Society's declining part two

[J. Stew]

Okay I got a lot of shitt about my last post highlighting some examples of how society has declined.

Here's my main point. FDR said, 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself' during a hard time. G.W, when the terrorists got us, told people to go shopping and continue their daily lives. Now this is good advice, to not fear fear, but in a round-about way, you see? He's saying continue living your daily comfortable lives because if everyone got pannicked there'd be chaos and that'd be terrible. So what I'm saying is that the Presidential Office as a whole is more trying to talk down to the public than talk straight to them. FDR said it straight up. He said if you don't fear fear you got the balls to live in this world, but now the message is all confused. Now the message is, just don't think, or stay within your comfortable class of thought, and that's different than not fearing fear. Not fearing fear is thinking fear and not fearing fear because you see beyond it. The thing that sees fear, a thought-feeling, is consciousness, which fear layers over creating delusions to the underlying emptyness/selfless nature of reality. So what I'm saying is that FDR went straight to that point whearas now the government sends these messages filled with spin. I don't know why they do this, either because they think people are stupid so they have to talk down or maybe because they are not smart enough to effectively communicate with people. There is even a possiblity that the government wants to keep people in their classes because that is controlled in some way and they can oversee things with ease. That would just be lazy but if you look at our society we're pretty lazy, so the whole government is a reflection of society and society reflection of government cause they're the same thing.

So my point is where did the direct talk go? It went away for some reason and that's not a better thing than being direct so society has declined.

[billygrippo]

i dont think this is related to the downfall of society.

[J. Stew]

Care to elaborate.

[billygrippo]

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Care to elaborate.

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they could hold press confrences strictly w/ sock puppets. this still wouldnt change the way our society works.

the world is a complex global society. our government plays a big roll in shaping how this society works, interacts w/ each other etc. it will continue this way until some extreme circumstances come that will limit our survivability on a massive scale. some examples are: massive natural disaster like an astroid hitting us, super volcano erupting, rapid loss of fuels/food due to climate change or other disasters, nuclear war (this is unlikely) etc.

[jthegreat]

Our government is full of pussies now whose #1 priority is to just not make anyone mad. That's what we get for continuing to elect lawyers and history majors.

[billygrippo]

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Our government is full of pussies now whose #1 priority is to just not make anyone mad. That's what we get for continuing to elect lawyers and history majors.

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this is very untrue.

[J. Stew]

What if society knew that the government was shaping them, then if they saw that they would instantaneously have a voice about something and that makes changes. So you're saying that society is effed and there's nothing to change how people think? Well people can just change how they think, that's easy people do it all the time. Getting people to know how to change is the issue don't you think. And the issue is really only resolved on an intrinisic level, the person has to realize what resonates with their own truth. You only explained why society won't change and then gave an example of what it will take for society to change. This sounds like your own bias of how you view yourself coming through in a skewed perspective. Only one view seems limited.

[J. Stew]

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Our government is full of pussies now whose #1 priority is to just not make anyone mad. That's what we get for continuing to elect lawyers and history majors.

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this is very untrue.

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But seriously, look at John Kerry, he was almost President, he's a pussy. Bill C. wasn't, not because he got slurped by Lewinski but because he had a clear sense of self, he knew that sleeping around wasn't that big of a crime when you're married to Hillary. George W. has a sense of self but he's an idiot so I think there's more confusion than ever before, not because he's a pussy though, which I don't think he is. Bush'll do what he thinks is right, he'll pull the trigger, but somebody checked out upstairs so it's all grace no grit. So I'd say yeah there's some pussies in government but there's confusion in there too.

[Bremen]

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So what I'm saying is that the Presidential Office as a whole is more trying to talk down to the public than talk straight to them.

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I think this is more a function of the medium, television versus radio/print. Television itself is a medium which discourages critical thinking by its very nature.

[moorobot]

I don't doubt that our society is declining in some ways since 1940 (and particularly since 1969). However, pick up some books which contain records of political debate during the roman empire and Thucydides 'History of the peleponesian war'. Eerily similar to today in terms of the political rhetoric in Thucydides. Cicero, a very good philosopher and a politican in Rome, used what we know called negative attack ads, except his (and his opponents) were in the form of long speeches and written arguments instead of just 30 second sound bytes. The reason I bring up Cicero is that he once accused his political opponent of being personally resposnible for all the rape and murder going on in Rome. People who said this trash were getting elected.

[guesswest]

The fear thing is not accidental, it's very deliberately incorporated into political messages, and the media is the other prong on that fork. Fear works for ratings too, and so this new brand of politics makes comfortable bedfellows with 24 hour news networks. The current administration got elected on the fear vote, and the political value of fearmongering has become much more realized in the US and other western democracies over the last few decades.

We never used to look to politicians to 'protect' us. It used to be the case that they were a vital part of our everyday lives through foreign policy and economic crisis and the like. Recent times has seen a stable and prosperous economy without war, and consequently politicans losing their importance and celebrity status, particularly the more somber right. They have had to reinvent themselves as our protectors, and part of that reinvention is creating (or at least exagerrating) something that we should be scared of from which they're protecting us.

[J. Stew]

Good point I would say that it's up to people though, to be secure in their own understanding of themselves and the world and shouldn't rely on government to take care of them. On the other side, political screwballs using smoke and mirrors with their own citizens is obviously bad form. But ultimately I think it's up to the individual to break free from the dependency to government. If people are giving government some power over them, besides normal functioning freedom-driven laws, government will continue to abuse power. Seems like people are lazy and want high standard of living without doing the dirty work therefore rely on government who becomes puppeteer over those who reliquish their own self-reliance.

[J. Stew]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So what I'm saying is that the Presidential Office as a whole is more trying to talk down to the public than talk straight to them.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think this is more a function of the medium, television versus radio/print. Television itself is a medium which discourages critical thinking by its very nature.

[/ QUOTE ]

But I would also say that if you can see that the media discourages critical thinking with biased views, that you are instantaneously aware that that is so and it subsequently won't drag you down unless you become mindless about it. I don't think it's the media's duty to give the right answer, who are they bound by? The onus falls on the interpreter of the information to figure out what's bull and what's real. If we know that media has a slanted view, then we know there's some bias in their statements. To find the bias in the statement is finding the truth out about what actually happened, you know what I mean?

[Bremen]

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But I would also say that if you can see that the media discourages critical thinking with biased views, that you are instantaneously aware that that is so and it subsequently won't drag you down unless you become mindless about it.

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If you replace media with cable news, than yes, I agree. I would argue that television encourages people to be mindless while a newspaper, which can be just as slanted, has a harder time turning people into mindless receptacles for its viewpoint. Reading a newspaper requires critical thought since a reader has to think about what they're reading to form a mental picture. Television, on the other hand, can just show certain pictures in order to provoke a prescribed reaction in the viewer. The viewer does not form the picture themselves, they recieve it.

Obviously, as you say, anyone aware of it can resist. However if subjected for long periods of time (with no alternative) even aware people will begin to succumb.

[cambraceres]

Like Moorobot said, Thucydides' "history" contains everything you need to know about a body politic or social charter. Many may say that this is impossible, as the book is a product of remote antiquity. Consider that Thomas Jefferson said during the revolution, that he learned more from this book than he did from the local paper about what was going on around him.

In addition,let me say that fear is the new bait, the anti-carrot on our collective stick. When something terrible happens, or the threat of such exists, then the markets reflect this, and to those in comfortable trading spots, alot of money is made. After 9/11, everyone who had interests in gold made mucho pesos. This is because in such an uncertain time, solid capital is worth more than potentially hollow stock portfolios.

Cambraceres