Henri Reynard Speaks Out

Manipulative Politicians?

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Do we ever mind being manipulated anymore? I mean with the constant barrage of effort made to manipulate us by advertising do we have any resistance left. Or has a constant flow of inane messages trying to take over our brain turned our will to mush? I guess it could be like an inoculation and then all this effort would simply be strengthening our defenses against manipulation. I wish I believed that but I have seen the quality of the people we vote for since advertising has become the major source of our knowledge about candidates. It has always scared me that we elevate someone to the most powerful office in the world based on the same principles that we use to select a tissue to wipe our nose. I wonder whom the genius was that thought up scented tissue. If my reaction to the scent, which was to make my nose run, is generally applicable he or she should get the Nobel Prize for medicine. Making the common cold last forever should qualify as a breakthrough shouldn't it?

The art of creating memes, ideas or concepts that self replicate inside our minds, and pass themselves on out our mouths or through our fingers on a keyboard is getting more powerful every day. Sound bites are memes that sum up something in a few easily remembered words. Commercials are attempts to create memes that will replicate themselves endlessly. The word "meme" was coined by those who are still trying to understand what human culture is all about. Politics is one of those universal constants in human culture, it exists whenever there are two people to rub together. When you rub two people together long enough language will evolve, our brains are made that way. Languages are elaborate memes that allow us to communicate ideas far more complex than Gog want Grog. Few ideas are more useful however than the simple ability to convey our needs and desires to another person. Our whole commercial world has evolved around the idea of conveying a need to a person who would never have known they had that need unless they heard that commercial. Weird hunh?

It gets even weirder when you apply that concept of memes to politics. Slogans are memes, so are the political messages on bumper stickers or t-shirts. The idea of Democracy is a meme, as is the structure of Communism and the functional methodology of Fascism. Memes can use our brains without our permission; that is where things can get scary. Propaganda is the art of calling up our emotions using memes to shut off the flow of critical thinking. The concept of security is a meme as are all concepts that can be summed up in a word. Words are memes that belong to a class of meme called language. There will not be a test at the end of this class because I am not qualified to administer one. I am just trying to convey a useful way of thinking about all that manipulation we are constantly subjected to in daily life. If we could look at our brains contents, most of the contents of what we call our mind would consist of memes.

Words that propel our emotions are always integrated into the political ads that candidates use to make us think nice thoughts about them. Words like secure and home and children are especially useful. The baby kissing politician wouldn't subject themselves to all of those germs from our favorite disease vectors without a reason. Otherwise why would they take a chance of losing their voice right in the middle of the eternal campaign that our lives have become? Not that they need their voice much of the time. Most of the ads are about them, without any attempt to hide the fact that they are no longer a major participant in the process. Except, possibly, to provide the movable dummy for the photo ops.

Of course the image development process doesn't stop once they are in office, it goes on and on and on and on and then on some more. We are being sold a tax cut, and who could argue except maybe a few economists and what do they know. Then we are being sold a relaxation in the laws passed to help keep our environment viable, scientists don't always agree so until they do why worry? Then we are sold on the idea of drilling in a wildlife preserve in a really fragile climate and soil structure, but we really need that oil, don't we? Then we are being sold on kicking out a dictator that we helped install and used for years to maintain our power in his area of the world. Then we are sold that we have the right and even the duty to attack anyone who might stockpile weapons of Mass Destruction before they build that stockpile. Sounds reasonable, don't it? Then we are sold a quick little war to kick out that dictator who is understandably reluctant to go and destroy his weapons of Mass Destruction. Meanwhile we are being sold on the idea that paying for our government as we go isn't necessary, we can leave all of that debt for the kids to clean up, or we can inflate it away. I haven't got time to finish this right now, sorry, I have to go to the store for more scented Kleenex. They have a new fresh spring scent that can hide almost any stink, and its on sale now. So I'll save money if I leave right now, won't I?