Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Hegemony and Propaganda: The Importance of Trivialisation in Cementing Social Control

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Hegemony and Propaganda: The Importance of Trivialisation in Cementing Social Control

Click here to access article by Colin Todhunter from Global Research.

What better way to control a population than through inducing apathy and banality and encouraging the trivialization of causes, ideas or the plights of certain folk?

The author provides numerous illustrations of these methods so often used by the One Percent to dull the wits of the 99 Percent. It's much more cost effective to control a population this way than using police state methods, but they have the latter ready to use just in case the usual methods fail.

Another important way, which the author does not touch on, is the use of simplified enemies--commies, terrorists, evil-doers, evil empires, etc.--that must be defended against and used to justify all sorts of violations of civil rights and crimes against humanity:

Dumbing down of the 99 Percent is a deliberate strategy of the One Percent's political operatives. Thus, we see public school teachers under fire, larger class sizes, privatization of education, higher tuition fees to exclude people from obtaining a higher education (see this).