bumping this thread back. Here are a couple good primers on DENIAL:
http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2005/11/in-denial.htm...
Denial is an attempt to reject unacceptable feelings, needs, thoughts, wishes--or even a painful external reality that alters the perception of ourselves. This psychological defense mechanism protects us temporarily from:
-Knowledge (things we don’t want to know)
-Insight or awareness that threatens our self-esteem; or our mental or physical health; or our security (things we don't want to think about)
-Unacceptable feelings (things we don’t want to feel)http://www.minddisorders.com/Del-Fi/Denial.html
Denial is the refusal to acknowledge the existence or severity of unpleasant external realities or internal thoughts and feelings.
Posted 16 years ago # -
This thread was recently bumped on Truth Action, so I thought I'd bump it here as well...
http://truthaction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2551&...
I'm very interested in the fundamental psychology behind all of this: denial, irrationality, etc. Some on the left (Lakoff, etc) have been making arguments that appeals to reason/rationality are ineffective, and that it is emotion that can really sway people. This has traditionally been the territory of propagandists and right wing fascists, but perhaps there are ethical, honest, truthful ways of appealing to emotional interests...
The Obama team ran an effective emotional campaign. However, the integrity of their message is clearly crumbling.
Cognitive Dissonance may be the crux of humanity's fatal flaw. But there are some people who can still face reality, even when it contradicts their assumptions/worldview. Maybe we need some research studies done on these people and what makes them different.
The Cognitive Mechanism Behind Political Fundamentalism… And Probably Lots of Other Fundamentalisms
http://cryptogon.com/?p=5722In a recent experiment, psychologist Drew Weston worked with two groups of people who strongly supported different candidates in an election. Each individual was shown two videos, one in which their candidate clearly contradicted himself, and the other in which the candidate they opposed contradicted himself. When asked what they had seen, the supporters of each candidate saw the contradictions of the candidate they opposed, but not those of their own candidate. Weston reports that “test subjects on both sides reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted.â€
During the experiments, the subjects’ brains were being scanned, and Weston says, “We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning.†On the contrary, the parts of the brain that lit up were those associated with emotions. So the subjects seem to have used their emotions to guide them in forming their conclusions. And the most fascinating part is that, rather than being troubled by the contradictions of their candidate, the subjects seemed to get significant pleasure out of twisting the information to fit what they wanted to believe. As Weston concludes, “Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.â€
Posted 15 years ago # -
During the experiments, the subjects’ brains were being scanned, and Weston says, “We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning.†On the contrary, the parts of the brain that lit up were those associated with emotions. So the subjects seem to have used their emotions to guide them in forming their conclusions. And the most fascinating part is that, rather than being troubled by the contradictions of their candidate, the subjects seemed to get significant pleasure out of twisting the information to fit what they wanted to believe. As Weston concludes, “Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.â€
Sports fandom comes to mind. That's a paradigmatic case, and I often hear echoes of it in the "debates" around 9/11 truth and "conspiracy theory." Yankees Suck - Screw Loose Change!
Tangential: Does sports fandom provide an outlet for this kind of emotional us-them team duality, or reinforce its use elsewhere, or is it merely ephiphenomenal with no particular effect? One interesting thing about sports fandom is that, in a sober setting, the sports fan won't mind a bit of deconstruction, accepting that being for the hometeam is a random and arbitrary matter, and of course there's no inherent good or evil in a team and one constructs a basically imaginary narrative around the game for the purpose of feeling the drama (Yankees are evil, Indians are underdogs, Mets will choke, etc.). But you won't usually be able to extend that openness to deconstruction of the hometown religion or prevailing political views.
Posted 15 years ago # -
This info is very useful. Thanks for sharing it. This helps better understand what appears to be our current societal state of mind control on steroids. This info dovetails with and adds to that in the BBCs' documentary series "The Century of the Self", which is worth a google for those who haven't seen it.
Understanding this dynamic is one of the things that helps keep me sane these days.
Posted 15 years ago # -
bump. Here's another:
'We were attacked on 9/11 by Al Qaeda (so even if others were involved, if it was made or allowed to happen, or if negligence/incompetence contributed- we still went after the right people)'
Bush may have believed this- it may be all he knew was there was going to be an attack, and given the larger stakes- peak oil, liberal dove policies, anti-American/imperialist sentiments- it was necessary for him to do nothing to prevent it, and even let his handlers assist it, while he took care to insulate himself behind a layer of plausible deniability. Perhaps Cheney believed it- perhaps he gave Bush a copy of 'Day of Deceit' and told him something like, 'look- FDR let it happen, went to war and is remembered as great President'. Perhaps there's enough documentation to hang Bush, if he ever was even inclined to "spill the beans"
Clinton, Obama and many Establishment pols and pundits may subscribe to some version of this as well. Whatever truth there is to the involvement in 9/11 and other attacks by 'Al Qaeda', and whatever threat is posed to U.S. national security/interests by disaffected radical fundamentalist Muslims resorting to terrorist tactics for religious/political purposes, it should be acknowledged and documented. But so should all threats, not simply that one. Acknowledging it, even hyping it, while denying the threat posed by those who exploit the perception of it for their own purposes- and refusing to investigate evidence pointing to roles in 9/11 played by others- obviously exposes the U.S. and the world to the danger of being "hit again."
No Establishment pundit would openly argue for this logical fallacy- they simply proclaim, 'We were attacked on 9/11'. Many Americans may believe the spoken and unspoken parts, but might not admit it to themselves. A poster at 911blogger recently argued that cuz people are thinking this, 'truthers' should not promote any evidence that points to an 'Al Qaeda' role, and insisted there's none. Trading one logical fallacy for another wouldn't do much for the Truth Movement's credibility, though. However, overcoming the 1st logical fallacy is a hurdle for some:
http://911conspiracy.blogspot.com/2005/08/mass-ror... At the roundwalk on the edge of "Camp Casey," the leaflet stirs a sinuous blond man with Ashton Kutscher hair to a reproof. "Oh, there is a lot about September 11th that we were not told, but I can't believe there was any malevolent intent on the part of the US government," he says. "The government keeps secrets. That is their job. Americans are not prepared to deal with the truth."
What is the truth and who is empowered to judge when Americans should hear it? "That is their job," the young man insists simply, meaning the government. "I've read all about this, and they are hiding a lot about the real story, but you can't say they intended for the attacks to happen."
"Dude, Kim Jong-Il is clinically insane," the new twin announces. "He's on fourteen types of medication!" In alternating sentences, they reject as naive the author's belief in the potentials for world peace. "We have to be protected, we can't let Iran get nukes, that's why I am a conservative," the one with the long hair says. "There have always been empires, from the Romans until now," adds the buzz-cut. "China will be the world empire in 125 years. What makes you think all that history will ever change?"
Posted 15 years ago #
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