Post by gm0ney on Nov 13, 2011 22:56:46 GMT -5
There are a number of tactics that I have noticed being used by politicians, pundits, reporters, on youtube, etc. that I find become common on both side of any particular argument in order to manipulate people.
We all need to acknowledge that we have become the victims as well as the perpetrators of such propaganda, even if we haven't realized it.
The very reason that we have come down to political divisions at all in the first place is, I think, in large part due to such manipulations; another major reason being that people just have different priorities for their lives that suit their "life's path" -whatever they are hear to learn.
The long and the short of it is that for whatever reason you just had the blind luck of being born to a certain set of people and as a child grow up, for the most part, accept their world view more or less as your own. You may do some self-examination, and make some amendments to what your parents believed, but very rarely do people completely break away in their way of thinking. I have done a lot of soul searching and philosophical examination, and I really try hard to see things from other people's perspective, but there are some things... I just wonder how it's possible for a thinking, caring person to think in certain ways or how that could possibly serve whatever they are trying to learn in their life or how they could possibly come to certain conclusions given the facts. Often times it comes down to who's facts, who's truths, who's words are you to trust, and a lot of times, liberal or conservative it comes down to personal loyalty.
A lot of people say, "wake up, do the research yourself", "don't trust anybody else's truth/facts but your own" etc. but in reality not everybody has the time to do that all the time.
The reality is, you have to trust somebody sometime. People spend lifetimes investigating what really happened, they write books about it, it's a full time profession -but can we trust them?
I mean that's what we have newspapers, and reporters for. But they don't often do the work, they just repeat what they are told without the follow up, sometimes because they are not being paid to do that, sometimes it's because they have an agenda, and sometimes they are just lazy.
What disturbs me is the amount of money that is paid to spin stories or comments or points of view. They (whomever they are) literaly pay groups of people to sit in a room and discuss, "how are we going to sell [this] to the people." It seems crazy to me, for example, that people don't see that fossil fuels, atomic energy and the automobile are destructive technologies that are to costly, in terms of our future, to be continued when there are viable alternatives now. That's how successful the media has been in twisting the truth.
There are a number of ways that are used to deflect what is going on and distort, manipulate or otherwise change the subject. Some of the most base are 'attacking the man' i.e. character assassination (you've seen this with Bill Clinton and now Herman Cain) guilt by association ('the occupiers are nothing but rapist, lawbreakers and drug addicts or they are all for Ron Paul) or otherwise sidestep the issue by not even making a counter argument.
What I often see just as much besides exaggeration and mere falsehood is: lying by omission (often used along side character assassination: the Democrats did this, the Republicans did that when they are both guilty of the same thing) using straw-man arguments (using exaggerated versions of the other guys claims to make there arguments seem to have less merit) or by making arguments that outright deflect the argument by not addressing it directly, changing the subject, otherwise known as a "red herring". Another one I've seen used a lot is making the fact look like they support your position when they don't, i.e. ascribing meaning where there is none: it is a form of creative lying.
I am addressing this issue in part because of a couple of books I walked by in the bookstore today that vigorously employ these methods and so I've just been thinking about it, but also because I've seen these manipulative tactics used at GA meetings, on FB and even in this forum.
So if you are one of these people that change the subject to not address the concerns or arguments presented or "lie creatively" stop it! We know who you are, and we know what you are doing. You are not fooling anyone -except maybe yourself.
We all need to acknowledge that we have become the victims as well as the perpetrators of such propaganda, even if we haven't realized it.
The very reason that we have come down to political divisions at all in the first place is, I think, in large part due to such manipulations; another major reason being that people just have different priorities for their lives that suit their "life's path" -whatever they are hear to learn.
The long and the short of it is that for whatever reason you just had the blind luck of being born to a certain set of people and as a child grow up, for the most part, accept their world view more or less as your own. You may do some self-examination, and make some amendments to what your parents believed, but very rarely do people completely break away in their way of thinking. I have done a lot of soul searching and philosophical examination, and I really try hard to see things from other people's perspective, but there are some things... I just wonder how it's possible for a thinking, caring person to think in certain ways or how that could possibly serve whatever they are trying to learn in their life or how they could possibly come to certain conclusions given the facts. Often times it comes down to who's facts, who's truths, who's words are you to trust, and a lot of times, liberal or conservative it comes down to personal loyalty.
A lot of people say, "wake up, do the research yourself", "don't trust anybody else's truth/facts but your own" etc. but in reality not everybody has the time to do that all the time.
The reality is, you have to trust somebody sometime. People spend lifetimes investigating what really happened, they write books about it, it's a full time profession -but can we trust them?
I mean that's what we have newspapers, and reporters for. But they don't often do the work, they just repeat what they are told without the follow up, sometimes because they are not being paid to do that, sometimes it's because they have an agenda, and sometimes they are just lazy.
What disturbs me is the amount of money that is paid to spin stories or comments or points of view. They (whomever they are) literaly pay groups of people to sit in a room and discuss, "how are we going to sell [this] to the people." It seems crazy to me, for example, that people don't see that fossil fuels, atomic energy and the automobile are destructive technologies that are to costly, in terms of our future, to be continued when there are viable alternatives now. That's how successful the media has been in twisting the truth.
There are a number of ways that are used to deflect what is going on and distort, manipulate or otherwise change the subject. Some of the most base are 'attacking the man' i.e. character assassination (you've seen this with Bill Clinton and now Herman Cain) guilt by association ('the occupiers are nothing but rapist, lawbreakers and drug addicts or they are all for Ron Paul) or otherwise sidestep the issue by not even making a counter argument.
What I often see just as much besides exaggeration and mere falsehood is: lying by omission (often used along side character assassination: the Democrats did this, the Republicans did that when they are both guilty of the same thing) using straw-man arguments (using exaggerated versions of the other guys claims to make there arguments seem to have less merit) or by making arguments that outright deflect the argument by not addressing it directly, changing the subject, otherwise known as a "red herring". Another one I've seen used a lot is making the fact look like they support your position when they don't, i.e. ascribing meaning where there is none: it is a form of creative lying.
I am addressing this issue in part because of a couple of books I walked by in the bookstore today that vigorously employ these methods and so I've just been thinking about it, but also because I've seen these manipulative tactics used at GA meetings, on FB and even in this forum.
So if you are one of these people that change the subject to not address the concerns or arguments presented or "lie creatively" stop it! We know who you are, and we know what you are doing. You are not fooling anyone -except maybe yourself.
