Is Society a Reflection of Who We Truly Are, or How "They" Want Us To Be?

in #philosophy7 years ago

How much of the world around us is truly of our own creation? Are we being influenced to live in a certain way of life that goes against our core inner values that we want to live up to?

they-live-obey.jpg

In the movie They Live, the underground resistance has television broadcasts that warns people about what is going on in society, and tries to awaken people to the reality they don't see. Here is the video of that broadcast, with the text below:

"...our impulses are being redirected. We are living in an artificially induced state of consciousness that resembles sleep... the movement was begun eight months ago by a small group of scientists who discovered, quite by accident, these signals being sent through television... the poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices... their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness. We have been lulled into a trance. They have made us indifferent, to ourselves, to others, we are focused only on our own gain. We ha... please understand, they are safe as long as they are not discovered. That is their primary method of survival. Keep us asleep, keep us selfish, keep us sedated... they are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery."

How much of that fictional movie reflects the real world we live in?

Social engineers have been influencing and inducing us with ideas and ways of living. They manipulate the channeling of our life energy. Advertising and marketing directs our subconscious and passions towards consuming products and services that don't serve us in the end. We are fed mindless drivel in the media to keep us locked into specific narratives and perceptions of the world.

We are playing into Hegelian dialectics and false dichotomies so that we are arguing and fighting with each other about false constructs they had fed us that we bought into, that keep us from looking at the reality in front us, from looking at the bigger picture.

Social engineers impose external control over our lives through that keep us going along a certain path and way of life. Think tanks, foundations, academics, corporations, government, advertising, and marketing have been directing the overall course of our collective destiny.

As a result, how much of our society -- of our overall collective way of life -- is really of the design and implementation of "the people" in that society? How much is engineered, influenced, implemented and induced like a magic spell to keep us in check, distracted and ignorant? How much of our lives are conditioned programmed ways of living? Would we be living this way of life if we had more control over the way and path we walk overall? Are we as a society overall living the core values that we yearn to live by?


Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.


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Communists and capitalists have been going back and forth about what humans are really like for centuries. Every economics and politics debate, if carried forth long enough, essentially becomes a psychology debate (which is the reason Jordan Peterson chose psychology, after trying politics, to get at the core of what humans are).

With so much brainwashing going on it's really hard to tell what we really are.

I think, above all, we are malleable. We are plastic. That's what history and anthropology shows. We can be bad, and we can be good.

Knowing that, what do we want to be?

This also goes deeper, to a question about what freedom is. I know you believe in free will. But look at your post. You gave us a whole list of ways in which people can be controlled. And it's by no means an exhaustive list.

I think one of the many tangible harmful effects of believing in free will, is that it allows a person to disregard everything you said above. People think there's something magical inside them that can get around anything they can throw at them. "Let them control the media ... let them control politics ... let them control education ... I'm still free, they can't get at my core". This is the kind of delusion belief in free will fosters, in my opinion.

Whereas if we realize that we can be manipulated (as experiments show), then the solution becomes evident: all people must have more or less equal power in society, and all people must strive for knowledge, so as so avoid being fooled by people with agendas. And agendas can be subconscious too, so we must be vigilant against ourselves too.

To know thyself, like the ancient Greeks instructed, is really a full time job.

No wonder some prefer to delegate it and let others tell them who they are.

Indeed, know thyself, and then you can be more free. Free will isn't a delusion, choosing to ignore how we can be influenced and manipulated by the will of others diminishes the degree of free will we think we have :) We are only so free... Thanks for the feedback.

That movie does not seem like fiction to me. It's exactly what's happening right now (minus the scientist part). Those in power (the famous 1%) are anesthetizing us through the media. Commercials, movies, stupid TV shows, scary news. The goal is to keep us entertained on things that don't matter, to keep us from seeing what does. Also, the media seeks to divide people, by showing us issues of race, wars, religion etc. Make us scared of each-other, so we don't unite and rebel. If you haven't already done so, you should read "Media Control" and "the manufacturing of consent" by Noam Chomsky =)

Indeed, we are being divided. "anesthetizing us through the media" is a good way to put it. Thanks for the feedback.

I think it's a mixture of both.

Humans have created a cognitive world of ideas like culture, religion, social practices, etc

They are all man-made.

I think we really truly live when we able to break through those constructs by questioning stuff like:

  • Why do I need a college degree?
  • Why was I raised in this particular religion?
  • Maybe I can create my own unique culture ..

Question out-dated dogma and start to make your own rules.

Breaking free of many constructs will allow us to be more free, indeed. Thanks for the feedback.

