McIlvaine says he doesn’t tell his son’s story that often anymore because most people just don’t want to hear it. Even the 9/11 families don’t want anything to do with the idea that the event was, as he claims, perpetrated by their own government.This statement supports my theory of why the Big Lie works so effectively. The lengthy period of childhood, that is needed to fully develop the marvelous human brain, creates dependency on parental authority, and many people find transitioning into adulthood a challenge in today's society. I think that ruling classes intentionally take advantage of this potentially human weakness in order to sustain their rule.
“People look at the United States as a father figure, and they just can’t believe their father could do something that evil.”
Ruling classes do so by indoctrinating subordinate classes into believing that authority figures who serve the ruling class have superior knowledge (historically they used religious authorities, nowadays they are more often "experts") to maintain control over their subordinate populations. In today's societies capitalist control over institutions of indoctrination--education, media, religion, entertainment, etc--strongly reinforces authoritarian mindsets. The capitalist ruling classes use these instruments of socialization very effectively by transferring childish notions about the infallibility of parental authority onto ruling class authorities to prevent the transition from the dependency of childhood into responsible adulthood.
This is especially effective if people are taught in their childhood to always respect authority, that there are right answers to everything and the authorities can provide them with these answers. Most ordinary people are conditioned to trust authorities of the ruling class much like they did their parents. They can't conceive of the fact that authorities often lie to them; and when presented with evidence of lying, especially major lies, they feel very psychologically threatened. If successfully indoctrinated, such people entering adulthood tend to look to powerful persons (bosses) for their material well-being, other authorities on how to live, what to believe, and for their understanding of political and economic issues which, they are taught, are much too complicated for them.