It is very true that people are influenced, many times we realize and as we believe it is the right way we accept it and at other times we do not realize that we are being influenced.
Each person is influenced by the environment and the social class in which he / she frequents.
Many times you want to do something different, but you are alone and you have no choice but to follow the flock.

All my life I worked in a relationship of dependence and within the system, four years ago I decided to give up and live off the web, totally out of system,

It is very difficult, it costs a lot to generate income, it is a totally different life. but again you find that you follow a pattern, virtual cards, virtual purchases, cryptocurrencies, manipulations of governments, bank regualtions, again you feel that you are being induced.
excellent work dear friend @krnel, thank you very much for sharing this material

Yes, everything in our environment influences us, from birth to death shaping us in various ways. The herd influences us a lot like you say. You're welcome, I hope you're plans for getting out of the system are going well :)

Who's "we" white man? This is old rhetoric.

I don't play in any system if it doesn't work for me, nor have I for most of my life if it goes against what I know I clearly want and who I am.

Sadly, most people will agree with me about it (doing it my way, my freedom to choose, not playing with the systems or media, etc.); BUT when it comes to them wanting something from me - their way - they are worse than all the media put together, resentful, aloof, angry, manipulative, coercive, bad logic, poisoned words to break down whatever I build, gathering others against me, prejudices, attacks, etc. all because I won't go along or agree with what they want. Why would I? It's not serving me or in my best interest.

So I say: Look in the mirror. Who's the guilty parties here? Individual people are; blind to seeing their words which don't match their actions or integrity. They talk like they "know" this story of the systems, yet do to others - when they have their one-track mind - exactly what they complain the "system" is doing to all of us. No one makes you "want" or "do" what isn't already inside you. As long as they have their "stuff", or accumulate more, have their job, and things go their way, damned the rest, blinders on full.

Who do you think comprises the system? People just like all of you.

Who's "we" white man?

We is everyone in general. We are all in society. White man? Seems like hostility that singles out some people as part of 'we'... do you have issues with white people?

We are all individuals who built he collective society and make it what it is, yes. The only reason it is this way is because we buy into living a certain way. The system is all of us, we are all in this together, even if we removed ourselves from creating the negative aspects, we're all on one "spaceship earth".

Everything is a reflection of the collective human psyche. It's just to bad that most of the negative, facade stuff is what's get presented by the corporations, media and all that. Greed and power is certainly a big factor what you're writing about. And you could also ask what did it all start with? Have we changed our values in time? And now realizing that we want to change things. Or is this been more forcefully put upon us when we intantionally could be said to not want to create this kind of world. I don't know.

What do you mean by the "collective human psyche"?

Values need to change towards what better serves us all, morality. If we don't choose to do right, others impose their version of what's "right" onto us: centralized authority.

With the collective human psyche, I'm just referring to all the different individual mindsets altogether. Which I think is reflected by values of the media, corporations and so on. We all need to change our values as you say, hopefully towards the better and by doing so we'll see it reflect collectively also.

I just said in my latest presentation that personal responsibility is paramount. Blame games have a liited spectrum because in the end, on always must act upon it.... or not, then back to zero: lack of personal responsibility.

personal responsibility

That's right. There is blame in the world for what each person does. They do it, not someone else, even if we are conditioned and influenced, we still do what we do and create the world we create.

Organised sports is another thing they use to social engineer culture, behavior, and beliefs....

Yes, bread and circus as it's called hehe.

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." - Marcus Aurelius

a post that is so interesting, I really agree with you sometimes without us knowing we have lived a life that has been arranged and planned for us, real life is not much different from the movie you say in your post, but I really hope good things can always happen in This life.

I hope tings can get better as well. There is potential.

most of the advertising that is presented on TV are pure garbage, which does not make sense with the articles they are selling, but the irony of life, people like to see it .. that is why I say this world is unusual.

Do people really like to see ads? They interrupt the TV show :P

I do not like to see the ads, it takes away the emotion of what I'm seeing, but the ads are impossible to avoid, my wife if she likes to see the ads more than all of the home appliances that she sells on TV.

I've been saying for decades that TV destroys brain cells.

Maybe, but it sure keeps us busy and not knowing other things ;)

It is hard to refute determinism in a world where almost all scientific  disciplines depend on physical cause and effect. Scientific and  philosophical views seem to object to the idea of indeterminism, and  Hume’s compatibilism (we’re simultaneously both determined and free)  does not seem to work either. 

That's all, Btw Its a nice post. Thanks for your share :)

There is both determinism and free will, operating in flux. Without consciousness in animal beings there would be no free will anywhere ;)

Social.media is destroying our young generation, they are playing dramas and movies that are given lessons of hate!
Specially kids are mostly effected by this, they do what they see!

yeah, It is stated what we are doing, whether it is good or bad, it will return to us.